It was shortly after this, at 7.30 a. m. that Mr. Stovin of the Welland railway delivered the telegram from Col. Peacocke, to Lt.-Col. Booker who expressed, in words of vehemence, anxiety for a messenger to go to Col. Peacocke. Detective Armstrong was at hand and offered to go. “Tell him,” said Col. Booker, “how I am situated,” “you must write it,” rejoined Mr. Armstrong. “I have no paper!” Booker fumbled about his person and finding no paper said: “tell him that”—Armstrong repeated that he must have a written message. “Well then, don’t go at all,” Mr. Lawson of Port Colborne who was present offered paper. Mr. Armstrong gave paper and pencil. Lt.-Col. Booker enquired the time and was told by Lawson, by Stovin, by Armstrong and others 7.30. He wrote 7.30 the only portion of his despatch which was legible. Mr. Armstrong says it was written on paper given by him. Booker says to the court of inquiry that now 9.30; “I turned to Detective Armstrong and wrote on the telegram which I had received that the enemy had attacked us at 7.30.” Mr. Stovin says: “It seemed a strange thing to me that he sent away the telegram he had received; and still more so that after Armstrong was gone, he inquired of me where that telegram came from. He had not read Chippewa.” Squire Learn said of Booker, then: “If they have not got a fool for a commander, he is something worse.”
The time of 7.30, put in the past tense, was an after-thought for the Court of Inquiry. Mr. Armstrong, rode out two horses in seeking Col. Peacock, and delivered that paper, he will swear if required, near Black Creek by 8.30. He is positive it was delivered within the hour from the time of his getting it. From whom Booker got paper is in itself immaterial. He went to the field in command of a brigade, without a map, without a pencil, without a scrap of paper. Says Major Denison, apologetically, p. 39:
“Lt.-Col. Booker was on this eventful morning, for the first time in his life in command of a brigade.... During his whole military career he had never commanded a brigade of infantry, even at a review, and was sent to the front merely as a commanding officer of his regiment, the 13th and not in any other capacity. Chance threw him into the position of a brigadier-general on the morning of a battle, without any mounted staff, without any mounted orderlies, without any artillery, or cavalry, and without a mounted officer in the field but himself. Such was the position in which he found himself when forming up his command at the village of Ridgeway after taking them off the cars.”
Chance may have made that the morning of battle, but chance did not find him in command of the brigade. On the cars all the way from Hamilton he had boasted of his seniority to every other Lt.-Col. of Volunteers likely to come in rivalry with him, and told in grand tones that within a few days he expected to command a force of at least 3,000 men. “And,” say the companions of his journey, “he talked as if he were competent to command fifty thousand men.”
“Without a mounted officer in the field but himself!” By what chance, since chance ruled the day, was he himself mounted? At Hamilton before starting, an officer inquired “Are you not to be mounted colonel? Why don’t you take your horse?” His reply was to poke the officer in the side with his fingers, and say: “Skinner! there is Skinner with his horse; I’ll dismount him.” So, that had Lt.-Col. Booker supplied himself with a charger for the field, he would have had at least one mounted officer besides himself. He says to the Court of Inquiry, and Major Denison says; that finding himself in command of the brigade, he handed over the command of the 13th battalion to Major Skinner. Not true. He arranged that Major Gilmore should handle the Q. O. and York Rifles, and that he would take the rest. The only words approaching to an order given to Major Skinner on that day were, to proceed to the front with the right wing of the battalion, Major Cattley having charge of the left wing as supports. Had Major Skinner been placed in command of the battalion, Major Cattley would have gone with the right wing.
“In command of a brigade for the first time in his life.” The force on Limestone Ridge was not at any time formed or moved as a brigade, except on the line of march from Ridgeway to the place of first deployance. He neither commanded his own battalion as such nor the whole brigade as such. Yet the 13th did operate as a battalion The Q. O. operated as a series of independent companies, some advancing, some falling back, pretty much at their own will and option; or dividing, some portions of a company remaining in position, another portion falling back upon the reserve; no one in particular controlling their motions.
Questions by Lt.-Col. Booker to Major Gilmore, Court of Inquiry:
“What did they,(the Highland Company) report on their return?” Ans. “I do not recollect their return. I believe them to be the last to leave the field.” Ques. “Did you see that we were outflanked on the right?” Ans. “No.” By the Court. “On what do you ground your belief that they were not outflanked on the right?” Ans. “Principally on the statements of the officers and men who were out skirmishing on the right.”
Following this Major Gilmore was asked by the Court, whose members seem from first and to the end, to have had a very imperfect knowledge of what occurred on the field, and small wonder, as they shut themselves up against information, refusing to permit any one who could have directed their inquiries to hear what was said by others, except Lt.-Col. Booker, and peremptorily stopping explanatory observations of witnesses, when they attempted to lead the Court into a clear channel of information; Major Gilmore was asked: “When three companies of the 13th were sent out to relieve the Queen’s Own, had the movement been executed before the retreat was sounded?” Ans. “No; so far as my knowledge extends. Both lines of skirmishers, Rifles and 13th came in together.” The 13th had been out and their movement executed nearly, if not quite one hour. Their movement was to drive back the enemy. With the skirmishers of the Q. O. who remained in front they did it.
Major Gilmore could not see from his position at letter C on the map, where the right wing of the 13th were. He may have seen the rear of the left wing, in the orchard before him.