Battle of Ridgeway

Coordinates: 42°54′16″N 79°02′30″W / 42.904349°N 79.041642°W / 42.904349; -79.041642

Battle of Ridgeway
Part of the Fenian Raids
An 1869 illustration of the battle (in fact, half of the Canadians wore green uniforms while the Fenians were dug-in behind improvised fieldworks on high ground).
Date 2 June 1866 Location Ridgeway, Ontario Result Indecisive, Tactical Fenian victory
Belligerents
Fenian Brotherhood	Province of Canada
Commanders
John O'Neill	Alfred Booker
Strength
~800	~850
Casualties and losses
5–6 dead 10 wounded	29 dead (7 KIA, 2 of wounds, 20 of disease) 103 wounded or ill[1]

The Battle of Ridgeway (sometimes referred to as the Battle of Lime Ridge or Limestone Ridge) was contested near Ridgeway, Canada West, currently Ontario, Canada on June 2, 1866, between Canadian troops and an irregular army of Irish-American invaders, the Fenians. It was the largest skirmish of the so-called "Fenian Raids".

History

The New York City-based Fenian Brotherhood was attempting to support related groups in Ireland to force the United Kingdom into negotiating toward the formation of an independent Irish Republic. They took advantage of the ready supply of arms in the United States after the recently concluded Civil War, and of the ample number of unemployed young men who had emerged from that conflict with some degree of military training. It was still a ragtag army, however, that assembled on the American shore of the Niagara River during the last weeks of May 1866. The Fenians had made little attempt at secrecy, and both American and British authorities were aware of the imminent military operation.

The U.S. made only half-hearted attempts to prevent the Fenians from crossing the Niagara river, and invading Canada; the U.S. government was loath to go out of its way to help the British / Canadians after the failure of the U.S. invasion of Canada during the War of 1812 and their perceived support of the Confederacy in the Civil War. The Fenian troops, led by General John O'Neill, a former Union cavalry commander, secured boats and transferred some 800 men across the Niagara, landing just above Fort Erie, before dawn on June 1, 1866. An additional 200 to 400 Fenians and supplies crossed later during the morning and early afternoon until the US Navy gunboat the USS Michigan began intercepting Fenian barges only at 2:20 p.m.—13 hours after the first Fenian advance party landed in Canada.^[2] An advance party of 250 men of Lt. Colonel George Owen Starr's 17th Kentucky Fenian Regiment landed in Canada at about 1:30 AM and raised a large Fenian green flag with a gold Irish harp some two hours in advance of O'Neill's main force. Starr's advance party rushed to seize the town, cut telegraph wires and took control of the railway yards south of Fort Erie by dawn as the rest of O'Neill's force was disembarking.^[3] US authorities also allowed unarmed men to board the ferry from Buffalo and small boats freely crossed the Niagara River until the afternoon. It is estimated that at least 1,000 and as many as 1,350 Fenians in total crossed during the first thirteen hours of July 1, but in the end it is impossible to determine a precise number.

O'Neill spent the first day trying to rally the local citizenry to the Fenian cause and to commandeer supplies for his mission, but his force was plagued by desertions almost from the outset. By nightfall O'Neill later estimated he had perhaps 500 men remaining in his camp.^[4] Later during the night, O'Neill was reinforced by an additional column of 200 Fenians who had been deployed earlier elsewhere, bringing his total strength at Ridgeway to at least 650 to 800 men. ^[5]

Inscription: Canadian Volunteer Monument, Campaign of June 1866 Honour the Brave who died for their Country. Canada erected this monument as a memorial of her brave sons who fell at Limeridge or died of wounds received in action or from disease contracted in service while defending her frontier in June 1866.

Meanwhile, the British were mobilizing both local Canadian militias and British garrison troops to defend against the impending invasion of Canada. The Fenians night-marched north across Black Creek (Ontario) through a cedar swamp, then turned inland on Ridge Road the morning of June 2, taking up a defensive position on Limestone Ridge near the present Canadian town of Ridgeway. There they clashed with 850 advancing Canadian militia (the dark-green uniformed Queen’s Own Rifles of Toronto and the traditionally clad red-coated 13th Battalion of Hamilton, reinforced by two local country companies from Caledonia and York) commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred Booker.

