Passport to Inaccuracy

While we have touched extensively on the naval issues on Lake Ontario before, one small detail has come to my attention recently.

At the "Battle" of Limestone Ridge, it is mentioned that the Hamilton Naval Company is attached to the militia order of battle, meaning the men of that company were apparently shooting it out with American troops on the Niagara frontier. However, we know from the flashback in Chapter 10 Pt. 1, that apparently the ship operated by the Hamilton Naval Company, the Passport, is being converted at Kingston.

Now, from the text the naval action there apparently takes place in May as well. This raises the question, how can the naval company be two places at once?

The simple answer is, they can't. The author, either not realizing (more likely not caring) about his mistake blithely rolls on with it. What is interesting, however, is that the author seems to understand he's underselling the Canadians. He could only know about Harbottle through either seeing him in the 1867 militia list he uses as his base, or by reading about the Fenian raids.

Anything beyond a cursory glance would have led the author to realize that in 1862 no less than six naval and marine companies were formed for service on Lake Ontario (the Garden Island Naval Comapny not being formed until January 1863) versus the precisely zero pre-existing naval militia companies or militia infrastructure on the American side.

What this suggests of course is that the author has deliberately chosen to underrate, and reassign, the Anglo-Canadian capabilities on the lakes, for the express purpose of making an easier American victory. Or, the author is lazy. You decide.

Canadian Militia: Missing in Action? (2)

This post takes the volunteer list for April 1862 and compares it to the OOB produced by TFSmith. Units whose existence he failed to acknowledge are denoted with square brackets. Where the number of batteries or companies is greater than the figure given by TFSmith, the figure in square brackets is the total number of sub-units that existed historically and not the number which have been missed. All references to military districts are those which existed historically. A summary of the results has been provided above the cut, and if that's sufficient for you you can always move straight onto part 3.

Missing units:

14/34 cavalry troops (6/14 Lower Canada, 8/20 Upper Canada)
2/8 field batteries (1/3 Lower Canada, 1/5 Upper Canada)
10/19 foot/garrison batteries (3/12 Lower Canada, 7/7 Upper Canada)
4/5 engineer companies (1/2 Lower Canada, 3/3 Upper Canada)
6/7 naval/marine companies (6/7 Upper Canada)
146/186 rifle companies (72/105 Lower Canada, 74/81 Upper Canada)
182/259 = 70.3% of the formations present in April 1862 are missing

Canadian Militia: Missing in Action? (1)

TFSmith's assumptions for the numbers of Canadian volunteer and sedentary militia are based on some of the most egregious research failures which have been conducted. His overall estimate of 15,000 volunteers and 10,000 militia has been well and truly debunked, as having been based on misunderstood peacetime figures. Yet nobody has, as yet, taken the time to deconstruct his overall order of battle for the Canadians in the winter of 1861-2. This is a real shame, as doing so proved not to be particularly difficult.

This is a weighty topic, and as such will be split into sections. This first section will deal with some preliminary remarks on both the sources used and the way in which they have been used. The second section will provide a full OOB for Canadian volunteer units in April 1862, after the crisis had subsided, and compare it to the version which TFSmith produced. The third section will add commentary and analysis to this OOB and provide some closing thoughts.