An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay by William D. Lighthall
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William D. Lighthall >> An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay
Chateauguay Literary and Historical Society
AN ACCOUNT
OF
THE BATTLE OF CHATEAUGUAY
BEING
A LECTURE DELIVERED AT ORMSTOWN,
MARCH 8TH, 1889
BY
W.D. LIGHTHALL, M.A.,
_Honorary Member of the Chateauguay Literary and Historical Society,
Secretary of the Antiquarian Society of Montreal, Life Corresponding
Member of the Scottish Society of Literature and Art, Author of "The
Young Seigneur," "Songs of the Great Dominion," etc._
WITH
SOME LOCAL AND PERSONAL NOTES
BY
W. PATTERSON, M.A.,
_Corresponding Secretary of the C.L.H.S._
"Raise high the Monumental Stone."
--_Charles Sangster_
MONTREAL
W. DRYSDALE & CO., PUBLISHERS, 232 ST. JAMES STREET.
1889.
[Illustration: LT.-COL CHARLES DE SALABERRY.]
LIST OF OFFICERS FOR 1888-89.
President.
Lt.-Col. Archibald McEachern, C.M.G,
Vice-Presidents.
J.E. Robidoux, Q.C., M.P.P.
Edward Holton, Esq., M.P.
Thomas Baird, Esq.
Recording Secretary.
Peter McLaren, B A., M.D.
Corresponding Secretary.
Wm. Patterson, M.A.
Treasurer.
Wm. McDougall, Esq.
Councillors.
Dr. McCormick.
Wm. J. Bryson, Esq.
Dugald Thomson. Esq.
Dr. Hall.
Rev. D.W. Morison, B.A.
* * * * *
LIST OF HONORARY MEMBERS
Edward Holton, M.P.
J.E. Robidoux, Q.C., M.P.P.
Dr. W. Geo. Beers.
James McGregor, Esq.
Watson Griffin, Esq.
J.R. Dougall, M.A.
W.D. Lighthall, M.A., B.C.L.
PREFACE.
On October 26th, 1888, the Chateauguay Literary and Historical Society
was organized at Ormstown, Quebec, to foster Canadian patriotism by
encouraging the study of Canadian history and Canadian literature. The
Society began its labours at home, taking as its subject the battle
whence it derives its name. Mr. W.D. Lighthall, M.A., B.C.L., an
honorary member, was asked to prepare an account of that victory, and
kindly responded by his lecture, which he delivered before the Society
on March 8th, 1889. Pleasure is now felt in offering this lecture, in
the interests of the Society, to the Canadian world, no apology being
required at a time when patriotic literature is in great demand. Mr.
Lighthall's researches have been discussed by the members, and the
belief is prevalent that his work touching this important item of
history, in so far as accuracy is concerned, stands unrivalled, the
previous authorities having been carefully compared and their
testimony put together.
In the Appendix will be found a number of notes having a bearing on
the battle and its times. The portrait frontispiece is from a line
engraving kindly lent by Gerald E. Hart, Esq., President of the
Society for Historical Studies. The drawing of the map, after the
design of the author, is due to J.A.U. Beaudry, Esq., C.E., Curator of
the Antiquarian Society of Montreal.
The first part of the account is partly based upon R. Christie's
History of Lower Canada; but William James' Military Occurrences of
the War of 1812, was found the most accurate in statistical details,
and is, therefore, frequently followed. Other authorities are referred
to in their places.
The battle of Chateauguay, in view of the important results that
followed it, is an event which all Canadians will appreciate, and to
which posterity will have reason to point the finger of admiration.
All nationalities concerned in building up this country, when united
by a common danger, bore in it an honorable part, as they fought side
by side in defence of their homes and those that were dear to them,
from the wanton aggression of an ungenerous foe.
The Society hopes to continue its work and to offer other pamphlets in
the near future, so that this effort on its part may be regarded as
the first of a series. Another of its immediate objects is the
erection of a monument on the battlefield, to accomplish which
pecuniary assistance is required. The belief is held that no
opportunity should be lost to educate the rising generation to form a
true conception of the grandeur of the heritage that is ours,
W.P.
ORMSTOWN,
_October 29th, 1889._
THE BATTLE OF CHATEAUGUAY.
