The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period: Volume II: The Hauhau Wars, (1864–72)
(Chapter 26): THE RETRAT FROM MOTUROA (1868)
(Chapter 26): THE RETRAT FROM MOTUROA (1868)
Colonel Whitmore wrote as follows of the retreat from Moturoa, West Coast, in 1868:—
“The enemy pressed us very hard, dashing in with tomahawks whenever men fell, but recoiling always from the determined front shown and the terrible rapidity with which our breech-loaders enabled the men to fire. On these occasions, which were many along our whole front, the men stood up and fired volley after volley such as I had never before heard in bush fighting. Their resolution may be judged from the fact that the enemy had once seized a man and were tomahawking him, when the man rushed back and rescued him. He is savagely wounded, but he has not one gunshot-wound about him.”