Major-General Brock.
During the first year of the war, there was a continuous record of success for Canada. The key to the upper lakes, Michillimackinac, was captured and held by a small force of English regulars and Canadian voyageurs. The immediate consequence of this victory was to win the confidence and alliance of the western Indians, then led by Tecumseh, the famous Shawanoese chief, who had been driven from Tippecanoe by General Harrison. Then followed the capitulation of General Hull and his army, who had invaded Canada and were afterwards forced to retreat to Detroit, where they surrendered to General Brock with a much inferior force. By this capitulation, which led to the disgrace and nearly to the execution of Hull on his return to his own country, the whole territory of Michigan, over two thousand five hundred troops, and a large quantity of munitions of war and provisions fell into the possession of the British. The next important event of this memorable year was the defeat of the attempt of Van Rensselaer to occupy Queenston Heights, with the object of establishing there a base of future operations against Upper Canada. The Americans were routed with great loss and many of the men threw themselves down the precipice and were drowned in the deep and rapid river. At the beginning of the battle, General Brock was unhappily slain while leading his men up the heights, and the same fate befell his chivalrous aide-de-camp, Colonel McDonell, the attorney-general of the province. It was left for General Sheaffe to complete the victory, which gave many prisoners to the English force, and drove the remainder of the beaten American army across the beautiful river. General Smyth, a most incompetent man, who succeeded to the command of the American army on the resignation of Van Rensselaer, subsequently attempted to storm and carry Fort Erie, but Colonel Bisshopp successfully held this important post, which controlled the outlet of Lake Erie into the Niagara River. When the campaign closed, in 1812, Canada was free from the invader, chiefly through the energy and sagacity with which the gallant General Brock had made his preparations to repel invasion.
In 1813 the campaign commenced with a signal victory by General Procter, who was in command at Detroit, over a considerable American force at Frenchtown, on the Raisin River, under the command of Brigadier Winchester. Then came a successful attack by Colonel McDonnell on Ogdensburgh (La Présentation of the French régime), in retaliation for raids on Gananoque and Elizabethtown, subsequently named Brockville—now a beautiful city near the Thousand Isles—in honour of the gallant soldier who perished on the heights of Queenston. Commodore Chauncey, in command of a small American fleet organised at Sackett's Harbour, an important base of naval and military operations for the Americans, attacked the little capital of York, now Toronto, which was evacuated by General Sheaffe, then administrator of the government, who retired to Kingston, the strongest position to the west of Montreal. The invaders burnt the legislative and other public buildings. The small library and public records were not even spared by the pillaging troops. No precautions had been taken by Sheaffe to improve defences which at the best were of little strength. During the summer, the American army was so much superior to the English forces that they were able to occupy the whole Niagara frontier from Fort Erie to Fort George, both of which were captured by General Dearborn. Major-General Vincent, the English commander, was compelled to retire to Burlington Heights, overlooking the present city of Hamilton. Sir George Prevost, who proved himself a most irresolute and incapable commander-in-chief, retreated ignominiously from Sackett's Harbour, although Commodore Chauncey and his fleet were absent and the post was defended by only a small garrison. This discreditable failure, which cannot be in any way excused, was soon forgotten when the news came of the success of Colonel Harvey, afterwards a lieutenant-governor of the maritime provinces, at Stoney Creek, quite close to Burlington Bay. With an insignificant detachment from Vincent's main body, Harvey succeeded in surprising at night a large American force, commanded by Brigadiers Chandler and Winder, both of whom, as well as one hundred officers and men, were taken prisoners. This serious disaster and the approach of Admiral Yeo's fleet from the eastward forced the invading army to retire to Fort George, where they concentrated their strength, after abandoning Fort Erie and other posts on the frontier. It was during the campaign of this year that Laura Secord, the courageous daughter of a sturdy loyalist stock which has given the name of Ingersoll to a Canadian town, afforded a memorable example of the devotion which animated Canadian women in these years of trial. General Dearborn had ordered Colonel Boerstler to surprise and attack the Canadian outposts at Twelve Mile Creek, now St. Catharine's, and at De Ceu's farm, close to the present town of Thorold. Lieutenant Fitzgibbon, with a picket of thirty men, was stationed at De Ceu's. A Canadian militiaman, James Secord, who lived at Queenston, heard of the proposed attack, but as he had been severely wounded in the attack on Queenston Heights in the previous October, he was unable to warn Fitzgibbon. His wife, a woman of nearly forty years, volunteered for the hazardous duty, and started at dawn for a journey of twenty miles, through dense woods, where the paths were few and had to be avoided for fear of meeting American marauders or suspicious Indians who might take her for a spy. It took her all day to reach her destination, where she first disturbed an encampment of Indians who received her with yells, which dismayed her for the moment. However, she was taken to the commanding officer, who made his arrangements immediately to surprise Boerstler, who soon made his appearance with five hundred men at least. The Americans were forced to surrender to what they believed was a vastly superior force, so cleverly had Fitzgibbon succeeded in deceiving them. In fact, he had only at first thirty soldiers, and two hundred and forty Indians, and when a captain and twenty troopers of the Chippewa cavalry came up Boerstler was quite ready to surrender.
