Bio - 175 - Eureka Stockade a Ferocious and Bloody Battle by Gregory Blake

Author:Gregory Blake
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781922132055
Publisher: Big Sky Publishing
Published: 2012-09-08T14:00:00+00:00

Charles Ferguson. American Charles Ferguson was a member of the Independent Californian Rangers Revolver Brigade. He fought to defend the stockade and was captured following its fall. Ferguson, along with all the other Americans apart from John Joseph, was released from custody a short time later. (Ferguson, The Experiences of a Forty Niner during a Third of a Century in the Gold Fields.)

Ferguson claimed that the officer Burnette shot was Wise. Neill described the opening volley from the insurgents as occurring within a short distance from the stockade, and also claimed that Wise fell mortally wounded.24 Despite these claims, this could not have been the case.

Not surprisingly, given the passage of time and subsequent confusion of the events that followed, both were mistaken in their recollections of when Wise fell. It has been accepted by many in the retelling of the Eureka story that Wise was among the first soldiers to fall. This has been presented over the years as fact, and provided much inspiration for romantic interpretations of the battle at Eureka, both written and visual. Unfortunately, a careful analysis of the evidence suggests that Wise was not among the first soldiers to fall. It is worth digressing from our narrative of the battle for a moment to investigate just when he became a casualty.

Shanahan, who had a tent inside the stockade, had not long gone to bed after a busy night when the first shots were fired. His wife pulled him out of bed and told him to take his gun. When he went out, he saw Wise exhorting his troops.25 If Shanahan saw Wise after the first shots of the battle, and identified him correctly, Wise could not have fallen mortally wounded as a result of the insurgents’ first volley. Other witnesses support a later time, rather than earlier in the battle. Webster recalled seeing Wise get on top of the stockade, and ‘immediately afterwards [he] was shot down’.26 Hegarty recalled that as he ‘went into the stockade I saw several of the men down; I saw Captain Wise down’,27 implying that Wise fell at the palisade, or close to it.

O’Keefe recalled that ‘I was coming up, [about six paces from the stockade] both me and Captain Wise. Captain Wise fell’.28 Huyghue wrote that ‘Captain Wise on surmounting the pickets fell, shot in the knee’.29 Despite Huyghue not being an eyewitness, his description tallies with the stories of those who were there. Wise was actually shot twice, the first wound in one leg, the second, mortal, wound through both legs. Webster, Hegarty, O’Keefe, and Shanahan all place him close to the stockade when he received both wounds. Huyghue’s account also supports the recollections of those who actually saw him fall. It seems clear that Wise fell close to, or at, the stockade fence, not 150 yards from it as Ferguson claimed, or in the first volley fired by the insurgents as Neill claimed. Who, then, did Burnette shoot?

One other officer, Lieutenant Paul of the 12th, was officially listed as wounded during the battle for the stockade.

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