The War in Upper Canada

When we last left off the Union had won a geographically incomprehensible victory at Limestone Ridge. Now, the war itself is really difficult to follow from here, but by scouring the text we can arrive at a few conclusions.

The first real definitive statement about the war comes from Chapter 7 Part 1 where we have a scene at Bellevue House in Kingston where Colonel George Denison II and his son Major George Denison III are present to surrender Fort Henry at Kingston, and presumably the surrounding town as well. The exact siege lines are never given, and the best guess we have at numbers for the situation are that Grant commands "roughly" 30,000 men, meaning the Canadians have about 6,000 troops engaged in the defences since they are outnumbered by 5-1 by the Union according to Grant.

Of course we can see immediately that there's a problem here. Col. Denison refers to himself as commanding the "4th and 8th Brigades, Upper Canada Militia" which makes no sense. The 8th Militia District is in London, and the 4th is at Coburg. So perhaps he is supposed to be commanding the Volunteers from the 10th Militia District (Toronto) and the 3rd Military District (Kingston)? The confusion aside we shall press on.

Now the scene itself isn't too odd, but Major Denison's outburst near the end is rather curious:

“My government! My government has been paralyzed by a lot of Frogs, and to truckle to Amer-” he stopped at a glance from the elder officer, but ran on, unable to stop himself. “The want of organization or preparation in view of the long threatenings seems almost incredible. I had to take my corps on a campaign without the carbines I had asked for, but with revolvers for which we had only some four or five ten-year-old paper cartridges for each. We did not know whether they would go off or not. We had no haversacks, no water bottles, no nose bags. Some of us had small tin cups fastened on our saddles. We had no canteens or knives or forks, or cooking utensils of any kind, or valises. We had no clothes except those on our backs, when we left York…”

Now there's some really odd statements here. Much of this appears to have liberally lifted from some of Denison's real life writings in his memoirs. However, this copy and paste aspect doesn't really work. For one thing when Denison was writing about those paper cartridges in real life, that was in 1866 during the Fenian raids. In 1862 these would only be perhaps 6 years old, the revolvers most likely being Colts purchased by the Canadian government in 1855-56 after the Militia Act of 1855.

Of course we also know weapons were shipped over in 1861-62 for the Canadian militia but the author simply omits them for convenience to the plot. Though some disorganization for the militia cavalry might make sense, as historically the Canadian government had a poor record with its militia cavalry. Though, why with six months of alarm to arm and prepare there is no preparation is astounding, but again merely something for the author's convenience.

Denison also refers to York, but isn't clear whether he means York county, or is referring to the city of Toronto, which had been renamed Toronto in 1834. This is perhaps just some irregularity by the author, but it's an odd thing to be unclear about. Though it's curious, as in the memoirs this is lifted from, Toronto is named accurately.

Of course the Canadians are shown to have surrendered after an unclear amount of time besieged by the Americans. The why aspect is lost, it's not clear whether they were starved out, the position had become untenable due to shelling, or whether the fall of Fort Cathcart unhinged the defensive line in some way.

The next little hint we get is from Chapter 8 Part 2 with a brief write up on the capture of Fort Wellington:

Hamilton’s 1st Division, III Corps, had originally been Heintzelman’s; in April, Hamilton had led it across the St. Lawrence from Ogdensburg, New York, occupying a number of key points against minimal British or Canadian opposition. The largest single action was at Prescott, Canada West, where Brigadier General David Birney’s 3rd Brigade and the divisional artillery had besieged and eventually taken Fort Wellington. The action was minor; the troops in the fort, a single company of the Royal Canadian Rifles and the Gananoque Garrison Artillery Battery, were outnumbered 15 to 1. The British troops, including the fortress commander, Lt. Col. Henry H. Crealock, and the RCR company commander, Capt. Edward B. Wilson, were both being held at Camp Rathbun, near Elmira; the Upper Canadian militiamen had been released on parole to their homes. Only the battery’s commander, Lt. Col. Jonathan Hamilton, and a few of his officers had refused parole and gone with the British to Rathbun.

This is the only look at actions west of Kingston. The order of battle here is odd, as there is no Gananoque Garrison Artillery Battery existent in 1862. Of course these could be the men of the Prescott or Gananoque Companies of Foot Artillery formed into a garrison battery, though this seems unlikely as there is no Lt. Col. John Hamilton on the list either as in command in District 2. There is also no mention of the Militia companies from the district, who would be the logical choice to supplement the garrison, but perhaps they were just ignored, alongside the one thousand heavy guns in Canadian hands which would have made the fort more secure which seem to have disappeared.

