An outwork of the Boer position had been carried, and the rumour of defeat and disaster had already spread through their ranks.

Braver men than the burghers have never lived, but they had reached the limits of human endurance, and a long experience of defeat in the field had weakened their nerve and lessened their morale.

They were no longer men of the same fibre as those who had crept up to the trenches of Spion Kop, or faced the lean warriors of Ladysmith on that grim January morning at Caesar's Camp.
Dutch tenacity would not allow them to surrender, and yet they realised how hopeless was the fight in which they were engaged.

Nearly fifteen thousand of their best men were prisoners, ten thousand at the least had returned to their farms and taken the oath.

Another ten had been killed, wounded, or incapacitated.