The American war has excited a great sensation and is doubtless a most calamitous thing; people imagine everything will be right when the Americans hear of the repeal of the orders in Council, I scarcely think this will be the case.
George Hamilton-Gordon, Lord Aberdeen
It is far from intention to join in a war of extermination, but you must be aware that the numerous body of Indians who have attached themselves to my troops, will be beyond control the moment the contest begins.
General Isaac Brock
President James Madison signed a congressional war declaration against Britain on June 18, 1812. The subsequent war lasted over two-and-a-half years, cost both countries vast amounts of blood and treasure, and ended with neither side victorious. Why did the United States and Britain fight a second war against each other just a generation after the Americans won independence?1
Madison cited two long-term British policies – one at sea, the other on land – for justifying the war. The most important was Whitehall’s policy of confiscating American ships and cargos sailing to enemy ports, and impressing into the Royal Navy sailors without documents proving they were American citizens. British arms, munitions, and incitement of resistance to Northwest and Southwest Indians tribes in American territory was a secondary issue.
Yet the 1812 War was not inevitable. President George Washington was able to alleviate chronic tensions with the 1795 Jay Treaty, whereby the British agreed to open their markets to American goods and abandon their forts on American territory. Informally, they promised to curtail their seizures of American ships, cargos, and sailors. The threat to the United States then shifted to France, whose depredations against American shipping soared. The result was the Quasi-War from 1798 to 1800, when American and French warships battled on the high seas.2 This ended with the 1800 Treaty of Mortefontaine, whereby Napoleon Bonaparte also agreed to stop preying on American shipping if the United States waived seeking compensation for previous losses.
During the next dozen years, Britain revived its Orders in Council that authorized seizing American ships and goods bound for Britain’s enemies, and impressing men into the British navy. From 1796 to 1812, Royal Navy warships forced 9,991 sailors from American vessels into British service, with around 6,000 pressed after 1803.3 How did the British justify this policy of essentially kidnapping thousands of sailors from American and other foreign ships, even when the prisoners protested that they were no longer or never were British subjects? Whitehall insisted that nationality and thus duty to one’s country was life-long, that no one could legally shed the land of their birth. Atop this was the claim, expressed by Captain Edward Brenton, that ‘the Americans have made a practice from the beginning of hostilities ... to entice the crews of his Majesty’s ships to desert, and have even given them large bounties.’4 Actually, while about one of four American sailors was originally from Britain, relatively few were deserters. Finally, the British argued that the United States government could have alleviated this problem and raised revenues simply by issuing citizenship documents to the sailors who manned America’s merchant fleet, but for reasons of economy and national pride did not.
With his Berlin Decree of November 21, 1806 and Milan decrees of November 23, 1807, Napoleon established the Continental System designed to sever Europe’s trade with Britain.5 This provoked the latest Whitehall policy shift. The British issued new Orders in Council that authorized the Royal Navy to prey on any ships bound for Europe. Prime Minister Spencer Percival later justified this policy by insisting that the ‘object ... was not to destroy the trade of the Continent, but to force the Continent to trade with us.’6 Not all British officers and politicians favored the policy of essentially robbing, humiliating, kidnapping, and occasionally murdering Americans and others. Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood criticized the policy that ‘may involve us in a contest which it would be wisdom to avoid. When English seamen can be recovered in a quiet way, it is well; but when demanded as a national right, which must be enforced, we should be prepared to do reciprocal justice.’7
The distinction between hardliners and moderates was not confined to Britain’s leadership. President Thomas Jefferson had a chance to resolve the conflict, but his idealism trumped a deal.8 He rejected a treaty negotiated by Charles Pinckney and James Monroe in 1806, whereby the British would stop preying on American shipping and, as a side understanding, sharply cut back impressment. In return, Washington had to prevent foreign privateers from using American ports and Americans from serving in foreign armies and navies warring against Britain. Jefferson rejected the treaty solely because the impressment curb was not stated, but simply understood. Jefferson’s decision to spurn rather than embrace the treaty did not make war certain, but certainly made it more likely.9
To add insult to injury, the Royal Navy actually committed many of its depredations in American waters. The British committed a homicide in New York Bay on April 25, 1806, when the Leader fired a warning shot across one vessel’s bow and the cannon ball decapitated a sailor on another American vessel. Although the British callously dismissed this as an accident, they committed not just outright murder but an act of war on June 22, 1807, when the Leopard fired three broadsides into the Chesapeake, killing 3 Americans and wounding 18 others. The British excuse for this atrocity was Captain James Barron’s refusal to let aboard a party of marines to search for deserters. With his ship crippled, Barron had no choice but to strike his colors. British marines swarmed onto the Chesapeake, interrogated the crew, and dragged away four suspects. The Leopard then sailed to Halifax to put the four men on trial. Three could prove that they were Americans that had deserted the Royal Navy after being impressed, and Admiral George Berkeley ordered them to receive 300 lashes; although none were actually whipped, one man died in prison and the other two were eventually released broken in health and mind from the hellish treatment. The fourth man was found to be British and a deserter, and was hanged.
The Chesapeake atrocity, however, did not lead to an American war declaration. Jefferson instead ordered on July 2, all British warships from American waters. When the British disdainfully refused to do so, Jefferson took a drastic step, but one that harmed America rather than Britain. He believed that he could bring the British Empire to its knees without a shot being fired in anger. He launched a trade rather than military war against Britain. He zealously insisted that Whitehall would eventually bow to all of Washington’s demands if British merchants could neither sell to nor buy from the United States, and if British warships could not confiscate American ships, cargoes, and crews. This was the ‘logic’ behind the Embargo Act that Congress passed and Jefferson implemented on December 22, 1807.
