The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume II Part 36
"_Soldiers!_--You are amply provided for war. You are superior in number to the enemy. Your personal strength and activity are greater. Your weapons are longer. The regular soldiers of the enemy are really old, whose best years have been spent in the sickly climate of the West Indies. They will not be able to stand before you--you who charge with the bayonet. You have seen Indians, such as those hired by the English to murder women and children, and kill and scalp the wounded. You have seen their dances and grimaces, and heard their yells. Can you fear _them_? No; you hold them in the utmost contempt.
"_Volunteers!_--Disloyal and traitorous men have endeavoured to dissuade you from your duty. Sometimes they say, if you enter Canada you will be held to service for five years. At others they say that you will not be furnished with supplies. At other times they say that if you are wounded, the Government will not provide for you by pensions. The just and generous course pursued by Government towards the volunteers who fought at Tippecanoe, furnishes an answer to that objection. The others are too absurd to deserve any.
"_Volunteers!_--I esteem your generous and patriotic motives. You have made sacrifices on the altar of your country. You will not suffer the enemies of your fame to mislead you from the path of duty and honour, and deprive you of the esteem of a grateful country. You will show the _eternal_ infamy that awaits the man who, having come in sight of the enemy, basely shrinks in the moment of trial.
"_Soldiers of every corps!_--It is in your power to retrieve the honour of your country, and to cover yourselves with glory. Every man who performs a gallant action shall have his name made known to the nation.
Rewards and honours await the brave. Infamy and contempt are reserved for cowards.
"_Companions in arms!_--You come to vanquish a valiant foe; I know the choice you will make. Come on, my heroes! And when you attack the enemy's batteries, let your rallying word be 'The cannon lost at Detroit, or death.'
(Signed) "ALEXANDER SMYTH, "_Brigadier-General Commanding_.
"Camp near Buffalo, 17th Nov., 1812."]
[Footnote 201: We are inclined to think that those volunteers and others who professed such patriotic indignation against Smyth, and promised such great things, were, in general, no less poltroons than Smyth himself. It was as easy for them to denounce Smyth, and to boast of what they could and would do, as for Smyth, in his proclamation, to denounce those who opposed the invasion of Canada.]
[Footnote 202: Lossing's Field Book of the War of 1812, Chap, xx., p.
430-432.
Mr. Lossing adds, in a note, that "General Smyth pet.i.tioned the House of Representatives to reinstate him in the army. That body referred the pet.i.tion to the Secretary of War--the General's executioner. Of course, its prayer was not answered. In that pet.i.tion Smyth asked the privilege of 'dying for his country.' This phrase was the subject of much ridicule. At a public celebration of Washington's birthday, in 1814, at Georgetown, in the District of Columbia, the following sentiment was offered during the presentation of toasts: 'General Smyth's pet.i.tion to Congress to die for his country; may it be ordered that the prayer of said pet.i.tion be granted.'
"A wag wrote on a panel of one of the doors of the House of Representatives:
"'All hail, great chief, who quailed before A Bishop on Niag'ra's sh.o.r.e; But looks on Death with dauntless eye, And begs for leave to bleed and die, "'Oh my!'"]
CHAPTER LV.
FOURTH AMERICAN INVASION--FIRST INVASION OF LOWER CANADA, COMPLETELY DEFEATED BY THE COURAGE AND SKILL OF THE CANADIANS; AND GENERAL DEARBORN RETIRES INTO WINTER QUARTERS AT PLATTSBURG.
But in addition to these three abortive invasions of Upper Canada in 1812, was one of _Lower Canada_, which will be narrated in the words of Mr. Christie, ill.u.s.trating as it does the ardent loyalty and n.o.ble heroism of the French Canadians:
"The American forces, under General Dearborn, gradually approached the frontier of Lower Canada; and early on the morning of the 17th of November, 1812, Major (now Lieutenant-Colonel) De Salaberry, Superintendent of the Canadian Voltigeurs, commanding the cordon of advanced posts on the lines, received information at St. Philip's that the enemy, to the number of ten thousand (10,000), were advancing to Odletown. He immediately despatched two companies of the Voltigeurs, under the command of Captain Perrault, of the same regiment, with 300 Indians under Captain d.u.c.h.esne, of the Indian Department, to reinforce Major Laforce, of the 1st Battalion embodied militia, who was posted with the two flank companies of that battalion at the River La Cole.
