"Cockneys of London, Muscadines of Paris,I pray you ponder, what a pastime war is."—Byron.
"Cockneys of London, Muscadines of Paris,I pray you ponder, what a pastime war is."—Byron.
I joined my regiment at Fort Wellington, and a fine jovial unsophisticated set of "wild tremendous Irishmen" I found my brother officers to be. To do them justice (and I was upwards of four years with them) a more honest-hearted set of fellows never met round a mess table. No private family ever lived in more concord or unanimity than did "Our Mess."
Irishmen though they mostly were, they never quarrelled among themselves. They sometimes fought, to be sure, with strangers, but never in the Regiment, though we rarely went to bed without a respectable quorum of them getting aleetleto the lee side of sobriety.
"Tempora mutantur," says Horace, but I very much doubt if "nos" (that is such as are alive of 'nos') "mutamur in illis." The Army is very different from what it was in my day—sadly changed indeed! It will hardly be believed, but I have dined with officers who, after drinking a few glasses of wine, called for their coffee. If Waterloo was to fight over again, no rationalman can suppose that we would gain it after such symptoms of degeneracy. Such lady-like gentlemen would certainly take out vinaigrettes and scream at a charge of the Old Guard, and be horrified at the sight of a set of grim-looking Frenchmen, all grin and gash, whisker and moustache.
I was not, however, allowed to enjoy the festivities of Fort Wellington, such as they were. The enemy being extended along the line of the right bank of the St. Lawrence, and the Lake of the Thousand Islands, it was necessary that we also should extend and occupy points that might enable us to keep up a communication, and maintain a correspondence with our rear. Besides it was considered highly expedient and necessary, that small bodies of the line should be stationed in defensible positions, to form a nucleus, in case of invasion, for the Indians and Militia to rally round and form upon. Accordingly, a garrison had to be maintained in a block-house in the woods of Gananoque, between Brockville and Kingston, and our Grenadier Company being ordered for that service, I was detached to accompany them. A block-house is a most convenient and easily constructed fort in a new country. The lower story is strongly built of stone, and the upper, which overhangs it about eighteen inches, (so that you can fire from above along the wall without being exposed,) is built of logs about a foot square. Both stories are pierced with loop-holes for musquetry, and in the upper are four portholes, to which are fitted four 24-poundercarronades, mounted naval fashion, the whole being surrounded with a strong loop-holed and flanked stoccade, and this makes a very fair protection for an inferior force, against a superior who are unprovided with a battering train, which of course in a few rounds would knock it to splinters.
Except in the expectation of a sudden attack, the officers were permitted to sleep out of the block-house, and a small unfinished house was taken for their residence. The captain and senior lieutenant being, as Bardolph hath it, betteraccommodatedthan with wives, we, that is the junior lieutenant and myself, gave up our share of the quarters to them, and established ourselves in what had been a blacksmith's shop, for our winter quarters. In the ante-room to this enviable abode, a jobbing tailor had formed his shop-board, and his rags and shapings proved highly useful in caulking its seams against the wind. By means of a roaring fire kept up on the forge, and a stove in the outer room, we managed to keep ourselves tolerably comfortable during an unusually rigorous winter; and it being on the road side, and a halting station in the woods, we were often visited by friends coming or going, who partook with great goût of our frozen beef—which had to be cut into steaks with a hand-saw. Being on the banks of a fine stream, we never were at loss for ducks, and in the surrounding pine woods the partridges were abundant, and the Indians brought us venison in exchange for rum, so that we had at least a plentiful,if not an elegant table, and we were enabled to pass the winter nights as pleasantly over our ration rum as ever I did in a place with much more splendid "appliances and means to boot."
We passed the remainder of the winter as officers are obliged to do in country quarters. We shot, we lounged, we walked and did all the flirtation that the neighborhood of a mill, a shop, a tavern, with two farm houses within a reasonable forenoon's walk, could afford. We were deprived, however, of the luxury of spitting over a bridge, which Dr. Johnston says is the principal amusement of officers in country quarters, for though we had a bridge close at hand, the stream beneath it was frozen. Early in spring we were relieved by two companies of another Regiment, and having received orders to join, we joined accordingly.
I had the good fortune to be quartered with two companies of my Regiment at the then insignificant village of Cornwall. It is now a flourishing town, and sends a Member to the Provincial Parliament, though it then did not contain more than twenty houses. Here we found ourselves in very agreeable society, composed principally of old officers of the revolutionary war, who had obtained grants of land in this neighbourhood, and hadsettled down, as we say in this part of the country and its neighbourhood, with their families. An affectation of style, and set entertainments that follow so rapidly the footsteps of wealth, were then and there unknown, and we immediately became on the best possibleterms with thehighest circles(for these exist in all societies, and the smaller the society, the more distinctly is the circle defined). We walked into their houses as if they had been our own, and no apology was offered, though these were found in such a litter as washing or scrubbing day necessarily implied. The old gentlemen when in town came to Our Mess, and when they had imbibed a sufficient quantity of port, they regaled us with toughish yarns of their military doings during the revolutionary war. And when a tea-drinking party called a sufficient number of the aristocracy together, an extemporaneous dance was got up, a muffled drum and fife furnishing the orchestra.
Towards the end of June our two companies got the route to join headquarters, the Regiment being ordered to the Niagara frontier. But though the troops were relieved, I was not, but ordered to remain till some one should arrive to fill my place, and in the interval between that and my departure a Field Officer, who was sent to command the Militia of the district, arrived.
He was an old acquaintance of mine, and a real good fellow. He had highly distinguished himself during the war, particularly at the storming of Ogdensburg, where he commanded. He was of Highland extraction, and though he had not the misfortune to be born in that country, he had, by means of the instructions of a Celtic moonshee, (as they say in Bengal,) acquired enough of their language to hammer out a translation of a verse or two of the Gaelic Bible, with nearly asmuch facility as a boy in the first year of the Grammar School would an equal quantity of his Cordery. To all these good gifts he added the advantage of being of the Catholic persuasion, which rendered him the most proper person that could have been selected to take charge of a district the chief part of whose Militia were Highlanders, Catholics, and soldiers, or the sons of soldiers.
I have never met with him since the end of the war, though I might have seen him in Edinburgh at the King's visit; but who could be expected to recognize a respectable Field Officer of Light Infantry, masquerading, disguised for the first time in his life in a kilt, and forming a joint in the tail of the chief of his barbarous clan?
It struck this gentleman that supplies of fresh provisions might be got from the American side, and accordingly he sent emissaries over the river, and the result justified the correctness of his views.
While sitting after dinner one daytete-à-tetewith the Colonel, his servant announced that a gentleman wanted to see him. As the wordgentlemanon this side of the Atlantic conveys no idea of either high birth or high breeding, nor even of a clean shirt, or a whole coat, my friend demanded what kind of a gentleman,—as, like a sensible man as he was, he did not wish to be interrupted in the pleasant occupation of discussing his wine and listening to my agreeable conversation, by a gentleman who possibly might ask him if he wished to buy any eggs, as manyspecies of thegenusgentleman on this side of the herring pond might possibly deem a good and sufficient reason for intruding on his privacy. His servant said he believed he must be a kind of Yankee gentleman, for he wore his hat in the parlor, and spit on the carpet. Thecausa scientiae, as the lawyers say, seemed conclusive to my Commandant, for he was ordered to be admitted, and the Colonel, telling me that he suspected this must be one of his beef customers, requested I would not leave the room, as he wished a witness to the bargain he was about to make.
