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6. The War of 1812
From Canadian History Portal - HCO
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Pre 1812
A Background of Rising Tensions
The War of 1812, called the Second War of Independence by Americans, has been seen as an unnecessary war. In large part, it was the North American offshoot of the British-French European wars, fought between 1803 and 1809. Although there was considerable incompetence demonstrated on both sides, it was not, however, a war without significant consequences. Again, although it did not resolve any of the causes that lay behind the war, the conflict did, nevertheless, have important repercussions for both sides.
For those living north of the border, the War of 1812 saw the emergence of a sense of Canadian nationalism, founded in part on a healthy dose of anti-Americanism. The war brought increased prosperity to the Maritimes and enlarged the importance of Halifax. The battle of Chateauguay did much to enhance French Canadian nationalism. Anti-American loyalty on the part of the Upper Canada elite became the norm. Arguably most importantly, the War of 1812 became the "seedtime" of British-Canadian nationalism as the young colony, with the assistance of Britain and the aboriginals, threw back the invaders.
The coming of the War of 1812 was scarcely surprising. Tension between Britain and the United States remained high even after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 that officially ended the Revolutionary War. In part, that strain resulted from British non-compliance with one of the terms of that treaty. The British were supposed to relinquish their western forts throughout the Ohio Country. That was seen as a prerequisite for maintaining the peace in the area. However, the British choose to maintain the forts. This was a festering sore for the Americans.
The British argued that they had every right to keep the forts because of the American reluctance to compensate the Loyalists for their property loss suffered during the Revolution. The Treaty of Paris stipulated that each state would compensate Loyalists whose property had been seized. Further, each state would allow Loyalists to return to settle business affairs without fear of attack or arrest. However, neither happened. Until 1789, the United States was administered under the Articles of Confederation, which hamstrung the central government. Washington could not enforce its decisions within the states. As a result, most states simply choose to ignore the Loyalist demands, and thus the British felt justified in retaining the western forts.
Aboriginal Anger
However, it was not simply the British refusal to give up the forts that angered the Americans. Aboriginal flare-ups occurred with regularity and while the British arguably had little to do with inciting the aboriginal population, the Americans perceived the situation quite differently. Finding the aboriginals with British weapons only raised American suspicions. Those anxieties reached their height in 1811 at the Battle of Tippecanoe in Indiana where the Shawnee warrior Tecumseh and his brother, The Prophet, formed an alliance of many tribes who felt threatened by the influx of thousands of American settlers into their territory. The aboriginals were defeated at the battle but the Americans held the British responsible for arming and encouraging them.
Four years earlier, in 1807, President Thomas Jefferson had only narrowly avoided war during after the Chesapeake Affair, while Britain was battling Napoleon. Chasing a group of Royal Navy deserters, the British warship Leopard attacked the American ship, the Chesapeake, with the loss of twenty American lives. One British deserter was take to Halifax and hanged. This action on the high seas raised anti-British feelings to a fever pitch in the United States. The Americans felt that this unprovoked attack was a violation of their sovereignty. Initially even an indignant Jefferson spoke of invading British North American in retaliation.
Jefferson responded to the outrage in December 1807 by passing the Embargo Act, forbidding US ships from exporting to or carrying goods for other nations. He and his secretary of state, James Madison, saw it as way to harm England and France's ability to obtain needed war supplies , so that they would repeal their restrictive trade acts. The Embargo Act had the opposite effect, and US exports plunged from $108 million to $22 million a year between 1807 and 1808. In 1809, the Act was repealed.
The British war strategy continued to plague the Americans. They felt that the best strategy in their battle with Napoleon's France was to fully utilize their naval supremacy. As a result, major maritime irritants added to the festering sore of British-American relations. First and most important was the British practice of impressment. Conditions in the Royal Navy at the time were notoriously poor - long hours, hard and dangerous work, corporal punishment, poor food, etc. - led to thousand of desertions. The British wanted to get them back, so beginning as far back as 1803, they engaged in then practice of impressment. On the high seas, they would simply board an American vessel and impress - or take - sailors off and escort them on to the British ship. British impressment gangs would also range port towns and haul men out of pubs. Since there was no such things a citizenship papers or passports and because most people spoke with an English accent, verifying who was and who was not a deserter was virtually impossible.
The Americans were outraged. In their minds, their citizens were being kidnapped with impunity. Sometimes indeed the British did "press into service" legitimate deserters. However, equally as often, if not more frequently, they forcibly apprehended American citizens. Once again it was perceived as a violation of their sovereignty.
A second maritime issue that grew out of being caught in the middle of the fight between France and Britain were the trade barriers that arose. The Americans simply wanted to trade freely as a non-belligerent with any country they chose. Both sides should respect their neutrality. However, both Britain and France wanted to starve one another out. Since the British were more in a position to do enforce such a policy because of their naval superiority, most of the American wrath was aimed in their direction. The British stopped, searched, and seized twice as many American vessels as did the French. In addition, the British attempted to enforce a blockade of France. Once again American trade was imperiled. Finally, the British greatly expanded the definition of "contraband." Formerly it had been restricted to implements of war. Now, with the Royal Navy to enforce it, the British now expanded the meaning of the term to include anything that might be of assistance to the enemy.
A final casual factor in the coming of the War of 1812 was a group in the American Congress known as the War Hawks. The second generation of American political leaders was emerging - and it was very different compared to its predecessor. The first generation had largely been drawn from the New England area and had represented the powerful and the elite. The second generation came from the expanding frontier. Led by individuals such as John C. Calhoun of South Carolina and Henry Clay of Kentucky, this new faction was vocal and adamant in expressing its desire to rid the continent of the British. They believed that the United States had been insulted enough by the haughty British. It was time for war. An attack on Canada was the easiest and first step; taking it over was "a mere matter of marching" as the retired Jefferson advised President James Madison.
That appeared to the situation for a number of reasons. First, the British were tied up fighting France to be able to commit much in the way of men and resources. Secondly, with a population ten times larger and possessing a much more powerful economy compared to British North America, the Americans decidedly had the upper hand. At the time, the United States had a population of 7.5 million while Upper Canada's was less than 80 000. Finally, recent American immigrants comprised over sixty percent of that small Upper Canadian population and the thinking was that these people would not take up arms against the Americans.
Nevertheless, the Americans were not without their own shortcomings. Because of the deep-seated suspicion of powerful standing armies, the American forces were very small. The Congress had only voted small increases. Land defence was left to local state militias. Many militia forces would refuse to cross state lines. Congress's refusal to vote a major tax increase meant that largely privateers carried out the bulk of American naval operations. As far as the land forces were concerned, not only did the Americans lack the numbers, they also were on the short end in terms of leadership, equipment, and training. Finally, despite the narrowly ratified Constitution, the United States was still largely politically unstable and divided by regional factions and interests. That was nowhere more evident than in the New England states that opposed the war and continued to trade with their Maritime neighbors to the north.
1812
Brock Captures Detroit
General Isaac Brock, the British military commander, had the task of defending Canada. An inspiring leader and brilliant strategist, he made all the difference in the opening weeks of the war.
