The Battle of Ridgeway (sometimes the Battle of Lime Ridge or Limestone Ridge) was fought in the vicinity of the town of Fort Erie across the Niagara River from Buffalo, New York, near the village of 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 engagement of the Fenian Raids, the first modern industrial-era battle to be fought by Canadians and the first to be fought only by Canadian troops and led exclusively by Canadian officers. The battlefield was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1921 and is the last battle fought within the current boundaries of Ontario against a foreign invasion.
Background 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. The plan was to take Canada temporarily hostage in the hope of demoralizing British rule in Ireland by precipitating a political crisis in Britain.Civil War Vets Wanted to Invade Canada to Liberate Ireland By Blake Stilwell, 15 Mar 2019, military.com The Fenians were also mistakenly counting on receiving U.S. recognition for the seizure of Canadian territory. 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 but could not pin-point the exact crossing points in advance.
Units involved The Fenian units involved in the battle were the 7th Buffalo (NY), the 18th Ohio, the 13th Tennessee, and the 17th Kentucky Fenian regiments, as well as independent companies from Indiana and from New Orleans (the Fenian Louisiana Tigers). The Fenians wore an assortment of blue U.S. Army and grey Confederate Army tunics, some with green facings sewn to them, but many of the Fenians took to the field in civilian clothing with green scarves. The Fenians carried battle standards consisting of the Irish 'sunburst' in gold on a green background and one standard featuring the Irish harp.
The Canadian units at Ridgeway were the Queen's Own Rifles of Toronto (which had 7 killed, 2 died of wounds and 21 wounded in the battle); the 13th Battalion, predecessor of the modern Royal Hamilton Light Infantry (which had 15 wounded) and the York Rifle Company and the Caledonia Rifle Company of the Haldimand County Militia, predecessors of the Haldimand Rifles (of which the latter had 2 men wounded). Additionally, Company 9, Queen’s Own Rifles, consisted of 28 students and a lecturer from the University Rifles, which was raised at University College (3 students died in the battle: Malcolm MacKenzie, William Tempest, and John Mewburn).Highly Promising Youths: Remembering the UC students who fell in the Fenian raids Alexander Muir, author of the unofficial Canadian national anthem, "The Maple Leaf Forever", fought with the Queen's Own at Ridgeway.
Invasion First day of Fenian crossings The Fenian insurgents, led by Brigadier General John O'Neill, a former Union cavalry commander who had specialized in anti-guerrilla warfare in Ohio, secured boats and transferred some 800 men across the Niagara River, landing above Fort Erie, before dawn on June 1, 1866.
An additional 200–400 Fenians and supplies crossed later during the morning and early afternoon until the US Navy gunboat, the USS Michigan, began intercepting Fenian barges at 2:20 p.m. — 13 hours after the first Fenian advance party landed in Canada.Log Entry, Friday June 1, 1866 USS Michigan Logbook No. 16, July 24, 1864 to August 30, 1866: Logbooks of U.S. Navy Ships, 1801–1940, Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, 1798 – 2003, RG24. (National Archives Building, Washington, DC) NARA.
