AN OFFICIAL ORDER, DATED JUNE 24, 1812 ARRIVED AT THE SMALL TOWN OF Detroit on July 9, from Secretary of War William Eustis. Addressed to Brigadier-General William Hull, commander of the American military forces on the northwestern frontier, it suggested that if Hull considered his force “equal to the enterprise, consistent with the safety of your own posts,” Hull was to capture British-held Fort Malden, which lay across the river from Detroit, and “extend your conquests as circumstances may justify.” The message went on to warn the general he could not expect cooperation from the American forces further east under Major-General Henry Dearborn, since the latter did not yet have an “adequate force” to commence his own operations. This part of the communication was especially worrisome since Dearborn's task was to fix the British in place along the Niagara Front so they could not move to interfere with Hull's advance.
William Hull and his army found themselves at Detroit in 1812 as a result of the Madison administration's plan for that year's military campaign against Canada. The strategy envisioned four thrusts north of the US-Canadian border. The main advance was to start from Lake Champlain and aim for Montreal. Subsidiary forces were to move from Sackets Harbor (originally spelled Sackett's), located on the western fringe of Lake Ontario, to Kingston on the north bank of the St. Lawrence River as its target; and from western New York State, a strike across the Niagara River was to be made. Hull's march against Fort Malden in western Upper Canada, just across the Detroit River from the town of the same name, completed the quartet of martial gambits. Details for the movement, including the timing and coordination of the various American columns, were not worked out ahead of the declaration of war, and cooperation between the widely separated forces was not expected.
Heavily wooded Canadian frontier land in the early 19th century.
The United States government had concerns about the vulnerability of the vast expanse of land known as the Old Northwest Territory, which at the time was being subjected to continuing and destructive Indian depredations under the skillful hand of Tecumseh. Its 300-mile-long border stretched from Fort Mackinac east to Detroit, and was thinly guarded by only 420 United States Regulars in seven widely scattered stockade forts—the principal one at Detroit with its 120-man garrison, the others housing an average of 50 to 60 men each. Illinois, Indiana and Michigan were so sparsely populated (less than 5,000 American citizens) that there were few militia available to back up the Federal troops in the territory. The US government reasoned that should war break out between the United States and Great Britain, many of the Great Lakes Indian tribes would join the British, threatening further America's hold on the area. The nation's western flank, especially around Detroit, had to be protected. Secretary of War Eustis was certain that the presence of an American army would accomplish this by subduing the Indians and providing force for an invasion of Upper Canada. To those ends, he started to assemble such an army early in 1812. Prior to war with Britain, American military strategy was being dictated by Indian raids in the Old Northwest Territory.
Thus, 59-year-old William Hull found himself in the first week of July at the important border town of Detroit, whose 800 residents—mainly French-Canadians—were as raw and ill-disciplined as most of the small American force he brought with him. Hull seemed the logical choice for command in that region. Born in Derby, Connecticut on June 24, 1753, he pursued a legal career after graduating from Yale University in 1772. During the American Revolution he performed well at the battles of White Plains, Trenton, Princeton, Saratoga and Monmouth Court House, rising to the rank of Major in 1777. Two years later, he won promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel after he spearheaded General “Mad” Anthony Wayne's nighttime bayonet assault against British-held Stoney Point in New York. He served as assistant Inspector General under Baron von Steuben before he was made full Colonel and then assigned command of the American defenses at West Point, New York. After the war, Hull took up the practice of law in Massachusetts and served as a Major-General in that state's militia. During the 1788 Shay's Rebellion, he was part of General Benjamin Lincoln's army that crushed the uprising. He became a Republican and was elected an Old Bay State Senator and judge before being named by President Thomas Jefferson the first Governor of the Michigan Territory in 1805, a position he held at the commencement of the War of 1812.
While in Washington, DC in February 1812, to plead with the government for more resources to shield the Northwest Territory from Indian attacks, Hull was offered command of the forces then gathering for the Detroit frontier. Hull refused on the grounds that he did not wish to relinquish his post as governor of the territory. Nevertheless, Hull was again approached with the offer of leading the undertaking. This time he reluctantly accepted and on April 8 the US Senate confirmed his appointment as a Brigadier-General in the United States Army and commander of the expeditionary force gathering in the northwest. Meanwhile, troops were being gathered for that venture.
In March, Eustis had written Ohio Governor Return Meigs to muster 1,200 militiamen for the Detroit expedition. The required number of men, mostly volunteers, were assembled at Dayton, Ohio by April 29 and formed into three regiments. Colonel Duncan McArthur, Colonel James Findlay, and Colonel Lewis Cass, Ohio politicians all, were elected to command the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Ohio Militia Infantry Regiments, respectively. None had any real experience in military matters. In addition, Lieutenant-Colonel James Miller, in charge of the United States 4th Infantry Regiment, 300-men-strong and stationed at Vincennes, Indiana, was ordered to move his unit to Dayton to join the expedition headed for Detroit.
