TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Some punctuation has been changed to be consistent.
— “St ” changed to “St.”
— “Lt-Col.” changed to “Lt.-Col.”; “Lt. Col.” changed to “Lt.-Col.”
— “Lieut-Col.” changed to “Lieut.-Col.”
— “Col ” changed to “Col.”
— “13th.” changed to “13th”; “22nd.” to “22nd” (Battalions)
— Period removed from dates (for example 1st. of June)
The description of time has been made consistent. Use of a comma (for example 4,30 p. m. or 4, a. m.) has been changed to use a period or a space (4.30 p. m. or 4 a. m.). Some upper case A. M. and P. M. have been changed to lower case.
The Chapter headings were misnumbered in the original book. There is no ‘Chapter V’ and no ‘Chapter VII’; no pages are missing.
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Some other changes to the text are noted at the [end of the book.]
MAP OF THE FIELD OF COMBAT,
AT LIMESTONE RIDGE,
Published in the Narrative of
ALEXANDER SOMERVILLE,
AT Hamilton, Canada West.
NARRATIVE
OF THE
FENIAN INVASION,
OF
CANADA,
BY
ALEXANDER SOMERVILLE
WITH A
MAP OF THE FIELD OF COMBAT,
AT
LIMESTONE RIDGE,
HAMILTON, C. W.,
Published for the Author, by JOSEPH LYGHT, Bookseller & Stationer.
Printed by A. LAWSON & Co., White’s Block, King Street.
1866
PREFACE
The term Fenian is derived from the Irish word Feine, the genitive case of Fian (plural Fiana), the designation of a band, or rather several bands of warriors, whose duty was to defend the coasts of Ireland from foreign invasion.
The Fians, Fiana, or Fenians flourished in the third century of our era, and employed their time alternately in war, the chase, and the cultivation of poetry. As their protecting power extended to part of Scotland, hence the traditions of them in that country, on which Macpherson’s celebrated poems of ‘Ossian’ are founded. Their chief was Fin or Fionn (the Fingal of Macpherson), and their most celebrated bards were Ossian, or Oisin, and Fergus (sons of Fin), and Daire, sometimes called Gunire.
James Stephens, who claims to be originator of Fenianism, was born at Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1827. He was probably familiar with the agrarian disturbances around Kilkenny in the years 1842-43. While it falls to me in the year 1866 to write this, “Narrative of the Fenian Invasion of Canada,” and to deprecate, deplore, denounce it, so it fell to me in the years 1843 and 1844, when vindicating the rights of industry against injustice to produce a work, “A Cry from Ireland” of which the late Daniel O’Connell spoke thus at a public meeting in Dublin, afterwards, nearly in the same words, in London:
“The impartial, vivid descriptions of the wrongs of Irish industry and sufferings of the tenantry at Bennet’s Bridge, by Alexander Somerville, are all the more emphatic that he is neither an Irishman, a catholic, nor a repealer. To him more than to any individual we owe the commission of Inquiry into the operation of the Laws of Landlord and Tenant. This work of Mr. Somerville which I hold in my hand (and from which he had cited passages) will be read by generations of Irishmen yet unborn.”
On February 14th, 1844, Sir Robert Peel, then Prime Minister, having announced that a commission of Inquiry was to be sent to Ireland, Lord John Russell, leader of the opposition, made a speech of which this is a passage: “Government have appointed a commission for farther inquiry into the subject. I doubt whether farther evidence be necessary seeing how much evidence we already have upon it, and see statements in the book by Alexander Somerville, ‘A Cry from Ireland’ of a heart rending kind; statements which I would not venture to refer to unless they were fully ascertained to be true; statements which show that with the powers of the law, and in name of the law, some landlords in Ireland, are exercising a fearful and a dreadful power.”
The Prime Minister said in the same debate: “The noble lord has referred to a book called A Cry from Ireland. Sir, I have read that work, and I think it is impossible for any man whatever to read it without being shocked with the manner in which landlords, as there described, have in many instances perverted their powers for harsh purposes.”
Extract from the evidence of Patrick Ring, one of seventy and odd tenant farmers on the Bennet’s Bridge estate near Kilkenny, for some of whom I obtained justice and re-instatement in the lands from which they had been evicted. Commission Blue Books, Reports to both Houses of Parliament, 1844; Vol. III. p. 363. [See also “Somerville’s Book of a Diligent Life in the Service of Public Safety in Britain,” published by John Lovell, St. Nicholas Street, Montreal].
Patrick Ring, examined before the Royal Commission at Kilkenny, Oct. 8, 1844: “There was a gentleman came over to Ireland of the name of Somerville. He had heard of my case and how I was persecuted. He hired a car and went out to Bennet’s Bridge, and got up to the place and saw my mother out in the ruins with an infant in her arms, after she had come out from the mother [his wife] striving to mind the mother and to mind the child. They [family of children] were in a famishing way; and he saw her and left her Morning Chronicle in London, and he laid it also before Mr. O’Connell” &c.
Extract of a letter from Patrick Ring written from Bennet’s Bridge, Kilkenny, 4th Oct. 1844 to Alexander Somerville in London: “My Dear Sir. I take the liberty of writing to you as I know I am welcome, hoping to find you and your dear mistress, my best friend on earth, well, as this leaves me and my family at present. Them all is recovered from the fever, and you next to God was the means of it, you and your dear mistress.”
In the famine years I was again sent to Ireland by the proprietors of the Manchester Examiner, and on behalf of benevolent persons in England, to trace the courses of the pestilence. Some Irish newspapers and many clergymen catholic and protestant hailed my presence in the country warmly. On my sending to England reports of villages or districts which were especially distressed benevolent persons and societies forwarded money to catholic priests and others whom I named as persons to be entrusted with funds for the relief of the perishing people.
In 1848, I was, with an artist, the representative of the Illustrated London News, sent to Ireland to describe the progress of Smith O’Brien’s insurrection.
These matters are here referred to merely to indicate that, although a Scotchman, I am familiar with the social condition of Ireland; that although bred only to the plough with but small education in schools, almost none, for I was working in the fields at seven years of age to assist in obtaining, as one of a large and poor family a scanty subsistence, I yet had the power and the privilege, as a public writer employed in England, occasionally visiting Ireland, to give material assistance, and obtain redress for oppressed tenants in that district, which owns James Stephens as a native, and which has inspired him with Fenianism. My life has been a battle, and my battle has been the rights of man. Not to pull down, but to build up. My writings have been for a space of thirty or more years, directed to the development of a conservative science, teaching, not alone as Political Economy in its heartless divorcement from human sympathies, has taught, how to produce and accumulate insensate matter as public wealth, but how to diffuse as well as produce in completest abundance the stores of wealth among the producers; and how, among all the people of a nation, to dispense the elements of human happiness.
“Ireland for the Irish.” What would have been done with Richard Shea, the tyrant landlord of Bennet’s Bridge, who in 1841, ’42, ’43, had 247 lawsuits with his tenantry, who by his defiance of justice and of law, yet by the power of the law, had brought the district into a condition of agrarian convulsion? He was an Irishman of ancient lineage, boasted of being descended from the kings of Munster? What of him, and such as he, in expelling the Saxon and giving Ireland to the Irish.
But standing on this land of Canada in presence of a Fenian invasion, recently attempted, again threatened, and possibly to be repeated before these sheets are dry from the press, the mind which has with long fidelity pleaded for the rights of Irish industry, for justice to Irish tenant farmers, revolts against discussion of such, questions now. The people of this Province, reclaiming the wilderness, creating property, building up a country, a social fabric, and desiring to enjoy what they are toiling to establish, what have they done that Irishmen, in the United States, in name of the wrongs of seven centuries, should invade them? Most of them were in their own persons, or in the persons of their fathers, poor, hard-working laborers in England, Scotland, Ireland, before coming to Canada to toil. My forefathers lost their land in Scotland by political revolution as many in Ireland have. Three fourths of all the Scotch in this Province came here for the same reason that the Irish came, because they were landless at home, and doomed to lives of toil at small wages, sometimes to the pressure of famine prices on food, while, in vain, they
Begged some brother of the earth
To give them leave to toil.
And English laborers came to Canada to do battle for fortune and subdue the wilderness, for the same reasons and with similar objects in view as the Irish and Scotch. So also the French of an older day, and the Germans and Dutch.
American Republicans. We are not ignorant of political freedom. As a people, we in Canada, warmly, earnestly sympathized with you in your great war of four years, waged to conserve your nationality, to vindicate legitimate government, and the laws against rebellion, (see [chapter eight] of this Narrative). We possess freedom in the widest amplitude; religious, political, civic, social, industrial. We venerate what is old in the British Constitution, which being at the same time youthful, vigorous and easily adapted to new circumstances, is favorable to stability, public morality, social safety, general happiness.
And the people here will stand by the political constitution and laws of Canada and by their allegiance to the British Empire, loving you not the less, trusting to live side by side with you in all the harmony of people inheriting and enjoying a kindred freedom; but resolved before Heaven and in the name of Almighty God to defend this freedom, and this country.
As I have presumed to comment on persons and occurrences in the following Narrative, it may be proper to say that in youth I had considerable experience in a field of war, and as a writer have often had occasion to advert to the subject of national defences. A military education of the manhood of Great Britain, was, to my pen a frequent theme.
Letter from Lord Stanley, M. P., late Secretary of State for the Colonies; afterwards Secretary of State for India, and now, 1866, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, dated London, May 12, 1863, to Alexander Somerville, Hamilton, Canada West, acknowledging receipt of “Somerville’s Diligent Life in the Service of Public Safety,” and “Canada a Battle Ground.” (About latter work see chapter eight of this Narrative). Extract: “Your life and writings have long been known to me. I remember on the occasion of some military debate, your name being appealed to. I think it was when the Militia Bill was in question, and the laudatory reference made to you by Lord Palmerston, was received with general applause by the House of Commons.”
The late Right Hon. Sidney Herbert, Secretary of State for War, House of Commons, 1860: “Somerville was a man of great ability. He wrote remarkably well, and in after life raised himself to a good social position.”
“If we did know the earnest nature of the man, some of the statements in this remarkable book might be set down as the figments of a diseased brain. But truth, unsullied truth, we know to be, as it ever has been the rule and guide of Alexander Somerville.” G. P. Ure, Montreal Family Herald, 1860.
“I know nothing in our literature which, for graphic narrative and picturesque description of men and things surpasses some of the Letters of the Whistler at the Plough, written by Alexander Somerville.” Richard Cobden, M. P., 1847. (On the question of national defences Mr. Cobden and I parted company never to meet again.)
For three years, 1835-38, the Foreign Enlistment Act was suspended in Britain to permit an auxiliary Legion to serve under the Queen of Spain. I do not cite this matter as approving of the policy, but to say that I, with 20,000 more, induced by the cry of constitutional liberty, and full of young life and enterprise, was there. About 5000 survived the hardships of campaigning in a wooded, mountainous country and the casualties of seven general engagements (allied with the Spanish army), and numerous smaller actions such as that at Limestone Ridge on 2nd of June 1866. We were before an active enemy always. In that time I learned something, and suffered some, as bullet wounds and premature disability bear witness now. But it does not follow that because a man has been in a fight or many fights, that therefore he is a sound military critic. Every man is not a hero who is wounded or killed, though a generous courtesy confers on the killed and wounded that high distinction. I do not profess to be an infallible authority. But in the matter of the Niagara frontier campaign, claim to have been careful in research, in collecting and collating evidence. And no inducement under heaven would lead me to write what I do not believe to be true. A literary experience of more than a quarter of a century has made me familiar with many subjects. I adduce a few extracts from military certificates, relating to service before the enemy. The first is from General Sir De Lacy Evans, G. C. B., thirty-four years M. P. for the City of Westminster. He commanded 2nd Division in the Crimea, 1854-55, and before serving in Spain, 1835-37, had seen more active and arduous service in India, Portugal, Spain, France, America than almost any living contemporary.
“Bryanstone Square, London, Nov. 7th, 1847.
(Extract), “Mr. Somerville—Sir, I should be wanting in every feeling of justice were I to hesitate, under the circumstances referred to, in bearing my unqualified testimony to your brave, zealous, useful and exemplary conduct while serving in the Auxiliary Legion under my orders in Spain. The position you filled in that service, was no sinecure. The reports respecting your conduct and character were uniformly to your credit and honor.
(Signed) “De Lacy Evans, Lieut.-General.”
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.
Almost insuperable? What were the obstacles? A factious opposition waged against the organization of an efficient defensive force of Militia, carried on under the delusive cry of economy, from the year 1862, when the Militia organization by Colonel Lysons, Her Majesty’s military representative, was frustrated until the present season of Fenian Invasion, 1866.
Intelligence which lately arrived from Britain informs Canada that the new conservative government, under the Earl of Derby, comprehends and will act on the knowledge of a just conservative philosophy, which Canadian political men calling themselves conservative would have done well to have anticipated during the four years of American war and since. For they have by themselves and their newspaper organs, during the four years of horrible civil war, cultivated international asperities, which are now ripened to a bitter American hatred of Canada, under which, and only under which, Fenian invasions of British America became possible.
On 23rd of July, 1866, Lord Stanley, (son of the Earl of Derby), the new Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, being questioned by Mr. White, a non-official member of the House of Commons, on the Fenian Invasion of Canada in June, and reminded of the just, honorable, effectual interference of the United States government to prevent a more formidable Fenian incursion than that which happened, replied thus:
“I agree in the opinion which the honorable member has expressed as to the friendly and honorable feeling that has been shown by the United States with regard to this Fenian affair. I am very anxious, if possible, and I can speak for my colleagues as well as myself, to do anything that is reasonably possible to remove any ill-feeling of irritation or soreness which may remain in consequence of circumstances connected with the late war.” Her majesty’s speech at the prorogation of parliament; and subsequently the Prime Minister’s speech at a London banquet, expressed similar sentiments.
INVASION OF CANADA.
CHAPTER I.
Outlines of Strategy as arranged by General Sweeny, Fenian Commander in Chief.—Personality of Colonel O’Neil.
The plan of the invasion of Canada at the end of May, 1866, was given by the Fenian military commander, General Sweeny, to his followers somewhat thus:
The advance to be made simultaneously from points along the American frontier from St. Albans in Vermont, to Chicago in Illinois, on a sinuous frontage line of fifteen hundred miles. The right wing was at St. Albans and to the eastward. The centre at Malone, State of New York, situated at about fifteen miles inland from the St. Lawrence river, and having railway facilities to concentrate men and supplies from the wide interior of the States, and to distribute them to selected positions on the frontier opposite Canada. Malone was considered available for a landing at Cornwall, the lower outlet of the Upper Canada section of the St. Lawrence canals. Also for an attack on Prescott from Ogdensburg. The occupation of Prescott was to include the severing of the Grand Trunk railway, and to give possession of the branch line to Ottawa city, seat of the Canadian Government. Malone was available also for an expedition to Montreal by way of the Richelieu river. That expedition was also to co-operate with Spears’ force crossing the Missisquoi frontier line, both marching with artillery within easy supporting distance of each other.
Murphy and Heffernan were to cut the Lachine and Beauharnois canals; while Spears destroyed the Grand Trunk at several points, including Longueil, opposite Montreal, St. Hilaire, and St. Hyacinthe.
Kingston was to be threatened from Cape Vincent and Ogdensburg, both within easy supporting distance from Malone, by a body of two or three thousand men, who were merely to keep moving, advancing and retiring in the vicinity of the St. Lawrence, where it issues from Lake Ontario, and so occupy the Kingston garrison of British regulars.
O’Neil with 5,000 men was to cross from Buffalo, by the narrows of Lake Erie, or upper section of the Niagara river, or if transportation availed, to go to Port Colborne, the Lake Erie terminus of the Welland canal. In any case to reach that place, occupying the canal and Welland railway; Buffalo and Lake Huron railway; and reach the chief depot of the Great Western at Hamilton; occupy that city and co-operate with forces which would advance against Toronto, from the south by Lake Ontario and its shores, from the north and west by Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. The Niagara peninsula and agricultural country around Hamilton were expected to furnish horses sufficient to transpose O’Neil’s 5,000 men on foot into cavalry. Many of these had been in cavalry service in the American war. O’Neil himself was from Nashville, Tennessee, his men were from Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio.
At Chicago, General Lynch, with Tevis, Adjutant-general of Sweeny’s staff, were meanwhile to organize and transport what men and supplies were ready in Illinois State, co-operate with another force concentrating at Milwaukee city, State of Wisconsin, both to be steamed across Lake Michigan, through the straits of Mackinaw, and Lake Huron, invading Canada at Goderich, the western terminus of the Buffalo and Lake Huron railroad, and at Collingwood, upper terminus of the Northern railroad, connecting by eighty miles, the Georgian Bay and Huron Lake, with Toronto city and Lake Ontario. This force was called, or was to have been, the left wing of the Fenian army of invasion.
The State of Michigan, supplemented by the States lying to westward and south was to furnish the right column of this grand left wing. This column, or rather division, had assigned to it Detroit and Port Huron as points of advance, from which to cross the Detroit river, occupy Windsor, Sandwich, Amherstburg, north shore of Lake Erie, and, at Windsor, the Great Western railway of Canada, leading toward Chatham and London. The other part of that Michigan division was to cross to Sarnia, where the river, a mile wide, issues from Huron lake; where the north-west branch of the Great Western, connecting with the main line at London, has its terminus; and where the Grand Trunk of Canada crosses the frontier, by steam ferry, to Michigan, and by running fifty miles southerly reaches Detroit city.
