Captain Fitz Read online

  Captain Fitz

  FitzGibbon, Green Tiger of the War of 1812

  Enid Mallory

  For young historians on both sides of the world’s longest undefended border

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1 An Irish Lad

  Chapter 2 War with America

  Chapter 3 Victory at Detroit and Mackinac

  Chapter 4 Queenston Heights

  Chapter 5 On the Niagara Frontier

  Chapter 6 The Battle of Stoney Creek

  Chapter 7 Green Tiger Guerrillas

  Chapter 8 Laura Secord’s Long Walk

  Chapter 9 Fever, Cold Rain, and Grand Attacks upon the Onions

  Chapter 10 War on the Water

  Chapter 11 Racing Down the River

  Chapter 12 Devastation at Niagara

  Chapter 13 The Battle of Lundy’s Lane

  Chapter 14 The Battle of Fort Erie

  Chapter 15 After the War

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Introduction

  Captain Fitz is the story of a young Irishman, James FitzGibbon, who became a British soldier, an unlikely event, as the Irish mistrusted the English and the British Army did not accept Irish Catholics until 1799. Fitz was able to join in 1798, because his family had turned Protestant.

  By 1812, he was a lieutenant, and in 1813 he was promoted to captain. In 1826, Fitz became colonel of the West York Militia Regiment of Canada.

  For a poor Irish boy, the British Army was no easy road to success. To make it, he needed determination, skill, intelligence, and boundless energy, all of which he had. He would also need to educate himself — with the help of Isaac Brock, he did.

  While this is a book about the War of 1812, it does not seek to glorify war but to understand it, to see how it shaped Canada, and consider how future generations can prevent it.

  Fifty years after the war, historian James Croil wrote about the animosity that remained on both sides of the border. He calls the war “… an unnatural and aggressive demonstration … destined by Providence to teach future ages the folly of rushing unprovoked and unprepared into hostilities, that might easily and honourably be settled by diplomatic negotations.”[1]

  As a “Green Tiger,” Captain Fitz fought in the War of 1812 with all the ferocity of a tiger, dedicated to the British cause, intent on winning, and seeking the fame and glory that came with success. But he understood that the American soldiers, caught up in a war declared by an aggressive president, often shared common bonds with the British and Canadian men they fought.

  Once peace was achieved, FitzGibbon worked tirelessly to maintain it. In 1824, he was sent to Perth, where riots had broken out between Irish Catholic and Protestant settlers. He spent three weeks talking to both sides, often in the Gaelic tongue, hearing their problems and quieting conflicts. Near Peterborough, when there was trouble again between Protestants and Catholics, he played a similar role. He also wrote letters to Orange Lodges (Protestant organizations), urging restraint and suggesting that they not march in their Orange parades.

  In 1837, when William Lyon Mackenzie’s rebels marched on Toronto, FitzGibbon’s awareness and military organization is credited with saving the city and possibly the province.

  He understood the horrors of war. As he stood remembering Isaac Brock at the dedication of his monument in 1824, Fitz felt a great loneliness, almost all of his 49th Regiment had been killed in the War of 1812.

  Fitz survived the battles and the predicaments he got himself into and lived to be 83 years old.

  Chapter 1

  An Irish Lad

  Colonel F. is a soldier of fortune — which phrase means, in his case at least, that he owes nothing whatever to fortune, but everything to his own good heart, his own good sense, and his own good sword. He was the son, and glories in it, of an Irish cotter, on the estate of the Knight of Glyn.

  — Anna Jameson, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, 1838[1]

  In the midsummer heat of 1812, at Lachine on the St. Lawrence River, a young lieutenant is struggling to organize 24 boatloads of soldiers and army provisions to embark for Kingston. He’s excited and satisfied with himself. After 10 years in the Canadas, he has been made a lieutenant in the 49th Regiment under Sir Isaac Brock. He has a war, a command, a devotion to all things British, and a land he deems worth fighting for.