The Embargo Act, which outlawed Americans from foreign trade, was among the more authoritarian and self-destructive policies in American history. Just to engage in coastal trade within the United States, a merchant had to post a bond that cost six times his cargo’s value, to be redeemed only when he returned with a certificate from the port where he sold his goods. Only foreign merchants in foreign ships could trade with the United States. This policy certainly prevented American vessels, cargoes, and crews from being confiscated by British and French warships. The trouble was that the policy devastated the economy by transforming otherwise thriving American ports into ghost towns with ships rotting at anchor and countless jobless sailors and stevedores milling about listless or angry. From 1807 to 1808, American exports plummeted from $108 million to $22 million, and imports from $138 million to $57 million.10
Mounting protests finally forced Jefferson reluctantly to change the policy. The Non-Intercourse Act that took effect on May 20, 1809, let American merchants trade with all countries except Britain and France. American-conducted trade slowly nudged upward in relatively minor markets, but remained a sliver of previous volumes while the economy remained depressed. Macon Bill Number Two, which took effect on May 1, 1809, permitted Americans to trade with any country, but would resume a cutoff with either Britain or France if the other agreed to end its depredations against American shipping. Napoleon did so with the Cadore letter of August 1810, issued by Foreign Minister Jean Baptiste Champagny, duc de Cadore. Hoping that Whitehall would follow suit, the Madison administration waited until February 2, 1811, before severing trade with Britain.
Ironically, neither the Jefferson nor the Madison administration wielded the one trade weapon that just might have forced Whitehall to yield. The British army could not have fought the Peninsular War for five years without American grain and other provisions. American grain shipments rose from 80,000 bushels in 1807 to 900,000 in 1812.11 Had the Americans threatened to sever this supply, then done so if Whitehall refused to compromise, the British most likely would have soon yielded. But Republican Party presidents Jefferson and Madison did not want to alienate farmers, the backbone of their political support. Indeed the Madison administration let these shipments persist throughout the War of 1812!
Nearly four years after the Chesapeake atrocity, the Americans finally avenged themselves.
After the Guerriere impressed a sailor off an American vessel in New York Bay, the President sailed in pursuit. On the night of May 16, 1811, the President neared the Little Belt, mistaken for the Guerriere. The British captain ordered a broadside that hit the President but hurt no one. The President replied with its own broadside that killed 9 men and wounded 23 aboard the Little Belt, which struck its colors. Word of this combat did not spark war between Britain and the United States, but raised passions on both sides to a fever pitch.
Atop Britain’s depredations against American trade, the British supplied muskets and munitions to the Indians, and not so secretly incited them to fight the Americans. This resulted in bloodshed in the Northwest Territory. Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, the Prophet, were Shawnee chiefs who sought to unite all the tribes in a confederacy against the Americans. In fall 1811, William Henry Harrison, the Northwest Territory’s governor, tried to preempt this threat by marching a thousand troops against their village, known as Prophetstown. The army was encamped at Tippecanoe Creek, when the Indians attacked on the night of November 7, 1811. The Americans repelled the attacks, then marched the next day to destroy the now abandoned village. Many of the refugees fled to Canada where they received arms, munitions, and provisions to avenge themselves on the American frontier.
If the Americans had a long list of burning grievances against the British, there were no concrete causes to cite for declaring war when they did. Greed powerfully motivated many of those who wanted war. The War Hawks believed that the Americans could easily conquer Canada to exploit its land and other rich resources. Jefferson insisted that, while the British ‘will have the sea to herself ... we shall be equally predominant on land, and shall strip her of all her possessions on this continent.’ Indeed, Canada’s conquest was ‘a mere matter of marching.’12
Psychology, as always, was a major force for war. In Congress, War Hawks like Henry Clay, Richard Johnson, Felix Grundy, George Troup, and Peter Porter were a zealous, outspoken minority that eventually stampeded America into war. The War Hawks were young impassioned men who had never served in the military and wanted to equal the generations of their fathers and grandfathers who had fought valiantly in America’s War for Independence. Andrew Jackson exemplified this zealotry when he declared: ‘We are going to fight for the reestablishment of our national character, misunderstood and vilified at home and abroad.’13
What became known as the War Congress convened on November 4, 1811, following the 1810 election. Republicans outnumbered Federalists by 108 to 36 in the House, and 30 to 6 in the Senate. War Hawks dominated the Republican Party. In January, Congress voted to expand the army to 35,603 officers and men by the year’s end. To entice recruits, Congress raised the enlistment bonus from $12 to $31, and offered 160 acres of land to those who completed their service. Anti-British feeling soared higher when Madison informed Congress on March 8, 1812, that British secret agents were trying to get the New England states to secede from the United States.14 In April, Congress authorized the president to raise an additional 15,000 troops for 18-month enlistments and muster 80,000 militiamen. What the Republicans refused to do on each step they took toward war was to raise taxes to pay for their vast military expansion. The government instead would borrow the money and heap the debt on future generations.
Madison finally caved to the War Hawk pressure and sent a war declaration bill to Congress on June 1. The House of Representative voted 79 to 49 on June 4, and the Senate by 17 to 13 on June 17. The president signed the bill the following day, June 18, 1812. The War Hawks, that era’s neoconservatives, had stampeded Americans to war with two related drumbeats, patriotism to defend the nation’s honor and interests against a threatening enemy, and greed to grab all the spoils along the way. In doing so, they drowned out sober minded Cassandras who warned that the war was a terrible mistake that would most likely lead to military and economic disaster. Tragically that prediction came true.
Whitehall responded to America’s military build-up with concessions. In May, the British actually offered to share trading licenses for Europe with American merchants. Then, on June 16, Whitehall announced its intention to suspend the Orders in Council, thus eliminating the Republican Party’s most important excuse for going to war. The actual suspension came a week later. Trenchant observer George, Lord Aberdeen noted: ‘The American war has excited a great sensation and is doubtless a most calamitous thing; people imagine everything will be right when the Americans hear of the repeal of the orders in Council, I scarcely think this will be the case.’15 Aberdeen was prescient.
