THE CAPTURE OF YORK.
After the battle of Queenston Heights an armistice of a month
followed, during which each party was gathering up its strength
for the renewal of the unnatural conflict. General Smyth, who had
succeeded Van Rensselaer, assembled a force five thousand strong,
for the conquest of Canada. At the expiration of the armistice, he
issued a Napoleonic proclamation to his "companions in arms."
"Come on, my heroes" it concludes; "when you attack the enemy's
batteries let your rallying word be: 'The cannon lost at Detroit,
or death.'"
At length, before day-break on the morning of November 28th--a
cold, bleak day--a force of some five hundred men, in eighteen
scows, attempted the capture of Grand Island, in the Niagara
River. A considerable British force had rallied from Fort Erie and
Chippewa. In silence they awaited the approach of the American
flotilla. As it came within range, a ringing cheer burst forth,
and a deadly volley of musketry was poured into the advancing
boats. A six-pounder, well served by Captain Kerby, shattered two
of the boats; and the Americans, thrown into confusion, sought the
shelter of their own shore.
General Smyth now sent a summons for the surrender of Fort Erie.
Colonel Bishopp, its commandant, sarcastically invited him to
"come and take it." After several feints the attempt was
abandoned, and the army went into winter quarters. Smyth, an empty
gasconader, was regarded, even by his own troops, with contempt,
and had to fly from the camp to escape their indignation. He was
even hooted and fired at in the streets of Buffalo, and was,
without trial, dismissed from the army,--a sad collapse of his
vaunting ambition.
In the meanwhile, General Dearborn, with an army of ten thousand
men, advanced by way of Lake Champlain to the frontier of Lower
Canada. The Canadians rallied _en masse_ to repel the
invasion, barricaded the roads with felled trees, and guarded
every pass. On the 20th of November, before day, an attack was
made by fourteen hundred of the enemy on the British out-post at
Lacolle, near Rouse's Point; but the guard, keeping up a sharp
fire, withdrew, and the Americans, in the darkness and confusion,
fired into each other's ranks, and fell back in disastrous and
headlong retreat. The discomfited general, despairing of a
successful attack on Montreal, so great was the vigilance and
valour of the Canadians, retired with his "Grand Army of the
North" into safe winter quarters, behind the entrenchments of
Plattsburg. A few ineffectual border raids and skirmishes, at
different points of the extended frontier, were characteristic
episodes of the war during the winter, and, indeed, throughout the
entire duration of hostilities.
In their naval engagements the Americans were more successful. On
Lake Ontario, Commodore Chauncey equipped a strong fleet, which
drove the Canadian shipping for protection under the guns of
Niagara, York, and Kingston. He generously restored the private
plate of Sir Isaac Brock, captured in one of his prizes.
In these naval conflicts the greatest gallantry was exhibited in
the dreadful work of mutual slaughter. The vessels reeked with
blood like a shambles, and, if not blown up or sunk, became
floating hospitals of deadly wounds and agonizing pain.
In the United States Congress this unnatural strife of kindred
races was vigorously denounced by some of the truest American
patriots. Mr. Quincy, of Massachusetts, characterized it as the
"most disgraceful in history since the invasion of the
buccaneers." But the Democratic majority persisted in their stern
policy of implacable war.
The patriotism and valour of the Canadians were, however, fully
demonstrated. With the aid of a few regulars, the loyal militia
had repulsed large armies of invaders, and not only maintained the
inviolable integrity of their soil, but had also conquered a
considerable portion of the enemy's territory. [Footnote:
Condensed from Withrow's History of Canada, 8vo. edition, chap.
xxii.]
The winter dragged its weary length along. Its icy hand was laid
upon the warring passions of man, and, for a time, they seemed
stilled. Its white banners of snow proclaimed a truce--the trace
of God--through all the land. Apprehensions of a sterner conflict
during the coming year filled every mind, but caused no dismay,--
only a firm resolve to do and dare--to conquer or to die--for
their firesides and their homes.
