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

In 1838, seeing political turbulence in Canada as an opportunity, members of a clandestine American organization, the Patriot Hunters, launched a series of attacks across the international border. The Hunters hoped to duplicate the success of the Texas rebellion two years before when their heroes Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie fought to establish a republic in northern Mexico. The most ambitious Hunter attack was launched in November 1838 when a force of more than 500 armed men, commanded by a European soldier of fortune, set out from northern New York in a flotilla of chartered and hijacked vessels. Avoiding the naval and military forces of both nations, they occupied a stone windmill near Prescott, Ontario, confident that Canadians would rally to their standard. 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 inmprisoned and tried by court martial...