This was no light task, more especially when the dangerous nature of the climate is taken into account, and the necessity there was that the enterprise should be accomplished, if at all, before the rainy season, with all its concomitant malaria, set in. To pierce into the heart of a country like Ashanti, with its marshes and matted forests, its pathless jungles and fetid swamps, with a { 41} cunning foe ever dogging their steps, was the service imposed on this brave little army of British. As Lord Derby remarked at the time, this was to be 'an engineers' and doctors' war.' Roads had to be made, bridges built, telegraphs set up, and camps formed. But by the energy and skill of General Wolseley, ably supported by such men as Captain (now Sir) Redvers Buller, Colonel (afterwards Sir John) N'Neil, Lieut.-Colonel (afterwards Sir Evelyn) Wood, Colonel (now Sir John) M'Leod, and others who have since risen to distinction in the army, the enterprise was successfully and brilliantly accomplished within a month. The Ashantis were forced back upon their own territory in a number of engagements, until at last their capital was seized and burned to the ground.
Lieutenant Wauchope's share in this expedition was highly creditable to his bravery and military skill. Accompanying Sir Garnet Wolseley at an early stage of the struggle, as one of the staff, he resigned his adjutantship of the Black Watch, and was afterwards fortunate in obtaining special employment as a commander of one of the native regiments formed at Cape Coast Castle, namely, Russell's regiment of Haussas, the Winnebah Company. To form such crude material into a well-disciplined body of soldiers seemed at first a well-nigh hopeless undertaking. Their fear made cowards of them all. The very sight of a gun terrified them, and for long they held their arms in such superstitious dread, that they would hang them up in the trees and actually worship them. But Wauchope's admirable drilling qualifications stood him in good stead. He took, we are told, a great pride in the training of his 'black boys,' as he called them, and infused into them much of his own daring spirit. This appointment separated him for a time from his own regiment, but on { 42} the Black Watch arriving afterwards at the Gold Coast, he had frequent opportunities of fighting by their side.