Captain Fitz

by Enid Mallory

  In Drummond Hill Cemetery, Canadians, British, and Americans lie buried together, their lives lost in the Battle of Lundy’s Lane.

  Gord Mallory.

  As darkness fell the confusion increased. Major-General Riall, badly wounded, was unfortunately carried by his stretcher-bearers smack into a party of American cavalry, who took him prisoner. On the hilltop it sometimes became impossible to tell which guns were whose; at one point, British soldiers loaded an American gun on their limber (front of a gun carriage) while the Americans limbered up a British gun, the two armies thus making a trade.

  At about nine o’clock the firing stopped briefly. Brigadier-General Winfield Scott was down to 600 effective men, and Brown ordered the brigades of Ripley and Porter brought up to resume the fighting. The exhausted British began falling back until Colonel Hercules Scott’s 103rd Regiment marched in from Burlington with 1,200 men. British and Americans fought in the darkness within paces of one another until almost midnight. Finally, with 171 Americans and 84 British killed, and more than 1,110 men wounded altogether, the firing ceased. With Brown and Scott both severely wounded, Ripley withdrew his exhausted and extremely thirsty men back to Chippawa.

  An American doctor described the terrible scene on the hill the next day:

  The dead had not been removed during the night, and such a scene of carnage I never beheld, particularly at Lundy’s Lane, red coats and blue and grey were promiscuously intermingled, in many places three deep, and around the hill where the enemy’s artillery was carried by Colonel Miller, the carcasses of 60 and 70 horses disfigured the scene.[2]

  The next morning saw the Americans throwing their heavy baggage into the rapids above Niagara Falls, destroying the Chippawa Bridge and falling back to Fort Erie.

  General Drummond, suffering from a painful neck wound, was slow in following the Americans to Fort Erie. Had he moved faster he might have attacked a weak, unfinished fort, but the Americans worked day and night to build rear bastions and complete a deep ditch with two-metre earthworks and 800 metres of trenches and parapet breastworks along the shore. Near the shore a new stonework was built, which would be known as the Douglas battery, and on a sand mound called Snake Hill a new bastion, six metres high, would bristle with five guns.

  This plaque erected by the Americans is an eloquent plea for peace between the two nations.

  Gord Mallory.

  FitzGibbon had come through the Battle of Lundy’s Lane unscathed. Drummond’s report of the battle said, “The Glengarry Light Infantry, under Lieutenant-Colonel Battersby, displayed most valuable qualities as light troops.” As Drummond moved forward, reaching the heights opposite Black Rock on August 2, he sent the Glengarries ahead driving in the American pickets. On August 4, he wrote of sending “a party of Dragoons and a few mounted men of the Glengarry Light Infantry by the road leading upon Fort Erie by Bird’s and Tyce Horn’s, along the lake shore, to make an accurate reconnaissance of the enemy’s position.”[3]

  The British camp was set up in the woods about three kilometres from Fort Erie. British troops sweat to build a line of batteries about 550 metres from Fort Erie, from which to batter it down. While this went on, Fitz and his men were continually involved in skirmishes that recalled the Green Tiger days of the previous summer. American riflemen would attack their advance pickets and try to dislodge them or to spy out what the British intended to do next. Drummond wrote to Sir George Prevost:

  These attacks tho’ feeble and invariably repulsed, yet harass our troops and occasion us some loss … I cannot forbear of taking this occasion of expressing to Your Excellency my most marked approbation of the uniform exemplary good conduct of the Glengarry Light Infantry and Incorporated Militia, the former under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Battersby, and the latter under Major Kerby … These two corps have constantly been in close contact with the enemy’s outposts and riflemen during the severe service of the last fortnight; their steadiness and gallantry as well as their superiority as light troops have on every occasion been conspicuous.[4]

  Dr. William Dunlop (“Tiger” Dunlop) was the army surgeon who dealt with the appalling number of wounded from the Battle of Lundy’s lane. When these men had either died, recovered, or been sent to York, Dunlop became bored with his inactive life and transferred to the combat field before Fort Erie. Here he was in close contact with the Glengarries and their methods of bush warfare. He wrote of his admiration for their method of fighting:

  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….

  Perhaps there can be no military scene more fit for the pencil than a body of light infantry awaiting an attack. The variety of attitudes 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….

  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….

  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.[5]

  Dunlop tells a story of getting lost with FitzGibbon:

  One day, when relieved from picket, 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 picket, which opened fire upon us at about fifty yards distance. Being used 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.[6]

  “Tiger” Dunlop’s Army Medicine

  The army medical department responsible for medical standards and hospitals was headquartered at Quebec City, far away from most of the action. Each regiment supposedly had its own surgeon and two assistants but scarcely a regiment had its full quota.

