Ah, me! what perils do environ
The 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 retired on 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 delicate constitution, 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 stunned her, 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 an hospital 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 be
thrown 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 beach
Appeared 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 sight
Topple 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 Indian bow, 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 that
only 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 them each 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 new state 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 in _woodcraft_, 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 hardship and 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, it was 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 the enemy'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 put _hors de
combat_ in 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 for _getting
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 said of
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 circumstances this 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 command of 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, far too 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 small parties, 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.
By this time the alarm was given in the camp, and the men, without
waiting for orders, rushed out--their officers, who were at dinner,
followed at speed. The action became general, and the enemy, finding
that their object in destroying the batteries had failed, returned in
some confusion.
It is said that in war any new weapon, or any new manoeuvre, strikes the
enemy with terror, and here we had an instance of it. A body of the 82nd
were opposed to a party of riflemen in the wood. The Captain commanding,
to the utter astonishment of all of us old bush-whackers, gave orders to
charge, and the order was executed in a very spirited style. This we
thought was consigning our men to inevitable destruction; but no such
thing: the riflemen had no more idea of a bayonet being pointed at them
than they had of being swallowed up by an earthquake; and when the smoke
cleared away, and they saw the 82nd within twenty yards of them, moving
on at the "pas de charge," it shook their nerves,--they fired, to be
sure, but with little effect, and then ran--they were too late, however.
The flat-foots got within _their_ deadly range, that is, bayonet's
length--they _skivered_ many of them, and others were shot at two
muskets' length, and driven out of the woods to the esplanade of the
Fort, where they were treated with a parting volley; and the guns of the
Fort immediately opening on us, we took the hint, and withdrew under the
cover of the woods.
I, like the rest of the dining parties, was alarmed by the firing, and
ran to the trenches. On my road I met with about twenty of the men of my
own Regiment, and took them with me, being guided to where the fire was
thickest by the noise. I found myself along with my friend, Mautass, a
Soc Chief, and his Indians. I have had an opportunity of seeing
bush-fighting in the Indian fashion. It seemed to me to be a point with
them at every discharge of their rifle to shift their position, and
whenever they knocked a fellow over, their yelling was horrible. I was
close to Mautass himself, and whenever he performed this feat, after
giving the triumphal yell, he jumped behind a tree, and seemed to be
engaged in prayer--perhaps to thank the great Spirit for his success, or
as likely to petition him that he might knock over a few more.
When the enemy retired, the Indians who had shown so much wariness in
the fight, and had talked to me of the folly of my young men exposing
themselves, suddenly seemed to lose all their caution, and bounded
forward with a horrible yell, threw themselves on the retreating enemy
with their tomahawks, and were soon out of our sight; but as we
advanced, we saw they left their trace behind them in sundry cleft
skulls.--They also, when their opponents were from fifteen to twenty
yards in advance of them, threw their tomahawks with unerring aim and
great force, burying the head of the hatchet up to the eye in the body
of their opponents.
I afterwards requested the Chief to show me how he threw the tomahawk.
He accordingly cut a small chip out of the bark of a tree, and standing
some fourteen yards off, and taking his tomahawk with its pole to the
front, he threw it, and it was buried some inches into the oak, with the
handle upmost, it having turned round in its flight.
This is analogous to the custom of the Portuguese, who, in throwing the
knife, always project it with the handle foremost, but it as uniformly
strikes with the point.
These Socs or Sacs were the only genuine unadulterated Indians I ever
saw. They were very fine men, few of them under six feet high, and their
symmetry perfectly faultless. In action they fought all but naked, which
gymnastic undressing gave you the means of seeing their forms to the
greatest advantage.
Their features, too, had not the rounded form or stolid expression of
many Indian tribes, particularly those towards the North. They had
European features, or, more properly, those of the Asiatic. Their Chief
had so strong a resemblance to George the Third that even the tribe
called the head on the half penny Mautass, and he certainly might have
passed for a bronze statue of that worthy and estimable Monarch.
After the action was over, and it was drawing towards dusk, I rapidly
traversed the ground with a strong party to look out for wounded, and
finding only a few of the enemy, I ordered them to be carried to the
hospital, but I preceded them to make preparations for their reception.
When nearing the Camp, I found a party of the band of our Regiment
carrying in a blanket an American officer mortally wounded, who was
greedily drinking water from one of the soldier's canteens. I ordered
them to lay him down, and set myself to dress his wound. He calmly said,
"Doctor, it's all in vain--my wound is mortal, and no human skill can
help me--leave me here with a canteen of water near me, and save
yourself--you are surrounded, and your only chance of escape is to take
to the woods in a northerly direction, and then make your way east for
Queenston,--there is not a man of your army who can escape by any other
means--I am not at liberty to tell you more." I, however, ordered the
men to carry him to a hut belonging to an officer of my own Regiment,
who undertook to sit by him till my return. After he had been put to bed
I left him, and when I returned during the night from my hospital, he
was dead. He proved to be Colonel Wood of the American Engineers--a man
equally admired for his talents and revered for his virtues. His
calmness and courage in the hour of death, with his benevolence and
kindness to myself and others, who were doing any little they could to
render his last moments easy, convinced me that he deserved the high
character which all his brother officers that I afterwards met with
uniformly gave him.
