The Hamilton Spectator

REMEMBERING THE MARCH, 200 YEARS ON

Reservists will retrace trek to the Battle of Stoney Creek for re-enactment weekend

MARK MCNEIL

If you see a platoon of soldiers in contemporary combat gear marching across the city Saturday morning, don’t be alarmed.

Their weapons will only be replicas, and they will be heading to the scene of a battle that ended more than two centuries ago.

The local reservists are planning to retrace the 13-kilometre trek by British troops and a small number of local militia who surprised and pushed back an American encampment on June 6, 1813, in the famous Battle of Stoney Creek.

“We are not sure of the exact route because the landscape has changed considerably in 210 years, but we are going to come as close as we can,” says Major Chris Wattie, who is leading the march.

They will end up at Battlefield House Museum & Park National Historic Site, where re-enactment events are scheduled over the weekend. No doubt the soldiers in their modern greens and mock C7 assault rifles will stand out next to re-enactors in early 1800s garb holding muskets.

Wattie, who is the Deputy Commanding Officer of the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, says, “The idea of the march is to honour the soldiers and remember units that participated in the battle including the former 2nd York Militia, a regiment that the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry perpetuates.”

The 10 to 20 soldiers who take part Saturday will be from the RHLI, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, as well as other military regiments that operate out of the John Weir Foote Armoury on James Street North.

The march will begin at 9 a.m., starting from Dundurn Park, which was the area of a British encampment during the War of 1812. The soldiers will generally stick to sidewalks so they don’t obstruct automobile traffic.

After arriving at the park in Stoney Creek at around 11:30 a.m., they will meet and greet members of the public. They will not participate in re-enactments.

Wattie says it’s the first time, to his knowledge, that local reservists have taken part in a march to Stoney Creek to commemorate the battle. Although other military history buffs have done the journey in the past.

Wattie — who calls himself a “history nerd” and has served in Iraq and numerous other places with the Canadian military — says the battle is “fascinating from a military tactical perspective.”

After capturing Fort George and Niagara-on-the-Lake, an American force of 3,000 had made it as far as Stoney Creek, where an encampment was established. The British learned of the location and then launched a surprise attack in the dark, in the early hours of June 6.

More than 700 soldiers under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel John Harvey surprised the American encampment and managed a victory, even though they were vastly outnumbered.

The fighting has been described in historical accounts as being “fierce and confused.” But through the disarray, two American brigadier-generals were captured which sent the enemy forces into retreat. The battle is seen as a key turning point in the War of 1812.

“As a professional military officer, I would say it was an extremely well executed spoiling attack. The key was the night march from

Burlington Heights to Stoney Creek to catch Americans by surprise,” says Wattie.

A spoiling attack is a tactical manoeuvre designed to immobilize enemy forces that are in the process of preparing for future military operations.

This year’s Battle of Stoney Creek re-enactment comes after three years of the event being cancelled because of COVID.

“We are hoping it will be a good combination of what people have come to expect and enjoy along with some new twists,” says Chris- topher Redford, who is co-chair of the committee overseeing the event.

City staff have been working to enhance Indigenous components of the weekend. Among other things, the event will host Haude- nosaunee lacrosse games along with performances by Indigenous dancers and singers.

Last year, controversy erupted when city plans surfaced to dra- matically change the event that some believed included doing away with re-enactments.

According to reports in The Ston- ey Creek News, a senior city man- ager, at a meeting of volunteers, disparaged the re-enactments as being like a “football game” and a “spectacle.” That set off a firestorm of anger by re-enactors, volunteers and Stoney Creek residents, that eventually led to city council ordering the event to continue.

Controversy is nothing new to historical commemorations associated with the Battle of Stoney Creek:

In the early 1900s, in what has been described as the second Battle of Stoney Creek, rival factions of history buffs fought over the best location to commemorate the battle.

The Wentworth Historical Society wanted to use a section of land called Smith’s Knoll, across King Street from where Battlefield Park is today. A group led by a “Victorian Dynamo” woman named Sara Calder wanted lands around the former James Gage homestead to be used instead.

Both ended up with separate monuments. The historical society built a relatively modest stone cairn at Smith’s Knoll, at a gravesite for soldiers who died in the battle. Calder, through tireless fundraising, managed to build a massive tenstorey monument that opened in 1913, for the 100th anniversary of the battle. The Calder vision won out with her site being the one mainly used for commemorations over the decades to follow.

In 2009, a book about the battle by former Spectator reporter James Elliot poked holes in the story about the legendary heroics of William Green.

Known as Billy Green the Scout because of his intimate knowledge of the area, he reportedly helped British troops find the American encampment. He also allegedly managed to learn an enemy password that he passed onto the British as well.

But Elliott, in his book “Strange Fatality — The Battle of Stoney Creek 1813,” claimed the story did not stand up to scrutiny and was an attempt to create a folk hero similar to Laura Secord. That raised the ire of Green’s descendants, who put out their own 30-page book as a rebuttal.

Also contentious has been the handling of the remains of soldiers who died in the battle. Estimates of the death toll range from 40 to more than 60. Many bodies had not been properly buried and over the years there were reports of grave robberies and bones being discovered in farmers’ fields.

But in 1997, an archeologist was brought in to survey the area and collect what could be found from the plundered and scattered remains. Eventually, 2,701 bones were catalogued and studied by McMaster University archeological researchers.

Then in 2012, the bones were placed in an above ground crypt at the Smith’s Knoll site in Stoney Creek.

Many bodies had not been properly buried and over the years there were reports of grave robberies and bones being discovered in farmers’ fields

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2023-05-30T07:00:00.0000000Z

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