Part 3: The last of the Fenian invasions raided the wrong country

By Jon Guttman

Of all people, John O’Neill should have known better. As a member of the Fenian Brotherhood, an organization of Irish-American nationalists formed in the United States, he had already led two incursions into British North America, with the objective of seizing some real estate and a major city or two, and then ransoming it in exchange for an independent Irish republic. Neither had worked out, and yet here he was in 1871, trying once more. Perhaps third time would be the charm?

The first time, O’Neill led about 800 men from Buffalo, New York across the Niagara River to occupy the town of Fort Erie on June 1, 1866. The next day he and 650 fellow expatriates, all seasoned Civil War veterans, routed some 850 inexperienced militiamen at Ridgeway. By June 3, however, the Fenians found themselves cut off, their ranks eroding from desertions and as many as 5,000 Canadian reinforcements on the way. O’Neill withdrew to New York, only to find U.S. government men waiting to arrest him for violating the Neutrality Act of 1818.

Soon released from prison, O’Neill was fêted in Fenian circles as the hero of Ridgeway — a battle gloriously won amid a campaign ignominiously lost — and promptly set about planning another invasion. On April 28, 1870 he gathered supporters in Franklin, Vermont, from which he led part of a two-pronged thrust into Quebec Province on May 25, moving on the towns of St. Jean and Richmond, downriver from Montreal and within reach of important railways.

If the first Fenian raid of 1866 was far-fetched, the odds against success in 1870 had only grown. For one thing, the authorities knew of the plan as early as February because, unknown to O’Neill, the fellow Civil War veteran in charge of his munitions, Colonel Henri Le Caron, was actually Thomas Willis Beach, an English spy. Moreover, the Fenians were not invading British North America anymore. As of July 1, 1867, it was the Dominion of Canada, with its own parliament and prime minister — and militiamen who, learning from their humiliation at Ridgeway, were better prepared, trained and were fighting not just for their homes, but also for their own nation.

As he neared the border, O’Neill was twice intercepted and urged to stop by George P. Foster, the U.S. Marshal for the district of Vermont. O’Neill ignored him and led his 400 men into 680 waiting militia at Eccles Hill — who sent them reeling back into Vermont with five dead and 20 wounded. The Canadians suffered no casualties. The third time Foster encountered O’Neill, he arrested him.

The other prong of the invasion, led by Colonel Owen Starr from Malone, New York to Holbrook’s Corners along the Trout River on May 27, fared little better. Counterattacked by 1,030 Canadian and British troops, the Fenians lasted just minutes before conducting an orderly retreat across the border — and then scattered to evade the American authorities. Starr was caught and gaoled in Auburn, New York.

Sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in July, O’Neill was pardoned by President Ulysses S. Grant and released in October. At that point one would think he would have had his fill of filibustering to the north — as indeed the Fenian Brotherhood itself had. O’Neill, however, merely shifted his sights to a new target…and new allies. In 1871, he went west to court the half-blood Métis of Manitoba.

The products of more than a century of predominantly Franco-Indian intermarriage, the semi-nomadic Métis often found themselves as much at odds with the westward advance of Anglo-Canadian settlement as were the First Nations. They inhabited the Red River Settlement in Rupert’s Land, a territory constituting a third of modern Canada’s land mass, which since 1670 had been administered exclusively by the Hudson’s Bay Company — until November 19, 1869, when Canada purchased it from the company for 300,000 pounds ($15 million). In August 1869, when the Canadian government began surveying the region in anticipation of its future incorporation, Métis spokesman Louis Riel denounced its efforts. After Ottawa appointed the virulently anti-French William McDougall as lieutenant governor of Rupert’s Land and the North-West Territories on September 28, 1869, Métis in the Red River Settlement began disrupting the surveys in October. On November 2, 400 Métis seized Fort Garry, where they established a provisional government on the 23rd.

In mid-December Métis leader Louis Riel sent Ottawa 14 conditions under which his people would submit to union, including a bilingual legislature and chief justice, land rights, the establishment of French-speaking schools and the protection of Catholic rights. While the Canadian government considered the petition, tensions rose on January 18, 1870, when the Métis arrested pro-English agitators at Portage le Prairie on charges of conspiring to overthrow the provisional government, sentenced 11 to death and executed one, Thomas Scott, by firing squad. In May Canada dispatched a 1,000-man expeditionary force commanded by British Colonel Garnet Wolseley. At the same time, however, most of the Métis demands were incorporated into the Manitoba Act when it was ratified on May 12. In consequence, when Wolseley’s expedition finally reached Fort Garry in August, the Métis offered no resistance. Still, with murder accusations levelled at him for Scott’s death, Riel slipped away on August 24 to seek asylum in the United States, as did the Irish treasurer of his provisional government, William O’Donoghue.

