Shangani Patrol The Shangani Patrol , comprising 34 soldiers in the service of the British South Africa Company , was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3 , 000 Matabele warriors during the First Matabele War in 1893 . Headed by Major Allan Wilson , the patrol , also referred to as Wilson ' s Patrol , was attacked just north of the Shangani River in Matabeleland in Rhodesia ( today Zimbabwe ) . Its dramatic last stand , sometimes called Wilson ' s Last Stand , achieved a prominent place in the British public imagination and , subsequently , in Rhodesian national history , roughly mirroring events such as the Alamo massacre or Custer ' s Last Stand in the United States . The patrol comprised elements of the Mashonaland Mounted Police and the Bechuanaland Border Police . Scouting ahead of Major Patrick Forbes ' column attempting the capture of the Matabele King Lobengula ( following his flight from his capital Bulawayo a month before ) , it crossed the Shangani late on 3 December 1893 . It moved on Lobengula the next morning , but was ambushed by a host of Matabele riflemen and warriors near the king ' s wagon . Surrounded and outnumbered about a hundred - fold , the patrol made a last stand as three of its number broke out and rode back to the river to muster reinforcements from Forbes . However , the Shangani had risen significantly in flood , and Forbes was himself involved in a skirmish near the southern bank ; Wilson and his men therefore remained isolated to the north . After fighting to the last cartridge , and killing over ten times their own number , they were annihilated . The patrol ' s members , particularly Wilson and Captain Henry Borrow , were elevated in death to the status of national heroes , representing endeavour in the face of insurmountable odds . The anniversary of the battle on 4 December 1893 became an annual public holiday in Rhodesia two years later , and was an official non - work day until 1920 . A historical war film depicting the episode , " Shangani Patrol " , was produced and released in 1970 . Controversy surrounds the breakout before the last stand — which various writers have posited might have actually been desertion — and a box of gold sovereign s , which a Matabele " inDuna " ( leader ) later claimed had been given to two unidentified men from Forbes ' rear guard on 2 December , along with a message that Lobengula admitted defeat and wanted the column to stop pursuing him . Two batmen were initially found guilty of accepting the gold , keeping it for themselves and not passing on the message , but the evidence against them was inconclusive and largely circumstantial ; the convictions were ultimately overturned . Background . Amidst the Scramble for Africa during the 1880s , the South African - based businessman and politician Cecil Rhodes envisioned the annexation to the British Empire of a bloc of territory connecting the Cape of Good Hope and Cairo — respectively at the southern and northern tips of Africa — and the concurrent construction of a line of rail linking the two . On geopolitical maps , British territories were generally marked in red or pink , so this concept became known as the " Cape to Cairo red line " . In the immediate vicinity of the Cape , this ambition was challenged by the presence of independent states to the north - east of Britain ' s Cape Colony : there were several Boer Republics , and to the north of these was the Kingdom of Matabeleland , ruled by King Lobengula . Having secured the Rudd Concession on mining rights from Lobengula on 30 October 1888 , Rhodes and his British South Africa Company were granted a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria in October 1889 . The Company was empowered under this charter to trade with local rulers , form banks , own and manage land , and raise and run a police force : the British South Africa Company ' s Police , renamed the Mashonaland Mounted Police in 1892 . In return for these rights , the Company would govern and develop any territory it acquired , while respecting laws enacted by extant African rulers , and upholding free trade within its borders . The first settlers referred to their new home as " Rhodesia " , after Rhodes . Though the Company made good on most of its pledges , the assent of Lobengula and other native leaders , particularly regarding mining rights , was often evaded , misrepresented or even simply ignored . It also offended Lobengula by demanding that he stop the customary Matabele raids on the Mashona people who inhabited the white - governed areas . Angered by the Company ' s attitude towards his authority , Lobengula made war on the new arrivals and the Mashonas in 1893 . Matabele warriors began the wholesale slaughter of Mashonas in the vicinity of Fort Victoria in July that year , and an " indaba " ( tribal conference ) organised by Company official Leander Starr Jameson to end the conflict ended with violence , and dispersion by force . The First Matabele War had started . Company columns rode from Fort