Battle of Intombe The Battle of Intombe ( also Intombi or Intombi River Drift ) was a small action fought on 12 March 1879 , between Zulu forces and British soldiers defending a supply convoy . Prelude . The village of Lüneberg , situated at in the disputed territories to the north of Zululand , had been laager ed by its white settlers ever since the Anglo - Zulu War had begun . The Zulus posed a serious threat to the area ( as indicated by a vicious night attack on the area on the night of 10th / 11 February ) . Fearing a repeat of the attack , the British dispatched four companies of the 80th Regiment under Major Charles Tucker to garrison Lüneberg . In late February 1879 , a convoy of eighteen wagons carrying 90 , 000 rounds of ammunition and other supplies was sent from Lydenburg to re - supply the garrison , and from the Transvaal border was escorted by a single company . By 5 March , the convoy was still 8 miles from Lüneberg , having been hampered by rains which caused the rivers to swell and the ground to soften . Fearing a Zulu attack , Major Tucker sent an order for the company commander to reach Lüneberg that night ' at any cost ' . The company commander took this literally and abandoned the wagons and proceeded on . The escort had succeeded in having six wagons reach the opposite bank of the Intombe , four miles from Lüneberg . Six other wagons were three miles further back . On 6 March , a party dispatched by Tucker only succeeded in pulling free a wagon which was trapped in a drift , returning to the town that night . On 7 March , Tucker dispatched Captain David Moriarty with a hundred men to gather together all the wagons and laager them on the bank of the Intombe , and then gave orders for them to wait until the river went down . On 11 March , Tucker inspected the laager at the river but found it to be poorly constructed , not being impressed with the inverted ' V ' shape in that the wagons were arranged , with the base at the river . The river however , had gone down and there was a gap of several yards between the base and the river . Other flaws in the arrangement were viewed by Tucker as affording no ' protection whatever in the event of the Zulus attacking in numbers ' . Furthermore , the garrison was weakened by being divided by a river with thirty of its number laagered on the other bank . The battle . On the night of 11 March 1879 , two sentries were stationed 20 yards from the laager , however their vision range was only 50 yards due to a rise to their front . At 3 . 30 am on 12 March , a shot was heard close to the camp , however the men returned to their beds after Moriarty decided that it was nothing . An hour and a half later , a sentry on the far bank saw to his horror , through a clearing in the mist , a huge mass of Zulus advancing silently on the camp . ' He at once fired his rifle and gave the alarm , ' Tucker recorded . ' The sentries on the other side did the same . Of course the men were up in a moment , some men sleeping under the wagons and some in the tents ; but before the men were in their positions the Zulus had fired a volley , thrown down their guns . . . and were around the wagons and on top of them , and even inside with the cattle , almost instantly . So quickly did they come , there was really no defence on the part of our men ; it was simply each man fighting for his life , and in a few minutes all was over , our men being simply slaughtered . ' Being one of the first to die , Moriarty was struck in the back with an assegai as he charged out of his tent , shooting dead three Zulus with a revolver . He was shot while trying to climb the laager . His last words were ' I am done ; fire away , boys . ' However , few managed to put up any resistance , sharing a similar fate . The few survivors fled into the river , the troops on the far bank providing as much covering fire as possible . Upon what survivors they could see reaching the Lüneberg side of the river , Lieutenant Henry Harward , Moriarty ' s second - in - command , gave the order to withdraw upon seeing several hundred Zulus crossing the river . No sooner had he done this , when he grabbed the first horse he spotted and fled , abandoning his men . This left the survivors under the command of Colour - Sergeant Anthony Clarke Booth . For three miles , the Zulus pursued the group of around forty survivors . Whenever they drew closer , several of the bolder troops , along with Booth stopped to deliver a volley , which dispersed their pursuers . Four men who split up from the group were killed . The others made it to Raby ' s Farm , around two miles from Lüneberg where the Zulus broke off pursuit . The wagons were looted and all the ammunition and supplies were carried off by the Zulus or destroyed . Booth was rewarded with the Victoria Cross . Aftermath . Harward arrived at Lüneberg and frantically informed Tucker of what had transpired . The Major quickly ordered all his mounted troops to accompany him to the camp , and ordered a further 150 - foot soldiers to follow . Tucker and his mounted force spotted ' dense masses ' of Zulus leaving the scene of the battle as they approached . At the camp , they discovered one soldier who had made a miraculous escape by being carried down the river and then making his way back to the camp . He and two African wagon drivers were the only survivors they found . The result of Intombe was a far cry from that of Rorke ' s Drift . At Intombe a force of some 500 to 800 Zulu were able to overrun and defeat over 100 British regular infantry in laager in short order while at Rorke ' s Drift over 100 British regular infantry were able to stand off 3 , 000 to 4 , 000 Zulu from behind hastily constructed , but sturdy , fortifications for nearly a day . Intombe demonstrated the vulnerability of the slow and awkward supply lines that the British army was utterly dependent on . If the Zulus continued to exploit this vulnerability any and all invading British columns could be halted or turned back . Amazingly , Harward escaped the charges brought against him for deserting his men . In any case , his career was over and he resigned his commission in May 1880 .