Born in County Sligo in 1843, William Bernard O’Donoghue had moved to New York after the 1848 famine, but in 1868 was in Canada, teaching mathematics at the college at St.-Boniface. He was studying for the priesthood when he became involved in the Métis cause instead. On November 16, 1869 he was elected representative of St.-Boniface at the first convention of the Red River settlement, subsequently becoming Riel’s treasurer.

O’Donoghue was initially known for a moderate stance, but over the next few months his antipathy toward anything English became more pronounced, causing an ideological rift between him and Riel, whose goal was a just assimilation with, rather than secession from, Canada. After both men fled south, in January 1871 O’Donoghue took a secret petition to President Grant, asking for him to intervene on the Métis behalf in the Red River region. When Grant refused, O’Donoghue turned to the Fenians. He got no more than moral support, but he found willing allies in a handful of diehards within the brotherhood, starting with John O’Neill, Thomas Curley and John J. Donnelly. Between them they drafted a constitution for a breakaway state called the Republic of Rupert’s Land, with O’Donoghue as its first president.

Although the Fenian Brotherhood refused to sanction O’Neill’s and O’Donoghue’s scheme, it agreed not to publicly disavow it and to lend some financial aid. With that O’Neill went to St. Paul, Minnesota, to enlist the aid of unemployed workers sympathetic to his cause, and to obtain a promised 250 Springfield rifles converted into breechloaders, courtesy of his old comrade-in-arms Henri Le Caron.

Remarkably, O’Neill was still unaware that Le Caron, aka Thomas Beach, was a double agent who promptly passed on details of this latest conspiracy to Canadian Dominion Police Commissioner Gilbert McMicken. In September 1871 Manitoba’s lieutenant governor, Adams G. Archibald, began mobilizing 1,000 militiamen. On the 11th the U.S. consul in Winnipeg, James Wickes Taylor, sent a recommendation to Washington that U.S. troops be authorized to intervene.

On September 19, orders to be prepared to take action reached Captain Loyd Wheaton, commander of Company I, 20th U.S. Infantry, at Fort Pembina in Dakota Territory. Located two miles south of the border, Pembina’s primary purpose was to help enforce the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie between the Lakota and whites already settled in the region.

Born in Pennfield, Michigan, on July 15, 1838, Wheaton had, like O’Neill, served in the Civil War, rising in rank to colonel in the 8th Indiana Infantry and earning the Medal of Honor at Fort Blakeley, Alabama, on April 9, 1865. The last thing he needed on top of his regular duties was an international incident or a new war. Still, he knew the Fenians’ intentions, their strength and approximately where they planned to strike. The one missing item of intelligence was when.

Meanwhile, O’Neill and his 37 followers set out, blissfully ignorant as to who knew of their plot — which was to say, virtually everybody — and O’Donoghue set out to contact his Métis acquaintances, equally unaware that they had made their peace with Ottawa. After being contacted across the border by Commissioner McMicken, on September 28 Riel had dispatched two Métis to trail and report on O’Donoghue.

O’Neill and his men finally made their move early in the morning of October 5, targeting a Hudson Bay Company trading post and the nearby East Lynne Customs House. Built a quarter mile north of what since 1823 had been British North America’s border with the United States, the post consisted of a store, warehouse, dwelling and a few outbuildings within a rough-hewn log stockade eight to ten feet high, with bastions at its four corners and entrances on the east and north sides.

Arriving at 7:30, the raiders quickly and easily seized their objective, along with about 20 surprised people they encountered there or along the way. Among the captives they locked up was the post manager, W.H. Watt, Captain Wheaton’s wife and a U.S. Army soldier accompanying her… as well as a small boy who managed to slip out of the building and ran off to Fort Pembina.

