90 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
in fours, along Front Street, west to Bathurst Street, where we were to 
entrain at the Great Western, Queen’s Wharf, Freight Shed. 
Two hundred and fifty of the 47th Regiment (regulars), under 
Lt. Col. Villiers, had already been entrained at the station. We were 
soon placed in the cars, and amid a torrent of cheers from the throngs 
who had surged upon the bridge and upon the ramparts of the old fort 
overlooking the railway yard, the train started on its way at 4.30. We 
ran through Hamilton without stopping. The overhead bridges and 
the sides of the railway cutting were crowded with people enthusiasti- 
cally cheering as indeed was also done at every hamlet on the way. 
On the train the utmost good fellowship and hilarity prevailed; 
greetings were lavishly returned to the young women who, as we passed, 
sent their waving signallings. Stops and delays were numerous and 
the men, many of whom owing to the hour of the assembly and the 
hurry of preparation had missed their mid-day meal soon, like boys off 
onan excursion, had made a big hole in the provender in their haversacks. 
THE ADVANCE TO FORT ERIE. 
It was dark when we passed St. Catharines, and night when we 
reached Suspension Bridge at 11 p.m. Here there was to be a halt for 
an hour waiting orders and we were to stay in the station. No definite 
arrangements having been made by the authorities for provisioning the 
men, some of the officers considered it a good opportunity for obtaining 
further supplies and to do a little foraging. Capt. McMurrich and Lieut. 
Patterson of our company soon effected arrangements with a neigh- 
bouring hotel and our company were taken over in squads and given a 
full meal. It was during one of these that our immaculate bugler boy 
first gained that notoriety for escapades which ever afterwards con- 
tinued to be earned by him. Being very much of a boy, he had a boy’s 
fondness for investigation, so that fooling with a rifle which he had 
picked up in the hotel he snapped the trigger. Fortunately the muzzle 
was pointing upwards and the bullet went through the ceiling causing 
a hurried rush to find out if any one was in the room above. No further 
harm was done, but the men learning a good lesson and the boy didn’t 
sit down quite so comfortably as previously. 
The telegraph wires were not working and as the condition of the 
track, which had only lately been laid down, was unknown, the railway 
authorities decided not to start the train until dawn, but we were put ° 
again into the cars to spend the night. 
In the early morning the train was transferred from the Great 
Western Railway to the new Erie and Niagara branch, and about 5 a.m. 
we were unloaded at Chippewa. Here we joined the 19th Lincoln 
Battalion, 350 men under Lieut. Col. Currie and the St. Catharines 
