South Auckland military posts and scenes of engagements 1863

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This map was drawn in the early 1920s for James Cowan’s history of The New Zealand Wars and the pioneering period, probably by A.H. Messenger, a draughtsman in  the New Zealand Forest Service. It shows the military posts established along the route of the Great South Road. This all-weather road was vital to the British plans to occupy the Waikato basin. The sites of a number of smaller engagements along the road are indicated, as are those of the major encounters at Koheroa, Meremere and Rangiriri which followed the British invasion on 12 July 1863.