It did not take Lieutenant Governor Archibald long to learn of the raid, and he responded swiftly, dispatching Major Acheson Gosfort Irvine southward at the head of 80 militia and scouts. Marching overnight through rain and mud, the Canadians were keen to make short work of this latest invasion threat, but they were in for a disappointment.

At Fort Pembina the youthful escapee told Wheaton of the takeover of the Hudson’s Bay post and customs house. By 11 a.m. that morning the captain had assembled 30 soldiers to be transported aboard wagons, along with a surgeon in an ambulance and a cannon. Hastening to the scene he encountered no resistance. In an October 17 interview in St. Paul published in The
Pioneer, O’Neill explained that when he found himself under assault, “I had fought too long under the Stars and Stripes to want to fight United States troops, whether they had crossed the line legally or illegally.” Instead he and his men tried to flee north, but he and 10 followers were caught.

At 3 p.m. Wheaton, his troops and their prisoners arrived back at Fort Pembina, from whence he dispatched a message to Consul Taylor in Winnipeg: “I have captured and now hold General J. O’Neil [sic], General Thomas Curley and Colonel J.J. Donley [sic]. I think further anxiety regarding a Fenian invasion of Manitoba unnecessary.”

Meanwhile, William O’Donoghue was also making his way north to seek succour among the Métis — only to be captured by them and turned over to Captain Wheaton.

All this was unknown to Major Irvine and his column in Manitoba as they reached Camp St. Norbert on the night of October 7.  At 3:30 a.m. he wrote a request for at least 150 trained reinforcements. It was only later that morning that he and his weary troops were stopped at Crooked Rapids and, somewhat to their chagrin, ordered to turn back after post manager Watt’s letter reached the authorities, notifying them the crisis had passed. Canada had repulsed its last foreign invasion without even meeting the enemy.

As late as October 17, O’Neill was bitterly declaring: “I believe the action by Colonel [sic] Wheaton to be completely unauthorized, in crossing into British territory and arresting anyone. Nor do I believe his conduct will be sanctioned by either the department commander, or at Washington. He went upon British territory and ordered his men to fire, and they did fire several volleys … Had there been anyone killed, I have no doubt that he would have been guilty of murder.”

Aside from his refusal to accept that the territory he planned to invade was no longer British, O’Neill had failed to keep abreast of local developments. In May 1870 a survey team from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, engaged in literally straightening out the long-disputed border with Canada, had redrawn the line, placing the Hudson Bay post three-quarter of a mile south, in Dakota Territory. O’Neill and his Irish-American raiders had invaded their own country!

This led to the final anticlimactic twist to the farce. On October 7 the conspirators appeared in court on charges of violating the neutrality laws, only to see the case thrown out for lack of solid proof of their intentions…after all, they had not set foot on Canadian soil. Upon learning of that, U.S. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish demanded that O’Neill be brought to account, and when he returned to St. Paul he was arrested again on October 16 — only to be released soon after by the court commissioner, due to lack of evidence and on grounds of double jeopardy.

William O’Donoghue, who received a Crown pardon in 1877, became a teacher in Rosemount, Minnesota, but died of tuberculosis in St. Paul on March 16, 1878, at age 43. John O’Neill, finally deciding that his third campaign north of the border would be his last, took up land speculation in Holt, Nebraska, helping Irish immigrants to set up farms in the area. It proved to be the greatest success of an eventful but short life, for he died of a paralytic stroke on January 7, 1878 — less than two months before O’Donoghue — also aged 43. His name lives on outside of Fenian circles because his last hometown was renamed in his honour: O’Neill, Nebraska.

Part 2 : Canada's first invasion threat

By John Guttman

On July 1, 1867, the British colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick became the autonomous Dominion of Canada, a confederation of four provinces, to which six more provinces and three territories would be added in the century to follow. In contrast to the radical and violent birth of the United States of America, Canada’s independence had come peaceably through a series of conferences and negotiations. It still recognized Victoria as its queen, but henceforth its affairs were conducted entirely by its own parliament and its own elected prime minister, the first of whom was Sir John A. Macdonald.

Thirteen months before the dominion’s formation, Canadians had found themselves defending their home soil against a bizarre pack of foreign invaders. In June 1866 the Fenian Brotherhood, an Irish nationalist movement based in the United States, tried to stage a multipronged raid into then-British North America, seize a significant tract of land and major cities, and then ransom them back to Great Britain in return for an independent Irish republic. 

