I* 
 
 % ii K
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Commodore Byron McCandless
 
 /
 
 
 
 
 FIG. 1 
 
 CROSS OFSTOEORGE 
 
 FIG 2 
 
 CROSS OF ST ANDREW 
 
 FIG 3 
 
 CROSS OF ST PATRICK 
 
 FIG 4 
 
 THE FIRST UNION JACK 
 
 FIG. 5 
 
 THE PRESENT UNION JACK 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNION JACK
 
 A SHORT HISTORY 
 
 — OF — 
 
 The Union Jack 
 
 COMPRISING 
 
 A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST 
 
 OF ITS 
 
 IMPORTANT VICTORIES, APPORTIONED TO THE THREE 
 STAGES OF OUR FLAG'S DEVELOPMENT, FROM 
 SLUYS TO TEL-EL-KEBIR, WITH NOTES 
 ON THE PRINCIPAL BATTLES. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY HOLMES, B.C.L. 
 
 TORONTO: 
 
 THE COPP, CLARK COMPANY, LIMITED. 
 
 1897.
 
 Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight 
 hundred and ninety-seven, by William Henry Holmes, Truro, N.S., in the Office 
 of the Minister of Agriculture.
 
 US 
 
 7 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 This little work was begun as a diversion during a 
 vacation, and was originally intended to be a mere 
 pamphlet for use in the author's household only, as a 
 supplement to the ordinary school text-books used by 
 the members — especially the boys — of his family; but as 
 the task progressed it grew correspondingly more con- 
 genial, and, in the enthusiasm of the subject, proceeded 
 until it attained, almost unwittingly, the proportions of a 
 small volume, which, at the earnest solicitations of his 
 friends, he has ventured to offer to the public. 
 
 Apologies for defects of such efforts are often prefixed 
 more to propitiate vanity than for any real excuse : 
 human nature, all the world knows, is not infallible — it 
 is the best I could do in the short time and the very 
 limited resources at my disposal, for I have had no 
 opportunity for recourse to anything outside my own 
 small library. 
 
 To attempt a description of each of the battles listed 
 in the following pages would, practically, be to write a 
 complete military history of the British Empire, which 
 the author of this simple work is not so presumptuous as 
 to essay. What he has undertaken generally to do is 
 merely to recite the most conspicuous incidents of the 
 victories, the most striking features of the campaigns, or 

 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 the chief points of interest of their scenes, or in the lives 
 of their principal actors. To this rule Inkerman is the 
 chief exception, made for the purpose of comparison 
 with Waterloo, with the details of which the world, for 
 nearly a century, has been familiar. 
 
 It may be commented that some comparatively insig- 
 nificant actions have been " noted " at some length while 
 the greatest victories in our history are passed almost 
 without reference. My justification of this is that every- 
 one — particularly every Briton — who is able to read, 
 ought to be conversant with pretty much everything 
 pertaining to such crowning achievements as Trafalgar 
 and Waterloo and their respective heroes, whereas it is 
 often difficult — especially with people living remote from 
 public libraries or other more or less extensive collec- 
 tions of books — to obtain anything upon these less 
 famous but nevertheless important successes. 
 
 Exception may also be taken to the space devoted to 
 the affairs of Napoleon I. ; my reason for this is to 
 counteract, even to this trifling extent, the wave of 
 unnatural adulation of him — and corresponding censure 
 of his British conquerors — which recently overflowed the 
 United States and was conveyed by American maga- 
 zines to Canadian centres, though without anything like 
 the same effect upon the judgment of our people. I say 
 " unnatural " because the subject's life was so utterly 
 inconsistent with true democratic principles, which " His 
 Majesty" so ruthlessly outraged ; and in the annulling
 
 PREFACE. Vli 
 
 of his brother's marriage with a fair daughter of the 
 American Republic (Miss Patterson, of Baltimore) the 
 self-made "Emperor" offered its democracy an insult 
 which a people who pride themselves upon their national 
 spirit ought not so soon to have forgotten ; " unnatural " 
 because it was the homage of political puritans to a 
 barbarian, from whose devouring despotism their very 
 republic was saved only by the insurmountable barrier 
 interposed by England's naval and military forces ; for 
 who can believe that, with the submission of Britain, the 
 tyrant would have limited his conquests to the eastern 
 hemisphere? 
 
 One of the difficulties of the work was the obtaining 
 of correct dates — rather a unanimity of the authorities, 
 for in this respect I found a surprising variation : the 
 claim to accuracy of those I have given lies only in the 
 fact that they are those of the majority of my references. 
 
 I have taken some pains to get the Christian names— 
 i.e., those by which they were generally known in their 
 respective services, the navy or the army — of command- 
 ers lower in the social scale than the peerage. In the 
 case of peers, the titles given are those belonging to 
 them at the time of the battle. With regard to their 
 military or naval rank, in the few cases where that is 
 below General or Admiral, it will be found in the note. 
 
 W. H. Holmes. 
 Truro, Nova Scotia, 
 January, i8gj.
 
 A SHORT HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNION JACK. 
 
 The flag of a country represents its people as a nation, 
 and however individuals of a community may differ in 
 domestic politics or in creed, or however geographically 
 divided such communities of a people may be, the 
 national flag affords all a common ground for united life, 
 whether in peace as competitors in the markets of the 
 world or in war as defenders of the general interest. 
 
 Hence, as the representative of our homes, our altars, 
 our people throughout the length and breadth of the 
 land (as well as those who repose within the soil and 
 who have confided to us the trust) the emblem of a 
 nation becomes a sacred thing, the simple sight of which 
 should animate the true citizen with the noblest senti- 
 ment, banish narrow selfishness and inspire him with the 
 loftiest emulation of virtue.
 
 2 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 Our flag, as that of the British Empire, symbolizes 
 the mightiest union the world has ever seen ; a union 
 comprising four hundred millions of people and surpass- 
 ing in material and moral greatness the ancient empires 
 of Persia, Greece and Rome ; an empire possessing 
 one-half the shipping of the whole world and whose 
 navy — the Royal Navy — is as large as those of France, 
 Germany and Russia together ; an empire on which the 
 sun never sets, and whose capital, London, with a cir- 
 cumference of ninety miles, is as large as New York, 
 Paris and Berlin combined ; an empire whose mother 
 tongue is daily spoken by more than a hundred millions 
 of our own people and understood by fifty millions more, 
 and which is surely becoming the language of Christen- 
 dom ; an empire which secures the amplest liberty of 
 conscience and action, and guarantees the fullest protec- 
 tion to person and property — " No freeman shall be 
 arrested, imprisoned, outlawed, or dispossessed of land, 
 except by the lawful judgment of his peers" runs the 
 most important provision of The Great Charter to which 
 from century to century patriots have looked back as 
 the foundation of English liberty ; an empire whose 
 constitution, though that of a monarchy, is the nearest 
 approach to a true commonwealth that human society 
 has ever attained to ; an empire whose illustrious head 
 for four generations has proved herself, as sovereign 
 and citizen, the noblest ruler to whom has ever been 
 entrusted the destinies of a nation.
 
 THE UNION JACK. 3 
 
 Such a queen we Canadians are privileged to honour 
 as our Sovereign ; to such an empire it is our fortune to 
 belong, and to share the glories of its flag that " for a 
 thousand years has braved the battle arid the breeze." 
 
 Our Union Jack of to-day is a combination of three 
 distinct emblems, viz.: those of England, Scotland and 
 Ireland. 
 
 St. George is the patron saint of England, and the 
 design for her flag was taken from the shield-device of 
 the Red Cross Knight (red on a white ground, heraldic- 
 ally described as argent, a cross gules). (See Frontis- 
 piece, Fig. 1.) 
 
 This was the first recognized national banner of 
 England, having come into use as such during the 
 thirteenth century. 
 
 Of the three original national flags of England, Scot- 
 land and Ireland, this is the only one in official use, beiiiL, 
 now flown at the masthead of an admiral's ship — hence 
 the term " flag-ship." 
 
 The patron saint of Scotland is St. Andrew, hence the 
 diagonal cross or saltire of St. Andrew (white on a blue 
 ground ; in the language of heraldry, azure, a saltire 
 argent) as Scotland's banner. (See Frontispiece, Fig. 2.) 
 
 St. Patrick's red saltire, the standard of Ireland's 
 patron saint (red on a white ground, or in heraldic form,
 
 4 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 argent, a saltire gules) was introduced into the Union to 
 represent Ireland. (See Frontispiece, Fig. 3.) 
 
 Upon the death of Elizabeth in 1603 James VI. of 
 Scotland became the unquestioned king of the whole 
 island. He ascended the English throne as the descend- 
 ant of Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII., who 
 became the wife of James IV. of Scotland : the unfor- 
 tunate Mary Queen of Scots was their grand-daughter 
 and her son the successor of her rival, Elizabeth. 
 
 The most cherished scheme of James was to effect a 
 union between England and his native country, but the 
 nearest attainment to that end was the draughting of a 
 design for a union flag, which, however, was destined for 
 no use until the consummation of that grand project in 
 the reign of the last of the Stuarts. 
 
 Soon after the accession of Anne the scheme was 
 mooted within the walls of parliament, and a commis- 
 sion was nominated in 1702 to treat concerning the 
 union, but after numerous meetings the scheme collapsed 
 as neither side would agree to the terms of the other : 
 compensation for the unfortunate Darien enterprise 
 being one insuperable difficulty. But in 1704 a Bill 
 was passed enabling the Queen to appoint a new com- 
 mission, whose efforts proved more satisfactory. A 
 Treaty of Union was framed, which, although met by a 
 storm of opposition from the people of Scotland, passed
 
 THE UNION JACK. 5 
 
 the Scottish Parliament in 1707 by a majority of one 
 hundred and ten votes. The proposed treaty was pre- 
 sented to the English Parliament on the 28th of January 
 1708, and, though certain factions here did their utmost 
 to impede the ratification, the measure passed both 
 Houses and received the royal assent. 
 
 With regard to the date from which the treaty took 
 effect, that is provided for in the following clause : — 
 "That the two kingdoms should, upon the first day of 
 May next ensuing, and for ever after, be united into one 
 kingdom by the name of Great Britain." 
 
 The date, therefore, of the legislative union of England 
 and Scotland is the 1st of May, 1708, and the design 
 which James I. had had prepared for a union flag was 
 now adopted for that of a national emblem for the 
 United Kingdom. 
 
 The flag of England, then, down to this period was 
 the Red Cross of St. George on a white field, and under 
 it began at Sluys a career of naval and military glory, 
 which has been steadily enhanced by achievements of 
 succeeding reigns, and comprising a record of feats of 
 arms on sea and land the most brilliant and far reaching 
 in either ancient or modern history. 
 
 To the Red Cross Banner (Fig. 1, Frontispiece) belong 
 the following famous victories: —
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 Battle. 
 
 Commander. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Reign and Opposing 
 Power. 
 
 SLUYS. 1 
 
 The King in person. 
 
 June 13, 1340. 
 
 Edward III. v. France. 
 
 CRESSY. "- 
 
 ii ii 
 
 Aug. 26, 1346. 
 
 ii ii 
 
 POITIERS. 
 AGINCOURT. 
 
 Young Edward, the Black 
 
 Prince. 
 The King himself. 
 
 Sept. 19, 1356. 
 Oct. 25, 1415. 
 
 ii it 
 Henry V. v. France. 
 
 THE ARMADA 
 
 Howard of Effingham. 
 
 Aug. 8, 1588. 
 
 Elizabeth v. Spain. 
 
 LA HOGUE.» 
 
 Edward Russell. 
 
 May 19, 1692. 
 
 Wm. & Mary v. France 
 
 GIBRALTAR.* 
 
 Rooke and Shovel. 
 
 July 23, 1704. 
 
 Anne v. France. 
 
 BLENHEIM. 
 
 Duke of Marlborough. 
 
 Aug. 13, 1704. 
 
 ii ii 
 
 RAMILLIES. 
 
 ii ii 
 
 May 23, 1706. 
 
 ii ii 
 
 1 When the French at Sluys bore down upon the 
 English ships and began the attack, our seamen received 
 them with loud and continued cheers, accompanied by 
 deadly showers of arrows from the long bow : this is the 
 first notice we have of the now famous British " hurrah." 
 For the first time, too, in naval warfare the iron beaks of 
 the ships were not brought into play. 
 
 2 Edward employed cannon or " bombards " in this 
 engagement, and with good results — the first instance of 
 the use of artillery in field warfare. 
 
 3 La Hogue checked for nearly a century the maritime 
 efforts of the House of Bourbon, and was the first of that 
 series of triumphs which ended in placing the British 
 navy on the pinnacle of fame that it occupies to-day.
 
 THE UNION JACK. 7 
 
 4 For three years and seven months (1779-1782) 
 Gibraltar was successfully defended by General Elliott 
 against the united forces of France and Spain. 
 
 This brings us to the period of the first Union Jack, 
 the flag, upon the union of England and Scotland, 
 appointed as the national ensign of the United King- 
 dom. (See Frontispiece, Fig. 4.) It is formed by the 
 union of the cross of St. George (red on a white ground, 
 Fig. 1, Frontispiece) and the diagonal cross or saltire 
 of St. Andrew (white on a blue ground, Fig. 2, Frontis- 
 piece) described in heraldic terms as azure, a saltire 
 argent surmounted by a cross gules fimbriated or edged 
 of the second. 
 
 As to the origin of the term " Jack," two explanations 
 have been given. One is that the coats of livery or uni- 
 form upon which the cross of St. George was first worn 
 were called "Jacks"; the other tradition is that it is 
 derived from the abbreviated name of the reigning sover- 
 eign, King James The First, under whose direction the 
 first Union Flag was designed, and who signed his 
 name "Jacques"; hence "Jacques' Union," and, finally, 
 " Union Jack." 
 
 Under this flag the following glorious names were 
 added to British history : —
 
 8 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 Battlb. 
 
 Commander. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Reign and Opposing 
 Power. 
 
 OUDENARDE. 
 
 Duke of Marlborough. 
 
 July 11, 1708. 
 
 Anne v. France. 
 
 MALPLAQUET. 
 
 it it 
 
 Sept. 11, 1709. 
 
 ii ii 
 
 DETTINGEN. 1 
 
 The King in person. 
 
 June 27, 1743. 
 
 George II. v. France. 
 
 PLASSEY. - 
 
 Robert Clive. 
 
 June 23, 1757. 
 
 ii ii 
 
 MONMOUTH AND 
 FOUDROYANT. 3 
 
 Arthur Gardiner. 
 
 Feb. 29, 1758. 
 
 it it 
 
 LOUISBOURG.* 
 
 Amherst and Boscawen. 
 
 July 26, 1758. 
 
 it it 
 
 MINDEN. 6 
 
 Ferdinand of Brunswick 
 
 Aug. 1, 1759. 
 
 it it 
 
 QUEBEC 6 
 
 James Wolfe. 
 
 Sept. 13, 1759. 
 
 it it 
 
 QUIBERON. 
 
 Sir Edward Hawke. 
 
 Nov. 20, 1759. 
 
 it it 
 
 " THE GLORIOUS 
 1st OF JUNE." ' 
 
 Earl Howe. 
 
 June 1, 1794. 
 
 George III. v. France. 
 
 ST. VINCENT, 
 
 Sir John Jen is. 
 
 Feb. 14, 1797. 
 
 * it v. Spain. 
 
 CAMPERDOWN. 
 
 Adam Duncan. 
 
 Oct. 11, 1797. 
 
 tt v. Holland 
 
 NILE. 8 
 
 Sir Horatio Nelson. 
 
 Aug. 1, 1798. 
 
 it v. France. 
 
 1 Dettingen was the last occasion upon which a sover- 
 eign of Britain personally commanded his troops in 
 action. 
 
 2 With the victory of Plassey began in fact the Empire 
 of England in the East, of which, a hundred years later, 
 Queen Victoria assumed the direct control as Empress 
 of India. 
 
 3 One of the most desperate encounters in the whole 
 history of the navy was this brilliant action, which 
 added the name of the now cherished Foudroyant to 
 our fleet of grand, old battle-ships. The hero of the 
 engagement had been Byng's flag-captain at Minorca,
 
 THE UNION' JACK. 9 
 
 and this daring act was prompted, independently of that 
 British instinct for duty, by the sting of his admiral's 
 disgrace two years previously, which had, though un- 
 justly, reflected upon the other officers of that unfortu- 
 nate squadron. The Foudroyant at Minorca was the 
 French admiral's flag-ship, and after that unhappy affair 
 Gardiner vowed that if ever he got a chance at this 
 crack French ship he would attack her at all hazards, 
 even though he should perish by it. Nobly now he 
 redeemed his word, though his little ship was scarcely 
 more than half the size of her antagonist. The fight 
 lasted well through the night ; at nine o'clock he was 
 severely wounded but refused to quit the deck ; later in 
 the action he received a mortal wound. The prize of 
 Gardiner's victory afterwards became the favourite flag- 
 ship of Nelson, who often spoke of her as his "darling 
 Foudroyant" and this is the same ship the news of 
 whose sale by the Admiralty to a firm of German ship- 
 breakers in 1892 shocked all England as a national 
 desecration ; public feeling became instantly aroused, 
 the noble old ship was rescued, and, at a cost of some 
 .£30,000, she has been restored as nearly as possible to 
 the condition in which Nelson left her. 
 
 4 This was the second, and final reduction of this 
 powerful fortress; the first in 1745 by Commodore Warren 
 with the British West- India squadron, and a land force
 
 IO A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 of British Americans under Colonel Pepperell. By the 
 treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle Louisbourg was restored to 
 France in 1748, hence the necessity for the second siege. 
 Wolfe, the hero of Quebec in the following year, was a 
 brigadier at Louisbourg, in the operations before which 
 he distinguished himself. 
 
 5 The six English regiments in Ferdinand's army were 
 the I2th, 20th, 23rd, 25th, 37th and 51st (according to 
 their numbering in the Army List of September, 1873, 
 which is the only copy my library contains), and at 
 Mind en they immediately fronted the French cavalry, 
 ten thousand strong, massed in their centre. Owing to a 
 mistake in construing the order for their advance, our 
 troops marched directly upon their opponents in line, 
 and, in this simple formation, they not only repelled 
 with fire fierce and persistent charges of the enemy's 
 squadrons, but countercharged with the bayonet with 
 such successful results that within an hour their an- 
 tagonists became utterly demoralized. " I have seen," 
 said Contades, " what I never thought to be possible — 
 a single line of infantry break through three lines of 
 cavalry, ranked in order of battle, and tumble them to 
 ruin." 
 
 One of these regiments, the 20th, became famous not 
 only for the vigour and effectiveness of its charges this 
 clay, but for the lusty shout — something different and 
 even more terrible than the well-known British "hurrah"
 
 THE UNION JACK. II 
 
 that accompanies our infantry attacks with the steel — 
 that regularly broke from the ranks and resounded 
 throughout the field and above the din of battle. After- 
 wards this distinguishing demonstration was systematic- 
 ally practised and faithfully preserved in the regiment. 
 and a hundred years later, at Inkerman, when 180 
 " Twenties," in company with 200 " Diehards " of the 
 57th, were driving at the point of the bayonet 2,000 
 Russians of the Iakoutsk regiment from the front of 
 Home Ridge, across the Barrier and into the Quarry 
 Ravine, that same " Minden yell" was the accompani- 
 ment of their brilliant charge. 
 
 6 The British world is familiar with the history of this 
 memorable battle that added Canada to the empire, and 
 with the worthy monuments to our hero in Quebec and 
 Westminster Abbey. A more recent memorial, in the 
 form of a window, has this year (1896) been completed 
 in the parish church of St. Alphege, Greenwich, England, 
 through the liberality of a former auditor of the church 
 accounts. It is in the crypt of this church that the 
 remains of Wolfe were buried and still repose. 
 
 "This victory of Lord Howe (at the advanced age of 
 sixty-nine), as glorious as any in our annals, bears no 
 other name than that of the day on which it was won, 
 the title given above being that adopted by the naval 
 service.
 
 12 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 8 The battle of the Nile — also known as that of 
 Aboukir Bay — ranks, from a professional point of view, 
 as the greatest victory ever achieved by the British 
 navy. For it Nelson was raised to the peerage with the 
 title of Baron Nelson of the Nile, and of Burnham 
 Thorpe in Norfolk. 
 
 We come now to the third stage of our flag's develop- 
 ment, the complete union of St. George, St. Andrew and 
 St. Patrick. 
 
 After much constitutional experimenting with Ireland 
 and the complete failure of an eighteen years' trial of 
 legislative " independence," during which England and 
 Ireland were simply held together by the fact that the 
 sovereign of the one island was also the sovereign of the 
 other, the first part of Pitt's great plan for domestic 
 peace was carried into execution, and Ireland was, on 
 the first of January, 1801, united to Great Britain, and 
 thenceforth sent her representatives to Westminster. 
 The red cross or saltire of St. Patrick (Fig. 3, Frontis- 
 piece) was added to those of the previously united 
 kingdoms, and as thus modified our national ensign 
 (see Frontispiece, Fig. 5) now exists. 
 
 To the Union Jack of our century, as the universal 
 representative of Britons, the following immortal roll is 
 to be ascribed : —
 
 THE UNION JACK. 
 
 13 
 
 Battlk. 
 
 COMMANDKR. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Rkiox 
 
 AND OPPOSING 
 
 1'UWKK. 
 
 ALEXANDRIA. ' 
 
 Sir Ralph Abercronibv. 
 
 Mar. 21, 1801. 
 
 George III. v. France. 
 
 COPENHAGEN. - 
 
 Parker and Nelson. 
 
 Apr. 2, 1801. 
 
 11 
 
 v. Denmark. 
 
 ASSAYE. 
 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley. 
 
 Sep. 23, 1S03. 
 
 it 
 
 v. Mahratta. 
 
 TRAFALGAR 4 
 
 Viscount Nelson. 
 
 Oct. 21, 1S05. 
 
 11 
 
 v. France. 
 
 VIMIERA. 4 
 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley. 
 
 Aug. 21, 1808. 
 
 11 
 
 11 
 
 CORUNNA. » 
 
 Sir John Moore. 
 
 Jan. 16, 1809. 
 
 11 
 
 11 
 
 TALAVERA. 
 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley. 
 
 July 28, 1809. 
 
 11 
 
 11 
 
 BUSACO 
 
 Viscount Wellington. 
 
 Aug. 27, 1810. 
 
 11 
 
 11 
 
 FUENTES D'ONORO 
 
 11 u 
 
 May 5, 1811. 
 
 11 
 
 11 
 
 ALBUERA. 
 
 Sir William Beresford. 
 
 May 16, 1811. 
 
 11 
 
 11 
 
 CIUDAD RODRIGO 6 
 
 Viscount Wellington. 
 
 Jan. 19, 1812. 
 
 11 
 
 11 
 
 BADAJOZ" 
 
 Earl of Wellington. 
 
 Apr. 6, 1S12. 
 
 11 
 
 11 
 
 1 On the 2nd of March the fleet bearing the expedition 
 anchored in Aboukir Bay, precisely on the spot where 
 Nelson's great victory had been gained three years 
 before. The remains of that terrible strife were still 
 visible ; the Foudroyant chafed her cables against the 
 L Orient's wreck, and soon after fished up her anchor. 
 
 Sir Ralph Abercromby's was the first decisive British 
 victory over the arms of revolutionary France, which 
 had previously been regarded as invincible. 
 
 "The battle of Alexandria not only delivered Egypt 
 from the Republican yoke; it decided, in its ultimate 
 consequences, the fate of the civilized world. The im- 
 portance of a triumph is not always measured by the 
 number of troops engaged ; twenty-four thousand
 
 14 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 Romans, under Caesar at Pharsalia, changed the face of 
 antiquity ; thirty thousand Republicans, at Marengo, 
 seated Napoleon on the consular throne, and estab- 
 lished a power which overturned all the monarchies of 
 Europe. The contest of twelve thousand British, with 
 an equal number of French, on the sands of Alexandria, 
 in its remote effects, overthrew a greater empire than 
 that of Charlemagne, and rescued mankind from a more 
 galling tyranny than that of the Roman emperors. It 
 first elevated the hopes and confirmed the resolution of 
 the English soldiers ; it first broke the charm by which 
 the Continental nations had so long been enthralled ; 
 it first revived the military spirit of the English people, 
 and awakened the pleasing hope that the descendants 
 of the victors at Cressy and Agincourt had not degen- 
 erated from the valour of their fathers. Nothing but the 
 recollection of this decisive trial of strength could have 
 supported the British nation through the arduous con- 
 flict which awaited them on the renewal of the war, 
 and induced them to remain firm and unshaken amid 
 the successive prostration of every Continental power, 
 till the dawn of hope began over the summit of the 
 Pyrenees, and the eastern sky was reddened by the 
 conflagration of Moscow. The Continental nations, 
 accustomed to the shock of vast armies, and to regard 
 the English only as a naval power, attached little im- 
 portance to the contest of such inconsiderable bodies of 
 men on a distant shore ; but the prophetic eye of
 
 THE UNION JACK. 15 
 
 • 
 
 Napoleon at once discerned the magnitude of its con- 
 sequences, and he received the intelligence of the 
 disaster at Alexandria with a degree of anguish equalled 
 only by that experienced from the shock of Trafalgar." 
 — Alison s History of Europe. 
 
 Sir Ralph Abercromby received a mortal wound in 
 the battle and was carried on board the Foudroyant, 
 where he expired on the morning of the 29th. 
 
 2 Though Sir Hyde Parker, a brave officer and ex- 
 perienced seaman, was in chief command of the 
 squadron, the conduct of the bombardment was wholly 
 in the hands of Lord Nelson. 
 
 3 " May the great God whom I worship grant to my 
 country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great 
 and glorious victory, and may no misconduct in any one 
 tarnish it ; and may humanity after victory be the pre- 
 dominant feature in the British fleet ! For myself 
 individually, I commit my life to Him that made me, 
 and may His blessing alight on my endeavours for 
 serving my country faithfully. To Him I resign myself 
 and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend," 
 wrote the hero in the privacy of his cabin just before the 
 action began, and how well this worth)- prayer was 
 answered Trafalgar eloquently attests. Amid such 
 glory departed the greatest naval genius of our nation 
 and whose exploits are without parallel in the annals of 
 any other.
 
 l6 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 4 It was at Vimiera that the English first discovered 
 their ability to successfully encounter in line other troops 
 in dense formation, and learned the effectiveness of this 
 mode of fighting, which afterwards distinguished our 
 infantry from that of other nationalities. In this engage- 
 ment Col. Walker, with 700 men of the 50th Regiment, 
 was opposed to a French column of over 2,000 bayonets, 
 and after a volley from his "thin red line," which was 
 skilfully drawn up obliquely to the enemy's advancing 
 mass, whose flank as well as front was now exposed to 
 the 50th' s fire, the order to charge was given, and the 
 British regiment with its levelled row of glistening steel 
 rushed in compact order on Laborde's column of thou- 
 sands and rolled it back in confusion. 
 
 "The French," said the Duke of Wellington, describing 
 afterwards this battle, " came on on that occasion with 
 great boldness, and seemed to feel their way less than I 
 always found them to do afterward. They came on, as 
 usual, in very heavy columns, and I received them in 
 line, which they were not accustomed to, and we re- 
 pulsed them three several times." — Gleig's Life of the 
 Duke of Wellington. 
 
 It was at Vimiera, too, that shrapnel shells made their 
 debut, and the French were astonished at the deadly 
 effect of the new missiles, " which, after striking down 
 bva point blank discharge whole files of soldiers in front 
 exploded with all the devastation of bombs in the rear."
 
 THE UNION JACK. 17 
 
 5 When the struggle was at its height Sir John was 
 struck on the left breast by a round shot, and although 
 the wound was mortal he lived to see victor}- assured. 
 As the soldiers placed him on a blanket to carry him 
 from the field, the hilt of his sword was driven into the 
 wound ; Captain Hardinge attempted to take it off, but 
 ihe dying hero exclaimed, " It is as well as it is ; I had 
 rather it should go off the field with me." During his 
 intense suffering which preceded death he never for a 
 moment lost his sweet composure, and continued to con- 
 verse in a calm and even cheerful voice. At his side 
 now was his old friend, Colonel Anderson, and to him he 
 said, " You know that I always wished to die this way." 
 Once only his voice faltered ; it was when referring 
 fondly to his mother. 
 
 His last words were — " I hope the people of England 
 will be satisfied ; I hope my country will do me justice." 
 