Before Hull set out to join his new command, titled the Army of the Northwest, he urged President Madison to create a naval force on Lake Erie to ensure American control of that body of water. He recommended a force of at least 3,000 men be sent to Detroit, and that enough supplies be forwarded there to sustain an advance into Canada, or if need arose, defense of the town before navigation on Lake Erie was closed, as was likely, by the enemy. None of Hull's suggestions were implemented.
On June 1, Hull started the army on its march to Urbana, Ohio, on the border with Indian country. After arriving at Urbana on the 7th, a peace council between the Americans and Wyandotte, Shawnee and Mingo chiefs concluded a treaty that allowed the Americans to cross the Indian lands and build a road and fortifications to protect it. The Indians also pledged their neutrality. On the 15th, the army left Urbana, constructing its own road and bridges for 75 miles through the swampy wilderness. Four blockhouses were built along the route to protect the road and important river crossings. The army marched through the wooded country in typical military fashion: in two columns, with the supply, baggage and artillery trains between them, a strong front and rear guard, and flanked by riflemen and cavalry.
Hull and his men crossed the rapids of the Maumee River (which entered Lake Erie at its southwestern tip), near modern Toledo on June 30. He chartered the schooner Cuyahoga to transport the army's heavy baggage, medical supplies and the sick, as well as his military papers to Detroit. Unfortunately, the Cuyahoga, sailing close to Fort Malden, was captured, and with it a record of the American army's strength and plans. The British now had a clear idea of the size and strength of their opposition as well as its mission.
American border town of Detroit in 1800 was guarded by a British-built Revolutionary War era fort.
Meanwhile, Hull reached Detroit on July 5 with 2,050 men. These included the Ohio volunteers and militia (1,592 men), minus the garrisons of the four blockhouses guarding the line-of-communications back to Ohio, and the sick captured with the Cuyahoga, leaving a balance of 1,450 Ohio men; the US 4th Infantry with 264 soldiers; 135 regulars of the US 1st Infantry Regiment; and 200 of the 1st Michigan Militia.
Detroit was guarded by a British-built Revolutionary War era bastion known as Fort Detroit, situated on high ground behind the town, which blocked the fort's command of the river. The post encompassed three acres, was formed in a quadrilateral shape, each side extending 100 yards, had a parapet 11 feet high and 12 feet thick, with a six-foot-deep and 12-foot-wide ditch studded with 12-foot-high cedar staves at the bottom. Thirty-four pieces of artillery, ranging from 3 to 24-pounders were mounted for action. Some of the installation's armament might have been intended for use on the only American warship on Lake Erie—the 14-gun brig Adams, which unfortunately for the Americans was being rebuilt at Detroit and would not be available for service in the coming campaign.
Across the Detroit River (actually a 27-mile-long strait between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair), and a mile downstream from Detroit, stood the Canadian village of Sandwich (modern day Windsor), which the Americans occupied on July 12; 15 miles south of Windsor was the larger town of Amherstburg. Both population centers, and the border area around them, were guarded by Fort Malden, a quadrilateral fortification with four bastions and an advanced redoubt, an escarpment surrounding the whole, armed with 20 cannon, built in 1796.
The British commander of the Western District of Upper Canada was Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Bligh St. George, whose ground troops included 300 men of the 41st Regiment of Foot, 850 Canadian militiamen, a detachment of the Royal Artillery Regiment, and 400 Indians. Of equal importance was the naval contingent at St. George's disposal: the brig Queen Charlotte, mounting 16 cannon, the schooner General Hunter with six guns, and Lady Prevost with ten. These vessels, as well as a number of merchant ships, gave undisputed control of the waters around Detroit to the British.
The British captured Fort Dearborn on August 15, 1812, and their Shawnee Indian allies massacred the American prisoners. This contemporary illustration of the scene captures the revulsion felt by the Americans at Indian assaults, which would include torture and scalping.
Faced with entering enemy territory, Hull began to have doubts about his chances of success. “The British command the water, and the Savages,” Hull wrote to Secretary Eustis on July 9. “I do not think the force here equal to the reduction of Amherstburg. You therefore must not be too sanguine.” Part of Hull's concern was the lack of enough boats to ferry his men over the river, only sufficient to transport 400 men at a time. Nevertheless, after sending one of his regiments on July 11th south of Detroit to feint a crossing there, the army passed over the waterway to the north of the town the next day. The weak British forces screening the river withdrew to Fort Malden. The American triumph was marred only by the refusal of 100 Ohio militiamen to tread on Canadian soil.
Upon arrival on the eastern shore, Hull erected a fortified camp and sited artillery batteries on both sides of the Detroit River to deny British warships entry to the upper lakes. He then issued a proclamation to the Canadians promising a policy of conciliation on the part of the United States. He dispatched foraging and reconnaissance parties to gather food and intelligence from the area. One of the reconnoitering groups, under Colonel Cass, scouted toward the Canard River bridge, about 12 miles south of Sandwich on July 16. Although ordered by Hull not to cross the Canard River, or engage the enemy, Cass disobeyed his superior's injunction when he saw that the bridge, which spanned the 30-yard-wide river, was intact, and guarded by only 50 British soldiers. Leaving a small party of men concealed at the north end of the bridge, Cass took the balance of the 280 Americans with him and forded the Canard five miles below the bridge. Upon reaching the bridge from the south, they were met by determined British, Canadian and Indian musket fire. After a firefight that saw the Americans pushed back three times, the now reinforced British were forced to withdraw from Cass's front as the American squad north of the river stormed and cleared the bridge.
