Captain Fitz

by Enid Mallory

  A few days later, Lieutenant-Colonel Bisshopp went to FitzGibbon with another plan to attack Black Rock. Fitz had his men hidden in barns near Fort Erie and was watching the enemy with a spyglass when Bisshopp and two other redcoats walked up in full view of the enemy, to FitzGibbon’s great disgust. The Americans were not aware that the British had moved so close to the frontier, and he had been planning a perfect surprise for them. Bisshopp said he was trying to collect 300 men for the raid, but could only obtain 200. Did FitzGibbon think the place could be taken with so few men? Fitz grinned and said he was ready to take it with 44 as soon as he had boats. He had already ordered Winder to bring the four bateaux from Chippawa.

  “Oh, then, I need ask you no more questions, but go and bring the two hundred men.”

  Bisshopp had his men there the following day with enough boats to make the crossing. Fitz would lead the advance and cover the retreat should they be attacked.

  “At two the following morning we moved off. My men, being select and good boatmen, soon gained the opposite shore, but owing to the strength of the current and the boats being filled with men, further down than we intended.”[3] Fitz saw that the boats behind him would be driven even farther down and would be a good half-hour later in landing than his own men. He could see 150 armed enemy militiamen emerging from the barracks to meet them. It looked as if he would have to stage a show and stall for time.

  There was always a good measure of comedy when Fitz was called upon to act, and this was no exception. There was mist over the river, and he depended on it to camouflage and, he hoped, magnify the numbers of his men while he advanced ahead of them with his bugler and his flag of truce to meet the American commander, Major Hall.

  Mary Agnes FitzGibbons says he met the militiamen with these words: “I see you are all militia, and I do not wish to be killing the husbands, fathers and brothers of your innocent families. You shall all be allowed to retire on parole.”

  Before he could finish his speech, the militia ranks had broken, and the men were running down the hill to Buffalo as fast as they could go. “Stop your men, Major Hall,” Fitz called out, hardly able to keep from laughing. “This is quite irregular while negotiating under a flag of truce.”

  “I know it, sir,” replied the indignant American officer, “but I cannot stop them.”[4]

  By the time Bisshopp arrived, FitzGibbon had dismissed Major Hall, who had gone down the hill after his men. The coast was clear for the work to be done. They seized eight large boats into which they put two 12-pounders, one 6-pounder, and a large quantity of military stores and provisions. Half their men were detached to get these stores away. The other half went to burn the blockhouse, barracks that could hold 5,000 men, and a schooner anchored there.

  But the party lasted too long. According to Mary Agnes, her grandfather wanted to get away but Colonel Bisshopp had his eye on 400 barrels of salt down the beach. Meanwhile, the burning buildings revealed their numbers to the American militia, by then strengthened by a force from Buffalo and a number of Seneca Natives. They made a furious attack on the hundred-odd British who remained on shore. Driven to their boats, the British left behind a captain and 15 men killed or wounded. Another 27 killed or wounded were in the boats. Someone cried that Colonel Bisshopp was wounded and had been left ashore. A boatload of Green Tigers made a rush for him and got him into their boat, where he was wounded twice more. He died five days later from the wounds.

  About the experience, FitzGibbon wrote,

  For no man fallen in battle, did I grieve so much as for him. He was a man of most gentle and generous nature, and was more beloved by the militia over whom he was an inspecting field officer, than any other who served in the province during the war. But he wanted either experience or judgement, and fell in consequence in the prime of life, in the twenty-eighth year of his age.[5]

  Meanwhile, the new military commander for Upper Canada, Major-General Francis Baron de Rottenburg, had arrived to take a larger look at the future of the war. In a letter to Sir George Prevost, written from Twelve Mile Creek, July 7, 1813, he described conditions as he saw them:

  I am using every exertion to repair the roads. They have been much neglected by my predecessor and are the worst I ever saw anywhere….

  That stronghold [Burlington Heights] I must retire to ultimately and maintain myself until the navy will be enabled to meet the fleet on Lake Ontario. Had Sir James Yeo time to spare to co-operate with the army, Fort George would have fallen. But I do not now possess means of attacking them on both sides of the river.