However unrealistic their scheme seemed even at the time, the Fenians counted — wishfully, it turned out — on the United States offering tacit support or at least looking the other way. As things turned out, the U.S. government was prepared to do neither — in spite of their strained relations during the recently concluded Civil War, Britain had consented to discuss monetary restitution for the damage six British-built commerce raiders had done to the U.S. Merchant Marine. The administration of President Andrew Johnson was loathe to jeopardize the arbitration (which would ultimately be resolved in 1872 with a $15.5 million settlement). Another factor lying more in the Fenians’ own hands lay in the prospective raiders being hardened veterans whose recent wartime experience in the American Civil War, wearing both blue and gray, had sometimes been against each other. In contrast, the militia defending British North America had little to no training and had never fired a shot in anger.

As it transpired, the Fenian invasions of 1866 proved of scant avail to a cause undone from the start by factional differences. On April 14, 1866, John O’Mahony’s faction landed on Indian Island with hopes of seizing Campobello Island, New Brunswick, as a naval base, only to be driven off three days later. All that the premature move accomplished was to let the cat out of the bag.

On June 1, some 800 Fenians commanded by Colonel John O’Neill staged through Buffalo, New York to cross the Niagara River and seize the town of Fort Erie. The next day, at Ridgeway, some 650 of O’Neill’s veterans took on 850 green Canadian militiamen and, after 90 minutes of reasonably matched gunplay, took advantage of a moment of confusion in the Canadian ranks to rout them from the field with a bayonet rush.

This left the Fenians victors in the only sizeable battle of the invasion, but by day’s end, O’Neill realized his position was untenable. His raid across the Niagara had been meant as a feint to draw militia units away from key targets such as Toronto and Quebec, but none of the other invasions had come off. The U.S. Navy gunboat Michigan, two tugboats and a revenue cutter had cut him off from supplies and reinforcements. Furthermore, his own ranks were being depleted by desertions and with 5,000 more Canadians reportedly closing in, he and about 850 followers withdrew to Buffalo on June 3 — to find American authorities waiting to arrest them.

In a belated anticlimax, on June 6 Major General Samuel B. Spiers led about 1,000 Fenians into Quebec to occupy Pigeon Hill, Frelighsburg, St. Amand and Stanbridge. A small local militia force wisely withdrew, but on June 8 Canadian reinforcements arrived and the Fenians pulled back — to find their camp near St. Albans, Vermont occupied by the U.S. Army. On June 9 the Fenian Council of War ordered all remaining troops to stand down.

The first Fenian invasion was over, but it had had some influence on the British decision to let a confederation of Canadian provinces proceed on its own. The embarrassing defeat at Ridgeway had also alerted Canadians and British alike to the need for reforms and improvements in the militia. When initiated in 1855 in response to signs of hostility along the border with the United States, the Militia Act had authorised the formation of 11,000 part-time infantry, cavalry and artillery soldiers for local defence. A penurious government had provided the militia with limited resources, however.

When it engaged the Fenians at Ridgeway, The 2nd Queen’s Own Rifles were equipped with modern Spencer seven-shot repeaters, but had never fired them and carried only 28 rounds per man. Under the circumstances, the only surprise was that the militia, cleaving to what drills they had undergone, maintained battle order as long as they did. In the years following Canada’s formation, the training regimen was improved to deal with the realities of possible future combat. Whether any of them knew it or not, this was about to pay dividends, because the threat south of the border had not completely abated.

Since the failure of its first invasion the Fenian Brotherhood’s schism had become more pronounced, with most of its leadership favouring the pursuit of an independent Irish republic by other means. Among those still steadfastly in favour of invasion was John O’Neill. Arrested upon his return to the U.S. but paroled soon after, he had emerged from the debacle as its hero, leading to his appointment as Inspector General of Fenian forces, and on January 1, 1868, as the brotherhood’s president. Over the next two years, however, he came into conflict with the Fenian senate. Amid the intrigues and in-fighting, O’Neill seems to have regarded another invasion as a welcome return to action that might restore his political fortunes. By April 16, 1870, he had convinced enough followers to hold a council of war in Troy, New York, and on April 28 he had mobilized a few hundred men at Franklin, Vermont, for a renewed raid.

