THE CANADA GENERAL SERVICE MEDAL WITH FENIAN RAID 1866 CLASP TO ENSIGN (LATER LIEUTENANT) C.H. MOORE, THE ROYAL CANADIAN RIFLE REGIMENT (ROYAL CANADIAN RIFLES), WHO SAW SERVICE AT FORT ERIE, THE SCENE OF SOME OF THE HEAVIEST FIGHTING DURING

THE CANADA GENERAL SERVICE MEDAL WITH FENIAN RAID 1866 CLASP TO ENSIGN (LATER LIEUTENANT) C.H. MOORE, THE ROYAL CANADIAN RIFLE REGIMENT (ROYAL CANADIAN RIFLES), WHO SAW SERVICE AT FORT ERIE, THE SCENE OF SOME OF THE HEAVIEST FIGHTING DURING THE FENIAN INVASION OF CANADA IN JUNE 1866. Canada General Service Medal 1866, 1 clasp, Fenian Raid 1866 (officially impressed in plain block capitals: ENS: C.H. MOORE, R. C. RIFLES). Suspender a little slack, otherwise attractively toned, Almost Extremely Fine.

Medal accompanied by extracts from London Gazettes of the period, officer’s service paper details, medal rolls (original and published) and extract from 1901 census, along with copied research re. the Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment of 1840-1870 and copied extracts from Captain John A. MacDonald’s “Troublous Times in Canada” (WS Johnston & Co., Toronto, 1910), re the action at Fort Erie, 2/6/1866 and its aftermath.

Charles Hinton Moore was born in Wimborne St. Giles, Dorset, England. He was commissioned Ensign (by purchase), 11th (North Devonshire) Regiment (the post 1880 Devonshire Regiment), 27/9/1861. Moore transferred to the Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment on 16/1/1863 with the rank of Ensign and was promoted Lieutenant (by purchase) 13/6/1868. Moore was placed on half pay on 2/10/1870 and retired by the sale of his commission on 26/2/1873. The 1901 census gives his home address as Cookham, Berkshire, and records him as a 59 year old retired officer of infantry, living with his wife Caroline (born India) and three servants.

Medal and clasp confirmed on original medal roll (dated 1903), which gives Moore’s then address as Knebworth Rectory, Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Published medal roll states 123 Fenian Raid 1866 clasps to the Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment (122 original issues and 1 late issue, 11 officers and 111 other ranks with original issues and 1 other rank with late issue medal).

The original medal roll confirms that the then Ensign Moore saw service “at Fort Erie in 1866 at time of troubles, also at Kingston”.

On 1st June 1866, a Fenian force some 1,000 strong crossed the American-Ontario border and occupied Fort Erie. As a result, British army and Canadian militia units throughout the Niagara peninsula were mobilised. At Port Colborne, a detachment of British and Canadian soldiers and militia approximately 80 strong, under Lieutenant-Colonel John Dennis, boarded the tug-boat “WT Robb” and headed for Fort Erie. By the time Lieutenant-Colonel Dennis and his force landed at Fort Erie the Fenians under O’Neill had moved on and were engaged in the battle of Ridgeway. Following the battle, O’Neill and his Fenians fell back on Fort Erie, where a fierce fire-fight ensued, during which the British-Canadian force defending Fort Erie was over-run. During the battle, the commanding officer of the British-Canadian forces ran away on foot, hid in a house, discarded his uniform and shaved off his sideburn whiskers, with a view to evading the Fenians. By this stage, British and Canadian forces from throughout the Niagara peninsula were converging on Fort Erie, and O’Neill and the force under him promptly withdrew across the American-Ontario border.

Following the disastrous action at Fort Erie the garrison’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel J. Stoughton Dennis, was court-martialed for deserting his men. Dennis was eventually acquitted by a majority vote of two of the three officers serving on the court-martial panel. Apparently, except for the verdict, the proceedings of the Dennis enquiry were not immediately released, not even a year later, when members of the Canadian parliament demanded to see transcripts of the testimony. The original transcripts are, however, available today in the Canadian archives at Ottowa.

The Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment was a regular unit of the British Army, raised in 1840, with headquarters initially at Toronto and from 1855 at Kinston, Ontario. It was disbanded in 1870. The regiment, which had an authorised strength of ten companies, comprising 1,078 other ranks, served exclusively in Canada and had two unusual features. Firstly, it was a Veterans Battalion. All of its members were veterans with previous service with other regiments of the British Army. Secondly, it was a rifle regiment rather than a regular infantry regiment. This meant that, rather than being equipped with smooth bore muskets, it was equipped with rifles and was trained for deployment as a skirmishing unit in battle.

The Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment was recruited exclusively from the ranks of veteran soldiers in an attempt to confront the perennial problem of desertion. Canada, being in close proximity to the United States, had a long term problem with military desertion. British soldiers, underpaid and overworked, were often tempted to desert to the United States, with its high wages, and safe in the knowledge that they would not be extradited by the American government. Veterans were recruited in the belief that they would be less likely to desert. As an additional inducement, recruits to the regiment were promised grants of free land on completion of their term of service and retirement from the army. The regiment saw service, mainly in company strength detachments, at isolated posts, principally along the frontier with the USA, from St John’s, Newfoundland, in the east, to Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the west. One of the more remote posts the the Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment saw service at was Fort Garry on the Red River in Manitoba. In the mid 19th century the overland route to Fort Garry was so difficult that the fort was served by means of a lengthy and arduous sea voyage via Hudson’s Bay. The Royal Canadian Rifle Regiment was disbanded at Kingston, Ontario, on 30/9/1870, as part of the withdrawal of the British Army from Canada following the granting of Canadian home rule and the establishment of the Confederation of Canada on 1/7/1867 (Lieutenant Moore was placed on half pay 2/10/1870, two days after the disbandment of the Royal Canadian Rifles).