South Africa at War: The Drummer Boy of Magersfontein

At the Burgher Monument at Magersfontein, amid the graves of hundreds of Boers, stands a headstone "In memory of a young unknown Scottish bugler who died of wounds." Why was there a Scottish lad buried with the Boer dead? And why was he unknown? 
This question went unanswered for many years. The Highland Brigade lost over seven hundred men in the battle of Magersfontein - and yet this Scottish bugler was not buried among them, nor at the Highlanders' monument in Kimberley, nor did any one even seem to know who he was.

No rank of "bugler" existed in the British army. But by the time of Magersfontein, drummer boys had begun using bugles on the battlefield instead of drums. To the Boers that buried the boy, he would have seemed to be a bugler, but was in fact a Drummer by rank.

When the matter was eventually investigated, eighty years after the war, five drummer boys of the Scottish regiments were found to have died at Magersfontein. Of these, four graves were accounted for. But one, a drummer of the Seaforth Highlanders, was at first officially reported as "Missing," and later, "Killed in Action." The location of the grave was not recorded.
And so the "young unknown Scottish bugler" was, in fact, a young Scottish Drummer by the name of William Milne. It's unknown how old he was, but considering that drummer boys could join the army at the age of 12, and the Boers, used to their sons fighting from even younger ages, specifically described him as "young", it would seem likely that he was only in his early teens.

The battle of Magersfontein was one of the earliest of the Boer War - and was to become infamous as one of three battles to make up "Black Week", a week in which the British sufffered heavy losses in their attempts to relieve the towns of Kimberley and Ladysmith. Kimberley had been under siege for nearly two months already, and though the battle at Modder River had pushed the Boers back, it had been a gruelling battle for the Highlanders in sweltering heat and terrible conditions. General Methuen, wounded himself, knew that his men needed to rest and recover before continuing. So it was ten days later that the Highland Brigade took up their positions six miles away from the Modder River, at the Magersfontein range. 
The battle was one distastrous mistake after another. Upon arrival, General Methuen was convinced that the Boers lay entrenched on the sides of the hill. He ordered a heavy artillery bombardment, and and two hours of intense shelling followed, one of the biggest displays of artillery in its time. One sergeant, watching the bombardment, noticed one shell fall short of the range of kopjes and throw up dust of a certain colour. "There must be trenches there," he said. But no one paid attention to him, and the attack on the sides of the range continued. As it happened, he was right. The Boer trenches lay at the base of the kopjes, not on them, and they had no intention of revealing their position by returning fire. Methuen confidently stated that surely nothing could have survived; meanwhile, the total damage caused by the artillery attack was three Boers wounded. Now effectively alerted of an oncoming British attack, the Boers sat back and waited. 
A storm blew up that night, and the temperature dropped sharply. Chilled, soaked, and having had no food since midday, the Highlanders endured the long wait till midnight. Then, at 12:30am on the 11th of December 1899, they set out in the driving rain, most of them with a very vague, confused idea of where they were going or what they were doing, some even under the impression it was just a manouvre and there would be no fighting. 
It was hard going, but at last in the early hours of the morning the storm passed and they were only a few hundred yards away from the hill. And then, as one of the sergeants put it, "the front of the hill was lit up as if someone had turned on a million electric lights." A lieutenant later said that hailstones "would have been a trifle to it." It was also described as a "perfect sheet of flame", and the worst that the British had ever yet faced. A terrible panic folllowed, with confused and contradictory orders making matters worse, but a few of the companies recovered and tried to storm the trenches, among them some of the Seaforths. But because of the oncoming daylight, they were forced to stop a few hundred yards away, totally isolated from the rest of the brigade. And there they stayed for nine hours in the blazing sun, with no water or ammunition, barely able to move for fear that they would become a target. As had happened at Modder River, the Highlanders lying face down on the ground were exposed to terrible sunburn on the back of their knees. When finally relief arrived from the British guns, these men were caught in the crossfire and several of them were killed or wounded by their own gunners behind them. By the end of that day, only three of that detachment escaped unhurt. 
Other parts of the attack had fared even worse. Many of the other detachments that attempted to storm the trenches were completely wiped out. In total, nearly a thousand British solders died that day. 

An observation balloon sent up by General Methuen in the afternoon.

The panic was largely ended by an Argyll pipe-major beginning to play, and finally the men rallied. But the confusion continued, and men of all the regiments were chaotically mixed together. 
In the afternoon, a retreat was ordered. The Boers, seeing the withdrawal, finally left their trenches and stormed the retreating brigades, sending heavy fire after them. At first deliberate and orderly, the retreat soon turned into a panicked flight. The British only stopped over half a mile away, well out of rifle range, and then the soldiers refused to go back until they had been given food and water. The wagons were brought, and this proved to be the final great mistake of the battle. The Boers, presented with a target of the men all centred around the wagons, opened fire with their cannons for the first time. While the shell fell a few yards too far away to cause any damage, it was too much for the men. Nothing the officers could say, nor any attempts to rally them, could prevent their total retreat. 

But William Milne was left behind. Somewhere during one of the failed attacks - no one knows when or how - he had been captured by the Boers. He was apparently so badly wounded that they carried him back to their trenches and cared for him as one of their own. But to no avail - William died shortly after the battle. 

On the morning of the next day, Boer general Piet Cronje sent water to the wounded men of the Highland Brigade, agreeing to an armistice and offering fifty of his own men to help bury the British dead. But William Milne's body was not returned to his regiment for burial. For though he died in the ememy camp, far from his fellow soldiers,  the Boers were so struck with his courage and youth that they gave him a full burial and a headstone, as they would for one of their own men. Drummer William Milne was buried with the Boers near the foot of the hill at Magersfontein. ​

The monument at Magersfontein to the Highlanders.

The bodies of the soldiers and burghers who died at Magersfontein no longer lie where they were buried. In 1969, a Burgher Monument was erected and the Boer remains reinterred; similarly, the bodies of the British soldiers were collected from Magersfontein, Modder River, and the surrounding areas, and reinterred at Kimblerley.
William Milne's original headstone has been lost,  but a 1963 replacement headstone erected over his original grave with the same wording was later moved to the entrance of the Burgher monument. 
And it is at the Burgher monument, among the Boer remains, that the body of William Milne has its final resting place.

​"Scotland is poorer in men ​but richer in heroes". So reads the Highland Monument at Magersfontein, and of William Milne, it proved to be all too true. But at the same time, his death and burial stand as a symbol of the reconciliation that, even in the face of such a battle, proved at last to be possible. 
​~Lydia

P.S. I first heard the amazing story of William Milne through the song below. It tells the story in simple but memorable words, and I highly recommend giving it a listen.