by Tamara Gill
She was unusually subdued, though, as she sat in the wagon squeezed beside Sara and Grandpa on the bench seat, while the back was full of injured Fenians.
Sean stood by the box seat, giving Grandpa Bailey his last set of instructions before they moved out. “Colonel Starr will be marching down the railroad tracks with a detachment of men. He’ll be parallel to your route on the Garrison Road. When you reach Fort Erie, Bailey, take the wounded to the abandoned fortifications.” He turned to the small unit of Fenians who were accompanying the wagon. “Sergeant, you may find the citizens of Fort Erie inclined to resent your arrival. Remind them that we are still in control of the town and that the main body of troops is not far behind. Hold the position until Colonel Starr arrives. Is that understood?”
The sergeant saluted. Sean slapped the nearest horse’s rump and Grandpa clucked to his team. The wagon began to move. Jacqui sighed as she looked back and saw Sean watching them. She lifted her hand in a wave. After a moment’s hesitation, Sean saluted her back, then he turned away and marched briskly back to his duties.
As the wagon rattled down the road, the Fenians in the back groaned and moaned. It wasn’t surprising. The road was bumpy and there were no springs in the bed of the cart. The slow, steady progress must have been agony for the injured men. Sara fussed and worried over them, exhibiting none of the squeamishness Jaclyn had. At one point she even had Grandpa stop the wagon so she could get into the back to check on the injured men.
Jacqui closed her ears to the sounds of suffering, or tried to, but the groans mixed with occasional swearing went on and on. She looked up at the sky, letting her mind drift. The sun was heading toward the west, making it—what? In the afternoon sometime. So what was happening on the afternoon of June second?
The bulk of the Fenian army would soon be marching down the Garrison Road from Ridgeway. They would reach Fort Erie about four p.m. and there they would find the tugboat Robb tied up at the dock with Colonel John Stoughton Dennis and the men of the Dunnville Naval Brigade and the Welland Canal Field Battery on the dock. Dennis and his crew had spent the day rounding up Fenian stragglers and were now tired, hungry and ready to settle in for the night, with Fort Erie being their preferred bedding down location.
Jaclyn thought about that. She couldn’t change history. The Fenians and the men of the Robb were going to meet and another battle would occur. The thing was, did she want to be part of it this time?
She looked up at the sky again, wishing she had more experience in telling the time from celestial markers. Did she have any option?
One of the injured Fenians swore more violently than usual and another begged that they stop. The noise from the back of the wagon rose. Jacqui found herself cringing. Sara said, “Grandpa! Can’t you do something? These men are suffering!”
“We’re a mile or two outside Fort Erie, Sara. Don’t fuss now. We’ll do what we can, no more.”
“We’re almost in Fort Erie?” Jacqui straightened and leaned forward, peering around Sara to her grandfather. “Grandpa, do you know what time it is?”
“Not without looking at my pocket watch, which I hope is still in my dresser drawer at home.”
“Can you guess?”
“We started loading up the injured round about half past two, so I’d say it was near four o’clock, give or take a half hour.”
The outskirts of Fort Erie came into view. The Fenian guard had marched ahead, moving faster than the wagon, which Grandpa was driving slowly and carefully.
Jacqui looked to her right, searching for the railroad tracks, but they were a few kilometers away, beyond the fields and farmhouses that bordered the Garrison Road. Where was Starr? Was he already in Fort Erie? Had he passed while she was daydreaming? His troops were supposed to be pulling up the railroad tracks as they marched, which might have delayed them. Had the Battle of Fort Erie begun yet? Were they driving right into it?
The Fenian guard stopped and waited while the cart caught up with them.
“We should turn off and go to Doc Kempson’s,” Sara said, ignoring their guards and the orders Sean had given as they left Ridgeway.
“Not a bad idea, Sara,” Grandpa said.
“No!” Jacqui lowered her voice when one of the Fenian guards turned to stare at her. “Let’s get these guys to the old Fort and get them settled. Kempson can look at them there.”
