Canada: the Empire of the North

A >> Agnes C. Laut >> Canada: the Empire of the North

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[Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE MILITARY OPERATIONS ON
THE DETROIT RIVER]

At Niagara River, where the main troops of Ontario were centered,
Brock's victory was greeted with simply a madness of joy. From the
first it had been plain that the principal fighting in Ontario would
take place at Niagara, and along the river Brock had concentrated some
sixteen hundred volunteer troops, {341} raw farm hands most of them,
with a goodly proportion of descendants from the United Empire
Loyalists, who had furbished out their fathers' swords. But the army
was in rags and tatters; many men had no shoes; before Brock captured
the guns at Detroit there had not been muskets to go round the men, and
there were not cannon enough to mount the batteries cast up along
Niagara River facing the American defenses. As the boats came down
Lake Erie and disembarked the American prisoners on August 24, at Fort
Erie on the Canadian side, opposite Black Rock and Buffalo, wild yells
of jubilation rent the air. By nightfall every camp on the Canadian
side for the whole forty miles of Niagara River's course echoed to
shout and counter shout, and a wild refrain which some poet of the
haversack had composed on the spot:

We 'll subdue the mighty Democrats and pull their dwellings down,
And have the States inhabited with subjects of the Crown.

Take a survey of the Niagara region. South is Lake Erie, north is Lake
Ontario, between them Niagara River flowing almost straight north
through a steep dark gorge hewn out of the solid rock by the living
waters of all the Upper Lakes, crushed and cramped, carving a turbulent
way through this narrow canyon. Midway in the river's course the blue
waters begin to race. The race becomes a dizzy madness of blurred,
whirling, raging waters. Then there is the leap, the plunge, the
shattering anger of inland seas hurling their strength over the sheer
precipice in resistless force. Then the foaming whirlpool below, and
the shadowy gorge, and the undercurrent eddying away in the
swift-flowing waters of the river coming out on Lake Ontario. On one
side are the Canadian forts, on the other the American, slab-walled all
of them, with scarcely a stone foundation except in bastions used as
powder magazines. Fort Erie on the Canadian side faces Buffalo and
Black Rock on the American side. Where the old French voyageurs used
to portage past the Falls, about halfway on the Canadian side south of
the precipice, is the village of Chippewa. Here Brock has stationed
{342} a garrison with cannon. Then halfway between the Falls and Lake
Ontario are high cliffs known as Queenston Heights, in plain view of
the American town of Lewiston on the other side. Cannon line the river
cliffs on both sides here. All about Lewiston the fields are literally
white with the tents of General Van Rensselaer's army, now grown from
twenty-five hundred to almost eight thousand. On the Canadian side
cannon had been mounted on the cliffs known as Queenston Heights.
Possibly because the two hundred men would make poor showing in
tents, Brock has his soldiers here take quarters in the farmhouses.
For the rest it is such a rural scene as one may witness any
midsummer,--rolling yellow wheat fields surrounded by the zigzag rail
fences, with square farmhouses of stone and the fields invariably
backed by the uncleared bush land. Six miles farther down the river,
where the waters join Lake Ontario, is the English post, Fort George,
near the old capital, Newark, and just opposite the American fort of
Niagara. With the exception of the Grand Island region on the river,
it may be said that both armies are in full view of each other.
Sometimes, when to the tramp--tramp--tramp of the sentry's {343} tread
a loud "All's well" echoes across the river from Lewiston to the
Canadian side, some wag at Queenston will take up the cry through the
dark and bawl back, "All's well here too"; and all night long the two
sentries bawl back and forward to each other through the dark.
Sometimes, too, though strictest orders are issued against such ruffian
warfare by both Van Rensselaer and Brock, the sentries chance shots at
each other through the dark. Drums beat reveille at four in the
morning, and the rub-a-dub-dub of Queenston Heights is echoed by
rat-tat-too of Lewiston, though river mist hides the armies from each
other in the morning. Iron baskets filled with oiled bark are used as
telegraph signals, and one may guess how, when the light flared up of a
night on the Canadian heights, scouts carried word to the officers on
the American side. One may guess, too, the effect on Van Rensselaer's
big untrained army, when, with the sun aglint on scarlet uniform, they
saw their fellow-countrymen of Detroit marched prisoners between
British lines along the heights of Queenston opposite Lewiston. Rage,
depression, shame, knew no bounds; and the army was unable to vent
anger in heroic attack, for England had repealed her embargo laws, and
when Brock came back from Detroit he found that an armistice had been
arranged, and both sides had been ordered to suspend hostilities till
instructions came from the governments. The truce, it may be added,
was only an excuse to enable both sides to complete preparations for
the war. In a few weeks ball and bomb were again singing their shrill
songs in mid-air.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE MILITARY OPERATIONS ON
THE NIAGARA FRONTIER]

