American Revolution and Canada

Setanta, are you interested in history or Canadian bashing? You seem to excel on the latter.

You don't have to defend the defeats that were suffered....this all happened 200 years ago.


Setana wrote:


Whether the War of 1812 land campaigns were doomed by the incompetence of Johnson or any other reason...they were doomed nonetheless.

The fact that the Mohawks were allies makes them part of the Canadian effort. Who cares whether it was British soldiers or Mohawk indians that routed the Americans.....routed they were.

Your reference to General Brock as a damn fool is your opinion and is not recorded in history. When someone has trouble refuting actual facts, they usually resort to name calling. I will not reply in kind.

I called Brock a damned fool because he acted as one. Arriving on the scene at Queenstown, he found the Americans in a good position on the heights above the river, and Scott and his regulars were in possession of the only artillery present, which they had captured from the English. Reliable Canadian militia from York was on its way, and regulars were coming from Fort George. But Brock, infected with hubris after his coup at Detroit, insisted on attempting to lead a milling, confused band of demoralized English garrison troops and local Canadian militia up the heights into the teeth of the guns in a good American position. They did not follow him, but stood and watched as he was shot down. That is why i have referred to him as a damned fool. For all of his great energy and ability, which made a successful defense of upper Canada possible, that was a foolhardy act, and it cost him his life, and deprived Canada of the best general officer then available.

I'm not Canada bashing, and the point about the Mohawks was to point up the bullshit in Bishop Strachan's Canajun militia myth. It was not until O'Neil's Fenians routed the Queen's Own and the other Canajun militia at Ridgeway in 1866 that the Brits seriously rethought their military policy for North America, and basically dropped Canada, militarily, like a hot rock. In so many ways, the defeat at Ridgeway not only popped the militia myth, but was instrumental in setting the conditions for MacDonald and Cartier to form the Confederation.

Canadians fought well in South Africa, enough so that in one of her last official acts as monarch, Victoria designated the Northwest Mounted Police the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and allowed them to wear the coveted scarlet coats. The Canajuns were the only troops in South Africa whom the Boers genuinely respected, and they went after the Canajuns hammer and tongs whenever they could, because they knew they were truly dangerous.

In the Great War, Canada's tragic contribution was more than 60,000 men's lives, and as many more maimed for life. The attack on the heights above Lens was a masterpiece of the military art of the day, and was a completely Canajun operation--they planned it, executed it, and held onto their position in the face of increasingly desparate and larger German attacks.

In the Second World War, the Canajuns landed in Sicily and fought, literally uphill, in Montgomery's idiotic drive to Messina, which Patton reached first, even though he marched four times as far. Montgomery was truly a military idiot, promoted past his competence, and costing the lives of so many men who died unnecessarily, including more than a few Canajuns. Farley Mowat's recollections of those campaigns are very revealing. The Canajuns had a nightmare battle against the 12th Panzergrenadier (Hitler Youth) around Caen after the Normandy invasion, and i know more of this than just reading--my mother was an officer in an American field hospital that took in both the Canajun wounded and the horribly mangled and frightened German teen agers they had fought.

I won't even go into the criminal incompetence of the Dieppe landings which cost Canada so much just to gratify the ego of Louis Mountbatten.

The Royal Canadian Navy did yoeman's service in the Atlantic in that war, and got just about zero credit for it.

Edit: Not that it will matter much to your hissy fit here, but i have defended the Canajun military record time and again i these fora, usually against people like you, who possess a little knowledge, and display little judgment.
The next time i'm in t.o., maybe you can come express your contempt to my face.

For somebody that is not a Canadian basher, I wonder why you refer to our nation and people as Canajuns instead of Canadians.

How did we get from the American Revolution to World War II? And, what does Montgomery have to do with Canada, he was a British Field Marshall.
Oh, I see that we have graduated from damn fool to idiot in reference to these people <sigh>

I admire Farley Mowat as a writer but I have not read anything that he wrote about the war. I do, however, have knowledge of Kurt Meyer and his 12thSS since my father-in law fought from Normandy, through Belgium and on into Germany.

