Watch Capture of Boer Battery by the British

The Edison Manufacturing Company had already staged war scenes of the Spanish-American War and the Filipino Insurgency. By the outbreak of the Boer War, shooting battle re-enactments had become routine. In this one, the Gordon Highlanders prove victorious as they charge a Boer cannon and the camera. American sympathies for the Boers were surprisingly strong, and in this film the camera takes their point of view. The accuracy of such films is questionable given that they were staged in the Orange Mountains, not too far from the Edison Laboratory. In fact the mock battle resulted in a serious accident to James White; when the cannon fired, he was hit by the gun wad and badly burned.