Gideon Jacobus Scheepers was born on 4 April 1878 in Middelburg in the Colony of Transvaal.

During the Siege of Kimberley he shot two captured natives (then the polite term) on the grounds that they were allegedly scouts.

General Christiaan de Wet used him as a scout and later promoted him to captain in charge of his own reconnaissance corps.[1]: p.

In December 1900 Scheepers was a member of commandant Kritzinger's commando that invaded the Cape Colony.[1]: p.

In September 1901 Scheepers started getting ill. By 10 October, when they were close to the Prince Albert Road station, he was too ill to stay with his commando and he had to be left behind.

Scheepers faced 16 charges in a court martial: 7 of murder, 1 of attempted murder, 1 that he placed a prisoner in the enemy's line of fire, 1 of maltreatment of a POW, 3 of assault, 2 of malicious injury to property and 1 of arson (15 incidents).