President Madison sent his message to Congress on the 1st of June and signed the resultant 'war bill' on the 18th following. Congress was as much divided as the nation on the question of peace or war. The vote in the House of Representatives was seventy-nine to forty-nine, while in the Senate it was nineteen to thirteen. The government itself was 'solid.' But it did little enough to make up for the lack of national whole-heartedness by any efficiency of its own. Madison was less zealous about the war than most of his party. He was no Pitt or Lincoln to ride the storm, but a respectable lawyer-politician, whose forte was writing arguments, not wielding his country's sword. Nor had he in his Cabinet a single statesman with a genius for making war. His war secretary, William Eustis, never grasped the military situation at all, and had to be replaced by John Armstrong after the egregious failures of the first campaign. During the war debate in June, Eustis was asked to report to Congress how many of the 'additional' twenty-five thousand men authorized in January had already been enlisted. The best answer he could make was a purely 'unofficial opinion' that the number was believed to exceed five thousand.
The first move to the front was made by the Navy. Under very strong pressure the Cabinet had given up the original idea of putting the ships under a glass case; and four days after the declaration of war orders were sent to the senior naval officer, Commodore Rodgers, to 'protect our returning commerce' by scattering his ships about the American coast just where the British squadron at Halifax would be most likely to defeat them one by one. Happily for the United States, these orders were too late. Rodgers had already sailed. He was a man of action. His little squadron of three frigates, one sloop, and one brig lay in the port of New York, all ready waiting for the word. And when news of the declaration arrived, he sailed within the hour, and set out in pursuit of a British squadron that was convoying a fleet of merchantmen from the West Indies to England. He missed the convoy, which worked into Liverpool, Bristol, and London by getting to the north of him. But, for all that, his sudden dash into British waters with an active, concentrated squadron produced an excellent effect. The third day out the British frigate Belvidera met him and had to run for her life into Halifax. The news of this American squadron's being at large spread alarm all over the routes between Canada and the outside world. Rodgers turned south within a few hours' sail of the English Channel, turned west off Madeira, gave Halifax a wide berth, and reached Boston ten weeks out from Sandy Hook. 'We have been so completely occupied in looking out for Commodore Rodgers,' wrote a British naval officer, 'that we have taken very few prizes.' Even Madison was constrained to admit that this offensive move had had the defensive results he had hoped to reach in his own 'defensive' way. 'Our Trade has reached our ports, having been much favoured by a squadron under Commodore Rodgers.'
The policy of squadron cruising was continued throughout the autumn and winter of 1812. There were no squadron battles. But there was unity of purpose; and British convoys were harassed all over the Atlantic till well on into the next year. During this period there were five famous duels, which have made the Constitution and the United States, the Hornet and the Wasp, four names to conjure with wherever the Stars and Stripes are flown. The Constitution fought the first, when she took the Guerriere in August, due east of Boston and south of Newfoundland. The Wasp won the second in September, by taking the Frolic half-way between Halifax and Bermuda. The United States won the third in October, by defeating the Macedonian south-west of Madeira. The Constitution won the fourth in December, off Bahia in Brazil, by defeating the Java. And the Hornet won the fifth in February, by taking the Peacock, off Demerara, on the coast of British Guiana.
This closed the first period of the war at sea. The British government had been so anxious to avoid war, and to patch up peace again after war had broken out, that they purposely refrained from putting forth their full available naval strength till 1813. At the same time, they would naturally have preferred victory to defeat; and the fact that most of the British Navy was engaged elsewhere, and that what was available was partly held in leash, by no means dims the glory of those four men-of-war which the Americans fought with so much bravery and skill, and with such well-deserved success. No wonder Wellington said peace with the United States would be worth having at any honourable price, 'if we could only take some of their damned frigates!' Peace was not to come for another eighteen months. But though the Americans won a few more duels out at sea, besides two annihilating flotilla victories on the Lakes, their coast was blockaded as completely as Napoleon's, once the British Navy had begun its concerted movements on a comprehensive scale. From that time forward the British began to win the naval war, although they won no battles and only one duel that has lived in history. This dramatic duel, fought between the Shannon and the Chesapeake on June 1, 1813, was not itself a more decisive victory for the British than previous frigate duels had been for the Americans. But it serves better than any other special event to mark the change from the first period, when the Americans roved the sea as conquerors, to the second, when they were gradually blockaded into utter impotence.
Having now followed the thread of naval events to a point beyond the other limits of this chapter, we must return to the American movements against the Canadian frontier and the British counter-movements intended to checkmate them.
Quebec and Halifax, the two great Canadian seaports, were safe from immediate American attack; though Quebec was the ultimate objective of the Americans all through the war. But the frontier west of Quebec offered several tempting chances for a vigorous invasion, if the American naval and military forces could only be made to work together. The whole life of Canada there depended absolutely on her inland waterways. If the Americans could cut the line of the St Lawrence and Great Lakes at any critical point, the British would lose everything to the west of it; and there were several critical points of connection along this line. St Joseph's Island, commanding the straits between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, was a vital point of contact with all the Indians to the west. It was the British counterpoise to the American post at Michilimackinac, which commanded the straits between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. Detroit commanded the waterway between Lake Huron and Lake Erie; while the command of the Niagara peninsula ensured the connection between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. At the head of the St Lawrence, guarding the entrance to Lake Ontario, stood Kingston. Montreal was an important station midway between Kingston and Quebec, besides being an excellent base for an army thrown forward against the American frontier. Quebec was the general base from which all the British forces were directed and supplied.
