From an engraving by A. B. Durand after a painting by A. Dickinson.

To face p. 75

CHAPTER VIII

OPERATIONS ON THE MONTREAL FRONTIER: CHÂTEAUGUAY AND CHRYSTLER'S FARM. 1813

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|HÂTEAUGUAY.—After the successful British raid on Lake Champlain at the beginning of August the American general, Hampton, completed his preparations and crossed over to Plattsburg. On the 20th of September he crossed the frontier at Odelltown with over 7000 men on his way to join Wilkinson, who, with about the same number, was to meet him on the St. Lawrence, take command of the whole 14,000, and attack Montreal. The point of junction was to be either St. Regis or Châteauguay, that is, the Canadian settlement of Châteauguay, at the mouth of the Châteauguay River, and not La Fourche de la Rivière Châteauguay, where the battle of the Châteauguay was fought. Hampton's heart was not in the campaign. He resented Wilkinson's leadership. He was not enthusiastic about Wilkinson's plan. And he had already reported his intention of resigning as soon as the operations were over. Still, he was punctuality itself compared with Wilkinson, who was far too late in leaving Sackett's Harbour. The want of combination grew worse as time wore on, and when Wilkinson did badly Hampton did worse.

From Odelltown Hampton marched to the Châteauguay, whence he would have a line of advance along its northern bank to its mouth at Châteauguay near Montreal. But he made a false start in another direction first, which gave De Salaberry ample time to intercept him. De Salaberry was the same commanding officer of the Voltigeurs who had been

patrolling the frontier with his French-Canadian regulars for more than a year. Hampton finally retired to concentrate at the Four Corners of Châteauguay, a place just inside the United States and not to be confused with La Fourche de la Rivière Châteauguay, where the battle was fought, or with Châteauguay the Canadian settlement on the St. Lawrence. This concentration gave Hampton the advantage of puzzling the British, who could not tell whether he would go westward to meet Wilkinson at St. Regis or northward, along the left bank of the Châteauguay, to meet him at the Canadian village of Châteauguay, which was only fifteen miles from Montreal. In the meantime the Americans on Lake Champlain raided Mississquoi on the 12th of October and took 100 prisoners.

Hampton at last declared his intentions by moving down the left bank of the Châteauguay on the 21st after opening communications with Wilkinson, who was still at Sackett's Harbour. By the 25th his own thousands had come into close touch with De Salaberry's hundreds. He naturally expected to drive in all the little British outposts on his way to the St. Lawrence. De Salaberry, however, had determined to dispute his advance by taking up a strong position near La Fourche, where several tributary creeks of the Châteauguay, greatly strengthened by abattis, could be held against superior numbers.

Meanwhile the news of Hampton's advance had reached Prevost at Kingston on the 20th. As Kingston was then being threatened by an equally strong force under Wilkinson not one Imperial regular could safely be spared. So Prevost sent for Colonel "Red George " Macdonell, late of the Glengarries, and now commanding a "Light Battalion " formed in the previous April by bringing together both flank companies of the 2nd and 5th Select Embodied Militia of Lower Canada and the right flank company of the 3rd. Nine-tenths of all ranks were French-Canadians and the

picked men of picked battalions. They had been hurried to Upper Canada when the danger of invasion seemed greatest there. Now they were even more urgently needed among their own people. "When can you start?" Prevost is reported to have asked Macdonell. "When the men have finished their dinner, Sir." Prevost then left, in all haste, for Châteauguay, telling Macdonell to follow at once. The battalion was ready when Macdonell said it could be. But a day was lost in collecting enough boats to take it down. the St. Lawrence. The difficulties were unusually great, especially at the rapids where Amherst had lost so many men in 1760. These dangerous rapids safely passed the men had to row all day against a gale on Lake St. Francis. This gale finally rose to such a height that Macdonell was forced to lose yet another day at the Cedars. He then crossed over to the south shore, marched for miles along it, struck inland late in the afternoon, marched all night by a bad trail through the dense forest, and arrived at the scene of action on the Châteauguay an hour before dawn. He had covered 170 miles by water and 40 by land since Prevost had left him, four days and a half before. Yet he had reached the rendezvous first and was able to greet Prevost's arrival with the satisfactory report: "All here, Sir: not one man absent."

Macdonell's march was a consummate move, admirably executed at a critical moment. But the situation was still extremely dangerous. Hampton was advancing with 7500 men, including both cavalry and artillery. Prevost had nothing like half these numbers between the invaders and Montreal; and De Watteville could not collect anything like half of Prevost's total in the immediate neighbourhood. The 25th was passed in collecting all the available men in the strong position that De Salaberry had chosen beside the Châteauguay in advance of the blockhouse. On the holding of this position all depended, because once the Americans passed that point in overwhelming numbers there was no