All that western army, forming the grand left wing was to have been supported by artillery.
Next there was to be the Cleveland column, 7,000 strong, occupying an intermediate place between O’Neil’s column of 5,000 at Buffalo, and the right of the western wing at Detroit. This, it seems, was to have been an independent army corps to support the first invaders and permanently occupy central positions in Upper Canada.
“All the invaders from the west, having crossed the line, were to concentrate at Hamilton, London, Toronto and Kingston, where plenty of supplies and large depots of arms for the use of the British troops, could have been seized without any hard fighting, from the smallness of the forces occupying these places. Thus Canada would have been invaded from every available point.”—Correspondent New York World.
“The Fenian forces advancing from the different western lake cities, on Canada West, must necessarily as a measure of safety, have drawn all the best troops from Montreal, to cover the exposed points, such as London, Hamilton, Toronto, and Kingston. This movement of Sweeny’s would certainly have left Montreal uncovered to the attacks of Spears and Murphy, who were to co-operate in two different columns, marching on left and right of the Richelieu river on Montreal.” The same.
“The total number of men directly engaged in this Fenian movement to the front has been variously estimated, according to the feelings or prejudices of those making calculations. Enthusiastic Fenians assert that 50,000 to 75,000 men designed for operations against Canada were furnished transportation by agents of the Fenian directory at New York, and other large cities and by the circles of the Fenian Brotherhood throughout the United States, during the progress of the movement northward.” The same.
“On the other hand, Canadians whom I have conversed with, some of them holding high positions in the colonial government, have assured me that there were not more than 15,000 or 20,000 Fenians congregated at any one time along the frontier with hostile intent or purpose. However, from my observation and information, having a most favorable opportunity and facility for both, I can safely say that over 30,000 men have been forwarded by Fenian authorities from all points toward the frontier, and had the United States government shut its eyes to the hostile purpose of the movement, there can be no reasonable doubt whatever, but that at least fifty or sixty thousand hardy and earnest men, four-sixths of whom had been inured to war in the contending armies of the North and South during the late war, would have precipitated themselves on the Canadian people.” The same.
The foregoing extracts and statements of Fenian plans are here placed on permanent record for reference, but without admission or denial of their accuracy.
On 29th of May intelligence from Nashville, Louisville, and Cincinnati, in the States of Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio respectively, reached Canada intimating that Fenians were in motion, and that an extensive raid on Canada was contemplated. From Ohio large shipments of arms had been ordered northward to Cleveland, on the south shore of Lake Erie.
Large bodies of men arrived on the same day by railway and on being questioned as to their destination said, “to California, to the railroad.” Most of them moved eastward on foot and entered the cars outside the city, on the railway to Buffalo.
May 30. A telegram from Buffalo brought intelligence to Canada in these terms: “The Fenians from Cleveland arrived here this morning. Several fights occurred on the train, and out of three hundred and forty-two that started, quite a number were left by the way, badly hurt. One at Ashtobula will die. They left the train a mile outside Buffalo, separated, and are now scattered through the worst places in the city, and are very disorderly. Two are in gaol for shooting at a policeman who attempted to arrest them for misconduct. There is no possibility of any organized movement to-night, the entire police force is on duty. Some think the movement a blind to cover an attempt elsewhere.”
“Later. About two hundred more Fenians reached the city at 10 o’clock, and left the train as the others did—some distance out of the city. They have just marched into town. A meeting is now being held in Townsend Hall, the Fenian head-quarters. The men are boarded at various Irish boarding houses. There is only a force of fifty regulars at Fort Porter here. Warning has been given, however, to the commander of the revenue steamer Michigan.”
It was reported that the Michigan had been about to leave Buffalo several days before on a cruise, but on rumours of an intended Fenian gathering at Buffalo reaching the United States authorities the commander had orders to remain. It was the presence of this vessel which now prevented the Fenians going at once to Port Colborne, terminus of the Welland canal twenty miles from Buffalo; at least this has been stated.
During that day, Wednesday May 30, several rumours, not at any time probable gained currency; of which one was that trains had been arrested on the Great Western Railway, at Niagara Suspension Bridge. By whom, or for what purpose, did not in reasonable form appear. But with an aptitude to accept any reports of offensive operations having been commenced against the Province, the public mind of Canada, was equally ready to accept assurances given through the newspapers that the Executive power of Canada, civil and military, was actively alert and equal to meet the impending emergency.
A telegram from Philadelphia dated May 31, gave information that a company of three hundred and fifty men had left that city to join the Fenian invaders at the northern frontier.
A telegram from Ottawa, seat of Canadian government dated May 31st, conveyed intelligence that all was tranquil there. In Toronto, Hamilton, London, Kingston, Montreal, and Quebec, where regular troops were stationed and at Sarnia, Windsor, and Sandwich which were guarded by Volunteers, the forces were quietly ordered to be on the alert.
Colonel John O’Neil, of Nashville Tennessee, who was now at Buffalo and was on 31st of May, about to invade Canada, has been thus described in New York journals. “He is a young and ardent Fenian, and is now in his twenty-fifth year. He was formerly connected with the Sixteenth regiment of regulars, and served in that organization under Gen. Sweeny. He was well known as a dashing cavalry officer in the late war, when he was attached to a Western regiment. He was promoted to a captaincy for gallantry in a severe engagement.”
A newspaper writer who conversed with O’Neil at Buffalo reported as follows:
“He is not a graduate of West Point, as has been stated, but enlisted as a private in the 2nd U. S. dragoons in 1857, and went to Utah. He was subsequently transferred to the 1st dragoons, went to California and served until the breaking out of the rebellion. He entered the Union ranks and served in the Army of the Potomac until McClellan was driven back. After the seven days’ fight the regiment to which he belonged was broken up. The officers went to Indianapolis on recruiting service, and he was commissioned in the 5th Indiana cavalry. He served in Kentucky until after Morgan’s raid, and had a severe fight with that famous guerilla at Buffington Island, and though the force with which O’Neil opposed the rebel was greatly inferior in numbers, compelled him to retreat.
“Colonel O’Neil continued in the service until severe wounds forced him to leave it. He further says that the report of his having been in the rebel service is wholly untrue. That he was a Union man from the first—that he never fought against the Union, and that he never could be induced to do so.
“In reply to a question as to what truth there was in the report that he had killed a man unfairly in a duel, he stated that he had never fought a duel in his life; that he condemned ‘the code’ as against his religion, was opposed to it in toto, and would never fight a duel under any circumstances.
“We give these statements as given us by Colonel O’Neil himself, and while expressing no doubt of their truth, are not, of course prepared to vouch for their authenticity.”
By different persons who saw him at Fort Erie and Lime Ridge, he is described as about five feet seven or eight inches high, of slim, active figure, with light colored hair, blue or grey eyes, ruddy face somewhat freckled; speaking with a soft voice and courteous manner.
CHAPTER II.
From 3.30 a. m. 1st of June 1866 to 11 a. m. Canada invaded. Lower Ferry. Engineer of International Bridge. He is asked for “chunk” and “sugar.” Mrs. Kempson parleys. Dr. Kempson made prisoner. Village Council ordered to find breakfast for one thousand Fenians. Axes and spades in request. Telegraph posts cut down. Boat escaping on the river. The Hotels. Bar-rooms. Landlords serving liquors with revolvers at their heads. Carrying sacks of flour with bayonets in their rear. Baking, cooking for one thousand Fenians. They eat, drink, sleep. Are aroused for the line of march.
During the night of 31st May, the Fenian bands left Buffalo city, travelling by different outlets; but meeting on Niagara Street and Black Rock Road, they halted at Black Rock Ferry about five miles below, and north of Buffalo city; there they embarked in scows, which, with a steam tug, lay in readiness to receive and tow them over to the Canada shore, distance about one thousand yards. They landed at the wharf called Lower Ferry, and marched westward towards the village of Waterloo. This is a place containing about seven hundred and fifty inhabitants. By persons living at a distance it is called Fort Erie from an old fort of historical name situated two miles south-west on the shore of Lake Erie, and nearly opposite to Buffalo city, where the outflowing volume of Niagara is three miles wide. But to the inhabitants of the surrounding country the village is only known by name of “The Ferry.” The river at this point has contracted to a width of eight hundred yards, and the traffic across is conveyed by a steamer which plies every half hour. On the American side there is first an embankment separating Buffalo mill race from the main river. On this embankment are several flour mills, lofty and wide, the most southerly of the group now marked with Fenian bullets which, on the afternoon of June 2nd, were directed against the steam tug Robb, a vessel from Dunnville, which gallantly stemmed the current with about sixty Fenian prisoners on board, below decks, on passage to Port Colborne, twenty miles westward. The mill race is spanned by a swing bridge, after which is the Erie and New York canal, which extends along the foot of the Buffalo and Black Rock heights, which there rise seventy or eighty feet. On the Canada shore is a corresponding range of heights, but more rounded and covered with verdure, and with a level margin between them and Niagara river, the level varying from three hundred to fifty yards wide. On this plain lies scattered on three quarters of a mile of river front the village of Waterloo. It has three small churches, a school house, which was, for a short while on June 2nd, a prison for Fenians, before these were taken on board the steamer Robb; and some hotels, stores, and a few goodly dwelling houses embowered in orchards, in maple and poplar groves, one of which, occupying a prominent position, became the prison of certain officers and men of the Welland Artillery, who, with a portion of the Dunnville Naval Brigade, had become captives to the Fenians, after placing Fenian prisoners on board their vessel. This, as will hereafter appear, was not the result of their own mistakes, but of a turn in the fortunes of war, which with many other adverse complexities characterized the different parts of the military drama of the 2nd of June.
A Buffalo journal related how the Fenians obtained transports, thus: “On Wednesday or Thursday previous to the raid, some persons waited on Capt. Kingman, of this city, and engaged two tugs and four canal boats to carry the employees of Pratt’s Iron Works, at the lower Black Rock, on a pleasure trip to Falconwood. The price of the trip was arranged for, the money paid and the boats dropped down to their position on Thursday afternoon. The Fenians seized upon these transports to invade the ‘sacred soil’ of Canada. The boats, after use, were quietly returned to the American shore; the owners being nothing out of pocket thereby.”
On the night of invasion there was a brilliant moon three days past full. Sunrise was twenty-five minutes past four. The first gleams of daybreak appeared in the north-east as the invaders landed in Canada at Lower Ferry, township of Bertie, county of Welland. At this place there is a shingle factory, a boat-house, a tavern, the residence of a customs officer, and one or two frame dwellings. It is about two miles below and north of Waterloo village. The invaders took possession and left an armed guard on those houses. The main body then moved hurriedly up the Niagara shore road towards the village.
Near to a bend in the Canada shore, named Bertie Point, half a mile south of Lower Ferry is the residence of Mr. Molesworth engineer of the International railway bridge, which was to have been built this year, but is not yet begun, the delay being caused partly through financial difficulties, in Britain, and partly through Fenian disturbances on this frontier. The river between Bertie Point and Squaw Island on New York shore, where it will terminate in conjunction with the Atlantic and Great Western Railway is eighteen hundred feet wide, greatest depth forty-one feet. There will be a carriage and foot-way as well as railroad track, and it is expected when the bridge is completed, citizens of Buffalo will erect dwelling houses on the Canada side. The hotels and boarding houses of Waterloo were frequented by persons from Buffalo before the Fenian alarm.
A detachment of invaders broke off from the main body in passing Mr. Molesworth’s house, a brick villa with white columns supporting a verandah and standing among a thicket of trees, twenty or thirty yards from the road. They knocked loudly with the butt end of their rifles. Mr. Molesworth, his wife and family of young children were asleep. He looked upon the intruders from an upper window and asked what was wanted. They ordered him down to open the door, else they would break it in. He again asked who they were and what was wanted? The reply was that they were the Fenian army landed to liberate Canada; they wanted chunk; they wanted sugar. Mr. Molesworth not being acquainted with slang did not know that chunk and sugar meant money. He asked if they wanted bread. Their reply was “yes; bread, chunk, sugar.” He went down stairs, collected all the bread and cheese the house contained, carried it up, and lowered it out of the window. Still they cried for chunk and sugar. Presently officers with drawn swords and revolvers in hand drove that portion of the mob away ordering them to fall into their places on the road. Mr. Molesworth felt relieved by their absence, but was much puzzled to think what such a crew could want with sugar. Either these returned or others came and once more there was the cry, “chunk! sugar!” “I have given all the bread, everything eatable in the house,” responded the engineer. “We want money,” rejoined one of the marauders. But fortunately for that defenceless household, Fenian officers again called away, or forced off these men.
As they approached Waterloo village, the shore road on which they marched, crossed the railway track of the Erie and Niagara line, a track not yet regularly working. A single telegraph wire was on the posts skirting this line; but on the river side road by which they had come, were the International telegraph wires. Near to Lower Ferry, these are bound around a post and carried under water from shore to shore. When the invaders had reached the Erie and Niagara track, they passed a church on their right hand, standing within its small cemetery among trees, on a descending section of the heights before mentioned which here approach the river. At fifty yards further south they passed the mouth of a ravine which separates the church bluff from one on which, within an orchard and a grove of tall poplars, stands prominently out the residence of Dr. Kempson, reeve of the village. That house was the first point to which the Fenian commander O’Neil conducted his force. He ascended a steep carriage way at a right angle from the river road and railway track, about two hundred yards, entered the enclosure, placed sentries around the house, stable and barn, and along the garden and orchard, his main body being halted outside the garden fence and in an enclosed pasture field adjoining. At a short distance north from this residence on the same bluff and within the same orchard, was another house which was also surrounded by Fenian pickets.
It was now daylight. The range of rounded green knolls, extending three quarters of a mile southerly and west from this section, on which the second skirmish of next day was fought, and on which Royal Artillery, Infantry regulars, and Volunteers were subsequently encamped, reflected back the first beams of the sun; that sun of the 1st of June, which brought the light of offended Heaven to bear witness against an army of strangers whose presence there was a crime against international law, against innocent Canada, which had done them no offence, against civilization, against the liberty and safety of a free people, which America should be ever foremost to vindicate; against the declared authority of the bishops and priests of the Roman Catholic Church, to which nearly all the Fenian brotherhood professed to be attached. By the scheme of invasion of Sweeny and Roberts attacks had been designed for this or the preceding morning, at eight or more places along a frontier line of fifteen hundred miles. By confusion in the councils of the Fenian brotherhood, by want of confidence in one another, by failure of transport to men and munitions of war; by a sense of justice or of discreet policy newly manifested in the executive government of the United States, the hand of Omnipotence was on that occasion discernible on the side of right, and of comparative innocence, against crime and unqualified wrong.
O’Neil, the chief of the invaders, has been described. He wore gray clothes with some badge of green around a military cap. He ascended the steps to Dr. Kempson’s front door, rapped, and demanded that the Doctor should come out to speak with him. Mrs. Kempson descended to the door instead of her husband. She is an intelligent lady seemingly about twenty-five years of age, and mother of several young children, who were then in the house. Colonel O’Neil quickly announced himself, again demanded to see the lady’s husband, in his capacity of reeve of the village of Waterloo; and intimated that if he did not come at once force would be used. Mrs. Kempson inquired what they intended to do? “To do? what do you mean?” “To us—what are you going to do to us?” “We have come to hold possession of Canada; you are all, for the present, my prisoners.” “Do you intend to kill us?” “No; not if you be quiet and do as I require.” “What do you want with us?” “First of all, where are your axes and spades, I must have them instantly; and your husband must at once surrender himself to my orders!” The lady intimated that the tools asked for were in the barn or in the woodshed. Whereupon O’Neil ordered some men to find them, and proceed to the railway track and the road in front of the church, cut down the telegraph posts, sever the wires, lift the rails, and dig trenches across the track; all of which was speedily done. While Mrs. Kempson still guarded her doorway, O’Neil said, “Do you suppose my men will kill you?” She expressed fear that they would. “They will not hurt you” he replied; “but you must bring Dr. Kempson here at once.” The Doctor came. O’Neil ordered him out to the road in front of the garden wicket, placed an armed guard in front and in rear of him, and said, “Dr. Kempson, you are chief magistrate of this village, I require you to assemble the principal inhabitants and, without delay, provide breakfast and other rations for one thousand men. You march along with me. A picket of officers and men will keep guard on your house; your wife will give them and also those in the field such provisions as she may now have.” About fifty men occupied the garden and searched the lower rooms and cellar. Mrs. Kempson gave the bread, meat, wine and brandy which the house contained, and with her servants baked more bread, fried ham, made tea and coffee in pailfuls, which were carried out to the field beyond the garden gate, where between one and two hundred men lay on the grass, besides the fifty who crowded into the house. They in the field were prevented by sentries from entering at the garden gate.
After the occupation of the reeve’s house, the next incident of sensation in the village was the discharge of Fenian shots at a small boat which had crept out from the Canada shore, containing two men, one of whom was pulling his oars frantically towards middle stream, the other lying down in the boat. The oarsman was Mr. Leslie the postmaster, his passenger, Mr. Kerby, a clothier; Fenian bullets whizzing past their ears, and loud shouts of “come back”, compelled their return. Like others they were taken prisoners, but liberated on parole.
