Narrative of the Fenian invasion of CanadaSomerville, Alexander
History
Narrative of the Fenian invasion of Canada
Somerville, Alexander
Canada -- History -- Fenian Invasions, 1866-1870
_Dinner ordered for a “thousand,” and provisions run out. Fenian
army asleep; what, when it should awake? Pickets, sentries and
passes. Reverend Fenian, Lumsden from “Auld Reekie.” Dimensions
of Welland Canal. Rideau Canal. St. Lawrence Canals. American
vessels with-held from Welland Canal. They re-appear after two
weeks. Horses captured. How bridles were made. New use of telegraph
wires. Milking the cows at Frenchman’s Creek. O’Neil’s pass. Fenian
sentry. Sergeant of the picket._
The village corporation of three at Waterloo, and the less timid of
seven hundred and fifty inhabitants, breathed more freely at nine a.
m. than they had done any minute since daybreak. The “breakfast for
one thousand men” had been amply furnished, and heartily eaten. The
armed multitude, fierce and hungry before, were now filled, and lay
stretched in sleep on the green slopes, or under the trees, or kept
watch by the river side, or as railway pickets. But noon was fast
approaching. The thousand men would be hungry again. The corporation
were ordered to prepare dinner. Where was it to come from? Then
supper would be required, and lodgings for the ensuing night. The
food of the village was already eaten up. It was a fearful prospect,
the awakening of that multitude, now lying drowsily in the fields, in
the orchards, in the woods, in the barns, on the door steps in the
passages, on the sofas, or carpeted floors of private dwellings. But
it was no part of O’Neil’s policy to remain inactive in that village,
risking an attack, without having accomplished something more than
levying breakfast for his forces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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