In the first hour of the battle, the Canadians appeared to prevail, driving Fenian skirmershers back across Bertie Road, but then something went wrong. To this day it is unclear what that was. Some sources argue that the Canadian militiamen mistook Fenian scouts on horseback for cavalry. Orders to defend against a cavalry charge, although quickly countermanded, led to chaos in the Canadian ranks and Booker ordered a withdrawal after only ninty minutes of battle. Other sources indicate that QOR troops mistook a company of redcoated 13th Batallion infantry for British troops relieving them on the field and began to withdraw, which then triggered a panic among other troops who mistook the QOR withdrawal for a retreat. The Fenian commander noting chaos among the Canadian troops then ordered a bayonet charge that completely unnervered the inexperienced Canadians who turned and ran leaving their dead and wounded on the field. The Fenians took and briefly held the town of Ridgeway, but expecting to be overwhelmed by British reinforcements quickly turned back to Fort Erie. Canadian immediate casualties included 7 dead and 37 wounded, with an additional two deaths-from-wounds several days later. Typically for the age, another 20 would die of disease while in service. O'Neill said he had four or five men killed, but Canadians found six Fenian bodies on the field.

The Canadians were particularly bitter at Booker's mismanagement on the field and believed that had he not given the order to withdraw the they would have won the day. In fact, the Canadians were only fighting several small advance units of Fenian skirmishers who were steadily luring the Canadians forward towards their main force waiting for them on high ground north of Bertie Road. Had the Canadians not retreated, short on ammunition and inexperienced, they probably would have been massacred by the Civil War veterans of the main Fenian force which had so much ammunition that they dumped thousands of rounds into Black Creek on the eve of the battle in order to lighten their load. The Fenians were so experienced in handling their single-shot muzzle-loading weapons that it was mistakenly reported that they were all armed with state-of-the-art seven-shot Spencer repeating rifles. Only less than half of the Canadians on the field had practiced firing live rounds before the day of the battle and there had been no combat in Canada since the Rebellion and Hunter Lodge-Patriot Raids of 1837-38--some thirty years before the Fenian raid.

The engagement at Ridgeway was followed by a Fenian victory later in the afternoon over the heavily outnumbered Canadian volunteer Welland Field Battery (armed as an infantry unit) and the Dunnville Naval Brigade at Fort Erie later that day. Nevertheless, the rapid and massive convergence of British and Canadian reinforcements convinced many of the Fenians to return in haste to the United States - some on logs, on rafts, or by swimming. O'Neill and 850 Fenians^[6] surrendered their arms to waiting U.S. authorities. In his book, 1916:The Easter Rising, Tim Pat Coogan said the force was described at the time as the Irish Republican Army.

Fenian units involved in the battle were the 7th Buffalo (NY), 18th Ohio, 13th Tennessee, and 17th Kentucky Fenian Regiments, and an independent company from Indiana and from New Orleans (The Fenian Louisiana Tigers.)

Canadian units at Ridgeway included The Queen's Own Rifles of Toronto, the 13th Hamilton Battalion predecessor of the modern Royal Hamilton Light Infantry Regiment and the Caledonia and York rifle companies. Canadian Orangeman Alexander Muir, author of the unofficial Canadian anthem "The Maple Leaf Forever," fought with the Queen's Own at Ridgeway.

Since the Queen's Own Rifles have been continuously active in the Canadian military since 1860, the men who fell or were wounded at Limestone Ridge can be considered the first casualties of the Canadian Army, even though it was not formally established as such until 1883. Ensign (2nd Lieutenant) Malcolm McEachren of No. 5 Company, QOR, killed in the opening minutes of the battle, can therefore be considered as the Canadian army's first casualty killed in action.^[7]

Monument

The Canadian Volunteer Monument, which honours University of Toronto student volunteers who fell in the Battle, is located on the west side of Queen’s Park Crescent in Toronto.

See also

List of conflicts in Canada

References

Further reading

External links

• Battle of Ridgeway
• Canadian Volunteer Monument