Guns Across the River: The Battle of the Windmill, 1838

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In 1838, seeing political turbulence in Canada as an opportunity, a clandestine American organisation, the Patriot Hunters, launched a series of attacks across the border. Detesting "tyranny and oppression wherever manifested", they believed that all it would take was "a good stand maintained for a short time" and Canadians would rally to their standard. The most ambitious Hunter attack was launched in November 1838 when over 500 armed men, commanded by a European soldier of fortune, set out from northern New York in a flotilla of chartered and hijacked vessels and occupied a stone windmill near Prescott, Ontario. Their hopes were doomed. After five days of heavy fighting, British regulars and Canadian militia captured this "Alamo of the North", and those invaders who survived were tried by a court martial -- 11 were executed and 60 deported to an Australian penal colony. The Patriot Hunters' invasion resulted in nothing but destruction and loss of life, and their only memorial is the stone windmill, today a historic site, beside the St Lawrence River. Donald E Graves tells the full story of this bloody but forgotten military action and the undeclared war of which it was a part. This book is packed with fascinating information about a colourful time in North American history and about the men who fought at the windmill -- their personalities, tactics, weapons, uniforms, and even the songs they sang.