Cuba to deliver a message to Gomez, several hundred miles away; J.B.  Clarke, of Webberville, Michigan, who was correspondent for a Pittsburg newspaper whenever some one could commandeer the necessary stamps; and four or five correspondents of country weeklies in Western States.  Starfield and Hiley were two Texans, of American army experience, who fought with the Boers because they had faith in their cause.  Starfield claimed the honour of having been pursued for half a day by two hundred British cavalryman, while Hiley, the finest marksman in the corps, had the distinction of killing Lieutenant Carron, an American, in Lord Loch’s Horse, in a fierce duel behind ant-heaps at Modder River on April 21st.  Later in the campaign many of the Americans who entered the country for the purpose of fighting joined Hassell’s Scouts, and added to the cosmopolitan character of the organisation.

One came from Paget [Transcriber’s note:  sic] Sound in a sailing vessel.  Another arrival boldly claimed to be the American military attache at the Paris Exposition, and then requested every one to keep the matter a secret for fear the War Department should hear of his presence in South Africa and recall him.  On the way to Africa he had a marvellous midnight experience on board ship with a masked man who shot him through one of his hands.  Later the same wound was displayed as having been received at Magersfontein, Colenso, and Spion Kop.  This industrious youth became adjutant to Colonel Blake, and assisted that picturesque Irish-American in securing the services of the half-hundred Red Cross men who entered the country in April.

Of the many Americans who fought in Boer commandos none did better service nor was considered more highly by the Boers than Otto von Lossberg, of New Orleans, Louisana [Transcriber’s note:  sic].  Lossberg was born in Germany, and received his first military training in the army of his native country.  He afterwards became an American citizen, and was with General Miles’ army in the Porto-Rico campaign.  Lossberg arrived in the Transvaal in March, and on the last day of that month was in charge of the artillery which assisted in defeating Colonel Broadwood’s column at Sannaspost.  Two days later, in the fight between General Christian De Wet and McQueenies’ Irish Fusiliers, Lossberg was severely wounded in the head, but a month later he was again at the front.  With him continually was Baron Ernst von Wrangel, a grandson of the famous Marshal Wrangle [Transcriber’s note:  sic], and who was a corporal in the American army during the Cuban war.

When one of the four sons of State Secretary Reitz who were fighting with the Boer army asked his father for permission to join the Irish Brigade, the Secretary gave an excellent description of the organisation:  “The members of the Irish Brigade do their work well, and they fight remarkably well, but, my son, they are not gentle in their manner.”  Blake and his men were among the first to cross the Natal