With the capture of the bridge over the Canard River, the only natural obstacle between the Americans and Fort Malden had been removed. But instead of holding the bridge for the passage of the army and a march on Malden, Hull dithered, expressing fears that Cass was too far from the American position at Sandwich, and that the British would land from the Detroit River above the bridge and cut off any force stationed there. Without support from the army commander, Cass was forced to give up his prize and returned to the main American camp.
Hull remained inactive at Sandwich and reported to Eustis that only by way of a regular siege and heavy artillery bombardment could he take Fort Malden. Meantime, mass defections of the Canadian militia and Indians were taking place on the British side. Hearing of this, the American commander felt that time was with him, especially with the attitude of the Indian tribes favoring neutrality, but that all changed with the alarming news of the fall of Fort Mackinac.
Fort Mackinac, situated on an island in the strait between Lakes Michigan and Huron in the heart of Indian country, was garrisoned by 61 US troops and a few nine-pounder cannon under Lieutenant Porter Hanks. Understanding that its capture would have great effect on the Indians of the Northwest, Major-General Isaac Brock, both British military commander and provincial governor of Upper Canada, ordered the fort's capture. The British officer tasked with this assignment by Brock was Captain Charles Roberts, post commandant of Fort St. Joseph, located 45 miles north of the Americans at Fort Mackinac. After assembling 625 men, including regulars, Indians and Canadians, and two six-pounder cannon, Roberts sailed for the American position on the schooner Caledonia on July 16. Next day, after dragging one of his artillery pieces to a hill which commanded the American fort, Roberts demanded the surrender of the post. Hanks, who had only just learned that war had been declared, surrendered without a shot being fired.
The impact of the fall of Fort Mackinac was swift as it was dramatic. The Indian tribes, which had been cowed by Hull's presence on Canadian soil, were now certain that the British would throw the Americans out of Canada. As a result, they immediately flocked to the British camp, providing the manpower advantage that would determine the course of the 1812 campaign in western Upper Canada. Another effect of the fall of Mackinac was the abandonment of Fort Dearborn, in Illinois Territory, and the massacre on August 15 by Indians of 52 American soldiers, militia and civilians ordered to leave there by Hull earlier that summer. The killings there elevated the American fear of the Indians in the region even more.
Learning of the fall of Fort Mackinac on July 28, Hull pleaded for reinforcements from the governors of Ohio and Kentucky to the tune of 2,000 men. While continuing preparations for the siege of Fort Malden, he urgently requested a diversion on the Niagara front to assist him. He needed all the help he could get because a string of events was about to threaten any chance of his success.
First, Hull needed fresh supplies which could only reach him—thanks to British control of Lake Erie—by moving the 200 miles from Urbana overland through the same Indian territory the Americans had marched through on their way to Detroit in June. The supply problem was seriously compounded by the fall of Fort Mackinac, as the Wyandotte Indians—the tribe through whose land Hull's line-of-supply ran back to Ohio—defected to the Redcoats. To safeguard the convoy he was expecting, Hull assigned Major Thomas Van Horne, and 200 men to meet it at River Raisin, south of Detroit. Near Brownstown, on August 5, the Americans were ambushed by about two dozen Indians led by Tecumseh. After a few musket volleys from the Indians hidden in the forest, the Americans took flight, losing 17 killed, 12 wounded and two captured, in what became known as the battle of Brownstown. The Indians suffered one killed and another wounded. As a result, the supply convoy led by Captain Henry Brush remained blocked and could not reach Detroit.
Determined to take Fort Malden, Hull went ahead with his plan of attack until he received word that the British had received reinforcements of regular troops from their forces on the Niagara. This abruptly changed his mind about moving against Malden, and he decided to retreat across the river to Detroit. Under the circumstances it would have been better for the Americans to have withdrawn to River Raisin; by doing so, they would have considerably shortened their supply lines. As it was, Hull's position was becoming more precarious each day as a growing number of Indians went over to the British and their combined forces started moving east from the Fort Mackinac region towards Detroit.
After crossing to the American side of the Detroit River, Hull sent Colonel Miller and 600 men to the Rouge River to open communications to the south and meet up with Brush's urgently needed supply column. Shadowing the Americans was a 400-man force of British regulars, Canadian militia and Tecumseh-led Indians, all under the command of Captain Adam Muir, 41st Regiment of Foot. This detachment had been sent out by the new commander of the western Upper Canadian frontier region, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Proctor, who had superseded St. George. Adam set up an ambush on August 9th at the Indian village of Maguaga, with the British and Canadians on the right, and the Indians in the woods to the left.