Salisbury and Fort Victoria , and combined at Iron Mine Hill , around the centre point of the country , on 16 October 1893 . Together the force totalled about 700 men , commanded by Major Patrick Forbes , and equipped with five Maxim machine gun s . Forbes ' combined column moved on the Matabele king ' s capital at Bulawayo , to the south - west . The Matabele army mobilised to prevent Forbes from reaching the city , and twice engaged the column as it approached : on 25 October , 3 , 500 warriors assaulted the column near the Shangani River . Lobengula ' s troops were well - drilled and formidable by pre - colonial African standards , but the Company ' s Maxim guns , which had never before been used in battle , far exceeded expectations , according to an eyewitness " mow [ ing ] them down literally like grass " . By the time the Matabele withdrew , they had suffered around 1 , 500 fatalities ; the Company , on the other hand , had lost only four men . A week later , on 1 November , 2 , 000 Matabele riflemen and 4 , 000 warriors attacked Forbes at Bembesi , about north - east of Bulawayo , but again they were no match for the crushing firepower of the major ' s Maxims : about 2 , 500 more Matabele were killed . Lobengula fled Bulawayo as soon as he heard the news from Bembesi . On 3 November 1893 , with the column on the outskirts of the city , he and his subjects left , torching the royal town as they went . In the resultant conflagration , the city ' s large store of ivory , gold and other treasure was destroyed , as was its ammunition magazine , which exploded . The flames were still rising when the whites entered the settlement the next day ; basing themselves in the " White Man ' s Camp " already present , they set about extinguishing the fire which engulfed the town . Using a tree to improvise a flagstaff , they hoisted first the Company flag , then the Union Jack . The reconstruction of Bulawayo began almost as soon as the blaze was out , with a new white - run city rising atop the ruins of Lobengula ' s former residence . Jameson , who now based himself in Bulawayo , wrote the following letter to the Matabele king on 7 November 1893 , in English , Dutch and Zulu : This letter , carried by John Grootboom , a Coloured man from the Cape , reached Lobengula near Shiloh Mission , about north of Bulawayo . The king replied in English : Jameson did not regard this ambiguity as a proper answer , and impatiently waited for further word from the king . After standing by for the specified two days and receiving nothing , he correctly concluded that Lobengula was stalling him , and using the extra time to distance himself from his former capital . Jameson therefore made good on his pledge , and called for volunteers ; he assembled a host of about 470 men , mixed together from the Mashonaland Mounted Police , the Bechuanaland Border Police , and Raaff ' s Rangers , an independent unit led by the eponymous Commandant Piet Raaff . This force was placed under Forbes ' command , with three Maxim guns attached . Jameson told the major to scout the area between Shiloh and Inyati for spoor , with the ultimate objective of capturing Lobengula , and sent him out just before sunset on 14 November 1893 . Prelude : Forbes ' pursuit of Lobengula . The column left Bulawayo heading north , and , in an attempt to expedite its progress , reorganised itself into a more compact 290 - man force at Shiloh . Lobengula , meanwhile , rode north towards the Shangani in his wagon , which left obvious tracks in its wake . Following the wagon tracks , Forbes ' men were soon hot on the trail , routinely finding recently abandoned Matabele camps , provisions and stragglers . Heavy rain slowed both the king and his pursuers , and led Forbes to split his force again ; moving on with a flying column of 160 men , he sent the rest back with the wagons . He pushed on , and on 3 December 1893 reached the southern bank of the Shangani , from where he could clearly see Matabele hastily driving cattle behind an " impi " ( regiment ) of warriors . The presence of smouldering fires beside the native column betrayed the fact that they had just crossed . Wishing to know whether the king had crossed here or at another point on the river , Forbes sent Major Allan Wilson across to scout ahead with 12 men and eight officers , and told him to return by nightfall . Meanwhile , Forbes formed a laager ( improvised fort ) about from the southern bank . There , he interrogated a captive Matabele , the son of an " inDuna " ( tribal leader ) , who said that the king was indeed where Wilson had gone , and was ill ( the exact ailment was not known for sure , the prisoner said , but was suspected to be gout ) . The " inDuna " ' s son said that Lobengula had with him a force of about 3 , 000 warriors , about half of whom were armed with Martini - Henry rifles . They were mixed together from various regiments of the previously routed Matabele army , and largely demoralised , but still fiercely determined to prevent Lobengula ' s capture . Most