As the reeve advanced up the street, half a mile south of his own house, Mr. Forsyth, a justice of peace and member of the corporation, Mr. Douglas another member of corporation, Mr. Graham, collector of customs and two or three more principal men emerged from cover, and answered O’Neil’s summons to surrender themselves prisoners. They also were paroled, and commanded to furnish breakfast for one thousand men on pain of having their houses forcibly entered and possibly burned. The words “one thousand men,” were frequently used by O’Neil on that morning. Next day, June 2nd, when he made his head-quarters in the house and on the farm of Henry F. Angur at Limestone Ridge, before the fight began, he spoke of his force being fourteen hundred. After much inquiry I have not been able to trace the retreat of the latter number of men across Niagara river, though it is ascertained that many escaped across from Saturday to Sunday June 2nd and 3rd, besides those intercepted by the U. S. steamer Michigan. By the excess of rifles and ammunition brought from Buffalo beyond what O’Neil’s force required, and which were destroyed previous to the Lime-ridge conflict, it is probable that Canadian Fenians were expected to fall into the invading ranks. But whether they were to have partaken of the breakfast for “one thousand men,” or if that was the actual numerical strength brought from Buffalo, investigation has failed to determine.
Some of the inhabitants were too poor to contribute to the Fenian breakfast. The operations in the principal hotel, were of this kind: The three lower sitting rooms were filled by men, who awaited their turn to pass into the bar-room. Sentries with loaded revolvers stood in front of the bar; the landlord stood behind it filling his liquors as long as bottles and jars held out. When these were drained he was escorted to his cellar by other guards with revolvers loaded and capped and assisted by willing “helps” to carry his liquid stock to the floor above. When all was drained, his cellar and bar empty, he was thoroughly cursed for not having more liquor on hand; and, at point of bayonet, driven to make haste and “help get breakfast ready.” All the butcher’s meat and cured hams in the hotel were cut up and cooked; coffee was made in pails and tubs and carried to a rising ground west of the village, on which O’Neil and his officers had posted the main body of their force. All the bread was soon consumed, and the flour in the hotel had been made into more bread and that eaten up. The landlord having drained off his liquors and given his eatables to his voracious visitors thought to rest himself, as he could do no more. The click of revolvers seconded the command to go and purchase. His faint reminder that he had drawn no money wherewith to purchase additional supplies, was stopped by curses, by pointed bayonets, and the language of menace which informed him that he had credit at the stores. Thither he went under a dancing, rollicking escort, and was ordered not to look miserable, but to be happy, to laugh and join in the hilarious joy now that, “degraded Canada was liberated, and from that day was a free country!” He shouldered a sack of flour; and, pricked with bayonets, trotted under his burden, laughing as best he could; assuring the liberators of Canada, that he was happy to see them; happy to see that day; overcome with joy in fact; oh, yes! very happy! hoorah for the Irish Republic!
“You may as well not publish names,” said one of the villagers who with me listened to this recital; “when Colonel Peacocke and the army leaves here, some of those Buffalo men may come over and give us a licking.”
During the plunder of the bar-room and cellar, the landlady, a delicate young person, and servants, with Fenian “helps” were cooking, baking, and boiling. Next day, during the absence of the Fenians at Limestone Ridge, this landlord, like most other residents on the Canada shore got the females of the family removed to the American side for safety.
Other contributories to Friday morning’s breakfast were treated and employed similarly to the hotel keeper, though not all. Wherever O’Neil was, his men were moderate, merciful, obedient.
When the invaders had filled themselves, and drank all the liquor in the village they still demanded more. One hundred and fifty or two hundred continued about that hotel, singing, and dancing, several hours. At last O’Neil and other officers with drawn swords came, supported by armed pickets and drove them away, using such reproaches as, “you blackguards! do you think we brought you to Canada to get drunk, and make sport? you came here to fight. The army of red-coats will soon be on you! are you in a state to meet the red-coats? For shame! soldiers of the Fenian brotherhood! shame!” And the officers drove out the plunderers before them.
A man named Canty, who had been suspected of Fenianism disclosed himself now. He girded on a sword and boldly informed his neighbours that he was a B, or Major, in the “army of liberation.” Canty was owner of a house and lot in the village, of which government agents soon took possession. He was said to have absconded from the States, two years before, with the money of his creditors, and purchased this property. He absconded from Canada quite as hurriedly after the fight at Limestone Ridge, on the reported advance of Colonel Peacocke’s force. His house was said to be a depository of entrenching tools. It was said that arms and ammunition had been concealed there, but after the man’s flight none were found. Some village names were freely and unfavourably mentioned to me by a person in authority, who was making an official report to the government at Ottawa through Colonel Peacocke; but, in conversation, I found that the Fenian invasion had less to do with the gentleman’s ideas than the discomfiture which he had suffered at a recent village election. That gentleman’s narrative of the movements of the steamer Robb, of the Welland Artillery, and of the manner of capturing Fenian prisoners, as also of the number of prisoners captured was at variance with facts otherwise ascertained and unquestionably certified. He might intend to do government a good service, but his memory seemed not reliable, nor his mind sufficiently free of a petty political distemper. The Ottawa authorities should receive with caution any magisterial statement he may have forwarded reflecting on the loyalty of his neighbours.
A detachment of Fenians, some hundreds strong, but precisely how strong, I could not ascertain, proceeded to the Buffalo and Lake Huron Railway depot, a mile south-west of the village. A man named William Duggan, employed as a track-man on that line, was committed for trial to Welland prison, on June 21st, accused of having conducted the marauders to the depot offices and aided them with crowbars to open lock-fast doors.
CHAPTER III.
Dinner ordered for a “thousand,” and provisions run out. Fenian army asleep; what, when it should awake? Pickets, sentries and passes. Reverend Fenian, Lumsden from “Auld Reekie.” Dimensions of Welland Canal. Rideau Canal. St. Lawrence Canals. American vessels with-held from Welland Canal. They re-appear after two weeks. Horses captured. How bridles were made. New use of telegraph wires. Milking the cows at Frenchman’s Creek. O’Neil’s pass. Fenian sentry. Sergeant of the picket.
The village corporation of three at Waterloo, and the less timid of seven hundred and fifty inhabitants, breathed more freely at nine a. m. than they had done any minute since daybreak. The “breakfast for one thousand men” had been amply furnished, and heartily eaten. The armed multitude, fierce and hungry before, were now filled, and lay stretched in sleep on the green slopes, or under the trees, or kept watch by the river side, or as railway pickets. But noon was fast approaching. The thousand men would be hungry again. The corporation were ordered to prepare dinner. Where was it to come from? Then supper would be required, and lodgings for the ensuing night. The food of the village was already eaten up. It was a fearful prospect, the awakening of that multitude, now lying drowsily in the fields, in the orchards, in the woods, in the barns, on the door steps in the passages, on the sofas, or carpeted floors of private dwellings. But it was no part of O’Neil’s policy to remain inactive in that village, risking an attack, without having accomplished something more than levying breakfast for his forces.
They were roused from sleep, collected and admonished that the time had arrived to march into the interior. O’Neil’s object was, first, to gain possession of the Welland canal and two railways at Port Colborne, situated seventeen miles west from where he then was, and besides, to strike at the aqueduct which feeds the canal, and the swing bridge which carries the Welland railway over it at Port Robinson. He left guards upon the Fort Erie terminus of the Grand Trunk auxiliary, the Buffalo and Lake Huron railway, a mile south of the village, besides cutting the telegraph wires on that line, as he had done on Erie and Niagara track, to prevent intelligence of his movements going west by way of Port Colborne. He also left pickets in the woods and at the junction of different roads, and at the ferries on the Niagara river. The inhabitants were only permitted to move from their houses to any given point by obtaining written passes from Fenian officers. One who wrote passes during that day signed his name L. F. Lumsden. On being recognized by a farmer as a Scotchman and asked where he came from in Scotland, Lumsden replied, “Auld Reekie,” a familiar term for Edinburgh; and added that he was an Episcopal clergyman, as his dress in some measure indicated. This person was one of the prisoners captured next day, taken by the steamer Robb to Port Colborne, then to Brantford jail, subsequently to Toronto. After being prisoner he dropped the name Lumsden, written on the passes which he was pleased to grant, and called himself Farfarden.
The importance of the Welland canal and the railway running near its side, in the scheme of Fenian strategy lay in this: that the canal connects the navigation of Erie and Ontario lakes. Erie is united by Detroit river, Lake St. Clair and River St. Clair, in the west, with Lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior, besides several smaller aggregations of navigable water and tributary streams equal to one-half the fresh water on the globe. Ontario, after interchange of commerce with Erie by way of the Welland canal, which obviates the torrents and falls of Niagara, gives birth to the River St. Lawrence, the rapids on which, occurring occasionally over a space of ninety miles, are overcome by a series of magnificent works, known as St. Lawrence canals. Near to Montreal this river of the life of Canada receives a tributary hardly inferior to itself, the romantic floods of northern forests, brown-tinged Ottawa.
The Welland Canal is 30 miles long. It has 27 locks, surmounting a rise of 350 feet; is 564 feet above sea level at Lake Erie, and about one thousand miles from the sea, by way of Montreal, Quebec and Gulf of St. Lawrence. The locks admit vessels 142 feet long by 26 feet beam and 10 feet draught. On the several sections of rapids between Prescott and Montreal the St. Lawrence Canals admit vessels 184 feet long, 44½ feet beam, and nine feet draught. But all craft passing from Montreal, the head of ocean navigation, nearly 600 miles from the sea, are limited to the size of the Welland locks.
The Rideau canal, to connect the eastern outflow of Lake Ontario, at Kingston, at the head of the St. Lawrence, with the River Ottawa, and the navigation from Montreal, at a point where stands the city of Ottawa, overcomes 293 feet of rise, and is 126½ miles long. The locks are 134 by 33 feet, and 60 inches deep, on the sill. This with some minor sections of canal on the River Ottawa, was intended to serve a strategical purpose in the defences of Canada. It was begun in 1826, and finished so far as for a steamer to pass through, in 1832. Its cost, $3,860,000, was defrayed by the Imperial Government. It is frequently out of repair, and is not now available for the main object of its construction. The St. Lawrence Canals and the Grand Trunk Railway running parallel with them, are available for defensive purposes, yet so openly exposed to hostile incursions, if such should ever threaten them, as to be elements of strategical weakness as well as lines of transport for conveyance of troops and munitions of war. But in the interests of peace they are works of unspeakable benefit to Canada, as also to the western United States.
For eight or ten days previous to the day of the Fenian invasion, June 1st, 1866, American vessels had nearly all disappeared from the Welland canal, the ship-owners, merchants, forwarders and insurers of Chicago and Milwaukee, the great commercial ports on Lake Michigan; and of Detroit. Cleveland and other places in the west, declined to charter vessels or risk freights on passage through the Welland canal. They knew that its capture and obstruction formed one of the earliest acts intended against Canada in the scheme of Fenian invasion. Except an occasional empty vessel, bound up, none bearing a United States flag passed through the Welland locks, until two weeks after O’Neil returned to the American side of the Niagara river. The steamers of the Northern Transportation Company, plying between Cleveland on Lake Erie, and Rochester, and Oswego on Lake Ontario, continued to run.
It was not without delay and difficulty that O’Neil and his officers collected their forces, extended as these were from old Fort Erie on the lake shore, and from that north by the station of Buffalo and Lake Huron branch of the Grand Trunk Railway through Waterloo Village to the Lower Ferry where they had first landed at daybreak, in all five miles; and from farm-houses several miles inland, where already desultory bands had penetrated in search of horses and other plunder. The other plunder consisted of sheep, turkeys, fowls and such provisions as hams, crocks of butter, cheeses, sacks of flour and pigs. The live animals intended for food were shot, and slung over the backs of horses. Frequently two men, and occasionally three bestrode one horse. These animals having been in most instances captured in pasture fields, and such bridles and saddles as the owners possessed having been removed in their hurried flight to escape the perils of Fenian imprisonment, the marauding horsemen contrived a new kind of bridles from a material not before used for that purpose. They had cut telegraph poles to prevent transmission of intelligence, they now made bridles for the horses, and strung their plunder together with the wires. As they assembled at the camping grounds on Frenchman’s creek, three miles north of the village, half a mile north of Lower Ferry where they had first landed, the duplicate and triplicate riders went in with their plunder, the mouths of the horses bleeding; and some animals which, a few hours before had been proudly defiant, and too bold in spirit to submit tamely to such loads as oppressed them, were reduced to obedience by bayonet wounds which crippled one or both of the hind quarters. A trotting mare of beautiful form and high reputation, was ridden into the field of bivouac at the creek, hobbling painfully on three legs, two Fenians shouting and cursing in wild hilarity seated on her back, one with his feet to the left, the other with his feet to the right side, bundles of fowls, turkeys and other plunder on their shoulders, and a wild warrior on foot, who, a few minutes before had been a third rider, but had fallen off, inflicting bayonet wounds on the bleeding flanks of the groaning beast, one of whose hind quarters was pierced by a bayonet through and through. Farmers who had been compelled to surrender their horses and who were then prisoners stood witnesses to these scenes of spoliation and of cruelty.
But I feel bound to suggest that such cases must have been exceptional. If these western Fenians were experienced cavalry men, as said to have been, they would know the worth of horses too well to abuse them. It had been part of the tactics of O’Neil to mount his entire force on horses, provided he had met, in Canada, the friendly contingents which he expected but did not meet. Yet still there was wanton spoliation. Farmers saw their sheep shot in the yards, and out on the pastures. The family of Mr. Thomas Newbigging, whose house stands on the south side of Frenchman’s creek, and about forty yards from Niagara shore, and on whose hay field and orchard, on the north bank of the creek, O’Neil and his main force planted themselves about eleven o’clock a. m. 1st of June, saw their cows driven into the yard from a distant pasture, and two or three Fenian warriors around each cow struggling to have the first privilege of milking. The restive cows were subdued as the horses were, by hobbling them with telegraph wires. When the beasts had been teased and milked all the afternoon and evening, with nothing to eat for the night, and men were heard talking of killing one or more to roast on some of the many fires which they had made of fence rails in the orchard field, one of the sons of Mr. Newbigging asked Colonel O’Neil to give him permission and a pass to the lines of sentries to drive the cows to the pasture field. The answer was, “certainly, tell every man who questions, that it is Colonel O’Neil’s order that none of your cows shall be injured or molested.” The young man drove the beasts forth. At a gate four hundred yards in the rear of the house, a sentry demanded to know who he was, and where he was going with those cattle? The name of Colonel O’Neil was given, but the sentry responded by bringing his rifle and bayonet to the charge, and swearing that he would stick the bayonet through him for the cursed lie, that he was not taking the cattle to pasture but attempting to escape with them into the wood; and if he dared go one step farther his “mouth would be filled with a live bullet.” The sergeant of the picket came and inquired what was the matter. On being told he called other men to come and assist to make a gap in the fence and put the cows in the field. When this was done, he, assisting to replace the rails, and at the same time charging the men of the picket to see that the cows were not injured, turned to Mr. Newbigging and said, “This occupation of your premises and farm by us is, no doubt, very disagreeable, but we have stringent orders from Colonel O’Neil to injure no one who quietly submits, nor destroy property, nor to appropriate anything beyond what is required for subsistence.” That sergeant and his picket being left behind, when the Fenian main body marched at midnight of Friday June 1st, were made prisoners next day; but some escaped across the river early on the morning of Saturday.
CHAPTER IV.
Midnight in Fort Erie village. Kerby and Rutherford’s store plundered by Buffalo thieves. O’Neil’s letter denouncing theft. Young ladies seek safety on the American side. Newbigging’s farm. Half a hundred horses collected. Stockdale’s farm plundered of provisions. Mr. Penny, and Mrs. McCarty, robbed of money. Fenian positions and defences at Frenchman’s creek. Fenian sentry shot by his picket. Rifle bullet screens, how made by Fenians. Bridge set on fire. O’Neil marches at midnight June 1st. Eighteen thousand cartridges afterwards found in the creek. Also rifles and bayonets. A night of sensations. “Worst looking blackguard of the whole was a Scotchman.” Bivouac at Krafft’s farm. March at daylight, June 2nd. Limestone rocks and house on Ridgeway road. Fenian head-quarters. O’Neil’s conversation with Henry Angur. Stoneman’s three little Boys, they ran to the woods.
It was about 11 a. m. on June 1st, that the Fenian main body were aroused from slumber, in Waterloo village, and marched to northward, three miles down Niagara shore road. Their absence relieved the anxieties of the village corporation as to getting another mess for one thousand men. But unhappily, a residue, not of military Fenians, but of Buffalo, and other American city thieves was left. They had followed the invaders to pursue their professional vocation.
One was a woman. She sought to win confidence, and thereby attain to friendly familiarity with native Canadians, by weeping for a husband, who “without intending it, had come from Buffalo with the Fenians, not knowing what he did, with a drop too much to drink;” that he and many more were about to desert and return to the American side.
Her assumed sorrow hardly deceived any one; and not at all, after a Fenian officer came upon her at a house and ordered her off to the other side on pain of being thrown into the river. He said; “We have been followed by thieves, who are no part of our force, and this woman is one of the worst: watch her.”
