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Billy Green and the Battle of Stoney Creek - June 6, 1813By James Elliott
Had that raid failed,the Americans would likely have taken control of a good part of what is now Southern Ontario. Would they have given it back at the end of war? Ask the Mexicans how much captured territory the Americans returned after the Mexican-American war in 1846.
Billy Green and the Battle of Stoney Creek, June 6, 1813
Battlefield House Museum
James Elliott can be reached by e-mail at:
Another excellent historical book by James Elliott:
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It's October 1875. An old man shuffles up to Hamilton's city hall to collect his government pension for something he did more than 60 years earlier. He's slow and frail but in 1813, when an American army invaded the Niagara Peninsula, the young woodsman Billy Green played a key role in the battle that stopped the Yankee invasion cold.
So begins James Elliott's exciting account of the civilian hero of
the Battle of Stoney Creek, the scout who led an army. Drawing on archival sources and eye-witness accounts from both sides of the border,
Elliott, a reporter with the Hamilton Spectator, has recreated the daring
dawn raid that pitted 700 British regulars against more than 3,000 American
troops. Contrary to popular opinion it was not a rout and could easily
have gone against the British. The Americans lost two generals--
both captured. The British lost one-- he fell off his horse in the
woods and was not found until the next day.
The Battle of Stoney Creek is held to be one of the pivotal conflicts
of the War of 1812. Never again would American forces penetrate so
far into the Niagara Peninsula. Official British army records make
no mention of Billy Green (nor of the lost British general), but militia
muster records and an enduring local legend make an intriguing case for
his involvement.
