Retired AF Guy said:
I fear the "more patriotic version" applies considerable artistic licence. The wikipedia narrative is closer to what I feel is the truth based on extensive research.
One of the documents which is rarely quoted is the investigation into the events at Ridgeway ordered by the militia authorities in Toronto and submitted on 30 June 1866. The investigating officer walked the battlefield and interviewed participants. In the report it is clear that the climax of the battle came as the Canadian skirmishers had advanced to the Bertie Road which runs east-west about 1.5 km north of and roughly parallel to the Garrison Road, which was the first Canadian position. He wrote
This would seem to have been the condition of affairs when the enemy made an advance - our line was thrown into confusion - a cry of cavalry coming tended to increase it - square was formed on the road where [shown on a sketch map] and while in square one man was killed. The column had barely been reformed, the officer commanding seeing no cavalry and being aware of the increased risk from his formation, when the running back of the troops on the right followed by the enemy close upon them emparted the panic to those on the road and they also broke and ran.
It should be understood that in the original Fenian plan, the invasion of the Niagara Peninsula was a diversion to draw off British and Canadian troops from other landing in what is now SW Ontario and the area south of Montreal. When these did not occur, the Fenians who had returned to Fort Erie were evacuated by barge back towards Buffalo. As they entered Americans waters they were intercepted by an American vessel and arrested.
17, the 13th Bn is today The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, (RHLI), not the Hamilton Light Infantry Regiment, and in 1866 Port Dalhousie was at the mouth of the Welland Canal, not near it, p 60.