This detachment, after a fatiguing march of thirty-six miles, chiefly through _mora.s.ses_ and _abatis_, arrived early in the afternoon of the same day at Burtonville, and took a position within the River La Cole, a mile distant from it, in conjunction with a party of thirty Algonquin and Abenaki Indians, and a few Voyageurs under Captain McKay, a gentleman of the North-West Company in the Voyageurs' corps. Major De Salaberry arrived the day following, with the remainder of the Voltigeurs and the Voyageurs, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel McGillivray, and four companies of the volunteer Cha.s.seurs from the parishes of Chateauguay, St. Constant, St. Philip, and l'Acadie.
"In the meantime the enemy occupied Champlain Town, two or three miles from the lines, and an earnest invasion was momentarily expected.
Nothing occurred of any consequence until the 20th, in the morning, when Captain McKay, visiting the picquet between three and four o'clock, perceived the enemy fording the River La Cole, and at the same instant heard them c.o.c.k their firelocks in the surrounding bushes. He had scarcely time to apprise the picquet under Captain Bernard Panet, of their danger, when the enemy, who had surrounded the guardhut on all sides, discharged a volley of musketry so close that their wads set fire to the roof and consumed the hut. The militia and Indians discharged their pieces, and dashing through the ranks of the enemy, escaped unhurt, while the Americans, who had forded the river in two places, mistaking each other for the enemy in the darkness and confusion of the night, kept up a brisk fire for near half an hour, in which they killed and wounded several of their own people. After discovering their error they retired back to Champlain Town, leaving five of their men wounded, and three or four killed, who were found by the Indians on the same day.
The American party is said to have consisted of fourteen hundred (1,400) men and a troop of dragoons, and was commanded by Colonels Pike and Clarke.
"This movement of the enemy gave room to expect another more vigorous attempt to invade Lower Canada; and on the 22nd, the Governor, by a General Order, directed the whole of the militia of the province to consider themselves commanded for active service, and to be prepared to move forward to meet the enemy as soon as required.
"Lieut.-Colonel Deschambault was ordered to cross the St. Lawrence at Lachine to Cahuaugo, with the Point Claire, Riviere du Chene, Vaudreuil, and Longue Point Battalions, and to march upon l'Acadie. The volunteers of the 1st Battalion of Montreal Militia, the flank companies of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions, and a troop of Militia Dragoons, crossed the river to Longueuil and Laprairie; and the whole ma.s.s of population in the district of Montreal made a spontaneous movement towards the point of invasion with an enthusiasm unsurpa.s.sed in any age or country.
"General Dearborn, who, no doubt, was well informed of the state of the public mind in Lower Canada at this crisis, foresaw, from the mult.i.tude a.s.sembled to oppose his progress, and the hostile spirit of the Canadians, the fruitlessness of an attempt to invade Lower Canada, and began to withdraw his sickly and already enfeebled host into winter quarters at Plattsburg and Burlington.
"All apprehensions of an invasion of Lower Canada for the present season having disappeared, the troops and embodied militia were, on the 27th of November, ordered into winter quarters."[203]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 203: Christie's History of the War of 1812, Chap, iv., pp.
90-92.
"The armistice between General Smyth and Sheaffe after the battle of Queenston was terminated on the 20th of November, pursuant to notification to that effect from the former. This and the former armistice, without affording any present advantage, proved in the event materially prejudicial to the British on Lake Erie. The Americans availed themselves of so favourable an occasion to forward their naval stores unmolested from Black Rock to Presqu' Isle [Erie] by water, which they could not otherwise have effected, but with immense trouble and expense by land, and equipped at leisure a fleet which afterwards wrested from us the command of that lake."--_Ib._, pp. 92, 93.]
CHAPTER LVI.
PART I.
WAR CAMPAIGNS OF 1813--THREE DIVISIONS OF THE AMERICAN ARMY--BATTLE OF FRENCHTOWN, AMERICANS DEFEATED--MISREPRESENTATIONS CORRECTED.
The campaign of 1813 opened auspiciously for the Canadians, in both Upper and Lower Canada, notwithstanding the fewness of their defenders in regulars, militia, and Indians, and though they suffered severely in several instances towards the close of the year.
It was manifest from the movement of the American army to the frontiers of Upper and Lower Canada, before the close of the year 1812, that on the opening of the campaign of 1813 they intended to retrieve the disasters and disgraces of the first year of the war, and make descents upon the colonies in good earnest. Sir George Prevost, Governor-General, was placed at great disadvantage for their general defence, as the small British force then occupying the Canadas, and the wide extent of frontier the British commander-in-chief had to defend, rendered it impossible for him to cope with the American enemy in point of numbers.
