 By James Yaworsky
Sandwich, in the Western District The competence of Major-General Henry Proctor was assessed as being ‘high’ in Sandy Antal’s book “A Wampum Denied”. Is this a definitive assessment? The issue of Proctor’s competence or lack thereof is a complex issue that has sparked the spilling of much ink over the years, yet surprisingly, a lot of very basic work still needs to be done to give a truly definitive and satisfactory “verdict”. It is my personal conclusion is that while I have sympathy for Proctor as a man put in a very difficult position, nevertheless I believe that he was a very poor general and a rather unlikeable character.
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 The Battle of Queenston Heights by James Dennis (RiverBrink Art Museum). By Tom Fournier
In the archives of the United States of America government, there is a file called: Department of State File for Miscellaneous Intercepted Correspondence 1789 – 1814, British Military Correspondence, “War of 1812 Papers”. In this folder can be found the personal papers of British Major General Henry Proctor captured in his baggage at the Battle of the Thames (Moraviantown) in 1813. It is because of this folder that we have the Mess Rules of the 41st Regiment, found here and also posted on the wall of the Officers’ Mess in the Officers’ Quarters at Historic Fort George in Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ontario. Also to be found is this letter from the Adjutant of the 41st Regiment to then Lieutenant Colonel Henry Proctor, the commanding officer of the 41st Regiment. In October of 1812, Proctor was still in the area of Fort Malden, Detroit and Sandwich along the Detroit River after the capture of Detroit. However, the headquarters staff of the 41st Regiment were still at Fort George.  By Tom Fournier
These are excerpts that I thought of interest from Reminiscences of Niagara, No. 11. Niagara Historical Society. As a number of these are given decades after the war or are passed along by subsequent generations, it is to be assumed that there are some distortions whether it be from distant memories or endeavours to portray the witness’ participation in the best possible light. All the same, taken with this perspective in account, they still provide fascinating insights! I would like to offer a sense for the location for many of these reminiscences. Modern day Niagara-On-The-Lake was first know as Butlersburg and then Newark. At the time of the War of 1812 and for some time afterwards it was known as the Town of Niagara.  By Tom Fournier
When I think of John Richardson, it is because of his time with the 41st Regiment of Foot during the War of 1812. He turned those experiences into a widely read and often cited book on the War of 1812. The most common form is Richardson’s War of 1812 edited by Alexander Casselman. Richardson was born in Upper Canada on 4 October 1796 in the Niagara region. His father Robert had come to Canada from Scotland as a surgeon with the Queen’s Rangers. His mother was Madelaine Askin daughter of Joseph Askin (the famous fur trader and merchant) and Manette an indigenous woman. Richardson spent his adolescent years in Amherstburg on the Detroit River. In July 1812, Richardson, at the age of 15, joined the 41st Regiment as a Gentleman Volunteer. A Gentleman Volunteer was an individual who wished to join the Officers of a regiment but for whom there was no place. The Gentleman Volunteer would serve in the ranks but mess with the Officers. They would hope to distinguish themselves in battle and earn a promotion to the rank of Officer. Richardson took part in a number of military engagements in the Lake Erie area (the Right Division for the British) including the Battle of the River Raisin. You can read more about Richardson in this previous blog post. For the Battle of the River Raisin, Richardson was a participant in the action, and he wrote about it as a historian but interestingly, he also wrote about it as a novelist in his book “The Canadian Brothers”. My thought is that it would be interesting to look at the novel for a far more descriptive and atmospheric account of the lead up to the battle without Richardson’s need to act as a historian or journalist (as he spent much of his life).  By Tom Fournier
When I think of John Richardson, it is because of his time with the 41st Regiment of Foot during the War of 1812. He turned those experiences into a widely read and often cited book on the War of 1812. The most common form is Richardson’s War of 1812 edited by Alexander Casselman. I have had the good fortune of seeing an original copy of the 1842 edition in the holdings of the Royal Welsh Museum. This was once the property of another member of the 41st Regiment who underscored passages and made margin notes critical of Richardson and many Officers of the 41st Regiment (perhaps a subject for another day). Richardson was very proud of his time with the 41st Regiment and he was extremely protective of its reputation. This can be seen in his passionate defense of the Officers of the 41st Regiment as a reaction to comments attributed to Major General Sir Isaac Brock in the book written by his nephew Ferdinand Brock Tupper. That defense can be read here. By Tom Fournier There was some recent excitement over photos of a coat that I saw in the old Welch Regiment Museum in Cardiff from a trip back in 2006. It is now in the holdings of the Regimental Museum of the Royal Welsh and the curator of the museum, Richard Davies was kind enough to pull out the coat and take some pictures. This is the coat of a Grenadier Officer of the 41st Regiment circa 1822. Unfortunately there is no record of who the coat belonged. This first two photos are of the coat in a display case from my original visit. The following pictures are those sent by Richard:
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By Abel Land  As promised, this is the next dispatch in the series, looking at how the serjeants would formulate the basic training of the recruit during the current war in America. Last week the content was on the foundation position for the recruit without arms; this week, the topic will be on how to stand at ease as explained in the Rules and Regulations 1807.
I would at this time like to backtrack a bit and thank one person who has helped me research and look critically at period manuals, along with clarification on some terms. This person puts his heart and soul into the knowledge of the late 18th and 19th-century foot drill — Ewan Wardle program development officer at Fort York National Historic Site in Toronto, Ontario. Thanks for your dedication to further our knowledge of historic military exercises. |
