ANGLO-ZULU WAR, RORKE'S DRIFT & CETAWAYO

Diary of Major Henry Sparke Stabb, deputy assistant quartermaster-general of the 2nd Division, 32nd (Duke of Cornwall's) light Infantry (later staff officer to Colonel Whitehead), written in pencil in a field notebook, Durban to Fort Victoria, 14 June to 3 September 1879: '6.20. 2 LARGE BODIES OF ZULUS SEEN... 9.40 ZULUS IN FULL RETREAT': An eyewitness account of the battle of Ulundi, an encounter with Cetawayo and a visit to Rorke's Drift six months after the famous defence.

Footnotes

'6.20. 2 LARGE BODIES OF ZULUS SEEN... 9.40 ZULUS IN FULL RETREAT': An eyewitness account of the battle of Ulundi, an encounter with Cetawayo and a visit to Rorke's Drift six months after the famous defence.

The battle of Ulundi was the last major battle of the Anglo-Zulu War and the action which effectively broke the military power of the Zulu nation. As described in detail here, the British troops abandoned their usual 'thin red line' and formed themselves into a square formation with mounted troops covering the sides and rear. The Zulu regiments were therefore obliged to charge directly into "heavy and continuous fire" from rifles and shells, and could not get within striking distance, fleeing, as Stabb describes, to high ground where they were overcome. Chelmsford's men razed the royal kraal of Ulundi to the ground and forced the Zulu King Cetawayo to flee. On 29th August Stabb writes that he had word that Cetawayo had been captured, news which was apparently received with relief by his own people – as he notes "Prisoners say that Zulus are utterly demoralized... Everybody at Kraals seemed pleased when we told them of it saying 'we may now plough again'...". Two days later he received the King himself - "In evening Cetywayo came in under escort...passed night here... very dignified and collected – Fine, kingly looking man with very good eye, only about 45 years old..." and recounts an amusing retort from Cetawayo to the British soldiers gazing at him, "What are they looking at, a big fat man, only I have eaten bigger & larger ones..."

On his retreat from Ulundi, Stabb takes the opportunity to visit Rorke's Drift, a mere six months after the battle there; "Saw many skeletons of men (principally Zulus & natives) & horses, with no end of boxes, litter, tents, waggons, baggage, stores, Rocket shells etc still lying about... place very similar to description – kopjie 20000 yds in front of hill; high ground to left... Found...cap with badge of 24th which later carried away as trophy – Piles of letters & books torn Matthew bibles & prayer books all lying about... could only detect place of 2 graves... tools of all sorts, & shields in abundance but no assegais lying about..."

Stabb's last entry is on 3rd September 1879, shortly before he left Fort Victoria ("...dined & had my 2 remaining bottles of claret... disturbed night."). He was mentioned in dispatches and received the medal with clasps for his services in the Zulu War and in 1880 commanded the party that erected a memorial cross on the site of the death of Prince Louis Napoleon in June 1879 (he notes in our diary that he "passed dead Zulu girl about 2 miles beyond spot where Prince [Louis Napoleon] was killed, [and] saw place where occurrence took place"). He died in 1888 as Officer Commanding the Troops in Natal and Zululand. The notebook has remained in the family until now. It was digitised in 2019 by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Arts & Culture Museum Service and a typescript is held in the Johannesberg Public Library (Strange Collection MSA535). See also Major Henry Stabb, To the Victoria Falls via Matabeleland, ed. Edward C. Tabler, 1967.