The War of 1812 has been called by an able historian "the afterclap of
the Revolution." The Revolution was, indeed, true thunder--a
courageous and, in the main, high-principled struggle. Its afterclap
of 1812 displayed little but empty bombast and greed. In the one,
brave leaders risked their lives in that defence of rights which has
made their enterprise an epoch in man's history; in the other, a mean
and braggart spirit actuated its promoters to strike in the back that
nation which almost alone was carrying on, in the best spirit of the
Revolution, the struggle for the liberties of Europe against the
designs of Napoleon. The brave spirits of the War of Freedom led the
affairs of the United States no longer. All the contemptible elements,
all the boasters, all those who had done least in the real fighting,
had long come out of their shells and united to establish the mighty
rhetorical school of the Spread Eagle! It was the legions of Spread
Eagleism who wore to have the glory to be got in taking advantage of
harassed England. The Battle of Chateauguay was one of the answers to
that illusion.
The War was introduced by a Declaration, in which President Madison,
in smooth and elaborate terms, pretended that his nation found cause
for it in the tyrannical exercise by British warships of what was
called _The Right of Search_--that is to say, a claim of ships of war
to stop the ships of other nations and search them for deserters and
contraband goods. That this was not, however, the true cause, was
shown by the facts and cries of the war.
Firstly, the right was one belonging to all nations by international
law; secondly, though it was at once relinquished by Britain in a
conciliatory spirit, the Americans persisted in their campaign;
thirdly, at the close of the war they did not insist at all on the
abrogation of the Right of Search, in the treaty of peace.
It would be much easier to show what the real causes were:-(1), hatred
of England, lasting over from the Revolution; (2), envy of her
commerce and prestige; and especially (3) the scheme for the conquest
of Canada.
The course of the negotiations exhibit a thoroughly ungenerous course
on the part of the American authorities, contrasted with a desire not
to offend on the part of Britain. President Madison's Declaration of
War was made on the 18th of June, 1812, and the British Government,
after using every honorable overture for friendship, only issued
theirs in October, couching it, besides, in terms of regret and
reproach at the unfairness in which Madison's party persisted. Owing
to that unfairness and other causes the enterprise also was by no
means unanimously popular in the States. A convention of delegates
from the counties of New York, held in the capitol at Albany, on the
17th and 18th of September, and called the New York Convention,
condemned Madison's party for declaring the war, on account of its
injustice, and "as having been undertaken," they said, "from motives
entirely distinct from those which have been hitherto avowed." The New
England States treated it coldly. Maryland disapproved through her
Legislature. Many persons everywhere looked on it as a mere political
scheme, and when drafted for service in frequent cases bought
themselves substitutes.
It was soon found that a mistake had been made in attacking Canada.
That happened which might be expected where bodies of men with
inflated ideas of glory and no experience attack men fighting
desperately for their homes, and officers and veterans who had seen
such service as the Napoleonic wars. The British, with an astuteness
which is oftener the character credited to their opponents, managed to
get earliest word of the Declaration sent to their own forts on the
Lakes, and promptly captured the American fort Michilimackinac. They
then followed with the daring capture of the stronghold of Detroit,
amply equipped and garrisoned, by a little handful of men under the
heroic General Brock, who simply went before it and demanded its
surrender, whereupon it was given up, together with the whole
Territory of Michigan. The presence of such trained British officers
as Brock and of army veterans in the ranks was a very great advantage.
Poor Brock soon afterwards died in his memorable charge at the victory
of Queenston Heights.
That year--the first of the War--is known as a succession of fiascos
for the Americans. The other conspicuous aspect of it is that the
attacked points were, with the exception of a little skirmishing at
St. Regis and Lacolle, all in the Province of Upper Canada.
It was only towards the close of the campaign of the next
year--1813--that Lower Canada was gravely threatened.
The Americans, emboldened by several successes, and having put a great
many men into the field, believed that the struggle might easily be
terminated by capturing Montreal. The advance upon Lower Canada took
place under General James Wilkinson in chief command, with 8,826 men
and 58 guns and howitzers.[1] He had intended to attack Kingston. "At
Montreal, however," wrote the Secretary of War, Armstrong, in phrases
colored by the prevailing school of rhetoric, "you find the weaker
place and the smallest force to encounter.... You hold a position
which completely severs the enemy's line of operations, and which,
while it restrains all below, withers and perishes all above itself."
This great position--for it is so--Colonel Coffin[2] compares it to
Vicksburg for natural strength--was to be approached by two routes: by
Wilkinson himself in boats down the St Lawrence, and by Major-General
Wade Hampton, his almost independent subordinate, from the Champlain
border; and it was planned that the two armies should meet at the
foot of Isle Perrot,[3] thence to strike together across the Lake to
Lachine, and on to the city, which seems to have had not over, if as
many as, a thousand regulars to defend it.