Brock's victory demoralized the rabble under the American Van
Rensselaer. Desertions increased daily, and discipline was so
notoriously bad Van Rensselaer and his staff dared not punish desertion
for fear of the army--as one of them put it--"falling to pieces." Van
Rensselaer saw that he must strike, and strike at once, and strike
successfully, or he would not have any army left at all. Two thousand
Pennsylvanians had joined him; and on October 9, at one in the morning,
Lieutenant Elliott led one hundred men with muffled paddles from the
American side to two Canadian ships lying anchored off Fort Erie. One
was the {344} brig captured from Hull at Detroit, the other a sloop
belonging to the Northwest Fur Company, loaded with peltries. Before
the British were well awake, Elliott had boarded decks, captured the
fur ship with forty prisoners, and was turning her guns on the other
ship when Port Erie suddenly awakened with a belch of cannon shot. The
Americans cut the cables and drifted on the captured ship downstream.
The fur ship was worked safely over to the American side, where it was
welcomed with wild cheers. The brig was set on fire and abandoned.

Van Rensselaer decided to take advantage of the elated spirit among the
troops and invade Canada at once.

Over on the Canadian side, Brock, at Fort George, wanted to offer an
exchange of Detroit prisoners for the voyageurs on the captured fur
ship, and Evans was ordered to paddle across to Lewiston with the
offer, white handkerchief fluttering as a flag of truce. Evans could
not mistake the signs as he landed on the American shore. Sentries
dashed down to stop his advance at bayonet point. He was denied speech
with Van Rensselaer and refused admittance to the American camp; and
the reason was plain. A score of boats, capable of holding thirty men
each, lay moored at the Lewiston shore. Along the rain-soaked road
behind the shore floundered and marched troops, fresh troops joining
Van Rensselaer's camp. It was dark before Evans returned to Queenston
Heights and close on midnight when he reached Major General Brock at
Fort George. Brock thought Evans over anxious, and both went to bed,
or at least threw themselves down on a mattress to sleep. At two
o'clock they were awakened by a sound which could not be mistaken,--the
thunderous booming of a furious cannonade from Queenston Heights.
Brock realized that the two hundred Canadians on the cliff must be
repelling an invasion, but he was suspicious that the attack from
Lewiston was a feint to draw off attention from Fort Niagara opposite
Fort George, and he did not at once order troops to the aid of
Queenston Heights.

[Illustration: GENERAL BROCK]

