College Quarterly Winter 2005 - Volume 8 Number 1 Home Recording the War of 1812: Stan Rogers' (Un)sung Heroes Contents by Nick Baxter-Moore This article examines the role of popular music in the making and dissemination of "popular" history and the differences between "popular" or "vernacular" memories and the official versions of history handed down to us by elites. The principal focus is on three songs by the late Canadian singer-songwriter Stan Rogers about the War of 1812-14, the war between Britain and the United States over the future of the surviving British North American colonies which was also, in some measure, Canada's own "War of Independence." Each of these songs celebrates a contribution to the British/Canadian cause by an individual who has been largely overlooked in official/academic histories of the War—hence the reference to "(un)sung heroes" in the title. The songs will be discussed qua songs, within the context of Stan Rogers' songwriting and recording career; for example, the extent to which each song is typical of Rogers' work in terms of both matter and manner, subject and music. But the songs are also analyzed as forms of "popular" or "vernacular" history—as differentiated from the "official" version of Canadian history which is promulgated by the monuments, markers and plaques erected by government agencies such as parks departments and historic sites boards and by the written versions of Canada's past produced by academic and other professional historians (on some of the differences, see Thompson 1997, 55-62). Echoing many other scholars in the tradition of critical historical studies, Brian Osborne observes that "the past is not preserved but is socially constructed through archives, museums, school curricula, monuments and public displays" (Osborne 2001, 9). Such institutional representations of the past embody the official construction of collective memory advanced by elites—with their own agendas of social cohesion, nation-building, stability and continuity—in contrast to what might be labeled popular or vernacular (folk) memory (see Osborne 2001, 9; also Bodnar 1994, 75; Gillis 1994, 3-6). Rogers' songs examined here both draw upon and serve to disseminate popular/vernacular memories, myths and legends of the War of 1812. For those unfamiliar with the name of Stan Rogers, he was a significant Canadian singer-songwriter, the "Canadian" in this statement referring both to his citizenship and, more importantly, to the fact that many of his finest songs are distinctively associated with this place, detailing events of Canada's history or documenting the lives of its people. Rogers was born in Hamilton, Ontario in 1949 and, having played in a number of high school bands and twice dropped out of university, became a professional musician in his early twenties. After a couple of notably unsuccessful singles and an eponymous album recorded for RCA in the early 1970s, he first came to national prominence as a recording artist with the release of his first independently produced album, Fogarty's Cove, a "regional song-cycle" celebrating the people and cultures of Atlantic Canada, in 1977. Before his death in an airplane fire in June 1983, he recorded another five albums, including two more "regional concept" albums about the prairies of the Canadian west (Northwest Passage, 1981) and the Great Lakes region of Ontario (From Fresh Water, 1984). His most famous songs include "Make and Break Harbour," "Barrett's Privateers," "The Mary Ellen Carter," "The Field Behind the Plow," "Northwest Passage"; these and many others, over twenty years after his death, continue to be performed and recorded by artists in Canada and abroad. The songs discussed in this article, "Billy Green," "The Nancy" and "MacDonnell on the Heights," are drawn from both ends of Rogers' career. While there are expected stylistic differences among them, bearing witness in part to Rogers' maturation as a songwriter, there are also a number of interesting parallels with respect to the songwriting process (including the amount of background research Rogers undertook before writing the songs) and in the apparent motivation behind their composition. Billy Green, The Scout In late May 1813, having captured Fort George and Fort Erie, American forces under the command of Brigadier-General John Chandler advanced westward across the Niagara Peninsula towards York, the capital of Upper Canada. The British forces in turn retreated to Burlington Heights, at the western end of Lake Ontario. On the night of June 5, the US troops set up scattered encampments around the Gage homestead in Stoney Creek, a pioneer settlement which is now part of metropolitan Hamilton, Ontario. Under cover of darkness, 700 British regulars and militia under Colonel (later General) John Harvey attacked and routed the