There was a small creek close in front, and at a mile farther, Frenchman’s creek; both crossing Col. P’s line of march. “At this time,” says Major Denison, p. 54. “While I was close beside Col. Peacocke, a voice in the dark, said, ‘you can’t go down that way, sir.’ On looking closely we saw that it was a farmer living about a quarter of a mile back, who had given us some information as we passed. Col. Peacocke asked him; ‘Why not?’ He answered, ‘The bridge is broken.’ The Colonel questioned him closely and he adhered to it positively that we could not get through. This information, together with the inability for the skirmishers to make their way through the woods (these were tangled bush and logs, the ground marshy and wet, p. 53). This decided Colonel Peacocke. With that report of a broken bridge; with darkness of night set in; with uncertainty of his enemy’s place and strength; with the possibility of an ambush in the woods, or at the broken bridge, he was fully justified in remaining as he did until daylight.” The reader will keep in mind that the blame laid on this commander for that halt implies that he thereby permitted the Fenians to escape. This is no light charge. But the graver charge of his not advancing from Chippewa at 3 or 4 a. m. so as to reach Stevensville at 7 remains as the gentleman of the 19th has put it. In Major Denison’s account of the line of march taken, and as Col. Peacocke related to me personally when in conversation at Fort Erie, there arose several circumstances of hinderance. There was the bad and devious road taken by the river side instead of the better and shorter direct way, through his relying on advisers and informants who seem to have led him up the river side to Black Creek, around windings and out of the way in order to drive the Fenians from their properties, or prevent their coming upon them. Mr. Tupper, a government constable resident at Fort Erie, has since told me that he was sent to inform Col. Peacocke and conduct him from Chippewa, but that his service was not accepted. Tupper says that Mr. Street M. P. P. told the Col. that he was an official person and reliable. But after seeing him at Fort Erie that officer had no recollection of him at Chippewa. Major Denison remarking on the unreliability of persons offering to be guides, relates that one bustling person, talking on Friday night at Chippewa told what he could accomplish in taking a message to Port Colborne if he had a horse. He was furnished with a horse, and the message committed to his care; what did he do? He rode to the Fenians, gave them the message and the horse too; himself also, perhaps, for he never again turned up.