  Lieut. FitzGibbon is a deserving and enterprising officer and I shall forward your letter to him. [Prevost had written to inform FitzGibbon of his promotion. Mary Agnes FitzGibbon says that letter was lost among his private papers.]

  With the exception of Lieut-Colonel Harvey, who is a most active, zealous, and intelligent officer, the heads of the departments here are deficient in activity and cleverness, and the militia staff is most miserable. There is a vast deal to be done in this Province. Everything is unhinged and requires my utmost exertions to keep affairs in some shape or other.[6]

  It seems de Rottenburg, like Vincent, did not achieve instant understanding with the militia. Merritt gives us a militiaman’s reaction to him,

  I was presented to Major-General de Rottenburg who had arrived to take the command of the army as well as being President of the Province. He unfortunately brought with him a very great name. We expected he would have performed wonders, in fact he has done nothing but eat, drink, snuff and snuffle.[7]

  On July 20, de Rottenburg wrote to Sir George Prevost that he had moved to St. David’s, “which reduces the enemy to the ground he stands upon and prevents his getting any supplies from our territory.” He also mentioned that it had become necessary to keep the Natives occupied, and that they were busy “harassing and teasing them the whole day long.”[8]

  Major-General De Rottenburg

  De Rottenburg, who was Swiss, served in the French Army, then joined the British in 1795. He served in Lower Canada in 1812 but in 1813, when Sheaffe was removed from command after losing York to the Americans, he replaced Sheaffe as military administrator of Upper Canada.

  His performance was even less applauded than Sheaffe’s. He was cautious and slow to move against the enemy. Major-General Henry Procter, commanding the western army, believed he could capture the American fleet at Presqu’ile if de Rottenburg would send him some men. De Rottenburg would not, fearing that doing so would weaken the armies at Burlington Heights and Kingston. As Procter and de Rottenburg argued, Tecumseh’s agitation increased.

  After Procter’s defeat, Canadian-born Gordon Drummond was named lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada and de Rottenburg was moved back to Lower Canada.

  The stalemate at Fort George for the rest of the summer was a direct result of the deadlock on Lake Ontario. Sir James Yeo had had some advantage when Chauncey was staying close to Sackets Harbor until his new ship, General Pike, would be ready to sail. Yeo had been able to support Vincent as he moved toward Fort George, and to conduct raids along the south shore of Lake Ontario. But on July 21, the new corvette General Pike led Chauncey’s squadron out of Sackets Harbor.

  The General Pike, with 26 long 24-pounders, had a greater range of fire than any British ship. Altogether, Chauncey had two ships, one brig, and 10 schooners, while Yeo’s fleet consisted of two ships, two brigs, and two schooners. At Fort Niagara, Chauncey took on troops to attack Vincent’s supply depot at Burlington Heights. But this post had been reinforced by Colonel Battersby, who had marched from York with part of the Glengarry corps. When Chauncey saw the Glengarries there he realized that York must be defenceless and decided instead to make another attack on York. On August 1, he landed his Americans, who burnt barracks and storehouses and carried away provisions, mainly flour.

  From 2012 to 2014, these re-enactors will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812.

  Gord Mallory.

  On August
7, Yeo’s fleet met Chauncey’s off the Niagara River, and a decisive battle seemed inevitable. Instead, the two commanders manoeuvred all night. Around midnight a storm came up and two of Chauncey’s schooners capsized and were lost. All but 13 of the men on board went down with the ships.

  The two fleets danced around each other for five successive days. In the early hours of August 11, Chauncey’s two best schooners became separated from the American fleet and were captured by Yeo. Finally, Chauncey sailed away to Sackets Harbor with four ships fewer than when he sailed out. Yeo had no desire to tangle with those long guns on the General Pike, but he could out sail the American fleet and occasionally he might cut out one of Chauncey’s schooners. The rest of the time he would let Chauncey chase him around Lake Ontario, as the two fleets danced a sort of international ballet to the great disgust of land commanders on both sides.