Neville Trueman toiled through the wintry woods, the snowdrifts,
and the storms to break the bread of life to the scattered
congregations of his far-extended circuits. His own flock, who
knew the man, knew how his loyalty had been tested, and what
sacrifices he had made for his adopted country. By a few religious
and political bigots, however, his American origin was a cause of
unjust suspicion and aspersion, which stung to the quick his
sensitive nature. He was especially made to feel the unreasoning
and bitter antipathy of the Indians to the nation of American
"long-knives," with whom they classed him, notwithstanding his
peaceful calling and his approved loyalty.
One day Trueman entered the bark wigwam of an Indian chief, for
the double purpose of obtaining shelter from a storm and of trying
to teach the truths of the Christian religion to those devotees of
pagan superstition. He found several young braves assembled at a
sort of council, gravely smoking their long pipes in dignified
silence. His entrance was the occasion of not a few dark scowls
and sinister glances.
"Ugh! Yankee black-robe," sneered one of the braves. "Friend of
the 'long-knives.' The day of fight at Big Rapids him strike up my
arm as me going to tomahawk Yankee prisoner. Had great mind to
kill him, too."
"Ugh!" echoed another; "me see him helping wounded 'long-knife,'
just like him brother."
"No! Him good King George's man," exclaimed the old chief, who had
seen his impartial ministration to the wounded of both armies.
"Him love Injun. Teach him pray to true Great Spirit."
But not always did he find such a true friend among the red men;
and not unfrequently was the scalping-knife half unsheathed, or
the tomahawk grasped, and dark brows scowled in anger, as he
sought the wandering children of the forest for their soul's
salvation. But their half-unconscious fear of the imagined power
of the pale-face medicine-man, their involuntary admiration of his
undaunted courage, and, let us add, the protecting providence of
God, prevented a hair of his head from being harmed.
The spring came at length with strange suddenness, as it often
comes in our northern land, causing a magical change in the face
of nature. A green flush overspread the landscape. The skies
became soft and tender, with glorious sunsets. The delicate-veined
white triliums and May-apples took the place of the snowdrifts in
the woods; and the air was fragrant and the orchards were abloom
with the soft pink and white apple-blossoms.
The little town of Niagara was like a camp. The long, low barracks
on the broad campus were crowded with troops, and the snowy gleams
of tents dotted the greensward. The wide grass-grown streets were
gay with the constant marching and counter-marching of red-coats,
and the air was vocal with the shrill bugle-call or the frequent
roll of the drums. Drill, parade, and inspection, artillery and
musket practice, filled the hours of the day. Fort George had been
strengthened, victualled, and armed. That solitary fort was felt
to be the key that, apparently, held possession of the south-
western peninsula of Canada.
One evening, early in May, a motley group were assembled in the
large mess-room of the log barracks of the fort. It was a long low
room built of solid logs. The thick walls were loop-holed for
musketry, and on wooden pegs, driven into the logs, the old Brown
Bess muskets of the soldiers were stacked. Rude bunks were ranged
along one side, like berths in a ship, for the men to sleep in.
The great square, naked timbers of the low ceiling were embrowned
with smoke, as was also the mantel of the huge open fire-place at
the end of the room. The rudely-carved names and initials on the
wall betrayed the labours of an idle hour. Around the ample
hearth, during the long winter nights, the war-scarred veterans
beguiled the tedium of a soldier's life with stories of battle,
siege, and sortie, under Moore and Wellington, in the Peninsular
wars; and one or two grizzled old war-dogs had tales to tell of
"Hair-breadth 'scapes in the imminent deadly breach"--
of exploits done in their youth during Arnold's siege of Quebec,
or at Brandywine and Germantown.
