The Battle of Ridgeway was contested near Ridgeway, Canada West, on June 2, 1866, between British troops and an irregular army of Irish-American invaders, the Fenians, whose ultimate goal was the establishment of a free Irish Republic.
The Fenians were an Irish-American brotherhood founded in New York in 1858 who aimed to work with related groups in Ireland to force the United Kingdom into negotiating toward the formation of an independent Irish Republic. Their leaders believed that even a marginally successful invasion of the Province of Canada or other parts of British North America would provide them with leverage in this effort. After an aborted invasion near the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, they met in Cincinnati, Ohio, and hatched a new plan for an invasion into Canada West (now southern Ontario) from Buffalo, New York.
The Fenians took advantage of the ready supply of arms in the United States after the recently concluded Civil War, and of the ample number of unemployed young men who had emerged from that conflict with some degree of military training. It was still however a ragtag army that assembled on the American shore of the Niagara River during the last weeks of May 1866. They made little attempt at secrecy, and both American and British authorities were aware of an imminent military operation. Despite half-hearted American attempts to prevent the river crossing — the United States was loath to go out of its way to help the British after the latter's support of the Confederacy in the Civil War — the Fenian troops secured boats and transferred some 1500 men across the Niagara, landing just above Fort Erie, Canada West, on June 1, 1866. They spent the night trying to rally the local citizenry to their cause and to commandeer supplies for their mission.
Meanwhile, the British were mobilizing both local militias and regular troops to defend against the impending invasion. When the Fenians, led by General John O'Neill, marched north along the river on the morning of June 2, they crossed Frenchman's Creek and clashed with British militia near the present town of Ridgeway. Both armies and their commanders were inexperienced, and the skirmish that ensued was marked by confusion and ill-timed retreats by each side. In the end, after a battle described by various observers and participants as lasting between one and three hours, the Fenians fell back in haste toward Fort Erie. British casualties included 9 dead and 37 wounded. No good record of Fenian losses exists, but Fort Erie residents saw their forces return in haste to the United States — on logs, on rafts, or by swimming — without having furthered their goals.
Ironically, though not having advanced their own cause of independence, the Fenian raid and the successful efforts of largely local troops to repulse it, helped to galvanize support for the Canadian Confederation which would soon emerge.