In the village, near the hour of midnight, the military body of the Fenians being then at Frenchman’s creek, three miles north, the landlord of the Forsyth House, was, with his wife, at an open window inside of the verandah, anxiously observing parties of men who were seen, by the moonlight to come across Niagara river, land at unusual places of wharfage and go prowling about the village. Some he saw come to the store of Kerby and Rutherford clothiers and general dealers, next door to his house. It was shut, Mr. Rutherford only being within, and as he afterwards stated, asleep. The men outside broke open the door with billets of cordwood. Mr. Rutherford, when aroused by the noise confronted them. He was seized and thrown on his back across the counter, revolvers pointed to his head, and sternly admonished to remain quiet. Some cases of champagne had been left there for sale by a St. Catharines merchant. The plunderers quickly discovered that part of the stock, and drank freely. A young man who keeps a grocery store lower down the village was passing. He entered, calling, “Rutherford, what is the matter?” One of the thieves struck him with a champagne bottle across the face, cutting him frightfully, and exclaiming, “That’s what’s the matter!” The grocer ran out calling “help!” and “murder!” He was overtaken at the hotel door and again struck. He ran across the street and attempted to get into a house there. But no one dared open a door. He was followed by one who threw him down, and with threats of shooting him dead, ordered him to be quiet. The young man pleaded for life and said he would be quiet. Then he ran south along the railway track, and obtained entrance to a house at the south end of the village, where the bleeding gashes in his face were dressed. The robber returned to his comrades, who deliberately carried out bales of cloth, ready-made clothing and other goods, and loaded their boats with which they departed across the river. American customs officers were on watch and seized the goods. The plunderers returned to the Canada shore. Two of them were afterwards found among Fenian prisoners and identified. They are said to have been known as thieves in the city of Hamilton.
On the subject of plunder the following letter, published in a Buffalo daily paper, shows the terms in which Colonel O’Neil disclaimed and denounced theft and thieves. It was dated June 5th, 1866, on board the U. S. steamer Michigan:
“To the Editor,—You will please make known through the news columns of your paper, that I have in my possession a gold mourning ring, engraved with the following inscriptions: on the outside in black ground the words, ‘in memory of,’ on the inside ‘Lucretia Wrigly, ob’t 6th Feb., 1829, Act 6,’ and under that, ‘Mary Wrigly, ob’t 6th Feb., 1830, Act 45,’ besides some other rather indistinct characters, that the claimant will have to describe. Also a lady’s gold pencil and mounted gold eye-glass, with chain attached made of fine beads. These articles were found on the person of one of the men in the scow; and I wish to say, to the credit of the men, that loud and earnest threats of lynching the fellow were made, such was the indignation at an act calculated to throw discredit on all, and so contrary to discipline and the wishes of our body. And I wish to say farther that were it not for our present circumstances and relations, such an act would, as it ever will be by me and my associate officers, have been punished with all the rigor of army discipline. You will oblige us all by the publication of this communication, both to set us right, and that the property may be restored to its owner.
“(Signed) John O’Neil, Colonel.”
When the Fenians arrived at Newbigging’s farm on Frenchman’s creek about noon June 1st, two sons of the family had just returned from hurriedly taking their sister and other young ladies to a place of safety on the American side. O’Neil was then mounted on the cream colored charger which had been “borrowed” from Mr. James Stivens of the Ferry, and which he next day rode in the combat at Limestone Ridge. This horse was returned to its owner on Sunday the 3rd, considerably jaded.
The Fenian chief alighted at the garden wicket, which opens from the road skirting Niagara river, walked up to the house, where he was met at the door by Mrs. Newbigging. This family came from Greenock, in Scotland some years ago. The Fenian courteously introduced himself, was sorry to cause alarm; assured the lady that although the premises, on this side the creek and fields beyond were occupied by an armed force, no harm would be done, if every one in the house remained quiet. He had a sick gentlemen whom it was necessary to put to bed. Soldiers would be placed in the house to attend him, and protect the family. None else would be permitted within doors. O’Neil and officers, some of them, not all, had meals in the house; and the sick person had warm drinks, all of which were prepared by Fenian hands; Mrs. Newbigging’s offers of assistance being declined. All remained quiet within doors, but there was uproar outside. Between forty and fifty horses were collected and brought to the premises before sunset, upon all of which men wildly mirthful and grotesque in dress and manners galloped and curvetted about, along the river side road and over the farm fields. An American reporter said a hundred horses. Three of Mr. Newbigging’s best were taken. One of brown color with white hind feet answered the description of a charger shot under its rider in the combat of next day, and which he supposed was his; but the three were returned on Sunday, June 3rd, not seriously injured though much distressed. One of his waggons and a set of harness were found in the woods a wreck. Several of his sheep were killed, and at the hurried midnight departure thrown into the creek.
At Mr. Stockdale’s house next farm north, thirteen cured hams, several crocks of butter and sacks of flour were taken. That provision had been made for hay and harvest workers. Nine or ten of the hams rudely slashed with sword cuts, and sacks of flour were afterwards found in the creek. An old Englishman named Penny, residing alone, was visited; his money was demanded. He gave a dollar, all he had. They threatened, he says, to bake him on the stove if he did not disclose where more money was concealed, but beyond frightening the poor man, the plunderers only seem to have taken the dollar. Mrs. McCarty living further down the river side road, said they tore up her carpets, broke open a bureau and took twelve dollars in money. Many fowls, turkeys and geese were taken. Their remains, with feathers, still strewed the bivouac field when I was there, 19th to 22nd June.
Frenchman’s creek is a deep sluggish stream, sixty to eighty feet wide, with marshy banks. Its dull water, seemingly motionless mingles with the clear swift current of the great Niagara, which is here about a mile wide to Strawberry Island opposite. At the mouth of the creek, close on the river shore, is a bridge of timber. Newbigging’s house and farmyard are a hundred yards south of the creek. An apple orchard, willow and poplar trees skirt it on the north side. A field of grass lies beyond the orchard and north of that, other fields which gave a clear rifle range of from five to eight hundred yards, down the river side, and inland over clear stretches of from eight hundred yards to a mile. At these distances from the river were forest thickets, only a few trees intervening on the open pastures. Here O’Neil, apprehensive that Colonel Peacocke, or other British commander would bring up a force by Niagara river side, constructed screens of fence rails across the pasture field, and in the orchard, from east to west to command the approach from north. The creek bended on his left flank and round upon his rear to Niagara river which flanked his right. The position was comparatively strong except as against artillery. Beyond the creek westward, twelve hundred yards to forest thickets, and southerly from Newbigging’s house, pickets were thrown out, and sentries posted: these last all round and back in the woods. And mounted scouts, furnished from the locality and from Buffalo, penetrated to the interior of the country. The creek so frequently mentioned, with a devious course comes through marshy meadows from south-west. On each side are gently elevated grounds, well cultivated, and long settled called the Ridges. A road runs diagonally through the farm lots and squared township roads from a point two miles below, and north of Frenchman’s creek, following the bends of a ridge to the south-west ending on Lake Erie, nine or ten miles west of Waterloo village. This road follows the Limestone Ridge, and is therefore termed Ridge Way.
From the careful dispositions of his force, and the half circle of outlying pickets, with sentries along the roads in all directions, O’Neil evinced apprehension of being attacked there. One of the sentries posted in the thicket, fourteen hundred yards west of the bivouac field was shot during the night by another Fenian sentry who had mistaken him for a Canadian. His comrades stripped him of clothing except a flannel. Next day when some farmers who went to bury the body, were tracing the course the bullet had taken, through right arm, right side, to the heart, a pocket containing $112 in greenbacks, was discovered. A custom house officer took charge of the money. The Fenian picket of which this man was a sentinel were then prisoners, and among them the sergeant before spoken of. They said their comrade had been shot “accidentally,” they not choosing, perhaps, to admit that the bullet which killed him had been intended for a subject of Her Majesty the Queen. The farmers wished the coroner to hold an inquest, but he declined. The deceased man had a cross suspended on his breast, and the figure of one with initials marked on his left arm. He is buried on the edge of the wood where the body was found.
The split rails of oak, averaging about six inches thick, so well known as “snake fences” in Canada, “Virginia rails” on the other side, about fifteen feet long, which are piled in a zigzag form, alternately overlying each other at the end, and rising to a height of five, six, or seven feet, were carried from the sides of the Niagara river road, and from other fields, and piled as rifle bullet screens. These extended at intervals across the pasturage in front of Newbigging’s orchard from the river on the right, to the westerly bend in the creek, distance four or five hundred yards. The screens were formed thus:
A rail was cut in three pieces; the ends sharpened, and driven into the ground in form like x. Two of these x’s supported a rail horizontally set at a height of about three feet. From that two or more rails slanted downward to the ground, from the position in which sharpshooters were to be screened. Then a lower roof of rails was laid longitudinally and horizontally on these, beginning on the ground, rising to the higher level. Then an upper roof was laid by pieces placed transversely to the former, and as closely together as they would lie. This roof sloped from three feet high to the ground at an angle of about thirty degrees, or less. It was intended that rifle bullets, hitting it from the direction in which the opposing force might come, would glance off over the heads of sharpshooters ensconced behind. Some of these screens were four feet high in rear, others only two, generally they were elevated three feet. The different sections of screens were regulated by the length of rails, and were not placed continuously end to end, but were advanced, like detached columns twelve or twenty yards before others, and much scattered. Probably this was done in expectation that, if artillery fired upon them, all would not be knocked down at once.
A way of escape was intended under cover of the orchard, within which screens were also placed at intervals, to the bridge over the creek, close to Niagara shore. The creek is there about seventy feet wide; the bridge eighty feet long. Piles of fence rails split to be readily combustible, were laid on the bridge to be set on fire, should the attack be from north and the Fenians have to retreat behind the Newbigging farm premises and south by the way on which they had advanced. The destruction of that bridge, and the rifle shooting which for a time might have been practised from the farm house and barns, to give the main body of Fenians time to escape to their scows and steam tug at Lower Ferry where they first landed, three quarters of a mile south and round a bend out of sight of their present position, would have probably delayed an advancing force for a time. That is, had such force come by the river-side road and that only. But there were inland roads by which, as O’Neil knew the British could approach from the direction of the Great Western railway at Niagara Suspension bridge and from Chippewa. There was also a line of rails, the Erie and Niagara track which though not regularly open for traffic, had been recently repaired to be opened; and G. W. R. trains, it was supposed could pass up the track to Waterloo village. Information having reached the Fenian colonel at Frenchman’s creek, sometime between 10 p. m. and midnight, June 1st, that Colonel Peacocke of Her Majesty’s army, with a force of Royal Artillery, regular, Infantry and Canada Volunteers, had reached Chippewa, a village three miles south of Niagara Falls, and about four miles south of Suspension Bridge, fifteen miles north of his bivouac on Frenchman’s creek, he decided to leave his position and march into the interior of the country.
To gain the Welland canal and railway at Port Colborne was now, as it had from the first been the Fenian object. O’Neil either expected additional forces unarmed from the American side, or to have had unarmed Fenians joining him in Canada, most probably the latter. For at the creek were collected spare arms and ammunition. This was in boxes of one thousand cartridges each; ten packages of one hundred, to a box; ten smaller parcels of ten to each package, and twelve percussion caps with each parcel of ten. Eighteen of the boxes had been fished up from the bottom of the creek, close by the bridge previous to 20th of June, containing 18,000 cartridges. Possibly more had been sunk elsewhere. The boxes had been punctured by bayonets to admit water to destroy the powder. Each box bore a date, “1865,” and the name of a United States arsenal, most of them that of “Bridport.” The arms, rifles and bayonets, were piled on a fire kindled on centre of the timber bridge, to be destroyed with that structure. They had been sunk in the creek. Ninety rifles were taken out and accounted for before 20th of June. How many more were found or still remained in the water, was uncertain. Rifles had also been broken by striking the butts against trees. The bark of apple and cherry trees, poplars and willows along the creek, indicated where the rifle stocks had been broken; and stock, lock, and barrel thrown into the water. Remnants of barrels and locks were also found in the ashes of the numerous cooking fires which had been used along the orchard and pasture field.
The Fenian Chief’s object in burning the bridge, on his removal north, from Frenchman’s creek at midnight of June 1st, was to prevent pursuit in his rear, in the event of a British force having reached Waterloo village (commonly called Fort Erie) by an inland road. To cover his movement he left his outlying pickets on their posts, southerly and west of the creek and Newbigging’s house. Some men of these pickets escaped across Niagara, when at daylight, June 2nd, they discovered that the main body had left; others remained, refusing to believe that any British force was approaching. Certain of the farmers, acting with Mr. Murray a customs officer, took them prisoners, as also other stragglers, and during the forenoon, of June 2nd, delivered them to a party of the Welland Artillery, who placed them on board the steamer Robb. They formed part of a batch of sixty-five prisoners taken to Brantford jail, afterwards to Toronto.
The Newbigging family passed a night of keen sensations. They did not know that O’Neil and his force had left, having been ordered, when he and officers took supper at 11 p. m., in their house, to stay strictly within doors. They dreaded that, if the Fenians remained until the expected advance of British troops in the morning, they would, on retreating burn the premises; or, if giving battle, that the creek, bridge, dwelling-house and barns would be the central theatre of fiery conflict, or, if the British did not come soon, that their cows, sheep, everything consumable would be taken for Fenian food, and the premises perhaps, burned at last.
The “worst looking blackguard of the whole” according to the judgment of the lady of the house, was a small sized Scotchman, who had been pugilistically engaged and had then a disfigured face. He was asked what induced him to be a Fenian? and replied that he had been a soldier, in the American army, was discharged, wanted something to do, and so joined the army of General Sweeny.
A youthful volunteer of the 13th left wounded on the field of Limestone Ridge next day, relates that he narrowly escaped murder after being a prisoner, and was saved by intervention of a Fenian Scotchman. If that was the same person he had a good side as well as a bad and an ill-favored face.
After leaving Frenchman’s creek the invaders marched five miles north, to the town lines of Bertie and Willoughby; then west to Lot 16, 8th concession of Bertie, the property of Louis Krafft. There they bivouacked till daylight; having as at the Newbigging farm, erected bullet screens of rails, posted pickets and made a show of entrenching and defending a position on Black creek.
At sunrise they marched south, and struck the road called Ridgeway, and then south-west on that road until they reached the property of Henry F. Angur, Lot 4. 10th concession of Bertie. About a hundred yards distant from the road, skirting it on the south, the limestone rock has a vertical face, the farm fields above the precipice sloping upward and south two or three hundred yards to a pine thicket; the country to north of the road being nearly level, and stretching half a mile to the skirts of a thicket of maple and oak where also is a marsh and a stream, which is a feeder of Black creek. Henry Angur’s house is on the wayside, not many yards from the vertical rocks. There, O’Neil halted to reconnoitre, and, as events came out made his head-quarters during the combat which derives its name from that locality. It was now 5 a. m. June 2nd.
On the previous day messengers came along this road and warned the inhabitants that the Fenians were to march that way to Port Colborne and to Port Robinson to capture the Welland canal. The farmers, whose houses are nearly all on the wayside, if their land touch it, removed their families and the best of their horses and cattle that day. Henry Angur, aged 73, afflicted with gout and moving only on crutches chose to remain. He is an intelligent veteran from the war of 1812, and the rebellion of 1837-38. He said his family wanted him to go in the waggon, but, “he had been in two wars and would risk a third.” O’Neil had been well informed of the inhabitants lining in that district, of the horses they possessed, with the number and names of their sons. On entering this house he looked the old man in the face and said: “Your name is Henry Angur?” “Yes, sir, Henry F. Angur; what may your name be, if you please?” “My name is O’Neil. I am chief in command of fourteen hundred men, (Mr. Angur feels sure he gave that number), now in possession of your premises, your farm and country from the ferry to Ridgeway; where are your sons?” “I have no sons at home, sir,” “No sons at home? nonsense! where is Jim?” “Well, sir, I don’t know where Jim have gone.” “When did you last see him?” “Last see him? well sir, Jim went yesterday to the mill with a grist, and I suppose he heard ill news and so have not come home.” “What ill news do you think he heard?” “The same as we heard here, I suppose.” “What was that?” “It was that the Fenians had landed, and to begin with had killed Dr. Kempson of the Ferry.” “But Dr. Kempson is not killed, nor injured, don’t you know that no harm has happened him or any one else, from us?” “I have heard since that he was not killed; but what, sir, are you going to do with us?” “Tell me first Mr. Angur, have you any Johnny Bulls around here?” “Johnny Bulls, sir? I don’t exactly comprehend.” “Yes, you comprehend quite well; have you seen any red-coats here about? any of Queen Victoria’s soldiers? or of Canadian Volunteers? any armed men? any cavalry? artillery? infantry?” “No, sir, I have not; I have not indeed, sir.” “Very well, that will do for the present. Captain” (to an officer of the staff) “you and a guard remain in charge of this house and this old man. Make every person prisoner you find.” O’Neil, after that conversation proceeded in the direction of the railway station at Ridgeway, but did not go farther, it is supposed, than about Hoffman’s tavern, the “Smuggler’s Home,” a mile in advance of Henry Angur’s house and about two miles short of the station.
A nephew of the old man, a youth of sixteen remained beside his horse in sight of the conflict in the woods 800 yards north of the road. Another young man lay concealed in the roof of a barn. He said he counted over twelve hundred Fenians pass the barn. All else had left the previous day. At the farm house of Mr. Stoneman, half way between Henry Angur’s and J. N. Angur’s (that name being German is pronounced Anker) I spoke to three small boys a few days after the fight, the hottest of which had been in their orchard, and in fields adjoining. They were aged about eleven, nine, and seven. “Where were you little boys, the time of the battle?” “Back in the woods, over yonder.” (pointing north). “How far?” “Back ever so far—six mile” “Did you go soon in the morning?” “No, day before.” “How did you know the day before that Fenians were coming this way?” “A man came along from the Ferry, telling all around here to clear.” “Did you carry provisions with you?” “Some, not much.” “Where did you stay all Friday night?” “Slept in the woods?” “Were you frightened?” “Yes, I think so; you’d have been frightened too.” “You have fancy pigeons in that cage; did you take them to the woods?” “No, they hung just there all the time.” “And the Fenians did not take them?” “They took fowls, and then throwed fowls away; pigeons were no use to them, but they were near being shot; you can see where bullets went through boards of the house—up there, and here, and there again, and the trees in the orchard are scored all over with bullets.”
