SECTION Il., 1910. [85] Trans. R. S.C. 
[V.—The Fenian Raid of 1866 and Events on the Frontier. 
By BarLow CUMBERLAND, M.A. 
President Ontario Historical Society, Captain, Retired List. 
(Presented by Dr. W. WitrrED CAMPBELL, and read Sept. 27, 1910.) 
The President, the Rev. Dr. Bryce, at the meeting of the Royal 
Society of Canada, held last May, gave a narrative of events connected 
with the Queen’s Own Regiment in which he had served (in the Univer- 
sity College Co.) as Lance-Corporal, and of the advance of Col. Booker’s 
Column from Port Colborne to Ridgeway and Fort Erie, being the 
movements of the western wing of the forces then defending the Niagara 
Frontier. 
The movements of the Eastern wing, being that of Col. Peacock’s 
Column from Chippewa, of which the “10th Royals” in which I was 
then serving formed a part, not having hitherto been written, it was 
desired that I should give a paper recording them. 
Much has been written of the movements of the Western Column 
culminating as it did in the action at Ridgeway, but little has been 
given of the Eastern. It is thought well that both should be recorded. 
A narrative of events in which the narrator has personally partici- 
pated must of necessity be somewhat individualistic, the “ego” fre- 
quently intervene, but, as palliative for this, it is out of such leaflets 
of personal observation and record that material is afforded for the 
assistance of subsequent combined historical narrative. The aroma 
of the period is formed on contemporaneous experiences instead of 
from colourings of sympathetic invention. 
THE CONDITIONS PRECEDING THE RalIp. 
As prelude to the events it may be well to give somewhat of the 
conditions which preceded the movements of the Forces on the Frontier. 
During the early months of the spring of 1866 rumours had been 
rife of the possibilities of a forward movement being made against 
Canada by the combined forces of the Fenian organization then so 
active in the United States. England, as said their orators, was “to 
be humiliated through her territory in Canada, the Irish Flag of Freedom 
was to be raised over the Union Jack on British soil, and a vital blow 
be struck for the freeing of Ireland from the Saxon Yoke.” 
The time was opportune. On the American side thousands of 
trained soldiers were being disbanded from the armies in both the 
Northern and Southern divisions of the Civil War, and were restless 