The battle of Maguaga started at 4:00pm, when the advance guard of the American force was fired on by the concealed enemy. The Americans held their ground, allowing the rest of the corps to form a line of battle. After half an hour, a party of Indians was driven back onto the British lines by a bayonet charge ordered by Miller. The retreating Indians were then mistakenly fired on by the British. The Indians, in their turn, fired at their allies thinking they were the enemy. This friendly fire caused the Redcoats to fall back. Muir, who had been twice wounded, was able to halt the retreat and reform his lines. But the Indians had withdrawn and were being hotly pursued by the Americans off to Muir's left. Hearing the Americans moving in that direction, the British officer thought he was being flanked, and fearing being cut off from the river, he took to his boats and returned to Malden. The Americans lost 18 killed and 64 wounded, while British losses were five killed, 15 wounded, and two captured.
The American success at Maguaga should have resulted in Miller proceeding to meet the needed supply convoy and the 200 reinforcements under Brush still at River Raisin, but the colonel and his severely mauled detachment remained inactive until ordered to return to Detroit on the 19th. A significant opportunity to improve Hull's military situation had been lost. The attempt to remedy it was not made until August 14 when Hill ordered out Colonels McArthur and Cass with 350 men to try to reach Brush and his supply train near the Huron River and bring them to Detroit.
As Hull hunkered down in Detroit, Colonel Lewis Cass wrote to a friend about the inadequacies of his commander and how “Our situation is become critical.” Meanwhile, the British commander Brock assembled forces at Long Point, the chief British staging area on Lake Erie, in order to channel reinforcements to the Detroit front. He sent 300 regulars and militia from there to Malden and organized his small army into three “brigades” of 250 men each to be led by Proctor in an offensive to drive the Americans out of Canada. On August 15, Brock moved his force north across the Canard River bridge. Meanwhile, Proctor had installed a gun battery of one 18-pounder, two 12-pounders, and two 5.5-inch howitzers at Sandwich with which to bombard Detroit.
Upon arrival at Sandwich on the 15th, Brock wrote to Hull demanding his surrender, threatening “that the numerous Indians who have attached themselves to my troops, will be beyond my control the moment the contest commences.” Although Hull rejected the ultimatum, his concern for the safety of the American non-combatants in Detroit—among them his daughter and her two children—lay heavily on his mind.
The British opened up that same day with their artillery located at Sandwich. In addition, the guns of the Queen Charlotte and General Hunter went into action. Both sides exchanged fire for a good part of the day while Brock prepared to move his men west of the river. That evening, Tecumseh and 600 braves, supervised by Lieutenant Colonel Elliott of the Indian Department, crossed over to the Detroit side of the river. As shells rained down on Detroit town and its fort, McArthur and Cass vainly sought Brush at the Huron River, but the latter had not moved from River Raisin to meet them. The two militia officers, low on food, marched back to within three miles of Detroit without notifying Hull of their return or close proximity.
Daylight on the 16th saw the artillery duel start again, while the British and Canadian infantry crossed the river at Spring Wells without opposition. At first Brock took up a strong position hoping to lure the Americans into attacking him, but once he discovered that the detachment under McArthur and Cass were not at Detroit, he moved on the town immediately with his 330 regulars, 400 militia, and three 6-pounder cannon. As they arrived near Fort Detroit, the post's artillery, although manned and ready to deliver fire, remained silent. The reason—the Americans were about to surrender.
As Brock neared the fort, Hull learned that Tecumseh's warriors had entered the town and the Michigan militia had deserted their posts. Furthermore, the whereabouts of McArthur and Cass's men were not known, the British artillery barrage was becoming increasingly effective, and Hull succumbed to his anxiety over the safety of the women and children under his care. He feared an Indian massacre. He sent his son to Brock with an offer of surrender. The surrender terms included not only the troops in Fort Detroit, but also McArthur and Cass's men, and Brush's detachment on River Raisin. Under the terms agreed, the American militiamen and volunteers were paroled and sent back to the United States, while the US regulars were transported to Montreal to await exchange. Only Brush refused to lay down his arms and instead took his men back to Ohio.
Two years later, in 1814, Hull got the court martial he had been demanding since his release from British captivity on parole in late 1812. After dismissing the charge of treason, the Military Court did find him guilty of cowardice and neglect of duty and ordered him to be drummed out of the US Army and shot. President Madison approved the sentence but commuted the penalty. Politics demanded someone be blamed for the disaster in the west, and William Hull was the convenient scapegoat. Hull spent the rest of his life in a futile effort to exonerate himself. He died on November 29, 1825, the embodiment of ineptitude in a poorly fought campaign.
The capitulation of the American army at Detroit pushed the United States almost entirely out of the Old Northwest Territory, encouraged the Indians in the region to join with the British en masse, and sheared off one of the prongs of the American invasion of Canada. It was the beginning of a number of military setbacks for the country in a war that had barely begun.
