Red Coats & Grey Jackets: the Battle of Chippawa, 5 July 1814 By
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Canadian Military History Volume 4 Issue 1 Article 20 1995 Red Coats & Grey Jackets: The Battle of Chippawa, 5 July 1814 by Donald E. Graves [Review] George Sheppard Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh Part of the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Sheppard, George "Red Coats & Grey Jackets: The Battle of Chippawa, 5 July 1814 by Donald E. Graves [Review]." Canadian Military History 4, 1 (1995) This Feature is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Sheppard: <em>Red Coats & Grey Jackets</em> [Review] rolling, gunwale under ... the Conjocta Creek, the seige of Fort served as well as some of his swinging lamp touched the ceiling Erie including the assault of 15 watercolours and sketches. The planks. Away went seats, Soup, August 1814, and the clash at book's detailed bibliography and Mutton, dumplings, crockery, Cook's Mills; he also witnessed index give it the full range of knives, forks, Mustard Pepper, the surrender of the Americans scholarly apparatus which makes Sauces .... The Lady at Beaver Dams. His first-hand the absence of maps all the more screamed ... the Gentlemen accounts of these actions, surprising. shouted .... All our chairs were particularly at Sackets Harbor, While Merry Hearts may be broken, our table cloths cut, the Lundy's Lane and Fort Erie, read as an exciting story of a Cook ill or sulky-obliged to cook convey the immediacy of battle young man risking his life far for ourselves and to prepare our but just as interesting are his from home, it is much more. own Meals. Nor was this the reflections on leadership, his own Besides students of the War of worst, the rascal Sailors stole a emotions and the suffering of the 1812 or of Canadian military considerable portion of our stock men. history, the journal should as we discovered. However, Merry In the editor's words, "Le interest a wider readership hearts make light days!" (p.59) Couteur's war was a subaltern's because it presents so many This last phrase became war and a light infantryman's insights into other areas like the Lieutenant John Le Couteur's war." and so we see his experience functioning of the British military credo which he managed to "from the viewpoint of a junior in that period, military-civilian maintain pretty consistently officer." (p. 18) rather than from relationships, and pioneer throughout his service in British that of field or high command. conditions in Upper Canada. North America during the War. Being a well-born and well He was born on the Island of educated officer, Le Couteur was Wesley B. Turner Jersey into a military family, able to move in the highest Brock University fortunately, one that kept written colonial civil and military circles, records. Merry Hearts covers Le frequently attending balls and * * * * * Couteur's life from his earliest parties as well as occasionally memories through his boyhood dining with commanding officers military education and his from the army and navy, but he Red Coats & periods of army service in British was not privy to higher military North America from June 1812 decisions nor informed about Grey Jackets until December 1815 and again overall strategy. Although the from 1816 to 1817. This journal journal provides snapshots of the Donald E. Graves, Red Coats & was worked on in later life by Le hard life of the rank and file Grey Jackets: The Battle of Couteur who based it on a daily trooper, what it also makes clear Chippawa, 5July 1814, Toronto: diary, memory, correspondence, explicitly and implicitly-is the Dundurn Press, 1994,210 pages official documents and his social chasm between officer and (paper), $18.99. mother's diary. As well, soldier. In short, this journal is a correspondence is inserted (e.g. social document and not simply n Red Coats & Grey Jackets, chapters 12, 14) and the account an account of military life and I Donald Graves offers a detailed in chapter 4 of the winter march adventures. examination of the 5 July 1814 of Le Couteurs' regiment, the Carleton University Press is Battle of Chippawa. This British 104th Foot, from New Brunswick to be congratulated for this first defeat has usually been ignored to Upper Canada in 1813, is full publication of the journal, by Canadian writers but taken from a text published in the edited and with notes by Donald celebrated by Americans since it Canadian Defence Quarterly Graves, arguably the leading was one of the few land victories rather than from the draft in Le scholar currently writing about achieved by U.S. forces during the Couteur's papers. In short, this the War of 1812. He provides an War of 1812. Graves first became publication originates not from a informative Introduction and a involved with Chippawa in 1991 single document but from several profusion of endnotes which, when a proposal was made to sources. among other things, explain the erect a commercial building on Le Couteur joined his meanings of military terms and the battlesite. His research regiment in Saint John, New obscure words of the period, the established that slain soldiers of Brunswick in June 1812, cost of living, civilian and military both nations were buried there marched with it to Upper Canada income, literary allusions and the and this has helped preserve the and served there until February identities of many individuals. field from further development. 1815. He participated in the raid The well chosen illustrations As part of the campaign of the on Sackets Harbor, the battle of include early nineteenth-century Chippawa Battlefield Preservation Lundy's Lane, the skirmish at views of places where Le Couteur Society, Graves has reproduced 126 Published by Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 1995 1 Canadian Military History, Vol. 4 [1995], Iss. 1, Art. 20 his original research in the form sides, is intended to appeal to his account of Calgary's of a book. Both specialists and readers in both the United States T 13 7th battalion is a general readers will be pleased by and Canada. Unfortunately, some reasonably solid work detailing the results because the author research-related omissions and the formation of the battalion in possesses a real understanding of minor errors appear to have November 1915 until its return early 19th century military survived the editorial process. to Canada in 1919. The 975 men practices and is able to convey his For example, Appendix C, which who made up the battalion were knowledge through clear prose deals with weapons, includes a primarily labourers and farmers that is free of jargon. string of rather curious imperial from southern Alberta. The book After a brief review of the to metric conversions. We are told traces the training of the battalion course of the war up to 1814, the that a six pound cannonball at Sarcee Camp and in England, author looks at the state of the somehow weighed 13.2 describing the partial two forces that were to meet at kilograms, or more than twenty dismemberment of the battalion Chippawa. Graves devotes a half nine pounds. In Appendix E in August 1916 with elements of dozen chapters to the actual Graves presents a list of twenty the 137th being sent to France. engagement and skilfully merges one militiamen killed at the Through two years of fighting, accounts by participants with battle, but it too seems to be 179 men of the 137th were killed, official military records. The unreliable. A quick check of the and 392 wounded, which three maps that accompany the pension lists published in the 11 translates into a 60 per cent narrative make it possible to December 1817 Niagara casualty rate for the battalion. follow the movements on both Spectator revealed that Sergeant The text is divided into three sides and the book contains one Solomon Mills of the 2nd York sections. Part 1, the weakest hundred illustrations. The died at Chippawa, but his name portion of the book, provides an appendices offer lists of is not included. I first examined historical overview of the entire casualties and discuss a number the newspaper because Graves Canadian contribution to the of myths that have grown up has Private Stephen Peer listed Allied effort throughout the First around the battle. For example, twice, but the text, and official World War. Part II, by far the Graves convincingly puts to rest records, suggest there was only strongest part of the text, is based the legend that the victorious one individual with that name on the diaries of one the principle Americans burned the bodies of killed at the battle. Obviously authors, Dr. Harvey Duncan, who their fallen opponents, and these are minor problems that served as a private in the proves that they were simply will not trouble the general battalion. Bagley integrates the buried instead. reader, but a more thorough memoirs of the young 20-year-old Graves' examination shows review of the appendices and Duncan into the text, and this that the battle was fought notes seems in order before a provides a fresh and realistic primarily by seasoned second edition is published. account of his experiences from professionals. This helps explain Graves has much to be proud the time of his enlistment in 1916 why such a short encounter led of with this work. Red Coats & until his return to Canada in to so many casualties. The author Grey Jackets is an engaging and 1919.