Captain Fitz

by Enid Mallory

  American leaders had planned to draw the closing curtains swiftly on this Canadian play. One Massachusetts general officer had offered to “capture Canada by contract, raise a company of soldiers and take it in six weeks.” Or, as Dearborn had written to Van Rensselaer, “At all events we must calculate on possessing Canada before the winter sets in.” Now these men were stunned.

  Aboard the schooner Chippewa, while sailing down Lake Erie, Isaac Brock had suffered a rude shock himself. The schooner Lady Prevost had hailed his ship and brought news of an armistice. Brock, with plans already in his head for taking Fort Niagara, exploded in anger. An armistice was a stupid blunder that would give the Americans time to transport stores and men to the Niagara frontier, building their naval power on the lakes. Brock believed (and most historians agree) that he could have taken Fort Niagara. Prevost, however, still believed that peace was possible. Britain’s irritating orders-in-council had been repealed and Prevost believed that meant that war could be avoided. But impressment was still an issue. Prevost also failed to understand the American belief in “manifest destiny,” their conviction that all of North America should be theirs.

  On September 4, Kingston greeted the arrival of Brock with spontaneous celebration. Fitz may have been there and it may have been the last time the two men met. More likely, Fitz was taking advantage of September weather on the river. Twelve days later, on September 16, he was taking a convoy upriver when he was attacked near Prescott, where the St. Lawrence is at its narrowest. Americans at Ogdensburg opposite Prescott outfitted a Durham boat and a gunboat and landed in the night on Toussaint Island, near the British boats. The family living on the island was captured, but one man escaped and swam to the Canadian shore to alarm FitzGibbon and rally the local militia.

  When Friends Fight

  People on opposite sides of this border war were friends, even relatives. But once the war started they were also enemies. Major John Lovett described it best:

  If any man wants to see folly triumphant, let him come here, let him view friends by friends stretched for hundreds of miles on these two shores, all loving and beloved; all desirous of harmony; all wounded by being coerced, by a hand unseen, to cut throats … the sponge of time can never wipe this blot from the American name….

  Lovett himself had been drawn into the war. A lawyer by profession, he was aide and secretary to his friend, Major-General Stephen Van Rensselaer. During the attack on Queenston, Lovett was put in charge of the guns above Lewiston. When the battle was over he would discover that he had been made permanently deaf.

  There were Canadians with American backgrounds and American sympathies who became spies and informers. That Americans and Canadians speak the same language greatly added to the confusion. All it took was a coat borrowed from a dead enemy to pass yourself off as one of the enemy, a ruse that FitzGibbon often used to gain the upper hand and take prisoners.

  Americans along the lower St. Lawrence and in all the northeastern states had not been able to work up much hatred for their Canadian neighbours. Apart from any ties of the heart, they were Yankees and not prone to pass up an opportunity to make a dollar. As the war went on and the British became short of supplies, the opportunities for making money got better and better.

  John Le Couteur was 18 in 1813, when he served as a light infantry officer in the 104th Regiment. At Niagara, he was often sent with messages to the Americans in Fort George under a flag of truce. He became friends with some of the officers and even shared a meal with one. In his memoir, he wrote, “How uncomfortably like a civil war it seemed when we were in good humoured friendly converse….” [3]

  When the Americans attacked, soldiers and militia were ready for them. In the fray the Yankees had to abandon their Durham boat, which drifted into Canadian hands. When the American gunboat and brigade exchanged fire, five of the 18 men on the gunboat were wounded. When the others on board turned a cannon on the British, FitzGibbon had to move his boats out of range. By that time, the Americans had had enough and scurried back to Ogdensburg with their wounded.

  On September 18, from Niagara, Brock wrote of his old regiment, “Six companies of the 49th are with me here, and the remaining four at Kingston, under Vincent. Although the regiment has been 10 years in this country, drinking rum without bounds, it is still respectable and apparently ardent for an opportunity to acquire distinction.”

  President Madison ended the armistice on September 18, increasing the tension along the 58-kilometre border from Fort George to Fort Erie. Brock kept his officers galloping along the river road to the guns at Brown’s Point and Voorman’s Point to Queenston, Chippawa, and Fort Erie, in a frenzy of organizing, dispatching, informing and reviewing, tightening and strengthening, in whatever way he could, their thin red line of defence.