Up to this point the narrative has followed the track of the Fenians. Let us now turn to the prompt mustering of forces, the patriotic, the impassioned attitude of defiance, the gallant rush to the frontier, to repulse from Canadian soil, this unrighteous army of intruders, who by no law recognized on earth or in heaven was justified in its invasion of Canada.
CHAPTER VI.
Words of warning in 1862, and 1863, from Colonel Lysons, Quarter-master General of Her Majesty’s Forces in Canada. Olden signals of War. The alarm on June 1st, 1866. The quick response. Give us arms, lead on. Conflicting telegrams on 1st of June. The cry is still they come. Sons of Canada, come home to fight for mothers and mother land. Americans at Oil Springs enrol for defence of Canada. Home Guards organized. The cry is still they come. Volunteers for the field. How are they equipped? The Queen’s Own. Tenth Royals. York and Caledonia Rifles. Hamilton Field Battery. Welland Field Battery. Hamilton Thirteenth. All defective in equipments. “Authorities” in a lethargy. Enemy “thundering at the door.” Courage of the people. Little else ready.
“It will be too late to speak of organizing and equipping your Militia when the enemy is thundering at your doors” [Valedictory letter of Lieut.-Colonel Lysons, C. B. Royal Artillery, to the people of Canada, 1862, on his leaving the Province after an effort rendered fruitless through Canadian parliamentary factions to organize and equip a Provincial Defensive force.]
“What the Province is doing is worse than nothing, as yet. Her Majesty’s Government have furnished arms for an effective Provincial Militia, and what do we see? The arms after six months are still lying in boxes kicking about at railway depots, rusting and going to destruction. No armories provided.” [Extract of a letter from Lieut.-Colonel Lysons, C. B. Royal Artillery, after returning to Canada as Acting Quarter-master General of H. M. Forces, June 1863, addressed to Alexander Somerville, then Editor of the Canadian Illustrated News, writer of Canada a battle ground, published May, 1862].
An enemy within the frontier line! Canada trodden by the foot of hostile forces vowing to be avenged on the peaceful, industrious people of British America, for the grievances of Ireland, accumulating through the long historic ranges of seven centuries. The land we live in invaded. Whatever may be the incentives to war growing out of the traditions of seven hundred years, there is no questionable sentiment, within the living community which hears the tread of the armed stranger within its borders. That is the aggression of to-day.
What is the note of alarm? What is the signal? Who are the messengers to carry along the lake and river shores a thousand miles east and west, and north into the far interior, to citizens, artizans, husbandmen, and lumbermen, the intelligence, “Stand to your arms, an enemy is within the frontier; he has broken in on upper Niagara; he threatens to come in on lake and river shore, and all along the faintly defined line of Lower Canada!” Who is to carry this message, and diffuse it, proclaim it, be eloquent to enforce it?
Electricity, secret, instant, is the messenger. But the matter of the message itself is electric, even when carried by men on foot. It thrills through body and soul, limb and life, of all the people; youngest, oldest; citizens of all professions, rural husbandmen, forest lumberers, lake and river raftsmen, sailors; sons and daughters of every national parentage, dwelling in these Provinces. No prompting of eloquence, no invocation of patriotism is needed. The enemy armed and hostile, supposed to be in league with some among ourselves; how many none can tell; some among ourselves but not very many. That possibility of an enemy in our own city, or street, or house, inspires to prompt action. In all ages of mankind, among all races, in all lands, the alarm of—“the enemy within your borders!” was diffused by the agency of light and fire and sound; and messengers swift of foot. Read Jeremiah, chapter VI. verse I. “O ye children of Benjamin, blow the trumpet in Takoa and set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem!” Read the extract from an act of the Scottish parliament of the year 1455, C. 48, and find, that Scotland fought the invaders in the day of their evil visitation, not waiting for Scottish posterity to be avenged on English posterity, and other inoffensive posterities, in another land, living in fellowship under a system of happiest liberty, four thousand miles away, seven, or five, or three, or one hundred years after the evil occurrences. It was directed that one bale fire of faggots on crag, or hill, or mountain summit, should be warning of the approach of the “English in any manner.” That two bale-fires of faggots should be the alarm that, “the English are coming indeed.” That four bale-fires should be decisive intelligence that, “the English are within the borders in great force.”
Indians in America, Kaffres, Hottentots and Bosjesmens in Africa, light their war-fires, some adding on elevated ground signs of an extended hand with club, two extended hands with clubs, a blanket, a skin, or several skins; in the whole a species of telegraphing which was not much improved until the semaphore was invented in France in 1794, introduced to England about the same time, by which intelligence was carried long distances and secretly, by signs, numerals, and letters.
The oldest Fenian tradition, a dim glimmer of uncertain light seen through a tunnel more than two thousand years long, by way of ancient Greece, and Phoenecia, leads the idea to war-fires lighted in Ireland to warn the owners of the soil, cultivators and herdsmen, of those remote centuries that Phoenician invaders were within the Irish coasts. Other dim lights shew the Fenian descendants of Irish Phoenicians burning war-fires of alarm to announce the approach of Danes, Normans, and Norman English, as the Scotch did. The feudal system oppressed and paralyzed the industrial arm of Scotland, Ireland, England, France and all Europe. But it was indeed grievous in Ireland.
“Man’s inhumanity to man—
Makes countless thousand’s mourn.”
The Fenians were, in Ireland conquerors of the land from an older proprietory. The colonists of Massachusetts, and of the American Atlantic coast invoked in 1757-58-59, the aid of their mother country, Great Britain, to capture the castle of Louisburg on Cape Breton, Quebec in Canada, Fort du Quesne, now Pittsburg in Pennsylvania, to repress or expel the French in North America, for the sake of the ocean fisheries and the fur trade. Thus it was that English, Irish, and Scottish colonists, came to occupy the Provinces, now claimed by Fenians and by such of the Americans as sympathize with Fenianism on the ground that Britain was not justified in subduing the French to gratify the colonies of New England, New York, New Jersey, Virginia and the Carolinas, in 1757, 1758, 1759. Contrary to the prayer of Massachusetts and the conjoint colonies, Great Britain did not seek to expel the French from Canada, nor to suppress their language by legal enactment, as the United States subsequently did in Louisiana and region of the Mississippi; but gave the French co-equal rights political and religious with English, Irish, Scotch and German or any other colonizing race in British America.
And thus it was, that enjoying equal rights, laws, and privileges, with a freedom of speech and of publication, as generous and universal, as summer sunshine and fertilizing rain, the people of Canada, French, British, Irish,—all, except perhaps some thinly scattered adherents of delusion led away from better judgment under the fascination of secrecy and hope of future adventures—leapt to their arms, demanding to be led to the frontier, demanding to be armed and placed under responsible leadership.
And not alone these, but native Americans now resident in Canada who under other influences might think annexation of the two countries desirable. At Oil Springs, township of Enniskillen, Lambton County, Canada West, situated twenty miles from Sarnia, a strong Volunteer Company was enrolled in a few hours to aid in repelling the invaders of which a third were Pennsylvania oilmen and other Americans. Mr. Read a lawyer; Mr. Robert Mathison printer and editor, both graduates of the Canada military schools, were chosen captain and lieutenant. Mr. Perry, a merchant, was ensign. On remote tributaries of the Upper Ottawa, lumbermen, raftsmen, heard the news through the fleet hurrying of messengers and faster paddling of canoes, and thronged down the streams to the river and upon the river to the cities of Ottawa and Montreal, offering their services, their lives—gifts to the Province. Sons of Canada resident in the United States left employment and social ties, and hastened to their own land to defend it, to assert that British America will remain British. A goodly number of these came from Chicago to Toronto, five hundred miles. Many more would have quickly followed if wanted.
Who is she, that elderly woman on the railway platform, looking eagerly to the cars, into the circles of friends, crowding around the men as they alight? She is looking if her son has come. “Yes!” she exclaims, embracing the youth, loyal to his mother, loyal to his native land, “I knew you would come to fight for Canada and for me.”
At Hamilton the Mayor issued this proclamation: “I hereby request all able bodied men who are willing to turn out in defence of their country to meet this evening at 7 o’clock in their respective wards for the purpose of enrollment and forming a Home Guard.” They met, they enrolled, they formed the Home Guard; were armed and for some months exercised in the use of rifles and bayonets, and nightly perambulated the city in squads. These were merchants, store keepers, artizans, professional men, clerks. In other cities, towns, villages similar associations were formed. At Toronto, said the newspapers; “Without exaggeration we may say we have never seen the city so intensely moved as it was last night (June 1.) when the news indicated a probable battle on the line of the Niagara river. The streets were crowded with thousands of men and women eager to obtain the latest scrap of intelligence from the front and every extra was perused with feverish anxiety. It is to be hoped to-day’s news will relieve the deep suspense which may be said to have rested on the city last night.”
All reports were not true, but they occupied official time; and complicated military plans. The following reached Toronto by way of Buffalo. “It has been reported that Port Sarnia and Windsor have been captured by the Fenians. It is also reported that they have taken possession of the Welland canal.” [Not true]. Buffalo, 12 o’clock noon, June 1. “The Fenians at Fort Erie have opened a recruiting office, and are now enrolling volunteers. They have seized the Newbigging Farm and made it their head-quarters. When opposition is offered by people of the town, the Fenians at once set fire to their houses.” (Not wholly true.)
That was from the American side. The following came from St. Catharines a town on Welland canal, Welland railway and Great Western, in Canada, twelve miles inland from Niagara bridge. “A portion of four companies from Grimsby and Beamsville arrived here this morning at eight o’clock. Col. Currie is in temporary command. Forty or fifty more will arrive in a few hours.” “Col. McGiverin has procured one thousand stand of arms, to be sent from Hamilton, to arm the citizens, and also ammunition. The home guard under Col. McDonald is called out. There is no ammunition for the Spencer rifles.”
The following dated Buffalo June 1, 1.30 p. m. was circulated in Toronto and all Canada in the afternoon. Exaggeration in the estimates of Fenian numbers had not then been corrected by better information. Military plans of defence were formed on the highest estimate, not the lowest.
“I have just returned from Lower Black Rock, 4 or 5 miles from the city, and had a view of the Fenians encamped on the opposite bank; some say to the number of 2000 or 3000. A tug boat carried over a large number, and cheers for the new arrivals were distinctly heard on this side. The ferry-boat is now stopped, but the Fenians appear to have full liberty to ply in tug boats as often as they please. A man on a white horse appeared to be very active, he being distinctly seen on the bank of the river riding amongst his men. About half past six the host of the Fenian army proper went over in canal boats and took with them twenty wagon loads of munitions of war. They have sentinels posted for miles around their encampment, and are enjoying their favorite occupation of stealing all the horses in the locality. The stars and stripes float from a flag-pole at Erie, opposite Black Rock, but the general impression here is that if the Canadians have the least spark of that spirit they are supposed to possess, the Fenians will soon have to skedaddle. It is said that they intend going on to Chippewa forthwith. The steamer Michigan has steam up to prevent the Fenians coming back.
“All kinds of rumors are afloat here—one that Windsor has been burnt down. Another that a force was advancing from Albany. They had tickets for Rome, and probably were destined for the St. Lawrence region. They had no arms. The Fenian leaders in this city are very active and more men will leave to-night for the Canadian frontier.”
More news arrived from the States and flew on wings of a free press through the Province. The people not dismayed one shade of countenance, but on the contrary fired with newer, bolder energy to muster, march, give battle and conquer. This was circulated at Toronto, after noon. Cincinnati, June 1. The Commercial’s Columbus, Ohio, despatch says that 450,000 rounds of ammunition were shipped from that place to New York, and 150,000 to Chicago, and 30,000 muskets to Buffalo, within a few days, which it is reported were intended for the Fenians.
Also came information from Boston telling of Fenian forces forwarded from there and in the same paragraphs of United States forces sent to the frontier to intercept them. Canadians were ready to believe the Fenian items true; slow to rest confidently on what U. S. authorities would do; for, said same reports; “Fenians and U. S. regulars are fraternising.” Boston June 1. “Two companies United States regulars left Fort Warren this morning for St. Albans, under the command of Col. Livingstone. An additional detachment of about 100 Fenians also left, it is supposed for the Canada border. Fifteen hundred men is the alleged Fenian quota of Massachusetts for the present enterprise. The newly raised Fenian Cavalry regiment, under the command of Col. Icartoi, late of Moseby’s guerillas, is a part of the expedition from this city. The Fenians say that Gen. Fitzhugh Lee will command the cavalry wing of their army of invasion. They further say that the blow will be struck early next week probably on Monday.” And again, Boston, June 1.—12, noon.—“In addition to the Fenian cavalry regiment, the third Fenian Infantry, Col. Connor, 1,200 strong, has left this city for the Canada border. Transportation for the cavalry regiment was paid through to St. Albans by a citizen of Boston. Detachments of United States troops from Forts Warren and Independence, and also from Fort Preble, are under orders to leave for the northern frontier.”
A despatch from Port Stanley [north shore of Lake Erie, terminus of a railway from London C. W.,] said that forty schooner’s had been in sight from one o’clock; their conduct very mysterious all the morning. At London C. W., the volunteers were immediately ordered under arms and preparations made in the garrison of Royal Artillery and 60th Rifles of H. M. regular army, to move in any direction. Colonel Hawley the commandant called in the detachment of the 60th from Komoka. The city council met to form a Home Guard. At Port Hope and Cobourg, and all down the shore of Ontario lake the organized volunteers mustered under arms. Intelligence arrived that a suspicious steamer was moving on the mouth of Niagara river. At Kingston the 14th battalion of militia, and the garrison of regulars mustered; the militia on Garden island. At Ottawa, at Montreal and throughout Lower Canada the same spirit of promptitude became an instant thing of life, of action. Let the preceding items of defensive preparation be multiplied by hundreds, with all the names of towns, townships, cities, counties attached; and add that the thoughts of the people had but one bent, defend the frontier, repel the invader, pray to high Heaven, but remember that Heaven helps those who help themselves.
And now stands out the question prominent above all thoughts of that day—in the minds of some—What had the Canadian Government done to equip the Volunteer Militia for this emergency?
At the beginning of this chapter two quotations are cited, which though brief, afford a glimpse of what was the opinion of the Quarter-Master General of H. M. forces as held by him in 1862 and 1863. After 1863, some change for the better was made in militia organization. In all, about thirty thousand men had been enrolled, armed, and less or more efficiently educated in military evolutions. That portion of their equipment which is most conspicuous to the eye—uniform and ornamental clothing—was perfect. Rifles, bayonets, cross-belts and cartridge pouches, were also correct according to army pattern. But equipments, equal in importance for the life and efficiency of the soldier on active service, to his rifle, ball cartridge, percussion cap, and bayonet, and greatly more important to his life and efficiency than the make or material or color of his clothing, were awanting, had not it seemed, by the event, been thought of by persons called for want of a more distinct name, the Authorities.
The political Authorities had given out from time to time, and up to the day of invasion, when, as Colonel Lysons had said, the enemy would be “thundering at their doors” that they were ready for any emergency; but they were not ready. Not much was ready but the mercy of heaven and the courage of the people.
The Volunteer Militia had been frequently inspected in Canada West by Major-General Napier, Assistant Adjutant-General Durie, and by other army officers. Their complimentary addresses, or at least newspaper paragraphs purporting to be echoes of their addresses, led the public to believe that the volunteers were organized, exercised, educated, equipped for any emergency.
The Rifles of Toronto known as the “Queen’s Own,” were despatched from that city on 1st of June, with a speech from General Napier to the effect that they might be engaged with the enemy within twelve hours, yet all save one company went without ammunition, and without the equipments enumerated on another page as wanting by the Thirteenth from Hamilton. The Tenth Royals from Toronto, were in like manner deficient. Observe the result in the military fortunes of next day. Referring to his bivouac at Chippewa, night and morning of 1st and 2nd June, Colonel Peacocke, commanding on Niagara frontier, in his official despatch, when relating the events of the 2nd, and 3rd says, “The Volunteers being unprovided with the means of carrying provisions and of cooking them had not been able to comply with an order I had sent the previous evening that they were to bring provisions in their haversacks. I saw that the absolute necessity of furnishing them with some would cause delay and I telegraphed to Port Colborne that I should be one hour later in starting. We marched at 7, o’clock.” In the previous sentence he had named the Toronto “10th Royals under Major Boxall,” 415 in numerical strength, and no doubt referred to them, but the remark of having no haversacks to carry provisions, no cooking apparatus, no provisions to be cooked, applied to other volunteers besides the 10th Royals. That delay was more than an hour. Had there been haversacks and provisions, the Queens Own, Thirteenth, York and Caledonia men need not have been confronted with the Fenians at Limestone Ridge alone. So small a matter as a haversack to a volunteer, and a single atom of common sense to an “Authority,” might have changed the history of that day.