American commander William Hull surrenders Detroit to the British Major-General Isaac Brock on August 16, 1812.
While the spring and summer of 1812 passed, and William Hull's northwest campaign unfolded, no military action took place in the east of the USA. That entire period was spent in preparation, but not pushed with urgency. In April, militia forces were ordered to Niagara, Oswego and Sackets Harbor to garrison those points on the northern border with Canada, but no other military activity was initiated by the US government for the protection of that frontier or for the build-up of forces for a strike into Canada. The man responsible for this American inaction was Henry Dearborn.
Dearborn was born in North Hampton, New Hampshire, on February 23, 1751. A doctor before the Revolutionary War, he joined the state militia and fought at Bunker Hill and in Benedict Arnold's Canadian expedition, where he was captured at Quebec. He fought also at Saratoga, Monmouth Court House, and in the 1779 campaign against the Iroquois, ending the war as Assistant Quartermaster on the staff of George Washington. After the war he held public offices in Maine, and was a Major-General of militia. As a reliable Republican, he was named President Jefferson's Secretary of War in 1801. Resigning that post in 1809, he was chosen Collector of the port of Boston, until President Madison made him the US Army's senior Major-General in January 1812 in anticipation of renewed conflict with Great Britain.
Dearborn was sent to Albany, New York, reaching that place on May 4 where he was to recruit, train and organize a northern army for operations against Canada. But no sooner had he arrived than he left for Boston to supervise coastal defenses and enlist men from New England. He did not return to Albany until late July. Meanwhile, Henry Hull and his Army of the Northwest had been in western Upper Canada for over a week, hoping Dearborn would be applying pressure on Kingston, Niagara and Montreal, so British forces could not be brought to bear against him from the east. When Dearborn finally got back to Albany, he found only 1,200 untrained and ill-equipped men waiting there, and no plan for an immediate march against any of the objectives agreed to in the pre-war strategy.
Something else Dearborn found when he returned to Albany was that Secretary of War Eustis had appointed a number of new generals to work under him on the northern front. One of them, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Major-General of New York militia, was assigned command of the Niagara sector. Born on November 1, 1764, the former Lieutenant-Governor of New York was a Federalist, the head of one of the first families of New York State, but had no military experience and was against the war. He accepted the position only as a way to increase his popularity with the voters of New York when he ran again for public office. He was offered the post because at the time only New York militiamen were available for duty on the Niagara and he was their authorized commander.
In a letter to Eustis announcing his return to Albany, Dearborn queried the Secretary as to whether his command authority extended to Upper Canada, including the Niagara front. It did, but the fact that the senior officer in the United States Army did not know that did not bode well for America's success in the war. As Dearborn wondered what he really commanded, one of his posts came under attack. On July 11, five ships of the Canadian Provincial Marine fell upon Sackets Harbor on the southeast side of Lake Ontario. For two hours, the Canadian vessels fought both the American shore batteries protecting the port and an America warship, the 18-gun Oneida, the only US craft on the lake at the time. The British were driven off with heavy damage to their flagship and with no injury to the American defenders.
Starting on July 26, a series of orders from Washington, DC to Dearborn directed him to arrange immediate cooperation with Hull by way of some diversions against the Niagara Peninsula and Kingston, “as soon as practicable and by such operations as may be within your control.” The general's strange response, even though he had no power to do so, was to arrange an armistice with the British on August 9 at the request of the commander of all British forces in Canada, Sir George Prevost. Both sides used the unauthorized truce to hurry troops and supplies to the forward areas. The Americans got the most out of the deal since the British had more experienced soldiers on the frontier, outnumbering Dearborn at Albany and Van Rensselaer on the Niagara River, and were more capable of going over to the offensive. In fact Brock, who wanted to attack Sackets Harbor—the only good anchorage the Americans had on the US side of Lake Ontario—was denied the opportunity by the impromptu ceasefire. The armistice was rescinded by the United States government, but Dearborn continued to honor it until August 19, and refused to obey Eustis' order to advance on Kingston and over the Niagara River
The weeks dragged by and although Dearborn made noises to the effect that if he were reinforced he would take Montreal and Kingston and cross the Niagara before winter, he did not stir. During the first week of October, 6,300 American troops, mostly militia, were stationed on the northern frontier. In the meantime, the British were more active. Soon after Hull surrendered at Detroit, Brock hurried east, arriving at Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, on August 23. He was eager to sweep the enemy from the entire Niagara zone, but his hand was stayed by the defensive policy Prevost was obligated to follow. In rapid succession, the general made a tour of inspection at Kingston and then Fort George on his way to take command of the Niagara border.
Sackets Harbor, a key US naval base on Lake Ontario, came under British attack on July 11, 1812, but fought them off.