Our final bit of clear info comes from Chapter 14 Part 1 where we learn how the US captured Toronto and Sault Saint Marie:

Until the winter, however, Toronto’s experience with the war had been short and fairly gentle, of course; the British decision to write off the western part of the province had led to a relatively bloodless conquest. The most significant battles had been at Limestone Ridge in May, where Col. Alfred Booker’s feckless 6th Militia Brigade, outnumbered 6-1, had had been shattered by McCook’s corps; and the siege of Kingston, where the defenders, the outnumbered 2nd and 4th militia brigades, had been ground down by W. T. Sherman’s troops. Sherman’s men had taken Toronto in May from the understrength and provisional 8th Militia Brigade, made up mostly of the oft-derided “Sedentaries,” under Lt. Col. W.D. Jarvis. The Toronto district’s original garrison, the stronger 4th Brigade, commanded by the ardent amateur Col. George T. Denison, had been withdrawn in May to try and strengthen the forces at Kingston. Col. Jarvis had refused to surrender other than to overwhelming force: considering that Sherman had some 20,000 men surrounding the city, it was enough to satisfy everyone’s honor, and the occupation began as peacefully as to be expected.

Again with the mix up of brigades, but at this point that's to be expected really. Though we have no real clue what all this means since without any spelled out order of battle for the militia saying the brigade number is rather worthless in trying to figure out what militia formation is where.

And finally a footnote on the capture of Sault St. Marie:

Interestingly enough, there had been a Captain Sharpe with the RCR; Capt. William H. Sharpe commanded the detachment stationed at Sault Ste. Marie, on the St. Mary’s River, in the winter of 1861-62, which had surrendered to a larger detachment of U.S. regulars and Michigan volunteers under Capt. Alfred Gibbs (an 1846 graduate of West Point). Gibbs, a cavalryman who had won two brevets in Mexico, had been captured in 1861 in New Mexico at Mesilla. He had been paroled by the rebels, but not exchanged, and so was assigned to duty on the northern frontier when the crisis with the British came to a boil; Gibbs had commanded Fort Wayne, at Detroit, and then Fort Brady, on the American side of the Soo.
Facing Gibbs and his strong, mixed column of infantry and artillery, the tiny British garrison under Sharpe had been induced to surrender. Sharpe and his officers had been sent to Sandusky Island, where they remained; the enlisted men had been paroled. What connection, if any, the RCR had to the upswing in guerilla actions in Upper Canada in the winter of 1862-63 remains unknown.

Now why there's an assault on the British settlement on the Soo is an open question, since there is little mention of it by the Canadians themselves, and it seems likely this is where the British would have written off due to extreme distance.

However, we're left in the dark as to British planning in all this, and why there are only the Canadian militia involved, when we know historically the case was much different. The fact that history contradicts the author's version of events is not particularly surprising, as the British were not prepared to write off the western portion of the Province. The author merely wants it to be overrun quickly and so pushes his thumb on the scale in the early months.

Though here's a question people might be asking, what happened on Lake Ontario? Surely there was some naval conflict there.

Well yes, and it's not very clear. Chapter 10 Part 1, is dedicated solely to describing the contest on Lake Ontario. Some amusing Anglophobia in the chapter aside, ("the British – as was their wont – violated the treaty" and "but the British, even then planning their revenge against the young democracy, had rejected the offer.") is largely concentrated on the American side of things.

Much to do is made about American officers, but little enough is commented on about the Canadian side. But we have a particularly egregious case of cheating for the Americans here:

Between November and April, when the ice retreated to the north across the lake and then up the Saint Lawrence, Woolsey concentrated his efforts at Oswego; the little city on its namesake river had been the shipbuilding center on Ontario since the 1820s, and had good connections by rail and through the Oswego Canal to the industrial cities of the Mohawk Valley, both east to the Hudson and west to Buffalo. A start had been made on a squadron in early November, when several screw steamers had been broken out of the ice at Ogdensburgh on the Saint Lawrence and brought south, picking up naval stores from Sacketts Harbor and then steaming to Oswego.

This seems to have happened (at least coincidentally) historically:

'Prescott, Dec. 28th - Four large propellers belonging to the Northern Transportation Company were with some difficulty cut out of the ice in Ogdensburgh Harbor, and steamed past here at 11 o'clock this morning for Oswego, it is said, in order to be serviceable to the United States Government on the Lake in case of war. (Daily News (Kingston, ON), Jan. 1, 1862 p.2)'

The sudden jump back to November is odd, but the Union needs more time to prepare so evidently they shall have it.

The characterization of the Canadian effort on the other hand is portrayed as lackluster. Whereas the Americans are ahistorically active, the British are inactive, and indeed less active than they were historically:

The difference, of course, is that four decades after the battles of Lake Erie and Lake Champlain, the resources and professionalism of the American services had grown immensely; those on the Canadian side, actually, had dwindled. The Rush-Bagot agreement had forced the Royal Navy, at least officially, off the lakes; the last commander of the naval station at Kingston, Cdr. Frederick Charles Herbert, had left a decade earlier for Britain. The issue had been considered, and the potential advantage the British had in being able to introduce ships from the sea was understood; equally understood, however, was the reality that if war broke out in winter such movement would be impossible. Even in the summer, only small vessels could pass into the lakes from the sea, and the St. Lawrence canals would allow only gunboats to reach Lake Ontario, while if the Beauharnois Canal – located south of the river – were cut then Lake Ontario too would be barred to all but the smallest gunboats, which alone could pass the Ottawa canals. The British understood there could be no hope of securing the command of the lakes unless adequate preparations were made in peacetime; by October, Somerset had concluded defense of all the lakes would be “very difficult” although “with proper arrangements we might defend Lake Ontario and Kingston Dockyard.” No preparation, however, had been made in December, when Somerset said that the Admiralty had been too busy with “more pressing questions.” The obvious inference is that in the event of war, as demonstrated by the course of the conflict that began in March, the Admiralty was much more concerned about blockading the U.S. and protecting British trade than anything else; lifting the U.S. Navy’s blockade of the rebel ports, and then supporting the Navy’s preferred attack on Maine (despite opposition from the Army came next. The defense of the lakes was so far down the list as to be invisible. 

