Battle of Eccles Hill

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The Battle of Eccles Hill. Contemporary illustration.

Date	May 25, 1870
Location	Near Ormstown, Quebec
Result	Canadian victory

Combatants

Fenian Brotherhood

Dominion of Canada

Commanders

Samuel B. Spiers

William Osborne Smith

Strength

600 militia
1 gun

680 militia

Casualties

5 dead
18 wounded

None

Fenian Raids
Campobello Island – Ridgeway – Fort Erie – Pigeon Hill – Eccles Hill – Trout River

The Battle of Eccles Hill was part of a raid into Canadian territory led by John O'Neill and Samuel Spiers. The army of the Fenian Brotherhood was defeated by local militia units based in Huntingdon on May 25, 1870.

Fenian militants, operating from Vermont, assembled on May 25 to orchestrate a second invasion of the Montreal region (a similar expedition under Spiers had met with defeat at the Battle of Pigeon Hill in 1866). Although O'Neill was arrested at the border crossing by an American police patrol, Spiers and the main body of Fenians slipped across the border intact and entered the province of Quebec.

Partisans and government scouts spotted them almost immediately. A force of militia awaiting the Fenians at Eccles Hill put up resistance, resulting in firefights and unspectacular skirmishing. Lieutenant-Colonel William Smith hurried to the field with a battalion of volunteer cavalry and charged Fenian positions. The Fenians fled, leaving behind their artillery and their dead. No Canadians were harmed during the engagement due, in large part, to information supplied by Thomas Billis Beach, an agent working against the Fenians from within their own organization.