Fort Tenedos was large earth-walled fort was constructed on the Zulu side of the Tugela River in January, 1879, opposite Fort Pearson, to support the British at the start of the Anglo-Zulu War. It was named Fort Tenedos after the British warship of the same name, HMS Tenedos, whose crew formed part of the Naval Brigade. The Fort was built under the supervision of Capt Warren Richard Colvin Wynne, R.E.
HMS Tenedos was anchored off the mouth of the Tugela. Armament consisted of two guns from the Royal Artillery, two seven-pounder guns with the Naval Brigade and a Gatling gun. Local British units consisted of the 91st Highlanders, Natal Hussars, the Durban Mounted Rifles, Alexandra Mounted Rifles, Stanger Mounted Rifles and the Victoria Mounted Rifles. There were also some 2,200 Natal Natives formed into two battalions of the 2nd Regt., Natal Native Contingent and a company of Durnford's Natal Native Pioneer Corps. These were formed from local African tribes hostile to the Zulus.
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“So here they are, the dog-faced soldiers, the regulars, the fifty-cents-a-day professionals riding the outposts of the nation, from Fort Reno to Fort Apache, from Sheridan to Stark. They were all the same. Men in dirty-shirt blue and only a cold page in the history books to mark their passing. But wherever they rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)