Some of the distressing events which centred in the Windsor neighbourhood had a direct or indirect connection with Huron names. Peter Green, of Goderich, the garrison tailor, who lived in a house almost adjoining the barracks, with his family was shut up in it by the patriots, who intended to roast them to death. Green, a staunch Mason, but who nevertheless had given up his Goderich lodge through his distaste towards a brother Mason (Thomas Mercer Jones, the Huron exponent of the Family Compact), put his trust in Providence, and thrusting out his hand made a Masonic sign. He was understood by one of the enemy and allowed to leave his burning house. As he went he was carrying his youngest child; in spite of masonry a stab was made at his burden, which Green warded off at the expense of his own hand. Bad as matters were, his membership saved him and his from death. Ronald MacGregor and his family, who had moved from Goderich to Windsor in ’36, were burned out at the same time, escaping in their night-clothes.
When the Bloody Useless were at the front they saw no active service; but their sufferings were not inconsiderable. Some of them had quarters in a church, where the narrowness of the pews and benches and the scantiness of the blankets led to much discomfort. But the real hardship fell to those whose lot took them to some deserted Indian shanties where filth of all kinds and melted snow on a clay floor were poor inducements to rest. The snow shovelled out to the depth of a foot still left enough behind to be melted by the warmth of the wearied bodies, which, stretched side by side, were by morning held fast by the snow-water again frozen. The hearty, cheery spirit of Dunlop, who doubled the rations, was better than medicine, or even than his liberal allowance of grog. When they moped he would order them out for a march, leading them in his homespun checkered dress and Tam o’ Shanter, closely followed by the Fords (“the sons of Anak,” because they were all six feet six), the Youngs, the Annands, and other stalwart township pioneers, not forgetting some sailors who had been pressed into the service, each man shouldering a pike ten feet in length. “Ah me, what perils do environ the man that meddles with cold iron,” quoted the Doctor; “in the British army it was understood that the only use of a musket was supposed to be that it could carry a bayonet at the end of it.” But his own armament was chiefly that supplied by George Vivian. The Doctor’s hardy frame knew nothing of the sufferings of his men. On one occasion when he took a company of sixty from Bayfield, he expected to make Brewster’s Mills easily; but the men were half tired, and he appropriated for their rest two shanties by the way. Next day they went on to the Sable, but the men were completely done by the time Kettle Point (Ipperwash) was reached. Get on they must, as many as might; so the Doctor proposed, “All of you as are fit, come with me.” Of the sixty, twenty-six went on with him, and one survivor tells that that march was the hardest work he ever did; “but the Doctor stood it finely.” About the same time Dunlop and his men found themselves dependent for shelter on two women who had no comforts to offer such a company. Some of the men grumbled, but the Doctor asked for whiskey. The women showed him a barrel newly opened; whereupon he put a man in charge, and ordered horns all round. The hostesses were anxious to give a bed to the Doctor, but he would have nothing that his men had not. Calling to Jim Young to bring him a beech log, he disposed himself in his blanket on the floor; when the log came he put one end of his blanket over it for a pillow and slept soundly until morning. “Our fathers ... have lain full oft ... with a good round under their heads instead of a pillow. Pillows, said they, were thought meet only for women.”
The hopes and the fears, the occasional feasts and many involuntary fasts, hardened all consciences when a search for supplies was on hand. In these times even the future first sheriff of Huron did not consider house-breaking criminal nor a raid upon a potato-pit larceny. Once Colonel Hyndman and some others had three-weeks’ leave and started on their homeward trip by the lake-shore, some seventy-five miles at the least, and unnecessarily added to by a false calculation which caused them to retrace their steps and increase their already long walk by ten miles. Sergeant Healy was twice nearly lost on the way; first by falling in a creek, and afterwards through exposure to cold—for their tramp led them through a country covered with two feet of snow. Healy begged them to leave him to his fate, saying that although he was an old soldier, and had served his sovereign in all parts of the world for twenty-one years, he had never suffered as he was suffering then. Needless to say they did not desert him, and they got him to Goderich as best they could; but he served no more on the Canadian frontier.
The men were much interested in the droves of half-wild cattle and horses to be seen on both sides of the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers. The horses were so numerous that it is said strings of them could be seen each way as far as the eye could reach, and as late as ’46 fifty dollars would buy a good one. In various “Legends of the Detroit” many interesting stories are told of these hardy, clever little animals, the direct descendants of one of the most celebrated of the stock of 1665—the French horses called by the Indians the Moose Deer of Europe. The French river settlers cut their fodder in the summer, stacked it, and turned it over to the ponies in the winter for them to feed from at will. Water-holes in the ice were made for the wise little animals, and beyond these two items they received little attention from their owners. One of the Invincibles thus describes a raid on our men by the enemy:
“Skimmings, of Goderich, was on guard, and reported that he heard the rebels galloping through the bush. Young told him that that was an impossibility, as they would have to come from the opposite direction. Skimmings was sure he heard the tread and gallop, and was loaded to the muzzle to receive them. Presently a drove of ponies appeared, making for their water-holes—and there was another scare over, and Skimmings never heard the last of it.”
At Colonel Hyndman’s quarters on Walpole Island a challenge was given to three of these inoffensive Indian ponies, by a sentry who had an infirmity of stuttering. Fearing that he had not been understood, he repeated his challenge; and still once again, unwilling that any should perish through his poor speech. Determined to be merciful in spite of this contemptuous silence he called out the guard, who were some time in arriving at a knowledge of the matter, for between the sentry’s fright and his stutter he was unintelligible. The lanterns of the guard revealed the homeless trio, supplementing their scanty supper by picking up stray bits of fodder which lay about the camp.
Of the practical jokes most of them were played on officers, either by their subordinates or brother officers. Major Pryor was at Sarnia with Colonel Hyndman, and the latter was very anxious indeed to break the monotony of the times. His chance came one evening when there was exchange of sentries, and Pryor had gone off to spend a convivial hour. Hyndman gave very strict orders as to the enforcing of the password, and then waited results. Major Pryor staggered back to the line, very drunk indeed. When challenged he stuttered that he was the f-f-fellow’s major.
“I don’t care who you are—what’s the password?”
“Don’t know, b-b-but I’m your Major!”
“Into the guardhouse with you then, if you don’t know the pass,” and the major was ignominiously hurried off. When he got there he was clear enough to see that the men knew him.