1813: THE BEAVER DAMS, LAKE ERIE, AND CHATEAUGUAY
The remaining operations of 1812 are of quite minor
importance. No more than two are worthy of being mentioned
between the greater events before and after them. Both
were abortive attempts at invasion--one across the upper
Niagara, the other across the frontier south of Montreal.
After the battle of Queenston Heights Sheaffe succeeded
Brock in command of the British, and Smyth succeeded Van
Rensselaer in command of the Americans. Sheaffe was a
harsh martinet and a third-rate commander. Smyth, a
notorious braggart, was no commander at all. He did,
however, succeed in getting Sheaffe to conclude an
armistice that fully equalled Prevost's in its disregard
of British interests. After making the most of it for a
month he ended it on November 19, and began manoeuvring
round his headquarters at Black Rock near Buffalo. After
another eight days he decided to attack the British posts
at Red House and Frenchman's Creek, which were respectively
two and a half and five miles from Fort Erie. The whole
British line of the upper Niagara, from Fort Erie to
Chippawa, a distance of seventeen miles by the road along
the river, was under the command of an excellent young
officer, Colonel Bisshopp, who had between five and six
hundred men to hold his seven posts. Fort Erie had the
largest garrison--only a hundred and thirty men. Some
forty men of the 49th and two small guns were stationed
at Red House; while the light company of the 41st guarded
the bridge over Frenchman's Creek. About two o'clock in
the morning of the 28th one party of Americans pulled
across to the ferry a mile below Fort Erie, and then,
sheering off after being fired at by the Canadian militia
on guard, made for Red House a mile and a half lower
down. There they landed at three and fought a most confused
and confusing action in the dark. Friend and foe became
mixed up together; but the result was a success for the
Americans. Meanwhile, the other party landed near
Frenchman's Creek, reached the bridge, damaged it a
little, and had a fight with the 41st, who could not
drive the invaders back till reinforcements arrived. At
daylight the men from Chippawa marched into action,
Indians began to appear, and the whole situation was
re-established. The victorious British lost nearly a
hundred, which was more than a quarter of those engaged.
The beaten Americans lost more; but, being in superior
numbers, they could the better afford it.
Smyth was greatly disconcerted. But he held a boat review
on his own side of the river, and sent over a summons to
Bisshopp demanding the immediate surrender of Fort Erie
'to spare the effusion of blood.' Bisshopp rejected the
summons. But there was no effusion of blood in consequence.
Smyth planned, talked, and manoeuvred for two days more,
and then tried to make his real effort on the 1st of
December. By the time it was light enough for the British
to observe him he had fifteen hundred men in boats, who
all wanted to go back, and three thousand on shore, who
all refused to go forward. He then held a council of war,
which advised him to wait for a better chance. This closed
the campaign with what, according to Porter, one of his
own generals, was 'a scene of confusion difficult to
describe: about four thousand men without order or
restraint discharging their muskets in every direction.'
Next day 'The Committee of Patriotic Citizens' undertook
to rebuke Smyth. But he retorted, not without reason,
that the affair at Queenston is a caution against relying
on crowds who go to the banks of the Niagara to look at
a battle as on a theatrical exhibition.'
The other abortive attempt at invasion was made by the
advance-guard of the commander-in-chief's own army.
Dearborn had soon found out that his disorderly masses
at Greenbush were quite unfit to take the field. But,
four months after the declaration of war, a small
detachment, thrown forward from his new headquarters at
Plattsburg on Lake Champlain, did manage to reach St
Regis, where the frontier first meets the St Lawrence,
near the upper end of Lake St Francis, sixty miles
south-west of Montreal. Here the Americans killed Lieutenant
Rototte and a sergeant, and took the little post, which
was held by a few voyageurs. Exactly a month later, on
November 23, these Americans were themselves defeated
and driven back again. Three days earlier than this a
much stronger force of Americans had crossed the frontier
at Odelltown, just north of which there was a British
blockhouse beside the river La Colle, a muddy little
western tributary of the Richelieu, forty-seven miles
due south of Montreal. The Americans fired into each
other in the dark, and afterwards retired before the
British reinforcements. Dearborn then put his army into
winter quarters at Plattsburg, thus ending his much-heralded
campaign against Montreal before it had well begun.