Quick work, by water and land together, was essential for American success before the winter, even if the Canadians were really so anxious to change their own flag for the Stars and Stripes. But the American government put the cart before the horse—the Army before the Navy—and weakened the military forces of invasion by dividing them into two independent commands. General Henry Dearborn was appointed commander-in-chief, but only with control over the north-eastern country, that is, New England and New York. Thirty years earlier Dearborn had served in the War of Independence as a junior officer; and he had been Jefferson's Secretary of War. Yet he was not much better trained as a leader than his raw men were as followers, and he was now sixty-one. He established his headquarters at Greenbush, nearly opposite Albany, so that he could advance on Montreal by the line of the Hudson, Lake Champlain, and the Richelieu. The intended advance, however, did not take place this year. Greenbush was rather a recruiting depot and camp of instruction than the base of an army in the field; and the actual campaign had hardly begun before the troops went into winter quarters. The commander of the north-western army was General William Hull. And his headquarters were to be Detroit, from which Upper Canada was to be quickly overrun without troubling about the co-operation of the Navy. Like Dearborn, Hull had served in the War of Independence. But he had been a civilian ever since; he was now fifty-nine; and his only apparent qualification was his having been governor of Michigan for seven years. Not until September, after two defeats on land, was Commodore Chauncey ordered 'to assume command of the naval force on Lakes Erie and Ontario, and use every exertion to obtain control of them this fall.' Even then Lake Champlain, an essential link both in the frontier system and on Dearborn's proposed line of march, was totally forgotten.
To complete the dispersion of force, Eustis forgot all about the military detachments at the western forts. Fort Dearborn (now Chicago) and Michilimackinac, important as points of connection with the western tribes, were left to the devices of their own inadequate garrisons. In 1801 Dearborn himself, Eustis's predecessor as Secretary of War, had recommended a peace strength of two hundred men at Michilimackinac, usually known as 'Mackinaw.' In 1812 there were not so many at Mackinaw and Chicago put together.
It was not a promising outlook to an American military eye—the cart before the horse, the thick end of the wedge turned towards the enemy, three incompetent men giving disconnected orders on the northern frontier, and the western posts neglected. But Eustis was full of self-confidence. Hull was 'enthusing' his militiamen. And Dearborn was for the moment surpassing both, by proposing to 'operate, with effect, at the same moment, against Niagara, Kingston, and Montreal.'
From the Canadian side the outlook was also dark enough to the trained eye; though not for the same reasons. The menace here was from an enemy whose general resources exceeded those in Canada by almost twenty to one. The silver lining to the cloud was the ubiquitous British Navy and the superior training and discipline of the various little military forces immediately available for defence.
The Maritime Provinces formed a subordinate command, based on the strong naval station of Halifax, where a regular garrison was always maintained by the Imperial government. They were never invaded, or even seriously threatened. It was only in 1814 that they came directly into the scene of action, and then only as the base from which the invasion of Maine was carried out.
We must therefore turn to Quebec as the real centre of Canadian defence, which, indeed, it was best fitted to be, not only from its strategical situation, but from the fact that it was the seat of the governor-general and commander-in-chief, Sir George Prevost. Like Sir John Sherbrooke, the governor of Nova Scotia, Prevost was a professional soldier with an unblemished record in the Army. But, though naturally anxious to do well, and though very suavely diplomatic, he was not the man, as we shall often see, either to face a military crisis or to stop the Americans from stealing marches on him by negotiation. On the outbreak of war he was at headquarters in Quebec, dividing his time between his civil and military duties, greatly concerned with international diplomacy, and always full of caution.
At York (now Toronto) in Upper Canada a very different man was meanwhile preparing to checkmate Hull's 'north-western army' of Americans, which was threatening to invade the province. Isaac Brock was not only a soldier born and bred, but, alone among the leaders on either side, he had the priceless gift of genius. He was now forty-two, having been born in Guernsey on October 6, 1769, in the same year as Napoleon and Wellington. Like the Wolfes and the Montcalms, the Brocks had followed the noble profession of arms for many generations. Nor were the De Lisles, his mother's family, less distinguished for the number of soldiers and sailors they had been giving to England ever since the Norman Conquest. Brock himself, when only twenty-nine, had commanded the 49th Foot in Holland under Sir John Moore, the future hero of Corunna, and Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was so soon to fall victorious in Egypt. Two years after this he had stood beside another and still greater man at Copenhagen, 'mighty Nelson,' who there gave a striking instance of how a subordinate inspired by genius can win the day by disregarding the over-caution of a commonplace superior. We may be sure that when Nelson turned his blind eye on Parker's signal of recall the lesson was not thrown away on Brock.
For ten long years of inglorious peace Brock had now been serving on in Canada, while his comrades in arms were winning distinction on the battlefields of Europe. This was partly due to his own excellence: he was too good a man to be spared after his first five years were up in 1807; for the era of American hostility had then begun. He had always been observant. But after 1807 he had redoubled his efforts to 'learn Canada,' and learn her thoroughly. People and natural resources, products and means of transport, armed strength on both sides of the line and the best plan of defence, all were studied with unremitting zeal. In 1811 he became the acting lieutenant-governor and commander of the forces in Upper Canada, where he soon found out that the members of parliament returned by the 'American vote' were bent on thwarting every effort he could make to prepare the province against the impending storm. In 1812, on the very day he heard that war had been declared, he wished to strike the unready Americans hard and instantly at one of their three accessible points of assembly-Fort Niagara, at the upper end of Lake Ontario, opposite Fort George, which stood on the other side of the Niagara river; Sackett's Harbour, at the lower end of Lake Ontario, thirty-six miles from Kingston; and Ogdensburg, on the upper St Lawrence, opposite Fort Prescott. But Sir George Prevost, the governor-general, was averse from an open act of war against the Northern States, because they were hostile to Napoleon and in favour of maintaining peace with the British; while Brock himself was soon turned from this purpose by news of Hull's American invasion farther west, as well as by the necessity of assembling his own thwarting little parliament at York.
The nine days' session, from July 27 to August 5, yielded the indispensable supplies. But the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, as a necessary war measure, was prevented by the disloyal minority, some of whom wished to see the British defeated and all of whom were ready to break their oath of allegiance whenever it suited them to do so. The patriotic majority, returned by the votes of United Empire Loyalists and all others who were British born and bred, issued an address that echoed the appeal made by Brock himself in the following words: 'We are engaged in an awful and eventful contest. By unanimity and despatch in our councils and by vigour in our operations we may teach the enemy this lesson: That a country defended by free men, enthusiastically devoted to the cause of their King and Constitution, can never be conquered.'
On August 5, being at last clear of his immediate duties as a civil governor, Brock threw himself ardently into the work of defeating Hull, who had crossed over into Canada from Detroit on July 11 and issued a proclamation at Sandwich the following day. This proclamation shows admirably the sort of impression which the invaders wished to produce on Canadians.