prominent were the Imbezu , Ingubo and Insukameni Regiments ; the Imbezu , Lobengula ' s favourite , was generally considered the strongest . After three weeks in pursuit of the king , Forbes ' rations were running perilously short . He therefore resolved to attack the next day ( 4 December ) , hoping to be able to turn back for Bulawayo with Lobengula in custody before nightfall . Wilson ' s men remained north of the river far longer than expected , and had still not returned when darkness fell . Forbes , meanwhile , received a report that most of Lobengula ' s force , commanded by " inDuna " Mjaan , had separated from the king and was moving to attack the laager the same night ( this was actually an exaggeration ; only about 300 riflemen had split from the main Matabele force , though they were indeed south of the river , undetected by Forbes ) . Visibility was poor by now , and rain periodically fell . The laager received no word from Wilson until about 21 : 00 , when Sergeant Major Judge and Corporal Ebbage arrived from across the river to tell Forbes that Wilson had found Lobengula ' s tracks , and followed him for . Wilson regarded the chances of taking the king alive as so good that he was going to remain north of the river overnight . He asked Forbes to send more men and a Maxim gun in the morning , but did not explain what he planned to do with them . The Shangani Patrol continued its approach during the late evening , and scouted close to the bush enclosure housing Lobengula . Captain William Napier repeatedly called to the king in the Matabele language , Sindebele , but received no reply from the Matabele leaders , who remained silent and hid themselves . The patrol ' s actions confused the Matabele , who could not understand why there appeared to be so few Company soldiers , nor why they would reveal their position like this . They concluded that it must be a trap , and were only satisfied that it was not when Wilson ' s men had stopped during their approach to call to Lobengula five times . Following the fifth call from Napier , Mjaan ordered his riflemen to gather around the patrol , intending to pocket it . Noticing this , Wilson ordered a retreat , and took up a well - covered position in the bush where he could hide until daybreak . When Lieutenant Hofmeyer and Troopers Bradburn and Colquhoun were lost amid the increasingly stormy night , Wilson briefly backtracked to recover them . On returning to his bush camp , Wilson sent a further message to the laager , which reached its destination at around 23 : 00 : Napier , Scout Bain and Trooper Robertson were the men acting as runners . Wilson repeated that he was going to stay north of the river overnight , close to the king , and asked Forbes to bring the whole column across by 04 : 00 in the morning . Forbes thought it unwise to attempt a full river crossing at night , which he reasoned might lead to his force being surrounded in the darkness and massacred , but also felt he could not recall Wilson , as to do so would be to lose Lobengula for sure . As a compromise , Forbes sent Captain Henry Borrow across with 21 men at 01 : 00 on 4 December , and told Borrow to relay to Wilson that the laager was surrounded , and " expected to be attacked any moment " . Forbes apparently intended for Borrow ' s reinforcements to secure Wilson ' s position , but historian W D Gale writes that this was a serious tactical error on Forbes ' part : the addition of Borrow ' s men made Wilson ' s patrol too large to be a mere reconnoitring force , but still too small to overpower the Matabele and capture the king . Indeed , Wilson and his officers looked on gloomily when Borrow ' s men arrived soon after dawn , fewer in number than expected and without the requested Maxim gun . Only 20 of the reinforcements ( including Borrow himself ) reached Wilson – Troopers Landsberg and Nesbitt became separated from the main group along the way , and eventually rejoined Forbes during the morning . Trooper Robertson returned to Wilson with Borrow , giving the patrol a total of 37 men , including its officers . Engagement . Matabele ambushes on both sides of the river . Wilson conferred with his officers , none of whom was particularly optimistic about their prospects : " This is the end " said one . British soldier and historian Roger Marston postulates that the patrol might still have been safe had it not now pursued the king , but Wilson decided to proceed : " Let ' s ride on Lobengula , " he said . Several analysts comment that this was perhaps excessively rash . Marston says that Wilson ' s actions " had a flavour of doomed resignation about them " , and suggests that the major believed no other path was open , and was therefore going for broke . The Matabele , meanwhile , hovered around the vicinity , waiting to see what Wilson would do next . On the southern side of the river , the 300 Matabele riflemen took up a well - covered position near the riverbank , about to the left of Forbes ' position . Hidden by a patch of scrub , they remained