The American army, to whom was committed this year _the honour of conquering Canada_, was divided, as the year before, into three divisions: first, the Army of the North, consisting of 18,000 men, commanded by General Hampton, and stationed along the southern sh.o.r.e of Lake Champlain, on the south precincts of Lower Canada; the second, the Army of the Centre, consisting of 7,000 effective men, which was again subdivided into two divisions, commanded by Generals Dearborn and Wilkinson, and were posted from Buffalo, at the lower extremity of Lake Erie, to Sackett's Harbour, at the lower end of Lake Ontario; and the third, the Army of the West, consisting of "8,000 effective men,"
according to the American account, commanded by Generals Harrison and Wilkinson, whose limits extended from Buffalo westward, as far as the British frontier extended.
After the capture of Detroit by General Brock and his little army, Colonel Proctor was appointed to command that fort, with a force of about 600 regulars and a number of Indians--an entirely insufficient force, but all that could be spared and provided from the slender forces of Upper Canada. The American General, Harrison, who succeeded Hull in the command of the West, organized a large force by the end of 1812, of over 5,000 men, consisting princ.i.p.ally of men from Ohio and Kentucky.
Among the small outposts which Proctor had established in the neighbourhood of Detroit, was one at _Frenchtown_, on the River Raisin, twenty-six miles from Detroit, which consisted of thirty of the Ess.e.x Militia, under Major Reynolds, and about 200 Indians. On the 17th of January, 1813, Brigadier-General Winchester, commanding a division of the American army, sent Colonel Lewis with a strong force to dislodge the British--which he succeeded in doing, after a sharp encounter in which the Americans lost twelve killed and fifty wounded. Reynolds retreated to Brownstown, sixteen miles in his rear, and gave information to Colonel Proctor of the advance of Winchester's brigade, which now occupied _Frenchtown_, and _was over one thousand strong_.
Colonel Proctor knew that his only hope of success was by prompt action to fight the enemy in detail, before General Harrison could unite his whole force to bear on Detroit. He therefore forthwith a.s.sembled all his available force at Brownstown, and on the 21st pushed on to attack the American camp at Frenchtown, with about 500 regular soldiers and militia and 600 Indians. The attack upon the American camp was made on the morning of the 22nd; and the Indians, under the Wyandot chief Roundhead, speedily turned the enemy's flank and caused him to retreat--Chief Roundhead with his Indians taking General Winchester himself prisoner, and delivering him unharmed to Colonel Proctor. About 500 of General Winchester's men had thrown themselves into the houses, where they were making deadly resistance from fear of falling into the hands of the Indians, who were greatly exasperated by this mode of warfare, and a.s.sailed and pursued their retreating but resisting enemies with a ferocity unequalled during the whole three years' war. Colonel Proctor informed General Winchester that the houses would be set on fire, and he would be utterly unable to restrain the Indians, if this kind of warfare were persisted in, and they refused to surrender. They at length surrendered, on being a.s.sured that they would be protected from the Indians. Thirty-two officers and upwards of 500 men were taken prisoners, not one of whom sustained any injury from their captors, whether regular soldiers, militia, or Indians.
But many Americans were slaughtered in refusing to surrender for fear of the Indians, and determined to fight and retreat in hopes of making their escape. They suffered severely; and on that account several American writers have represented the Indians at the battle of Frenchtown as committing unheard-of cruelties upon helpless men, women, and children. Even President Madison joined in the misrepresentation, as he was always ready to seize upon any pretext to a.s.sail the British Government for admitting the alliance of the Indians in the war--forgetful that his Government had repeatedly sought to do the same thing, but had only succeeded in a few instances. But in vindication of the Indians and their commander, Colonel Proctor, the following facts may be stated, which are conclusive on the subject. In the first place, General Winchester, the commander of the American detachment, was taken prisoner by the Indians, and instead of being butchered and scalped, was delivered unharmed by the Wyandot chief Roundhead into the hands of Colonel Proctor.
However, many of the Americans refused to surrender from fear of falling into the hands of the Indians, and attempted to retreat and fight, in hopes of escape, but were mostly killed in the attempt by the Indians, so greatly exasperated by the mode of warfare adopted against them from the houses. Under this pretext most American writers have represented the Indians, with the sanction of the English, as having committed unheard-of cruelties against helpless men, women, and children at the battle of Frenchtown--statements which were pure fiction, as has been proved to demonstration in Chapter x.x.xV. of this history, in the fictions of the alleged "Ma.s.sacre of Wyoming."
