In the series of skirmishes dignified by the name of the Maori war of 1860-61 the natives had carefully studied our tactics and our weapons; and in the war of 1863-66, in order to bring into play the muskets and double-barrelled guns with which they were armed, and to minimise the effect of our rifle and shell fire, they selected positions open in front, with flanks resting on rivers, swamps, or impenetrable bush. They made great use of earthworks and of redoubts, square or oblong in shape, flanked at opposite angles by bastions and surrounded by ditches, in some cases twelve feet wide and measuring eighteen feet from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the parapet. Pushed out to the front and flanks were two or three tiers of rifle-pits or short trenches, connected by sunk roads with each other and with the main work. The marksmen in these pits were often protected by head cover, made of trunks of trees or of hurdles thatched with fern and covered deep with earth; and to break the force of a bayonet charge, stout palisades were sometimes built in front of the rifle-pits with spaces left for grazing fire to sweep over the glacis. Yet though this system of fortification showed that to their natural cleverness the Maoris added the power of rapidly absorbing new ideas, their intelligence failed them in one essential particular. In the selection of a position they never realised the importance of a good water-supply, and when an attack was threatened they neglected to store their works with water, trusting to their young men to bring in by night the quantity required for the next day’s consumption. Thus after a close investment of a few days they had no alternative but to cut their way out or to surrender.
While General Cameron was waiting for his river steamers, a rumour reached the Maoris at Meri-Meri, the position nearest to Cameron’s encampment, that the General and his soldiers were short of food. Under a flag of truce the Chiefs sent down the river a little fleet of canoes laden with potatoes and milch-goats as a present to the British troops. This was by no means an isolated instance of native chivalry, for, to use the slang of the present day, the Maoris were “sportsmen,” and always said that there was no glory in fighting hungry men. When at length the arrival of river craft enabled Cameron to move, he threatened the front of the works of Meri-Meri with five hundred men, among whom were a detachment of Royal Irish, while a turning party of rather greater strength, in barges mounted with Armstrong guns, was towed to a landing-place in rear of the enemy’s works. The Maoris did not await the attack, but fled southwards across country which recent rains had made impassable for Europeans. Cameron occupied their position, which the detachment of the XVIIIth fortified under the direction of the Royal Engineers. In November the General took an important step towards freeing the line of communication from the natives who harassed his convoys in the Hunua forest and ravaged the farms in the neighbourhood of Auckland. Many of these guerillas came from the country round the estuary of the Thames river, and thither he sent an expedition under Brevet-Colonel Carey, XVIIIth regiment, to overawe the district and establish a line of blockhouses between the Thames and the Waikato. While Carey was carrying out his mission successfully Cameron pushed up the river, and on November 20th, attacked the formidable works at Rangiriri, the Maoris’ second position on the Waikato. Before the enemy had been thoroughly shaken by artillery the order was given for the assault, and though repeated and gallant charges were delivered, the troops that day achieved but a partial success, bought at the cost of 132 casualties. Under cover of the night several hundred of the enemy escaped; the remainder, 183 in number, surrendered at daybreak and were made prisoners of war. In this engagement the Royal Irish were represented only by one officer, Captain and Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Sir H. Havelock, V.C.,[191] then serving on the headquarter staff as D.A.Q.M.G., and a few men. The losses at Rangiriri greatly dispirited the enemy, who allowed Cameron to march unmolested up the right bank of the Waikato, and on December 9, 1863, to occupy Ngaruawahia, the capital of the rebellious country.