Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1903-04-11
Anecdotes Of General Hector
Macdonald rearlessness.
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ming, when BE ysa.sea info GIasaosF,
some say ha~refooted. 10 Els Omaur.
man days, It Is nothing but d splendid
record Of strength or purpose and per
sonal heFoism.
Macdonald never forgot The battle of
Majuba HIil. Ia South Africa. Though
taken prisoner on that unhappy day,
he remained to tie end unDeaten, for
when, after a desperate resistance, be
was at last unarmed and d couple OF
Beers ran at him Macdonald met them
With his naked fists, and his assailants
went reeIing back, Finding him so
hard to tackle, they were for putting q
bullet through his head, but a Beer
with an appreciation of pluck inter
Yened.
NO." he said, this Is a brave man.
and we shall spare him. Let US take
him prisoner at all hazards
This they did, and the sword he
wore had been presented him By the
men Of his company when he won his
commission and bore on It's blade an
inscription to that effect. The B0er
leaders noticed It among the surrender.
ed arms and brought it back to Mac
donald, telling him to wea iteas a man
who had won such a sword should not
be separated from it. General Mac
donald in telling the story said those
men were gentlemen.
In spite, however, of the warn lik.
ing he inspired In those above and un-
der him 1t is on record that some Of
his dusky Sudanese once mutinied
against him. M~acdonald's method of
dealing with the outbreak again illus
trates the man. His regiment had of
necessity to make long. forced marches
under the fierce desert sun, and the
conditions were so hard TINT the men
became m%utinous. One day during the
march Macdonald overheard two or
three of the native soldiers saying:
wait till the next fight, and | will
take care that this slave driver of a
colonel does not come out alive. | my
self will shoot him.
Macdonald recognized the men by
their voices, called a halt and sternly
ordered the culprits to step out from
the ranks. Facing them, he cried:
Now, you are the men who are going
to shoot me in the next fight. Why
wait so long? Why not do it now?
Here | am. Shoot me If you dare"
The rebels grounded their arms in
sullen silence.
"Why don't you shoot?" asked their
colonel.
t'Because you don't seem to care
whether you die or not" And that re-
luctant answer explained the secret of
Macdonald's power over half savage
soldiers. There was no more grum-
bling, and the same men and others
like them followed him ~devotedly
through the battles of Gemaizah, Tos-
XII, Afafit. Ferkeh, Atbara and Omdur-
man.
Many stories are told of his ways of
dealing with his excitable and child
like Sudanese battalions, and in the
anonymous Sudan Campaign" pub
lished by Chapman & Hall, is the fol
lowing:
after the Abu Hamed fight Colonel
Macdonald had soundly rated the men
who began the independent firing with
out orders. Well. one night at Berber,
Colonel Macdonald. while sleeping as
usual in the courtyard around his hut,
was walked up by a black soldier prop
perly dressed In drill order without
arms. When asked what he wanted,
he said: My battalion is very sorry
that you are angry with them for fir
ing without orders at Abu Hamed, but
we know best what TO do. We have
know the Dervlshes, and we know the
best way to turn them out of a place;
so just you leave things to us, and
Wen pull you through
1.-The black then turned about and
was outside the courtyard before Colo
mel Macdonald recovered from his sur
prise and exploded"
Macdonald was a self made man
Born in Ross-shire just fifty years ago,
the son of a poor c%rofter, but with the
splendid highland blood in his veins
he began his career as a diapers ap.
prentice, says the New York Times
He walked into Glasgow barefooted
and his only capital was his deter
mination. The employment he OBJ.
tanned did not suit him at all. He
spent more of his time watching the
soldiers at the barracks than doing
the errands of his Master One day
he was told to do some cutting up, and
his employer, coming in some time
after to inspect the work, was III pleas
ed with ii.
"Have you cut it with a spade?" BIZ
asked ironically.
mo" replied the quick witted hoy
II did it with a shovel" and then. bolt
ing out of to- door, he ran all the way
to the barracks.
That Macdonald was net ashassed o.
his rise from the ranks is shown by
the fact that when he WINS i~ntrnducpf