The American Invasion of Canada

by Pierre Berton

  Within the fort, by the end of the month William Beall and the other American officers have lost all hope of rescue. “I can scarcely think that Genl. H. will be defeated,” Beall writes, “but appearances justify such a belief. I am confident that he will not take Maiden, though 300 men could do it.... Why does he not, by taking Maiden, silence and drive the Indians away who infest the Country and secure a safe communication with the States, and safety to our Frontiers. Heaven only knows. I for a Harrison, a Daviess or a Wells.”

  •

  YORK, UPPER CANADA, July 28, 1812. Isaac Brock, administrator of Upper Canada, resplendent in military crimson and gold, is opening the legislature and managing to mask the emotions of contempt, frustration, and even despair that boil up within him.

  ...when invaded by an Enemy whose avowed object is the entire Conquest of this Province, the voice of Loyalty as well as of interest calls aloud to every Person in the Sphere in which he is placed, to defend his ‘ Country.

  Our Militia have heard that voice and have obeyed it, they have evinced by the promptitude and Loyalty of their Conduct, that they are worthy of the King whom they serve> and of the Constitution which they enjoy...

  This is hokum, and Brock knows it. He has already written a private note to Prevost declaring his belief that it seems impossible “to animate the militia to a proper sense of duty” and that he almost despairs of doing anything with them. Worse, at Long Point on Lake Erie, where he has attempted to muster five hundred men to march to the relief of Fort Amherstburg, there has been open mutiny. The men have refused to march under Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Talbot, the eccentric and domineering Irish aristocrat who controls some sixty thousand acres of land in the area. One reason for the mutiny has been the wives5 fear of being left alone to the mercy of the neutral Iroquois at the Grand River. Another has been the inflammatory speeches made to them by pro-American civilian dissidents. A third, one suspects, has been Talbot himself, a curious specimen, tyrannical in his control over the settlers-a man who once lived in luxury but who now dresses in homespun, bakes his own bread, labours like a peasant, drinks like a toper, and affects a harsh mode of life which, in the words of a former lieutenant-governor, “might suit a Republic but is not fitted to a Monarchical Government.55

  In spite of this disaffection, Brock continues the charade:

  ...it affords me particular satisfaction? that while I address You as Legislators, I speak to men who in the day of danger, will be ready to assist, not only with their Counsel, but with their Arms...

  He does not believe it, and his private correspondence reflects his dismay and cynicism. The people and their leaders appear convinced that the war is lost: “...a full belief possesses them that this Province must inevitably succumb.... Legislators, magistrates, militia officers, all have imbibed the idea, and are so sluggish and indifferent in their respective offices that the artful and active scoundrel is allowed to parade the country without interruption and commit all imaginable mischief.”

  The artful and active scoundrels include a big, ginger-haired blacksmith named Andrew Westbrook and a land surveyor from Montreal named Simon Z. Watson. Westbrook, a recent arrival from the United States, has enthusiastically espoused Hull’s cause, helped distribute his proclamation, and volunteered to fight with the Detroit militia. Watson, “a desperate character” in Brock’s view, is a bitter enemy of Thomas Talbot, and thus of the government, because of a longstanding rivalry over land fees and speculation. Created a temporary colonel by Hull, he has “vowed the most bitter vengeance against the first characters of the Province.” There are other dissidents, such as John Beamer, a justice of the peace, who has chaired a meeting in Norfolk County urging the militia not to fight.

  But Brock plays all this down:

  A few Traitors, have already joined the Enemy.... Yet the General Spirit of Loyalty which appears to pervade the Inhabitants of this Province, is such as to authorize a just expectation that their efforts to mislead and deceive, will be unavailing.

  In private he reports:

  “A petition has already been carried to Genl. Hull signed by many inhabitants about Westminster inviting him to advance with a promise to join him-What in the name of heaven can be done with such a vile population?”

