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Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812.

S >> Sarah Anne Curzon >> Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812.




"The assault was a success; the work of destruction of the naval stores,
chiefly by sinking them in the river, was complete. But Porter's force
was aroused, and a speedy retreat on the part of Bishopp necessary. The
men re-embarked unmolested, and Bishopp was the last to retire. Scarcely
had they left the bank when the Indians who had crawled to the top
commenced to fire. Part of Bishopp's men were landed and drove the enemy
back into the woods.... Bishopp was everywhere commanding, directing,
getting his men off. In the confusion of the moment some of the oars of
his own boat were lost, and she drifted helplessly down stream exposed
to an ever-increasing fire. Here Bishopp received his death-wound. He
was borne back to his quarters, where, in a few days he expired at the
early age of twenty-seven. 'Never was any officer, save always the
lamented Brock, regretted more than he was.' His remains lie beneath a
modest monument erected to his memory by the pious care of his sisters,
the Baroness de la Zouche and Mrs. Pechall, in the churchyard at Lundy's
Lane."--_Coffin's Chronicles_.

A tablet to his memory is also to be seen at the family burial-place,
Parham, Sussex, England, with the following epitaph:--

"His pillow--not of sturdy oak;
His shroud--a simple soldier's cloak;
His dirge will sound till Time's no more--
Niagara's loud and solemn roar.
There Cecil lies--say where the grave
More worthy of a Briton brave?"


[Lieutenant-Colonel (afterwards General) Evans, Brigade Major, was one
of the most valuable officers of the War of 1812. His cool head, sound
judgment, energy, and capability in administration made him a tower of
strength to his superiors, all of whom at various times, took an
opportunity of testifying to his merits.]

On the 17th August, 1812, the day after the surrender of Detroit,
General Brock wrote to him:--

"Dear Evans,--Detroit is ours, and with it the whole Michigan Territory,
the American Army Prisoners of War. The force you so skilfully prepared
and forwarded at so much risk, met me at "Point au Pins" in high spirits
and most effective state. Your thought of clothing the militia in the
41st cast-off clothing proved a most happy one, it having more than
doubled our own regular force in the enemy's eye. I am not without
anxiety about the Niagara with your scanty means for its defence,
notwithstanding my confidence in your vigilance and admirable address in
keeping the enemy so long in ignorance of my absence and movements, etc.
(Signed) I. BROCK."

There is no need here to allude to the events of the 13th October, 1812,
at Fort George, since they are given in Lieut.-Col. Evans' own account
of that day, to be found at Appendix No. 1, and show that his Generals
had good reason for the esteem in which they held him. Suffice it to say
that in the despatches of General Sheaffe from Queenstown; of General
Vincent from Burlington Heights; of Deputy Adjutant-General Harvey,
Burlington Heights, with reference to the successful attack on
Forty-mile Creek by a wing of the 8th or King's Regiment under
Lieut-Col. Evans; of General Riall, after Chippawa, Fort Erie, and
Lundy's Lane; and of General Drummond, after Lundy's Lane, Lieut.-Col.
Evans is always mentioned with special approbation. And the same feeling
is evident in the public prints of the day, notably the London
_Gazette_, the official organ, as well as in histories of the war.

Previous to his removal to Canada with his regiment, Lieut.-Col. Evans
had been officially connected with the Government of Gibraltar in 1802,
at the time that the Duke of Kent, as Governor, was trying to introduce
some much-needed reforms, by doing which he brought a hornet's nest
about his ears. In this affair the Royal Duke was ably backed by his
subordinate, and in 1826, when Lieut.-Col. Evans was applying for a
staff situation in Canada, his Royal Highness gratefully supported his
request.

Brigade-Major Evans' local rank throughout the War of 1812 was that of
Lieutenant-Colonel.

General Evans was an Englishman of Welsh ancestry. He married a daughter
of Mr. Chief Justice Ogden, of Three Rivers, and after occupying several
important appointments, returned to Canada, dying in Quebec in February,
1863, and was buried with military honours. His body was afterwards
removed to Three Rivers, and lies by the side of his wife.

Major R. J. Evans, now resident in Toronto, to whom I am indebted for
the above particulars, as also for the valuable paper to be found
elsewhere, is a son of General Evans.




APPENDIX NO. 4.

Guests from the 'Royal' stroll frequently to the grassy ramparts of old
Fort George, whose irregular outlines are still to be traced in the open
plains which now surround it. Here landed in 1783-84, ten thousand
United Empire Loyalists who, to keep inviolate their oaths of allegiance
to the King, quitted their freeholds and positions of trust and honour
in the States to begin life anew in the unbroken wilds of Upper Canada.

"History has made us somewhat familiar with the settlement of Nova
Scotia and New Brunswick by the expatriated Loyalists. Little has been
written of the sufferings and privations endured by 'the makers' of
Upper Canada.

