One Post, Under Captain Wilkinson With Forty Men, Held Out
With Success, And Harassed The Enemy In Their Retreat.
As at
Dewetsdorp and at Nooitgedacht.
The Boers were unable to retain
their prisoners, so that the substantial fruits of their enterprise
were small, but it forms none the less one more of those incidents
which may cause us to respect our enemy and to be critical towards
ourselves. [Footnote: Considering that Major Stapelton Cotton was
himself wounded in three places during the action (one of these
wounds being in the head), he has had hard measure in being
deprived of his commission by a court-martial which sat eight
months after the event. It is to be earnestly hoped that there may
be some revision of this severe sentence.]
In the last few months of the year some of those corps which had
served their time or which were needed elsewhere were allowed to
leave the seat of war. By the middle of November the three
different corps of the City Imperial Volunteers, the two Canadian
contingents, Lumsden's Horse, the Composite Regiment of Guards, six
hundred Australians, A battery R.H.A., and the volunteer companies
of the regular regiments, were all homeward bound. This loss of
several thousand veteran troops before the war was over was to be
deplored, and though unavoidable in the case of volunteer
contingents, it is difficult to explain where regular troops are
concerned. Early in the new year the Government was compelled to
send out strong reinforcements to take their place.
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