After receiving word of this concession in August, President Madison and Congress did not use it as a face-saving excuse to declare victory and call off the war. When word arrived that the president and congress did not stand down, Whitehall had no choice but to figure out what to do. The first obvious steps were to begin blockading American ports and sending reinforcements to Canada. Any thought of actually invading some vulnerable, vital American region could only proceed after a major build-up of troops and supplies on that front. So, by necessity, the British had to rest on the defensive, waiting for the Americans to take the initiative, and only thereafter, figure out a counter-offensive.16
By virtually every measure of power, Britain surpassed America. Britain’s 10 million people were a quarter larger than America’s 7.5 million people. Britain was the world’s greatest industrial, financial, commercial, and naval power. The only silver lining for Americans was that most of Britain’s army and navy were committed elsewhere around the world, and little could initially be siphoned to North America.
The American army was an oxymoron. In June 1812, the army numbered only 6,744 officers and men in regular regiments, a sliver of the authorized 36,000-men strength, and about 5,000 in volunteer regiments with 18-month enlistments. The quality was even more pathetic than the numbers. In his memoirs, General Winfield Scott recalled an army in which ‘the old officers had ... sunk into either sloth, ignorance, or habits of intemperate drinking.’17 This pretty much summed up the typical soldier as well. During the war, the Madison administration tried to alleviate the dismal quality of recruits by raising the enlistment bonus from $31 to $124, and the mustering out reward from 120 to 360 acres of land. But these efforts could not possibly resolve the conundrum of amateur officers trying to transform civilians into professional soldiers. Exacerbating this core problem were perennial shortages of arms, munitions, provisions, uniforms, blankets, tents, draft animals, and wagons.
As for militia, the United States had plenty of them. An 1802 survey of state militias found 525,000 men enrolled, not including those of Maryland, Delaware, and Tennessee that did not send Washington their numbers. The trouble was that the militia was militarily all but worthless. There were only 249,000 firearms among them or less than one for every two men. Historically, with a few exceptions at the battles of Concord, Bunker Hill, and Bennington, militia tended to cut and run at the first shots fired their way. During the 1812 War, the militiamen would repeatedly defy orders to invade Canada, arguing they were only required to defend the United States.18
For War Hawks, Canada was the great prize, although few publicly admitted it. As Henry Clay put it, ‘Canada was not the end but the means ... the object of the War being the redress of injuries, and Canada being the instrument by which that redress was to be obtained.’19 The War Hawks insisted that Canadians would greet the American armies as liberators from British oppression and happily join the United States. The Madison administration devised a strategy that they believed would lead to Canada’s rapid conquest and the war’s end. Three armies would simultaneously invade Canada, with their respective objectives Montreal, York, and Amherstsburg.20
Certainly Canada appeared to be an easy picking. With 500,000 people, Canada’s population was 15 times smaller than America’s, and its economy a fraction as dynamic. To defend Canada, the British had about 5,600 regulars and 86,000 militiamen. Most of these men were in heavily populated Quebec province. There were only about 4,500 redcoats scattered in small detachments in forts along the Saint Lawrence River valley and Great Lake basin. Indian allies bolstered British power along the frontier. General George Prevost was Canada’s governor general and commander-in-chief.21
On the Upper Great Lakes, three leaders were crucial for defeating a likely American conquest. General Isaac Brock was Upper Canada’s military commander headquartered at Fort George on the Niagara River. Colonel Henry Proctor commanded Fort Malden at Amherstsburg, Britain’s sole stronghold on Lake Erie. Finally, brilliant Shawnee chief Tecumseh led most Indian warriors. After learning on June 24 that Congress had declared war against Britain, Brock wrote Proctor to ready his men for action and promised that he would arrive with reinforcements as soon as possible.
Proctor had around 300 regulars and 300 militiamen, backed by Tecumseh, lesser chiefs, and 600 warriors. Not content to await the American invasion, Proctor organized and dispatched an expedition of 45 regulars, 180 militia, and 400 Indians to take Fort Mackinac. Only 61 men defended Fort Mackinac; their captain agreed to surrender shortly after viewing the horde before him on July 16. With word of Fort Mackinac’s capture, Proctor and Tecumseh could concentrate on eliminating the swelling threat just across the Detroit River.22
Governing Michigan Territory was General William Hull, a Revolutionary War veteran long past his prime, befuddled and so gout-ridden that he could mount his horse only with assistance. Nonetheless, after reaching Detroit on July 5, Hull initially acted boldly. On July 15, he led 450 troops and 1,400 militiamen across the Detroit River to occupy Sandwich, Canada. But then Hull just encamped his men there instead of rapidly marching them toward Fort Malden, 15 miles south.
Tecumseh transformed the campaign on August 3, by leading his warriors across the river and attacking supply trains on the road leading north to Detroit. News that his supply line was cut spooked Hull into withdrawing back across the river and holing up in Detroit. Upon learning that Fort Mackinac had fallen, Hull ordered Fort Dearborn’s commander on Lake Michigan’s southwest shore to abandon his post to avoid the same fate. Potawatomi and Winnebago Indians massacred 53 of the 90 troops and civilians who fled on August 15.23 Of the three forts guarding America’s Upper Great Lakes frontier, only Detroit remained. This would soon change.