Delays in the arrival of what he considered an adequate force robbed O’Neill of his chance to make a grand entrance on May 24, Queen Victoria’s birthday, but the next day he and about 400 men advanced toward the towns of St. Jean and Richmond, both downriver from Montreal and within reach of important railways. As O’Neill neared the Quebec border, George Perkins Foster, a former Union Army brigadier general who had been appointed U.S. Marshal for the district of Vermont by President Ulysses S. Grant on January 24 that year, intercepted him.

Foster told O’Neill that the president — acting with more alacrity than Johnson in 1866 — had issued a new neutrality proclamation two days earlier and would not tolerate any act of Fenian aggression. O’Neill ignored him but Foster confronted him a second time to warn him that spies and informers had already made Fenian plans clear to British and Canadian officials, who had stationed riflemen near the border at Eccles Hill. Again, O’Neill pressed on.

Waiting along Eccles Hill, true to Foster’s warning, were 680 militia, consisting of a detachment of the 60th Missisquoi Battalion, elements of the Dunham Volunteers and a local unit called the Home Guard under the overall command of LCol. Brown Chamberlain. The Canadians had, in fact, known of O’Neill’s invasion plans since February from intelligence sent them by the Civil War comrade-in-arms he had placed in charge of his munitions, Colonel Henri le Caron — who in reality was English-born Thomas Willis Beach, a paid spy.

As the invaders stepped onto Canadian soil the militia opened fire, immediately killing John Rowe and wounding two others. In spite — or, just as likely, because — of their Civil War experience, many of O’Neill’s troops broke into a retreat that degenerated into panic, encouraged by Colonel le Caron, a.k.a. double agent Beach. After vainly trying to stem the rout, O’Neill retired to Vermont and was in a carriage looking for wounded and missing men when he again encountered Marshal Foster. This time Foster was there to arrest him and had him jailed in St. Albans, Vermont. 

Patrick O’Brien Riley and Samuel Spiers persuaded some Fenians to hold their ground, but the Canadians kept up their advance, maintaining a continuous fire with their Ballard rifles and Snider breechloaders. The Fenians had set up a cannon in a flanking position, but a charge by a battalion of volunteer cavalry led by LCol. William Osborne Smith overran the position and captured the field piece. By 1800 hours, the last Fenians were gone, leaving behind only Rowe’s body but suffering a total of three dead and 20 wounded, of whom two more subsequently died of wounds. The Canadians, whose ranks had included Victoria’s son — and future governor-general of Canada — Prince Arthur, had won the day without a single casualty.

Meanwhile, more invaders gathered at Malone, New York. These were to have been commanded by Brigadier General John H. Gleason, but on April 26 he was replaced by Colonel Owen Starr, another veteran of the Civil War and the first Fenian raid. At 0700 on the morning of May 27 he led his force across the Trout River to Holbrook’s Corners, 20 kilometres north of Malone and 15 kilometres west of Eccles Hill. There he established a sound defensive position with breastworks along a local post and rail fence and his right flank anchored along the Trout River.

Major Francis Whyte, commanding the 225 militiamen of the 50th Canadian Battalion, “Huntingdon Borderers,” was considering falling back from nearby Huntingdon to Port Lewis when Lieutenant William Butler, intelligence officer for the British 69th Regiment, arrived to announce that he had been scouting the Fenians since 0400 that morning and that reinforcements were on the way. In addition to the 275 men of the Montreal Garrison Artillery coming from Port Lewis, there were 88 Montreal Engineers, troops of the 51st Battalion, Hemmingford Rangers, 100 troops of the Beauharnois 64th Voltigeurs Canadiens, and 45 regulars from a company of Her Majesty’s 69th, led by Colonel George Bagot.

Upon his arrival Bagot took charge of the 1,030 troops at his disposal and laid plans for dealing with the invaders. He dispatched the Montreal Garrison Artillery to Hendersonville to flank the Fenians; the rest would attack directly. Heading that formation, the vanguard of the 50th advanced to 300 yards of the Fenians and deployed for a frontal assault. As one witness described the scene as the Canadians emerged from the woods and advanced, “it was not an intermittent fire, but one continuous fusillade.”

Starr ordered his men to hold their position for 10 minutes and for several minutes the Fenians stood fast. As the Canadians got around their flanks, however, Starr reorganised them to conduct an orderly fighting retreat until they crossed the border, at which point most broke and ran — less concerned about capture by the Canadians than by the American authorities. Starr himself vanished but was soon found, arrested for violation of the neutrality laws and imprisoned in Auburn, New York.

