The charge at the Gwanga River

It was along the banks of the Gwanga River that a cavalry charge by the 7th Dragoon Guards and Cape Mounted Rifles (CMR), under command of Colonel Henry Somerset, proved a decisive turning point in the 7th Cape Frontier War (1846 to 1847) between the British and the Xhosa.

Although cavalry regiments were the pride of the 19th-century British Army, it was seldom that they were unleashed