"With the present revival of interest in American history, it is
singular that writers do not awaken a curiosity about the Loyalists of
the Revolution. Students and specialists who have investigated the story
of a flight, equalled only by that of the Huguenots after the Revocation
of the Edict of Nantes, have been led to admire the spirit of unselfish
patriotism which led over one hundred thousand fugitives to self-exile.
While the Pilgrim Fathers came to America leisurely, bringing their
household goods and their charters with them, the United Empire Loyalists,
it has been well said, 'bleeding with the wounds of seven years of war,
left ungathered the crops of their rich farms on the Mohawk and in New
Jersey, and, stripped of every earthly possession, braved the terrors of
the unbroken wilderness from the Mohawk to Lake Ontario.'"--_Jane Meade
Welsh, in Harper's New Monthly for August_, 1887.

"1812--like the characters on the labarum of Constantine--is a sign of
solemn import to the people of Canada. It carries with it the virtue of
an incantation. Like the magic numerals of the Arabian sage, these
words, in their utterance, quicken the pulse, and vibrate through the
frame, summoning from the pregnant past memories of suffering and
endurance and of honourable exertion. They are inscribed on the banner
and stamped on the hearts of the Canadian people--a watchword rather
than a war cry. With these words upon his lips, the loyal Canadian, as a
vigilant sentinel, locks forth into the gloom, ready with his challenge,
hopeful for a friendly response but prepared for any other. The people
of Canada are proud of the men, and of the deeds, and of the
recollections of those days. They feel that the War of 1812 is an
episode in the story of a young people, glorious, in itself and full of
promise. They believe that the infant which, in its very cradle, could
strangle invasion, struggle and endure bravely and without repining, is
capable of a nobler development, if God wills further
trial."--_Coffin's Chronicles of the War, Chapter I., preamble_.




APPENDIX NO. 5.

[Mr. Le Moine, in "Quebec Past and Present," states that slavery was
finally abolished in Canada in 1803.] "Near Fort George, less than a
century ago, stood the first Parliament House of Upper Canada--a
building rude in comparison with the massive pile, the Bishop's Palace,
used for a similar purpose at Quebec--but memorable for one at least of
the many liberal laws its homespun representatives enacted. Here,
seventy years before President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the
first United Empire Loyalist Parliament, like the embattled farmers at
Concord, 'fired a shot heard round the world.' For one of the first
measures of the exiled patricians was to pass an act forbidding slavery.
Few readers know that at Newark--now Niagara, Ontario--was enacted that
law by which Canada became, not only the first country in the world to
abolish slavery, but as such, a safe refuge for the fugitive slaves from
the Southern States."--_Jane Meade Welsh, in Harper's New Monthly,
August_, 1887.




APPENDIX NO. 6.

[The Twenty-fourth or Second Warwickshire Regiment, now the South Wales
Borderers, is of ancient and gallant fame. On its colours are inscribed
"Egypt," "Cape of Good Hope," "Talavera," "Fuentes d'Onor," "Salamanca,"
"Vittoria," "Pyrenees," "Nivelle," "Orthes," "Peninsula"--a goodly show.]

To us, perhaps, the claims of the Regiment upon our admiration are
eclipsed by those upon our pity when we remember the terrible disaster
of Isandula in 1879, when six companies of the Regiment were cut to
pieces, and as it was at first feared, the colours lost. But it was not
so; several companies of the 1st Battalion had fought in the victorious
affair of Rorke's Drift the day before, and "Lieutenant Bromhead" says
the _Daily News_ of Feb. 21, 1879: "1st Battalion, 24th Regiment,
and Lieutenant Chard, R.E., left in charge of the Drift with a company
of the 24th Regiment, first received intimation of the disaster [at
Isandula] from fugitives making for the Drift. Lieutenant Coghill with
others rode away to communicate with Helgmakaar, and were killed by
Zulus in crossing the river."

With Lieutenant Coghill was Lieutenant Melville carrying the colours.
The company holding the Drift was annihilated by the on-rushing savages,
and no tidings of the colours could be gained until some days after
when, behind a mound, were found the bodies of the two brave
Lieutenants, one of whom grasped the pole with hands stiffened in death
and around the other the precious flag was wound, "safe on the heart of
a soldier."

The following touching lines will be welcome to the lover of noble deeds;
it is to be regretted that the name of the poet cannot also be given:--

THE LOST COLOURS.

Who said we had lost the Colours?
Who carried the tale away.
And whispered it low in England,
With the deeds of that awful day?
The story was washed, they tell us,
Freed from a touch of shame--
Washed in the blood of those who died.
Told in their sacred name.

But they said we had lost the Colours,
And the Colours were safe, you see;
While the story was told in England,
Over the restless sea.
They had not the heart to blame us.
When they knew what the day had cost;
But we felt the shame of the silence laid
On the Colours they thought were lost.

And now to its farthest limit
They will listen and hear our cry;
How could the Colours be lost, I say,
While one was left to die?
Safe on the heart of a soldier,
Where else could the Colours be!
I do not say they were found again,
For they never were lost, you see.

Safe on the heart of a soldier,
Knotted close to his side,
Proudly lie on the quiet breast,
Washed in the crimson tide!
For the heart is silent forever,
Stirred by no flitting breath,
And the Colours he saved are a fitting shroud,
And meet for a soldier's death.

