An Adventure With Colonel Denison
In 1866, there was another call to arms, when the Fenians invaded Canada at Fort Erie. Whitby sent an able bodied contingent, of which I was a high private, to Niagara Falls, which was reached as the skirmish at Ridgeway was being fought. That campaign was a picnic, and as we were billeted at the swagger Cataract House, and afterwards in barracks, it was not so bad. We had particular instructions to allow no one to enter the camp without the password, and one day, Private Jimmy Shier and I were on sentry go. Colonel Bob Denison, a fine soldier, as all the Denisons were, endeavored to pass the lines on horseback. I halted him and demanded the password, and he, evidently to try me out, said:
“You know me, I’m Col. Denison.”
“Yes, sir, you doubtless are, but orders are orders. Password, please.”
He didn’t give it, and I called for Jimmy, who, dropping his rifle, climbed like a cat up the horse’s side, and unceremoniously pulled the colonel to the ground. We called out the guard, and marched the Colonel to headquarters. Then the trouble commenced, and Jimmy and I were brought before the commanding officer, who had issued the orders which we had faithfully fulfilled. We were promptly and properly acquitted.
Col. Bob, who evidently enjoyed the little affair, got even with us. The next day we were out drilling as usual, and when deploying in full extended order, were instructed by Col. Denison to lie down. It was no bed of roses we dropped on, but—well, I never saw so many thistles in all my life, nor ever felt so many. In fact our uniforms were more thistles than clothing, and the gallant Colonel chuckled, as he saw us picking the prickles from every conceivable part of our persons.
Previous to this, on our way to the front, a sergeant’s guard of us were billeted in Toronto at Mike Murphy’s joint—Mike being the Fenian head centre. Well, we bully-ragged that place all night, and had a very frugal breakfast, the chief part of which consisted of playing ball with ill smelling salt-herring and in our throwing boiled potatoes up and trying to catch them in our cups of alleged coffee. Mike had passed the word around, and a menacing gang of big dock wallopers gathered at the door, but we marched steadily, with rifles in one hand our heavy buckled belts in the other, and no attempt was made to interfere with us, but their pointed remarks were just what you would imagine they might be. Then we were sent to the Bay Tree (after the Tremont) and when my bed-mate discovered some apple sauce on the sheets, we marked it with a lead-pencil and recognized it at dinner next day. Such are the horrors of war.