1863 - Carey, R. Narrative of the Late War in New Zealand - CHAPTER VI. Expedition to the Kahihi river...p 108-137

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CHAPTER VI.

THE garrison of New Plymouth having been increased by the Head-quarters of the 40th from the Waitara camp (which was thus reduced to 250 rank and file), the following troops were put in orders to proceed to Kahihi and for the contemplated operations to the southward. This was the largest number that could with safety be drawn from the town.

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FIELD FORCE.--NEW PLYMOUTH, OCTOBER 9, 1860.

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This force was to have started on the 2nd of the month to attack the strongly entrenched position, reconnoitred by Major Hutchins, on the Kahihi river. But heavy rain set in, rendering the rivers unfordable and the roads quite impracticable. The expedition was thus delayed until the 9th of the month, when the rivers having fallen sufficiently, the force moved from New Plymouth. The first day's march of about eighteen miles lay through a very intricate country, thickly covered with New Zealand flax, densely wooded, and intersected by numerous ravines. Sometimes these ravines had to be headed, at others it was necessary to make a descent to the beach from the overhanging heights. All these natural impediments afforded the natives every facility for conducting a guerilla war, but they never took advantage of them to harass our columns. On this march the Naval Brigade, overcoming apparently insurmountable difficulties of country, dragged

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up from New Plymouth an 8-inch gun, with which we hoped a breach in the stockade could be effected. The force encamped at the Tataraimaka block (a fine grassy plain, the only one I saw in the whole district), and early next morning it advanced towards the enemy's position. The country here became most difficult; and though the distance was only a few miles, the crossing the Katikara river and numerous ravines offered so many obstacles that it was 8 A. M. before the column reached its encamping ground. The right of the camp rested on the sea, and the left on the Mangakuio creek, with an outpost on a commanding eminence a few hundred yards in advance. The commissariat department occupied the Parawa pah near the sea, on the right bank of the creek, and was protected by a detachment of the 40th Regiment. This position was about three-quarters of a mile distant from the Kahihi, on the right bank of which, and occupying a loop of it, at

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about eight hundred yards from the sea, stood the pah of Orongomaihanghai; on its left bank nearly opposite and quite close to Orongomaihanghai that of Mataiaio; and again on the right bank but a little more inland, and distant about four hundred yards from the banks of the river, stood Pukekakariki, hid from our view by a belt of bush running midway between, and parallel to, the Mangakuio creek and Kahihi river.

The camp having been pitched, and working parties having been employed in completing a breastwork all round, two reconnoitring parties, of about 100 rank and file each, were sent out; one along the sea line the other up the Mangakiuo to see if the Pukekakariki pah could not be taken in reverse, and the enemy's retreat be thereby cut off. After advancing some distance along the creek, the fern became so dense and so interwoven with brambles that progress was almost entirely stopped. Moreover the numerous gullies with deep

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swamps running into the Mangakuio, all of which had to be headed, showed that road to be impracticable. The natives also fired on the party, as it advanced, from secure rifle-pits on the far side of the swamps and on the edge of the bush.

The line along the seacoast was, however, found to be good and free from obstructions; and near the Kahihi river a good view of the situation of the enemy's post was obtained. A clump of bush and underwood, not hitherto seen, covered the Orongomaihanghai pah, which it was now settled to attack first, and in this direction. At daybreak on the morning of the 11th October a guard and working party, in all 400 men (carrying gabions made and brought from New Plymouth), advanced on the pah, and entering the small clump of bush, arrived without opposition to within about two hundred and fifty yards of it. Here the intended line of trench was marked out, and with a flying sap the men

