The American Invasion of Canada

by Pierre Berton

  It is a foolhardy undertaking. War is clearly imminent, even though Eustis, the bumbling secretary, gave no hint of it in his instructions to the General. Hull’s own officers have pointed out that the Cuyahoga must pass under the British guns at Fort Amherstburg, guarding the narrow river boundary, before she can reach Detroit; but their commander, sublimely unaware of his country’s declaration, remains confident that she will get there before the army.

  The schooner rolls in Erie’s swell. The passengers grow queasy,’ but not William K. Beall. He is enchanted by the vastness of the lake, has never seen anything like it before. He is a prosperous Kentucky plantation owner whose estate on the Ohio River, not far from Newport, is thirty-six miles square. But this lake! It is hard to conceive of so much fresh water, stretching on beyond the horizon. The only water he has seen since leaving home has flowed sluggishly in the saffron streams veining the dreadful swamps through which the army has just toiled. Beall puts all that out of his mind, basks in the novelty of the heaving deck, opens an appropriate book of poetry-Scott’s Lady of the Lake-commits three verses to memory, then catnaps as the Cuyahoga sails toward the mouth of the Detroit River.

  He wakes as the schooner approaches the village of Amherstburg, nestled outside the British fort (which the Americans call Fort Maiden). Again he is charmed by what he sees. The little town seems indifferently built, but the countryside is quite lovely-green meadows and sunny wheat fields rippling in the breeze. This southern fringe of orchards is the garden of Upper Canada, but most of the province beyond remains a wilderness, its great forests of pine and oak, maple and basswood broken here and there by small patches of pioneer civilization, like worn spots on a rug. Vast swamps, dark and terrifying, smother the land. Roads are few and in some seasons impassable, being little more than rivers of rutted mud. Sensible travellers move by water, and it is along the margins of the lakes and the banks of the larger rivers that the main communities such as Amherstburg have sprung up. Between these villages lie smaller settlements. Plots of winter wheat, oats, and rye, fields of corn and root vegetables blur the edges of the forest. Here, along the Detroit River, the fruit trees have been bearing for a decade, and cider has become a staple drink. Beall notes that everything appears to wear “the cheering smiles of peace and plenty.”

  In the distance an Indian canoe contributes to the picturesqueness of the scene. But as the canoe comes closer it is transformed into a Canadian longboat commanded by an officer of the Provincial Marine, Lieutenant Frederic Rolette, with six seamen, armed with cutlasses and pistols, pulling on the oars.

  Rolette calls to the Cuyahoga’s captain, Luther Chapin, to lower his mainsails. Chapin is open mouthed. He had expected a friendly hail; now he sees six muskets raised against him. Before he can act, Rolette fires his pistol in the air. Chapin struggles with the sail. Beall and his fellow passengers are in confusion. What is happening? Beall orders the captain to hoist the sail again and press on, but Chapin replies that this is not possible.

  Rolette now points his pistol directly at young George Gooding, a second-lieutenant in charge of the’ soldiers and baggage of the U.S., 4th Infantry Regiment. “Dowse your mainsails!5’ Rolette orders.

  Gooding equivocates. “I have no command here, sir,” he shouts. Rolette fires directly at the schooner, the ball whistling past Beall’s head. The captain pleads for instructions. “Do as you please,” answers the rattled Gooding, whose wife is also on deck. As the mainsails tumble, Frederic Rolette boards the packet.

  He is astonished to find the decks jammed with American soldiers. They are not aware that the war has started, but Rolette cannot be sure of that. Nor does he know that all but three are ill and that the muskets and ammunition are out of reach in the hold. All he knows is that he is outnumbered five to one.

