Finally, the Divisions converged on Poplar Grove, but De Wet had shaken himself free without the loss of a single burgher taken prisoner, and with almost his full complement of wagons.  He retired along the Modder towards Abraham’s Kraal, keeping French at arm’s length with his rearguards.  He owed his escape to the hesitancy of his opponents and his own mobility.  The details of the fight show that some of the commanders waited upon one another like Lord Chatham and Sir Richard Strachan at Walcheren.  Again the British cavalry was ineffective for pursuit.

It was not known at the time that had Lord Roberts’ scheme been successful in its entirety, a capture would have been made that might have brought the war to a sudden close.  President Kruger was present during the greater part of the battle, and with bitter chagrin saw the burghers streaming past him in retreat.

Whether the battle of Poplar Grove is to be considered a success or not depends upon the view which is taken of its actual and potential results.  Lord Roberts did not capture another Boer army, as he fully expected to do, but he expelled it from a good position, and put it on the run; and the British Army was one stage nearer to Bloemfontein.

Next day Kitchener was again, in his capacity of military foreman, sent away to superintend the carrying out of the arrangements he had already made for dealing with the disaffected Prieska district.  His disengagement from Lord Roberts removed for the time a potential cause of failure, namely, the uncertainty, to which perhaps the escape of De Wet at Poplar Grove may be due, whether a battle was to be fought with the Commander-in-Chiefs rapier or with the Chief-of-the-Staff’s bludgeon.

De Wet, undaunted by his defeat and by the defection of a large number of his men, who disappeared after Poplar Grove, summoned a Krijgsraad, which authorized further resistance.  A position threatening the left flank of the advance on Bloemfontein was taken up on the kopjes near Abraham’s Kraal.

Reinforcements of “Zarps” from the Transvaal, and of contingents under Delarey and P. de Wet, came in, and a force of about 5,000 men was rallied, to make one more rearguard stand against Lord Roberts.  In the absence of C. de Wet, who had been called away to Bloemfontein, Delarey was in command.

Lord Roberts’ scheme for the advance on Bloemfontein was based on reports that the Boers would take up a strong position a few miles N.W. of the capital.  He divided his force into three columns, each having a cavalry brigade attached to it, which, marching by different routes to a point south of the city, would cut the railway and turn the Boer flank.  On March 10 the advance began, French being in command of the left column, which alone was seriously engaged during the march.

The position taken up by the Boers at Abraham’s Kraal at first only included a group of kopjes near the river, and another group at Damvallei, but eventually it was extended further south to Driefontein and Boschrand, in order to command another road to Bloemfontein.