What more would they know in England?
The Colours were lost, they said;
And all the time they were safe, of course,
Though the soldier himself was dead.
The band was stiff, and the heart was cold
And feeble the stalwart limb;
But he was one of the Twenty-fourth,
So the Colours were safe with him.


The following which appeared in the Toronto _World_, Saturday,
July 16, 1887, will also be found of interest to those whose sympathies
have been awakened by the poem:

"NO LONGER THE TWENTY-FOURTH."

_How the Heroes of Isandklwana came to be called South Wales Borderers_.

"In the London _Graphic_ there have appeared lately several good
articles headed 'Types of the British Army,' with excellent full-sheet
coloured cuts, by eminent artists, of men in marching order or otherwise
belonging to the corps on which the article is written. The last one is
in the _Graphic_ of April 30, being the fourth to appear, and the
picture represents a soldier of the gallant 24th Regiment. Much has been
said by old officers and soldiers in the press relative to the abolition
of the time-honoured numbers of the old corps, and now this splendid old
regiment is no longer the 24th, but since 1881 is called the 'South
Wales Borderers.' And not only did the historical old number disappear
from the Army List, according to the new system, but they lost their
green facings, and now wear the white, which all regiments, English and
Welsh, according to the territorial system, have to wear. The Irish wear
green, the Scotch yellow, and all Royal regiments wear blue. The
Artillery and 60th Rifles have red facings, and the Rifle Brigade black.
Corps on the line now go by territorial titles. First and second
battalions and many old regiments are joined to other old corps which
formerly had nothing whatever to do with the county or province from
which they now derive their title." In connection with this a former
captain in the 46th writes to the Montreal _Witness_ as follows:

"It may be interesting to many to know the reason why regiments now bear
their new titles; and, as the writer was intimately acquainted with the
24th before the fearful calamity at Isandhlwana--where they were
annihilated in 1879 by the Zulus--and was stationed with them in Brecon,
South Wales, he can give the rather curious origin of their present
title.

"Some time before the Zulu campaign, there were many sweeping changes
made in the army, amongst them being the abolition of numbers, and an
order was issued that all members of militia, yeomanry and volunteers at
home should have their adjutants appointed from officers serving on full
pay with the regiments of cavalry or infantry, and that the artillery,
militia and volunteers, should have their adjutants from the Royal
Artillery or Marine Artillery; the appointment to last for five years,
and at the expiration of that time the officer to return to his corps,
and another one to succeed him. The writer was at that time adjutant of
the 46th Regiment, and the first to be thus appointed to the Royal
Brecon Rifles, South Wales--a small corps of only four companies. There
was another smaller corps of only two companies in the adjoining county,
Radnorshire, and, perhaps for economy's sake, it was ordered that both
of these corps should be made one regiment. Each wanted to retain its
old militia designation, but it was decided by the officers to give them
a totally new one, and they were christened the 'South Wales Borderers.'

"Brecon was made a depot centre, and the 24th Regiment were to recruit
and have their depots there. Being then without a title they took that
of the local militia, and are, therefore, now the '1st and 2nd
Battalions South Wales Borderers.' But they will always be known as the
time-honoured 24th, who lost one colonel, one major, four captains,
fourteen lieutenants and seven entire companies, including band, buglers
and drummer boys, at Isandhlwana. Lieutenants Melville and Coghill, on
that occasion, seeing that all was lost, attempted to save the colours.
Melville was first hit, and Coghill turned back to share his fate. The
colours were afterwards found in the bed of the Buffalo River, and when
brought home Her Majesty tied a small wreath of immortelles on the staff
head at Osborn. They are still in the possession of the regiment, and
the wreath presented by Her Majesty is preserved in a handsome
hermetically-sealed oak box, mounted in silver."




APPENDIX NO. 7.

[In his "La Litterature au Canada Francais" M. Bender says of M. L.
Pamphile Le May:]

"Le May sings in a clear and tender voice, reminding one of Alfred de
Vigny, and approaching the elegance and polish of that poet.... In words
of melody he celebrates the beauties of rural life and scenery. He is
touching, pleasing and sympathetic. He knows his subject well; he has
seen it, he has felt it, he has loved it; indeed he yields too much to
inspiration, and does not sufficiently finish his verse, nor does he
fully develop his idea so as to reap all its wealth.... His creations
evince originality and beauty of form." In his preface to "Essais
Poetiques," published 1865, M. Leon P. Le May tells his readers that his
friends discouraged him in his worship of the Muse; they said
verse-making did not pay, that it cost a man too much to devote himself
to an art so little esteemed. But he sang nevertheless, and Canadian
literature in the French language is the richer by much that is sweet,
tender, beautiful and inspiring. We ought to thank M. Le May for being
wiser than his advisers; and such of us as have not yet considered
Canadian Literature worthy of especial regard would do well to hunt up
the numerous volumes that lie all but unknown upon booksellers' shelves,
and convince themselves that there is a field of intellectual enjoyment
open to them of which they may be justly proud to be the heirs.

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