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41 - Canada- The Empire of the North by Agnes C. Laut · Canada- The Empire of the North

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  Speaker 1: Section number forty of Canada The Empire of the North.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Lynda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver,
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  Speaker 1: b C. Canada, The Empire of the North by Agnes C.
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  Speaker 1: Lott from eighteen twelve to eighteen twenty, Part seven Why
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  Speaker 1: did the Americans not advance at once against Queenston and
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  Speaker 1: Fort George? For three weeks they awaited Chancey's fleet to
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  Speaker 1: attack from the water side so the army could rush
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  Speaker 1: the fort from the land side. But Chancey was ill
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  Speaker 1: and could not come, and the interval gave the hard
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  Speaker 1: pressed Canadians their chance. Drummond comes from Kingston with four
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  Speaker 1: hundred fresh men. He also he calls on the people
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  Speaker 1: to leave their farms and rally as volunteers to the
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  Speaker 1: last desperate fight. This increased his troops by another thousand,
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  Speaker 1: though many of the volunteers were mere boys who scarcely
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  Speaker 1: knew how to hold a gun. Then, from a dozen signs,
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  Speaker 1: Drummond's practiced eye foresaw that a forward movement was being
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  Speaker 1: planned by the enemy. Without Shaunsey's co operation. All the
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  Speaker 1: American baggage was being ordered to rear. False attacks to
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  Speaker 1: draw off observation are made on Fort George outposts. American
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  Speaker 1: scouts are seen reconnoitering the back country. Drummond rightly guessed
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  Speaker 1: that the attack was being planned in one of two directions,
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  Speaker 1: by rounding through the back country, either to fall in
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  Speaker 1: great numbers on Fort George, or cut between the Canadian
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  Speaker 1: Army of Hamilton Region and of Niagara Region, taking both
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  Speaker 1: mattillions in the rear. From Fort George to Queenstown, Canadian
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  Speaker 1: troops are posted by Drummond, and where the road called
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  Speaker 1: Lundy's Lane runs from the falls at right angles to
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  Speaker 1: the back country, more battillions are ordered on guard against
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  Speaker 1: the advance of the invaders. Fitzgibbons, the famous scout climbing
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  Speaker 1: to a tree on top of a high hill, sees
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  Speaker 1: the Americans, five thousand of them gray coats, blue coats,
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  Speaker 1: white trousers, moving up from Chippewa towards Lundy's Lane. Quickly,
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  Speaker 1: sixteen hundred Canadian troops under General Ryelle take possession of
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  Speaker 1: a hill fronting Lundy's Lane, and the falls on the
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  Speaker 1: hill is a little brown church and an old fashioned graveyard.
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  Speaker 1: In the midst of the graves. The Canadian cannon are posted.
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  Speaker 1: Round the cemetery runs a stone wall screened by shrubbery,
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  Speaker 1: and on both sides of Lundy's Lane are endless orchards
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  Speaker 1: of cherry and peach and apples, the fruit just beginning
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  Speaker 1: to redden in the summer sun. Whether the enemy aim
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  Speaker 1: at Fort George or Hamilton, the Canadian position on Lundy's
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  Speaker 1: Lane must be passed and captured. As soon as Drummond
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  Speaker 1: had Fitzgibbons's report, he sent messengers galloping for Hercules Scott,
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  Speaker 1: who had been ordered to retreat to the lake, to
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  Speaker 1: come back to Lundy's Lane with his twelve hundred men.