 In accordance with his expressed wish, that he might 
 be laid in the field on which he fell, the rampart of the 
 citadel was happily chosen for his final resting-place 
 His midnight interment by the officers of his staff is 
 accurately as well as graphically described in Charles 
 Wolfe's famous poem, with which the English-speaking 
 world is familiar. Through the generosity of Marshal 
 Ney, a monument was soon after erected over Sir John 's 
 grave ; it bears this inscription : —
 
 1 8 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 "A la Gloria 
 
 del 
 
 Ex mo S r D. Juan Moore, Gen 1 , del Ex'° Ingleso 
 
 Y a la de sus valientes compatiiotas, 
 
 la 
 Espana agradecida." 
 
 The twelve guns used at Corunna were spiked and 
 
 buried in the sand, but afterwards discovered by the 
 
 enemy. Not one, from first to last, was taken in action. 
 
 6 "The rapid reduction of Ciudad Rodrigo was unpar- 
 alleled in modern war, and its fall was so unexpected, 
 that Marmont's efforts to relieve it were scarcely con- 
 ceived and commenced before the tidings reached him 
 that the fortress he prized so highly was lost. By the 
 lowest estimate of time, it was calculated that four-and- 
 twenty days would be required to bring the siege to a 
 successful issue. On the 8th, ground was broken, and on 
 the 19th the British colours were flying from the flag- 
 staff of the citadel. 
 
 Massena, after a tedious bombardment, took a full 
 month to reduce it ; Wellington carried it by assault in 
 eleven days. No wonder, therefore, that Marmont, in 
 his despatch to Berthier, was puzzled to account for the 
 rapid reduction of a place, respecting whose present 
 safety and ultimate relief he had previously forwarded 
 the most encouraging assurances." — Maxwell. 
 
 The splendid achievement of the conqueror of Rodrigo 
 obtained an honourable requital. He was advanced, in 
 Spain, to the rank of a grandee of the first order, with
 
 THE UNION JACK. 19 
 
 the title Duque de Ciudad Rodrigo ; by the Portuguese 
 he was made Marquis of Torres Vedras, and at home, 
 raised to the earldom of Wellington, with an increased 
 annuity of £2,000 a year. In the debate which took 
 place in the Lower House, when the grant for supporting 
 his additional honours was proposed, " Mr. Canning took 
 occasion to state, that a revenue of £5,000 a year had 
 been granted to Lord Wellington by the Portuguese 
 government, when they conferred upon him the title of 
 Conde de Vimiero ; that as captain-general of Spain, 
 £5,000 a year had been offered him, and £7,000 as 
 marshal in the Portuguese service, all of which he had 
 declined, saying, ' he would receive nothing from Spain 
 and Portugal in their present state : he had only done 
 his duty to his country, and to his country alone he 
 would look for reward.' " 
 
 7 Among the slain in this action was a son of the 
 first and most distinguished Lieutenant-Governor of 
 Upper Canada and founder of York (now the City of 
 Toronto and capital of Ontario), the Honourable John 
 Graves Simcoe. The Rev. Dr. Scadding, in his work 
 " Toronto of Old," thus refers to this sad incident : — 
 
 "The Iroquois at Niagara had given the Governor a 
 title, expressive of hospitality — Deyonynhokrawen, 'one 
 whose door is always open. 1 They had, moreover, in 
 council declared his son a chief, and had named him 
 Tioga, or Deyoken, ' between the two objects ' ; and to
 
 20 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 humour them in return, as De Liancourt informs us, the 
 child — about five years of age, and bearing the name of 
 Francis — was occasionally attired in Indian costume. 
 For most men it is well that the future is veiled from 
 them. It happened eventually that a warrior's fate 
 befell the young chieftain Tioga. The little, spirited lad 
 who had been at one time moving about the assembled 
 Iroquois at Niagara, under a certain restraint, probably, 
 from the unwonted garb of embroidered deerskin, in 
 which, on such occasions, he would be arrayed, and at 
 another time clambering up and down the steep hill- 
 sides at Castle Frank, with the restless energy of a free 
 English boy, was at last, after the lapse of seventeen 
 years, seen a mangled corpse ; one in that ghastly pile 
 of ' English dead,' which, in 1812, closed up the breach 
 at Badajoz." His grandfather, on his mother's side, met 
 a similar death before Quebec, in which campaign he 
 was serving as aide-de-camp to General Wolfe. 
 
 Battle. 
 
 Commander. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Reign and Opposing 
 Power. 
 
 MICHILIMACKINAC 
 
 Charles Roberts. 
 
 July 17, 1812. 
 
 George III. v. U. S. 
 
 SALAMANCA. 
 
 Earl of Wellington. 
 
 July 22, 1812. 
 
 11 v. France 
 
 DETROIT. 2 
 
 Isaac Brock. 
 
 Aug. 16, 1812. 
 
 11 v. U. S. 
 
 QUEENSTON. s 
 
 Roger H. Sheaffe. 
 
 Oct. 13, 1812. 
 
 it 11 
 
 CHESAPEAKE AND 
 SHANNON. 4 
 
 Philip Broke. 
 
 June 1, 1813. 
 
 11 11 
 
 STONEY CREEK. 6 
 
 Sir John Harvey. 
 
 June 5, 1813. 
 
 n 11 
 
 VITTORIA 6 
 
 Marquis of Wellington. 
 
 June 21, 1813. 
 
 11 v. France
 
 THE UNION JACK. 21 
 
 1 Michilimackinac was the very first blow struck in the 
 war declared by the United States with the object of 
 acquiring Canada, and, as a consequence, the other 
 British North American possessions, and for which they 
 had long been making preparation. 
 
 The island was an important point commanding the 
 entrance to Lake Michigan ; its capture interrupted an 
 extensive American lake trade and afforded confidence 
 and protection to British subjects employed in the fur 
 trade on the islands and along the shores of Huron and 
 Superior. 
 
 A year before the commencement of hostilities the 
 command of the troops in the western province (of 
 whom only fifteen hundred belonged to the Imperial 
 Army) devolved upon Major-General Brock, who was 
 also acting President and Administrator of Upper 
 Canada during the absence of Governor Gore in Eng- 
 land. The young general — who proved himself as cap- 
 able and energetic a statesman as he was a courageous 
 and skilful soldier — early foresaw that war was inevit- 
 able, and the scantiness of his resources both in men 
 and material compelled the anticipation of and the 
 provision for events independently of a legislature that 
 was almost traitorous in its apathy. His plan of com- 
 pensation for internal difficult}- and external odds was 
 to strike quickly and seize advantages; hence his season- 
 able arrangements for securing possession of Michili-
 
 22 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 mackinac and Detroit ; and it was these first two 
 successes that decided the result of the war, for Cana- 
 dians then realized that the Union Jack was here 
 to stay. 
 
 President Madison declared war against England on 
 the 1 8th of June, 1812, but before any hostile step had 
 been taken by either side — the affair of the Little Belt 
 and the President being accepted as the result of a 
 mutual mistake — the British government, by an order in 
 council dated 23rd of June, had actually repealed the 
 previous orders, so that the ostensible ground of the 
 United States' complaint against England was removed. 
 But this fact made no difference to the American ruling 
 party, who were not going to be balked by the lack of a 
 casus belli in their scheme for the acquisition of Canada, 
 and for the successful accomplishment of which, they 
 believed, the task of England in behalf of Europe was 
 affording America so favourable an opportunity. 
 
 " Great events were about to take place when the 
 Americans thus thrust themselves into the contest : 
 three days later Wellington crossed the Agueda to 
 commence the Salamanca campaign : six days later 
 Napoleon crossed the Niemen on his march to Moscow. 
 No cause of complaint or hostility now remained ; for 
 although the right of search exercised by the British, in 
 conformity with the common maritime law of nations, 
 may have afforded a fit subject for remonstrance and
 
 THE UNION JACK. 23 
 
 adjustment, it was no ground for immediate hostilities. 
 But on war they were determined and to war they went. 
 And thus had America, the greatest republic in exist- 
 ence, and which had ever proclaimed its attachment to 
 the cause of freedom in all nations, the disgrace of going 
 to war with Great Britain, then the last refuge of liberty 
 in the civilized world, when their only ground of com- 
 plaint against it had been removed ; and of allying their 
 arms with those of France, at that very moment com- 
 mencing its unjust crusade against Russia, and straining 
 every nerve to crush in the Old World the last vestige of 
 continental independence." 
 
 Captain Roberts, with a company of the 49th, a de- 
 tachment of artillerymen with two iron six-pounders, 
 and about two hundred Canadian voyageurs, had been 
 early despatched to St. Joseph's Island, St. Mary's river, 
 the nearest British point to Michilimackinac, to be in 
 readiness to move at once upon the American island, 
 about forty miles distant, the moment he should 
 receive advice of the declaration of war. On the 15th 
 of July an express arrived at St. Joseph's with letters 
 from General Brock informing Roberts that war 
 had been declared and ordering him to "adopt the 
 most punctual measures ". Leaving an officer and 
 six privates in charge of the post, Roberts, at 10 
 o'clock on the morning of the 16th, embarked his 
 force — which, with three hundred Indians, now amount- 
 ed to about six hundred men, though half the vov-
 
 24 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 aeeurs were without arms — in ten batteaux, seventy 
 canoes and the North-West Company's ship, Caledonia. 
 The flotilla arrived at the island at three o'clock on the 
 morning of the 17th, at a spot since known as "British 
 Landing," and, through the exertions of the voyageurs, 
 one of the guns was hauled to a height commanding the 
 fort. Having completed all his arrangements for carry- 
 ing the place by storm should resistance be offered — and 
 his expedition was fully equipped with the appliances 
 necessary for a successful escalade — Roberts, at half-past 
 eleven o'clock, sent in a flag of truce demanding of the 
 American commandant the surrender of the fort and 
 island to his Britannic Majesty's forces. This was the 
 first intimation that that officer, Lieut. Porter Hanks, 
 had received of the declaration of war, and deciding 
 that opposition would be useless, he accordingly sub- 
 mitted to Roberts's demand and the British immediately 
 took " quiet possession " of the island, together with nine 
 vessels at the time in the harbour, two others arriving 
 shortly afterward with seven hundred packs of furs. 
 
 Hanks's report of the capitulation was made to " His 
 Excellency General Hull, commanding the North-West 
 Army," who underwent exactly the same experience, a 
 month later, at Detroit, for at neither place a shot was 
 fired by the garrison. 
 
 (The day before the surrender of Detroit the opposing 
 batteries exchanged long shots across the river, but with
 
 THE UNION JACK. 2$ 
 
 little effect. On the 16th the guns of the enemy were 
 charged for close action in anticipation of an assault, 
 but Brock and Tecumseh were spared the service .by 
 Hull's prompt surrender.) 
 
 Michilimackinac was again the scene of active opera- 
 tions in the last (1814) campaign of the war, when an 
 expedition of about 1,000 men under the command of 
 Colonel George Croghan attempted to regain possession 
 of the island. In this engagement the British force was 
 directed by Lieut.-Col. Robert McDouall, Glengarry 
 Light Infantry Fencibles, then the island commandant. 
 
 The Americans arrived on the 4th of August and 
 selected for their landing the same spot that Roberts 
 had chosen in his successful descent two years pre- 
 viously. McDouall was calmly awaiting them in a well- 
 selected position, which was strengthened on the right 
 by an earthwork and four field guns, and protected on 
 the left by dense woods occupied by Indians. 
 
 Croghan was taken completely by surprise on meet- 
 ing so suddenly this obstacle to his advance. His 
 formation was a line of skirmishers composed of militia- 
 men, followed by their supports of similar troops. Next 
 came his regulars, in command of Major Holmes, ex- 
 tending well to the right, and the artillery in the rear. 
 
 On encountering the British fire the militia imme- 
 diately gave way. Holmes endeavoured to restore con- 
 fidence by a steady advance with his corps against the
 
 26 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 British left, but a hot volley from the woods laid low the 
 gallant major, severely wounded Captain Desha, the 
 next in command, and wrought havoc in the ranks of 
 the regulars : the line, consequently, was thrown into 
 confusion, from which the best exertions of its officers 
 were not able to recover it. An effort was made to get 
 a gun into action, but so galling was the fire from the 
 breastwork that the attempt was relinquished and the 
 discomfited invaders fled to their boats. 
 
 The American losses in this action were : — One major 
 (Andrew Hunter Holmes, in whose memory Fort 
 Holmes was named) and twelve privates killed ; two 
 captains, one lieutenant, six sergeants, three corporals, 
 one musician and thirty-eight privates wounded. Two 
 privates missing. 
 
 The casualties of the British were insignificant. Two 
 armed schooners, each carrying a twenty-four pounder, 
 and which had convoyed the American troops, were even 
 boarded and captured. 
 
 Thus it was that on the conclusion of the war the 
 Union Jack was still flying over this beautiful island of 
 Michilimackinac, as it was also over Fort Niagara at the 
 mouth of that famous river. 
 
 By the terms of the Treaty of Ghent, signed on the 
 24th of December, 18 14, both these posts were restored 
 to the United States.
 
 THE UNION JACK. 27 
 
 2 This success was largely, if not chiefly, due to 
 the skilful demonstration of the Indians commanded 
 by that heroic Shawanee chief, Tecumseh, who by 
 marching his braves (who comprised the advance-guard 
 of the British force) in a circle whose front arc lay 
 across a clearing in the woods, and in full view of the 
 American general and his garrison, impressed them 
 with the idea that instead of 600 there were 3,000 red- 
 skins ready to swoop upon them, and whom they feared 
 with a dread akin to horror. 
 
 By the terms of this capitulation, two thousand five 
 hundred prisoners, as many stands of arms, thirty-three 
 pieces of cannon, a large store of ammunition, three 
 months' provisions, and a vessel of war fell into the 
 hands of the conquerors. (See Appendix V.) 
 
 3 Though "the Hero of Upper Canada" met a glorious 
 death near these heights, the battle that resulted in this 
 famous victory was fought several hours after his fall in 
 the preliminary skirmish early in the da)-. (See Appen- 
 dices II, III and IV.) 
 
 4 Captain Broke being severely wounded and Lieuten- 
 ant Watt having been killed, the command of the 
 Shannon devolved upon Lieutenant Provo Wall is, who 
 secured the American prisoners, and, under the most 
 trying and arduous circumstances, brought his ship and 
 her prize safely into Halifax harbour, where she was 
 received with loud cheering by the crews of ships in port
 
 28 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 and by the populace assembled in thousands to greet the 
 victors. For his gallantry in this famous action Lieut. 
 Wallis was made commander at the age of 22. Born in 
 Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1794, he became vice-admiral 
 in 1857, admiral in 1863, and admiral of the fleet in 
 1877. He was aide-de-camp to the Queen 1847-51, 
 created K.C.B. in i860 and G.C.B. in 1873. He died in 
 1892, aged a hundred and one years. 
 
 5 After General Vincent's evacuation of Newark and 
 Fort George on the 27th, he retired to Burlington 
 Heights via Queenston, Beaver Dams, and the Mountain 
 road. A couple of days later General Winder was de- 
 spatched in pursuit, followed on the 3rd of June by 
 General Chandler, who, on the morning of the 5th, was 
 within a few miles of the British camp with a brigade 
 consisting of about 3,500 infantry, 250 cavalry, and eight 
 field-euns, flushed with their recent success and confident 
 of its repetition against Vincent's force, materially 
 weakened by its late reverse and correspondingly dis- 
 pirited. Vincent himself could see but little prospect of 
 successful resistance with his diminished army suffering 
 from the lack of clothing and proper food. One regi- 
 ment, the 41st, was reported by Captain Fulton to Sir 
 George Prevost as being " literally naked," and another, 
 the 49th, as " in rags and without shoes," while Vincent 
 was compelled to borrow money from the inhabitants 
 with which to purchase cattle in order to supply his men 
 with a little meat.
 
 THE UNION JACK. 29 
 
 Sir John Harvey, however, was more hopeful ; he had 
 a plan and he was confident of its success. Nearly all 
 the militia of Vincent's command had been disbanded a 
 week before and his regular troops reduced by 350 men, 
 but the remnant of his army consisted almost wholly of 
 the King's troops, and they were not only ready but 
 eager, despite their hard condition, for " another go" at 
 the enemy. Sir John's hopes, moreover, were not mere 
 Chateaux en Espagne ; he was a practical man and a 
 soldier as enterprising as he was brave. His plan was 
 the result of a daring and careful reconnaissance by 
 which he ascertained that " the enemy's camp guards 
 were few and negligent ; that his line of encampment 
 was long and broken ; that his artillery was feebly sup- 
 ported, and that several of his corps were placed too far 
 in the rear to aid in repelling a blow which might be 
 rapidly struck in the front." He proposed to General 
 Vincent the organization of a night attack with picked 
 men, and assured him of the success of the scheme, to 
 which the General, at length, gave his consent. 
 
 In addition to the strong force in the American camp 
 under General Chandler, another brigade of nearly two 
 thousand men was advancing from the Niagara to their 
 support. But Sir John knew his men, and he carefully 
 selected seven hundred of the best of them from the 8th 
 and 49th Regiments, cautioning them most particularly 
 as to the nature of the service and their individual duty.
 
 30 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 The night was " pitch dark," and, moreover, the " red 
 coats " were screened by thick woods extending close to 
 the enemy's camp, and through which the regulars — by 
 this time used to Canadian forests — crept as stealthily 
 as " redskins." At a signal they sprang like hungry 
 panthers from their lair, and their bayonets, for an instant 
 gleaming in the light of the camp-fires, were plunging 
 the next into the bodies of the startled sentries : then 
 the carnage began. 
 
 The enemy's field-pieces, ready charged for action, 
 belched out with lurid flash their grape and canister, but 
 before the gunners could grasp a sponge-staff for the 
 second round, they were transfixed and the guns made 
 British prizes. By this time the whole camp was 
 thoroughly aroused, and, scattered as it was, the panic 
 caused by the first rush could not reach it all ; so, from 
 the heights close by, the heroic stormers, surrounded by 
 and conspicuous in the glare of the camp-fires, were 
 exposed to a galling fire from which they suffered 
 terribly while it lasted. Heedless, however, of all danger 
 and indifferent to the odds, the Englishmen, with 
 bayonets reeking and more thirsty than ever — for it was 
 upon " British steel " that they were accustomed -to 
 depend for success in such emergencies — made straight 
 for the hill, and, with that lusty and defiant " Hurrah 1" 
 the precursor of victory on many a field both before and 
 since, they cleared it of their tormentors.
 
 THE UNION JACK. 31 
 
 It was all done in three-quarters of an hour, and both 
 the United States brigadiers, 123 officers and men, and 
 their artillery were taken. 
 
 With the first dawn of day the Americans began their 
 retreat, after burning their baggage, and did not draw a 
 rein until a dozen miles had been put between them and 
 the men whom they had, a few hours previously, re- 
 garded as their certain prey. 
 
 On the arrival, two days later, of a squadron of British 
 gun-boats and transport-schooners, which had sailed 
 from Kingston with a reinforcement of 250 regulars for 
 the defence of the Niagara frontier, General Vincent 
 followed in pursuit and came up with them at the Forty 
 Mile Creek, but the Americans avoided an engagement 
 by precipitate retreat to Fort George ; and so hasty was 
 the abandonment of their camp that it was impossible to 
 save their boats or baggage, or even to destroy them, 
 and these were captured by the pursuers, together with 
 another hundred prisoners. For the remainder of the 
 flight the flanks and rear of the fugitives were hung 
 upon by Canadians and Indians, who harassed them 
 untiringly, and they reached the frontier in a demoral- 
 ized condition. Immediately afterward the American 
 detachments at Queenston, Chippawa, and Fort Erie 
 were called in, and, for the remainder of the Niagara 
 frontier campaign, the United States forces wen-, practi- 
 cally, blockaded in their camp round Fort George, and
 
 32 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 that, too, by very inferior numbers, so completely were 
 they cowed by the affair of Stoney Creek. (See Appen- 
 dix II.) 
 
 6 The direct result of Vittoria was the evacuation of 
 Spain by the French invaders ; its indirect effect was the 
 deliverance of Europe from the yoke of Napoleon and 
 the removal of the danger to the rest of the world 
 threatened by his despotic tyranny ; for, after the defeat 
 of the allied armies of Russia and Prussia at Lutzen 
 and Bautzen, the two powers, disheartened by these 
 reverses and the neutral attitude resolutely maintained 
 by Austria, negotiated for peace. The news, however, 
 of the loss of Spain and Wellington's advance on the 
 Fyrenees inspired them with fresh vigour ; at the close 
 of the armistice Austria fell into line with the Allied 
 Powers, and as the 18th of October dawned on Leipsic 
 the last hour of the French Empire began to toll. 
 
 " The campaign of Vittoria is the most glorious, both 
 from a moral and political point of view, which is to be 
 
 found in the British annals But there is 
 
 one glory connected with the Peninsular war which the 
 British Empire shares with no other power, and which 
 the biographer of Wellington is entitled to claim as ex- 
 clusively his own. During all the difficulties of the con- 
 test, and in the midst of the almost overwhelming em- 
 barrassments which arose from the long continuance and 
 oppressive burdens of the war, England never adopted
 
 THE UNION JACK. 33 
 
 the odious revolutionary principle of drawing the re- 
 sources for the contest from the country in which it was 
 carried on ; and, from first to last, firmly, to her own 
 great immediate loss, -repudiated the maxim that war 
 should maintain war. Whatever she did, she did with 
 her own forces, and from her own means alone : no 
 ravaged country had to rue the day when her standards 
 appeared among them ; no wasted realm showed where 
 her armies had been ; no tears of the fatherless and the 
 widow, mourning cold-blooded massacres, dimmed the 
 lustre of her victories. If disorders occurred, as occur 
 they did, and occur they will, it was against her system 
 of warfare, and despite the utmost efforts of her chief. 
 With unconquerable constancy, Wellington and the 
 British Government adhered to this noble system, in the 
 midst of pecuniary difficulties which would have crushed 
 any other man, and financial embarrassments which 
 would have overwhelmed any other nation. During all 
 this time Napoleon's generals and armies were revelling 
 in wealth and affluence, and France itself was enjoying 
 comparatively light taxation, the fruit of the unbounded 
 and systematic extortion which they practised in all the 
 countries which their armies occupied. But mark the 
 end of these things, and the final opposite effect of the 
 gains of oppression, and the rule of justice 14)011 the for- 
 tunes of nations. Napoleon, driven with disgrace behind 
 the Rhine and the Pyrenees, was unable to protect even 
 
 the mighty empire he ruled from the aroused and uni- 
 3
 
 34 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 versal indignation of mankind ; while Wellington, com- 
 mencing from small beginnings, had at length burst, with 
 an overwhelming force, through the mountain barrier of 
 the south, liberated the whole Peninsula from the op- 
 pressor's yoke, and planted his victorious standard, amid 
 the blessings of a protected and grateful people, on the 
 plains of France." — Alisoiis History of Europe. 
 
 Battle. 
 
 Commander. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Reigx and Opposing 
 Power. 
 
 BEAVER DAMS. 1 
 
 James Fitzgfibbon. 
 
 June 24, 1813. 
 
 George III. v. U. S. 
 
 SAN SEBASTIAN. 
 
 Marquis of Wellington. 
 
 Aug. 31, 1813. 
 
 ii v. France 
 
 CHATEAUGUAY. » 
 
 (. has.MicheldeSalaberry 
 
 Oct. 26, 1»13. 
 
 v. U. S. 
 
 CHRYSLER'S FARM. 3 
 
 Joseph Warton Morrison 
 
 Nov. 11, 1813. 
 
 n it 
 
 FORT NIAGARA 
 
 John Murray. 
 
 Dec. 19, 1813. 
 
 ii it 
 
 ORTHEZ. 
 
 Marquis of Wellington. 
 
 Feb. 27, 1814. 
 
 ii v. France 
 
 TOULOUSE.* 
 
 it ii 
 
 April 1U, 1814. 
 
 ii it 
 
 LUNDY'S LANE 5 
 
 Geo. Gordon Drummond 
 
 July 25, 1814. 
 
 ,i v. L. S. 
 
 BLADENSBURG. 6 
 
 Robert Ross. 
 
 Aug. 24, 1814. 
 
 ti ii 
 
 1 The brilliant success of this action was largely owing 
 to the devotion and tact, the courage and extraordinary 
 exertions of a woman, who on this occasion proved her- 
 self a heroine indeed, and truly worthy a niche in 
 Britain's temple of fame. Becoming informed of the 
 enemy's plans to surprise the force under Fitzgibbon 
 posted at DeCew's, Laura Secord, her husband being 
 invalided from wounds received at Queenston, deter- 
 mined to go herself to the- British lines and put the
 
 THE UNION JACK. 35 
 
 commandant on his guard. Bv a cunning stratagem 
 she successfully passed the pickets of the Americans, 
 then in possession of that portion of the country, and, 
 by a circuitous route, in order to escape notice, through 
 the most difficult country imaginable, she tramped day 
 and night, barefoot and her clothing largely torn from 
 her body, scrambling through swamp and thicket, the 
 haunts of the rattlesnake and the wild-cat, and undis- 
 mayed by the hungry howl of a wolf or the fiendish yell 
 of a redskin, she reached her goal, delivered her warning, 
 then sank in a swoon from exhaustion ; the danger was 
 averted, a victory gained, and the enemy, instead of 
 surprising our troops, were, with their colours, artillery 
 and baggage, captured almost to a man. 
 
 His Roval Highness the Prince of Wales, when in 
 Canada in i860, made Mrs. Secord a donation of four 
 hundred dollars in recognition of the above distinguished 
 service. 
 
 The heroine died at Chippawa, Ontario, on the 17th of 
 October, 1868, aged ninety-three, and worthily rests now 
 in soil redolent with deeds of glory, in the old church- 
 yard at Drummondville, and surrounded by British 
 heroes in their last earthly quarters, silently awaiting 
 the great reveille. 
 
 Fitzgibbon, who early in his career had been with 
 Nelson at Copenhagen, spent the last years ol his life as 
 a Military Knight of Windsor, where he dud on the [2th
 
 36 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 of December, 1863, at the advanced age of eighty-three. 
 (See Appendices II and V.) 
 
 2 The British force, so victorious at Chateauguay, was 
 composed entirely of Canadians, and chiefly those who 
 had descended from the early French colonists, and 
 throughout the war they afforded the most practical 
 proof of their courage and loyalty. For this success 
 a gold medal was presented to Colonel de Salaberry 
 by the British government, and he was created a mili- 
 tary Commander of the Bath for his services. After 
 several years' agitation of the subject, the Home govern- 
 ment in 1847 granted war medals for Detroit, Chrysler's, 
 and Chateauguay. De Salaberry died in 1829, and an 
 heroic bronze statue of the gallant soldier adorns the 
 front of the Provincial Buildings in Quebec. 
 
 3 The battles of Chateauguay and Chrysler's Farm, so 
 bravely won by inferior numbers, by making impossible 
 the junction of the expeditions of Generals Hampton 
 and Wilkinson for a combined attack on Montreal, saved 
 the lower province and terminated the campaign of 18 13. 
 
 4 This was an unnecessary encounter, for the war at 
 that moment, though neither general knew it, was at an 
 end. On the 31st of March the allied sovereigns had 
 entered Paris ; on the 2nd of April the senate, by a 
 solemn decree, dethroned the emperor, and absolved the 
 army and people from their oaths of allegiance ; on the 
 1 ith the formal treaty between Napoleon and the Allied
 
 THE UNION JACK. 37 
 
 Powers was signed, by which he renounced the empire of 
 France and the kingdom of Italy for himself and his de- 
 scendants on certain conditions, among which were the 
 following: — Napoleon was to retain the title of emperor, 
 and his mother, brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces, 
 those of princes and princesses of his family. The 
 island of Elba was appointed as his residence (said to 
 have been the sole act of the Emperor of Russia, and to 
 which Lord Castlereagh, on the part of England, took 
 exception, for reasons which results, two years later, 
 proved were founded on wise grounds), and it was 
 erected into a principality in his favour ; an annual 
 income of two million five hundred thousand francs 
 ($500,000 a year) was provided for him, and two mil- 
 lions more to descend after his decease to his heirs — 
 both Maria Louise, with her son, and Josephine were 
 equally liberally provided for ; and he was to be at 
 liberty to take with him four hundred soldiers to form 
 his body-guard. 
 
 Napoleon reached Frejus on the 28th of April, where 
 he was met by the English frigate, Undaunted, on 
 which he embarked for Elba, and which was specially 
 provided for his conveyance. 
 
 Louis XVIII. was called by the senate to the throne 
 of France, and his heirs, according to the established 
 order of succession previous to the Revolution.
 
