The village of Lüneberg, situated on the border of present day Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal, had been laagered by its white settlers ever since the Anglo-Zulu War had begun. The Zulus posed a serious threat to the area after a vicious attack on the area on the night in early February of 1879. In fears of a repeat attack on the area, the British dispatched four companies of the 80th Regiment, under the command of Major Charles Tucker, to garrison the Luneberg.

Towards the end of February of the same year, an eighteen wagon convoy carrying 90,000 rounds of ammunition and various other supplies was sent from Lydenburg to resupply the garrison, and was escorted by a single company from the Transvaal border. By 5 March, the convoy was still almost thirteen kilometers away from Lüneberg, their progress delayed by rains which resulted in difficult river crossings, and soft ground which made for inconvenient wagon travel. With fears of a possible Zulu attack, Major Tucker gave an order for the company commander to make his way to Lüneberg that night "at any cost". Unfortunately, the the order was taken literally, and thr company commander abandoned the wagons and proceeded on.

The escort had succeeded in having six wagons cross the Intombe onto the opposite bank, six and a half kilometers from Lüneberg. Six other wagons were still almost five kilometers further back. On 6 March, Major Tucker dispatched a party which only succeeded in pulling free a wagon which was trapped in a drift, and returned to the town that night. The next day, Tucker dispatched Captain David Moriarty, along with a hundred men to gather together all the wagons and laager them on the bank of the Intombe, and then gave orders for them to wait there until the level of the river went down. Tucker inspected the laager at the river on 11 March, but found it to be badly assembled, and was unimpressed with the inverted 'V' shape in which the wagons were arranged, with the base at the river. The river however, had gone down and there was a gap of several yards between the base and the river. Tucker observed other flaws in the arrangement, and stated that the formation gave them no protection whatsoever in the event of the Zulus attacking in numbers. Another drawback was that the garrison was weakened by being divided by a river, with thirty of its force having been laagered on the other bank.

By nightfall of 11 March 1879, two British sentries had been stationed some twenty meters from the laager, however their range of vision was only about forty five meters, due to a hill in front of them. At half past three on the morning of 12 March, a shot was heard close to the camp, and the men returned to their beds after Captain Moriarty decided that it was nothing. An hour and a half later, a sentry on the far bank of the Intombe River managed to make out through a clearing in the mist, a massive group of Zulu warriors advancing silently on the camp. The sentry immediately fired his rifle and gave the alarm, and the sentries on the other side did the same. The British soldiers tried to assume their positions, but with some sleeping under wagons and in tents, there wasn't enough time to ready themselves, and the Zulus had already gained access into the camp. The Zulu forces had advanced so quickly that there was no defence on the part of the British, who found themselves being slaughtered.

One of the first to die was Captain Moriarty, as he came out of his tent, shooting dead three Zulus with his revolver, he was struck in the back with an assegai. He was then was shot attempting to climb the laager, and his last words were "I am done; fire away, boys." Unfortunately for the British, few were able to put up any resistance, and shared a similar fate with the Captain. A few survivors fled the laager, crossing the river, where the troops on the far bank provided as much covering fire as they could. Upon seeing survivors crossing the the river, and approaching Luneberg, Lieutenant Henry Harward, Moriarty's second in command, gave the order to withdraw after seeing several hundred Zulus crossing the river. No sooner had he done this, when he grabbed the first horse he spotted and fled, abandoning his men.

This left the survivors under the command of Colour Sergeant Anthony Clarke Booth. For almost five kilometers, the Zulus pursued the group of roughly forty British survivors. Whenever the Zulus would draw closer, several of the bolder troops, along with Booth stopped to open fire simultaneously, which dispersed their pursuers. Four men who separated from the group were killed. The others made it to Raby's Farm, just over three kilometers from Lüneberg where the Zulus broke off pursuit. The wagons were looted and all the ammunition and supplies were either carried off by the Zulus or destroyed. Booth was awarded with the Victoria Cross for his bravery.