CHAPTER XVI
ON THE FRONTIER
Let every man who swings an axe,
Or follows at the plough,
Abandon farm and homestead,
And grasp a rifle now!
We'll trust the God of Battles
Although our force be small;
Arouse ye, brave Canadians,
And answer to my call!
Let mothers, though with breaking hearts,
Give up their gallant sons;
Let maidens bid their lovers go,
And wives their dearer ones!
Then rally to the frontier
And form a living wall;
Arouse ye, brave Canadians,
And answer to my call!
—J. D. Edgar, "This Canada of Ours."
The frontier of Canada to be defended, reckoning from Fort Joseph at the head of Lake Huron to Quebec, was over twelve hundred miles in length. The number of regulars in both the Canadas was a little less than five thousand. The 8th, the 41st, the 49th, the 100th Regiments, the 10th Royal Veterans, some artillery and the Canadian, Newfoundland and Glengarry Fencibles composed the force, of which about fourteen hundred and fifty were in Upper Canada, divided between Forts Joseph, Amherstburg, Chippawa, Erie, York and Kingston. The most assailable frontier was the river Detroit from Sandwich to Amherstburg, the river Niagara from Fort Erie to Fort George, and the St. Lawrence from Kingston to St. Regis where the American boundary touches the St. Lawrence. Between that place and Quebec was an impenetrable forest. The population of Upper Canada was about seventy thousand, of which eleven thousand might be called out as militia, although not more than four thousand were ready for service. This, then, was the material of which Brock had to make an army of defence. It looked out of the question for it to be an army of attack.
Early in May a warning note came from Mr. Thomas Barclay, the English consul-general at New York. He wrote to Sir George Prevost: "You may consider war as inevitable. It will take place in July at the latest. Upper Canada will be the first object. Military stores of all kinds and provisions are daily moving hence towards the lines. Thirteen thousand five hundred militia, the quota of the state, are drawn and ordered, to be in readiness at a moment's notice."
During this month Brock had hurried up ordnance and other stores to St. Joseph, and had ordered Captain Roberts, in command there, to be on his guard. At Amherstburg there were about seven hundred militia, rank and file. The general proposed to increase the garrison there by two hundred men from Fort George and York, and guns were sent also from those places, relying upon others coming from Kingston by the Earl of Moira.
War declared
On June 1st General Hull, the civil governor of the Michigan territory, and then recently made brigadier-general, in command of about two thousand men, began his march for the Michigan territory from Dayton, Ohio. On June 7th he arrived at Urbana, where he was joined by the 4th Regiment. Colonel McArthur, from Detroit, with his regiment of Michigan militia, had been ordered to open a road as far as the Scioto River, where two blockhouses, joined by a strong stockade, were called Fort McArthur. General Hull's march lay for part of the way through thick and trackless forests. On June 18th war was formally declared by the United States against England, but news of this did not reach Sir George Prevost at Quebec until the 26th of that month, and then it did not come officially but by a letter to the secretary, H. W. Ryland, from the firm of Forsyth, Richardson & Company, and James McGillivray of the North-West and South-West Fur Companies. The letter was as follows: "Montreal, June 24th. You will be pleased to inform the governor-general that we have just received by an express which left New York on the 20th and Albany on Sunday last at 6 a.m., the account that war against Great Britain is declared." Fortunately General Brock was not left to learn the news by the circuitous channel of the governor-general. He, too, had a communication sent him by express from Niagara. It came to Thomas Clark from John Jacob Astor, New York, and was immediately sent on to General Brock, who received it in York on June 26th.[[1]] In a few hours two companies of the 41st Regiment in garrison at York were embarked in boats to the Niagara frontier, while the general assembled his council, called an extra session of the legislature, and then in a small open boat, with his brigade major, Evans, and his aide-de-camp, Captain Glegg, crossed the lake, (thirty miles) to Fort George, where he established his headquarters. Colonel Baynes wrote to him as soon as the intelligence reached Sir George, and said His Excellency was inclined to believe the report, but it was not official. Colonel Baynes also reported that six large canoes of the North-West Company going to the upper lakes by the Ottawa, to receive their furs, had offered to accommodate six soldiers in each canoe, in order to reinforce St. Joseph, but Sir George did not think it well to weaken the 49th by sending them. The letter ends, "Sir George desires me to say that he does not attempt to prescribe specific rules for your guidance—they must be directed by your discretion, and the circumstances of the time—the present order of the day with him is forbearance."
News from Quebec