 38 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 " Louis XVIII. was not long in responding to the call 
 made upon him by the Senate. On the 20th of April, 
 the fugitive monarch left his peaceable retreat of Hart- 
 well, to be again tossed upon the stormy sea of public 
 affairs, and made his entry, amidst an extraordinary con- 
 course of spectators, into London, where he was received 
 in state by the Prince Regent. No words can convey 
 an adequate idea of the enthusiasm which prevailed on 
 this occasion. It was a great national triumph, unmixed 
 by one circumstance of alloy ; it gave demonstration 
 strong of the total overthrow of the Revolutionary 
 system; sympathy with an illustrious race, long weighed 
 down with misfortune, was mingled with exultation at 
 the glorious reward now obtained for a quarter of a cen- 
 tury of toils and dangers. White cockades were uni- 
 versal ; the general rapture was shared alike by the rich 
 and the poor ; the fierce divisions, the rancorous faction, 
 with which the war commenced, had disappeared in one 
 tumultuous swell of universal exultation. ' Sire,' said 
 the monarch, with emotion, to the Prince Regent, when 
 he first addressed him, ' I shall always consider that, 
 under God, I owe my restoration to your Royal High- 
 ness.' 
 
 "The Prince Regent received his illustrious guest with 
 that dignified courtesy for which he was so celebrated, 
 accompanied the royal family to Dover, and bade them 
 farewell at the extremity of the pier at that place. In a
 
 THE UNION JACK. 39 
 
 beautiful day (April 27), and with the utmost splendour, 
 the Royal Squadron, under the command of the Duke 
 of Clarence, accompanied the illustrious exiles to their 
 own country; and hardly had the thunder of artillery 
 from the Castle of Dover ceased to ring in the ears, 
 when the chalk cliffs of France exhibited a continued 
 blaze, and the roar of cannon on every projecting point, 
 from Calais to Boulogne, announced the arrival of the 
 monarch in the kingdom of his forefathers." — Alisons 
 History of Europe. 
 
 5 This engagement, the hardest fought battle of the 
 American war, is known as " Bridgewater " by the 
 Americans, and in the Imperial service as "Niagara," 
 the following regiments including that name among the 
 battle-honours on their colours : 1st, 6th, 8th, 41st, 82nd 
 and 89th. (See Appendices II and V.) 
 
 6 Over the crypt-door of St. Paul's Cathedral is a 
 
 tabular monument to the memory of General Ross. 
 
 The sculpture, executed by Kendrick, represents Valour 
 
 placing an American flag on the departed hero's tomb, 
 
 over which Britannia is weeping, while Fame descends 
 
 with a laurel wreath to crown his bust. The following 
 
 is the inscription : — 
 
 Erected at the public expense to the memory of 
 Major-General Robert Ross, 
 Who having undertaken and executed an enterprise 
 against the city of Washington, the capital of 
 the United States of America, 
 which was crowned with complete succe^, 
 was killed shortly afterwards while directing a success- 
 ful attack upon a superior force, near the citj of 
 Baltimore, on the 12th day of September, [814.
 
 40 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 In this campaign there served in the 6oth Rifles a 
 young officer, who was destined to win distinction in his 
 profession, to attain high rank in the service, to be 
 elevated to the Peerage and to merit the admiration 
 of his fellow subjects not only for his military genius, 
 but for his courage and simple devotion to duty in 
 the face of many discouragements, the rdsult of his 
 lack of influence at the Horse Guards — Colin Campbell, 
 afterwards Sir Colin Campbell, and finally Lord Clyde, 
 whose brilliant career we shall treat fully at a later page. 
 
 Battle. 
 
 Commander. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Reign and Opposing 
 Power. 
 
 QUATRE BRAS. 
 WATERLOO. 1 
 
 Duke of Wellington. 
 
 ir ft 
 
 June 16, 1815. 
 June 18, 1815. 
 
 George III. v. France, 
 it it 
 
 1 Scarcely had the sounds of the exultant joy of the 
 British people at the glorious termination of the war 
 in 1 8 14 died away when the world was startled and 
 civilization shocked by the return of the ex-Emperor 
 to France on the 1st of March, 181 5. On the 1st of 
 April the usurper addressed from the Tuileries a circular 
 to all the sovereigns, adopting the usual style from one 
 sovereign to another, " Sir, my Brother," and conclud- 
 ing with the strongest assurances of his peaceful in- 
 tentions. The British cabinet returned the letter, which 
 was addressed to the Prince Regent, unopened, and from 
 the Congress at Vienna (where the Allied Powers were,
 
 THE UNION JACK. 41 
 
 at the time, occupied, completing the settlement of 
 Europe) it elicited this reply : — -" The man who now 
 offers to sanction the treaty of Paris, and pretends to 
 substitute his guarantee for that of a sovereign whose 
 loyalty was unstained and benevolence unbounded, is 
 the same who for fifteen vears has ravaged and con- 
 vulsed the earth to find food for his ambition ; who has 
 sacrificed millions of victims, and the happiness of a 
 whole generation, to a system of conquest, which truces, 
 little entitled to the name of peace, have only served to 
 render more oppressive and more odious ; who, after 
 having by his wild enterprises wearied even Fortune, 
 armed all Europe against him, and exhausted all the 
 resources of France, has been compelled to renounce his 
 projects and abdicate his power in order to secure the 
 wreck of his existence : who, at a time when the nations 
 of Europe indulged in the hope of enjoying permanent 
 repose, has meditated fresh catastrophies, and by an act 
 of double treason to the Powers who too generously 
 spared him, and to a government which he could attack 
 only through the blackest treachery, has usurped a throne 
 which he had renounced, and which he had occupied 
 only to inflict misery on France and on the world. 
 This man has no other guarantee to propose to Europe 
 but his word ; but after the fatal experience of fifteen 
 years who would be rash enough to accept the guaran- 
 tee? Peace, with a government placed in such hand-, 
 and composed of such elements, would prove only a
 
 42 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 perpetual state of uncertainty, anxiety and danger. No 
 power could really disarm ; nations would not enjoy any 
 of the advantages of a true peace : they would be 
 crushed by inevitable expenses. As confidence would 
 nowhere revive, industry and commerce would every- 
 where languish ; as there would be no stability in 
 political relations, gloomy discontent would sit brooding 
 over every country and agitated Europe would be in 
 daily fear of fresh explosions." 
 
 All jealousies of the Congress were immediately cast 
 aside, and the one object now of the powers was the 
 complete emancipation of Europe from the barbarous 
 tyranny of this monster of the revolution and the per- 
 manent establishment of constitutional freedom, which, 
 in the name first of liberty, finally of glory, had been 
 ruthlessly overthrown by the devastating despot of a 
 military republic. For this purpose they engaged to 
 supply a million of men, but such was the exhaustion of 
 the finances of the great powers from the unparalleled 
 efforts they had made during the two preceding years, 
 that they were wholly unable to put their armies in 
 motion without pecuniary assistance, which England was 
 the one country to supply, and to support these enormous 
 hosts she paid to foreign powers that year a sum exceed- 
 ing eleven million pounds sterling. Never did nations 
 take up arms in a more righteous cause, and in opposing 
 the insatiate ambition of a man who, for nearly twenty
 
 THE UNION JACK. 43 
 
 years, deluged Europe in blood for purely personal ends, 
 the Allied Powers acted in the highest interests of 
 peace, of humanity and of christian civilization. 
 
 Waterloo was, indeed, a battle of giants, and " the 
 two great commanders who had severally overthrown 
 every antagonist, were there for the first time brought 
 into collision; the conqueror of Europe measured swords 
 with the deliverer of Spain. . . . Never were two 
 armies of such fame, under leaders of such renown, and 
 animated by such heroic feelings, brought into contact 
 in modern Europe, and never were interests so moment- 
 ous at issue in the strife." 
 
 Many of Wellington's victories were as decisive, but 
 he had never inflicted a defeat so terrible as at Waterloo: 
 the rout, with Blucher's aid, was complete and the ruin 
 irrecoverable. 
 
 Deplorable as was the loss of so many gallant officers 
 and devoted soldiers in that brief campaign, the grief of 
 diminished families was almost overwhelmed amid the 
 universal exultation over the splendid victory which 
 terminated it, and it was realized that life could not 
 have been so well sacrificed as for the advancement of 
 such a cause. Nor were the sufferers forgotten in the 
 rapturous applause for the victors. The general sub- 
 scription spontaneously entered into in ever)- chapel 
 and parish of the kingdom for the widows and orphans
 
 44 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 of those who had fallen, and for the relief of those who 
 had been maimed in the fight, soon reached the magnifi- 
 cent sum of five hundred thousand pounds, and afforded 
 the most touching proof of the universal sympathy of 
 the nation. 
 
 At the close of the war, the year before, Wellington 
 had been elevated to the rank of duke, and the munifi- 
 cent provision of half a million pounds sterling was 
 made as an expression of Britain's gratitude to the great 
 soldier ; and when he was presented to the House of 
 Commons to publicly receive the thanks of Parliament 
 for the achievements which had shed such lustre on his 
 country, the hero was received with loud cheers, all the 
 members standing, and the Speaker addressed to him 
 the following eloquent and immortal tribute : — " My 
 lord, since I last had the honour of addressing you from 
 this place, a series of eventful years has elapsed, but 
 none without some mark and note of your rising glory. 
 The military triumphs which your valour has achieved 
 upon the banks of the Douro and the Tagus, of the Ebro 
 and the Garonne, have called forth the spontaneous 
 shouts of admiring nations. Their names have been 
 written by your conquering sword in the annals of 
 Europe, and we shall hand them down with exultation 
 to our children's children. It is not, however, the 
 grandeur of military success which has alone fixed
 
 THE UNION JACK. 45 
 
 our admiration, or commanded our applause ; it has 
 been that generous and lofty spirit which inspired 
 your troops with unbounded confidence, and taught 
 them to know that the day of battle was always a day 
 of victory ; that moral courage and enduring fortitude, 
 which in perilous times, when gloom and doubt had 
 beset ordinary minds, stood, nevertheless unshaken ; and 
 that ascendancy of character, which, uniting the energies 
 of jealous and rival nations, enabled you to wield at will 
 the fate and fortunes of mighty empires. For the 
 repeated thanks and grants bestowed upon you h>\- 
 this House, in gratitude for your eminent services, 
 you have thought fit this day to offer us your acknow- 
 iedg-ements ; but this nation well knows that it is 
 still largely your debtor. It owes to you the proud 
 satisfaction that, amid the constellation of illustrious 
 warriors who have recently visited your country, we 
 could present to them a leader of our own, to whom all 
 common acclamation conceded the pre-eminence; and 
 when the will of Heaven and the common destinies of 
 our nature shall have swept away the present generation, 
 you will have left your great name — an imperishable 
 monument— exciting others to like deeds of glory ; and 
 serving at once to adorn, defend and perpetuate tin- 
 existence of this country among the ruling nations of 
 the earth."
 
 4 6 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 Battle. 
 
 Commander. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Reign and Opposing 
 Power. 
 
 NAVARINO. 1 
 
 Sir EchvaVd Codrington. 
 
 Oct. 20, 1827. 
 
 George IV. v. Turkey. 
 
 ACRE. 2 
 
 Sir Robert Stopford. 
 
 Nov. 3, 1840. 
 
 Victoria v. Egypt. 
 
 CABUL. 
 
 Sir George Pollock. 
 
 Sep. 15, 1842. 
 
 ■ i v. Afghanistan. 
 
 MEANER 
 
 Sir Charles Napier. 
 
 Feb. 17, 1843. 
 
 ii v. Scinde. 
 
 DUBBA 
 
 11 11 it 
 
 Mar. 24, 1843. 
 
 ii ii 
 
 GOOJERAT.» 
 
 Lord Gough. 
 
 Feb. 21, 1849. 
 
 ii v. Punjaub. 
 
 ALMA* . 
 
 Lord Raglan. 
 
 Sep. 20, 1854. 
 
 n v. Russia. 
 
 1 It was the struggle of Greece for independence that 
 attracted the sympathy of Lord Byron, and at the time 
 of his death, at Missolonghi in 1824, he was actively 
 engaged in the work of emancipating his temporarily 
 adopted country from Turkish tyranny. For this reason, 
 as well as our share in the ultimate success of the war. 
 and the fact that the present ruler of Greece, George I., 
 King of the Hellenes, is a brother of our much beloved 
 Princess of Wales, Englishmen will ever have a deep 
 interest in the welfare of this kingdom. 
 
 It is a circumstance worth noting in connection with 
 Navarino that, a quarter of a century later, a son of the 
 distinguished admiral, who commanded in this victory 
 over the Turks, was brought by events in arms for the 
 Sultan's cause. This son at the battle of the Alma was 
 in command of the First Brigade of the Light Division ; 
 it was he who, on his own responsibility and with merely 
 broken clusters of men, undertook the terrible task of
 
 THE UNION JACK. 47 
 
 storming the Great Redoubt, and for three hundred 
 yards, in the face of blasts of round shot, grape and 
 canister from heavy guns, led the assault and carried 
 the sreat field-work, which was the key of the enemy's 
 position on the Alma, himself being the first man into 
 the breastwork, the most brilliant achievement of that 
 glorious day. It was, too, his first experience of war. 
 At the battle of Inkerman it was General Codrington 
 who first became aware of the Russian approach, a little 
 after five o'clock, on that dark, misty Sunday morning 
 in November ; it was he who, the following year, super- 
 intended the arrangements by which General Shirley so 
 gallantly won the Quarries on the 7th of June; and 
 when the final assault was made on the 8th of September, 
 it was he who was selected to conduct the attack on the 
 Redan. A month later Lieut-Gen. Sir William John 
 Codrington, K.C.B., was appointed to succeed General 
 Simpson as Commander-in-Chief of the Army in the 
 Crimea. 
 
 2 In this bombardment steamships were for the first 
 time employed in naval warfare, and in three hours the 
 fortress, mounting 147 guns and which had baffled even 
 the mighty Napoleon, yielded to British cannon. 
 
 ;) The result of this campaign was the annexation of 
 the great district of the Punjaub to our Indian Empire. 
 
 4 Although Marshal St. Arnaud and the French par- 
 ticipate in the glory of this victory by reason of their
 
 48 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 presence on its scene, yet as we are dealing here with the 
 British services, naval and military, only, we give in the 
 list only the names of our own commanders. 
 
 Waterloo had given the great nations of Europe nearly 
 forty years of peace, and on the banks of the Alma, to 
 assert the power of justice in behalf of a threatened and 
 weaker state, and for the freedom of that division of the 
 world, was arrayed the finest army ever sent by England 
 against a foe. 
 
 Lord Raglan, the hero of this great infantry fight — for 
 before the advance of the Guards and Highlanders nearly 
 all the Russian artillery had been withdrawn from the 
 front, and from this forward the work of the battle was 
 done with small-arms — was a grandson of Admiral Hon. 
 Edward Boscawen, who commanded the English fleet at 
 the reduction of Louisbourg in 1758, and served, as 
 Fitzroy Somerset, throughout the Peninsular War as 
 aide-de-camp and military secretary to the Duke of 
 Wellington, for distinguished conduct in the several en- 
 gagements of which campaign he had a cross and five 
 clasps. He was again with the Duke of Wellington, as 
 aide-de-camp and military secretary, at Waterloo, where, 
 while riding near La Haye-Sainte, he lost his right arm 
 from a shot. He did not see active service again till his 
 appointment to the command of the British expedition 
 to the Crimea, where he fell a victim to an attack of 
 cholera on the 28th of June, 1855.
 
 THE UNION JACK. 49 
 
 In this battle, in contrast to the deep, crowded masses 
 of the Russians and the French, Lord Raglan's troops 
 were in their English array, and the formation, suggested 
 by the genius of Wellington, and in which the Briton, 
 by his distinguishing independent vigour, is so peculiar- 
 ly qualified to fight, was again successfully tested 
 against the unwieldy system of the Continental armies. 
 When the splendid battalions of the Guards and High- 
 landers formed on the southern bank and, in a line two 
 deep extending for more than a mile and a half, began 
 their majestic advance up the slope in perfect order and 
 with the same step, it was the most magnificent spec- 
 tacle ever witnessed on a field of battle. The Russians 
 were struck with astonishment at the sight, for they had 
 never seen such a thing as an attack by a slender line 
 in the face of massive columns ; the French looked on 
 in admiration, and in a moment of enthusiasm Marshal 
 Canrobert exclaimed : " All I ask of Fortune now is, 
 that I might command a corps of English troops for 
 three short weeks ; I should then die happy!" 
 
 Rut the most remarkable incident of the battle was 
 the gallop of Lord Raglan, immediately after the first 
 English advance, into the very heart of the Russian 
 position, and the sudden establishment of the I lead- 
 Quarter Staff on the knoll to the east of the Telegraph 
 Height. This position, which gave him the complete 
 command of the fight, he reached alone — if we exclude 
 4
 
 50 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 " Shadrach," the grand, old hunter who bore him — far 
 ahead of any troops, and even before his own staff. He 
 was there before Codrington began the assault of the 
 Great Redoubt, into which the English general now 
 looked from its left rear, viewing it as a spectator from 
 the enemy's lines ; he was there before the First Divi- 
 sion — the Guards and the Highlanders — had even 
 crossed the river ; it was an exploit unique in the annals 
 of war. 
 
 The French had failed in the object of their advance, 
 viz., the turning of the Russian left, " and the forces 
 thus palsied were nothing less than the whole French 
 army, including even their reserves ; " they were threat- 
 ened not only with disaster but sheer ruin, but at the 
 sight of the English staff, coolly directing their business 
 even in their very rear, the Russians became paralyzed 
 and the fate of the battle was sealed. 
 
 Mr. Kinglake, in his splendid work, which is the 
 leading authority on this great war, says : " I know of 
 no battle in which, whilst the forces of his adversary 
 were still upon their ground, and still unbroken, a 
 general has had the fortune to stand upon a spot so 
 commanding as that which Lord Raglan now found on 
 the summit of the knoll." 
 
 The Alma was the first great battle in which rifles 
 were extensively and successfully used. Although the 
 first weapon of this kind in the British service dates
 
 THE UNION JACK. 
 
 51 
 
 from about the year 1800, when the old 95th Regiment, 
 the parent-corps of the Rifle Brigade, was armed with 
 "Baker" rifles, it was not until 1851 that the English 
 government began seriously to take into consideration 
 the adoption of the new system for the army. This 
 year rifle-muskets were made (called Minie muskets) 
 and used by our troops in the Caffre war. It was also 
 the weapon used by the principal regiments during the 
 first period of the Crimean war, being superseded by the 
 "Enfield" during the last months of the campaign. But 
 so inadequate were the means of production that it was 
 very late in the war before all our men had rifles in 
 their hands, and at Inkerman the 4th Division, with the 
 exception of Horsford's battalion, had, practically, no 
 other arm than the musket — the old " Brown Bess " 
 altered to the percussion principle. 
 
 Battle. 
 
 Commander. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Reign and Opposing 
 Power. 
 
 BALAKT.AVA. 
 
 Lord Raglan. 
 
 Oct. 25, 1854. 
 
 Victoria v. Russia. 
 
 In the sense that the Battle of the Alma was an 
 infantry fight, so the engagement of the 25th of October 
 was a contest of cavalry. While the battalion of our 
 Turkish allies made a most gallant stand on Canrobert's 
 Hill, which, after having been raked by the fire of thirty- 
 pieces of artillery, \\as stormed by eight Russian batta- 
 lions supported by three more, the combat was, of course,
 
 52 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 of short duration, and the brave defenders, overborne by 
 sheer weight of numbers, compelled to abandon their 
 position. 
 
 The only other occasion that infantry was opposed to 
 the enemy that day was when four squadrons of Russian 
 cavalry, detaching themselves from the main body ad- 
 vancing under General Ryjoff up the North Valley, 
 approached Kadikoi and suddenly found themselves in 
 the front of Sir Colin Campbell with 550 of the 93rd 
 Highlanders and some English soldiers in command of 
 a couple of officers of the Guards — a volley at long range, 
 a manoeuvre, and the Muscovite horsemen were in 
 retreat. 
 
 But it is to the English Cavalry Division that the 
 chief glory of " Balaklava " belongs, and the distinctive 
 exploits of the Heavy and Light Brigades are among 
 the grandest of the achievements of British arms. 
 
 The first of these was the charge of the Heavy 
 Brigade led by General Scarlett, and its scene was on 
 the slopes of the Southern Valley. They were the 
 same regiments — for the Royals, although without 
 orders to do so, quickly followed the Greys and Innis- 
 killings — that, in the Wellington campaigns, formed the 
 famous " Union Brigade " and which, under Lord Ux- 
 bridge, wrought such terrible havoc among the French 
 cuirassiers and lancers at Waterloo, but, carrying their 
 charge too far, were in turn beset by Milhaud's fresh
 
 THE UNION JACK. 53 
 
 horsemen, Sir Henry Ponsonby was slain and the 
 brigade brought back hardly a fifth of its numbers. 
 Discomfiture, however, was closely awaiting these 
 triumphant cuirassiers ; charged by Lord Edward 
 Somerset's Heavy Brigade, consisting of the Life 
 Guards, Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoon Guards, 
 the French cavalry was fairly overborne by the weight 
 of these matchless English squadrons, overflowing with 
 strength, and against whose giant wielded swords cuirass 
 and helmet proved no protection. It was short work ; 
 the French horsemen were scattered and the survivors 
 driven back to their lines with awful loss. 
 
 At Balaklava the object of the " Heavies' ' attack 
 was Ryjoff's column of two thousand troopers, who, on 
 coming under artillery-fire at the head of the North 
 Valley, inclined to their left and ascended the Causeway 
 Heights overlooking the South Valley. There they 
 suddenly came in view of our cavalry marching towards 
 Kadikdi to support Sir Colin Campbell, then threatened 
 by the four detached squadrons before referred to. 
 Scarlett's inarch was at once arrested, and with three 
 squadrons, he showed a front towards the enemy, now 
 advancing down the slope. They halted, he charged, 
 and in eight minutes, with his three hundred Scotsmen 
 and Irishmen, had cut clean through the huge human 
 block, composed of thousands, from front to rear, while 
 the Englishmen made lanes from flank to flank. Thus
 
 54 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 cleft by the terrible onset of our irresistible horsemen, 
 the mass first swayed, then heaved, and, finally break- 
 ing, fled in retreat across the Heights and sought refuge 
 in rear of the guns at the foot of the South Valley. 
 "It was truly magnificent; and to me who could see 
 the enormous numbers opposed to you, the whole valley 
 being filled with Russian cavalry, the victory of the 
 Heavy Brigade was the most glorious thing I ever saw," 
 said a French general officer who was a spectator of the 
 fight. And well indeed did the victors in this extra- 
 ordinary encounter " prove to the world that they had 
 not degenerated from the men of the ' Union Brigade.' 
 who, by their heroic deeds on the field of Waterloo, so 
 faithfully represented the military virtues of the British 
 Empire." 
 
 An hour later took place that great act of martyrdom, 
 which, as an example of unwavering devotion to duty, 
 is without parallel in the history of war. 
 
 All the world is familiar with this most famous feat of 
 god-like heroes — The Charge of the Light Brigade — 
 whose chivalry electrified Christendom, elicited from the 
 nations a chorus of applause, and inspired in England's 
 Laureate those immortal lines that portray the tragic 
 scene so well. 
 
 Nor was it all in vain, for such was the reputation 
 made by our cavalry, that, after that day, it was re- 
 garded by the Russians as invincible, and so great was
 
 THE UNION JACK. 
 
 55 
 
 the ascendancy thus gained, that, thenceforward, they 
 could not be brought to face the English squadrons in 
 combat. 
 
 Of course it was a mistake, but, as the greatest his- 
 torian of the war says : " The perversity which sent our 
 squadrons to their doom is only, after all, the mortal 
 part of the story. Half forgotten already, the origin of 
 the 'Light Cavalry Charge' is fading away out of sight. 
 Its splendour remains, and splendour like this is some- 
 thing more than the mere outward adornment which 
 graces the life of a nation. It is strength — strength 
 other than that of mere riches, and other than that of 
 gross numbers — strength carried by proud descent from 
 one generation to another — strength awaiting trials that 
 are to come." 
 
 Battle. 
 
 COM.MANDKR. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Rkiqn and Opposing 
 Power. 
 
 DTKERMAN. 
 
 Lord Raglan. 
 
 Nov. 5, 1854. 
 
 Victoria v. Russia. 
 
 Wellington's line of battle at Waterloo, from Hougou- 
 mont on the right to Papelotte on the left, extended 
 little more than two miles ; his force amounted to 72,000 
 men, who were opposed to 80,000 French. 
 
 Prince Mentschikoff's front of battle, this Sunday, from 
 Artillery Bay on the right to Kamaraon the left, covered 
 a length of twelve miles. His force comprised 120,000
 
 56 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 men ; moreover, he was supported by two ships in the 
 roadstead, whose fire was effective over a large section of 
 Mount Inkerman. To combat this Russian host was an 
 Anglo-French army of 65,000 men with 11,000 Turkish 
 auxiliaries. And although the front of action extended, 
 as we have said, twelve miles, the necessity of covering 
 Balaklava, the British port of supply, stretched out the 
 allied line to a total length of nearly twenty miles. 
 
 This brief comparison between these two famous fields 
 will enable the civilian reader more clearly to comprehend 
 the enormity of the task imposed, this memorable day, 
 upon the Allies. 
 
 The four miles of fortifications along the Sebastopol 
 front are included in Prince MentschikofT s line of battle 
 because, not only was the garrison in constant and close 
 touch with the field or relieving army, but special, aggres- 
 sive duties were allotted to it, apart from the regular work 
 of checking the siege, and among which was General 
 Timovieffs powerful sortie against the French left. 
 Prince Mentschikoff's chief effort, however, was directed 
 against the scantily guarded English position on Mount 
 Inkerman. 
 
 Not only was this portion of the Chersonese very 
 weakly guarded by the English (owing to the smallness 
 of their numbers and the heavy work imposed upon them 
 in the trenches as well as in the field), but the enemy 
 was already master of the northern portion of the ground,
 
 THE UNION JACK. 57 
 
 which was commanded by the batteries in the Karabel 
 Foubourg and also by his war-ships in the upper harbour. 
 
 Long before daylight — which, this morning, was much 
 retarded by the rain and mist — columns of infantry and 
 trains of artillery began to issue silently from Sebastopol, 
 and at a quarter to six o'clock General Soimonoff's skir- 
 mishers became engaged with our outposts. 
 
 This was the firing heard by General Codrington, 
 whose camp was on the further side of Careenage Ravine, 
 and who was the first to divine the intention of the 
 enemy to attack in force ; his brigade was immediately 
 put under arms, and Lord Raglan notified of the move- 
 ment of the Russians. In half an hour Soimonoff had 
 established himself on the crest of Shell Hill with twenty- 
 two heavy guns in position, and he now opened a brisk 
 fire on the camp of the Second Division in rear of Home 
 Ridge. 
 
 Under cover of his now active and commandin<7 suns — 
 Shell Hill, rising, as it did, to a great altitude in the very 
 centre of the Inkerman Heights, flanked by ravines and 
 crowned with heavy batteries, was like a citadel over- 
 awing all surroundings — General Dannenberg, now as- 
 suming command, began the launching of Soimonoffs 
 and Pauloff's columns, which were destined for six long 
 hours to encounter alternately the most dogged resist- 
 ance and the most desperate attacks that it is possible 
 for men to make.
 
 58 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 " Inkerman " was the supreme effort of the Czar against 
 the western invaders, and under his personal supervision 
 were formed the plans for their annihilation. Moreover, 
 such was the confidence placed in these skilful designs, 
 and in the overwhelming numbers by whom they were 
 to be executed, that two Grand Dukes — Michael and 
 Nicholas — were appointed not only to inspire the troops 
 with enthusiasm, but to witness the surely expected 
 triumph of their country's cause, that they, from personal 
 observation, might afterward narrate in their proud 
 capital the glorious spectacle of the Allies driven into 
 the sea by the sanctified legions of " holy " Russia. 
 
 The key of the English position was the Home Ridge, 
 three-quarters of a mile south of Shell Hill, and against 
 this central point the chief exertions of the enemy 
 were directed, his steady endeavour being simply to 
 crush by sheer weight of numbers the thin and broken 
 line of our troops, which, at best, was little better than 
 one of out-posts ; and, practically, as such they fought 
 throughout the battle; nor in the proper sense of the term 
 had they any such thing as reserves. 
 
