rorkesdriftvc.com :: View topic

Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 9:31 am

I�m wondering if members can help me track down a reference.
Morris on p. 397 of TWOTS wrote:
�A few other survivors of the fight at Isandhlwana also reached Rorke�s Drift. A Natal Carbineer rode by, leading a spare horse. Without boots, tunic or a gun, he was utterly exhausted, and he took one look at the preparations for another fight and rode on towards Helpmekaar at once.�
Mike Snook on p. 44 of Like Wolves on the Fold wrote:
�A Natal Carbineer rode past the post in a terribly bedraggled condition, without boots, tunic or a weapon. He looked across at the post and rode on without speaking to anyone, no doubt in a state of acute shock.�
Both are clearly describing the same event.
I don�t want you to waste your time so this man is NOT the carbineer who accompanied Adendorff. He is NOT the man who first warned Lugg/Mabin and was taken to Bromhead.
The man I�m interested in is silent, looks on, and rides on.
According to the above writers he appears while defence preparations are underway but before Shannon/Doig turn up.
I have scoured every RD account I have (and I thought I had them all) but I can�t find this reference in any primary source. I could have missed it or it could come from an account I don�t have: but I�d like to find it.
I�m prepared to believe Morris invented or misinterpreted it and Snook borrowed it without checking.
If you know where this reference is, please let me know. Your reward will be an everlasting footnote of acknowledgement!

Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2012 8:10 pm

Julian

I don't know the answer but I'll copy your question to Brett Hendey who has an interest in the NC.

Peter

Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 11:17 am

Julian

Brett's response:

I doubt that there will be a definitive answer to Julian�s enquiry. The best account of the Carbineers� involvement at Isandlwana and Rorke�s Drift is in Stalker�s official history, which was published in 1911. He quotes Tpr Barker at length and from his account it would not be possible to identify the man referred to by Morris.

Something that strikes me as odd is the phrase �leading a spare horse�. Given the well documented accounts of desperate men on foot and others selflessly giving up their horses (Wassall VC and Barker no VC), it seems so unlikely that someone would have a spare horse at this stage in the proceedings. Barker mentions that two of the NC survivors (Sibthorpe and Granger) had lost their horses, but does not mention any Carbineer having a spare one.

I suppose it is very unlikely that Morris invented this anecdote, so it is probably derived from a letter or some other obscure source that is the object of Julian�s search. Even if it comes to light, I suspect this event will still be unproven and remain simply as another Zulu War myth.

Peter

Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 12:07 pm

The only thing I can think of related to a Natal Carbineer possibility, is the incident of Dr. Shepherd stopping to help a wounded trooper (MacLeroy?), both him and the doctor being killed, therefore leaving a horse(s) riderless, which another trooper (Kelly?) who had been present with the wounded man, may have taken the reins of at least one of them.

If it was Kelly(?) at Rorke's Drift, he could have been traumatised from both the events at Isandlwana and this later incident.

Coll

Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 12:39 pm

Thanks to all so far...
PeterW
I'm now checking all those later secondary books like Clements to see if they mention it. I suspect Morris MAY actually have invented or misinterpreted the event (as he did with so much else) and Bancroft, Snook, et al. simply copied Morris without checking.
Coll
You're a bit confused here. The other trooper with Macleroy was Muirhead (and he went via Fugitives' Drift). The 'Kelly' was simply a miswritten form of Macleroy from later writers - there was no such man.
All
I'd appreciate it still if you do find this reference...(in hope).

Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 7:41 pm

Julian

It's Lugg.

His letter (presumably to his parents) was apparently published in the North Devon Herald of 24 April 1879. According to Alan Baynham Jones & Lee Stevenson in Rorke's Drift by Those who were There, 2003, (which I'm sure you have - see p 195) it was also published in The Times. The bit which Morris quoted is found in Lugg's first para.

Keith Smith also drew attention to the letter when he published an extract from it on p180 of his Select Documents - A Zulu War Sourcebook (2006). Keith cites HC Lugg on pp19ff of A Natal Family Looks Back which I've also got but can't lay my hands on at the moment. According to this source the letter was published in March or April 1879 in the Bristol Observer. It probably was, as well as in other provincial newspapers.

