Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-01-18
THE HIGHLANDERs' DISASTER.
They were Led Into q Bear Trap.
Beers Turned Their S~earchlights
Upon Them and Moved Them

the d~lSuIduUeIS.
During the night it was considered
| expedient that the Highland brigade,
| about 1000 strong, under Gen. Wauc-
hope, should get close enough to the
! lines of the foe to make it possible
to charge the heights. At midnight
the gallant general moved cautiously
through the darkness towards the
| kopje, where the Beers were most
| strongly entrenched. They were led
by a guide, who was supposed to know
every inch of the country, out into the
darkness of an African night. The
brigade marched in line Of quarter col
umn, each man stepping cautiously and
slowly, for they knew that any sound
meant death. Every order was given
in a hoarse whisper, and in whispers
it was passed along the ranks from
man to man. Nothing was heard a
they moved toward the gloomy, steel
front heights but the brushing Of their
feet in the veldt grass and the deep
drawn breaths of the marching men.
so onward until three o'clock on
the morning of Monday. Then out OF
the darkness a rifle rang sharp and
clear, a herald of disaster-a soldier
had tripped in the dark W. the hid
den wires laid down by the enemy. In
a second-in the twinkling Of an eye
the search-lights of the Beers fell
broad and clear as MONDAY III on
the ranks of the doomed Highlanders,
| the shadows of the frowning mass of
hills behind them. For one brief mo-
ment the Scots seemed paralyZed by
the s~uddenness of their discovery, for
they knew that they were huddled to-
gether like sheep within fifty yards of
the trenches of the foe. Then clear
above the confusion rolled the voice
of the general, Steady, men, steady
and like an echo to the veterans, out
came the crash of
Nearly q Thousand Rifles
not fifty PAGES from them. The High
landers reeled before the shock like
trees before the tempest. The best,
their bravest fell in that wild hail of
lead. Gen. Wauchope was down, rid
died with bullets, yet gasping. dying,
| bleeding from every vein. the High
land chieftain raised himself on his
hands and knees and cheered his men
forward.
Men and officers fell in heaps to-
gether. The Black Watch charged
| and the Gordons and the Seaforths
with a yell that stirred the British
camp below, rushed onward-onward
to death or disaster. The accused
wires caught them round the legs until
they fioundered like trapped wolves,
and all the time the rifles Of the foe
sung the song of death in their ears.
beaten, leaving nearly 1900 dead and
wounded just where the broad breast
of the grassy veldt melts into the en-
brace of the rugged African hills, and
an hour later the dawning came of the
dreariest day that Scotland has known
for a generation past. OF her officers,
the flower of her chivalry, the pride OF
her breeding, but few remained TO tell
the tale, a sad tale truly, but one n
stainted with dishonor or smirched
with disgrace, for up those heights UNI
der similar circumstances even a brig
ade of devils could scarce have hoped
to pass. All that mortal man could
do the Scots did; they tried, they fail
ed, they fell, and there Is nothing left
for us now but to mourn for them and
avenge them.
"All that fateful day our men lay
close to the Boer lines under a blazing
sun; over their heads the shots OF
friends and foes passed without ceas-
ing. All day long the battle ragged.
Scarcely could We see the foe-all that
men eyes was the rocky heights
that spoke with tongue of flames when
ever our troops drew near. Once our
guards made a brilliant dash at the
trenches and like a torrent their re-
s~istless valor bore all before them, and
for a few brief moments they got with
in hitting distance of the foe. Well
did they avenge the slaughter Of the
Scots-the bayonets,
Like Tongues of Flames,
passed above or below the rifles guard
and swept through brisket and breast
bone. Out Of their trenches the guards
men tossed the Beers, as men In Eng
lish harvest fields toss the hay when
the reapers' scythes have whitened the
cornfelds, and the human streams were
plentiful where the British guardsmen
stood. Then they fell back for the fire
from the heights above them fell thick
as the shume OF the sun on an Aus
tralian rock-ribbed coast. But the
guards had proved 10 the Beers that.
man 70 man, the Briton was his mas
ter.
In vain all that day Methuen tried
N