On June 20th De Villiers, The Boer Leader, Finally
Surrendered To Sir Charles Warren, Handing Over Two Hundred And
Twenty Men With Stores, Rifles, And Ammunition.
The last sparks had
for the time been stamped out in the colony.
There remain to be mentioned those attacks upon trains and upon the
railway which had spread from the Free State to the Transvaal. On
July 19th a train was wrecked on the way from Potchefstroom to
Krugersdorp without serious injury to the passengers. On July 31st,
however, the same thing occurred with more murderous effect, the
train running at full speed off the metals. Thirteen of the
Shropshires were killed and thirty-seven injured in this deplorable
affair, which cost us more than many an important engagement. On
August 2nd a train coming up from Bloemfontein was derailed by
Sarel Theron and his gang some miles south of Kroonstad.
Thirty-five trucks of stores were burned, and six of the passengers
(unarmed convalescent soldiers) were killed or wounded. A body of
mounted infantry followed up the Boers, who numbered eighty, and
succeeded in killing and wounding several of them.
On July 21st the Boers made a determined attack upon the railhead
at a point thirteen miles east of Heidelberg, where over a hundred
Royal Engineers were engaged upon a bridge. They were protected by
three hundred Dublin Fusiliers under Major English. For some hours
the little party was hard pressed by the burghers, who had two
field-pieces and a pom-pom.
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