“Best that he does it at his office where he has the proper facilities,” Grandpa said. Sara nodded.
“But what if he’s not there?”
“He has office hours at this time of day,” Sara said, kindly explaining things to Jack, the stranger. “Why wouldn’t he be there?”
“Today’s not exactly a normal day, is it? Dr. Kempson is also reeve of Fort Erie. I’ll bet he’s got a lot of people coming to talk to him, worried about their property and what’s going to happen next. He’s probably closed his surgery for the day.”
“Oh!” said Sara, looking surprised.
“Could be,” Grandpa said.
“If we go to Doc Kempson’s we’ll have to convince our guards to take a detour. They may argue. That will take up precious time.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Sara said.
Grandpa nodded. “Good point, boy. We’ll stick to the plan and go to the old fort.”
Fort Erie was built on lowlands at the edge of the Niagara River. As the town had grown the houses climbed up the hill to the low bluff above. The Garrison Road followed a path down from the bluff and for a space of time the Baileys and Jacqui had a clear view of the river, the town dock and the River Road.
Jacqui sucked in her breath in a gasp as audible as the ones coming from the injured Fenians, for tied up at the dock was a boat, flat-bottomed and sturdy. On the dock were dozens of milling figures, some blue-coated, others who wore no uniforms, and many whose hands were tied. In the midst of them all was a red-coated man who appeared to be directing the actions of the others.
“What the hell?” said Grandpa softly.
“The boat is the tug, Robb. The men in the blue uniforms are the Welland Canal Field Battery and the others...”
“The men of the Dunnville Naval Brigade,” Grandpa said. “One of the injured volunteers told me about the Robb. He blamed Colonel Booker for sending them off when they could have been used as reinforcements. This fellow thought they were shirking their duty, missing out on the battle.”
“They’re here now,” Jacqui said. She looked past Sara to Grandpa. “And so are we. Starr is somewhere on the railroad tracks and O’Neill isn’t far behind us.”
A horrified expression dawned on Grandpa Bailey’s face. He glanced at Sara, then back at Jaclyn. “If I turn off, we’ll be able to take side roads back to the farm.”
“What do we do with the Fenian injured?”
Grandpa swore, violently and with considerable proficiency.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The sergeant in charge of the small detachment escorting them came back to confer with Jim Bailey. His gaze kept shifting down to the action on the dock. He was clearly uneasy with the latest developments. “Well then, old man, do you know what is going on here? Who are those men?”
“Those are our troops,” Bailey said.
The Fenian didn’t reply, but his expression was eloquent. He stared at the group on the dock, his mouth turned down in a hard, frustrated scowl as he assessed the military effectiveness of this new batch of enemies.
Jaclyn looked too, trying to see the scene through the soldier’s eyes. The men of the Robb didn’t look particularly dangerous. She knew they would put up a good fight, but the Fenian wouldn’t know that, of course. He could only guess their reaction based on their military preparedness, which wasn’t great at this moment in time.
The men of the Robb had spent a largely unproductive day. Though they’d scoured the countryside for Fenians, they had only come up with sixty or so stragglers who had drunk too much the night before and had been left behind when O’Neill decamped in the
darkness. The heat, the purposelessness of their task and the news that there had been a battle they missed, had led to demoralization. And, as they stood on the Fort Erie dock, the men and officers of the Welland Canal Field Battery and the Dunnville Naval Brigade were skeptical of Dennis’ plan to disembark the prisoners and put them into the dubious security of the Fort Erie jail.
The Fenian sergeant made his decision. He pointed down the Garrison Road and said, “Take the wagon to the old fort as Major O’Dell told you to. My men and I will fall behind.” He glared at Jim Bailey. “Don’t you forget, mind, that my men and I will be keeping an eye on you! So don’t go giving our wounded to that mob on the dock.”