  “Tiger” Dunlop, a surgeon in the 89th Regiment, arrived in Canada in the late fall of 1813 in time to care for the wounded after the Battle of Crysler’s Farm. That done, he was moved upriver to Prescott and Gananoque, then to the Niagara frontier as the wounded from the Battle of Lundy’s Lane were arriving at Twelve Mile Creek — wagon after wagon bringing badly wounded men, until he had 220 patients. They were housed in what he called “a ruinous fabric, built of logs.” It was known as Butler’s Barracks, built during the Revolutionary War by Butler’s Rangers. Wind blew through the cracks, bad in winter but an advantage in sweltering summer heat. Men lay on straw on the floor or stacked on berths along the walls.

  Dunlop had one assistant. For two days and two nights he never sat down. On the third day he fell asleep on his feet, one arm around the post of a berth. He was laid out on the straw with the patients and slept for five hours before going back to work.

  When a patient was stabilized he went by ship to the hospital at York (housed in the church). When most of his patients got better, died, or went to York, Dunlop was sent to Chippawa to run a temporary shelter for the sick and wounded. As they arrived he gave them first aid overnight, then sent them to Niagara by wagon in the morning. During the assault on Fort Erie, Dunlop was with the army carrying wounded men from the field and treating their wounds.

  In the midst of the siege of Fort Erie, on August 14, 1814, Fitz astounded his friends by going off to Adolphustown, near Kingston, to get married. It is even more remarkable that his s
uperior officers let him go. Once the thought of death had seriously crossed his mind, he could not shake it, and he wanted to marry Mary Haley before he was killed. Many years later, his friend, the authoress Anna Jameson told this story:

  F said, that if his request was granted, he would be again at head-quarters within three days; if refused, he would go without leave, “For,” said he, “I was desperate, and the truth was, ma’am, there was a little girl that I loved, and I knew that if I could marry her before I was killed, and I a captain, she would have the pension of a captain’s widow.”[7]

  The leave of absence was granted. How he got to Adolphustown, 354 kilometres from the Niagara frontier, and back within three days remains a mystery. His granddaughter says, “Landing at the Carrying Place, he rode sixty miles to the church door.”

  If he travelled by water, he defied Chauncey’s fleet, which had finally sailed from Sackets Harbor and appeared off the Niagara River on August 5. Chauncey then sailed off to Kingston to interfere with the movement of troops to the frontier, but he left small warships to blockade Fort George. On August 14, Sir George Prevost complained, “The Naval Ascendancy possessed by the Enemy on Lake Ontario enables him to perform in two days what our Troops going from Kingston to reinforce the Right Division required from Sixteen to Twenty of severe marching to accomplish … the route from Kingston to the Niagara frontier exceeds Two Hundred and Fifty Miles.”[8]

  With enemy ships hovering before Fort George, it might still be possible for bateaux to get away and follow the shoreline to York and the Carrying Place, but it is hard to imagine FitzGibbon making such a trip to and fro in just three days.

  Anna Jameson says, “FitzGibbon mounted his horse, rode a hundred and fifty miles in an exceedingly short time, married his little girl, and returned the day following to his duties, and to fight another battle, in which however he was not killed.”

  An army surgeon’s medical tools were simple; any available platform was his operating table.

  Gord Mallory.

  Actually, it is close to 320 kilometres from Fort Erie to the Carrying Place and another 48 kilometres to Adolphustown. If he did ride a horse there and back in three days he moved with the legendary speed of a pony express. At any rate, he got there. Mary got there by travelling 50 kilometres from Kingston with the Reverend George Okill Stuart, who married them. It is likely that Drummond took advantage of Fitz’s flying trip to send dispatches that Mary and the Reverend Stuart would then carry on to Kingston.

  Their marriage certificate, which is filed in the Synod Office of St. George’s Cathedral in Kingston, states that:

  James FitzGibbon, Captain in his

  Majesty’s Glengarry Lt. Infantry Fencibles

  was married to Mary Haley (by licence)

  by me George Okill Stuart

  on the 14th day of August, 1814.

  Mary Agnes FitzGibbon says her grandfather said goodbye to his bride on the church steps and rode back to keep his word to his colonel.

  John Le Couteur’s Long March

  Moving troops 1,200 kilometres into the interior of Canada could be as difficult as moving supplies. But there was an alternative: troops could walk. And walk they did. On snowshoes, pulling toboggans in the blizzards and sub-zero temperatures of February and March 1813, the 104th Foot marched from Fredericton, New Brunswick to Kingston.

  At night, the weary men, who covered an average of 27 kilometres a day, built crude shelters from the cold. When they reached Quebec they had 10 days of rest, then walked to Kingston, arriving April 12. They had walked 1,100 kilometres in 52 days.

  Most of the men left no record of their ordeal, but 18-year-old John Le Couteur did. He told of the suffering from frostbite, hands too cold to hold the salt pork over the fire, the fire that engulfed one hut and their struggle to put out the flames, the joy when they reached the St. Lawrence River and met a horse and cutter bringing provisions from Quebec, the excitement when they reached Kingston and saw the squadron of ships frozen into Lake Ontario.

