Flames Across the Border: 1813–1814 by Pierre Berton (review)

REVIEWS 259 Sooneror later, Mr Morgan'svolumeswill be minedby the dependency theorists, ofwhose existence heseems tobeunaware.Certainlyoneisstruckby thetendency of Britishdevelopment assistance, inthe•94osand•95osasinthe •92os,toforgecloser tradingbonds between thedeveloping territories andthe international market systemof the Western world. Dependencytheory suggests thatthesebonds wereBadThings.Butwerethey? And werethereany alternative paths todevelopment atthetime?It isapitythatMr Morgandidnot bringhisimmense learningtobearonthese questions, confronting themmore fullyandmoredirectly. Nevertheless, hehasprovidedagenerous rationofraw material for others to use. InS M.I•RVMMOSt• University ofToronto Flames acrosstheBorder: 1813-1814. PIERRE BERTON.Toronto, McClelland and Stewart,•98•. Pp.xiv,492. $24.95. According toBerton,it wasawarin whichalmost everyone seemed tobesick. Major-GeneralHenry Dearborn,sufferingfrom someundefinedmaladyas wellasmentalstress hadtobehelpedaboutbytwoaides.Oliver HazardPerry wasintermittentlyincapacitated with 'biliousfever' and one-quarterof his crews wereundertheweather whentheyfoughttheBattleof LakeErie.Over two-thirdsof Major-GeneralJohn Vincent'smen, retreatingtoward BurlingtonHeightsafter the Battleof theThames,weretooweaktohaulwagons and he himself,worn out and in failinghealth,wasshortlyreplaced.The number of sickamongMajor-GeneralJamesWilkenson's Americanforces climbedfrom 7o0in September of •8•3 to •8ooin mid-November,andatthe same timefivehundredVirginians inWadeHampton's invadingarmyonLake Champlainsufferedfrom 'a kind of distemper.' JamesYeowasoccasionally prostrate. LordTweeddale, commanding the•oothRegiment, wasrackedwith aguebeforethe Battleof Chippawa. JohnBeverleyRobinson couldhardly summon thestrength togetfromYorktotheassize atAncaster. Andonitwent. The book should have been called 'Germs across the Border.' In theendit maybethatBertonhimselfgotalittlesickof thewarandjust wanted tobedonewithit.Thetoneofthisvolume ismoreperfunctory thanthe first.The paceisfasterandthereislessattemptto includeall the available detailsof eachengagement. Indeed,someeventssuchasMacdonell's attackon Sackets Harborhavebeenleftoutaltogether. Sincethe second volumedealswith twenty-onemonthsof war rather than five,itisnotsurprising thatitsepisodes aremorecompact. Whatissurprising is Berton's concluding assertion thathisworkisnotmilitaryor political history. After readingoverfour hundredpages whichdealalmost exclusively withthe militarypersonalities, campaigns, and peacenegotiations of the war, after perusing overthirty mapswhichgiveprecise detailsof militaryand naval 260 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW engagements, it is strangeto learn that the bookis supposed to be a social history, particularly since it deals withareas onlywhentheywerethesites of combat. Since lifeprobably wentonprettymuchasusualindistricts removed fromthefighting, atruesocial history of thewarwouldhaveaverydifferent flavour. Whatthe authorundoubtedly meansisthathehastried to writea military history whichgives some attention totheactual experiences ofthose involved, including themenatthebottom oftheranksandthecivilian populations which happened togetcaught inthemiddle.Hisaim,ashesays, was'totellnotonly whathappened butalso whatitwas like.' Thisisaverydifficultproposition. Few participants in battles,especially thosewho servedin the ranksin the early nineteenthcentury,had a chance to recordtheir immediateimpressions and emotions.After-the-fact reminiscences, though valuable,are colouredby manythings including tricksofmemoryandconsiderations ofego.Moreover, theneedtotranslate theuniqueandperhaps uncomprehensible situations of war intoconventional termsthatsociety