A flotilla packed with supplies, reinforcements, and Brock reached Fort Malden on August 13. Brock had Proctor erect a battery of cannons and mortars on the river’s east bank directly opposite Detroit. On August 16, Brock led 330 regulars, 400 militia, 5 cannons, and 600 Indians across the river 3 miles below Detroit and marched north. Hull deployed his men across the road leading to Detroit, but they did not stay long. Terrified by Indian war whoops, Hull ordered a hasty retreat into the fort. Brock then sent his chilling message to Hull: ‘It is far from my intention to join in a war of extermination, but you must be aware that the numerous body of Indians who have attached themselves to my troops, will be beyond control the moment the contest begins.’24 Hull promptly rendered into British hands Detroit, 582 troops, 1,606 militia, 5,000lb of gunpowder, and the brig Adams. Hull would later be court-martialed, sentenced to death, and pardoned for his cowardice.25
With Detroit’s capture, the front line of America’s northwest frontier fell south a hundred miles to Fort Wayne on the watershed between the Wabash and Maumee Rivers. Brock followed up his victory by sending his Indians against Fort Wayne, which they attacked but failed to take on September 5. Further west, on the Mississippi River, British and Indians captured Prairie du Chien, at the Wisconsin River mouth, then canoed downstream to besiege Fort Madison, which was abandoned a year later on September 3, 1813.
Meanwhile, Brock hurried back to the Niagara frontier, where an American army was preparing to invade Canada. The Niagara River flows 35 miles north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, dividing the United States eastward from Canada westward. On the American side, the forts and larger towns along the river included Buffalo, Black Rock, Fort Schlosser, Lewiston, Fort Grey, Youngstown, and Fort Niagara; from his Lewiston headquarters, General Stephen van Rensselaer commanded that front’s 2,300 troops and 4,000 militiamen. On the Canadian side, Fort Erie, Fort Chippewa, Queenstown, Fort George, and Newark; from his Fort George headquarters, Brock commanded that front’s 1,200 troops, 800 militiamen, and 300 Indians.26
Van Rensselaer planned a two-pronged invasion; under the cover of an artillery barrage, he would cross from Lewistown to attack Queenstown, while General Alexander Smyth crossed a half-dozen miles downriver from Youngstown to attack Fort George. Two flaws fouled an otherwise sound strategy. Van Rensselaer had only 35 boats which together could carry only about 600 men; ferrying his entire army would take most of a day. Then there was Smyth, as inept as he was jealous of Van Rensselaer; Smyth found excuses for not crossing.
Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer, the commander’s younger and militarily experienced brother, led the initial landing on October 13. As the Americans struggled up Queenstown Heights, six bullets struck down Van Rensselaer. General Van Rensselaer sent over Lieutenant Colonel Winfield Scott to take command. Scott rallied the troops and led them to capture Queenstown Heights. Brock was at Fort George when he heard cannon fire upriver at Queenston. Before galloping to Queenston, he ordered General Roger Scheaffe to muster 1,000 troops and quick-march to the sound of the guns. Brock reached the Heights just as Scott’s troops were routing the redcoats. A bullet killed Brock. Scott sent a plea across the river for reinforcements. Van Rensselaer ordered the Ohio militiamen into the boats, but they, cowed by witnessing the carnage on the river’s far side, bulked, claiming that they were only required to serve on American soil. Only 350 troops joined Scott atop the Heights. Scheaffe and his troops reached Queenston, rallied the remnants of the British forces, and surrounded the Americans. With his men’s ammunition expended and no hope of reinforcements, Scott had no choice but to surrender his 958 surviving troops, having suffered 120 dead and 150 wounded. The British lost only 14 killed, 77 wounded, and 21 missing, and the Indians 5 killed and 7 wounded.27 The battle likely would have ended in an American rather than British victory had Smyth crossed downriver and diverted Scheaffe by threatening Fort George.
Disheartened by this disastrous defeat atop all the frustrating months that led to it, Van Rensselaer resigned. When Smyth assumed command on October 16, his army counted 4,000 regulars and several thousand militiamen. He conceived a plan of attacking Fort Erie but promptly scrubbed it when Pennsylvania’s militia refused to go along. The White House cashiered Smyth and replaced him with General Morgan Lewis.
The third and most important of the planned invasions of Canada never took place. General Henry Dearborn was, like William Hull, an overweight, bumbling, timid shadow of the man who had fought in America’s War for Independence. He reached Albany on May 3, 1812, with orders to organize an army. After Congress declared war, Dearborn was assigned the campaign to capture Montreal. By November 1812, he had massed 3,000 regulars and 3,000 militiamen at Plattsburgh just as ice and snow began to bury Lake Champlain and the road north toward Montreal. He led his army to the frontier, but, on November 20, when the militiamen refused to cross, he turned tail for winter quarters in Plattsburgh.
In all, the war’s first seven months were as stunning a success for the British as they were disastrous for the Americans. The British captured large American forces at Detroit and Queenstown, and contingents at Forts Mackinac and Dearborn. Their grip on the upper Great Lakes seemed as unshakeable as their threat to carry the war deep into the United States seemed imminent.
General William Henry Harrison, the Northwest Territory’s governor, spent most of 1812 trying to train and equip an army capable of squaring off with the British, Canadians, and Indians. In early January, he dispatched General James Winchester with 884 troops to protect the American settlement of Frenchtown on the Raison River that flows into Lake Erie. Learning of the advance, Colonel Proctor mustered 334 British, 212 militiamen, and several hundred Indians to attack Winchester’s army on January 21, 1813. While Proctor lost 24 killed and 161 wounded, the Americans suffered 292 dead before Winchester surrendered the 592 survivors. The Indian massacre of about 30 captive Americans later inspired the war cry, ‘Remember the River Raison.’28
In spring 1813, Harrison marched with 500 troops and 500 militiamen down the Maumee River and established Fort Meigs just half a dozen miles upstream of Lake Erie. He dispatched a force to erect Fort Stephenson on the Sandusky River a few miles upstream of Lake Erie. As he massed troops and supplies for a campaign against Detroit, the British beat him to the punch.
Proctor, recently promoted to general, marched south with 500 troops, 450 militia, and 1,200 Indians in late April, and deployed around Fort Meigs on May 1.29 He had a battery of 2 24-pounder cannons erected on the north bank directly across from the fort, and another battery of 6-pounders erected on the south bank. He split his regulars and militia to guard each battery, while most of the Indians scattered in clusters on the south bank to snipe at the fort. The batteries opened fire later this day and their bombardment continued for days thereafter, but could not breach the walls. Proctor expressed his frustration that: ‘The Enemy had during our Approach so completely entrenched and covered himself as to render unavailing every Effort of our Artillery.’30 Nonetheless, Proctor believed that his siege would eventually starve out the defenders.