undetected by the Company troops . Wilson , Borrow and the 35 others made for Lobengula ' s enclosure . The king ' s wagon was still there , but when Wilson called to him , there was no answer . The king had moved on during the night . At that moment , the troopers heard the sound of rifles being cocked in the wood surrounding them . A Matabele " inDuna " stepped out from behind a tree , and announced that the enclosure was surrounded by thousands of Matabele who wanted to " see if the white men were afraid to die . " He then fired his rifle to signal the start of the attack to his men . A volley from the Matabele riflemen followed , but most of the shots went too high ; no Company trooper was hit . The only casualties of this opening volley were two of the patrol ' s horses . Wilson immediately ordered his men to fall back , first to an antheap , then to a thick wood . Three of them were wounded during this retreat , but none fatally so . Hearing the shots from the northern side of the river , Forbes uneasily moved towards the southern bank , intending to cross and help Wilson . However , Forbes ' fears of an ambush proved to be well - founded ; at an opportune moment , the Matabele in the scrub opened fire , catching the column in the open . The ambushers ' shots were initially wild and inaccurate , but they soon began to focus their fire on the exposed Maxim guns and horses , forcing the troopers to retreat to cover . Five Company soldiers were injured . The resulting skirmish lasted about an hour , by which time the Shangani had been severely swollen by heavy rains upstream , causing it to flood . Meanwhile , Wilson marched his officers and men back towards the river , hoping to reunite with Forbes . They moved on for about , but soon noticed that a line of Matabele warriors was blocking their way to the river . Wilson refused to sacrifice his wounded by attempting to break through . In an act of desperation , he instead sent three of his men — American scouts Frederick Russell Burnham and Pearl " Pete " Ingram , and Australian Trooper William Gooding — to charge through the Matabele line , cross the river and bring reinforcements back to help , while he , Borrow and the rest made a last stand . Burnham , Ingram and Gooding broke through while the Matabele closed in on the pocketed patrol from a distance , and began to fire on it from cover , killing several of its men . After a while , Mjaan ordered his men to charge forward and finish them off , but the Matabele soon fell back , having taken about 40 fatalities . Burnham , Ingram and Gooding reached the Shangani about 08 : 00 , but quickly saw that the water had risen far too high for Forbes to provide any assistance . Realising the futility of turning back to Wilson without help , they decided to rejoin Forbes anyway , and to that end traversed the swollen river with considerable difficulty . They then rode to where the battle on the southern side was still ongoing . On reaching the main column shaken and out of breath , Burnham leapt from his horse and ran to Forbes : " I think I may say that we are the sole survivors of that party , " he quietly confided , before loading his rifle and joining the skirmish . Matabele victory north of the river ; Wilson ' s last stand . What happened to the Shangani Patrol after this point is known only from Matabele sources . According to these accounts , the warriors offered the remaining whites their lives if they surrendered , but Wilson ' s men refused to give up . They used their dead horses for cover , and killed more than ten times their own number ( about 500 , Mjaan estimated ) , but were steadily whittled down as the overwhelming Matabele force closed in from all sides . The Company soldiers continued fighting even when grievously wounded , to the astonishment of the Matabele , who thought the whites must be bewitched : " These are not men but magicians , " said one Matabele " inDuna " . Late in the afternoon , after hours of fighting , Wilson ' s men ran out of ammunition , and reacted to this by rising to their feet , singing " God Save the Queen " and shaking each other ' s hands . The Matabele downed their own rifles and ended the battle charging with " assegai " spears . According to an eyewitness , " the white " inDuna " " ( Wilson ) was the last to die , standing motionless before the Matabele with blood streaming from wounds all over his body . After a few moments of hesitation , a young warrior ran forward and killed him with his " assegai " . The Matabele usually mutilated the bodies of their foes after a victory , but on this occasion they did not : " The white men died so bravely we would not treat them as we do the cowardly Mashonas and others , " an " inDuna " explained . At Mjaan ' s orders , the bodies of the patrol were left untouched , though the whites ' clothes and two of their facial skins were collected the next morning to serve as proof to Lobengula of the battle ' s outcome . " I had two sons killed that day , " Ingubo warrior M ' Kotchwana later