  In mid-August there was excitement in the ranks as Sir George Prevost arrived and ordered “general demonstration” on the morning of August 24. While the larger part of the army performed before Fort George, 350 men under Major Plenderleath crossed the river and crept through the woods to surprise the Americans manning the guns and batteries opposite Fort George. Included in this number was FitzGibbon’s party of Green Tigers. Fourteen Americans were taken prisoner, the rest driven back to Fort Niagara. Three 49ers were wounded.

  On the Canadian side, British soldiers were delighted to dash into the town beside Fort George. The Americans opened a brisk fire from house windows and garden walls but still the British were “extremely unwilling to come away.” Colonel Harvey stopped at his old quarters to snatch up a box of valuables he had left there. With their pickets all taken prisoner, the American Army stayed inside Fort George. No amount of manoeuvring by Prevost’s army could induce them to come out. In his dispatch afterward, Prevost said he was convinced that Fort George could not be taken without more troops, help from the fleet, and a battering train.

  The American line advances (re-enactors as they appeared in the battles of 1812–14).

  Gord Mallory.

  Prevost went back to Kingston to try to convince Sir James Yeo to do something decisive on the water. The troops settled down to being sick. By the end of August the spirit had gone out of the soldiers on the Niagara frontier. Idleness and bad food bred misery as real and awful as the sufferings of battle. Sickness stalked in every camp, and by September 6, de Rottenburg wrote, “I have now in the rear at the Twelve Mile Creek and at York, five hundred men sick.”

  In a private letter to Sir George Prevost, sent on August 30, de Rottenburg said, “Colonels Stewart, Plenderleath, May, Williams, FitzGibbon, and a great number of others are laid up with the lake fever. We are in great want of medicine and wine for the sick.”

  Fitz was possibly cared for by one of his own Green Tigers who had recovered from or not caught the fever. He may have lain sick at DeCew’s or he may have been conveyed to one of the crude hospitals set up at Twelve Mile Creek.

  In his September 21 letter home, Thomas Ridout mentioned two officers who had died, then added, “FitzGibbon has got well again.”

  On September 19, Sir George Prevost wrote to Sir James Lucas Yeo:

  The Centre Division of the Upper Canada Army is placed in a situation very critical and one novel in the system of war, that of investing a force vastly superior in numbers within a strongly entrenched position. It was adopted and has been maintained from a confident expectation that with the squadron under your command a combined attack ere this could have been effected on the enemy at Fort George with every prospect of success. To the local disadvantages of the positions occupied by our army have been added disease and desertion to a degree calling for an immediate remedy.[9]

  As inexperienced new troops arrived from Europe they had to learn from the militiamen how to make shelters, light a smudge against mosquitoes, and cook enough to eat. Lieutenant MacEwan of the Royal Scots wrote to his wife, “I now live by myself in an Indian house made of branches and leaves of trees, all that defends me from cold and heat.”

  But most of the militia could not make lean-to shelters to keep out rain; their clothing did not repel water and by this time their boots leaked. More than one regiment was in rags. Merritt’s troop had been disbanded because his people were “literally naked and defenceless.” Merritt himself was sent to Montreal to plead his need for appointments and better organization for his Dragoon force.

  Sanitation and Sickness

  The fierce cold of winter kept troops healthy; the lovely Canadian summer made them sick. At Niagara, 2,000 men were camped together in whatever shelter they could rig, their clothing worn to rags and their meat often rancid. Salt was essential to keep meat edible in hot weather. A raid on Fort Schlosser in July had netted them 120 barrels of salt. Again, it was barrels of salt that delayed the British too long at Black Rock. But by September, salt was running out.

  Sanitation was poor or non-existent, resulting in diarrhoea and dysentery. In 1813, the dreaded “lake fever” (typhus) stalked the camps on both sides of the river. In Sackets Harbor at that time, one-fifth of the men had dysentery or jaundice or rheumatism or lake fever. With a great many dying, it was discovered that their bread was contaminated, made with lake water drawn near the drainage from the latrines. Their fellow Americans in Fort George were no better off. By August, 1,200 of them were sick.