A courier slipped from Fort Meigs through the British and Indian lines on May 2. The message was from Harrison to General Green Clay, who led 1,200 Kentucky militiamen encamped up the Maumee River. Clay and his men were to descend the river and attack the battery on the north bank, at which point part of the garrison would surge out to attack the south battery. On May 5, the Kentuckians landed near the battery, overran it, and spiked the guns. But then Clay made a fatal mistake. Rather than hold this position, he led his exuberant men after the fleeing British and Indians. Proctor threw in his regulars which halted the Kentuckians with several volleys, then routed them with a bayonet charge. The Indians surged after and slaughtered the fleeing men. Meanwhile, Harrison sent out a regiment that briefly captured the British battery and scattered the Indians, before withdrawing after Tecumseh rallied his men and counter-attacked. The British scored their latest lopsided victory, inflicting on the Americans 135 killed, 188 wounded, and 630 prisoners, at the cost of only 14 dead, 47 wounded, and 41 prisoners; Indian losses were unrecorded.31 This stunning victory satiated most Indians, who drifted away with their scalps, captives, and loot over the next few days. Meanwhile, the Canadian militiamen pestered Proctor to release them for spring planting. Proctor finally abandoned the siege on May 9.
For the next two months, Proctor resupplied his troops and the Indians. He and 400 troops, 100 militia, and 1,000 Indians reappeared before Fort Meigs on July 20. Once again the British artillery bombardment failed to breach the fort’s walls. Eight days later, Proctor broke off the siege, but instead of returning to Detroit, led his men east to Fort Stephenson on the Sandusky River. Fearing that the fort was indefensible, Harrison sent instructions to Major George Croghan to withdraw with his 160 men east to Cleveland. Croghan disobeyed the order and vowed to die fighting the invaders. On August 2, the Americans ‘kept up such a destructive fire that the enemy ... broke and fled in the wildest confusion.’32 Proctor suffered 29 killed, 44 wounded, and 28 missing to American losses of only one killed and seven wounded. The repulse so disheartened the Indians that they told Proctor that they would head home. Without Indians, the British regulars and militia would be outnumbered if Harrison marched against them. Proctor had no choice but to withdraw to Detroit.33
The Madison administration understood that a victory on that front was unlikely unless the Americans commanded Lake Erie. The White House assigned Lieutenant Jesse Elliott the task of building a fleet. In October 1812, Elliott arrived at Black Rock on the Niagara River, where two schooners were anchored. Elliott reasoned that he could acquire a fleet faster by stealing than building it. Anchored across the river beneath Fort Erie’s guns were two sloops, the Detroit and Caledonia. On the night of October 8, Elliott and 50 men rowed in 2 barges with muffled oars to the vessels, swarmed aboard, overwhelmed the defenders, then cut the cables. The raiders aboard the Detroit burned it after it ground ashore on an island. Those on the Caledonia steered it to Black Rock. In the fighting the Americans killed or captured around 70 British and liberated 40 American prisoners held aboard the vessels.
Black Rock’s vulnerability to British attack caused the White House to order Elliott to shift his naval base to Presque Isle, a peninsula that curled about a half mile into Lake Erie and sheltered a deep bay. From the nearby forest, oaks supplied the skeleton and planks, and pines the masts, yardarms, and pitch to caulk seams. All the tools, munitions, cannons, and provisions had to be hauled by wagon to Buffalo then sailed 100 miles southwest to the shipyard. Troops eventually widened trails into roads from Presque Isle eastward 200 miles to Harrisburg and southward 130 miles to Pittsburgh. When Elliott appeared to make little progress, Madison superseded him with Captain Oliver Hazard Perry.
Perry arrived with 150 sailors and shipwrights aboard 4 warships from Black Rock in June 1813.34 By early September, Perry’s fleet included his flagship, the 20-gun Lawrence, the 20-gun Niagara commanded by Elliott, and seven smaller warships. The Americans faced both a formidable enemy commander and fleet. Captain Robert Barclay was a veteran of Nelson’s navy and had lost an arm at Trafalgar. At Fort Malden, he had massed a fleet of 6 warships, including the 21-gun Detroit, 18-gun Queen Charlotte, 13-gun Lady Prevost, 10-gun General Hunter, 2-gun Little Belt, and 1-gun Chippewa.
Perry sailed his fleet to Put-in-Bay in the Bass Islands a dozen or so miles off Lake Erie’s south shore and directly across from Amherstsburg on the north shore. Learning of Perry’s presence, Barclay ordered his captains to weigh anchor on September 10. The fleets closed for action by midday. At first the British appeared likely to prevail. Their guns pounded the Lawrence so badly that Perry had himself and his flag rowed to the Niagara. After the Detroit and Queen Charlotte became entangled, Perry sailed the Niagara directly beside them and opened fire. A bullet struck down Barclay. Carnage spread across each fleet, with 41 British killed and 94 wounded, and 27 Americans killed and 96 wounded. The Americans eventually forced all six British warships to strike their colors. Perry triumphantly reported to the White House that ‘We have met the enemy and they are ours.’35
With American warships commanding Lake Erie, Harrison was now free to march north from Fort Meigs without worrying about the British landing an army on his rear. Perry packed 4,500 troops and militia aboard his fleet and landed them at the Detroit River mouth on September 27. At word of the landing, Proctor ordered Fort Detroit and Fort Malden burned, then withdrew northeastward with his troops. This may have been prudent but it appeared cowardly in Indian eyes. Tecumseh openly sneered at Proctor, reminding him that British officials:
... always told us that you would never draw your foot off British ground; but now, Father, we see you are drawing back.... without seeing the enemy. We must compare our Father’s conduct to a fat animal that carries his tail upon its back, but when afrightened ... drops it between his legs and runs off.36
This was not the first time the Indians had witnessed such behavior. The British had previously abandoned them to their fate at the end of America’s independence war.