This was war with a vengeance. But Hull felt less confidence than his proclamation was intended to display. He knew that, while the American government had been warned in January about the necessity of securing the naval command of Lake Erie, no steps had yet been taken to secure it. Ever since the beginning of March, when he had written a report based on his seven years' experience as governor of Michigan, he had been gradually learning that Eustis was bent on acting in defiance of all sound military advice. In April he had accepted his new position very much against his will and better judgment. In May he had taken command of the assembling militiamen at Dayton in Ohio. In June he had been joined by a battalion of inexperienced regulars. And now, in July, he was already feeling the ill effects of having to carry on what should have been an amphibious campaign without the assistance of any proper force afloat; for on the 2nd ten days before he issued his proclamation at Sandwich, Lieutenant Rolette, an enterprising French-Canadian officer in the Provincial Marine, had cut his line of communication along the Detroit and had taken an American schooner which contained his official plan of campaign, besides a good deal of baggage and stores.
There were barely six hundred British on the line of the Detroit when Hull first crossed over to Sandwich with twenty-five hundred men. These six hundred comprised less than 150 regulars, about 300 militia, and some 150 Indians. Yet Hull made no decisive effort against the feeble little fort of Malden, which was the only defence of Amherstburg by land. The distance was nothing, only twelve miles south from Sandwich. He sent a sort of flying column against it. But this force went no farther than half-way, where the Americans were checked at the bridge over the swampy little Riviere aux Canards by the Indians under Tecumseh, the great War Chief of whom we shall soon hear more.
Hull's failure to take Fort Malden was one fatal mistake. His failure to secure his communications southward from Detroit was another. Apparently yielding to the prevalent American idea that a safe base could be created among friendly Canadians without the trouble of a regular campaign, he sent off raiding parties up the Thames. According to his own account, these parties 'penetrated sixty miles into the settled part of the province.' According to Brock, they 'ravaged the country as far as the Moravian Town.' But they gained no permanent foothold. By the beginning of August Hull's position had already become precarious. The Canadians had not proved friendly. The raid up the Thames and the advance towards Amherstburg had both failed. And the first British reinforcements had already begun to arrive. These were very small. But even a few good regulars helped to discourage Hull; and the new British commander, Colonel Procter of the 41st, was not yet to be faced by a task beyond his strength. Worse yet for the Americans, Brock might soon be expected from the east; the Provincial Marine still held the water line of communication from the south; and dire news had just come in from the west.
The moment Brock had heard of the declaration of war he had sent orders post-haste to Captain Roberts at St Joseph's Island, either to attack the Americans at Michilimackinac or stand on his own defence. Roberts received Brock's orders on the 15th of July. The very next day he started for Michilimackinac with 45 men of the Royal Veterans, 180 French-Canadian voyageurs, 400 Indians, and two 'unwieldy' iron six-pounders. Surprise was essential, to prevent the Americans from destroying their stores; and the distance was a good fifty miles. But 'by the almost unparalleled exertions of the Canadians who manned the boats, we arrived at the place of Rendezvous at 3 o'clock the following morning.' One of the iron six-pounders was then hauled up the heights, which rise to eight hundred feet, and trained on the dumbfounded Americans, while the whole British force took post for storming. The American commandant, Lieutenant Hanks, who had only fifty-seven effective men, thereupon surrendered without firing a shot.
The news of this bold stroke ran like wildfire through the whole North-West. The effect on the Indians was tremendous, immediate, and wholly in favour of the British. In the previous November Tecumseh's brother, known far and wide as the 'Prophet,' had been defeated on the banks of the Tippecanoe, a river of Indiana, by General Harrison, of whom we shall hear in the next campaign. This battle, though small in itself, was looked upon as the typical victory of the dispossessing Americans; so the British seizure of Michilimackinac was hailed with great joy as being a most effective counter-stroke. Nor was this the only reason for rejoicing. Michilimackinac and St Joseph's commanded the two lines of communication between the western wilds and the Great Lakes; so the possession of both by the British was more than a single victory, it was a promise of victories to come. No wonder Hull lamented this 'opening of the hive,' which 'let the swarms' loose all over the wilds on his inland flank and rear.
He would have felt more uneasy still if he had known what was to happen when Captain Heald received his orders at Fort Dearborn (Chicago) on August 9. Hull had ordered Heald to evacuate the fort as soon as possible and rejoin headquarters. Heald had only sixty-six men, not nearly enough to overawe the surrounding Indians. News of the approaching evacuation spread quickly during the six days of preparation. The Americans failed to destroy the strong drink in the fort. The Indians got hold of it, became ungovernably drunk, and killed half of Heald's men before they had gone a mile. The rest surrendered and were spared. Heald and his wife were then sent to Mackinaw, where Roberts treated them very kindly and sent them on to Pittsburg. The whole affair was one between Indians and Americans alone. But it was naturally used by the war party to inflame American feeling against all things British.
While Hull was writing to Fort Dearborn and hearing bad news from Michilimackinac, he was also getting more and more anxious about his own communications to the south. With no safe base in Canada, and no safe line of transport by water from Lake Erie to the village of Detroit, he decided to clear the road which ran north and south beside the Detroit river. But this was now no easy task for his undisciplined forces, as Colonel Procter was bent on blocking the same road by sending troops and Indians across the river. On August 5, the day Brock prorogued his parliament at York, Tecumseh ambushed Hull's first detachment of two hundred men at Brownstown, eighteen miles south of Detroit. On the 7th Hull began to withdraw his forces from the Canadian side. On the 8th he ordered six hundred men to make a second attempt to clear the southern road. But on the 9th these men were met at Maguaga, only fourteen miles south of Detroit, by a mixed force of British-regulars, militia, and Indians. The superior numbers of the Americans enabled them to press the British back at first. But, on the 10th, when the British showed a firm front in a new position, the Americans retired discouraged. Next day Hull withdrew the last of his men from Canadian soil, exactly one month after they had first set foot upon it. The following day was spent in consulting his staff and trying to reorganize his now unruly militia. On the evening of the 13th he made his final effort to clear the one line left, by sending out four hundred picked men under his two best colonels, McArthur and Cass, who were ordered to make an inland detour through the woods.