American army of some 3000 men, capturing two American generals and sending the US forces in quick retreat back to the Niagara River. Stoney Creek was thus a pivotal battle of the War. In the words inscribed on one of the plaques at the base of the monument marking the battle site: THIS IS HELD TO HAVE BEEN THE DECISIVE ENGAGEMENT OF THE WAR HERE THE TIDE OF INVASION WAS MET AND TURNED BY TH PIONEER PATRIOTS AND SOLDIERS OF THE KING. While this official plaque, erected by the Government of Canada, lists many of the principal officers and regiments participating in the battle, it makes no mention of a Canadian pioneer youth by the name of Billy Green, who is the principal protagonist in Stan Rogers' song about the Battle of Stoney Creek. The first verse of "Billy Green" establishes the singer's purpose: Attend all you good countrymen, my name is Billy Green, And I will tell of things I did when I was just nineteen. I helped defeat the Yank invader, there can be no doubt, Yet lately men forget the name of Billy Green, the Scout. The song "Billy Green" takes the form of a traditional storytelling folk ballad, encompassing ten four-line verses (without chorus or refrain) sung by Rogers' solo baritone voice to a simple accompaniment of two acoustic guitars played by Rogers and "Curly Boy Stubbs" (alias his producer and long-time friend, Paul Mills). Successive verses detail the story of Billy and his brother Levi spying on the American forces as they advanced west across Niagara, at one point scaring some American soldiers by whooping "like Indians," how his "brother" (in fact, brother- in-law) Isaac [Corman] was captured by the enemy, Billy's ride to the British camp on Burlington Heights and his role in guiding Colonel Harvey and the British/Canadian forces through the night to attack the American encampment and defeat the invaders. (Interestingly, Rogers' version of the story makes no mention of another part of the popular folk-tale—that Billy took with him to the British encampment the Americans' password which Isaac Corman had learned while briefly detained by the foe—see Crump 2003, 46). In the tenth and final verse, Rogers reintroduces the rationale for the song: And so it was I played the man though I was but nineteen. I led our forces through the night that this land would be free. I foiled the Yank invaders and I helped put them to rout, So, let no man forget the name of Billy Green, the Scout. "Billy Green" was originally written for and performed on the CBC Radio folk show, Touch the Earth, in 1975 (a remastered version of recording was released on the retrospective album From Coffee House to Concert Hall in 1999—see Discography). It therefore comes from relatively early in Rogers' song-writing career and before his first album (Fogarty's Cove) established him as the leader of a "Can-trad" folk revival and a spokesperson for the fishermen and sailors, farmers and laid-off plant workers, the fast-disappearing independent commodity producers and artisans of Atlantic Canada. But even at this early stage, there is evidence in this song of the documentary and archival impulses that characterize much of Rogers' later work. Salvaging is a recurring subject matter, metaphor and method in Rogers' songwriting (see Baxter-Moore 1995b). For example, "Man With Blue Dolphin" (from the album, From Fresh Water) describes the efforts of a "wonderful, crazy man in Windsor" (A. Rogers 1984) to raise the sister-ship of the more famous Bluenose from the bottom of the harbour. In "The Wreck of the Athens Queen" (from Fogarty's Cove), "salvagers," a euphemism for "looters," take all they can—cases of Napoleon Brandy, a couch of green, ... even a live cow—before the ocean claims a ship wrecked on Ripper's Rock. And, in one of Rogers' most famous songs, "The Mary Ellen Carter" (from Between The Breaks ... Live!), the efforts of the crew to recover their sunken vessel, in the face of physical hardship and the indifference of her owners, are made in the song an inspirational example for all those "to whom adversity has dealt a mortal blow" as they seek to reclaim their lives. At the same time, of course, the crew's motivation ("that her name not be lost to the knowledge of men") becomes an explicit statement of Rogers' own method of reclaiming for Canadians neglected episodes and characters from their history, such as Billy Green's role in the Battle of Stoney Creek and, later, the contributions of other unsung heroes of the War of 1812. It must be acknowledged that Billy Green has not been entirely forgotten, although he plays a more central role in local tradition and the popular history of Stoney Creek and the Hamilton area than in official or academic histories of the War. He is the subject of a children's book, The Scout Who Led an Army (Ballantyne 1963) and, six years after