Harrison’s 3,500 men caught up to Proctor’s 800 troops and 500 Indians a mile south of Moraviantown on the Thames River’s west bank on October 5. The Americans overwhelmed the British and Indians, killed at least 31 Indians, and killed 18, wounded 25, and captured 591 redcoats, while losing 7 killed and 22 wounded. Tecumseh was among the dead. Only 269 British and several hundred warriors escaped eastward. Total British losses during the campaign came to 634 officers and men.37
Although Harrison captured the British artillery and supply train, he did not follow up his victory with a march 100 miles east to Burlington on Lake Ontario. Had he done so, the American position at the lake’s west end and Niagara valley would have been virtually impregnable. In spring 1814, an American army could have marched around Lake Ontario’s north shore, capturing York and Kingston before joining forces with an army from Sackets Bay then, with overwhelming numbers, descend the Saint Lawrence to Montreal itself. This advance would have forced the British to scrub their operations in Chesapeake Bay and sail to the rescue. What then happened in Canada is impossible to know. What is certain is that the British would not have captured and burned Washington City in August or launched the New Orleans campaign in December, and they probably would have agreed to peace much sooner.
Instead an uneasy power balance prevailed on Lake Ontario. On the northwest shore, York, Upper Canada’s capital, was a town of about a thousand people and several hundred houses and buildings. On the northeast shore, Kingston crowned a promontory where the lake poured past into the Saint Lawrence River. Three American forts guarded Lake Ontario’s southern shore, with Fort Niagara at the Niagara River mouth on the west, Fort Oswego at the Oswego River mouth in the center, and Sackets Harbor on the east. There was rough naval parity as, by spring 1813, British Captain James Yeo had 6 warships and American Captain Isaac Chauncey had the 26-gun General Pike, 3 brigs, and 9 schooners. The Americans and British were locked in a warship-building race.
The Madison administration ordered General Dearborn and Captain Chauncey to work together to capture Kingston in April 1813, then march westward along Lake Ontario’s shore to seize York and Fort George. After receiving false reports that bloated the 2,000 redcoats in Kingston to 7,000, Dearborn and Chauncey decided to sail to York instead. General Zebulon Pike led 1,700 troops ashore there on April 27. In defending York, General Scheaffe and his 700 men suffered 62 killed, 94 wounded, and 290 captured, but inflicted 320 casualties on the Americans before they fled toward Kingston. The worst carnage happened when the British detonated the fort’s gunpowder magazine; Pike was among the dead. After carrying away most provisions and munitions, the Americans burned York’s public buildings. The British would cite this arson to excuse their torching of Washington in August 1814.38
General John Vincent commanded 1,100 troops and militiamen at Fort George and Newark, and 750 troops deployed at Fort Erie and other positions along the Niagara River. He faced a mounting threat just across the Niagara River. By late May, General Morgan Lewis massed 4,500 troops around Lewiston. He assigned Colonel Winfield Scott and Captain Oliver Hazard Perry the task of carefully planning and leading an attack across the river. The American artillery opened fire on May 24. Three days later Chauncey’s fleet arrived and its warships bombarded Newark and Fort George. Later on May 27, Scott led 3,000 troops packed in 180 boats across the river to land west of Fort George, then quick-marched them to the fort’s rear to sever the enemy’s retreat. Vincent sent 600 troops out to attack. Scott’s men held steady and poured volleys into the redcoats, who fled with Vincent and the rest of the garrison to Burlington Heights. Scott was about to pursue when Lewis appeared and ordered him to secure Fort George instead. The British suffered 52 killed, 44 wounded, and 262 captured to American losses of 39 killed and 111 wounded.39 The loss of Fort George forced the British garrisons at Queenston, Fort Chippewa, and Fort Erie to march away to avoid being cut off and forced to surrender as well. The Americans now controlled the entire Niagara River valley and as far inland as Stoney Creek, 7 miles from Burlington Heights. The ineptness of America’s generals guaranteed that this dominant position would not last long.
Chauncey, with Scott and 250 troops aboard, sailed to Burlington Heights, but did not close for action before the overwhelming numbers of British cannons and troops. Reasoning that the British had marched most of their troops from nearby York, the Americans headed for Upper Canada’s capital at York. Once again they faced light resistance, burned supplies, then reembarked and sailed back to the Niagara River mouth.
Vincent dispatched Colonel John Harvey with 700 troops for a dawn attack on the Americans at Stoney Creek on June 5. The hand-to-hand fighting was savage with a New York private shuddering at memories of ‘Indians yelling, arms clashing, begging, groaning, dying, swearing, and fighting ... our men and the British commingled, some holding each other fighting, stabbing and cutting; others with clubbed muskets thrashing the enemy down with butts.’40 The British overran the camp, killing 55 and capturing Generals William Winder and John Chandler along with 111 Americans, while suffering 23 killed, 136 wounded, and 55 captured.41 The Americans fled to Fort George. As the British pursued, General Dearborn, who now commanded the army, panicked and ordered all positions evacuated on Canada’s side of the river except Fort George.