The Fenian invasions of 1870 showed how much Canada’s militia had learned since their shaky start at Ridgeway, in transitioning from defending their home towns to defending their own nation. In spite of its abject failure, however, the Fenian threat was not quite over. Released from prison after six months, John O’Neill came up with one more invasion proposal in 1871. This time the target would be Manitoba.

THE FENIAN RAIDS: PART 1

A BATTLE WON IN A LOST WAR - RIDGEWAY

The charge of the Fenians (wearing green uniforms) under Colonel John O’Neill at the Battle of Ridgeway, near Niagara, Canada West, on June 2, 1866. In reality, the Fenians had their own green flags but wore a very mixed bag of Union and Confederate uniforms (if they still had them, or parts of them left over from the Civil War), or civilian garb, with strips of green as arm or hat bands to distinguish themselves. (library and archives canada, c-18737)

By Jon Guttman

From the June issue (Volume 23, Issue 5)

In the 1860s a series of conferences and negotiations led to the peaceful transition of British North America from a collection of four colonial provinces to the autonomous Dominion of Canada, still recognizing the sovereignty of Queen Victoria but conducting its affairs through its own elected parliament and prime minister. This became official on July 1, 1867, but the process toward independence was, to a certain extent, influenced by tempestuous events occurring in its southern neighbour. 

From 1861 to 1865, one might have called it the Divided States of America, as soldiers in Union blue and Confederate gray fought over the issues of central government versus a state’s right to secession and on the issue of slavery. In the course of the United States’ most ruinous conflict, relations between Washington and London were sometimes strained to the brink of another war. Great Britain, whose textile industry craved cotton from the southern states, considered recognizing the Confederacy until January 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation put the moral issue of slavery front and centre to an empire that had been first to ban the slave trade. 

Notwithstanding its official neutrality, however, many Britons sympathized with the South and Confederate blockade runners conducted a brisk, if risky, clandestine trade with British firms. Additionally, six Confederate cruisers, or commerce raiders, built by British shipwrights, virtually wrecked the hitherto-dominant U.S. Merchant Marine. Between those factors and the fact that Canada was crawling with Confederate secret agents, relations across the border were tense throughout the Civil War.

As things ultimately transpired, hostilities between the United States and British North America never recurred. Almost a year after the Civil War ended, however, the provinces did have to face the challenge of invasion from a bizarrely different enemy — the Fenians. 

In 1863, Irish immigrants who had come in the wake of the potato famine of the 1840s and an unsuccessful rising against the British government in 1848 formed the Fenian Brotherhood, whose name was derived from Fianna
Eirionn, a legendary band of 3rd century warriors. Dedicated to throwing off British rule and creating an independent Irish republic, the Fenians elected John F. O’Mahony as their first president, only to see him ousted by William Randall Roberts in 1865. It was Roberts who conceived of a multi-pronged invasion of British North America, aimed at seizing enough real estate and vital centres of commerce and communication, such as Toronto, to proffer as ransom in exchange for Irish independence. 

Far-fetched though the plot seemed, many Fenians perceived factors that improved the odds. First and foremost, they were aware of the strain in Anglo-American relations, among whose post-war manifestations was an American demand for monetary restitution for the depredations of such British-made sea raiders as CSS Alabama and Shenandoah. Under such circumstances, the Fenians believed, President Andrew Johnson — who had expressed sympathy with their cause — would support their invasion, or at least look the other way. 

One other advantage on which the Fenians counted heavily lay in the men slated to carry out the invasion. During the Civil War thousands of Irish immigrants and exiles had enlisted in regiments of whichever state in which they happened to have settled and had fought with distinction, often facing each other on the battlefield. Among these veterans was Captain John Charles O’Neill, a son of County Monaghan who since coming to America in 1848 had acquired a reputation for daring in Union service. As the conflict began winding down in Tennessee, O’Neill had broached the idea of forming a postwar Fenian army among both fellow Irishmen in Yankee blue and prisoners of war in Rebel gray.

“The Awkward Squad, Fenian Raid, 1865” by E.S. Shrapnel, from the book “Upper Canada Sketches” by Thomas Conant. An awkward squad is military slang for a group of recruits who are not yet sufficiently trained or disciplined to properly carry out their duties. The Canadian militia who fought at the Battle of Ridgeway had little to no military experience and won more through luck than skill.