An advance party of 250 men of Lieutenant 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 take control of the railway yards south of Fort Erie by dawn as the rest of O'Neill's force was disembarking.E. A. Cruickshank, "The Fenian Raid of 1866", Welland County Historical Society Papers and Records, Vol 2, Welland Canada: 1926. p. 21; John O'Neill, Official Report of the Battle of Ridgeway, Canada West, Fought on June 2, 1866 (June 27, 1866), New York: John A. Foster, 1870. pp. 37–38 U.S. 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 possibly as many as 1,350 Fenians in total crossed during the first thirteen hours of June 1, but 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 estimated that he had perhaps 500 men remaining in his camp.Address of General John O'Neill President F.B. To the Officers and Members of the Fenian Brotherhood On the State of its Organization and its Disruption, [New York, Feb. 27, 1868], New York: [s.n.] 1868. p. 17 Later during the night, O'Neill was reinforced by an additional column of 200 Fenians who had been deployed earlier on a bridgehead at Black Creek guarding against an approach from Chippawa in the north, bringing his total strength at Ridgeway to at least 650 men. A proclamation was posted explaining the reasons behind the invasion:
Battle
Meanwhile, the British were mobilizing both local Canadian militia 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 on 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 soldiers of the Canadian militia (the dark-green uniformed Queen's Own Rifles of Toronto and the traditionally clad red-coated 13th Battalion from Hamilton, reinforced by two local companies from Caledonia and York) commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Booker of the 13th Battalion. In the first hour of the battle, the Canadian soldiers drove Fenian skirmishers back across Bertie Road. Then something went wrong: to this day, it is not clear exactly what. Some sources say that the Canadian militiamen mistook Fenian scouts on horseback for cavalry. Orders to form a square to defend against a cavalry charge, although quickly countermanded, led to chaos in the Canadian ranks, and Booker ordered a withdrawal after ninety minutes of battle. Other sources indicate that troops mistook a company of redcoated 13th Battalion infantry for British troops relieving them and began to withdraw; which then triggered a panic among other troops who mistook the withdrawal for a retreat.Peter Vronsky, Ridgeway: The American Fenian Invasion and the 1866 Battle That Made Canada, Toronto: Penguin-Allen Lane, 2011. pp. 141–145. O'Neill, observing the chaos beginning in the Canadian forces, ordered a bayonet charge that routed the mostly-inexperienced Canadians. The Fenians took and briefly held the town of Ridgeway. Then, expecting to be overwhelmed by British reinforcements, they withdrew toward Fort Erie, where they fought the Battle of Fort Erie, against a small detachment of Canadian soldiers determined on holding the town.
The Canadian loss was 9 killed, 37 wounded (some severely enough to require amputation), and 22 died of wounds or disease later. One British soldier, Corporal Carrington, 47th (Lancashire) Regiment of Foot, died on a forced march from Chippawa to Stevensville. His grave was identified 146 years later on the eve of Remembrance Day 2012. O'Neill claimed he had one or two men killed, but Canadians claimed more. Lists 9 Fenian casualties as 2 killed (5 unknown) and 7 wounded The relatively low casualty figures support proponents of theories about soldiers' reluctance to shoot to kill but could also be accounted for by the fact the Fenians at first deployed only skirmishers. This was done in an attempt to lure Canadian soldiers towards their main force, which did not advance until the last minutes of the battle, when it attacked with bayonets to break the Canadian lines.
Fenian withdrawal The battle 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. Nevertheless, the rapid convergence of large 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 FeniansFor the figure of 850, see: H.W. Hemans to Lord Monck, telegram June 3, 1866, in [s.n.] Correspondence Relating to the Fenian Invasion and Rebellion of the Southern States, Ottawa: 1869. p. 142; also Colonel Lowry, Report, 4 June 1866, Miscellaneous Records Relating to the Fenian Raids, British Military and Naval Records "C" Series, RG8-1, Volume 1672; Microfilm reel C-4300, p. 282. (Public Archives of Canada) 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.
Aftermath
Some of the Canadians were particularly bitter at what they saw as Booker's mismanagement of the battle and believed that had he not given the order to withdraw they would have won the day. In fact, the Canadians were only fighting the Fenian advance units, who were steadily luring the Canadians forward towards the main Fenian force, which was waiting for them on the high ground north of Bertie Road. Had the Canadians not retreated, short on ammunition and inexperienced, they might have faced a heavier defeat by the Civil War veterans of the main Fenian army (which was so well-supplied with 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 wrongly reported that they were all armed with seven-shot Spencer repeating rifles. Fewer than half of the Canadians on the field had practised firing live rounds before the day of the battle and there had been no military conflict in Canada since the Rebellions of 1837–38.