Rogers wrote his song, the late Canadian popular historian Pierre Berton made Green the central figure of his account of the Battle of Stoney Creek in his two-volume history of the War of 1812 (Berton 1981, 72-79). At the annual re-enactment of the battle each June, one of Green's descendants relates his ancestor's story to visitors assembled in an upper room of the Battlefield House Museum. In the gift shop downstairs, one may purchase a video, The Legend of Billy Green and the Battle of Stoney Creek (Soyka 1999)—note the use of the word "legend"—as well as a pamphlet produced by the local historical society in which author James Elliott introduces his reconstruction of the story with the words "Despite official determination to ignore it, the saga of Scout Green has proved an enduring tale" (Elliott 1994, Preface). In contrast to the popular or vernacular/folk history surrounding the Battle of Stoney Creek, "a local scout, Billy Green" receives one brief mention in George Stanley's influential history of the land campaigns of the War (Stanley 1983, 187). As noted in the introduction to this discussion, such scant attention is also his fate in the official plaques and markers around the battlefield. But his name can be found by those willing to search for it, although the symbolism of official history relegates him to a subordinate role in the proceedings. In Battlefield Park, at the corner of King Street and Highway 20 in the modern City of Stoney Creek, stand the Battlefield House Museum (the old Gage family homestead which was occupied by the Americans before the battle) and the Stoney Creek Monument, a hundred-foot tall octagonal tower commemorating the British/Canadian victory. Beside Battlefield House, a plaque erected by the Archaeological and Historic Sites Board of Ontario celebrates the valour of "some 700 British regulars of the 8th and 49th Regiments under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Harvey" who prevailed over the 3000-strong American army and emphasizes the importance of the battle: "This victory is credited with preventing Upper Canada from being overrun in 1813." But there is no mention here of Billy Green, the local hero. From Battlefield House, the visitor must climb half-a-dozen flights of stone steps to the base of the Monument, perched on a rise part-way up the Niagara escarpment, or "the Mountain," as it is called in the Hamilton area. Once there, numerous plaques may be seen around the entrance which record the regiments and their officers who participated in the battle, list the names of those regular British soldiers who died and, most prominently, detail the circumstances of the opening of the tower in 1913 (using the wonders of modern science, on the centenary of the battle, Queen Mary pushed a button in London to unveil the monument electronically). But, as I left the tower on my first field trip to Stoney Creek, on an icy February day, I thought to look up one more time. Squinting into wintry sunshine, I saw a stone shield, some forty feet up the monument, bearing the name "VINCENT" (for General John Vincent, who led the British attack from the rear and got lost in the woods following the battle, being discovered the next morning without sword and most of his uniform). Moving around the tower to the right, I read more names on shields similarly placed -- "PLENDERLEATH" (who commanded the 49th Regiment), "FITZGIBBON" (a lieutenant under Harvey who helped reconnoiter the American positions), "JAMES GAGE" (owner of the Gage farm which the Americans had occupied)— until the path fell away down the hill and further progress was blocked by a stand of honeysuckle vines. Circling back to the left past Vincent, I found "HARVEY" (Colonel, later General, who led the British and Canadian forces in the attack), "OGILVIE" (who commanded the 8th Regiment), "MERRITT" (Captain William Hamilton Merritt who led the local militiamen supporting the regulars) and, finally, at the back of the tower, accessible only if one braves the undergrowth, furthest from the front entrance and the steps which lead tourists up from the museum to the monument, facing away from the park and into the hillside beyond, one last shield bearing the simple transcription "SCOUT-GREEN." Even on his gravestone, Billy Green plays "second fiddle" to a British officer. Green died in 1877 and was buried in Stoney Creek Cemetery, a few hundred metres west of Battlefield Park on the other side of Highway 20. Green's original gravestone disappeared and was replaced in 1938 by a new stone erected near the entrance to the cemetery, next to the obelisk dedicated to his brother Levi Green and family. But the "front" of this new four-sided marker, the side facing the road leading into the cemetery, bears the legend "In memory of General Harvey, British Gen. who had