I don't know what your reference to the horribly mangled and frightened German teenagers is about... Weapons fired by a teenager or a 35 year old man kill the same, as evidenced by your remark about Canadian wounded being taken into the same American field hospital.

I don't know how a discussion on Canadians during the American Revolution turned into a discussion on your obvious dislike for Canadians. Perhaps you should re-read your posts to understand why I think that you may benefit from some anger management sessions. You last line expresses this, not my opinion.

I have not degraded America at all in my posts and I will not do it now. No, I will not bring up details of Vietnam etc. etc.

My obvious dislike for Canajuns (a term i picked up from the many Canajuns i know) is a figment of your fevered imagination. The reference to the horribly mangled teenagers stems from the haunting descriptions of these boys which my mother related--35 year olds are much better prepared mentally for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

You have contended elsewhere in this thread that Canadians burned Washington, and that is pure hogwash. I referred to Montgomery as an idiot militarily because that is the most succinct and accurate despcription available. You responded in this thread with a good deal of incorrect information, and innuendo suggesting a much larger role for Canajuns in the War of 1812 than they actually fulfilled. Further, your initial responses ignore the Canadiens altogether, and suggest to me that you are one of many Anglo-Canadians who tend to see only their part in the history of nation settled more than 150 years before James Wolfe committed suicide by combat (that will give you something else to rage about) and the Marquis de Montcalm was shot through both lungs at the gates of Québec.

For references to my abiding and vitriolic hate of Canada and all things Canadian, i refer you to ehBeth, Blatham, BoGoWo, Montana, JoeBlow and several other Canajuns at these fora, who can detail it for you.

Yours, in genuine contempt

Setanta

Then who did burn Washington? Please provide the correct facts for my "good deal of incorrect information and innuendo" I am always open to enlightenment so that I can correct any inaccuracies attributed to me.

The British did it

There's your answer.

That is certainly correct. Since Canada was a British Colony I was not accurate in my use of the word Canada.

It would also be inaccurate to suggest that residents of what became Canada were those who burned Washington.

I have also noted, and you have sidestepped, the issue of just who the Canadians were at the time of the American Revolution. From 1608 to 1759, they were speakers of French, and even after the fall of Québec, the majority of Canadians were Canadiens. This remained true even long after the American Tories were unceremoniously dumped in the semi-wilderness of Upper Canada, or left to starve in the river valleys around St. Johns. In fact, the most significant military contribution by Canadians in the War of 1812 was made by Canadiens, in the invasion from Montréal to which you referred.

Far too many Anglo-Canadians forget or blithely ignore the realities of their own nation's history, because the relationship between the Québecois and the English-speakers is still tense. The Anglo-Canadians conveniently forget how the country was settled, and who bore the original burden of carving a society out of the wilderness. The Canadiens haven't forgotten, though. Just look at a Québec license plate: "Je me souviens"

Just for the record. I am fully aware of the part that the French played in the development of this country and the history which is attributed to them. Just because I didn't specifically mention them by name does not mean that I did not include them. You see, I do not separate the French and English.... to me they are all Canadians.

I remember too. :-)

*whistling*

"In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans."

Okay I learned about that war from Johnny Horton, but hey I remembered something!

From the United States Army Center for Military History:

"Bladensburg, 17 - 29 August 1814. After the surrender of Napoleon the British dispatched Maj. Gen. Robert Ross from France on 27 June 1814 with 4,000 veterans to raid key points on the American coast. Ross landed at the mouth of the Patuxent River in Maryland with Washington as his objective on 19 August and marched as far as Upper Marlboro (22 August) without meeting resistance. Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. William Winder, in command of the Potomac District, had assembled a mixed force of about 5,000 men near Bladensburg, including militia, regulars, and some 400 sailors from Commodore Joshua Barney's gunboat flotilla, which had been destroyed to avoid capture by the British fleet. In spite of a considerable advantage in numbers and position, the Americans were easily routed by Ross' force. British losses were about 249 killed and wounded; the Americans lost about 100 killed and wounded, and 100 captured. British detachments entered the city and burned the Capitol and other public buildings (24-25 August) in what was later announced as retaliation for the American destruction at York."