Wade Hampton, with over 5,000 men (an effective regular force of 4,053
rank and file, about 1,500 militia and ten cannon[4]), was at first on
the Vermont side of Lake Champlain at Burlington[5]. He crossed to the
New York side, directing his march for Caughnawaga on the St.
Lawrence. His army[6], except the militia, was the same which, with a
certain General Dearborn at its head, paraded irregularly across the
lines and returned to Pittsburgh in the autumn of 1812. During the
year since elapsed the men had been drilled by Major-General Izard,
who had served in the French Army. They were all in uniform, well
clothed and equipped--in short, Hampton commanded, if not the most
numerous, certainly the most effective, regular army which the United
States were able to send into the field during the War. Crossing the
border on the 20th of September, 1813, he surprised a small picket of
British at Odelltown, a Loyalist settlement afterwards celebrated for
a battle in the Rebellion of 1837. He soon found himself met with what
seemed to him great difficulties, for the army was plunged into an
extensive swampy wood, the only road through which was rendered
impracticable by fallen trees and barricades, behind which and in the
gloomy forests surrounding were every here and there to be seen
Indians and infantry crawling and flitting about, who fired upon them
from unexpected ambushes. Hampton's men were not of a kind to face
this. "The perfect rawness of the troops," writes he, "with the
exception of not a single platoon, has been a source of much
solicitude to the best-informed among us."[7] They were ignorant,
insubordinate, and forever "falling off."[8]
Urging on the scattered defenders was, no doubt, to be seen from time
to time a stout-built, vigorous officer with stripes across the breast
of his dark gray uniform, dashing about from point to point giving
fierce orders. This was De Salaberry.
Not reflecting--for he seems to have had the information--that the
wood was only fifteen miles or so in depth, the Canadians few in
number, and that a short press forward would have brought him into the
open country of L'Acadie leading towards Montreal, the American
General in two days withdrew along the border towards Chateauguay Four
Corners, alleging the great drought of that year as a reason for
wishing to descend by the River Chateauguay. At the Corners he rested
his army for many days.
Wade Hampton was a type of the large slaveholders of the South. Nearly
sixty years of age, self-important, fiery and over-indulgent in drink,
of large, imposing figure, of some reputed service in the Revolution,
and with a record as Congressman and Presidential elector, he was one
whose chief virtues were not patience and humility. In 1809 he had
been made a brigadier-general and stationed at New Orleans; but in
consequence of continual disagreements with his subordinates, was
superseded in 1812 by Wilkinson, whom he consequently hated. In the
spring of 1813 he received his Major-General's commission. He had
acquired his large fortune by land speculations, and at his death some
time later was supposed to be the wealthiest planter in the United
States, owning 3,000 slaves. He is said to have ably administered his
estate.[9]
Hampton had another slave-holding South Carolinian by his side, young
Brigadier-General George Izard, son and descendant of aristocrats and
statesmen, well-educated in the soldier's profession, college-bred,
travelled, and who had served in the French Army. Izard led the main
column at the battle shortly to ensue.[10]
Another officer of the circle--who seems to have been the ablest--was
Colonel James Purdy, on whom the brunt of the American work and
fighting were to fall, and who seems to have done his best in a
struggle against natural difficulties and against the incompetency of
both his commander and men.
When Hampton moved to Four Corners, Lieut-Colonel De Salaberry, with
the Canadian Voltigeurs, moved in like manner westward to the region
of the Chateauguay and English Rivers. The Voltigeur troops were
French-Canadians with a small sprinkling of British. Their
organization was as follows:--Sir George Prevost, on the approach of
war, May 28th, 1812, ordered the levy of four French volunteer
battalions, to be made up of unmarried men from 18 to 25 years old.
They were to be choice troops, and trained like regulars. Charles
Michel d'Irumberry De Salaberry, then high in the regard of his people
as a military hero, was chosen to rally the recruits, issued a
stirring poster calling the French-Canadians to arms, and acted with
such extraordinary energy that the troops were in hand in two days.
De Salaberry was a perfect type of the old French-Canadian military
gentry, a stock of men of whom very little remains, a breed of leaders
of, on the whole, more vigorous forms, more active temperaments, than
the average--descendants inheriting the qualities of the bravest and
most adventurous individuals of former times. They were the natural
result of the feudal _regime_, with which they have passed away.
