Gen Piet Joubert: 200 Burghers Are All We Needed   

When the provisional peace protocol was signed, the English officers tried to disparage the Boer victory and to make us confess that we had suffered fearful losses and could, therefore, not have continued our resistance:

"How many did you have killed on the Nek?" one of them asked Joubert, confidently.

"I myself had one," answered Joubert,"and one wounded."

The officer laughed and maintained that he had seen more of our men killed with his own eyes:

"Very well," said Joubert, very angrily. "Do you go and dig one of them up and bring him here; and I promise you I'll eat him, skin and all."

A chaplain from Newcastle, on the other hand, expressed to me his regard for the Boers and his admiration of their courage. The officers standing near were meantime saying that the English had fought very bravely and shot down many Boers, until their ammunition gave out; then, of course, they had to give up the fight:

"Our fellows would let themselves be shot before handing over a cartridge."

I made no reply, but again turned to the chaplain and said:

"When you see Her Majesty, mind you tell her that she must give her soldiers a special reward for the care with which they guarded their ammunition supply; we found it on the hill, quite safely packed on the donkeys."

Wood himself put similar questions. He asked, among other things:

"What were the 200 men for whom you were sending to the Biggarsberg?"

"We heard that you were marching there with 12,000."

"And you sent your 200?"

"Yes, we had no more to send ; but I have seen that they would have been enough."

Source: Paul Kruger - His Memoirs