Accordingly, there entered a tall, good-looking, middle-aged man, dressed in a blue something, that might have been a cross between a surtout and a great coat. He was invited to sit down, and fill his glass, when the following dialogue took place:
Yankee.—I'm Major —— of Vermont State, and I would like to speak to the Colonel in private, I guess, on particular business.
Colonel.—Anything you may have to say to me, Sir, may be said with perfect safety in presence of this gentleman.
Major.—I'm a little in the smuggling line, I reckon.
Colonel.—Aye, and pray what have you smuggled?
Major.—Kettle, (cattle,) I reckon. I heerd that the Colonel wanted some very bad, so I just brought a hundred on 'em across at St. Regis, as fine critters, Colonel, as ever had hair on 'em.So I drove them right up; the Colonel can look at 'em hisself—they are right at the door here.
Colonel.—Well, what price do you ask for them?
Major.—Well, Colonel I expect about the same as other folks gets, I conclude.
Colonel.—That is but reasonable, and you shall have it.
The Commissary of the Post was sent for, and having been previously warned not to be very scrupulous in inspecting the drove, as it was of infinitely more importance to get the army supplied than to obtain them at the very lowest rate per head, he soon returned with a bag of half eagles, and paid the Major the sum demanded. The latter, after carefully counting the coin, returned it into the canvas bag, and opening his coat displayed inside the breast of it, a pocket about the size of a haversack, into which he dropped his treasure, and then deliberately buttoning it up from the bottom to the throat, he filled and drank a glass of wine, to our good healths; adding, "Well, Colonel, I must say you are a leetle the genteelest man to deal with ever I met with, and I'll tell all my friends how handsome you behaved to me; and I'm glad of it for their sakes as well as my own, for jist as I was fixing to start from St. Regis, my friend Colonel —— arrived with three hundred head more. The kettle arnt his'n; they belong to his father, who is our Senator. They do say that it is wrong to supply an innimy, and I think so too; but I don't call that man my innimy who buyswhat I have to sell, and gives a genteel price for it. We have worse innimies than you Britishers. So I hope the Colonel will behave all the same as well to them as he has done to me; but there was no harm in having the first of the market, you know, Colonel." So with a duck that was intended for a bow, and a knowing grin that seemed to say, "It was just as safe to secure my money before giving you this piece of information," he took his leave and departed, evidently much pleased with the success of his negotiation.
At this time the expense of carrying on the war was enormous. Canada, so far from being able to supply an army and navy with the provisions required, was (as a great many of her effective population were employed in the transport of military and naval stores,) not fit to supply her own wants, and it was essential to secure supplies from wherever they could be got soonest and cheapest. Troops acting on the Niagara frontier, 1,000 miles from the ocean, were fed with flour the produce of England, and pork and beef from Cork, which, with the waste inseparable from a state of war, the expense and accidents to which a long voyage expose them, and the enormous cost of internal conveyance, at least doubled the quantity required, and rendered the price of them at least ten times their original cost. Not only provisions, but every kind of Military and Naval Stores, every bolt of canvas, every rope yarn, as well as the heavier articles of guns, shot, cables, anchors, and all thenumerous etceteras for furnishing a large squadron, arming forts, supplying arms for the militia and the line, had to be brought from Montreal to Kingston, a distance of nearly 200 miles, by land in winter, and in summer by flat-bottomed boats, which had to tow up the rapids, and sail up the still parts of the river, (in many places not a mile in breadth, between the British and American shores,) exposed to the shot of the enemy without any protection; for with the small body of troops we had in the country, it was utterly impossible that we could detach a force sufficient to protect the numerousbrigadesof boats that were daily proceeding up the river, and we must have been utterly undone, had not the ignorance and inertness of the enemy saved us. Had they stationed four field guns, covered by a corps of riflemen, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, they could have cut off our supplies without risking one man. As it was we had only to station a small party at every fifty miles, to be ready to act in case of alarm; but fortunately for us, they rarely or never troubled us. If they had done so with any kind of spirit, we must have abandoned Upper Canada, Kingston and the fleet on Ontario included, and leaving it to its fate, confined ourselves to the defence of such part of the Lower Province as came within the range of our own empire, the sea.
I would do gross injustice to my reader, no less than to myself, were I to quit Cornwall without mentioning a most worthy personage, who, though in a humble station, was one of thebest and most original characters I ever met with in my progress through life. This was no other than my worthy hostess, of the principal log hotel, Peggy Bruce. If you could conceive Meg Dodds an Irish instead of a Scotch woman, you would have a lively conception of Peggy. She possessed all the virtues of her prototype, all her culinary talents, all her caprice with guests she did not take a fancy for, and all powers, offensive or defensive, by tongue or broom, as the case in hand rendered the one or the other more expedient.
Peggy was the daughter of a respectable Irish farmer, and had made a runaway match with a handsome young Scotch sergeant. She had accompanied her husband through the various campaigns of the revolutionary war, and at the peace, his regiment being disbanded, they set up a small public house, which, when I knew her as a widow, she still kept. The sign was a long board, decorated by a very formidable likeness of St. Andrew at the one end, and St. Patrick at the other, being the patron saints of the high contracting parties over whose domicile they presided, and the whole surrounded by a splendid wreath of thistles and shamrocks.
Bred in the army, she still retained her old military predeliction, and a scarlet coat was the best recommendation to her good offices. Civilians of whatever rank she deemed an inferior class of the human race, and it would have been a hard task to have convinced her that the LordChancellor was equal in dignity or station to a Captain of Dragoons.
It was my luck, (good or bad as the reader may be inclined to determine,) to be a prodigious favourite with the old lady; but even favour with the ladies has its drawbacks and inconveniences, and one of these with me was being dragged to the bedside of every man, woman and child who was taken ill in or about the village. At first I remonstrated against my being appointed physician-extraordinary to the whole parish, with which I was in no way connected; but Peggy found an argument which, as it seemed perfectly satisfactory to herself, had to content me. "What the d—l does the king pay you for, if you are not to attend to his subjects when they require your assistance?"