Though a gentry, they were a poor one, possessed of little else than
quantities of forest lands. The officers of the Voltigeurs were
selected out of the same class, united with a number of English of
similar stamp. De Salaberry himself was born in the little cottage
manor-house of Beauport, near Quebec, on the 19th of Nov., 1778.[11]
Taking to soldiering like a duck to water when very young, he enrolled
as volunteer in the 44th. At sixteen, the Duke of Kent, who was then
in Canada, and delighted in friendly acts towards the seigneurs, got
him a commission in the 60th, with which regiment he left at once for
the West Indian Isle of Dominica. There he saw terrible service, for
all the men of his battalion except three were killed or wounded
during the seige of Fort Matilda. Nevertheless, the young fellow kept
gay. "Our uniforms," he wrote to his father, "cost very dear; but I
have received L40, and with that I am going to give myself what will
make a fine figure." "This fine large boy of sixteen years," says
Benjamin Sulte in his History of the French-Canadians, "strong as a
Hercules ... with smiling face ... made a furore at parties.... As he
was never sick, they employed him everywhere. Fevers reduced his
battalion to 200 men, but touched not him." Though so young, he was
charged with covering the evacuation of Fort Matilda.[12]
The Duke of Kent, who was commanding at Halifax, kept a friendly eye
upon him, and gave him much personal advice, on one occasion
dissuading him from an inadvisable marriage. He now took him into his
own regiment. De Salaberry still saw rough service, was shipwrecked,
served in the West Indies again, and then fought in Europe and the
disastrous expedition to Walcheren, where he was placed in the most
advanced posts.[13] Returning to his 60th, he was made captain in
1799. "I have often heard say," narrates De Gaspe, "that his company
and that of Captain Chandler were the best drilled in the regiment."
In the West Indies he was drawn into a duel which caused him sorrow
until his dying day, for in it he was forced by the "code of honor" to
kill a German fellow-officer, and bore a scar of the affair ever after
on his forehead. It is related that by his great strength he cut the
German in two.
"The prodigious force with which he was endowed," says Sulte, "had
made of him an exceptional being in the eyes of the soldiers," and
when he returned to Canada after West Indian service of eleven
years[14] a little before the war of 1812, he was already the hero of
the French-Canadians. That the stories of his strength and vigor are
true is corroborated by every circumstance which has been perpetuated
about him. His ruddy, energetic face is preserved in portraits among
his family, and his walking-stick, said to be an enormous article, is
kept at Quebec in the collection of the Literary and Historical
Society.
De Salaberry's Voltigeurs were organized at a peculiar juncture. "The
discords between French and English in Quebec had emboldened the
United States," says Garneau, "and the English Governors harassed the
French. An opposite conduct might bring back calm to men's spirits.
The Governor of Nova Scotia, Sir George Provost, a former officer, of
Swiss origin, offered all the conditions desirable.... Arriving at
Quebec, Sir George Provost strove to introduce peace and to remove
animosity. He showed the completest confidence in the fidelity of the
French-Canadians, and studied how to prove at every opportunity that
the accusations of treason which had been brought against them had
left no trace in the soul of England nor in his own.... Soon the
liveliest sympathy arose between Sir George Prevost and the
people."[15] It was in pursuance of this policy that the order to
raise the Voltigeur force was given by him.
While Hampton was at Four Corners, Sir George, thus now
Commander-in-Chief of all the forces in Canada, was at the camp which
had just been formed at La Fourche, and of which a description is
given by Mr. Sellar in his history of the district. Sir George was a
man quite devoid of the decisiveness necessary to a soldier, and
though, as we have seen, he was useful in reconciling the French, his
errors in military matters several times brought disgrace on the
British forces, and gave rise to storms of rage and disgust among
them.[16] De Salaberry was now ordered by him on the Quixotic errand
of attacking, with about 200 Voltigeurs and some Indians, the large
camp of Hampton at Four Corners. De Salaberry promptly obeyed these
impracticable orders, and it is probably at this juncture that a
little anecdote comes in which I have heard as told by one of his men.
De Salaberry was down the river dining at a tavern, when a despatch
was brought to him.
"D---- it!" he exclaimed, jumping up from his seat, "Hampton is at
Four Corners, and I must go and fight him!" and mounting his fine
white charger, he dashed away from the door.
