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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Monarchist Profile: Laura Secord

If you are not a native of Her Majesty’s Dominion of Canada you will probably never have heard of Laura Secord. However, for proud Canadians she is a heroine of the early history of their country; possibly even a savior of it. She was born on September 13, 1775 as Laura Ingersoll in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Her family, of course, were loyalists (like all good Americans were in those days) and her father, Thomas Ingersoll, served in the local loyalist militia during the Revolutionary War. This, naturally, made things rather difficult for the family after the separatists won the war and established the United States. Like many loyalist families the Ingersoll clan decided to relocate to Canada in 1795 where the British Crown still reigned supreme. At that time, Canada was the “land of opportunity” and there were many like the family of Thomas Ingersoll who hoped to recover family fortune they had lost in the Revolution due to their loyalty to King and country.

 Because of all of this it should be no surprise that the family, again like most, was staunchly monarchist and steadfastly loyal to the British Crown, their loyalty having been tested in the extreme and not found wanting. In 1797 young Laura married James Secord, a member of the United Empire Loyalists, whose father had also been a loyalist in the Revolutionary War having served as an officer with Butler’s Rangers, a particularly fierce group of American Tories. James and Laura Secord settled down to a life of domestic bliss, setting up house in Queenston, Ontario (or Upper Canada as it was known then). Laura Secord lived the life of a typical wife on the northern frontier of the British Empire until trouble with the United States brought another war to her doorstep. After years of increased tensions the United States declared war on Great Britain in 1812 and immediately launched an invasion of Canada. War Hawks south of the border boasted that taking Canada would be a ‘mere matter of marching’ and believed that the people would welcome them as liberators from the “oppressive” rule of the British monarch. They couldn’t have been more wrong.

Laura Secord bravely kissed her husband goodbye as he rushed to the colors to defend Canada from the Americans. The Crown forces were grossly outnumbered but they had an advantage in the dynamic and audacious leadership of General Isaac Brock who organized his handful of redcoats, Canadian militia and local Indians to repel the American invasion. He had already thwarted one attempt before meeting the U.S. army at the battle of Queenston Heights where General Brock was mortally wounded. James Secord helped remove the body of his fallen commander and, in the process, was wounded himself. Laura risked the perils of the battlefield to search for her husband and, after finding him, caring for his wounds. The couple were almost killed by a group of American soldiers but were spared thanks to the arrival of Captain John E. Wool. A friend for life was made and that Captain Wool later became a hero in the Mexican-American War and a general in the War Between the States.

The war went on and in the spring of 1813 the U.S. Army made another effort to invade Canada. Fort George was captured and an American column moved to take control of the Niagara Peninsula which could have been of great importance. Colonel Charles Boerstler was dispatched with a sizeable force to surprise the British outpost at Beaver Dams, paving the way for future American advances. However, Laura Secord overheard the plans for this operation from a group of American officers who had quartered themselves in her home. Slipping away, Mrs. Secord braved a long and hard journey, barefoot through the wilderness to reach the British outpost and warn Lieutenant James FitzGibbon of the imminent American attack on June 22, 1813. There were over 600 regular U.S. Army soldiers against only 50 British redcoats and around 400 Indian warriors but FitzGibbon had time to prepare and the result was that the Crown forces were able to ambush the advancing Americans and totally defeat them with a minimum of losses. This hot little engagement so stung the U.S. forces at Fort George that they never made any further aggressive moves and finally abandoned the fort.

Laura Secord went back to a normal life with word of her exploits spreading by word of mouth but never being officially recognized, despite the efforts of Lt. FitzGibbon on her behalf. James Secord predeceased his wife and she fell on hard times in her old age but in 1860 the future King Edward VII, who was visiting Canada at the time, heard about the 85-year old widow who had saved Crown forces from a probable defeat and promptly donated a hundred pounds to her (a vastly greater sum at the time than it seems now). She died on October 17, 1868 and was buried next to her husband at Holy Trinity Church in the village of Chippewa (now Niagara Falls, Ontario). As the years went by her story spread through history books, articles and even plays. Today there are numerous memorials honoring Laura Secord in Canada as the heroine of the War of 1812, paying tribute to the brave woman who had risked her life in defense of her King and country.

8 comments:

  1. Excellent review and profile of the War of 1812 and Laura Secord's life and bravery! Growing up, the War of 1812 was a favourite subject to myself and family, and particularly General Isaac Brock, Laura Secord, and Lt. James FitzGibbon were favourite heroes and heroines who strode off the history pages into our vivid imaginations. They still do, I think.

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  2. Thank you. General Brock is also a favorite of mine, he had everything I look for in a great commander; audacity, personal courage, devotion to his cause (his King and constitution in this case) and was able to defeat forces vastly superior to his own by use of these qualities. One can only imagine how things would have turned out had he not been struck down in battle.

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  3. Aye, yes, if he had not been killed, the face of the war would have been different. My brother and I have speculated on how it would have looked, I think our conclusion was that we would have made more of an indent into the United States by way of captured territory. If I remember correctly, Brock's wish was to play an offensive game and not simply sit back waiting for them to come. Whether or not we could have kept what we would have captured, when the war ended, is another question, but it's rather interesting to speculate.

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  4. Perhaps Michigan or Maine would have be Canadian today but, contrary to what the paranoid types believed at the time, Britain had no illusions about re-conquering the United States. To my amazement I've actually seen a modern U.S. documentary about the war say that -as fact- that if America had lost everyone would have had no swear allegiance to the British Crown (gasp! horror!) whereas, of course, that is completely untrue. Britain never wanted the war in the first place. And General Brock did believe that the best defense is a good offense, like most of the successful defensive fighters have. Especially when you are at such a disadvantage, simply trying to repel every attack by an enemy that has you so vastly outnumbered is a strategy that cannot be sustained for long.

    As Napoleon famously said, "The only logical end to defensive warfare is surrender".

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  5. That is true: the British were not out for re-conquest. Even if they were not engaged in fighting in Europe, I doubt they would have been. Most of their Empire was gained through trade, (which then required some sort of military presence to protect their trade interests, which then over time grew to be what became the colonies and dominions), instead of out and out military conquest from the start. Since this was a very old way of thinking and doing business for the British, I doubt very much that they would have so quickly changed to a mind set that included reconquering America in 1812. Instead, they were just defending their interests in North America. I wonder if perhaps this was what caused Brock's superiors to not allow him to wage his offensive campaigns. I always thought it was due to military ineptness, but perhaps not...

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  6. Britain was fighting to defend themselves and no more, the only territorial demands were made after they had already invested lives and fortune in defending Canada and wanted something to show for it. Coming off the Napoleonic wars the people were weary, the economy was under great stress and the last thing they were thinking of was another major conflict. As for Brock's superiors, some certainly did not prove to be military geniuses but I think it was just a more strategically conservative attitude on their part. They knew the odds were against them and didn't want to take any risks. Brock of course said it was because the odds were so against them that they *had* to take risks.

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  7. So that's the story behind the delicious Laura Secord chocolate I'm eating right now...

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  8. Shannon Elliott said: Laura Secord is my relative by marriage. She married my great, great, grandpa James Richard Henry Secord's uncle, James Secord. It is so cool to have a connection to the history of Canada.

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