A Passionate Girl

by Thomas Fleming

  On the road to the south, down which we had come in our wagon, there was the sound of hoofbeats. Into view came at least half the Fenian army, Dan and John O’Neil on horseback at their head, all on the dead run for Colonel Dennis and his paralyzed command. The infantry yell stormed from their throats. Heroic Colonel Dennis took one look and squawked, “Save yourselves, men!” Followed by about twenty-five of his best sprinters, he legged it down the river road; Fenian bullets whistled all around them. Five or six Canadians dived behind piles of cordwood on the wharf and fired at the oncoming Fenians. Another twenty or so tried to form a line in the street. The captain of the tug, no more a hero than Colonel Dennis, cut his lines and drifted off with the current, abandoning those who were trying to make a stand. It was a paradigm of the madness, the heroism and the cowardice of war, all in one wild minute.

  The Fenians fired a volley at the men in the street and came on with the bayonet. By this time the doctors and I were inside the post office with all the civilians who could get to it. Four or five Canadians went down in the street, and the man who had shot Colonel Bailey legged it into the post office, followed by a half dozen of his friends. The rest threw down their guns and surrendered, many of them falling to their knees and begging for mercy. The men on the wharf were swept away in another minute, a few surrendering, one, an officer, emptying his pistol and flinging himself into the river as the Fenians rushed him.

  A crash of glass was followed by the thunder of guns within the post office. The deadly marksman and his friends began firing into the Fenians in the street. It was pure folly. They cut down at least three or four men before the Fenians realized what was happening. All became madness and fury. The Fenians had already had at least a dozen men wounded or killed in this senseless skirmish, and they turned on these last tormentors with every gun in their army.

  “Down on the floor,” yelled Tom Gallaher as bullets hurtled into the room through every window. Women and children—half-grown boys, most of them—lay face down, whimpering and screaming. I saw one of the Fenian wounded, weak as he was, drag down and hold a boy who began running about insane with terror. A tremendous crash shook the front door. They were battering it down. But the first Fenian into the room was met by two Canadians with bayonets. As he raised his rifle to fire, one of them plunged his bayonet into his throat. The Irishman gave a terrible cry and toppled back against those who were rushing after him, throwing them into confusion. They retreated to the street, leaving the wounded man bleeding to death on the steps. He died in terrible agony within a few minutes.

  Now the Fenian rage was all-consuming. Volley after volley crashed into the building. Prone on the floor, I noticed the Canadians were no longer firing back. They crouched beside the windows, looking as miserable and frightened as everyone else. “They’re out of ammunition,” I said to Tom Gallaher.

  “Who’s going to stick his head up to tell the boys outside?” he said.

  I seized a sheet we had confiscated for bandages and crept on my hands and knees, and more often squirmed on my belly, to the stairway to the second floor. There were no Canadians up there, so the Fenian fire was all coming into the first floor. I crawled up the stairs as rapidly as possible. I could see the walls shuddering with the impact of the bullets. If one had come through I would have been a dead woman. By the time I reached the second floor I was too weak with fear to do anything but lie there for a full minute, face down. I did not want to die in this stupid, meaningless fight.

  Looking up, I almost said a prayer of thanks. There was a window open, just above my head. I sprang up and flung the white sheet out it. “They’re ready to surrender!” I shouted. The gunfire ceased almost instantly.

  I went downstairs. The Canadian who had bayoneted the Fenian clutched his empty gun. “They’ll kill us,” he said. “Colonel Dennis said you were giving no quarter.”

  “Haven’t you learned by now that Colonel Dennis is a fool as well as a coward?” I said. “You’ll be treated as a prisoner of war. Like your friends captured in the street just now and at Ridgeway.”

  Walking to the door, I called to the Fenians to parade their prisoners. They shoved them into the street in front of the post office. The Canadians were convinced. They walked out with their hands up. The deadly marksman was the last to leave.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Daniel Sullivan,” he said.

  I didn’t bother to ask him why he was fighting for the queen. He had stupidity writ large on his slack mouth and in his glazed eyes. Perhaps that explained why he was such a deadly shot. No brain, no nerves.