That same night Brock stepped ashore at Amherstburg.
The prorogation which released Brock from his parliamentary duties on August 5 had been followed by eight days of the most strenuous military work, especially on the part of the little reinforcement which he was taking west to Amherstburg. The Upper Canada militiamen, drawn from the United Empire Loyalists and from the British-born, had responded with hearty goodwill, all the way from Glengarry to Niagara. But the population was so scattered and equipment so scarce that no attempt had been made to have whole battalions of 'Select Embodied Militia' ready for the beginning of the war, as in the more thickly peopled province of Lower Canada. The best that could be done was to embody the two flank companies—the Light and Grenadier companies—of the most urgently needed battalions. But as these companies contained all the picked men who were readiest for immediate service, and as the Americans were very slow in mobilizing their own still more unready army, Brock found that, for the time being, York could be left and Detroit attacked with nothing more than his handful of regulars, backed by the flank-company militiamen and the Provincial Marine.
Leaving York the very day he closed the House there, Brock sailed over to Burlington Bay, marched across the neck of the Niagara peninsula, and embarked at Long Point with every man the boats could carry—three hundred, all told, forty regulars of the 41st and two hundred and sixty flank-company militiamen. Then, for the next five days, he fought his way, inch by inch, along the north shore of Lake Erie against a persistent westerly storm. The news by the way was discouraging. Hull's invasion had unsettled the Indians as far east as the Niagara peninsula, which the local militia were consequently afraid to leave defenceless. But once Brock reached the scene of action, his insight showed him what bold skill could do to turn the tide of feeling all along the western frontier.
It was getting on for one o'clock in the morning of August 14 when Lieutenant Rolette challenged Brock's leading boat from aboard the Provincial Marine schooner General Hunter. As Brock stepped ashore he ordered all commanding officers to meet him within an hour. He then read Hull's dispatches, which had been taken by Rolette with the captured schooner and by Tecumseh at Brownstown. By two o'clock all the principal officers and Indian chiefs had assembled, not as a council of war, but simply to tell Brock everything they knew. Only Tecumseh and Colonel Nichol, the quartermaster of the little army, thought that Detroit itself could be attacked with any prospect of success. Brock listened attentively; made up his mind; told his officers to get ready for immediate attack; asked Tecumseh to assemble all the Indians at noon; and dismissed the meeting at four. Brock and Tecumseh read each other at a glance; and Tecumseh, turning to the tribal chiefs, said simply, 'This is a man,' a commendation approved by them all with laconic, deep 'Ho-ho's!'
Tecumseh was the last great leader of the Indian race and perhaps the finest embodiment of all its better qualities. Like Pontiac, fifty years before, but in a nobler way, he tried to unite the Indians against the exterminating American advance. He was apparently on the eve of forming his Indian alliance when he returned home to find that his brother the Prophet had just been defeated at Tippecanoe. The defeat itself was no great thing. But it came precisely at a time when it could exert most influence on the unstable Indian character and be most effective in breaking up the alliance of the tribes. Tecumseh, divining this at once, lost no time in vain regrets, but joined the British next year at Amherstburg. He came with only thirty followers. But stray warriors kept on arriving; and many of the bolder spirits joined him when war became imminent. At the time of Brock's arrival there were a thousand effective Indians under arms. Their arming was only authorized at the last minute; for Brock's dispatch to Prevost shows how strictly neutral the Canadian government had been throughout the recent troubles between the Indians and Americans. He mentions that the chiefs at Amherstburg had long been trying to obtain the muskets and ammunition 'which for years had been withheld, agreeably to the instructions received from Sir James Craig, and since repeated by Your Excellency.'
Precisely at noon Brock took his stand beneath a giant oak at Amherstburg surrounded by his officers. Before him sat Tecumseh. Behind Tecumseh sat the chiefs; and behind the chiefs a thousand Indians in their war-paint. Brock then stepped forward to address them. Erect, alert, broad-shouldered, and magnificently tall; blue-eyed, fair-haired, with frank and handsome countenance; he looked every inch the champion of a great and righteous cause. He said the Long Knives had come to take away the land from both the Indians and the British whites, and that now he would not be content merely to repulse them, but would follow and beat them on their own side of the Detroit. After the pause that was usual on grave occasions, Tecumseh rose and answered for all his followers. He stood there the ideal of an Indian chief: tall, stately, and commanding; yet tense, lithe, observant, and always ready for his spring. He the tiger, Brock the lion; and both unflinchingly at bay.
Next morning, August 15, an early start was made for Sandwich, some twelve miles north, where a five-gun battery was waiting to be unmasked against Detroit across the river. Arrived at Sandwich, Brock immediately sent across his aide-de-camp, Colonel Macdonell, with a letter summoning Hull to surrender. Hull wrote back to say he was prepared to stand his ground. Brock at once unmasked his battery and made ready to attack next day. With the men on detachment Hull still had a total of twenty-five hundred. Brock had only fifteen hundred, including the Provincial Marine. But Hull's men were losing what discipline they had and were becoming distrustful both of their leaders and of themselves; while Brock's men were gaining discipline, zeal, and inspiring confidence with every hour. Besides, the British were all effectives; while Hull had over five hundred absent from Detroit and as many more ineffective on the spot; which left him only fifteen hundred actual combatants. He also had a thousand non-combatants—men, women, and children—all cowering for shelter from the dangers of battle, and half dead with the far more terrifying apprehension of an Indian massacre.
Brock's five-gun battery made excellent practice during the afternoon without suffering any material damage in return. One chance shell produced a most dismaying effect in Detroit by killing Hanks, the late commandant of Mackinaw, and three other officers with him. At twilight the firing ceased on both sides.
Immediately after dark Tecumseh led six hundred eager followers down to their canoes a little way below Sandwich. These Indians were told off by tribes, as battalions are by companies. There, in silent, dusky groups, moving soft-foot on their moccasins through the gloom, were Shawnees and Miamis from Tecumseh's own lost home beside the Wabash, Foxes and Sacs from the Iowan valley, Ottawas and Wyandots, Chippewas and Potawatomis, some braves from the middle prairies between the Illinois and the Mississippi, and even Winnebagoes and Dakotahs from the far North-West. The flotilla of crowded canoes moved stealthily across the river, with no louder noise than the rippling current made. As secretly, the Indians crept ashore, stole inland through the quiet night, and, circling north, cut off Hull's army from the woods. Little did Hull's anxious sentries think that some of the familiar cries of night-birds round the fort were signals being passed along from scout to scout.