 General Dannenberg made his first attacks on Mount 
 Inkerman with forces aggregating 25,000 infantry and 
 38 guns. To meet these advancing masses General 
 Pennefather — who was temporarily in command of 
 the Second Division through the illness of Sir De 
 Lacy Evans — had but 3,000 men, with 12 guns under
 
 THE UNION JACK. 59 
 
 Colonel Fitzmayer. The English force on the north- 
 eastern corner of the Chersonese, small and broken as 
 that force was, steadily proving invincible, the assailing 
 numbers were gradually increased, through the hours of 
 the fight, to 40,000, while Dannenberg's artillery, along 
 a mile of front, was belching fire from a hundred guns. 
 In the meantime all the reinforcements that were 
 available for our people amounted only to 14,200 with 50 
 guns. 
 
 A series of defiles, ravines or gullies, beginning with the 
 Careenage Ravine on the west to the Quarry Ravine on 
 the east, ran up on the north side of Mount Inkerman,from 
 the roadstead and the valley of the Tchernaya, and con- 
 verged toward Home Ridge, the English centre, afford- 
 ing the enemy easy ascent to Shell Hill and the toplands 
 south. It was from such lairs as these (as well as from the 
 flanking juts of Shell Hill) that his columns made their 
 attacks, and the system of combat on our side was not 
 to await his assaults but to strike him immediately and 
 wherever his head was shown. These may have been 
 "Donnybrook tactics" but the plan was almost in- 
 variably successful. His masses, long before they could 
 see an enemy, were harassed by our pickets, who plied 
 them with a fire from their " Minies " as effective as it 
 was steady ; and when at length they debouched from 
 the glen or the brushwood, they were charged by a lew- 
 score of our men, hastily got together by some officer
 
 6o A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 who led so resolutely that there was no halt till they 
 were actually within the assailing mass ; the bayonet 
 did the rest. 
 
 Such was the exploit of General Buller's youthful 
 aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Hugh Clifford, with some 
 men of the 77th, which, with a "finishing touch" by 
 Captain Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar and his picket 
 of Grenadiers, completely routed the enemy's Under- 
 road Column. 
 
 Such, too, was the charge of Colonel Egerton, with 
 259 men of his regiment into the wing of a column 8,ooo 
 strong, made with such impetuosity that their first 
 opponents were completely shattered, and, continuing 
 their onslaught, broke into the column itself and, with 
 bayonet and butt, tore it asunder and sent it in retreat 
 from the English Heights. 
 
 Similarly, and with equal success, Colonel Mauleverer 
 charged with 200 men of the 30th, whose rifles were, for 
 the most part, too wet from their night's exposure to the 
 rain, to take fire, — i.e., for the detonating-charge in the 
 percussion-cap to reach the powder in the chamber of the 
 barrel — and so were without any other resource than the 
 bayonet with which to meet the masses of the Borodino 
 regiment advancing up the face of Fore Ridge. 
 
 And so it was all along the Mount Inkerman line — a 
 series of independent and close combats in which com- 
 panies struggled with regiments, and, completely isolated 
 either by distance, by mist, or by brush-wood, each little
 
 THE UNION JACK. 6 1 
 
 party of Britons fought as though they were the only 
 force in the field, and that upon them alone depended 
 the honour and destiny of England. In such a spirit 
 were the thousands met and worsted by the hundreds. 
 
 The story of the Sandbag Battery is an account of a 
 battle in itself. This was a small earth parapet, from 
 eight to ten feet in height, with embrasures for two guns. 
 It had been erected in the early days of the siege for the 
 purpose of silencing a work on the opposite side of the 
 valley, after which accomplishment it was dismantled. 
 Never having been intended for infantry use, it, of course, 
 lacked a banquette, and hence, when men once found 
 themselves inside of it, they discovered that, far from 
 affording them any advantage, it simply rendered them 
 powerless. It stood facing a little north of east on the 
 slopes of the Kitspur, and by reason of its having been 
 mistakenly regarded as a link in the English chain of 
 defence, it was on both sides fought for with a chivalry 
 that defied death. It was the scene of the hottest work 
 this day, for here was spent alike the energy and the 
 blood of that splendid brigade of Guards against vastly 
 overwhelming odds. At least seven times it was cap- 
 tured during the course of the action, and such was the 
 slaughter round this lethal spot that the French were 
 wont to name it " L'abattoir." 
 
 The most important incident of the battle was the 
 bringing up of the ih'-poundcrs, which was accomplished
 
 62 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 with great physical effort, and if ever a flash of genius 
 influenced the fate of a battle it was when Lord Raglan 
 was seized with the idea and determination to have re- 
 course to the two heavy " long bills " with which to 
 attack — for it was more than a defensive move ; it was 
 an act of aggression — the enemy's domineering batteries 
 on Shell Hill ; and from the moment of their opening 
 fire Dannenberg's artillery ascendancy began to decline. 
 So terribly destructive was the execution of these guns 
 in the very heart of his position, the very base of his 
 operations on Mount Inkerman, and so steadily was the 
 devastation wrought, that eventually he was compelled 
 to relinquish his commanding and all-important post. 
 In the meantime his battalions, although they had fought 
 with a fiendish braver}', had been repulsed at all points, 
 and, considering further effort useless, General Dannen- 
 berg, about I p.m., gave the order for his luckless forces 
 to retire to the town. 
 
 The French part in the fight dates from the arrival at 
 8 o'clock of two battalions of Bourbaki's brigade, the 6th 
 of the line and the 7th Leger, in all 1,600 men. The 
 first work of the former was their attack of the two 
 Okhotsk battalions in flank as the latter were advancing 
 upon Captain Burnaby and his Grenadiers in and near 
 the Sandbag Battery, which resulted in the defeat of the 
 Muscovites. 
 
 The 7th Leger did good service, too, in opposing, with 
 our troops, the advance of the enemy's great trunk column
 
 THE UNION JACK. 63 
 
 past the Barrier and against Home Ridge, but which was 
 fortunately stopped — just as the young French battalion 
 (in spite of the encouraging efforts of its own officers as 
 well as the demonstrative exertions of General Penne- 
 father and his staff) was breaking into retreat — by the 
 brilliant charge of Colonel Daubeney at the head of 
 thirty men of the 55th, which was one of the finest things 
 performed throughout this heroic day. This little band 
 of Englishmen, without firing a shot, fearlessly assailed 
 the right flank of the great oncoming mass, and did not 
 stop until they emerged from the opposite side of the 
 column, through which its effect spread dismay. The 
 opportunity was immediately taken advantage of by 
 General Pennefather — the 7th Leger in the meantime 
 having been reformed and aligned with 200 English 
 under the 57th's colours and a party of 60 truant 
 Zouaves, who had come up to the front of their own 
 accord and chivalrously offered their services to General 
 Pennefather — to advance against the palsied Russians, 
 who at once began an orderly retreat and were soon out 
 of sight in Quarry Ravine. 
 
 Our artillery also was ably seconded by Boussiniere, 
 with twelve guns. 
 
 When General Bosquet arrived on the scene at 10 
 o'clock, followed quickly by a French force of horse, foot 
 and artillery that numbered about 4,000 men, he had it 
 in his power — such was the condition of the enemy, from
 
 64 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 his repeated repulses and the work of the two 18- 
 pounders — to deliver what another class of combatants 
 call a '" knock out," but, innocently avoiding his adver- 
 sary's "opening" and bearing away to the right, he, prac- 
 tically, committed the same mistake that was made by 
 Sir George Cathcart, which, we may reasonably say, 
 cost the latter his life and very seriously compromised 
 the Duke of Cambridge and his Guards. 
 
 With his force harmlessly arrayed on Inkerman Tusk, 
 he was surprised by a Russian column, which sprang on 
 his left from Quarry Ravine, and, before his artillery 
 could escape, captured one of his guns, while, out of 
 courtesy, we must presume, or some other consideration 
 — Bosquet himself said the Russian soldiery all but 
 saluted him — they refrained from killing or capturing 
 the French general. At the same time, taken in rear by 
 another Russian battalion ascending the Kitspur, the 
 French fell back in retreat ; and such was the pursuing 
 fire of some pieces of the enemy's artillery not accessible 
 to the two 18-pounders, that not only were those troops 
 that sought refuge in rear of Boussiniere's guns com- 
 pelled to continue their retreat, but the artillerymen, 
 after having endured cruel losses in men and horses, 
 were forced to seek safer ground for themselves and 
 their cannon. 
 
 Shortly afterward General D'Autemarre came up with 
 three fresh battalions, and, with this addition of strength
 
 THE UNION JACK. 65 
 
 to his forces, General Bosquet determined to make a 
 supreme effort to recover the ground from which he had 
 been driven. In the meantime the Selinghinsk batta- 
 lions were in possession of the Sandbag Battery and the 
 surrounding portion of the Kitspur ; these were now 
 assailed by the French, who, during the advance, had 
 been joined by a party of the Coldstream Guards now 
 in alignment on the right of the Zouaves ; the old 
 dismantled earthwork was once more carried and the 
 treacherous Kitspur ceased henceforth to be a scene of 
 conflict. 
 
 Although the French were now further reinforced by 
 three battalions under Monet, making an infantry force 
 of 7,500 men at the disposal of General Canrobert, and 
 although pressed by Lord Raglan to use these troops 
 for the relief of our weary soldiery, who since early 
 dawn had been constantly fighting — frequently at close 
 quarters, with great physical exertion, and for the most 
 part, too, without breaking their fast — he stolidly refused 
 to further employ this force in action, and, beyond their 
 mere presence, they gave the English no assistance what- 
 ever during the two remaining hours of the struggle. 
 
 Prince Gortchakoff, with a force of all arms number- 
 ing 22,000 men and showing a front of nearly five miles, 
 from north to south, toward the eastern escarpment of 
 the Chersonese, was charged with the duty of threaten- 
 ing this portion of the allied line for the purpose of
 
 66 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 preventing any assistance being given by the troops 
 there stationed to the English force on Mount Inker- 
 man, when it should be attacked by Soimonoff and 
 Pauloff's 40,000, and whom Gortchakoff was to join with 
 his division on a certain condition, which, fortunately, 
 never happened. But in spite of this demonstration on 
 their front, the real import of which was soon under- 
 stood by the allies, the Duke of Cambridge and General 
 Bosquet found easy opportunity to share in the fight on 
 the English Heights. But not so fortunate was Sir 
 Colin Campbell with his fine brigade of Highlanders, 
 whose services would have been so welcome to their 
 hard pressed and famishing comrades on the Inkerman 
 front, but who not once throughout this glorious day 
 were afforded an opportunity of drawing a trigger. 
 Their duty being to cover Balaklava, in conjunction with 
 General Vinoy's brigade, Prince Gortchakoffs menacing 
 attitude imposed upon them the necessity of remaining 
 inactive at their southern post. 
 
 It has been said, and by at least one historian 
 (Aubrey), that " Inkerman was the common soldiers'' 
 battle. Strategy there was none." In no battle since 
 men first faced each other in mortal combat was there 
 such desperate fighting, such enduring valour as was 
 displayed by the English common soldiery for seven 
 hours on Mount Inkerman against terrible odds ; but 
 they were invariably led and, as a rule, skilfully handled
 
 THE UNION JACK. 67 
 
 by their officers, each one of whom did his duty like 
 a Paladin. On this point I quote from Kinglake's 
 " Invasion of the Crimea " as follows: "The Russians, 
 it is true, had masses so great and so dense in propor- 
 tion to the ground they assailed that, despite the dim- 
 ness of the atmosphere, their columns — too huge to be 
 lost — could in general be reached by orders dispatched 
 from elsewhere, and the whole of them might, therefore, 
 if stead}', maintain that clear singleness of action and 
 purpose which makes the strength of an army ; whilst 
 the English force, on the contrary, was broken up into 
 detachments so small and so far apart that the mist 
 which lay heavy between them made their severance 
 from each other complete ; and at many a spot, as we 
 have seen, a young officer with a very scant following of 
 soldiery and strong bodies of Russians before him, 
 became, as it were, the supreme commander in a narrow 
 field of action beyond the reach of control, and also cut 
 off from all help. But this kind of isolation proved not 
 altogether uncongenial to the peculiar people who are 
 said to have been always warlike without having 
 patience to be 'military'; and for once, notwithstanding 
 old maxims, the slender and separate stems proved 
 stronger than the closely bound fagot. A force which 
 had greatness and unity gave way to a number of 
 spontaneous efforts by segregated handfuls of men. 
 
 The result was, of course, in a great measure owing to 
 the high quality of the officers who thus found them-
 
 68 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 selves invested with power, and yet, speaking generally, 
 they were not selected men. Thornton Grant, Hugh 
 Clifford, Prince Edward, Fordyce, Buller (with Egerton 
 under him), John Turner, Bellairs, Mauleverer, Adams — 
 all these, one after another, conducted separate fights, 
 but excepting Buller and Adams (both brigadier- 
 generals) none of them came into action with a prospect 
 of independent command, such as that which circum- 
 stance gave them. It seems hardly unsafe to conjecture 
 that a number of leaders thus raised up into sudden 
 power by the chances of battle, yet proving, every one of 
 them, equal to the varying and successive occasions, were, 
 after all, only fair samples of the body from which they 
 came, and that, as regards both its officers and the 
 soldiery under them, our army at Inkerman was rich in 
 men able to cope with that kind of emergency which 
 can best be met by sheer fighting." 
 
 Now, there is very much in common between the 
 battles of Waterloo and Inkerman, and, at the com- 
 mencement of this note, we instituted this comparison ; 
 we would ask here — without the slightest disparagement 
 of Wellington's greatest fight, but in reply to those who 
 have attempted to detract from the glory of the more 
 recent battle — where was the strategy at Waterloo ? The 
 English commander at Waterloo, like the English com- 
 mander at Inkerman, was entirely on the defensive, and 
 the plan jn both cases was one of simple resistance. The
 
 THE UNION JACK. 69 
 
 former in particular was a field, devoid of any scientific 
 display on either side. Napoleon's scheme was simply to 
 exhaust the endurance of the English infantry by a 
 series of attacks delivered directly from his front. This 
 is the way the Duke described it in a letter to Lord 
 Beresford a few days after the fight : — 
 
 " You will have heard of our battle of the 1 8th. Never 
 did I see such a pounding match. Both were what the 
 boxers call gluttons. Napoleon did not manoeuvre at 
 all. He just moved forward in the old style, in columns, 
 and was driven off in the old style." At Inkerman 
 Prince Mentschikoff's idea was to overwhelm the allies 
 with his numerical superiority. In both battles the 
 English commanders relied upon allies to assist in 
 striking a finishing blow ; in the Duke's case, his ex- 
 pectations on this score were realized ; in Lord Raglan's, 
 he was disappointed. 
 
 Waterloo was the greatest victory ever won on land by 
 British arms, but, apart from the interests at issue and 
 the effects of the battles upon the defeated, Inkerman is 
 the greatest fight in the annals of the British army. It 
 is for this reason that we have treated this battle at such 
 length, for the details of which, as well as of the others 
 of the Russian war, we have relied chiefly upon the 
 incomparable work of the late Mr. Kin-lake previously 
 referred to.
 
 7o 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 Battle. 
 
 Commander. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Reign and Opposing 
 Power. 
 
 SEBASTOPOL. 
 
 James Simpson. 
 
 Sept. 8, 1855. 
 
 Victoria v. Russia. 
 
 The siege of Sebastopol lasted 349 days and was 
 terminated by the capture of the Malakoff, the key of 
 the Russian position, by the French, after the work had 
 been almost silenced by the terrible fire of the English 
 batteries during the three previous days of the bom- 
 bardment, the Mamelon throughout that period remain- 
 ing all but silent. The walls round the fort had been 
 nearly levelled by the continuous artillery fire that was 
 specially directed against this principal work ; so that 
 the stormers, after a dash of only twenty-five yards, 
 could walk directly into it without the necessity of an 
 escalade. The Russians were taken by surprise, and 
 before they could recover themselves the assailants were 
 in possession. 
 
 No one knew better than General Pelissier that the 
 chief difficulty in connection with the capture of the 
 Malakoff was not the getting into the work, but the 
 holding of it long enough to bring his reserves and 
 artillery into action and put the place in a state of 
 defence. It was exactly this result that the capture of 
 the Redan by the English — as well as the French attack 
 of the Central Bastion — and their heroic resistance 
 there for nearly two hours accomplished ; for, after the
 
 THE UNION JACK. 7 I 
 
 surprise of the Malakoff, the larger number of its de- 
 fenders rushed to the Redan to aid in repelling the 
 assault of the English, which was not effected until 
 nearly two o'clock, by which time the Malakoff, in the 
 meantime comparatively free from Russian attack, was 
 in a condition to successfully resist any attempt that the 
 Russians, after having been freed from duty at the Redan 
 and the Central Bastion, could make to recover it. 
 
 The diversions, therefore, of the English at the Redan 
 and the corps of General de Salles at the Central 
 Bastion conduced as much to the success of this day as 
 did the assault of the Malakoff itself, for certain it is 
 that, but for the former, the retention of the latter would 
 have been impossible. 
 
 Speaking of the sacrifice of our men under Colonel 
 Windham, it is said by one writer : " This was exactly 
 in accordance with the tactics of the great Napoleon, 
 who was in the habit of sacrificing a certain number of 
 men in order to secure the object in view. He would 
 say to the colonel of a regiment, without mincing the 
 matter, 'allez-vous faire tuer, vous et votre regiment,' 
 when he sent a devoted corps to the attack of a redoubt 
 or a position which there was not the slightest chance of 
 taking, but in order to facilitate the success of another 
 part of the arm)-. And the corps of General de Salles, 
 who attacked the Central Bastion and was repulsed, was 
 olaced in the same position as the English, except that
 
 J2 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 the work it had to do was not quite so desperate. The 
 devoted band who attacked the Redan, as well as the 
 French under de Sa-lles, were the forlorn hope — les 
 enfants perdus — of the allied armies. And what was 
 the result ? Notwithstanding all the force brought 
 against them our poor fellows occupied the place and 
 held the Russians in check, not merely for an hour as 
 requested by General Pelissier, but for nearly double 
 that time, and that against immense masses of the 
 
 enemy General Pelissier had, then, double 
 
 the time of respite he asked of General Simpson, and 
 during this interval the French had made the most of 
 their time. The approaches on the French side were 
 levelled so as to allow the entrance of artillery and the 
 rapid advance of the reserves. A riumber of field-pieces 
 by this means were brought up and placed in battery, 
 and the Imperial Guard were entered for the defence in 
 addition to the troops employed in the assault. The 
 cannon of the Russians were turned against the enemy 
 and the place in a manner fortified against the Russians 
 themselves. After this the Malakoff was secure and 
 could not be retaken. It is true that after the Russians 
 had finally repulsed the English, but not till then, they 
 returned to the assault of the French in the Malakoff; 
 and they brought their whole army to this operation. 
 But it was too late." 
 
 It is right, therefore, that our regiments have included 
 the name, " Sebastopol," among the battle-honours em-
 
 THE UNION JACK. 73 
 
 blazoned on their colours, for, equally with their gallant 
 allies, they share the glory of this memorable day. 
 
 During the night Prince Gortschakoff evacuated the 
 town, which, by fire and explosion, he endeavoured to 
 completely destroy. By means of a pontoon bridge 
 previously constructed across the harbour, his army 
 marched over to the north side, where he took up a new- 
 position on the right bank of the Tchernaya with Mac- 
 kenzie's farm as his centre, the remaining ships of his 
 fleet having, in the meantime, either been burnt or 
 scuttled and sunk in the harbour. 
 
 Sebastopol was not a fortress, but a military position 
 of the greatest strength, by reason of the natural con- 
 figuration of the ground, which the lack, on the part of 
 the allies, of a line of circumvallation, permitted the 
 Russians to augment rapidly and steadily under the 
 direction of the greatest engineering genius of his day, 
 Todleben, whose extraordinary defences, constructed in 
 the presence of a powerful enemy — for on the 26th of 
 September, when the English arrived on the south side, 
 Sebastopol was practically open and only defended by 
 the vessels in the harbour — and which he had made 
 good against six bombardments, form one of the greatest 
 achievements in military mechanics in modern times. 
 
 So, too, in the absence of investment, it is incorrect t<> 
 speak of the operations before Sebastopol as a siege ; 
 the place being completely open in rear, there was
 
 74 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 nothing, from first to last, to prevent the defenders having 
 the amplest recourse to all the resources of the empire 
 to aid them- in the struggle, and the wonder is that the 
 allies were able to take it at all by direct assault. 
 
 In the final bombardment the allies used 700 cannon. 
 The total weight of shot and shell expended by the 
 English alone before Sebastopol was nine thousand and 
 fifty-three tons, to project which twelve hundred and 
 thirty-nine tons of gunpowder were used. 
 
 The cannon captured by the allies reached the enor- 
 mous number of four thousand pieces, for which, also, 
 there were found 100,000 projectiles. 
 
 The military novelties of the siege were : — (1) Rifled 
 ordnance, or rather ordnance so constructed as to give 
 the projectile a revolving motion as in the case of rifled 
 small-arms ; such was the " Lancaster " or oval-bore gun 
 used here ; (2) Electric telegraph connecting head- 
 quarters in camp with the War Office in London ; (3) 
 Railway from port of supply to the front, and, " last but 
 not least," (4) The newspaper war correspondent. 
 
 Battle. 
 
 Commander. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Reign and Opposing 
 Power. 
 
 DELHI. 
 LUCKNOW.' 
 
 Archdale Wilson. 
 Sir Colin Campbell. 
 
 Sept, 20, 1857. 
 March 19, 1S5S. 
 
 Victoria v. Oude. 
 ii M 
 
 1 On the 25th of September Sir James Outram and 
 General Havelock fought their way to the Residency,
 
 THE UNION JACK. 75 
 
 which had been besieged by the mutineers for eighty- 
 seven days, and whose little garrison, having lost two 
 commandants, the brave Sir Henry Lawrence and Major 
 Banks, were reduced to the severest straits. Colonel 
 Inglis, although nearly a hundred and fifty of his small 
 force were sick and wounded, and the care of four hun- 
 dred and fifty women and children had to be provided 
 for, not only continued to repel daily assaults, but, when- 
 ever opportunity offered, took the offensive, no less than 
 five sorties having been made by the garrison, when two 
 of the enemy's heaviest guns were spiked and several 
 houses blown up from which the insurgents had kept up 
 a most harassing fire upon the defenders ; but when, at 
 last, they were reached by the relieving force, it was 
 found that the besiegers had so advanced their mines 
 that another day would have sealed the fate of the heroic 
 band. Of their matchless resistance the London Tims 
 thus spoke:— "The defence of that place is, we believe, 
 without precedent in modern warfare. Fortified towns 
 defended by sufficient force have ere now repelled for 
 months the attacks of an army, and in some case s 
 courage and desperation have struggled against over- 
 whelming odds; but neither Genoa nor Saragossa can 
 rival in heroism the little Residency of Lucknow." 
 
 Sir James Outram, however, finding it impossible to 
 extricate the women, children and non-combatants, 
 remained with the united forces until finally relieved by 
 Sir Colin Campbell on the 17th November. This reliev
 
 j6 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 ing expedition under the Commander-in-Chief was com- 
 posed as follows : — A European horse battery, two 
 troops of horse-artillery, sixty Royal Artillerymen with 
 two 18-pounders and two 8-inch mortars; 320 of the 
 9th Lancers, detachments of Her Majesty's 5th, 8th, 
 53rd, 75th and 93rd, and 300 of the Naval Brigade, or, 
 including the 900 joining him from Alumbagh, above 
 3,000 Europeans in all : besides a squadron of Sikhs and 
 of Hodson's Horse, 1,000 Sikh infantry, sappers and 
 miners, etc., or an additional 2,000 natives. 
 
 In the face of 50,000 insurgents in and about Lucknow, 
 Sir Colin, with the comparatively small force at his 
 disposal, deemed it unwise to attempt a capture of the 
 city at this stage ; the abandonment of the Residency 
 was, accordingly, decided upon, but the chief difficulty 
 was the safe removal of the sick and wounded, and the 
 women and children ; the withdrawal, however, was 
 planned with such skill and executed with such precision 
 that, throughout the arduous operation, not one was lost. 
 
 In a despatch, dated Alumbagh, Nov. 25th, to the 
 Governor-General, the Commander-in-Chief records the 
 incidents connected with the evacuation of the Lucknow 
 Residency. After giving an account of three days' 
 skirmishes with the enemy, Sir Colin proceeds thus : — 
 
 " Having led the enemy to believe that immediate 
 assault was contemplated, orders were issued for the 
 retreat of the garrison through the lines of our pickets at 
 midnight on the 22nd.
 
 THE UNION JACK. yj 
 
 "The ladies and families, the wounded, the treasure, 
 the guns it was thought worth while to keep, the ord- 
 nance stores, the grain still possessed by the commis- 
 sariat of the garrison, and the state prisoners had all 
 been previously removed. 
 
 " Sir James Outram had received orders to burst the 
 guns which it was thought undesirable to take away ; 
 and he was finally directed silently to evacuate the 
 Residency of Lucknow at the hour indicated. 
 
 " The dispositions to cover their retreat and to resist 
 the enemy should he pursue, were ably carried out by 
 Brigadier the Hon. Adrian Hope ; but I am happy to 
 say the enemy was completely deceived, and he did not 
 attempt to follow. On the contrary, he began firing on 
 our old positions many hours after we had left them. 
 The movement of retreat was admirably executed, and 
 was a perfect lesson in such combinations. 
 
 " Each exterior line came gradually retiring through 
 its supports, till at length nothing remained but the last 
 line of infantry and guns, with which I was myself to 
 crush the enemy if he had dared to follow up the pickets. 
 
 "The only line of retreat lay through a long and 
 tortuous lane, and all these precautions were absolutely 
 necessary to insure the safety of the force." 
 
 Sir Colin fell back on Cawnpore, whence the women, 
 children, etc., were forwarded to Calcutta.
 
 78 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 In the meantime the army sustained a severe loss in 
 the death of one of its most distinguished generals, Sir 
 Henry Havelock, who died on the 25th of November, at 
 Alumbagh, from dysentery, brought on by exposure and 
 anxiety. He had been in every Indian victory from the 
 capture of Bhurtpore to the battle of Goojerat, and his 
 record shed the brightest lustre over British arms in 
 India. 
 
 Early in the following March, 1858, Sir Colin Camp- 
 bell was again before Lucknow, this time with an 
 adequate force — about 40,000 men, of whom nearly one- 
 half were Europeans — of which a very large proportion 
 was artillery, under the command of Sir Archdale 
 Wilson, of Delhi, at whose disposal were 250 pieces of 
 ordnance, many of them being heavy siege-guns. On 
 the 9th the attack began, and by the 19th every post 
 still offering resistance was successfully stormed and 
 Lucknow at last was in our complete possession, and 
 that, too, with comparatively small loss owing to skilful 
 generalship. 
 
 Oude was the stronghold of the mutiny, and with the 
 fall of Lucknow the speedy and final conquest of the 
 kingdom was assured. 
 
 In the suppression of the Sepoy Revolt the British 
 troops covered themselves with fresh glory, and never 
 were their courage, endurance and devotion more severely 
 tested than in this arduous campaign, in periods of
 
 THE UNION JACK. 79 
 
 which resistance might reasonably seem without chance 
 of success, but in which they never for a moment 
 faltered. In these emergencies it was not the possible 
 scintilla of hope that sustained them, it was duty — that 
 patient, stoical submission to destiny inspired by a chival- 
 rous sense of honour, that never dreams of fear, and, in 
 action, brooks neither doubt nor hesitation. 
 
 Such was the conduct of the men : as much may be 
 said of the women of that army — many of them ladies 
 who, in their maiden lives, saw nothing but luxury — who 
 shared the dangers and the trials of this horrible rebel- 
 lion. " I cannot refrain," says Colonel Inglis in his 
 official report of the siege of Lucknow, " from bringing 
 to the prominent notice of his Lordship in Council the 
 patient endurance and the Christian resignation which 
 have been evinced by the women of this garrison. They 
 have animated us by their example. Many, alas ! have 
 been made widows, and their children fatherless, in this 
 cruel struggle. But all such seemed resigned to the will 
 of Providence, and many, among whom may be men- 
 tioned the honoured names of Birch, of Polehampton, of 
 Barbor, and of Gall, have, after the example of Miss 
 Nightingale, constituted themselves the tender and solici- 
 tous nurses of the wounded and dying soldiers in the 
 hospital." 
 