At Fort George, Dearborn ordered Colonel Charles Boerstler to advance with 550 troops against Beaver Dam, the most advanced British position. A force of only 46 British commanded by Lieutenant James Fitz Gibbon and 350 Indians ambushed and cut off Boerstler. During a lull in the fighting, Fitz Gibbon demanded that Boerstler give up while he could still restrain his Indians. Boerstler surrendered his 462 surviving men and 2 cannons, having suffered 30 dead and 70 wounded to Indian losses of perhaps 20 dead and 30 wounded.42
Meanwhile, General Prevost and Captain Yeo decided to sail from Kingston against Sackets Harbor, which they believed was lightly defended, rather than against Chauncey’s fleet. Colonel Edward Baynes led 750 troops ashore on May 29. General Jacob Brown commanded 400 troops and 500 militiamen. The redcoats scattered the militiamen but broke against the volleys of the American regulars. The British fled back to the flotilla, having lost 47 dead, 154 wounded, and 16 captured to American losses of 22 killed, 85 wounded, and 154 captured. Unfortunately, an American naval officer panicked and ordered his men to burn a warehouse packed with half a million dollars’ worth of supplies.43
Yeo then sailed around the lake’s northern shore. He first ensured that Kingston was safe, dropped anchor briefly before York’s smoldering ruins and then before Burlington, and finally, on August 7, reached the Niagara River mouth where Chauncey’s fleet was still moored. Chauncey ordered his captains to lift anchors, unfurl sails, and man guns for battle. The disparity in their respective types of cannons determined each captain’s tactics. With twice as many long-range 24-pounders, Chauncey sought to sail parallel to the British fleet and pound it from a distance. With twice as many snub-nosed 32-pounder carronades, Yeo sought to close for shortrange broadsides then boarding. They maneuvered for three days as each tacked to get upwind of the other, a strategy the capricious winds frustrated. Three American schooners, top-heavy with cannons, capsized and sank on August 8. Yeo’s warships caught up and captured two more schooners on the night of August 10. Chauncey finally reached Sackets Harbor’s safety on August 11.
Word of Perry’s crushing victory inspired Chauncey to try to do the same. On September 28, he sailed with his fleet to find and hopefully destroy Yeo’s fleet. The American spotted the British and gave chase. Although Yeo escaped with most of his ships to shelter at Burlington Heights, Chauncey and his sailors did capture five schooners.
After a lull of several months, fighting on the Niagara River front erupted in December 1813. Word of a British offensive caused General George McClure on December 10, to order Fort George’s garrison to abandon the fort, burn Newark and Queenston, and withdraw to the American side. General Gordon Drummond, who now commanded British forces on the Niagara front, sent 562 troops led by Colonel John Murray across the river against Fort Niagara on the night of December 18. Using the password extracted from a captured sentry, the redcoats surged into the fort, slaughtered 65 Americans and captured 344, while suffering a mere 6 killed and 5 wounded. The British held Fort Niagara for the war’s duration. This same night General Phineas Riall led 500 troops and 500 Indians over to burn Lewiston, Manchester, Youngstown, and Fort Schlosser, then withdrew to Canada.
For these humiliating defeats, General Morgan Lewis became the latest American commander on the Niagara front to be cashiered and replaced by someone just as incompetent. On December 31, 1813, General Amos Hall, Lewis’s replacement, marched with 2,000 militia against 1,000 British troops and 400 Indians led by Riall that crossed over to capture Black Rock. The British and Indians routed the Americans then chased them beyond Buffalo, which they burned before returning to Canada. Hall lost 30 killed, 40 wounded, 69 captured, and eventually his post, while Riall suffered 112 casualties.44
The latest display of inept American leadership came after the White House tried to harness on campaign two enemies, Generals James Wilkinson and Wade Hampton, with the latter subordinate to the former. From different jump-off points, Wilkinson at Sackets Bay and Hampton at Burlington, Vermont, they were supposed to join forces and capture Montreal. A nasty competition for men and supplies rather than cooperation marred their relationship.
Hampton opened his campaign in early September, when he led 4,000 infantry, 200 dragoons, and 1,000 militiamen from Burlington across Lake Champlain to Plattsburgh, then westward to the Chateaugay River that flows into the Saint Lawrence upstream of Montreal. Although the militiamen refused to step foot into Canada on legal grounds, the presence of around 800 French Canadian militiamen led by Lieutenant Colonel Charles de Salaberry at the town of Chateaugay may have been a greater deterrent. Rather than outflank the enemy, Hampton hurled his troops directly against the Canadian breastworks on October 16. The Canadians repelled the attack, killing or wounding about 50 Americans. This was enough for Hampton, who gave up and withdrew to winter quarters at Four Corners.
It was not until October 17 that Wilkinson and 7,000 troops and militia packed into 300 boats, protected by a dozen gunboats, and began rowing north from Sackets Harbor. Wilkinson avoided Kingston and descended the Saint Lawrence River. During the night of November 6, the army ran past Fort Wellington’s guns at Prescott just across from Ogdensburg, then ground ashore several miles below on the north bank. Wilkinson disembarked the brigades of Generals Alexander Macomb and Jacob Brown with the mission to clear the shore of enemy batteries ahead of the bateaux fleet. The Americans captured Fort Matilda at the river’s narrowest passage on November 10. The rest of the army came ashore there, leaving most of the supplies in the boats.
Shadowing the Americans downriver were 800 redcoats led by Colonel Joseph Morrison. On November 11, Wilkinson turned his army at Crysler’s Farm to attack Morrison. Stoned on laudanum, Wilkinson turned over the battle to General John Boyd and retired to his tent. The British repulsed the American assault, then counter-attacked and routed them, killing 102, wounding 237, and capturing 100, while suffering 22 killed, 148 wounded, and 9 missing.45
Wilkinson led his army to Cornwall, crossed the river, and marched south to winter at French Mills. Three months later, he led 4,000 north only to find his route blocked by 180 troops at Lacolle Mill on March 30, 1814. Rather than leave a covering force to starve out the defenders, Wilkinson ordered an attack which the British repulsed, inflicting 150 casualties while losing 60 dead and wounded. Wilkinson ordered his army to retreat back to French Mills. Only then did the Madison administration remove Wilkinson from command.