Brock had a very limited force of 5 000 regular troops, combined with local militia and aboriginal allies to defend 19 000 km of border. He was convinced that the best strategy was to take to the offensive.
The minute war was declared, Brock sent a swift canoe to Charles Roberts at the British Fort St. Joseph at the head of Lake Huron. On July 17, Roberts, with a force of 600 British, Canadians and Indian allies, captured Fort Michilimackinac, located between Lakes Michigan and Huron, without firing a shot. That led Indian leader Tecumseh and many of the aboriginal tribes to see him as a winner and to align themselves with him.
In the meantime, on July 12, American US Brigadier General William Hull had crossed the Detroit River with 2,500 troops and occupied the Canadian town of Sandwich, today's Windsor. Worried about a new alliance between the British and the Indians led by Tecumseh, Hull soon retreated to Detroit.
Despite being badly outnumbered, Brock tricked American General Hull to surrender Detroit by issuing a fake communiqué and making Hull believe that his aboriginal allies, led by Tecumseh, were much larger than they actually were.
Hull was terrified of the prospect of a massacre by Tecumseh's forces, and on August 16, he surrendered Fort Detroit and the Michigan territory even though Brock had only 400 regulars and 300 militia from York and Niagara, as well as Tecumseh and his 600 warriors.
The Battle of Queenston Heights
Brock and his young aides, Lt. Colonel John Macdonell and Capt. John Glegg, were convinced that Fort George was the more likely target, but Evans argued for Queenston, and Brock ordered riders from the Provincial Dragoons to alert the local militia.
At Fort George, Roger Sheaffe mustered his 300 men of the 49th Foot, as well as regulars from the 41st. An unpopular but effective officer, Sheaffe was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1763. He joined the British army at 15, fought in the 49th Foot with Brock, and came to Canada with him as second in command. Soon the troops were on the march south to Queenston.
At 3:00 am, US Colonels Solomon Van Rensselaer and John Chrystie pushed off from Lewiston in 13 boats, to make the 400 m crossing to Canada. The 300 regulars and 300 militia were soon under fire from watchful British troops who heard the sound of oars. Soon the British batteries opened up, and the gunners got their first glimpse of the invasion force in the light from the exploding bombs. Many Americans were killed in the boats.
Only ten of the US boats reached Queenston in the strong Niagara current. Three of them (including the two largest) turned back for shore. Three others were swept downriver, where they were promptly taken prisoner. Colonel Chrystie's boat was damaged and it too was captured. Van Rensselaer was hit by a musketball as soon as he stepped on the beach. When he tried to form up his troops for the attack after being hit, he was promptly hit five more times. He spent most of the battle out of the action, weak from loss of blood, but survived.
Brock spurred his horse up to see the battle unfolding, but just as he arrived at the battery, John Wool's troops appeared above him and he was forced by their fire to withdraw. As he retreated to his HQ in the Hamilton House, Brock was worried. With the main British gun out of action, he knew that whoever controlled Queenston Heights controlled the province of Upper Canada.
Brock and his aides immediately decided to counter-attack and retake the Heights. They rallied the regulars and the York Volunteers and Brock led an attack straight up the heights. He was an atttractive target in his scarlet coat and plumed hat, and a quick Yankee volley took him down. The attackers retreated back to the Hamilton House carrying their fallen leader. At 10:00 am, Brock's aide Macdonell jumped on his horse and led another desperate attack. He too was shot in the back and was carried to the rear.
At 11:00 am Sheaffe arrived with the 300 regulars of the Fort George garrison and 50 militiamen. He waited for further re-enforcements coming north from Chippawa until 3:00 pm, when he advanced with the 41st. He had no intention of repeating Brock’s frontal assault, and detoured his men west around the heights and up the escarpment out of sight of the Americans.
Sheaffe's force came at the Heights from inland in a classic counter-attack. Norton's Mohawks took the battle to the Americans first, aided by 80 Cayuga warriors newly arrived from Fort George. They attacked and retreated along the flanks in waves, terrorizing the Americans with their war-whoops. Then Sheaffe's regulars and militia sprang forward with fixed bayonets from all quarters, joining in the cry.
Winfield Scott had waited in vain for reinforcements. The US militiamen across the river heard the battle-cries of the Mohawks, and most refused to move. They knew their constitutional rights: they could not be forced to fight on foreign soil. Back at Queenston, and running low on ammunition, Scott and the remaining US troops put up the white flag and surrendered.
Sheaffe's force had killed or wounded 300 Americans, and taken 1,000 prisoners; the British/Iroquois/Canadians suffered only 28 killed and 77 wounded.
It would be General Isaac Brock who would emerge as the enduring hero of the Battle of Queenston Heights. That evening, Brock's body, and that of his aide John Macdonell, were taken to Government House in Newark [Niagara-on-the-Lake]. They were buried on the morning of October 16, 1813, the caskets of the two dead men carried to the cemetary between rows of more than five thousand men, regular soldiers, First Nations warriors and the Upper Canada militia.
Ironically, Brock was awarded a knighthood in England three days before his death; a monument to him stands at Queenston Heights.
The Tide Turns for the Americans
The year 1812 ended with the British and Canadian fortunes riding high. General Hull's boastful July invasion with 2 200 men had been abandoned in the face of apathy on the part of the Canadian population that was thought would join their 'liberators.' The British-Canadian-aboriginal alliance had captured Forts Detroit, Michilimackinac, and Dearborn (present-day Chicago). The whole American western frontier had been taken, the largest loss of territory in American history. Then the British and Canadian forces had retaken Queenston Heights.
However events in 1813 were more mixed. The Americans experienced their first major victory with the Battle of Lake Erie (Put-in-Bay).
After Hull's surrender to Isaac Brock at Detroit, American General William Henry Harrison realized that the US needed to take naval control of Lake Erie and recapture Detroit to have any chance of beating the British and their 14,000 Indian allies. That March, US Commodore Oliver Perry, age 27, started building two brigs and four schooners on the beaches of Presque Isle, on the south west shore, and brought five ships from Black Rock (Buffalo) down to Presque Isle in a thick fog. Lacking the forces necessary for an attack, British Commodore Robert Barclay blockaded the Americans, but had to leave for supplies, letting Perry get out enough ships; he then sailed to Put-in-Bay in the Bass islands and set up his own blockade of Barclay's squadron at Fort Malden, who were running dangerously short of food.
On September 10, Perry, with nine ships, captured Barclay's 'Detroit', 'Queen Charlotte', 'Lady Prevost' and three armed schooners. He reported to the Naval Department in Washington that his squadron had won "a signal victory... after a sharp conflict." He also sent a message to General Harrison: "We have met the enemy and they are ours" - two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop."
Earlier in the year, in April, American forces attacked and burned York.
