In the year 1861 the British steamship Trent was proceeding from Nassau to London, having on board as passengers two gentlemen, Mr. Sliddel and Mr. Mason, commissioners from the Confederate Government at Richmond to France and England. The Southern Confederacy was at that time 'desperately anxious to secure recognition from the various European powers, even more so than the Soviet government at Moscow has been in recent months, but with this difference that they were everywhere unsuccessful. The Trent was boarded shortly after leaving the port of her departure by the United States crusier San Jacinto, Captain Charles Walker commanding, and search for and seizure was made of Messrs Mason and Sliddel, after some violent personal resistance on their part. The Trent proceeded on her way, arrived in England, the Captain told his story to the authorities and things began to happen. The fighting spirit of England rose at once. She demanded an apology of the United States government, instant restoration of the two commissioners and immediately began her preparations for war.

In the United States the incident had been hailed with noisy satisfaction. The men of the North felt that they had slipped one over on both the Confederacy and England. When the demand for an apology arrived in due time, however, the aspect of affairs changed. They realized there was trouble ahead. The great mass of the people were for instant acceptance of war. They were fighting one half of their own country already; why not take on an outsider as well while they were at it? But the occupant of the White House at that time, a long- lean man from Illinois with an uncanny gift of seeing far into the future, saw things in a different light. He reminded his councillors that they had committed the very offence for which the United States had made war on Britain in 1812. He overlooked those violations of neutrality England had already committed, which she continued throughout the Civil War and afterwards paid so dearly for in the court of arbitration which decided the Alabama claims. “One war at a time,” said Lincoln. “Let us first subdue the South and then, when peace has come, deal with Britain.” So the apology demanded was made, the two commissioners were given their liberty and another senseless war was happily averted, largely due to the hard common sense of one man. Would that there were more statesmen like him.

The reader will naturally ask what all this had to do with a township in Grey County. It may be answered that the event had its reactions even there. Throughout Canada the Trent affair, as it was subsequently called, roused an intense flame of patriotism. Mars became the popular deity. Volunteer companies and regiments were raised and recruited everywhere, independent of the government. There was no pay; no arms, no accoutrements either. In an intense wave of loyalty the people recognized that something must be done, and at once. An average of six or seven companies were formed in every county in Ontario. Among them was enrolled the Leith Company, Provisional Rifles, which was afterwards gazetted as Number Three Company, Thirty First Battalion of Grey County.

This was in 1862 and before the excitement caused by the Trent affair had subsided. The men were enrolled that year and at the first meeting of the new company Mr. Jas. Cannon, who had been active in the work of organization and recruiting, was unanimously elected Captain.

The company’s establishment consisted of three commissioned officers and fifty-four non-commissioned officers and men. Their names as they appear on the muster rolls of the year 1866 were as follows:

Toronto, June 3rd, 1866.

Muster roll, number three company, First Provisional Battalion Rifles :—

Captain—James Cannon, Sr ;
Lieutenant—James Pattison Telford ;
Ensign—Robert Vanwyck ;

Sergeants—

J. S. Wilson ;
James Cannon, Jr ;
Wm. Armstrong ;
Malcolm MacNeil ;

Corporals—

John Turnbull ;
James Grady ;
Wm. Armstrong ;
William Cannon ;

Lance Corporals—

Gilbert MacKay ;
Neil MacNeil ;
Bugler—Donald MacKay ;

Privates—

John Armstrong, Andrew Biggar, Thomas Brown, William Buzza, John Cathrae, George A. Cameron, Andrew Cameron, Thomas Cameron, Benjamin Cameron, Thomas Campbell, John Campbell, Rowland Campbell, Colin Campbell, Patrick Downie, Thomas Dennison, Leslie Dixon, Hugh Elliot, John Ead, John Grady, John Hogg, James Hogg, Charles Lemon, John Lefler, Ronald Livingstone, John Lemon, William MacKay, John MacKay, Donald MacKay, James MacDowall, Duncan McTavish, Henry Moore, William Mathieson, Andrew MacLean, Duncan Morrison, William Nesbit, Daniel North, Charles Noble, John Platt, George Riddell, John Wilson, William Wilson.