  James FitzGibbon (Fitz to his friends) was born in a cottage on the River Shannon in Ireland. He grew up with a love of adventure, curious about the bigger world. His interest in far-away places and times made him read every book he could get his hands on. His family only owned one book, The History of Troy’s Destruction. He was too little to understand most of the words but he kept it hidden in his cot and “read it to pieces,” grasping more of it each time. He became known as the best reader in the school, and when other boys had money for a book they would ask James to choose for them. He always chose one he hadn’t read so he could borrow and read it later.

  FitzGibbon in the 49th Regiment wore a red tunic with green cuffs and facings. Here Stoney Creek enactors wear the uniforms of the 49th.

  Enid Mallory.

  James was a determined kid and quick as a cat. He was eight years old the day he dragged the big salmon home. Its length was more than he could lift from the ground. He had spied it in the brook by the old castle and leaped in after it, dragged it up the bank, and gaffed it with a rusty old knife.

  He was 15 when his father enrolled himself, his eldest son, and James in the yeomanry corps being formed to defend Ireland against threatened invasion by France. Life changed then for the boys, brought up in a Catholic village where the words Protestant and English had usually been words of hate. His father, Garrett, had probably turned Protestant because it enabled him to own his own land (no Catholic could). Since the FitzGibbons were the only Protestant family in the village, their home was an obvious choice when British soldiers, sent in response to a threatened French invasion, needed lodging. It was a great surprise to James that the Protestant English soldiers billeted in his home were likable, fun-loving human beings. In the evenings, the soldiers would drill the older FitzGibbon boys in the kitchen, and laugh and play with the younger ones. Old prejudices fell away and horizons expanded for James.

  One day, when the corporal who had drilled their corps was suddenly ordered to join his regiment, the captain, newly returned from England and unfamiliar with the new system of drilling, attempted to put the men through their exercises. The ignorance and confusion of the corps drove the captain into a white-hot rage. While the older men stood speechless, young James stepped out and said, “The men are not to blame, sir. You are giving us words of command we have never heard.”[2] Then he stood there quaking, expecting the captain’s wrath on his head.

  Instead, after a pause of astonishment, the captain asked James to put the men through their exercises. The men did well and James was asked to go on drilling them. A few days later he found a sergeant’s pike, sword, and sash sent to his house with an order appointing James FitzGibbon to sergeant over men much older than himself, his father and brother included.

  In 1798, when Fitz was 17, the first lieutenant of the corps had been given a company in the new Tarbert Fencibles and had persuaded James to join as pay-sergeant. He was delighted to hear that they would be going to England.

  His mother was not happy. She moved with unaccustomed slowness as she helped him pack. What would an Irish boy be doing in the British Army? Without money or friends in high places, he had little hope of obtaining a commission. She made him promise that he would never enlist for active service abroad. Just before he fell asleep that night, he heard her extracting the same promise from his captain. He had no intention of volunteering for active ser
vice. Going to England would be adventure enough.

  That promise held him for while. But in 1799, at the age of 18, James left the Tarbert Fencibles and was drafted into the 49th Regiment as sergeant. He said afterward that he never intended to do it, but the persuasion of a recruiting general and the pressure of 40 men who said that would volunteer only if FitzGibbon did, along with his natural zest for adventure, had blotted out the promise to his mother.

  When Mrs. FitzGibbon read the letter that James sent to tell her about the commission, she shuddered. The odds were that he would remain a sergeant, subject to all the hardship, terrible danger, and possible degradation inherent in the army system. Then she remembered his remarkable faculty for landing on his feet in whatever situation. Maybe …

  The morning after his enlistment he sailed for the invasion of Holland, which landed him briefly in a French prison and erased his misconceptions about the glories of war. Two years later, when he was 20, he sailed under Lord Nelson against Denmark. Then, in June 1802, the 49th was sent to the Canadas to be stationed at Quebec.