British North America, born of the Seven Years War, had seen its share of conflict since 1763, with redcoats defending Quebec against a small but doughty force from the rebelling 13 colonies in 1775 and British regiments supplemented by Canadian militia fending off more than a dozen American invasion attempts between 1812 and 1814. In 1866, however, few of the militiamen defending Canada had fired their guns in anger, whereas the Fenians could boast hundreds of armed supporters who had “seen the elephant.”

For whatever assets the Fenians possessed, however, they faced major problems, the most intrinsic of which was their inability to unite and coordinate. This first came to light on April 14, 1866, when some 700 of O’Mahony’s followers, acting independently of Roberts’ political faction, gathered in Maine to raid Indian Island, New Brunswick, on April 14, 1866, with the intention of seizing nearby Campobello Island for use as a naval base. British warships carrying 700 troops from Halifax, Nova Scotia, combined with a lack of supplies and the arrival on April 17 of U.S. Army MGen George G. Meade to defuse the situation, led to the raid’s abandonment. 

This premature and abortive act, however, had squandered the element of surprise, alerting the British authorities, whose secret agents and informants had already tipped them off to just how serious the Fenians’ plans were. MGen George T.C. Napier, who had already called up 10,000 volunteers in March 1866, raised that number to 20,000 in May, also commandeering 13 steamboats. The Campobello affair also had some influence on Britain’s ultimate agreement to a confederation of the provinces as a single dominion.

The Fenian plans were further handicapped by much wishful thinking. For one thing, negotiations on the issue of British restitution for damages its sea raiders had inflicted on American merchant ships were underway, and the Johnson administration had no desire to upset them by incurring accusations of violating the Neutrality Act of 1818. In consequence, regardless of any personal sympathies, the Fenians were naïve to expect any help from Washington. 

Romanticized illustrations of history: “The Green Above the Red: An imaginary incident during the Fenian Raids of 1866,” by John McNevin. (library and archives canada, peter winkworth collections of canadiana)

Another forlorn Fenian hope was that of swelling their ranks with Irishmen living in Canada, most of whom were Protestant. Even Catholic immigrants had found economic opportunities and social treatment in Canada to be much better than they had known in the British Isles — and had no desire to jeopardize that arrangement by an act of treason.  

Regardless of all, however, William Roberts’ invasion plan proceeded and on May 31 John O’Neill — now a Fenian colonel — staged about 700 men through Buffalo, New York and secured boats to cross the Niagara River. At 0130 hours on June 1, the first 250 men of LCol George Owen Starr’s 17th Kentucky Fenian Regiment raised the green flag with golden harp in the Upper Canadian town of Fort Erie, cut telegraph lines and took control of the railway yards. Over the next 13 hours, O’Neill and as many as 800 more Fenians crossed the river. The sidewheel gunboat USS Michigan had been stationed nearby, but the absence of navigator Patrick Murphy and engineer James P. Kelley, who were engaged in a “night on the town” (suspected to have been deliberately suggested by Kelley, a Fenian sympathizer), delayed its appearance on the scene until 1420 hours, when it began intercepting Fenian barges. 

The Fenians had not meant the Niagara crossing to be their principal move, but merely a means of drawing British forces away from Toronto and Quebec, which the Fenian “Secretary of War,” BGen Thomas W. Sweeny, intended as the main targets of his multi-pronged invasion. The feint succeeded to an extent, as LCol George Peacocke led a militia force to Chippewa while ordering LCol Alfred Booker to Port Colborne. 

As things turned out, however, Fort Erie was the only place the Fenians occupied. Throughout the invaders’ brief stay, the locals reported few acts of theft or abuse — O’Neill had a scrupulous eye on public relations and his disciplined veterans behaved themselves accordingly. Even so, his attempts to garner local support proved fruitless, while desertions shrank his own force to about 500 by nightfall. He was later joined by 200 Fenians, who had been guarding Black Creek against any British advance from Chippewa, but then received word of another British force approaching from Port Colborne. 

