Read Ebook: Narrative of the Fenian invasion of Canada by Somerville Alexander

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 394 lines and 64300 words, and 8 pages

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.

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."

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.

"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."

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.

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.

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.

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, 44 1/2 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 126 1/2 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, ,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.

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.

"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.

" 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 2 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.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet