At break of day the Boers discovered that their position had been rendered untenable and withdrew, leaving the road to Lydenburg clear to Buller.
Hamilton and he occupied the town upon the 6th.

The Boers had split into two parties, the larger one with the guns falling back upon Kruger's Post, and the others retiring to Pilgrim's Rest.

Amid cloud-girt peaks and hardly passable ravines the two long-enduring armies still wrestled for the final mastery.
To the north-east of Lydenburg, between that town and Spitzkop, there is a formidable ridge called the Mauchberg, and here again the enemy were found to be standing at bay.

They were even better than their word, for they had always said that they would make their last stand at Lydenburg, and now they were making one beyond it.

But the resistance was weakening.