First Matabele War in 1893, holding his Winchester model 1873 .44WCF rifle;
Maurice Gifford|alt=Photo taken in 1893 of three Bulawayo field scouts kneeling in front of their horses. Bob Bain on the left, Burnham in the middle, Maurice Gifford and his dog on the right. Burnham is dressed in his Arizona clothes and is holding his Winchester model 1873 .44WCF rifle Burnham, along with his wife and son, was trekking the 1,000 miles (1,609 km) north from Durban to Matabeleland with an American
buckboard and six donkeys when war broke out between Rhodes's
British South Africa Company and the
Matabele (or Ndebele) King
Lobengula in late 1893. He signed up to scout for the company immediately on reaching Matabeleland, and joined the fighting.
Leander Starr Jameson, the company's Chief Magistrate in Mashonaland, hoped to defeat the Matabele quickly by capturing Lobengula at his royal town of
Bulawayo, and so sent Burnham and a small group of scouts ahead to report on the situation there. While on the outskirts of town they watched as the Matabele burned down and destroyed everything in sight. By the time the company troops had arrived in force, Lobengula and his warriors had fled and there was little left of old Bulawayo. The company then moved into the remains of Bulawayo, established a base, and sent out patrols to find Lobengula. The most famous of these patrols was the
Shangani Patrol, led by Major
Allan Wilson and the man he chose as his Chief of Scouts, Fred Burnham.
Shangani Patrol episode. Burnham
(left, on horse) kills a Matabele warrior.|alt=A black-and-white sketch depicting a southern African battle fought amidst long grass in a thick wood. The image focuses on two figures in the foreground: a white soldier on horseback (on the left) and a black warrior on foot (on the right). The white man has apparently just fired his rifle at the warrior, who is thrown back in his stride by the shot, his spear falling from his right hand. More soldiers and warriors can be seen in the background. Jameson sent a column of soldiers under Major
Patrick Forbes to locate and capture Lobengula. The column camped on the south bank of the
Shangani River about north-east of the village of Lupane on the evening of December 3, 1893. The next day, late in the afternoon, a dozen men under the command of Major Wilson were sent across the river to patrol the area. The Wilson Patrol came across a group of Matabele women and children who claimed to know Lobengula's whereabouts. Burnham, who served as the lead scout of the Wilson Patrol, sensed a trap and advised Wilson to withdraw, but Wilson ordered his patrol to advance. Soon afterwards, the patrol found the king and Wilson sent a message back to the
laager requesting reinforcements. Forbes, however, was unwilling to set off across the river in the dark, so he sent only 20 more men, under the command of Henry Borrow, to reinforce Wilson's patrol. Forbes intended to send the main body of troops and artillery across the river the following morning; however, the main column was ambushed by Matabele warriors and delayed. Wilson's patrol too came under attack, but the Shangani River had swollen and there was now no possibility of retreat. In desperation, Wilson sent Burnham and two other men, Pearl "Pete" Ingram (a
Montana cowboy) and William Gooding (an Australian), to cross the Shangani River, find Forbes, and bring reinforcements. In spite of a shower of bullets and spears, the three made it to Forbes, but the battle raging there was just as intense as the one they had left, and there was no hope of anyone reaching Wilson in time. As Burnham loaded his rifle to beat back the Matabele warriors, he quietly said to Forbes, "I think I may say that we are the sole survivors of that party." Wilson, Borrow, and their men were indeed surrounded by hundreds of Matabele warriors; escape was impossible, and all were killed. Colonial-era histories called this the Shangani Patrol, and hailed Wilson and Borrow as national heroes. Their last stand together became a kind of
national myth, as Lewis Gann writes, "a glorious memory, [Rhodesia's] own equivalent of the bloody
Alamo massacre and
Custer's Last Stand in the
American West". The version of events recorded by history is based on the accounts of Burnham, Ingram and Gooding, the Matabele present at the battle (particularly
inDuna Mjaan), and the men of Forbes' column. While all of the
direct evidence given by eyewitnesses supports the findings of the Court of Inquiry, some historians and writers debate whether or not Burnham, Ingram and Gooding really were sent back by Wilson to fetch help, and suggest that they might have simply
deserted when the battle got rough. The earliest recording of this claim of desertion is long after the event in a letter written in 1935 by John Coghlan to a friend, John Carruthers, that "a very reliable man informed me that Wools-Sampson told him" that Gooding had confessed on his deathbed that he and the two Americans had not actually been dispatched by Wilson, and had simply left on their own accord. This
double hearsay confession, coming from an anonymous source, is not mentioned in Gooding's 1899 obituary, which instead recounts the events as generally recorded. Several well-known writers have used the Coghlan letter, as shaky as it is, as clearance to create hypothetical evidence in an attempt to challenge and revise the historical record. All of the officers and troopers of Forbes' column had high praise for Burnham's actions, and none reported any doubts about his conduct even decades later. One member of the column, Trooper M E Weale, told the
Rhodesia Herald in 1944 that once Commandant Piet Raaff took over command from the disgraced Major Forbes it was greatly due to Burnham's good scouting that the column managed to get away: "I have always felt that the honours were equally divided between these two men, to whom we owed our lives on that occasion." For his service in the war, Burnham was presented the
British South Africa Company Medal, a gold watch, and a share of a 300-acre (120 ha) tract of land in Matabeleland. It was here that Burnham uncovered many artifacts in the huge granite ruins of the ancient civilization of
Great Zimbabwe. Matabeleland became part of the
Company domain, which was formally named
Rhodesia, after Rhodes, in 1895. Matabeleland and Mashonaland became collectively called
Southern Rhodesia.