Evans' predictions of invasion were only too true. After one attempt
to cross the gorge, which was balked by storm, Van {345} Rensselaer
finally got his troops down to the water's edge about midnight of
October 12-13. The night was dark, moonless, rainy,--a wind which
mingled with the roar of the river drowning all sound of marching
troops. Three hundred men embarked on the first passage of the boats
across the swift river, the poor old pilot literally groaning aloud in
terror. Three of the boats were carried beyond the landing on the
Canadian side, and had to come back through the dark to get their
bearings; but the rest, led by Van Rensselaer, had safely landed on the
Canadian side, when the batteries of Queenston Heights flashed to life
in sheets of fire, lighting up the dark tide of the river gorge and
sinking half a dozen boat loads of men now coming on a second traverse.
Instantly Lewiston's cannon pealed furious answer to the Canadian fire,
and in the sheet-lightning flame of the flaring batteries thousands
could be seen on the American shore watching the conflict. As the
Americans landed they hugged the rock cliff for shelter, but the
mortality on the crossing boats was terrible; and each passage carried
back quota of wounded. Van Rensselaer was shot in the thigh almost as
he landed, but still he held his men in hand. A second shot pierced
the same side. A third struck his knee. Six wounds he received in as
many seconds; and he was carried back in the boats to the Lewiston
side. Then began a mad scramble through the darkness {346} up a
fisherman's path steep as trail of mountain goat, sheer against the
face of the cliff. When day dawned misty and gray over the black tide
of the rolling river, the Canadian batterymen of Queenston Heights were
astounded to see American sharp-shooters mustered on the cliff behind
and above them. A quick rush, and the Canadian batterymen were driven
from their ground, the Canadian cannon silenced, and while wild
shoutings of triumph rose from the spectators at Lewiston, the American
boats continued to pour soldiers across the river.

It was at this stage Brock came riding from Fort George so spattered
with mud from head to heel he was not recognized by the soldiers. One
glance was enough. The Canadians had lost the day. Sending messengers
to bid General Sheaffe hurry the troops from Fort George, and other
runners to bring up the troops from Chippewa behind the Americans on
Queenston Heights, Brock charged up the hill amid shriek of bombs and
clatter of sharpshooters. He had dismounted and was scrambling over a
stone wall. "Follow me, boys!" he shouted to the British grenadiers;
then at the foot of the hill, waving his sword: "Now take a breath; you
will need it! Come on! come on!" and he led the rush of two hundred
men in scarlet coats to dislodge the Americans. A shot pierced his
wrist. "Push on, York volunteers," he shouted. His portly figure in
scarlet uniform was easy mark for the sharpshooters hidden in the brush
of Queenston Heights. One stepped deliberately out and took aim.
Though a dozen Canadian muskets flashed answer, Brock fell, shot
through the breast, dying with the words on his lips, "My fall must not
be noticed to stop the victory." Major Macdonnell led in the charge up
the hill, but the next moment his horse plunged frantically, and he
reeled from the saddle fatally wounded. For a second time the British
were repulsed, and the Americans had won the Heights, if not the day.

[Illustration: BROCK MONUMENT, QUEENSTON HEIGHTS]

The invaders were resting on their arms, snatching a breakfast of
biscuit and cheese about midday, when General Sheaffe arrived from Fort
George with troops breathless from running. A heart-shattering huzza
from the village warned the Americans {347} that help had come, and
they were to arms in a second; but Sheaffe had swept round the Heights,
Indians on one side of the hill, soldiers on the other, and came on the
surprised Americans as from the rear. There was a wild whoop, a dash
up the hill, a pause to fire, when the air was splinted by nine hundred
instantaneous shots. Then through the smoke the British rushed the
Heights at bayonet point. For three hours the contest raged in full
sight of Lewiston, a hand-to-hand butchery between Sheaffe's fresh
fighters and the Americans, who had been on their feet since midnight.
Indian tomahawk played its part, but it is a question if the scalping
knife did as deadly work as the grenadier's long bayonets. Cooped up
between the enemy and the precipice, the American sharpshooters waited
for the help that never came. In vain Van Rensselaer's officers prayed
and swore and pleaded with the volunteer troops on the Lewiston side.
The men flatly refused to cross; for boat loads of mangled bodies were
brought back at each passage. Discipline fell to pieces. It was the
old story of volunteers, brave enough at a spurt, going to pieces in
panic under hard and continued strain. Driven from Queenston Heights,
the invaders fought their way down the cliff path by inches to the
water side, and there . . . there were no boats! Pulling off his white
necktie, an officer held it up on the point of his sword as signal of
surrender. It was one of the most {348} gallant fights on both sides
in Canadian history, though officers over on the Lewiston shore were
crying like boys at the sight of nine hundred Americans surrendering.