I once, and only once, outwitted her. She woke me out of a sound sleep a little after midnight, to go and see one of her patients. Having undergone great fatigue the day before, I felt very unwilling to get up. At first I meditated a flat refusal, but I could see with half a glance, that she anticipated my objections, for I saw her eye fix itself on a large ewer of water in the basin stand, and I knew her too well for a moment to suppose that she would hesitate to call in the aid of the pure element to enforce her arguments. So I feigned compliance, but pleaded the impossibility of my getting up, while there was a lady in the room. This appeared only reasonable, so she lit my candle and withdrew to the kitchen fire, while I was at my toilet. Her back was nosooner turned, than I rose, double-locked and bolted the door, and retired again to rest, leaving her to storm in the passage, and ultimately to knock up one of the village doctors, whose skill she was well persuaded was immeasurably inferior to anyArmymedical man who wore His Majesty's uniform. But though I chuckled at my success at the time, I had to be most wary how I approached her, and many days elapsed before I ventured to come within broom's length of her. At last I appeased her wrath by promising never "in like case to offend," and so obtained her forgiveness, and was once more taken into favour; but Peggy was too old a soldier to be taken in twice, or to trust to the promise of a sleepy man that he would get up. After this, when she required my services, she would listen to no apology on the score of modesty, but placing her lantern on the table, waited patiently till I was dressed, when tucking up her gown through her pocketholes and taking my arm, away we paddled through the mud in company.
After reaching the house of the patient, and after the wife and daughters had been duly scolded for their neglect in not calling her in sooner, we entered into consultation, which like many other medical consultations, generally ended in a difference of opinion. To amilitarysurgeon, much sooner than to any other surgeon, there were certain great leading principles in the healing art, to all impugning of which Peggy was flint and adamant and when these were mooted I much question if she would have succumbed toeven the Director General of the Army Medical Board himself.
At the head of her medical dicta was that it was essential to "support the strength." That was to cram the patient with every kind of food that by entreaty or importunity he could be prevailed upon to swallow, (a practice by the way of more learned practitioners than Peggy.) A hot bath with herbs infused in it was another favourite remedy, and on this we were more at one, for the bath would most likely do good, and the herbs no harm. Her concluding act at the breaking up of the consultation was generally to dive into the recesses of a pair of pockets of the size and shape of saddle bags, from which, among other miscellaneous contents, would she fish up a couple of bottles of wine which she deemed might be useful to the patient. After we had finished business I escorted the old lady home, where there was always something comfortable kept warm for supper, which when we had discussed together, with something of a stiffish horn of hot brandy and water, we departed to our respective dormitories.
Peggy, like many of her country, possessed a keen vein of sarcastic humor, which often made her both feared and respected. A Colonel, as good a man, and as brave a soldier as ever drew a sword, but too much of a martinet to be a favourite with the militia of whom he was Inspecting Field Officer, received a command in a division that was then going on actual service. Peggy, who respected his military talents at leastas much as she disliked his hauteur, meeting him the day before his departure, addressed him with—"Och! Colonel dear, and are ye going to lave us—sure there will be many a dry eye in the town the day you quit it." When the American Army, under Wilkinson, were coming down the St. Lawrence, a company of Glengarry Militia were placed at Cornwall to watch their movements, and act as might be most expedient. The Captain of the band was named John McDonald, a very good and highly respectable name, but of no earthly use to distinguish a Glengarry man, as there were some hundreds in that part of the world—nor would the prefix of his military rank much mend the matter, as there are probably some score Captain John McDonalds. In this emergency therefore, a soubriquet becomes indispensable. This Captain John had in his youth served in the revolutionary war as a corporal, in the same brigade as Peggy's husband, therefore they were very old friends, and to distinguish him from the clan she named himCaptain Corporal John. When it was known that the invading army had abandoned the attempt, and had crossed the river, the men, wisely considering that their services were no longer required in Cornwall, and would be highly useful on their farms, disbanded themselves during the night without the formality of asking leave, so that at morning parade only six appeared on the ground. Such an unheard-of breach of military discipline could not fail to excite the fierce indignation of the worthy veteran; accordingly hevented his wrath in every oath, Gaelic or English, within the range of his vocabulary. Peggy, who witnessed the scene from her window, consoled the incensed commander with "Och! John, dear, don't let the devil get so great a hould of ye as to be blaspheming like a heathen in that fearful way; things are not so bad with you yet, sure you have twice as many men under your command as you had when I knew you first."
Having at last been relieved, I proceeded to join on the Niagara frontier, and therefore marched with a detachment of the Canadian Fencibles to Kingston, where I was joined by a friend of mine, an officer of the 100th, who was bound for the same destination. We accordingly waited on the Deputy Quarter Master General, and stated the necessity of being furnished with land conveyance, as the battle which must decide the campaign, was hourly expected; but that gentleman having newly acquired his dignity, it did not sit easy upon him, and with great hauteur he flatly refused us, and unless we chose to march it, (about 200 miles,) we had no shift but to embark in a batteau loaded with gunpowder, and rowed by a party of De Watteville's regiment. This gentleman, by the bye, afterwards distinguished himself as a naturalist in Sir John Ross' first Polar expedition, and as a most appropriate reward had the honor to stand god-father to a nondescript gull, which bears his name unto this day.
In the batteau, therefore, we deposited ourselves, and with six more in company proceeded on our way, with such speed as a set of rowers,who probably had never had an oar before in their hands, could urge us. The wind though light was ahead; but when we got about six hours distance from Kingston, which perhaps might amount to eighteen or twenty miles, all we could do was to make head-way against it, and as it looked as if there would be more of it, sooner than less, I (who, from my superior nautical experience, having been born and bred in a sea-port town and acquired considerable dexterity both in stealing boats and managing them when stolen, was voted Commodore,) ordered them under the lee of a little rocky island, and carried their dangerous cargo about a hundred yards from where we encamped, that is to say, put the gunpowder at one end of the island and ourselves at the other, hauled up the batteau, lighted fires, and forming a camp of sails and tarpaulins, waited the event. A squall did come down the lake in very handsome style, embellished with a sufficiency of spindrift to make us thankful that we were under the lee of a rock and covered overhead. The squall subsided into a good steady gale, accompanied by a sea that made it utterly impossible that we could have proceeded even if the wind had been as favourable as it was the contrary; we thus had the advantage of enjoying two days of philosophical reflection on a rock in Lake Ontario. On the third it began to moderate, and my comrade and I took one of the empty batteaus with a strong party, and made us directly in shore as we could, and had the good fortune to land about twelve milesabove Kingston, determined to make our way on horseback,coute qu'il coute.
Any one who has only seen the roads of Canada in the present day, can form but a very inadequate idea of what they were then between Kingston and Toronto; for a considerable part of the way we were literally up to our saddle-flaps. In those days all the horses along the roads were taken up for Government, and an officer receiving theroutegave the proprietor an order for so many horses so many miles, and the nearest Commissary paid it; or he paid it, taking a receipt which, when he showed it to the Commissary at the end of his journey, was refunded. We necessarily took the latter mode, seeing we had no route to show, and therefore paid our way ourselves. The officer who accompanied me being like myself a subaltern, we found we uniformly got the worst horses, as Major A. or Colonel B. or some other "person of worship" was expected, and the best must necessarily be kept for him. It struck me therefore that if "Captain" was a good travelling name, "General" must be a much better; I proposed to my companion that he should have the rank of Major General "for the road only," and I volunteered to act as Aide-de-camp. He liked the plan, but objected that he was too young to look the character, but that as I had a more commanding and dignified presence, I should do General and he Aide-de-camp, and as we were dressed in our surtouts and forage caps, we were well aware that we might easily pass with the uninitiated for anyrank we might think proper to assume. Accordingly, when we approached a halt where we were to change horses, he rode briskly forward and began to call lustily about him, as "one having authority," for horses, and pointing to a very active, stout looking pair, peremptorily ordered them to be brought out and saddled; but the man of the house excused himself by saying that he "kept them horses for the sole use of Major B. the Deputy Quarter Master General, and as he had the conducting of the troops on the line of march through which the road lay, and had it in his power to put good jobs in his way, he was not a man whom he could offend on slight grounds."