1813
The Americans Capture York
Each ship towed a string of flat-bottomed sailing barges, full of 1,800 heavily armed US soldiers and marines, mainly from the 6th, 15th and 16th U.S. Infantry, and the 3rd U.S. Artillery fighting as infantry. They were led by Brigadier Zebulon Pike [who gave his name to Pike's Peak]. Their intention was to blow up the magazine, destroy the shipyard and open up a new campaign in Upper Canada by occupying York, the capital of Upper Canada.
American commander-in-chief, Major General Henry Dearborn originally wanted to take Kingston, but Chauncey warned him that the town was heavily defended, Fort Henry was full of British regulars, and the harbour boasted several large warships. So York was chosen instead.
Sheaffe's 700-man garrison had only four companies of regulars, including two companies of the 8th (King’s) Regiment of Foot, a company-sized detachment of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, one company of the Glengarry Light Infantry Fencible Regiment, only 300 men of the 3rd York Militia Regiment, some Royal Artillery gunners, and 50 to 100 Mississauga and Chippewa warriors.
The first Americans ashore were the 1st Rifle Regiment, led by Major Benjamin Forsyth, who landed about 6 km west of the town. Some Mississauga and Chippewa gave them a stiff resistance, but were outflanked and forced to retreat into the woods. Sheaffe quickly ordered the Grenadier company of the 8th (Kings) Regiment to engage the Americans with fixed bayonet, but the Glengarry Fencibles got lost in the woods on the way to the landing beach, and the redcoats were soon badly out-numbered. They were forced back, leaving almost 100 dead and wounded.
The British then tried to rally around the Western battery, but a gunner in the Western Battery accidentally dropped his match into a travelling magazine, blowing himself and the whole battery to bits. The survivors fell back to a ravine north of the fort, where the militia were forming up. Meanwhile, Chauncey's schooners started bombarding the fort and Government House battery with their long 24-pounder and 32-pounder cannon. British return fire was ineffective.
Dearborn then assumed command, re-formed the attack and entered York victoriously, his pipes and drums playing "Yankee Doodle.
American losses in the battle were about 80 killed and 206 wounded. British losses were 60 killed and 89 wounded, plus 290 prisoners taken by the Americans. Pike was carried aboard a ship and smiled at news of the American flag being raised over the town. The surrendered flag was placed under his head as he died.
Chauncey was worried about a naval attack from Kingston, so the Americans left York on May 2, 1813 after burning and looting all unguarded houses and shops in the town. They took away a brig, (the HMS Duke of Gloucester), plus twenty 24-pounder carronades and a huge quantity of naval and military stores intended for the British squadron on Lake Erie, which eventually contributed to their defeat in the Battle of Lake Erie.
Sheaffe's troops would endure a miserable fourteen-day retreat overland to Kingston. He was to lose his military and public offices in Upper Canada as the result of his defeat.
Britain will retaliate a year later by raiding Washington, and setting fire to the White House and all the new government buildings.
Dearborn Controls the Niagara Peninsula
American General Henry Dearborn then turned his attention to the British garrison at Fort George. On the foggy morning of May 27, 1813, after two days of bombing the fort with fire shells (red-hot cannon balls) had destroyed almost all the buildings in the fort, Winfield Scott and Benjamin Forsyth moved to secure a beachead on Lake Ontario. Brigadier General John Vincent immediately ordered the Glengarry Light Infantry and Royal Newfoundland Regiment of Fencible Infantry to meet the Americans with a bayonet charge as they were disembarking. But British and Canadians were are quickly outnumbered, as wave after wave of 7,000 US regulars landed, driving back the Canadian troops to a position held by the 8th King's Regiment of Foot. When the 49th Regiment and militia fail to halt further American advance, Vincent knew he could be outflanked, and ordered Fort George abandoned.
Under constant bombardment from Fort Niagara across the river, many women and children of the 49th and other corps were left behind in the casements of the fort. Vincent and Colonel John Harvey rapidly retreated south up the Niagara River to Queenston, then cut inland with detachments from Fort Erie and Queenston towards Burlington Heights, north of Hamilton, with the rest of his 1,400 British and Canadian militia and their families. The Americans had failed in their intent to destroy Vincent's small army, but the Niagara peninsula was now firmly under US control.
The Battle of Stoney Creek
The Battle of Stoney Creek was fought on June 5 and June 6, 1813 near Stoney Creek, Ontario. The Canadians and British, under Major General John Vincent, led a surprise attack on the Americans as they advanced northwest towards Burlington Heights.
Early on June 5, two local settlers, 19-year-old Billy Green, and his brother Levi, spied the American army marching up the forested paths of Stoney Creek, towards Burlington Heights. The Yankee force, led by Brigadiers William Winder and John Chandler, numbered over 2,000 soldiers of the 13th and 14th US Infantry, with 150 cavalry and 4 field guns. Their orders were to move westwards and prevent Vincent from linking up with Major-General Henry Proctor, then occupying Detroit.
The Americans stopped for the night at the farm of James Gage and made camp, locking the Gage family in their cellar. A local blacksmith named Isaac Corman was captured and taken to the Gage Farm to get intelligence. Corman told Winder and Chandler that he was born in Kentucky, and related to an American General, so they let him go with the password (Wil-Hen-Har, short for William Henry Harrison, the American General), so that he would be able to get out of the camp safely.
When Corman gave the password to Billy Green, his brother-in-law, Green travelled by foot, and by horse, from his home on the Stoney Creek escarpment, over to the British camp at Burlington Heights. When he arrived at Vincent's HQ, it was full of about 1,800 redcoats (many of them wounded and ill), along with the green-coated Glengarries of the St. Lawrence, and a company of black men commanded by Captain Robert Runchy. Vincent had already sent a despatch to Kingston stating that his position, "though strong for any large body, is far too extensive for me to hope to make any successful stand against the superior force understood to be advancing against me."
Billy Green met with Vincent's second in command, Lieutenant Colonel John Harvey, as well as Lieutenant James FitzGibbon of the 49th Regiment, Isaac Brock's old unit. FitzGibbon had already disguised himself as a farmer, and went boldly into the American camp selling butter. His costume was so complete that he was able to travel around freely and study the American camp, which he found badly positioned and not well fortified. No attempt was made to place the center, left and right wings in spots where they could form battle lines quickly.
Harvey and FitzGibbon wanted to organize a surprise attack before dawn, and finally convinced Vincent, who let Harvey lead and mount the expedition. Harvey gathered about British 700 regulars from the 49th regiment, under the command of Major Charles Plenderleath, and some from the 8th Regiment, under Major James Ogilvie, as well as some Mohawks and Canadian Provincial Dragoons under William Hamilton Merritt.
Led by Billy Green, the force of 700 British regulars of the 8th Regiment and 49th Regiment and some Canadian militia departed at 11:30 pm for Stoney Creek, 10 km away. They carried a single field gun, and all the troops were ordered to take out the flint from their muskets for fear an accidental discharge would ruin the surprise attack.
It was a moonless night. They started the trip in the dark woods then moved to the valley where the enemy's camp was located. Along the way, they had to bayonet a few lone Yankees sentries who accepted the password. Then just as they reached the Gage Farm at 2:00 am, one of the American sentries sounded the alarm, and the battle was on.