command at Battle of Stoney Creek June 6 1813." A second side of the stone is blank, while a third commemorates the role of Isaac Corman, Billy's brother-in-law. Finally, the visitor comes to the fourth side, the back of the stone, the side furthest away from the entry road, where the following words appear: In memory of Billy Green the Scout who led the British troop in a surprise night attack winning the decisive battle of Stoney Creek. Born Feb. 4, 1795, died March 15, 1877. I don't know if Stan Rogers visited Battlefield Park or Stoney Creek Cemetery before writing his song but, according to his widow (see A. Rogers 1999), as part of his research he did interview Billy Green's great, great grand-daughter who still lived in the Hamilton/Stoney Creek area. It is also likely that he was shown, or was referred to, a first- person account of Green's exploits as told to his grandson, John Green, inasmuch as many of the details of Rogers' lyrics (except for the omission of the password episode) bear striking resemblance to that version. Green's statement was published in The Hamilton Spectator in March 1938 to mark the 90th birthday of John's widow, and it is reprinted in full in Mabel Thompson's article on Billy Green published in Ontario History (Thompson 1952). The Spectator article was probably responsible in part, at least by raising public awareness, for the erection of the new marker in the cemetery later the same year, for it laments that "one of the greatest heroes of Canadian history has passed on with his deeds hardly noticed. ... today this gallant lies in the cemetery at Stoney Creek but no special monument commemorates his historic deed" (Anon. 1938). Some fourteen years later, it would appear that Green's role was still largely neglected by official historians. Mabel Thompson, an "amateur" historian and member of the Women's Wentworth Historical Society, set out to "authenticate a tradition," by researching the facts behind the popular local retelling of Billy Green's story because, as Thompson argued, "this tale of romantic and inspiring heroism ... seemed to me to have been shamefully neglected" (Thompson 1952, 173). Further evidence that Rogers must have read either the account in The Spectator or Thompson's article before writing his song is the status which, according to his widow (A. Rogers 1999), he conferred on Billy Green as "Canada's 'Paul Revere'," a parallel drawn by both earlier writers. "He was the Paul Revere of Canada" stated the Spectator columnist, while Thompson concluded her article with a rhetorical question: "It has been said that Canadians lack patriotic pride and that we fail to give honour and acclaim to our famous men and heroic leaders. In Billy Green the Scout, who has been called the Paul Revere of Canada, have we not a local hero worthy of belated recognition?" (Thompson 1952, 181). "Belated recognition" and "salvaging" are part of the same trope, the same metaphor, which is evident in the work of both popular historians and popular singer-songwriters such as Rogers. To the extent that there is a disconnect between popular history and the official versions of Canada's past, it is perhaps because the latter have for too long given honour to "famous men" (prime ministers and politicians, generals and other officers—before 1867, mostly British) and have, in the process, neglected the roles played by "ordinary" Canadians, such as Billy Green. Military history, in particular, has tended to be based on official correspondence and reports, mostly written by officers, many of them notably self-serving. For example, in his official report on the Battle of Stoney Creek, Lieutenant Colonel Harvey made no mention of the contribution of Billy Green; nor did he make any reference to the less-than-glorious role played in the battle by his superior officer, General John Vincent (see Berton, 1981, 79). Harvey's willingness to play by the rules was duly recognized. Near Burlington Heights, next to the tourist attraction of Dundurn Castle in Hamilton, Ontario, another plaque erected by the Ontario Archaeological and Historic Sites Board marks his role in leading a "surprise attack on an invading United States force ... [which] is generally credited with saving Upper Canada from being overrun by the enemy." The plaque also lists Harvey's rewards for service to the Empire: a knighthood in 1824, appointments as Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick (1834-41), Governor of Newfoundland (1841-46) and Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia (1846-51); he died in 1852, aged 74. Interlude—From Fresh Water About the time that he wrote "Billy Green," Stan Rogers was vacationing with his extended family in Nova Scotia when his Aunt June suggested that he start writing songs about Atlantic Canada (S. Rogers 1977). The result