

Heroes of the War of 1812: Quebec force repelled American attack in crucial battle.

In October, 1813, three thousand invading American troops under the command of General Wade Hampton marched north from Plattsburgh, N.Y.

Their goal was Montreal, a vital stop on the supply route to embattled Upper Canada (now Ontario). If Montreal fell, the Americans could effectively strangle Upper Canada into surrender and bring an end to the War of 1812.

But a smaller force of 1,600 French Canadians and 172 aboriginal allies were determined to stop them. Among the Canadians were 110 Voltigeurs, a British-trained Lower-Canadian regiment composed mainly of francophones under the command of Lieut.-Col. Charles de Salaberry.

“Born of a proud French-Canadian military family, de Salaberry was a tough, capable British Army officer,” says Peter Macleod, pre-Confederation historian and curator of the Canadian War Museum’s 1812 exhibition.

De Salaberry had already made life difficult for the American invaders by harassing them as they crossed the border. He had trees felled to block roads to hinder their carts and cannons, then retreated to Lower Canada to prepare for the Americans’ advance.

They were to meet at the Battle of the Chateauguay. On the north side of the Chateauguay River, southwest of Montreal, de Salaberry’s forces used natural ravines as defensible earthworks. They dragged intact trees with sharpened branches on top of the earthworks to serve as a kind of natural barbed wire. This ‘abatis’, as it was called, was the main protection for de Salaberry’s Voltigeurs, plus 72 members of the Canadian Fencibles regiment, 202 militiamen and 22 native warriors. The rest of his troops were in the rear.

On Oct. 25, Hampton’s troops attacked de Salaberry’s abatis. Their frontal assault made them easy targets for the defender’s 400-odd soldiers. “De Salaberry let the Americans come to him and then the French Canadians just pounded them,” says Macleod.

Realizing their peril, the Americans moved to invade the abatis. To make them think the abatis was well-manned, de Salaberry directed his men to blow bugles and shout from various locations. The ruse worked: the unnerved Americans retreated and the threat the force posed to Upper and Lower Canada abated.

That the French Canadians fought hard and well is unquestioned. But what drew them to join the struggle to save British North America?

The answer can be found in the 1774 Quebec Act, which laid out Britain’s approach to captured New France. In a display of political pragmatism, the British guaranteed French Canadians the right to remain Catholic and francophone. French civil law was also retained and it remains the basis of the Quebec legal system to this day.

There was undeniable tension in the relationship despite this. The British had moved into French Canada and taken control, often treating the French Canadians as conquered subjects rather than fellow citizens.

“Certainly this was the case with Lower Canada Lt.-Governor James Craig, who alienated French Canadians during his 1807-1811 term,” says Ron Dale, Parks Canada’s War of 1812 bicentennial manager. “Fortunately, he was replaced by Sir George Prevost, who took civil and military command of British North America in 1811. Prevost quickly reached out to Lower Canada’s French Canadian leaders. This helped win their support before the Americans attacked.”

The French Canadians resented the British and regarded them as unwelcome overlords. “But at least with the British, the French knew where they stood,” Dale says. “In contrast, they had no love for the Americans, who were openly hostile to the Catholic Church.” The 1774 Quebec Act that protected French Canada’s freedom of worship had been termed ‘intolerable’ by the Americans and played a role in the tensions that led to the American Revolution.

In the wake of the revolution, life became hard for French-speaking Catholics who remained in the U.S. “They were discriminated against, pressured to convert to Protestantism and to speak English,” says Dale. “They were even ridiculed for their French names, which is why many chose anglicized versions to better blend into American society.”

Whatever the frustrations of living under British rule, their cousins to the north knew that assimilation and the loss of their French heritage would not be among them as long as they were able to hold the Americans at bay.

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