The contrast between Henry Dearborn and Isaac Brock could not have been more pronounced. While the former was lethargic and hesitant, the latter was quick, bold, confident and eager for action. Born on October 6, 1769, in St. Peter Port on the Channel Island of Guernsey, he grew to be an impressive 6'2” tall. In 1785 he joined the British Army as an Ensign, then purchased a Captain's commission and transferred to the 49th Regiment of Foot in 1791. After purchasing a Lieutenant-Colonelcy, he became commander of his regiment in 1799, accompanying it on the Helder Expedition to Holland, where he was wounded in the throat by a musket ball. In 1802, he and the 49th Foot were transferred to Canada. In 1807 he was promoted to Brigadier-General and in 1811, Major-General. That same year he was made both military and civil head of Upper Canada. His tireless efforts and energy in training and organizing the regulars and militia in Upper Canada, along with his acute strategic sense, forced William Hull's surrender at Detroit and cleared the Americans from the Old Northwest Territory.
Near the end of October, Major-General Van Rensselaer was reinforced by a brigade of regulars under Brigadier-General Alexander Smyth. Born on September 14, 1767, in Ireland, Smyth emigrated to Virginia while a child, became a lawyer, and held state public office before he was appointed colonel of the newly formed Regiment of Riflemen in 1808. Without any military credentials, he got the command because of his pristine political connections. Because he had authored a drill book for the army, he was made a Brigadier General and Dearborn's Inspector General when the War of 1812 broke out. Preferring battlefield glory to tedious paper work, he got Dearborn to give him command of an infantry brigade assigned to the Niagara front. He wore his contempt for Van Rensselaer and the militia as plainly as he wore his general's insignia.
With 6,300 men under his command, Van Rensselaer determined to initiate an attack across the Niagara River. Opposing him was Brock's 1,200 regulars and militia as well as a few hundred Mohawk Indians. The British position was anchored at Fort Erie, located at the outlet of Lake Erie, opposite Buffalo, and Fort George at the mouth of the Niagara River. A central body of troops stationed at Chippawa, just above Niagara Falls, acted as a reserve. At Queenston, which lay between Fort George and Chippawa, Brock placed 300 regulars and militia as well as a single 3-pounder field piece. An 18-pounder in a small earthwork was positioned just south of the town a little way back from the river.
The American plan was an ambitious one but sound: part of the army would cross the Niagara and directly assault Queenston, cutting the Portage Road between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. At the same time, a force of regulars would boat down from American-held Fort Niagara westward along the shore of Lake Ontario, land behind Fort George and attack its weaker landward side. The movement seemed right for the operation, since the Americans believed, wrongly as it turned out, that Brock had taken a large portion of his troops out of the theater and gone to the West.
Van Rensselaer, however, received no support for his plan from the recently arrived Smyth, who preferred his own scheme for an American crossing of the Niagara between Fort Erie and Chippawa. Smyth would not even meet with his commander to discuss military matters. Instead, Van Rensselaer decided to attack Queenston with the troops he commanded at Lewiston on the night of October 10. The effort became farcical when the troops, in a driving rain, had to abandon the effort because the officer in charge of the boats had not readied them for the crossing. With his thoroughly disgruntled men clamoring for action, Van Rensselaer determined to try once more, this time on October 13. Again Smyth refused to join in, declaring that his men could not be ready to act until the 14th since they needed time to “rest and clean up.”
The early hours of Tuesday, the 13th, were again rain-filled as 600 US assault troops moved to the river bank and looked across the wide and fast flowing Niagara, whose banks were considerably higher on the British side. In charge of the operation was Van Rensselaer's competent cousin, Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer. With only 13 large boats available for the crossing, just about half of the American force could be transported at one time. The 350 regulars of the 13th US Infantry Regiment made up the first assault wave. Ten minutes after shoving off from the shore, the regulars touched the enemy bank, but not before three of their boats were carried away by the current below the landing point.
Battle of Queenston on the Niagara River on October 13, 1812, started promisingly for the Americans, but ended with a British victory.
Once Colonel Rensselaer stepped ashore with the first wave, he was attacked by British Grenadiers of the 49th Foot in conjunction with some Canadian militia, supported by their 3-pounder and 18-pounder cannon. The Americans, stymied by the enemy fire, retired to the riverbank. In the storm of shot, Colonel Rensselaer was wounded, as was his second in command, Captain John E. Wool, who was injured through both his thighs.
Eager to storm the heights above them, the Americans, led by Wool, who heroically ignored his wound, followed an unguarded path that brought them up a high slope from which they had a commanding view of the British position. At this moment, General Brock arrived from Fort George where the sound of the fighting at Queenston was clearly audible. As he rode toward the battle, he ordered elements of the York Militia to follow him. He also sent instructions to General Sheaffe to bring reinforcements to Queenston from Fort George and to open an artillery bombardment on Fort Niagara with the guns at Fort George. By 7:00am, he had reached the 18-pounder position and told the leader of the Light Company, 49th Foot, stationed on the nearby ridge, to go join the British troops engaged with the Americans near the river. Just after the Light Company departed, Wool and his soldiers arrived on the summit above the redoubt and rushed the gun position.
