CHURCHILL, Winston S. Autograph letter signed to 'My dear General' (Sir Ian Hamilton , 'In the train Sudan Military R[ailway]', 16 September 1898, including a postscript signed with initials, mostly in blue ink, 17½ pages, 8vo (one passage heavily cancelled by recipient).
CHURCHILL, Winston S. Autograph letter signed to 'My dear General' (Sir Ian Hamilton , 'In the train Sudan Military R[ailway]', 16 September 1898, including a postscript signed with initials, mostly in blue ink, 17½ pages, 8vo (one passage heavily cancelled by recipient). 'IT WAS I SUPPOSE THE MOST DANGEROUS 2 MINUTES I SHALL LIVE TO SEE' -- AN EXUBERANT ACCOUNT OF HIS EXPERIENCES IN THE BATTLE OF OMDURMAN 'Well -- all is over and the words Khalifa & Khartoum may now be handed over to the historian -- soldiers having no further use for them ... I had a patrol on 2nd Sept and was I think the first to see the enemy -- certainly the first to hear their bullets. Never shall I see such a sight again. At the very least there were 40,000 men -- five miles long with great humps and squares at intervals -- and I can assure you that when I heard them all shouting their war songs from my coign of vantage on the ridge of Heliograph Hill I and my little patrol felt very lonely'. 'I went through the first 100 looking over my left shoulder to see what sort of effect the fire was producing. It seemed small. Then I drew my Mauser pistol -- a ripper -- and cocked it. Then I looked to my front. Instead of the 150 riflemen who were still blazing I saw a line nearly (in the middle) -- 12 deep and a little less than our own front of closely jammed spearmen -- all in a nullah [ravine] with steep sloping sides 6 foot deep & 20 foot broad'. 'I looked back and saw the Dervish mass reforming. The charge had passed through knocking over nearly half. They were getting on their legs again and their Emirs were trying to collect them into a lump again. I realised that this mass was about 20 yards away and I looked down at them stupidly for what may have been 2 seconds. Then I saw two men get down on their knees and take aim with rifles -- and for the first time the danger & peril came home to me. I turned and galloped. The squadron was reforming nearly 150 [yards] away. As I turned both shots were fired and at that close range I was grievously anxious. But I heard none of their bullets -- which went heaven know where. So I pulled into a canter and rejoined my troop -- having fired exactly 10 shots & emptied my pistol -- but without a hair of my horse or a stitch of my clothing being touched. Very few can say the same ... But really though dangerous it was not in the least exciting and it did not look dangerous -- at least not to me ... the realisation of our loss did not come to me until we reformed and I saw the wounded etc. It was I suppose the most dangerous 2 minutes I shall live to see'. The penultimate paragraph shows Churchill's dislike of Kitchener who was 'furious with Sir E. Wood for sending me out ... He is a great general but he has yet to be accused of being a great gentleman. It is hard to throw stones at the rising sun and my personal dislike may have warped my judgement -- but if I am not blinded -- he has been on a certainty from start to finish and has had the devil's luck to help him beside.' (Churchill was to write to his mother in January 1899 that the victory of Omdurman was disgraced by the inhuman slaughter of the enemy wounded, for which Kitchener was responsible). The lines cancelled by Hamilton evidently refer to some particularly confidential subject: 'Please regard this matter as between ourselves and destroy such part of this letter as refers to it.' Learning of a vacancy in the 21st Lancers, Churchill had taken three months' leave from the Indian Army and by a circuitous route reached Cairo in August to make his way with his squadron up the Nile to join Kitchener's army of 25,000. The events described in the present letter occurred on 1 September when he accompanied a cavalry patrol sent out to reconnoitre the Dervish army led by the Khalifa and took part in his first cavalry charge, in action against a force not, as he at first believed, composed of spearmen but of riflemen. He later received £220 for the letters he file
CHURCHILL, Winston S. Autograph letter signed to 'My dear General' (Sir Ian Hamilton , 'In the train Sudan Military R[ailway]', 16 September 1898, including a postscript signed with initials, mostly in blue ink, 17½ pages, 8vo (one passage heavily cancelled by recipient).
CHURCHILL, Winston S. Autograph letter signed to 'My dear General' (Sir Ian Hamilton , 'In the train Sudan Military R[ailway]', 16 September 1898, including a postscript signed with initials, mostly in blue ink, 17½ pages, 8vo (one passage heavily cancelled by recipient). 'IT WAS I SUPPOSE THE MOST DANGEROUS 2 MINUTES I SHALL LIVE TO SEE' -- AN EXUBERANT ACCOUNT OF HIS EXPERIENCES IN THE BATTLE OF OMDURMAN 'Well -- all is over and the words Khalifa & Khartoum may now be handed over to the historian -- soldiers having no further use for them ... I had a patrol on 2nd Sept and was I think the first to see the enemy -- certainly the first to hear their bullets. Never shall I see such a sight again. At the very least there were 40,000 men -- five miles long with great humps and squares at intervals -- and I can assure you that when I heard them all shouting their war songs from my coign of vantage on the ridge of Heliograph Hill I and my little patrol felt very lonely'. 'I went through the first 100 looking over my left shoulder to see what sort of effect the fire was producing. It seemed small. Then I drew my Mauser pistol -- a ripper -- and cocked it. Then I looked to my front. Instead of the 150 riflemen who were still blazing I saw a line nearly (in the middle) -- 12 deep and a little less than our own front of closely jammed spearmen -- all in a nullah [ravine] with steep sloping sides 6 foot deep & 20 foot broad'. 'I looked back and saw the Dervish mass reforming. The charge had passed through knocking over nearly half. They were getting on their legs again and their Emirs were trying to collect them into a lump again. I realised that this mass was about 20 yards away and I looked down at them stupidly for what may have been 2 seconds. Then I saw two men get down on their knees and take aim with rifles -- and for the first time the danger & peril came home to me. I turned and galloped. The squadron was reforming nearly 150 [yards] away. As I turned both shots were fired and at that close range I was grievously anxious. But I heard none of their bullets -- which went heaven know where. So I pulled into a canter and rejoined my troop -- having fired exactly 10 shots & emptied my pistol -- but without a hair of my horse or a stitch of my clothing being touched. Very few can say the same ... But really though dangerous it was not in the least exciting and it did not look dangerous -- at least not to me ... the realisation of our loss did not come to me until we reformed and I saw the wounded etc. It was I suppose the most dangerous 2 minutes I shall live to see'. The penultimate paragraph shows Churchill's dislike of Kitchener who was 'furious with Sir E. Wood for sending me out ... He is a great general but he has yet to be accused of being a great gentleman. It is hard to throw stones at the rising sun and my personal dislike may have warped my judgement -- but if I am not blinded -- he has been on a certainty from start to finish and has had the devil's luck to help him beside.' (Churchill was to write to his mother in January 1899 that the victory of Omdurman was disgraced by the inhuman slaughter of the enemy wounded, for which Kitchener was responsible). The lines cancelled by Hamilton evidently refer to some particularly confidential subject: 'Please regard this matter as between ourselves and destroy such part of this letter as refers to it.' Learning of a vacancy in the 21st Lancers, Churchill had taken three months' leave from the Indian Army and by a circuitous route reached Cairo in August to make his way with his squadron up the Nile to join Kitchener's army of 25,000. The events described in the present letter occurred on 1 September when he accompanied a cavalry patrol sent out to reconnoitre the Dervish army led by the Khalifa and took part in his first cavalry charge, in action against a force not, as he at first believed, composed of spearmen but of riflemen. He later received £220 for the letters he file
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