The County of Lincoln sent forth a squadron of Cavalry, good men and true, with faultless horses, but without Cavalry equipments. The York and Caledonia rifles like the Toronto Queen’s Own went without ammunition. The Hamilton Field Battery of artillery, comprised a body of men equal to any that ever assumed the name of soldiers but their harness was decayed, had been condemned over two years, and government had not replaced it. It was unfit for field exercise. The battery could not go to battle. And yet the local newspapers, reporting Colonel Peacocke’s inspection of that battery on 8th March, 1866, published to the Province that he had said, “The Hamilton battery was in a state of highest efficiency, ready for any emergency.” Had it been ready for service it might have been on the field of Limestone Ridge on 2nd of June: and thus, again, the history of that day might have read differently from what it does.—The Welland Field battery was at Port Colborne on the morning of 1st of June, and would have been on Limestone Ridge, but its officers and men had no cannon. Their guns had been removed to Hamilton where there was no harness. They embarked on the steamer Robb and went to Fort Erie. There we shall meet them in due time, in combat with the Fenians on the afternoon of 2nd of June.
If the volunteers engaged with the enemy on 2nd of June are brought under the readers eye in this narrative more frequently than others equally worthy of popular record, it is the circumstance of their having been mortally engaged that brings them now prominently out for comment. The soul of the old soldier when he looked upon the 13th, mustering for frontier service on that morning, bounded with joy to behold the olden youthfulness, buoyancy, and confidence of the race reproduced in this newer country, newer generation. But, because he was an old soldier and knew the exigencies of active war in a wooded country his heart sunk within him at seeing those gallant youths go forth carrying, in the negligence of governmental authorities their death with them. Addressing the public immediately after the events of the 2nd, the writer said: “I assert that had the 13th been exposed day and night for one or two weeks in such work as that of June 2nd, half would have perished of diseases induced by thirst, bad water, no water, hunger, fatigue, and through exposure to marsh malaria without overcoats.” The coats having been lost for want of, with each man, a pair of straps to fasten them when folded on the back. They had no pioneers, no spades, axes, nor other entrenching tools. The Fenians, as was seen in chapter II. looked for spades and axes first thing on touching Canada. They had not been taught how to fold their overcoats so as to carry them on their backs without impeding the action of loading, capping, aiming, and firing. From the American Bull Run of 1862, they had profited nothing in the matter of advancing upon an enemy in a wooded country, carrying no water, no food, nothing but bold confidence, which in war is something but not everything. For want of their coats they mounted guards at night exposed to rain, to swamp fogs, chills from the lake and the canal, wearing only their red tunics and shirts, and all because they had not each a pair of shoulder belts, to carry that first of a soldier’s life preservers, the overcoat. Was no superior answerable for this neglect?
They were sent out without canteens to carry water when on the line of march or on the battle-field. On the field of action and on the retreat they drank from swampy ditches, lifting the water in their shakos and caps and shoes; many were in consequence sick—their intolerable thirst having been aggravated by the ambrosial breakfast of a red-herring which the military genius of their commander, administered to them at 4.30 a. m., preparatory to a long march without water and the hazards of a battle.
It has since been ascertained that he had beef-steak for breakfast. They had no knapsacks in which to carry changes of underclothing, or the usual military necessaries. They had no mess tins in which to divide food, and carry it when not all at once consumed. They had no haversack to carry bread and small articles indispensable to personal cleanliness and health, and not second to these, indispensable in keeping the rifle in working order. They had not a wrench in the battalion to unscrew locks, nor a worm screw, of which every man should have one wherewith to draw charges from rifles. The nipples of some were, after the action, plugged with dirt and could not be fired off. There was no battalion armourer. They had no oil for springs, or to protect burnished steel from rust. They had no portable camp kettles, to cook food which should have been supplied by a Government commissary. There were commissary agents who had no stores. The Government were said to be ready for any emergency. The 1st and 2nd of June proved that they had made no adequate preparation. And the question remains for the time of present writing, month of August. Has any better provision, or equipments for a campaign yet been made?
With all those wants the 13th carried with them their colors to the woodlands. No commanders of practical experience permit colors to be carried into forests, where the war from nature of the enemy and contour of the country is likely to prove desultory. General Sir De Lacy Evans, in Spain, than whom no soldier of riper and more varied experience has lived in this century, never permitted his troops to carry colors before the enemy in that country of woods, orchards, rivers, and ravines.
I come now to the Toronto Volunteers, The “Queen’s Own” were thus described in a local journal, the Leader. The first call to arms referred to was when companies of Volunteers were sent to the frontier to prevent raids into the United States by American refugee rebels, or desperadoes calling themselves such, during the great, the calamitous civil war. (See further on this subject, ensuing chapter.)
The second call to arms of the volunteers has been responded to with even more enthusiasm than the first. The order for mustering the “Queen’s Own” only reached here late on the afternoon on Thursday, and at the appointed hour (four o’clock yesterday morning) over five hundred men assembled in the drill-shed ready to receive orders to proceed to the point where the Fenians were congregating. At that hour the fire bells rang out as a signal for the men to assemble, and in less than an hour the number we have mentioned were under arms. Under the command of Colonel Dennis, Brigade Major 5th military district, the men were marched from the drill-shed to the Yonge street wharf, where they were embarked on board the steamer City of Toronto, at half past six o’clock, for Port Dalhousie, where they were to take the Welland railway to Port Colborne. The men were in the highest spirits, and one and all expressed the hope that the Fenians who have been so long threatening would at length give the volunteers an opportunity of meeting them in open conflict. Notwithstanding the early hour at which the steamer left, the wharf was crowded with people who lustily cheered the brave fellows as they took their departure. About 120 men of the battalion had been left behind, some of whom had not been notified of the arrangements that had been made, and others who had not heard the alarm of the fire bells and had slept too long. The boat left half an hour earlier than was stated, and many of the men had reached the wharf just as the steamer was moving out. It was therefore deemed advisable that the men so left behind should assemble at drill about noon and be ready to proceed by special train to join their comrades. The men were punctually at their post, and after being inspected by Major Smith and their names called over, they were marched, under the command of Capt. Gardner, of the Highland company, to the Union Station, followed by an immense concourse of people. Nothing could exceed the delight which evidently filled the breast of every man of them. Upon arriving at the station it was ascertained that they were not to go by railway, but to take the City of Toronto upon her return from Port Dalhousie at two o’clock. They were then marched back to the drill-shed, and there awaited the hour of embarkment. When the order to again “fall in” had been given, they formed into two companies marched to the Yonge street wharf and immediately proceeded on board the steamer which was lying at the wharf ready to receive them. Besides the officer in command—Captain Gardner—they were accompanied by Lieut. Bevan, Lieut. Campbell, and Ensign Davis. At this juncture the crowd of people and the excitement among them, along the way between the drill-shed and the wharf, were tremendous. Previous to the volunteers going on board many were the warm greetings that they received from relatives and friends. Many a kind word of encouragement, and many a heartfelt wish for their success and their safe return were expressed. While bales of blankets and canvass for tents were being placed on board, the men were engaged in singing songs, and as the steamer was leaving her moorings, they were lustily cheered again and again by the crowds of people on the wharf and as warmly returned by the volunteers.
When the Queen’s Own arrived at Port Dalhousie, Mr. McGrath, manager of the Welland railway, was there with a special train to convey them to Port Colborne. “Gentlemen,” said he, to some of the officers, “where is all that luggage going?” This consisted of trunks, hat boxes, and usual accompaniments of railway travellers when on long journeys. “We are going to Port Colborne,” one replied. “That luggage,” rejoined the manager, “will require a van for itself; what is the meaning of it for this military train?” “We expect to remain in garrison at Port Colborne.” “Remain there! It is likely you will be engaged with the Fenians before you pass Port Robinson, or somewhere between that and Port Colborne.” To which the officer commanding said, “Good God! you don’t say that?” Someone observed that General Napier had told them at Toronto they might soon be engaged with the enemy. “Did he?” said the commander, “if he thought so, why are we sent from Toronto and landed here without ammunition?”
Mr. McGrath had reason to suppose that the enemy might attack this train. He warned Colonel Dennis that it was hazardous to run the train into Port Colborne without first sending skirmishers to feel the way; the enemy might be in the woods on either side. This suggestion went unheeded. The battalion was disembarked at the platform, scattering at once through the village, along the canal, over the bridges, no guard mounted, no pickets, no sentries posted; but all easy victims to any military enemy, had such been there.
When Mr. McGrath was giving car room for conveyance of the unmilitary luggage, he asked to be informed of the space to be filled with their provisions. The reply was that, “no provisions had been brought, sufficient would be found at Colborne.” “That,” he rejoined, “is a poor place for provisions. It is but a small village; other volunteer forces will be there; you should take stores from St. Catherines.” That town was on the way, but there was no commissariat arrangements for purchasing, or obtaining stores by requisition. No cooking utensils to dress food. They came as destitute of field equipments from Toronto, as the 13th did from Hamilton, and in the vital article of ammunition worse; only one company of the Queen’s Own had ball cartridges; they were thirty rounds each with No. 5 company for repeating rifles, which as the event proved were expended in a very brief time and to small purpose.
Brave young men, full of hope, full of confidence, they went to the front without suspicion that any requisite for an active campaign had been neglected.
Let us return to Toronto for the volunteer 10th Royals, and detachments of regulars. Newspapers of next day reported that:
The 10th Royals, in obedience to orders, mustered in the drill-shed at twelve o’clock, and after having been inspected by Major Boxall, who, in the absence of Lieut.-Col. Brunel, had assumed command of the battalion, were ordered to be in readiness to proceed to St. Catharines, by the Great Western railway, at four o’clock. Col. Brunel, who was in Montreal, was telegraphed for to return to this city immediately. At the appointed hour the 10th Royals assembled at the shed. The excitement about this time became intense. All kinds of rumors were afloat, some of which were that the volunteers who had left at early morn, and some of the 16th regiment, were in actual engagement with the Fenians, and had been repulsed. This story made the men of the 10th still more eager for the fray. After having been formed into companies and then four deep, the order to march was given, and the battalion proceeded to the Queen’s wharf, headed by their band. The whole consisting of eight companies, under the command of Major Boxall. They were met by about two hundred men of the 47th regiment, under Lieut.-Col. Villiers. Three companies of that gallant regiment, under command of Major Lodder, and the G battery of the Royal Artillery left at 12.40 o’clock by the Great Western railway for Port Colborne. The two companies of the forty-seventh and the tenth royals were marched to the cars, which were in waiting to convey them to St. Catharines. The bridge which spans the railway track at the Queen’s wharf and the hill tops which surround the Great Western railway workshops, were crowded with spectators. The greatest enthusiasm possible prevailed among the troops—the men of the 47th and 10th Royals singing with heart and voice, “Rule Britannia,” the “Red White and Blue,” and other loyal songs.
Reverting to the departure of regulars and volunteers from Hamilton on 1st of June. On the previous day about 4 p. m. the 16th of H. M. army, the head-quarters, right wing, at Hamilton under Colonel George Peacocke, was kept within barracks. Intelligence had then arrived from the General commanding in chief that a Fenian invasion was expected. During the same day a sergeant of the volunteer 13th went to the dwellings of the members warning them to assemble at the drill-shed at 6 a. m. next morning. They came; most of them without breakfast. They were told, says Lieut.-Col. Booker, to get breakfast for they were going to meet the enemy and he did not know when they would return. [Statement to Court of Inquiry]. Some went to breakfast; others did not. A few, about one-fifth of the whole—the parade state of that morning being 265 of all ranks, had haversacks. They were chiefly men who had been on previous frontier service. Therefore the need of their having that article had long been known to the commanding officer. He also knew they were without knapsacks. He addressed the battalion in the drill-shed, when about to march, in these terms: “Men of the Thirteenth, you are once more called out for duty. You will now, as you did before, follow me. You have no knapsacks, but I can promise that if you do not behave yourselves before the enemy as soldiers should do, you will get plenty of ‘knapsack drill’.” [Written statement laid before me by men of the 13th, who offered to attest it]. There was nothing contrary to good military rule in these words. But in memory of the fact that a portion of the battalion had been five months on frontier service at Windsor not under his command, but under an officer from another city equally vigilant if less pretentious, and had not one defaulter all the time, the taunt of knapsack drill, that is, punishment drill, was not then in the line of discretion. The words follow me, were afterwards remembered. This address on the morning of June 1, is noted here, however, principally to show that Colonel Booker, for several years Militia Commandant of the city as well as Lieut.-Col. of the 13th, was familiar with the deficiency of field equipments.
This battalion, small in numbers, several men and officers having been then absent from the city who afterwards overtook it on the frontier, marched to the railway depot accompanied by many citizens who heartily prayed for blessings on it. The Great Western cars were ready. The train left at 10 a. m. going west to Paris, a two hours journey; then on the Buffalo and Lake Huron track to travel eastward to Port Colborne.
H. M. 16th, (right wing) went on board a train about 12 noon, but remained at the depot two hours, many citizens crowded on the platform. Again, the spirits of old soldiers who had known campaigns in earnest, and who now looked on, were depressed to see infantry—nothing yet but infantry, bound for the front. These were not going without all necessary equipments, as the volunteer militia had gone, but they were without canteens to carry water. Those articles, indispensable to men on a campaign, had been reserved in some army store, not at Hamilton. Thus in addition to the delay caused at Chippewa, on the morrow, to give the 10th Royals breakfast, they having come from Toronto without provisions, without haversacks, “contrary to my orders” (Colonel Peacocke’s report,) the 16th regulars marched without water canteens; “the day was very hot.” (same report.) And the men of the regulars, like the volunteers were thirsty, exhausted, and did not reach the vicinity of the enemy so soon by some hours as otherwise they might.
But strangest want of all; though there is in the Province a Quarter-master General’s Department, whose special business is, with other things special, to provide commanding officers with maps of the country, and though county maps abounded in the Canada common schools, and Normal School at Toronto, Colonel Peacocke, in command of the forces in the Niagara District went out without a map showing the roads upon which he would have to move the troops. He had a small chart of the Niagara peninsula, but it did not show the Welland roads. This want of a good map from which to question his advisers; with want of breakfast for 10th Royals, want of water canteens for both regulars and volunteers, delayed the advance of the main force from Chippewa. Colonel Booker had no map of any kind, nor paper of his own on which to write a message, which want became an event next day.
But O’Neil in command of the Fenians had a map of the roads. And also writing paper for his messages.
The narrative and narrator were at the Hamilton depot a minute ago. The absence of such a common-place element in field equipment as the best map which the Province could afford the commanders not then known; yet the apparent absence of artillery, causing a tremulous apprehension that the volunteers who had gone hours before, and the regular infantry now on board to go, were to be exposed to the hazard of——
No; not this branch of the army of the front. Here came the Royal Artillery from Toronto; the Armstrong guns on platform cars; horses in vans; men guarding guns, sentries guarding horses; detachment of 47th regulars. Hurrah! Loud was the shouting on the Hamilton depot platform. Cheerful the military responses.
The time was 2.30 p. m. June 1st. The Toronto train with two engines went ahead. Hamilton train followed. After a delay at St. Catherines the two trains reached Suspension Bridge, Niagara river, about 6 p. m.
Another view of this large subject, public safety of Canada, lies in the pathway of this narrative which cannot be here avoided. Let us look it in the face.
CHAPTER VIII.
American newspapers had a “grim satisfaction” at seeing Canada “scared.” Assertion that Canadians, as a people, during the American civil war sympathised warmly with the legitimate government and loyal citizens of the United States. Extracts from “Canada a Battle Ground,” published 1862. And, “Where is Canada Drifting?” 1863.
Though this chapter may seem to interrupt the story of Canadian operations of defence, its matter forms an integral part of the larger field of circumstances which gave character to those operations. The Fenian invasion only became possible by sufferance of American popular opinion; and that was widely, deeply distempered, as regarded the British American Provinces and Great Britain, A full, true account of the Fenian invasion, cannot be given without the writer adverting to that distemper, speaking, as he believes he is about to do, for five-sixths of the whole people of Canada, and for the true national opinion of the British Islands.
The two following paragraphs are from a journal of New York called the Citizen. The first purports to be the conclusion of a statement made by an officer of the United States army.
“The mistake of the Fenians was, that they allowed too much talking and writing about their contemplated movements. They should have collected all their men and material along the frontier—their equipments were plentiful and good—without allowing one word to leak out of what they were doing. This, taught by experience, they promise to do next Fall; and if so their success cannot be doubtful.”
The next is the comment of the Editor of the Citizen, who is styled General Halpine, reprinted in Canadian papers, August 3rd, 1866, with the italics as given here.
“The foregoing remarks we commend to the attention of all American citizens who are not enamored with the course of England and Canada toward the United States during the late rebellion. Here was an opportunity to have avenged the wrongs of the British pirate vessels without costing the American Government one dollar. Here the Canadians might have been allowed to realize the scoundrelism of their conduct in sheltering the raiders of St. Albans, and the yellow fever and assassination conspirators. What Mr. Seward may think about it, we do not know; but are well satisfied a majority of the American people regret that the Fenian flag is not to-day floating over the steeples of a captured Montreal.”
The next two paragraph’s are reprinted from the Buffalo Courier of June 1st, but written on the previous day. Both of them are texts:
“It will be seen by reference to an advertisement, that the collector of this port has issued instructions, forbidding any vessel to clear between the hours of 9 a. m. and 4 p. m., without inspection of her cargo by officers of the custom house, and peremptorily interdicting the departure of vessels at all between the hours of 4 p. m. and 9 a. m., until instructions have been received from the Secretary of the Treasury. It is more than probable that the Fenians are endeavoring to obtain transportation to some point, audit is quite certain that they will be very closely watched, and find it very difficult to leave without discovery.
