Booth and his party were rescued and the carnage at the laager examined, the last of the Zulu being seen making their escape with about 250 cattle and much of the supplies from the wagons.

The village of Lüneberg (27°19′1″S 30°36′57″E / 27.31694°S 30.61583°E / -27.31694; 30.61583) was in the disputed territories to the north of Zululand and had been laagered by its 120 white settlers, after news arrived of the Zulu victory at Isandlwana.

Fearing a repeat of the attack, the British dispatched four companies of the 80th Regiment of Foot (Major Charles Tucker) to garrison the village.

[5] In late February 1879, a convoy of eighteen wagons carrying 90,000 rounds of .577/450 Martini–Henry ammunition, mealies (coarse maize flour), tinned food, biscuits, a rocket battery and other weapons for the 80th Regiment, was sent from Lydenburg to supply the garrison.

From the Transvaal border the convoy was escorted by D Company (Captain Anderson accompanied by Lieutenant Daubeney) of the 80th Regiment, from Lüneberg, which rendezvoused on the road from Derby on 1 March.

[6] The wagons being shoved most of the way and fearing a Zulu attack, Tucker sent an order to Anderson to reach Lüneberg that night 'at any cost'.

The Swazi pretender Mbilini waMswati and his Zulu irregulars were watching the convoy and as soon as the escort departed, the wagons were attacked by looters, the drivers and voorloopers (scouts) running for Derby.

[6] When Anderson reached Lüneberg without the supplies, Tucker was aghast and sent Captain David Moriarty and 106 men to bring in the convoy.

By the time the Moriarty party reached Meyer's Drift the river had risen; a camp was established on the Lüneberg side and the men began to lash a raft of planks and barrels together with rope.

The Moriarty party, out for five nights, soaked through and unable to cook food did not laager the wagons as tightly as possible, leaving gaps between them, in a "V" with the ends at the river.

[8] Mbilini waMswati, the local Zulu leader, gathered about 800 men on a height known as Tafelberg 3 mi (5 km) north-east of the ford (Myer's Drift) to attack the laager.

Exploiting a mist to approach the laager unseen, Mbilini led his Zulus forward to the attack early on 12 March.

[15] In 1988, Donald Morris wrote that the bodies of Captain Moriarty, Surgeon Cobbins, three conductors, fifteen African voorloopers and sixty troops were found in the encampment.

[16] In 1995, John Lock wrote that there were only around fifty survivors out of the 150 men; for weeks afterwards, as the river rose and fell with the rains, corpses were found in the water and along the banks.

[18] In 2009, John Laband wrote that one officer and sixty men, a civilian surgeon, two wagon conductors and fifteen African drivers were killed; thirty Zulu dead were found on the banks of the Ntombe.

[13] In 2012, Adrian Greaves wrote that the British and their local allies had suffered casualties of an officer, a doctor, 64 other ranks and fifteen Africans killed and twenty missing, presumed drowned.