[Lieutenant-Colonel (afterwards General) Evans, Brigade Major, was one of the most valuable officers of the War of 1812. His cool head, sound judgment, energy, and capability in administration made him a tower of strength to his superiors, all of whom at various times, took an opportunity of testifying to his merits.]
On the 17th August, 1812, the day after the surrender of Detroit, General Brock wrote to him:—
"Dear Evans,—Detroit is ours, and with it the whole Michigan Territory, the American Army Prisoners of War. The force you so skilfully prepared [ [!-- Begin Page 210 --] and forwarded at so much risk, met me at "Point au Pins" in high spirits and most effective state. Your thought of clothing the militia in the 41st cast-off clothing proved a most happy one, it having more than doubled our own regular force in the enemy's eye. I am not without anxiety about the Niagara with your scanty means for its defence, notwithstanding my confidence in your vigilance and admirable address in keeping the enemy so long in ignorance of my absence and movements, etc. (Signed) I. BROCK."
There is no need here to allude to the events of the 13th October, 1812, at Fort George, since they are given in Lieut.-Col. Evans' own account of that day, to be found at [Appendix No. 1], and show that his Generals had good reason for the esteem in which they held him. Suffice it to say that in the despatches of General Sheaffe from Queenstown; of General Vincent from Burlington Heights; of Deputy Adjutant-General Harvey, Burlington Heights, with reference to the successful attack on Forty-mile Creek by a wing of the 8th or King's Regiment under Lieut-Col. Evans; of General Riall, after Chippawa, Fort Erie, and Lundy's Lane; and of General Drummond, after Lundy's Lane, Lieut.-Col. Evans is always mentioned with special approbation. And the same feeling is evident in the public prints of the day, notably the London Gazette, the official organ, as well as in histories of the war.
Previous to his removal to Canada with his regiment, Lieut.-Col. Evans had been officially connected with the Government of Gibraltar in 1802, at the time that the Duke of Kent, as Governor, was trying to introduce some much-needed reforms, by doing which he brought a hornet's nest about his ears. In this affair the Royal Duke was ably backed by his subordinate, and in 1826, when Lieut.-Col. Evans was applying for a staff situation in Canada, his Royal Highness gratefully supported his request.
Brigade-Major Evans' local rank throughout the War of 1812 was that of Lieutenant-Colonel.
General Evans was an Englishman of Welsh ancestry. He married a daughter of Mr. Chief Justice Ogden, of Three Rivers, and after occupying several important appointments, returned to Canada, dying in Quebec in February, 1863, and was buried with military honours. His body was afterwards removed to Three Rivers, and lies by the side of his wife.
Major R. J. Evans, now resident in Toronto, to whom I am indebted for the above particulars, as also for the valuable paper to be found elsewhere, is a son of General Evans.
APPENDIX NO. 4.
Guests from the 'Royal' stroll frequently to the grassy ramparts of old Fort George, whose irregular outlines are still to be traced in the open plains which now surround it. Here landed in 1783-84, ten thousand United [!-- Begin Page 211 --] Empire Loyalists who, to keep inviolate their oaths of allegiance to the King, quitted their freeholds and positions of trust and honour in the States to begin life anew in the unbroken wilds of Upper Canada.