 Great, however, as is the honour won by English sol- 
 diers in this campaign, it is equalled, if not surpassed, l>\
 
 80 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 the chivalry of those native troops who remained loyal 
 to the flag, in the face of the most cruel circumstances 
 that could possibly befall a soldiery different in race and 
 creed to the authorities who ruled or commanded it. 
 And the conduct of those faithful sepoys in resisting 
 alike the seduccments and the threats of their late com- 
 rades (now misguided and defected through foreign 
 treachery) at the time in the ascendant, is the relieving 
 feature of this unfortunate revolt. This will be the 
 better understood by the following extract from Briga- 
 dier Inglis's report above referred to : — "With respect to 
 the native troops, I am of opinion that their loyalty has 
 never been surpassed. They were indifferently fed and 
 worse housed. They were exposed, especially the 13th 
 Regiment, under the gallant Lieutenant Aitken, to a 
 most galling fire of round-shot and musketry, which 
 materially decreased their numbers. They were so near 
 the enemy that conversation could be carried on between 
 them ; and every effort, persuasion, promise and threat 
 was alternately resorted to in vain to seduce them from 
 their allegiance to the handful of Europeans, who, in 
 all probability, would have been sacrificed by their 
 desertion." 
 
 But the hero of this eventful period was the gallant 
 General by whose consummate genius the rebellion had 
 been so successfully crushed. He was as perfect a sol- 
 dier as he was excellent a man, and the annals of the 
 British armv contain no more worthy name than that
 
 THE UNION JACK. 8 1 
 
 of Colin Campbell. Entering the service a poor lad of 
 fifteen, "a friendless and penniless subaltern," he forced 
 his way to the rank of Field Marshal, and to the 
 colonelcy of a regiment of the Guards ; and although 
 no man cared less for either, he obtained two of the 
 proverbial distinctions which are associated with the 
 profession of arms: in his life he climbed to the Peerage, 
 and in death he reposes in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 The following is a synopsis of this distinguished 
 
 career : — The Right Hon. Sir Colin Campbell, G.C.B., 
 
 K.S.I. , D.C.L., Baron Clyde, of Clydesdale, in Scotland, 
 
 was the son of John McLiver, cabinet maker, of Glasgow, 
 
 and was born there on the 20th of October, 1792. His 
 
 mother was a Campbell, of the Campbells of Islay. He 
 
 adopted her name, and through her and her family 
 
 obtained his first commission in the British army. He 
 
 entered the service as an ensign in the 9th Foot, on the 
 
 26th of May, 1808, and became a lieutenant on the 28th of 
 
 June in the following year. He was in the midst of war 
 
 at the very commencement of his long and brilliant 
 
 course. He began with the victory of Vimiera. He was 
 
 in the Walcheren expedition, and shared in the toil 
 
 and glory of Corunna, under Sir John Moore. He 
 
 was at Osma, Vittoria, and the relief of the posts in 
 
 the valley of Malaga. He was severely wounded at 
 
 the passage of the Bidassoa, a musket shot passing 
 
 through his thigh. At the assault of San Sebastian, 
 6
 
 82 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 where he heroically led the forlorn hope, he was twice 
 wounded. In 1813 he was honourably mentioned, and, 
 as Captain Campbell, he, in 1814 and 181 5, served in the 
 60th Rifles in the American War, his presence in that 
 campaign probably preventing his being at Waterloo. 
 His turn of peace-duty took him for some years to the 
 West Indies, and in 1823 he acted as brigade-major or 
 the troops engaged in quelling the insurrection in Deme- 
 rara. He became a major in 1825, a lieutenant-colonel 
 in 1832, and a colonel and aide-de-camp to the Queen 
 in 1842. He again saw active service that year in China, 
 where he commanded the 98th Regiment at the siege 
 and capture of Chin-Kiang-Foo, and was present at the 
 subsequent operations near Nankin. His first Indian 
 career commenced about 1844, when he led the 39th at 
 Maharajpore. II is command of the Third Division 
 throughout the Punjaub war in 1848-49 established his 
 fame. He was at Ramnugger, at the passage of the 
 Chenab, at Chillianwallah, where he was wounded, and 
 at Goojerat. In 1849 he was created a K.C.B., and re- 
 ceived the thanks of Parliament and of the East India 
 Company for his conduct in the campaign. In 185 1 and 
 1852, and the following year, whilst brigadier-general 
 commanding the Peshawur districts, he was continually 
 engaged in operations against the hill- tribes surrounding 
 the valley, including the forcing of the Kohat Pass, under 
 Sir Charles Napier ; and repeated affairs with the 
 Momunds, who finally made terms after their defeat at
 
 THE UNION JACK. 8$ 
 
 Punj Pao by a small detachment of cavalry and horse- 
 artillery under Sir Colin Campbell's immediate com- 
 mand — the combined tribes numbering upwards of 8,000 
 men. He returned to England in 1853, with the reputa- 
 tion of a general ; but his promotion had been so slow 
 that in 1854, when sixty-two years of age, his rank in the 
 army was only that of colonel. In that year he was 
 promoted to the grade of major-general and took the 
 command of the Highland Brigade of the First Division 
 of our forces in the Crimea : at the close of the war he 
 was again thanked by Parliament for his services. He 
 was created a G.C.B. and attained the rank of lieutenant- 
 general in 1856; he was promoted to the colonelcy of 
 the 67th Regiment, and was honoured with the degree of 
 D.C.L. by the University of Oxford. He received also 
 the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, the Sardinian 
 order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus, and the Turkish 
 order of the Medjidie, first-class, with a medal ; also the 
 Crimean medal with clasps for Alma, Balaklava and 
 Sebastopol ; the war medal with five clasps, the Chinese 
 medal, and the Punjaub medal with two clasps, and 
 was nominated military aide-de-camp to Her Majesty. 
 His fellow citizens of Glasgow voted him a sword of 
 honour, of beautiful design and exquisite workmanship, 
 costing 280 guineas, which was presented to the distin- 
 guished warrior by Sir Archibald Alison: the City of 
 London also honoured him with their freedom. On the 
 receipt in England of the terrible news of the sudden in-
 
 84 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 surrection in India, Sir Colin Campbell accepted the 
 command-in-chief, and within twenty-four hours started 
 for the scene of operations, arriving in Calcutta on the 
 29th of August, 1857. He was at Alumbagh in Novem- 
 ber ; he occupied Delkooshah and Martiniere, and then 
 * hastened to the assistance of Outram and Havelock and 
 the relief of Lucknow as above described. Sir Colin 
 was wounded at Lucknow. His other victorious battles 
 at this time were Cawnpore, Nov. 3rd ; the defeat of the 
 Gwalior Contingent, Nov. 6th ; Futtehghur, Jan. 2nd, 
 1858 ; a defeat of the rebels again, Feb. nth. The final 
 capture of Lucknow the following month put a period to 
 the insurrection, and Sir Colin was saluted as the pre- 
 server of British empire in India. On the 16th of 
 August, 1858, he was raised to the peerage with the title 
 of Baron Clyde and a pension of ,£2,000 a year was con- 
 ferred upon him, receiving at the same time the thanks 
 of both Houses of Parliament. In 1859 ne returned to 
 England, and in June, i860, was appointed colonel of 
 the Coldstream Guards. When the order of knighthood 
 the Star of India was created in 1861, Lord Clyde, of 
 course, was placed among the first and chief recipients of 
 the honour. 
 
 Throughout his long and active career Lord Clyde's 
 constitution proved as unyielding as iron to disease, but 
 the death of his old friend and illustrious companion in 
 arms, Sir James Outram, in March, 1863, was a shock
 
 THE UNION JACK. 85 
 
 which seemed destined to sap his vitality. Shortly 
 afterward he was seized with an illness which was 
 followed by atrophy, and on the 14th of August, at 
 General Eyre's house at Chatham, the lion-hearted hero 
 passed peacefully away. On Saturday, the 22nd, his 
 remains were interred in Westminster Abbey, close beside 
 those of his noble comrade, Sir James Outram, over 
 whose grave only a few months previously he bent in 
 deep grief. His tomb bears the following inscription : — 
 " Beneath this stone rest the remains of Colin Campbell, 
 Lord Clyde, who by his own deserts, through fifty years 
 of arduous service, from the* earliest battles in the Penin- 
 sular War to the Pacification of India, in 1858, rose to 
 the rank of Field- Marshal and the Peerage. He died 
 lamented by the Queen, the army, and the people, 
 August the 14th, 1863, in the seventy-first year of his 
 age." 
 
 It is a source of pride to Canadians that Colonel 
 Inglis — afterwards Sir J. E. Inglis, K.C.B., — the daunt- 
 less defender of the Lucknow Residency from the time 
 of Major Banks' death until the arrival of Generals 
 Outram and Havelock, was born in Halifax, where both 
 his father and grandfather resided as Bishops of Nova 
 Scotia. In 1858 an address was passed by the two 
 Houses of the Provincial Parliament to their distin- 
 guished fellow-countryman.
 
 86 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 When the mother-country was under the pressure of 
 the great Indian rebellion, Canada offered to raise a 
 regiment and place it at the disposal of the Home 
 Government. The offer was cordially accepted, and in 
 an incredibly short space of time a regiment, recruited 
 entirely in Canada, was enrolled and completed. In 
 succession to the Ninety-ninth, which was the last regi- 
 ment on the Army List, it was numbered the Hundredth 
 Recriment of Foot, and inscribed in full as the Prince 
 of Wales' Royal Canadian Regiment. 
 
 This, however, was not the first regiment of that num- 
 ber ; there had before been one known as the iooth 
 Prince Regent's Regiment, which was disbanded in 1 8 1 8. 
 
 The peculiarity of this Canadian creation was that it 
 was a regiment raised in the colonies from the colonial 
 population, and yet enrolled among the regular bat- 
 talions of the army for indiscriminate service in any part 
 of the world. No instance of this kind had ever 
 occurred before. A Royal American Regiment was, 
 indeed, once included as the 6oth of the line in the 
 strength of the army ; but its constitution never resem- 
 bled that of the iooth. It was raised about the middle 
 of the last century, and united in its composition the 
 characteristics of a colonial corps with those of a foreign 
 legion. It was intended for duty in British America, but 
 it was open especially to foreign volunteers who might 
 be disposed to enlist for colonial service under the
 
 THE UNION JACK. 87 
 
 British Crown. After the termination of the war of 
 Independence the 60th lost its American character, but 
 still retained much of its foreign stamp ; and having 
 been converted into a rifle regiment of no fewer than 
 forty companies, it furnished the army with sharp- 
 shooters through the wars which ensued. At no time, 
 however, was there a regiment of the Line, disposable 
 like other regiments for the ordinary service of the 
 empire, raised in America or from American colonists. 
 
 On the institution of the Territorial system the title of 
 the 1 ooth was changed, and by Royal Warrant, dated 
 1st July, 1 88 1, was styled the 1st Leinster Regiment 
 (Royal Canadians), under which designation it still forms 
 part of the regular infantry of the army. 
 
 The year following the organization of the new 100th 
 the regiment was presented with colours by the Prince 
 of Wales, which ceremony was described by the London 
 News as follows : — 
 
 " The first public act of the Prince of Wales was per- 
 formed last week at Shorncliffe. On Monday, the 10th 
 inst. (January 1859), his Royal Highness presented 
 colours to the regiment raised in Canada, and called 
 the 1 ooth, or Prince of Wales' Royal Canadian Regiment 
 of Foot. 
 
 " The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge, 
 attended by their respective suites, arrived at the camp 
 from Folkestone, under an escort from the nth Hussars,
 
 88 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 at 2 o'clock p.m. His Royal Highness was received by 
 a Royal salute from the troops on the ground, consisting 
 of three batteries of the Royal Artillery, one squadron 
 of the nth Hussars, two troops of the Military Train, 
 one company of Sappers and Miners, the I ith Regiment 
 of Foot, the iooth Regiment, and the Royal Dublin 
 City Militia. 
 
 " The whole of the troops on the ground were com- 
 manded by Lieut-General Mansel, K.H., Commandant 
 of the South-Eastern Division. Lord Melville, Colonel 
 of the iooth, and Major-General Crawford, as well as 
 several other officers of distinction, were present. 
 
 "The infantry were formed in line, and the cavalry and 
 artillery at right angles to them on either flank, the iooth 
 Regiment being the centre of the line. 
 
 " The Prince passed down the front of the line, the 
 Duke of Cambridge making remarks upon each corps to 
 his Royal Highness, evidently denoting satisfaction, and 
 seeming particularly struck with the fine body of men 
 composing the iooth Regiment. 
 
 " After this his Royal Highness took up a position in 
 the centre of the line, and the iooth Regiment, being 
 advanced about forty paces, formed three sides of a 
 square by the wheeling up of three of its companies upon 
 both flanks ; the drums were piled in the centre, and im- 
 mediately before the Prince, and upon them were placed 
 the two colours to be presented.
 
 THE UNION JACK. 89 
 
 " The Chaplain (Rev. E. G. Parker) having read the 
 form of prayer for blessing the colours, the two majors, 
 Lieut.-Col. Robertson and Major Dunn, took the colours 
 and handed them to the Prince, upon which the two 
 senior Ensigns of the regiment advanced and, kneeling 
 before his Royal Highness, received them from him, 
 and, rising, remained in that position whilst the Prince 
 addressed the regiment as follows : — 
 
 Lord Melville, Colonel de Rottenburg, and Officers and Soldiers 
 of the 100th Regiment, — It is most gratifying to me that, by the 
 Queen's gracious permission, my first public act since I have had 
 the honour of holding a commission in the British army should be 
 the presentation of colours to a regiment which is the spontaneous 
 offering of the loyal and spirited Canadian people, and with which, 
 at their desire, my name has been specially associated. The cere- 
 monial in which we are now engaged possesses a peculiar signifi- 
 cance and solemnity, because, in confiding to you for the first time 
 this emblem of military fidelity and valour, I not only recognize 
 emphatically your enrolment into our national force, but celebrate 
 an act which proclaims and strengthens the unity of the various 
 parts of this vast empire under the sway of our common Sovereign. 
 Although, owing to my youth and inexperience, I can but very 
 imperfectly give expression to the sentiments which this occasion is 
 calculated to awaken with reference to yourselves and to the great 
 and flourishing province of Canada, you may rest assured that I 
 shall ever watch the progress and achievements of your gallant 
 corps with deep interest, and that I heartily wish you all honour 
 and success in the prosecution of the noble career on which you 
 have entered. 
 
 "The Prince's address was listened to with profound 
 attention, both by the officers and the men of the regi- 
 ment ; and, although delivered in a tolerably loud tone
 
 90 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 of voice, was spoken with quiet emphasis, and without 
 the least appearance of hesitation or timidity. 
 
 "Colonel, the Baron de Rottenburg, who is in command 
 of the regiment, replied as follows : — 
 
 May it please your Royal Highness, — As the immediate Com- 
 manding Officer of your Royal Highness's Canadian Regiment, I 
 tender my humble duty to your Royal Highness for the honour 
 which you have done the regiment this day in condescending to 
 present its colours, and for the gracious terms in which you have 
 addressed the officers and men. I assure your Royal Highness 
 that we are all deeply grateful for this act on the part of your Royal 
 Highness. The great colony in which this regiment was raised, 
 amongst whose ranks hundreds of its sons are serving, and all who 
 belong to it are more or less connected with Canada, will also feel 
 most grateful for the honour which the first regiment raised in a 
 colony for general service has received from your Royal Highness; 
 and I assure you that at the call of our Sovereign, Canada would 
 send ten such regiments as this one in defence of the empire, 
 should such an emergency ever arise requiring their services. The 
 iooth Regiment has received its first colours in the most honour- 
 able manner that such could be bestowed, viz., from the hands of 
 the illustrious heir to the throne of this empire. It rests with the 
 regiment to maintain their colours always with honour : I confi- 
 dently assure your Royal Highness that they will do so. If these 
 colours are ever unfurled in the presence of an enemy, the officers 
 and men of the iooth Regiment will be ready to shed their blood in 
 the defence of their colours, of their Queen, and of their country. 
 I again humbly thank your Royal Highness for the honour you 
 have done the regiment.
 
 THE UNION JACK. 91 
 
 " The youthful Prince performed his part of the cere- 
 mony in a most able manner — the whole tenor of his 
 bearing being cool, manly and dignified, such as would 
 have done credit to one over whose head forty summers 
 had passed. It made a great impression upon every 
 officer and man of the regiment. 
 
 "After the addresses the colours were marched through 
 the ranks of the regiment from left to right ; they were 
 saluted, and then placed in their proper position in the 
 centre of the regiment. The whole of the troops then 
 broke into open columns and marched past the Prince 
 in quick time and then returned to quarters. 
 
 "The Prince subsequently partook of an elegant lunch- 
 eon in the officers' mess of the 100th Regiment and left 
 shortly afterwards for Dover, amidst the enthusiastic 
 cheering of the men of the 100th Regiment, who, almost 
 to a man, turned out of their own accord, and made the 
 air ring with the expression of their loyalty. 
 
 " In the evening the officers of the 100th Regiment 
 gave a ball and supper, which was numerously at- 
 tended, and went off with great eclat. 
 
 "In further celebration of the day the non-commissioned 
 officers of the regiment invited a numerous circle of 
 friends to a ball and supper, which was, by the permis- 
 sion of the authorities, allowed to be held in the mess- 
 room of the C range."
 
 92 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 More than once since the mutiny Canada has offered 
 to furnish troops for the defence of the empire. In 1878, 
 during the war between Russia and the Ottoman empire, 
 when, after the fall of Plevna, the conquerors marched 
 further south and penetrated the Balkans, with every 
 prospect of their ignoring the Treaty of Paris of 1856, 
 and pushing on until they became masters of Constanti- 
 nople ; when the fleet was sent into Turkish waters, and 
 at home the Reserves were called out ; when another 
 great war seemed inevitable ; then again it was that 
 Canadians showed themselves ready to face the threat- 
 ened storm with their brothers over seas. In 1884 a 
 Canadian contingent was with Lord Wolseley in the 
 Soudan ; and in 1896, when the President of the United 
 States, in his message to Congress concerning the Anglo- 
 Venezuelan boundary dispute, recklessly threatened 
 England with possible war, Her Majesty's subjects in the 
 loyal Dominion promptly and enthusiastically tendered 
 their services to the mother-country for any emergency. 
 And there can be no doubt that, in proportion as the 
 power and prestige of England increases and the develop- 
 ment and prosperity of the empire continues to excite 
 foreign jealousy, especially in nations mistakenly claim- 
 ing a freer and more progressive form of government, so 
 will the different sections of the great British community 
 be drawn more closely together in the common weal, for 
 " Blood is thicker than water."
 
 THE UNION JACK. 
 
 93 
 
 Battle. 
 
 CANDAHAR 
 
 ALEXANDRIA' 
 
 TEL-EL-KEBIR. 2 
 
 COMMANHF.R. 
 
 Sir Frederick Roberts. 
 Sir Beauehamp Seymour. 
 Sir Garnet Wolseley. 
 
 Datb. 
 
 Sept. 1, 1S80. 
 July 11, 18S2. 
 Sept. 13, 1882. 
 
 Keign and OppobdH) 
 
 Power. 
 
 Victoria v. Afghanistan 
 ii v. Egypt. 
 
 1 The most conspicuous incident of this engagement 
 was the brilliant work of.H.M. Gunboat Condor, and 
 to this little vessel and her gallant commander, Lord 
 Charles Beresford, belong the chief laurels of the action. 
 Ordered at 7.20 a.m. by the admiral to engage Fort 
 Marabout, which was somewhat harassing the vessels 
 Penelope, Invincible and Monarch, which were bombard- 
 ing the Mex Forts, the little Condor ran in right under- 
 the enemy's guns and engaged him, practically, at close 
 quarters. In a very short time the Condor, though 
 carrying only three small guns — two 64-pounders and 
 one 112-pounder — while the fort was reckoned the 
 second strongest in Alexandria, mounting four powerful 
 and twenty smaller smooth bore guns, succeeded in 
 silencing all the guns but one ; the plucky achievement 
 being acknowledged by the Admiral in the now familiar 
 signal, " Well done, Condor!' 
 
 Admiral Seymour's management of the squadron was 
 a perfect scientific demonstration, and he received by 
 telegraph Her Majesty's congratulations on the success 
 of the operations. On his return to England at the
 
 94 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 close of the campaign he was raised to the peerage with 
 the title of Baron Alcester ; he died in 1895. 
 
 The bombardment of Alexandria was the first practi- 
 cal test of modern heavy rifled guns of the " Infant " 
 class, and the result proved that, in comparison with the 
 old pattern ordnance, their effectiveness was more than 
 proportionate to the increased cost of construction of 
 the weapon, as well as of the projectile, and the size of 
 the firing-charge. As an example of the expensiveness 
 of modern cannon, the 67-ton breech-loading gun of 13^ 
 inch bore and firing a shot of 1,250 lbs. weight, costs 
 over £13,500 to make, and it takes Woolwich Arsenal 
 upwards of a year and a half to turn one out, while its 
 life, in the language of artillerists, is only 120 rounds 
 fired with full charges. The 22-ton gun, the smallest 
 type of heavy breech-loader carried in the modern ships 
 of the Royal Navy, attains a range of 21,800 yards, or 
 nearly 12 miles. The cost of this gun is £5,000, and its 
 firing charge is 144 lbs. of powder, with a projectile of 
 380 lbs. weight — the round costing £33. 
 
 To go outside our own service (for Canada is well 
 represented in the Royal Navy, and a Canadian has 
 recently been promoted to the rank of rear-admiral, 
 Archibald Lucius Douglas, a native of the city of 
 Quebec, where he was born in 1842. So, too, the late 
 Admiral Sir Provo Wallis, " The father of the Fleet " at 
 the time of his death, in 1892, was a Nova Scotian ; and
 
 THE UNION JACK. 95 
 
 we hope the day is not far distant when Canada, as an 
 important member of that great community which it is 
 the office of the Royal Navy to protect, will take an 
 active participation in this powerful and glorious service 
 by contributing more to its force and sharing in the 
 responsibilities of its maintenance), the Krupp steel 
 130-ton gun has a range of 15 miles, and can fire two 
 shots a minute. The shot weighs 2,600 pounds, and 700 
 pounds of powder are required for a charge. The cost 
 of a single round from this gun is $1,500. 
 
 The powder used by these guns is very coarse, some- 
 times being in grains as large as two inch prisms. The 
 object of this is to have it burn more slowly, although the 
 shot has a greater muzzle-velocity by reason of the length 
 of bore through which it has to go. It has the further 
 advantage of producing not a sudden blow, compara- 
 tively speaking, but a steady pressure, so that the strain 
 on the gun is not so great. The English 110-ton gun 
 has a firing-charge of 450 lbs. of powder behind a pro- 
 jectile that weighs a ton ; if so great a quantity of 
 powder were of fine grain the shock of sudden explosion 
 would probably destroy the gun. 
 
 2 A prominent feature of the Egyptian expedition was 
 the presence of representative squadrons of the House- 
 hold Cavalry. The last active service of the Life Guards 
 had been at Waterloo, since which campaign their duty 
 comprised nothing more exciting than the usual barrack
 
 g6 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 routine, attending State ceremonials, mounting guard, 
 etc., and the splendid fellows of the premier corps had 
 become the butt of satirical radicals, who begrudged 
 every shilling voted for the maintenance of the historic 
 brigade. They were frequently taunted with "existing 
 merely to be looked at " ; so that when the opportunity 
 was given them to share in this active foreign service it 
 was seized with avidity as a chance to prove their 
 effectiveness in war, of which it was said that even no 
 less an authority than the Commander-in-Chief of the 
 expedition (then Sir Garnet Wolseley) had doubts. If 
 this be true, he must have been amazed at their success- 
 ful work at Tel-el-Mahuta, the 25th of August, the very 
 next day after their landing, when nearly 10,000 of the 
 enemy were dispersed by their irresistible charge and 
 the work captured which threatened to cut off the chief 
 water supply to a large section of country. In addition 
 to this great advantage, five Krupp guns and seventy- 
 five railway-vans laden with provisions were captured. 
 
 At Kassassin, three days later, when General Graham's 
 advance-guard was hard pressed by harassing attacks 
 from the enemy — the British force comprising only 
 1,875 men and four guns, three of which had but twenty- 
 five rounds of ammunition — he sent to Mahsameh for 
 reinforcements, the Egyptians having now appeared in 
 full force — some 8,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry, and 12 
 guns. A detachment of the Household Brigade and the
 
 THE UNION JACK. 97 
 
 7th Dragoon Guards, under General Drury Lowe, was at 
 once despatched to Graham's assistance, together with 
 four guns of the Royal Horse Artillery and a body of 
 Marines. Upon their arrival on the scene the guns were 
 galloped to the front, and, unlimbering under a hot fire, 
 soon made awful gaps with their shells in the enemy's 
 ranks, silencing his artillery and preparing the way for a 
 decisive blow by the Whitehall giants. Then " cease 
 firing " was sent to the guns and " charge " to the 
 Heavies, who, now unleashed, sprang from their ground 
 and thundered upon the foe, Colonel Ewart, like Scarlett 
 and Cardigan at Balaklava, showing the way. 
 
 " The dense line of riflemen," said the Times, describ- 
 ing this charge, " was broken like a sheet of glass, and 
 Arabi's troops were hurled backwards to the earth by 
 shock of towering horse and dint of heavy blade ; and 
 for some distance the enthusiastic troopers, who lately 
 were sitting so serenely at Whitehall, chased the crowd 
 of shrieking fugitives, cutting them down right and left." 
 This spirited cavalry charge was one of the most brilliant 
 
 * 
 
 achievements of the campaign. 
 
 So, at Tel-el-Kebir, the work was finished by the 
 Household Brigade, with the Dragoon Guards, and the 
 native Indian cavalry, who cut to pieces the tide of 
 retreating soldiery and brought the war to a close by 
 the capture of Arabi at Abassiyeh the following day. 
 7
 
 98 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 On the return of the Life Guards and the Blues to 
 London they were given an ovation, and the English 
 public, by every possible sign, manifested its appreciation 
 of their splendid services in the late war, and which have, 
 we trust forever, stopped the mouths of radical traducers. 
 
 An important section of Sir Garnet Wolseley's force 
 consisted of native Indian troops, in all about 5,500 men, 
 under the command of Major-General Sir Herbert T. 
 Macpherson, K.C.B., V.C., one of the heroes, under 
 Outram and Havelock, of the Lucknow Relief, in which 
 arduous service he won the soldier's most dearly prized 
 distinction, the Victoria Cross ; and, for thirty years prior 
 to this Egyptian campaign, prominently identified with 
 the Indian army. 
 
 It was the first campaign of any note in which Eng- 
 land had employed such troops outside of India. When, 
 in 1878, the Reserves were called out and orders issued 
 for the despatch of 7,000 Indian soldiers to Malta, the 
 action of the Government was severely criticized through- 
 out the kingdom, and condemned by the Opposition as 
 unexampled and unconstitutional. Lord Beaconsfield, 
 however, disputed that assertion, and explained that the 
 step was neither illegal nor without precedent. Native 
 Indian troops, he said, had been sent from India for 
 service in the Cape ; for four years, during a period of 
 disturbance, the Straits Settlements had been garrisoned 
 by the Madras native infantry ; and again Indian troops
 
 THE UNION JACK. 99 
 
 had been employed in Hong-Kong, and during the war 
 in Abyssinia. So much for the absence of precedent. 
 Nor was there, he contended, any Act of Parliament for- 
 bidding the use of native Indian troops for European 
 warfare ; the provisions of the Mutiny Act referred only 
 to the tvJiite army serving in India, and not to the native 
 soldiery ; and since the native Indian army were forces 
 of the Crown, the Sovereign had an absolute right — a 
 right not limited — to move such troops whither she 
 pleased. So much, he said, for the unconstitutional 
 character of the proceeding. 
 
 The Indian contingent did not arrive in the Suez 
 Canal till after Kassassin, but at the close of the day of 
 Tel-el-Kebir these eastern troops had marched more than 
 thirty miles over sandy roads under an Egyptian sun 
 and fought a victorious battle within the space of sixteen 
 hours. Such men merited, indeed, the congratulations of 
 the Viceroy of India, as having "added fresh lustre to 
 the reputation of the Indian army," and proved them- 
 selves in every way worthy the encomiums passed upon 
 them by the Indian Government ; for, amidst the finest 
 troops of which England can boast, none proved them- 
 selves more gallant, none more loyal, none more zealous, 
 than the swarthy and faithful soldiers of our Indian 
 empire. 
 
 The result of the work of the Indian Contingent in 
 this war was thus expressed by one of the leading
 
 IOO A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 London papers :—" The events of the Egyptian cam- 
 paign have shown, in a way not open to misconstruction, 
 that the troops of Hindustan are the troops of the 
 British Empire — that the foes of England are the foes 
 of India — and that they who dare insult the honour or 
 touch the interest of our nation and isle, must lay their 
 count not only to cope with the power and might of this 
 country, but to measure swords with the thousands of 
 warriors of the East ever ready to serve their Queen and 
 defend her dominions. This is a lesson of the Egyptian 
 campaign, which will not be easily forgotten or lightly 
 overlooked." 
 