  This does not dismay him,, for he is a seasoned seaman, accustomed to act with boldness and decision. At the age of twenty-nine, this French-speaking Quebecker has a naval record any officer might envy. He has fought in the two greatest sea battles of the era-the Nile and Trafalgar-under the finest commander of his time, Horatio Nelson. He has been wounded five times and, before this newest contest is over, will be wounded again. Now, as William Beall approaches to demand his authority for boarding the schooner,, Rolette informs him curtly that an express reached Amherstburg the previous night announcing the commencement of hostilities. Then, losing no time, he orders everybody below decks, posts sentries at the hatches and arms chests with orders to shoot any man who approaches them, orders the helmsman to steer the ship under the water battery at Amherstburg and the band to play “God Save the King.”

  As the schooner docks at the naval yard, the passengers are released under guard to the open deck and all the baggage is removed. Now the British realize the magnitude of their prize. For here are discovered two trunks belonging to General Hull containing documents of extraordinary, value. Hull’s aide-de-camp-his son Abraham-has foolishly packed the General’s personal papers with his baggage. The astonished British discover that they now possess all the details of the army that opposes them: field states, complete returns of the troops, the names and strengths of the regiments, an incomplete draft of Hull’s own memorial of March 6 outlining his strategy, and all his correspondence to and from the Secretary of War. It is a find equal to the breaking of an enemy code. The entire package is dispatched to Brock at York, who immediately grasps its significance and lays his plans.

  The Detroit Frontier

  No one on either side, meanwhile, is quite certain how to behave. Has war actually come? Even the British are reluctant to believe it. William Beall, now a prisoner, doubts it. He is certain that his captors have been wrongly informed, that when Hull demands his return he and his companions will be permitted to go on to Detroit.

  The British are polite, even hospitable. Lieutenant Edward Dewar, Beall’s opposite number in the quartermaster’s department at Fort Amherstburg, urges the Americans not to consider themselves prisoners but merely detainees. It is all very unpleasant, Dewar murmurs; he hopes the report of the war may prove incorrect; he hopes the Americans will be able to spend their time in detention as agreeably as possible; if there is any service he and his fellow officers can render to that end, they will be only too pleased to do so; he only wishes the packet could have passed by without interruption; if authentic information arrives that war has not been declared, they will be released at once. And so on.

  George Gooding declares he would like to dine ashore and put up at an inn. Dewar gets permission from his commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Bligh St. George, but points out the C.O.’s fear that the Indians are much enraged at the Americans and advises them to be on guard against attack. The detainees agree to accept billets aboard another ship, Thames, where a guard can be stationed. Meanwhile they must be very careful At this stage of the war, the British are worried at the horrors their native allies may commit on their new enemies. Dewar tells Beall that he fears that the Indians, in a drunken rage, might enter a tavern and murder all the Americans. To underline the danger he tells how an infuriated Indian had recently stepped up behind a man walking with a British officer and tomahawked him. Don’t go out into the streets alone, Dewar warns.

  Now, having accepted the parole of Beall and his companions that they will not try to escape, Dewar invites them to his home until their accommodation is prepared. On the wharf, a crowd of Indians look them over. In Beall’s eyes some appear to rejoice at their capture, while others terrify him with ferocious frowns. Gooding, who fought at Tippecanoe, recognizes some of his former adversaries. Harrison’s bitter seed, broadcast on the banks of the Wabash, is already beginning to sprout.

  At Dewar’s home there is wine, cider, biscuits. It would be improper, says the Lieutenant, to invite the Americans to dine with him, but he accompanies them to Boyle’s Inn and Public House, apologizing in his diffident British fashion for its poor quality but explaining that it is the best in town. Following dinner, the men leave th
e inn and, accompanied by a British officer, stroll through the streets through crowds of Indians who the nervous Beall feels are glaring directly at him. Every white man, however, bows politely to the strangers and one even invites them into his house and pours them several glasses of wine.

  Many of these are Americans, lured to Upper Canada by the prospect of free land and low taxes. They have little interest in politics, less in war. In a province of. some sixty thousand, they form a clear but powerless majority, having been shut out of all public office by the elite group of British and Loyalist administrators who control the government. This does not unduly concern them, for they are prospering on their free acreage. Democracy may be virtually non-existent in Upper Canada, but so are taxes, since the province is financed by the British treasury. Beall is intrigued to discover that the master of his floating prison. Captain Martin of the Thames, owns a well-stocked farm of three hundred acres but pays an annual levy of exactly $1.06¼.