Britain’s shipbuilding campaign surpassed that of the Americans in 1814. In May 1814, Yeo sailed with 1,000 troops led by General Gordon Drummond. Their objective was Fort Oswego, where they disembarked just beyond cannon-range on May 5. Facing overwhelming odds, the Americans abandoned the fort. The British carried away or burned 1,000 barrels of provisions, destroyed the fort, then sailed away. The raid cost the British 18 dead and 73 wounded.46 Yeo then headed toward Sackets Harbor. Along the way on May 20, lookouts spotted 19 bateaux rowing up the Big Sandy River. Yeo packed 200 troops led by Captain Stephen Popham into longboats to pursue and destroy that supply convoy. The Americans opened fire on the British, cut them off, killed 19, wounded 28, and captured 141, at the cost of 2 men killed.47
The Madison administration finally picked a competent general to command the Niagara front. Jacob Brown was a militia brigadier general whose valiant defense of Sackets Harbor earned him a regular army major general’s commission. He made the most of this authority. Winfield Scott was promoted to brigadier general and served as Brown’s second-in-command. The campaign’s first objective was Fort Erie. On July 3, Scott led his brigade across the Niagara River to deploy around the fort. The British commander surrendered with his 150 men that evening.
After learning of Scott’s invasion, General Riall led 1,400 troops, 200 militiamen, and 300 Indians from Fort George to Fort Chippewa. Brown reacted to word of Riall’s advance by ordering Scott to march his brigade against him, with General Peter Porter’s brigade following. As the American army deployed south of the Chippewa River on July 5, the British army crossed the bridge, fanned out, and attacked. Scott expertly maneuvered his troops into line and ordered volleys that decimated the British attack. ‘Those are regulars, by God!’ Riall reputedly shouted in amazement.48 The British lost 148 dead, 221 wounded, and 46 captured to Scott’s 44 killed and 224 wounded, and Porter’s 54 casualties.49
Brown had Scott spearhead the pursuit. Scott’s brigade paused at Queenston. Riall rallied his troops at Fort George; reinforcements led by General Drummond swelled British ranks to 3,000 men. Scott asked Brown for permission to march around Riall’s right flank. Brown, however, worried that the British army would soon outnumber his own, withdrew to Chippewa on July 24. Then, after hearing a false report that Drummond had crossed to America’s side of the Niagara, Brown sent Scott forward to probe toward Queenston.
Actually Drummond had advanced with 1,600 troops on July 28, to Lundy’s Lane just 7 miles from Chippewa. Scott sent a courier galloping back to Brown requesting reinforcements to support his attack. Scott tried to turn the British left flank, but the redcoats drove him back. Brown arrived with Porter’s brigade and quickly assessed the situation with Scott. Brown launched an attack on the battery in the enemy line’s center. After the Americans captured those cannons, Drummond advanced his flanks to catch them in a crossfire. The Americans stood their ground. The redcoats attacked. Bullets wounded Brown and Scott; Brown relinquished command to General Eleazar Ripley, who ordered the army to retreat. The British lost 84 killed, 559 wounded, and 193 missing, while the Americans suffered 173 dead, 571 wounded, and 117 missing.50
With Drummond hard on his heels, Ripley withdrew to Fort Erie. As Drummond deployed most of his men around Fort Erie, he had Lieutenant Colonel John Tucker lead 600 troops across the river to attack Black Rock on August 3; an American force half their size repulsed the invaders at Conjocta Creek. After two days of bombarding Fort Erie, Drummond launched an assault by three columns of troops on August 15. The Americans were ready and poured a devastating fire into the redcoats. Two columns fell back with heavy losses, while the third swarmed over a bastion and tried to turn its cannons on the defenders. Sparks ignited several gunpowder barrels and the explosion killed or wounded a hundred redcoats and scattered the rest. In all, the assault cost the British 366 dead and wounded, and 549 captured, or 1 of every 3 men, while the Americans suffered 84 casualties. Drummond resorted to trying to bombard the fort into submission. On the night of September 17, American troops sortied, overran two batteries, and spiked the guns. The British and Americans suffered 607 and 511 casualties, respectively. Drummond withdrew his shattered army to Fort George.51 General George Izard took command from General Brown. On November 5, 1814, he ordered Fort Erie blown up and the garrison withdrawn to America’s side of the border. The guns finally fell silent on the Niagara front.
America’s most important victory of 1814 occurred on Lake Champlain. The British massed an army and navy at the lake’s north end that appeared invincible. General George Prevost’s 10,000 troops outgunned by 5 to 1 General Alexander Macomb’s 1,500 regulars and 700 militiamen at Plattsburgh, while Captain George Downie’s 4 warships and 12 gunboats mounted 92 cannons to the 86 cannons of Captain Thomas Macdonough’s 4 warships and 10 gunboats anchored bow to stern across Plattsburgh’s bay. As Prevost advanced, Macomb withdrew from Plattsburgh south beyond the Saranac River, On September 6, Prevost’s army marched into Plattsburgh and there awaited Downie’s fleet to appear and attack Macdonough’s fleet.
To Prevost’s worsening anger, this did not happen until September 11. The American vessels pounded the British warships and gunboats as they approached; although the British gunboats escaped, all four warships surrendered. The Americans suffered 52 killed and 58 wounded, and the British 57 killed, 72 wounded, and 300 captured; Downie was among the dead.52
Prevost, meanwhile, ordered attacks across the two Saranac River bridges, while a third column crossed a ford a mile upstream. The Americans succeeded in blunting each assault. The British suffered 37 killed, 150 wounded, and 55 captured, to American casualties of 38 killed and 64 wounded, and 20 missing. Upon learning that all four British warships had struck their colors, Prevost ordered his army to retreat to Canada, fearing that otherwise Macdonough would sail against his supply line. In his haste to get away, Prevost left behind huge amounts of provisions and munitions, while over 300 of his men deserted to the Americans.53 Whitehall recalled Prevost to London for court martial for his failure, but he died of an apparent heart attack before he was brought to trial.