"D——n Major B!" exclaimed the irreverent and indignant A.D.C. "Would you set his will, or that of fifty like him, against the positive orders of the great General D. who has been sent out by the Duke of Wellington to instruct Sir Gordon Drummond how he is to conduct the campaign? Sir, if by your neglect he is too late for the battle that must soon be fought, you will be answerable for it, and then hanging on your own sign-post is the very mildest punishment you can expect; it is the way we always settled such matters in Spain." To this argument there could be no answer, so the horses were led out just as I came up—my A.D.C. with his hat in his hand holding my stirrup as I mounted. This to those who knew anything about the service would have appeared a littlede trop; but to the uninitiated, of whom mine host was one, it only served to inspirehim with the higher respect for the great man his horse was about to have the honour to carry.
So far things went on as well as could have been wished; but in turning a corner in a young pine wood about a mile from where we had started, who should we meet full in the face but Major B., (commonly called Beau B.) who was also a captain in my own regiment. After the first salutation he expressed his surprise that the man should have given me his horses. I assured him that I should not have got them, but that he had a much better pair for him. This pacified him, so after a few minutes' conversation, (the A.D.C. and guide keeping a respectful distance,) I told him I had been made a general since I last saw him. He did not see the point of the joke at the time, but on taking leave he took off his hat and bowing till his well brushed and perfumed locks mixed with the hair of his horse's mane, said, loud enough for the guide to hear him, "General D., I have the honor to wish you a very good morning." If there had been any misgivings in the mind of the guide, this could not fail to remove them. Immediately after he rode up to me, and said that if I had no objections he would ride forward, and make such arrangements that there should be no delay in mounting me at the next stage. To this I acceded with the most gracious affability, so he rode on accordingly. His zeal for the service might account for his eagerness, yet I hope I will not be accounted uncharitable when I suspected that the importance,which attaches to the person who is first to communicate an extraordinary piece of news, may have had something to do with all this alacrity. However this may be, it served my purpose, for at every stage not a moment was lost, the news flying like wild fire. I found horses ready at every house, and never was for one moment delayed.
With my friend Beau B. the result was somewhat different, for on arriving at the stage there was nothing for him but our exhausted dog-tired horses to mount, which in the state of the roads would have been utter madness; so he had to wait in a roadside inn, consoling himself with what philosophy he could muster till they were sufficiently recruited with food and rest to continue their journey.
On this journey there occurred a circumstance which, as it is intimately connected with the secret history of the Province, deserves to be related. It will be news to most of my neighbors that the Province of Canada has asecret historyof its own, or they may suppose that it may contain some such tit-bits as the secret history of the Court of St. Petersburg in the days of Catharine; but I am sorry to say that our secret history affords nothing sopiquante; it only relates to the diplomacy of the Court of St. James, with its effects on the Court of the Chateau St. Louis.
In those days Sir George Prevost filled the vice-regal chair of Her Majesty's dominions in British North America, and a more incompetentViceroy could hardly have been selected for such trying times. Timid at all times, despairing of his resources, he was afraid to venture anything; and when he did venture, like an unskilful hunter, he spurred his horse spiritedly at the fence, and while the animal rose he suddenly checked him—baulked him in the leap he could have easily cleared, and landed himself in the ditch. Thus he acted at Sackett's Harbour and thus at Plattsburg, where he was in possession of the forts when he ordered the retreat to be sounded, and ran away out of one side of the town while the enemy were equally busy in evacuating it at the other. But to my story. Late on the evening of our first day's journey, and therefore somewhere midway between Kingston and Toronto, we overtook an officer of Sir George Prevost's Staff. He asked us why we were riding so fast? We told him, to be present at the coming battle. He told us we might save ourselves the trouble, as there would be no battle till he was there, and hinted perhaps not then; and strongly recommended that, instead of pushing on through such roads during the night, we should stop at a house he pointed out to us, and where he was going. Thinking, however, that a battle was not always at the option of one party, we determined to push on, while he turned up to a good looking two story white framed house on the lake side of the road. Many years after, the late Mr. Galt was employed to advocate the War Losses in Canada with His Majesty's Government. In one of his conferences with the Colonial Secretary, the latterstated that everything that could be done had been done for the defence of the Province, and that it never had been the intention either of the Imperial or Colonial Government to abandon it. Mr. Galt then placed in his hands a paper purporting to be a copy of a despatch from Sir George Prevost to Sir Gordon Drummond, ordering him to withdraw his forces from the upper part of the Province, and to concentrate them to cover Kingston. The Secretary then, turning to Galt, said rather sternly:
"Sir, you could not have come fairly by this copy of a private despatch?"
Galt calmly replied, "My Lord, however this paper was come by at first, I came honestly enough by it, for it was sent to me with other papers to assist me in advocating the claims of those who have suffered in the war; but I thank your Lordship for admitting that it is a copy of a despatch whether private or public."
His Lordship felt that, in his haste to criminate, he had allowed his diplomacy to be taken by surprise.
Galt told me this story, and I then told him my meeting the officer, who undoubtedly was the bearer of the despatch; he confessed to me that it was at that house and on that night that the despatches were abstracted from that Staff Officer's sabre-tasche, copied, resealed and returned. Of course he never would tell me who were the perpetrators; but if a certain Colonel of Militia (who was not then present, but attending his duty on the frontier) were now alive,—poor fellow!he came by an untimely end—I have no doubt but he could throw some light on the subject.
We continued to be furnished with good horses till we arrived at Toronto, (then York,) for there being then moonlight we rode twenty hours out of the twenty-four, and it appeared that we had advanced for the two last days (for the first day we only made one stage) at the rate of seventy-five miles per day, which, considering the state of the roads, was far from being amiss.
Ah, me! what perils do environThe man that meddles with cold iron!
Ah, me! what perils do environThe man that meddles with cold iron!