On the 1st of October he crept up with his force to the edge of the
American camp. There they saw the assemblage spread out in all the
array of war, with its host of tents, stacked guns, flags, moving men
and sentries, and he prepared to strike it as ordered. One of his
Indians indiscreetly discharged his musket. The camp was in alarm in
an instant. De Salaberry, finding his approach discovered, immediately
collected about fifty of his Voltigeurs, with whom and the Indians he
pushed into the enemy's advanced camp, consisting of about 800 men,
and, catching them in their confusion, drove them for a considerable
distance, until, seeing the main body manoeuvring to cut off his
little handful, he fell back and took up his position at the skirt of
the woods. Once again he sallied out and charged, but with all the
army now thoroughly aroused it was useless, and the Indians having
retreated, most of his own men ran off, leaving him and Captains
Chevalier Duchesnay and Gaucher, officers much like himself in stamp,
with a few trusty Voltigeurs to skirmish with the enemy as long as
daylight permitted it.[17] He then withdrew to Chateauguay, taking the
precaution of breaking up the forest road in his rear, in pursuance of
the general policy of the campaign, which was to destroy and obstruct
as much as possible in the path of the enemy. Acquainting himself also
with the ground over which Hampton was expected to make his way into
the Province, he finally stopped, selected and took up the position
where the battle afterwards took place, in a thick wood on the left
bank of the Chateauguay River at the distance of two or three leagues
above its _Fork_ with English River, where he threw up his works of
defence, with the approval of General De Watteville. The plan of the
British commanders, owing to the smallness and inefficiency of their
forces, was the stern one of burning and destroying all houses and
property, and retreating slowly to the St. Lawrence, harassing the
enemy in his advance.[18] The position chosen was as strong as the
nature of that flat and wooded country and the route of the American
march would allow. Here his experience and quick eye came in.[19]
Now as to the measures of fortification taken by De Salaberry. In his
rear there was a small rapid where the river was fordable in two spots
close to one another. He commanded this with a strong breastwork and a
guard. There were four ravines which issued from the very thick woods,
crossing the road, and distant from each other two hundred yards or
so. On their banks he made his men fell trees and build them into
breastworks--"a kind of parapet extending into the woods some
distance." To prevent the American cannon from bearing on these
breastworks, he felled trees and bush, covering a large stretch of
ground with obstructions in the front. The breastwork on the
front-line formed an obtuse angle at the right of the road, and
extended along the curves of the ravine. The Colonel then sent forward
to a spot some distance in advance of the front-line a party of
Beauharnois' axemen, well accustomed to felling trees, who destroyed
the bridges and obstructed the road with their fragments and fallen
trees and brush. Lieut. Guy, with twenty Voltigeurs, guarded them in
front, and Lieut. Johnson, with about the same number, in rear.
Working incessantly, these axemen made a formidable series of such
obstructions in front of the first line, extending from the river
three or four acres into the woods, where they joined an almost
impracticable marsh. On the opposite bank of the river De Salaberry
also placed a picket of sixty Beauharnois militia under Captain
Bruyere, so as to check any advance on the ford, which was his weak
point in the rear.
Part of De Salaberry's line at the abattis, was a small blockhouse on
the river-bank (which, however, is not that which has since been
reputed to be the one concerned), and the works there blocked the
commencement of the wood and looked out on a broadening plain or level
of clearings, across which the enemy would have to pass.
The Glengarry men now came down, under McDonell of Ogdensburgh, famous
for his adventurous capture of that place, and whose exploit the
Salaberry was about to match. Lieut.-Colonel McDonell--"Red
George"--was at Prescott drilling a new force of Canadian Fencibles,
made up, some say, chiefly of Scotch and loyalists,[20] others chiefly
of French boatmen, when Sir George Prevost asked him how soon he could
have his men ready to go down to Chateauguay. "As soon as they have
done their dinner!" he responded. Within a few hours he had provided
them with _batteaux_, and they were off down the rapids. When Sir
George himself, who was on the way, got there, he, to his great
surprise found McDonell before him. "Where are your men?" said he.
"There," said the Highland Colonel, pointing to his force resting on
the ground--"not a man absent."[21]
For nearly three weeks the parties of Canadian workers worked
continually upon the plan of De Salaberry, while Hampton was
considering, preparing, reviewing his troops, and arranging for a
communication with Wilkinson so soon as the latter should have passed
Ogdensburg on his way down the St. Lawrence.