  As for the prospect of war, they dismiss it. During their walk through the village, Lieutenant Dewar remarks to Beall that he will be sorry if the two countries cannot adjust their difficulties without violence. Everyone to whom the American speaks echoes that sentiment.

  The women, being non-combatants, are sent to the American side; the men remain aboard the Thames. Beall estimates that there are at least five hundred Indians in town. On July 4, as the sounds of Independence Day cannonades echo across the water from Detroit, two hundred Sauk warriors arrive, the largest and best-formed men Beall has ever seen, though in his eyes they are as savage and uncultivated as any other natives.

  On the following day, the sound of Hull’s bugler blowing reveille reveals that the Army of the Northwest has. reached the village of Brownstown, directly across the river, less than a day’s march from Detroit. By nightfall, Amherstburg is in a panic. Women and children run crying toward the vessels at the dockside, loading the decks with trunks of valuables. Indians dash about the streets shouting. Consternation and dismay prevail as the call to arms is sounded. The enemy, in short, is within striking distance of the thinly guarded fort, the sole British bastion on the Detroit frontier. If Hull can seize it in one lightning move, his army can sweep up the valley of the Thames and capture most if not all of Upper Canada.

  Beall views it all with mixed feelings. A sensitive and compassionate man who is already starting to pine for his wife Melinda, back in Kentucky, he feels “sensibly for those on both sides who might loose [sic] their lives.” Certainly his British hosts have been decent to the point of chivalry; it is difficult to think of them as the enemy. (Could Beall actually shoot at Dewar if he met him on the field?) On the other hand, he is convinced that his day of deliverance is at hand. Surely General Hull will cross the river, crush all resistance at Amherstburg, free him for further service, and, if the campaign is as decisive as everyone expects, return him swiftly to Melinda’s arms!

  •

  THE CRUCIAL DISPATCH to General Hull, announcing the war, is hidden somewhere in the Cleveland mail. Frustration! Walworth, the postmaster, has written orders to forward it at once by express. But where is it? He can guess what it contains, for the news has already reached Cleveland. A young lawyer, Charles Shaler, stands ready to gallop through swamp and forest to the Rapids of the Maumee and on to Detroit, if need be, once the missing document is found. Nobody, apparently, thinks to send him off at once with a verbal message while others rummage for the official one. Hours pass. Shaler chafes. Then somebody suggests the dispatch might be in the Detroit mail Reluctantly, the postmaster breaks the law, opens the bags, finds the missing paper.

  Off goes Shaler, swimming the unbridged rivers, plunging through the wilderness, vainly seeking a relay steed to replace his gasping horse. Some eighty hours later, on the evening of July I (the Cuyahoga has already been dispatched) he reaches the rapids, discovers the army has decamped, gallops after it. He reached Hull’s force at two the following morning. The General, half-dressed, reads the dispatch, registers alarm, orders Shaler to keep quiet in the presence of others, calls a council of his officers, orders a boat to take after the Cuyahoga. It is too late; she cannot be caught. At dawn the army moves on, Shaler riding with the troops. On reaching Detroit, his much-abused horse drops dead of exhaustion.