Northern Rhodesia exploration In 1895, Burnham oversaw and led the
Northern Territories British South Africa Exploration Company expedition that first established for the British South Africa Company that major copper deposits existed north of the
Zambezi in
North-Eastern Rhodesia. Along the
Kafue River, Burnham saw many similarities to copper deposits he had worked in the United States, and he encountered native peoples wearing copper bracelets. After this expedition he was elected a fellow of the
Royal Geographical Society. Later, the British South Africa Company built the mining towns of the
Copperbelt and a railroad to transport the ore through
Portuguese Mozambique.
Second Matabele War In March 1896, the Matabele again rose up against the British South Africa Company administration in what became called the
Second Matabele War or the First
Chimurenga (liberation war).
Mlimo, the Matabele spiritual leader, is credited with fomenting much of the anger that led to this confrontation. The colonists' defenses in Matabeleland were undermanned due to the ill-fated
Jameson Raid into the
South African Republic (or Transvaal), and in the first few months of the war alone hundreds of white settlers were killed. With few troops to support them, the settlers quickly built a laager in the centre of Bulawayo on their own and mounted patrols under such figures as Burnham,
Robert Baden-Powell, and
Frederick Selous. The Matabele retreated into their stronghold of the
Matopos Hills near Bulawayo, a region that became the scene of the fiercest fighting between Matabele warriors and settler patrols. It was also during this war that two scouts of very different backgrounds, Burnham and Baden-Powell, would first meet and discuss ideas for training youth that would eventually become the plan for the program and the code of honor for the
Boy Scouts.
Assassination of Mlimo The turning point in the war came when Burnham and Bonar Armstrong, a company native commissioner, found their way through the Matopos Hills to a
sacred cave not many miles from the
Mangwe district, to a sanctuary then known only to the Matabele where Mlimo had been hiding. Not far from the cave was a village (now gone) of about 100 huts filled with many warriors. The two men tethered their horses to a thicket and crawled on their bellies, screening their slow, cautious movements by means of branches held before them. Once inside the cave, they waited until Mlimo entered. Mlimo was said to be about 60 years old, with very dark skin, sharp-featured; American news reports of the time described him as having a cruel, crafty look. Burnham and Armstrong waited until Mlimo entered the cave and started his dance of immunity, at which point Burnham shot Mlimo just below the heart, killing him. Burnham and Armstrong leapt over the dead Mlimo and ran down a trail toward their horses. The warriors in the village nearby picked up their arms and searched for the attackers; to distract them, Burnham set fire to some of their huts. The two men escaped and rode back to Bulawayo. Shortly after, Cecil Rhodes walked unarmed into the Matabele stronghold and made peace with the rebels, ending the Second Matabele War.
Klondike Gold Rush With the Matabele wars over, Burnham decided it was time to leave Africa and move on to other adventures. The family returned to California. Soon after, Fred traveled to Alaska and the
Yukon to prospect in the
Klondike Gold Rush, taking with him his eldest son Roderick, who was then 12 years old. On hearing of the
Spanish–American War, Burnham rushed home to volunteer his services, but the war had ended before he could get to the fighting. Burnham returned to the Klondike having played no part in the war. Colonel
Theodore Roosevelt regretted this as much as Burnham and paid him a great tribute in his book.
Second Boer War by King
Edward VII. The black armband was worn in mourning for the recent death of
Queen Victoria. London, 1901.|alt=Photo of Burnham taken in 1901 in London after his investiture with the cross of the Distinguished Service Order by King Edward VII. He is dressed in British Army uniform and standing at attention, facing right. On his left arm is a black armband worn in mourning for the recent death of Queen Victoria. He is wearing his stetson hat and a sword on his left side. He sports a large handlebar mustache. The
Second Boer War (October 1899 – May 1902) was fought between the British and two independent
Boer republics, the South African Republic and the
Orange Free State, partly the result of long-simmering strife between them. It was directly caused by each side's desire to control the lucrative
Witwatersrand gold mines in the Transvaal. Field Marshal
Frederick Roberts, one of the
British Army's most successful commanders of the 19th century, was appointed to take overall command of British forces, relieving General
Redvers Buller, following a number of Boer successes in the early weeks of the war, including the
Siege of Mafeking, in which Baden-Powell, his small regiment of men, and the townspeople had been besieged by thousands of Boer troops since the conflict began. Roberts asked General
Frederick Carrington, who had commanded the British forces in Matabeleland three years earlier, whom he should appoint as his Chief of Scouts in South Africa. Carrington had selected Burnham for this role and advised Roberts to do the same, describing Burnham as "the finest scout who ever scouted in Africa." Roberts sent for Burnham soon after arriving in South Africa on the
RMS Dunottar Castle. The American scout was prospecting near
Skagway, Alaska, when he received the following telegram in January 1900: "Lord Roberts appoints you on his personal staff as Chief of Scouts. If you accept, come at once the quickest way possible."
