THE ENGLISH FLEET.
The preparations which had been going on all winter in English Naval
circles were nearly completed at the time of England's formal
declaration of war, so that there was but little delay before the
first fleet was ready to sail.
This was intended to operate against New York and Philadelphia; and
was to be followed in about a month by two others, one of which was
to operate against Boston and other New England seaports; and the
other to attack Baltimore, and thence work southward, bombarding the
cities of Washington, Norfolk, Charleston and Savannah.
The first fleet consisted of the turret ships:
Victoria, 11,470 tons, two 110 ton guns.
Sanspareil, 11,470 tons, one 70 ton gun, twelve 6 inch.
Edinburgh, 9,150 tons, four 45 ton guns, five 6 inch.
The armored ships:
Camperdown, 10,000 tons, four 67 ton guns, six 6 inch.
Collingwood, 9,150 tons, four 44 ton guns, six 6 inch.
Howe, 9,700 tons, four 67 ton guns, four 6 inch.
The partially armed cruisers:
Orlando, 5,000 tons, two 9 inch guns, ten 6 inch.
Narcissus, 5,000 tons, two 9 inch guns, ten 6 inch.
Undaunted, 5,000 tons, two 9 inch guns, ten 6 inch.
and the improvised merchant cruisers:
Etruria, Umbria and City of New York.
Besides these large vessels, were numerous second and third class
cruisers, despatch boats, and torpedo boats and launches; so that the
total number of vessels, large and small, in the fleet, considerably
exceeded one hundred--and all of the larger ones were armed with the
most formidable weapons known to modern science; many of which had a
range of more than ten miles.
The date of the sailing of this formidable fleet (the 20th
of April) was, of course, cabled over the French Cable to New
York--the English Cables, having been seized by the Canadian
Government, being no longer available to the Americans.
The destination of the fleet could only be surmised, as it sailed
under sealed orders; but it was taken for granted that it was New
York, and preparations were made accordingly. Immediately after
England's declaration of war, the President issued a call for 250,000
volunteers, which had been responded to by more than a million men.
The New York City Militia volunteered in a body to do garrison duty
in the forts of the harbor, and such of the old guns as didn't burst
at the first few experimental discharges at the targets, were
burnished up, and made to look as formidable as possible. The marine
militia drilled constantly by night and by day; and the bay and
harbor seemed fairly alive with small craft of all kinds, rushing
hither and thither, each one bent upon some offensive or defensive
experiment. Stationary and movable torpedoes were placed in the
upper Bay and Narrows, and the whole available naval force of the
nation, amounting, great and small, to about thirty vessels, were
concentrated in the harbor.
Several submarine torpedo boats--of which great things were
expected--were giving exhibitions of their prowess constantly, diving
under the bottoms of the excursion steamboats as they went up and
down the bay, and inflicting a vast amount of needless terror upon
the timid excursionists. Each and every one of these little vessels
had demonstrated the fact conclusively that she could dive under the
largest man of war afloat, and affixing a torpedo to her bottom,
could withdraw to a safe distance, and then by an electric battery,
blow the great war ship into a million smithereens. Whenever any of
them appeared on the surface of the bay, therefore, they were
regarded with great awe by the spectators, and were greeted with such
remarks as "I wonder what the Englishmen will think of that little
thing." "Who would think that such an insignificant looking little
boat could do so much damage?" "She has got dynamite enough on board
to blow up all New York," &c., &c., and a feeling of absolute
confidence in the defensive preparations, which had been so hastily
made, pervaded all classes of citizens.
Interspersed with these expressions of satisfaction, would frequently
be heard sarcastic regrets that the Englishmen were running headlong
to inevitable death and annihilation, and the comic illustrated
journals acquired great _éclat_ from their numerous cartoons, in
which John Bull was invariably represented as being _in extremis_.
Meanwhile, the volunteers who had responded to the President's call,
were being rapidly mobilized and equipped; and camps were established
at Plattsburgh and Buffalo and Detroit; as well as at a point on the
Pacific coast near Victoria in British Columbia. Thus the Dominion
was threatened with invasion at points nearly three thousand miles
apart; and the prospect was that before the summer was over, the
military operations on both sides would assume proportions as
gigantic as those which had astonished the world during the War of
the Rebellion.
Many of the volunteers were veterans of that war; and therefore the
work of drilling them and making competent soldiers of them, went
forward with incredible rapidity; and within less than sixty days
from the issuing of the President's proclamation, the United States
had a thoroughly well armed, well drilled, and well equipped force of
over 200,000 men in the field, ready to march across the frontier.
On the fifteenth of April the first entry was made on Canadian
Territory. Ten thousand men in two detachments crossed the Detroit
River, and took possession of Windsor, opposite Detroit. A slight
opposition to the landing of this force was attempted by a small
detachment of Canadian Militia, who after firing a scattering volley
at the ferry-boats containing the Americans, beat a hasty retreat
when the latter began to return the fire.
Two days later, a force of about 25,000 men crossed the Niagara River
near Buffalo, and at once marched inland, with a view of taking
possession of the Welland Canal, and damaging it in such a manner as
to prevent the passage of some British gunboats, which had been
reported as on their way from Halifax to the Upper Lakes. This was a
most wise and timely movement; for if these vessels had gotten
through the canal, the cities of Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Toledo,
Sandusky, Detroit and Chicago, would have been completely at their
mercy; as under an old treaty between the United States and England,
neither power could have more than one war vessel at any time on the
Lakes.
For this reason, the news of the success of this detachment in
destroying the locks of the Welland Canal, so as to effectually
prevent these vessels from reaching Lake Erie, was hailed with great
delight by the entire press of the United States, and a grand chorus
of jubilation was echoed from one end of the country to the other.
The main body of the American troops, however, had been concentrated
near Plattsburgh, in New York State, and were intended to operate
against Montreal and Ottawa. This consisted of 75,000 men, under the
immediate command of General Schofield, and this army crossed the
Canadian frontier at the point where the Irish fenians had
established their camp the preceding season, on the first day of May,
1890. No opposition to speak of was encountered, and the army
advanced at once, by easy marches, towards the St. Lawrence River,
with a view to the rapture of Montreal.
The movements of the detachment on the Pacific Coast had not been so
prompt us those of the others. Numerous delays occurred in the
arrival of equipments and supplies, and therefore that division of
the force found itself utterly unable to move at the time
specified--which had been fixed for not later than the 1st of May.
This was the general situation on the 1st of May, 1890.