end of Lake Ontario, the British overlooked what was the no man’s land of the Niagara Peninsula. For their part, the Americans remained in control of the area from Fort George, strategically located at the entrance to the Niagara River, and all the way to Queenston. But the Battle of Stoney Creek would be the last time the Americans would advance so deeply into the Niagara Peninsula. They retreated behind the damaged walls of Fort George and would only emerge for a few brief forays before winter set in.
6
The Green Tiger: Lieutenant James FitzGibbon
“Every man of serviceable military age should be considered and treated as a prisoner of war.” That was the order issued by American general Henry Dearborn, and under the occupation of Queenston and area, over two hundred men were arrested and marched to an internment camp in Greenbush, near Albany, New York.
When Laura heard the stories of local men seized right from their beds or while working in the fields and taken to prison, it must have been a relief to her that James, though unable to return to the militia or to look after his store, was there with her and the children. The Americans had decided that James Secord, unable to walk more than two or three steps without assistance, and therefore posing no threat to them, would be permitted to remain at his home in Queenston.
To compensate for that concession, the Secords would be required to billet three American officers in their home. These men were to be given the two rooms upstairs as their living quarters and would eat their evening meals in Laura’s dining room.
According to Harriet Secord Smith, James and Laura’s third daughter, the behaviour of the American troops during the occupation of Queenston was nothing short of tyrannical. They would enter shops and private homes unannounced, looking for money and helping themselves to anything else they wanted. Aware that the citizens would have hidden whatever valuables they owned, the soldiers would even resort to shredding the family’s bedding with bayonets or swords in their search.
Laura had managed to save her small collection of heirloom Spanish doubloons on one occasion, by tossing them into a kettle of hot water that hung on a crane over the flames of the kitchen fire.
Some sources tell the story of another time when three American soldiers entered the Secord house, intending to plunder its contents. Surprised at finding Laura there, one of the intruders told her that after the war was over he would be back and would claim all of the Secord property as his own.
Laura’s angry retort was that the only piece of property in Queenston that man would ever own would be a six-foot grave. No one realized how prophetic her words were until, a few hours later, two of the men returned to tell her they had had an altercation with some Canadian soldiers earlier, and the third man had been killed.
If these renegades happened to be hungry, they thought nothing of stealing a family’s provisions or raiding their vegetable garden. Although the Secord family with its five children had to put up with the inconvenience of being confined to the ground floor of their Queenston home, having the American officers take their evening meal at their house meant that the American army regularly delivered a supply of food to Laura’s door. At least her family would not starve.
Most of the burden of running the house and James’s business now fell to her. She looked after his accounts and wrote letters to his customers and to those to whom he owed money. The children had their chores to do around the house — gathering eggs, feeding the livestock, and helping to keep ahead of the weeds in the vegetable patch — but most important was staying out of the way of the American officers. Fan helped out in the kitchen, while Bob tended to the heavier tasks.
There had been some criticism from the British military when Brigadier General John Vincent had not chased the Americans all the way back to Fort George from Stoney Creek and confronted the enemy there. One of those who voiced his objection to what he saw as Vincent’s lack of offensive action was Lieutenant James FitzGibbon, in charge of a detachment of fifty hand-picked “Bloody Boys,” who were based at De Cew’s farmhouse. He believed that had Vincent followed up on the American retreat to Fort George, the fort could have been taken and the Americans driven back across the river.
James FitzGibbon had been born at Glin, in County Limerick, Ireland, in November 1780. He was the son of a weaver and farmer who owned a small piece of land on the Knight of Glin’s estate. The boy left school at an early age and was just fifteen when he enlisted in a yeomanry corps, similar to Canada’s militia, which supplied civilian defence at home. James was soon promoted to the rank of sergeant.
In 1798 he joined the Tarbert Infantry Fencibles and a year later was recruited into the 49th Regiment of the British Army. He fought in campaigns against Napoleon in Holland and Denmark, where he served as a marine and earned the Naval General Service Medal.
The 49th Regiment was sent to Canada in 1802 and stationed at Quebec. Under the tutelage of Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Brock, the commander of the 49th, FitzGibbon rose through the ranks to become a lieutenant in 1809. Brock had seen the potential in the affable young man, and he became his unofficial mentor, encouraging him to better himself through private study and lending him books from his own library to read.
By the time war came to Canada, Lieutenant James FitzGibbon had been in the country ten years and was the commanding officer of a company. The ambitious young soldier had won the respect of his men, was well-liked and good-natured, and a natural leader — qualities he shared with his personal hero, Isaac Brock.
In 1812, FitzGibbon demonstrated skill and cunning when he successfully escorted a brigade of twenty-four small boats carrying supplies for the troops in Upper Canada from Montreal to Kingston, navigating the rapids in the St. Lawrence River without arousing the suspicion of the Americans on the opposite shore.
The next winter he conducted a brigade of forty-five horse-drawn sleighs carrying military stores, this time from Kingston to Niagara. It was a bitterly cold January when he led the trek of 250 miles around the shores of the Bay of Quinte and Lake Ontario, straight into a gale blowing snow off the lake.
In 1813, as the commanding officer of a company, FitzGibbon had participated in the Battle of Stoney Creek, but he’d been upset by the way the British officers had conducted themselves — rushing into the enemy camp cheering before they’d even formed themselves into a proper line of attack.
FitzGibbon had managed to persuade his commanding officer to let him form a special unit of men to be trained in a new style of warfare, one more suited to the ravines and wooded terrain that covered much of that part of Upper Canada. Once Brigadier General Vincent had approved the formation of the elite force, FitzGibbon went about selecting the men to serve under him. It seemed everyone in the 49th wanted to be on the team, but FitzGibbon selected only fifty from among the companies in the regiment.
These men were taught the tactics of guerrilla warfare, using surprise attacks, employing stealth and cunning, the same skills FitzGibbon had learned from the Natives. The group’s main purpose, besides providing intelligence to the British Army and harassing the enemy, was to chase down and capture the renegade American raiding parties that had been terrorizing innocent civilians, particularly women and old men.
Worst among these groups was a small troop led by a doctor from Buffalo by the name of Cyrenius Chapin. Chapin’s band would swoop down on Niagara farmers, capturing any able-bodied men among them, taking them prisoner and plundering their property.
As a doctor, Chapin had attended patients on both sides of the border before the war and was familiar with the roads through the Niagara region.
Chapin