Now the faint light of the tallow candles, in tin sconces, gleams
on the scarlet uniforms and green facings of the 49th regiment, on
the tartan plaid of the Highland clansman, on the frieze coat and
polished musket of the Canadian militiaman, and on the red-skin
and hideous war-paint of the Indian scout, quartered for the night
in the barracks. In one corner is heard the crooning of the
Scottish pipes, where old Allan Macpherson is playing softly the
sad, sweet airs of "Annie Laurie," "Auld Lang Syne," and "Bonnie
Doon;" while something like a tear glistens in his eye as he
thinks of the sweet "banks and braes" of the tender song.
Presently he is interrupted by a sturdy 49th man, who trolls a
merry marching song, the refrain of which is caught up by his
comrades:
"Some talk of Alexander and some of Hercules,
Of Hector and Lysander, and such great names as these;
But of all the world's great heroes
There are none that can compare,
With a tow-row-row-row-row-row-row,
To the British Grenadiers!"
In another corner old Jonas Evans, now a sergeant of militia, was
quietly reading his well-thumbed Bible, while others around him
were shuffling a greasy pack of cards, and filling the air with
reeking tobacco-smoke and strange soldiers' oaths. When a
temporary lull, in the somewhat tumultuous variety of noises
occurred, he lifted his stentorian voice in a stirring Methodist
hymn:
"Soldiers of Christ, arise,
And put your armour on,
Strong in the strength which God supplies
Through His eternal Son.
Stand then against your foes,
In close and firm array:
Legions of wily fiends oppose
Throughout the evil day."
The old man sang with a martial vigour as though he were charging
the "legions of fiends" at the point of the bayonet. In a shrewd,
plain, common-sense manner, he then earnestly exhorted his
comrades-in-arms to be on their guard against the opposing fiends
who especially assailed a soldier's life. "Above all," he said,
"beware of the drink-fiend--the worst enemy King George has got.
He kills more of the King's troops than all his other foes
together." Then, with a yearning tenderness in his voice, he
exhorted them to "ground the weapons of their rebellion and enlist
in the service of King Jesus, the great Captain of their
salvation, who would lead them to victory over the world, the
flesh, and the devil, and at last make them kings and priests
forever in His everlasting kingdom in the skies."
Those rude, reckless, and, some of them, violent and wicked men,
fascinated by the intense earnestness of the Methodist local-
preacher, listened with quiet attention. Even the Indian scout
seemed to have some appreciation of his meaning, and muttered
assent between the whiffs of tobacco-smoke from his carved-stone,
feather-decked pipe. The moral elevation which Christian-living
and Bible-reading will always give, commanded their respect, and
the dauntless daring of the old man--for they knew that he was a
very lion in the fight, and as cool under fire as at the mess-
table--challenged the admiration of their soldier hearts.
Once a drinking, swearing bigot constituted himself a champion of
the Church established by law, and complained to the commanding
major that "the Methody preacher took the work out of the hands of
their own chaplain,"--an easy-going parson, who much preferred
dining with the officers' mess to visiting the soldiers' barracks.
"If he preaches as well as he fights, he can beat the chaplain,"
said the major. "Let him fire away all he likes, the parson won't
complain; and some of you fellows would be none the worse for
converting, as he calls it. If you were to take a leaf out of his
book yourself, Tony, and not be locked up in the guard-house so
often, it would be better for you!"
With the tables thus deftly turned upon him, poor Antony Double-
gill, as he was nick-named, because he so often contrived to get
twice the regulation allowance of "grog," retired discomfitted
from the field.
While the group in the mess-room were preparing to turn into their
sleeping-bunks, the sharp challenge of the sentry, pacing the
ramparts without, was heard. The report of his musket and, in a
few moments, the shrill notes of the bugle sounding the "turn
out," created an alarm. The men snatched their guns and side-arms,
and were soon drawn up in company on the quadrangle of the fort.