As the beautiful summer dawn began to break at four o'clock that fateful Sunday morning, the British force fell in, only seven hundred strong, and more than half militia. The thirty gunners who had served the Sandwich battery so well the day before also fell in, with five little field-pieces, in case Brock could force a battle in the open. Their places in the battery were ably filled by every man of the Provincial Marine whom Captain Hall could spare from the Queen Charlotte, the flagship of the tiny Canadian flotilla. Brock's men and his light artillery were soon afloat and making for Spring Wells, more than three miles below Detroit. Then, as the Queen Charlotte ran up her sunrise flag, she and the Sandwich battery roared out a challenge to which the Americans replied with random aim. Brock leaped ashore, formed front towards Hull, got into touch with Tecumseh's Indians on his left, and saw that the British land and water batteries were protecting his right, as prearranged with Captain Hall.
He had intended to wait in this position, hoping that Hull would march out to the attack. But, even before his men had finished taking post, the whole problem was suddenly changed by the arrival of an Indian to say that McArthur's four hundred picked men, whom Hull had sent south to bring in the convoy, were returning to Detroit at once. There was now only a moment to decide whether to retreat across the river, form front against McArthur, or rush Detroit immediately. But, within that fleeting moment, Brock divined the true solution and decided to march straight on. With Tecumseh riding a grey mustang by his side, he led the way in person. He wore his full-dress gold-and-scarlet uniform and rode his charger Alfred, the splendid grey which Governor Craig had given him the year before, with the recommendation that 'the whole continent of America could not furnish you with so safe and excellent a horse,' and for the good reason that 'I wish to secure for my old favourite a kind and careful master.'
The seven hundred redcoats made a gallant show, all the more imposing because the militia were wearing some spare uniforms borrowed from the regulars and because the confident appearance of the whole body led the discouraged Americans to think that these few could only be the vanguard of much greater numbers. So strong was this belief that Hull, in sudden panic, sent over to Sandwich to treat for terms, and was astounded to learn that Brock and Tecumseh were the two men on the big grey horses straight in front of him. While Hull's envoys were crossing the river and returning, the Indians were beginning to raise their war-whoops in the woods and Brock was reconnoitring within a mile of the fort. This looked formidable enough, if properly defended, as the ditch was six feet deep and twelve feet wide, the parapet rose twenty feet, the palisades were of twenty-inch cedar, and thirty-three guns were pointed through the embrasures. But Brock correctly estimated the human element inside, and was just on the point of advancing to the assault when Hull's white flag went up.
The terms were soon agreed upon. Hull's whole army, including all detachments, surrendered as prisoners of war, while the territory of Michigan passed into the military possession of King George. Abundance of food and military stores fell into British hands, together with the Adams, a fine new brig that had just been completed. She was soon rechristened the Detroit. The Americans sullenly trooped out. The British elatedly marched in. The Stars and Stripes came down defeated. The Union Jack went up victorious and was received with a royal salute from all the British ordnance, afloat and ashore. The Indians came out of the woods, yelling with delight and firing their muskets in the air. But, grouped by tribes, they remained outside the fort and settlement, and not a single outrage was committed. Tecumseh himself rode in with Brock; and the two great leaders stood out in front of the British line while the colours were being changed. Then Brock, in view of all his soldiers, presented his sash and pistols to Tecumseh. Tecumseh, in turn, gave his many-coloured Indian sash to Brock, who wore it till the day he died.
The effect of the British success at Detroit far exceeded that which had followed the capture of Mackinaw and the evacuation of Fort Dearborn. Those, however important to the West, were regarded as mainly Indian affairs. This was a white man's victory and a white man's defeat. Hull's proclamation thenceforth became a laughing-stock. The American invasion had proved a fiasco. The first American army to take the field had failed at every point. More significant still, the Americans were shown to be feeble in organization and egregiously mistaken in their expectations. Canada, on the other hand, had already found her champion and men quite fit to follow him.
Brock left Procter in charge of the West and hurried back to the Niagara frontier. Arrived at Fort Erie on August 23 he was dismayed to hear of a dangerously one-sided armistice that had been arranged with the enemy. This had been first proposed, on even terms, by Prevost, and then eagerly accepted by Dearborn, after being modified in favour of the Americans. In proposing an armistice Prevost had rightly interpreted the wishes of the Imperial government. It was wise to see whether further hostilities could not be averted altogether; for the obnoxious Orders-in-Council had been repealed. But Prevost was criminally weak in assenting to the condition that all movements of men and material should continue on the American side, when he knew that corresponding movements were impossible on the British side for lack of transport. Dearborn, the American commander-in-chief, was only a second-rate general. But he was more than a match for Prevost at making bargains.
Prevost was one of those men who succeed half-way up and fail at the top. Pure Swiss by blood, he had, like his father, spent his life in the British Army, and had risen to the rank of lieutenant-general. He had served with some distinction in the West Indies, and had been made a baronet for defending Dominica in 1805. In 1808 he became governor of Nova Scotia, and in 1811, at the age of forty-four, governor-general and commander-in-chief of Canada. He and his wife were popular both in the West Indies and in Canada; and he undoubtedly deserved well of the Empire for having conciliated the French Canadians, who had been irritated by his predecessor, the abrupt and masterful Craig. The very important Army Bill Act was greatly due to his diplomatic handling of the French Canadians, who found him so congenial that they stood by him to the end. His native tongue was French. He understood French ways and manners to perfection; and he consequently had far more than the usual sympathy with a people whose nature and circumstances made them particularly sensitive to real or fancied slights. All this is more to his credit than his enemies were willing to admit, either then or afterwards. But, in spite of all these good qualities, Prevost was not the man to safeguard British honour during the supreme ordeal of a war; and if he had lived in earlier times, when nicknames were more apt to become historic, he might well have gone down to posterity as Prevost the Pusillanimous.
