The stories of prisoners and of deserters all speak of losses very much higher than those which have been officially acknowledged.
In his comments upon the battle next day Lord Methuen was said to have given offence to the Highland Brigade, and the report was allowed to go uncontradicted until it became generally accepted.

It arose, however, from a complete misunderstanding of the purport of Lord Methuen's remarks, in which he praised them, as he well might, for their bravery, and condoled with them over the wreck of their splendid regiments.
The way in which officers and men hung on under conditions to which no troops have ever been exposed was worthy of the highest traditions of the British army.

From the death of Wauchope in the early morning, until the assumption of the command of the brigade by Hughes-Hallett in the late afternoon, no one seems to have taken the direction.

'My lieutenant was wounded and my captain was killed,' says a private.

'The General was dead, but we stayed where we were, for there was no order to retire.' That was the story of the whole brigade, until the flanking movement of the Boers compelled them to fall back.
The most striking lesson of the engagement is the extreme bloodiness of modern warfare under some conditions, and its bloodlessness under others.