Luckily the moment we arrived at Toronto, we were informed that a gun-brig was about to sail for Niagara, on board which we were shipped. About sun-set we sailed, and the wind being fair, we arrived in the mouth of the Niagara river at daylight, and lost no time in ordering horses; and while they were getting ready, we were anxiously employed in examining and cross-examining witnesses as to the contradictory reports that were in circulation as to a battle. All we could elicit was, that there had been some fighting, for many had heard from Queenston Heights the noise both of artillery and musketry. Some said we had been defeated, and were in full retreat on Niagara; others that we had cut the enemy to pieces, and that the few that were left were busy crossing to their own side. Of course, as in most matters of rumor, both reports were partly true and partly false. We had obtained a victory, but lost severely in so doing; and the enemy, in consequence of the masterly arrangements of Major General Scott, one of the best soldiers in the American Army, (and one of the most gentlemanly men I ever met with,) had retiredon Fort Brie; and a body of our troops, under Major General Convan of the Royals, had pressed hard upon them, and had he not been disabled by a wound, it is the general opinion, would have followed them into the Fort. The first of the particulars we were told by an officer who had come from the field on the spur, with the despatches, and he advised me as a friend (for we were old acquaintances) to stay where I was, and get my hospital in readiness, for, he assured me, that from the manner our Regiment had been handled, I would have quite enough to do at home without going abroad to look for adventures. Accordingly, upon inquiring where my wounded were to be put, I was shown a ruinous fabric, built of logs, called Butler's Barracks, from having been built during the revolutionary war by Butler's Rangers for their temporary accommodation. Nothing could be worse constructed for an hospital for wounded men—not that it was open to every wind that blew, for at midsummer in Canada that is rather an advantage; but there was a great want of room, so that many had to be laid on straw on the floor, and these had the best of it, for their comrades were put into berths one above another as in a transport or packet, where it was impossible to get round them to dress their wounds, and their removal gave them excrutiating pain.
In the course of the morning I had my hands full enough. Our Surgeon had gone to Scotland in a state of health which rendered recovery hopeless, and our senior assistant, naturally of a delicateconstitution, and suffering under disease at the time of the action, had the last of his strength exhausted in bringing his wounded down. Waggon after waggon arrived, and before mid-day I found myself in charge of two hundred and twenty wounded, including my own Regiment, prisoners and militia, with no one to assist me but my hospital serjeant, who, luckily for me, was a man of sound sense and great experience, who made a most able second; but with all this the charge was too much for us, and many a poor fellow had to submit to amputation whose limb might have been preserved had there been only time to take reasonable care of it. But under the circumstances of the case it was necessary to convert a troublesome wound into a simple one, or to lose the patient's life from want of time to pay him proper attention.
One of the many blunders of this blundering war, was that the Staff of the Army was never where it was wanted. The Medical and Commissariat Staffs, for instance, were congregated at the headquarters at Quebec, where they were in redundancy, with nothing for them to do, while a Staff Surgeon and an Hospital Mate were all that was allowed for the Army of the Right,—men who must have been active beyond all precedent if they could keep the office business, the accounts and returns square, without even attempting to interfere with the practice; and all this at a time too, when there was hardly a regiment in the field that had its full complement of medical officers.
There is hardly on the face of the earth a less enviable situation than that of an Army Surgeon after a battle—worn out and fatigued in body and mind, surrounded by suffering, pain and misery, much of which he knows it is not in his power to heal or even to assuage. While the battle lasts these all pass unnoticed, but they come before the medical man afterwards in all their sorrow and horror, stripped of all the excitement of the "heady fight."
It would be a useful lesson to cold-blooded politicians, who calculate on a war costing so many lives and so many limbs as they would calculate on a horse costing so many pounds—or to the thoughtless at home, whom the excitement of a gazette, or the glare of an illumination, more than reconciles to the expense of a war—to witness such a scene, if only for one hour. This simple and obvious truth was suggested to my mind by the exclamation of a poor woman. I had two hundred and twenty wounded turned in upon me that morning, and among others an American farmer, who had been on the field either as a militia man or a camp follower. He was nearly sixty years of age, but of a most Herculean frame. One ball had shattered his thigh bone, and another lodged in his body, the last obviously mortal. His wife, a respectable elderly looking woman, came over under a flag of truce, and immediately repaired to the hospital, where she found her husband lying on a truss of straw, writhing in agony, for his sufferings were dreadful. Such an accumulation of misery seemed to have stunnedher, for she ceased wailing, sat down on the ground, and taking her husband's head on her lap, continued long, moaning and sobbing, while the tears flowed fast down her face; she seemed for a considerable time in a state of stupor, till awakened by a groan from her unfortunate husband, she clasped her hands, and looking wildly around, exclaimed, "O that the King and the President were both here this moment to see the misery their quarrels lead to—they surely would never go to war again without a cause that they could give as a reason to God at the last day, for thus destroying the creatures that He hath made in his own image." In half an hour the poor fellow ceased to suffer.
I never underwent such fatigue as I did for the first week at Butler's Barracks. The weather was intensely hot, the flies were in myriads, and lighting on the wounds, deposited their eggs, so that maggots were bred in a few hours, producing dreadful irritation, so that long before I could go round dressing the patients, it was necessary to begin again; and as I had no assistant but my serjeant, our toil was incessant. For two days and two nights, I never sat down; when fatigued I sent my servant down to the river for a change of linen, and having dined and dressed, went back to my work quite refreshed. On the morning of the third day, however, I fell asleep on my feet, with my arm embracing the post of one of the berths. It was found impossible to awaken me, so a truss of clean straw was laid on the floor, on which I was deposited, and anhospital rug thrown over me; and there I slept soundly for five hours without ever turning.
My instructions were, as soon as a man could be safely removed, to ship him for York, and as the whole distance was by water conveyance, and there were ships of war always in readiness, and as my men were eminently uncomfortable where they were, I very soon thinned my hospital, and the few that remained over were sent to a temporary general hospital, and I was despatched to Chippawa in the neighborhood of the Falls of Niagara.
My duty here was to keep a kind of a medical boarding house. The sick and wounded from the Army were forwarded to me in spring waggons, and I took care of them during the night, and in the morning I forwarded them on to Niagara by the same conveyance, so that my duty commenced about sun-set, and terminated at sun-rise. By this arrangement I had the whole of the day to myself, and in the vicinity of the Falls there was no difficulty in employing it agreeably. My first business on my arrival, on a beautiful summer afternoon, was to visit the Table Rock. My first sight of the Falls most woefully disappointed me,—it was certainly grander than any fall I had ever seen, those of the Clyde included; but it was not on that scale of magnificence I had been led to expect, the opposite shore seemed within a stone's throw, and the height of the Fall not very great. I walked to the edge of the rock, and seated myself with my legs dangling over, and blessed my stars that I was not a man to bethrown into ecstacies and raptures merely because other people had been so. After about a quarter of an hour's contemplation I resolved to return to my quarters, and previous to rising, I bent forward and looked straight down. Below me were two men fishing, diminished by the distance—
"The fishermen that walked upon the beachAppeared like mice."
"The fishermen that walked upon the beachAppeared like mice."
This immediately gave me a notion of the height I was perched upon; a sense of sickness and giddiness came over me, and, like Edgar, I prudently resolved—
"I'll look no more,Lest the brain turn, and the deficient sightTopple down headlong."
"I'll look no more,Lest the brain turn, and the deficient sightTopple down headlong."
But I did not make my retreat in a manner quite so dignified as could have been wished, for in coming down the bank I had unslung my sword, and was carrying it in my hand; it I pitched backwards over my head, and throwing myself first on the broad of my back, I rolled over half a dozen times, till I thought myself a sufficient distance from the verge of the precipice to get upon my legs, and it will easily be believed I was in no hurry to return to my former position.