Day after day Prevost's armistice kept the British helpless, while supplies and reinforcements for the Americans poured in at every advantageous point. Brock was held back from taking either Sackett's Harbour, which was meanwhile being strongly reinforced from Ogdensburg, or Fort Niagara, which was being reinforced from Oswego, Procter was held back from taking Fort Wayne, at the point of the salient angle south of Lake Michigan and west of Lake Erie—a quite irretrievable loss. For the moment the British had the command of all the Lakes. But their golden opportunity passed, never to return. By land their chances were also quickly disappearing. On September 1, a week before the armistice ended, there were less than seven hundred Americans directly opposed to Brock, who commanded in person at Queenston and Fort George. On the day of the battle in October there were nearly ten times as many along the Niagara frontier.
The very day Brock heard that the disastrous armistice was over he proposed an immediate attack on Sackett's Harbour. But Prevost refused to sanction it. Brock then turned his whole attention to the Niagara frontier, where the Americans were assembling in such numbers that to attack them was out of the question. The British began to receive a few supplies and reinforcements. But the Americans had now got such a long start that, on the fateful 13th of October, they outnumbered Brock's men four to one—4,000 to 1,000 along the critical fifteen miles between the Falls and Lake Ontario; and 6,800 to 1,700 along the whole Niagara river, from lake to lake, a distance of thirty-three miles. The factors which helped to redress the adverse balance of these odds were Brock himself, his disciplined regulars, the intense loyalty of the militia, and the 'telegraph.' This 'telegraph' was a system of visual signalling by semaphore, much the same as that which Wellington had used along the lines of Torres Vedras.
The immediate moral effects, however, were even more favourable to the Americans than the mere physical odds; for Prevost's armistice both galled and chilled the British, who were eager to strike a blow. American confidence had been much shaken in September by the sight of the prisoners from Detroit, who had been marched along the river road in full view of the other side. But it increased rapidly in October as reinforcements poured in. On the 8th a council of war decided to attack Fort George and Queenston Heights simultaneously with every available man. But Smyth, the American general commanding above the Falls, refused to co-operate. This compelled the adoption of a new plan in which only a feint was to be made against Fort George, while Queenston Heights were to be carried by storm. The change entailed a good deal of extra preparation. But when Lieutenant Elliott, of the American Navy, cut out two British vessels at Fort Erie on the 9th, the news made the American troops so clamorous for an immediate invasion that their general, Van Rensselaer, was afraid either to resist them or to let their ardour cool.
In the American camp opposite Queenston all was bustle on the 10th of October; and at three the next morning the whole army was again astir, waiting till the vanguard had seized the landing on the British side. But a wrong leader had been chosen; mistakes were plentiful; and confusion followed. Nearly all the oars had been put into the first boat, which, having overshot the mark, was made fast on the British side; whereupon its commander disappeared. The troops on the American shore shivered in the drenching autumn rain till after daylight. Then they went back to their sodden camp, wet, angry, and disgusted.
While the rain came down in torrents the principal officers were busy revising their plans. Smyth was evidently not to be depended on; but it was thought that, with all the advantages of the initiative, the four thousand other Americans could overpower the one thousand British and secure a permanent hold on the Queenston Heights just above the village. These heights ran back from the Niagara river along Lake Ontario for sixty miles west, curving north-eastwards round Burlington Bay to Dundas Street, which was the one regular land line of communication running west from York. Therefore, if the Americans could hold both the Niagara and the Heights, they would cut Upper Canada in two. This was, of course, quite evident to both sides. The only doubtful questions were, How should the first American attack be made and how should it be met?
The American general, Stephen Van Rensselaer, was a civilian who had been placed at the head of the New York State militia by Governor Tompkins, both to emphasize the fact that expert regulars were only wanted as subordinates and to win a cunning move in the game of party politics. Van Rensselaer was not only one of the greatest of the old 'patroons' who formed the landed aristocracy of Dutch New York, but he was also a Federalist. Tompkins, who was a Democrat, therefore hoped to gain his party ends whatever the result might be. Victory would mean that Van Rensselaer had been compelled to advance the cause of a war to which he objected; while defeat would discredit both him and his party, besides providing Tompkins with the excuse that it would all have happened very differently if a Democrat had been in charge.
Van Rensselaer, a man of sense and honour, took the expert advice of his cousin, Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer, who was a regular and the chief of the staff. It was Solomon Van Rensselaer who had made both plans, the one of the 8th, for attacking Fort George and the Heights together, and the one of the 10th, for feinting against Fort George while attacking the Heights. Brock was puzzled about what was going to happen next. He knew that the enemy were four to one and that they could certainly attack both places if Smyth would co-operate. He also knew that they had boats and men ready to circle round Fort George from the American 'Four Mile Creek' on the lake shore behind Fort Niagara. Moreover, he was naturally inclined to think that when the boats prepared for the 11th were left opposite Queenston all day long, and all the next day too, they were probably intended to distract his attention from Fort George, where he had fixed his own headquarters.
On the 12th the American plan was matured and concentration begun at Lewiston, opposite Queenston. Large detachments came in, under perfect cover, from Four Mile Creek behind Fort Niagara. A smaller number marched down from the Falls and from Smyth's command still higher up. The camps at Lewiston and the neighbouring Tuscarora Village were partly concealed from every point on the opposite bank, so that the British could form no safe idea of what the Americans were about. Solomon Van Rensselaer was determined that the advance-guard should do its duty this time; so he took charge of it himself and picked out 40 gunners, 300 regular infantry, and 300 of the best militia to make the first attack. These were to be supported by seven hundred regulars. The rest of the four thousand men available were to cross over afterwards. The current was strong; but the river was little more than two hundred yards wide at Queenston and it could be crossed in less than ten minutes. The Queenston Heights themselves were a more formidable obstacle, even if defended by only a few men, as they rose 345 feet above the landing-place.
There were only three hundred British in Queenston to meet the first attack of over thirteen hundred Americans; but they consisted of the two flank companies of Brock's old regiment, the 49th, supported by some excellent militia. A single gun stood on the Heights. Another was at Vrooman's Point a mile below. Two miles farther, at Brown's Point, stood another gun with another detachment of militia. Four miles farther still was Fort George, with Brock and his second-in-command, Colonel Sheaffe of the 49th. About nine miles above the Heights was the little camp at Chippawa, which, as we shall see, managed to spare 150 men for the second phase of the battle. The few hundred British above this had to stand by their own posts, in case Smyth should try an attack on his own account, somewhere between the Falls and Lake Erie.
