TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
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.
Some other changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
[Illustration:
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 [a sum of money was
named but misprinted]. He brought me into Kilkenny and he kept me at
Flude’s Hotel taking down my case two days and a night. I told him
I was going to Dublin and he gave me money and clothes, and then he
took me to Dublin, and he got my case put in the _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.