THE LATE ENGAGEMENT AT TE RUARURU.

Marlborough Express, Volume III, Issue 138, 3 October 1868, Page 5

THE LATE ENGAGEMENT AT TE RUARURU.

The Evening Herald publishes the following account of the tragedy at Te Ruaruru by an actor in the disastrous affair:— “ Bin, —I take this opportunity of writing to you after a most fearful fight, and with great slaughter on our side; in fact, we were brought into a regular ambuscade, and then left to do the best we could. You may form an idea, when they are forty-six missing. We had to leave our dead and some wounded on the field. We had uo commanders whatever, and we may thank loyal natives for bringing us out of the busli; for if they had not been there not one of us would have ever got home alive. In the first place, when we got within about 500 yards of the pa, Te Ruaruru, the loyal natives attacked the outlying picquet of the rebels; the bugle then sounded for us to come up, we did so, and, fc wheu within about thirty yards of the pa, we received a dreadful fire." We then took cover alongside a creek, the rebels filing into us all the time. Here Major Yon Tempsky, Captain Ruck, and Lieutenant Hunter, were killed; Captain Palmer, and Lieutenant Rowan wounded. Captain Palmer died on the way home. Some ten or twelve men were killed and wounded. Too much praise cannot be given to Major Hunter for his gallant behaviour. Two or three times he asked the Colonel to lot him charge the pa, and the latter refused. 1 believe, had we done so, a good many lives might have boon saved. After the officers were killed the men were panic stricken. Colonel McDonnell left about eighty men with Lieutenant Hastings, Ensign Hirtzeil, and Sub-Inspector Roberts, to cover the retreat. The carnage then commenced. At one tree eighteen men fell with Lieutenant Hastings, so you may guess how we were situated ; surrounded on every side by natives, you may say, no commander, and worse, our Colonel making his way home, and leaving us to do the best we could for ourselves. Here, the men gave themselves up for lost; in fact the expression of Sergeant Llewellyan to me was “ we will all be killed, and let us fight to the last, for we will never reach home.” Happily for us night came on, and we retired into a dense bush ; we had no track, nor knowledge of where we were. There we stopped until the moon got up, and two or three Maoris that were there with us took it for a guide, and brought us out about six o’clock in the morning, the Colonel being safe at home the night before, and soended one of the most disgraceful affairs that was ever known. A few old soldiers, being of our party, gave the men a little confidence in explaining the nature of our situation, and the best way to get out of it. Sub-Inspector Roberts and Ensign Hirtzeil behaved most courageously, and kept the men’s courage up. Colonel McDonnell left us behind to do the best we could for ourselves, and made his own way home. Poor Hastings’last words were—“ Retire men, never mind me, lam dying.” Ruck*, You Tempsky, and Hunter, never spoke; and so ended one of the most disastrous affairs that ever took place in Hew Zealand.”