Inevitably, this left any effort on the lakes to Monck’s government in British North America, with whatever resources could be asked of the various governments of the Province of Canada and the colonies of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, all of which had their own priorities. The end result was too little and too late; the British authorities in North America scared up a half dozen current or former Royal Navy officers, not under Milne’s authority, and sent them up river to try and pull something together, not unlike the efforts of Stringham, Woolsey, and Graham on the American side. The most senior, Commodore Richard Collinson, 50, a well-known Arctic explorer, surveyor, and veteran of the riverine wars in China, had been sent to North America in 1861 to inspect defense establishments along the frontier from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake Superior, but instead found himself in Quebec, trying to build ironclad warships in yards accustomed to wooden sailing ships.

Now obviously this is in the author's interest to portray the British effort as sluggish and inept, but the reality, is far different. Papers and studies on the issue of the defence of the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes were being carried out for decades after the War of 1812, and since 1838. The most recent had been written in September 1861 by Captain Richard Collinson, and so the idea of was needed/necessary to defend the rivers and lakes was readily available. While Somerset's muddling is historically accurate, preparations were made in the aftermath of the historic Trent affair, and contrary to the author's assertions, work was done to prepare.

Most obviously, the author fails to realize a naval officer was appointed to Canada in March 1862 by the Royal Navy to examine the defenses and advise the Canadians on naval matters. Here the Royal Navy does nothing, and so Monck ends up conscripting a man named Captain Frederick Shortland. In reality, Captain Jon Bythesea, was assigned to Canada in March 1862 to inspect and advise on the defenses. The author most likely did not realize this, and instead places Bythesea in the blockade for an unfathomable reason. So the choice of the inexperienced Shortland, and the conclusion the British would just abandon the lake is questionable at best, utterly dishonest at worst.

Nor is this the only example of poor research, we next find a fictional officer assigned to the charge of Fort Henry:

Even when supplies – artillery, ammunition, powder, or coal – could be secured, the Army officer in command of the fortress, Col. E. F. Bourchier, and his staff, balked at transferring it to the naval force. To be fair, although the fortress was strong, the garrison was weak – with only a single company of the Royal Canadian Rifles, a small staff of engineering, artillery, and storekeeping officers, and the amateur officers and men of the 2nd Militia Brigade, the soldiers had a point.

The E. F. Bourchier is either somehow a misreading of H.P., or an addition of those two letters to put something in front of the name of this now fictional officer. In reality, Kingston was commanded by Col. Hugh Plunkett Bourchier, formerly of the 93rd Regiment of Foot, and long time veteran, including the 1837-38 rebellions. The idea he would balk at supplying the ships in Navy Bay is rather absurd, considering his experience with its purpose until its closure in 1853. The stores in the Stone Frigate at Kingston were expressly kept for that purpose after all.

Then the perusal of the Canadian squadron is rather underwhelming:

The end result was that when Woolsey’s squadron showed offshore (navigation opened to Ogdensburgh April 14, but there was still ice at Kingston), Shortland’s “Ontario Squadron” consisted of four vessels with 22 guns: 

Kingston, Acting Master Hamilton, 10 guns; flag (Shortland) and with Ashe as gunnery officer.
Pierrepont, Acting Master Hinckley; 4 guns (Murray as captain)
Bowmanville, Acting Master Perry; 4 guns (Kingston as captain)
Nicolette, Acting Master Riddell; 4 guns (Perry as captain) 

The flagship was the only one of the iron-hulled mail steamers ready for operations; Magnet had been caught in Toronto, while her sister Passport, Acting Master Harbottle, was still being converted in Kingston. Two other steamers, Champion, Master J.R. Kelley, and Banshee, Master H. C. Swales, were being repaired; Banshee actually had a broken shaft.

Since we have absolutely no idea when this naval action is supposed to take place (small bits in the text appear to set in in May or June), it's hard to evaluate this list beyond the question raised why there are so few boats and why Magnet gets caught at Toronto. A perusal of the 1864 Insurance Registry gives lie to the idea there's only a few ships available to the Canadians. Ironically one also finds a larger number of Canadian steamers built which match or exceed their American numbers in tonnage. One would also find the preponderance of Canadian steamers is on Lake Ontario, while the most American steamers are on Lake Erie.

So there is then confusion regarding the number of American vessels, many of which do come from Lake Erie, so we are unclear on when this American squadron was unified.

In the end despite the authorial preordained American victory, this all leaves us with more questions than answers due to the vagueness of the text. The only firm conclusion is that the author began with the preconceived notion the Canadians could offer no real resistance and wrote the story accordingly.