Narrative of the Fenian invasion of Canada

by Alexander Somerville

The Volunteer Militia had been frequently inspected in Canada West by Major-General Napier, Assistant Adjutant-General Durie, and by other army officers. Their complimentary addresses, or at least newspaper paragraphs purporting to be echoes of their addresses, led the public to believe that the volunteers were organized, exercised, educated, equipped for any emergency.

The Rifles of Toronto known as the “Queen’s Own,” were despatched from that city on 1st of June, with a speech from General Napier to the effect that they might be engaged with the enemy within twelve hours, yet all save one company went without ammunition, and without the equipments enumerated on another page as wanting by the Thirteenth from Hamilton. The Tenth Royals from Toronto, were in like manner deficient. Observe the result in the military fortunes of next day. Referring to his bivouac at Chippewa, night and morning of 1st and 2nd June, Colonel Peacocke, commanding on Niagara frontier, in his official despatch, when relating the events of the 2nd, and 3rd says, “The Volunteers being unprovided with the means of carrying provisions and of cooking them had not been able to comply with an order I had sent the previous evening that they were to bring provisions in their haversacks. I saw that the absolute necessity of furnishing them with some would cause delay and I telegraphed to Port Colborne that I should be one hour later in starting. We marched at 7, o’clock.” In the previous sentence he had named the Toronto “10th Royals under Major Boxall,” 415 in numerical strength, and no doubt referred to them, but the remark of having no haversacks to carry provisions, no cooking apparatus, no provisions to be cooked, applied to other volunteers besides the 10th Royals. That delay was more than an hour. Had there been haversacks and provisions, the Queens Own, Thirteenth, York and Caledonia men need not have been confronted with the Fenians at Limestone Ridge alone. So small a matter as a haversack to a volunteer, and a single atom of common sense to an “Authority,” might have changed the history of that day.

The County of Lincoln sent forth a squadron of Cavalry, good men and true, with faultless horses, but without Cavalry equipments. The York and Caledonia rifles like the Toronto Queen’s Own went without ammunition. The Hamilton Field Battery of artillery, comprised a body of men equal to any that ever assumed the name of soldiers but their harness was decayed, had been condemned over two years, and government had not replaced it. It was unfit for field exercise. The battery could not go to battle. And yet the local newspapers, reporting Colonel Peacocke’s inspection of that battery on 8th March, 1866, published to the Province that he had said, “The Hamilton battery was in a state of highest efficiency, ready for any emergency.” Had it been ready for service it might have been on the field of Limestone Ridge on 2nd of June: and thus, again, the history of that day might have read differently from what it does.—The Welland Field battery was at Port Colborne on the morning of 1st of June, and would have been on Limestone Ridge, but its officers and men had no cannon. Their guns had been removed to Hamilton where there was no harness. They embarked on the steamer Robb and went to Fort Erie. There we shall meet them in due time, in combat with the Fenians on the afternoon of 2nd of June.

If the volunteers engaged with the enemy on 2nd of June are brought under the readers eye in this narrative more frequently than others equally worthy of popular record, it is the circumstance of their having been mortally engaged that brings them now prominently out for comment. The soul of the old soldier when he looked upon the 13th, mustering for frontier service on that morning, bounded with joy to behold the olden youthfulness, buoyancy, and confidence of the race reproduced in this newer country, newer generation. But, because he was an old soldier and knew the exigencies of active war in a wooded country his heart sunk within him at seeing those gallant youths go forth carrying, in the negligence of governmental authorities their death with them. Addressing the public immediately after the events of the 2nd, the writer said: “I assert that had the 13th been exposed day and night for one or two weeks in such work as that of June 2nd, half would have perished of diseases induced by thirst, bad water, no water, hunger, fatigue, and through exposure to marsh malaria without overcoats.” The coats having been lost for want of, with each man, a pair of straps to fasten them when folded on the back. They had no pioneers, no spades, axes, nor other entrenching tools. The Fenians, as was seen in chapter II. looked for spades and axes first thing on touching Canada. They had not been taught how to fold their overcoats so as to carry them on their backs without impeding the action of loading, capping, aiming, and firing. From the American Bull Run of 1862, they had profited nothing in the matter of advancing upon an enemy in a wooded country, carrying no water, no food, nothing but bold confidence, which in war is something but not everything. For want of their coats they mounted guards at night exposed to rain, to swamp fogs, chills from the lake and the canal, wearing only their red tunics and shirts, and all because they had not each a pair of shoulder belts, to carry that first of a soldier’s life preservers, the overcoat. Was no superior answerable for this neglect?

They were sent out without canteens to carry water when on the line of march or on the battle-field. On the field of action and on the retreat they drank from swampy ditches, lifting the water in their shakos and caps and shoes; many were in consequence sick—their intolerable thirst having been aggravated by the ambrosial breakfast of a red-herring which the military genius of their commander, administered to them at 4.30 a. m., preparatory to a long march without water and the hazards of a battle.

It has since been ascertained that he had beef-steak for breakfast. They had no knapsacks in which to carry changes of underclothing, or the usual military necessaries. They had no mess tins in which to divide food, and carry it when not all at once consumed. They had no haversack to carry bread and small articles indispensable to personal cleanliness and health, and not second to these, indispensable in keeping the rifle in working order. They had not a wrench in the battalion to unscrew locks, nor a worm screw, of which every man should have one wherewith to draw charges from rifles. The nipples of some were, after the action, plugged with dirt and could not be fired off. There was no battalion armourer. They had no oil for springs, or to protect burnished steel from rust. They had no portable camp kettles, to cook food which should have been supplied by a Government commissary. There were commissary agents who had no stores. The Government were said to be ready for any emergency. The 1st and 2nd of June proved that they had made no adequate preparation. And the question remains for the time of present writing, month of August. Has any better provision, or equipments for a campaign yet been made?

With all those wants the 13th carried with them their colors to the woodlands. No commanders of practical experience permit colors to be carried into forests, where the war from nature of the enemy and contour of the country is likely to prove desultory. General Sir De Lacy Evans, in Spain, than whom no soldier of riper and more varied experience has lived in this century, never permitted his troops to carry colors before the enemy in that country of woods, orchards, rivers, and ravines.

I come now to the Toronto Volunteers, The “Queen’s Own” were thus described in a local journal, the Leader. The first call to arms referred to was when companies of Volunteers were sent to the frontier to prevent raids into the United States by American refugee rebels, or desperadoes calling themselves such, during the great, the calamitous civil war. (See further on this subject, ensuing chapter.)