So Morris was not guilty this time! (Well, actually he was - see below!)

Peter

P.S. Incidentally, although you say he wasn't the man who warned Lugg, Lugg was clear that this man "without boots, tunic or arms" did warn them - of their impending fate as well as of the disaster which had occurred - before departing. The letter doesn't actually say he rode on but certainly doesn't imply he stayed either. It does say he was leading a spare horse. Incidentally, Lugg is clear that the man "rode into the little yard" (which suggests the perimeter had been erected?) and that this was their first warning and first news of the disaster (which suggests it was before the defence works were begun). Morris, astonishingly, simply omits this part & Mike Snook suggests he simply "looked across at the post."

So Morris quotes accurately about the carbineer who was sans everything except for a spare mount, but then, strangely (although perhaps not for him) then says he rode by after taking one look at the preparations. His source for this must be the Lugg letter but Morris omits the bad news and the warning conveyed by this horseman and the rejoinder from Lugg and his comrades. In his acknowledgements, however, he does say two Lugg letters were published by the Bristol Observer. Mike Snook, who had access to at least one published version of the letter outlined above, has inexplicably followed the same route and would also appear to have simply lifted the anecdote from Morris, relating the incident in exactly the same way and grouping him - a la Morris - among the "other fugitives" who also turned up, as well as insisting that he never spoke a word. Does this mean Mike has a higher regard for Morris than he has ever let on? Or that he can improve on things by out-Morrissing Morris? Smile

As far as I can see, a few things are clear. Morris's version was a dog's dinner anyway but he has put a remarkable slant on the Lugg letter. For whatever reason, Mike has followed identically. The survivors whose testimonies we have, were (not surprisingy) confused about who arrived and in what order, and who said what - exactly as I would have been in their situation! Perhaps the second Lugg letter in the Bristol Observer will reveal all? But you probably already have that too, Julian!

P.

Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 2:02 pm

There are a couple of points outstanding here. Lugg makes it clear that HIS carbineer was the first to bring the news of Isandhlwana to RD, he was garrulous and spoke to others before being taken to Bromhead. Only then was work begun on the defence perimeter.
Morris�s carbineer arrives while work is in progress, AFTER news has arrived. He takes a look, and rides past without saying a word.
My suspicion all along has been that Morris may have mangled Lugg to produce what he did (though that's SOME mangling!) and that Bancroft and Snook simply copied Morris�but I need to be sure�these two events (even if one is fictitious) are very different content-wise and chronologically. The only real overlap is the spare horse and being bedraggled, but then all the survivors were described as bedraggled.
If anyone should find anything which lends credence to the Morris-Bancroft-Snook story I�d be pleased to hear it.

Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 9:00 pm

Julian

Precisely. I haven�t analysed the appearance of each fugitive and the order in which they arrived, much less the details of their messages, as you have, and I suspect that your own reconstruction, and that of Ian Knight in ZR, is as close as we�ll ever get to the fullest and most accurate account. It is clear that the accounts of the survivors with regard to these fugitives don�t quite add up. And nor would we expect them to. So historians have to make the best of it without � even when necessarily having to generalise � putting their own spin on it, nor state or claim anything specific without detailed footnotes. That hasn�t always happened in the publications available to us, which doesn�t help. To be fair, however, there was a time (and not so long ago) when minutely sourced footnotes were not always de rigeur in reasonably scholarly works, let alone popular histories.

Am I right in suspecting there is some doubt as to whether it was Doig or the anonymous, dishevelled, unarmed and two-horsed carbineer who told Lugg they would all be murdered? Lugg�s own account in his letter may be suspect as far as time, sequence and the nature of their meeting � going by the situation which can be cobbled together from other accounts. But that's what he said. I think the best way to write about the sequence of the various fugitives� arrivals and their identities is to include the caveat that the surviving accounts do not all tally exactly and that there are vagaries in the reconstruction. I do not feel the historian is at liberty to offer his own reconstruction (or a summary of these events) if he has tampered with or fails to follow the actual recorded accounts, without telling us he has done this or at least reminding us that there are discrepancies between the accounts which he has tried to allowed for.

