The War With the United States : A Chronicle of 1812 — John Shaqi
The War With the United States : A Chronicle of 1812Wood, William
History
The War With the United States : A Chronicle of 1812
Wood, William
United States -- History -- War of 1812
_The British Army_. The British Army, like the Navy, had
to maintain an exacting world-wide service, besides large
contingents in the field, on resources which had been
severely strained by twenty years of war. It was represented
in Canada by only a little over four thousand effective
men when the war began. Reinforcements at first came
slowly and in small numbers. In 1813 some foreign corps
in British pay, like the Watteville and the Meuron
regiments, came out. But in 1814 more than sixteen thousand
men, mostly Peninsular veterans, arrived. Altogether,
including every man present in any part of Canada during
the whole war, there were over twenty-five thousand
British regulars. In addition to these there were the
troops invading the United States at Washington and
Baltimore, with the reinforcements that joined them for
the attack on New Orleans--in all, nearly nine thousand
men. The grand total within the theatre of war was
therefore about thirty-four thousand.
_The Canadian Regulars_. The Canadian regulars were about
four thousand strong. Another two thousand took the place
of men who were lost to the service, making the total
six thousand, from first to last. There were six corps
raised for permanent service: the Royal Newfoundland
Regiment, the New Brunswick Regiment, the Canadian
Fencibles, the Royal Veterans, the Canadian Voltigeurs,
and the Glengarry Light Infantry. The Glengarries were
mostly Highland Roman Catholics who had settled Glengarry
county on the Ottawa, where Ontario marches with Quebec.
The Voltigeurs were French Canadians under a French-Canadian
officer in the Imperial Army. In the other corps there
were many United Empire Loyalists from the different
provinces, including a good stiffening of old soldiers
and their sons.
_The Canadian Embodied Militia_. The Canadian militia by
law comprised every able-bodied man except the few
specially exempt, like the clergy and the judges. A
hundred thousand adult males were liable for service.
Various causes, however, combined to prevent half of
these from getting under arms. Those who actually did
duty were divided into 'Embodied' and 'Sedentary' corps.
The embodied militia consisted of picked men, drafted
for special service; and they often approximated so
closely to the regulars in discipline and training that
they may be classed, at the very least, as semi-regulars.
Counting all those who passed into the special reserve
during the war, as well as those who went to fill up the
ranks after losses, there were nearly ten thousand of
these highly trained, semi-regular militiamen engaged in
the war.
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