In the year 1800 a traveller reported, “The situation is pretty … the fort new and remarkably neat, built on the edge of a handsome green or common.”[8]
The Esplanade, Fort George, Upper Canada, artist Edward Walsh, watercolour, circa 1805. Note the somewhat uneven terrain of the parade ground. In the centre, the artist has incorporated himself holding a fox on a leash and possibly feeding one of the bear mascots of the 49th Regiment.
William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.
During the first decade of the nineteenth century, tensions between Great Britain and the United States escalated. Just before the outbreak of hostilities in June 1812, Major General Brock and his staff apparently concluded that Fort George, headquarters of the Central Division of the British Army in Upper Canada, was too large to defend. Plans were drawn up to reduce the fort’s size by one third, abandoning the two southern bastions, the octagonal blockhouse, and the stone powder magazine, and building a palisade “curtain” across the southern exposure of the fort.[9] It is not clear how much of this work was completed by the British before the American invasion in May 1813.[10]
We do know that in early October 1812 Brock had supervised the strengthening of the strategic northeast “York” bastion, apparently so named by Brock in recognition of the York militiamen who had laboured strenuously towards its completion.[11] Within a fortnight both he and Macdonell would be buried in this same bastion, known as the Brock bastion ever since.
Early in the morning of the ill-fated American invasion at Queenston in October 1812, Fort Niagara’s artillery shelled Fort George using red hot shot as a diversionary tactic. These superheated cannon balls ignited several wooden buildings within the fort. One month later more buildings were set on fire by a similar bombardment. But it was not until May 1813, as a prelude to the successful American invasion, that virtually every wooden building within the fort was destroyed by horrendous and incessant artillery fire from both land and shipboard batteries (see chapter 10).
The Battle of Fort George concluded with the abandonment of the fort and the retreat of the combined British forces towards Burlington. The occupying Americans immediately strengthened the fort’s southern flank by constructing a new major bastion of earthworks and palisades. They eventually threw up extensive earthworks extending from the northwest bastion as far as St. Mark’s cemetery (where remnants can still be traced today) and then eastward towards the river’s edge.[12] No new buildings were erected by the Americans inside the fort during their occupation. The Americans established several small outlying posts, or “piquets,” within a mile or two of the fort. Similar British piquets lay beyond. There were multiple skirmishes across this no man’s land throughout the summer and early fall. Taking part in these skirmishes on the side of the Americans were two new groups of combatants.
Bird’s-eye view of Fort George, 1812 from the east, artist Tiffany Merritt, graphite on paper, 2011. By the fall of 1812 or early the following spring, the Royal Engineers were directed to truncate the fort, abandoning the two southern bastions and stone powder magazine with wooden palisades across the southern exposure. The soldiers’ barracks were also to be reduced in height. It is not clear how much of this work was actually accomplished.
Drawing based on conjectural drawings in an unpublished report. Gouhar Shemdin, David Bouse, “A Report on Fort George” (Ottawa: Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, 1975). With permission of Parks Canada.
Bird’s-eye view of Fort George, 1814 from the east, artist Tiffany Merritt, graphite on paper, 2011. During their occupation the Americans greatly fortified Fort George with stronger earthen bastions, including earthworks extending across the southern half of the truncated fort as well as earthworks extending from the northwest bastion towards St. Mark’s burying ground. They apparently did not erect any significant buildings within. Upon recapture by the British in late 1813, new log barracks and possibly a brick/stone inner powder magazine were erected.
Drawing based on conjectural drawings in an unpublished report. Gouhar Shemdin, David Bouse, “A Report on Fort George” (Ottawa: Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, 1975). With permission of Parks Canada.
For the first time in the war “volunteer”[13] Native Americans were fighting on the Canadian side of the river, often in direct confrontation with their cousins, the Grand River Six Nations, a pivotal event in Iroquoian history.
Also fighting with the Americans were the “Canadian Volunteers.” One-time member of the House of Assembly, newspaper publisher and citizen of Niagara Joseph Willcocks[14] convinced American General Dearborn at Fort George in July 1813 to allow him to establish a corps of disaffected Canadian volunteers to fight alongside the American army in Upper Canada. As such, the Canadian Volunteers are the only military corps to be actually raised at Fort George.
Six thousand American soldiers, their Native allies, and the Canadian Volunteers were encamped in tents on the plains outside the fort behind the new trenches. They were much decimated by disease,[15] desertion, and eventual redeployment elsewhere. One disgusted American General reported:
We have an army at Fort George which for two months past has lain panic-struck, shut up and whipped in by a few hundred miserable savages leaving the whole of the frontier, except the mile in extent which they occupy, exposed to the inroads and depredations of the enemy.[16]
By December there were only sixty remaining occupying troops that happily returned to American soil, but not before they torched the town of Niagara. Surprisingly, the fortifications and the Americans’ pitched tents were left intact although, according to one observer, no barracks were left standing.[17] When the British reoccupied the fort the rebuilding process began once again: two log barracks for three hundred men, a small frame quarters for officers, and possibly a new stone/brick powder magazine[18] within the fortifications.
During the summer of 1814, after the American success at the Battle of Chippawa, the American army laid siege to Fort George and dug trenches on the Commons. Years later, a young U.S. drummer recalled an incident on the Commons during this abbreviated siege. Their commander, Colonel Winfield Scott,[19] was sitting on his horse a few yards in front of the American line, when suddenly a whistling sound was heard coming from the fort’s artillery (probably a howitzer). Scott calmly held up his sword to sight the incoming shell, concluded that he was vulnerable, and immediately wheeled his charger to the side just before the shell landed on the very site he had been occupying seconds before.[20] Despite this one inspiring moment, the Americans, having waited in vain for promised naval support, withdrew after only a few days.
After the war, realizing the shortcomings of the Fort George site, all efforts were directed to building Fort Mississauga (see chapter 23) at the entrance to the Niagara River and the new Butler’s Barracks (see chapter 11) at the westerly end of the Military Reserve, out of clear range of American artillery. Initially, some troops were still quartered in the old log barracks within