  Outside, the once peaceful village of Fort Erie was a charnel house. There were dead and wounded Canadians and Fenians lying in the street. The post office was a shattered wreck. Many other houses had their windows smashed by bullets. For the next few hours, I worked with the doctors on the wounded while the officers conferred. Lieutenant Colonel Bailey was our most serious case. He had been shot through the lungs. A bloody froth rose to his mouth with every breath. I thought of his pretty, laughing wife showing me Niagara Falls and fought back tears.

  It was almost dark when John O’Neil, Dan, and the colonels came into our little hospital. “We’ve been in touch with the other shore. There’s no hope of reinforcements. We’re going to set up a defense line around the railroad car ferry dock. If by some miracle they can get men and guns to us, this would be the best place to land. The enemy column from Chippewa is only three miles away. They’ll almost certainly attack us in the morning.”

  “Do you mean to fight to the last man?” Dr. Donnelly asked.

  “Yes,” John O’Neil said. “There will be no surrender.”

  Dan caught me by the arm. “We’ve got some rowboats. We’ll take you back tonight, as soon as it’s dark.”

  “I’m staying here,” I said. “The wounded need care.”

  “They’ll hang you for what we did in Ireland,” Dan said. “Do you think that will make me feel any better when I get my bullet—knowin’ they’ve got you, too?”

  I bent to wipe the bloody froth from Michael Bailey’s lips. “Is there no hope?”

  “We’re thinkin’ of a night attack, but the men are beat. They only got about three hours’ sleep last night. Not much food today. This stupid fight here in the village was sort of the last straw. And they know we’re cut off. No reinforcements.”

  “Maybe you can surrender. If you get decent terms.”

  “I surrendered once,” Dan said. “I ain’t never gonna do it again. Besides, you can’t trust an Englishman. You should know that. An Irish deserter from their 47th Regiment came in about a half hour ago. He says the officers are talkin’ about givin’ us no quarter.”

  “I’m sick from seeing men die to no purpose,” I said.

  “We all got to die sometime,” Dan said.

  There it was, the code of the soldier. Even so, in his bitter twisted heart, he found room to love me in his way. Again he insisted that I go back by small boat. Again I refused.

  “You’re my fate,” I said. “I chose you. I’m with you to the end. Remember the poem I spoke to you on our first night together?

  “Donal Ogue, when you cross the water

  Take me with you to be your partner.”

  He left me there with the hurt and dying men. It was glorious and tragic. For a long time I thought it would have been better if it had ended that way, in a crash of gunfire and an eruption of battle smoke. They would never have captured me for hanging. I would have joined Dan in the ranks when the battle began and died beside him. But it was not to be. I spent the evening with the wounded, especially Michael Bailey. He drifted in and out of consciousness. Three or four times he told me to be sure to give the letter to his wife.

  “I had a feeling my luck was out,” he said.

  Other men needed comforting, too. Doctors can do little with wounded men, but a woman has a power I do not completely understand. When a man is wounded, he often becomes a little boy again. He f
inds comfort, hope, memories of love in a woman’s touch, in the sound of her voice. I prayed with many of them. Without faith myself, I recited the words of our ancient litany. Holy Mary mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death Amen. We had no priest with us, which was hard for many of them.

  I can still remember the silence of that night, broken only by an occasional groan of pain, and the crunch of shattered glass as I or the doctors walked from man to man, giving opium pills, changing blood-soaked ban d-ages. Once, there was a single gunshot. We all tensed, thinking the night attack had begun, but it must have been a sentry firing at a shadow. About midnight, Tom Gallaher persuaded me to lie down on a spare mattress and get some rest. The moment my head touched the pillow, I fell into exhausted slumber, like a stone dropped into a well.

  The crash of a door and the stamp of booted feet awoke me. I sat up, dazed. Dan McCaffrey towered over me. “We’re gettin’ out,” he said in a low voice. “There’ll be a tug at the dock in fifteen minutes. Come on.”

