Page:History of the Fenian raid on Fort Erie with an account of the Battle of Ridgeway.djvu/68

Rh the loss of a leg, and the "Tug" almost denuded of men, and the few left so hampered with a lot of worthless prisoners as to be unable to undertake anything.

Capt. McCallum finding he had no force with which to effect anything, decided to go back to Port Colborne and place the prisoners in safely. In doing so he was obliged to run the gauntlet of the fire of the Fenians who posted along the shore, kept up a heavy fire on them as they were steaming past, fortunately no one was hurt, the only effect being a number of bullet marks in the vessel.

It was most unfortunate that Col. Dennis and Capt. Akers so exceeded their instructions as to land their command at all. Col. Peacock would never for one moment have authorized the disembarkation of so small a force, especially as there was no object to be gained by it. It is remarkable that neither of these officers and one of them an engineer officer, should have thought of trying to strengthen the bulwarks of their vessel, and place her in as favourable a condition for fighting as possible. There was a pile of cord wood on the dock at Fort Erie and plenty also at Black Creek, if that had been piled up against the bulwarks, sloping up from the inside it would have made them musket proof, and the men could have fought behind a defence of that kind with comparative safety. The wheel could also have been protected in a somewhat similar manner, and then the vessel and its crew could have moved about with perfect impunity.

What was to have been gained by landing the men at Fort Erie cannot be imagined. Why these officers should give up the advantage of their vessel to fight ten times their number on shore is perfectly unaccountable. Had they barricaded the vessel and staid in the stream they could have made the village too hot to hold the enemy, and would, without doubt, have inflicted great loss on them, and have prevented vessels from coming over to take them away, or if they had come over could have run them down if they attempted to leave. Even had they been unsuccessful in all these points still it