Yes, that was the route. But Lieut.-Col. Booker had no map; not even the poor pretence of one which the officer in chief had. Lieut.-Col. Dennis may have known the roads but his head seems to have been deluded with the idea of independent command. Booker in his official report contradicts the chief direct. He says: “In accordance with instructions received from Colonel Peacocke, through Captain Akers I proceeded by a train at 5 a. m. to Ridgeway station.” “Ridgeway station,” says Major Denison “was never mentioned as a point to leave the railway.”
In his statement to the Court of Inquiry Lieut.-Col. Booker again names Ridgeway as the place to which he went, but went with hesitation. His hesitation, however, did not grow out of a doubt whether his superior intended him to go there, but whether he and Dennis and Akers should not go off on an expedition of their own to French Creek, leaving Colonel Peacocke to his own fortunes. Says Lieut.-Col. Booker [Court of Inquiry]. “On arrival of Captain Akers, it appeared that Lieut.-Col. Dennis and myself were in possession of later and more reliable information of the position of the enemy than Colonel Peacocke seemed to have had when Capt. Akers left him at midnight. It then seemed necessary to enquire whether the original plan for a junction at Stevensville to attack the enemy supposed to be encamped near Black Creek should be adhered to, when it appeared they were encamped much higher up the river and nearer to Fort Erie.”
Had they followed their “later and more reliable information,” they would have reached Frenchman’s creek eight hours after the Fenians left it. Colonel Peacocke did not know precisely which route his enemy might pursue inland towards the Welland canal, but strategical prescience led him to provide against the Fenian advance in that direction, and he planned accordingly. The event proved that he had judged correctly.
A strange predicament was that of Colonel Peacocke. At Chippewa his advisers and scouts gave contradictory information. His subordinates dividing the command of a distant detachment, set themselves up as superior to him. Major Denison tells the story, thus:
“We must go back a little and give an account of what happened at Port Colborne until the arrival of Capt. Akers. It will be remembered that Lieut.-Col. Dennis was sent there on the morning of Friday with 400 men of the Queen’s Own, and directed to occupy and, if necessary, entrench a position there and wait for further orders before an attack was made. He arrived at Port Colborne about noon and hearing that the enemy were not very near the village, billeted the men to enable them to get their dinners, and sent out scouts during the afternoon to discover the position of the Fenians. The day and evening was occupied in this way. In the evening about 11 p. m. Lieut.-Col. Booker arrived with his battalion, the 13th from Hamilton, and being the senior officer took command of the whole force.
“At 10 p. m. Mr. Graham, the collector of customs at Fort Erie, arrived with information of the exact position of the Fenian camp. This was at Frenchman’s creek a mile below the Lower Ferry, on Mr. Newbigging’s farm. He had been in their camp at 6 o’clock that evening, and was of opinion there was not more than 700 men, and that as they had been drinking hard during the day they would certainly fall an easy prey to any force that might attack them. Lieut.-Col. Dennis’s orders were positive not to attack until further orders; the same orders were binding on Lieut.-Col. Booker, and consequently they could not move to the attack which Mr. Graham urged them on to make, and which he stated would certainly be successful. In order to induce them to move at once to the attack, he suggested that, probably, Colonel Peacocke was endeavoring to keep the volunteers back in order that the regulars should have all the credit of capturing the Fenians.”
Mr. Graham spoke only as nine civilians out of ten would have done, in the same position of time and circumstances. Since then the complaint of the nine out of ten has been that this force of volunteers was precipitated by General Napier and Colonel Peacocke into a position of peril, where they had to prematurely encounter the enemy in mortal combat, unsupported by artillery, unaided by cavalry. Yet they would have been in a worse predicament, by far, had they, equally without artillery and cavalry, been precipitated upon the Fenian field breast-works at Frenchman’s creek. It was Colonel Peacocke’s negative to that mad project which avoided that peril, and its probable disaster. Adherence to his orders to find the best and safest roads, where the Fenians were least likely to be met, in moving from Colborne to Stevensville to join him, would have avoided the premature conflict at Limestone Ridge.
But in this remark I write as they may do whose beloved sons, brothers, friends fell there, slain and wounded. In the larger aspect of a military event the conflict at Limestone Ridge is not to be mourned. On the contrary it has exalted the character of the Province.
“Whether any of the three” says Major Denison, that is, Akers, Dennis, or Booker, “had reflected on the propriety of moving a large force by rail through a wooded country at night, and through a section not properly reconnoitred, and in close proximity to an active enemy, does not appear in the official reports.”