Compelling book explores little-known battle
Posted By MICHAEL-ALLAN MARION, SUN MEDIA
Posted 17 days ago
It is usually a monumental struggle to make Canadian military history vital in the eyes of citizens, but James Elliott, who is speaking in St. Catharines this weekend, manages to prevail in superlative fashion in his epic work, Strange Fatality: The Battle of Stoney Creek, 1813.
The first detailed account of the little-known battle is all the more worthy of being named in literary dispatches, considering that most Ontarians grow up knowing little about one of the most important battles ever fought on the soil of their province.
It also comes at a time when groups in communities along Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, including Hamilton, Brant, Niagara and Norfolk, are gearing up for the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 in a little more than two years.
Even for many of us with varying grasps of Canadian and Ontario history, the Battle of Stoney Creek is logged in our personal memory banks as at best an entry in a larger list of barely remembered skirmishes fought against the Americans in the War of 1812.
Depending on where one grew up and went to school, that list could include, in Upper Canada, the battles of Queenston Heights, Lundy's Lane, Beaver Dams and Fort George in the Niagara Peninsula, Chrysler's Farm near Cornwall, and the raids on York (now Toronto), Port Dover and Port Rowan on the Erie North Shore; and in Lower Canada, the Battle of Chateauguay outside Montreal.
Most of us have been taught that these contests between invading American armies and a defending combination of British regulars, militias and native warriors are woven into a mythic fabric about the survival and growth of the young Canada.
But let's be honest, we don't know much about them.
Even in communities along the south shore of Lake Ontario and in Niagara, the Battle of Stoney Creek exists as a military event reenacted every year in Battlefield Park.
The gist of it is that word was sent to two regiments of British regulars on Burlington Heights in what is now Hamilton that a large westward-moving American army was encamped near Stoney Creek to the east, and the commander ordered an immediate march.
When the defenders arrived in the area after dusk, they offered engagement right away, and somehow in the early morning hours before the dawn the invader was overcome.
After years of painstaking research through myriad primary and other sources, Elliott's Strange Fatality has proved more than an enlightening tome.
It is a delightful combination of popularly toned storytelling that takes the reader through the actions of real-life characters and a meticulous marshalling of facts.
The book well places the battle and its combatants within the overall context of the aims of War Hawks in the U. S. Congress in prosecuting a northern invasion into British territorial possessions, and the woeful unpreparedness of British forces in defending Upper Canada.
It ably chronicles the opening rounds of a successful U. S. military campaign strategy in the late spring of 1813 -- particularly the taking of Fort George --that overcame the setbacks of the opening year of the war in 1812 and placed British control of the colony in peril.
Then it concentrates almost moment by moment on the anatomy of the "strange fatality" that befell a force of about 3,000 Americans in the darkness at Stoney Creek on June 6, when about 700 British overwhelmed them, captured two brigadier generals, and stopped the offensive dead in its tracks.
The arrival of the Royal Navy and a subsequent attack by Six Nations warriors forced the Americans to retreat.
Elliott's style is evident from the opening chapter of an American camp coming to life on the May 27, 1813 morning before the assault on Fort George that set the stage for Stoney Creek.
A 23-year-old soldier, Sgt. James Crawford, is penning the words "perhaps the last time I will write to you" in a letter to his father accompanied by a will "should I be kild in action."
Meanwhile, Major General Henry Dearborn is walking unsteadily from the effects of a two-week-old fever. "One of the staff officers thought the Revolutionary War veteran looked like an invalid," Elliott records.
Elliott's evidence and elegant prose continue through the smoke of battle to the aftermath, with Upper Canada and British forces rejuvenated in spirit and letters of praise coming from commanders, and even the Duke of York, much farther away.
All in all, a compelling account.
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WHAT:Niagara's Military Past and Present, featuring speakers with expertise in different areas of the Canadian military including James Elliott, author of Strange Fatality WHERE:Lake Street Armouries, 81 Lake St., St. Catharines
WHEN:Symposium begins today, 7:30 p. m. Elliott speaks on Saturday.
INFORMATION:519-888-4567 ext. 35138