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were in a very few minutes under cover. The enemy had offered no opposition: seeing our advance they had apparently been expecting the usual rush, for which they were quite prepared by firing their volleys and escaping unseen down the ravines. It was not until 10 A. M. that they fired a shot. But from this time, and until near dawn on the 12th, a continuous and well-directed fire was kept up on the working parties in the trenches. The natives on this occasion, though not so numerous as they afterwards were, maintained, I think, a better directed fire--aiming particularly low, and just grazing the top of the gabions. During the night an approach was commenced towards the pah. On the morning of the 12th, when our works were approaching very close to the outer stockade, the enemy ceased firing; and suspicion having arisen that they had vacated the place by the bed of the river, a party went round towards Mataiaio on the left bank; and on a con-

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certed signal an entrance was effected into both places, which were found to have been just deserted. Pukekakariki was then taken possession of, and the three pahs were destroyed. They were found full of potatoes, food, books, and other Maori articles; and from the pools of blood in them it appeared that some loss had been inflicted, though to what extent we could not ascertain; ours had been one officer and four men wounded. The success and good effect of the operations were undeniable. The Maori without inflicting any serious loss on us had been obliged to vacate a naturally strong position, and three carefully built pahs; all of which were of no value to him, except as posts in the defence of which he was to inflict loss on us. In giving them up without this equivalent he acknowledged his defeat. The pahs were all built of strong timber, braced together with supplejack, through which the 8-inch gun, after a whole day's firing, scarcely succeeded in

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making a practicable breach. The palisades bound in this manner, though cut in two by the shot, remained swinging, suspended by the supple-jack, and were even then scarcely less formidable as a means of defence than when firmly fixed in the ground. The rifle pits were most ingeniously constructed, and flanked one another perfectly; while the precipitous banks in rear and on the flanks, affording footing to none but natives, had also been cut into small rifle pits. The whole of the pahs were covered with fresh green leaves of the New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax), in two or three layers, which, though they might not stop a bullet from the Enfield rifle at a short range, would certainly divert its course.

Strange to say, the capture of these pahs, which was looked on by the natives, from the little damage sustained by us in their capture, as a serious loss and a heavy blow to their cause, and by all conversant with

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Maori feeling, as a great success, was yet quite ignored by the government of New Zealand; 1 and, on the ground that the garrison had not been surrounded and captured was even ridiculed by a member in the House of Assembly as 'the capture of some more empty pahs.' That in England among persons unacquainted with the country in which the war was being conducted such might have been the feeling, is not so much to be wondered at. But that in Auckland a member of the assembly should have endeavoured to affix such a stigma on the military is hardly credible. All persons in New Zealand know very well that to surround pahs in such a district is a total impossibility. They know that the enemy never dream of retiring through the open

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part of the country; but that, unencumbered with a commissariat and the other necessaries of an European force, they slip out through the ravines, one by one, without regard to the main body, or burrow like rabbits through the high fern. It is patent enough that all strategical moves to intercept their retreat from their pahs would be vain. Nor could an actual investment of the pahs be made without more danger from their own fire to the attacking columns than to the enemy; and the latter in such broken ground would even then find means to slip away through some unconnected part of the line. After the capture of those pahs the Maori confessed his defeat, and pointing to the forest said: 'These now are my pahs, I hope they are large enough.'

The prosecution of this success by an advance farther to the south was prevented by despatches received the same day from Auckland, with information that the enemy

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at the Waitara might daily be expected to receive a reinforcement of from 600 to 800 Waikatos, and that further reinforcements were on the way. Under these circumstances (the garrison at the Waitara Camp being now only 250 rank and file) it appeared most important that New Plymouth with its large population of women and children (viz. settlers' families 733, boatmen's families 91, soldiers' wives and families 86, making a total of 910), should not be left so weakly guarded. In lieu, therefore, of the projected move south, for which the troops had come prepared, orders were necessarily issued for the destruction of the conquered posts and the return of the force to New Plymouth, which it reached on the evening of the 13th October.

