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Show Not Defeated at Ridgeway. AMONG the historical sketches found on another page of this issue is a brief biography of Patrick Mc-Grath Mc-Grath of San Francisco, one of the Fenians who participated in General O'Neil's raid into Canada just after the close of our American civil war. Mention Men-tion is made of an encounter with the Queen's Own of Toronto and several thousand British regulars, concluding with this sentence: "There were sev- vim casualties ana tne attack resulted in the defeat of the Irishmen, who were expecting reinforcements from the American side, but which did not arrive ar-rive in time." The Nation, of San Francisco (from wTtich paper the biography is reproduced), repro-duced), says McGrath, "never a loquacious lo-quacious person, is so reticent about the Fenian matter that it is hard to obtain a fulL account from him of his record in the affair." This admission of the Nation explains the omission of any record of the famous fight at Ridgeway, and led our contemporary to the misleading conclusion that the battle resulted in defeat for the Irish. The real fact is, the British were badly- beaten at Ridgeway and the commander command-er of the Queen's Own surrendered to General O'Neil. Before this fight one or two skirmishes skir-mishes took place at or near Fort Erie, on the Niagara river, opposite Buffalo, in which the Fenians routed the enemy, en-emy, in no pitched battle were the Irish beaten; therefore, the word "defeat" "de-feat" cannot be applied to any. narrative nar-rative of action. After the battle of Ridgeway, O'Neil, unable to go ahead by reason of interference from the federal fed-eral authorities on the American side me 1 1 ci, oraerea nis men to scatter scat-ter and take chances on escape to American territory. In doing, so, some of the fugitives were captured by the British and imprisoned. This is the brief story of how the Fenian army of invasion was circumvented in its design de-sign of conquest, and defeat written for the whole Fenian movement. There are many living in Buffalo who will corroborate these facts, because that city was the storm center of Fenianism at the time, and its Irish-American Irish-American lads counted the largest number in O'Neil's small command. "Paddy" O'Day. who died recently in Buffalo, was a head center of the Fenian society in that city, and Pad- llv's onnal hnol. ,,... il. - - ....... l.v,uvo mm: me esseiH ui the Irish navy which took aboard the little Irish army of invasion across the Niagara river. Into these canal boats O'Neil's command took refuge after the retreat from Ridgeway. For two or three days they were out in the stream under the guns of the gunboat Michigan, prisoners of the United States, charged with violating the laws of our country in "making war on a friendly nation." But the American people would stand for no punishment to the Fenians nor any other enemies of Britain at that time. There were no Anglomaniacs like Hay in the j .v.. nan v.a.uiucu a.ue ireni anair and the aid given to the seceded states during the war by the British government govern-ment rankled in the bosoms of loyal Americans. So President Johnson was forced by popular sentiment to release the Fenian prisoners. Some of the men so released were veterans of the Union and confederate armies. The narrative of Mr. McGrath's imprisonment im-prisonment after that Ridgeway fight is interesting. So are the stories told by others in the affair now residing in Butte and Anaconda. Colonel n'T.enrv- of the latter place was with- O'Neil at the time. MicTiael Cantlon, now of Butte, but once a resident of Salt Lake City, has Injiis place of business at East Copper street pictures of the battle bat-tle of Ridgeway, one of which illustrates illus-trates the surrender of the British colonel colo-nel to General O'Neil. |
