A hand-coloured print of a crowded battle scene set in a rolling landscape in the Eastern Cape of what is now South Africa.

The Battle of Gwanga was a battle in the Seventh Xhosa War (also known as the Seventh Frontier War and the War of the Axe). The British declared war on the Xhosa in March 1846, following objections to British military engineers surveying the contested land at Block Drift with a view to building a new military fort without prior consultation, and the refusal of the Ngqika Chief Mgolombane Sandile to surrender a Xhosa man accused of murdering a Khoekhoe man whilst he was escorting a Xhosa prisoner,  accused of stealing an axe, to his trial in Grahamstown.

The Xhosa were mainly represented in this conflict by the Ngqika led by Sandile, Chief of the Ngqika and Paramount-Chief of the Rharhabe House. Initially they were successful against the British, thanks in part to their large numbers and their use of firearms. However, the Battle of Gwanga, which took place on the banks of the river Gwanga, was a victory for the British and proved decisive in the eventual defeat of the Xhosa. On 8 June 1846, a troop of 7th Dragoon Guards and Cape Mounted Rifles under the command of Major General Henry Somerset (depicted on horseback and looking through a telescope in the centre of the print), were able to charge the Xhosa when they made the error of crossing the open terrain in daylight. According to the lettering on this print around 9000 Xhosa were present and between 500 and 600 died in the field.

Based on an eye-witness sketch by Captain Carey of the Cape Mounted Rifles, the print shows both sides engaged in fierce fighting. A number of dead soldiers from both sides are depicted in the foreground. This print is number 2 in a series on the conflict published by Rudolph Ackermann in London in 1852.