Realizing that the Americans had to be forced from the heights and the artillery emplacement retaken or the battle would be lost, Brock ordered most of the troops from the riverbank, some 190 of them, to form up for an attack on the Americans now holding the high ground. The British no sooner commenced their direct attack up the steep slope when they were forced back by heavy fire from 150 American defenders above them. Attempting to rally his men, Brock shouted, “This is the first time I have ever seen the 49th turn their backs!” Mounted, he then led them in a renewed effort. Moments later, the general was hit by two bullets—the first in his wrist, the second passing through his chest, killing him instantly.
Seeing their leader fall, the Redcoats faltered and fell back. Soon after, Brock's aide, Lieutenant-Colonel John McDonell, arrived with the York Militia. He rallied the regulars and sent 180 of them back into the attack just as their flanking party struck the American left, which was then rolled back to the edge of the cliffs. At this point, an American officer attempted to raise the white flag of surrender but Wool pulled it down. Reinforced by part of the US 6th Infantry Regiment, the two sides exchanged intense fire, during which time all the leading British officers were hit. McDonell, who like Brock before him was mounted and an easy target, was mortally wounded. Wool then ordered a charge that forced the British to retire to Queenston. Joined there by friendly forces still on the riverbank, the whole retreated further on to Vrooman's Point.
From the end of the fight for the heights at 10:00am until about 2:00pm that afternoon, the Americans fed reinforcements across the river. During this time, Lieutenant-Colonel Winfield Scott, 2nd United States Artillery Regiment, prevailed upon General Van Rensselaer to allow him to take charge of all the troops on the west shore. Suddenly the quiet was broken by a surprise attack by Iroquois Indians under their chief John Brant. Lieutenant Jared Willson, who was at the scene, was shocked by the militia's refusal to fight the native warriors. “The Indian war whoop even echoed through their camp,” he recalled, “and still they could not be prevailed upon to mingle with their associates [the US regulars] in arms to oppose the inhuman foe.” Panicked by the sudden Indian appearance, the Americas were thrown into confusion until Scott, exhibiting great calm, was able to restore order among them. The tribesmen were then chased away into the woods.
As the US soldiers and Indians traded sporadic shots at each other, Major-General Roger Hale Sheaffe, now successor to Brock as British commander in Upper Canada, reached Vrooman's Point with 700 regulars and militia. Intending to avoid a frontal charge on the enemy, he marched to the west and ascended the escarpment above the American left with about 1,000 whites and 300 Indians.
While the British were receiving reinforcements, 1,200 American militiamen on the east side of the Niagara refused to cross the river to the Canadian side. They stood on the principal that they were not required to leave United States territory, although fear of Indians and being shot perhaps had more to do with their refusal than constitutional scruples. As a result, all General Van Rensselaer could do was leave the choice of retreating back over the Niagara to the officers on the other side, a task made nearly impossible by the abandonment of the boats by their cowardly crews.
With only 250 regulars and the same number of militiamen, Scott faced Sheaffe who commenced his attack at 4:00pm. As the British and Indians advanced on the Americans, two British guns raked the US right flank from the village of Queenston. At the first downhill rush of the British, the American militiamen broke and fled, while the US regulars were overwhelmed after a brief but stiff fight. Pushed to the riverbank, with no way to cross the water, the defeated Yankees had little choice but to surrender. Ignoring a hoisted white flag of surrender, the Indians kept firing at their foe until Scott stepped forward, waving a white neck cloth that caught the attention of the British, who then halted the Indian fire and accepted the American capitulation.
At Queenston, 90 American soldiers were killed, 100 wounded, and 925 taken prisoner. Since, during the last phase of the battle, Scott had less than 600 men in action it appears many of the captured never fought but merely hid until picked up by the British. Sheaffe reported his losses in the engagement at 14 killed, 77 wounded, and 21 missing.
Uniform of Major- General Isaac Brock shows the hole made by the fateful bullet that pierced his chest during the battle of Queenston.
Dearborn condemned Rensselaer's defeat as “the most mortifying unexpected event.” He accepted the New Yorker's resignation and gave the command of the Niagara front to Smyth, not knowing how much the latter's non-cooperation had helped compromise the entire venture. On the British side, the effects of the victory at Queenston halted any talk of not being able to defend Canada from the United States, and saw a dramatic increase in the number of volunteering Canadian militiamen, who not only turned out in greater numbers but who remained on active duty for a considerable time.
Reacting to the debacle at Queenston, Dearborn pressed the newly elevated commander of the Army of the Center, Smyth, to lead an invasion of Canada along the Niagara border, assuring the Irishman that a diversionary effort in the Lake Champlain area would be mounted to aid him. Smyth had only 4,000 half-trained poorly equipped regulars, and his militia contingent had been leaving him in droves. Nevertheless, he did intend to make a move.
Smyth's plan for an attack on Canada, even though the season was late, encompassed a crossing at the southern end of the Niagara with 3,000 men. The operation began on November 28 when a force under Colonel William H. Winder, and another led by Lieutenant-Colonel Charles G. Boerstler, passed over the river. Winder was to take the enemy batteries on the opposite shore and Boerstler was to block any British reinforcements from moving south from Chippawa and Fort George. Once these objectives were accomplished, Smyth's main force was to leave Buffalo and head north to enter Winder and Boerstler's bridgehead.