Next morning I discovered what the poor Colonel alluded to. The party
sent down the right bank of the Niagara to take us in rear, on arriving
at the place where it was determined they should cross, saw a body of
troops cooking their dinners on the bank, and supposing their plan was
betrayed, desisted from the attempt.
The fact was, it was a party of men coming up to join their Regiments in
the field, who had halted there by chance, and by this accident we were
saved, for had a small force landed they must have taken our baggage,
ammunition and field guns (for the camp was deserted except by the few
guards that were mounted more for show than use), and had they attacked
us in rear, must have thrown us into inextricable confusion. I could now
see well enough why the enemy were so easily driven in. Had the expected
attack on our rear taken place, there is no doubt they would been out
again in double their former force; but they had done all that there was
any necessity for them to do--they had brought us into a general
engagement, made us leave our camp and park of artillery undefended, and
had their other column made the proposed attack in rear, their loss,
severe as it was under existing circumstances, would have been of no
account, compared to the advantages that must have accrued from it.
We continued this _humbugging_ kind of warfare for some time longer,
when, finding there was no chance of us breaching strong ramparts, or
knocking down stone towers with such artillery as we had to apply, and
under the direction of such engineers as it pleased the Lord in His
wrath to bestow upon us, it was determined to try the matter by a _coup
de main_. Accordingly about a week before the great attempt was to be
made, it was known in the camp, from the General to the drum-boy, that
it was in contemplation. A worthy old officer of De Watteville's used to
salute his friends every morning with--"Well, gentlemans! this would be
one very fine day for _de grand object_." As the intelligence was so
universal in our camp, it is not well supposable that it should be
unknown in that of the enemy, and accordingly they had a full week to
prepare for our attack. At last orders were given for the assault. It
was to be made in two divisions, one against the Fort, and another
against Snake hill, a fortified camp higher up the lake. The troops at
sun-set moved on, but before we had started half an hour an express was
sent after us to recall us. Had the enemy had the slightest doubt of the
information their spies and our deserters had given them as to our
intentions, this must have set it at rest. Some three days after we had
orders in form to make the attack, and our brigade was to lead. Never
were men better pleased than ours were to hear this. We were tired of
the wet bivouac they called a camp; we were tired of our busy idleness!
which, though fatal to many of our comrades, had as yet produced no
military result; and we knew that whatever they might be at a distance,
the enemy had no chance with us at a hand-to-hand fight, and therefore
we hailed the prospect of an assault as a relief from trouble--a
glorious termination to a fatiguing and harassing campaign, where, if we
had got some credit by the Battle of the Falls, accounts from that date
to the present had been pretty evenly balanced.
I have said that it was determined that our brigade should lead, and
never was honor more highly appreciated. It struck us that the General
showed great discrimination and penetration in selecting the very
fittest men under his command for such a service, the more so that the
corps of flank companies to which I belonged, was to lead immediately
after the forlorn hope.
We were the first for duty on that day, and the relief brigade was
summoned out at eleven and marched to take up its position at twelve. We
breakfasted at eight; Colonel Drummond was in high spirits--it has
sometimes struck me since unnaturally high,--but that idea might have
proceeded from the result. Be that as it may, certain it is that he had
a presentiment that he never would come out of that day's action, and he
made no secret of that feeling either from me or several others of his
friends.
We sat apparently by common consent long after breakfast was over.
Drummond told some capital stories, which kept us in such a roar that we
seemed more like an after dinner than an after breakfast party. At last
the bugles sounded the turn-out, and we rose to depart for our stations;
Drummond called us back, and his face assuming an unwonted solemnity, he
said, "Now boys! we never will all meet together here again; at least I
will never again meet you. I feel it and am certain of it; let us all
shake hands, and then every man to his duty, and I know you all too well
to suppose for a moment that any of you will flinch it." We shook hands
accordingly, all round, and with a feeling very different from what we
had experienced for the last two hours, fell into our places.
On taking up our several stations on piquet, the weather, which had been
clear became suddenly dark and cloudy, and a thick, drizzling rain began
to fall, which, towards evening, increased to a heavy shower. Colonel
P., Colonel Drummond, and some more of us, were congregated in a hut,
anything but rain-tight; Colonel Drummond left the hut, where we were
smoking and talking, and stowed himself away in a rocket case, where he
soon fell fast asleep. About midnight we were summoned to fall in
without noise, and a party of sailors forming the forlorn hope, headed
by a midshipman taking the lead, our corps followed close in their rear.
When we were yet three hundred yards from the fort their videttes fired
on us and immediately retired; soon after the guns of the Fort opened,
but with little or no effect. About 200 yards from the fort Drummond
halted, and turning to me unbuckled his sword, which he gave to me,
telling me to keep it for his sake. It was a regulation sword in a steel
scabbard. Thinking that he had no great faith in it, I offered him mine,
which was a Ferrara of admirable temper and edge; but he said he had got
a boarding pike from the sailors whom he was going to join. He told me
to stand where I was and not expose myself; and these were the last
words I ever heard him utter.
