Episode 112 - Hand-to-hand fighting along the Great Fish River

The Sixth frontier war was ablaze and now Harry Smith was in Grahamstown rearranging the military furniture.
He wasn’t there for long. As a man of action he was determined to chase down the amaXhosa who had begun to retire back east across the Fish River by the end of the first week of January 1835, driving thousands of cattle, sheep and horses before them.

The dithering Colonel Somerset was busy trying to secure the road between Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth, and by the end of the first week of January a separate force of 400 armed volunteers had raided Thyali’s Great Place and torched the entire homestead.

Way beyond the Kei River, Hintsa glowered as he received reports of his amaXhosa chiefs and their successes against the settlers. For some time he had hesitated in taking up arms against the British and the trekboers who were inexorably moving towards him, but it was now time to make a choice.

Hintsa had tried his best to stay out of the encroaching settler cross hairs - telling the British since they’d taken control of the Cape in the early 1800s that he wanted to be friends. He remained neutral during the quarrels between the Rharhabe Xhosa and the British, he’d stopped the Xhosa youngsters fighting against the British in 1819, only to see Nxele the Wardoctor attack Grahamstown. But he’d known for some time that the menace was approaching, land was the treasure and the approaching settlers wanted his land.

Things weren’t a simple matter however - remember that he had hated Nqgika the Rharhabe regent and that had fractured a Xhosa response to the colonial expansion. But Now Nqgika was dead and Hintsa’s chiefs were calling for him to get more involved in this Frontier War.

ON the other side, Harry Smith’s Peninsular buddy, Major William Cox of the 75 Regiment was leading the charge towards him. Hintsa was told of the destruction wrought on Thyali’s Great Place, his fortress had been torched. Kraals had been burned to within a mile of the missionaries station run by another William, a Chalmers this time. If you recall last episode, Chalmers had written letters in support of Maqoma and Thyali offering peace terms. These were promptly rejected by Harry Smith.

This put the missionaries in a rather invidious position, they were now more associated with the colonial government than ever. When Chalmers worked up the courage and approached Maqoma with Harry Smith’s rejection of his peace plan, open hostility was the response.

Thyali moved further into the Amatolas after his Great Place was torched, and Chalmers tried to get another message to the amaXhosa chief in what he described as the “lurking place”.

Meanwhile, the amaXhosa wave that had washed across the frontier lost momentum. The energy sapping last three weeks had been driven by frustration and anger that had boiled over in the years of ignominy, and like all wars driven by revenge, when the emotion is sapped, the morale tends to wither.
At first, Harry Smith was to counter attack in the classic tradition - trying to entice his enemy out of their lair, then defeating their army in one large scale full frontal battle. Smith planned open ground fighting making the warriors emerge from their mountain and thick bush retreats.

But the amaXhosa had learned a thing or two about fighting the British and they weren’t going to be sucker punched like this.