The Americans were now grabbing their guns and trying to get into formation in the darkness, while the British started firing, and smoke and gunpowder billowed around the camp. While the British paused to reload their muskets, the Americans had time to rally, and several of the regulars were killed.
During the confusion, General Vincent, who was commanding the artillery position, went missing. While Merritt was searching for him around the Gage house, he captured the American general Chandler, who had been wounded, and was trying to rally the wrong soldiers. Shortly after, Winder was also captured. Command of the American troops fell upon Colonel James Burn of the 2nd Light Dragoons, who soon found out he was short of ammunition, and many of the troops had fled into the surrounding woods, leaving their tents standing. Burn ordered a withdrawal east along the Niagara Peninsula to camp at Forty Mile Creek.
Even though the British were victorious in this short 45 minute battle, Harvey wisely decided to head back to Burlington Heights before dawn broke, so that the enemy would not see how few soldiers had defeated them. As for Vincent, he was thrown from his horse and knocked unconscious. He was finally found wandering in the woods, seven miles from the battle scene, in a state of confusion, his horse, hat and sword all missing, convinced that the entire British force had been destroyed.[1]
British losses were about eighty dead, and 140 wounded. The Americans lost about 3 times as many soldiers, with many left wounded.
The Battle of Stoney Creek, fought on the birthday of King George III, was a turning point in the defense of Upper Canada, and was the beginning of an effort to push the Americans completely out of the Niagara region. The battle was a tactical draw, but it badly shook the Americans, and by June 7, they had retreated to Fort George, where Vincent's forces blockaded them for several months.
| The Stoney Creek Centennial Queen Mary was asked to inaugurate the Battlefield Monument on the centennial of the Battle on June 6, 1913. The Queen pushed a button in her bedroom that sent a message by the transatlantic cable. A special line connected Buckingham Palace in London with the office of the Commercial Cable Company, in Grace Church Street, and the cable to which it was linked was kept clear for the ceremony. Back in Canada, the Queen's signal "caused the wrappings about the memorial statue to fall away, while the galvanometer indicated that Her Majesty's signal had been effective." |
Laura Secord Warns of an American Attack
Since her husband was still recovering from his wounds, Laura stole away at 4 am the next morning to to walk the 32 kilometres to Beaver Dams and warn FitzGibbon. She told an American sentry she was going to St. David's to visit her sick brother, and after briefly stopping there, she continued on the Old Swamp Road. She could not go by the main road for fear of American sentries and was forced to go through Black Swamp in the mid-day heat, watching for rattlesnakes and wolves.
By about noon of a very hot day, Laura Secord waded across Ten Mile Creek and climbed "The Mountain", the name given to the Niagara Escarpment. When she finally reached the top after an 18 hour ordeal, she was exhausted. She stole past three American sentries at St. Davids late in the day. Then, after dark, lost and stumbling through the woods into a clearing, she was surrounded by a group of Iroquois warriors. She asked them to take her to their chief, then to FitzGibbon's headquarters, where she passed on her message. After a 30 km trek, the heroine of Upper Canada collapsed from heat exhaustion.
FitzGibbon was amazed at the 38 year old woman's tenacity and later wrote: "Mrs. Secord arrived at my Station about sunset of an excessively warm day, after having walked about twelve miles which I at the time thought was an exertion which a person of her slender frame and delicate appearance was unequal to make."
Iroquois scouts soon confirmed her warning about the American advance, and Fitzgibbon and the Iroquois prepared to ambush them in the beechwoods at Beaver Dams.
Read Laura Secord's Own Account
Iroquois Victory at Beaver Dams
One of Ducharme's scouting parties had already located the US force, and FitzGibbon ordered Ducharme to take his force of 300 Kanawake and Kahnesetake Iroquois and attack the Americans. The force was joined by a party of 100 Grand River Mohawks led by William Kerr and John Brant. FizgGibbon followed later with cannon and 50 of his 80 British regulars.
At about 9 in the morning of June 24, 1813, Ducharme's Iroquois ambushed the Americans at Beaver Dams.
Their first volley of musket fire killed or wounded many of the US advance party before they could take cover in a gully. The Americans were surrounded, and everywhere they turned they were met by heavy fire. Boerstler ordered his men to set up the three cannon. The Iroquois warriors charged from the woods just as the US gunners had loaded the first gun. A single blast of grapeshot from the cannon killed five chiefs and severely wounded a young native boy.
Boerstler regrouped his force to fight his way back to Fort George, but he was wounded, many of his officers were dead, and they were very low on ammunition. His men were dazed by three hours of fighting an enemy they could not see, and terrified by the war whoops issuing from the woods. Suddenly out of the woods came FitzGibbon on a horse, offering him protection from the scalping knife if he surrendered his troops and three cannons to the British. Unaware that he outnumbered the British and Native warriors, Boerstler and 462 terrified survivors surrendered.
John Norton later remarked that "the Caugnawaga Indians fought the battle, the Mohawks or Six Nations got the plunder, and FitzGibbon got the credit".
Read: Thomas Ridout's letter to his father
Tecumseh Killed at Moraviantown
- "When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home." - Tecumseh ("Crouching Cougar" or "Shooting Star")
After the battle of Lake Erie, the British at Amherstburg and Fort Detroit found themselves without supplies, and Henry Procter ordered a retreat eastwards up the Thames River toward Niagara.
On October 5, 1813, William Henry Harrison's American forces caught up with the British at Moraviantown on the Thames River, and mauled the 700 regulars after an attempted ambush failed. An outnumbered Procter ordered a quick retreat, while Shawnee chief Tecumseh and his warriors, fighting in a swamp, covered the fleeing British until Tecumseh was killed. At the end of the fighting, 600 British were captured, 18 were killed. Thirty-three Indians were killed; none were captured. The American forces lost 18 men as well.
One widely repeated story is that Tecumseh attacked Colonel Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky with a tomahawk and was killed by a single shot from Johnson's pistol. Johnson himself was severely wounded in the battle.
Johnson, a Kentucky Congressman who supported the War of 1812 and raised his own troop of mounted Kentucky riflemen in support of Harrison, became a U.S. Senator in 1819 and received the Democratic nomination for the Vice Presidency in 1836. Johnson's claim to have killed Tecumseh is viewed with skepticism.
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Andrew J. Blackbird, or Mack-e-te-be-nessy, son of the Ottawa Chief, Mack a-de-pe-nessy, in his history of the Ottawa and Chippewa, says that "in the history of the United States, there are some mistakes concerning the accounts of the Indians, particularly the accounts of our brave Tecumseh, as it is claimed that he was killed by a soldier named Johnson, upon whom they conferred the honor of having disposed of the dreaded Tecumseh. Even pictured out as being coming up with his tomahawk to strike a man who was on horseback, but being instantly shot dead with the pistol.
