Pierre Berton's War of 1812 (26 page)

“The men are independent in their habits and principles, their officers ignorant and totally uninformed in every thing relating to the possession of arms and possess no influence over the militia but in proportion as they court it by popular and familiar intercourse.” A few, he notes, are prepared to march on Montreal; the rest just want to go home. More than half of them are absent with or without leave, and nobody seems able to control them.

Recruiting for the regular army, he reports to Prevost, is proceeding very slowly, even though the term of service is only five years and the bounty pay for signing up very liberal:

“There appears to exist in the United States the greatest contempt and repugnance to the restraint and discipline of a military life and few gentlemen of respectability are willing to become officers but prefer the militia where they obtain high rank without serving.”

As the coach moves on along the maple-shaded roads, Baynes is subjected to a series of minor astonishments. He learns that one militia general is a farmer, another a sawmill keeper, a third a millwright. The coach pulls up at a tavern. Out comes the innkeeper to take the reins and water the horses. Baynes’s sense of military decorum is severely shaken when he discovers that this servitor is a colonel and second-in-command of the entire Vermont militia. The gap between the British and the American attitudes toward their military is obviously wider than Baynes suspected, and he has more than a little trouble absorbing it. He concludes that of all the officers he has observed there is only one with any real military talent—the same commander at Burlington who vigorously opposed his presence in the United States.

As for the American people, they “have a very high and overrated opinion of their military prowess, conceiving it to be in their power to pillage Montreal and to march to Quebec whenever they think proper. The siege of the fortress alone they consider as a task of difficulty. From the actual state of the American forces assembled on
Lake Champlain, I do not think there exists any intention of invading this part of the province.”

As Baynes moves back to Canada, Dearborn dispatches a note to Hull, dated August 9, explaining what has happened and suggesting that the General of the Army of the Northwest make his own decision as to whether he should join in the truce. (Hull has just withdrawn from his beachhead at Sandwich, but Dearborn has no knowledge of that.) Reinforcements are, of course, out of the question. “The removal of any troops from Niagara to Detroit, while the present agreement continues, would be improper and incompatible with the true interest of the agreement.”

Thus does Dearborn relieve himself of the responsibility of reinforcing Hull or of creating the promised diversion along the Niagara frontier that might prevent Brock from reinforcing Amherstburg. Communications being what they are, Hull cannot know this. And by the time Dearborn’s letter reaches him, it will not matter.

BROWNSTOWN, MICHIGAN TERRITORY
, August 9, 1812. Thomas Verchères de Boucherville, the fur trader and Amherstburg storekeeper, is weary of waiting. On and off for four days he and his comrades have been on the alert on the American side of the river, expecting to surprise another of Hull’s armed escorts seeking to bring in the wagon train of supplies held up at the River Raisin. But the Americans do not come and finally Major Muir gives the order to embark for the Canadian shore.

The men are clambering into the boats when from the woods there issues a series of piercing cries. In a few minutes Tecumseh’s scouts come bounding out of the thickets to report that a detachment of Long Knives has been spotted upriver “like the mosquitoes of the swamp in number.” This is no minor force of the kind that was routed a few days before; Hull has sent six hundred men including two hundred regulars, supported by cavalry and cannon. He is determined that this time the supply train will get through.

Muir puts into action a plan proposed by Tecumseh: his troops will march to a ravine near the Indian village of Maguaga, three miles upriver from Brownstown, and there lie in wait. Their orders are to charge with the bayonet as soon as the first volley of musket balls is fired. The Indians will conceal themselves in the corn fields on the right and the left, securing the flanks.

De Boucherville and his companions, having no uniforms, stick sprigs of basswood into their caps for identification and set out along the muddy track for Maguaga. Soon an odour, sickly sweet, assails their nostrils, and a horrifying spectacle comes into view at the turn of the trail—the battlefield of the previous week. De Boucherville shudders and is seized with revulsion as he sees displayed before him the corpses of the cavalrymen, already decomposed and impaled on stakes by Tecumseh’s men, who have left the cadavers in full view to terrify the Americans. Gnawed and mangled by crows and animals, the rotting bodies give off an indescribable stench.

At almost the same moment, James Dalliba, a young American artillery officer in Lieutenant-Colonel Miller’s advancing force, sees the bloated and scalped carcass of the luckless ranger captain, McCullough, lying beside the road under its covering of bark.

Marching with the British is an Amherstburg acquaintance of de Boucherville, young John Richardson, a member of the widespread Askin family (John, Senior, is his grandfather). Richardson, not yet turned sixteen, is a gentleman volunteer in the 41st and a future novelist—one of Canada’s first. He will never forget this silent march to Maguaga; thirty years later it remains vividly in his mind:

“No other sound than the measured step of the troops interrupted the solitude of the scene, rendered more imposing by the wild appearance of the warriors, whose bodies, stained and painted in the most frightful manner for the occasion, glided by us with almost noiseless velocity … some painted white, some black, others half black, half red; half black, half white; all with their hair plastered in such a way as to resemble the bristling quills of the porcupine, with no other covering than a cloth around their loins, yet armed
to the teeth with rifles, tomahawks, war-clubs, spears, bows, arrows and scalping knives. Uttering no sound, intent only on reaching the enemy unperceived, they might have passed for the spectres of those wilds, the ruthless demons which War had unchained for the punishment and oppression of man.”

Screened by the forest, the two forces move blindly towards one another, neither side knowing when or where the clash will take place but all sensing that within minutes men will fall and some will die. Most have had no experience of battle; many have had no military training; save for Miller’s Tippecanoe veterans, few have fired a musket at a living human.

At Maguaga, the British and Canadians take up their position behind a low rise, each man hugging the ground as he would a friend. De Boucherville finds himself next to another acquaintance, Jean-Baptiste Bâby, whose family home at Sandwich has been seized by Hull. Nervous, he asks Bâby for a pinch of snuff “to keep me in countenance a little.” A moment later comes the sound of an enemy drum, the stroke wavering slightly as if the drummer, too, fears whatever lies ahead.

The British remain concealed, waiting for the signal. Suddenly an American officer, brilliant in blue and gold, riding a superb horse, his hat covered by a three-foot plume, appears on an eminence. A shot rings out; the American falls dead at his horse’s feet, and the battle is joined.

Confusion!
A melee of painted bodies, scarlet tunics, snorting horses, flying tomahawks, splintered foliage, black musket smoke. On the left, Tecumseh leads his men forward in an attempt to turn the American flank. Five hundred yards to the right, another group of Indians, trying a similar manoeuvre, is forced back. To the British volunteers all Indians look alike; they believe the retreating natives to be part of the advancing enemy and fire on them. Ally battles ally as the skirmish grows hotter.

“Take care, de Boucherville!” cries an officer on the left. “The Kentuckians are aiming at you.” Even as he speaks a ball strikes him in the head, and he falls into de Boucherville’s arms. “Well, old
fellow,” thinks the volunteer to himself, “you came out of that all right.” But a moment later he is hit in the thigh by a musket ball.

Muir, the British commander, seeing an American taking deliberate aim at him, hastily raises his short rifle and lays it across the shoulders of a fellow officer, Lieutenant Charles Sutherland. Both adversaries fire at the same time. The American drops dead; his rifle ball enters Sutherland’s cheek, comes out the back of his neck and passes through Muir’s shoulder. (Sutherland’s wound is not mortal, but he will shortly die of loss of blood as a result of brushing his teeth before it is properly healed.)

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.