 A novelty of this campaign was the ironclad train for 
 offensive purposes, which was devised by Captain Fisher 
 of the Inflexible, and which was very successfully used 
 on the line of railway between Alexandria and Cairo. 
 The first service of the train was a reconnaisance on the 
 28th of July, for the purpose of ascertaining the amount 
 of damage done by Arabi to the road-bed (in order to 
 prevent a sudden advance of our troops upon his posi- 
 tion) and the time which would be required to restore 
 the connection. The train's "company" — to use a naval 
 expression — consisted of General Alison, Captain Fisher, 
 Flag-Lieutenant Lambton, and Mr. Wright of the 
 Egyptian Railways, accompanied by 300 marines and 
 six mounted infantry. Its armament comprised a Nor- 
 denfelt, a Gatling and one nine-pounder gun. Two
 
 THE UNION JACK. IOI 
 
 empty trucks were placed in front to strike torpedoes or 
 explode mines. The Nordenfelt gun was mounted on 
 one of the front trucks and was provided with an iron 
 shield, while the Gatling on the last carriage covered the 
 rear. The reconnaisance was successfully made — the 
 rails having been torn up at a point between Mellaha 
 Junction and Gabari, and, although a brisk fire was 
 exchanged with the enemy, no casualty was sustained. 
 On a later occasion, the 5th of August, the armoured 
 train was used in reconnoitering Arabi's position. One 
 of the trucks, this time, carried a 40-pounder Armstrong 
 gun, which did good execution, being fired from the 
 truck-platform just as if in battery in a permanent 
 work. 
 
 The train had now passed the experimental stage and 
 was destined to become an increasingly important factor 
 in modern warfare. The sand-bags of these first 
 "wheeled ironclads" -for so these Egyptian engines 
 were protected as well as the gun-trucks, the latter 
 having a regular parapet so constructed — have been 
 superseded by iron and steel, and the war-locomotive of 
 to-day is a decidedly more business-like structure than 
 its makeshift predecessor of 1882. It is well represented 
 in its latest form by two locomotives recently built by 
 the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia for the 
 Spanish military corps in Cuba. Both engines have 
 cabs of heavy steel plate, capable of resisting rifle-fire,
 
 102 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 and the windows and doors are fitted with steel shutters, 
 having loop-holes through which the " crew" can operate 
 small arms or the machine-gun, which is to be mounted 
 in the cab. 
 
 A note upon this expedition would scarcely be com- 
 plete without a brief sketch of the distinguished career 
 of the hero to whose genius its quick and complete suc- 
 cess is due, and who has recently attained and now occu- 
 pies the highest position in the service to which he has 
 devoted his life. 
 
 Field Marshal the Right Honourable Sir Garnet 
 Joseph, first Viscount Wolseley, K.P., G.C.B., G.C.M.G., 
 was born at Golden Bridge House, County Dublin, Ire- 
 land, on the 4th of June, 1833, his father being the late 
 Major Garnet J. Wolseley, of the 25th Foot. In March, 
 1852, young Wolseley was gazetted to an Ensigncy in the 
 80th Foot and saw his first active service the following 
 year in the second Burmese war, in which he was severely 
 wounded while leading a storming party in an attack on 
 Myat-toon's stronghold. He was invalided home and 
 six months later was gazetted to a Lieutenancy in the 
 90th Light Infantry. In November, 1854, the 90th was 
 ordered to the Crimea, where he served before Sebas- 
 topol as Acting Engineer ; was slightly wounded in an 
 attack on " the Quarries " and mentioned in despatches. 
 On the 3rd of August he was severely wounded in the 
 trenches, which prevented his being present at the final
 
 THE UNION JACK. 103 
 
 assault on the 8th of September. Upon his return to 
 duty he served for the remainder of the campaign as 
 Deputy-Assistant-Quartermaster-General with the Light 
 Division. On his return to England he took command 
 of his company in the 90th, although his captain's com- 
 mission in the regiment was dated December, 1854. 
 When the Sepoy rebellion broke out in 1857, he was 
 ordered to India and was present with Sir Colin Camp- 
 bell's force at the final relief of Lucknow. He was after- 
 wards appointed Quartermaster- General with the Oude 
 Division and received the brevet rank of Lieutenant- 
 Colonel. The following year he served in China as 
 Deputy-Assistant-Quartermaster-General with Sir Hope 
 Grant, and was present at the capture of the Taku Forts 
 and the surrender of Pekin. When, in November, 1861, 
 the seizure, by Captain Wilks of the United States war- 
 ship San Jacinto, of Messrs. Mason and Slidell, Con- 
 federate Commissioners to England and France, on 
 board the British mail steamer Trent, threatened to em- 
 broil England and the Federal States of America in war, 
 Wolseley was despatched to Canada as Assistant-Quar- 
 termaster-General. The early removal of the prospect 
 of a campaign, by the prompt compliance of President 
 Lincoln with the demands of the British Government 
 and the consequent restoration of the Confederate Com- 
 missioners, permitted Wolseley a respite from duty, 
 which he employed in privately visiting the headquarters 
 of the Confederate Army in Virginia, where he enjoyed
 
 104 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 the society of Generals Lee and " Stonewall " Jackson, 
 while further adding to his knowledge of the business of 
 war. Upon his return to Canada he bent his energies — 
 especially in view of threatened Fenian raids — to the 
 thorough organization of the volunteer militia, of the 
 material of which he had already formed a high opinion; 
 and the success of his efforts in this direction gained him 
 a reputation for handling irregular troops. He was 
 appointed Colonel in 1865, and in 1867 was again in 
 Canada as Deputy Quartermaster-General of the Colonial 
 Forces in- succession to Colonel Lysons ; and, on the 
 breaking out of the first Riel rebellion in 1870, he com- 
 manded the Red River expedition, composed of Cana- 
 dian volunteers and a regiment of Imperial troops. The 
 striking incident of this enterprise was his successful 
 advance from Thunder Bay to Fort Garry (now the loyal 
 and thriving city of Winnipeg) through 500 miles of 
 wilderness that presented difficulties of penetration suffi- 
 cient to tax equally the skill and the courage of an older 
 and more experienced campaigner (for he was only 
 thirty-seven years of age) but which were overcome with 
 a resolution as patient and dogged as it was dauntless, 
 and, on the part of the men, with an endurance not sur- 
 passed in the annals of the army. It was this experience 
 and the practical knowledge thus gained of the qualities 
 of Canadians that prompted Lord Wolseley, on the 
 formation of the Gordon relief-expedition in 1884, to 
 request Lord Lansdowne, then Governor-General, to
 
 THE UNION JACK. 10$ 
 
 organize a corps of Canadian voyageurs to aid in the 
 transport of troops and stores up the Nile. On the 
 restoration of the Manitoba Government, Colonel Wol- 
 seley returned to England, and was made a Knight 
 Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, 
 and shortly afterwards was appointed Assistant-Adju- 
 tant-General at the Horse Guards. He commanded in 
 the Ashanti campaign, 1873-74, on the successful ter- 
 mination of which he was voted the sum of .£25,000 : he 
 was also created a K.C.B., and was confirmed in the 
 rank of Major-General. Britain welcomed him on his 
 return as a tried and distinguished military leader ; the 
 freedom of the City of London was presented to him, 
 together with a sword of honour, and he received the 
 thanks of both Houses of Parliament. In 1875 he was 
 Military Commissioner in Natal ; a member of the 
 Council of India in 1876 ; Governor, High Commis- 
 sioner, and Commander-in-Chief of the Island of Cyprus 
 in 1878; and Governor of Natal and the Transvaal, 
 1879-80. He was made Quartermaster-General in 1880, 
 and Adjutant-General in 1882. For the Egyptian 
 campaign he was raised to the peerage and made 
 General, and the Nile expedition, 1884-85, brought him 
 a Viscounty. In 1890 he was appointed Commander- 
 in-Chief of the forces in Ireland, and in 1894 was pro- 
 moted a Field Marshal. In March, 1895, he was 
 gazetted Colonel of the Blues, and on the 1st of
 
 106 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 November he succeeded the Duke of Cambridge as 
 Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 In addition to his talents as a general, Lord Wolseley 
 includes those of an author, the following works having 
 come from his pen : — " Narrative of the War with China 
 in i860" (i860). An account of his visit to the army in 
 Virginia appeared in the January number of Blackwood's 
 Magazine in 1863. "The Soldier's Pocket-Book" 
 (1869) ; " System of Field Manoeuvres " (1872); "Marley 
 Castle," a novel (1877), etc. 
 
 It is by such men and such deeds that the Union 
 Jack has been carried to and firmly planted in every 
 quarter of the globe ; and with a success that has natur- 
 ally excited the envy of peoples less endowed by 
 Providence with those national qualifications for the 
 rational prosecution of such a task and the fearless, 
 steady and impartial discharge of the duties and obliga- 
 tions consequent upon the attainment of such a position; 
 but a jealousy balked by the fact that wherever that 
 emblem holds its sway there the rights of person and 
 property are best protected from injustice within, as well 
 as invasion from without, and for which glorious duty 
 there is available the mightiest power that this earth has 
 ever witnessed. No enemy can point to a spot where 
 that flag floats that has not been blest by its advent, 
 while its friends can as surely prove a decline in the 
 best of all that pertains to civilization where it has been
 
 THE UNION JACK. IO7 
 
 divorced. While enjoying the prosperity which its vic- 
 tories have procured us and which it constantly 
 guards, we should not forget that as the British 
 empire has been made so must it be preserved, and that 
 in its strength and immediate ability, not merely to 
 resist aggression or to punish insult directed toward 
 itself, but, in the general interest of mankind, to protect 
 weaker states from the despotic ambition of powerful 
 and rapacious neighbours, is the best guarantee of the 
 world's peace and freedom. " That empire," said one of 
 England's greatest statesmen in a speech, not many 
 years since, in the Upper House, " was formed by the 
 enterprise and energy of our ancestors, my lords ; and it 
 is one of a very peculiar character. I know no example 
 of it either in ancient or modern history. No Caesar or 
 Charlemagne ever presided over a dominion so peculiar. 
 Its flag floats over many waters ; it has provinces in 
 every zone; they are inhabited by persons of different 
 races, different religion, different laws, manners, customs. 
 Some of these are bound to us by the ties of liberty, 
 fully conscious that without their connection with the 
 metropolis they have no security for public freedom and 
 self-government ; others are bound to us by flesh and 
 blood, and by material as well as moral considerations. 
 There are millions who are bound to us by our military 
 sway, and they bow to that sway because they know 
 that they are indebted to it for order and justice. All 
 these communities agree in recognizing the commanding
 
 I08 A SHORT HISTORY OF 
 
 spirit of these islands that has formed and fashioned in 
 such a manner so great a portion of the globe. My 
 lords, that empire is no mean heritage ; but it is not a 
 heritage that can only be enjoyed ; it must be main- 
 tained, and it can only be maintained by the same 
 qualities that created it — by courage, by discipline, by 
 patience, by determination, and by a reverence for 
 public law and respect for national rights." 
 
 In these days of ultra-commercialism when returns 
 must not only be pecuniarily profitable but immediate, 
 qualities the most valuable to a people, but which are 
 not quoted in the stock bulletins, are too apt to be 
 belittled by a certain class whose standard of life is the 
 individual gain of each during his earthly existence 
 irrespective of the after consequences to his successors 
 or the future of the state. But, to the intelligent busi- 
 ness man, loyalty — even, too, from a selfish point of view 
 — is by no means an idle sentiment ; it is, indeed, some- 
 thing by which a country, as a nation, lives and on 
 which the stability of its commerce (which, either 
 directly or indirectly, includes his business) depends. 
 It is this loyalty, irrespective of and high above petty 
 politics, this true and constant allegiance to the Crown 
 and Constitution as part of the righteous living of the 
 British people — in contradistinction to that boasted 
 " patriotism," so often the enticing and deceptive foil of 
 treason, with which the ignorant and unwary are 
 seduced — that is the secret of the power of England, the
 
 THE UNION JACK. IOy 
 
 foremost example of commercial success in the world 
 to-day ; and it constitutes the base of that imperial 
 structure — a consolidation, for all purposes, of the great 
 family of Britons — which is silently but surely rising by 
 the mutual love and faith of parent and children , a 
 fabric whose foundations have been deeply and firmly 
 laid by the realization of mutual interest in times when 
 competition, politically as well as commercially, limits 
 success to only the strongest combinations, and cemented 
 by the highest admiration, the deepest veneration and 
 the most loyal affection for our common Sovereign — 
 sterling sentiments begotten by the peerless life and the 
 faultless rule of the noblest personage and the grandest 
 monarch that ever adorned a throne.
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 I. — Calendar of Victories. 
 II. — Canadian Battle Fields. 
 III.— Canada's In Memoriam. 
 IV. — View from Brock's Monument. 
 V. — Lundy's Lane. 
 VI. — General Smyth's Dedication. 
 VII. — United States History. 
 VIII.— Comrades in Arms. 
 
 hi
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 CALENDAR OF VICTORIES. 
 
 January. 
 
 i6th. Corunna 1809 
 
 19th. Ciudad Rodrigo 1812 
 
 February. 
 
 14th. St. Vincent ...... 1797 
 
 17th- Meanee 1843 
 
 2 1 st. Goojerat ....... 1849 
 
 27th. 1814 
 
 29th. Monmouth and Foudroyant • . . 1758 
 
 March. 
 
 19th- Capture of Lucknow 1858 
 
 2 1 st. Alexandria • • . . . .1801 
 
 24th. Dubba 1843 
 
 April. 
 
 2nd. Copenhagen 1801 
 
 6th. "Badajoz • • . . . . .1812 
 
 1 oth. Toulouse . . . . . . 18 14 
 
 May. 
 5th. Fuentes d'Onoro • ■ . . . .1811 
 
 16th. Ubuera • • . . . . . 181 1 
 
 19th- La Mo . . . . . . . 1692 
 
 23rd. R; ; . . . . . . . ij j 
 
 8 113
 
 ii4 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 J tine. 
 
 ist. "The Glorious ist of June" .... 1794 
 
 1st. Chesapeake and Shannon . . - 18 13 
 
 5th. Stoney Creek 181 3 
 
 13th. Sluys 1340 
 
 16th. Quatre Bras 1815 
 
 1 8th. Waterloo 1815 
 
 2 1 st. Vlttoria 18 13 
 
 23rd. Plassey ....... 1757 
 
 24th. Beaver Dams 181 3 
 
 27th. Dettingen 1/43 
 
 1708 
 1882 
 1812 
 1812 
 1704 
 1814 
 
 1758 
 
 1809 
 
 1759 
 1798 
 1588 
 1704 
 1812 
 
 
 My. 
 
 1 ith. 
 
 Oudenarde . 
 
 nth. 
 
 Alexandria 
 
 17th. 
 
 Michilimackinac . 
 
 22nd. 
 
 . 
 
 23rd. 
 
 . 
 
 25 th. 
 
 Lundy's Lane . 
 
 26th. 
 
 Louisbourg . 
 
 28th. 
 
 Talavera . 
 
 
 August. 
 
 ist. 
 
 Minden 
 
 ist. 
 
 Nile . 
 
 8th. 
 
 The Armada 
 
 13th. 
 
 . 
 
 1 6th. 
 
 Detroit
 
 CALENDAR OF VICTORIES. I 1 5 
 
 2 1st. Vimiera 1808 
 
 24th. Bladensburg 18 14 
 
 26th. >essy . 1346 
 
 27th. Busaco 1 8 10 
 
 3 j st. San Sebastian . . . . . .1813 
 
 September. 
 
 1st. Candahar 1880 
 
 8th. Sebastopol . . . . . . -1855 
 
 nth. Malplaquet 1709 
 
 13th. Quebec 1759 
 
 13th. Tel-el-Kebir 1882 
 
 15th. Kabool 1842 
 
 19th. Poitiers 1356 
 
 20th. Alria 1854 
 
 20th Delhi 1857 
 
 23rd. Assaye 1803 
 
 October. 
 
 nth. ...... 1797 
 
 13th. nston . . . . . . .1812 
 
 20th. 10 1827 
 
 2 1 st. Trafalgar 1805 
 
 25th. 1415 
 
 25th. 1854 
 
 26th. 18 13
 
 n 6 APPENDIX I. 
 
 November. 
 
 3rd. Acre l8 4° 
 
 5th. Inkerman l8 54 
 
 nth. Chrysler's Farm . . • • • l8l 3 
 
 20th. Quiberon 1 7S9 
 
 December. 
 19th. Fort Niagara l8l 3
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 CANADIAN BATTLE FIELDS 
 
 A?id the Lesson They Teach the Young Men of Canada. 
 
 The anniversary of Niagara (Lundy's Lane) is near at 
 hand and it is a seasonable time to revisit, if only in the 
 imagination, a few of those spots made famous by the 
 blood of our countrymen and hallowed by their sacred 
 memory. And in these reflections we may find some- 
 thing to revive the fainting heart of the whining pessimist 
 and to stimulate the patriotic enthusiasm of younger, 
 braver and more honest souls. For this purpose it will 
 not be necessary to wander over all Canada or intrude 
 even within the precincts of our sister province to the 
 eastward, whose soil is as prolific of noble deeds as our 
 own and whose patriotism has been as frequently and as 
 satisfactorily tried. 
 
 Within a few miles of Toronto — practically within its 
 neighbourhood by reason of the easy communication — 
 there is a stretch of country as rich in its romantic history 
 as it is beautiful in its natural scenery, the Niagara 
 peninsula, whose almost every acre has felt the tread of 
 an army and whose frontier was for three years — from 
 1812 to 181 5 — the theatre of exploits as valorous and 
 
 117
 
 Il8 APPENDIX II. 
 
 heroic as any that grace the page of British military 
 history. 
 
 In an old guide-book of " The Falls," edited and pub- 
 lished on the American side in 1850, referring- to this 
 section, as well as the corresponding bank of the river, as 
 viewed from " Mount Eagle Tower," it says : " Within 
 this classic circle has been fought the greatest number of 
 battles of any spot in America and more human life has 
 been lost. The victims of war within this area of forty 
 miles, of French, English and American, inclusive of 
 epidemics and diseases incident to war, cannot be esti- 
 mated at less than thirty thousand." It sets forth, in 
 numbered paragraphs, the various points of interest (of 
 which I shall give only the historical) within range of 
 sight as follows : 
 
 " 4th — Four miles east of Fort Niagara is the Four 
 Mile Creek. At the mouth of this stream the British 
 regulars and provincial auxiliaries landed and entrenched 
 themselves in 1759 in their advance upon Fort Niagara, 
 then in possession of the French. At this creek, also, 
 Col. Chrystie landed with his regiment in thirty-nine 
 batteaux in October, 181 2, a few days before the battle 
 of Queenston. The colonel was taken prisoner in that 
 battle and those of his regiment who were not killed 
 were made prisoners. And here may be mentioned a 
 most singular want of management in providing boats
 
 CANADIAN BATTLE FIELDS. II9 
 
 for the conveyance of our troops from the American side 
 to Canada on that occasion. 
 
 " A large number of batteaux had been built at the 
 Falls for this expedition, yet thirteen boats only were 
 ready. The forces were ferried over in these, but as day 
 dawned and the enemy was enabled to direct his fire, 
 many of them were soon disabled, and before the battle 
 was over the whole were wrecked, destroyed or lost. 
 The thirty-nine boats of Chrystie's corps at the Four 
 Mile Creek, only eleven miles distant, lay unused, and 
 those built at the Falls were noticed a few days after, 
 strung along the road at different places to the very brow 
 of the mountain. 
 
 " 5. The ruins of Fort George, distant eight miles, are 
 now but just discernible, so completely are the works 
 dilapidated, yet at the commencement of the war this 
 fort was the strongest and most complete fortification of 
 any this side of Quebec. 
 
 " 6. The village of Newark, now known by the name 
 of Niagara, is seen between Fort George and the lake. 
 
 "The battle of the 27th of May, 18 13, took place near 
 the lake shore, a mile west of the village, and was for 
 our arms a most brilliant affair. For three days previous 
 an incessant fire of red-hot shot had been kept up from 
 Fort Niagara, the Salt Battery at Youngstown and the 
 other batteries on this side, upon Fort George and the 
 British works, and nearly every building occupied by
 
 120 APPENDIX II. 
 
 their troops was rendered untenable or was burnt down. 
 At sunrise on that day the American flotilla, consisting 
 of eleven men-of-war, was anchored out in the lake and 
 two hundred boats, under cover of the fire of the fleet, 
 proceeded towards the shore. At the same time a terrific 
 cannonade was maintained from the American side of 
 the river. This scene, with the glorious sun just rising 
 clear and effulgent, is described by those who beheld it 
 as inexpressibly grand and absorbing the very soul with 
 the intensity of the emotions which it excited. The 
 troops landed, rushed up the bank and their impetuosity 
 soon drove the enemy from the field. 
 
 "7. A mile from the fort on the American side is 
 Youngstown, where there was a large, effective work 
 called the Salt Battery, from its having been at first 
 made with about five hundred barrels of salt covered 
 over with earth. It mounted two eighteen pounders. 
 
 " 8. Three miles this side of Fort Niagara is one of 
 the old battle grounds of the French and English, in 
 which, in 1759, the English gained a most decisive 
 victory over a body of about fifteen hundred men, who 
 were on their way from the western posts of the French 
 to reinforce the fort. 
 
 "9. The ' Five Mile Meadow' is a mile further up the 
 river. At this place, after the American victory ob- 
 tained at Fort George, the dragoons belonging to the 
 army crossed in scows for the purpose of cutting off the
 
 CANADIAN BATTLE FIELDS. 121 
 
 retreat of the garrison, but the enemy was not pursued ; 
 they made good their retreat with their arms and some 
 of their artillery and stores. 
 
 " 10. Part of Lewiston is seen, but Queenston lies 
 under the brow of the heights and is hidden from view, 
 but where the steam ferry now crosses the river the 
 troops were ferried over to the battle of the 13th of 
 October, 18 12. The conflict commenced between 2 and 
 3 o'clock in the morning and continued till 4 o'clock in 
 the afternoon. General Van Rensselaer was wounded 
 and disabled from advancing in the early part of the 
 engagement. 
 
 " 11. In full view rises up Brock's monument, broken 
 and shattered, from the heights of Queenston. The 
 general and his aide-de-camp, Lieut.-Col. McDonnell, 
 rest beneath its base. Brock met his fate about fifty 
 rods below the monument, near a cherry tree at the foot 
 of the hill in rear of Queenston. 
 
 " Below the mountain and beyond Queenston, on a 
 point of land above the river, are the remains of Fro- 
 man's battery ; it did great execution on the day of the 
 battle and at the close of the tragic retreat, when many 
 vainly attempted to swim the river. 
 
 " 12. On Lewiston Heights was a heavy battery called 
 Fort Grey, after Col. Grey, of the United States army, 
 under whose direction it was built. A constant but not
 
 122 APPENDIX II. 
 
 very effective fire was kept up from it during the battle 
 of Oueenston. 
 
 " 13. From the commanding site of Mount Eagle 
 Tower the river is viewed for eleven miles, commencing 
 at the whirlpool and running torrent-like through its 
 deep gorge to the termination of the mountain ridge ; 
 thence to Lake Ontario the current is strong and, unless 
 agitated by the wind, is smooth and clear. Just as it 
 joins the lake the small point of land, on which old Fort 
 Niagara stands, juts from the east and intercepts the eye 
 from the river as it debouches into Ontario. 
 
 "Space will not permit us to detail the many great 
 and romantic events of which this old fort, with varying 
 fortune, has been the scene since La Salle, en route to 
 the Mississippi, erected its first palisade in 1678 down to 
 its evacuation by the British at the close of the war, in 
 accordance with the terms of the treaty of Ghent, signed 
 on the 24th of December, 18 14. 
 
 " 17. Round the right bank of the whirlpool passes the 
 Portage road, the oldest road in the country, first made 
 and travelled by the French. At this point it is inter- 
 sected by a deep ravine where in 1759 took place a cele- 
 brated and bloody encounter, called the battle of the 
 Devil's Hole, between a band of Seneca Indians, who 
 had formed an ambush in the surrounding woods, and a 
 hundred British troops escorting cattle and provisions. 
 With the exception of four men the whole command
 
 CANADIAN BATTLE FIELDS. 1 23 
 
 were killed or cast down the bank to perish. The bones 
 of the slaughtered are yet found on the rocks below, two 
 skulls having been picked up in 1849, ninety years after 
 the engagement. 
 
 "20. Opposite, on the Canadian side, lies the township 
 of Stamford, a fine tract of country, thickly populated 
 and in a high state of cultivation ; the village, two miles 
 to the west, is hidden by the woods. 
 
 " Eight miles still to the west is Beech Woods, or 
 Beaver Dams. There Lieut.-Col. Charles G. Bcerstler, of 
 the 14th United States infantry or "Maryland Regi- 
 ment," on the 24th June, 18 13, with between five and six 
 hundred men, unfortunately allowed himself to be sur- 
 prised and surrounded by the enemy. Those that were 
 not killed of the whole body were captured, together 
 with the colours of the 14th, and two pieces of field 
 artillery. 
 
 " Thirty miles still further west is Stoney Creek, 
 another spot long to be remembered among the unfortu- 
 nate affairs in which we suffered during the progress 
 of that war. The enemy succeeded in capturing two 
 generals, a portion of the troops and two field guns, 
 and drove back the Americans with heavy loss. This 
 disaster, after which followed Boerstler's, just mentioned, 
 totally eclipsed the brilliant prospects with which the 
 campaign had opened. From that time our arms were 
 put upon the defensive ; next followed the retreat from
 
 124 APPENDIX II. 
 
 the shores of Canada, then the invasion of American 
 soil, the loss of Fort Niagara and the devastation and 
 depopulation of fifty miles of this frontier. 
 
 "21. Those three objects at the southwest, which are 
 seen to spire above the woods, are observatories built 
 upon the ground of the bloody battle of Lundy's Lane. 
 It was fought on the 25th of July, 1814, and the struggle 
 lasted from 5 o'clock in the afternoon till 12 o'clock at 
 midnight. The Americans were under the command of 
 Generals Brown, Scott and Ripley, of whom the first 
 two were wounded and obliged to retire from the field 
 before the close of the engagement. 
 
 " General Drummond, who commanded the British, 
 returned to Forts George and Niagara, and the Ameri- 
 cans to their camp at Bridgewater. Both sides claimed 
 the victory. 
 
 " 22. Two miles beyond the Falls, and hidden by the 
 woods of Goat Island, is the battlefield of Chippawa, 
 which occurred on the 5th of July, 18 14. General 
 Brown, having under him Generals Brown, Scott and 
 Porter, who eminently distinguished themselves in that 
 engagement, drove the enemy from all his positions and 
 obliged him to retreat. 
 
 " Twenty miles beyond is Fort Erie, on the British 
 side, and Black Rock and Buffalo on the American, all 
 memorable as scenes of war-like action — of assaults,
 
 CANADIAN BATTLE FIELDS. I25 
 
 bastions blown up, reciprocal invasions, day and night 
 attacks, sorties, rapine and destruction." 
 
 Speaking of the aspect of this part of the country it 
 says : " The farms have a fine and garden-like appear- 
 ance, and are not surpassed by any in rural wealth and 
 beauty. The waving fields of grain, the velvet-like 
 pastures, the towering and unsubdued parts of forests of 
 centuries, which still on some sides close in the scene, 
 give interest to the beholder; and the comfortable homes 
 — many of them veritable mansions — of the inhabitants, 
 embowered in trees of fruit and shade, evidence to the 
 mind that if there is comfort in this world it is to be 
 found in such retreats as these." 
 
 The victory of Queenston, of which, it is noticeable, 
 our American guide avoids mention in its lengthy- 
 apology for their defeat, was as brilliant as it was 
 decisive and its results fruitful. The Americans, under 
 the generalship of such experienced and undoubtedly 
 able officers as Winfield Scott and Chrystie, occupied an 
 entrenched position on the heights, in force a third 
 stronger than our own, to say nothing of the advantage 
 of their commanding position, protected from assault 
 by serious natural obstacles ; yet so skilful was General 
 Sheaffe's plan of attack and disposition of his forces — 
 General Brock and Colonel McDonnell had fallen in the 
 preliminary skirmish early in the morning — and so gal- 
 lant and impetuous the advance of our men, many of
 
 126 APPENDIX II. 
 
 whom, after half a night's rest, had had a forced march of 
 seven miles, from Fort George on the one side and ten 
 from Chippawa on the other, through roads almost im- 
 passable from the recent heavy rains, that the Americans 
 became terror-stricken and fled precipitately before the 
 storm, losing five hundred men in killed and wounded, 
 and surrendering to the number of one thousand, to- 
 gether with their colours and artillery. 
 
