Anne Prevost     Recollections & Extracts From The Journals Of Miss Anne Prevost Women and War

Born January 1, 1795, Anne Prevost received a somewhat sketchy education as she and her mother followed her father on various postings around the Empire. Anne disliked sewing and French, but loved riding, and took to snowshoeing like a native of Canada. She once scrambled to the top of a rocky outcrop along with the more daring of the gentlemen; the only woman of the party to do so. Anne Prevost kept journals throughout the War of 1812. Incomplete as these may be, they nevertheless shed an interesting light on her private thinking. A young lady can't spend all of her time worrying about issues of the state. Anne loved dancing perhaps most of all. As the Governor General's daughter, she lacked neither partners nor potential beaus. She was careful however, not to appear to favour one more than another. In her own words, she stated "determined never to marry than (marry) badly." She secretly found Captain Henry Milnes especially pleasing. He was a distant cousin, and an aide-de-camp to her father. They often danced together, and rode carrioles along snowbound roads in winter. But Anne was very careful not to give the impression that they were engaged, and she always made sure that a chaperone was present. She had good reason to hold back: Captain Milnes was infatuated with a married woman, the wife of a Major Cockburn. According to Anne's diary, "poor Captain M. [was] very much taken," and Mrs. Cockburn, whose husband was fighting somewhere in Upper Canada, did everything to encourage him. Tongues began to wag, and so an older relative of the Captain's came out to try and avert scandal. It was decided that Captain Milnes would be posted in the field. Whether he and Anne Prevost would have eventually married would never be known; he was killed in a skirmish a few days after arriving at his new posting. Besides the details of dinner parties, dancing partners, and gossip - "I never used to like Miss C. because she rouged" - Anne's journal reveals her great concern regarding her father's reputation. About her father personally taking charge of the ill-fated Plattsburg expedition, she wrote: "Precious as was my Father's life, still I was so true a Soldier's daughter, I valued his renown even more." After the war and her father's disgrace, Anne Prevost came into hard times. First, her father died before he could defend himself of the charges against him, then her mother followed; her only brother and sister followed shortly thereafter. Anne spent the rest of her days, "a spinster finding her solace in the One who made all life."