The sailors and our corps dashed on and made good their lodgment in fine
style, and after standing till the last of the attacking columns was
past, I began to feel my situation most particularly unpleasant. A man
must possess more courage than I can pretend to, who can stand perfectly
cool, while, having nothing to do, he is shot at like a target.
Accordingly, I determined to advance at all hazards, and at least have
the pleasure of seeing what was doing for my risk of being shot. I had
not proceeded many yards when I stumbled over a body, and on feeling,
for I could not see, I discovered he was wounded in the arm and the
blood flowing copiously. He had fainted and fallen in attempting to get
to the rear. I fixed a field tourniquet on his arm, and throwing him
over my shoulder like a sack, carried him to a ravine in rear, and
delivered him to the care of a Naval Surgeon I met with there. He proved
to be Major R. of the Royals, who, but for my lucky stumble, would most
probably have given promotion to the senior Captain of that
distinguished Regiment.
When I came up to the fort I found no difficulty in getting on the
rampart, for our own men were in full possession; but just as I was
scrambling over some dead bodies, an explosion took place. At first I
thought it was a shell had burst close to me, for the noise was not
greater if so great, as that of a large shell; but the tremendous glare
of light and falling of beams and rubbish soon demonstrated that it was
something more serious. In a fact a magazine in a bastion had exploded,
and on the top of this bastion, through some mistake of their orders,
the 103rd Regiment were either posted or scrambling up; all who were on
the top were necessarily blown up, and those not killed by the shock
fell on the fixed bayonets of their comrades in the ditch, and thus,
after we were in possession of the place, in one instant the greater
part of our force was annihilated.
All was now confusion, and--d--l take the hindmost! How I got across the
ditch, I cannot, nor never could call to my memory; but I found myself
scouring along the road at the top of my speed, with a running
accompaniment of grape, cannister and musketry whistling about my ears,
and tearing the ground at my feet.
When about half way between the ditch and the ravine, I heard a voice
calling on me for help. I found it was a wounded officer; so, calling a
drum-boy of the Royals, who had a stretcher, we laid him into it, and
carried him after the manner of a hand-barrow; he entreated us to get
into the wood, as, on the road, we were likely to be cut to pieces with
the shot. Accordingly we turned for that purpose; but just as we were
entering, a round shot cut a large bough just above our heads, and down
it came on the top of the three of us. I crawled backwards and the
drum-boy forwards; and there we were staring at each other; however,
there was no time to express our surprise. I ordered him in again, and I
crawled in at the other side; and by our joint exertions we got the poor
fellow out of his uncomfortable situation, and once in the wood we were
safe for the rest of our journey. I handed him over to some medical men
in the battery, and went in search of my own men.
Day not being yet fairly broken, I did not know whom I had been the
means of saving, but more than twelve months after I met in the streets
of Portsmouth with Captain C., of the 103rd, who, after shaking hands
with me, thanked me for my kindness to him at Fort Erie, and this was
the first time that I ever knew the Regiment to which my man belonged,
for in the imperfect light I thought he had dark facings. On my arrival
in the battery there was a scene of sad confusion. Sir Gordon Drummond
was with great coolness forming the men as they came in, and I, with
others, set to work to assist him. Without regard to what corps they
belonged, we stuck them behind the breast-work, anticipating an attack.
Sir Gordon asked me what officers were killed; I told him all that I
knew of, and when I mentioned Colonel Drummond of Keltie, and Colonel
Scott, of Brotherton, (both like himself, Perthshire lairds, and
neighbors of his,) he seemed deeply affected.
I sent poor Drummond's sword, by his servant, to his family, and
reserved for a memorial, a string of wampum beads which he had got from
the Indians, with whom he was an especial favourite. This I wore round
my neck six years afterwards in 1820, at the Cape of Good Hope, when his
brother, being Field Officer of the day, riding past me observed it, and
asked a gentleman who had come from India in the same ship with me the
cause of my wearing so extraordinary an ornament. On being told, he
waited on me, and as I was the first person he had met with who had been
present when his brother fell, he heard from me the circumstances I have
here related.
After this it was quite clear that we could get no good by remaining, as
we had failed in the main object of the campaign. But remain we did for
some time, having an occasional skirmish with the enemy, but nothing
decisive. At last it was determined that we should retire behind the
Chippawa; this we accordingly did, unfollowed by the enemy, who, when
they saw us fairly gone, took themselves across the river, abandoning
the fort they had defended so obstinately for three months; in fact it
had served all their purposes, which evidently were to keep us busy as
long as we could keep the field, preventing us doing mischief on their
side by amusing us on our own.
After the blow up, our little corps was broken up, and the companies
composing it joined their respective battalions. My own regiment was
wretchedly reduced; little more than three months before it had gone
into the Battle of the Falls, five hundred strong, with a full
complement of officers. Now we retired about sixty rank and file,
commanded by a Captain, two of the senior Lieutenants carrying the
colours, and myself marching in rear--_voilá_, His Majesty's 89th
Regiment of Foot!
[Illustration]