In 2009 family members of James Pell who live in the area where the battle of Eccles Hill took place found the location of where photos of the Red Sashes were taken back in 1870---the foliage has become somewhat overgrown since the photos of May 25th 1870 but they are convinced that this is were those original photos were taken.
This is an assembled story of the Battle of Eccles Hill, put together from a number of different sources--I hope that it is accurate.
On June 20, 1868, Asa Westover and Andrew Ten Eyck of Dunham, Quebec, organized a small band of local men into the Missisquoi Home Guard called. They were known as the “Red Sashes” because of the distinctive red band they wore across their chests. Although they used their own arms and ammunition initially, Westover and James Pell visited several factories in Massachusetts to determine a more suitable weapon for the home guard. They selected the breech-loading Ballard Sporting Rifle, which was known for its accuracy. The rumours of another invasion kept the home guard alert and, along with regular drill and sharp-shooting practices, they also selected strategic positions in which to place their men around Eccles Hill should the Fenians return.
The Home Guards, who had shown remarkable military sophistication in their planning, now revealed their trump card — expert military intelligence. A Vermont resident, S.N. Hunter, had offered helpful information to the Canadian militia during the Fenian raid of 1866. Since then, Hunter had moved to Canada and joined the Home Guards. However, he remained on friendly terms with his former neighbours in Vermont, who kept him informed about Fenian preparations for war.
On the afternoon of May 23, 1870, Hunter received word that the anticipated Fenian advance was imminent. Hunter raced to Frelighsburg, where he alerted several of the town leaders. Later that evening, he and another member of the Home Guards made a reconnaissance mission over the border. When they reached the town of Franklin, Vermont, near midnight, the townsfolk were gathered in great anticipation as the first wagonloads of Fenian arms and ammunition arrived.
The two Canadian amateur spies raced back to Frelighsburg, where they awakened the town officials and reported what they had seen in Franklin. The local leaders then fired off three telegrams: one to Lt.-Col. William Osborne Smith, assistant adjutant general of the Montreal Military District; one to Lt.-Col. Brown Chamberlin, commander of the local militia force; and one to the provincial government.
After some discussion, it was decided that the Home Guards would assemble on Eccles Hill and take up their carefully marked fighting positions. Dawn was just a few hours away as the call went out to the farmers and tradesmen who were soon to become warriors.
The rain continued to fall during the gloomy morning hours of Tuesday, May 24, 1870, as the Home Guards gathered on Eccles Hill. The anxious men speculated about the activities on the other side of the border. Hunter volunteered to once again scout out the situation in Vermont. This time he found more than seventy wagonloads of weapons, ammunition, and other military equipment stockpiled by the sides of the roads, but he did not see any large concentrations of Fenian troops.
Westover accompanied Hunter to Frelighsburg to report this new information to the authorities. But when the two men arrived, they were informed that Brown Chamberlin and Osborne Smith had cabled back a discouraging response to the telegram that had been sent to them from Frelighsburg the previous day. The authorities — who were being careful to keep secret their own plans for meeting the Fenian threat — replied that they did not believe Hunter’s reports of Fenian movements to be credible. To the Home Guards, the meaning seemed clear— they could expect no help in opposing the Fenian advance.
As the bleak afternoon drew to a close, Westover assembled the Home Guards and organized them into a night watch and a day shift as they settled in to their grim, determined vigil near the border.
About nine o'clock that night, a messenger arrived from Frelighsburg with another telegram from Montreal. This time the message was more encouraging:
“Westover and Red Scarf Men should occupy old Fenian position at once, if possible, and pester the Hank of any party crossing. I go to Stanbridge [Quebec] by next train. B. Chamberlin, Lt-Col.” The earlier telegram had apparently been part of a ruse to keep the military’s plans secret.
The Home Guards were filled with renewed hope. The Canadian militia intended to join the Home Guards in the fight. The farmers returned to their watch with a strengthened sense of purpose. They would need it.
Shortly alter midnight, the jingle and squeak of an approaching wagon could be heard through the misty darkness. Two Home Guards halted the wagon and asked the driver and passenger their business. One of the men in the wagon whispered the Fenian password, “Winooski,” and then explained that they were to report to O'Neill, the Fenian general. The Fenians were instead briskly spirited away as prisoners of war by an escort of five armed Home Guards.
At four o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, May 25, 1870, twenty-two Canadian militiamen from Dunham arrived at Eccles Hill to reinforce the Home Guards. Near dawn, another twenty militia soldiers came in from Stanbridge, about twenty-five kilometres northwest of Frelighsburg. Although there were rumoured to be thousands of Fenians arriving in Vermont, the sturdy Canadian force at Eccles Hill was growing in strength and confidence.
As the spring sunshine dried the soggy fields around Eccles Hill, Westover released half of his men to get a hot meal. Many of them hadn't left their defensive positions in twenty-four hours. Westover probably feared that, for some, it would be their last meal.
Just after half the Canadian force had left for their breakfast at a local farm, the Fenians began to assemble on the Vermont side of Groat’s Creek. Clad in dark green uniform jackets or blue Union Army coats, the Fenians presented a daunting sight as they formed ranks and shouldered their gleaming Springfield rifles with fixed bayonets. While many were combat veterans of the Civil War, there were also pink-faced teenagers in the ranks. In his report after the battle, O'Neill said of his soldiers, “Many of them were boys who had never been in a fight before.”
