Orlando, 5,000 tons, two 9 inch guns, ten 6 inch.
Narcissus, 5,000 tons, two 9 inch guns, ten 6 inch.
Undaunted, 5,000 tons, two 9 inch guns, ten 6 inch.
and the improvised merchant cruisers:
Etruria, Umbria and City of New York.
Besides these large vessels, were numerous second and third class cruisers, despatch boats, and torpedo boats and launches; so that the total number of vessels, large and small, in the fleet, considerably exceeded one hundred—and all of the larger ones were armed with the most formidable weapons known to modern science; many of which had a range of more than ten miles.
he date of the sailing of this formidable fleet (the 20th
of April) was, of course, cabled over the French Cable to New York—the English Cables, having been seized by the Canadian Government, being no longer available to the Americans.
The destination of the fleet could only be surmised, as it sailed under sealed orders; but it was taken for granted that it was New York, and preparations were made accordingly. Immediately after England's declaration of war, the President issued a call for 250,000 volunteers, which had been responded to by more than a million men. The New York City Militia volunteered in a body to do garrison duty in the forts of the harbor, and such of the old guns as didn't burst at the first few experimental discharges at the targets, were burnished up, and made to look as formidable as possible. The marine militia drilled constantly by night and by day; and the bay and harbor seemed fairly alive with small craft of all kinds, rushing hither and thither, each one bent upon some offensive or defensive experiment. Stationary and movable torpedoes were placed in the upper Bay and Narrows, and the whole available naval force of the nation, amounting, great and small, to about thirty vessels, were concentrated in the harbor.
Several submarine torpedo boats—of which great things were expected—were giving exhibitions of their prowess constantly, diving under the bottoms of the excursion steamboats as they went up and down the bay, and inflicting a vast amount of needless terror upon the timid excursionists. Each and every one of these little vessels had demonstrated the fact conclusively that she could dive under the largest man of war afloat, and affixing a torpedo to her bottom, could withdraw to a safe distance, and then by an electric battery, blow the great war ship into a million smithereens. Whenever any of them appeared on the surface of the bay, therefore, they were regarded with great awe by the spectators, and were greeted with such remarks as "I wonder what the Englishmen will think of that little thing." "Who would think that such an insignificant looking little boat could do so much damage?" "She has got dynamite enough on board to blow up all New York," &c., &c., and a feeling of absolute confidence in the defensive preparations, which had been so hastily made, pervaded all classes of citizens.
Interspersed with these expressions of satisfaction, would frequently be heard sarcastic regrets that the Englishmen were running headlong to inevitable death and annihilation, and the comic illustrated journals acquired great éclat from their numerous cartoons, in which John Bull was invariably represented as being in extremis.
Meanwhile, the volunteers who had responded to the President's call, were being rapidly mobilized and equipped; and camps were established at Plattsburgh and Buffalo and Detroit; as well as at a point on the Pacific coast near Victoria in British Columbia. Thus the Dominion was threatened with invasion at points nearly three thousand miles apart; and the prospect was that before the summer was over, the military operations on both sides would assume proportions as gigantic as those which had astonished the world during the War of the Rebellion.
Many of the volunteers were veterans of that war; and therefore the work of drilling them and making competent soldiers of them, went forward with incredible rapidity; and within less than sixty days from the issuing of the President's proclamation, the United States had a thoroughly well armed, well drilled, and well equipped force of over 200,000 men in the field, ready to march across the frontier. On the fifteenth of April the first entry was made on Canadian Territory. Ten thousand men in two detachments crossed the Detroit River, and took possession of Windsor, opposite Detroit. A slight opposition to the landing of this force was attempted by a small detachment of Canadian Militia, who after firing a scattering volley at the ferry-boats containing the Americans, beat a hasty retreat when the latter began to return the fire.