The names of these men should be perpetuated in grateful remembrance by the people of Sydenham, for they were the first in the history of the township to offer their services to their country, the occasion being the Fenian raid of 1866, when this muster roll was compiled.

A cursory glance over the roll would at first lead the reader to believe the men had been recruited in a parish of the Highlands of Scotland. Cut the Camerons, the Campbells, the MacKays, the MacNeils and various other Macs out of it and little is left. They were a brawny lot of young Celts too, these Highlanders from the Lake Shore Line. From the very beginning the Company was famous for the physique of its men; the sons of Anak had nothing on them for size. For many years afterwards Number Three could be picked out in a brigade by reason of the great average height of its rank and file and they all had physical strength proportionate to their height. “As fine a body of men as I have ever seen in Canada,” said Lieut-Colonel Dennison, in speaking of them on their arrival in Toronto during the Fenian invasion, “but the officers are not worth a damn!” It is gratifying to know the Colonel subsequently changed his opinion as to the officers.

After its first organization the company met for drill once a week at Dunedin, as Annan was then called. The drill hall, still standing, was erected there but has long since lost its martial uses. The equipment was furnished in part by the Imperial Government arid there was reason to believe, from some of the markings on the overcoats and other accoutrements, they had seen service at Sebastopol, in the Crimea. The first instructors were Captain, afterwards Col. Brodie, and his son Vivian Brodie. Captain Chas. Noble, an old veteran who had seen active service in Spain and whose fine soldierly appearance is still remembered by old residents, also acted as instructor, drilling’ the company in his usual thorough manner. At a later date two instructors from the regular forces, Sergeants Kelly and Ward, were sent by the government to assist in instruction. The latter was a non-commissioned officer from the Grenadier Guards and the company rapidly grew proficient in drill.

This continued until 1866 when the company was regularly gazetted, and as we are only concerned with the beginning of things this notice will not extend beyond that year. From its unique circumstances however, the Fenian Raid of that year and the services rendered by Number Three Company in repelling it should be briefly touched upon.

The Fenian invasion, or rather the motives that prompted it, and the passive attitude assumed toward it by the United States government will always remain more or less a mystery. It was a notoriously-known fact in the winter of 1865-1866 that over one thousand Fenians were assembled at Buffalo and drilling in anticipation of some fort of trouble, but the United States authorities were asleep, and they did nothing about it. The country was recovering from the turmoils of civil war for one thing ; for another they had the poorest excuse of a man for president that ever held such a high office. It is difficult to see how Andrew Johnston was even elected vicepresident. With the assassination of Lincoln he became president and the best chief executive the Republic had ever known until that time was succeeded by the worst. He was drunk when he took the oath of office and acted more like a charlatan than a sober statesman for all the time he filled it. Its high dignity was cheapened and degraded in a manner that has made every honest American blush for shame since. It is certain, too, that the United States had no reason to be other than grateful for the part Canada had played in the war. The Honorable George Brown had invoked his splendid eloquence in the cause of freedom and against “the peculiar institution” of the South. Forty-two thousand Canadians had crossed the border, enlisted under the banners of the North and fought for the slave’s emancipation. One of the MacNeil brothers of Leith was of them. Whether it was the antagonism aroused over the Trent affair or the depredations of Southern cruisers built in British yards in violation of the laws of neutrality, the fact remains that there was a strong hostile feeling toward Britain and all things British in the United States for years after the war. Some American historians, with amusing effrontery, have attempted to show that the invasion would have been successful and Toronto captured and burned but for the sudden activity of the American government, when it was discovered what was going on.

