Immediately following the British defeat at Isandlwana, a small garrison of roughly 150 British and colonial troops, many of them sick or wounded, defended a remote mission station at Rorke's Drift, South Africa, against a massive force of over 3,000 Zulu warriors. Over the course of 12 hours of continuous, desperate hand-to-hand combat extending through the night, the defenders held a hastily constructed perimeter of mealie bags and biscuit boxes. Enduring intense heat, exhaustion, and repeated charges into their bayonets, the garrison successfully repelled the onslaught, resulting in the awarding of eleven Victoria Crosses for unparalleled collective endurance.

The dramatic defense of Rorke's Drift was immediately seized upon by Victorian imperialist writers and poets to deflect public attention away from the military failure at Isandlwana. The battle inspired numerous popular ballads, imperialist poems, and paintings that celebrated British military steadfastness and physical endurance under extreme isolation, helping establish a enduring literary archetype of the heroic, outnumbered defensive line in colonial literature.