I then set on foot a series of experiments to ascertain the width of the Falls, by throwing stones across, but by some extraordinary fatality they seemed to drop from my hand into the enormous cauldron that boiled and smoked below. Next day I came armed with an Indianbow, but the arrows met with no greater success than the stones—they, too, dropt as if impelled by a child's force; and it was not till after I looked at the Falls in every aspect that I convinced myself that they were such a stupendous work of nature as they really are. The fact is, there is nothing at hand to compare them with, and a man must see them often, and from every different point of view, to have any proper conception of the nature of them. I never heard of any one except Mrs. Boyle Corbett who was satisfied with seeing the Falls from her bed-room window while dressing for dinner; but I have often been amused, while staying at the hotel there, to see a succession of respectable people come from Buffalo to Chippawa by steam, take the stage that stops an hour at the Falls, dine, and see them, and start for Queenston, quite convinced that they had seen everything worth seeing in the neighborhood. Getting tired of the inactive life I was leading, I applied to get into the field, and it luckily so happened that another medical man had as great a desire to quit it as I to get into it; accordingly, an exchange was soon agreed upon—he being duly installed in the Chippawa hospital, and I receiving the route to join the Army before Fort Erie.
The leaguer before Fort Erie had been always called the "Camp," and I certainly expected that, like other camps, it would have been provided with tents; but in this I was mistaken. It was rather a bivouac than a camp, the troops sheltering themselves under some branches of trees thatonly collected the scattered drops of rain, and sent them down in a stream on the heads of the inhabitants, and as it rained incessantly for two months, neither clothes nor bedding could be kept dry. I, though a young soldier, showed myself an old one, for my friend Tom F—— having rather a better hut than his neighbors, I took up my quarters there, and his bed being raised on forked sticks, I placed my own under it, so that the rain had to penetrate through his bed clothes and mattress before it could reach me.
This arrangement did admirably for some time, till one night we were visited by the most tremendous thunder storm I ever witnessed in this or any other country, and accompanied with a deluge of rain, that might have done credit to Noah's flood. The hut was very soon swimming, and I was awoke by my bed being overflowed, and started up to get out, but the water that flooded the floor softened the earth in which the forked sticks that supported Tom's bed were driven, and it falling forward jammed me in among the wet bed clothes, where I was nearly drowned, till Tom starting to his feet allowed me to raise the wreck and crawl on all-fours from under it.
I may here remark what has always struck me as a great deficiency in the military education of the British Army—they are too much taken care of by their officers, and never taught to take care of themselves. In quarters their every motion is under the surveillance of their officers—the Captain and Subaltern of the day visit themeach twice a day, and the Commanding Officer and one or other of the Majors frequently, to say nothing of the Surgeon and the Captain of their Company, who, if he (as sometimes happens) is a man possessed of a spirit of fidgetty zeal for the service, actually harasses them to death by his kind attention to their wants.
It must be certified that their room is duly swept and cleaned, their bedding regularly made up and folded, their meals properly dressed, and it is not even left to their own discretion to eat them when dressed, but an officer must see and certify that fact.
Their shaving, their ablutions, their cleaning their shoes and clothes, all come under the same strict supervision, so that at last they get into the notion that their comfort, cleanliness, feeding and clothing, all are the duty and business of their officers, they having no interest in the matter, and that what they are not ordered to do for their own relief they may leave undone. In the sister service this is not so. A sailor will mend his clothes, will leave his hammock properly fitted, his bedding properly made, and his comforts so far as depends upon himself, properly cared for, whether his officers order it or not. The result of all this excessive care and attention is that you make men mere children. When the soldier leaves his clean comfortable barracks in England and is put into the field, where he has few or none of the accommodations he had at home, he is utterly helpless, and his officer on whom he leant, is just as helpless when a newstate of things arises, as he can possibly be. All this was most fully illustrated before Fort Erie. The line might nearly as well have slept in the open air. The incorporated Militia, on the contrary, erected shanties, far superior, in warmth, tightness and comfort, to any canvas tent. De Watteville's regiment, which was recruited, chiefly from the prison hulks, consisted of all the nations of Europe, but all of them had served in the armies of Napoleon, and all of them had there learned how to make the best of a bad bargain. These, though they had not the skill in the axe inherent in their brethren of the Militia, took down hemlock boughs (a species of the pine, "pinus canadensis,") and cutting off the tails of them, made thatched wigwams, perfectly weatherproof; and though they could not equal the Canadian Militia inwoodcraft, they greatly excelled them in gastronomic lore; and thus, while our fellows had no better shift than to frizzle their rations of salt provisions on the ends of their ramrods, these being practical botanists, sent out one soldier from each mess, who gathered a haversack full of wild pot herbs, with which and a little flour their ration was converted into a capital kettle of soup.
I shall have occasion to show hereafter how easily those camp habits may be acquired; meantime I have only to remark that, were they generally understood, an army might often be kept in the field in an infinitely more serviceable condition than it now is, and the prevalence of ague and dysentery in a body of men exposed to hardshipand privation, if not totally arrested, might at least be very much diminished. I lately saw a very clever article on this subject by Sir J. E. Alexander of the 32nd Regt., now quartered at London, U.C., and I wrote him a very long and a very prosy letter thereanent. My positions, if I remember aright, were, first—That every Regiment in Canada should be made a Light Infantry Regiment, insomuch as they ought to be taught to understand and obey the bugle; secondly, that they should be taught the use of the axe, without which a Regiment is absolutely helpless in the woods, and this might be done by making them chop their own firewood, and giving them the money that is otherwise given to the contractor: and thirdly, that they should be taken into the woods for a month every summer, with a party of woodsmen to teach them how to erect shanties, cut fire-wood and provide for themselves in such a situation. Even the Commissariat Department (the most important in modern warfare) may be dispensed with by able woods-men. Sir William Johnson marched his Regiment, who were all woods-men, from the Mohawk River to Fort Niagara, through the woods, requiring no other support, on that long line of march, than their rifles were amply sufficient to supply them with.
When I arrived at Fort Erie, I found myself appointed to the very service I would have chosen had I had the right of choosing. A corps of six flank companies was organized under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Drummond, of Keltie, then commandant of the 104th Regiment.