“Our neighbours over the border may be pardoned for indulging in a little excitement under the circumstances; but they claim to be prepared for the worst, and ready to welcome the invaders. There will be no violation of the neutrality laws if our authorities can prevent it; but, looking back two or three years, to the time when Buffalonians were in hourly expectation of Confederate soldiers from Canada, we can ‘phancy the phelinks’ of Victoria’s loyal subjects. We don’t wish them any ill; but a little healthy scaring won’t do them any harm. So soon does time make all things even.”
I permit the last paragraph to be reprinted to remark, that it was in the month of the invasion, but one of hundreds, published in the United States expressing, what the writers termed a “grim satisfaction” that Canadians were now experiencing a return of the evil wishes they gave American citizens during the war of 1861-65. This allegation, was not true. It was the opposite of truth. The widest circulated journals in both the Canadas, and a largely predominating majority of the male adult population of Canada West, who held any political opinions, were throughout the war sympathizers with the legitimate national government of the United States, and were by rational opinion and natural instinct, abhorrent of the Southern insurgents, who, though enjoying co-equal rights with their fellow citizens of the North, and enjoying the privilege of a free press and freedom of speech to discuss public questions, had plunged the great American nation into the horrible calamities of civil war. And added to this numerical majority of political male adults, were the non-political, and all the women and children of the Province, who were guiltless of evil thoughts towards Americans, yet whose risk of life, alarm, terror and plundered homesteads, while fleeing to the woods, the wilderness, to escape the Fenians, were a “grim satisfaction” to some portion of the American newspaper mind.
But this is not all the denial. It is not true that any inhabitants of Canada, political or non-political, sympathizers with the national integrity and lawful authority of the United States or with the rebellion of the slave-owners, were parties to Confederate warfare based in Canada against the Federal States. The Canadian government and people at much cost and inconvenience in 1864 and 1865, posted forces of Militia Volunteers along the frontier to prevent American rebel refugees, resident in Canada, from making raids across the boundary line.
I might be more explicit and elaborate on this matter, which so intimately affects the two great nationalities who in common speak the English language in North America, but for the present refer to a book entitled “Canada a battle ground, by Alexander Somerville” (present writer) published early in 1862. In that publication the sympathy of Canadians, for the lawful government of the United States was asserted, and the estrangement which painfully occurred, foreshadowed. Mr. Seward, in reference to Canada being annexed to the States, writing in 1856, before he was Secretary of State had said “All Southern stars must set though many times they rise again with diminished lustre. But those which illuminate the pole remain for ever shining, for ever increasing in splendour.” To which the author of “Canada a Battle Ground” rejoined in 1862, page 24.
“Remark. It is belief in that bright destiny of Northern free nations which binds Britain, Canada, and other Colonies together. They will not separate. For Britain to willfully pluck her Empire in pieces to set up new nations in conformity to some theory of magnanimity, is an offence to the simplest principles of political philosophy. Were Canada to demand separation, and obtain it; or were she cut adrift, the inevitable fate of absorption, by her more powerful neighbour, and extinction of political existence, would follow. The integrity and perennial vigour of the British empire should be the lofty political faith of all Conservatives and rational Reformers whether at home or in the colonies. And they who desire the permanence of British stability, or deserve the personal safety and freedom guaranteed by imperial laws, and by institutions at once venerable, and youthfully elastic in their adaptability to new circumstances, must by a logical necessity—if they hold any settled conservative principle—cherish a sympathy for other free nations, and hold in abhorrence a rebellious appeal to arms to overturn constitutional government.
“New complications may occur between Britain and France, as well as between Canada and America. A recurrence of excitement about French invasion may any day arise with still deeper perplexities than at any time before. The Legislative Chamber at Paris has just been told by a noble member, a legitimist, not a Napoleonist, and so much the worse, that the thirteen hundred millions of francs, spent on the Crimean war would have carried the French army to London. The British uneasiness of 1858 ripened public sentiment in favour of an auxiliary army of volunteers. Other ‘tyrannicide’ pamphlets, as atrocious as that of 1858, may issue from London and inflame France. Again, the ‘French Colonels’ may demand permission of the Emperor, as in that year, to ‘hunt conspirators in their London dens.’
“In that hypothesis of complex difficulties, the Engineers and Guards, the Royal Artillery and regiments of the British Line, grandly efficient in quality, but inadequate in number even now, may be recalled to save the venerated soil of Britain from the track of invasion. But should they remain, as pray Heaven they may have no cause to go away nor any employment here; a mass levy of the male population will be an instant necessity in the event of war. The mass levy will be only a mob, yet indispensable, as a source from whence to draft selected levies, and to form working brigades to construct defences; to build Forts, for instance, beyond Toronto on the Yorkville side, and on the heights near Hamilton city, should Huron Lake and Georgian Bay be occupied by gun-boats and floating batteries from the arsenals at Chicago, and Green Bay; and Erie Lake, from docks and arsenals at Toledo and Buffalo. The sooner those Forts are raised after the enemy is at Georgian Bay, at Suspension Bridge, at Port Dover, Port Colborne and Port Dalhousie, the sounder may Toronto and Hamilton sleep in bed, if they can sleep at all.
“Concentrated on one point, or distributed to distant places in obedience to the exigencies of strategy, the rural aggregations of the mass levy, and the rural regiments of militia, while defending towns and cities from hostile occupation and ravage, may be told of their own undefended homesteads laid in ashes; barns plundered and pastures cleared of cattle; women and children fleeing to the wilderness distracted, or dying on the cinders of the homes, in which they live happily this day, believing that none dare make them afraid.
“And those aggregations of militia and volunteers, and the mass levy, in this newspaper-made war, may be told of such atrocities, when absent on the frontier service, or may see them after the occurrence. If they do, the fiercest spirits in Canada, not few in number, will volunteer with all the vehemence of revenge; or they may, in desperate frenzy, form expeditions on their own account, to make reprisal on the towns and country opposite. Offended humanity there, which is now as innocent of political feuds or evil intention to Canada, as any non-political farmer and his wife and baby on this side, will in turn cry for a reciprocity of vengeance. Patriotism on that side will be crime on this: the patriotism of Canada will be crime beyond the frontier. They who are least successful in devastation and in victory, will on their Fast days, pray to have a due sense of sin, and better success. The side which enjoys the highest satisfaction for defeats avoided, and battles won, will proclaim a day for thanksgiving and sky-rockets. And what wonder if Eternal Justice should leave them all to the consummation of their own wrath? The only warrant for hope, that they may not be utterly forsaken of merciful Heaven, rests on this; that they who are exposed the most to suffer such calamities are the least guilty in provoking war.
“On the frontier homes of Canada, two thousand miles of war-track. One thousand miles open to attack on the frontier of the States. On the one side and the other, three thousand miles of war, among cities, towns, hamlets, homesteads; tracks of plunder in the mansions of the wealthy; houses of the poor; iron safes of the merchants; strong vaults of the banks. Tracks of battle and of marching armies on fields of summer greenness; on harvests of ripe wheat. Tracks of blood on three thousand miles of death-bed snow.
“War-tracks of wreck, vessels and canals all a wreck, on lake, river and canal navigation. Mutual destruction along the frontier lines of railway, American and Canadian—populated Canada nearly all a frontier as yet.
“Locomotive engines, offspring of genius more godlike than human, now carrying civilization through the primeval forests, dispensing the elements of social happiness as they go, these, compelled to be their own executioners.
“The wheels of Human Progress are reversed. Viaducts broken down on this side the frontier and on that. Flying bridges of international amity now spanning the torrent at Niagara; or leviathans of the ferries, breasting the rivers in calm or storm or floods of crashing ice, at Sarnia, Windsor, Erie Ferry, Kingston, Prescott, and other passages of friendly traffic and social courtesies—all a wreck. And noblest victory of science, the monumental bridge at Montreal, each of its four-and-twenty pillars a monument, that overthrown; or besieged and defended as a bulwark of the fair city which with good reason, dreads to be captured.
“Barrenness on the fields; emptiness in the granaries of Canada; much of the soil untilled, little sown; husbandmen in the war; wives and families scattered; and a pitiful harvest to reap. The peopled country being nearly all frontier, in Upper Canada, the farmers in those days, or months, for years, happily all a hypothesis as yet, are defending not ploughing.—They march to the battle which was expected yesterday; or counter-march to that which is expected to-day; or they are harassed by sleepless nights on picket and forced marches to meet a fresh invasion expected next week, or next month, yet which may come this night. Canada clems with hunger while her enemy is abundantly supplied from the interior of the Union and the prolific North-western States.
“Granaries which supplemented deficient harvests in Britain and France are now devastated or blockaded on the seaboard. Britain is in peril of domestic convulsion by insufficiency of food and material for manufactures and external commerce. Continental Europe sharing the disorder. Austria, weakened by revolted provinces is strength to France. France, stronger, is nearer danger to the English coast, and that is new weakness and greater peril to Canada. Our regular troops, as already said, may be called suddenly home. The gun-boats expected may never come. France scorns neutrality and blockades, most probably. Her steam rams-of-war make grim fraternity with the iron rams of America, possibly. The commerce of two oceans and of all the seas and gulfs is plundered, burned or sunk by privateers. Electric telegraphs, ‘our own correspondents’ and unofficial army reports, by facilitating wreck and ruin, and keeping enemies well informed, are curses, no longer utilities. The fire-brand or revolutionary section of the Canada press, happily a very small and misguided minority of the whole, which in mockery of common sense retains the name of ‘conservative,’ or ‘moderate,’ yet has outraged moderation, and put rational conservatism to shame by spreading along and across the peaceful frontier the elements of discord and convulsion—takes its turn of ‘sentry go’ on dark and stormy nights, in sleet, or snow, or rain, or sultry summer heat; the provost-martial keeping the office, types and ink. And ‘special correspondents,’ sent from England are considerably abridged of the liberty which they used so indiscreetly in the United States, while lawful authority there struggled in all the majesty of national conservatism to suppress a rebellion less excusable than any ever known in the history of the world. And so the war of invasion, which in the incongruities of party servitude the ‘moderate’ newspapers of Canada have done so much to realize as a fact of horrible proportions, goes on; the roar of ocean storms deafened by the roar of naval battles; Great Britain with hands full, yet grand even in that day of extremity, while Canada sweeps up the ashes of her homesteads and wipes her widowed eyes.
“Such may that war be which political lunacy, less or more apparent on both sides the boundary line, is now hastening to a hideous birth. Why are two nations of kindred race and language preparing for the world this great agony? The event advances to its fullness of time primarily and chiefly, because they are of kindred race and language.
“To describe the cities, towns, hamlets, and happy homesteads on both sides of the boundary line; the social and commercial intercourse of the two countries. To depict, as far as an uninspired pen may, their measureless resources of natural wealth—all pleading for peace. To foreshadow as far as a non-prophetic writer may presume, the nature of the differences from which they may drift into a conflict of mutual devastation. To illustrate the practical elements of military discipline and strength by reference to changed circumstances of social and political life in new communities. To relate incidents of British campaigns, victories, defeats, retreats, army panics, and the difficulties of the greatest generals in all wars, as a study indispensable in Canada, where the new militia of this year, 1862—fifty thousand undisciplined men not yet obtained, are proposed to do what fifty thousand veteran troops continuously in the field, might fail to do—defend Canada against an army of the United States, now trained or being trained, to arms, should it be directed at once against all accessible landing places on her vastly extended frontier.
“To ask by the logic of political affinities, that all loyal subjects who can appreciate the freedom and stability of Britain, should extend a lively sympathy to the United States, now struggling in the majesty of a grand conservatism to consolidate civil and religious liberty with an enduring nationality; a result, which only Britain, of all other nations in the world, has practically achieved. To treat of those things; to contribute to the safety of Canada, and like a drop added to the mighty St. Lawrence, river of the life of North America, to contribute my driblet to the well-being of the British empire, and to the happiness of peaceful nations. That is the object of the work now in the reader’s hand.”
Battle of Bull’s Run. That was still a topic of popular conversation when “Canada a Battle Ground” was written. Of that, it was remarked; p. 59,
“It would have been to the advantage of international amity if Mr. Russell of the Times had seen and described the actual battle of Manassas alias Bull’s Run, which, while it lasted, was a valiant conflict, carried on by troops, on the Government side, famishing for want of water and food, and unsupported by the necessary adjuncts of a campaign, all difficulties caused by a too early advance without the means of transport, and all aggravated by the battle occurring in a thickly wooded country. Killed and wounded at Bull Run, 18 per cent of all engaged, in five hours. Killed and wounded at Waterloo, in the year 1815, 24 per cent of all engaged of British and Allies, in twelve hours. The defeated veterans ran six times farther from Waterloo, than the defeated troops at Bull Run.”
“Truths about Battles—Wellington and Waterloo. Even Generals in command can only make a guess at the incidents of battle. Civilian correspondents, viewing the smoke from afar, can tell nothing but by hearsay. Nor do Generals find it desirable to publish all occurrences in their dispatches. A historian having applied to Wellington for a full account of Waterloo, that he might exactly describe it, the great General replied as follows:—“You cannot write a true history of the battle without including the faults and misbehavior of part of those who were engaged, and whose faults and misbehaviour were the cause of material losses. Believe me, that every man you see in a military uniform is not a hero; and that although in the account given of a general action, such as that of Waterloo, many instances of individual heroism must be passed over unrelated, it is better for the general interests to leave those parts of the story untold than to tell the whole truth.
Wellington.”
“Victory is not always a certainty even with the ablest Generals in command of the best troops. Many unreflective admirers of Wellington, military men as well as civilians, have asserted that he never engaged in battle but with the certainty of success. He has himself affirmed the contrary, and what he said should be treasured as words of caution to over confident officers in command of armies or detachments. Writing to Sir Charles Stuart, British Envoy at Lisbon, in March, 1811, previous to a new campaign, he said:—“I have but little doubt of success; but as I have fought a sufficient number of battles to know that the result of any one of them was not certain, even with the best arrangements, I am anxious that the Government should adopt preparatory arrangements and take out of the enemy’s way those persons and their families who would suffer if they were to fall into the enemy’s hands.”
Where was Canada drifting in 1863?—The following passage from the Canadian Illustrated News of May, 16, 1863, was widely reprinted in British newspapers, its sentiments meeting the popular British opinion of that time, as it expressed the opinions of the press and people of Canada with but few exceptions. It is given here that Americans who peruse this Book of the Fenian invasion, may see that sympathy for the people who were loyal to the legitimate authority in the United States was in Canada a fact in the years of the war, not an after-thought in this year of the Fenian trouble, 1866, as some of them now allege. One of the exceptions just noted, a Brantford paper, had jeered at the American army then on the Potomac; and spoke lightly of a rupture which it said, “might occur between England and the Federal States at any time.” A rejoinder of rebuke by the present writer, which accorded with the popular voice of Canada, was in these terms, necessarily now abbreviated:
“‘May lead at any time to an open rupture.’ And what might that be to Brantford? Read the selections from the report of the committee of Congress on page 4 of this journal. ‘An open rupture’ means the probable sequences of war; the stoppage of all through traffic on the Buffalo and Lake Huron railroad, whose central works are at Brantford. It means the enemy’s occupation or bombardment of Goderich town from Lake Huron. It means the approach of an army of invasion from Buffalo and Port Dover, and all the ports on the north shore of Lake Erie towards Brantford and Hamilton; and a battle perhaps the bloodiest in the annals of time, the Thermopylæ of Canada fought on the banks of the Grand River near the village of Caledonia, or between that village and the lake shore, but more probably in and around Brantford town. Then will every brick of that place be battered to rubbish heaps, in the battle which decides which army shall hold the key-ground of Canada West. The key-ground of Canada West extends from the Grand River below Caledonia, by way of Brantford to Paris, and northerly to Guelph; from thence to Toronto eastward, and to London westward. The three railways, Buffalo and Lake Huron, Great Western, and Grand Trunk, will be kept open to the last extremity, for though we may be terribly tried, Canada will submit willingly,—never.
“I will not describe in these columns the probable disposition of forces. I direct the reader’s eye through the curtain of the future to take that one glimpse, because of the fervency of a terrible apprehension that the wilful negligence of the Government of Canada to organize, or provide means for organizing a defensive force, may leave the Province to the appalling hazard of seeing a time of war with insufficiency of means to resist the invasion at the beginning.
“What, to Great Britain, are the aspects of the contingency of an ‘open rupture’ or Roebuck’s ‘declaration of war?’ War with the United States, the Southern blockade broken, and secession achieved, involves either the defence of Canada by all the might of the Mother country or abandonment. Abandonment means, the confiscation of every man’s estate, every child’s heritage.
“Then we may see Alabamas playing havoc on the wrong side. The sordid traitors to their Queen and country who, in 1862 and 1863, have built them on the Mersey and the Clyde, in breach of British neutrality, standing accursed in the presence of the British Empire immersed in the three-fold baptism of convulsion famine and pestilence, weird offspring of havoc and of war.
“Such, Mr. Roebuck, of Sheffield, would be the probable result of your crazy counsels. Such, Mr. Laird, of Birkenhead, will possibly be the early convulsion of nations in which your sordid iniquity is preparing to plunge the British Empire.