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  Speaker 1: It may be imagined that the Americans guessed what message
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  Speaker 1: the horseman in the slather of foam was bearing back
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  Speaker 1: to Hercules Scott, for they at once attacked the Canadians
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  Speaker 1: in Lundy's Lane with fury, to capture the guns on
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  Speaker 1: the hill before Hercules scots reinforcements could come. It was
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  Speaker 1: now six o'clock in the evening on July twenty fifth,
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  Speaker 1: a sweltering hot night, and the troops on both sides
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  Speaker 1: were parched for water, though the roar of whole inland
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  Speaker 1: oceans of water could be heard pouring over the Falls
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  Speaker 1: of Niagara. As the Canadians had charged against the American
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  Speaker 1: guns at Chippewa, so now the Americans charged up hill
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  Speaker 1: against the guns of the Canadians, Hurling their full strength
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  Speaker 1: against the enemy's center. Creeping under shelter of the cemetery
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  Speaker 1: stone walls, the Blue Coats would fire a volley of musketry,
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  Speaker 1: jump over the fence, dash through the smoke, bayonet in
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  Speaker 1: hand to capture the Canadian guns. Time time again, the
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  Speaker 1: rush was dauntlessly made, and time time again met by
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  Speaker 1: the withering blast. Before nine o'clock, the attacking lines had
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  Speaker 1: lost more than five hundred men, and as many Canadians
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  Speaker 1: had fallen on the hill. The dead and mangled lay
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  Speaker 1: literally in heaps as darkness deepened, Lit only by the
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  Speaker 1: wan light of a fitful moon and the awesome flare
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  Speaker 1: of volley after volley, The fearful screams of the dying
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  Speaker 1: could be heard above the roar of the falls and
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  Speaker 1: the whistle of cannonball. Rayelle, the commander of the Canadians,
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  Speaker 1: had been wounded and captured of his sixteen hundred Canadians,
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  Speaker 1: Drummond had now left only one thousand, and he was
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  Speaker 1: himself bleeding from a deep wound in the neck. Half
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  Speaker 1: the American officers had been carried from the field injured,
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  Speaker 1: and still the command was repeated to rush the hill
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  Speaker 1: before Scott's reinforcements came, and each time the advancing line
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  Speaker 1: was driven back, shattered and thinned, Canadians dashing in pursuit,
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  Speaker 1: cheering and whooping, till both armies were so inextripically mixed
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  Speaker 1: it was impossible to hear or heed commands. It was
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  Speaker 1: in one of these malays that Ryelle the Canadian found
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  Speaker 1: himself among the American lines and was captured. To the
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  Speaker 1: wild and jubilant shouting of the boys in blue and
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  Speaker 1: gray paws fell at Nayacock. The Americans were mustering for
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  Speaker 1: the final terrible rush. The moon had gone behind a cloud,
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  Speaker 1: and the darkness was inky. Then a shout from the
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  Speaker 1: Canadian side split the very welcome hercules. Scott had arrived
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  Speaker 1: with his twelve hundred men on a run, breathless and
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  Speaker 1: tired from a march and counter march of twenty miles.
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  Speaker 1: The Americans took up the yell for fresh reserves had
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  Speaker 1: joined them too, and Lundy's lane became a bedlamb of
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  Speaker 1: ear shattering sounds, heavy artillery wagons forcing up the hill
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  Speaker 1: at a gallop, over dead and dying, bombs from the
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  Speaker 1: Canadian guns exploding in the darkness, Horses taking fright and
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  Speaker 1: bolting from their riders, carrying American guns clear across the lines.
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  Speaker 1: Among the Canadians, a wild yell of triumph told that
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  Speaker 1: the Americans had captured the hill. For the next two
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  Speaker 1: hours it was a hand to hand fight in pitchy darkness. Drummond,
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  Speaker 1: the Englishman, could be heard right in the midst of
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  Speaker 1: the American lines, shouting stick to them, man, stick to them,
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  Speaker 1: don't give up, don't turn stick to them, You'll have it.
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  Speaker 1: And American officers were found amidst Canadian battillions showing Stenorian
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  Speaker 1: command level. Low fire at their flashes, watch the flash,
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  Speaker 1: and fire at their flashes. The Americans have captured the
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  Speaker 1: Canadian guns, but in the darkness they cannot carry them off.
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  Speaker 1: Each side thinks the other beaten, and neither will retreat.
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  Speaker 1: In the confusion, it is impossible to rally the battillion,
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  Speaker 1: and men are attacking their own side by mistake, both
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  Speaker 1: sides claim victory, and each is afraid to await what
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  Speaker 1: daylight may reveal. For it is no exaggeration to say
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  Speaker 1: that at the Battle of Lundy's Lane, the blood of
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  Speaker 1: one third of each side died the field. The Canadians,
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  Speaker 1: as defenders of their own homes, fighting in the last ditch,
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  Speaker 1: dare not retire. Errikins, having more risk in numbers, withdraw
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  Speaker 1: their troops. At two in the morning of her twenty
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  Speaker 1: eight hundred men, Canada had lost nine hundred, and the
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  Speaker 1: American loss is as great. Too exhausted to retire, Drummond's
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  Speaker 1: men flung themselves on the ground and slept lying among
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  Speaker 1: the dead, heedless, alike of the drenching rain that follows
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  Speaker 1: artillery fire, of the roaring cataract, of the groans from
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  Speaker 1: the wounded, men awakened in the gray dawn, to find
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  Speaker 1: themselves unrecommizable from blood and powder smoke, to find, in
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  Speaker 1: some cases that the comrade whose coat they had shared
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  Speaker 1: as pillow, lay cold in death. By morning. While Drummond's
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  Speaker 1: men bury the dead in heaps and carry the wounded
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  Speaker 1: to Toronto, the invaders have retreated with their wounded to
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  Speaker 1: Fort Erie. It now became the Dauntless. Drummonds aim to
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  Speaker 1: expel the enemy from Fort Erie. Five days after the
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  Speaker 1: Battle of Lundy's Lane. He had moved his camp half
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  Speaker 1: way between Chippewa and Fort Erie. But in addition to
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  Speaker 1: its garrison of two thousand, fort Erie is guarded by
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  Speaker 1: three armed schooners lying at anchor on the lake front.
