South African Military History Society, Military History Journal: Commandant Gideon Scheepers in the Cape Colony
article · · consulted 2026-09-03
- Type
- article
- Repository
- South African Military History Society, Military History Journal
- Reference
- samilitaryhistory.org, jnl2/vol185gs.html
- Consulted
- 2026-09-03
The citation as it was given
Read 3 Sep 2026 while adjudicating the two death dates for PER-000518. Scheepers's movements in 1901 as the article gives them: entered the Colony and attacked Sherborne 30 Dec 1900; Grootvlei 2 Jan; Waterval near Middelburg 11 Jan; BUFFELSKLIP 29 JAN; *** KLAARSTROOM 11 FEBRUARY 1901, 'post office and telegraph destroyed, government stores looted. Two soldiers killed' ***; OCCUPIED ABERDEEN 5 MARCH; Graaff-Reinet 15 March; through Jansenville and Tarkastad; Murraysburg three times, 14 and 27 June and 6 July, with RAIDS ACROSS THE ABERDEEN DISTRICT through those months; *** AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER OPERATIONS THROUGH THE LADISMITH AND OUDTSHOORN DISTRICTS ***; health failing by 4 October; surrendered at Koppieskraal 11 October 1901. Remhoogte, Die Gang and Doornrivier are not named in the article. *** THIS BEARS ON THE DATE CONFLICT IN THREE WAYS AND IT DOES NOT SETTLE IT. *** ONE, IT GIVES THE KLAARSTROOM ATTACK AS 11 FEBRUARY, NOT 2 FEBRUARY. The eGGSA album (SRC-330) and Rose Willis (SRC-010) both say the second. A nine-day disagreement inside the February tradition itself means that date is not the fixed point this project has been treating it as. TWO, AND IT IS THE FIRST REAL ARGUMENT FOR THE AUGUST DATE: SCHEEPERS OCCUPIED ABERDEEN ON 5 MARCH 1901 and raided that district through June and July. Johannes Klue's home was WATERKLOOF, ABERDEEN (SRC-620). The natural moment for an Aberdeen man to join this commando is when it came to Aberdeen, and that is AFTER either February date. He could have ridden out earlier and nothing here says he did not; but the commando reached his own district a month after he is supposed to have died in it. THREE, THE AUGUST GEOGRAPHY FITS. Doornrivier lies in the Langkloof, and the article puts Scheepers in the LADISMITH AND OUDTSHOORN DISTRICTS through August and September. Nothing in the article places him near Prince Albert in August, so the burial at Remhoogte remains the hard part of the August reading, exactly as the February reading's hard part is Aberdeen. [TO VERIFY]
Kept verbatim. This project contradicts published genealogies and corrects a family's own oral tradition, so every claim has to be checkable by someone who was not in the room.
What rests on this source
People
- Johannes Kleu (d. 1901, Remhoogte) about 1878 – 2 February 1901