James Baquet I thought this was a funny name: “The Battle of the Yellow Ford.” You see, to me, a “ford” is a kind of car. So why, I wondered, would anyone fight just because a car is yellow? But that’s just silly. In fact, a ford is a place where people and animals can cross a river on foot. The famous university, Oxford, was named after a nearby place at which oxen (singular “ox”) crossed a river or stream. Historians are not sure where it was located, or even which of the many local waterways it crossed. The Yellow Ford, however, is near the River Blackwater in Ulster, in what is today Northern Ireland, part of the U.K. The ford was actually a higher bit of ground that crossed, not a river or stream, but a bog. The battle was between forces of the Crown, commanded by Sir Henry Bagenal, and a native Irish army led by Irish nobleman Hugh O’Neill, who had started a rebellion. Bagenal had something of a personal grudge against O’Neill, who had eloped with his sister Mabel years earlier. In 1597 the British had built a fort in O’Neill’s territory as a staging place for further incursions. O’Neill laid siege to the fort, and Bagenal marched on him with a large expedition of some 4,000 men. Hugh O’Neill then called on all the Irish in the area, raising a troop estimated at nearly 5,000. By the time Bagenal and the Royal Irish army arrived on Aug. 14, 1598, O’Neill and his men had felled trees across pathways, dug trenches across roads, set up earthen barriers, and more. Bagenal felt he could win in a face-to-face battle, but the Irish irregulars raked the Royal soldiers with shot, harassing them mercilessly. And when the force crossed the Yellow Ford, the locals managed to split the body of soldiers in two, making short work of them. The head of the English column had been in sight of the fort when retreat was called. The Crown numbered 1,500 dead that day. With that, and defections, only about half of the army returned to its starting point — and that only after agreeing to lay down their arms to the Irish. O’Neill lost perhaps 200. Alas, the Irish were to lose the Nine Years War a few years later, surrendering the area to English rule. Vocabulary: Which words above mean: 1. chopped down 2. a lot of small lead balls or pellets 3. abandon their weapons 4. changing of sides 5. desire for revenge 6. rivers, streams, etc. 7. ran away to get married 8. members of an unofficial army 9. shoot along the length of 10. marsh, swampy area | 