“C” Company—Major A. A. Sturley, Company Commander; Capt. A. B. Todd, Second in Command; Lieuts. H. DeW. Cunningham, H. B. Potter, J. A. Ross, C. J. Markham.
“D” Company—Major J. W. MacDonald, Company Commander; Capt. G. McQuarrie, Second in Command; Lieuts. J. O. McLeod, W. E. McDonald, T. E. Logan, J. J. Murray.
A few weeks after arrival at Witley Camp, Lieut.-Colonel Borden returned from the Front and resumed command of the Brigade. Lieut.-Colonel Stanfield, owing to ill-health, was invalided back to Canada. When the Brigade was broken up in December, 1916, the following officers, with 300 other ranks, were transferred to the 185th Battalion: Lieut.-Colonel R. J. S. Langford, Major J. P. LeGallais, Major J. W. MacDonald, Capt. F. B. Schurman, Capt. F. C. Baird, Lieuts. H. F. Orman, D. J. McGillivray, P. Andrews, H. A. Dickson, J. M. Soy, H. DeW. Cunningham, C. J. Markham, J. O. McLeod, W. E. McDonald, J. J. Murray.
The remainder marched to Bramshott, where they were absorbed early in January, 1917, by the 17th Reserve Battalion, and used as reinforcements to the Nova Scotian Battalions in the Field.
CHAPTER XIX.
219th BATTALION, C.E.F.
LIEUT.-COL. W. H. MUIRHEAD.
In the limited space allowed for this article it is necessary to omit references to the stirring events which marked the recruiting of the Battalions of the Nova Scotia Highland Brigade, the 185th in Cape Breton, the 193rd in Pictou, Colchester, Cumberland and Hants Counties, and the 219th in Halifax and the Western Counties of the Province. Each contributed to the popular enthusiasm, and through the agency of the press any unusual success in one part was heralded throughout the Province and bore fruit in distant sections.
In Halifax and the Western Counties, while there were many agencies at work, too numerous to mention, they naturally centred around the extraordinary series of meetings addressed by Colonel Borden and Captain Cutten, when, accompanied by the 85th Band, they made their historic tour, commencing at Lunenburg on February 26, 1916, and ending at Wolfville on March 12th. They touched at all the chief points on the Halifax and South Western Railway and returned by the Dominion Atlantic as far as Wolfville. While active recruiting in many places had preceded and prepared for their arrival, the extraordinary enthusiasm aroused by their speeches and by the martial strains of the band formed an epoch in each community.
Recruits enrolled were billeted in their own towns, and detachments marched into Camp Aldershot on June 1st from Lunenburg, Mahone Bay, Bridgewater, Lockport, Caledonia, Shelburne, Clarke’s Harbor, Barrington, Yarmouth, Weymouth, Trenton, Digby, Bear River, Annapolis, Berwick, Bridgetown, Kentville, Wolfville, Dartmouth and Halifax.