Pedantic In His Accuracy, He Actually At The Battle Of
Colenso Drilled The Irish Brigade For Half An Hour Before Leading
Them Into Action, And Threw Out Markers Under A Deadly Fire In
Order That His Change From Close To Extended Formation Might Be
Academically Correct.
The heavy loss of the Brigade at this action
was to some extent ascribed to him and affected his
Popularity; but
as his men came to know him better, his romantic bravery, his
whimsical soldierly humour, their dislike changed into admiration.
His personal disregard for danger was notorious and reprehensible.
'Where is General Hart?' asked some one in action. 'I have not seen
him, but I know where you will find him. Go ahead of the skirmish
line and you will see him standing on a rock,' was the answer. He
bore a charmed life. It was a danger to be near him. 'Whom are you
going to?' 'General Hart,' said the aide-de-camp. 'Then good-bye!'
cried his fellows. A grim humour ran through his nature. It is
gravely recorded and widely believed that he lined up a regiment on
a hill-top in order to teach them not to shrink from fire. Amid the
laughter of his Irishmen, he walked through the open files of his
firing line holding a laggard by the ear. This was the man who had
put such a spirit into the Irish Brigade that amid that army of
valiant men there were none who held such a record. 'Their rushes
were the quickest, their rushes were the longest, and they stayed
the shortest time under cover,' said a shrewd military observer. To
Hart and his brigade was given the task of clearing the way to
Ladysmith.
The regiments which he took with him on his perilous enterprise
were the 1st Inniskilling Fusiliers, the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers, the
1st Connaught Rangers, and the Imperial Light Infantry, the whole
forming the famous 5th Brigade. They were already in the extreme
British advance, and now, as they moved forwards, the Durham Light
Infantry and the 1st Rifle Brigade from Lyttelton's Brigade came up
to take their place. The hill to be taken lay on the right, and the
soldiers were compelled to pass in single file under a heavy fire
for more than a mile until they reached the spot which seemed best
for their enterprise. There, short already of sixty of their
comrades, they assembled and began a cautious advance upon the
lines of trenches and sangars which seamed the brown slope above
them.
For a time they were able to keep some cover, and the casualties
were comparatively few. But now at last, as the evening sun threw a
long shadow from the hills, the leading regiment, the
Inniskillings, found themselves at the utmost fringe of boulders
with a clear slope between them and the main trench of the enemy.
Up there where the shrapnel was spurting and the great lyddite
shells crashing they could dimly see a line of bearded faces and
the black dots of the slouch hats.
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