  During the previous three years, Fitz had served under Isaac Brock, a commander who was already Fitz’s personal hero and who was destined to become the hero of Upper Canada. Brock, lieutenant-colonel of the 49th Regiment, combined all the best qualities of a British officer, qualities James and his mother had not dared hope to find in an army that was notorious for high-nosed arrogance, tyrannical discipline, and outright brutality. Isaac Brock tempered strict discipline with kindness, fairness, and faith in his men; and he gave them an example of personal courage, good humour, and pride. Under Brock, the 49th earned the nickname of “Green Tigers,” a title that aptly described their daring, as well as the green facings on their jackets.

  “Out of one of the worst regiments in the service,” the Duke of York reported, “Colonel Brock has made the 49th one of the best.” Out of the young impulsive boy from Ireland, Colonel Brock was making an outstanding soldier who would dare anything for his commander and for the British cause.

  Brock had been quick to see the promise in young FitzGibbon. He had noticed that the Irish lad was scrupulously honest and his standard of honour so high that when he was reprimanded by Colonel Hutchinson, he asked to resign as sergeant and be demoted to private. When Brock heard of this he suggested a simple apology to Hutchinson and reinstated him as sergeant. He was further surprised when FitzGibbon spoke up suggesting it was wrong for an officer to scold a non-commissioned officer in front of his men, because it was detrimental to discipline.

  On the long voyage to Quebec, Brock often smiled at the sight of James propped up in one of the swaying lifeboats, surrounded by books of military tactics and field exercises. Isaac suspected the young Fitz must have memorized the entire Rules and Regulations for the Field Exercises of His Majesty’s Forces by the time they sighted land. On arrival at Quebec, Brock promoted James to sergeant-major of the regiment over 40 older sergeants, and made James his staff-sergeant.

  The Canadas, Upper and Lower, were governed from London, with capitals at Quebec in Lower Canada and at York (Toronto) in Upper Canada. A governor-in-chief was stationed at Quebec and a lieutenant-governor at York. Although Europe was in turmoil because of the Napoleonic wars, the Canadas from 1802 to 1810 were mainly peaceful, affording no great adventure or opportunity for advancement. England had neither time nor troops to spare for a war in America, so those who governed and those who commanded in the Canadas were cautioned to keep a careful and watchful peace with neighbours to the south.

  Canadian Countryside 1802–12

  Quebec and Montreal were lively towns in 1802 and the farms of 60,000 Canadiens were laid out along the river. But as one moved upcountry, forest pressed hard against the shore, broken only by a few cabins along the front or by a mill site where grain could be ground or lumber sawn. Loyalists, fleeing persecution after the American Revolution, had been here for only two decades. In the early-settled townships of Dundas, Stormont, and Glengarry, some of the log cabins were being replaced by stout stone houses crafted by Scottish or German masons who had served in the Kings Royal Rangers under Sir John Johnson.

  Along with the Loyalists, there were later arrivals from the United States, attracted by cheap land. It was Governor Simcoe’s desire to increase settlement along the frontier to strengthen the country. Most of these settlers would become good Canadians, but a few could not be counted on in time of trouble.

  Upper Canada’s first road was cut through the bush close to the river, from Cornwall to Kingston. Passable on winter snow, it became a quagmire in spring and a bone-rattling ride in summer. Walking was the quickest way to get somewhere by land, but as soon as the St. Lawrence River and the lakes were free of ice, travel was by boat.

  A second road existed as early as 1795, a portage around Niagara Falls from Queenston to Chippawa. As many as 50 wagons a day in summer and ox-sleds in winter carried furs downstream and merchandise upstream from Quebec.

  The Danforth Road was started in 1798 from the Bay of Quinte to Bath, through Prince Edward County to the Carrying Place, then along Lake Ontario to York. By 1800, it was open from Kingston to Ancaster, but in bad repair. In many areas, the lakeshore itself was the only road. Many of the missing links would not be opened until after the War of 1812.

  Kingston, where Fort Frontenac had overlooked Lake Ontario since 1673, would play a major role as the shipbuilding centre in this war. Farther west, York, which had a good harbour at the mouth of two rivers, had been made the capital of Upper Canada by Governor Simcoe in 1796. The barracks, blockhouse, and powder magazine were three kilometres west of the town, beside Government House. The elite light company of the 49th was stationed here as well as the 41st Foot.