  Still half asleep, I stumbled to the door. Dr. Tom Gallaher was on the steps outside, holding Dan’s horse. “Go with him,” he said. “I’ll stay with the men.”

  Before I could think, much less protest, Dan all but threw me into the saddle, sprang up behind me, and galloped for the car ferry dock. We passed Dr. Donnelly running in the same direction and arrived just as the bulky shape of a tug loomed out of the night. Behind it was an even larger vessel. What was left of the Fenian army of liberation crowded down the dock to the second craft, a garbage scow. John O’Neil walked up to us. It was too dark to see his face, but his voice was forlorn. “There was no hope of an attack. The enemy outnumbered us three to one. They had sentries every ten feet.”

  “Where did the ships come from?” I asked.

  “From Buffalo harbor. Where they least expected us. Did you warn our sentries, Dan boy?”

  “As many as I could reach, General.”

  “Good. Maybe we’ll have better luck another time, Dan.”

  “Sure, General. You better get aboard.”

  O’Neil moved away, toward the tug. It was strange to hear Dan giving him orders.

  “I didn’t warn no sentries,” Dan said. “I went and got you.”

  “You mean we’re leaving men out there in the dark, not knowing—with no way to get back—”

  “That’s war, honey. They don’t have a goddamn price on their heads, like you. Let’s get on this tug before it goes.”

  He led me to the edge of the wharf and lifted me onto the tug’s deck. A moment later the engine pounded. We surged away from the dock onto the dark river. I clung to the rail with Dan silent beside me. A cold night wind beat in my face. I welcomed its punishment. The betrayed become betrayers, I thought, envisioning the shock and horror when those lonely men on sentry duty discovered in the dawn that we had abandoned them to the enemy.

  “Did you know this was gonna happen?” Dan asked.

  “I had been warned in Washington, but they wouldn’t listen. Roberts and the others in the cabinet wouldn’t listen.”

  “But you wouldn’t tell me? You’d let me go over there and get myself killed? Go make another martyr for Ireland?”

  “No. Nothing was that clear or certain. It never is, in politics.”

  “Politics.”

  He spat past me into the river.

  I said nothing. He was too bitter. His ruthless distinction between himself and the cause disheartened me. Why had he bothered to save me? So he could abuse me? I let the night wind tear at my dress. I thought of consoling things to say to him. At least it had not ended in slaughter or humiliation. We had won two victories. We could offer some pride to Ireland’s despairing poor. We might even be able to use our victories as political arguments to cow Stanton and Seward and return to Canada. We had proven beyond question that it was in our power to conquer the country, if the Americans let us.

  Before I could say any of this, I was all but deafened by the blast of a steam whistle, dead astern. A moment later a tug, its engines running full, appeared alongside us. A voice bellowed, “Heave to.”

  We kept running straight ahead. “Heave to or I’ll fire into you,” roared the voice.

  Our tug’s engine died away, and we drifted with the current. “Now follow these instructions,” the voice bellowed. “Run beside us at a speed of three knots. If you try to escape or resist in any way, you will be treated as outlaws.”

  In the darkness we could not tell whether he was British or American. There was no flag visible. “If he’s a Brit, let’s fight it out,” I heard Dan growl. “One volley will wipe every man off those decks.”

  “Under whose orders are you acting?” John O’Neil called.

  “The president of the United States.”

  Our humiliation had begun.

  In Deeper than Ever

  Dawn found us four miles down the river on the American side, tied up beside the U.S.S. Michigan at Pratt’s Wharf. Reporters swarmed on the dock. Several came out in rowboats to shout questions, which we ignored. About 6:00 A.M. a ladder was lowered to the deck of the tug. We mounted it to the deck of the Michigan. A short, arrogant-looking man in a blue naval officer’s uniform regarded us with evident distaste as we came aboard. We were surely a dirty, rumpled lot after two days and two nights of marching and fighting and sleeping in the same clothes. Dan, John O’Neil, and many others had dark growths of beard on their faces. I realized I was still wearing my bloodstained white apron. I hastily removed it as the officer began a speech.