“General” John O’Neill, a Union Army cavalry officer, a veteran of the Fenian battle of Ridgeway in 1866, and president of the Irish Republican Brotherhood senate, selected May 24 (the Queen's Birthday) for the second invasion. Perhaps he chose that date for the sense of drama it would make.
On May 23, every train bound north from New York, Boston, and the New England States, carried contingents of Fenian soldiers on their way to the appointed rendezvous at the border. The “General” established his headquarters in Franklin, Vermont, and the Fenian camp at Hubbard’s Farm, close to the town. O’Neill fully expected thousands of supporters, but once again, delays in transportation and communications meant that the forces failed to appear. Only about 800 reported for duty.
Unknown to O’Neill, however, the element of surprise was not in his favour. His chief lieutenant, Henri Caron, was really Thomas Billis Beach, a British spy who reported regularly to Canadian contacts on the developing plans. In addition, Asa Westover had established a network of scouts in Vermont to give him timely warning about Fenian activity at the border. Amusingly, as the day of the incursion at Eccles Hill approached, people from the surrounding countryside arrived in wagons to view the battle.
The Montreal militia which had been parading for the Victoria Day celebrations was prepared to move toward the border. A picket of the Richelieu Light Infantry was stationed at Des Rivières (Notre-Dame-de-Stanbridge) and at Stanbridge East. The 52nd Waterloo Battalion, located at Dunham, and the 60th Missisquoi Battalion, “accustomed to false alarms,” made their way slowly to Eccles Hill. Only about forty men of the 60th Battalion had reported for duty under the command of Lt-Colonel Brown Chamberlin. Thus, when the Fenians crossed the border after the lunch hour on May 25, the Missisquoi Home Guard were the only force to hold the border from the Fenian advance. The Red Sashes were entrenched at their hidden vantage points and the Fenians never suspected that Eccles Hill was already lost to them.
A correspondent with the Boston Daily Advertiser spoke with O'Neill just before the assault and reported, “General O'Neill is in the best of spirits and anticipates no serious resistance in Canada. He hopes there will be enough to amuse his men.” O'Neill, never one to shy away from drama or bombast, addressed the two hundred or so just before they went to fight, referring to them as “soldiers of the advance guard of the American Irish army, for the liberation of Ireland from the yoke of our oppressor....” With a cheer, the Irish-Americans charged across the bridge onto Canadian soil.
The anxious Canadians gripped their rifles and peered through their sights as they tracked the forward movement of the Fenians invaders. As they had discussed many times, they squeezed off their first rounds only when the green and blue figures reached Canadian soil. At that moment, the Home Guards ceased to be farmers and neighbours — the amusement had begun.
Home Guard John Bell's first shot struck Fenian John Rowe in the neck. Rowe was killed instantly as he pitched forward on the dusty road.
After the initial volley, the Fenians scrambled for cover under the bridge, in the creek bed, and in farm buildings behind the creek. Home Guard Thomas Shephard of Frelighsburg shot and killed Fenian M. O'Brien, of Moriah, New York, as the Irish-American ran for cover through a field behind the creek.
Meanwhile, Osborne Smith, commander of the Montreal militia, had left Eccles Hill and was on his way to Stanbridge Station to bring up reinforcements. When he learned that the Fenian assault had commenced, he reversed direction and galloped full tilt back to Eccles Hill. Disregarding the Fenian fire, the Crimean War veteran rode onto the summit, dismounted, and took command of the border defence.
O’Neill took an advance guard of 200 men across the border in “columns of four with fixed bayonets” and kept the rest of his men at Alva Rykert’s farm on the Vermont side. As soon as the last man crossed the line, the Red Sashes unleashed a “withering hail of bullets from their concealed positions” on the hill. Fenian flag bearer John Rowe of Burlington Vermont, and Fenian M. O’Brien of Moriah, New York, were killed; Lieutenant John Hallinan, Captain E. Croman and Privates James Keenan and Frank Carrigan were mortally wounded. Captain Croman was a Civil War veteran who had received a first-class certificate from the Montreal Military School for militia officers. He died of his wounds a few days after the battle. Frank Carrigan of Connecticut was only 19 years old.
When the Victoria Rifles and other volunteers arrived to bolster the Red Sashes, there was little for the Fenians to do but surrender. An intermittent exchange of gunfire continued until the evening hours but the raid was essentially over. The 60th Missisquoi Battalion took possession of the Fenian field gun and the jacket of Fenian John Rowe was taken from his body to present to Prince Arthur.
The Fenians quickly scattered despite O’Neill’s endeavours to rally his men by shouting “Men of Ireland, I am ashamed of you.” The Canadian charge was too much for the Irish-Americans, who sprinted across the border, leaving much of their equipment behind. O’Neill himself went to Rykert’s attic to watch the events unfold and was soon taken prisoner by U.S. marshals for breaking the Neutrality Act. Although the remaining Fenians and other reinforcements were ready to take action, there seemed to be no direction once O’Neill was taken into custody.
The incursions of the Fenians provided enough of an external threat to keep the Red Sashes on high alert for most of the summer of 1870. The few days of disruption to the normally peaceful countryside resulted in years of re-telling the stories of the Fenian raids. As time progressed and memories gave way to exaggeration, the raids were referred to as the Fenian battles or wars. By 1871, the Fenians were a spent force and the fragments of what once had been an enthusiastic organization gave up the idea of invading Canada even though they never relinquished their fidelity to Ireland.