Just to make sure everyone understands that the Brits, and not the Canadians burned Washington. This was done in retaliation for the burning of York (Toronto). On the first occassion on which this was done, the fire resulted, in fact, from the unwise decision of a Canadian militiaman who decided to blow up the military magazine outside the town (right about where Yonge Street crosses the Gardiner Expressway today), so that it would not fall into enemy hands. The militiaman remains anonymous, because he was apparently translated directly to the hereafter. This caused the only significant American casualties in that operation. The second time we burned York, American troops entered the town, and in the building which passed for a Parliament, they found scalps, which they correctly surmised had been purchased from the Shawnee after the Battle of the Thames. Enraged, they set fire to the town. The third time was just for grins, i suppose--i don't know what the excuse was that time.

Intrepids cute remark about them all being Canadians ignores a significant historical condition operative in the winter of 1775-76. Montgomery's New York militia had alienated the English-speaking residents of Montréal for obvious reasons. The Canadiens were none too thrilled by the seizure without payment of their foodstuff by starving Yankees, but they were used to the Brits doing the same thing to them, so they continued to sit the fence. When Arnold and his starving crew appeared as if from thin air in the Chaudière valley, a rich farm country, the Canadiens were dismayed, but not surprised at the seizure of their food, but Arnold and Morgan tried to pay them, which truly astonished them, as the Brits had never made any effort to do so. Had Arnold's and Montgomery's assault on Québec succeeded, it would not only have denied that as a base for an invasion of New York from the north, it may well have disposed the Canadiens to look more favorably upon the American cause, although it would be unrealistic not to recognize that to them, the Americans were just a different species of Anglais.

When the Canadiens say "Je me souviens," they are remembering the starving winter of 1759-60, when the citizens of Québec city had to leave for the countryside or starve, because the British garrison seized all the foodstuffs in the city. When St. Foy made his heroic but failed effort to retake the city, his little army was heavily encumbered by civilians who came looking for a meal and a blanket.

They are remembering the deportation of priests, and of whole villages in Accadie. They are remembering the numerous attempts to force them to speak English and educate their children in that language. They are remembering the numerous attempts to establish Anglicanism as the state religion in their province. The are remembering the way that the "late Loyalists" of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia made a fortune selling supplies to the enemy while Charles de Salaberry with his Brit regulars and Voltigeurs Canadiens drove off the Americans. They especially remember Sir John Colborne, le Vieux Brûlot (the Old Firebrand), whose gangs of English-speaking bully boys trailing in the wake of his little band of regulars burned farmsteads and murdered Canadiens all over Lower Canada in the failed 1837 uprising. They remember the slaughter of the Métis and the execution of Louis Riel . . . they remember so much that English-speaking Canadians seem content to forget.

Nice one, goodfielder . . .

We fared our guns
The British kept a comin'
There wasn't nie as many
As there was a while ago
We fared our guns
They commenced to runnin'
Down the Mississippi
To the Gulf of Mexico . . .

Yes there's a little sort of sign in a small park just off Parliament Street near the Distillery District in TO that mentions the burning of the Parliament.

----

Re the song - I like the line about the alligator :wink:

Okay, this Nationalistic c*** is becoming too much.

Why are we making such a big personal deal out of the past? Get over it people. I was merely asking why the Canadians (maritimers, United Empire Loyalists, and the Canadiens) did not join the revolution.



This battle occured after the official treaty of peace is signed. This misinformation seems to be the root cause of confusion for Americans who thought that they won the war.

I think it has been agreed that no country won the war.



Don't worry, we still remember. Louis Riel, Acadians, Canadiens, the native americans, and immigrant's history was a big part of my Social Studies course a couple of years back.

Well we fired our cannon till the barrel melted down
Then we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannonballs and powdered his behind
And when we touched the powder off the 'gator lost his mind

I always liked the word picture

So...uh...getting back on topic...lemme summarize what I understand from the foregoing. (Please slap me on the wrist if my summary is not quite correct.) One of the main reasons that Canadians did not join in the Yankee revolt against the British Crown was that most Canadians of the time were not British (which most of the folks further south were, with some Germans and some Dutch thrown in for good measure). They were, in fact, French and saw the mutiny of the 13 colonies as a purely British matter. The few Anglophones living north of Niagara Falls were mostly either loyal to the king or indifferent to the situation in the south. Am I anywhere near an understanding yet? Is anyone interested in answering Ray's question?

