Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 06/1866 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
18pp
Context area
Archival history
The Public Archives of Canada (now Library and Archives Canada) provided transcripts of the Phipps letters to Kerby A. Miller, from which the transcripts were created. The original manuscripts are in the Phipps family fonds, Library and Archives Canada [reference number R7190-0-3-E, MG24-F44] and were received in 1935 from Sir Edmond Phipps.
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Photocopies and handwritten transcripts of two letters sent by Captain Ramsay Phipps from Canada East (Quebec) to his mother Anna Charlotte Phipps in Clonmel. Phipps,an Irish-born military historian and officer in the Royal Artillery, was sent to Canada to participate in operations against the Fenian Brotherhood uprising. The letters provide background on why Phipps was sent abroad (between 1866 and 1871, a number of separate incursions into British North America/Canada by the American-based Fenian Brotherhood were undertaken to bring pressure on the British government to withdraw from Ireland; none of these raids achieved their aims) and extensive details on the Canadian forces' response to the Fenian incursion in and around the villages of St-Armand and Pigeon Hill just north of the Quebec/Vermont border.