  Yet who can blame the mass of the people? The nature of the colonial aristocracy denies them a say in their own destiny, even though they are required to swear allegiance to the King, George III, who being certifiably insane is king in name only, the real monarch being his son, the Prince Regent, known to the irreverent masses as Prinny. The province is administered by the Prince Regent’s appointee, Francis Gore, and in his absence by Isaac Brock, who also commands the army and the militia and is thus a near dictator. He sits at the head of a seven-man council, which, being appointed for life, can be said to be almost as conservative as the mad king himself, and a fourteen-man assembly, elected by freeholders, whose members serve for four years-or less, at the governor’s pleasure. Anyone who dares speak disrespectfully of the King, the government, or its officers is treading perilously close to sedition.

  The Church of England clergy, the military, and the leading officeholders form a ruling elite, the legacy of the first lieutenant-governor, John Graves Simcoe, who was convinced that a landed aristocracy, conservative in its attitudes and British in its antecedents, was the only way to combat the twin viruses of democracy and republicanism creeping across the border. The tight little group that forms the apex of the social triangle in Upper Canada, entrenched by nepotism and by an educational system that ignores the masses, will shortly become known as the Family Compact. It does not tolerate opposition.

  The “vile population” wants to be left alone. Militia service deprives the farms of their greatest asset, able-bodied men. Loyalists and the sons of the Loyalists-men like John Beverley Robinson, or the Ryersons of Norfolk County-will flock to the colours because their whole heritage represents a rejection of American values. And there are others who see in war a chance for adventure or escape. But these are in a minority. Brock is determined to rally the rest by Draconian methods, if need be. He wants to suspend habeas corpus and establish martial law but finds that in spite of his impressive authority he has little hope of either. The legislature will not vote for the first, and if he attempts the second “I am told the instant the law is promulgated the Militia will disperse.... “

  He is convinced that the legislators, expecting an American victory, are fearful of taking any overt action that might displease the conquerors. “I really believe it is with some cause that they dread the vengeance of the democratic party, they are such a set of unrelenting villains.”

  Pinned down at York by his civilian duties, he has taken what action he can to stiffen the defence at Fort Amherstburg, dispatching a younger and more energetic officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Procter, to take over from the confused and harassed St. George.

  Amherstburg is vital. If Hull seizes it-as he seems likely to do-he can sweep up the Thames or turn eastward to attack the British rear at Fort George on the Niagara and link up with the second American army already forming along that gorge. Brock must maintain a strong defence on the Niagara, yet his force at Amherstburg is distressingly thin. His only immediate solution is to move some men from Fort George to Fort Erie, a mid-point between the two bastions. From there they can be dispatched swiftly in either direction, depending upon the threat. Fortunately, he commands the Lakes.

  He has also sent detachments down the valley of the Thames, recalling the militia from the harvest fields, attempting to waken the countryside to action, and distributing a proclamation of his own designed to counter Hull’s. In this paper battle with the enemy. Brock, conjuring up the spectre of Napoleon, shows that he is no stranger to the art of magniloquence:

  ...it is but too obvious that once estranged from the powerful protection of the United Kingdom you must be reannexed to the dominion of France, from which the Provinces of Canada were wrested by the Arms of Great B
ritain, at a vast expense of blood and treasure, from no other motive than to relieve her ungrateful children from the oppression of a cruel neighbor: this restitution of Canada to the Empire of France was the stipulated reward for the aid offered to the revolted Colonies, now the United States; The debt is still due, and there can be no doubt but that the pledge has been renewed.... Are you prepared Inhabitants of Upper Canada to becoming willing subjects or rather slaves to the Despot who rules the nations of Europe with a rod of Iron? If not, arise in a Body, exert your energies, co-operate cordially with the King’s regular Forces to repel the invader, and do not give cause to your children when groaning under the oppression of a foreign Master to reproach you with having too easily parted with the richest Inheritance on Earth-a participation in the name, character and freedom of Britons...

  In his proclamation. Brock praises “the brave bands of Natives >who inhabit this Colony,” but the ink is scarcely dry on the paper when he learns that one brave band-the Iroquois of the Grand Galley-remains totally uninterested in fighting the Americans. Brock s infuriated. Their conduct is “ungrateful and infamous...mortifying.” He would like to see them all expelled from their land. By refusing to take sides, the Iroquois “afford the Militia a plausible pre-ext for staying at home-They do not like leaving their families within the power of the Indians.... “

  Honourable Gentlemen of the Legislative Council and Gentlemen of he House of Assembly.

