Zulu emissary - imaginary or otherwise....

Subject: Zulu emissary - imaginary or otherwise.... Wed Aug 16, 2017 11:32 am

Please bear in mind that I have:-

a) Imagined this
b) Got totally the wrong war/continent/people or places
c) I am suffering from Munchausen’s syndrome and I am doing this for attention....

Many years ago I read in a book (maybe Vijn or Mitford), that the sometime around the time of Ulundi (give or take a shilling) the Zulu king sent a white emissary to the British (I have a feeling he was of Boer).

This guy had a rifle and the stock was stamped with a regimental number (maybe 24th, maybe not)which was recognised by the British he met with (as being from Isandlwana) and they (the British) were slightly ‘miffed’.

It was either that or he had a horse which was recognised - not much difference between a horse & a gun........but it was a long time ago, I read it....

Can anyone recall a similar anecdote?

Cheers

Simon

Posts : 2268 Join date : 2010-10-22 Location : France

Bonjour,
From memory,
The horse belonged to Coghill,
The man was the son of Jim Rorke.

Cheers

Frédéric

Posts : 2268 Join date : 2010-10-22 Location : France

The name of the man was Calverley. I am not sure he was the son of Jim Rorke.

Cheers

Frédéric

Posts : 2268 Join date : 2010-10-22 Location : France

"History of the Zulu War" by A. Wilmot

Posts : 2871 Join date : 2010-06-02

1879graves wrote:: Hi All

There was also Herbert Nunn and a man named Calverley whom Hamu had chosen as his messenger. The military correspondent of ‘The Scotsman’, a Glasgow newspaper. Described the scene: ‘we saw the face of a white man carrying in his hand a flag of truce. On his nearer approach he was discovered to be the Afrikaner (Boer) bearing the name of Calverley. The colonists who were with us instantly recognised him as a man of doubtful reputation who had several times been “wanted” by the authorities’.
(Calverley is a mystery figure. He is described here as an Afrikaner but his name is English. There is little doubt that he was one of two brothers whose widowed mother, Susannah Calverley of Durban, apprenticed both her boys to be bound for five and seven years respectively to one Jacobus Johannes Uys (elder brother of Piet Uys) as general servants. Their apprenticeship papers, dated 1863, stipulated that they were to be cared for as children of Uys, taught to read and write, understand accounts and to be paid one heifer a year each. At the time of Hamu’s defection the older brother, Henry, would have been 26 years old and John 24. Having lived with the Boers for all their lives they would have been taken for Afrikaners and, being locally raised, instantly recognised by many of the volunteers. A popular legend at the time was that the Zulu Army at Isandhlwana had been led by white men, their faces blackened with burnt cork. Calverley, carrying spoils from the battlefield, gave substance to the legend. But such rumours were nonsense. The Zulu Army needed no white man to lead it and certainly none of Calverley’s ilk.)
What damned Calverley was not only the rifle and water bottle that he carried (for both had been looted from the slaughtered 24th Regiment at Isandhlwana) but to top it all, he was riding the horse of none other than Lieutenant Coghill who had met his death, carrying the Regimental Colours, at Fugitive’s Drift. The volunteers and soldiers alike saw items as proof participation if not in the actual battle of Isandhlwana, then at least in the orgy of looting that followed, and many were all for lynching him on the spot. It was probably Wood’s intervention and threat of the severest punishment on any one molesting the man that saved his live.
Calverley brought tidings that Hamu wished to surrender with his people, and wanted to negotiate terms. As far back as November there had been subtle overtures of such an eventuality; Chelmsford had instructed Wood that Hamu must be told. ‘--- he who is not with us is against us, and that if he remains passively in his kraal whilst we are advancing he must not be surprised if we take him for any enemy - I have no intention of remaining neutral inside the Zulu border’.
In no uncertain manner Wood told Calverley that the only terms available were unconditional surrender. Waiting well into the night, lest Calverley should be accosted. Wood sent him back to find his master who was in great danger for Cetshwayo had determined to catch Hamu before he reached the British. Forewarned, Hamu slipped through the net of warriors that guarded the drifts leading out of Zululand and, with many of his followers, found temporary sanctuary with the Swazi King.

Source ‘Blood on the Painted Mountain’ by Ron Lock

Steve

Hi Steve,

Thanks a lot, I have just found it, now that I had his name to put in the search engine...... Very Happy

Cheers

Simon

Subject: Re: Zulu emissary - imaginary or otherwise.... Wed Aug 16, 2017 3:31 pm

Would that be the Coghills horse that was shot at Fugitives Drift I wonder?

Subject: Re: Zulu emissary - imaginary or otherwise.... Wed Aug 16, 2017 4:49 pm

Maybe he had a spare....or maybe it was another case of 'drummer boys'......

Strange thing is - would the hoss have been recognised? Maybe if Coghill's batman had been there but I am not sure......spose it could have been a particularly distinctive beastie.....

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