But such airy persiflage does not alter the facts. On the morning of June 1st about fifteen hundred Fenians, starting from Buffalo and crossing the border, landed at Fort Erie and the invasion was on. Had it not been that many of them were drunk that morning and remained so during their hectic stay in Canada until their hurried departure, the consequences might have been more serious than they were. These Irish Americans were the scum and offscouring, the riff-raff of the armies, North and South. But the Great War taught us the old lesson anew that a bad man may be a very brave one and that depraved criminals sometimes make excellent soldiers, just as pacifists are often the most useful citizens in times of peace.

The dangers or extent of the invasion seem to have been matters in which most Canadians were utterly in the dark. Rumors, magnified until they became preposterous, were rife everywhere. Probably this was because the telegraph system was still so limited in scope. These rumors spread to Grey County and on the morning of May Sth, while the Reverend Alexander Hunter was conducting a service in the Leith church, a new fledged one spread something like a panic in his congregation that must have seemed amusing to many of them when the facts were known. In the midst of the discourse the door opened and Mr. Leslie Dixon walked rapidly to the pulpit, where he whispered a message in the ear of a member of the Session. He heard it with the most admirable composure and after the messenger had departed announced to the people that there was reason to believe a large party of Fenians was coming up the bay in an armed flotilla. The assembly immediately dispersed with far more haste than dignity. The strange part of it seems to be that even the minister believed the report. The incredibility of Fenians making their appearance in such an out-of-the-way spot never crossed the minds of the watchers on the beach, to whom the advance of these strange craft must have appeared pretty much like the approach of the Spanish Armada on the coasts of England did to the lighters of the beacon fires of warning, in the reign of good Queen Bess. However, the mirage, or whatever it was that caused the optical illusion, lifted, and the threatened cloud of invasion turned out to be a number of canoes coming from Cape Croker laden with Indians, who doubtless would have been diverted had they known the sensation they had stirred up. This is only a solitary instance of the alarms, many of them even more ridiculous, that filled the country.

On the morning of June 2nd, Mr. Joseph Parker, having ridden all night, arrived at Dunedin from Collingwood bearing a telegram which, by a misunderstanding too lengthy to explain here, had been interpeted as orders for number three company to proceed to the front. The company mustered in full force at Leith, hurried good-byes were paid to relatives and they embarked on the steamer Clifton for Collingwood. There was no telegraphic communication between Owen Sound and that town at the time, else a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding might have been averted. Number Two company of Owen Sound had gone to the frontier at Sarnia. After the company had embarked on the Clifton, the officers found aboard ship Major George Gordon to whom the telegram brought by Mr. Parker to Dunedin from Collingwood was addressed, and, after a vexatious tangle was unravelled, it was discovered the Leith company were proceeding to Toronto without orders. But British soldiers are not in the habit of turning back and after a momentary consultation among the officers it was decided to go on.

The Fenians, as has been stated, were an unknown quantity and the men of Number Three Company might have had a long and bloody campaign ahead of them for all they knew. But certain it is that never did soldiers march away to war with such gay abandon as these men from Leith and the Lake Shore Line. Certain it is, too, that when the Clifton cast off her lines at Leith dock she left sad and anxious hearts behind. The horrors of war were fresh in the minds of the older people at least. Little more than a year before Lee and his legions had surrendered to Grant at Appotmattox Court House, and the most sanguinary and costly war in all history up to that date had ended at last. The bloody battles of the early years of the Civil War, Shiloh, Manassas, Fredricksburg, Chic-kamauga, Chancellorsville, Malvern Hill, Vicksburg, Gettysburg and Antietam, just to mention a few among many, and the desperate fighting around Richmond in the summer of 1864 when Grant inexorably hammered the life out of Lee, were recent remembrances that must have caused many a sleepless night in Sydenham. Let no man cherish the fond delusion that Americans, of that day at least, were too proud or afraid to fight. The casualties in many of these battles per man engaged were higher than in the Peninsular War, the Waterloo campaign, the Crimean or Franco-Prussion wars or even the Great War itself. How many sad homes would there be in Sydenham should her boys engage in battles where the casualty lists were even a hundred fold less? We sometimes smile at the Raid now but the danger then seemed imminent and real.