Not in the least intimidated, Bailey snorted and shook his head. “I’ll do what you say, mister, but only because I’d already decided that’s what I’d do. Now step away from the wagon. I want to finish this job and head on back to my farm.” He shook the reins and encouraged the team into a trot. The wagon bounced over the hard, rutted road. The groans from the rear increased. Bailey muttered something and Jaclyn hung on to her seat.
Sara said, “Grandpa, shouldn’t you slow down? The men must be in agony.”
“We don’t have that luxury, Sara. I want to get these fellows settled and be out of town before the battle starts.”
“Do you really think there will be a battle?”
“Yes,” said Grandpa and Jaclyn, at the same time.
“Think, Sara!” Jacqui said, ignoring the look Bailey gave her. “Look at all these guys on the dock. Remember what Sean said before we left Ridgeway? Colonel O’Neill and most of the Fenian army were going to start their march to Fort Erie just after us. Hell, O’Neill had already ordered Colonel Starr to follow the railroad right of way to Fort Erie and to pull up the tracks on his way and he left shortly before we did. Of course there will be a battle unless all the Canadian Volunteers jump in their boat and sail away. Think they’ll do that?”
Sara glanced to the back of the wagon. She bit her lip. “It seems so unnecessary.”
The wagon was nearing the River Road where they would have to turn off on to reach the ruins of the old fort. No one on the dock was paying any attention to them. Jaclyn looked behind. The Fenian guard had melted away. Whether they had scattered to save themselves or had set off to find Starr and warn him of the activity on the dock she couldn’t tell. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Grandpa reached the intersection and made a right turn. Jacqui and Sara twisted in their seats to keep the scene on the dock in view. There, the main action was between Dennis and a civilian in a dark suit. They were arguing, although Dennis seemed to be dominating the conversation. Loud and imperious, his voice could be heard above the general noise, though the words were indistinguishable. The civilian, who must be Dr. Kempson, the reeve, was standing stiffly. He was clearly annoyed and unwilling to give in to Dennis’ demands. The blue-coated Welland Canal Field Battery milled about the dock, stretching their legs, chatting and generally relaxing while they waited for a decision to be made. From the US shore the shouts and jeers of large groups of spectators carried clearly across the narrow width of the Niagara River. Like Kempson, they evidently didn’t want the Fenian prisoners to be unloaded at Fort Erie.
Jaclyn pointed to the massed American spectators. “Listen for what those guys do. They can see the bluff better than anyone else. If they start shouting and cheering it’ll mean O’Neill and his bunch have arrived and we’re sunk.”
“Do you mean they will watch a battle and cheer their side on?” There was horrified amazement in Sara’s voice.
“Like a bunch of Roman plebes at a gladiatorial combat in the Coliseum.” Jaclyn was rather pleased by that description. She knew little about the ancient world, beyond what Hollywood served up as entertainment, but she thought it sounded pretty apt. Since she was supposed to be studying Greece and Rome, dragging in a classical reference might help her rather tattered cover story. She hoped.
Sara’s hand fluttered to cover her mouth. “How...how barbaric.”
“Good thing you’ll never be exposed to professional wrestling,” Jacqui muttered. She turned forward, anxious to assess where the wagon was in relation to Old Fort Erie. By her recollection, Kempson and Dennis were in the middle of their argument when Starr showed up and the fighting began. The battle would be as vicious and bloody as that at Ridgeway, even though there were far fewer Canadian Volunteers involved. Hedged in by the buildings, limited to River Road, the gunfire would be hot and the Volunteers would fight or run largely as individuals. She wanted Sara and Grandpa Bailey to be out of here before it began. She hadn’t yet decided if she was up for more warfare.
The wagon was bumping over a rough track that was little more than ruts in the long, coarse grass. Ahead of them was a dip in the ground and sticking up from it like jagged, rotten teeth, were the ruins of Old Fort Erie.
The fort looked very different from the modern historic site, which had been rebuilt as part of a Depression era project during the 1930s.
Originally Fort Erie had once been an impressive installation. A star shaped mound, called in military terms a redoubt, had surrounded the buildings like a waterless moat. The fort itself was two long, narrow stone structures about twenty feet wide and a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet long. These were connected by a stone curtain wall, which was pierced by a gate.