In the event, Winder was successful in taking the enemy guns but lost a detachment of his men to superior British numbers when they strayed too close to Fort Erie. Boerstler lost a few boats to artillery fire as he was crossing, causing him to lose his nerve and row back to the American bank. Unsupported, Winder was forced to withdraw back to the east shore. In the meantime, Smyth's main body took to boats and slowly got under way, so slowly in fact that their part of the assault was aborted because of the long delay and the suspicion that any surprise the attack might have achieved was by then long gone. Soon thereafter the Niagara Front went into winter hibernation.
Of the three military fronts opened up in 1812, the Lake Champlain theater had been relatively peaceful. This was strange considering this area was the natural jumping off point for any offensive against the vital regions of both the United States and Canada; that is, Albany and Montreal. Here, control of Lake Champlain was key to any advance going north or south for logistical reasons. For an American army advancing on Montreal, or a British army going for Albany, the attackers would have to go by foot since the Richelieu River was not only well guarded, but its navigation was treacherous due to its rapids. The control of Lake Champlain was vital and thus the Americans established a base at Plattsburg, New York.
In September, Brigadier-General Joseph Bloomfield, who was also Governor of New Jersey, took command of the Northern Army on the Lake Champlain front. By November he favored an attack on Montreal with his force of 3,500 regulars and 2,500 militiamen. Bloomfield planned to advance into Canada on the 16th. After Bloomfield fell ill, Dearborn, who had just arrived in camp, took charge and moved to the border. At this point, Colonel Zebulon Pike was detached to attack a British advanced post on the Lacolle River, a tributary of the Richelieu. After a confused firefight, the British withdrew and Pike and his men returned to camp. Pike's little skirmish would be the most intense action of Dearborn's advance. Dearborn had to abort his intention of crossing into Canada when most of his militiamen refused to accompany him. Furthermore, the expected naval support, which would have allowed an assault on Isle aux Noix—the armed post guarding the Richelieu River—never appeared. Dearborn had no choice but to return to Plattsburg and enter winter quarters, which the army did on November 22.
As the “Hero of the West” since his victory at Tippecanoe the year before, William Henry Harrison was made a Brigadier-General in the United States Army in August 1812, and as the new commander of the Army of the Northwest, he was given a free hand in the effort to recover Detroit. He was born in Charles City County, Virginia, on February 22, 1773. He began to study medicine but in 1791 became an Ensign in the United States Army and served as an aide to General Anthony Wayne. He rose to the rank of Captain, but again changed careers in 1798 to go into politics, being appointed in 1800, at the age of 27, as Governor of the Indiana Territory.
Assuring the US government that he would take back Detroit before winter, he set off with almost 10,000 men in four columns in late September for the Grand Rapids on the Maumee River. As they advanced, the American troop columns were widely separated and moved beyond supporting distance. Taking advantage of this, Colonel Proctor, at Detroit, sent his trusted subordinate, Adam Muir, now a Brevet-Major, with 500 regulars and militiamen, 500 Indians, and a few light artillery pieces up the Maumee River, intending to ambush part of Harrison's force under Brigadier General James Winchester. The Americans got wind of the plot and took up a defensive position. Outnumbered and running low of supplies, Muir was forced to withdraw, but he had accomplished part of his assignment by slowing Winchester to a crawl out of fear of another trap.
For the next two months it rained constantly, turning the area into ribbons of mud, halting the movement of supplies to Harrison's army and causing it great hunger. In addition, the death rate among the men climbed and desertion became rampant. On December 20, Harrison ordered Winchester to move to the Grand Rapids on the Maumee River and establish an advanced base for the final march on Detroit, and ultimately Fort Malden in Upper Canada. At the same time, however, while professing to be eager to continue his campaign even during the wretched winter season, Harrison slyly suggested to President Madison that the objects of the campaign would be easier obtained in May of the next year when the weather was better and ships could be built on Lake Erie to support his army. Clearly, the general was trying to shift the blame for his faltering western effort to the politicians in Washington. The Madison administration sidestepped this by leaving the choice to Harrison as to whether to continue his advance to Detroit. On January 6, 1813, Harrison sent the Secretary of War a letter admitting it would be best to suspend his winter operations. Unfortunately, the matter would not end there.
The end of 1812 had come and with it a very disappointing first six months of war for the United States. Battles and territory had been lost, a few generals who should never have been given the responsibility of waging war were gone, but plenty more like them remained. Secretary of War William Eustis was forced to resign his post on December 3, 1812, after the loss of Detroit and the defeat at Queenston. In 1814 he was appointed US Ambassador to the Netherlands, and in 1823 Governor of Massachusetts, dying in that office on February 6, 1825. He had proved untrained and unsuited to making military decisions and carrying them through. It was hoped that in 1813 the nation could find a leader who could.
