Zooming back from the close up photo - the far edge of the soldiers firing above - gives you the exact perspective across the battlefield shown in this drawing made by an eyewitness who was there and published in the Canadian Illustrated News. Note the wagon park and the position of the horse corral. The dominant hill in photo and litho is where Cree War Chief Fine Day was directing the defence of the Indian community against the onslaught of the soldiers from Ontario. Chief Poundmaker's grave today is in the middle of the wagon park above, dominating for eternity, a battlefield he commanded at the end of the day. By nineteenth century military standards he was the clear cut winner. The Blatchly print pretends that Col. Otter was...

This litho is signed Kelly. It could very well be that JD Kelly, then only 23, was given a chance to try his hand at a historical picture, an art form in which he would become enormously successful over the next sixty years.

As the Métis withdrew from the battlefield some ten kms up river from this spot at Gabriel's Bridge, they could have been seen streaming back along the top of the far side of the South Saskatchewan river bank.

A few days later, with their shattered composure regained, General Middleton's army - mostly men walking, horses and wagons - approached along the top of the same river bank making for Gabriel's farm at the ferry crossing he operated.

In the river below the steamer Northcote hove into view carrying supplies for the expedition, as well as armed men behind sandbags, making it the first Canadian warship to operate in the West.

The reverse angle showing the bank along which the Canadian army approached the ferry crossing making for Gabriel's farm below.

This is a pretty good ground view of the battlefield from the same angle which Blatchly showed in his bird's eye view.

The Canadian troops arrived along the top of the ridge on the left, while the Métis and Indians were firing up at them from the gully below, and from the dense brush which once covered the sides of the creek.

In the middle distance is the centre of the battlefield where the original road angles down to the creek.

The old wagon road still snakes down towards where the ambush was laid, and gives a great view of what the typical shooting position was of the Métis and Indians as the Canadians tried to advance down the lip of the far ridge.

Somewhere in front of the trees was where General Middleton sat his horse as he directed operations, before finally calling off the failing assault upon the insurgents' positions.

WD Blatchly also prepared another set of battle and campaign lithographs for the Canadian Illustrated War News which was published in a large black and white souvenir edition in 1885.

Both feature the prominent knoll, featured at the centre of our photo, as the focal point of the action.

This is one of a set of sixteen different rebellion lithos from this series, that was hand-coloured, decades ago, in the old style by a member of the Britnell (renowned Toronto bookseller) family, who learned the old technique and paints used by the illustrators who did exactly this kind of work on Currier & Ives prints in the 19th century.

The heart of the battlefield, with the grave of Chief Poundmaker on the approximate site of the flag in the middle of the wagon park and Red Cross shelter, but looking in the reverse direction from the Blatchly print.

The Canadians marched from the horizon on the left and swarmed up here from the middle distance. The wagon park was established here, and behind us the corral as the troops made for the top of the rise.

The view behind us to the right is up the hill, down the dip, beyond which the horses were corralled because this was an infantry action, the standard 19th century set piece battle, where one side has the ground and the other tries to dislodge them and hold it and so claim the victory.

The building marks the top of the advance of the Canadians as they were hemmed in on all three sides by the gully full of angry shooting Indians. It was not a good military maneuver by Col. Otter, but hey, good enough that he later became the first Canadian born general to head the Canadian Army.

Can General Hillier be far behind?

This is the rim along the top left of the battlefield, the area shown by Blatchly opposite the horse corral.

The Canadians were lying down along the fence line which today marks the edge of the ridge, shooting down into the gully which looks the same now as it did then.

They were mostly shooting at shadows, moving twigs and leaves, while they were out in the open without protection.

In the meanwhile the Cree women and children were hiding in the dark copse of trees in the far right top of the picture.

The gully curved around and kept them safe from direct attack by the Canadians though not from rifle and gun fire.

The reverse angle shows the lip again along which the Canadians were lying down all the way along the ridge in the direction from which they had come.

Later in the day it was the same direction in which they would withdraw.

The exact view seen by Colonel Otter's men, that day, as they fired thousands of rounds of shells from rifles and Gatling Guns down at Indians in the woods.

They can't see the people they're targeting. Shooting is easy though, because they don't know the language, culture, religion, history, or the families of the people they're shooting. They're ignorant, too, of their rights...

They only knew them as insurgents that needed to be put down with guns and rifles.

Reminds us of Buffy St. Marie's Universal Soldier.

And of Afghanistan... where descendants of the same group that was at Cut Knife is reprising the identical role of their forebears.

We mean targeting, with artillery and tank shells, people who they can't see, people whose religion, culture, language, or history is unknown to them. Probably their regiment won battle honours doing the same thing in 1885..

Like Buffy says, "The battle against the Universal Soldier is an on-going struggle."

The attack, coming from the cemetery to the far right swept by the church and the rectory building on the left making for the knoll in the immediate foreground which overlooked the fields sweeping down to the village of Batoche proper, on the banks of the Saskatchewan River where the ferry for the Carleton Trail was operating.

The artillery pieces and the Gatling Gun were set up in the foreground.

The reverse angle shows the firing positions from where the guns swept the fields in front of them with shells and bullets..

Métis were hidden in the brush filled ravines that still criss cross the fields here.

The village itself was located in the far right distance where the white specs show plaques that tell where the houses were burned down.

During the final charge hundreds of soldiers streamed down the hill here, heading for the town site.

The Blatchly print compresses a considerably spread out battlefield.

The initial charge of the Canadians came from behind us to the right, and swept towards the church, through this cemetery.

After the battle nine Métis were buried in the grave in the foreground.

The priests, sheltering women and children in the church and nearby rectory, gesticulated wildly to show the shooting soldiers they were non-combatants.

No use!. Rifle bullets and Gatling Gun fire hit the buildings. Bullet holes can still be seen today.

The fighting was quite severe around the buildings with the Métis firing from trenches then gradually withdrawing as the Canadian assault gained strength.

The religious buildings, unlike all the other farm houses, and stores in the area, were not burned.

On the last day of the fight the Canadians advanced to the right along the ridge, drawing nearer to the town site below.

The knoll here is the location of the last gun positions from which they raked the village down below.

The white dots are plaques marking the fronts of buildings that fronted the main street of the little town of Batoche.

The Carleton Trail from Winnipeg passed in front of them before disappearing into the trees bordering the river.

The end of the Métis Nation came here as guns pounded their homes, and hundreds of Canadian troops ran from the left across the fields.

The most numerous and prosperous Métis community in Canada lost it all: its lands, its buildings, property, its rights. They fled for their very lives, many to the United States and decades of bitter exile before they once again drifted back to their ancestral homelands. But there were now new European owners everywhere...

The church at Batoche carries Canada's highest designation as a historic monument.

It was the principal church of the most important Métis community in the Canadian west in the 1880s.

As the Canadian troops drew near to Batoche, women and children huddled in here their loud French-Canadian chatter echoing off the walls.

Would their fathers, husbands, brothers be killed? Would everyone live or die?

Most women and children sought shelter next door in the rectory with the nuns and the priests.

During several days of battle as the Métis retreated from the area around the church, it became a hospital to house the many British wounded.

The Return of the Volunteers:

The Toronto Lithographing Company and Grip were so pleased with the response to their battle series that they issued a wonderful lithograph showing the joyous reception the men received when they got home after having put "Riel in his place."

This lithograph is extremely difficult to find today in any condition.

The popularity of the Blatchly battle prints was so great that today - some 120 years later - it is still possible to find original prints of the Blatchly lithos at auction, sometimes with original glass and frame intact.

Go to The Return of the Volunteers

Go to Gat "Gatling Gun" Howard