The Invasion of Canada (25 page)

Now occurs one of those maddening misunderstandings that frustrate the best-laid plans. Brock’s reinforcements from the Niagara frontier, hustled across the river by Procter, arrive on the scene, sixty strong, just as Muir’s bugler, by pre-arrangement, sounds the bayonet charge.

The new troops, confused, take this as a signal to retreat, and the British centre begins to break. Muir receives a second wound in the leg but carries on.

By now the American six-pounder is in action spraying grape-shot, its initial discharge so terrifying Lieutenant-Colonel Miller’s horse that it throws the American commander to the ground. Tecumseh’s warriors rush forward to take his scalp but are forced back. Miller remounts, cries for a cavalry charge. But the cavalry fails to respond, and the main advance is made by foot soldiers. The smoke is now so dense that no one can see for more than twenty paces.

Tecumseh is making a strategic withdrawal toward the west, drawing the American fire away from the retiring British and forcing Miller to divide his forces. The manoeuvre slows down the American advance, allows the British to reach the boats they have concealed on the beach and make their escape out of range of the American muskets.

Miller draws his men up in line and utters the obligatory words of commendation:

“My brave fellows! You have done well! Every man has done his duty. I give you my hearty thanks for your conduct this day; you have gained my highest esteem; you have gained fresh honor to yourselves and to the American Arms; your fellow soldiers will love you and your country will reward you.…”

With this accolade ringing in their ears, the Americans move through the woods, seeking the dead and the wounded. Hidden in a cedar swamp under a gigantic deadfall lie three men – Thomas Verchères de Boucherville, his friend Jean-Baptiste Berthe (another member of the Askin family and a civilian volunteer), and a regular soldier. Caught in the crossfire between the British rear and the advancing Americans, they have run into the woods to escape the
shower of musket balls. It is now four in the afternoon, but they cannot leave their soggy retreat for the enemy is only a few feet away. Finally, at ten, under cover of a violent thunderstorm, they crawl out of the water onto a drier knoll, guided by lightning flashes, and here they crouch, soaked through, for the rest of the night, while the rain beats down on them and a violent gale, wrenching the branches from the trees, puts them in as much danger as the battle itself.

De Boucherville’s wound is bleeding but painless. He cakes earth over it as he has seen the Indians do, binding it with a towel brought along for just such a misfortune, and considers his plight. Only a few days before he was at dinner with some guests when he heard a drummer parading the streets of Amherstburg, beating the call to arms. With his friend Berthe and several others he answered the summons for volunteers, not pausing to finish his meal but taking care to bury all his money, secretly, in his backyard. Now here he is, wounded, wet, and miserable, waiting for the dawn.

At first light, he and his two companions set out for the river, watching all the time for the enemy. They reach it at four o’clock, gather some planks and strands of basswood from a deserted Indian village, construct a crude raft, and cross to an island in midstream. Here they do their utmost to attract attention, wiping their muskets dry and firing them off, making flags of their shirts and waving them on long poles. Eventually a boat rescues them. On the dockside are friends, officers, natives, civilians, all cheering. They had given de Boucherville and Berthe up for dead.

De Boucherville stumbles home, flops onto a sofa, falls into a dead sleep. When he wakes he is astonished to find an Indian by his bedside. It is Tecumseh himself, who has been sitting silently for hours waiting for him to wake.

A surgeon removes the ball from de Boucherville’s thigh but cannot extract a quantity of shot. Tecumseh fetches a Shawnee healer, who prescribes a herbal remedy. In ten days the wound is healed, de Boucherville is back behind the counter of his store, and the Battle of Maguaga is a memory to be savoured in the retelling for the remainder of his days.

Hull, in his message to Washington, treats the battle as a stunning victory. It is scarcely that, for it has failed in its purpose of opening his line of supply. Captain Brush’s wagon train still cannot get through, and Lieutenant-Colonel Miller, even in victory, cannot help. In the heat of the battle his troops have thrown away their knapsacks and are
without rations, forced to lie all night in the open in the same driving thunderstorm that poured down on de Boucherville. Miller himself is tottering with fatigue, ague, and two wounds; he has been on and off the sick list for weeks. He sends to Hull for reinforcements and provisions in order to move on. Colonel McArthur arrives with a fleet of bateaux bringing two barrels of flour, one of pork, and considerable whiskey, all of which the troops devour in a single breakfast. The wounded are loaded into bateaux for the return voyage. But the British, who have control of the river, seize twelve boats, capture some fifty Americans, and recapture two of their own men held as prisoners.

At sunset an express arrives from Hull: because he cannot spare further reinforcements, Miller and his men are ordered to return to Detroit without completing their mission. They make their way to the river in the driving rain, soaking wet, shoeless, sleeping that night as best they can in dripping blankets. They reach Detroit at noon on August II. Brush and the supply train remain pinned down at the River Raisin.

Miller has lost eighteen men killed and some sixty wounded. The British casualties are fewer: six killed, twenty-one wounded. But Hull writes to Eustis that “the victory was complete in every part of the line,” and that is the way the history books will record it.

ISAAC BROCK has no time for democratic chatter. He prorogues the legislature on August 5 and, with the consent of his appointed council, declares martial law. He has decided on a mighty gamble: he will gather what troops he can, speed post-haste to Amherstburg at their head, and, if that fort has not fallen, provoke Hull into a fight, then try to get back to the Niagara frontier before the Americans attack. He is taking a long chance, but he has little choice. Off he goes, moving swiftly southwest through the province, calling for volunteers to accompany him to Amherstburg. Five hundred rush to apply, “principally the sons of Veterans, whom His Majesty’s munificence settled in this country.” He can take only half that number. The York Volunteers will become Brock’s favourite militia unit, including among its officers such names as Ridout, Jarvis, and Robinson, all of them scions of the tight Upper Canada aristocracy, trained at the Reverend John Strachan’s famous school at Cornwall. The war will entrench them in the Family Compact.

