Our latest scholarship recipient, Joan Cianciolo at the Sconce with Lindy. December 5, 2025
Firepower
In studying into the background material for the forthcoming Babamkulu Enterprise in Africa next year, I have gone rather deeply into the two startling British reverses in 1881 at Laing’s Nek and Majuba Hill. (We plan to visit the sites next May.) These two incidents took place on adjoining terrain within three days of each other and point to lessons which should have been learned a century ago, but still have not got across to many people who should know about them.
Consider the “butcher’s bill.” At Laing’s Nek the British attacked a Boer defensive position at a crest of a saddle (nek is what we would call a saddle in the American West) with about 450 men, following a small but violent artillery preparation. They were repulsed with a loss of 150 dead – against 14 for the Boers. On the occasion immediately following, the British seized Majuba Hill by means of a night march involving something over 500 soldiers. In the morning, they were thrown off the hill by a Boer force of about the same size. In this action the British lost 280 dead, including their commanding general. The Boers lost one man, plus another who died some days later of his wounds.
10/31/2025
Scholarship recipients Tawny Basso and Jan Martin with Lindy at the Sconce.
Our Foundation has a dedicated bench at the Halter Center shooting facility – part of Hillsdale College in Michigan.
Board members Rish Alcaro, Il Ling New and Lindy Wisdom checked it out on a recent visit
`Tis the season to be jolly, so let us make every effort – despite the disgusting situations we have got ourselves into. People get the government they deserve, and we Americans voted in the current administration back in November of last year. We hope we are satisfied.
However, it does no good to complain. The place to do our complaining is at the polls. At home now and among friends, we should all strive to develop the maximum amount of good cheer in the places where it will do the most good.
“Hark the Herald Angels Sing!”
Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries Vol.1 No.10 December 1993
Our recent comments about various battlegrounds in Southern Africa have been widely misunderstood, which is, of course, my fault in that I did not make the matter clear. Marksmanship had little or nothing to do with the outcome of the actions at Isandhlwana or Rorke’s Drift, and the astounding victory of the Boers at Blood River was not a matter of marksmanship, but rather one of gun handling and fire discipline. The places where marksmanship was indeed the issue were the parallel battles of Laing’s Nek and Majuba Hill. In those actions the farmers hit what they shot at, …