said , " and my brother was shot in the stomach . The " amakiwa " [ whites ] were brave men ; they were warriors . " Men of the Shangani Patrol . Of the 43 men involved in Wilson ' s patrol ( including the major himself ) , 37 were present when the battle began . This was reduced to 34 when Wilson ordered Burnham , Ingram and Gooding to break out . Those left behind were all killed in action . Though the men of the patrol came from all corners of the British Empire and beyond , most were born in Britain itself : Lieutenant - Colonel Hugh Marshall Hole writes that of these " over a dozen were English Public School and University men " . Wilson himself was originally Scottish , while Borrow was born in Cornwall . Also represented in the patrol were South Africa ( several members , most prominently Captain William Judd ) , the United States ( Burnham and Ingram ) , India ( Troopers Dillon and Money ) , Canada ( Scout Robert Bain ) , Australia ( Gooding ) and New Zealand ( Trooper Frank Vogel ) . None of the patrol ' s members was born in Rhodesia . Aftermath and legacy . Forbes ' retreat , Lobengula ' s death and the end of the war . After the battle on the southern side of the Shangani was over , Forbes and his column conducted a cursory search for survivors from Wilson ' s party , but , unable to cross the river , could see nothing to tell them what had happened . Guessing ( correctly ) that all Company men beyond the river had been killed , they turned and trekked back to Bulawayo in miserable fashion , their supplies all but gone and the Matabele impeding their progress at every turn . Matabele raiding parties attacked the retreating column six times during its two - week journey back to Bulawayo ; in pouring rain , the dishevelled men were soon mostly on foot , existing off horse meat and wearing makeshift shoes made from ammunition wallets . Forbes felt so humiliated by the events that he retreated from command in all but name , surrendering " de facto " control to Commandant Raaff . In leading the column back to Bulawayo , Raaff repeatedly drew on his experience from the Anglo - Zulu War to ensure the survival of the haggard men : he avoided several Matabele ambushes , and at one point set up a convincing decoy camp , which the Matabele fired on for half a day , wasting much of their ammunition . On the column ' s inglorious return to Bulawayo on 18 December 1893 , Forbes was received in muted disgrace . The officers and men stood on parade for Cecil Rhodes , and the Company chief passed the major without a word . Raaff , on the other hand , was publicly commended by Rhodes , and thanked for ensuring the column ' s safe return . Meanwhile , Lobengula moved to the north - east , now well out of the Company ' s reach for the foreseeable future . However , his sickness , which turned out to be smallpox , sharply intensified and eventually killed him on 22 or 23 January 1894 . With the king dead , Mjaan , the most senior of the " izinDuna " , took command of the Matabele . Mjaan was an old man , and his only son had been killed in the war . He wished to make peace . In late February 1894 , he convened an " indaba " at which he and his contemporaries met with James Dawson , a trader known to them for many years , who offered the olive branch on behalf of the Company . The " izinDuna " unanimously accepted . They also told the trader what had happened to the Shangani Patrol , and led him to the battle site to survey it , as well as to examine and identify the largely skeletonised bodies of the soldiers , which still lay where they had fallen . Dawson was the first non - Matabele to learn of the last stand . Cultural impact , burial and memorial . News of the patrol ' s fate was quickly relayed from Rhodesia to South Africa , and then on to the rest of the British Empire and the world . In England , a patriotic play overtly influenced by the incident , " Cheer , Boys , Cheer " , was written by Augustus Harris , Cecil Raleigh and Henry Hamilton , and staged at the Theatre Royal , Drury Lane , starting in September 1895 . The show tells the story of a young colonial army officer in South Africa and Rhodesia , culminating in the third act with a fictionalised account of the First Matabele War . This itself climaxes with a scene strongly reminiscent of Wilson ' s last stand . The production ran for nearly six months in London , and then toured the British provinces for more than two years , reportedly drawing large crowds . According to historian Neil Parsons , it contributed to the patrol " fast gain [ ing ] mythological status " . In historical terms , the Shangani Patrol subsequently became an integral part of Rhodesian identity , with Wilson and Borrow in particular woven into the national tapestry as heroic figures symbolising duty in the face of insuperable odds . Their last stand together became a kind of national myth , as Lewis Gann writes , " a glorious memory , [ Rhodesia ' s ] own equivalent of the bloody Alamo massacre and Custer ' s Last Stand in the American West " . In 1895 , 4 December was declared " Shangani Day " , an annual Rhodesian public holiday which endured until 1920 , when it was folded into Occupation Day , a national non - work day which commemorated several early colonial events together . Shangani Day remained part of the national calendar , however , and was still marked each year . The remains of the patrol ' s members were buried on 14 August 1894 , in the ruined city of Great Zimbabwe . Rhodes later wrote into his will that he wished to have the patrol re - interred alongside him at World ' s View , in the Matopos Hills , when he died ; this was done in 1904 , two years after Rhodes ' death . Also according to Rhodes ' wishes , a memorial to the Shangani Patrol was erected at World ' s View in July 1904 , and dedicated by Bishop Gaul of Mashonaland on 5 July 1905 . The monument , called the Shangani Memorial , is an oblong , flat - topped structure , about tall , made from granite from a nearby kopje . It was designed by Herbert Baker , and based on the Pedestal of Agrippa at the Athens Acropolis . On each of the memorial ' s four sides , members of the patrol are depicted in relief . The main inscription reads , " To Brave Men " , with a smaller dedication given beneath : " Erected to the enduring memory of Allan Wilson and his Men who fell in fight against the Matabele on the Shangani River December 4th , 1893 . There was no survivor " . The patrol ' s graves and the monument remain at World ' s View to this day . A short war film that dramatised the final engagement , " Major Wilson ' s Last Stand " , was released by Levi , Jones & Company studios in 1899 . A song about the events , " Shangani Patrol " , was written by the Rhodesian singer - songwriter John Edmond , and first recorded by the South African singer Nick Taylor in 1966 as the B - side for another Edmond composition , " The UDI Song " , about Rhodesia ' s 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence . The patriotic record topped the Rhodesian hit parade for four weeks . A historical war film , also called " Shangani Patrol " , was filmed on location and released in 1970 . Controversy . Lobengula ' s box of sovereigns . Soon following the end of the war , one of Lobengula ' s " izinDuna " told Dawson that just before Forbes ' column had reached the Shangani , two Matabele messengers , Petchan and Sehuloholu , had been given a box of gold sovereigns by Lobengula , and instructed to intercept the column before it reached the river . They were to tell the whites that the king admitted defeat and offered this tribute , totalling about £1 , 000 , on the condition that the column immediately turn back and cease harassing him . " Gold is the only thing that will stop the white men , " Lobengula reportedly concluded . According to the " inDuna " , Petchan and Sehuloholu reached the column on 2 December 1893 , the day before it reached the Shangani , and hid in the bush as it went by . They then caught up with it and gave the money and the message to two men in the rear guard . Dawson relayed this story to Bulawayo , where Company authorities made enquiries . No man who had been attached to the column corroborated the account . The Company thought it unlikely that a Matabele " inDuna " would simply invent a story such as this , however , and angrily speculated that if it were true , then negotiations with Lobengula might have been opened and the war ended before Wilson crossed the river , and the entire episode of the Shangani Patrol avoided ( though , as historian Robert Cary writes , this surmision ignores the fact that Forbes had been ordered to capture Lobengula , not end the war ) . Lawyers appointed by the Company launched a formal investigation early in 1894 . Two officers ' batmen , William Charles Daniel and James Wilson ( no relation to Allan Wilson ) , soon became prime suspects , with Daniel arraigned as the senior instigator . They were accused of accepting the gold from Petchan and Sehuloholu , then keeping it for themselves and not passing on the message . Both men denied all charges . Neither Daniel nor Wilson had been members of the rear guard on 2 December , though either or both could have been there at some point during the day . No Matabele witness recognised either of them at the court in Bulawayo , where the case was heard by the Resident Magistrate and four assessors . The evidence against the batmen was largely circumstantial : both had been seen to possess unusually large amounts of gold soon after the column ' s return , and both had since bought farming rights , paying cash . Daniel said he had won the money in his possession playing cards , while Wilson claimed to have brought his with him when he came to Rhodesia . Witnesses confirmed that there had been heavy gambling at Inyati camp , in which Daniel and Wilson had actively taken part , both possessing noticeable reserves in gold sovereigns . Sehuloholu claimed in his statement that both of the men he had met in the rear guard had fluently and perfectly spoken to