The clang of the chains of the sally-port rattled, the draw-bridge
fell, the heavy iron-studded gates swung back, and three prisoners
were brought in who were expostulating warmly with the guard, and
demanding to be led to the officer for the night. When they were
brought to the light which poured from the open door of the guard-
room, it was discovered with surprise that two of the prisoners
wore the familiar red and green of the 49th regiment, and that the
third was in officer's uniform. But their attire was so torn,
burnt, and blackened with powder, and draggled and soaked with
water, that the guard got a good deal of chaffing from their
comrades for their capture.
"This is treating us worse than the enemy," said one of the
soldiers, "and that was bad enough."
The adjutant now appeared upon the scene to inquire into the cause
of the disturbance.
"I have the honour to bear despatches from General Sheaffe," said
the young officer; when the adjutant promptly requested him to
proceed to his quarters, and sent the others to the mess-room,
with orders for their generous refreshment.
There their comrades gathered round them, eagerly inquiring the
nature of the disaster, which, from the words that they had heard,
they inferred had befallen the left wing of the regiment,
quartered at the town of York. In a few brief words they learned
with dismay that the capital of the country was captured by the
enemy, that the public buildings and the shipping were burned,
that the fort was blown up, and that a heavy loss had befallen
both sides.
While the men dried their water-soaked clothes before a fire
kindled on the hearth, and ate as though they had been starved,
they were subject to a cross-fire of eager questions from every
side, which they answered as best they could, while busy plying
knife and fork, and "re-victualling the garrison," the corporal
said, "as though they were expecting a forty days' siege."
"And siege you may have, soon enough," said Sergeant Shenston, the
elder of the two men. "Chauncey and Dearborn will drop down on
_you_ before the week's out."
Disentangling the narrative of the men from the maze of questions
and answers in which it was given, its main thread was as follows:
Early on the morning of the 27th of April, Chauncey, the American
commodore, with fourteen vessels and seventeen hundred men, under
the command of Generals Dearborn and Pike, lay off the shore a
little to the west of the town of York, near the site of the old
French fort, now included in the new Exhibition Grounds. The town
was garrisoned by only six hundred men, including militia and
dockyard men, under Gen. Sheaffe. Under cover of a heavy fire,
which swept the beach, the Americans landed, drove in the British
outposts, which stoutly contested every foot of ground, and made a
dash for the dilapidated fort, which the fleet meanwhile heavily
bombarded. Continual re-enforcements enabled them to fight their
way through the scrub oak woods to within two hundred yards of the
earthen ramparts, when the defensive fire ceased. General Pike
halted his troops, thinking the fort about to surrender. Suddenly,
with a shock like an earthquake, the magazine blew up, and hurled
into the air two hundred of the attacking column, together with
Pike, its commander. [Footnote: The magazine contained five
hundred barrels of powder and an immense quantity of charged
shells.] Several soldiers of the retiring British garrison were
also killed. This act, which was defended as justifiable in order
to prevent the powder from falling into the hands of the enemy,
and as in accordance with the recognized code of war, was severely
denounced by the Americans, and imparted a tone of greater
bitterness to the subsequent contest.
The town being no longer tenable, General Sheaffe, after
destroying the naval stores and a vessel on the stocks, retreated
with the regulars towards Kingston. Colonel Chewett and three
hundred militiamen were taken prisoners, the public buildings
burned, and the military and naval stores, which escaped
destruction, were carried off. The American loss was over three
hundred, and that of the British nearly half as great. [Footnote:
See Withrow's History of Canada, 8vo. edition, chap. xxiii.]
"How did you get your clothes so burnt?" asked the corporal, when
the narrative was concluded, pointing to the scorched and powder-
blackened uniform of the narrator.