All the successes in the west, however, were now rendered worthless by the unfortunate defeat at Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie of the English flotilla under Captain Barclay, by Commodore Perry, who had command of a large number of vessels, with a superior armament and equipment. The result of this victory was to give the control of Lake Erie and of the State of Michigan to the Americans. Procter retreated from Detroit, and was defeated near Moraviantown, an Indian village, about sixty miles from Sandwich, by General Harrison, who had defeated Tecumseh in the northwest, and now added to his growing fame by his victory over the English army, who were badly generalled on this occasion. Tecumseh, the faithful ally of the Canadians, fell in the battle, and his body was treated with every indignity, his skin, according to report, having been carried off to Kentucky as a trophy. Procter fell into disgrace, and was subsequently replaced by Colonel de Rottenburg. On his return to England, Procter was tried, by court-martial, suspended from his rank for six months, and censured by the commander-in-chief.
Passing by such relatively unimportant affairs as a successful attack on Black Rock, near Buffalo, by Colonel Bisshopp, and a second attack on York by Chauncey, who took some prisoners and a quantity of stores, we have now to state other facts in the history of the campaign of 1813 which compensated Canada for Procter's disasters in the west. The Americans had decided to make an attack on Montreal by two forces—one coming by the St. Lawrence and the other by Lake Champlain—which were to form a junction at Châteauguay on Lake St. Louis. General Wilkinson, with eight thousand men, descended the river from Sackett's Harbour, landed below Prescott, and then proceeded towards Cornwall. Some two thousand five hundred men, under Colonel Boyd, protected the rear of the main body, and was compelled to fight a much inferior force, under Colonel Morrison, on Chrystler's farm, near what is now known as Cook's Point on the north bank of the St. Lawrence. The Americans gave way in all directions, and sustained a heavy loss. Boyd rejoined Wilkinson at the foot of the Long Sault rapids, in the neighbourhood of the present town of Cornwall, and here the news arrived that General Hampton had received a serious repulse. Hampton, leading an army of probably seven thousand men, had been routed near the junction of the Châteauguay and Outarde rivers by an insignificant force of Canadian Fencibles and Voltigeurs under Colonel de Salaberry, a French Canadian in the English military service, with the aid of Colonel McDonnell, in command of seven companies of Lower Canadian militia. These combined forces did not exceed nine hundred men, all French Canadians, with the exception of Colonel McDonnell and several other officers. Three hundred French Canadian Voltigeurs and Fencibles formed the front of the line, and when the former gave way to the onslaught of the four thousand men who advanced against them Salaberry held his ground with a bugler, a mere lad, and made him sound lustily. Colonel McDonnell, with a remarkably keen understanding of the situation, immediately ordered his buglers to play, and to continue doing so while they scattered in the woods. As the woods echoed to the call of the bugles, to the shouts of the soldiers, and to the yells of the Indians, the American force halted as if they were paralysed. Then, believing from the noises that filled the forest in every direction that they were to be attacked in front and rear by an overwhelming force, they broke and fled tumultuously. Salaberry and the Canadians had won a victory that has only a few parallels in warlike annals. Hampton retreated as rapidly as possible to Plattsburg, while Wilkinson found his way to Salmon River. These two victories of Chrystler's farm and Châteauguay were won almost entirely by Canadian prowess and skill, and must be always mentioned among the glorious episodes of Canadian history.