The news of the march, and of the unexpected approach of the Waikato reinforcements was strongly corroborated by native spies in the pay of the Native Department; their strength, the position of

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their camps, and many details of conversation held with them were most minutely described; and we really began to believe that the news from Auckland was for once correct. The camp at the Waitara was again strengthened, and preparations were made to meet this advance as soon as the enemy showed out of the forest. Meanwhile the site of the old pah of Puketakauere was chosen for a stockade to hold 50 men and a month's provisions, so that, if desired, the camp at the Waitara might be abandoned and an increased force be available for the field. As before, these most positive reports of the position of the enemy were again contradicted, though the informants had gone so far as to state the numbers that they had counted, the tribes that had defiled past them, and other minute particulars. One thing, however, was certain--that a move of the Waikato warriors to the south was taking place. Some parties of these halted to plant and

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to hold conferences, at which some spoke for and some against the war: some new hands joined while old ones left and returned home. The European residents in the districts through which they passed wrote most contradictory accounts of the state of affairs, and native intelligence could not be relied on; consequently there was no arriving at the truth.

One portion of the road from Waikato to Taranaki ran along the beach at the foot of a precipitous rock, known by the name of the White Cliffs, the descent of which could only be effected singly; and, in the hopes of obtaining information of the move of the enemy, a man-of-war steamer was stationed to watch it. The measure had no good result, and probably only obliged the natives to take a more inland route. By the end of October the stockade at Puketakauere was completed and, with a view of having signals direct from this new post to the garrison at New Plymouth, and to maintain the communication, it was

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intended, under the protection of a party of about 200 strong, to erect another stockade at the old pah of Mahoetahi. For this purpose a portion of the garrison of New Plymouth and also of the Waitara were directed to move on the 6 th November 1860. But on the evening of the 5th, while a small party was repairing a bridge on the road between the Waitara and Mahoetahi, some of the natives showed in the broken ground, and a skirmish took place, with, as was long after ascertained, a loss of five men to the enemy. Late this night Mr. Drummond Hay, of the Native Department, making a most hazardous ride from the Waitara, arrived at New Plymouth with authentic information that the reinforcements to the natives from Waikato and the eastern districts had crossed the Waitara higher up in the forest, and that they had not only joined William King, but had, in force, occupied the old pah of Mahoetahi, which it had been our intention to fortify next day. The news was hardly credible, for

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the place could be of no use to them as a position. They could not expect to be allowed to remain there, and it was one of the few comparatively open places in the district.

The following letter was sent in to New Plymouth, to one of the native commissioners:--

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The strength of the enemy at the Waitara was variously computed; but I think it would be fair to estimate it at 1,600 men. In a despatch, Auckland, October 2nd, 1860, I see the governor says, 2,000. They were mostly fresh arrivals, the flower of the Maori nation, who had come down to join in William King's quarrel, not as his allies, but as his masters, to take the war into their own hands, boasting that they would now soon bring it to an end, and would drive the Pakeha into the sea. They most thoroughly despised William King and his tribe, as also the Southerners, who certainly were a very inferior race, and were treated by them more as slaves than as friends. And from the arrival of these powerful allies to the end of the war, what between English bullets, and the abuse and extortion of the Waikatos, the Taranakis must have led an unhappy existence. In their spirit of boastfulness and vaunting, the Waikatos would not

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listen to the advice of the inhabitants of the district; but the same night that they crossed the Waitara, they sent the letter above noted; and with a portion of their force occupied the old pah of Mahoetahi, the property of a friendly chief named Mahou. The position was on the direct line of communication from New Plymouth to the Waitara, eight miles distant from the former place, four from the latter, in the fork of, and not far distant from, the junction of the Mangoraka and the Waiongona river, about three miles from the sea, and about the same distance from the main forest, where William King had his head-quarters. The actual site was strong, a hill running parallel to the Mangoraka river, at about eight hundred yards distant, surmounted by two knolls, and surrounded by a deep and dangerous swamp, only approachable on one side, where a spur of the hill offered dry ground. The space between the river and the position, though comparatively level, was, as well as the

