Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1899 — TRAIN IN A BOER TRAP [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TRAIN IN A BOER TRAP

OVER A HUNDRED BRITISH SOLDIERS ARE CAPTURED. Armored Train Falls Into an Ambush— Lieut. Churchill Among Prisoners— Burghers Tore Up Track and Wrecked the Train and Its Armament. i Intelligence from Natal by way of London Friday was reassuring as regards the safety of Ladysmith, but conveyed the report that the Boers successfully assailed a scouting party in an armored train and captured over 100 British, including Lord Randolph Churchill’s son, Lieut. Winston Churchill. Reports indicate that the Boers are moving southward in the hope of cutting off the British communication. The reported death of Gen. Joubert is discredited at the war office. The armored train which the Boers attacked was practically destroyed. A Lorenzo Marquez paper says that at midnight Tuesday all the cannen on

the hills surrounding Ladysmith opened fire aud that buildings were setjsfire by the shells. When a Red Cross train in charge of Dr. Brisloe went to Cmeveley to pick up the dead and aid the wounded the Boer patrol demanded a request in writing to remove the unfortunate. The British war office received a cablegram from Gen. Buller confirming the report of the loss of 100 men north of Estcourt. Lorenzo Marquez specials say that the Boer censorship is very strict and that no newspaper men are allowed to leave the country. The Natal Advertiser of Durban has a dispatch from Estcourt which says: “When part of the armored train was

overturned by the Boers turning up the rails the British alighted and exchanged volleys with the Boers. Many fell in this engagement and, the rails being replaced, an attempt was made to place all the wounded on the train. Lieut. Churchill led in this, but the Boer fire continued, wrecking the big gun carried by the British and well nigh demolishing the engine and tender. England has planned to put an army of 100,000 fighting men under Gen. Buller. For the first general movement there will be three infantry divisions, consisting in round figures of 10,000 men each. The cava’ division is computed at about 5,534 men, the corps troops (artillery, engineers, etc.) at about 5,100, while the troops to be employed in the “lines of communication,” it is stated, will number 10,000. The Royal Field Artillery and the Royal Horse Artillery account, at a moderate estimate, for about 170 guns, in addition to which must be taken into account the machine and Maxim guns attached to infantry battalions and cavalry regiments, the guns landed from the ships at Durban, and also those, together with field pieces, possessed by the force under Col. Baden-Powell at Mafeking, the garrison at Kimberley, Col. Plummer’s force on the Rhodesian frontier, etc. The actual number of these weapons is not known, as many of them belong to the Dhodesia. Of the field batteries on the way to South Africa several will be provided with howitzers, a most terrible engine of war when supplied with lyddite Shell. The number of machine guns now being transported to the front with the troops is also very large. On the field the force will be divided into three infantry divisions, comprising eight brigades, one cavalry division of three brigades, the Natal field force, and “lines of communication.” The brigade establishment of each infantry battalion is upward of 1,000 men, and each cavalry regiment over 530 men. The mounted infantry companies will be slightly stronger than the cavalry regiments—nearly 600 men each.

GEN. BULLER IN CAMPAIGN UNIFORM.

TYPE OF ARMORED TRAIN WRECKED BY THE BOERS.