Truce was then arranged for the burial of the dead. The bodies of
Brock and Macdonnell were laid on a gun wagon and conveyed between
lines of sorrowing soldiers, with arms reversed, to the burial place
outside Fort George. As the regimental music rang out the last march
of the two dead officers, minute guns were fired in sympathy all along
the American shore. "He would have done as much for us," said the
American officers of the gallant Brock.

Van Rensselaer at once resigns. "Proclamation" Smyth, whose addresses
resemble Fourth of July backwoods orations, succeeds as commander of
the American army; but "Proclamation" Smyth makes such a mess of a raid
on Fort Erie, retreating with a haste suggestive of Hull at Detroit,
that he is mobbed when he returns to the United States shore. But what
the United States lose by land, they retrieve by sea. England's best
ships are engaged in the great European war. From June to December,
United States vessels sweep the sea; but this is more a story of the
English navy than of Canada. The year of 1812 closes with the cruisers
of Lake Ontario chasing each other through many a wild snowstorm.

As the year 1812 proved one of jubilant victory for Canada, so 1813 was
to be one of black despair. With the exception of four brilliant
victories wrested in the very teeth of defeat, the year passes down to
history as one of the darkest in the annals of the country. The
population of the United States at this time was something over seven
millions, and it was not to be thought for one moment that a nation of
this strength would remain beaten off the field by the little province
of Ontario (Upper Canada), whose population numbered barely ninety
thousand. General Harrison hurries north from the Wabash with from six
to eight thousand men to retrieve the defeat of Detroit. At Presqu'
Isle, on Lake Erie, hammer and mallet and {349} forging iron are heard
all winter preparing the fleet for Commodore Perry that is to command
Lake Erie and the Upper Lakes for the Americans. At Sackett's Harbor
similar preparations are under way on a fleet for Chauncey to sweep the
English from Lake Ontario; and all along both sides of the St.
Lawrence, as winter hedged the waters with ice, lurk scouts,--the
Americans, for the most part, uniformed in blue, the Canadians in
Lincoln green with gold braid,--watching chance for raid and counter
raid during the winter nights. The story of these thrilling raids will
probably pass into the shadowy realm of legend handed down from father
to son, for few of them have been embodied in the official reports.

From being hard pressed on the defensive, Canada has suddenly sprung
into the position of jubilant victor, and if Brock had lived, she would
probably have followed up her victories by aggressive invasion of the
enemy's territory; but all effort was literally paralyzed by the
timidity and vacillation of the governor general, Sir George Prevost.
Prevost's one idea seems to have been that as soon as the obnoxious
embargo laws were revoked by England, the war would stop. When the
embargo was revoked and the armistice of midsummer simply terminated in
a resumption of war, this idea seems to have been succeeded by the
single aim to hold off conclusions with the United States till England
could beat Napoleon and come to the rescue. All winter long scouts and
bold spirits among the volunteers craved the chance to raid the
anchored fleets of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, but Prevost not only
forbade the invasion of the enemy's territory, but before the year was
out actually advocated the abandonment of Ontario. If his advice had
been followed, it is no idle supposition to infer that the fate of
Ontario would have been the same as the destiny of the Ohio and
Michigan.