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whole of the precipitous bank of the river, covered with ti-tree, fern, and brambles, nine to ten feet high, and very difficult to penetrate. This cover might have been used by the enemy with great effect in harassing our advance. The news of the position taken up being well authenticated, the force previously ordered for Mahoetahi to establish the stockade was slightly increased, and two parties of the following strength were directed to move so as to arrive at their positions simultaneously. The column from New Plymouth, under Major-General Pratt, numbered as follows:--

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The Waitara column, under Colonel Mould, R. E., was composed of--

The intention was to dislodge the enemy from his post, and, if feasible, to capture the garrison of the pah; or, if this could not be done, to pursue as far as the forest, and then to return and complete the stockade. The column from New Plymouth, having a well-known and good road to move over, about 7 A. M. reached the Mangoraka river, which ran through a deep ravine, and was crossed by two fords near one another. Here the natives could be descried in the pah, which was an old one,

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and was in many places open. The two 24-pounder howitzers were brought into position to cover the passage of the river, as it could hardly be expected that the native would forego his advantage, and not use the thick cover in front of Mahoetahi. Here, however, as on all similar occasions, no opposition was met with except at the very place where the enemy had selected to stand. The 65th then crossed, followed by the militia, and drew up across the main line about 300 yards in advance. The detachments, 12th and 40th, protected the rear and right flank until the main body, guns, &c. had crossed. Difficult ground had delayed the march of the Waitara column, which, on account of the thick scrub and broken country, could not yet be seen. The enemy now opened fire from the pah on the line of skirmishers of the 65th; and, about 8 A. M. the guns and equipage being well up, the order was given to attack; and the 65th Regiment,

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at the double, entered and secured the centre and east end of the pah, while the Militia, with some difficulty, crossed a part of the swamp and effected a lodgement on the west. The enemy still, however, maintained his position outside, at the foot of the pah and in the swamp and adjacent scrub. The 12th and 40th now came into action on the right, while the Waitara column, which had crossed the Waiongona, near its junction with the Mangoraka river, extended the left, and materially aided in completing the defeat of the enemy and increasing his heavy loss. Except from the puffs of smoke, scarcely an enemy had been seen; but from the direction in which these now appeared, it seemed that the natives were escaping through the scrub, and at last one large body, dislodged by some shells, rose up and fled. This, I think, must have been about the first of the enemy who had been actually seen during the day. An advance was at once

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made in pursuit, a portion of the force being left to commence the stockade. The enemy was closely followed up to the edge of the forest, and on the road, for some three miles, tracks of blood were found, and several dead and wounded were picked up. The loss to the Maori was very severe; it was computed at about 100 men, and as 49 dead fell into our hands, and were buried by us, the estimate cannot be considered large. I believe the number has since been found to have been much larger. Those who fell, and whose bodies remained on the field, were all warriors of note, Waikatos, who considered themselves superior to the Europeans in New Zealand wars. They were well armed with good double-barrelled guns and rifles, many of which fell into our hands. The corpses that we buried were those of remarkably fine men, some of them influential supporters of the king movement. The loss of prestige was very great. The Waikato, who had never

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before acknowledged to a defeat--who had come to drive the Pakeha from the country, and who had crossed the Waitara on the evening of the 5th, confident of success -- was only too glad, twelve hours afterwards, to gain the shelter of the neighbouring forest, leaving the bodies of his slain chiefs in our hands. Our loss was four killed and twelve wounded, mostly in the 65th Regiment, on which on this occasion the brunt of the day fell.

Colonel Mould, Royal Engineers, was left in command of the party to complete the stockade, and the remainder of the troops returned to the garrison at New Plymouth, preparatory to more extended operations.

