Footnotes

• The author, William Anderson, can be identified as a senior NCO serving in the 2nd Battalion, Gordon Highlanders, enlisting on 5 July 1869 (see the note: "31 years today since I Enlisted"). A good many of these letters, some written in indelible pencil and folded for delivery, appear to be the originals, written in the field; while others appear to be contemporary transcripts no doubt made by members of the family. Whatever the exact status of the manuscript, and its somewhat disordered state, it nevertheless provides a vivid account of the author's experiences, especially during the siege of Ladysmith itself. To take a typical entry: "28th Jany Sunday [1900]/ Another Sunday in this wretched place, last Sunday I wrote that we were all very sure of being relieved before this one, but here we are things nor further forward than they were two months ago. It was published in Orders today that Buller's troops had taken the Boer position during the day of the 24th, but that the Boers had rushed it at night again and retaken it, and our losses were estimated at 500 killed and wounded. From the scant news we have got we have no idea how the Boers were allowed to take the place but I should not be surprised, if it is not another blunder. The troops were likely fighting all day to get the hill, and then when night came on they[y] perhaps took things easy ... We had another terrible thunder storm last night. I had to hold on to my tent to keep it up, and the rain came down in torrents. A great many of the men's tents were blown down. 29th Jany/ We heard 2 or 3 guns down south this morning, but we have no idea what Buller is going to do again... Long Tom fired 10 shell today into town. 30th Jany/ A wet morning so everything is quiet, as we don't fight on wet days and Sundays in this part of the world. Today we enter on another phase of the siege, we are put on hard biscuits instead of bread, and there is no more food for the Cavalry horses, they have been turned out to graze and pick up their own food... It as pityful to see the Cavalry horses galloping about they did not know where to go. We have heard no news as yet as to what Buller intends to do, but the rumour is camp is that it will be about 6 weeks before we are relieved, if we can hold out that time...".
  
  The photograph album contains some fifty snapshots taken during the later stages of the campaign, featuring inter alia the Gordon Highlanders and Boer prisoners. The upper cover is inscribed: "Snap shots taken during South African Wars and in Natal India and Egypt/ Wm. A.". They match Anderson's narrative in being both unforced and unusually evocative of time and place. See illustration overleaf.

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Category: Books / Books, Maps and Manuscripts

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