  John Le Couteur was sent to Niagara, where he was often employed running messages to the Americans. In the battle of Fort Erie, when the magazine blew up, John was thrown six metres into a ditch but discovered he was alive and unhurt. When he found out that Colonel Scott and Colonel Drummond (nephew of Sir Gordon) were both killed, he burst into tears.

  Chapter 14

  The Battle of Fort Erie

  Captain FitzGibbon … has this moment arrived at my headquarters with the full confirmation of this rumour. The enemy evacuated Fort Erie early this forenoon, having first blown up the works and in every other respect completely destroyed and dismantled the place, an event on which I offer Your Excellency my sincere congratulations. Captain FitzGibbon rode through every part of the place, in which the enemy had left nothing except ten or twelve kegs of damaged musket ball cartridges.

  — Sir Gordon Drummond to Sir George Prevost, Falls of Niagara, November 5, 1814[1]

  FitzGibbon came back from his August wedding to a less-than-merry camp. Two days before, Drummond had launched his men in three columns against Fort Erie. One unit waded along the Lake Erie shore, aiming to get to the rear of the camp; they were entirely captured. Two columns, led by Colonels Drummond and Hercules Scott, fought desperately to gain the northeast bastion. At daybreak, powder stored in a magazine ignited and the northeast bastion exploded. The result was instant death for many of the British. Those who survived ran for their lives. Among those who died were Colonel William Drummond, nephew of General Drummond, and Colonel Hercules Scott of the 103rd.

  This painting of Fort Erie in 1804 by Edward Walsh, surgeon to the 49th Regiment, shows a favourite pastime of the soldiers — shooting passenger pigeons.

  Gord Mallory.

  The army was in danger of starving. As long as Chauncey ruled the water, flour and pork could not be brought in to feed the troops. The road between Kingston and Niagara was so poor that it was not practical to send loaded wagons over it. On August 18, Drummond wrote of his army’s needs: “Its wants in provisions, ammunition and stores of every kind, have become so alarmingly great and urgent that nothing but the assistance of the whole of H.M. squadron on Lake Ontario can enable it to continue its operation.” Again, on August 21, he wrote of their need for ammunition, artillery, and artificers to build some sort of shelter for the men:

  We possess no means of making anything like adequate preparations for covering the troops which it may be necessary to retain on this frontier during the approaching winter.

  Stores of every description, particularly stoves, of which there are abundance at Kingston … It is by the squadron alone that relief can reach us, and from the accounts I have lately received of the state of forwardness of the new ship, I really begin to fear that relief by this mode may not reach us in time.[2]

  Two officers were sent through the countryside to induce each farmer to thresh his grain early and sell from five to 12 bushels to the army to enable it to hold out. Major-General Stovin, at Kingston, sent forward a large detachment of bateaux, laden with provisions and stores. Another stroke of good luck was the disappearance of the war vessels blockading Fort George. Drummond hurried the schooner Vincent off to York with the prisoners and the sick, and sent after it the schooner Netley and the brig Charwell. At York the schooners waited for the 97th Regiment, but before it arrived the two American ships returned. The 97th were reduced to walking to Niagara, and provisions could only be moved by bateaux.

  In September, FitzGibbon was employed carrying dispatches to Kingston. He may have been sent post-haste to warn Stovin that the warships were back. Perhaps his superiors were kind enough to arrange for Fitz to have some time with his wife. His granddaughter says he travelled back to Niagara with Major-General Stovin on September 17. Drummond had requested that Stovin join him on the frontier as the neck wound Drummond had suffered in the Battle of Lundy’s Lane was keeping him unwell.

  News from the rest of the war brought alternate shock waves of
hope and dismay. In midsummer, an American fleet of six vessels had attacked Michilimackinac but Lieutenant-Colonel McDougall, with 140 regulars plus militia and Natives, defended his post so well that they sailed away on August 5, the British flag still flying proudly over the northwest. Late in August, Canadians were almost as stunned as Americans to learn that a British force under Major-General Ross and Rear-Admiral Cockburn had moved up the Patuxent River on August 24 and burned the Capitol, the public buildings, and the presidential residence in Washington, D.C. Retaliation for the burning of York was complete.

  Peace Talks

  Efforts toward peace were made throughout the war, but it was January 1814 before an agreement was reached to begin talks and talks did not get under way until August, in the city of Ghent. Demands that could not be met were made on both sides. Britain tried to support her Native allies by establishing a neutral buffer state between the United States and Canada, but the Americans flatly refused. United States wanted more Canadian territory and fishing rights off Newfoundland. Britain wanted part of Maine. Finally, both parties agreed to return to the status quo before the war, and signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814.

  Before the treaty was formally ratified, the British attacked New Orleans on January 8, 1815, and were defeated. Peace was finally proclaimed on February 18 after both sides ratified the agreement.