 Though suffering so disastrous a defeat the Ameri- 
 cans, in their inmost hearts, thanked God for the 
 removal of Brock, and considered the price they paid a 
 small one for such deliverance. And this fact is the 
 best evidence of our hero's gallantry, and of his faithful 
 and illustrious service to his Sovereign and his country. 
 
 The monument referred to in the eleventh paragraph 
 of the "Guide" is not the present beautiful structure, 
 which is the second memorial Canadians have erected to 
 that splendid man and gallant soldier, to whose foresight, 
 energy, courage, and determination in the beginning 
 of the war, they are indebted for the preservation of 
 their country and all those blessings that are guaranteed 
 to a people by the sway of the Union Jack. 
 
 The monument here spoken of was built in 1816, and 
 was a plain column one hundred and twenty-six feet in 
 height, terminating in a cupola. A spiral stair-case, of 
 one hundred and seventy steps, led to an upper gallery 
 protected on the exterior by an iron railing, and from
 
 CANADIAN BATTLE FIELDS. \2J 
 
 which a magnificent view of its picturesque and romantic 
 surroundings was obtainable. 
 
 Its site was on the right, or north side, of the 
 present avenue, about a hundred yards to the eastward 
 of the new shaft, the spot being noticeable by a clearing 
 in the trees and shrubbery ; and, on close inspection, the 
 old foundation is still discernible, for the grass grows 
 reluctantly there, and gentle Nature seems loath to efface 
 completely the early and sacred work of loyalty and 
 affection. 
 
 Its inscription, slightly different to that of the suc- 
 ceeding memorial, was as follows : — 
 
 The Legislature of Upper Canada has dedicated this monument 
 to the many civil and military services of the late Sir Isaac Brock, 
 Knight Commander of the most honourable Order of the Bath, 
 Provisional Lieutenant-Governor and Major-General commanding 
 his Majesty's forces therein. He fell in action on the 13th of 
 October, 1812, honoured and beloved by those whom he governed, 
 and deplored by his Sovereign to whose service his life had been 
 devoted. His remains are deposited in this vault, as are also those 
 of his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant-Colonel John McDonnell, who 
 died of his wounds, the 14th of October, 181 2, received the day 
 before in action. 
 
 In the interim, between the death of the General and 
 the removal to this monument, the body lay entombed 
 in a bastion of Fort George, to which it was taken with 
 becoming ceremony the second day after the battle (the 
 interment taking place on the 16th) ; and as the proces-
 
 128 APPENDIX II. 
 
 sion slowly traversed the intervening seven miles along 
 the bank of the river, and for nearly the whole distance 
 in sight of the opposite shore, the Americans, with a 
 chivalry as admirable as it was generous, fired minute- 
 guns at every post along that part of their lines, and 
 studiously cloaked for the'time every sign of war. 
 
 On the night of the 17th of April, 1840, a vandal, 
 named Lett, endeavoured to completely destroy the 
 column by an explosion of gunpowder. The concussion, 
 however, left the monument standing, but such were the 
 injuries to the structure and such the indignation aroused 
 by the dastardly attempt, that it was decided to remove 
 it altogether and replace it by another of far greater 
 dimensions, and of design as graceful and workmanship 
 as exquisite as any of that class in the world. Of the 
 success of their noble efforts, the present elegant and 
 majestic fabric that crowns those classic Heights grandly 
 attests, and proclaims alike to the land the worth of her 
 hero and the gratitude of her people. 
 
 The bombardment and capture of Newark and Fort 
 George, which our guide describes so graphically and for 
 which so much credit is given to its side, was accom- 
 plished by a force of nearly eight thousand men, to 
 whom was opposed a British brigade of less than fifteen 
 hundred with only five guns, and who, in heroically 
 attempting to prevent the enemy's landing, suffered 
 terrible loss from the broadsides of the ships anchored
 
 CANADIAN BATTLE FIELDS. 1 29 
 
 within three hundred yards of the shore, and whose 
 artillery numbered fifty-two pieces, supported, moreover, 
 by the guns of Fort Niagara and the adjacent batteries. 
 It was greatly to the credit of General Vincent that, 
 when further resistance was useless, he effected an or- 
 derly retreat with the remnant of his brigade, together 
 with their arms and part of their artillery and stores. 
 
 A few days later — the 5th of June — occurred that 
 almost quixotic achievement at Stoney Creek, where a 
 party of seven hundred men under Sir John Harvey, in 
 a night attack, surprised more than three thousand five 
 hundred Americans, capturing both their brigadiers, a 
 hundred and twenty-three officers and men, and four 
 pieces of artillery. This disaster caused the immediate 
 retreat of the Americans to the frontier. 
 
 Equally romantic was the victory (at Beaver Dams) of 
 that dashing and intrepid young officer, Lieutenant 
 James Fitzgibbon, than whom those stirring times pos- 
 sessed no more chivalrous character, and whose brilliant 
 and effective services throughout the war entitle him 
 to rank as one of its most worthy heroes. 
 
 And, in connection with this famous engagement, 
 Canadians ought never to forget the name of that coura- 
 geous little woman, Laura Secord, to whose forethought 
 and valour this success is largely to be ascribed. 
 
 The reverse at Chippawa, on the 5th of July the fol- 
 lowing year, reflected no dishonour on our arms. Though
 
 130 APPENDIX II. 
 
 the odds against him were greater than three to one, the 
 plucky-hearted Riall attacked them with the fearlessness 
 and the chivalry of a Paladin, and he was so successful 
 in the first part of the engagement that Porter's brigade 
 was thrown into complete confusion, and fled before the 
 charge of our militia and Indians. The troops fought 
 with all the ardour and bravery of British soldiers, 
 and their terrible losses in killed and wounded testify 
 eloquently to their matchless gallantry and stoical 
 endurance. 
 
 But in no other battle of the war, and, probably, 
 of ancient or modern times, was there a greater test 
 of human courage and devotion to duty than at Niagara, 
 where the bloody struggle was prolonged far into the 
 night, and with a desperate bravery as undaunted and 
 tenacious as that of Waterloo or Inkerman. The famous 
 and gory " Sand-bag battery " of the latter field wit- 
 nessed no more heroic work than did the Churchyard 
 battery of Lundy's Lane. Think of men marching 
 twenty miles under a Canadian July sun and entering a 
 murderous action at nine o'clock at night ! Yet such 
 was the classic feat of Scott's brigade, and they did it 
 with an enthusiasm " above all Greek, above all Roman 
 fame." 
 
 The Americans, though undoubtedly beaten, proved 
 themselves, on this occasion, worthy of our steel. The 
 glory of those who conquer the truly brave is greater
 
 CANADIAN BATTLE FIELDS. 131 
 
 than the glory of those who gain easy victories over 
 cowards, and it is but just to them to admit their hero- 
 ism and to wish that it had been exerted in a better 
 cause, for this invasion of Canada was inspired by 
 nothing else than greedy aggrandizement, the more 
 ignoble, too, because that government believed we were 
 helpless and that England had " her hands full " in the 
 Peninsula, and on that account unable to lend us any 
 aid. And, unless current events greatly belie them- 
 selves, the same feeling is again rapidly becoming 
 dominant in the republic in which the Christian for- 
 bearance of England, which democratic ignorance has 
 construed as fear, has been systematically abused by 
 sciolist and unscrupulous statesmen until Great Britain's 
 dignified patience is well-nigh worn out. This condition 
 of affairs cannot be long maintained, unless the best 
 American intelligence should assert itself and counteract 
 the dangerous influence of designing politicians, whose 
 supporters are hungry for army contracts and the 
 scattered "boodle" incident to war — a contingency it is 
 by no means safe to count upon in a country where the 
 franchise is universal, and which, like nearly everything 
 else, is a marketable commodity — and we must be pre- 
 pared sooner or later for the worst results of American 
 maladministration. 
 
 Throughout the severe campaigning of 181 2, '13 and 
 '14, Englishmen had no reason to blush for the conduct
 
 I32 APPENDIX II. 
 
 of their Canadian comrades in defending this portion of 
 the empire, and " the old flag " was carried as proudly, 
 and protected as sacredly, on the banks of the St. Law- 
 rence and the Niagara as it was afterwards on the plains 
 of Belgium or the shores of the Black Sea. 
 
 More than one British regiment have not disdained 
 to emblazon on their colours the glorious names of 
 "Queenston" and "Niagara," and Canadians, surely, 
 should point to them with as generous, if not greater 
 pride. 
 
 The country then was, comparatively, a wilderness and 
 the inhabitants generally poor, yet when the call to arms 
 was made they left their homes with an abnegation of 
 every selfish consideration and flocked to the standards 
 with an alacrity and enthusiasm worthy of their nation- 
 ality, and ready to go " quo fas et gloria dticunt." 
 
 Without anything like the prospects of a successful 
 defence, which we to-day might not unreasonably count 
 upon, they never despaired of their country, and rightly 
 considered it treason to do so. With the scenes of the 
 recent American rebellion fresh in many of their minds 
 they knew full well all the horrors which war entails, but 
 war, even in its worst form, was, in their manly estimation, 
 a less evil than the sacrifice of honour and the loss of 
 independence ; and, above all, they realized their duty to 
 their country, and had learned to appreciate that priceless
 
 CANADIAN BATTLE FIELDS. 1 33 
 
 heritage of British liberty and civilization which England 
 had handed down to them, purchased with her treasure 
 and her best blood. 
 
 Their devotion was so entire and their loyalty so notori- 
 ously disinterested that the republic did not then contain 
 a mind so foolish as to even dream of offering - them a 
 consideration for their birthright, as has been suggested 
 in our day. And the world knew, too, that Englishmen, 
 pioneers of commerce though they were in every quarter 
 of the globe, and though they had ever used every legiti- 
 mate device and lawful means to multiply their spindles 
 and looms, and to increase the quantity and value of their 
 output, had never yet, and never will, set a market price 
 on the precious products of the human heart, of which 
 patriotism, next to the love of God, is the chiefest virtue. 
 
 Canadians can look back with honest pride upon the 
 
 heroic achievements of these early patriots, and when the 
 
 necessity arises, the same immortal spirit will animate 
 
 the land, and the recital of their deeds will stir the young 
 
 blood of our countrymen to a generous emulation of merit 
 
 so exalted. 
 
 William H. Holmes. 
 
 Toronto, 21st July, 1890. 
 
 — From the Toronto " Empire " oj 2jth July, iSgo.
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 
 Canada's in memoriam to her great and distinguished 
 
 SONS. 
 
 Our Duty in the Erection of National Monuments — No Memorial 
 Stone for Governor Simcoe — The Splendid Shaft that marks 
 the Death of Brock— A Graphic Description of the Monument 
 and its Surroundings. 
 
 What commemorative art — such as family portraits, 
 sculpture, etc. — is to a well-appointed home, national 
 memorials are to the country that has been benefited 
 by the lives of their distinguished subjects. 
 
 And this class of art exerts a two-fold influence, no 
 less potent because it is silent : it educates the mind 
 to an appreciation of art per se, and, secondly, by a 
 contemplation of the characters of the subjects, it stim- 
 ulates the emulation of virtue. 
 
 By no persons is such an influence experienced to as 
 great an extent as by those who, having spent the early 
 portion of their lives in a young country like this, where, 
 owing to the limited population and the great demands 
 upon the public purse, the revenue has been able to 
 supply only the most practical necessaries, and who, 
 being possessed of a fair education and having some 
 love for historic literature, for the first time find them- 
 
 i34
 
 CANADA'S IN MEMORIAM. 1 35 
 
 selves in one of the European capitals. When such a 
 tourist, in Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, or in the 
 public squares of London, comes face to face with the 
 heroic representations of some of the noblest characters 
 of English history — in arms, in science, in literature or 
 in art — perhaps the particular one who has been his 
 very ideal of a hero — will he not, at the prospect, feel a 
 thrill of pride in his heart and realize an inspiration that 
 never before took possession of his soul ? And can any- 
 one doubt the effect of such emotions upon the mind 
 and, so, upon the character ? In one of the French text 
 books that I used at college, I remember the passage : 
 " On dit qu' a la vue de l'Apollon le corps se redresse et 
 prend une plus digne attitude ; au souvenir d'une belle 
 vie, l'ame doit se sentir, de meme, relevee et ennoblie ! " 
 (It is said that, on viewing the statue of Apollo, one 
 stands more than usually erect, and the body, sponta- 
 neously, assumes a more dignified attitude. In the same 
 way, when contemplating a grand character, the soul 
 should feel itself exalted and ennobled.) 
 
 In Canada we have a few public monuments, most of 
 them worthy of their subjects and the country, but in 
 this respect we have only commenced our duty as a 
 nation. It is a disgrace to this wealthy province, and to 
 Toronto as its capital, that not a stone has been scratched 
 to preserve the memory of Colonel the Honourable John 
 Graves Simcoe, and to publicly record the gratitude of
 
 136 APPENDIX III. 
 
 Ontario due to its first and illustrious lieutenant-gover- 
 nor, who did so much to promote the prosperity of 
 Upper Canada. Of those who argue that the expendi- 
 ture of money upon such memorials is folly and that the 
 endowment of some useful public institution or a chair in 
 a university is a monument more enduring and con- 
 sistent with modern civilization, I would ask how 
 many Canadians know the origin of Lake Simcoe's name 
 or that of the county town of Norfolk ? Or, if they do, 
 how many ever associate the famous lieutenant-governor 
 with it? To the farmer who drives ten or twenty miles 
 down Yonge street with produce for Toronto market, 
 though the cobble-stones, striking his horses' feet, should 
 cry " Simcoe ! " " Simcoe ! " at every step, how often 
 would the maker of the celebrated road himself be 
 suggested? It is only by some object specially de- 
 signed to attract the attention and to call to mind the 
 man himself, his attributes and deeds, that his memory 
 can rightly be said to be perpetuated and the good 
 effects, which our French friend aptly illustrates, ob- 
 tained : in such a monument the spirit of the noble 
 subject actually lives and is immortal. 
 
 The construction of the first roads of the province was 
 a great work, and, as Yonge street is the main artery, 
 would it not be a good suggestion to erect his monument 
 on that thoroughfare ? The intersection of Yonge and 
 Queen streets would make an admirable site for such an
 
 Canada's in memoriam. 137 
 
 ornament ; it is the very heart of the city, a much more 
 elevated and commanding location than the crossing 
 of Yonge and King, and, with the removal of the corner 
 buildings, which are old and inexpensive, ample space 
 would be allowed for traffic. A bronze statue, on an 
 appropriate pedestal of granite, would constitute an 
 imposing centre-piece, and ornamental drinking-fountains 
 on the north-west and south-east corners, with bronze 
 vases on granite bases or similar ornaments on the other 
 two, would complete " Simcoe Square" and one that 
 would be a credit to any city. 
 
 The Brant memorial of Brantford is, unquestionably, 
 the finest specimen of that kind of art (bronze) in Canada, 
 and, with the surrounding trees and shrubs, plants and 
 grass, kept with a Parisian neatness and care, forms one 
 of the most beautiful public squares in America. London 
 (Ontario) has, in Tecumseh, a hero who, so far as individual 
 character is concerned, was the peer of Brant, and whose 
 memory she, with the aid of the country, should no longer 
 delay to honour as worthily. And among our leaders in 
 the war of 1812 we have the names of men whose sphere 
 of action was, perhaps, less extensive, but whose lives 
 were no less chivalrous and whose services were scarcely 
 less important to the empire than those military heroes 
 whose statues adorn George's Square in Glasgow, or 
 Trafalgar Square in London: General Sir Roger II. 
 Sheaffe, General Sir George Gordon Drummond,
 
 138 APPENDIX III. 
 
 General John Vincent, Major-General Phineas Riall, 
 Colonel Sir John Harvey, Colonel Joseph Warton Mor- 
 rison, Lieutenant James Fitzgibbon, are a few whose 
 memory has a first claim upon the homage of Upper 
 Canadians. If Port Hope could afford to pay her tribute 
 of merited honour to the memory of the late Colonel 
 Williams, how much more should the province recognize 
 the eminent services of those to whose courage and 
 devotion she is indebted for her existence? It speaks 
 volumes for the appreciation, the loyalty and the grati- 
 tude of the early inhabitants that they twice erected a 
 memorial to the gallant Brock, and it is no exaggeration 
 to say that the present one is the finest monument of 
 that class in the world. There are, of course, monuments 
 of greater height, such as the one at Washington, which 
 is five hundred and fifty-five feet, but it is a simple obelisk 
 with little pretence to art. The same may be said of the 
 Bunker Hill monument of Boston. The Scott monu- 
 ment, Edinburgh, is the same height as Brock's, but it is 
 of a distinctly different style (Gothic) and, consequently, 
 is not comparable with the latter. In the same class as 
 Scott's, though much more ornate and costly, is the 
 Albert Memorial in London, but this is twenty feet lower 
 than the Canadian column. The Nelson column in Tra- 
 falgar Square is almost identical in design with Brock's, 
 both being copied from one of the Corinthian columns of 
 the Temple of Mars the Avenger at Rome, but the state- 
 liness and beauty of proportion of the latter are greatly
 
 CANADA'S IN MEMORIAM. 139 
 
 enhanced by the sub- basement, which raises the super- 
 structure fifteen feet higher than the former. And 
 in this respect it is also superior to "The Monument," 
 which marks the starting-point of the great fire of Lon- 
 don in 1666, and which is also a fluted column and very 
 similar to Nelson's and Brock's. By the small advantage 
 of twelve feet over the latter, the London monument gains 
 the distinction of being the loftiest isolated column in 
 existence. The Colonne Vendome, in Paris, is of bronze 
 and the same height as Brock's, but its diameter, thirteen 
 feet, is disproportionate to the length of the shaft. The 
 Colonne de Juillet, on the site of the Bastille, is a much 
 more graceful structure than the former, but it is only one 
 hundred and sixty-four feet high. 
 
 But apart from the individual beauty of our memorial 
 is the grandeur of its commanding site, which is three 
 hundred and fifty feet above the river, and beside which 
 «' the mound " on the field of Waterloo (which the writer 
 visited in 1878), in its artificiality, looks like an exagger- 
 ated potato-hill. The prospect from the summit of 
 Brock's monument is one of the most magnificent in the 
 world, commanding, as it does, such a vast expanse of 
 land and waterscape— of plain and tableland, of lake and 
 river. And when we include such famous scenery as the 
 Falls, the Rapids, the Whirlpool, and the more peaceful 
 flow and graceful curve of the Niagara from the Heights 
 to its outlet, where can we go for comparison ?
 
 140 APPENDIX III. 
 
 To the artist who is thirsting for a stimulant to his 
 genius I should recommend a summer sunset viewed 
 from this advantageous point. All is so calm and peace- 
 ful, for it is the country, and he can experience, indeed, 
 the reality of Gray's pastoral sketch : 
 
 Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 
 
 And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 
 Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 
 
 And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds. 
 
 Then, at the remembrance of the scenes that have 
 made this ground historic and at the sight of the noble 
 shaft beside him, he can realize the full force of the 
 philosophy : 
 
 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
 
 Await, alike, th' inevitable hour : 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 
 
 Spread out before him, as a carpet, lies the fruitful 
 plain diversified by wood and meadow, by vineyard, 
 orchard and plantation. His eye can range far over the 
 placid lake, which Sol, descending, has made a flaming 
 flood and gilds the land with his aurient beam. The 
 lowering clouds reflect the double light and the radiant 
 heavens vie with the earth for brilliant supremacy. 
 
 In one blood-red mass of living light he kisses the 
 sea, and, growing more and more ruddy as he sinks, 
 takes a last glimpse along the mirror surface, sheds a
 
 CANADA'S IN MEMORIAM. 141 
 
 parting smile and is gone. Deep crimson follows gold, 
 bright purple succeeds the crimson, and the purplish hue 
 soon dissolves into the fast-growing grey. Darkness 
 follows in the train, and 
 
 Sable night sits brooding on the deep. 
 
 Brock's monument, the gem of all our public art, and 
 which, in its site, in its surroundings and in its individual 
 beauty, stands unrivalled on the globe, is comparatively 
 little known, sad to relate, even to Canadians, and for 
 this reason I am constrained to give a detailed descrip- 
 tion of it in the hope that my countrymen may person- 
 ally acquaint themselves with this famous spot ; may 
 the better appreciate the sacrifices of their predecessors 
 in this fair province and realize the debt of honour they 
 owe to their memory. The first monument was erected 
 in 18 16 and destroyed by a vandal in 1840. The 
 present massive memorial, as the brass plate at the 
 entrance tells the visitor, "was erected chiefly by the 
 voluntary contributions of the militia and Indian war- 
 riors of this province, aided by a grant from the Legisla- 
 ture." The work was begun in 1853, and on the 13th of 
 October in that year, the ceremonies of laying the 
 foundation-stone and also those of the third reinterment 
 of Brock took place ; his remains, together with those of 
 his aide-de-camp, having been temporarily removed 
 from the ruined column to an adjoining burying-ground. 
 The foundation-stone was laid by Lieut.-Col. McDonnell,
 
 142 APPENDIX III. 
 
 brother of the gallant man who shared the fate and the 
 honours of his commander-in-chief. The writer was 
 present at the inauguration on the 13th of October, 
 1859, and it was a great event. General Sir W. Fenwick 
 Williams, K.C.B., the " Hero of Kars," himself a Canadian, 
 and who was more honoured in the circumstances of his 
 defeat than it falls to the lot of most men to be in the 
 achievement of the most complete success, was then 
 Commander of the forces in Canada. He was present on 
 the occasion and inspected the troops, who represented 
 nearly every district of the province, and who were sup- 
 plemented by a considerable number of veterans of the 
 war of 1 8 12, arrayed for the most part in the quaint 
 uniforms of that early period, and by a numerous band 
 of Indians from the Grand River Reserve, whose abori- 
 ginal costumes enhanced much the picturesqueness of 
 the general effect. Sir Allan Napier McNab was the 
 orator of the day and delivered the inaugural address, 
 which comprehensively set forth the exploits of the 
 chivalrous Brock. 
 
 The foundation of the monument is built upon the 
 solid rock and is forty feet square and ten feet thick of 
 massive stone. Upon this the structure stands in a 
 grooved plinth or sub-basement thirty-eight feet square 
 and twenty-seven feet in height, having an eastern en- 
 trance by a heavy oak door and bronze pateras, and form- 
 ing two galleries to the interior one hundred and fourteen
 
 CANADA'S IN MEMORIAM. I43 
 
 feet in extent round the inner pedestal, on the north and 
 south sides of which, in vaults underneath the ground 
 floor, repose, in massive stone sarcophagi, the remains of 
 General Brock and those of his aide-de-camp. On the 
 exterior angles of the sub-basement are lions rampant, 
 seven feet in height, supporting shields with the armorial 
 bearings of the hero, and beneath, upon a riband, is the 
 motto, " Vincit Veritas!' On the north face is the follow- 
 ing inscription : 
 
 Upper Canada has dedicated this monument to the memory of 
 the late Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, K.B., Provisional Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor and Commander of the Forces in this province, 
 whose remains are deposited in the vault beneath. Opposing the 
 invading enemy, he fell in action near these heights on the 13th of 
 October, 1812, in the 43rd year of his age, revered and lamented by 
 the people whom he governed and deplored by the Sovereign to 
 whose service his life had been devoted. 
 
 On brass tablets within the monument are the follow- 
 ing inscriptions : 
 
 In a vault underneath are deposited the mortal remains of the 
 lamented Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, K.B., who fell in action 
 near these heights on the 13th 'of October, 1812, and was entombed 
 on the 16th of October, at the bastion of Fort George, Niagara ; re- 
 moved from thence and reinterred under a monument to the east- 
 ward of this site on the 13th of October, 1824 ; and in consequence 
 of that monument having received irreparable injury by a lawless 
 act on the 17th April, 1840, it was found requisite to take down the 
 former structure and erect this monument — the foundation stone 
 being laid, and the remains again interred with due solemnity on 
 13th of October, 1853.
 
 144 APPENDIX III. 
 
 In a vault beneath are deposited the mortal remains of Lieut.-Col. 
 John McDonnell, P. A. D. C, and aide-de-camp to the lamented 
 Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, K.B., who fell mortally wounded in 
 the Battle of Queenston on the 13th of October, 1812, and died on 
 the following day. His remains were removed and reinterred with 
 due solemnity on the 13th of October, 1853. 
 
 Round the base of the monument, which rests upon a 
 slightly elevated platform, is a dwarf-wall enclosure, 
 seventy-five feet square, with a fosse on the interior. 
 At the angles are placed massive military trophies, re- 
 presentations of Roman armour, on pedestals of cut 
 stone twenty feet in height. Standing upon the sub- 
 basement is the pedestal of the order, sixteen feet square 
 and twenty-eight feet high, the die having on three of its 
 enriched panelled sides emblematic basso-relievos, and 
 on the fourth, fronting Queenston, a scene of the battle 
 in alto-relievo. It represents the hero at the moment he 
 received his death-wound. Having dismounted at the 
 foot of the heights, he is seen at the head of his old 
 regiment, the 49th, leading the troops to the assault and 
 animating the men by voice and gesture. " Push on, 
 York Volunteers !" he shouts inspiringly, his right arm 
 high up-raised and pointing with his sword in the direc- 
 tion of the redan battery, which they had been compelled 
 to relinquish at the commencement of the action and 
 which it was the object of the charge now to regain. In 
 this heroic attitude he was for the second time struck, 
 and a junior officer seeing him falter, is about to support
 
 CANADA'S IN MEMORIAM. I45 
 
 him as he sinks. A few paces to the rear a soldier is 
 
 seen taking deliberate aim at the man who fired the 
 
 fatal shot. The plinth of the order is enriched with 
 
 lions' heads supporting festoons in bold relief. The 
 
 column, a fluted shaft, is of the Roman composite order, 
 
 ninety-five feet in height and ten feet in diameter, the 
 
 lower tones adorned with laurel leaves and the flutes 
 
 terminating on the base with palms. The capital of the 
 
 column is sixteen feet square and twelve feet six inches 
 
 high. On each face is sculptured a figure of Victory, ten 
 
 feet six inches high, with extended arms, grasping military 
 
 shields as volutes, the acanthus leaves being wreathed 
 
 with palms, the whole in the style of the antique. From 
 
 the ground to the gallery at the top of the column winds 
 
 a spiral staircase of cut stone, with a solid newel, of two 
 
 hundred and thirty-five steps and amply lighted by 
 
 loop-holes cut at intervals in the fluting and unnotice- 
 
 able from the exterior. Light and air are admitted to 
 
 the upper and lower galleries through sufficiently large 
 
 circular openings (bull's eyes) enriched round the face 
 
 with wreaths of laurel in relief. Upon the abacus stands 
 
 the cippas, supporting the statue of the hero, sculptured 
 
 in the full-dress uniform of a field marshal, seventeen 
 
 feet high, the left hand resting upon the sword-hilt, the 
 
 right arm extended, with baton. The total height is one 
 
 hundred and ninety feet. The grounds surrounding the 
 
 monument contain about forty acres, and, with little 
 
 expense, could be made a most beautiful park. The 
 10
 
 I46 APPENDIX III. 
 
 lodge at the entrance is a pretty little cut-stone struc- 
 ture, and the gates and piers, surmounted by the arms 
 of the general, are handsome specimens of art. From 
 here a carriage road winds gracefully up the hill, and, on 
 attaining the summit of the heights, broadens into a fine 
 avenue one hundred feet in width, skirted by boulevards 
 planted with chestnuts, maples, etc., and terminating at 
 the monument in a circle a hundred and eighty feet in 
 diameter. Were it not for its present neglected appear- 
 ance it would not require an extraordinary effort for the 
 traveller, who has visited the other continent, to imagine 
 himself in an unexplored section of the Champs Elys^es. 
 
 The total cost was between £40,000 and £50,000, or 
 nearly a quarter of a million dollars. 
 
