The March of the 104th Foot in Canadian Military History:
A Comparative Overview
The bicentenary of the War of 1812 has brought much attention to the story of the epic march of the 104th Foot from New Brunswick to Upper Canada. In the winter of 2013, a group of volunteers re-enacted this seven-hundred-mile journey of the original six companies from Fredericton to Kingston, joined at various stages along the route by soldiers from militia regiments in New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario. The culmination of this historic re-enactment occurred in Kingston on April 12, 1813, in a special concluding ceremony on the grounds of the Royal Military College of Canada.
As with other themes developed for the bicentenary, the “March of the 104th Regiment” has taken on a mythological status. A published study of the march concluded that it was “one of the more significant feats accomplished during the War of 1812,”1 and suggested it was on par with the greatest marches in history. Military history, in fact, is replete with lengthy and difficult marches. In 218 BC, Hannibal took sixteen days to cross the Alps to Italy. In 1704, the Duke of Marlborough moved 14 battalions of infantry, 39 squadrons of cavalry, and 1,700 wagons pulled by 5,000 draught horses 250 miles from the Spanish Netherlands to Bavaria in five weeks. Napoleon lived up to his maxim that “marches are war” and, in 1805, moved 210,000 men in seventeen days from the Rhine River to meet his opponent east of the Danube. One could go on, but what distinguished these marches was the large number of soldiers, horses, and guns involved and that, following the ordeal, whether distance, pace, weather, topography, or a combination thereof, the forces involved were fit enough to fight and defeat their enemy.
Canadian military history also has its share of marches, many of which occurred in the western reaches of the country, although it must be pointed out that none of these “marches” was conducted entirely on foot, but incorporated other means of transportation, including waterborne craft, horse-drawn transport, and rail.
In 1870, British Colonel Garnet Wolseley led a 1,200-man expedition from Collingwood, on Georgian Bay, to Upper Fort Garry, in Manitoba, travelling by boat, canoe, and overland through difficult marsh and swamp to their objective 870 miles distant; the march was completed remarkably free of injury or disease. Then, in 1885, the eight-thousand-strong North West Field Force travelled from eastern and central Canada to points as far west as Calgary before leaving the rail line and marching north across the prairie toward their objectives. Gaps in the still-incomplete Canadian Pacific Railway required the troops to march portions of this route through difficult conditions, giving the Canadian government impetus to complete the project. It should also be remembered that, in New France, expeditions of various sizes were mounted from communities on the St. Lawrence River to attack First Nations and English settlements in New York and New England.2
A lesser-known march took place in May 1846, when the British responded to threats of American encroachment into the northwest by sending infantrymen of the 6th Foot, gunners, and engineers — a force totalling 347 men — accompanied by 17 women, 19 children, and 4 pieces of artillery, to the Red River Colony. They used a northern route, via Hudson Bay, the Hayes River, Lake Winnipeg, and the Red River, a distance of over nearly seven hundred miles, to reach their destination. Most of the voyage was conducted using boats and canoes, and lengthy portages were common. Unlike the route taken by the 104th Foot, which was marked by settlements, villages, and towns, the men, women, and children of the 1846 column moved through desolate territory, where little help, virtually no refuge, and few supplies could be found. Norway House was the sole outpost between Fort York on Hudson Bay and Fort Alexander near the southern end of Lake Winnipeg. As many soldiers, women, and children would experience, getting anywhere in British North America involved difficult travel over long distances.3
As for the War of 1812, the 104th Foot was not the only unit to make the overland journey from New Brunswick to the Canadas — artillerists, infantry, and even sailors also covered this route. In February 1814, five companies of the 2nd Battalion of the 8th Foot made the journey, while the Royal Navy also made use of it to move reinforcements to Kingston. In December 1813, Commodore Sir James Yeo sent Lieutenant John Scott, who had travelled by the route from Saint John the previous spring with Commander Robert Barclay, to make an appeal for seamen to Vice-Admiral Sir John Warren, the naval commander at Halifax. Eventually, two hundred and ten officers and men from four ships were collected, and in January 1814, with the band of the 8th Foot playing in their honour, the contingent began what in the annals of naval history must be a unique and difficult trek that took the sailors part way through New Brunswick by sleigh and thereafter on foot in a fashion similar to the march of the 104th Foot. The men were issued with snowshoes and one toboggan for every four men. Not as well versed with living in field conditions as soldiers would have been, the sailors often slept in the open, getting what warmth they could from campfires; frostbite reduced their numbers along the way. Once at Rivière-du-Loup, sleighs carried the sailors to Quebec City, from where they completed the journey to Kingston on foot.4
Finally, although only a portion of the 1,900-mile trek of the 203-strong Yukon Field Force from Vancouver to Dawson in 1898 was covered on foot, it involved a back-breaking journey through very rough terrain.5
Public interest in the winter march of the 104th Foot was resurrected in 1862, when, in response to the claim made by the Duke of Wellington that the march of the 43rd Light Infantry from Fredericton to Quebec in 1837 was the only “military achievement performed by a British officer that he really envied,”6 Andrew Playfair, the “last officer on the half-pay list of the late 104th Regiment,” reminded readers of the more difficult conditions faced by the 104th than those experienced by the 43rd twenty-four years later. After comparing the myriad differences in equipment, transportation, and conditions, including the more primitive conditions found in the countryside of New Brunswick, Playfair offered advice on the “safest means of reinforcing” Canada “after the St. Lawrence is closed.” “So long as we are at peace with the United States,”7 Playfair continued, “the best and shortest route for troops coming from the British Isles to Canada . . . is by the Port of St. Andrew’s, in the Bay of Fundy.”8
Attempting to rank these marches by level of difficulty is moot, however, especially in light of the tremendous physical stamina and determination of those involved and the different conditions each group faced. The march of the 104th Foot was a significant event in that it achieved Sir George Prevost’s goal of reinforcing Upper Canada, and provided him additional forces with which to respond to the American assaults on the province. It is unfortunate that the emphasis given to the winter march in the recent bicentenary literature has reduced the service history of the 104th Foot on the upper St. Lawrence River and in the Niagara Peninsula to a paragraph-long narrative that is unsatisfying not only for its brevity but also for the many errors therein. It was at Sackets Harbor, Beaver Dams, Fort George, Kingston, Gananoque, Prescott, Cornwall, Lundy’s Lane, Fort Erie, and Cook’s Mills that the 104th Foot defended British North America from foreign invasion, and it is a pity that, in comparison with the march, these actions have been reduced to near-insignificance.
