A West Pointer with the Boers /

by John Y. Fillmore Blake

President Steyn had arrived from the Free State. He, together with all the Transvaal officers and officials, concentrated their influence on President Kruger to persuade him to go to Holland, as he was very feeble and it required so many men to guard his safety. He positively refused to go, saying that he could not leave his people and that he would look after himself. His idea was to go to Pilgrims' Rest, but that little town was far away and it required many days of hard travel through the fever stricken bush-veldt to reach it. In the end President Kruger was practically forced to take the train for Delagoa Bay en route to Holland, and as the train moved off the staunch old patriot's eyes filled with tears and he sank down broken hearted. He handed to General Botha 40,000 sovereigns, ($200,000) for the use of the burghers. This was his own money. He had no government money in his possession and the few thousand dollars that he carried to Holland belonged to him. All the burghers felt very sad at the good old man's departure and such was their love for him that they one and all resolved to fight harder than ever and bring back their great friend and patriot.

On hearing of the old hero's departure, Lord Roberts found a good opportunity to use his pen again. In effect he cabled the news that Ex-President Kruger had deserted his wife, his people and land, and gone to Holland, taking with him a very large amount of gold belonging to the people. He also had some abusive opinions to express about the good old man.

When Lord Roberts wrote and sent those cablegrams, he knew that he wilfully, maliciously and deliberately lied and I would be exceedingly happy to tell him so to his face.

Of course, Robert's idea in sending such a slanderous statement was to deceive the Boers throughout the land, and lead them to believe that President Kruger was really guilty of such infamous conduct; but the Boers had known the good old man too many years to be so deceived, and Lord Roberts only succeeded in making them love him still more. Roberts and Kitchener each issued many proclamations, all teeming with treachery and unscrupulousness, and if either had a grain of honor, and were forced to read his own proclamations to a public audience in any civilized country, I am sure that each would be stricken with a vomiting fit. I will have more on the subject of proclamations before I finish.

Now Lord Roberts had a most excellent opportunity to make an attack on the Boer women and children, who were helpless and in his hands, and one may be assured that he did not fail to take advantage of it. He notified General Botha that he would send all the women and children to him and that he must take care of them. General Botha replied that he would be pleased to receive all of them, as he wished to send them to Holland to remain during the continuance of the war, but that he must not rush them out all at one time, as it was very cold weather, in which all would suffer and many die. He wanted no more than a ship load sent at one time, so that he could properly care for them and send them at once to Holland.

This floored Roberts and he never answered. He could not stand the idea of the Boer women and children being sent to Holland, for in that case he could not fight them, nor could they be killed off in his concentration camps.

Before the President departed I discussed the position of the Irish Boys with him, and it was his opinion that all those who were dismounted should go at once to Koomati Poort and then, if hard pressed, go to Delagoa Bay and thence to America. All Boers who were dismounted were sent to the Poort, so the Irish boys went also. Shortly after they reached Koomati Poort I telegraphed Captain O'Connor that I thought it best for them to go to America at once. I did this because I did not wish any of them to be captured. Should any be so unfortunate, I knew that it would go very hard for them, and probably cause them to suffer a slow death in some prison. Major McBride thought it best for them to go too, and he went.

General Botha soon put things in order now at Hector Spruit, and we started on our long, perilous journey through the bush veldt, our destination being, for some Pietersburg, for others Pilgrims' Rest and that vicinity. We left enough coffee, sugar, flour and soforth unharmed to last the whole British army for at least a month. How I did long apply the torch and destroy those great stacks of stores! There were about thirty Irish boys mounted, and determined as ever, with us, but distributed in small bunches with the different commandos.

I had joined with Major Pretorius of the artillery near Bronkhorst Spruit in July, but was now separated from him because the English cut in between us at Dalmanutha when he was with one Long Tom and I was with the other. My aim was to find Pretorius, and when near Pilgrims' Rest his brother-in-law, Gustav Preller, and myself set out to find him. Just before we reached the town of Pilgrims' Rest, we saw the English, about 15,000 strong, at the drift on the Sabi River, but we moved rapidly, reached the little town and heard that Major Pretorius with his guns, was about twenty miles ahead, near Aurichstad. We spent but little time at Pilgrims' Rest, because the English were very near us. Three days later we caught up with Major Pretorius near the Devil's Pulpit on the Olifant River. We had been separated from August 26th at Dalmanutha till this day, October 1st, so that we had plenty to talk about. He had saved all his guns and had fought the English at close range for more than three weeks. We had a hard time getting the guns down the mountain to the river bank. He had six guns, including one Long Tom, and twenty-four artillery men with him. So steep and long was the open way to the river bank that we had to dismount the guns, put them on slides and turn them loose. Some would roll over, some would glide nicely, and then some would skip off into the rocks on the side. It meant a great deal of work, but every gun was landed safely without any damage whatever. We had a lookout, of course, and on the last day he reported several thousand English about six miles from us. They could certainly see the trail of the guns, and why they did not come over and take us we do not know, unless it was that they were afraid of an ambush. We now pushed on to Leydsdorp and finally reached Pietersburg on October 7th. Here we met President Steyn and his escort under command of a good soldier, Koos Boshof. In two or three days two or three thousand burghers had assembled. General Botha cut through by Kruger's Post near Lydenburg and finally reached Botha's-berg near Middleburg. He had with him quite a good command. South of the railway the Ermelo, Carolina, Bethel, Wakkerstroom and in fact all the commandos on the high veldt had gotten themselves into fighting trim.

General de la Rey had assembled 6,000 men in the Western Transvaal who had surrendered their guns, armed them again, and put them in excellent fighting condition. General De Wet had put the whole Free State in perfect order, so that when we finished counting noses we found that we had about 30,000 fighting men in the field, while the English did not have over 250,000 men. Our chances were excellent, and the two little republics would have won their independence if the devil and all his angels had not been against them.