Chapter V: The English Fleet

The preparations which had been going on all winter in English Naval circles were nearly completed at the time of England's formal declaration of war, so that there was but little delay before the first fleet was ready to sail.

This was intended to operate against New York and Philadelphia; and was to be followed in about a month by two others, one of which was to operate against Boston and other New England seaports; and the other to attack Baltimore, and thence work southward, bombarding the cities of Washington, Norfolk, Charleston and Savannah.

The first fleet consisted of the turret ships:

Victoria, 11,470 tons, two 110 ton guns.
Sanspareil, 11,470 tons, one 70 ton gun, twelve 6 inch.
Edinburgh, 9,150 tons, four 45 ton guns, five 6 inch.

The armored ships:

Camperdown, 10,000 tons, four 67 ton guns, six 6 inch.
Collingwood, 9,150 tons, four 44 ton guns, six 6 inch.
Howe, 9,700 tons, four 67 ton guns, four 6 inch.

The partially armed cruisers:

Orlando, 5,000 tons, two 9 inch guns, ten 6 inch.
Narcissus, 5,000 tons, two 9 inch guns, ten 6 inch.
Undaunted, 5,000 tons, two 9 inch guns, ten 6 inch.

and the improvised merchant cruisers:

Etruria, Umbria and City of New York.

Besides these large vessels, were numerous second and third class cruisers, despatch boats, and torpedo boats and launches; so that the total number of vessels, large and small, in the fleet, considerably exceeded one hundred--and all of the larger ones were armed with the most formidable weapons known to modern science; many of which had a range of more than ten miles.

The date of the sailing of this formidable fleet (the 20th of April) was, of course, cabled over the French Cable to New York--the English Cables, having been seized by the Canadian Government, being no longer available to the Americans.

The destination of the fleet could only be surmised, as it sailed under sealed orders; but it was taken for granted that it was New York, and preparations were made accordingly. Immediately after England's declaration of war, the President issued a call for 250,000 volunteers, which had been responded to by more than a million men. The New York City Militia volunteered in a body to do garrison duty in the forts of the harbor, and such of the old guns as didn't burst at the first few experimental discharges at the targets, were burnished up, and made to look as formidable as possible. The marine militia drilled constantly by night and by day; and the bay and harbor seemed fairly alive with small craft of all kinds, rushing hither and thither, each one bent upon some offensive or defensive experiment. Stationary and movable torpedoes were placed in the upper Bay and Narrows, and the whole available naval force of the nation, amounting, great and small, to about thirty vessels, were concentrated in the harbor.

Several submarine torpedo boats--of which great things were expected--were giving exhibitions of their prowess constantly, diving under the bottoms of the excursion steamboats as they went up and down the bay, and inflicting a vast amount of needless terror upon the timid excursionists. Each and every one of these little vessels had demonstrated the fact conclusively that she could dive under the largest man of war afloat, and affixing a torpedo to her bottom, could withdraw to a safe distance, and then by an electric battery, blow the great war ship into a million smithereens. Whenever any of them appeared on the surface of the bay, therefore, they were regarded with great awe by the spectators, and were greeted with such remarks as "I wonder what the Englishmen will think of that little thing." "Who would think that such an insignificant looking little boat could do so much damage?" "She has got dynamite enough on board to blow up all New York," &c., &c., and a feeling of absolute confidence in the defensive preparations, which had been so hastily made, pervaded all classes of citizens.

Interspersed with these expressions of satisfaction, would frequently be heard sarcastic regrets that the Englishmen were running headlong to inevitable death and annihilation, and the comic illustrated journals acquired great _éclat_ from their numerous cartoons, in which John Bull was invariably represented as being _in extremis_.

Meanwhile, the volunteers who had responded to the President's call, were being rapidly mobilized and equipped; and camps were established at Plattsburgh and Buffalo and Detroit; as well as at a point on the Pacific coast near Victoria in British Columbia. Thus the Dominion was threatened with invasion at points nearly three thousand miles apart; and the prospect was that before the summer was over, the military operations on both sides would assume proportions as gigantic as those which had astonished the world during the War of the Rebellion.

Many of the volunteers were veterans of that war; and therefore the work of drilling them and making competent soldiers of them, went forward with incredible rapidity; and within less than sixty days from the issuing of the President's proclamation, the United States had a thoroughly well armed, well drilled, and well equipped force of over 200,000 men in the field, ready to march across the frontier. On the fifteenth of April the first entry was made on Canadian Territory. Ten thousand men in two detachments crossed the Detroit River, and took possession of Windsor, opposite Detroit. A slight opposition to the landing of this force was attempted by a small detachment of Canadian Militia, who after firing a scattering volley at the ferry-boats containing the Americans, beat a hasty retreat when the latter began to return the fire.

Two days later, a force of about 25,000 men crossed the Niagara River near Buffalo, and at once marched inland, with a view of taking possession of the Welland Canal, and damaging it in such a manner as to prevent the passage of some British gunboats, which had been reported as on their way from Halifax to the Upper Lakes. This was a most wise and timely movement; for if these vessels had gotten through the canal, the cities of Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Toledo, Sandusky, Detroit and Chicago, would have been completely at their mercy; as under an old treaty between the United States and England, neither power could have more than one war vessel at any time on the Lakes.

For this reason, the news of the success of this detachment in destroying the locks of the Welland Canal, so as to effectually prevent these vessels from reaching Lake Erie, was hailed with great delight by the entire press of the United States, and a grand chorus of jubilation was echoed from one end of the country to the other. The main body of the American troops, however, had been concentrated near Plattsburgh, in New York State, and were intended to operate against Montreal and Ottawa. This consisted of 75,000 men, under the immediate command of General Schofield, and this army crossed the Canadian frontier at the point where the Irish fenians had established their camp the preceding season, on the first day of May, 1890. No opposition to speak of was encountered, and the army advanced at once, by easy marches, towards the St. Lawrence River, with a view to the rapture of Montreal.

The movements of the detachment on the Pacific Coast had not been so prompt us those of the others. Numerous delays occurred in the arrival of equipments and supplies, and therefore that division of the force found itself utterly unable to move at the time specified--which had been fixed for not later than the 1st of May. This was the general situation on the 1st of May, 1890.