at largecangraspinevitably distorts those experiences. Cananyone whohasnottakenpartinwarreallyunderstand it?Cananyone whodidnotparticipate inaparticular battle reallyimagine what itwas like? Cantheparticipants themselves? Militarypsychologists have discoveredthatmostfront -linesoldiers atbestareaware onlyof whatthehalfdozen people aroundthemaredoing.If those whotookpartcannot describe acompleteaction authoritatively, howmuchmorepresumptuous isthehistorian? Howeverworthytheobjective, thetaskispractically impossible, andin the endwhatBertonhasmostly doneistorelievetheinevitable clinical overviews of strategyand actionwith informationaboutspecificindividuals often gleaned fromdiaries, memoirs, andhistories writtenbyparticipants andtheir contemporaries. While thistechniquemakesthe narrativemore dramatic,it alsoleadstoserious problems of evidence. At timeshisdesiretoincludelocal colour issostrong thatheaccepts information which issuspect, tosay theleast, andtherebyundermines hisgoalof capturing therealexperience. Forexample , in hisaccountof the Battleof theThames,he describes someremarkable acrobatics ofOliverPerrywhose horseplunged intoaswamp. Withhismount submerged up to itsbreast,thecommodore supposedly leapedoveritshead ontodryland,whereupon thehorse, freedof itsburden,pulleditselfupfrom themuckand,asitbounded forward,Perryclutched itsmaneandvaulted back into the saddle'withoutcheckingits speedor touchingbridle or stirrup.' Strangerthingshavehappened,of course, but sincethisstorycomes from a biography of Perrypublished in •84o- avolume whichwouldhavecompeted withthegrossly exaggerated taleof otherAmericanfrontierheroes - itsveracityisalittlequestionable . If thesearch forcolourleadsBertonontoshaky evidentiary ground,it also leadshim to a rathernineteenth-century interpretation of the war.In the conclusion he explicitlyarguesthat itscourse wascontrolledby individuals REVIEWS 261 (4a6)andintheaccounts of thevarious engagements thecapacity of leaders is almostalwaysthe determiningfactor.The great man theory of history,or perhapsmoreappropriatelygiventhe natureof the war,the lackof a great mantheoryof history,isunquestioningly predominant.This isonlynatural. WhenBertonundertookhisstudyof alltheprimarymaterials hispurposewas nottoreinterpretthewaranditssignificance. Instead,it wastofleshinexisting interpretations withthehumandetailthatwouldappealtoapopularaudience. Havingimmersed himselfin nineteenth-century detail,it isnotsurprising his producthasanineteenth-centurycharacter. The conclusion tothebook,andtothiswholestudyof thewar,isdisappointinglybriefandperfunctory . It includes afewshortremarks abouttheimpact of the conflict on the Indians and some brief paragraphs on how the war confirmedadistinctly Canadianpolitical cultureandstyle.It shouldbenoted thatsince thebookmentions almost nothingabouttheMaritimes andverylittle aboutQuebec,the Ontario identityhasonceagainbeenelevatedto national status.So much more could have been said.Comparisonswith European Napoleoniccampaigns couldhavebeenattempted.Berton makesmuchof illness, for example.WereEuropeantroopsgenerallyhealthier? Evenwithin anexclusively NorthAmericancontext, generalizations mighthavebeenmade aboutsuchthingsastheusefulness ofconventional militarytactics in a wilderness setting,the problems caused bytheAmericanrelianceon militaryleaders left overfrom the revolution,the development of an Upper Canadian6lite, andthemythsengendered ineachcountrybythewar.Bertondropstantalizing hintsaboutthesethingsthroughoutthetextbutheobviously doesnotcareto elaborate onthemin asystematic way,whichisonlytosay, perhaps, thatheisa writer,oftena goodone,butnotahistorian. I•EI,CI-I W^LDE.N TrentUniversity British Regulars inMontreal: anImperial Garrison, 1832-1854. ELINOR KYTE SENIOR. Montreal...