Now I have repeatedly heard our oldest Indians, both male and female, who were present at the defeat of the British and Indians, all tell a unanimous story, saying that they came to a clearing or opening spot, and it was there where Tecumseh ordered his warriors to rally and fight the Americans once more and in this very spot one of the American musket balls took effect in Tecumseh's leg so as to break the bone of his leg, that he could not stand up. He was sitting on the ground when he told his warriors to flee as well as they could, and furthermore said, "One of my leg is shot off! But leave me one or two guns loaded; I am going to have a last shot. Be quick and go!"
That was the last word spoken by Tecumseh. As they look back, they saw the soldiers thick as swarm of bees around where Tecumseh was sitting on the ground with his broken leg, and so they did not see him any more; and, therefore, we always believe that the Indians or Americans know not who made the fatal shot on Tecumseh's leg, or what the soldiers did with him when they came up to him as he was sitting on the ground."
De Salaberry Holds Back the Americans
On October 21, 1813, US Major-General Wade Hampton crossed the border into Lower Canada with a force of 3000 men on the way to capture Montreal. A force of Quebec light militia (voltigeurs) under Lieutenant-Colonel Charles-Michel de Salaberry felled trees to erect a barricade (abbatis) where they expected Hampton to ford the Châteauguay River.
On October 26, 1813, leading 1,600 French Canadian Voltigeurs (light militia) and aboriginal allies, de Salaberry turned back Hampton and his 3,000 Americans after four hours of fighting at the ford, 56 km southwest of Montréal.
Salaberry ordered 300 of his militia to blow hunting horns in the woods, making the Americans think they were facing a much larger force. Hampton lost his nerve and called off the invasion.
As Salaberry later wrote his father, "Montreal was saved for another season."
See: Charles de Salaberry to his Father, on the Battle of Châteauguay
Americans Beaten Back at Crysler's Farm
After the humiliating defeats of Stoney Creek and Beaver Dams in the summer of 1813, the Americans determined to attack Lower Canada in a pincer movement.
At the American naval base of Sackets Harbor on Lake Ontario, US General James Wilkinson argued with United States Secretary of War John Armstrong whether to attack Montreal or Kingston first. With winter coming on, Montreal was finally chosen as the target, and word was sent to General Wade Hampton to proceed to Montreal via the Chateauguay River with his 4,200 men from Lake Champlain.
Wilkinson's men then proceeded to build a large flotilla of armed boats and transports to attack Montreal down the St. Lawrence All was ready by Oct. 4.
Wilkinson was plagued by trouble. He claimed to be ill from a fever he had caught in New Orleans, but in actual fact he was a hopeless drunk. His men were cold and hungry and ill prepared for battle. But on Oct. 16 he gave Major General Lewis the order to launch the flotilla against Montreal.
The troops embarked on a dark night just as a storm was brewing over the lake. As Lossing relates,
- "They were packed in scows, bateaux, Durham boats, and common lake sailboats, with ordnance, ammunition, hospital stores, baggage, camp equipage, and two months’ provisions. The voyage was among islands and past numerous points of land where soundings and currents were known to few. There was a scarcity of pilots, and the whole flotilla seemed to have been sent out with very little of man’s wisdom to direct it. The wind was favorable at the beginning, but toward midnight, as the clouds thickened and the darkness deepened, it freshened, and before morning became a gale, with rain and sleet. The flotilla was scattered in every direction, and the gloomy dawn [October 17, 1813] revealed a sad spectacle. The shores of the islands and the main were strewn with wrecks of vessels and property. Fifteen large boats were totally lost, and many more too seriously damaged to be safe. For thirty-six hours the wind blew fiercely, but on the 20th, there having been a comparative calm for more than a day, a large proportion of the troops, with the sound boats, arrived at Grenadier Island. These were chiefly the brigades of Generals Boyd, Brown, Covington, Swartwout, and Porter (the three former had encamped at Henderson Harbor), which had arrived."
On the 24th Wilkinson wrote John Armstrong, "The extent of the injury to our craft, clothing, arms, and provisions greatly exceed our apprehensions, and has subjected us to the necessity of furnishing clothing, and of making repairs and equipments to the flotilla generally. In fact, all our hopes have been nearly blasted; but, thanks to the same Providence that placed us in jeopardy, we are surmounting our difficulties, and, God willing, I shall pass Prescott on the night of the 1st or 2d proximo."
On October 29, General Brown’s brigade, some light troops, and heavy artillery, started down the St. Lawrence from Grenadier Island. Wilkinson followed on November 1, with the main body of 8,000 men.
The British Canadian Response
Morrison's force was designed to nip at the heels of Wilkinson's army, while Mulcaster's detachment of gunboats harried the American flotilla of bateaux and smaller gunboats as it made its way down the St. Lawrence to Montreal.
Wilkinson started moving his main force down river on the 7th. When he reached Prescott, he avoided the guns of Fort Wellington by landing above Ogdensburg and floating the empty boats down river in the dark.
Canadian militia sharpshooters continually fired on the Americans from the shore, forcing Wilkinson to split his army, and send 1,200 troops to land on the Canadian shore at Iroquois, below Prescott, to drive off the Canadian farmers.
Wilkinson reached Long Sault Rapids on Nov. 8, and ordered Winfield Scott to the Canadian shore to oppose any attempt to interfere with the movement of the bateaux through the rapids. On Nov. 10 Scott began to march east toward Cornwall with Jacob Brown's brigade, leaving John Boyd's brigade of 4,000 men to deal with Morrison's small force.
Morrison Gets into Position
Meanwhile, Morrison's pursuing force had landed at Prescott on the morning of November 9th. His "corps of observation" was increased from Fort Wellington and Montreal by a detachment of 240 troops commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Pearson. These consisted of two flank companies of the 49th Foot, a detachment of Canadian Fencibles, three companies of Canadian Voltigeurs, a handful of miltia artillerymen with a 6-pounder gun and a half dozen Provincial Dragoons to serve a couriers. Captain Morrison now had about 900 officers and men.
Mulcaster had to leave his armed schooners at Prescott but his smaller gunboats kept firing on the American bateaux as they began to move through the rapids.
By Nov. 10, Morrison had established his headquarters in John Crysler's farmhouse east of Cornwall. It was a good defensive position, where a dirt road ran on right angles to the river as far as an impassable swamp one km inland. There were log fences that provided protection for the troops and in front of them was a large field of winter wheat cut by small ravines - a fine field of fire.
On the night of Nov. 10, Wilkinson neared the Canadian shore near the dangerous Long Sault rapids between present-day Morrisburg and Cornwall. He fought a brief and confused rearguard action against some of Morrison's troops at Hoople Creek. Then, to lighten the boats in readiness to shoot the rapids, he landed 4,000 troops on land owned by a Loyalist named John Crysler.
Waiting for him was Morrison, now with 800 British regulars of the 49th and 89th Regiments, with three guns and crews of the Royal Artillery, the Canadian Fencibles, Canadien Voltigeurs and 30 Mohawk warriors from Tyendinaga, as well as the Dundas County Militia, totalling 1200 troops. While the Canadian militia and Mohawk warriors guarded the woods on either side of the field, the British regulars were drawn up in 2 lines to await the American assault.
