Battle of Fort Erie (1866)

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Battle of Fort Erie

Date	June 2, 1866
Location	Fort Erie, Ontario
Result	Fenian victory

Combatants

Fenian Brotherhood

Province of Canada

Commanders

John O'Neill

John Stoughton Dennis

Strength

400+ militia

108 militia

Casualties

3-4 dead
8-10 wounded
59 captured

6 wounded
54 captured

Fenian Raids
Campobello Island – Ridgeway – Fort Erie – Pigeon Hill – Eccles Hill – Trout River

The Battle of Fort Erie was a bloody skirmish immediately following the Battle of Ridgeway on June 2, 1866, in Canada West. The Fenian force, withdrawing from Ridgeway towards the United States, met and defeated a small force of Canadian militia at Fort Erie.

In response to the Fenian occupation of Fort Erie on the night of July 1, militia units throughout the Niagara Region had been mobilized or put on alert. At Port Colborne, a detachment of 108 local militia under Lieutenant-Colonel John Dennis boarded a gunboat belonging to the Dunnville Naval Brigade and steamed east to the Niagara River, then scouted downriver as far as Black Creek.

The Fenians apparently gone, Dennis turned back upriver to secure the village of Fort Erie and deny them an easy escape route. Dennis and a company of the Welland Canal Volunteer Artillery Regiment landed without difficulty, rounding up a number of stragglers. But when John O'Neill returned with the bulk of his force from his victory at Ridgeway, the volunteers – expecting to encounter only scattered bands of defeated Fenians under close pursuit – were unable to resist them. A fierce firefight followed, in which the militia soldiers and sailors were swept off the shores and most of the Canadians who had landed were captured. Dennis, who escaped on foot by hiding in a friend's house and shedding his uniform, would later be court-martialled for deserting his men, but he was acquitted.

The remaining Canadians on the gunboat steamed back to Port Colborne, leaving O'Neill and the Fenians in possession of Fort Erie once more. However, with an estimated 5,000 British regulars and Canadian militia converging on his position, and a U.S. naval detachment blocking any attempts at reinforcement, that night O'Neill hastily planned his retreat back to New York State. Some Fenians chose to desert, crossing the river on a variety of stolen or improvised craft. The remainder, 317 in number, crossed in a body and surrendered to a U.S. naval party from the USS Michigan near Buffalo, putting an end to Fenian incursions along the Niagara Peninsula.

Canadian judge Kenneth Mackenzie was retained by the US Government to defend the Fenians. He secured acquittals for about half of them. ^[1]