When
General Botha arrived in Natal in the first days of May he asked the
Standerton commando to return with him to the Free State. They flatly
refused to go unless they were first allowed to spend a week at their
homes, but Botha finally, after much begging, cajoling, and threatening,
induced the burghers to go immediately. The Commandant-General saw the men
board a train, and then sped joyously northward toward Pretoria and the
Free State in a special train. When he reached Pretoria Botha learned that
the Standerton commando followed him as far as Standerton station, and
then dispersed to their homes. His dismay was great; but he was not
discouraged, and several hours later he was at Standerton, riding from
farm to farm to gather the men. This work delayed his arrival in the Free
State two days, but he secured the entire commando, and went with it to
the front, where it served him valiantly.
The masterly retreat of the Boer forces northward along the railway and
across the Vaal River, and the many skirmishes and battles with which
Botha harassed the enemy's advance, were mere incidents in the
Commandant-General's work of those trying days. There were innumerable
instances not unlike that in connection with the Standerton commando, and,
in addition, there was the planning to prevent the large commandos in the
western part of the Transvaal, and Meyer's large force in the
south-eastern part, from being cut off from his own body of burghers.
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