Raaff maintained his observation until the Zulu force began to move in the direction of Khambula. At 11 a.m., Raaff returned, bringing with him one of Prince Hamu kaNzibe’s men, who had been loyal to the British. The man had become separated from his own unit during the confusion of the previous day’s action. For his own safety, he had fallen in with the Zulu impi and had gleaned vital information regarding the proposed Zulu attack, which was scheduled to take place ‘at the white man’s dinner time. When Wood received that intelligence, he recalled the wood-cutting party and had the wagon oxen driven back inside the laager.

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The Zulu strategy for the assault on Khambula had been conceived by King Cetshwayo kaMpande at oNdini, his great place–the Zulu seat of power. Wood’s column had been a thorn in the side of the local Zulu commanders in northwest KwaZulu (as they called their kingdom). Cetshwayo saw an assault on Khambula as an answer to their appeals to contain Wood’s raids into the surrounding countryside. The king entrusted the execution of his plan to Chief Mnyamana kaNgqengelele of the Buthelezi clan, his chief minister and adviser.

The forces mustered at oNdini were for the most part proud veterans of the great Zulu victory at Isandlwana, as well as the men who had suffered defeat at kwaJim (known to the British as Rorke’s Drift) on January 22. Cetshwayo’s orders were explicit: The impi would not assault the fortified position at Khambula. Instead, the Zulu force was to outflank the position and entice the British out from behind their defenses, then engage and destroy them in the open.

On the morning of March 29, Mnyamana relinquished command of the impi in favor of Chief Ntshingwayo kaMahole of the Khoza clan. Ntshingwayo was a most capable general–his deployment of the horns of the beast tactic at Isandlwana had proven that. Now he hoped for a second victory over the red soldiers.

Ntshingwayo’s adversary, however, was different from the commanders he had outmaneuvered at Isandlwana. Wood had chosen his own ground and prepared for any attack. On the western end of the ridge was an entrenched wagon laager, and on a small hillock to the east, a redoubt had been prepared. At the foot of the southwest face of the hillock was a cattle kraal, connected to the redoubt by a palisade. Four cannons had been positioned between the redoubt and the laager.

As a young midshipman in a Royal Navy landing brigade, Wood had been severely wounded in an attempted assault on the Grand Redan at Sevastopol during the Crimean War. That bitter baptism of fire changed Wood’s life, for he left the navy and joined the army, having acquired a taste for land warfare. The true architect of Wood’s defenses at Khambula, Major Charles Moysey of the Royal Engineers, was absent from the camp on March 29 on detached duty.

To defend the position, Wood had at his disposal the following forces: eight companies of his own regiment, the 90th (Perthshire Volunteers) Light Infantry; seven companies of the 1st Battalion, 13th (Prince Albert’s Own Somersetshire) Light Infantry; 110 artillerymen of the 11th Battery, 7th Brigade, Royal Artillery, serving the four 7-pounder cannons, supplemented by two mule guns manned by infantry volunteers; a sergeant and 10 sappers of the Corps of Royal Engineers; and the 58 officers and men of Wood’s Irregulars who had chosen to remain at Khambula. Colonel Buller, of the 60th (King’s Royal Rifle Corps) Rifles, commanded a mounted force composed of 99 officers and enlisted men of the 1st Squadron, Mounted Infantry; 165 officers and men of the Frontier Light Horse; 135 members of Raaff’s Transvaal Rangers; 91 troopers of Baker’s Horse; 40 members of the Kaffrarian Rifles; the 10 Boers of the Burgher Force; the 16 surviving members of Lt. Col. Frederick A. Weatherley’s Border Horse; and 74 men of the Natal Native Horse.

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