Toward Lake Erie and the Niagara River the terrain was flat and low, forcing any attacking enemy to advance across the grassy plain, then climb up the steeply sloped man-made redoubt. This created a highly defensible position. During the War of 1812 the British lost the fort to the Americans, won it back, lost it again and then, in trying to take it back, all but destroyed the buildings when their bombardment hit the powder magazine, causing it to explode in a pillar of fire that shot timber, stone and men into the sky.
By the end of the war all that remained of the buildings were the outer and inner walls. The outer wall, facing the Niagara River and the American shore was ten or twelve feet high. The inner was much lower, or completely gone in places. It rarely reached much above three feet.
Throughout the nineteenth century the people of the area used the ruins of Fort Erie as a stone quarry, as well as a place to picnic in the summer and skate in the winter. The shattered buildings decayed further until all that remained was one wall, ten feet or so high, on the water side of the fort and a couple of waist high walls on the landward side. The ditch and redoubt, however, remained a secure, defensible position, easily controlled.
The entrance to the ditch was on the landward side of the fort. Bailey slowed the team as they approached, guiding the horses down the sloping path that led to the ruined buildings with the confidence of a man who had done it before. As the wagon bumped along the path, Jacqui stared around her. She remembered her tour of the rebuilt tourist site. The guide had talked about the destruction of Fort Erie, but as with her knowledge of the Fenians, her appreciation of the fact had been intellectual rather than emotional.
Seeing the jagged remains up close, with no twentieth century reconstruction to hide the scars, brought reality home. It had taken months, years perhaps, for men to make this structure and the space of an afternoon for their bombs to shatter it. Nausea, like that she had suffered on the battlefield, rose up in her stomach. “Is this all there is?”
Grandpa stared at the ruins. “There used to be more, but folks have helped themselves to the stone when they needed it.”
The afternoon sun beat against the ruined buildings. Surrounded by the redoubt, with no breeze to move the air, the sun had heated the dark gray walls and in the closed ditch had created a natural oven. Jacqui wiped her forehead with her sleeve and swallowed hard. Get a grip, girl!
“Let’s put the wounded against the high wall. That way they will be in the shade.” There was unusual tartness in Sara’s voice. “These men will do far better out of the sun than here in the heat.”
“Good point,” Jacqui said, thinking tha
t Sara ought to know. The girl was wearing a floor-length dress with long, tight sleeves and a high neck. The ample skirt belled out around her in a way that suggested she must be wearing a half-a-dozen petticoats, or—horrors—a hoop of some kind. On her feet were sturdy boots and her long hair was stuffed up under a bonnet that came down over her ears and was tied with wide ribbons under her chin. Altogether, she was swathed in material, head to foot. Jacqui found it hot in her trousers, shirt and vest. Sara must be melting in that costume of hers.
Grandpa guided the team through an opening in the decaying walls and drew the horses to a stop. Jacqui jumped down from the wagon. She found a likely place for the injured between the waist high wall and the tall one. Here the ground was reasonably flat, with no chunks of rock sticking up to dig into the injured men’s backs. She trotted back to the wagon. “Let’s bring them over there, Grandpa. There may be other, better places, but this one will do.”
Grandpa nodded and between the three of them they quickly helped or half-carried, the injured over to their shelter. Sara wanted to stay with them, but Grandpa and Jaclyn agreed the injured would not be left alone long. They were safe where they were and Sean would look after them once he arrived.
Grandpa and Sara climbed into the wagon again, while Jacqui helped turn the team as she had on Ridge Road before she clambered up to the bench seat. Grandpa shook the reins, and the two big horses trotted smartly away from the old fort, their load a mere fraction of what it had been before.
Hearing a few intermittent cheers from the crowd on the US side, Jaclyn looked west, checking out the top of the bluff. It was bare of Fenians yet. Relief surged over her, until she looked south, toward the railroad tracks. There she saw nothing but a mass of blue.