One night in February the sentry at the village of Brockville, named
after the dead hero, was surprised by two hundred American raiders
dashing up from the frozen river bed. Before bugles could sound to
arms, jails had been opened, stores looted, houses {350} plundered, and
the raiders were off and well away with fifty-two prisoners and a dozen
sleigh loads of provisions. Gathering some five hundred men together
from the Kingston region, M'Donnell and Jenkins of the Glengarrys
prepared to be revenged. Cannon were hauled out on the river from the
little village of Prescott to cross the ice to Ogdensburg. The river
here is almost two miles wide, and as it was the 23d of February, the
ice had become rotten from the sun glare of the coming spring. As the
cannon were drawn to mid-river, though it was seven in the morning, the
ice began to heave and crack with dire warning. To hesitate was death;
to go back as dangerous as to go forward. With a whoop the men broke
from quick march to a run, unsheathing musket and fixing bayonet blades
as they dashed ahead to be met with a withering cross fire as they came
within range of the American batteries. In places, the suck of the
water told where the ice had given behind. Then bullets were peppering
the river bed in a rain of fire, Jenkins and M'Donnell to the fore,
waving their swords. Then bombs began to ricochet over the ice. If
the range of the Ogdensburg cannon had been longer, the whole Canadian
force might have been sunk in mid-river; but the men were already
dashing up the American shore whooping like fiends incarnate. First a
grapeshot caught Jenkins' left arm, and it hung in bloody splinters.
Then a second shot took off his right arm. Still he dashed forward,
cheering his men, till he dropped in his tracks, faint from loss of
blood. No answer came back to the summons to surrender, and, taking
possession of an outer battery, the Canadians turned its cannon full on
the village. Under cover of the battery fire, and their own cannon now
in position, the whole force of Canadians immediately rushed the town
at bayonet point. Now the bayonet in a solid phalanx of five hundred
men is not a pleasant weapon to stand up against. As the drill
sergeants order, you not only stick the bayonet _into_ your enemy, but
you turn it round "to let the air in" so he will die; and before the
furious onslaught of bayonets, the defenders of Ogdensburg broke, and
fled for the woods. Within an hour the {351} Canadians had burnt the
barracks, set fire to two schooners iced up, and come off with loot of
a dozen cannon, stores of all sorts, and with prisoners to the number
of seventy-four.

[Illustration: YORK (TORONTO) HARBOR]

The ice had left Lake Ontario early this year, and by mid-April
Commander Chauncey slipped out of Sackett's Harbor with sixteen
vessels, having on board seventeen hundred troops, besides the crews.
It will be remembered that the capital of Ontario had been moved from
Niagara (Newark) to York (Toronto) on the north side of Lake Ontario,
then a thriving village of one thousand souls on the inner shore of
Humber Bay. On the sand reef known as the Island, in front of the
harbor, had been constructed a battery with cannon. The main village
lay east of the present city hall. Westward less than a mile was
Government House, on the site of the present residence. Between
Government House and the village was not a house of any sort, only a
wood road flanking the lake, and badly cut up by ravines. Just west of
Government House, and close to the water, was a blockhouse or tower
used as powder magazine, mounted with cannon to command the landing
from the lake. Some accounts speak of yet another little outer battery
or earthwork farther {352} westward. North of the Government House
road, or what is now King Street, were dense woods. General Sheaffe,
who had succeeded Brock at Queenston Heights, chanced to be in Toronto
in April with some six hundred men. Just where the snug quarters of
the Toronto Hunt Club now stand you may look out through the green
foliage of the woods fringing the high cliffs of Lake Ontario, and
there lies before your view the pure sky-blue surface of an inland sea
washing in waves like a tide to the watery edge of the far sky line.
Early in the morning of April 27 a forest ranger, dressed in the
customary Lincoln green, was patrolling the forested edge of
Scarborough Heights above the lake. The trees had not yet leafed out,
but were in that vernal state when the branches between earth and sky
take on the appearance of an aerial network just budding to light and
color; and in the ravines still lay patches of the winter snow. The
morning was hazy, warm, odoriferous of coming summer, with not a breath
of wind stirring the water. As the sun came up over the lake long
lines of fire shot through the water haze. Suddenly the scout paused
on his parade. Something was advancing shoreward through the mist,
advancing in a circling line like the ranks of wild birds flying north,
with a lap--lap--lap of water drip and a rap--rap--rap of rowlocks from
a multitude of sweeps. The next instant the forest rang to a musket
shot, for the scout had discovered Commodore Chauncey's fleet of
sixteen vessels being towed forward by rowers through a dead calm. The
musket shot was heard by another scout nearer the fort. The signal was
repeated by another shot, and another for the whole twelve miles, till
General Sheaffe, sitting smoking a cigar in Government House, sprang to
his feet and rushed out, followed by his officers, to scan the harbor
of Humber Bay from the tops of the fort bastions. Sure enough! there
was the fleet, led by Chauncey's frigate with twenty-four cannon poking
from its sides, a string of rowboats in tow behind to land the army,
coming straight across the harbor over water calm as silk. It has been
told how the fleet made the mistake of passing beyond the landing, but
the chances are the mistake was intentional {353} for the purpose of
avoiding the cannon of the fort bastions. At all events the report may
be believed that the most of Toronto people forgot to go back to
breakfast that morning. A moment later officers were on top of the
bastion towers, directing battery-men to take range for their cannon.
A battalion variously given as from fifty to one hundred, along with
some Indians, was at once dispatched westward to ambush the Americans
landing. Another division was posted at the battery beyond Government
House. Sheaffe saw plainly from the number of men on deck that he was
outnumbered four to one, and the flag on the commodore's boat probably
told him that General Dearborn, the commander in chief, was himself on
board to direct the land forces. Sheaffe has been bitterly blamed for
two things,--for not invading Niagara after the victory on Queenston
Heights, and for his conduct at Toronto. He now withdrew the main
forces to a ravine east of the fort, plainly preparatory for retreat.
Not thus would Brock have acted.