  On October 9, at Fort Erie, where the Niagara River flows out of Lake Erie, Lieutenant Elliot, an enterprising young American, attacked and boarded the brigs Detroit and Caledonia. The Detroit was an American ship taken from General Hull at Detroit; the Caledonia a brig of the North West Fur Company. Elliot’s party managed to get the Caledonia over to the American batteries at Black Rock. The Detroit they burned when the firing from the Fort Erie garrison became too hot. Elliot gave the Americans their first shot of confidence since Hull’s defeat.

  On the night of October 11, a tremendous northeast storm brought thunder, lightning, and rain in torrents. Rain was still coming down as Brock and his staff sat late in council on the night of the 12th. Then, at 4:15 in the morning of the 13th, Brock was awakened by cannon fire and recognized the noise of the big gun at Voorman’s Point. Within moments he was on his horse Alfred and away, orders left behind to “Inform Colonel Macdonell and Major Glegg that I am off for Queenston. They are to follow, with all speed.”

  Brock made the 11-kilometre ride from Fort George to Queenston on his horse, Alfred, in the dark and stormy pre-dawn hours of October 13, 1812.

  Jefferys, Vol. 2, 156.

  This view shows the entrance to the Niagara River and the positions of forts George and Niagara.

  Jefferys, Vol. 2, 161.

  The 11-kilometre ride, along the river road from Fort George to Queenston, was Brock’s last. His cloak streamed behind him as his horse pounded through the pre-dawn gloom. The dawn, when it came, would be spectacular, lighting up the mist over the blue Niagara and sending horizontal light through the coloured trees, iridescent and alive with rain and wind.

  Brock’s ears were tuned to the guns. Their different notes created a sound picture of what was happening, the 24-pounder at Voorman’s Point answering the guns of Lewiston across the river, the more distant punctuation of the 3-pounders and the brass 7-pounders at Queenston, and the roar of the 18-pounder that was halfway up Queenston Heights in a V-shaped redan battery. At Brown’s Point, three kilometres below Queenston, he found the company of York Volunteers on the move toward Queenston, and waved them on. He galloped past the big gun at Voorman’s. Samuel Peter Jarvis of the York Volunteers galloped past Brock on a horse bound for Fort George, and told the general, “The Americans are crossing the river in force, sir.”

  Lights were burning in all the houses as women and children huddled together. The bells of the church and courthouse at Niagara were ringing. In pursuit of Brock, his two aides, Macdonell and Glegg, spurred their horses along the river road.

  Queenston in 1812 was a tiny town nestled below Queenston Heights.

  Lossing, 390.

  Brock reached the Niagara Escarpment where the land rises 91 metres above the village of Queenston. Niagara Falls tumbled over here 12,000 years ago before it wore itself back 11 kilometres to its present site, forming the Niagara Gorge as it retreated. Brock galloped through the village and halfway up Queenston Heights for a view of what was happening on the river below. It was daylight and more than a thousand Americans had landed and sought shelter under the brow of the Heights, awaiting reinforcements. The 49th Grenadiers under Dennis and the York Militia with a 3-pounder we
re near the river, firing on the invaders. High on the Heights, Captain Williams had the 49th Light Infantry behind the 18-pounder pouring down destruction on the boats trying to cross the river. Then Brock ordered Williams’s company down the hill to help Dennis.

  Down at the river, a young American, Captain Wool, saw the British movement down the hill and, in a bold stroke, took his men up a fisherman’s path, supposedly unassailable, to arrive 27 metres above the redan battery. When he saw American blue above him, Brock had no choice. He spiked the gun and his 12 men at the battery fled down the hill, leaving the Americans in command of Queenston Heights.

