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Little Known Facts
Ships at the Battle of Lake Erie Further Reading A Soldier's Story - Food & Drink
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Facts 2: From prohibition to "Military Freedom"Prohibition: Food was so short in Upper Canada during the war that the authorities issued a prohibition order banning the distillation of grain into whisky. Patriotism was not popular: Historians disagree but between 15 and 25% of the American regular army deserted one or more times during the war. Desertion rates in the American militia were even higher. However, British and Canadians have nothing to crow about since desertion in the Upper Canada militia was just as high while deserters from the British regular army sometimes numbered in the hundreds. HMS St. Lawrence: When the war broke out, the largest British warship on the Great Lakes was the Royal George, a 22-gun brig. Two years later, the Royal Navy had launched HMS St. Lawrence, pierced for 104 guns and nearly as large as HMS Victory, Admiral Nelson's flagship. An even larger warship, HMS Canada, was on the stocks at Kingston. Successful General: American General Jacob Brown, the victor at Chippawa, fought and won more pitched battles against British regular troops than any other general in American history including such revolutionary war heroes as George Washington, Nathaniel Green and "Light Horse Harry Lee". Today, Brown is all but forgotten in his own country. The Origins of Dalhousie University: In 1814, a British expedition from Halifax occupied Bangor and Castine, Maine (then Massachusetts), and remained there for the rest of the war. British Officials collected custom duties from vessels arriving in the port throughout the war and, after the war, these funds, which no one knew what to do with, were used to construct the first buildings of what would later become Dalhousie University in Halifax. Military Freedom: In 1813 and 1814, the Royal Navy established advance bases on islands just off the coast in the Chesapeake area. Many black slaves, anxious for freedom, made their way to these places where they were fed by the British authorities. Their numbers grew to such proportions that the Royal Navy formed three companies of black "colonial marines" which were used in raids along the American coast. At the end of the war, all these ex-slaves were settled on land in the West Indies.
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