Colonel Drummond was everything that could be required in a soldier; brave, generous, open-hearted and good natured, he added to all these the talent of a first-rate tactitian; and if at times eccentricities broke out through all these, any one who knew him must have agreed with his clansman, and I believe kinsman, Sir Gordon Drummond, that "all these eccentricities would one day mellow down into sound common sense, and that Keltie would be an honor to the service." Alas! his prophecy was destined never to be fulfilled—that was his last campaign, and he fell in it as a brave man and a soldier would wish to fall, a death far less to be pitied than envied. But I am anticipating. We were divided into three brigades—let not the old soldier suppose that these were such brigades as are generally in the army. Our force never amounted to 9,000 men, including artillery, cavalry and militia, and these took their tour of piquet duty in rotation, so that we had one day of duty, were relieved the next, and on the fourth again took our turn. This, all things considered, especially alarms and skirmishes, when we all turned out, was pretty hard work, but we were in high spirits, and it never affected us. One of the great drawbacks of the service in Canada was that we got the rubbish of every department in the army. Any man whom The Duke deemed unfit for the Peninsula was considered as quite good enough for the Canadian market, and in nothing was this more conspicuous than in our Engineer Department. Without the semblance of a battering train, itwas deemed expedient to besiege Fort Erie, and the ground was occupied, parties sent in advance, and batteries ordered to be constructed. Our first essay in this line was a battery on the main road leading to the Fort, which was to breach the strong stone building in the centre of it, on which were mounted, if I recollect rightly, one iron 24-pounder, one 18-pounder and two brass field 24-pounders. I have never seen before or since, any like them, but they were of the time of George II., and were admirable guns in the field, though not quite the best that could be used for breaching the wall of a fort. A brass and an iron mortar were afterwards added to this most efficient battering train; the latter, however, having no bed, was placed in one of oak, which it split almost as often as it was fired. After much skirmishing with the enemy and the covering parties, the battery was at last opened, and gentle reader! if ever you saw what is termed hopping bowling at cricket you may have some idea how our fire operated. I very much doubt if one shot in ten reached the rampart at all, and the fortunate exceptions that struck the stone building at which they were aimed, rebounded from its sides as innocuous as tennis balls.
The fact is the distance had been miscalculated, and we were attempting to breach a wall at a distance that it was scarcely possible to hit it. The enemy knew their distance better, and managed to pitch shot and shell among us in a way that was anything but pleasant.
I remember one day while I was in the battery, admiring our abortive attempts to do any mischief, while a gun of the enemy was practising with the most admirable precision on us, Mr. K., of the Glengarries, lounged into the battery, and casually asked the Commanding Engineer how far we were from the Fort. He replied about seven hundred yards. Mr. K. said he thought double the distance would be nearer the mark;—this brought on a dispute, which Mr. K. offered to settle by either cutting a fuse or laying a gun for the supposed distance. To this it was replied that both the powder and the fuses were bad, and no faith could be had in them. Mr. K. then asked leave to lay the 24-pounder, and the Engineer, with a sneer, looking at his green jacket, observed, that there was some difference between a rifle and a 24-pounder; however, Mr. K. then himself on the trail of the gun, brought out the coign further than it had been before, and from the orders he gave to the artillery even, showed, at least, that he knew the words of command in working a gun. The presiding Engineer, seeing the elevation he was taking, asked him if he was aiming at the truck of the flagstaff of the Fort. He replied, no—the site of the embrazure would be high enough for him. The gun was fired, and the ball entered the sand bags about a foot below the mark. He then asked leave to try a second shot. He laid the gun with great care, and took a long while to do it,—at last he gave the word "fire," away went the ball, and driving the sand up from the site of the embrazure, took theenemy's gun on the transom, and capsized it. "Pray, sir," said the Engineer, "where might you have learned to lay guns?" "At Woolwich," was the reply, "where I was three years Serjeant Major of Artillery."
It was then resolved that another battery should be erected some hundreds of yards in advance, and to the right of the first. Accordingly, our brigade was sent out to drive the enemy's piquets out of the wood in our front, and establish parties to cover the workmen.
This duty was performed in good style, but with considerable loss on our part, for in a wood the advancing party always acts to disadvantage, as the retreating can fire from under cover, and retreat in the smoke; whereas the advancing party must necessarily expose himself somewhat, the quantum of exposure depending much on his knowledge of his business in advancing in such a way as will give his antagonists as little chance as may be of taking a steady aim at him.
The ground was accordingly chosen, and the third effort commenced. The enemy were aware of what we were about, so they kept up a constant fire of round shot and shells upon the working parties. The direction of their practice was admirable, but they seemed to have altogether lost their knowledge of elevation, for their shot was uniformly over our heads. At last the battery was declared ready to open, but, as it was masked by a considerable belt of trees, these had, of course, to be felled, and that required a strong covering, and an equally strong working party.If the enemy had failed with their round shot against the men in the trenches, they were infinitely more fortunate with their grape against the covering and working party. This was by far the bloodiest bush skirmish we had. The party with which I was, though not 120 strong, had six killed and about thirty wounded; however, we stuck obstinately to it, and at last our object was achieved. The battery was unmasked, and the Lord have mercy on the defenders of the Fort, for we would have none! "Mistakes will creep into the best regulated families." When all this profuse waste of life, time and labor had been gone into, it was discovered that the battery had been erected without taking the levels, and that a rise of ground in front of it prevented us even from seeing the Fort. This at once demonstrated that the battery was useless, and explained the reason why the American shot had been so innocuous. During the whole time we lay before Fort Erie, bush-skirmishing was an every day's occurrence, and though the numbers lost in each of these affairs may seem but trifling, yet the aggregate of men puthors de combatin a force so small as ours became very serious in the long run. They generally commenced with some accidental rencontre of videttes—their firing brought out the piquet, then the brigade on duty, and then, not unfrequently, the brigade next for duty. I think, on a fair average of three months, I enjoyed this amusement about three times a week.
Excepting only a melée of cavalry, a bush skirmish is the only aspect in which modern warfare appears in anything picturesque. Look at all attempts at painting a modern battle, and unless the painter takes such a distance as to render everything indistinct, you have nothing but a series of stiff, hard, regular, straight lines, that might represent a mathematical diagram in uniform. Not so with light infantry in a wood. There a man ceases to be merely a part of a machine, or a point in a long line. Both his personal safety and his efficiency depend on his own knowledge and tact. To stand straight upright and be shot at is no part of his duty; his great object is to annoy the enemy, and keep himself safe; and so far was this carried by the tacticians of the Prussian school, that in a German Contingent, which served on this continent during the revolutionary war, a yager has been flogged forgetting himself wounded.
Perhaps there can be no military scene more fit for the pencil than a body of light infantry awaiting an attack. The variety of attitude necessary to obtain cover—the breathless silence—the men attentive by eye and ear—every glance (furtively lowered) directed to the point—some kneeling, some lying down, and some standing straight behind a tree—the officer with his silver whistle in his hand, ready to give the signal to commence firing, and the bugle boy looking earnestly in his officer's face waiting for the next order. This is worth painting, which cannot, by any one having a decent regard for truth, be saidof the base reliefs that we see on the tombs of heroes, of a line of men marching in step, each with his bayonet levelled at precisely the same angle, in a manner that would draw forth the enthusiastic approbation of the shade of Sir David Dundas, but which no effort of the genius of sculptor or painter could even render more tolerable, than a well executed representation of the same quantity of park pales.
This species of warfare necessarily draws forth the individual talent of the soldier. I once saw a soldier of the 32nd take two American sentries prisoners, by placing his cap and great coat on a bush, and while they were busy firing at his image and superscription, he fetch'd a circuit, got behind them, waited till both of their firelocks were discharged, and then drove them before him into the picquet guard.