  With Williams’s company behind him, Brock attempted to take back the Heights. George Jarvis was there, and tells what happened:

  On arriving at the foot of the mountain, where the road diverges to St. David’s, General Brock dismounted, and waving his sword, climbed over a high stone wall, followed by his troops. Placing himself at the head of the light company of the 49th, he led the way up the mountain at double-quick time, in the very teeth of a sharpfire from the enemy’s rifle-men, and ere long he was singled out by one of them, whom, coming forward, took deliberate aim, and fired. Several of the men noticed the action and fired, but too late, and our gallant General fell on his left side, within a few feet of where I stood. Running up to him, I enquired, “Are you much hurt sir?” He placed his hand on his breast, but made no reply, and sank down.[4]

  Two flank companies of militia (the York Volunteers) were under Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonell, Brock’s aide-de-camp, at Brown’s Point. Macdonell, only 25 years old, was attorney general of Upper Canada. When the news reached him, he rushed his 190 men to the Heights and tried to avenge Brock. The Americans had reinforcements by then, 500 men on the Heights. The terrible rage of Macdonell and his men forced Captain Wool back up the hill and made him spike the 18-pounder gun. But both Macdonell and Williams were seriously wounded. Macdonell’s wounds were fatal, although he lived for 24 hours in great agony.

  With their leaders gone, the men were in disorder. It was 10:00 a.m. and the day was already disastrous. The shattered soldiers fell back to Voorman’s Point to wait for reinforcements, while the Americans conveyed wounded across the river and brought over fresh troops. The death of Brock had stunned every man. His body lay nearby in Durham’s farmhouse. Macdonell lay there too, dying. The dreadful news swept along the frontier.

  Captain Driscoll of the 100th Regiment wrote about how a dragoon galloped up to Fort Erie and gave the news to an “old Green Tiger” who seemed unable to tell it to his comrades:

  I placed my hand on his shoulder, “For heaven’s sake, tell us what you know.” In choking accents he revealed his melancholy information. “General Brock is killed, the enemy has possession of Queenston Heights.” Every man in the battery was paralyzed. They ceased firing. A cheer from the enemy on the opposite side of the river recalled us to our duty. They had heard of their success down the river.[5]

  In the other direction, the news reached Fort George, where British guns were attempting to silence the guns of Fort Niagara across the river. In command at Fort George was Major-General Roger Hale Sheaffe, whose orders from Brock were to follow as soon as he could ascertain where the enemy meant to make their real attack.

  Sheaffe reached Voorman’s at about eleven o’clock, then took a back route through St. David’s to come upon the Heights, three kilometres west of the Americans, who had a collected force of 800 men. Lieutenant John Norton (a Scotsman married to a Native girl), with 100 Natives, led Sheaffe on a route that took the Americans completely by surprise. Forced to face Sheaffe’s long advancing line, the Americans found their backs to the river wall, their lives balanced on a precipice above the Niagara gorge. Sheaffe was in front of them, Queenston forces on the right, and Natives terrifying their left. Wool was wounded and succeeded by Colonel Winfield Scott, who tried to keep his men in order.

  Across the river at Lewiston, General Van Rensselaer was attempting to get reinforcements to his men on Queenston Heights. His secretary, Lovett, gives us an idea of how it was over there:

  Still the reinforcements moved over very slowly and, in short, stopped. The General returned to accelerate them. He mounted a borrowed horse and I rode with him, everywhere urging on the troops, for not half of them had passed over. But the name of Indian, or the sight of the wounded, or the devil or something else petrified them. Not a regiment, not a company, scarcely a man would go.[6]

  The Americans on the Heights were in complete panic. They fled down the cliff and attempted to swim the Niagara. Many threw themselves off the Heights. At three o’clock, Colonel Winfield Scott raised the white flag and surrendered 300 soldiers and officers to the British. Six hundred more would be rooted out of hiding the following day.

  The bright joy of victory was darkened by overwhelming grief at the death of Brock. For less than two months the Canadas had had a larger-than-life hero. Now they had a dead hero.

  In the dark hours of the night, Brock’s surviving aide-de-camp sat alone writing a letter to Mr. William Brock:

  With a heart agonized with most painful sorrow, I am compelled by duty and affection to announce to you the death of my most valuable and ever to be lamented friend, your brother, Major-General Brock … His loss at any time would have been great to his relations and friends, but at this moment I consider the melancholy event as a public calamity. He was beloved and esteemed by all who had the happiness to know him, and was adored by his army and by the inhabitants of the Province.[7]

  In Story and Song

  The War of 1812 inspired patriotic verse that was sometimes set to music and sung by those who remembered the war. Two verses from The Battle of Queenston Heights are typical:

  His loyal-hearted soldiers were ready every one,

  Their foes were thrice their number, but duty must be done.

