When the British column under Colonel Broadwood left the village of Thaba N'Chu on March 30th all the British inhabitants were invited to accompany the force to Bloemfontein, where they might have the protection of a stronger part of the army. Among those who accepted the invitation were four ladies and four children, ranging in ages from sixteen months to fifteen years. When the column was attacked by the Boers at Sannaspost the following morning, the ladies and children were sent by the Boers to a culvert in the incomplete railway line which crossed the battlefield, and remained there during almost the entire battle. They were in perfect safety, so far as being actually in the line of fire was concerned, but bullets and shells swept over and exploded near them, and they were in constant terror of being killed. The nervous tension was so great and continued for such a long time that one of the children, a twelve-year-old daughter of Mrs. J. Shaw McKinlay, became insane shortly after the battle was ended. An incident of the same fight was a duel between two captains of the opposing forces. In the early parts of the engagement the burghers and the soldiers were so close together that many hand-to-hand encounters took place and many a casualty followed. Captain Scheppers, of the Boer heliographers, desired to make a prisoner of a British captain and asked him to surrender. The British officer said that he would not be captured alive, drew his sword, and attempted to use it. The Boer grasped the blade, wrenched the sword from the officer's hand, and knocked him off his horse. The Briton fired several revolver shots at Scheppers while the Boer was running a short distance for his carbine, but missed him. After Scheppers had secured his rifle the two fired five or six shots at each other at a range of about ten yards and, with equal lack of skill, missed. Finally, Scheppers hit the officer in the chest and laid him low. At the same time near the same spot two Boers called upon a recruit in Roberts's Horse to surrender, but the young soldier was so thoroughly frightened that he held his rifle perpendicularly in front of him and emptied the magazine toward the clouds.