Battle of Fort Erie | |||||||
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Part of Fenian Raids | |||||||
A Canadian map of the raid. | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Fenian Brotherhood | Province of Canada | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
John O'Neill | John Stoughton Dennis | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
400 (estimate) | 79 (5,000 later) | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
8–10 wounded | 3-4 dead, 16 wounded, 54 captured |
During the 1866 Fenian raid of the Province of Canada, the Battle of Fort Erie was a surrounding and forcing of the Fenian armies surrender following a skirmish near Fort Erie and the farther-away Battle of Ridgeway on June 2. The Fenian force, withdrawing from Ridgeway, met a small force of Canadian militia at Fort Erie, then known as the village of Waterloo.
In response to the Fenian occupation of the township of Fort Erie, Canada West, on the night of June 1, 1866, militia units throughout the Niagara Peninsula had been mobilized or put on alert. At Port Colborne, a detachment of 51 gunners and NCOs, British Royal Artillery Bombardier Sergeant James McCracken and three officers (Captain Richard S. King M.D., Lieutenants A.K. Schofield and Charles Nimmo [Nemmo]) taken under command by Lieutenant-Colonel John Dennis, boarded a tugboat, the W.T. Robb, carrying the Dunnville Naval Brigade, consisting of 19 men and 3 officers (Captain Lachlan McCallum, Lieutenant Walter T. Robb, Second Lieutenant Angus Macdonald) (a total of 71 men and 8 officers) and steamed east to the Niagara River, then scouted downriver as far as Black Creek. The Welland Field Battery did not have its four Armstrong guns with it, and only half were armed with Enfield muzzle-loading rifles, with the other half armed with obsolete smooth-bore "Victoria" carbines that had a limited range of approximately 300 yards at best. [1]
Thinking the Fenians were gone, Canadian volunteers turned back upriver to secure the village of Fort Erie and deny them an escape route. A company of the Welland Field Battery landed without difficulty, capturing around 59 of the Fenian soldiers. But when John O'Neill returned with most of his large army from the nearby Battle of Ridgeway, the small number of Canadian volunteers that were sent to capture a small numbers of Fenian soldiers were not prepared. A firefight followed, in which the militia and sailors were outnumbered by Fenian soldiers causing most of the Canadian volunteers to surrender. The remaining Canadian volunteers on the gunboat went back to Port Colborne to inform of the situation while O'Neill the Fenian soldiers stayed in Fort Erie. Later, an estimated 5,000 Canadian militia reinforcements informed of the situation came and surrounded the Fenian movement’s army in Fort Erie. Causing O'Neill to retreat back to New York State. Some Fenians chose to desert, crossing the river on a variety of stolen or improvised craft. The remainder, 850 in number, [2] crossed in a body and surrendered to a US naval party from USS Michigan near Buffalo, putting an end to Fenian incursions along the Niagara Peninsula.
The Fenian Brotherhood was an Irish republican organisation founded in the United States in 1858 by John O'Mahony and Michael Doheny. It was a precursor to Clan na Gael, a sister organisation to the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). Members were commonly known as "Fenians". O'Mahony, who was a Gaelic scholar, named his organisation after the Fianna, the legendary band of Irish warriors led by Fionn mac Cumhaill.
The colonial militias in Canada were made up of various militias prior to Confederation in 1867. During the period of New France and Acadia, Newfoundland Colony, and Nova Scotia (1605–1763), these militias were made up of Canadiens, First Nations, British and Acadians. Traditionally, the Canadian Militia was the name used for the local sedentary militia regiments throughout the Canadas.
Fort Erie is a town in the Niagara Region of Ontario, Canada. The town is located at the south eastern corner of the region, on the Niagara River, directly across the Canada–United States border from Buffalo, New York, and is the site of Old Fort Erie which played a prominent role in the War of 1812.
Old Fort Erie, also known as Fort Erie, or the Fort Erie National Historic Site of Canada, was the first British fort to be constructed as part of a network developed after the Seven Years' War was concluded by the Treaty of Paris (1763), at which time France ceded its territories east of the Mississippi River to Great Britain. The installation is located on the southern edge of what is now the Town of Fort Erie, Ontario, directly across the Niagara River from Buffalo, New York, United States.
King's Highway 3, commonly referred to as Highway 3, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario which travels parallel to the northern shoreline of Lake Erie. It has three segments, the first of which travels from the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor to Highway 77 in Leamington. The second portion begins at Talbotville Royal outside of St. Thomas at Highway 4, and travels to the western city limits of Port Colborne. The road is regionally maintained within Port Colborne as Niagara Regional Road 3, but regains its provincial designation at Highway 140. Its third and final terminus is at Edgewood Park, within the Fort Erie town limits. From there, the road continues as Niagara Regional Road 3 to the Peace Bridge, where drivers can cross to the United States. The total length of Highway 3 is 248.9 or 258.2 km, consisting of 49.2 km (30.6 mi) from Windsor to Leamington, 187.9 km (116.8 mi) from Talbotville Royal to Port Colborne and 21.1 km (13.1 mi) from Port Colborne to Edgewood Park.
The Fenian raids were a series of incursions carried out by the Fenian Brotherhood, an Irish republican organization based in the United States, on military fortifications, customs posts and other targets in Canada in 1866, and again from 1870 to 1871. A number of separate incursions by the Fenian Brotherhood into Canada were undertaken to bring pressure on the British government to withdraw from Ireland, although none of these raids achieved their aims.
Ridgeway is a small, unincorporated village in Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada. The community is within the Niagara Regional Municipality. It used to be the seat of government for Bertie Township within Welland County. Ridgeway is now a part of the Town of Fort Erie. In recent years the rail line has been converted to a walking and cycling trail, part of a trail system circling the Niagara region.
The Battle of Ridgeway 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. The action at Ridgeway has the distinction of being the only armed victory for the cause of Irish independence between the Irish Rebellion of 1798 and the Easter Rising in 1916.
Lachlin (Lachlan) McCallum was a Canadian politician.
The Capture of Fort Erie by American forces in 1814 was a battle in the War of 1812 between the United Kingdom and the United States. The British garrison was outnumbered but surrendered prematurely, in the view of British commanders.
Erie—Lincoln was a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1997 to 2004, and was a provincial electoral district represented in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1999 to 2007. This riding was created in 1996 from parts of Erie, Haldimand—Norfolk and Lincoln ridings.
The Battle of Eccles Hill was part of a raid into Canadian territory from the United States led by John O'Neill of the Fenian Brotherhood, intended to pressure Great Britain to grant sovereignty to Ireland. In 1870, the Fenians crossed the Canadian border and proceeded to the top of Eccles Hill where they were confronted by members of the Canadian home guard and volunteers. The Fenians were overwhelmed by local militia units and armed citizens on May 25, 1870, and were compelled to abandon what was anticipated to have been a "glorious victory".
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John Charles O'Neill was an Irish-born officer in the American Civil War and member of the Fenian Brotherhood. O'Neill is best known for his activities leading the Fenian raids on Canada in 1866 and 1871.
The Great Lakes Patrol was carried out by American naval forces, beginning in 1844, mainly to suppress criminal activity and to protect the maritime border with Canada. A small force of United States Navy, Coast Guard, and Revenue Service ships served in the Great Lakes throughout these operations. Through the decades, they were involved in several incidents with pirates and rebels.
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