Aboard the Clifton however there were no signs of depression. Far from it. The stalwart six-footers of Number Three were in the highest spirits and when they debarked at Collingwood and were joined by the company from that town for the journey by rail to Toronto the proceedings grew hilarious. The coaches were badly crowded and many of the Collingwood men crawled out on the roofs, claiming they needed more air. The late Mr. Neil MacNeil of Leith once told the author that the trip Toronto-ward was the noisiest one he ever made in his life. What added to the general excitement were the wild reports, met with at every station as they stopped at it, of an engagement at that moment raging between the Fenians and the forces that had been hurridly concentrated to repel the invasion. The company “pote,” as Mr. Dooley has called him, had suddenly found his voice and he improvised war songs and parodies upon the spot suitable to the circumstances. The Civil War had been prolific in war songs and some of these were pressed into service. George Root’s stirring war ode, “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp the boys go marching” was a favorite and was parodied by one of the aforesaid “potes” about as follows:

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp the boys go marching.
Cheer up! let the Fenians come,
For beneath the Union Jack we will drive them back
And we’ll fight for our dear old Canadian home.

Impromptu concerts were organized and the same kind of orations delivered. In the midst of such unwarlike scenes the train arrived at Toronto, about midnight of the same day on which they had left Leith. Here they found a number of dead and wounded from the engagement being brought into Toronto and some Fenian prisoners also.

The company marched to the large drill hall and here found a scene of excitement beyond anything they had ever witnessed. Companies were being drilled by their officers, civilians were singing patriotic songs, arms and accoutrements and ball ammunition were being served out while a continuous roar like reverberating thunder shook the building. “It was magnificent but it was not war as a military observer said of the charge of the Six Hundred. The men of Number Three with their officers then started a long hunt for something to eat and finally bagged a meal in a small bakery, the commissary department having collapsed.

Two days later they were formed, with six other companies, into a provisional battalion under the command of Col. A. M. Smith, President of the Royal Canadian Bank of Toronto; the battalion immediately boarded a train for Kingston and patrolled the roads between that city and Toronto for three days. They were afterwards billeted in Kingston for ten days, when they were moved to Coburg. Here they remained until June 21st when orders were received for them to return home. This they did and within thirty days from the date of embarkation at Leith all had returned to their usual occupations. The invasion had passed into history.

Thus ended the campaign of the Fenian Raid. Theodore Roosevelt once said of the Spanish American war that the great trouble was there was not enough war to go around for the boys who went to Cuba. The same might be said of the Fenian invasion. It was as indefensible as Germany’s invasion of Belguim but had these cutthroat scoundrels been allowed to wreak their own sweet will upon us our plight might even have been worse than that of the Belgians. A medal and a grant of land in Northern Ontario were, about 1900, made to each veteran who had served in the Raid, by the Ontario government.

An incident in the history of the Company that excited great local interest at the time, was the presentation of a beautiful set of colors to the officers and men, by the ladies of the neighborhood. During the winter of 1868-67 while the Raid was still fresh in their minds, the ladies busied themselves in spare moments in making a large blue silk flag, which from the accounts that have come down to us must have been the most gorgeous thing of its kind. March 22nd, 1867 was the (date set for. the presentation ceremony, which was held in the open air and on the green in front of the Annan schoolhouse. It was a chilly season of the year for an open air event but the fires of patrotism were burning brightly enough at the time to ward Off any physical discomfort. The Company being drawn at Attention with the officers in their respective stations, the presentation address was read by Mrs. Peter Taylor and a suitable reply was made by Captain Telford. Our regret is that their considerable length makes the insertion of these respective addresses impossible as they throw a valuable light upon the general feeling excited by the Raid. Miss Campbell then formally presented the colors to the keeping of the Company and the Rev. Robert Dewar offered up a short but appropriate prayer.

