John Le Couteur British

John Le Couteur was seventeen when he left his home on the British island of Jersey to discover the world through the war. Though he had hoped to serve under Wellington in Spain, the young lieutenant respected his father's wishes and signed up with the 104th Foot stationed in Canada. A tough and tenacious soldier, his diary betrays Le Couteur's humanity and how deeply affected he was by the atrocities he witnessed. He cried at the death of a fellow soldier and fainted when the blood of a man receiving the lash splashed onto his face. Once in Canada, Le Couteur's men were glad to be in his service because he did not follow the traditional floggings and court martials imposed by other officers. In February of 1813, the 104th New Brunswick Regiment was ordered to march overland from Fredericton to Kingston in 1813. His detailed journal records his impressions of that fantastic trek as well as the horrors and hardships of war. He saw plenty of action while present at the Battle of Sacket's Harbour and at many other battles during the Niagara campaign of 1814. While stationed at Kingston at March of 1815, Le Couteur was chosen to take the official announcement of the Treaty of Ghent to Montreal. In the two and a half years that Le Couteur spent in Canada, he grew up considerably and changed his opinions of Americans. When he first arrived, he thought of them as "rascals" who "are worse than Frenchmen". But when he was asked to take in the truce flag to the enemy-occupied Fort George, he met an American and they got along fabulously. He noticed many similarities to the Canadians and wrote that the conflict is "uncomfortably like a civil war." After the war, Le Couteur stayed for a time in Montreal and then in the Caribbean. In May of 1817, the 104th Foot was dissolved and Le Couteur returned to Jersey. He spent the rest of his life on the island raising a family and dedicating himself to public office. He died in 1875 at the age of eighty-two.