At half-past three in the dark morning of the 13th of October, Solomon Van Rensselaer with 225 regulars sprang ashore at the Queenston ferry landing and began to climb the bank. But hardly had they shown their heads above the edge before the grenadier company of the 49th, under Captain Dennis, poured in a stinging volley which sent them back to cover. Van Rensselaer was badly wounded and was immediately ferried back. The American supports, under Colonel Christie, had trouble in getting across; and the immediate command of the invaders devolved upon another regular, Captain Wool.
As soon as the rest of the first detachment had landed, Wool took some three hundred infantry and a few gunners, half of all who were then present, and led them up-stream, in single file, by a fisherman's path which curved round and came out on top of the Heights behind the single British gun there. Progress was very slow in this direction, though the distance was less than a mile, as it was still pitch-dark and the path was narrow and dangerous. The three hundred left at the landing were soon reinforced, and the crossing went on successfully, though some of the American boats were carried down-stream to the British post at Vrooman's, where all the men in them were made prisoners and marched off to Fort George.
Meanwhile, down at Fort George, Brock had been roused by the cannonade only three hours after he had finished his dispatches. Twenty-four American guns were firing hard at Queenston from the opposite shore and two British guns were replying. Fort Niagara, across the river from Fort George, then began to speak; whereupon Fort George answered back. Thus the sound of musketry, five to seven miles away, was drowned; and Brock waited anxiously to learn whether the real attack was being driven home at Queenston, or whether the Americans were circling round from their Four Mile Creek against his own position at Fort George. Four o'clock passed. The roar of battle still came down from Queenston. But this might be a feint. Not even Dennis at Queenston could tell as yet whether the main American army was coming against him or not. But he knew they must be crossing in considerable force, so he sent a dragoon galloping down to Brock, who was already in the saddle giving orders to Sheaffe and to the next senior officer, Evans, when this messenger arrived. Sheaffe was to follow towards Queenston the very instant the Americans had shown their hand decisively in that direction; while Evans was to stay at Fort George and keep down the fire from Fort Niagara.
Then Brock set spurs to Alfred and raced for Queenston Heights. It was a race for more than his life, for more, even, than his own and his army's honour: it was a race for the honour, integrity, and very life of Canada. Miles ahead he could see the spurting flashes of the guns, the British two against the American twenty-four. Presently his quick eye caught the fitful running flicker of the opposing lines of musketry above the landing-place at Queenston. As he dashed on he met a second messenger, Lieutenant Jarvis, who was riding down full-speed to confirm the news first brought by the dragoon. Brock did not dare draw rein; so he beckoned Jarvis to gallop back beside him. A couple of minutes sufficed for Brock to understand the whole situation and make his plan accordingly. Then Jarvis wheeled back with orders for Sheaffe to bring up every available man, circle round inland, and get into touch with the Indians. A few strides more, and Brock was ordering the men on from Brown's Point. He paused another moment at Vrooman's, to note the practice made by the single gun there. Then, urging his gallant grey to one last turn of speed, he burst into Queenston through the misty dawn just where the grenadiers of his own old regiment stood at bay.
In his full-dress red and gold, with the arrow-patterned sash Tecumseh had given him as a badge of honour at Detroit, he looked, from plume to spur, a hero who could turn the tide of battle against any odds. A ringing cheer broke out in greeting. But he paused no longer than just enough to wave a greeting back and take a quick look round before scaling the Heights to where eight gunners with their single eighteen-pounder were making a desperate effort to check the Americans at the landing-place. Here he dismounted to survey the whole scene of action. The Americans attacking Queenston seemed to be at least twice as strong as the British. The artillery odds were twelve to one. And over two thousand Americans were drawn up on the farther side of the narrow Niagara waiting their turn for the boats. Nevertheless, the British seemed to be holding their own. The crucial question was: could they hold it till Sheaffe came up from Fort George, till Bullock came down from Chippawa, till both had formed front on the Heights, with Indians on their flanks and artillery support from below?
Suddenly a loud, exultant cheer sounded straight behind him, a crackling fire broke out, and he saw Wool's Americans coming over the crest and making straight for the gun. He was astounded; and well he might be, since the fisherman's path had been reported impassable by troops. But he instantly changed the order he happened to be giving from 'Try a longer fuse!' to 'Spike the gun and follow me!' With a sharp clang the spike went home, and the gunners followed Brock downhill towards Queenston. There was no time to mount, and Alfred trotted down beside his swiftly running master. The elated Americans fired hard; but their bullets all flew high. Wool's three hundred then got into position on the Heights; while Brock in the village below was collecting the nearest hundred men that could be spared for an assault on the invaders.
Brock rapidly formed his men and led them out of the village at a fast run to a low stone wall, where he halted and said, 'Take breath, boys; you'll need it presently!' on which they cheered. He then dismounted and patted Alfred, whose flanks still heaved from his exertions. The men felt the sockets of their bayonets; took breath; and then followed Brock, who presently climbed the wall and drew his sword. He first led them a short distance inland, with the intention of gaining the Heights at the enemy's own level before turning riverwards for the final charge. Wool immediately formed front with his back to the river; and Brock led the one hundred British straight at the American centre, which gave way before him. Still he pressed on, waving his sword as an encouragement for the rush that was to drive the enemy down the cliff. The spiked eighteen-pounder was recaptured and success seemed certain. But, just as his men were closing in, an American stepped out of the trees, only thirty yards away, took deliberate aim, and shot him dead. The nearest men at once clustered round to help him, and one of the 49th fell dead across his body. The Americans made the most of this target and hit several more. Then the remaining British broke their ranks and retired, carrying Brock's body into a house at Queenston, where it remained throughout the day, while the battle raged all round.
Wool now re-formed his three hundred and ordered his gunners to drill out the eighteen-pounder and turn it against Queenston, where the British were themselves re-forming for a second attack. This was made by two hundred men of the 49th and York militia, led by Colonel John Macdonell, the attorney-general of Upper Canada, who was acting as aide-de-camp to Brock. Again the Americans were driven back. Again the gun was recaptured. Again the British leader was shot at the critical moment. Again the attack failed. And again the British retreated into Queenston.