Brock reaches Port Dover on the north shore of Lake Erie on August 8, where he hopes enough boats have been commandeered to move his entire force to Amherstburg. The British have the immense advantage of being able to move troops swiftly by water in contrast to the Americans’ slow drive through the wilderness. But at Dover, Brock finds that not nearly enough boats have been provided, while those available are leaky, uncaulked, dilapidated. A day is required to make ten of them ready, and these are in such bad shape that the men grow exhausted from constant bailing.

The flotilla can move no faster than the slowest vessel, the hundred-ton schooner
Nancy
, which must be manhandled over the narrow neck of the Long Point peninsula-a backbreaking task that requires the energy of all the boat crews – and later dragged by ropes onto the beach at Port Talbot. Here the troops take refuge from the same thunderstorm that is drenching the Americans after the battle of Maguaga.

All that day the men, joined by sixty volunteers from the village of Queenston on the Niagara, lie in the boats or on the sand as the rain pelts down.

Yet they remain in good spirits. Brock notes it: “In no instance have I witnessed greater cheerfulness and constancy than were displayed by these Troops under the fatigue of a long journey in Boats and during extremely bad Weather … their conduct throughout excited my admiration.”

The admiration is mutual. At one point Brock’s own boat strikes a sunken rock. His boat crew goes to work with oars and poles. When they fail to push her free, the General, in full uniform, leaps over the side, waist deep in water. In an instant the others follow and soon have the boat afloat. Brock climbs aboard, opens his liquor case, gives every man a glass of spirits. The news of this act, spreading from boat to boat, animates the force.

On August II, the weather again turns capricious. The wind drops. The men, wet and exhausted from lack of sleep, are forced to row in relays for hours. Then a sudden squall forces the flotilla once more in to shore. That night the weather clears, and the impatient general makes another attempt to get underway, this time in the dark, his boat leading with a lantern in the stern. They sail all night, the boats too crowded for the men to lie down. The following day they hear that Hull has re-crossed the river to Detroit and that there has been a skirmish (Maguaga) on the American side. At Point Pelee that afternoon,
some of the men boil their pork; others drop exhausted onto the beach. Early next morning they set off again and at eight in the forenoon straggle into Amherstburg, exhausted from rowing, their faces peeling from sunburn.

Brock’s Passage to Amherstburg

Brock has preceded them. Unable to rest, the General and a vanguard of troops have departed the previous afternoon and reached their objective shortly before midnight on August 13. Lieutenant-Colonel Procter and Matthew Elliott are waiting on the quayside. Across the water from Bois Blanc Island comes the rattle of musketry. It startles Brock. When Elliott explains that the Indians, bivouacked on the island, are expressing their joy at the arrival of reinforcements, the General expresses concern over the waste of ammunition: “Do, pray, Elliott, fully explain my wishes and motives, and tell the Indians that I will speak to them to-morrow on this subject.”

Midnight has passed. But before Brock can sleep he must read the dispatches and mail captured at Brownstown. He sits in Elliott’s study with his aide, Major J.B. Glegg, the yellow light from tallow candles flickering across a desk strewn with maps and papers. Suddenly the door opens and Elliott stands before him accompanied by a tall Indian dressed in a plain suit of tanned deerskin, fringed at the seams, and wearing leather moccasins heavily ornamented with porcupine quills. This is clearly a leader of stature. In his nose he wears three silver ornaments in the shape of coronets, and from his neck is hung, on a string of coloured wampum, a large silver medallion of George III.
The Indian is beaming. Glegg gets an instant impression of energy and decision. This must be Tecumseh.

Brock rises, hand outstretched to his ally. The contrast is striking: the British general – fair, large-limbed, blue-eyed, impeccable in his scarlet jacket, blue-and-white riding trousers, and Hessian boots – towers over the lithe figure of the Shawnee. Brief salutations follow. Brock explains about the waste of ammunition. Tecumseh agrees. Each man has taken the other’s measure and both are impressed. Brock will write to Lord Liverpool that “a more sagacious and gallant Warrior does not I believe exist. He was the admiration of every one who conversed with him.…” Tecumseh’s comment, delivered to his followers, is blunter. “This,” says Tecumseh, “is a
man
!”

Brock calls a council of his officers, asks for a military appreciation. Tecumseh urges an immediate attack on Detroit, unrolls a strip of elm bark, pulls his scalping knife from his belt, and proceeds to scratch out an accurate map of the fort and its surroundings.

Brock points out that the British and Indians will be outnumbered by the Americans: “We are committed to a war in which the enemy will always surpass us in numbers, equipment and resources.” One by one his officers are polled. One by one they opt for caution: a crossing is too dangerous to attempt. Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Procter, who will one day clash with Tecumseh over tactics, is particularly cautious. Only one man, Colonel Robert Nichol, the diminutive ex-storekeeper who has just been named quartermaster general of the militia, supports Brock. Nichol has lived in Detroit, knows every cranny of town and fort, boasts that he can lead the troops to any point that Brock wants to attack. He and the commander are old friends, their acquaintance going back to 1804 when Brock commanded at Fort Erie and Nichol ran a general store. Nichol’s sudden appointment to field rank has offended some of the political higher-ups, but Brock knows his man. It is said that Nichol would follow his general into Vesuvius if need be.