The Invasion of Canada (27 page)

Hull mulls over Brock’s extraordinary document for more than three hours while the General’s two aides fidget behind their blindfolds. At last he summons up an answer:

“… I have no other reply than to inform you, that I am prepared to meet any force which may be at your disposal, and any consequences which may result from any exertion of it you may think proper to make.”

At about three that afternoon, Major Josiah Snelling of Miller’s 4th Infantry steps out onto the street to see the General’s son and aide, Captain Abraham Hull, heading off with his father’s reply in his pocket. The little village is alive with people running toward the fort carrying their family possessions or burying their valuables. Snelling picks up his glass and sees that the British across the river are chopping down the oaks and removing the building that masks their battery. He forms up his men, marches them through the gates of the fort, and, on Hull’s orders, mans the ramparts.

Hull’s back seems to have stiffened.

“The British have demanded the place,” he says. “If they want it they must fight for it.”

He sends a messenger to recall the party under Cass and McArthur, who have become entangled in a swamp some twenty-five miles away. The troops in Detroit, knowing their force to be superior, are astonished at what they consider the insolence of the British.

The boat carrying Brock’s aides has no sooner reached the Canadian shore than the cannonade commences. Hundreds of pounds of cast iron hurtle across the mile-wide river, tearing into walls and trees and plunging through rooftops but doing little damage. James Dalliba with his battery of seven twenty-four-pounders replies immediately to the first British volley. He stands on the ramparts until he sees the
smoke and flash of the British cannon, then shouts “Down!” allowing his men to drop behind the parapet before the shot strikes. The British are aiming directly at his battery, attempting to put it out of action.

A large pear tree near Dalliba’s battery is blocking the guns and giving the British a point to aim at. Dalliba orders a young Michigan volunteer, John Miller, to cut it down. As he is hacking away, a can-nonball finishes the job for him. Miller turns and shouts across the water: “Send us another, John Bull; you can cut faster than I can!”

The artillery duel continues until well after dark. The people scramble after every burst, ducking behind doors, clinging to walls, until they become used to the flash and roar. In the doorway of a house by the river a
Canadien
stands unconcerned, puffing on his pipe, as the hot metal screams by him until a shell fragment tears the stem from his mouth. Infuriated, he seizes his musket, wades out into the river, and fires back at the British battery until his ammunition is exhausted.

A mortar shell, its fuse burning brightly, falls upon the house of Augustus Langdon on Woodward Avenue. It tears its way through the roof, continues through the upper storey and into the dining room, dropping directly upon the table around which Langdon and his family are sitting. It rips through the table, continues through the floor and into the cellar as the family dashes for safety. They are no sooner clear than the shell explodes with such power that it tears the roof away.

Hull’s brigade major, Thomas Jesup, reports that two British warships are anchored in midstream just opposite Spring Wells, two miles from the fort, and that the British appear to be collecting boats for an invasion. At sundown, Hull sends Major Snelling to Spring Wells to report on the British movements. Snelling reports that the
Queen Charlotte
is anchored in the river but can be dislodged by one of the fort’s twenty-four-pounders. Hull shakes his head, finds reasons why the gun can’t be moved. Something odd is happening to the commander. To Jesup he seems pale and very much confused.

At ten that evening the cannonade ceases. Quiet descends upon the American camp. The night is clear, the sky tinselled with stars, the river glittering in the moonlight. At eleven, General Hull, fully clothed, his boots still laced, slumps down in the piazza of the barracks and tries to sleep. Even as he slumbers, Tecumseh and his Indians are slipping into their canoes and silently crossing to the American side.

SANDWICH, UPPER CANADA, August 16, 1812. Dawn.

The moment is at hand. Brock’s couriers have scoured the countryside, roused the militia from the farms, emptied the mills and harvest fields. Now these raw troops gather on the shore at McKee’s Point, four hundred strong, waiting their turn to enter the boats and cross to the enemy side. Three hundred have been issued the cast-off crimson tunics of the 41st to deceive Hull into believing that Brock’s force of regular soldiers is double its actual strength.

The Indians are already across, lurking in the forest, ready to attack Hull’s flank and rear should he resist the crossing. Thomas Verchères de Boucherville has watched their war dance the night before; he finds it an extraordinary spectacle – six hundred figures, leaping in the firelight, naked except for their breech cloths, some daubed in vermilion, others in blue clay, and still others tattooed with black and white from head to foot. Even to de Boucherville, with his years of experience in the fur trade, the scene is macabre – frightful and horrifying beyond expression. It occurs to him that a stranger from Europe witnessing it for the first time would believe he was standing at the very entrance to Hell “with the gates thrown open to let the damned out for an hour’s recreation on earth!”