The result of this action could not but be most important. Nearly all the tribes engaged had lost men of influence, and the Maori expression was, that the chiefs of Waikato were dead. The suddenness of the defeat--hardly more than twelve hours

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having elapsed since the main body had crossed the Waitara -- had also a great effect. The loss had been the greatest the Maori had ever suffered at the hands of Europeans, while no corresponding loss had been inflicted on us in return.

Her Majesty's colonial steam-sloop 'Victoria' proceeded to Auckland with the intelligence of this victory; she returned again on the 10th, bringing the thanks of the Government to the troops engaged. But at the same time a request was made that 400 men might be sent from Taranaki (the seat of war) to Auckland, on which place the Government feared an attack would be made by the friends of the defeated Waikato tribes. Though to send these men to Auckland would completely stop all active operations, the demand was so urgent that refusal was almost impossible. The troops were delayed by stress of weather for a few days, but arrived at Auckland in H. M. S. S. 'Niger' and in the

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'Victoria' on the 13th, on which date the Governor wrote:-- 'As soon as the news of the recent operations at Taranaki becomes known in the Waikato, it is more than probable that a large body of the tribes connected with the defeated insurgents will take active measures to avenge their loss. Indeed I have reason to believe that the chiefs in the Waikato are now discussing whether they will make a descent on Auckland or on Taranaki.'

The fact was that the Government dreaded the effects of the success we had gained. The Waikatos had been punished so severely that it was feared the tribes around Auckland would rise for 'utu,' or revenge. It certainly was a difficult and most singular position that General Pratt now found himself placed in. The Government, since the defeat of our troops on the 27th June, had been constantly urging on him the necessity of striking some decisive blow, and of gaining a victory

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which might enable them to make advantageous terms with the insurgents. They invariably ignored that, up to this time, he had been obliged to confine his operations to the Taranaki district, south of the Waitara, where the enemy was scattered in the depths and on the edge of the forest; and that to gain a victory, such as they desired, was, under such circumstances, impossible. The only thing that could be done was to harass and annoy the natives. This was effected by the constant move of the troops who had driven them back from New Plymouth, and they only ventured into its neighbourhood, to burn and destroy the more distant homesteads, when they could do so with comparative security. Above thirty large pahs had been taken and burnt, and much native cultivation had been destroyed. At Kahihi the enemy had been forced to vacate a position naturally strong, and fortified with much care, in which he had expected to inflict much loss on us.

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Farther prosecution of this success was prevented, as has been stated, and the force was obliged to return to New Plymouth, in consequence of despatches from Auckland, which announced that the Waikato tribes were rapidly moving in force on New Plymouth. The report, though partially true, was not entirely so. The enemy were drawing to the Taranaki district; but, as had been seen, the main body did not cross the Waitara until the 5th November, late on which evening the first authentic account of their move was transmitted to the Major-General. The necessary alterations were made in the plan for the next day's march, and the enemy was met and defeated at Mahoetahi before he had time to establish himself.

Thus General Pratt, having apparently done that which the Government had all along desired, now discovered that he had gone beyond their expectations, and was asked to reduce his already too small force

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in the Taranaki district, and virtually to suspend all operations there, in order to relieve the fears of the authorities at Auckland, who, instead of now finding themselves in a better position to treat with the natives, were as much alarmed as to the possible results of the victory of Mahoetahi as they had been some months before at the defeat of Puketakauere. The problem General Pratt had to solve was a difficult one. All minor successes at a time when great ones, from the want of an enemy, could not be achieved, had been stigmatised publicly, and even in official quarters in New Zealand, as the mere capture of a few empty pahs. The necessity for the troops returning to New Plymouth after the object of an expedition had been gained, was described as a retreat; and false statements and opprobrious epithets were industriously circulated in the colonial newspapers to the disparagement of the General and his officers. And now that advantage had

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been taken of the first opportunity that offered, it was found that the success had been too decided. The General was not only to beat the Maori, but he was also to regulate the exact quantity of punishment that the people of New Zealand considered good for him.