Light Horse Regiment Ladysmith. After the successful raising of the siege of Ladysmith the Light horse join the Mafeking Relief Column and were the first to enter the town on the night of 16/17 May 1900. In late 1900 a second battalion – the 2nd Imperial Light Horse was raised and embodied. Both battalions then went on to fight in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State Republic until the end of the war. In total the members of the Regiment won four Victoria Crosses during the war: After the Boer War the regiment was reorganised into two wings and in 1904 its
Siege of Ladysmith Late in the afternoon, a terrific rainstorm broke, and the Boers withdrew under cover of it. The British suffered 175 killed and 249 wounded. 52 dead Boers were left in the British positions, but their total casualties were not recorded. While Buller made repeated attempts to fight his way across the Tugela, the defenders of Ladysmith suffered increasingly from shortage of food and other supplies, and from disease, mainly enteric fever or typhoid, which claimed among many others, the life of noted war correspondent G.W. Steevens. The Boers had long before captured Ladysmith's water supply, and the defenders could use