On such an occasion it was inevitable that the poetic muse should seek expression in some shape. It has been said that every man is at some time in his life obsessed with the idea he is a born poet. Some survive the notion; others persist in it until the end of their days. The passion for versification seems to have run rife at the time and a most warlike ode had been prepared for the event by a local poet whose two sons had gone to Toronto in the previous year with the confident expectation of getting to grips with the Fenians. At this point in the ceremony it was read by Hugh Reid, and for the edification of our readers it is appended in full below. The author evidently took great advantage of what is called poetic license but the martial ardor it inspired must have more than compensated for any deficiency in poetic merit found in its lines.

Ye stalwart sons of patriots true,
Accept from us these colors blue,
Let deeds of yours ne’er stain the hue
That leads you in the fight.

On Scotia’s hills, with heather red—
On Emerald Isle, by Shannon fed—
On Huron’s shores your sons were bred—
Banded to guard the right.

Come Saxons! trusty as your steel,
From Merry England, true and leal—
Let Dougald’s stirring pibroch peal
Along the martial line.

Let not fell discord wreck your band,
Your honor guard with heart and hand,
As brothers live—as brothers stand—
When called to face the foe.

Let not the foreign despot’s call
To arms your heats of oak appal;
For freedom stand—for freedom fall—
And lay the miscreant low.

Boast not of deeds as yet unborn,
The shock of war you’ve yet to learn;
Let glorious Bruce and Bannockburn
Your watchword ever be.

For Queen and Country draw your blades,
Your homes—your friends—your blooming maids;
Then trust in Heaven, which ever aids
The valiant and the free.

When the shrill bugle sounds alarm
Join rank to rank and arm to arm,
The patriot’s zeal your breasts shall warm—
Strike! Strike for Liberty!

This gift of the muse, evidently written in imitation of the Scottish national anthem, was received with loud applause by the whole assemblage. The wrappings that confined the flag were then removed and as the glorious standard of old England unfolded to the breeze the stirring associations of a thousand years that have enshrined the cross of St. George in the hearts of millions of her subjects in every quarter of the globe swept through the gathering and found vent in a spontaneous cheer, repeated time and again. It was a convincing testimonial on the part of the stout hearted men of Sydenham, soldiers and civilians alike, of their attachment to monarchial institutions and the British Crown. The outburst having subsided, three cheers for Hei Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, were called for and were given with rousing fervor. This marked the conclusion of the ceremony. What seems to have been an indispensable part of such occasions at that time followed at VanWyck’s Hotel the same evening, \yhen the officers and men of No. 3 Company with their invited guests to the number of ninety sat down to a sumptuous repast prepared by the genial proprietor, Robert VanWyck himself, to which we may be sure substantial justice was done. The whole event passed off in the happiest possible manner and without the slightest untoward occurrence to mar its harmony.

Of the officers of Number Three who served, Lieutenant Telford, afterwards Colonel of the Thirty First Battalion, and now in his eighty-sixth year alone survives. Of the non-commissioned officers and privates it is impossible to speak with like certainty, but by far the greater number have crossed the silent river and, let us hope, have found eternal peace.

The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat
The soldier’s last tattoo;
No more on Life’s parade shall meet
That brave and gallant few.
On Fame’s eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread;
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

Glancing briefly at the subsequent history of the company we find Lieutenant Telford raised to the captaincy, shortly after the Raid, Captain Cannon having become Major of the Battalion. In 1888 Captain Telford received another promotion and William Ross of Leith was given the rank of Captain, which he held until 1891, resigning in that year. He was succeeded by Robert McKnight of Owen Sound and a year or so later the headquarters of the Company were moved to Owen Sound and Number Three Company of Leith, as such, was numbered among the things that were. Leith had been, until that time, the only rural community in Grey from which a company had been recruited for the 31st Regiment.