CHARACTERS

Lieutenant John Le Couteur

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 Regiment of Foot stationed in Canada. A tough and tenacious soldier, his diary betrays Le 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 Harbor and at many other battles during the Niagara campaign of 1814.

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 Ft. 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."