Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Ridgeway The American Invasion And The 1866 Battle That Made Canada by Peter Vronsky FENIAN HISTORY The on Canada 1866. .org is dedicated to the history of the early Fenian movement and the Irish-American insurgent raid on Canada on June 1-3, 1866. The invasion culminated with the battles at Limestone Ridge and Fort Erie, on June 2, 1866, known collectively as the Battle of Ridgeway, Canada's first modern battle fought in a new age of telegraph, railroad, steam power, mass print media, parliamentary democracy and the rifled barrel. For the Fenians the Battle of Ridgeway was the first celebrated Irish victory over the forces of the British Empire since the Battle of Fontenoy when in 1745 the exile Irish brigade –‘The Wild Geese’—in the service of the French king charged the Duke of Cumberland’s elite Coldstream Guards and scattered them. The Fenians, also known as the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, and later the Irish Republican Brotherhood (I.R.B.) were the predecessors of the I.R.A.—the Irish Republican Army. For Canadians Ridgeway was the first battle to be fought exclusively by Canadian troops and led on the battlefield entirely by Canadian officers. The Battle of Ridgeway was also the last battle fought in what would become the Province of in the 1867 Confederation of Canada. It was also the battle in which Canada's army suffered its first nine battlefield deaths: the first officer, sergeant, corporal and six privates killed in action. Battle of Ridgeway. The Battle of Ridgeway is also known as the Battle of Lime Ridge or Limestone Ridge. It was fought on the morning of 2 June 1866, near the village of Ridgeway and the town of Fort Erie in Canada West (present-day Ontario). Around 850 Canadian soldiers clashed with 750 to 800 Fenians — Irish American insurgents who had crossed the from Buffalo, New York. It was the first industrial-era battle to be fought exclusively by Canadian troops and led entirely by Canadian officers. It was the last battle fought in Ontario against a foreign invasion force. The battlefield was designated a National Historic Site in 1921. Fenian Raids. Fenians were members of a mid-19th century movement to secure ’s independence from Britain. They were a secret, outlawed organization in the British Empire, where they were known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood. They operated freely and openly in the as the . Eventually, both wings became known as the Fenians. Fenian raids were armed incursions into Canadian territory between 1866 and 1871. The Fenians intended to seize and hold Canadian territory in return for Irish independence. It was thought that this would create a crisis in Britain — perhaps even a war between Britain and the US — and weaken British resolve in Ireland once a planned rebellion broke out there. American authorities tried to prevent the Fenians from mobilizing on the US-Canada border. But the Fenians raided Campobello Island, New Brunswick, in April 1866. In late May, they began to amass enough guns and ammunition to arm about 20,000 insurgents. A telegram from the head quarters of the Fenian Brotherhood, 1 March 1870. (courtesy Missouri History Museum) Fenian Incursion. On 1 June 1866, an advance party of 1,000 heavily armed Fenians crossed the Niagara River from Buffalo, New York. They were led by John O’Neill, a former US Cavalry officer who had served in and West Virginia during the . The Fenians quickly captured the undefended town of Fort Erie, Canada West, along with its railway and telegraph terminals. They arrested the town council and the customs and border officials at the international ferry docks. They also forced the town’s bakery and hotels to provide them with breakfast. After cutting outgoing telegraph lines, the insurgents seized horses and tools, which they used to build trenches and fortifications. By the end of that first day, the Fenians controlled the Niagara frontier from Black Creek in the north to Fort Erie in the south. They were within marching distance of the Welland Canal, the only navigable naval passage between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Canadian Response. During the Fenian Raids, some 22,000 Canadian volunteers were mobilized along with several British infantry units stationed in Canada. As the Fenians took positions around Fort Erie, two units were deployed to Port Colborne near the village of Ridgeway: the 2nd Battalion, Queen’s Own Rifles (QOR) from ; and the 13th Battalion of Hamilton “Rileys” (The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry). As senior officer in the field, 13th Battalion commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Booker took command of the brigade. Booker was a prominent Hamilton auctioneer and a volunteer officer. On the night of 1–2 June, Booker was ordered to take a train to Ridgeway and march to the nearby town of Stevensville. There, he was to join an arriving column of British troops and Canadian militia for a joint counterattack against the Fenians, who were believed to be positioned near Fort Erie. Booker was ordered to avoid the Fenians on his march to join the arriving column. The Battle of Ridgeway. The Canadians and the British did not know that the Fenians had marched to a strategic ridge just north of Ridgeway during the night of 1–2 June. The ridge ran along the Canadians’ route to Stevensville. Booker had been warned that the Fenians had laid an ambush on the ridge. He proceeded to march towards the Fenian positions and engaged them despite his orders to avoid contact. In the first hour of the battle, the Canadians appeared to prevail, driving Fenian skirmishers from their positions. Then something went wrong: to this day, it is not clear exactly what. Contemporary sources reported that Canadian militiamen mistook Fenian scouts on horseback for cavalry (mounted soldiers). Booker’s order to form a square, designed to defend against a cavalry charge, exposed the Canadians to intense Fenian rifle fire. Booker quickly canceled the order. But he was unable to reform the inexperienced Canadian ranks now under intense and accurate fire. Other sources indicate that troops mistook a company of 13th Battalion infantry for British troops relieving them and began to withdraw; this triggered a panic among other troops who mistook the withdrawal for a retreat. Seeing the chaos breaking out in the Canadian ranks, John O’Neill quickly ordered a bayonet charge. This completely routed the inexperienced Canadians. The Fenians took and briefly held the town of Ridgeway. Then, expecting