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  Speaker 1: Captain Dobbs of Drummond's forces makes the first move. At
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  Speaker 1: the head of seventy five men. He deploys far to
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  Speaker 1: the rear of the fort through the woods, carrying five
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  Speaker 1: flatboats over the forest trail eight miles, and on the
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  Speaker 1: night of the twelfth of August, slips out through the water,
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  Speaker 1: missed towards the American schooners. Who goes challenges the ship's watchmen,
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  Speaker 1: provision boats from Buffalo, calls back the Canadian oarsmen, and
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  Speaker 1: the row boats pass round within the shadow of the schooner.
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  Speaker 1: A moment later, the American ships are boarded. A trampling
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  Speaker 1: on deck calls the sailors aloft, but Dobbs has mastered
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  Speaker 1: two vessels before the fort wakes to life with a
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  Speaker 1: rush to the rescue. Delay means almost inevitable loss to
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  Speaker 1: Drummond for prevost will send no more reinforcements, and the
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  Speaker 1: Americans are daily strengthening fort Erie. Bastions of stone have
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  Speaker 1: been built. Outer batteries command approach to the walls, and
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  Speaker 1: along the narrow margin between the fort and the lake.
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  Speaker 1: Earthworks have been thrown up, mounted with cannon elbowing to
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  Speaker 1: the water's edge. Taking advantage of the elation over Daub's
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  Speaker 1: raid of the schooners, Drummond plans a night assault on
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  Speaker 1: the fifteenth of August. Rain had been falling in splashes
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  Speaker 1: all day. The fort trenches were swimming like rivers, and
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  Speaker 1: it may be mentioned that Drummond's camp was swimming too,
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  Speaker 1: boding ill for his men's health. One of the foreign
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  Speaker 1: regiments was to lead the assault round by the lake side,
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  Speaker 1: while Drummond and his nephew rushed the bastions. It will
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  Speaker 1: be remembered these foreign regiments of Napoleonic Wars were composed
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  Speaker 1: of the auscourings of Europe. The fighters were to depend
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  Speaker 1: on bayonet alone, giving no quarter, splashing along the rain
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  Speaker 1: soaked road in silence and darkness, scaling ladders over shoulders,
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  Speaker 1: bayonets in hand. The foreign troops came to the earthwork,
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  Speaker 1: elbowing out into the lake. This was passed by the
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  Speaker 1: men wading out in the lake to their chins, but
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  Speaker 1: the noise was overheard by the fort sentry, and a
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  Speaker 1: perfect blaze of musketry shattered the darkness and drove the
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  Speaker 1: mercenaries back Pawmel bellowing with terror. A few of the
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  Speaker 1: English and Canadian troops pressed forward, only to find that
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  Speaker 1: they could not reach within latter distance of the walls
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  Speaker 1: at all, for spiked trees had been placed above the
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  Speaker 1: trenches in a perfect criss cross hurdle of sharpened ends.
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  Speaker 1: In old letters of the period, one reads how the
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  Speaker 1: trenches were literally heaped with a jumbled mass of the dead.
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  Speaker 1: The other attacking columns fared almost as badly. One of
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  Speaker 1: the bastions had been entered by the cannon and brassiers,
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  Speaker 1: Drummond Junior shouting to give no quarter, give no quarter,
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  Speaker 1: when from the cross firing in the court yards, the
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  Speaker 1: powder magazine below this bastion was set on fire and
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  Speaker 1: exploded with a terrific crash, killing the assailants almost to
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  Speaker 1: a man in all, killed, wounded, missing. The assault caused
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  Speaker 1: Drummond's army nine hundred men. September proved a rainy month.
