Plowshares and Swords

 by Mary Ducharme (October 2021)

Farms became scenes of destruction during the war.  Men were forced into service, leaving behind women and children without protection. (Site : Access Heritage)

Much of the War of 1812 was not fought in some faraway place. It was fought where our villages are now, and in farmers’ fields, barnyards, and around the shanties and cabins of newly minted settlers. It is not surprising that the risks of desertion or refusal to serve in the formal military or volunteer militias were worth taking for farmers living close to the border. Allegiances were still evolving and loyalty o family took precedence. The risk was great: if a man was captured as a deserter or traitor, he could be shot on sight, hanged, or perhaps freeze and starve in a diseased prison camp.

Posted notices offered bounties of twenty dollars in gold or silver for the capture of deserters. This was very tempting, not conducive to trust among neighbors. In one incident, a man from Lacolle seized a deserter and was bringing him to authorities to collect his reward. The prisoner who rode the horse behind him was able to free his hands and using a knife, he plunged it into the bowels of his captor before escaping over the line.

The enemy was expected to be guilty of heinous destruction of property and life but the relationship between “friendly military” and civilians on both sides of the border was also cause for outrage. Chickens, pigs, cows, were eaten; oxen and horses used as beasts of burden; and grain and fodder fed military horses. It was widely suspected that officers waylaid funds intended to repay the farmers. It served as good lining for their own deep pockets. This did not foster a sense of patriotic loyalty.

Regardless of the unpopularity of the war, one aspect was very popular: collusion with the enemy. Ten-gallon kegs of whiskey were smuggled south and American beef was smuggled north. The combatants were happy: the Americans had whisky and cash, the Canadian bootleggers had money and the British army was fed. From Montreal fortunes were made by selling ship timber to England in support of British fleets in Europe, but Parliament neglected to protect this resource, and from the American perspective, Montreal became a big prize. Gaining control of British North America, according to American President Madison was merely a “matter of marching.” Major General Henry Dearborn had set plans to conquer Montreal, but called it off, partly because the militias refused to cross the line at the Canadian frontier and shoot at people they knew. Later, he recruited men from farther south who did not have similar scruples.

Settlers were used in a system of spies engaged by the British. In October of 1813, the Manning brothers Jacob and David were captives of American General Hampton. The Mannings, skilled backwoodsmen with a deep knowledge of the territory, supplied the British with reports of American troop movement. Hampton attempted to persuade David to take the general’s black charger, gallop to Montreal, and bring him back an estimate of British defenses there. David refused, despite an offer of a reward. The furious Hampton threatened them with military prison and put a guard on them in a filthy stable. The guard, an old friend and neighbour, allowed them to escape.

Amasa Wood was only nineteen when he and his father Solomon refused conscription and allegiance to the English King. The punishment was that their property in Hemmingford, owned since 1801, was confiscated, and the family was forced to leave. Solomon was not a man of cowardice, for he had been Captain in the American military during the American Revolution. After his land was confiscated, he and his wife and two children returned to a former home one-half mile north of West Chazy. Solomon’s son-in-law, William Lawrence had not moved to Hemmingford with the Wood family, but he shared an equal dislike for the war.

n September of 1814, before the Battle of Plattsburgh, British soldiers enjoyed an outdoor banquet at Chazy Landing and invited William Lawrence to make a toast. He chose the oft-quoted passage from Isiah 2:4: “And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

After the battle of Plattsburgh, the British retreated north, taking with them two of Lawrence’s oxen. He sent his son, Putnam, only 13, to follow the British across the border and not come back without the beasts. Putman returned with both animals and was quite a hero for capturing them from the British, although he probably found them grazing where they had been left.