The Glengarry Regiment being provincials, possessed many excellent shots. They were not armed with the rifle, but with what I greatly prefer to that arm, the double sighted light infantry musket. A rifle is by no means suited for a day's fighting; when it gets foul from repeated firing it is difficult even to hammer the ball down, and the same foulness which clogs the barrel must injure the precision of the ball. The well made smooth barrel on the contrary, is to a certain degree scoured by every discharge, and can stand sixty rounds without the necessity of cleaning. Nor is it in the precision of its aim for any useful purpose inferior to the rifle, that is to say in the hands of a man who knows how to use it.I have seen a Sergeant of the Glengarries who would allow you to pick out a musket from any of the corps, and let him load it, when he would knock the head off a pigeon on the top of the highest tree in the forest.
In the British Army one would suppose that the only use of a musket was understood to be that it could carry a bayonet at the end of it. The quantity of powder allowed to be expended in teaching the men the use of their principal weapon is fifteen rounds per annum. Now, suppose such a limitation was placed on sportsmen, is it possible to conceive that on the twelfth of August, or the first of September, there could be found one man who could bring down a grouse or a partridge? No; the officers in command of corps should have an unlimited power in the expenditure of ammunition, and should only be made answerable for their Regiment being efficient in their practice when called into the field.
In this regiment there were a father and three sons, American U. E. Loyalists, all of them crack shots. In a covering party one day the father and one of the sons were sentries on the same point. An American rifleman dropped a man to his left, but in so doing exposed himself, and almost as a matter of course, was instantly dropped in his turn by the unerring aim of the father. The enemy were at that moment being driven in, so the old man of course (for it was a ceremony seldom neglected,) went up to rifle his victim. On examining his features he discovered that it was his own brother. Under any circumstancesthis would have horrified most men, but a Yankee has much of the stoic in him, and is seldom deprived of his equanimity. He took possession of his valuables, consisting of an old silver watch and a clasp knife, his rifle and appointments, coolly remarking, that it "served him right for fighting for the rebels, when all the rest of his family fought for King George." It appeared that during the revolutionary war his father and all his sons had taken arms in the King's cause, save this one, who had joined the Americans. They had never met him from that period till the present moment; but such is the virulence of political rancour, that it can overcome all the ties of nature.
With all our hardships and privations there was nowhere to be met with a merrier set of fellows than in the camp before Fort Erie. One of the chief promoters of this was worthy Billy R. of the King's, who, to all the qualifications of a most accomplished soldier, added all the lightheartedness and wit of an Irishman.
There was in the camp an old thorn, up which a wild vine had climbed, and then descended in long branches to the ground, forming a natural bower impervious to the rays of the sun. The root of this tree was Billy's favourite seat (for he was too much of the Falstaff build to be more peripatetic than was absolutely necessary) and no sooner was he seated than a group of officers was established around him, and to these he would tell funny stories and crack jokes by the hour together. He was appointed to the commandof the Incorporated Militia, and a more judicious selection could not have been made, not only on account of his military talents, but his invincible good temper and good humour, which endeared him to the men, and made them take a pleasure and a pride in obeying his orders and attending to his instructions. Some idea may be formed of his talents in this way, when I state that in the course of a very few months, he rendered a body of raw lads from the plough-tail as efficient a corps as any in the field.
Towards the end of the business, when his men were acting as light infantry, he was knocked off his horse by a ball, which struck him in the forehead and came out over the ear. This would have knocked the life out of most men, but it did knock the wit out of Billy. He was raised and placed in a blanket, his eyes still fixed on his men, who he saw were pushing on in a way to expose themselves. "Stop till I spake to the boys," said he to the men, who were carrying him off the field; "Boys!" shouted he, "I have only one remark to make, and that is, that a stump or a log will stand a leaden bullet better than the best of yees, and therefore give them the honor to be your front rank men." Poor Billy survived this severe wound many years, but at last its effects began to tell. He became paralytic of the lower extremities, and had to be carried from place to place; but his wit and good humor never forsook him. He died in the Isle of Wight in 1827, on his way to Canada to draw his land.
One day, when relieved from piquet, I announced to Col. P., who commanded our brigade, that I had discovered a short way through the woods to the camp, and accordingly I led the way, he and Captain F., of the Glengarries, following. By some fatality I mistook the path, and took a wrong turn, so that instead of finding the camp we came right on the top of an American piquet, which opened fire upon us at about fifty yards distance. Being use to this we were behind trees in a moment, and the next were scampering in different directions at greater or less angles from the enemy. It may well be supposed I did not wait on our brigadier, during the time we were off duty, to receive thanks for my services as a guide, nor when we did go on duty again was I at all anxious to obtrude myself upon him; indeed I kept as far from him as I could, but in going his rounds at daylight he came up with me seated by a piquet fire at the extreme left of the line. He saluted me most graciously, alluded to our late exploit as a good joke, and asked me to breakfast with him. "Ho, ho," thinks I, "he has forgotten it all, and I'm forgiven—this is as it should be." Lounging about after breakfast, and talking over indifferent matters, a sputtering fire began a little to our left, and the Colonel ordering a look out on the right, proceeded, followed by me, to the scene of action. We soon saw that this was the point of attack, so he sent me to order up the reserve. This done I rejoined him, and found him standing coolly giving his orders in the middle of a whistling of bullets, fartoo thick to be pleasant. I stood by his side for some minutes, thankful that none of these missiles had a billet on us, when on a sudden I felt a severe sharp pain from my brow to the back of my head at the same moment the Colonel exclaimed: "By G—d! you are shot through the head." I sunk upon one knee, and taking off my forage cap felt along my head for blood, but none was to be found. "It is only a graze," said I. "Colonel, is there any mark?" "Yes," said he, "there is a red mark, but not from a ball, it came from my switch. You gave me a d—l of a fright the other day—now I have given you one, so we are quits."
Weeks passed at this kind of warfare, that served no purpose to the parties except to harass one another, and mutually to thin our ranks. The enemy determined on a grand attack, that, but for an accident, would have finished the campaign and our army together. They collected all the force they could raise, giving the militia a long exemption from playing at soldiers in their own country for one day's active exertion in ours. They at the same time marched a body of troops down their own side of the river, to cross and take us in rear. The time was altogether well chosen. The principal part of the brigade on duty was De Watteville's regiment, who being foreigners, and formerly soldiers of Napoleon, could not have any very ardent desire for a victory on our side. The day was cloudy, with a continued drizzling rain. In the forenoon the troops from the fort were marched out in smallparties, and stationed in rear of the piquets, and towards the afternoon all was in readiness.
A sudden and unexpected attack was made. The out ports were forced—the battery on the right stormed, and the guns disabled; the second battery was also stormed, and the wheels of one gun cut to pieces, and those of a second injured, when two companies of the 82nd, under Captain Pattison, rushed up to the assistance of the piquet which was guarding it. They poured a volley into the mass of the enemy, who were huddled together into so small a space that they could not return it. Pattison immediately sprung forward, and called out to the American officer in command to surrender, as resistance would only cause loss of life and could do no good. He did give an order to ground arms, and some of his men were in the act of doing so, when an American soldier raised his rifle and shot Pattison through the heart. In one moment a charge was made by the 82nd into the battery, and every soul in it put to the bayonet, amounting, I think, to upwards of two hundred men.