On this day in 1813, the Canadian Volunteers mustered and were reviewed for the first time. To many who don't know the history of the War of 1812, the name "Canadian Volunteers" is misleading. These Canadians were, in fact, fighting on the side of the American invaders. If captured, they would have been treated as traitors to the Crown.
We reshape the stories to suit our desired narratives. In the 1880s, both the young nation of Canada and the first stirrings of the women's movement required a heroine and Laura Secord became the focal point of the story of Beaverdams -- and the War of 1812. In 2018, First Nations are reasserting their place in how we explain our history, so Laura Secord may eventually become less central to the battle than the determination and resourcefulness of the warriors who inflicted such a decisive defeat on the Americans.
Read MoreFrom his mother's side, he wrote very well and his diaries and memoirs stand out as important records of the world of North America in his day. From his father's side, he had the capacity for memory that comes from a culture that does not write things down -- and therefore you must remember. Every conversation. Every river bend. Every transaction. Norton never forgot a thing. Here was a man whose brain was adept with the skills of both pre-Gutenberg and post-Gutenberg communications. Marshall McLuhan would have loved it!
Read MoreOn a sunny autumn weekend, September 24-25, two armies clashed on the grass that stretched between fields of ripening corn and a scattering of pre-Confederations buildings. The armies of soldiers, sailors, soldiers' wives, camp followers and Mohawk warriors were actually outnumbered by the army of visitors who had come to witness the event.
Read MoreDrive an hour east of Ottawa and get off Highway 417 and you'll find yourself on the old stagecoach road to Montreal and the village of Dunvegan. In the mid-1800s it was a prosperous little village. A store was built in 1840 by a man named McIntosh, and 20 years later it had changed owners and welcomed travellers as the White Star Inn,.
Read MoreA very special thank you to Linda Brown, who operates the printer's shop in the village. She gave me much information that went into the part in Brothers at War where Jacob apprentices to Joe Willcocks. I imagined Linda's shop when I pictured the scene where Jacob and Eli are clowning about and tip over the letter cases.
Read MoreThe show that makes Fort Erie a favourite with re-enactors and visitors alike, however, is the staging of General Drummond's night-time assault on the fort. The American artillery takes its stations on the bastions.
Read MoreIn the Ottawa Valley, the 100th Regiment of Foot is best known for the founding of the town of Richmond, Ontario. After the war, rather than return to Ireland, many officers and men chose instead to take land grants offered by a grateful British government -- grateful for their service in the war, and grateful that hundreds of unemployed soldiers would not be returning to the Old Country.
Read MoreIn understanding the War of 1812 and the role of Joe Willcocks and the Canadian Volunteers, it is useful to keep 9 Thermidor and the Terror in mind. The date may be remote and obscure for us, but for people in Upper Canada, the French Revolution continued to resonate.
Read MoreIt was on this day, 202 years ago, that the American army under General Jacob Brown, pulled back to the Chippewa River to lick its wounds and count the dead. The night before, just a short distance from Niagara Falls, they had fought the bloodiest battle ever on Canadian soil.
Read Moren American officer who arrived on the scene after the fighting would later report that nothing could have prepared him for "a scene of wanton and revolting barbarity. [The warriors] had left on the ground nearly half of the detachment, most of them dead, but some of them still breathing, though scarcely sensible. Every body was utterly stripped, and scalped, and mangled and maimed in a way that looked as if there had been a sort of sportive butchery among the dying and the dead. [One man had] more than a dozen of these gashes and lacerations. [His head was] denuded from the eye-brows to the back of the neck [but he] was still breathing and sensible when our party reached him."
Read MoreSo when they could not buy food, the soldiers on both sides resorted to stealing, looting and plundering. Both sides prohibited looting, but soldiers in the American and Crown armies did rob local farms in the Niagara peninsula. Thomas Ridout, a junior officer in the Crown forces wrote to his father in September 1813, "Tonight our dragoon is to make a grand attack on the onions.The nests are kept very nice and clean from eggs. [ie. he was stealing from the hen houses]. We feed a turkey at our door which is doomed for our Sunday dinner." Elsewhere, Ridout refers to "an extensive robbing of peas, apples, onions, corn, carrots." [Sheppard p. 100]
Read MoreThe traitors are gathering in Fort George this weekend. I wish I could be there with them. They're planning another season of plunder and pillage, looting and burning, treachery and skulduggery. And oh what fun they're going to have.
Read MoreReaders of Blood Oath will know that both General Stallion and General Bull had excruciatingly bad luck a couple of weeks later when they co-led the pursuit of the British forces as they retreated back through the Niagara peninsula. Part of their bad luck was of their own making. They set up camp in an exposed position at Stoney Creek and failed to post sufficient pickets to guard against a surprise nighttime attack.
Read More