After a brisk night march across Black Creek and through a cedar swamp, O’Neill and about 650 Fenians took up a defensive position on Limestone Ridge near the hamlet of Ridgeway, west of Fort Erie. There, on the morning of June 2, they met Booker’s 841-man force, consisting of his 13th Battalion of Hamilton, the 2nd Queen’s Own Rifles (QOR) and militia companies from nearby Caledonia and York. With the exception of a Royal Engineers captain serving as a liaison officer at Fort Erie, all of the officers opposing the invasion were Canadian by birth. Roughly half of the militiamen ranged from age 20 to as young as 15. Although the green-uniformed 2nd QOR was equipped with modern seven-shot Spencer rifles, nobody had had live fire practice on them and each man carried only 28 rounds.

Locomotive MILWAUKEE of the Welland Railway Co., which conveyed volunteers from St. Catharines to Port Colborne at the time of the Fenian Raid, June 1, 1866. (library and archives canada)

In spite of the vast discrepancy in experience, the first 90 minutes of the engagement went surprisingly well for the Canadians, who stood their ground with commendable discipline against seasoned opponents whose rapid, steady rate of fire caused some to think that they had Spencer repeaters rather than single-shot muzzle-loading Springfield and Enfield rifles. The Fenians, in fact, were gradually falling back, though not for the reasons Booker might have thought. 

Then, suddenly, things went terribly wrong. Various accounts claim that the sight of horsemen caused the Canadians to form a square in anticipation of a charge, only to have the order countermanded, or that when redcoats of the 13th Battalion turned up nearby, the 2nd QOR mistook them for British reinforcements and moved to join them. In any case, the Canadian formation fell into chaotic disarray and O’Neill, spotting a golden opportunity, ordered a bayonet rush. Facing a charging phalanx bellowing the Irish Brigade’s battle cry of “Fallagh
ballagh” (clear the way), 28 University of Toronto students hastily called to the colours took the brunt of it with tragically predictable results — most fell dead or wounded as Booker ordered a retreat to Port Colborne. 

Although the Fenians won the field, it had cost them six men killed and another three who would later die of wounds. The Canadian slain included Ensign Malcolm McEachren, a first sergeant, a corporal and six privates, in addition to which four of their 41 wounded would subsequently die of wounds, as well as six from disease. Booker’s leadership came in for criticism, as did the Canadian militia’s effectiveness in general (for almost 20 years the QOR had to endure popular interpretation of its abbreviation as “Quick, Over to the Rear!”). Things could have been far worse, however. The Fenians they fought were in fact skirmishers conducting a fighting retreat with the intention of drawing their opponents into an ambush by their main force that, had the Canadians not retreated, would probably have had a much bloodier outcome.

After briefly occupying Ridgeway, O’Neill retired to Fort Erie, defeating and repulsing a second Canadian force along the way, but with supplies and reinforcements cut off, his army depleted by desertions and word of 5,000 more troops on the way, he knew his position was untenable. In the early morning of June 3 he released his Canadian prisoners and led 850 of his men back over the Niagara River — where USS Michigan,
two tugboats and a revenue cutter were waiting to arrest them. 

Five days after the invasions began, President Johnson issued a proclamation reaffirming the United States’ neutrality laws and that the Fenians’ activities would not be tolerated. Many were arrested, including Sweeny and O’Neill, though they were soon paroled.

In a belated follow-up to the Niagara raid, on June 6 Major General Samuel P. Spear, born in Boston, Massachusetts and a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, led about 1,000 Fenians from St. Albans, Vermont into Quebec to occupy Pigeon Hill, Frelighsburg, St. Amand and Stanbridge. A small local militia force wisely withdrew and, for a time, Spear’s men looted the area; but on June 8 reinforcements arrived and the Fenians pulled back. Some 200 were attacked near the border by cavalry, resulting in 16 being taken prisoner. Those who returned to St. Albans found their camp occupied and their equipment impounded by the U.S. Army. On June 9 the Fenian Council of War ordered all of its remaining troops to stand down.

The Battle of Ridgeway acquired an iconic status among Irish and Canadians alike. It was the only major engagement of the invasions and the Fenians had won it, though they ultimately lost a campaign that was doomed before it began. The Canadians commemorated their dead in what had been the defence of their home soil against foreign invaders. Less than a year later, that soil became their nation. 

Incredibly, the Fenians would make another raid to the north in 1870. This attempt would prove even more foolhardy than the first, for instead of British ground they were invading Canada, whose defenders would be all the more motivated and ready.