“And you, the suicidal section of the newspaper press of Canada, happily a minority of the whole, mocking common sense by retaining the otherwise respectable name of ‘conservative,’ outraging all moderation in blindly, prodigally goading to implacable anger our next-door national neighbour, struggling as that great nation has been during the last two years, in the noblest efforts that could engage the sympathy of conservatives—the conservation of nationality, the repression of internal rebellion—what of you in that day which I have depicted; in that conflagration which you will have contributed to kindle? you will stand, not as Cassandra stood, in frantic joy at the havoc of your torch, but you will be whiffed out, extinguished in the dread convulsion of this distracted Province, your types and presses in the custody of the provost-martial. That is where Canada is drifting to.”—Alexander Somerville, ‘Whistler at the Plough.’
American journalists—orators—statesmen. Such were the sentiments of Canadians towards the United States, with only the small exceptions indicated in the years of the war. Some of you now enjoy, what you term a “grim satisfaction” at the thought of the women and children of Canada being exposed to ravage, plunder, murder, who in no way offended you. And the large majority of men who felt your cause to be theirs—the cause of constitutional freedom, national stability, true conservatism, you are grimly satisfied because they are now, or but lately were, exposed to the contingencies of invasion. History will judge that you cruelly wrong this Province. And Almighty God whom you worship, is witness, that the people of Canada, as a people never did you wrong, never spoke of you but in friendliness.
Note for to-day—While this sheet is passing through the press intelligence from Britain informs Canada that the new conservative government comprehends and will act on a just conception of conservative philosophy towards the United States. In society the first characteristic of a gentleman is courtesy towards his neighbors. In international policy the first duty of true conservatism is promotion of friendship with other nations. August, 1866.
CHAPTER IX.
Colonel Peacocke’s advance to Chippewa on June 1st. His march next day. And the day after. Lieut.-Colonels Booker and Dennis. Night of June 1st, and morning of the 2nd.
We are now arrived at the morning of June 2nd. In the Niagara District the first act of the Fenian Invasion being in progress Colonel Peacocke is looked to as the leading actor in the operations. Around him the main forces for defence and repulsion of the enemy have gathered. On him expectation rests. A senior officer Colonel Lowry of the 47th will presently appear, but not yet. Colonel Peacocke’s official report as written in his own terms is demanded by the pretentions of this narrative to fulness, and fidelity to truth. A chapter describing his advance and halts from Suspension Bridge to Fort Erie to be followed by that report, and the report by comments on his movements and strategy would occupy too many of these pages. It is convenient therefore to introduce his official statement first. This is it:
Colonel Peacocke’s Report; To Major-General G. Napier, C. B. Commanding 1st Military District, Toronto, C. W.
Fort Erie, 4th June, 1866.
Sir.—I have the honor to make the following Report of my operations in the field since the 1st inst. In compliance with a telegram received from you, I joined at 2 o’clock, at Hamilton, with 200 men of my own battalion, the force proceeding from Toronto to St. Catherines, consisting of one battery of Royal Artillery, under the Command of Lieut.-Col. Hoste, C. B., and 200 men of the 47th Regt, under the command of Major Lodder. You had also placed under my command, for the defence of the frontier, 7 companies of the volunteer force stationed at St. Catherines, under the command of Lieut.-Col. Currie, the Queen’s Own regiment of volunteers at Port Colborne, and the 13th Battalion volunteer militia, commanded by Lieut.-Col. Booker, at Dunnville; and you had informed me that I should be reinforced at St. Catherines by 800 men. Your instructions were that I was to make St. Catherines my base, to act according to my own discretion, to advance on Clifton or elsewhere, and to attack the enemy as soon as I could do so with a force sufficient to ensure success. On arriving at St. Catherines, I received telegrams to the effect that the Fenians, about 800 strong, were marching on the Suspension Bridge and were actually two or three miles from Chippewa. I pushed on immediately to the Bridge, leaving orders for all troops arriving at St. Catherines to follow me as soon as possible. On reaching the Bridge, I heard that the enemy had not yet reached Chippewa, and being anxious to save the bridge over the creek, I pressed on with the 400 infantry, preceded by a pilot engine—the battery marching by road in consequence of the reported want of platform accommodation at the Chippewa station. (1.) It was dark when we arrived at Chippewa.
We bivouacked there that night. I there received numerous reports from scouts sent out by Mr. Kirkpatrick, the reeve. They agreed generally in the statement that the Fenians had entrenched themselves roughly a little below Fort Erie, at Frenchman’s Creek, and had sent on a party towards Chippewa. Their strength was variously estimated from 800 to 1,500. I resolved on effecting a junction with the force at Port Colborne, to which place I had already ordered the battalion from Dunnville. With this object in view, I selected Stevensville as the point of junction, and having explained to Captain Akers, of the Royal Engineers, who accompanied the force from Toronto, what my object was, and that this point was chosen, because judging from information received we could not be anticipated at it by the evening. (2.) I despatched that officer at 12 o’clock, to communicate with the officer commanding at Port Colborne, to make him conversant with my views and to meet me at Stevensville between ten and eleven o’clock next morning, informing him that I should start at six o’clock. I continued to send out scouts during the night, and to receive reports which made me believe that my information was correct, and that the enemy had not left their camp. At about two o’clock, I received a telegram from Colonel Booker, despatched before he was joined by Captain Akers, informing me that he had given orders to attack the enemy at Fort Erie. (3.) At about half past three I received another one from Captain Akers, despatched after he had reached Port Colborne, saying the enemy was at French Creek, and proposing that Lt.-Col. Booker’s force should advance on Fort Erie and join us at Frenchman’s Creek.
At about 4.30 o’clock, I was joined by the eleven companies of volunteers from St. Catharines, formed into a battalion 350 strong, under Lt.-Col. Currie, and by the expected reinforcement under Lt.-Col. Villiers, of the 47th Regiment, which consisted of 150 men of the 47th, and of the 10th Royals, 415 strong, under Major Boxall. The volunteers, being unprovided with the means of carrying provisions and of cooking them had not been able to comply with an order I had sent the previous evening, that they were to bring provisions in their haversacks. I saw that the absolute necessity of furnishing them with some would cause delay, and I telegraphed to Port Colborne that I should be one hour later in starting. (5). We marched at 7 o’clock, leaving the Garrison Volunteer Battery, from St. Catharines, under Capt Stoker, to hold Chippewa. The day was oppressively hot, and our guide took us by a road much longer than necessary. (6). When about three miles from Stevensville, at about 11 o’clock, I received a few words from Lieut.-Col. Booker, written at 7.30 o’clock, to the effect that he had just received my telegram, but that he was attacked in force by the enemy at a place three miles south of Stevensville, (7). At the same time, I received information that he had retired from Ridgway. I encamped a mile further on, at a small place called New Germany, across a road leading due south to Stevensville. At about 4 o’clock, having gathered information that the enemy was falling back on Fort Erie, I left everything behind which would encumber the men and started to follow them. At the moment of starting, we received an important accession to strength by the arrival of the Cavalry Body Guard of His Excellency the Governor-General, 55 strong, under Major Denison. (8.) We marched until dark, and halted two and a half miles from Fort Erie, the men sleeping on their arms, due precautions being observed. During the night, I sent out scouts to collect information. It appeared that the Fenians, on retiring, had posted themselves at once near the old Fort. Some said they had been reinforced, some that they were attempting to re-cross into the United States. I also heard that three companies of the 60th Rifles had arrived at our vacated camp at New Germany and that a force had reached Black Creek; also that 10 more companies of volunteer militia had arrived at Port Colborne. The Volunteer Garrison Battery, which I had left at Chippewa, joined me during the night.
Anxious to prevent the escape of the Fenians, I sent word to the officers commanding at those places that I was going to attack Fort Erie, and asked when they would be able to co-operate. Subsequently, fresh reports of attempts of the Fenians to escape having reached me, I determined to advance at once. We were about to move when Lt.-Col. the Hon. John Hillyard Cameron came into camp and informed me that the Fenians had escaped. The intelligence caused great mortification in my little force. I desired Major Denison to scour the country and enter the town. He sent me a message that he was informed that there was still a body of Fenians about the old Fort. We at once marched in that direction, skirmishing through the woods. Major Denison soon informed us that they really had escaped. As many scouts and farm people assured us they had not escaped, we took a long sweep through the woods. On our right on Lake Erie, a few stragglers were seen, and four were reported shot. On entering the old fort, traces were found of its having been recently occupied. During the short operation which extended only over forty hours, the troops under my command underwent very great fatigue, and bore it with great cheerfulness. I received all possible support and co-operation from officers of all ranks. The conduct of the men was excellent. A great number of private individuals rendered me service in many ways, and the inhabitants generally exhibited a good and loyal feeling. Mr. Swinyard, Manager of the Great Western Railroad, gave me the benefit of his services in person. He placed at my disposal the resources of the railway; and the officials on the line exerted themselves to render these available. I have the honor to enclose a report of Lieut.-Col. Booker, of his operations on the 2nd inst.
GEO. PEACOCKE,
Col. and Lt.-Col. 16th Regt.
Notes to Colonel Peacocke’s Report. 1. “The reported want of platform accommodation.” Since the time and the events, persons have spoken largely as to how quickly they would have provided platforms had they been consulted. The Colonel could not consult persons of whose existence he was uninformed. He acted according to the best information.
2. and 3. I had written a criticism on the extraordinary, the unmilitary procedure of Captain Akers, Lieut.-Colonels Dennis and Booker, in taking upon themselves to alter the plans of their superior, Colonel Peacocke, who alone was responsible in the campaign, and from whom they were bound to take instructions; but a statement of Major Denison having been published as these sheets are passing to the press, some portions of it are here cited.
Major Denison’s account of the campaign is lucid, and soldier-like. But he has committed errors in his description of the combat at Limestone Ridge. They are serious errors. He is not known to have consulted any officer of the 13th, at Hamilton, as to matters of fact affecting that battalion, but has followed stories floating about Toronto, among certain of the “Queen’s Own,” that are not true. He expresses acknowledgments for information to Lieut.-Col. Booker, which is about enough to declare against the fidelity of his narrative. That person was not at any time in a position to know much of what was done in the front. In matters within his own knowledge he has not told the whole truth. Major Denison having had close intercourse on the advance to Fort Erie with Colonel Peacocke, his remarks may be accepted as interpreting the mind of that officer. They also accord with what the Colonel related to me at Fort Erie village soon after the incidents occurred. Says Major Denison, referring to June 1, at Chippewa:
History of the Fenian Raid, p. 30. “Colonel Peacocke then made arrangements for the junction of his forces with Lieut.-Colonel Booker’s. At the time he decided upon the hour of meeting, the greater portion of his force was yet to arrive, and not knowing what hour in the morning or in the night they might come, he was unable to name an earlier hour to start than 6 a. m. which would make the hour of his arrival at Stevensville between 10 and 11 a. m. Not having a map showing the roads about Port Colborne and between there and Stevensville, and being unable in Chippewa to obtain accurate information as to the roads, or the condition of them, and having received at the same time very conflicting information as to the movements of the enemy, he found it was impossible for him to lay down the route Lieut.-Col. Booker should take, or the hour at which he should start, in order to meet him at Stevensville between 10 and 11 a. m. Under these circumstances he thought it desirable to send an officer across to Lieut.-Col. Booker who should be thoroughly acquainted with his plan, and would be able in case of doubt or difficulty, to consult with Lieut.-Col. Booker and see that the spirit of the plan was carried out even if the details were varied.
“Acting upon this idea, Colonel Peacocke chose Capt. Akers R. E. for this service and explained his plan and the reasons which induced him to adopt it; but with reference to the roads he left it entirely optional with Lieut.-Col. Booker and Capt. Akers to choose a road after making thorough inquiries as to the most available route, and the route most remote from the position of the enemy—going even so far as to tell Capt. Akers that they might go along the Welland railway, northerly to a point opposite Stevensville and then march due east to that place; or take the Grand Trunk railway for some miles, and then cut across the country in a diagonal direction to the point of junction. Ridgeway was never mentioned as a point to leave the railway; and there is little doubt that with a correct map, Colonel Peacocke would have positively forbidden it—Ridgeway being nearer Fort Erie than Stevensville, and the further march being consequently brought nearer to the enemy’s position than the occasion called for. From information received since, there is no doubt that the shortest and safest route lay from Sherk’s crossing across the country to Stevensville.”
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.”
Whether the three had an overflow of courage at Colborne before the hour of trial, or were only in their normal condition of heroes, held back and impatient of restraint, may never be known. But though each became separated from the other two in the operations of next day, each earned the distinction of avoiding, in a conspicuous hurry, the risk of captivity with the Fenians. Colonel Dennis when attacked at the village, ran down Niagara side, reached the house of Mr. Thomas, shaved off his beard, and changed his clothes and so escaped capture. Capt. Akers, by his own account, made tracks through the woods towards Port Colborne in a buggy, at the same time as Colonel Dennis shaved himself, that is about 2 p. m. Lieut.-Col. Booker had then reached Colborne from the battle of Limestone Ridge thirteen miles, much flurried.
The other marked passages in Colonel Peacocke’s report refer to the delay caused by want of haversacks with the volunteers, and the time at which he got a message from Lieut.-Col. Booker through Detective Armstrong. This last falls to be noticed in next chapter but one. Major Denison says, referring to Chippewa, morning of June 2:
“Colonel Peacocke’s reinforcements were to join him sometime in the morning, and being anxious that there should be no delay in starting, he telegraphed back to Hamilton and St. Catharines directing that the reinforcements should bring with them a supply of cooked provisions, so that no delay should be occasioned by waiting to get breakfast for the men after they arrived. At about 4.30 a. m. the expected reinforcements came up and after being unloaded, Colonel Peacocke mentioned to the officers commanding that he should march at six o’clock, it being then nearly five. They at once objected on account of their men not having had any breakfast, and very little to eat the whole of the previous day, and they were unable to bring anything with them, as they were unprovided with haversacks in which to carry it.”
Severe animadversions have been directed against this commander for his having delayed on that morning to give his own regiment and other regulars breakfast, while the Hamilton, and Toronto Volunteers had marched to battle while fasting. It was the volunteers, newly arrived at Chippewa, not the regulars, for whom breakfast and delay were requisite. Whatever the degree of misfortune may have been, arising from that circumstance, it was directly traceable to the misjudged economy of the Provincial executive in not having provided equipments for volunteers suitable for the field and to the negligence of commanding officers, who preferred scrupulous attention to the inferior trifles of parade show, well enough in their way, but not vital to the soldier’s efficiency in fight, existence under privation. Two more passages are here materially important.
“Being unwilling to set out upon a very severe march, to finish probably with a severe battle, and through a country where it would be difficult to get food, Col. Peacocke decided it would be better to wait an hour to enable the men to get breakfast, and immediately telegraphed to Lieut.-Col. Booker to delay his march an hour. This message, did not reach him until he was engaged with the enemy. Had he started at the proper time he would have received the message before he left, for even to have reached Stevensville at 9.30 it was not necessary for him to leave Port Colborne until six. He was at the battle ground, three miles from Stevensville at 7.30; and if not interrupted would have reached Stevensville at 8.30, about an hour earlier than Capt. Akers mentioned, and two hours before Colonel Peacocke’s time of junction. This mistake of one hour led to his not receiving the message to delay, and therefore caused him to be really three hours too soon.
“It must not be forgotten that at the time Colonel Peacocke decided to wait that there was no reason for him to fear any ill result from the delay. At that time he expected that a heavy battle would take place, before the Fenians would be driven out, and that instead of the object being to prevent them getting out of the country, the opinion of every one was, that the great difficulty would be to drive them out, and that he was right in proceeding cautiously with that object in view. At any rate he anticipated that the steamer (for which he had given orders to be employed) would have prevented their escape.”
In another passage the writer speaks thus, of the plans of Dennis, Booker and Akers, at Colborne in contravention of their chief at Chippewa;
“There was the commanding officer’s plan changed by his subordinates almost at the moment of execution. The three officers whom he had charged with the execution of his orders, even including the staff officer who carried them, coolly forming themselves into a mimic council of war, aided by a customs officer, and unitedly deciding upon a plan which has been previously shown to be absurd, a plan for cutting off the Fenian retreat to the east, but leaving the whole country open to them to the west, as well as uncovering the canal they were sent to protect.
“Again Lieut.-Col. Dennis’s instructions were to wait further orders before any attack was made; and yet Capt Akers says, he was anxious to move with the volunteers at once without arranging a junction with Colonel Peacocke. Capt. Akers was sent to go with Lieut.-Col. Booker, and consult and advise with him on Col. Peacocke’s plan, and assist him in carrying it out. Col. Dennis was sent to command the ‘Queen’s Own,’ and yet before receiving any answer from Col. Peacocke, both these officers, in disobedience to orders, went off in the tug to carry out their own plan.
“The only way in which their conduct can be accounted for is, that they were so confident that Col. Peacocke would at once fall in with their plan of operation in lieu of his own, that they never, for one moment, calculated that his answer would be in the negative. Being imbued with this idea it can readily be imagined that Capt. Akers would not be very particular in going into details and explaining minutely to Lieut.-Col. Booker the plan which they had both looked upon as virtually abandoned. It can also be conceived, even if Capt. Akers did enter minutely into the details of the plan laid down by Col. Peacocke, that Lieut.-Col. Booker believing that it was a useless precaution, would not give so close attention to it, or be able so clearly to remember it, as if he felt when he heard it he was about setting out to put it in execution.