 Such a park, so beautiful by nature, so embellished by 
 art, and so famed in history, is a most interesting point 
 for the intellectual tourist, and, with the splendid service 
 afforded by the magnificent steamers of the Niagara 
 Navigation Company, it ought to be the most popular 
 rendezvous for the Toronto excursionist. This superb 
 monument and its surroundings, in their present condi- 
 tion, are the picture of neglect and indifference, and a 
 sadly eloquent censure upon the people and the Govern- 
 ment of this province, who, I think I am safe in saying, 
 have not during the past thirty years spent $500 alto- 
 gether in their preservation. It cannot be expected that 
 the caretaker, who has simply the use of the lodge,
 
 CANADA S IN MEMORIAM. 1 47 
 
 without salary, can afford to expend much labour on the 
 park, which, during the summer months, should have a 
 staff of at least three competent gardeners to keep it in 
 a creditable shape. The avenue should be regravelled 
 and the boulevards defined and relieved at intervals by 
 alternate beds of blooming and foliage plants of artistic 
 design. An abundant supply of water is near, which 
 could be made available by means of a pony-pump and 
 reservoir at comparatively small expense. And if a 
 couple of Crimean guns, or, better still, a few of the 
 thirty-three pieces that Brock brought from Detroit, 
 could be had and placed at the head of the avenue, they 
 would make a fitting completion of the grand approach 
 to the stately column. In addition to the wear of time 
 and weather, this beautiful and costly memorial, which 
 badly needs a thorough repointing, has suffered from 
 vandalism, the statue having been damaged by a rifle 
 shot, which took off the end of the baton. Outside of 
 the sacredness of its object, it is far too valuable a 
 structure to be left so exposed and unguarded. If the 
 Government would permit a detachment from C Com- 
 pany, Infantry School Corps, to be stationed at Queens- 
 ton, the lodge could be readily converted into a proper 
 guard-room, and a red-coated sentry at the gate and 
 another at the monument would give the place an 
 inhabited appearance and ensure for it respect. It would 
 cost little, if any more, to keep the men there than at 
 the New Fort, and, to prevent monotony, they could be
 
 148 APPENDIX III. 
 
 exchanged monthly if necessary, the transport being 
 quick and inexpensive. 
 
 The Government, by arrangement with Sir Casimir 
 Gzowski, the owner, should include the strip of eleven 
 acres adjoining the southern boundary of the park, 
 and should also acquire a field on the north side 
 adjacent to the burial-ground. The former is practi- 
 cally worthless in its present state, while it contains 
 some very interesting relics of the war. On that land, 
 and within forty yards of the monument, are the compar- 
 atively well-preserved remains of a redoubt and out- 
 works that were alternately garrisoned throughout the 
 war by the British and the United States troops. Their 
 lines are clearly defined, the work having been well 
 constructed with glacis, ditch, parapet and banquette, 
 and it is even now, with the aid of the trees that have 
 since overgrown the fortification, a difficult task for a 
 man to enter the enclosure except by the entrance in the 
 rear. The brush should be cleared and the ramparts 
 restored and sodded, not, it is needless for me to 
 say, for any hostile use, but as an historic orna- 
 ment to the park. The flagstaff, which, in its present 
 location by the side of the monument, looks like a pin 
 stuck in the earth, would be a becoming adjunct to the 
 redoubt. The burial-trenches of the soldiers who were 
 killed in the battle are in the field at the foot of the 
 heights, though at present scarcely traceable; they should
 
 CANADA'S IN MEMORIAM. 149 
 
 be mounded and becomingly marked. Were the im- 
 provements that I have suggested carried out and the 
 tramway continued along the river bank from the Whirl- 
 pool to Queenston, the revenue from the fees to ascend 
 the monument would be almost, if not quite, sufficient to 
 meet the cost of proper maintenance. With the new 
 dock now at Queenston and the increased attraction of 
 the park, the Toronto steamers would be enabled to make 
 regular stops at that point, which, hitherto, it has been 
 impossible for them to do. 
 
 There is just one more suggestion that I desire to 
 offer in connection with this subject. At the re-presen- 
 tation of the colours to the 10th Royal Grenadiers, a short 
 time since in the pavilion, the Hon. Mr. Allan, in his 
 excellent address, mentioned his having in his possession 
 one or more of the old battle-flags of the York militia, 
 inscribed with the glorious names of "Detroit," "Queens- 
 ton," " Stoney Creek," etc. 
 
 Now I have no doubt that if the application were 
 made by the proper authorities, Mr. Allan would allow 
 these sacred relics to be preserved in the Cathedral, 
 which is the proper repository for such memorials, and 
 to which they would add historic interest and be a con- 
 stant reminder of the " Hero of Upper Canada," who 
 was a member of St. James' congregation. There the 
 public would have at least a weekly opportunity of seeing 
 the standards their forefathers so valiantly defended and
 
 150 APPENDIX III. 
 
 which inspired countless deeds of the truest heroism. 
 There they would be a silent, yet eloquent, illustration of 
 the scriptural injunction to fear God and honour the 
 King, and would prove a perpetual object lesson exalt- 
 ing the heroic virtues, and "showing honour, patriotism 
 and the love of truth and justice to be things beyond 
 money and the most precious possessions of states as 
 
 well as of individuals." 
 
 William H. Holmes. 
 
 Toronto, August, 1890. 
 
 — From the Toronto "Empire" of jot h August, i8go. 
 
 Note — Since the publication of this and the pre- 
 ceding article (Appendix II.) the Niagara Falls Park 
 and River Railway Company has been organized and its 
 line constructed along the route outlined above. 
 
 Shortly afterward, also, the monument, by direction of 
 the Ontario Government, was overhauled from base to 
 summit and put in a thorough state of repair. 
 
 W. H. H.
 
 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 VIEW FROM BROCK'S MONUMENT. 
 
 What the Duke of Argyll Had to Say of it in iSjg. 
 
 " If the cataract of Niagara had continued to be where 
 it once was it would have given additional splendour to 
 one of the most beautiful landscapes of the world. In- 
 stead of falling, as it does now, into a narrow chasm 
 where it cannot be seen a few yards from either bank, it 
 would have poured its magnificent torrent over a higher 
 range of cliff, and would have shown for hundreds of 
 miles over land and sea. Of this landscape I confess I 
 had never heard, and I saw it by the merest accident. 
 In the war of 1812 the Americans invaded Canada at 
 Queenston and seized the steep line of heights above 
 that town, which form the termination or escarpment of 
 the comparatively high table-land of the upper lakes. 
 The American forces were attacked and speedily dis- 
 lodged by the British troops under the command of 
 General Brock. This brave officer, however, fell early in 
 the action and a very handsome monument, consisting 
 of a lofty column, has been erected to his memory on 
 the summit of the ridge. Being told at the hotel that 
 ' Brock's Monument ' was an object of interest and that 
 
 151
 
 152 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 from it there was a ' good view,' we drove there from 
 Niagara. We found a ' good view,' indeed. No scene 
 we met with in America has left such an impression on 
 my mind. It is altogether peculiar, unlike anything in 
 the old world, and such as few spots so accessible can 
 command even in the new. One great glory of the 
 American Continent is its lakes and rivers. But they 
 are generally too large to make much impression on the 
 eye. The rivers are often so broad as to look like lakes 
 without their picturesqueness, and the lakes are so large 
 as to look like the sea without its grandeur. Another 
 great glory of America is its vast breadth of habitable 
 surface. But these again are so vast that there are few 
 spots indeed whence they can be seen and estimated. 
 But from the Queenston Heights both these great fea- 
 tures are spread out before the eye after a manner in 
 which they can be taken in. The steep bank below us 
 is covered with fine specimens of the thuja occidentalism 
 commonly called the cedar in America. Looking to the 
 north-east the horizon is occupied by the blue waters of 
 Lake Ontario, which form the sky line. But on either 
 side the shores can be seen bending round the lake to an 
 illimitable distance and losing themselves in fading tints 
 of blue. To the left, turning towards the north-west, the 
 fair Province of Ontario stretches in immense plains and 
 in escarpments of the same table-land. The whole of 
 this immense extent of country has the aspect of a land 
 comfortably settled, widely cultivated and beautifully
 
 VIEW FROM BROCK'S MONUMENT. 153 
 
 clothed with trees. Towns and villages are indicated 
 by little spots of gleaming white, by smoke, and a few- 
 spires. To the left, on the Canadian shore, and seen 
 over a deep bay, the City of Toronto is distinctly visible 
 when the atmosphere is clear. At our feet the magnifi- 
 cent river of the Niagara emerges from its ravine into 
 the open sunlight of the plains, and winds slowly in long 
 reaches of a lovely green, and round a succession of low- 
 wooded capes, into the vast waters of Ontario. The 
 contrast is very striking between the perfect restfulness 
 of its current here and the tormented violence of its 
 course at the falls, at the rapids, and at the whirlpool. 
 
 " The six or seven miles of road between Niagara and 
 the Heights of Queenston afforded me my first oppor- 
 tunity of seeing a bit of Canadian country in detail. 
 The farms seemed to be of very considerable size — the 
 cultivation careless, so far as neatness is concerned, and 
 manifesting that complete contempt of economy of sur- 
 face which is conspicuous over the whole of North 
 America. Straggling fences, wide spaces of land along 
 the roads left unappropriated, irregular clumps and 
 masses of natural wood — odd corners left rough and 
 
 wild all these features proclaimed a country where 
 
 economy in culture was wholly needless and never 
 attended to. The vast landscape from Brock's monu- 
 ment, along both shores of Lake Ontario, as far as the
 
 154 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 eye could reach, exhibited the same characteristic fea- 
 tures. They are features eminently picturesque, com- 
 bining the aspects of wildness with the impression ot 
 exuberant fertility and of boundless wealth." 
 
 — From an article, " First Impressions of a New World" by /us 
 Grace in " Fraser's Magazine " oj December^ 187Q.
 
 APPENDIX V. 
 
 lundy's lane. 
 
 A Recent Discovery at the Famous Old Battlefield — A Visit to 
 
 the Scene. 
 
 The recent discovery of a burial-trench at Lundy's 
 Lane has awakened fresh interest in the scene and the 
 history of that famous fight, which added another and 
 worthy name to the glorious record emblazoned on the 
 colours of the regiments that had the fortune to take 
 part in the victory, and forever inscribed on the memo- 
 ries of Britons in whatever quarter of the globe their 
 lot has been cast. 
 
 Imbued with this interest, the writer visited Drum- 
 mondville on Saturday last. And right here regret must 
 be expressed that that municipality should have seen fit 
 to change the name of their pretty village, which Cana- 
 dians will, nevertheless, continue to designate by the old 
 and familiar name out of homage to the memory of the 
 illustrious general, who, by his heroic bravery and un- 
 daunted resolution at a most critical moment, turned the 
 tide of battle and gave the spot an honoured place in 
 the page of history. 
 
 The newly found trench is a hundred and fifty yards 
 north of the Presbyterian church, and, so far, eleven 
 
 »55
 
 156 APPENDIX V. 
 
 skeletons have been exhumed, nine on Thursday and two 
 on Friday last, which have been taken charge of by the 
 Historical Society for reinterment in the cemetery. 
 
 The Imperial troops engaged in the battle were : the 
 ist Royal Scots, 8th King's, 41st, 89th, 103rd and 104th, 
 with detachments of Royal Engineers, Royal Artillery, 
 and Royal Marine Artillery. The Canadian Militia 
 were represented by the following corps: 19th Dragoons, 
 Provincial Light Dragoons, Glengarry Light Infantry, 
 Incorporated, Militia, 2nd York Militia, and 1st, 2nd, 4th 
 and 5th Lincoln Militia. 
 
 The remains lately found are those of men of the 89th 
 and 103rd regiments, the buttons still retaining the 
 numerals very distinctly. 
 
 Mr. John Orchard, magistrate of Drummondville and 
 secretary of the Lundy's Lane Historical Society, has 
 the custody of the relics found with the bones, the most 
 interesting being a portion of an officer's tunic, consist- 
 ing of the lower portion of the back and the " swallow- 
 tail," which was the regulation pattern in the British 
 army at that period. 
 
 The cloth is wonderfully well preserved, considering 
 the time, seventy-seven years, that it has been in the 
 earth, without so much as the protection of a pine box. 
 The scarlet has become a tan colour, and the bullion 
 lace, while discoloured, is but little corroded, and here
 
 lundy's lane. 157 
 
 and there the gold threads glisten in the new light, as 
 they did on that fiery July day and lurid summer night. 
 
 Now the losses of the 89th, to which regiment this 
 tunic belonged, and which suffered the most severely of 
 all the troops engaged that day, were : Two officers, 27 
 N.C.O. and men killed ; 11 officers, 177 N.C.O. and men 
 wounded, and 37 N.C.O. and men missing ; and as the 
 two officers killed were Capt. Spooner and Lieutenant 
 Lathom, one of the skeletons found must be that of one 
 of them. 
 
 The 89th, under Col. Morrison, were the heroes of 
 Chrysler's farm, which put an end, the year before, to the 
 formidable invasion of Lower Canada ; they had arrived 
 at York on the 21st of July, with Sir Gordon Drum- 
 mond, from Kingston, and immediately embarked in 
 schooners for Niagara. 
 
 The 103rd were, like the 41st, a "boy regiment," and 
 on this account were not permitted during the previous 
 year to serve in the field, but kept on garrison duty. 
 They were part of Scott's brigade that made that famous 
 march of nearly twenty miles (part of the distance having 
 been doubled on account of countermanding orders) from 
 St. Catharines, then known as " The Twelve," on the 
 afternoon of the 25th, and cheerfully engaged the stub- 
 born enemy at 9 o'clock. 
 
 It was at such an "evening service" held, not in the 
 church, though in its very yard, and to which they were
 
 158 APPENDIX V. 
 
 summoned not by the vesper bell, but by the booming 
 of cannon and the murderous rattle of musketry, that 
 the lads of the 103rd received their "baptism" of fire. 
 
 From the elevation of the country the stately shaft of 
 Brock's monument is plainly discernible, towering above 
 the woods that fringe the northern horizon, while close 
 at hand, on the crest of this classic slope, are the less 
 pretentious, but no less sacred, memorials of as faithful 
 soldiers and the graves of as noble dust. 
 
 Here are a few of the inscriptions : — 
 
 Sacred to the Memory of 
 
 Lieut-Col. th« Hon. Cecil Bishop. 
 
 1st Foot Guards, and Inspecting Field Officer in 
 
 Upper Canada. 
 
 Eldest and only surviving son of 
 
 Sir Cecil Bishop, Bart. : Baron de la Zouche in 
 
 England. 
 
 After having served with distinction in the British army in Hol- 
 land, Spain and Portugal, he died on the 16th July, 1813, aged 30, 
 in consequence of wounds received in action with the enemy at 
 Black Rock the 13th of the same month, to the great grief of his 
 family and friends, and is buried here. 
 
 This tomb, erected at the time by his brother officers, becoming 
 much dilapidated, is now, 1846, renewed by his affectionate sisters, 
 the Baroness de la Zouche and the Hon. Mrs. Pechell, in memorial 
 of an excellent man and beloved brother.
 
 lundy's lane. 159 
 
 To the Memory of 
 
 Lieut-Col. Gordon and Capt. Torrens, 
 
 of the Royals, 
 
 Killed at Fort Erie during the Campaign 
 
 of 1814. 
 
 Erected by Major Barry Fox, late of said 
 
 Regiment, their Friend and Companion. 
 
 June 20, 185 1. 
 
 Sacred to the Memory of 
 
 Robert Dossie Patterson. 
 
 Captain in the 6th Regiment of Infantry, Royal 
 
 1st Warwickshire. 
 
 Who, after Serving under Sir John Moore and 
 
 the Duke of Wellington Throughout the 
 
 Peninsular War, fell before Fort 
 
 Erie at the age of 26. 
 
 September 17, 1814. 
 
 Sacred to the Memory of 
 
 Lieut. William Hemphill, 
 
 of the Royals, 
 
 Who fell at the Battle of Lundy's Lane on the 
 
 25th July, 18 14. 
 This Stone was Placed by his son, Lieut-Col. 
 Hemphill, of the 26th Cameronians, 
 July 17, 1854. 
 
 Here Rests 
 Laura 
 Beloved Wife of James Secord, died October 17, 
 1868, aged 93 years.
 
 160 APPENDIX V. 
 
 There is another grave that may with propriety be 
 mentioned here. It is marked : 
 
 Here lies the body of 
 
 Abraham F. Hull, 
 
 Captain in the 9th Regiment U.S. Infantry, Who 
 
 Fell Near This Spot in the 
 
 Battle of Bridgewater, July 25th, 1814. 
 
 Aged 28 years. 
 
 This young officer was a son of General Hull, who on 
 the 1 6th of August, 181 2, surrendered Detroit with a 
 garrison of 2,500 men and 33 pieces of artillery, to Gen- 
 eral Brock without firing a single gun. 
 
 This country churchyard is indeed holy ground, and — 
 
 "Those fields are sacred, and that sward shall be Canadians' boast, 
 The spot where valor's few hurled back the dark invader's host. 
 The tale shall live while grow the trees, while rippling water runs, 
 Of Fame's bright birth to Canada from the life-blood of her sons." 
 
 William H. Holmes. 
 
 Toronto, 7th September, 1891. 
 
 — From Toronto " Empire " oj 8th September , i8gi.
 
 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 GENERAL SMYTH'S DEDICATION. 
 
 Dedication of " Precis of The I Vars in Canada from 1755 to the 
 Treaty of Ghent in 1814" by Maj.-Gen. Sir fames Carmichael 
 Smyth, Bart., C.B., K.M.T., K.S. IV. 
 
 To 
 
 His Grace 
 
 The Duke of Wellington, 
 
 Master General of His Majesty's Ordnance, 
 
 K.G., G.C.B. & G.C.H. 
 
 &c, &c, &c. 
 
 My Lord, — In my anxious endeavours to execute to 
 the best of my abilities the important commission in 
 His Majesty's North American Provinces, which your 
 Grace was pleased, last year, to do me the high honour 
 of entrusting to my care, it became a very necessary and 
 very interesting part of my duty to make myself 
 acquainted with the details of the several campaigns, 
 and the objects of the different movements which had 
 formerly taken place, both in attacking and defending 
 the Canadas. 1 he following pages are the result of my 
 reading and reflections upon the subject, aided by the 
 local information I acquired in visiting the country. 
 
 I venture, with the utmost deference, to lay them 
 
 before your Grace. 
 
 11 161
 
 1 62 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 The events of these wars afford, in my opinion, a 
 demonstration as clear as that of any proposition in 
 Euclid, of the impossibility (under Divine Providence) 
 of these Provinces ever being wrested from under His 
 Majesty's authority by the government of the United 
 States, provided we avail ourselves of the military pre- 
 cautions in our power to adopt, by establishing those 
 communications and occupying those points, which 
 posterity will one day learn with, if possible, increased 
 respect for your Grace's great name, were principally 
 suggested by your Grace. 
 
 It will ever be to me a subject of proud recollection 
 that I should have been selected by your Grace to 
 contribute my humble efforts towards the completion of 
 a plan, the outlines of which had been already traced by 
 your Grace's own hand. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 My Lord, 
 with the utmost respect, 
 Your Grace's 
 most obedient, most obliged, 
 
 and most faithful humble servant, 
 
 James Carmichael Smyth. 
 
 Nutwood, Reigate, 
 
 15th August, 1826.
 
 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 HALIFAX HERALD, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1897. 
 
 United States History. 
 It has frequently been pointed out that histories of 
 the United States, written in that country, appear to 
 have been designed mainly for the purpose of training 
 up United States youth to hate the Mother Country, 
 from which the founders of that great republic not only 
 took their lineage, but also received their language, their 
 laws, and the most valuable features of their political 
 institutions. To accomplish this most undesirable end, 
 terrible fictitious stories of cruel and wanton atrocity 
 have been written up against the British, and these form 
 an ever present part of the smaller histories, to fire the 
 generous blood of youth, and of the larger histories, such 
 as Bancroft's, to confirm the settled animosity of maturer 
 years. But it is pleasing to be able to note that this ill- 
 will towards the British, thus engendered in the United 
 States by false history, is matter for regret of some, and 
 we would hope of many, leading men in the United 
 States at the present day, and that there is in that 
 country some evidence of a desire to re-write those 
 portions of their history relating t<> the British, with due 
 
 regard to the truth.
 
 164 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 The alleg?d burning of Norfolk, Virginia, in January, 
 1776, by the British under Dunmore, the Royal Gover- 
 nor of Virginia, was one of the British "atrocities" which 
 has long done duty in United States history in the way 
 just indicated. But it will be seen from the letter of 
 William Henry Sargeant, keeper of the Norfolk Library, 
 reprinted in this issue from the New York Post of 
 February 8th inst., that it was not Lord Dunmore 
 and the British who burnt Norfolk at all, but that the 
 destruction of that town of 6,000 inhabitants in mid- 
 winter is chargeable to the Continentals themselves, that 
 the whole subject was investigated by the Legislature of 
 Virginia in 1777, and a report made to that effect, and it 
 also appears that not only did the Virginia soldiers set 
 fire to the main part of the town, but they could have 
 extinguished the flames in the few houses fired by order 
 of Lord Dunmore, if they had had a mind to do so. 
 
 Why Lord Dunmore burnt the few houses he did 
 is also well known. These houses were made a base for 
 attack upon Lord Dunmore's men landing to obtain 
 supplies for the starving refugees on the ships. Leasing, 
 who is about as anti-British as any United States writer, 
 bears truthful testimony on this point, because appar- 
 ently the picture of British distress pleased him. He 
 says : — 
 
 Distress soon prevailed in the ships ; famine menaced them with 
 its keen fangs. Parties sent on shore to procure provisions from
 
 UNITED STATES HISTORY. 165 
 
 the neighbouring country were cut off, or greatly annoyed by the 
 Virginians, and supplies for the multitude of mouths became daily 
 more precarious. The ships were galled by a desultory fire from 
 the houses, and their position became intolerable. At this juncture 
 the Liverpool frigate from Great Britain came into the harbour and 
 gave boldness to Governor Dunmore. By the captain of the 
 Liverpool, he immediately sent a flag to Colonel Howe, command- 
 ing him to cease firing on the ships and supply the fleet with pro- 
 visions, otherwise he should bombard the town. The patriot 
 answered by a flat refusal, and the governor prepared to execute 
 his barbarous threat. 
 
 He never carried out any barbarous threat, unless 
 burnine a few houses that were made an enemy's fort to 
 prevent his getting supplies for the starving people of 
 the fleet, could be called barbarous. The barbarity was 
 left for the Continentals and their convention, as Mr. 
 Sargeant very conclusively shows. 
 
 ( Reprinted from New York Evening Post of Feb. 8, i8gy.) 
 The Burning of Norfolk in 1776. 
 To the Editor of the Evening Post : 
 
 Sir, — If we are to believe the school histories of the 
 day, if we are to believe Bancroft and Fiske, the British 
 under Lord Dunmore, early in the Revolutionary war, 
 burned the City of Norfolk to the ground ; and yet, as a 
 matter of fact, the destruction of that prosperous town 
 was accomplished by the Continental forces themselves, 
 and partly by the direct orders of the convention of the 
 State of Virginia.
 
 l66 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 Bancroft, in his eighth volume, describes in his most 
 graphic manner the destruction of the city, and concludes 
 by saying that the American commanders, Howe and 
 Woodford, certainly made every effort to arrest the 
 flames, and argues that troops without tents would 
 hardly in midwinter have burned down the houses that 
 were their only shelter. He goes on to say that " When 
 Washington learned the fate of the rich emporium of his 
 own ' country,' for so he called Virginia, his breast 
 heaved with waves of anger and grief; ' I hope,' he said, 
 'this and the threatened devastation of other places will 
 unite the whole country in one indissoluble band against 
 a nation that seems lost to every sense of virtue,' " etc. 
 Fiske treats of the incident briefly, and in no wise men- 
 tions the fact that the Continentals had any part or por- 
 tion in the destruction of the town, but assumes that the 
 whole conflagration was the result of the British bom- 
 bardment. 
 
 Though it does not seem to be generally known, the 
 whole question of the destruction of Norfolk was investi- 
 gated in the year 1777 by Commissioners appointed by 
 the General Assembly. Their report was made October 
 10, 1777, and I suppose is still on the file in the 
 Auditor's Department. At any rate, it was a matter of 
 discussion in the House of Delegates in 1835-36, and 
 was published with the proceedings of that year. This 
 report is accompanied by a schedule of all the property
 
 UNITED STATES HISTORY. 1 67 
 
 destroyed — time when, by whom, and value — and by 
 the depositions establishing the facts. It establishes 
 that, out of one thousand three hundred and thirty-three 
 houses burned, only fifty-four were destroyed by Lord 
 Dunmore, and that on January 1, when the historians 
 state that he burned the whole town, he burned only 
 nineteen houses — thirty-two having been burned by him 
 November 30, 1775, and three January 21, 1776. It 
 establishes that eight hundred and sixty-three houses 
 were burned by the troops of the state before January 
 15, 1776, and that four hundred and sixteen houses were 
 destroyed by order of the convention in February. It 
 goes on to say : 
 
 Upon an inspection of the schedule and the depositions which 
 have been taken, it will appear that very few of the houses were des- 
 troyed by the enemy, either from their cannonade or by the parties 
 they landed on the wharves ; indeed the efforts of these latter were 
 so feeble that we are induced to believe that most of the houses 
 which they did set fire to might have been saved had a disposition 
 of that kind prevailed among the soldiery, but they appear to 
 have had no such intentions ; on the contrary, they wantonly set 
 fire to the greater part of the houses within the town where the 
 enemy never attempted to approach, and where it would have been 
 impossible for them to have penetrated. 
 
 I find this corroborated by an extract from the Vir- 
 ginia Gazette, published on board the ship Dunmore, 
 lying off Norfolk, dated January 15, 1776, which is to be 
 found in American archives, 4th series (vol. iv., page 542).
 
 168 APPENDIX VII. 
 
 As the wind was moderate, and from the shore it was judged with 
 certainty that the destruction would end with that part of the town 
 next the water, which the King's ships meant only should be fired ; 
 but the rebels cruelly and unnecessarily completed the destruction 
 of the whole town by setting fire to the houses in the streets back, 
 which were before safe from the flames. 
 
 The only explanation that I have seen of the action of 
 
 the state troops in this matter is worthy of S*ir Boyle 
 
 Roche. It was that they had burned the zvJiole town in 
 
 order that they might be better able to defend the 
 
 remainder. 
 
 Wm. Henry Sargeant. 
 
 Public Library, Norfolk, Va. t 
 January 23, 1897.
 
 APPENDIX VIII. 
 
 COMRADES IN ARMS. 
 
 Loval Canada shows the way to all the British 
 Colonies, and the Dominion will shortly be the scene of 
 a little experiment in military organization which may 
 well lead to developments of exceedingly great import- 
 ance to the Empire. Next month a company of the 
 Royal Regiment of Canadian Infantry will exchange 
 duties with a company of the Berkshire Regiment, now 
 stationed at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and for several 
 months the Canadian detachment will share in the 
 duties and discipline of the English army. Should the 
 experiment prove successful, other companies of the 
 Canadian regular force will in turn be associated with 
 British regiments for similar periods, and if the result is 
 not to make our Canadian Tommy Atkins " a first- 
 class fighting man" — well, there is no force in comrade- 
 ship, in discipline, or in the spirit of hearty emulation. 
 The Canadian regulars are already a fine body of men, 
 well trained and excellently equipped. But it can 
 hardly be doubted that they will improve under the 
 management of English officers, and with the stimulus 
 of friendly rivalry to urge them on. The officials re- 
 sponsible for the scheme — it was suggested by Canadian 
 
 169
 
 I70 APPENDIX VIII. 
 
 officers and recommended to the Imperial Government 
 by General Montgomery Moore — are careful to specify 
 that its development will be conditional on the success 
 of the experiment to be tried next month, but the plan 
 is so simple, so logical, and so human that it can hardly 
 fail of success. 
 
 Need we say that the advantages of the plan will not 
 end with the putting of a little extra polish on the drill 
 of the Canadian soldier? That is relatively a small 
 matter. The great point is that our colonial troops will 
 feel themselves veritably comrades in arms with English 
 regiments, and in a double sense soldiers of the Queen. 
 The still greater point is that the loyalty of Canada, and 
 of every colony in which the experiment shall be tried, 
 will be braced and stimulated as it has never been 
 before. There is not a mother or a sweetheart or a 
 friend of any one of these sturdy colonial lads who will 
 not feel their comradeship with England's soldiers some- 
 thing to be glad and proud of, something to draw them 
 closer to England's flag and make them more jealous of 
 England's honour. We shall want our fighting cousins 
 of the colonies one of these days. The world is not yet 
 converted to peace, and the final war of the world 
 remains to be fought. In the day of danger that will all 
 too surely come we shall be right glad to know that the 
 soldiers of the Empire are the comrades and friends of 
 the soldiers of England. That way lies our hope— it
 
 COMRADES IN ARMS. 1 7 I 
 
 may be, our salvation. Canada makes a good begin- 
 ning ; it is for England to see that the good work goes 
 on, until there is never a colony under the British 
 flag which lacks its complement of British soldiers to 
 defend it. 
 
 — From the London {England) Daily Mail 0/ March 2j, i8gy. 
 
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