But on this calm and beautiful Sunday morning, a different spectacle presents itself. A soft August sun is just rising as the troops climb into the boats and push out into the river, their crimson jackets almost perfectly reflected in the glassy waters. Behind them, the green meadows and ripening orchards are tinted with the dawn light; ahead, in the lead boat, stands the glittering figure of their general. Charles Askin thinks it the handsomest sight he has ever seen, even though in a few hours he may well be fighting his own brother-in-law. Already cannonballs and mortar bombs are screaming overhead.

On the far bank, pocked and riven by springs (hence the name Spring Wells), the figure of Tecumseh can be discerned, astride a white mustang, surrounded by his chiefs. The enemy is not in sight and the troops land without incident or opposition.

Brock’s plan is to outwait Hull, draw him out of his fort, and do battle in the open where, he believes, his regulars can devastate the wavering American militia. But now an Indian scout rides in with word that enemy horsemen have been spotted three miles to the rear. This is the detachment, 350 strong, that Hull has sent to the River Raisin and recalled to reinforce Detroit. Brock’s position suddenly becomes precarious. His men are caught between a strong fortification and an advancing column in their rear. Without hesitation Brock changes his plans and decides to attack immediately.

The Capture of Detroit

He draws up his troops in column, doubling the distance between the sections to make his diminutive force seem larger. His route to Detroit hugs the river bank at his right, protected by the guns of the
Queen Charlotte
and the
Hunter
(Frederic Rolette’s command) and by the battery at Sandwich. On his left, slipping through the corn fields and the woods, are Tecumseh’s Indians. To many of the militia this is familiar territory. Charles Askin, marching with the 2nd Brigade, greets and waves to old friends along the road, many of whom seem happy to see him.

At the town gate, the forward troops can spot two long guns – twenty-four-pounders – positioned so that they can enfilade the road. A single round shot, properly placed, is capable of knocking down a file of twenty-five men like dominoes. American gunners stand beside
their weapons with matches burning. William McCay, who has come up from Queenston as a volunteer and is marching with Captain Hatt’s company just behind the British 41st, screws up his courage, expecting to be fired upon at any moment. Young John Richardson, the future novelist, cannot help a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he and his comrades are marching directly into the jaws of death, for the road “is as bad as any cul-de-sac.”

Brock, at the head of the line, rides impassively forward, a brilliant target in his cocked hat and gold epaulettes. His old friend, little Colonel Nichol, trots up to remonstrate with his commander:

“Pardon me, General, but I cannot forbear entreating you not to expose yourself thus. If we lose you, we lose all; let me pray you to allow the troops to pass on, led by their own officers.”

To which Brock replies: “Master Nichol, I duly appreciate the advice you give me, but I feel that in addition to their sense of loyalty and duty, many here follow me from a feeling of personal regard, and I will never ask them to go where I do not lead them.”

Why have the guns not fired? There is a host of explanations after the fact. One is that Hull refuses to give the order for reasons of cowardice or treason. Another, more plausible, is that the British are still out of effective range and the American artillery commander is waiting until they draw closer so that his grape-shot – a large number of musket balls packed in canvas bags – can mow down the column.

If so, Brock outwits him, for suddenly, the British wheel to the left through an orchard and into a ravine protected from the enemy guns. John Richardson, for one, breathes more freely. Brock, meanwhile, commandeers William Forsyth’s farmhouse as a headquarters, then climbs up the bank to reconnoitre his position.

The town of Detroit, a huddle of some three hundred houses, lies before him. Its population, three-quarters French-speaking, is inured to siege and plunder. It has been transferred three times by treaty, twice besieged by Indians, burned to the ground only a few years previously. It is enclosed on three sides by a wooden stockade of fourteen-foot pickets. Entrance can be gained only by three massive gates. On the high ground to the northeast, covering three acres, sprawls the fort, built originally by the British, repaired by the Americans. The parapet is eleven feet high, twelve feet thick. A ditch, six feet deep and twelve feet across, together with a double row of pickets, each twice the height of a man, surrounds the whole. It is heavily armed with long guns, howitzers, and mortars. Most of the troops are quartered outside the walls.

The American position seems impregnable, but Brock has a secret weapon – psychology. Hull has already been led to believe that three hundred militiamen are regulars. Now Tecumseh and his Indians are ordered to march in single file across an open space, out of range but in full view of the garrison. The spectacle has some of the quality of a vaudeville turn. The Indians lope across the meadow, vanish into the forest, circle back and repeat the manoeuvre three times. Hull’s officers, who cannot tell one Indian from another, count fifteen hundred painted savages, screeching and waving tomahawks. Hull is convinced he is outnumbered.

Brock is still scrutinizing his objective, all alone, some fifty yards in front of his own troops, when an American officer suddenly appears, waving a white flag and bearing a note from his general. The American commander, it seems, is on the verge of giving up without a fight.