was Fogarty's Cove and Rogers became labeled as a "Maritime folkie," a role that he performed very successfully for a couple of years (and most of two more albums, Turnaround, 1978, and Between The Breaks ... Live!, 1979) before discovering while on tour in western Canada that he could also empathize with and write songs about prairie farmers and ranchers, oil field roughnecks and displaced Maritimers who had migrated west in search of work. It was not until near the end of his life, therefore, that Rogers started again to write about the province of his birth. In 1981, following the release of his fourth album in less than five years, Rogers applied for and secured a Canada Council grant to allow him to spend less time on the road and more time both to spend with his family and to research and write a new regional song-cycle, for which the working title was "the Great Lakes Project." This project was intended, according to Rogers' widow: to 'fill in the gap' so to speak, between the continental extremes of Fogarty's Cove and Northwest Passage ... He had an immense amount of pleasure doing the research for the project. He discovered, much to his delight, an Ontario he had not known or suspected, more unsung heroes of Canadian history and enough information, useful and otherwise to enliven supper table conversation wherever he was (A. Rogers 1984). A number of songs from "the Great Lakes Project" were recorded in the months before Rogers died in June 1983; many of these appeared as tracks on his last studio album, From Fresh Water, released posthumously in 1984 (and some other, previously unreleased tracks appear on the later compilation, From Coffee House to Concert Hall). Musically, From Fresh Water is Rogers' most diverse and ambitious recording, mixing simple acoustic "folk-revival" arrangements for some songs with extensive use of modern technology on others—for example, the multiple, overlaid guitar tracks on "White Squall"—to mediate between performer and audience; and, for the first time, on this album Rogers and producer Paul Mills employed orchestral string accompaniments for a number of songs. But, while the music might make concession to the complexity and modernity of contemporary Ontario, in his choice of subject-matter, Rogers ignored almost entirely the industrialized, metropolitan, multicultural Golden Horseshoe. Instead he focused on life in small towns, fishing ports and Great Lakes harbours. His songs tell of sailors on the 'Lakers' ("White Squall"), freshwater fishermen ("Tiny Fish for Japan"), a lock-keeper on the Welland Canal/St Lawrence Seaway ("Lock-Keeper"), a small-town hockey star who didn't quite make it to the NHL ("Flying")—and two more "unsung heroes" of the War of 1812, Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonell, provincial aide-de-camp to General Sir Isaac Brock, and Alexander Mackintosh, sailing master of The Nancy. "MacDonnell on the Heights" Some thirty miles, or fifty kilometers, east along the Niagara escarpment from Stoney Creek, site of the exploits of Billy Green, is another tower set in another park which commemorates another, earlier, battle of the War of 1812-14. In Queenston Heights Park, which marks the first major engagement of the War, the statue of General Sir Isaac Brock stands atop a 184-foot stone column, overlooking the Niagara River, the historic village of Queenston and, further north, Fort George, on the edge of the old town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, formerly Newark, the original capital of Upper Canada. Brock did not, of course, "win" the Battle of Queenston Heights; he was killed by an Ohio sharpshooter's musket ball early in the morning of October 13, 1812, as he led a frontal assault on American troops stationed on a redan (earthwork) halfway up the escarpment. It was Major General Sir Roger Sheaffe who led the British and Canadian forces to victory later that same afternoon. Today, at the foot of Brock's monument in the park, a plaque marks the death of one General and the victory of another: THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS In the early morning of 13 October 1812, American troops under Major-General Stephen Van Rensellaer crossed the Niagara River and took possession of Queenston Heights. Major-General Isaac Brock hurried from Fort George to lead a small force against the invaders and was killed in an attempt to regain the Heights. In the afternoon, Major-General Roger Hale Sheaffe with his force of British regulars, militia and Indians from Fort George strengthened by reinforcements from Chippewa, took the hill from the west flank, capturing 958 prisoners. This celebrated victory ended the American offensive of 1812. In the "official" version of the history of the Battle of Queenston Heights presented to tourists via this plaque and