Wool then hoisted the Stars and Stripes over the fiercely disputed gun; and several more boatloads of soldiers at once crossed over to the Canadian side, raising the American total there to sixteen hundred men. With this force on the Heights, with a still larger force waiting impatiently to cross, with twenty-four guns in action, and with the heart of the whole defence known to be lying dead in Queenston, an American victory seemed to be so well assured that a courier was sent post-haste to announce the good news both at Albany and at Dearborn's headquarters just across the Hudson. This done, Stephen Van Rensselaer decided to confirm his success by going over to the Canadian side of the river himself. Arrived there, he consulted the senior regulars and ordered the troops to entrench the Heights, fronting Queenston, while the rest of his army was crossing.
But, just when the action had reached such an apparently victorious stage, there was, first, a pause, and then a slightly adverse change, which soon became decidedly ominous. It was as if the flood tide of invasion had already passed the full and the ebb was setting in. Far off, down-stream, at Fort Niagara, the American fire began to falter and gradually grow dumb. But at the British Fort George opposite the guns were served as well as ever, till they had silenced the enemy completely. While this was happening, the main garrison, now free to act elsewhere, were marching out with swinging step and taking the road for Queenston Heights. Near by, at Lewiston, the American twenty-four-gun battery was slackening its noisy cannonade, which had been comparatively ineffective from the first; while the single British gun at Vrooman's, vigorous and effective as before, was reinforced by two most accurate field-pieces under Holcroft in Queenston village, where the wounded but undaunted Dennis was rallying his disciplined regulars and Loyalist militiamen for another fight. On the Heights themselves the American musketry had slackened while most of the men were entrenching; but the Indian fire kept growing closer and more dangerous. Up-stream, on the American side of the Falls, a half-hearted American detachment had been reluctantly sent down by the egregious Smyth; while, on the other side, a hundred and fifty eager British were pressing forward to join Sheaffe's men from Fort George.
As the converging British drew near them, the Americans on the Heights began to feel the ebbing of their victory. The least disciplined soon lost confidence and began to slink down to the boats; and very few boats returned when once they had reached their own side safely. These slinkers naturally made the most of the dangers they had been expecting—a ruthless Indian massacre included. The boatmen, nearly all civilians, began to desert. Alarming doubts and rumours quickly spread confusion through the massed militia, who now perceived that instead of crossing to celebrate a triumph they would have to fight a battle. John Lovett, who served with credit in the big American battery, gave a graphic description of the scene: 'The name of Indian, or the sight of the wounded, or the Devil, or something else, petrified them. Not a regiment, not a company, scarcely a man, would go.' Van Rensselaer went through the disintegrating ranks and did his utmost to revive the ardour which had been so impetuous only an hour before. But he ordered, swore, and begged in vain.
Meanwhile the tide of resolution, hope, and coming triumph was rising fast among the British. They were the attackers now; they had one distinct objective; and their leaders were men whose lives had been devoted to the art of war. Sheaffe took his time. Arrived near Queenston, he saw that his three guns and two hundred muskets there could easily prevent the two thousand disorganized American militia from crossing the river; so he wheeled to his right, marched to St David's, and then, wheeling to his left, gained the Heights two miles beyond the enemy. The men from Chippawa marched in and joined him. The line of attack was formed, with the Indians spread out on the flanks and curving forward. The British in Queenston, seeing the utter impotence of the Americans who refused to cross over, turned their fire against the Heights; and the invaders at once realized that their position had now become desperate.
When Sheaffe struck inland an immediate change of the American front was required to meet him. Hitherto the Americans on the Heights had faced down-stream, towards Queenston, at right angles to the river. Now they were obliged to face inland, with their backs to the river. Wadsworth, the American militia brigadier, a very gallant member of a very gallant family, immediately waived his rank in favour of Colonel Winfield Scott, a well-trained regular. Scott and Wadsworth then did all that men could do in such a dire predicament. But most of the militia became unmanageable, some of the regulars were comparatively raw; there was confusion in front, desertion in the rear, and no coherent whole to meet the rapidly approaching shock.
On came the steady British line, with the exultant Indians thrown well forward on the flanks; while the indomitable single gun at Vrooman's Point backed up Holcroft's two guns in Queenston, and the two hundred muskets under Dennis joined in this distracting fire against the American right till the very last moment. The American left was in almost as bad a case, because it had got entangled in the woods beyond the summit and become enveloped by the Indians there. The rear was even worse, as men slank off from it at every opportunity. The front stood fast under Winfield Scott and Wadsworth. But not for long. The British brought their bayonets down and charged. The Indians raised the war-whoop and bounded forward. The Americans fired a hurried, nervous, straggling fusillade; then broke and fled in wild confusion. A very few climbed down the cliff and swam across. Not a single boat came over from the 'petrified' militia. Some more Americans, attempting flight, were killed by falling headlong or by drowning. Most of them clustered among the trees near the edge and surrendered at discretion when Winfield Scott, seeing all was lost, waved his handkerchief on the point of his sword.
The American loss was about a hundred killed, two hundred wounded, and nearly a thousand prisoners. The British loss was trifling by comparison, only a hundred and fifty altogether. But it included Brock; and his irreparable death alone was thought, by friend and foe alike, to have more than redressed the balance. This, indeed, was true in a much more pregnant sense than those who measure by mere numbers could ever have supposed. For genius is a thing apart from mere addition and subtraction. It is the incarnate spirit of great leaders, whose influence raises to its utmost height the worth of every follower. So when Brock's few stood fast against the invader's many, they had his soaring spirit to uphold them as well as the soul and body of their own disciplined strength.
Brock's proper fame may seem to be no more than that which can be won by any conspicuously gallant death at some far outpost of a mighty empire. He ruled no rich and populous dominions. He commanded no well-marshalled host. He fell, apparently defeated, just as his first real battle had begun. And yet, despite of this, he was the undoubted saviour of a British Canada. Living, he was the heart of her preparation during ten long years of peace. Dead, he became the inspiration of her defence for two momentous years of war.