  They started up the fire-swept hill with loud resounding cheers,

  While Brock’s inspiring voice rang out, “Push on, York Volunteers!”

  Each true Canadian soldier laments the death of Brock;

  His country told its sorrow in monumental rock;

  And if a foe should e’re invade our land in future years,

  His dying words will guide us still, “Push on, brave Volunteers!”[8]

  General Brock and Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonell were buried on October 17 in the northeast battery at Fort George. The coffins were preceded first by a company of regulars and a band of music, and followed by another body of regulars and militia. The distance between Government House and the garrison was lined by a double row of militia men and Natives, resting on their arms reversed. Minute guns were fired during the whole procession. Across the river, the Americans fired minute-guns at Lewiston and Fort Niagara “as a mark of respect to a brave enemy.”

  Van Rensselaer had been opposed to this war in the first place; within days he resigned and handed over the Niagara command to General Smythe.

  Major-General Sheaffe, Brock’s successor, had agreed to another armistice without any apparent reason. It was not approved by Sir George Prevost, who seemed to finally understand Brock’s position once Brock was dead. The armistice applied only to the Niagara frontier between Lakes Erie and Ontario and could be terminated on 24 hours notice. It lasted until the Americans ended it on November 20.

  For the month after Brock’s death, Upper Canada could talk of nothing else. There were a few who ventured the suggestion that Brock was rash, that he should have protected his own life and lived to fight another day — and many historians today agree. But the question remains: without the gallant example of that scarlet figure out in front, would the Canadas have struggled to their feet at all? Without a hero who could size up the desperate odds and attempt desperate measures, had they any chance against the American giant?

  If anyone understood Brock’s fighting philosophy, it was the men of the 49th Regiment. Trained in the tactics of speed and surprise, they admired honesty, fairness, and personal
bravery. The “old Green Tiger” at Fort Erie, who was stunned to silence by the news of Brock’s death, had quickly recovered himself and he and his comrades “exhibited demoniac energy” as their guns gave it to Black Rock “hot and heavy.”

  This demoniac energy was to characterize the 49th Regiment in the two hard years of fighting ahead. Brock was somehow their leader in death as he had been in life. His scarlet figure beckoning up the heights of Queenston seemed to stand before them, whether at Niagara or Stoney Creek or Crysler’s Farm on the St. Lawrence.

  And from Detroit the words of Tecumseh rang out, “Other chiefs say, ‘Go’ — General Brock says, ‘Come.’”

  Chapter 5

  On the Niagara Frontier

  FitzGibbon was a fine man and a splendid soldier. The men adored him, although he was strict. His word was law, and they had such faith in him that I believe if he had told any one of them to jump into the river, he would have obeyed. He always knew what he was about, and his men knew it, and had full confidence in him.

  — M. Le Lievre, of Trois Rivières, speaking in 1873 of convoy expeditions in 1812[1]

  However great the shock and grief of its losses, an army must march on. Battles might wait for spring, but the lifeline of supply still throbbed with activity in the cold of the Canadian winter. The distance from Montreal to Niagara is 720 kilometres by land (slightly less by water) with another 240 kilometres west to Amherstburg. This is a long lifeline, and if the Americans cut it at any point everything to the west of that severance would be lost. In January, a long line of sleighs could be seen making its way 400 kilometres from Kingston to Niagara, with Fitz in charge.

  For a while he could keep his 45 sleighs within the shelter of what is today Prince Edward County, travelling the snow and ice of the Bay of Quinte. But once he crossed the narrow bridge of land known as the Carrying Place, his drivers left all protection behind and faced the buffeting force of the January winds that swept Lake Ontario. Still, it was better there than travelling the snow-filled roads through the forests on shore. Doggedly, they kept on, thankful for days that were sparkling bright, huddling into their buffalo robes on days of whiteout blizzard.