Meanwhile time has worn on to nine o'clock. The American ships have
anchored. The Canadian cannon are sending the bombs skipping across
the water. The rowboats are transferring the army from the schooners,
and the ambushed sharpshooters are picking the bluecoats off as they
step from ships to boats.

"By the powers!" yells Forsyth, an American officer, "I can't stand
seeing this any longer. Come on, boys! jump into our boats!" and he
bids the bugles blow till the echoes are dancing over Humber waters.
Dearborn and Chauncey stay on board. Pike leads the landing, and
Chauncey's cannon set such grape and canister flying through the woods
as clear out those ambushed shooters, the Indians flying like scared
partridges, and the advance is made along Government House road at
quick march. Just west of the Government House battery the marchers
halt to send forward demand for surrender. Firing on both sides
ceases. The smoke clears from the churned-up waters of the bay, and
Commander Pike has seated himself on an old cannon, when, before answer
can come back to the demand, a frightful accident occurs that upsets
all plans. Waiting for the signal {354} to begin firing again, a
batteryman in the near bastion was holding the lighted fuse in his
right hand, ready for the cannon, when something distracted his
attention, and he wheeled with the lighted match behind him. It
touched a box of explosives. If any proof were needed that the tragedy
was _not_ designed, it is to be found in the fact that English officers
were still on the roof of the blockhouse, and the apartment below
crowded with Canadians. A roar shook the earth. A cloud of black
flame shot into mid-air, and the next minute the ground for half a mile
about was strewn with the remains, mangled to a pulp, of more than
three hundred men, ninety of whom were Canadians, two hundred and sixty
Americans, including Brigadier Pike fatally wounded by a rock striking
his head. In the horror of the next few moments, defense was
forgotten. Wheelbarrows, trucks, gun wagons, were hurried forward to
carry wounded and dead to the hospital. Leaving his officers to
arrange the terms of surrender, at 2 P.M. Sheaffe retreated at quick
march for Kingston, pausing only to set fire to a half-built ship and
some naval stores. Lying on a stretcher on Chauncey's ship, Pike is
roused from unconsciousness by loud huzzas.

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