  Because many Loyalists entered Upper Canada at Niagara, settlement there was advanced. Settlers found a fertile land and a climate moderated by the escarpment and the lake and had well-established farms by 1812. Unfortunately, they were centre stage for much of the fiercest fighting in the coming war.

  The St. Lawrence River was Canada’s best highway in 1812, whether open for boats and canoes or frozen in winter.

  Edwin Guillet, Pioneer Travel, 139 (Coke Smyth, 1838).

  During these years, FitzGibbon was Brock’s faithful sergeant-major; whenever the colonel faced trouble, Fitz was there. In 1803, at York, when three soldiers took a military bateau and deserted across Lake Ontario, Brock took James and 10 other men and set out at midnight to row across Lake Ontario and capture them.

  That same year, when news reached York that mutiny had broken out at Niagara’s Fort George against the tyrannical authority of General Sheaffe, Fitz was the man chosen to accompany Brock to deal with the problem. Sheaffe was the kind of officer James’s mother had dreaded when he joined the British Army, quick to administer the lash for the most trifling of offences. At Fort George the men had had all they could take and they were striking back out of desperation. But discipline had to be restored.

  Brock walked into the fort and, by sheer force of personality, made one of the ringleaders lay down his arms and another one handcuff him. Brock then had the drummer arouse the garrison and within a half hour had 11 mutineers handcuffed and on board the schooner for York. James was sent with the prisoners to Quebec, where their trial took place and the leaders were executed by firing squad.

  During those years, Brock kept Fitz supplied with books and taught him not only the arts of the military but the manners and lifestyle of a gentleman. Brock also taught Fitz to go about doing the impossible. Only once did FitzGibbon tell Brock that something was impossible. “By the Lord Harry, sir, do not tell me it is impossible,” thundered Brock. “Nothing should be impossible to a soldier. The word impossible should not be found in a soldier’s dictionary.”[3]

  James never forgot that. In 1807, when there was fear of American invasion, Brock ordered James to bring him 20 bateaux to embark troops for Montreal. FitzGibbon found the boats left high by the tide, separated by 180 metres of mud
from the water to float them. It would be impossible to move them. He had turned his men away when his imagination heard a familiar voice asking, “Did you try it, sir?”

  “Front!” he ordered his men. “I think it impossible for us to put these bateaux afloat, but you know it will not do to tell the colonel so, unless we try it. Let us try — there are the boats. I am sure if it is possible for men to put them afloat, you will do it; go at them.” In half an hour it was done.

  Protegé of Isaac Brock

  It was not easy for a young Irish lad with poor schooling and no money to advance in an army where British sons of nobility purchased their officers’ commissions. Fitz was helped up the slippery military ladder first of all by his intelligence, devotion to duty, and strength and agility of body and mind; and second by Isaac Brock, who noticed his initiative and made him his protegé. In a letter to Brock’s nephew, Ferdinand Brock Tupper, Fitz recalled how Brock plied him with books and encouraged him to educate himself. He told a story of taking dictation from Brock in Montreal in1802. “I then did not know the difference between a verb and a noun!” The last word Brock dictated was ascertain, which Fitz pronounced “ascerten.” Brock, pacing back and forth, turned and said, “Ascertain, young man!”

  At that time my ignorance of my real deficiencies was very great, and I thought myself quite sufficient master of the language. But this discovery of one error roused me, and I went into Town the same day and bought a Grammar and a Dictionary, Books which I had never even seen before, and on studying them I was amazed at my great ignorance of every thing which the Grammar taught.”[4]

  There were other lessons to learn. Isaac Brock deplored corporal punishment, the mainstay of British Army discipline. Fitz observed that the authority of Brock over his men was based on kindness, in contrast to Major-General Sheaffe, Brock’s second-in-command in the 49th Regiment who seemed to delight in cruelty.