The Battle Begins
At the same time, Mulcaster's gunboats kept firing shrapnel and grapeshot on General John Park Boyd's flotilla of 4,000 American troops trying to descend the rapids.
Then Wilkinson ordered General Boyd to advance in three columns with 2,000 U.S. troops to outflank the British and capture their field guns. The advancing American troops were stopped by the volley firing of companies of the 49th and 89th Regiments. The Americans tried to turn the British left flank but the 89th companies were swung around almost 90 degrees to counter this move successfully.
In the end, the American officers proved no match for the battle-hardened British regulars, backed by the deadly shrapnel of the artillery and withering fire of the Canadian sharpshooters. Despite the Americans' overwhelming numerical superiority, after nearly three hours of hard fighting, General Boyd withdrew from the field leaving 400 casualties - 102 killed, 237 wounded and more than 100 missing - and crossed to the US side.
Morrison reported his own casualties for the Battle of Crysler's Farm as being 22 killed, 148 wounded and 9 missing, or about one-sixth of his total force. The greatest losses were suffered by the Canadian Fencibles, a Quebec regiment whose ranks were about 50% francophone. They suffered a casualty rate of nearly 33 percent. Two thirds of the 270 Canadian regulars under Morrison's command that day were French-speaking soldiers from Quebec.
Lieutenant Colonel Morrison's troops had defeated the Americans against overwelming odds, but one American unit caught his eye - the US 25th infantry. He was so impressed with their steadiness in battle that he sent a note to their commander, Colonel Edmund Gaines, hoping that they might meet after the war as friends.
The End of the Invasion
Wilkinson pushed on down the St Lawrence with the remnant of his demoralized army to join Hampton's army beyond the Long Sault for the push to Montreal. But then he learned that General Wade Hampton and his army of 4,200 had been defeated at Châteauguay Oct. 26. Hampton refused to meet Wilkinson at St. Regis. Wilkinson, ill and discouraged, abandoned the campaign and went into winter quarters at French Mills (present day Fort Covington), ending the threat to Canada that year. Hampton later resigned his commission when Wilkinson blamed him for the failure of the campaign.
The following March, Wilkinson was back in Canada at the head of 4000 men. This time he was stopped by 180 men defending a stone mill on the La Colle River. He eventually faced a court of inquiry for his wartime conduct. He was exonerated on all counts, but later relieved of command.
The Battle of Crysler's Farm was truly a battle that saved Canada. The British were now firmly in control of both sides of the St. Lawrence, dashing the hopes of those in Washington who had boasted that the conquest of Canada would be a 'mere matter of marching'. ---
- Read: Thomas Ridout to his Father, on the Battle of Crysler's Farm, November 20, 1813.
Wilcocks Burns Niagara
Even with the victories at Chrysler's Farm and Chateauguay which ended any threat to Quebec and Montreal, the British loss at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813 left Niagara in a vulnerable state, and the Americans soon reoccupied Fort George, Queenston and Chippawa. They were aided by a troop of Canadian Volunteers, led by Joseph Willcocks, a former member of the Upper Canada legislature, who had gone over to the American side that year. Willcocks soon unleashed a reign of terror on his former neighbours, particularly those who had opposed him during his prewar political career in Newark, where he edited a radical newspaper for four years.
In early October, Willcocks and the American militia began looting and burning around Niagara. As 16 year old farm girl Amelia Ryerse wrote, "When I looked up I saw the hillside and the fields as far as the eye could reach covered with American soldiers... My mother knew instinctively what they were going to do. She entreated the commanding officer to spare her property and said that she was a widow with a young family. He answered her civilly and respectfully and regretted that his orders were to burn... Very soon we saw a column of dark smoke rise from every building and what at early morn had been a prosperous homestead, at noon there were only smoldering ruins."
In late October, Sir George Prevost ordered a evacuation of all of Upper Canada west to Kingston. But Major-General John Vincent called a council of officers, when it was resolved to disobey Prevost's order, and not only hold the Niagara Peninsula, but try to recapture every British post. In late November, he and Colonel John Murray decided to move to protect the inhabitants after hearing of Willcocks' raids. In early December, Murray led a force of 378 regulars of the 8th Regiment and some volunteers, including Merritt's Dragoons, to Forty Mile Creek where a base was set up. Captain William Hamilton Merritt then led his troop east to hunt for Willcocks and the American raiders. A Mohawk scout found the tail end of the American column marching toward Twenty Mile Creek, and Merritt sent his dragoons after them to Twelve Mile Creek, forcing them back to Fort George.
The American commanding officer, Brigadier General George McClure was in a tough position. Most of the regular troops had gone east to reinforce Sackets Harbor, across Lake Ontario from Kingston, and his New York State militia force began melting away as their contracts ended. With renewed British attacks, he decided to withdraw across the Niagara River to the American side and the safer confines of Fort Niagara.
Before the Americans left Upper Canada, McClure made a grave mistake, and gave Joseph Willcocks permission to destroy the town of Newark, on the pretext of denying shelter to the advancing British troops.
December 10, 1813 was a cold and blustery day with snow drifting up to 5 metres in places. Joseph Willcocks was furious at American plans to abandon the peninsula. He was determined to punish his former neighbours for slights, real and imaginary, that he had suffered since going over to the Americans.
Willcocks came home to Newark with a vengeance that day, riding at the head of about 100 heavily armed members of his militia unit along with 70 U.S. militia, wearing a green band and a white cockade hat identifying him as a Canadian Volunteer. He shouted threats at his former neighbours and other Tories as his men started looting and warning inhabitants to get out what they could. At dusk the destruction began.
Willcocks Volunteers then burned the town of Newark to the ground, torching 149 houses and turning nearly 400 civilians (mostly women and children) out into the cold of winter. Only 3 buildings were left standing.
At the house of an old rival, William Dickson, Willcocks sent Dickson away in chains and ordered two soldiers to remove a woman who was ill, bed and all, and place her in the snow. The two wrapped her in blankets and put her in a snow drift while Willcocks burned the house and its contents. He walked away leaving Mrs. Dickson in the snow to watch her house burn to the ground.
As a witness wrote, "In the village, at least 130 buildings were consumed, and the miserable tenants of them, to the number of nearly 400, consisting mostly of women and children, were exposed to all the severities of deep snow and a frosty sky, almost in a state of nakedness. How many perished by the inclemency of the weather, it is, at present, impossible to ascertain."
Willcocks also arrrested prominent loyalists of Newark back to New York state, declaring them "prisoners of war." Among them were William Dickson, and Willcocks’ successor as member of thg legislative assembly for Lincoln, Ralfe Clench. Another was Thomas Merritt, William Hamilton Merritt's father, and eighty year old Peter McMicking of Stamford County, a coroner and a town warden. Merritt was so angry at the treatment of his father that he wrote in his journal of, "having taken many long and weary ride, in the lonely hours of the night, in hope of catching Willcocks and making an example of him and all traitors."
