On June 18, 1812, the United States declared war on Britain. President Madison had been reluctant to embroil his country in a conflict with an uncertain outcome, but a group of influential young politicians, the so-called War Hawks, were eager to humble a nation they detested. Their ultimate objective was the occupation of Canada and its absorption into the United States.
As they saw it, such an invasion presented no great problems. Their vast northern neighbor was thinly populated and inadequately defended. Furthermore, the French Canadians of Lower Canada, as the Province of Quebec was called then — Upper Canada became Ontario — wanted to be free from British rule, light though its hand lay upon them.
Then, too, many Canadians had come from New England and surely would welcome their fellow countrymen. A quick and easy conquest would greatly enlarge America as a nation. Later, that thinking would become known as Manifest Destiny.
Leaving aside an eager ambition to vastly extend its territory by the acquisition of Lower and Upper Canada, America had justification for locking horns with its old enemy across the Atlantic. The U.S. mercantile fleet had endured infuriating provocation from a powerful and arrogant Royal Navy, which constantly boarded vessels going about their lawful business, taking off crew members and claiming them to be English deserters.
An unseemly incident had occurred in 1807 when HMS Leopard, a Royal Navy frigate, attacked the USS Chesapeake, killing some of the crew and carrying off others to Halifax, Nova Scotia. There a court-martial tried one for “mutiny, desertion and contempt.” He was hanged from a yardarm. That easily could have started a war, but President Jefferson felt it was an inopportune time to take on a powerful adversary.
Over the next few years, hostility to Britain intensified, and such antagonism, smoldering since the end of the War of Independence, was matched by British ill will. Inevitably, mutual dislike flared into conflict. Long afterward, the war was described as “a comedy of errors.” The high commands of the two countries were not efficient, and the carnage among the courageous men who fought and fell on a succession of battlefields could hardly be described as “comedy.”
An attempt to free Lower Canada from British rule was an abject failure. What the French Canadians wanted was not a change of overlord but independence. They still do. The opposing forces met on a succession of major and lesser battlefields and clashed late in the war on the Niagara Peninsula. Here would be held the last battle on Canadian soil, the final stages of a war that would end in the United States. The Battle of New Orleans, a disaster for Britain after war officially had ceased, brought down the curtain on a struggle in which neither side could justifiably claim to have triumphed.
Lundy’s Lane was one of the bloodiest battles of the War of 1812. Opposing armies met on July 25, 1814 on a battleground that was little more than a minor road in open countryside of crops and orchards. Before the din of battle began, the thunder of Niagara Falls could be heard clearly.
The American troops had brought the Battle of Chippewa to a successful conclusion on July 5. It was time to defeat the British army again. Each side was made up of about 2,000 men. In overall command of the U.S. Army was Maj. Gen. Jacob Jennings Brown, with Brig. Gen. Winfield Scott answering to him. Both were highly efficient commanders. Scott, of course, eventually would be appointed to the highest position in the U.S. Army, to be known, not altogether affectionately, as “Old Fuss and Feathers.”
Brown was born on May 9, 1775, in Bucks County, Pa., the son of Quaker farmers. It was highly unusual for a peace-loving Quaker to make the Army his career, but after moving to New York, Brown worked his way up to brigadier general in the state militia.
His opposite number, Lt. Gen. Gordon Drummond, was born of Scottish parents on Sept. 27, 1772, in Ville Quebec, but was educated in England. He joined the army as an ensign in 1789 to begin a highly successful career. Thus, two armies of equal strength, each well commanded, embarked on an epic struggle at about 6 in an evening still unpleasantly hot after a torrid day.
Conditions soon became appalling. As night fell, the two armies repeatedly charged each other, sometimes with fixed bayonets. Because the troops had to struggle with dense smoke that hid the moon, it was hard for friend to distinguish foe. When the gunfire ceased, the Americans had suffered 173 killed, 571 wounded and 117 missing. The combined British and Canadian losses amounted to 84 killed, 559 wounded, 193 missing and 42 taken prisoner.
The battle had raged for about nine hours. Winfield Scott was wounded; Jacob Brown, twice wounded, had to hand over command to Brig. Gen. Eleazar W. Ripley. The opposing armies, caught up in savage conflict in dreadful heat, were utterly exhausted. The British soldiers lay on the ground; the Americans, losing their own cannon but taking a British one, left without any fight left in them.
Each side claimed victory, but Drummond’s stubborn refusal to yield saved his men from outright defeat. The retreating Americans burned homes and farms, something the Canadian populace long remembered. There would never be another attempt to seize their country.
Brown remained in uniform. In June 1821, he was appointed commanding general of the Army by act of Congress. He died in office in Washington on Feb. 24, 1828. Drummond resumed civil administration duties in Quebec until 1816, when he returned to England. Knighted, he became the most senior general in the British army and died in London on Oct. 10, 1854.
• Peter Cliffe, a retired corporate administrator, lives in Hertfordshire, England.
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