e more effective would his guns be. For these or other reasons
he determined upon a frontal attack on the formidable Boer position, and
he moved out of Chieveley Camp for that purpose at daybreak on Friday,
December 15th.

The force which General Buller led into action was the finest which any
British general had handled since the battle of the Alma. Of infantry
he had four strong brigades: the 2nd (Hildyard's) consisting of the 2nd
Devons, the 2nd Queen's or West Surrey, the 2nd West Yorkshire, and
the 2nd East Surrey; the 4th Brigade (Lyttelton's) comprising the 2nd
Cameronians, the 3rd Rifles, the 1st Durhams, and the 1st Rifle Brigade;
the 5th Brigade (Hart's) with the 1st Inniskilling Fusiliers, the 1st
Connaught Rangers, 2nd Dublin Fusiliers, and the Border Regiment, this
last taking the place of the 2nd Irish Rifles, who were with Gatacre.
There remained the 6th Brigade (Barton's), which included the 2nd Royal
Fusiliers, the 2nd Scots Fusiliers, the 1st Welsh Fusiliers, and the 2nd
Irish Fusiliers--in all about 16,000 infantry. The mounted men, who were
commanded by Lord Dundonald, included the 13th Hussars, the 1st Royals,
Bethune's Mounted Infantry, Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry, three
squadrons of South African Horse, with a composite regiment formed from
the mounted infantry of the Rifles and of the Dublin Fusiliers with
squadrons of the Natal Carabineers and the Imperial Light Horse. These
irregular troops of horse might be criticised by martinets and pedants,
but they contained some of the finest fighting material in the army,
some urged on by personal hatred of the Boers and some by mere lust of
adventure. As an example of the latter one squadron of the South African
Horse was composed almost entirely of Texan muleteers, who, having come
over with their animals, had been drawn by their own gallant spirit into
the fighting line of their kinsmen.

Cavalry was General Buller's weakest arm, but his artillery was strong
both in its quality and its number of guns. There were five batteries
(30 guns) of the Field Artillery, the 7th, 14th, 63rd, 64th, and 66th.
Besides these there were no fewer than sixteen naval guns from H.M.S.
'Terrible'--fourteen of which were 12-pounders, and the other two of
the 4.7 type which had done such good service both at Ladysmith and with
Methuen. The whole force which moved out from Chieveley Camp numbered
about 21,000 men.

The work which was allotted to the army was simple in