When Captain Merritt and Colonel Murray saw the glow of the burning town in the eastern sky, they rode to the aid of the townspeople. They arrived in time to see the Americans pulling out. They attacked the rear guard of Canadian Volunteers, killing two and taking a number of prisoners.
Merritt and Murray found a scene of total destruction that morning. As Merritt wrote, "Nothing but heaps of boats, and streets full of furniture that the inhabitants were fortunate enough to get out of their houses, met our eyes. My old quarters, Gordon’s house, was the only one standing." The town was a pile of glowing embers, and people were desperately seeking shelter in the freeezing termperature. Some had moved into Fort George and Butlers Barracks, which the Americans had been unable to destroy before they fled, but when day broke, Merritt and Murray found many frozen bodies of the women and children who not find shelter in the bitter cold of that bitter December night.
Willcocks' needless act of destruction infuriated the British commanders, and they retaliated swiftly. Over the next three weeks, the British army carried out a campaign of fire and sword on the American side of the Niagara River, first capturing Fort Niagara and then razing every habitation between Lakes Ontario and Erie, including the village of Buffalo (Black Rock).
The American government will officially repudiate McClure's act and remove him from command. But Britain will later torch Washington, DC, to retaliate for the destruction of Newark (Niagara) and York (Toronto) during the year 1813.
Sir George Prevost was dismayed to find this sort of warfare being practiced against civilians, and on January 12, 1814 proclaimed to the Americans: "To those possessions of the enemy along the whole line of frontier which have hitherto remained undisturbed, and which are now at the mercy of the troops under his command, his Excellency has determined to extend the same forbearance, and the same freedom from rapine and plunder which they have hitherto experienced; and from this determination the future conduct of the American government shall alone induce him to depart."
1814
British Retreat at Chippawa
Brown's Army of the North was pulled together Secretary of War John Armstrong in a last attempt to capture Canada after Napoleon's defeat in Europe, and the arrival of seasoned British veterans in Canada.
On July 2, 1814, the Americans crossed the Niagara River and easily captured Fort Erie on July 3, 1814, before advancing northward. On July 5, they met a force of 1,800 British regulars under General Phineas Riall at Street's Creek, south of Fort Chippawa, a post built to protect the end of the Niagara Portage just south of the Chippawa Creek, or Welland River.
When Riall saw that the American line was comprised of grey clad troops, he thought they were militia, and would fall back in disarray after the first few volleys. In fact, there was a blue cloth shortage at the time and grey uniforms were issued to Brown's regulars. Riall ordered an advance, but when the American line continued to hold under British fire, he realized too late that he was mistaken and exclaimed "Those are regulars by God."
When the lines were less then 100 meters apart. Winfield Scott ordered his brigade to form into a "U" shape, and they were able to pour a devastating crossfire into Riall's advancing regulars. The American cannons also opened up, and the British took heavy casualties, finally falling back toward Queenston and Burlington, destroying Chippawa Bridge to prevent pursuit. The American regulars were left to continue their advance down along the River, leading to the next engagement at the Battle of Lundy's Lane on July 25, 1814.
The Battle of Chippawa left 236 British killed, 322 wounded, and 46 missing in action; the Americans lost 61 killed, 255 wounded, and 19 missing.
NOTE: Chippawa is sometimes incorrectly spelled Chippewa. The First Nation or tribe is spelled "Chippewa".
Blood Bath at Lundy's Lane
Read: Accounts from the Battle of Lundy's Lane
The British had drawn up in a strong position along the heights, along a dusty cart track bordered by a grassy verge and trees. They placed their guns in an arc among the gravestones in the Cemetery, and awaited the oncoming American attack. Gen. Winfield Scott, future hero of the Mexican War, led an advanced guard to attack the British formation. But the Americans had to attack across open fields with waist-high crops and chest-high split rail fences; the British artillery on the heights cut them down as they emerged from the chestnut woods. Scott reported to Brown that the fighting was "close and desperate". He knew a frontal assault against the well-positioned British would be suicide. As Iroquois chief John Norton later described it, Winfield Scott “remained firm in the position which he had first assumed, exposed to a galling fire in front and flank - dread seemed to forbid his advance and shame to restrain his flight.”
Scott hoped his stand would convince the British that the entire American army was just out of sight. As his men were pounded by British guns, he sent Major Thomas Jesup's 25th Regiment into the woods to assess the British left flank. Swinging wide of their enemy's main line, they were mistaken for British regulars and left untouched until they captured the wounded Major General Phineas Riall and his entourage. They quickly returned to witness the arrival of Brown's reinforcements.
Drummond then ordered an immediate assault on the hill to re-capture the British artillery. In one of the most intense musket duels in North American history, the British assaulted in three successive waves, over fences and gravestones, in stifling heat, with no wind to move away the gun smoke. Each time they inflicted heavy casualties on the Americans, but failed to drive them from the hill. After the third British attempt failed, both sides were exhausted. After midnight, Brown ordered the American force to fall back to their camp south of Lundy’s Lane, since his supply lines were overextended, and he had lost too many men to hold the hilltop. The British troops simply slumped to the ground and slept on the hillside.
But the Americans made a fatal mistake as they fell back in confusion and darkness. They could only haul one of the captured British artillery pieces back with them, since most of the horses had been killed. The rest they left unprotected on the battlefield.
The next morning British scouts found the guns unharmed, and Drummond wasted no time bringing them back to their original position on the hill. Later that morning American second in command General Elzear Ripley arrived back to find a scene of carnage, no guns, and the British drawn up battle-ready. Realising the battered state of his own force and the strong position of the British, reinforced by their re-acquired artillery, Ripley declined to attack and withdrew back to camp.
Realising he could no longer defeat the British, Brown slowly withdrew toward Fort Erie with General Riall as his prisoner, and carts packed with the wounded. As he crossed the bridge at Chippawa, he ordered it burned to prevent pursuit. He also torched Riall's fortifications at Bridgewater Mills, at the site of the present-day Dufferin Islands.
In one of the bloodiest battles in the War of 1812, the British and Canadians took 878 casualties, with 84 killed, out of 3,000 men; the Americans had 853 casualties, including 171 killed.
The British regulars and Canadian soldiers had the onerous duty of separating the dead from the dying on the battlefield. They excavated a mass grave to hold the British bodies and provide the semblance of a Christian burial. As for the American corpses, they were burned on a huge funeral pyre made of cedar fence rails. A local Canadian militiaman, Christopher Buchner, who fought in his own fields, watched as the cedar fence rails of his family farm were used to stoke the funeral pyres.
The British eventually followed the Americans to Fort Erie, which Brown had reinforced. Drummond's battalions tried for seven weeks to dislodge the intrenched Americans, but without success. Finally Drummond pulled back and the Americans took the opportunity to retreat back across the river to Black Rock. So ended the 1814 American invasion of the Niagara Peninsula.
The British Burn Washington
By 1814, Britain had finished fighting in Europe and so could direct more of its attention to the fighting in North America. The Americans knew that victory, if it were to come, had to be achieved quickly. But the Battle of Lundy's Lane ended that dream.