Lugg says: �... a Carbineer rode into the little yard without boots, tunic or arms, leading a spare horse. All we could glean from his excited remarks was 'Everyone killed in camp, and 1000 Kaffirs on their way to take the mission station (or rather hospital)' � not pleasant tidings for a hundred men, you may be sure. When he came to himself a bit he said, 'You will all be murdered and cut to pieces' and the only answer he received was 'We will fight for it, and if we have to die we will die like Britishers.' Now, whether Lugg was reporting accurately or whether he had conflated more than one episode, as is likely, we don�t know. It�s certainly possible. But that�s what his letter said. (In Lugg�s son�s book we apparently have 1000 but in the English newspapers 4000).

But Morris cannot have been referring to anyone else when he wrote: A Natal Carbineer rode by, leading a spare horse. Without boots, tunic or gun, he was utterly exhausted, and he took one look at the preparations for another fight and rode on ...� At that time, his source can only have been Lugg�s son�s book or a reference to the newspaper report, surely? And well done for tracking it down from Berlin. But why then mangle everything? Not just in the quote but in consigning the carbineer to a �few other (i.e. implied later) survivors� turning up? (To be fair, Morris doesn't actually say the carbineer said nothing, only implying it or ignoring the reported dramatic conversation altogether).

Like one or two others, Mike (in LWotF) attributes the �You will all be murdered� warning to Doig and there may well be a source which suggest Doig also used this expression. Mike also writes: �A Natal Carbineer rode past the post in a terribly bedraggled condition, without boots, tunic or a weapon. He looked across at the post and rode on without speaking to anyone, no doubt in a state of acute shock.� The description is so similar he can only have been referring to the chap Morris mentions � and he follows Morris (even more than Morris!) instead of Lugg in cutting out completely the reported conversation with Lugg, and insisting nothing was said. As Lugg is such a well known source, why would one not jump at the chance to correct Morris?

I can only think the second Lugg letter in the newspaper gave a different version which Morris & Mike chose instead, in which case they�re both in the clear but it would be nice to see it. Do you have this, Julian?

I haven't got the Bancroft book.

Peter

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 1:34 pm

It is surprising there is no account of the actual carabiner himself, giving details of how he escaped from the Isandlwana battlefield passing Rorke's Drift on his journey.

If it was possible to short list what troopers were at Isandlwana and could account for their whereabouts, it should be likely to find out who the man was, or could have been, then follow on from any accounts he left thereafter in a diary/journal, etc.

Though this path of investigation will be done alreadys.

Coll

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 1:56 pm

Peter/Coll
I think I have tracked down the correct order, timings, and names of RD fugitives and I think it's pretty foolproof. The only fly in the ointment is Morris's blasted carbineer - it's such a precise anecdote and at the same time bears faint similarities to Lugg's man (the biggest differences are that one said nothing, the other talks to everyone, and the timing of the episode). I am inclined to think Morris mangled it and Glover, Bancroft, and Snook copied it without checking. It's the last thing that's preventing me from publishing. If the reference is genuine, it's extremely obscure.

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 2:03 pm

Julian

Do you think you know the identity of the silent carbineer?

Peter

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 2:06 pm

Julian

Have you tried contacting Mike Snook about this, as I really don't think he would have copied something without checking first, especially Morris if it was in TWOTS ?

Coll

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:53 am

Peter
That rather depends if he exists!
Coll
Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour.

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 1:53 pm

Julian

Apparently I'm quite guilty of going by the most direct route, which isn't always the best idea, though it does on occasion get you answers quicker, but not necessarily the ones you seek. Wink

Sometimes valour means you have to confront situations head-on, even if that is not seen as the 'better part' of the word, it can get results.

Coll

P.S. Just ask Durnford or Custer ! Shocked

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2012 4:11 am

All,

My library is presently packed up in storage in the UK; I am unable to get to any books from my current location.

Has anyone looked at Barker's grandson's book (can't think of the title at present - red card covers, if I remember)? He might have shed some light as to the additionall NC members who went past RD post Isandhlwana.

AMB