Arrangements to punish Dingan.
It was arranged that Uys and Potgieter with all the men they could muster should advance towards Dingan’s residence from the camp on the Bushman’s river, and that the English chiefs with their warriors should cross the Tugela much nearer its mouth and press on towards the same point. It was hoped in this way to divide Dingan’s forces, and it was certain that the black army of Natal, as the English chiefs called their followers, would fight desperately, as their existence depended upon victory over the Zulus. Several hundreds of them were armed with muskets, which their chiefs had imported and paid for with ivory, and their leaders were brave and capable men. But this really formidable force was drawn into an ambush by the strategy of the Zulu commander who was sent to oppose it, and after such a battle as is only fought by men who know that they must conquer or die, it was almost annihilated.[106]
As neither Potgieter nor Uys would serve under Maritz, who may have been wanting in tact and was certainly charged with being overbearing in his manner, though no man could have been more devoted to the public welfare than he, it was resolved that he should remain to protect the camps in case of attack, and that they should lead their respective adherents in separate commandos, but acting in concert with each other, to attack Dingan in hisprincipal kraal Umkungunklovu. The two commandos, when finally mustered, numbered three hundred and forty-seven men, exclusive of a few coloured attendants. Their commissariat and spare ammunition was taken with them on pack horses.
Historical Sketches.
Neither of the leaders had a full conception of the hazardous nature of their expedition. A much smaller force than that under their command could have marched anywhere in the Xosa or Tembu country, and by keeping on open plains or ridges have been perfectly safe. They had served in the Kaffir war, and knew this. Then their decisive defeat of the Matabele had inspired them with the belief that they were invincible. They did not reflect that perhaps the field of operations against Dingan might not be so favourable to them as that against Moselekatse had been, and so they rode on in unbounded confidence. For five days they saw hardly any people, as the inhabitants had removed by order of Dingan to places of greater safety.
On the 11th of April 1838 they were close to the spot where eight months and five days later in the same year the battle was fought that gave to the stream from which they drank the name Blood River and to the date of the memorable engagement the name Dingan’s Day. Here for the first time since they left the camp they saw what appeared to them to be a small Zulu army. They drew hastily into battle order, and then dashed forward to charge, Potgieter with his men on one wing of the enemy, and Uys with his on the centre. The Zulus did not wait to meet the shock, but fled as fast as they could, and the farmers pursued them. Uys and his followers were too eager in the chase to act with proper caution, and did not observe that they were riding into a defile between two parallel chains of hills until a great Zulu army, that had been lying there concealed, suddenly showed itself on each side and in front of them. Its horns were even closing in behind before they realisedthat they were in an ambuscade and in the utmost danger.[107]
Death of Pieter Uys.
There was no possibility now of carrying out the tactics they had adopted against the Matabele: of firing a volley, riding back and reloading their guns, and then charging again. There were no better horsemen in the world than these farmers, for they had been accustomed from early youth to ride and to hunt the game which then abounded in the country they came from. But the din caused by the Zulus striking their shields with their short spear shafts was so great that the horses became almost unmanageable, and for an instant it seemed as if all was lost. Then realising that there was one chance left, they directed all their fire upon the horns of the Zulu army, that had closed in, shot down hundreds, and dashed through the opening thus made.
Commandant Uys was wounded by a spear thrust, but as he fell from his horse he called out to his followers to leave him and fight their way out, for he must die. All except ten of them escaped by the road that had been opened, but the pack horses, baggage, and spare ammunition had to be left behind. Of the ten who died there, one was Commandant Pieter Lavras Uys. Another was his gallant son Dirk Cornelis Uys, a boy only fifteen years of age, who could have escaped, but seeing his father on the ground and a Zulu raising a spear to stab him, he turned to assist his parent, and fell by his side. The others who lost their lives were David, Jacobus, and Jan Malan, Louis, Pieter, and Theunis Nel, Joseph Kruger, and Frans Labuschagne. Potgieter’s division retreated in time, on findingthat it was being drawn into broken ground, and got safely away. The expedition then, being unable to keep the field owing to the loss of all the stores of the division under Uys, fell back to the camp on the Bushman’s river, and Potgieter and his men shortly afterwards returned to Winburg.
Historical Sketches.
The aged father of Pieter Uys survived him only three months. He went down into Natal with the other members of the party, and in July died there. Mr. Maritz too, broken in health by anxiety and trouble, died on the 23rd of September of the same year. Thus of the most prominent leaders of the emigration, all had passed away in this short time except Mr. Potgieter, who lived until 1853.