d unremitting exposures to wet, cold, and fatigue, with a diet
which, under existing circumstances, could not prove nutritious,
exhausted the vital principle, and diarrhoea and typhus fever
supervened. The production of animal putrefaction and excrementitious
materials were also sources of these diseases. Armies always accumulate
these noxious principles about their encampments in a few days, when
attention is not called to their daily removal."[60] Feeble, and
destitute of clothing and provisions, they invaded Canada at the end of
the autumn in 1813. "During the whole of October and part of November,
most of them were subjected to excessive fatigues, and exposed in open
boats on the lake, when it rained almost every day." "On the 14th of
November the weather became intensely cold, and remained so all winter.
In addition to their great fatigue, most of them lost their extra
clothing and blankets on their march and in the battle of the 11th. Even
the sick had no covering but tents until January. Provisions were
scarce, and of a bad quality. Under these circumstances, sickness and
mortality were very great." "Nearly one-half of the army," 47 per cent.,
"were unfit for duty."[61]

"Through the following winter, the want of necessaries for the support
of the enfeebled and wretched soldier was most severely felt. The poor
subsistence which bread of the worst quality afforded was almost the
only support which could be had for seven weeks." "The sickness, deaths,
and distress at French Mills excited much alarm. This great mortality
had obvious causes for its existence." "Predispositions to sickness, the
effects of obvious causes, the comfortless condition of men exposed to
cold, wanting the common necessaries of life to support them in their
exhausted states." Dr. Lovell adds: "It was impossible for the sick to
be restored with nothing to subsist upon except damaged bread."[62]
Among the causes of the abundant sickness, in March, along the Niagara
frontier, given by the surgeons, were "severe duty during the inclement
weather, exposure on the lake in open transports, bad bread made of
damaged flour, either not nutritious or absolutely deleterious, bad
water impregnated with the product of vegetable putrefaction, and the
effluvia from materials of animal production with which the air was
replete."[63] "The array, in consequence of its stationary position,
suffered from diseases aggravated by filth accumulated in its vicinity."