Historians and poets have often dwelt on the heroism of Laura Secord, daughter and wife of Loyalists, who made a perilous journey in 1814 through the Niagara district, and succeeded in warning Lieutenant Fitzgibbon of the approach of the enemy, thus enabling him with a few soldiers and Indians to surprise Colonel Boerstler near Beaver Dams and force him by clever strategy to surrender with nearly 600 men and several cannon. Even boys fled from home and were found fighting in the field. The Prince Regent, at the close of the war, expressly thanked the Canadian militia, who had "mainly contributed to the immediate preservation of the province and its future security." The Loyalists, who could not save the old colonies to England, did their full share in maintaining her supremacy in the country she still owned in the valley of the St. Lawrence and on the shores of the Atlantic.
As Bishop Plessis stimulated a patriotic sentiment among the French Canadians, so Vicar-General Macdonell of Glengarry, subsequently the first Roman Catholic bishop of Upper Canada, performed good service by assisting in the formation of a Glengarry regiment, and otherwise taking an active part in the defence of the province, where his will always be an honoured name. Equally indefatigable in patriotic endeavour was Bishop Strachan, then rector of York, who established "The Loyal and Patriotic Society," which did incalculable good by relieving the necessities of women and children, when the men were serving in the battlefield, by providing clothing and food for the soldiery, and otherwise contributing towards the comfort and succour of all those who were taking part in the public defences. Of the engagements of the war there are two which, above all others, possess features on which the historian must always like to dwell. The battle which was fought against such tremendous odds on the banks of the Chateauguay by less than a thousand French Canadians, led by Salaberry and Macdonell, recalls in some respects the defeat of Braddock in 1755. The disaster to the British forces near the Monongahela was mainly the result of the strategy of the Indians, who were dispersed in the woods which reechoed to their wild yells and their ever fatal shots fired under cover of trees, rocks and stumps. The British were paralysed as they saw their ranks steadily decimated by the fire of an enemy whom they could never see, and who seemed multitudinous as their shrieks and shouts were heard far and wide in that Bedlam of the forest. The leaves that lay thick and deep on the ground were reddened with the blood of many victims helpless against the concealed, relentless savages. The woods of the Chateauguay did not present such a scene of carnage as was witnessed at the battle of the Monongahela, but nevertheless they seemed to the panic-stricken invaders, who numbered many thousands, alive with an enemy whose strength was enormously exaggerated as bugle sounds and Indian yells made a fearful din on every side. Believing themselves surrounded by forces far superior in numbers, the invaders became paralysed with fear and fled in disorder from an enemy whom they could not see, and who might close upon them at any moment. In this way Canadian pluck and strategy won a famous victory which saved the province of Lower Canada at a most critical moment of the war.