624 Private John Butler, (1873-27/8/1900). "provides his own horse"

Bald Hill Flat.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Mr John Butler, jun., Bald Hill Flat, has been accepted for the Otago and Southland Contingent, and provides his own horse and equipment.  -Tuapeka Times, 10/2/1900.

Mr John Butler received a wire from the Premier on Tuesday evening, to the effect that his son John was killed in action at Winberg, on the 27th August. He was one of the 3rd Contingent of Rough Riders, that left Canterbury on the Knight Templar under Major Jowsey. Mr Butler and family have the sympathy of the entire district in their sad bereavment. Mr Butler himself is progressing slowly. His is the second case within three months that has been compelled to go to Dunedin to get broken and dislocated bones attended to by Dunedin doctors.  -Dunstan Times, 7/9/1900.

John Butler left with New Zealand's 3rd Contingent and seems to have been in a unit named the Queenstown Rifle Volunteers, which is mentioned in an officer's memoirs of the time.

Our Head Quarters and A, F, G, H, and the Volunteer companies left Ventersburg Road station at six o'clock in the evening on the 25th of August by special train, arriving at Winburg a little after three o'clock; they detrained at once, and received orders to move at five o'clock with the Cameron Highlanders, the 39th Field Battery, and the 5th Mounted Infantry to relieve Colonel Ridley and the Queenstown Volunteers, about 120 men, who for three days had been surrounded at Helpmakaar Farm, some twelve miles to the north-east of Winburg. On arrival there it was found that the Boers, after summoning the garrison to surrender at seven o'clock that morning, had made off; so the force, together with the beleaguered garrison, returned to Winburg, arriving there about seven in the evening, and bivouacking to the east of the railway station.  - Two Years On Trek.  Lt. Col. Du Moulin.

John, therefore, was at Winburg when it was attacked by South African forces who were under the impression that most of the garrison had departed.  

"The Boers, it was ascertained, had tapped the telegraph wire, and intercepted an order to General Bruce Hamilton, to withdraw his troops to Ventersburg Road; so, when three trains containing Yeomanry, which had come in during the night of the 26th, steamed out again in the early morning of the 27th, the Boers mistook these for trains containing General Bruce Hamilton's force, and attacked the town, expecting it to be held by only the usual small garrison." - Two Years On Trek.  Lt. Col. Du Moulin.

Due to the British Army's greater numbers when attacked, casualties were light.  One was John Butler.

Alexandra Cemetery.