“Locomotive engines, offspring of genius more godlike than human, now carrying civilization through the primeval forests, dispensing the elements of social happiness as they go, these, compelled to be their own executioners.
“The wheels of Human Progress are reversed. Viaducts broken down on this side the frontier and on that. Flying bridges of international amity now spanning the torrent at Niagara; or leviathans of the ferries, breasting the rivers in calm or storm or floods of crashing ice, at Sarnia, Windsor, Erie Ferry, Kingston, Prescott, and other passages of friendly traffic and social courtesies—all a wreck. And noblest victory of science, the monumental bridge at Montreal, each of its four-and-twenty pillars a monument, that overthrown; or besieged and defended as a bulwark of the fair city which with good reason, dreads to be captured.
“Barrenness on the fields; emptiness in the granaries of Canada; much of the soil untilled, little sown; husbandmen in the war; wives and families scattered; and a pitiful harvest to reap. The peopled country being nearly all frontier, in Upper Canada, the farmers in those days, or months, for years, happily all a hypothesis as yet, are defending not ploughing.—They march to the battle which was expected yesterday; or counter-march to that which is expected to-day; or they are harassed by sleepless nights on picket and forced marches to meet a fresh invasion expected next week, or next month, yet which may come this night. Canada clems with hunger while her enemy is abundantly supplied from the interior of the Union and the prolific North-western States.
“Granaries which supplemented deficient harvests in Britain and France are now devastated or blockaded on the seaboard. Britain is in peril of domestic convulsion by insufficiency of food and material for manufactures and external commerce. Continental Europe sharing the disorder. Austria, weakened by revolted provinces is strength to France. France, stronger, is nearer danger to the English coast, and that is new weakness and greater peril to Canada. Our regular troops, as already said, may be called suddenly home. The gun-boats expected may never come. France scorns neutrality and blockades, most probably. Her steam rams-of-war make grim fraternity with the iron rams of America, possibly. The commerce of two oceans and of all the seas and gulfs is plundered, burned or sunk by privateers. Electric telegraphs, ‘our own correspondents’ and unofficial army reports, by facilitating wreck and ruin, and keeping enemies well informed, are curses, no longer utilities. The fire-brand or revolutionary section of the Canada press, happily a very small and misguided minority of the whole, which in mockery of common sense retains the name of ‘conservative,’ or ‘moderate,’ yet has outraged moderation, and put rational conservatism to shame by spreading along and across the peaceful frontier the elements of discord and convulsion—takes its turn of ‘sentry go’ on dark and stormy nights, in sleet, or snow, or rain, or sultry summer heat; the provost-martial keeping the office, types and ink. And ‘special correspondents,’ sent from England are considerably abridged of the liberty which they used so indiscreetly in the United States, while lawful authority there struggled in all the majesty of national conservatism to suppress a rebellion less excusable than any ever known in the history of the world. And so the war of invasion, which in the incongruities of party servitude the ‘moderate’ newspapers of Canada have done so much to realize as a fact of horrible proportions, goes on; the roar of ocean storms deafened by the roar of naval battles; Great Britain with hands full, yet grand even in that day of extremity, while Canada sweeps up the ashes of her homesteads and wipes her widowed eyes.
“Such may that war be which political lunacy, less or more apparent on both sides the boundary line, is now hastening to a hideous birth. Why are two nations of kindred race and language preparing for the world this great agony? The event advances to its fullness of time primarily and chiefly, because they are of kindred race and language.
“To describe the cities, towns, hamlets, and happy homesteads on both sides of the boundary line; the social and commercial intercourse of the two countries. To depict, as far as an uninspired pen may, their measureless resources of natural wealth—all pleading for peace. To foreshadow as far as a non-prophetic writer may presume, the nature of the differences from which they may drift into a conflict of mutual devastation. To illustrate the practical elements of military discipline and strength by reference to changed circumstances of social and political life in new communities. To relate incidents of British campaigns, victories, defeats, retreats, army panics, and the difficulties of the greatest generals in all wars, as a study indispensable in Canada, where the new militia of this year, 1862—fifty thousand undisciplined men not yet obtained, are proposed to do what fifty thousand veteran troops continuously in the field, might fail to do—defend Canada against an army of the United States, now trained or being trained, to arms, should it be directed at once against all accessible landing places on her vastly extended frontier.
“To ask by the logic of political affinities, that all loyal subjects who can appreciate the freedom and stability of Britain, should extend a lively sympathy to the United States, now struggling in the majesty of a grand conservatism to consolidate civil and religious liberty with an enduring nationality; a result, which only Britain, of all other nations in the world, has practically achieved. To treat of those things; to contribute to the safety of Canada, and like a drop added to the mighty St. Lawrence, river of the life of North America, to contribute my driblet to the well-being of the British empire, and to the happiness of peaceful nations. That is the object of the work now in the reader’s hand.”
Battle of Bull’s Run. That was still a topic of popular conversation when “Canada a Battle Ground” was written. Of that, it was remarked; p. 59,
“It would have been to the advantage of international amity if Mr. Russell of the Times had seen and described the actual battle of Manassas alias Bull’s Run, which, while it lasted, was a valiant conflict, carried on by troops, on the Government side, famishing for want of water and food, and unsupported by the necessary adjuncts of a campaign, all difficulties caused by a too early advance without the means of transport, and all aggravated by the battle occurring in a thickly wooded country. Killed and wounded at Bull Run, 18 per cent of all engaged, in five hours. Killed and wounded at Waterloo, in the year 1815, 24 per cent of all engaged of British and Allies, in twelve hours. The defeated veterans ran six times farther from Waterloo, than the defeated troops at Bull Run.”
“Truths about Battles—Wellington and Waterloo. Even Generals in command can only make a guess at the incidents of battle. Civilian correspondents, viewing the smoke from afar, can tell nothing but by hearsay. Nor do Generals find it desirable to publish all occurrences in their dispatches. A historian having applied to Wellington for a full account of Waterloo, that he might exactly describe it, the great General replied as follows:—“You cannot write a true history of the battle without including the faults and misbehavior of part of those who were engaged, and whose faults and misbehaviour were the cause of material losses. Believe me, that every man you see in a military uniform is not a hero; and that although in the account given of a general action, such as that of Waterloo, many instances of individual heroism must be passed over unrelated, it is better for the general interests to leave those parts of the story untold than to tell the whole truth.