Cape Town is at the opposite end of the globe from the Klondike, so Burnham left immediately departing on the very same boat that had brought him the telegram. In an unusual step for a foreigner, Burnham received a command post from Roberts and the British Army rank of captain. Burnham reached the front just before the
Battle of Paardeberg (February 1900). During the war, Burnham spent much time behind the Boer lines gathering information and blowing up railway bridges and tracks. He was captured twice (escaping both times), and also temporarily disabled at one point by near-fatal wounds. Burnham was first captured during the fighting at
Sanna's Post in the Orange Free State. He gave himself up in order to obtain information on the enemy, which he did, and then he escaped from his guards and succeed in reaching British occupied
Bloemfontein safely after two days and nights on the run. The second time he was captured was while trying to warn a British column approaching
Thaba' Nchu. He came upon a group of Boers hiding on the banks of the river, toward which the British were even then advancing. Cut off from his own side, Burnham chose to signal the approaching soldiers even though it would expose him to capture. With a red kerchief, Burnham signaled the soldiers to turn back, but the column paid no attention and plodded steadily on into the ambush, while Burnham was at once taken prisoner. In the fight that followed, Burnham pretended to receive a wound in the knee, limping heavily and groaning with pain. He was placed in a wagon with the officers who really were wounded and who, in consequence, were not closely guarded. Later that evening, Burnham slipped over the driver's seat, dropped between the two wheels of the wagon, lowered himself, and fell between the legs of the oxen on his back in the road. In an instant, the wagon had passed over him safely, and while the dust still hung above the trail he rolled rapidly over into the ditch at the side of the road and lay motionless. It was four days before he was able to re-enter the British lines, during which time he had been lying in the open
veld. He had subsisted on one biscuit and two handfuls of "mielies" (i.e., maize). }} On June 2, 1900, during the British march on Pretoria, Burnham was wounded, almost fatally. He was on a mission to cut off the flow of Boer gold and supplies to and from the sea and to halt the transportation of British prisoners of war out of Pretoria. He scouted alone far to the east behind enemy lines trying to identify the best choke point along the
Pretoria–
Delagoa Bay railway line. He came upon an underpass of a railway bridge, an ideal location to disrupt the trains, but was immediately surrounded by a party of Boers. Burnham instantly fled and he had almost escaped when his horse was shot and fell, knocking him senseless and pinning him under its dead body. It was night and he was already far away when his horse was shot, so the Boer troopers apparently did not check to see if Burnham had been injured or killed. When he awoke hours later, Burnham was alone and in a dazed state having sustained serious injuries. In spite of his acute agony, Burnham proceeded to creep back to the railway, placed his charges, and blew up the line in two places. He then crept on his hands and knees to an empty animal enclosure to avoid capture and stayed there for two days and nights insensible. The next day, Burnham heard fighting in the distance so he crawled in that direction. By this time he was indifferent as to the source of the gunshots and by chance it was a British patrol that found him. Once in Pretoria the surgeons discovered that Burnham had torn apart his stomach muscles and burst a blood-vessel. His very survival was due only to the fact that he had been without food or water for three days. Burnham's injuries were so serious that he was ordered to England by Lord Roberts. Two days before leaving for London, he was promoted to the rank of major, having received letters of commendation or congratulations from Baden-Powell, Rhodes, and Field Marshal Roberts. On his arrival in England, Burnham was commanded to dine with
Queen Victoria and to spend the night at
Osborne House. A few months later, after the Queen's death, King
Edward VII personally presented Burnham with the
Queen's South Africa Medal with four bars for the battles at
Driefontein (March 10, 1900),
Johannesburg (May 31, 1900),
Paardeberg (February 17–26, 1900), and
Cape Colony (October 11, 1899 – May 31, 1902), in addition to the cross of the
Distinguished Service Order, the second highest decoration in the British Army, for his heroism during the "victorious" march to Pretoria (June 2–5, 1900). The King also made his British Army appointment and rank permanent, in spite of his U.S. citizenship. Burnham received the highest awards of any American who served in the Second Boer War. Following his investiture, the British press hailed him as: "The King of Army Scouts". =="Father of Scouting"==