  “I am Captain Bryson, commander of this ship. You are under arrest for violating the neutrality laws of the United States. Until I receive further orders from Washington, you will remain aboard. Your men will also remain in custody. You will be allowed the freedom of this ship if you give your promise as gentlemen not to attempt to escape or communicate with anyone ashore.”

  “Just a moment, Captain,” John O’Neil said. “Has the president issued a proclamation?”

  “I’m not a lawyer. I’m acting under orders from Mr. Dart, the federal district attorney.”

  “We demand an interview with Mr. Dart,” O’Neil said.

  “I hardly think that’s necessary,” Bryson said. There was a distinct echo of an English accent in his voice. “Here’s a copy of a telegram he received last night from the attorney general.”

  He handed us the piece of paper.

  By direction of the president you are hereby instructed to cause the arrest of all prominent leading or conspicuous persons called “Fenians” who you may have possible cause to believe have been or may be guilty of violations of the neutrality laws of the United States.

  James Speed

  U.S. Attorney General

  We were utterly stunned by the obnoxious, hostile wording. By order of the president! By order of the man who had cheered us on and told us we were the hope of his administration! John O’Neil was especially devastated. The president was his personal friend.

  “We’ll give our paroles as you request, Captain,” he said in a pale, spiritless voice. “I’ll vouch for every man here. As for this young woman, she served with us as a nurse. I’m sure you have no facilities aboard this ship for her.”

  “If she participated in your expedition, she’s as guilty as the rest of you,” Bryson said. “She’ll stay.”

  Dr. Donnelly stepped forward and introduced himself. I was glad to see that he had reached the tug last night. Tom Gallaher had decided to stay with the wounded because he had no official connection with the Fenian army. Dr. Donnelly was on the rolls as the chief physician.

  “I’m concerned about the men in the scow, Captain,” he said. “Surely they can be allowed onto the dock or taken to an armory or ware house ashore.”

  “I think not,” Bryson said. “You have too many friends in Buffalo, and we have too few men to guard them.”

  For the next two days, we wandered the decks of the cutter Michigan or slumped in berths belowdecks and ate
disgusting cold pork and ship’s bread. Behind us, over five hundred men were crammed into the garbage scow. It had been the only craft the desperate Fenians in Buffalo could commandeer. The floor of the hold was covered with slime, and the deck around it could not hold more than thirty men. There were no facilities for relieving calls of nature and no roof or awning to protect the men from sun or rain. On Monday and Tuesday it was brutally hot, and on both days afternoon thunderstorms soaked the huddled, bedraggled men. Fevers began breaking out, and diarrhea became rampant. The odors that rose from the scow caused anyone who came close to it to choke. In desperation, Dr. Donnelly wrote a letter to William Roberts and smuggled it off the ship with the help of a cooperative Irish sailor. He said that conditions on the scow were worse than he had seen in the notorious Libby Prison in Richmond. He could not believe that brave men, most of whom had fought and bled “beneath the starry banner of freedom” in the late war, could be treated this way by the government of the United States.

  Finally, on the third day, Captain Bryson, who remained coldly aloof from us (except for condescending to allow me the use of his private toilet) announced we should prepare to depart. The men were ordered out of the scow, and we joined them on the dock. Reporters stood about laughing at our filthy, stinking condition. The men, of course, were far worse. I heard one reporter ask a particularly dirty man, “Have you seen enough of the Canadian volunteers, Pat?”

  “Sure we haven’t seen anything of them but their backs,” the man answered angrily.

  The reporter laughed in his face. “Are you sure you didn’t go poop in your pants, Pat, and start running before you got a good look at them?”

  “We beat them,” the man cried. “We beat them fair and square.”

  His friends hurried him away. The reporter shook his head, still laughing. We were dirty comical Irishmen and had to play our part for them, no matter what we said. My heart began turning to stone within me as I saw the impression we were making. How could the reporters believe this smelly rabble from the bottom of a garbage scow had defeated the Queen’s Own and other crack units of the Canadian volunteers?