24 MARCH 1902 - RHENOSTER VALLEY (BETWEEN SUTHERLAND AND FRASERBURG)

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There is a brief reference to this skirmish in “The Colonials in South Africa”, p147: 

 

“On 24 March at Rhenoster Valley a detachment of Marshall’s Horse was badly cut up, losing 7 men killed and 1 officer and 7 men wounded.”

Further details are in Taffy & David Shearing’s booklet “General Jan Smuts and his Long Ride” p182: 

 

“In faraway Fraserburg (Commandant) Neser ambushed a patrol of Marshall’s Horse at Renostervlei. Jasper Rupping told us that his father was sent to Bakoondkraal to fetch fodder and warned Neser he had spotted four scouts ahead.

 

They were part of a patrol of Marshall’s Horse who were on the Sutherland-Phisanterivier road, climbing up the steep track to Renostervlei.

 

Riding without scouts, they reached the top where Neser and his men lay hidden in the renoster veld. They opened fire and nine men were killed and a further eight wounded. 

 

The survivors regrouped, and the fight continued all day. They fled when it was dark. Neser and his men were remounted and rearmed”.

 

Neser, in his Memoirs (Christiaan de Wet Annale, No. 7), covers the skirmish against Lt Col Callwell’s Column in detail and claims that they took approximately 100 men prisoner.