the many other markers erected around the park by agencies of the federal and provincial governments, there is no reference to the role of another officer who died in the battle and whose remains were subsequently interred alongside those of Brock in the mausoleum at the base of the monument. Stan Rogers' song, "MacDonnell on the Heights," seeks to set the record straight, commemorating the Battle of Queenston Heights by relating the story not of the too-obvious Brock, or the unsympathetic Sheaffe, but of the exploits of one Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonell (or, in Rogers' version, "MacDonnell"): To say the name, MacDonnell, it would bring no bugle call But the Redcoats stayed beside you when they saw the General fall. T'was MacDonnell raised the banner then and set the Heights aflame, But not one in ten thousand knows your name. In Rogers' song, MacDonnell's place in history, like that of Billy Green, has been overlooked. MacDonnell it was who rallied the British troops following Brock's death, leading a second charge up the escarpment against the American positions, before he too fell mortally wounded. Now (in the present of the song), he is buried beside Brock at the foot of the tower which crowns Queenston Heights and on which the General's statue stands, marking both the battle and his (Brock's) place in Canadian, and colonial, history. Had he survived, or had not the famous General fallen on the same day, Rogers' words suggest, MacDonnell might be celebrated as a Canadian hero ("... perhaps had you not fallen, you might be what Brock became"). But today, Rogers sings, his death is mostly unremarked ("... not one in ten thousand knows your name"), except for a lichen-covered weathered stone at the foot of Brock's column: At Queenston now, the General on his tower stands alone And there's lichen on 'MacDonnell' carved upon that weathered stone In a corner of the monument to glory you could claim But not one in ten thousand knows your name. (Ch) You brought the field all standing with your courage and your luck But unknown to most, you're lying there beside old General Brock. So you know what it is to scale the Heights and fall just short of fame And have not one in ten thousand know your name. In several important respects "MacDonnell on the Heights" is not a typical Stan Rogers song. Musically, "MacDonnell ..." is one of those songs on From Fresh Water in which piano and string section complement the more usual line-up of guitars or mandolins, fiddle and/or flute, sometimes supplemented by a rhythm section of bass and drums. And, unlike other Rogers songs with historical themes, such as "Barrett's Privateers" or "Northwest Passage," there are no powerful, soaring harmonies. Even in the chorus, Rogers' voice here carries the melody alone, at stately tempo. Nor was MacDonnell a typical Stan Rogers hero. With rare exceptions, Rogers' principal protagonists tended to be "everyday heroes," ordinary working Canadians struggling to make a living, to maintain family and community, and their dignity, amid the vicissitudes of political, economic and social forces over which they had little or no control (Baxter-Moore 1995a, 321-323). MacDonnell, by contrast, was an officer and a gentleman, a member of the colonial elite. As Ariel Rogers commented in her liner notes for the album (A. Rogers 1984), MacDonnell was one of those "good young men" from the "right" kind of family with the "right" kind of gentleman's education, a law practice and the ear of influential people. There's nothing to indicate he was not a decent sort, but somebody writing up the accounts didn't want any too much of the glory to be taken from the General! John Macdonell was how he spelt his name, although, as with many Scottish clans, different branches of the family "spelt their surname any way they pleased" (Martin & Simpson 1989, 196; see also Dalmyn et al. 1996). He was born in Greenfield in Glengarry in the west of Scotland in 1785. In 1792, he arrived in Upper Canada with his parents, settling in Glengarry township, in what is now Eastern Ontario. In the same year, his uncle, John McDonell became the first Speaker of the Legislature of Upper Canada. Young John became a law student in 1803 and was admitted to the Bar of Upper Canada in 1808 (Whitfield 1974, 38). His legal practice evidently flourished, and/or his family connections helped him along, because in 1811 Macdonell was appointed Acting Attorney General of Upper Canada; the following year he was elected Member of Parliament for Glengarry. As Attorney General, he worked closely with the Provisional Lieutenant-Governor of the province, General Brock, who made him his provincial aide-de- camp at the outbreak of war. Macdonell served under Brock in the campaign which saw General Hull's invasion of south-west Ontario