him in Sindebele , but neither of the accused men knew the language , and the only member of the column who did at a fluent level was a medical orderly , who had never been near the rear guard . The prosecutor proposed that Sehuloholu could be exaggerating the standard of Sindebele spoken by the men he had met , pointing out that most of the phrases quoted were actually relatively basic , and did not imply a profound understanding of the language . Unable to definitely prove to the court where their money had come from , Daniel and Wilson were eventually found guilty , and sentenced to 14 years ' hard labour . However , the maximum term the Magistrate could legally impose was three months , and in 1896 they were released at the order of the High Commissioner for Southern Africa , Sir Henry Brougham Loch . The High Commissioner ' s legal team subsequently quashed the convictions altogether , saying that the evidence against Daniel and Wilson was not sufficiently conclusive . The existence of Lobengula ' s box of sovereigns was never proven either way , and the incident never explained beyond doubt . Burnham , Ingram and Gooding . The version of events recorded by history is based on the accounts of Burnham , Ingram and Gooding , the Matabele present at the battle ( particularly " inDuna " Mjaan ) , and the men of Forbes ' column . Burnham , Ingram and Gooding ' s stories closely corroborate each other ; their version of events was accepted as true by the Court of Inquiry at Bulawayo in December 1893 . First - hand Matabele accounts such as Mjaan ' s , which were first recorded during 1894 , appear to confirm the character of the break - out , saying that three of the white men they were fighting — including Burnham , whom several of them recognised — left during a lull in the battle , just after Wilson withdrew to his final position . While all of the direct evidence given by eyewitnesses supports the findings of the Court of Inquiry , some historians and writers debate whether or not Burnham , Ingram and Gooding really were sent back by Wilson to fetch help , and suggest that they might have simply deserted when the battle got rough . Proponents of this modern desertion theory frequently portray Burnham as a man who embellished facts and coerced some eyewitnesses into falsifying statements which they either later recanted or wished they had recanted . The earliest recording of this claim of desertion is in a letter written in 1935 by John Coghlan , a cousin of Southern Rhodesia ' s first Prime Minister , Charles Coghlan . John Coghlan wrote to a friend , John Carruthers , on 14 December that year that " a very reliable man informed me that Wools - Sampson told him " that Gooding had confessed on his deathbed ( in 1899 ) that he and the two Americans had not actually been despatched by Wilson , and had simply left on their own accord . This double hearsay confession , coming from an anonymous source , is not mentioned in Gooding ' s 1899 obituary , which instead recounts the events as generally recorded . Peter Emmerson , a Rhodesian historian and supporter of the desertion theory , asks why Wilson would have sent three of his men away at such a precarious moment . J P Lott , another historian , says that Wilson had already twice sent runners to Forbes the previous night , when he was already at very close quarters with the Matabele , with far fewer men , and surmises that it was not out of the ordinary for the major to do so again . John O ' Reilly , another Rhodesian historian , asks why Wilson sent Gooding back with the two Americans ; surely Burnham and Ingram , both seasoned scouts , were enough ? Gooding writes in his account that Wilson originally only asked Burnham to ride to Forbes , and that Captain Judd suggested to Wilson that Burnham should take two men with him . The Chief of Scouts requested Ingram , and Borrow asked Gooding to go too . Burnham also says that Borrow sent Gooding . Burnham , Ingram and Gooding each received the British South Africa Company Medal for their service in the First Matabele War , and all three subsequently served in the Second Matabele War of 1896 – 97 . Burnham proceeded to become a key figure for a number of commanding officers , including Frederick Carrington , Robert Baden - Powell , and Frederick Roberts . Carrington called him " the finest scout who ever scouted in Africa . He was my Chief of Scouts in ' 96 in Matabeleland and he was the eyes and ears of my force " . U . S . President Theodore Roosevelt also held Burnham in high regard , writing in 1901 : " He is a scout and a hunter of courage and ability , a man totally without fear , a sure shot , and a fighter . He is the ideal scout . " While fighting with the British Army in the Second Boer War , Burnham was adjudged to have shown exceptional heroism , and was decorated with the Distinguished Service Order , then Britain ' s second highest military honour . Notes and references . Footnotes Source notes Online sources Newspaper and journal articles Other sources Bibliography