Stuart - Smith's Burial Location ?.

Hi Barry.
I couldnt find the previous posts on this subject but this may be of some little help but you never know .
' A Visit 6 Mnths After Isandlwana ' by A.N. Montgomery , J.P. Late Commandant 1 NNC , Formerly Captain Royal
Fusiliers .

As they made their way down toward Fugitive's Drift this is what Montgomery says regarding Stuart - Smith .
'' There was a ravine on the left , which no doubt , some stragglers had made for , but we had no time to explore it .
We had now arrived at the precipitous bank above Fugitive's Drift ; What a rush there must have been here ! . I do
not often dismount , and my horse was surefooted , but here I did , for it was no use galling his withers and knocking
his legs to pieces . Some little way down , turning around a boulder of almost 12 feet high and almost perpendicular ,
we came upon other signs of the fallen . Here , close by where a small wooden cross marked the rough grave of Stuart - Smith , R.A , lay a horse and rider , his foot still in the stirrup , pulled a little one side for the often mentioned
zulu ' coup de grace ' .

I wonder if the rider's body was that of Macdonald who was a member of the I.M.I . ???. Killed with Stuart - Smith while Smith - Dorrien was attempting to bandage Macdonalds arm .

cheers 90th.
Cheers 90th.

Hi 90th,

This is a very good post and will give me one of the surest locators to finding Stuart Smiths resting place.
But, the rider and horse falling and dieing together collates with Troopers Clarke's report ( see the 13/12 essay on the forum on the French Royal visit to Natal ) that he and his party actually found the remains of horse and rider together , unburied, on the June 1880 Princess Eugenie visit to Fugitives Drift, and he and his party buried them where they found them at the foot of a cliff.
He said that the remains were of an an Infantry man ( perhaps Macdonald).but that could be just a mistake of identity.
I believe we are now getting very close.
Thanks again for constructive contribution a very useful piece of information.

regards

barry

Hi Barry.
No worries mate , happy to try and help .
cheers 90th.

Hi 90th,
I have just picked up on something else.

If Montgomery indeed visited Fugitives Drift 6 months after Isandlwana, these two "horse and rider dieing together" incidents are not one and the same, as Tpr Clarke and his party conducted a burial in June 1880, some 17monhts after Isandhlwana. Montgomery's find predates this by about a year.

The fact that there are more remains to be found at Fugitives Drift is not too strange as I will wager that a check at the bottom of the ravine mentioned by Montgomery will yield even more evidence of others dying in their efforts to flee on 22/01/1879. Checking the bottoms of ravines is easier said than done however as this is where the natural growth of various indigenous shrubs, creepers and trees is very dense.

regards

barry

The following day, 22 May Colonel Harness crossed the river with Curling and his battery, leaving a squadron of lancers to gaurd the crossing. Harness wrote to his sister

"Some 200 yards up, we found poor Smiths remains and we dug a grave. One of us read a burial service and marked the place with stones and a wooden cross."

Curling

"I could not help but think when buring him, how nearly i shared the same fate. He did not appear to be assagaied and most probebly died from the effects of falling down the rocks. We found his dead horse a little above him and 19 other white men who had either fallen or been shot down."

I'm afraid several floods and Cyclones Demnoina & Imboa wiped out all evidence of those who were buried on the banks of the Mzinyathi. Regards, Ken