Talk:Frederick Russell Burnham

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The facts of Burnham's life were romantic enough. He was born on an Indian reservation in Minnesota on May 11, 1861, and the family moved to California. His father, Edwin Ottoway Burnham, died when "Fred" was only 13. His family then moved from California, but the young "Fred" stayed and made his own way. He was trained in scouting while still a boy by some of the last of the old frontiersmen. He fought in the Apache wars, rode shotgun for Wells Fargo, was caught up in the feuding between ranchers and sheepherders, and once was tracked for days by two men out to kill him for unstated reasons except that one was driven by “an insane jealousy.” He settled for a time in Rhodesia, where he made a name for himself as a scout in the Matabele wars. He was 38 years old and prospecting for gold in the Klondike when the Boer War began. There one day a cable reached him: “Lord Roberts appoints you on his personal staff as Chief of Scouts. If you accept, come at once the quickest way possible.” Although Cape Town is at the opposite end of the globe from the Klondike, he left within the hour.

Burnham arrived at the front just before the Battle of Paardeberg, and his first feat was to float down the Modder River through the Boer positions, concealed in an oxhide. He spent much time behind the Boer lines, was twice captured and twice escaped. In addition to gathering information he also hlew up railway bridges and tracks. Sent to cut the Pretoria-Lourcnco Marques line, the Boers’ vital link to the sea, Burnham was unhorsed and seriously wounded while still ten miles from his objective. Heroically he decided to go on, carrying with him the bags of explosives. In spite of the Boers’ vigilance and his own pain he reached the point to be cut, placed his charges, and blew the line in two places. After hiding for two days while Boer search parties passed all around him, Burnham at last made his way painfully back, stumbling and crawling, to the British lines.

Earlier military exploits in Rhodesia - With the Bulawayo Field Force there were a number of men known as American Scouts. Three of them were Major F. R. Burnhamn and Messrs. Swinburne and Blick. Major Burnham came to South Africa from the United States early in 1893. He joined the Victoria Column and took part in the battles at Bembesi and Shangani.

On Baden-Powell - It was on patrol, scouting in the Matopo Hills, that B-P first met Major Frederick Burnham, an American military scout in the employ of Cecil Rhodes and the British South Africa Company. The meeting made a lasting impression on Burnham. Burnham's description of their scouting days together is one of the earliest pictures of B-P's military exploits and his thoughts about the future.

[edit] cleanup tag

This article has excessive redirects back to Burnham, which make the article unwiki and unsightly. Please remove them. Chris 22:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

• • Fixed. Clean tag removed.

User:ctatkinson 01:15, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Further review urgent

I'm moving here

The 26 December 1862 Sioux uprising in Mankato, Minnesota is still today the largest mass execution in the history of the United States.

There's no reason for this irrelevant topic to be in his bio, but more importantly, if the author is similarly incoherent elsewhere in the article, there will be a great need for further editing.
--Jerzy•t 22:31, 19 November 2006 (UTC)