  We are engaged in an awful and eventful Contest. By unanimity and lespatch in our Councils, and by vigour in our Operations, we may teach he Enemy this lesson-that a Country defended by Free men, enthusiastic •ally devoted to the cause of their King and Constitution, can never be Conquered.

  Brock’s closing words have a hollow ring. According to inviolable ritual, they will be parroted back to him twice: first by the Speaker of the Council and on the following day by the Speaker of the House, while Brock frets. He yearns to be at Amherstburg in the thick of things, away from the stuffy corridors of York and in sight of the enemy. Words are not his long suit, though in his loneliness he has become a voracious reader, devouring Plutarch’s Lives, Hume’s Essays, Pope’s Homer, and dozens of military volumes. It is even said that much of his proclamation is the work of his friend Mr. Justice William Dummer Powell. Action is his forte, and it is action he craves. On the Iberian peninsula, Wellington has just won the battle of Salamanca and is basking in the approbation of Francisco Goya, the irascible Spanish court painter who has somehow got through the lines to commence an equestrian portrait of the victor. But it is thirteen years since Brock has seen real action (setting aside the naval attack on Copenhagen when he was sequestered aboard one of Nelson’s ships, Ganges). He is not likely to forget that October afternoon at Egmont-op-Zee when death whispered to him as a. musket ball, happily near spent, buried itself in his silk cravat, knocking him insensible from his horse. He was a lieutenant-colonel of the 49th then, a regiment that he had thoroughly shaken up, transforming it (in the Duke of York’s opinion) from one of the worst to one of the best in the service. Now a whole country needs shaking up. Defeatism, timidity, irresolution, and treason stalk the land. It is Brock’s task to achieve another miracle, and he cannot accomplish that in the dust and gumbo of provincial York. Duty calls. Immortality beckons. A new October awaits.

  •

  AUGUST 5, 1812. At the River aux Ecorces, on the American side of the Detroit, Robert Lucas the scout lies hidden in the bushes, waiting for the dawn, watched by unseen eyes. Two fellow rangers lie beside him along with the ranger captain McCullough, who has the dubious distinction of being the only American thus far to take an Indian scalp.

  The four men lie on the left flank of an armed body sent across the river by Hull to make contact with the wagon train of supplies, which he desperately needs to feed his army. The supply train, under the command of a young Chillicothe lawyer, Captain Henry Brush, has reached the Rapids of the Maumee and is moving on to the River Raisin after a gruelling march through dense thickets and treacherous mires. But Brush does not dare continue to Detroit without an escort, for his cattle train and pack animals must pass within cannon shot of Fort Amherstburg. Hull has answered his plea by dispatching two hundred Ohio volunteers under Major Thomas Van Home. Some of these are the same men who refused to cross the river in July; Van Home has picked them up at Detroit along with their company commander, the recalcitrant Captain Rupes, who, astonishingly, is still in charge, having been re-elected by democratic vote after a court martial ordered him cashiered.

  Dawn breaks. McCullough and his scouts rise and mount their horses, making a wide reconnaissance sweep around the detachment. They scent trouble, noting tracks on the road and trails in the grass-evidence that a party of Indians has been watching them during the night. Out on the river, a faint splish-splash penetrates the shroud of mist that hangs over the water. Oars! Hull’s army cannot remain long on Canadian soil unless its supply lines are secured. The British, who control the river, intend that this shall not be.

  The detachment moves, McCullough, Robert Lucas, and Van Home’s black servant riding out in front. Lucas continues to eye the river. Is a British force crossing over from Fort Amherstburg? The mist frustrates his view.

  They ride through the Wyandot village of Maguaga. It is deserted, the houses empty. Tecumseh and Matthew Elliott have preceded them and persuaded the wavering Walk-in-the-Water to cross to British territory with his followers. Brock’s assessment has been correct: news of the victory at Michilimackinac has tipped the scales, and the tribe wants to be on the winning side.

