The Fenian

Captain John O'Neill

One of the units pursuing John H. Morgan and his command was the Fifth Indiana Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. Organized in Indianapolis on August 22, 1862, it had within its ranks one John O'Neill, a native of County Monaghan, Ireland. Born on March 9th, 1834, O'Neill first served as a sergeant in the First United States Cavalry in California before being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Fifth Indiana on December 6th, 1862, as an officer in Company I. During the Indiana-Ohio Raid, he "was intrusted with the task of harassing the raiders, and keeping the Federal commander informed of all the enemy's movements. O'Neil was an ideal Irish dragoon, impetuous, brave, prudent. He did some as effective scouting and skirmishing with his command of fifty picked men along the bluffs of the Ohio on the two last days of the great raid, as any officer did during the war."

After the raid, O'Neill became frustrated with his inability to obtain a promotion, and hence resigned his commission to become a first lieutenant in the Seventeenth United States Colored Infantry. He would be promoted to captain of Company H in 1864, and see service at the Battle of Nashville in mid-December.

Following the war, O'Neill was in Tennessee when he became a member of the Fenian Brotherhood, an Irish republican group established in the United States in 1858. Its aim was to liberate Ireland from British control, with the belief that this could be achieved by invading Canada. Holding the rank of colonel, O'Neill traveled to the Canada–U. S. border with a contingent from Nashville to take part in the Fenian raids. When the designated expedition commander failed to show up, O'Neill assumed leadership. On June 1, 1866, he led a force of six hundred men across the Niagara River and took control of Fort Erie.

A stylized version of the Battle of Ridgeway

The next day, north of Ridgeway in Canada West (now Ontario), O'Neill's group encountered a separate column of Canadian volunteers led by Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred Booker. The inexperienced Canadians were defeated by the seasoned Civil War veterans. O'Neill retreated to Fort Erie and engaged in battle with a detachment commanded by John Stoughton Dennis. As a large number of Canadian forces approached, O'Neill managed a successful evacuation back to US territory on the night of June 2–3. He was later charged with violating US neutrality laws, but the charge was dismissed.

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography states that:

Ridgeway made O'Neill a Fenian hero. He had won the only success the Fenians ever achieved in their numerous enterprises against Canada. He had handled his force well, and it should be added that he had kept his men under strict control and that there was little looting or disorder. The episode shortly led to the Roberts party of the Fenian Brotherhood appointing him "inspector general of the Irish Republican Army." He took Roberts' place as president at the end of 1867.

The division between the two factions of the Fenians persisted, and infiltration of O'Neill's organization by British and Canadian spies meant that his subsequent attempt to invade Canada in 1870 was anticipated, allowing Canada to be prepared. Following the disorganized retreat at the Battle of Trout River, O'Neill was apprehended by United States Marshal George P. Foster and charged with breaching neutrality laws. This resulted in O'Neill's imprisonment in July 1870 with a two-year sentence, but he and other Fenians were pardoned by President Ulysses S. Grant that October.

Although he initially abandoned plans for more attacks on Canada, he reconsidered after being persuaded by William Bernard O'Donoghue, an associate of Louis Riel. Together, and lacking the support of most Fenians, they launched an assault on the Hudson's Bay Company post at Pembina, Dakota Territory, on October 5, 1871. He was subsequently arrested by American troops.

By January 1878, O'Neill was employed by a land speculation firm in Holt County, Nebraska, when he passed away due to a paralytic stroke.

Sources:

McGowan, J. E. - The Annals of the Civil War Written by Leading Participants North and South, p. 756. Philadelphia, 1878.

Official Army Register of the Volunteer Force 1861-1865

Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Indiana