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  Speaker 1: Drummond's camp became almost a marsh, and the health of
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  Speaker 1: the troops compelled a move to higher ground. It was
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  Speaker 1: then the Americans sallied out in assault. Neither side could
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  Speaker 1: claim victory, but the skirmish cost each army more than
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  Speaker 1: five hundred men. Sir James Yeale now come sailing up
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  Speaker 1: Lake Ontario with some of the sixteen thousand troops sent
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  Speaker 1: from England. The weather had become unfavorable to movement on
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  Speaker 1: either side, rain and sleep continuously. Drummond foresaw that the
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  Speaker 1: season would compel the abandonment of Fort Erie, and on
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  Speaker 1: November fifth, a scout came in with word that the
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  Speaker 1: invaders had crossed to the American side and Fort Erie
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  Speaker 1: had been blown up. While Drummond is fighting for the
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  Speaker 1: very life of Canada along the Niagara Frontier, the war
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  Speaker 1: continues in desolatory fashion elsewhere. Kentucky riflemen raid western Ontario
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  Speaker 1: from Detroit to Port Dover. Up on the Lakes is
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  Speaker 1: a story of the war that reads like a page
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  Speaker 1: from Border Raiders. American fur traders destroy Sault Saint Marie.
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  Speaker 1: Canadian fur traders retaliate by swooping on Mississippi fur posts
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  Speaker 1: out on the Pacific coast. An English gunboat has captured
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  Speaker 1: John Jacob Astor's fur post on the Columbia, And now
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  Speaker 1: in the fall of eighteen fourteen, the Northwest Fur Company
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  Speaker 1: of Montreal are conveying from Astors Fort the fir Worth
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  Speaker 1: millions of dollars in canoes across the Upper Lakes to
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  Speaker 1: Ottawa River. Two armed American schooners hiding on the north
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  Speaker 1: shore of Lake Huron, lie in wait for the gay
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  Speaker 1: raiders of the Northwest Company, But at the salt the
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  Speaker 1: Northwest Voyagers get wind of the danger. They in turn
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  Speaker 1: hide their canoes in some of the blue coves of
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  Speaker 1: the north shore. Then stealing out at night in canoes
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  Speaker 1: with muffled paddles, the Northwesters come on one schooner. While
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  Speaker 1: the watch is asleep, they board her bayonet. The crew
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  Speaker 1: pinion some of the wounded to the decks, and with
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  Speaker 1: the captured vessel, sidle up to the other vessel, and
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  Speaker 1: before she is aware of the new masters on board
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  Speaker 1: have captured her too. Then scalps flaunting at the prows
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  Speaker 1: of their canoe, the Norwest fur Traders gaily go their
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  Speaker 1: way down at Lake Champlain occurs the great fiasco of
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  Speaker 1: the war. The blot on Canada's escutcheon. Prevost, with ten
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  Speaker 1: thousand reinforcements, has been ordered by the English governor to
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  Speaker 1: proceed from Montreal against the Americans by both water and land.
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  Speaker 1: While an English fleet attacks the Americans, Prevost is to
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  Speaker 1: lead the troops against Plattsburgh, but the Canadian fleet meets
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  Speaker 1: terrible disaster. The commander is killed by a rebounding cannonball
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  Speaker 1: just as the action begins, and twelve of the gumboats,
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  Speaker 1: manned by the hired foreigners dessert en masse. The rest
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  Speaker 1: of the fleet is literally destroyed. Instead of seconding attack
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  Speaker 1: by a battle on land, Prevost sits behind his trenches,
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  Speaker 1: waiting for the little fleet to win the battle for him,
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  Speaker 1: And when the fleet is defeated previous courage sinks with
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  Speaker 1: the sinking ships, he gathers up his troops and retreats
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  Speaker 1: in a scare of haste. Such a fright of unseemingly
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  Speaker 1: unsoldierly haste that nearly one thousand of the soldiers desert
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  Speaker 1: in sheer disgust. Down at Nova Scotia are raid and
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  Speaker 1: counter raid too. The British and American fleets wage fierce
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  Speaker 1: war that is not part of Canada's story. But in
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  Speaker 1: the contest, the public buildings of Washington are burned in
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  Speaker 1: retaliation for the burning of Newark, and down at New Orleans.
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  Speaker 1: The English suffer a crushing defeat. Meanwhile, the peace commissioners
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  Speaker 1: have been at work, and the war that ought never
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  Speaker 1: to have taken place, that settled. Not one jot of
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  Speaker 1: the dispute which caused it was closed by the Treaty
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  Speaker 1: of Ghent Christmas Eve of eighteen fourteen. All captured forts,
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  Speaker 1: all plunder, all prisoners are to be restored. Michel mckinnac
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  Speaker 1: and Fort Niagara and Astoria on the Columbia go back
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  Speaker 1: to the United States. But of impressement and right of
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  Speaker 1: search and embargo of neutrals, not a word, the waste
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  Speaker 1: of life and happiness accomplished, not a feather's weight, unless
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  Speaker 1: it were the lesson of the criminal folly of war
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  Speaker 1: between nations akin in aim and speech and blood. End
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  Speaker 1: of section forty. Recording by Linda mrie Nielsen, Vancouver, b C.