  The army arrives on July 5, after thirty-five days of struggle through Ohio’s swampy wilderness. The soldiers find a primitive settlement of twelve hundred straggling on the outskirts of a log fort. Like their neighbours on both sides of the river, most of the people are French speaking, descendants of families that settled the land a century before and whose strip farms with their narrow river frontage betray their Quebecois background. In Hull’s view they are “miserable farmers,” being descended from voyageurs, traders, soldiers, and artisans-people with no agricultural tradition. They raise apples for cider and gigantic pears for pickling but pay little attention to other forms of agriculture, depending principally on hunting, fishing, and trading with the Indians. In short, they cannot provision his troops-and this is Hull’s dilemma: his supply line is two hundred miles long, stretching south along the makeshift trace his men have hacked out of the forests. To secure his position, Hull must have two months’ provisions. In Chillicothe, the capital, Ohio’s energetic governor. Return Meigs, receives the General’s plea, raises a company of ninety-five citizen volunteers, and sends them north through Urbana as escort for a brigade of pack horses, loaded with flour and provisions, and a drove of beef cattle. But to reach Hull, this supply train must eventually follow the road that hugs the southwestern shore of Lake Erie and . the Detroit River. That will be dangerous because the British control the water.

  Hull’s more immediate concern is the fate of the baggage captured aboard the Cuyahoga. Have the British actually rifled his personal possessions, discovered his official correspondence? He pens a note to Lieutenant-Colonel St. George, the commander at Fort Amherstburg. Dripping with politeness and studiedly casual, it reads more like an interoffice memorandum than a communication between enemies:

  Sir,

  Since the arrival of my army at this Encampment...I have been informed that a number of discharges of Artillery and of small arms have been made by some of the Militia of the Territory, from this Shore into Sandwich.

  I regret to have received such information, the proceeding was [un] authorized by me. I am not disposed to make War on Private Property, or to authorise a wanton attack upon unoffending individuals, I would be happy to learn whether you consider private Property a proper objective of seizure and detention, I allude to the Baggage of Officers particularly....

  St. George, in his reply to Hull, outdoes the General in verbal niceties:

  Sir,

  I am honoured with your letter of this days date; I perfectly coincide with you in opinion respecting private property, and any wanton attack upon unoffending individuals, and am happy to find, what I was certain would be the case, that the aggression in question was unauthorized by you.

  In respect to the property of officers not on board a vessel at the time of capture I must be judged by the customs of war in like cases, in justice to the captors, and shall always be ready to meet your wishes...when I receive orders...from my government....

  Which, translated, simply means: go to hell.

  The bearer of Hull’s letter, under a flag of truce, is Colonel Cass, whose instructions are to spy out the situation at the British fort. Cass takes a good look, reports that rumour has exaggerated the garrison’s strength and also the number of Indians. He believes, and will continue to believe, that Fort Amherstburg can be easily taken.

  In spite of the suavity of his correspondence, Thomas Bligh St. George is a badly rattled commander. He is an old campaigner, with forty years of service in the British Army, much of it spent in active warfare on the Mediterranean. But he has been a staff officer for the past decade and clearly has difficulty coping with the present crisis. He commands a lightly garrisoned fort, in need of repair and reinforcem
ent. Across the river an army of two thousand sits poised for invasion. Scrambling about in a fever of preparation he is “so harassed for these five days and nights, I can scarcely write.” Brock, who receives this communication, is dismayed to discover that Lieutenant-Colonel St. George has let three days slip by before bothering to inform him that Hull’s force has reached Detroit.

  Fort Amherstburg is in chaos. Indians are coming and going, eating up the supplies; no one can guess their strength from day to day. The same is true of the militia: St. George has no real idea of how many men he commands or whether he has the resources to supply them. The accounts are in disarray, the returns non-existent. He has not enough officers to organize the militia-many of whom are leaving for home or attempting to leave-or enough arms to supply them. Nor does he know how he can pay them.

  The little village of Sandwich lies directly across the river from Detroit, upriver from Amherstburg. This, St. George knows, will be Hull’s invasion point. He stations some militia units at Sandwich but has little hope that they will be effective. To “encourage” them, in St. George’s euphemism, he sends along a detachment of regulars. To supply the wants of his confused and amateur army, St. George is obliged to make use of everything that falls in his way. This includes a brigade of eleven bateaux loaded with supplies that the North West Company has dispatched from Montreal to its post at Fort William at the lakehead. St. George seizes the supplies, impresses the seventy voyageurs.