Peter Vronsky made his reputation writing about the psychology of homicidal sociopaths. Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters (2004 Berkley) and Female Serial Killers: How And Why Women Become Monsters (2007 Berkley) were well-received by the gore-loving community and set Vronsky on track to becoming a successful crime writer.
Instead Vronsky enrolled in the University of Toronto’s history department as a PhD candidate. His research focused on the Battle of Ridgeway, the culmination of the 1866 Fenian invasion of Canada.
Vronsky had chosen fertile ground. The battle, the last fought in the Great Lakes basin, was almost forgotten, rating a line or two in Canadian history texts. The battlefield itself was poorly marked, though undisturbed. Yet Ridgeway was an important spur to the Confederation movement.
During the United States Civil War the Union and Confederacy recruited soldiers from the streets of Dublin and the worn-out Irish countryside with the promise of cash and citizenship. Thousands enlisted. Most shared a hatred of Great Britain and its empire including pre-Confederation Canada. The war’s end left an army of jobless, motivated and trained soldiers.
On June 1, 1866 more than 1,000 Fenians crossed the Niagara River from Buffalo, N.Y. and took the town of Fort Erie. Their plan? March inland and seize the Welland Canal at Port Colborne, then carry onto Brantford, Ont. and cut the main line of the Grand Trunk Railway.
Here, the plot grew vague. Fenians considered they might exploit their conquests in Canada, or force the United Kingdom to negotiate for Irish independence. It should have been a farce. Instead it became a debacle.
Confronting the battle-hardened Irish Civil War vets at the village of Ridgeway was a ragged band of farmers, shopkeepers and University of Toronto militia. The Canadian commander suffered a nervous breakdown in the battle. One group of 28 U of T students sent deep into Fenian-held territory was mauled. Ten Canadian militiamen died.
Vronsky is a skilled writer who ably describes the battle and the subsequent cover-up. The one remaining mystery is why so few Canadians were killed. Perhaps even Fenians, most of them seasoned soldiers, could not bring themselves to gun down boys as they ran for their lives.
By Staff
Ridgeway: The American Fenian Invasion and the 1866 Battle That Made Canada by Peter Vronsky; Allen Lane Canada; 368 pages; ISBN 9780-6700-68036; $34