"It is a wonder I escaped at all," said Sergeant Shenstone. "I was
nearly caught by the explosion. I was helping a wounded comrade to
escape, when, looking over the ramparts, I beheld the enemy so
close that I could see their teeth as they bit the cartridges, and
General Pike, on the right wing, cheering them on--so gallant and
bold. I was a-feared I would be nabbed as a prisoner, and sent to
eat Uncle Sam's hard-tack in the hulks at Sackett's Harbour, when,
all of a sudden, the ground trembled like the earthquakes I have
felt in the West Indies; then a volcano of fire burst up to the
sky, and, in a minute, the air seemed raining fire and brimstone,
as it did at Sodom and Gomorrah. It seemed like the judgment-day.
I was thrown flat on the ground, and when I tried to get up I was
all bruised and burnt with the falling clods and splinters, and my
comrade was dead at my side. I crawled away as soon as I could--
there was no thought then of making prisoners."
"But what gar'd the magazine blaw up? Was it an accident?" asked
old Allan McPherson, the Highland piper, who had listened eagerly
to the tragic story.
"No accident was it. Sergeant Marshall, of the artillery, a
desperate fellow, who swore the enemy should lose more than they
would gain by taking the fort, laid and fired the train. The
General had already given the order to retreat, and knew nothing
of it."
"God forgie him!" exclaimed the old Scotchman. "Yon's no war ava--
it's rank murder. I can thole a fair and square stan up fecht, but
yon's a coward trick."
"Ye'd say so," said Private McIntyre, Shenstone's comrade, "gin ye
saw the hale place reeking like a shawmbles, an' the puir'
wretches lying stark and scaring like slaughtered sheep. I doubt
na it was a gran' blunder as weel as a gran' crime. Forbye killing
some o' oor ain folk it will breed bad bluid through the hale war.
I doubt na it will mak it waur for ye, for Fort George's turn mun
come next."
"I hear Dearborn swore to avenge the death of General Pike. All
the vessels' flags were half-mast, and the minute-guns boomed
while they rowed his dead body, wrapped in the stars and stripes,
to the flag-ship; and Chauncey carried off all the public
property, even to the mace and Speaker's wig from the Parliament
House, and the fire-engine of the town." [Footnote: These were
conveyed to Sackett's Harbour and deposited in the dockyard
storehouse, where they were exhibited as trophies of the
conquest.]
"How did you get away with the despatches?" asked Jonas Evans. "I
should think Chauncey would try to take us by surprise, but the
Lord would not let him."
"To avoid capture," said Shenstone, "Sheaffe placed the Don
between him and the enemy as soon as possible, and broke down the
bridge behind him. There were only four hundred of us altogether.
Captain Villiers, who had recovered from his wound, and Ensign
Norton set out on horseback, with despatches for Fort George; and,
in case they should be captured, Lieutenant Foster undertook to
convey them by water, and we volunteered to accompany him. We got
a fisherman's boat at Frenchman's Bay. It was a long, tough pull
across the lake, I tell you. At night the wind rose, and we were
drenched with spray and nearly perished with cold. After two days
hard rowing against head wind, we made land, but were afraid to
enter the river till nightfall. We slipped past Fort Niagara
without detection, but had like to be murdered by your sentry
here. We might well ask to be saved from our friends."
An unwonted stir soon pervaded the fort and camp. Again the
ponderous gates yawned and the draw-bridge fell, and orderlies
galloped out into the night to convey the intelligence to the
frontier posts, and to order the concentration of every available
man and gun at Fort George. The sentries were doubled on the
ramparts and along the river front. The entire garrison was on the
_qui vive_ against a surprise. The next day Captain Villiers,
with his companion, reached the fort, fagged out with their
hundred miles' ride in two days--they had been compelled to make a
wide _detour_ to avoid capture. The whole garrison was in a
ferment of excitement and hard work. Stores, guns, ammunition,
accoutrements were overhauled and inspected. The army bakery was
busy day and night. Forage and other supplies of every sort were
brought in. Extra rations were made ready for issue, and every
possible precaution taken against an anticipated attack, which, it
was felt, could not long be delayed.