For example, General Harrison, who was one of the few old American generals employed by the democratic President Madison in the war, and who was one or two days' march from Frenchtown, was informed and wrote in a despatch two days after the battle (24th of January), that "General Winchester had been taken by the Indians, _killed and scalped; his body was cut up and mangled in a shocking manner, and one of his hands cut off_;" when not a hair of General Winchester's head was injured, and he was afterwards exchanged, and appeared on the Niagara frontier, and was again taken prisoner, safe and sound, by the British at the battle of Stony Creek.
General Harrison, in his despatches written five days afterwards, after having ascertained all the facts of the battle, makes no mention of any cruelties practised by the Indians, which he doubtless would have done had there been any truth in the imputations against the Indians or the English soldiers with whom they acted. He speaks of General Winchester as among the prisoners, notwithstanding his statement five days before that he had been killed, scalped, and cut to pieces. The following facts, given by Mr. Thompson in his "History of the War of 1812," are conclusive on this affair of the battle of Frenchtown, the 22nd of January, 1813:
"Much has been said by American writers regarding the conduct of the combined forces of the affair of Frenchtown. They have not even stopped to charge British officers and soldiers with the most enormous cruelties, committed in conjunction with the Indians, when it was in their power to have prevented them. Such have been the contemptible misrepresentations to which many publications, otherwise deserving of merit, have descended, as well of this as of many other affairs during the war; and even amongst a few British subjects they have gained credence.
"General Harrison, however, in writing his despatches to Governor Meigs, as well as several officers of his army who avail themselves of the general express to write to their friends in Chillicothe, in most of their letters give the details of the battle, _but seem to be ignorant as regards the greatest part of that 'Ma.s.sacre_,' as it has been gravely termed. It is gathered from these despatches and letters by a Chillicothe journal of the 2nd of February, 1813, that '_those who surrendered themselves on the field of battle were taken prisoners by the British, while those who attempted to escape were pursued, tomahawked, and scalped_.' Now, even this account, in part, is incorrect; for the Indians, by whom they were a.s.sailed, were posted there for the express purpose of cutting off their retreat; and _those who surrendered to the Indians were safely conducted to the British camp_; but such was the panic with which these unfortunate fugitives were seized, that no persuasions on the part of the Indian chiefs, _who were fully disposed to comply with the orders of Colonel Proctor_, could prevail on them to surrender until they were either wounded and taken, or overtaken in the chase by their pursuers, when no efforts of the chiefs could save them from their fury.
"In a letter containing copies of despatches from General Harrison, dated 24th January, 1813, it is stated that 'when the attack commenced, General Winchester ordered a retreat, but from the utter confusion which prevailed, this could not be effected; and he then told them that every man must take care of himself, and attempted to make his own escape on horseback, but was overtaken by the Indians before he had gone a mile, and killed and scalped. His body was cut up and mangled in a most shocking manner, and one of his hands cut off.'
"Now, here is an awful Indian tale, manufactured, as many others have been of like description, which turns out to be a mere fabrication; for when General Winchester found himself pursued in his attempt to escape, he with a few others surrendered themselves to a chief of the Wyandot nation, and not a hair of their heads was hurt, _except the injury received from the fight_.
"It is also stated in the same letter that Colonels Allen and Lewis were among the slain; in contradiction of which, in General Harrison's letter to Governor Meigs, dated 29th January, it is stated that General Winchester and Colonel and Brigade-Major Gerrard are among the prisoners.
"The conclusion is plain, that had those deluded people not been overcome by fear, and surrendered themselves at once, they might have enjoyed the same safety as did General Winchester and his companions."[204]
"This spirited and vigorous measure (on the part of Colonel Proctor) completely disconcerted the arrangements made by General Harrison for the recovery of Michigan territory, and secured Detroit from any immediate danger. The House of a.s.sembly of Lower Canada [as also of Upper Canada] pa.s.sed a vote of thanks to Colonel Proctor for the skill and intrepidity with which he planned and carried into effect this enterprise. A vote of thanks was also pa.s.sed to the officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates who a.s.sisted in its accomplishment; and Colonel Proctor was immediately promoted to the rank of brigadier-general by Sir George Prevost, the commander of the forces, until the pleasure of the Prince Regent should be known, who was pleased to approve and confirm the appointment."[205]