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Auction: 8029 - Soldiers' Rates of the BE - Gerald Sattin Collection
Lot: 28

Cape of Good Hope Military Mail 1878 (June) envelope "From No 820 Pte Matthew Branscombe" of the 2nd, Battalion, 3rd. Regiment (The Buffs) at Koksadt, the capital of East Griqualand, during the Gaika-Galeka Campaign, to a fellow soldier at Pietermaritzburg, Natal, countersigned by the Commanding Officer and bearing Cape 1d. red indistinctly cancelled and showing Kokstadt c.d.s. at left, the reverse with G.P.O. Natal c.d.s. (6.6); the envelope with small faults and flap missing though a rare item from this small campaign near the Basuto border. Photo Estimate £ 800-1,000 Note: The Buffs left Ireland for South Africa aboard the ill-fated transport "St. Lawrence" on 3rd. October 1876. The ship was badly holed after striking a rock on 8th. November in the shark-infested waters of Paternoster Bay, 90 miles north of Cape Town. The battalion, together with women and children were rowed ashore where they remained in squalid conditions until brought to Cape Town on 11th. November. The battalion was sent to Pietermaritzburg in March 1877 and remained there until April 1878. In that month the inhabitants of Kokstadt were alarmed at the threatening attitude of the neighbouring tribes and appealed for military protection. Lt. Col. Parnell with three companies of the battalion were ordered there and reached Kokstadt on 21st. April, just in time to disperse a large concentration of natives. The Buffs remained on garrison duty at Kokstadt until October provenance: Bill Hart, 1993

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£800