  Meanwhile, the British camp at Twelve Mile Creek had 500 lying sick in the crude hospital there. Conditions in the hospital were anything but healthy. Dr. “Tiger” Dunlop described the scene there in the summer of 1814. “The weather was intensely hot, the flies were in myriads and lighting on the wounds, deposited their eggs, so that maggots bred in a few hours, producing dreadful irritation.”[10]

  Later that summer, he described the camp before Fort Erie. He had expected tents but there were none. The Canadian militia knew how to make thatched wigwams from hemlock boughs, which actually kept out the rain. Soldiers arriving from Europe lived in wet misery until they learned. But Dunlop saw that the European soldiers had other skills. He watched them gather a haversack of wild herbs, add some flour, and make “a capital kettle of soup” while the Canadians scorched their rancid meat in the fire.

  Rain fell for two weeks and sickness increased. When Brown’s army attacked on September 17, disease was overshadowed by the new sufferings of the battle.

  When it rained on the soldiers their fires went out. What food was available was wet. Rain turned the low ground on which they were camped into swamp. Sanitation was poor in dry weather — in wet, it became a horror and a hazard to health. Dysentery and fever spread misery among the men and so shattered their morale that some no longer dreaded being shot by a Yankee. Others looked across the Niagara and imagined greener fields. Maybe it rained less over there. Everyone imagined more freedom over there, whatever freedom was. Numbers of them deserted to find out. Others tried and failed and were shot. Some sulked and disobeyed and were flogged.

  Days dragged on in idleness and lack of purpose while they camped beside an enemy that would not come out to fight. Food grew scarcer. Settlers now hated the sight of redcoats because the soldiers were driven to stealing their apples and potatoes and hay, and burning their rail fences.

  Young Thomas Ridout from York had been appointed to the commissariat at Niagara in July. His letters home show quite plainly how thing were. He was posted at St. David’s, then, at the beginning of September, moved to the lakeside where 2,000 troops were camped. A Mr. Thompson had let them into an old unused house on his property.

  We made a straw bed on the floor. We collect balm in the garden for tea, and carry on an extensive robbery of peas, apples, onions, corn, carrots, etc; for we can get nothing but by stealing, excepting milk, which is carefully measured. Bread and butter is out of the question, and to-day we sent a dragoon to the Twelve-Mile Creek for these articles and G. to the cross-roads for beef, etc. … The army is getting very sickly, forty or fifty men are sent to hospital every day.


  September 16th: We burn rails, steal apples, pears and peaches at a great rate. Old Lion sometimes growls at the rails going so fast, but can’t help himself. He thinks me the most innocent of the lot.

  September 21st.: We are in the same state at the old house as ever. I carry on the foraging. To-night our dragoon is to make a grand attack upon the onions. [11]

  What the British Army did not steal, the Natives did. In midsummer, General de Rottenburg had found it necessary to issue a District General Order: “The ready sale found for articles by the Natives having encouraged depredations by them, all officers and soldiers are forbidden to purchase anything from an Indian without permission.” He announced at the same time that any soldier caught taking hay or burning fences would be tried by “drumhead court martial.”

  Chapter 10

  War on the Water

  It is too true that our fleet on Lake Erie is taken, and Procter is left at Amherstburg without provisions, guns or men. Most of the cannon were mounted on board the ships.

  — Thomas Ridout to his father at York, September 21, 1813[1]

  On the western front, Procter’s army was becoming desperate for supplies. A long winter faced them with all the western Natives and their families to be fed, and the season for sailing would soon close.

  On the water, Captain Robert H. Barclay was equally desperate. The burning of York by the Americans had destroyed the naval stores and guns destined for his brigs under construction at Amherstburg. While the Americans were building two large ships in Presqu’ile Harbour, Barclay kept his tiny fleet stationed like guard dogs just outside the sandbar at the harbour entrance. Barclay knew the new ships could not sail over the sandbar unless they removed their cannon.