to be overwhelmed by British reinforcements, they quickly turned back to Fort Erie. They fought a second battle there against a small but determined unit of Canadians holding the town. On the night of 2–3 June, O’Neill realized that US Navy gunboats would intercept any Fenian reinforcements crossing the Niagara River. The Fenians attempted to cross back into the United States but were arrested by the US Navy. They were eventually released on the condition that they would return to their home states. Aftermath. The Canadians lost nine soldiers killed in action. They are known today as the “The Ridgeway Nine.” Thirty-three men were wounded, some severely enough to require amputation of their limbs. Four more Canadian militia volunteers eventually died in the months following the battle, either of wounds sustained or of disease contracted at Ridgeway. The Canadians were well deployed. They arrived in the vicinity of the Fenians within several hours of the incursion. But they were poorly trained and unprepared for combat. Troops had scarce ammunition, no food or field kitchens, no proper maps, no provisions for medical care, no canteens for water, and no tools for the proper care of their rifles. Only half of the troops had practiced firing their rifles with live ammunition. They were no match for the Fenians, who were well-armed and well-supplied veterans of the American Civil War. The militia were the responsibility of Canada West’s attorney general and minister of militia, John A. Macdonald. The inefficiency of the militia was whitewashed by two military courts of inquiry. They found that the blame lay with inexperienced frontline troops, who panicked and broke; not with the officers who led them or the government that undersupplied and undertrained them. The Queen’s Own Rifles (QOR) were disparagingly nicknamed “Quickest Outta Ridgeway.” The 13th Battalion were dubbed “The Scarlet Runners.” Legacy and Significance. The history of the Battle of Ridgeway was muted in Canadian military heritage. The Canadian government was reluctant to acknowledge the veterans of the battle for nearly 25 years. In 1890, the Veterans of ’66 Association held a protest at the Canadian Volunteers Monument at Queen’s Park, Toronto. They laid flowers at the foot of the monument on 2 June, the 24th anniversary of the Battle of Ridgeway. In 1899–90, after a 10-year campaign of protests and lobbying, the Canadian government sanctioned a Fenian Raid medal and land grants to surviving veterans. The protest became an annual memorial event known as Decoration Day; graves and monuments of Canadian soldiers were decorated with flowers. For the next 30 years, Decoration Day would be Canada’s popular national military memorial day. The first “remembrance” day, it was commemorated on the weekend nearest to 2 June. It acknowledged fallen Canadians in the Battle of Ridgeway, the North-West Resistance (1885), the South African War (1899–1902) and the First World War (1914–18). (See also Remembrance Day.) In 2013, the City of Toronto and the Town of Fort Erie petitioned the federal government to restore the Ridgeway Nine to Canadian military memorial heritage by including them in national Books of Remembrance in Ottawa. However, no action was taken. PETER VRONSKY HOME PAGE Websites Books Videos. Peter Vronsky is an investigative historian, author and filmmaker. He holds a Ph.D. from the in criminal justice history and espionage in international relations. Peter Vronsky is the author of three bestselling criminal histories Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters (2004) and Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters (2007). His recent book on the history of serial killers Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers From the Stone Age to the Present was published by Berkley Books at Penguin Random House in 2018. His new book American Serial Killers: The Epidemic Years 1950-2000 explores the surge of serial murder in the USA and the early years of the FBI's "Mindhunter" profilers and is scheduled to be released February 9. 2021. Peter Vronsky is the producer-writer-director of Mondo Moscow: The Art & Magic of Not Being There (1992) a feature documentary on subtextual Stalinism in Moscow during the last months of waning Soviet Russia. Among the many films Vronsky has made is Dada's Boys Crash'n'Burn (1977), depicting the birth of Canadian punk rock and Russian Rock Underground (1988) a documentary about "unofficial" rock in the Soviet Union during the mid-Gorbachev era which can viewed on his YouTube Channel . Peter Vronsky worked as an undercover investigative producer for CNN, CBC, CTV, Discovery and other television networks on locations from Chechnya to South Africa. He is the author of a controversial history of Canada's forgotten first modern battle, Ridgeway: The American Fenian Invasion and the 1866 Battle That Made Canada . Dr. Vronsky currently lectures in the history of terrorism, international relations, the Third Reich and American Civil War in the History Department of Ryerson University in Toronto. [more] RIDGEWAY: THE AMERICAN FENIAN INVASION AND THE 1866 BATTLE THAT MADE CANADA Peter Vronsky. THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF CANADA'S FIRST MODERN BATTLE AND THE FIRST CASUALTIES OF THE MODERN CANADIAN MILITARY. Nine militia volunteers from Toronto's Queen's Own Rifles Regiment were killed in the battle, including three student soldiers from a University of Toronto rifle company called out while writing their final exams and who took the brunt of a Fenian charge at Limestone Ridge. While Canadians had not fought a major war in Canada since the War of 1812, the Fenians were all battle-hardened veterans of the American Civil War, many having served in crack Irish brigades. The "Ridgeway Nine" were Canada's first soldiers killed in action and Ridgeway was the last battle fought in Ontario against a foreign invader, but after the disastrous conclusion the Macdonald government covered-up what happened so thoroughly that most Canadians today have never heard of this battle. Ridgeway: The American Fenian Invasion And The 1866 Battle That Made Canada by Peter Vronsky. Access to raw data. Ridgeway: the American Fenian Invasion and the 1866 Battle That Made Canada by Peter Vronsky. BibTex Full citation. To submit an update or takedown request for this paper, please submit an Update/Correction/Removal Request. Suggested articles. Useful links. Blog Services About CORE Contact us. Writing about CORE? Discover our research outputs and cite our work. 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