That's essentially it, MA. The thread got sidetracked by a lot of incomplete and incorrect contentions which i would ascribe to an excess of patriotism. Upper Canada--what is now Ontario--and the Maratimes did not fill up with English speakers until the American Tories were dumped there after the Revolution. They had a hard time of it, because so few of them were of the pioneering type which then lived on the American frontier in the mountains.

Around Kingston, you see Loyalist this and Loyalist that--Route 2 which runs west along the lake to Toronto is called the Loyalist Highway at the Kingston end. In New Brunswick and in parts of Upper Canada, the Tories nearly starved because they were unprepared for the pioneer experience. After the end of the war, though, the influx of Americans began. For most of Canada's history since 1783, the Americans have been the largest single immigrant group. Many of these "late loyalists" were strung up after the War of 1812 on the simple accusation of treason by the old Loyalists. Many were also strung up after the 1837 uprisings which took place in both Upper and Lower Canada, and for much the same reasons, despite the differences between English Upper Canada and French Lower Canada.

The reason was that the American Tories who had survived the total immersion pioneer process had established a Loyalist Protestant Ascendancy. The new system imposed in Canada after the American revolution was a limited power assembly with a council selected by a Crown appointed governor--the same bankrupt system which had failed in the American colonies. The new immigrants of Upper Canada and the habitants of the river valleys of Lower Canada were the productive population, and they cleared the new land and grew the crops. They took the risks and toiled hard--while the Tory cronies of the Royal adminstration got the benefits of land division (one seventh reserved for the established Anglican Church, three sevenths reserved for crown appointment, one seventh reserved for existing residents willing to purchase, and two sevenths to be opened in wilderness areas much in the manner of the Homestead Act the American Congress was to pass a generation later). The Royal governors and lieutenant governors handed out land, privileges and appointments to the Loyalist Protestant ascendancy, and the rest be damned.

The history of Canada, with the theft and corruption of the French Royal administrations, and the cronyism and corruption of the Loyalist administrations--while the habitants and the new immigrants from America and from all over Europe toiled and built the nation--is a fascinating and minatory tale.

For those who wish an outline of Canadian history, brief and readable, i recommend A Short History of Canada, Desmond Morton, 1983, Hurtig, Toronto. It has been revised several times, and is now published by McClelland and Stewart, Toronto. Dr. Morton is the Director of the McGill University (Montréal) Institute for the Study of Canada. Of interest to American readers will be the seven volume history of the French in North America by the nineteenth century Massachusetts historian, Francis Parkman. Although very entertaining to read, i understand that most people would be unwilling to undertake such a large enterprise, so i would direct their attention to the final work in the series, Montcalm and Wolfe: The French and Indian War. That work is in the public domain, and is never out of print. Another fascinating little literary curiosity is Simon Schama's Dead Certanties: Unwarranted Speculations, Knopf, New York, 1991. Schama contends (and i have concurred based on his evidence and reasoning) that James wolfe committed suicide by combat. His campaign seemed to him to be failing, and when the forelorn hope went up the bluffs to confront Montcalm in the fields of Abraham Martin, Wolfe shouldered a musket and joined the front line of the advancing foot. His wrist was shattered by a musket ball, so he handed off the musket, wrapped the wound in his pocket handkerchief, and continued marching with the front line. He was then struck in the chest by a musket ball, and reeled back. His soldiers righted him, and told him to go to the rear, but he waved them off and continued with the advance until a third musket ball laid him out.

From there, Schama heads to London for a discussion of the famous painting of the Death of Wolfe by the American artist Benjamin West. He then heads back to Boston and Francis Parkman, but not to discuss Parkman's work, but the notorious murder of his uncle in the mid-nineteenth century. It is a fascinating romp through history, historiography and speculation, and i recommend it as highly entertaining.




(i have the eerie feeling that i've made an almost identical post a few years ago . . . )