Night assault on hut

Date: 20 Mar 1824
Place: Swallow Creek Affray
The military stationed at Wylde’s ‘Diyawong’ station were two soldiers, privates John Softly and John ‘Epslem’ (or Absalom) from the ‘3rd regiment Buffs’. It took McKeyley several hours to travel up the Swallow Creek valley to Kings Plains, and he arrived at the station around eight or nine o’clock that night. The soldiers were told by McKeyley that ‘the black natives were in and about their Hut’. ‘Agreeable to [standing] orders’, the two privates immediately mustered the now seasoned quasi-official commander, overseer Dunn, and two of his men, and marched down to Swallow Creek. A paltry detachment of just two soldiers was stiffened by armed convicts and an overseer. They arrived at Swallow Creek on Saturday morning around 2 am, to find ‘the Blacks were in possession of the hut’ and the stockmen unharmed, though humiliated – ‘stripped, and their clothes, Blankets &c. tied up and in possession of the Blacks’. It seems that by this time many of the sixty warriors had dispersed. In the dead of night, banking on the element of surprise as well as their muskets, the soldiers ‘then attacked’. John Softly entered the hut first. According to Softly and Epslem, ‘some of them attempted to escape through the chimney and through the sides of the Hut by pulling away the Bark’. Other Wiradyjuri men ‘made resistance’, and one man then ‘catched hold of his Musket while Private John Ebslem was entering’. Another man ‘had a spade in his hand, and made a Blow at him with it which was sloped off [parried] by his Musket, otherwise it would have killed him and the second blow which was sloped off in like manner and broke his Musket in two parts’. As close-quarters combat broke out in the hut, both soldiers were, as they reported events, ‘then obliged to act in our defence as well as we could to secure those most active’. There is little further detailed information on their attack, merely that they managed to take three prisoners, and two other Wiradyjuri men ‘were killed and the remainder dispersed’, suggesting they may have fired at those who were fleeing the scene, or that Dunn and the convicts had remained outside and shot at them.

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Sources

  • Wylde to Goulburn, ‘Re attack by natives’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1798, pp. 312–14; Morisset, Ryan, Softly and Absalom, ‘Re robbery at Swallow Creek Hut’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1800, pp. 28–32.

Event mentions

  • Night assault on hut
    20 Mar 1824 — Swallow Creek Affray
    The military stationed at Wylde’s ‘Diyawong’ station were two soldiers, privates John Softly and John ‘Epslem’ (or Absalom) from the ‘3rd regiment Buffs’. It took McKeyley several hours to travel up the Swallow Creek valley to Kings Plains, and he arrived at the station around eight or nine o’clock that night. The soldiers were told by McKeyley that ‘the black natives were in and about their Hut’. ‘Agreeable to [standing] orders’, the two privates immediately mustered the now seasoned quasi-official commander, overseer Dunn, and two of his men, and marched down to Swallow Creek. A paltry detachment of just two soldiers was stiffened by armed convicts and an overseer. They arrived at Swallow Creek on Saturday morning around 2 am, to find ‘the Blacks were in possession of the hut’ and the stockmen unharmed, though humiliated – ‘stripped, and their clothes, Blankets &c. tied up and in possession of the Blacks’. It seems that by this time many of the sixty warriors had dispersed. In the dead of night, banking on the element of surprise as well as their muskets, the soldiers ‘then attacked’. John Softly entered the hut first. According to Softly and Epslem, ‘some of them attempted to escape through the chimney and through the sides of the Hut by pulling away the Bark’. Other Wiradyjuri men ‘made resistance’, and one man then ‘catched hold of his Musket while Private John Ebslem was entering’. Another man ‘had a spade in his hand, and made a Blow at him with it which was sloped off [parried] by his Musket, otherwise it would have killed him and the second blow which was sloped off in like manner and broke his Musket in two parts’. As close-quarters combat broke out in the hut, both soldiers were, as they reported events, ‘then obliged to act in our defence as well as we could to secure those most active’. There is little further detailed information on their attack, merely that they managed to take three prisoners, and two other Wiradyjuri men ‘were killed and the remainder dispersed’, suggesting they may have fired at those who were fleeing the scene, or that Dunn and the convicts had remained outside and shot at them.
    Source: Wylde to Goulburn, ‘Re attack by natives’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1798, pp. 312–14; Morisset, Ryan, Softly and Absalom, ‘Re robbery at Swallow Creek Hut’, SRNSW, NRS 897, 6065, 4/1800, pp. 28–32.