No. 2. From Colonel Gilbert Hogg, K. S. F. (Knight of San Fernando) now, 1866, chief of constabulary county of Stafford, England. “I have much pleasure in stating that the conduct of color-sergeant Alexander Somerville, late of 8th Highlanders, British Auxiliary Legion, was such as to merit my most unqualified approbation. His name was forwarded by me with others to the General of Division as worthy the notice of His Excellency the Lieutenant General for gallantry before the enemy. I might stop here were it not that justice demands I should state more fully the character of this individual. I have a perfect recollection of a mutiny at St. Sebastian in the different Scotch corps [this related to the period of enlistment]. On that occasion as on others the conduct of sergeant Somerville was conspicuous and deserved the highest praise. He never neglected his duty, and ever evinced a desire to secure order and good conduct among the men where his influence was considerable. On the line of march he was enabled from his powerful bodily strength, to bear the fatigue with comparative ease; and at the halt his exertions were unceasing in promoting the comforts and providing for the wants of the men. His conduct naturally attracted my particular notice and I have satisfaction in now recording it. Gilbert Hogg, Colonel, late commanding 8th Highlanders, B. A. L. of Spain.
“Given under my hand and seal this 26th day of February 1841. Gilestown House, Strokestown, County Roscommon, Ireland.”
The more a soldier knows of service before an enemy, not alone the service of battle, siege, or skirmish; not so much these, as the life of rough campaigning, marching hurriedly, eating irregularly, often long without sustenance, sleeping in the open air on the ground, doing duty on outlying piquets, penetrating the enemy’s lines as scouts, escorting stores through perilous obstacles,—the more a soldier knows of these trials of strength and health, of mind and body, the more he realizes the cardinal truth, that not alone are firearms and ammunition guardians of his life. His overcoat and blanket; his water canteen; his haversack to carry food, kettles to cook food, are, by many possible chances of fortune his life preservers rather than his arms and ammunition. But the whole are to him a unity, inseparable. Without a part of the whole he dies. To see the Militia Volunteers of Canada after three or more years of organization, and after nearly twelve months of special training for active frontier service, going forth upon a campaign with almost none of the necessary equipments to preserve health, life, efficiency as they went on the 1st of June 1866, was to me, who had gone through such mind-killing, body-killing service as is indicated in the two military certificates, deplorable, astounding. I wrote in the public journals, fervently, strongly. But that fault, that condition of alarm, does not now remain. Though not in all respects equipped, the volunteers are in a condition for service creditable to the military executive officers.
This is how I came to be the writer of the present Narrative. On Sunday, 3rd of June, when the citizens of Hamilton arose in the same condition of feverish disquiet in which they subsided from the streets for a brief space after midnight—not to sleep, for few sleepers lay in Hamilton on the night of 2nd of June, an adjourned meeting from Saturday was held in the Court House. A committee of the principal ladies and gentlemen of the city was there to arrange for sending provisions, medicines, surgical appliances, medical gentlemen and nurses to the front. The character of the previous day’s occurrences was not known beyond the fact that there had been an engagement and that the enemy had retreated, yet that the volunteers who had beaten them in fight had also retreated, and were reported by Lt.-Col. Booker as “demoralized.”
The Committee requested the City clergymen present to offer prayers in their churches for the men at the front, and sent me as a fit person to go to the Niagara and Lake Erie frontier to ascertain and report fully without fear or favor what was the real condition of the 13th, and the state of the campaign. All agreed that any news, if true, no matter how calamitous, was better than the horrible suspense which convulsed and clouded the whole city.
I was to cross the country, some thirty miles with a team of fast horses and a guide, as no trains were supposed to be on the track, it being Sunday. But there was in preparation a special train which left at 1.30 p. m. I waited and went on it.
At Grimsby at 2.10 p. m. intelligence was given of Colonel Booker having passed on his way to Hamilton. I inferred that excessive zeal for the good of his battalion, nothing to the contrary in his conduct or character being known to me, had induced the journey to urge up provisions and field equipments. Yet the fact of his leaving his command before the enemy also suggested itself as inexplicable. I assert with all the emphasis which language admits, that I expected to have good reports to make of Colonel Booker’s eminent military services, until dismal specks discolored the floating rumours that were met about the Welland Railway. At Port Colborne, on the platform, up the street, along the canal wharf, everywhere that day and next day statements were pressed on me both by Hamilton and Toronto volunteers. I hesitated to believe; questioned, cross questioned, sifted, and still doubted, until many refused to reply farther, alleging that I seemed not to believe anything they said implicating Colonel Booker.
This gentleman’s name and conduct fills too much of the Narrative. But in the mismanagement of the action of June 2nd, in the subsequent aspersions thrown on the 13th battalion by Lt.-Col. Booker, and in the prominence through a concatenation of circumstances, given to the combat at Limestone Ridge, as the crisis of the short, prompt, decisive campaign, the reputation of the 13th battalion; the good name of Hamilton city which sent it forth to the fight; the reputation of the Queen’s Own, of Toronto city which gave them to the service; of the York and Caledonia Rifles; of the Province of Canada whose sons they were a sample of—all were injuriously affected through Lt.-Col. Booker, unless the facts would bear proof that his misconduct was only personal. I have proved that, beyond farther cavil, the volunteers engaged at Limestone Ridge were brave alike, and alike deserving of a historical good name in the present day, and in time to come. To establish this on incontestable grounds I have made many journeys, questioned many persons, balanced conflicting statements, and incurred an unprofitable delay in getting this work before the public; a delay without financial recompense to me as an author, but favorable to the main object which I had in view, a vindication of the Militia Volunteers of Canada.
Animadversions are freely made in the Narrative on the reprehensible inadequacy of equipments with which the volunteers went upon service in June. While the body of this work was in the press the incompleteness continued, so also the remarks of censure; but the Militia authorities have now, (end of August, first and second weeks of September) proved that, while they have had difficulties almost insuperable to overcome, the obstacles are in greater part surmounted.