In the course of the next day, Wednesday, parties of men arrived from Niagara, Hamilton, Oakville, Port Credit and other places in greater or less numbers--many of them Orangemen, delighted with their new occupation. The Lieutenant-Governor was thus enabled to vacate the City Hall and take up his headquarters in the Parliament Buildings; and before night as many as fifteen hundred volunteers were armed and partially drilled. Among them were a number of Mackenzie's former supporters, with their sons and relatives, now thoroughly ashamed of the man, and utterly alienated by his declared republicanism.
Next morning followed the "Battle of Gallows Hill," or, as it might more fitly be styled, the "Skirmish of Montgomery's Farm." Being a stranger in the city, I had not then formally volunteered, but took upon myself to accompany the advancing force, on the chance of finding something to do, either as a volunteer or a newspaper correspondent, should an opening occur. The main body, led by Sir Francis himself, with Colonels Fitzgibbon and McNab as Adjutants, marched by Yonge Street, and consisted of six hundred men with two guns; while two other bodies, of two hundred and a hundred and twenty men, respectively, headed by Colonels W. Chisholm and S. P. Jarvis, advanced by bye-roads and fields on the east and on the west of Yonge Street. Nothing was seen of the enemy till within half-a-mile of Montgomery's tavern. The road was there bordered on the west side by pine woods, from whence dropping rifle-shots began to be heard, which were answered by the louder muskets of the militia. Presently our artillery opened their hoarse throats, and the woods rang with strong reverberations. Splinters were dashed from the trees, threatening, and I believe causing worse mischief than the shots themselves. It is said that this kind of skirmishing continued for half-an-hour--to me it seemed but a few minutes. As the militia advanced, their opponents melted away. Parties of volunteers dashed over the fences and into the woods, shouting and firing as they ran. Two or three wounded men of both parties were lifted tenderly into carts and sent off to the city to be placed in hospital. Others lay bleeding by the road-side--rebels by their rustic clothing; their wounds were bound up, and they were removed in their turn. Soon a movement was visible through the smoke, on the hill fronting the tavern, where some tall pines were then standing. I could see there two or three hundred men, now firing irregularly at the advancing loyalists; now swaying to and fro without any apparent design. Some horsemen were among them, who seemed to act more as scouts than as leaders.