In August 1814, the British attacked the Americans at Fort Erie, but were repulsed with more than 900 killed, wounded, or missing. In the same month, British General Robert Ross landed an army and marched on Washington, the American capital. Seeking revenge for the American torching of York and Newark, they set fire to the government buildings, including the President's mansion. Repainting it in white, it quickly acquired its modern name, the White House. By September, weary of war, the Americans pulled out of the Niagara area.
The Treaty of Ghent
Ultimately, both sides were tired of this inconclusive war, and the Americans, given the end of European hostilities, were particularly anxious to end the fighting. The threat from the British Navy to bombard ports like Boston and New York could not be ignored. So on Christmas Eve, 1814, in the Belgium city of Ghent, British and American diplomats met to negotiate and sign the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812 and restoring 1783 boundaries. The Treaty also provided for the setting up of a commission to settle the boundary of the US and Canada from the St. Croix River west to Lake of the Woods.
In diplomatic terms, it was status quo ante bellum, as none of the issues that caused the outbreak of hostilities were resolved. Ironically, the final battle of the war, the Battle of New Orleans, which launched Andrew Jackson's political career, was won after the signing of the peace treaty. (It took some time for the word to get across the Atlantic Ocean.)
The Americans had declared war on June 18th, 1812, accusing British vessels of violating US neutrality and territorial waters during the First Napoleonic war. There has been peace ever since between Canada and the US.
The Oregon Boundary - 1818
Both sides could claim, legitimately, that they had won; or they had not lost. The Americans reasserted their sense of independence and sovereignty. The Canadians threw off the American invasion. The Treaty of Ghent put matters back the way they had been prior to the war. No territory changed hands. No compensation, reparations, or damages were paid.
This state of affairs changed on April 16, 1818, when Richard Rush, Acting Secretary of State of the United States, and Charles Bagot, British minister in Washington, exchanged signed the Rush-Bagot Agreement which provided for an unarmed US-Canada border, and no naval vessels on the Great Lakes. On October 21, the parties also signed the Convention of 1818 between the United States and Great Britain, agreeing to extend the Boundary between American British territories on North America from the northwest corner of the Lake of the Woods directly north or south to the 49th parallel and west to the Great Divide.
The Rush-Bagot convention did not however, solve the problem of Oregon, west of the Rockies and lying between 42 degrees and 54 degrees N, which continued under joint occupancy. Fort George-Fort Astoria was to be surrendered to American interests upon demand.
To conclude, the war that no one lost and no one won had its own unique significances. On the American side, it produced two future presidents, William Henry Harrison and Andrew Jackson. Francis Scott Key, a prisoner on board a British frigate in Baltimore harbour, wrote the American national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner". Significantly, the United States, less than forty years old and much smaller and less powerful, had not wilted in the face of the British onslaught. For them, it was indeed the Second War of Independence.
For British North America, the War of 1812 was similarly significant. They had forcefully repelled the American invasion. They had not been taken over. It had not been "a matter of mere marching" as Jefferson and most Americans thought on the eve of war. Heroes, such as Brock, Salaberry, Secord, and Tecumseh, were created and became a vital element of the burgeoning sense of nationalism. There was a new sense of pride and unity. Relations with the aboriginals were improved as they fought side by side with the British and Canadians. Maritime economic prosperity was increased as they continued a lucrative trade with New England states. The sense of anti-Americanism in Upper Canada was solidified. Indeed, the leaders of Upper Canada during and after the War of 1812 used 'Americanism,' 'republicanism,' and 'disloyalty' as epithets against political opponents. "The incredible war" was truly that.
The Building of the Rideau Canal -1826-32
One of the Britons most annoyed about the War of 1812 was Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, victor of the Battle of Waterloo. The Duke regarded the American attempt to take Canada while his armies were dealing with Napoleon as something of a land grab. With the coming of the peace, he was determined to build fortifications that would protect Canada in the event of another U.S. invasion in future.
Before the Napoleonic Wars, Wellington had served as secretary to Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond, when he was the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. The two remained close, and in 1815, Richmond held Brussels while Wellington led the victorious armies against Napoleon at nearby Waterloo. Three years later, in 1818, Wellesley, now the Duke of Wellington, joined the ministry of Lord Liverpool as master-General of the Ordnance. This gave him control over military expenditures. At the same time, Richmond was appointed Governor General of Upper Canada, and quickly set about planning ways to boost the defences of Canada. One of his first acts was to send the 99th & 100th Regiments into the Ottawa Valley to build roads and open the area to settlement, partly by retired officers and soldiers.
The troops landed below the Chaudiere Falls at Ottawa in the summer of 1818, at a site they called Richmond Landing, and built a road west to what are now the towns of Richmond and Perth.
While the Duke of Richmond was visiting the territory in August of 1819, he died of rabies caught when he was bitten by a pet fox in Montreal. The night before his death, he slept at a tavern in Richmond, Ontario owned by Andrew Hill (former Sgt. Maj. of the 100th Regiment of Foot) and Maria Hill, his wife and heroine of the War of 1812.
In 1823, Dalhousie started the wheels in motion by purchasing a large parcel of land along the Ottawa River where Wellington and Rideau Streets now run and where the Parliament Buildings and Rideau Canal are now located. Colonel John By of the Royal Engineers, another Wellington staffer, was engaged to start planning the work.
In 1825, the British government gave the go-ahead, and in September, 1826, Dalhousie arrived at the site of the Canal with Colonel By and his engineers, masonry contractor Thomas McKay, and local businessmen Philemon Wright and Nicholas Sparks. They set up a camp near Richmond landing and started building what Colonel By called Wellington Street, a wagon road up the gentle rise to the site of what was to become Barracks Hill. At Entrance Bay, where the Canal would emerge, they built a wharf for the landing of canal supplies. That same autumn, the Countess of Dalhousie laid the foundation stone for a bridge across the Chaudière Falls to the Hull side of the river.
Thomas McKay started building the Ottawa locks in the summer of 1827, and the foundation stone was laid by Arctic explorer John Franklin (later Sir John), who was on his homeward route, following his second expedition.
By 1828, Col. By had as many as 2,000 men working on the canal between Ottawa and Kingston. That summer, swamp fever, a severe type of malaria, broke out in what was now called Bytown, and along the canal. Col. By himself became a victim.
By 1829 there were 21 civilian buildings in Upper Town and 126 in Lower Town, but a fire destroyed most of Lower Town. The following year Thomas McKay celebrated the completion of the Rideau Canal to Dow's Lake with the roasting of an ox.
In 1832, the Rideau Canal was completed. To celebrate, Colonel By and party boarded a steamer called the Pumper in Kingston, and reached Ottawa on May 29, 1832. The Rideau Canal was officially opened for general transportation that August. The population of the future capital of Canada was then 1,000 people.
Notes
- ↑ Vincent became ill in the winter of 1813-1814 and was replaced by Major General Phineas Riall. Vincent was transferred first to Kingston, then Montreal, before leaving for England. He never again saw active service, but was promoted Lieutenant General in 1825 and full General in 1843.
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