  The road forks around a corn field. Lucas and a companion take the right fork; McCullough takes the left and rides into an ambush. Lucas hears a volley of shots, but before he can reach him, the scalper is himself scalped, tomahawked, riddled with musket balls. The rear guard is in a panic, but the Indians have already vanished into the tall corn. ?

  Shaken, the detachment moves on, leaving three corpses under a cover of bark and ignoring a Frenchman’s warning that a large force of Indians is waiting for them at Brownstown. The Americans do not trust the French settlers, some of whom are pro-British and seek to confuse them with false reports.

  The war party moves in double file. Between the files, mounted men escort the mail-a packet of personal letters written by Hull’s soldiers to their families and friends, many of them critical of their general, and, more significantly, Hull’s official dispatches to Washington, revealing both his plans and his pessimism.

  Brownstown village lies ahead, but Brownstown Creek must first be crossed. The only practical ford lies in a narrow defile with thick bushes on the right and fields of tall corn on the opposite bank and on the left. It is the perfect spot for an ambush; Lucas recognizes the danger and rides along the right column warning the men to see that their muskets are freshly primed. Tecumseh has recognized it, too. He and his followers are flat on their bellies directly ahead-twenty-four Shawnee and Ottawa and one white man, Matthew Elliott’s son Alexander.

  As Tecumseh silently waits, the American files close up to cross the creek. Then, at a range of no more than twenty-five yards, the Indians rise out of the corn, their high-pitched war cries mingling with the explosion of their weapons. Lucas’s horse is shot, topples sideways against another wounded animal, pitches its rider onto the ground, his musket flying from his hand. Weaponless, Lucas tries with little success to rally the men. The odds are twenty to one in favour of the Americans, but the Indians are shouting so wildly that Van Home believes himself outnumbered. It is scarcely necessary to order a retreat; his men fling down their weapons, scatter the mail, and plunge headlong back the way they came, actually outrunning their pursuers, who follow them for three miles before giving up the chase. Robert Lucas, covering the retreat as best he can, is the last man to escape.

  The Battle of Brownstown, as it will be called, represents a serious setback for Hull. Van Home has lost eighteen men killed and twenty wounded. Some seventy are missing, many
hiding in the bushes; the following day, most straggle back. Worse than the loss of seven officers is the abandoning of the mail. This will raise Brock’s spirits, for here, in letters home, is strong evidence of the discontent and illness in the ranks, of a lack of confidence in the leadership, and, even more important, Hull’s letter of August 4 to the Secretary of War, outlining the critical situation of his army, pleading for another two thousand men, and expressing his deep-seated fear of the Indians who he believes will shortly be swarming down from Mackinac Island.

  At Brownstown, meanwhile, a strong detachment of the British 41st accompanied by militia and civilian volunteers under Major Adam Muir has crossed the river, too late to take part in the skirmish but prepared to frustrate any further attempt by Hull to open the supply line. The men have waited all night, unable to light a fire, shivering in the damp, without blankets or provisions. Now they are exposed to a spectacle calculated to make them shudder further.

  The Indians hold a young American captive and are intent on killing him. Muir does his best to intervene, offers a barrel of ram and articles of clothing if the prisoner’s life is spared. But then a series of piercing cries issues from the forest-the funeral convoy of a young chief. Blue Jacket, the only casualty among Tecumseh’s followers. Four tribesmen carry in the body. Thomas Vercheres de Boucherville, a citizen volunteer and experienced fur trader from Amherstburg, realizes there is no hope for the American, for the Indians are intent on avenging their chief. They place his corpse at the captive’s feet and he, too, seems to understand his fate.

  The American turns pale, looks about him, asks in a low voice if it is possible that the English allow such acts of barbarity. The cries of the Indians drown out the response.

  The oldest Potawatomi chief raises his hatchet over the prisoner; a group of Indian women draw near. At the chiefs signal, one plunges a butcher knife into the victim’s head; a second stabs him in the side while the chief dispatches him with a tomahawk. Tecumseh, who would surely have prevented the execution, is not present.