The American government was much disappointed at the
failure of its efforts to make war without armies. But
it found a convenient scapegoat in Hull, who was far less
to blame than his superiors in the Cabinet. These
politicians had been wrong in every important particular
--wrong about the attitude of the Canadians, wrong about
the whole plan of campaign, wrong in separating Hull from
Dearborn, wrong in not getting men-of-war afloat on the
Lakes, wrong, above all, in trusting to untrained and
undisciplined levies. To complete their mortification,
the ridiculous gunboats, in which they had so firmly
believed, had done nothing but divert useful resources
into useless channels; while, on the other hand, the
frigates, which they had proposed to lay up altogether,
so as to save themselves from 'the ruinous folly of a
Navy,' had already won a brilliant series of duels out
at sea.
There were some searchings of heart at Washington when
all these military and naval misjudgments stood revealed.
Eustis soon followed Hull into enforced retirement; and
great plans were made for the campaign of 1813, which
was designed to wipe out the disgrace of its predecessor
and to effect the conquest of Canada for good and all.
John Armstrong, the new war secretary, and William Henry
Harrison, the new general in the West, were great
improvements on Eustis and Hull. But, even now, the
American commanders could not decide on a single decisive
attack supported by subsidiary operations elsewhere.
Montreal remained their prime objective. But they only
struck at it last of all. Michilimackinac kept their
enemy in touch with the West. But they left it completely
alone. Their general advance ought to have been secured
by winning the command of the Lakes and by the seizure
of suitable positions across the line. But they let the
first blows come from the Canadian side; and they still
left Lake Champlain to shift for itself. Their plan was
undoubtedly better than that of 1812. But it was still
all parts and no whole.
The various events were so complicated by the overlapping
of time and place all along the line that we must begin
by taking a bird's-eye view of them in territorial
sequence, starting from the farthest inland flank and
working eastward to the sea. Everything west of Detroit
may be left out altogether, because operations did not
recommence in that quarter until the campaign of the
following year.
In January the British struck successfully at Frenchtown,
more than thirty miles south of Detroit. They struck
unsuccessfully, still farther south, at Fort Meigs in
May and at Fort Stephenson in August; after which they
had to remain on the defensive, all over the Lake Erie
region, till their flotilla was annihilated at Put-in
Bay in September and their army was annihilated at Moravian
Town on the Thames in October. In the Lake Ontario region
the situation was reversed. Here the British began badly
and ended well. They surrendered York in April and Fort
George, at the mouth of the Niagara, in May. They were
also repulsed in a grossly mismanaged attack on Sackett's
Harbour two days after their defeat at Fort George. The
opposing flotillas meanwhile fought several manoeuvring
actions of an indecisive kind, neither daring to risk
battle and possible annihilation. But, as the season
advanced, the British regained their hold on the Niagara
peninsula by defeating the Americans at Stoney Creek and
the Beaver Dams in June, and by clearing both sides of
the Niagara river in December. On the upper St Lawrence
they took Ogdensburg in February. They were also completely
successful in their defence of Montreal. In June they
took the American gunboats at Isle-aux-Noix on the
Richelieu; in July they raided Lake Champlain; while in
October and November they defeated the two divisions of
the invading army at Chateauguay and Chrystler's Farm.
The British news from sea also improved as the year wore
on. The American frigate victories began to stop. The
_Shannon_ beat the _Chesapeake_. And the shadow of the Great
Blockade began to fall on the coast of the Democratic South.
The operations of 1813 are more easily understood if
taken in this purely territorial way. But in following
the progress of the war we must take them chronologically.
No attempt can be made here to describe the movements on
either side in any detail. An outline must suffice. Two
points, however, need special emphasis, as they are both
markedly characteristic of the war in general and of this
campaign in particular. First, the combined effect of
the American victories of Lake Erie and the Thames affords
a perfect example of the inseparable connection between
the water and the land. Secondly, the British victories
at the Beaver Dams and Chateauguay are striking examples
of the inter-racial connection among the forces that
defended Canada so well. The Indians did all the real
fighting at the Beaver Dams. The French Canadians fought
practically alone at Chateauguay.
The first move of the invaders in the West was designed
to recover Detroit and cut off Mackinaw. Harrison,
victorious over the Indians at Tippecanoe in 1811, was
now expected to strike terror into them once more, both
by his reputation and by the size of his forces. In
midwinter he had one wing of his army on the Sandusky,
under his own command, and the other on the Maumee, under
Winchester, a rather commonplace general. At Frenchtown
stood a little British post defended by fifty Canadians
and a hundred Indians. Winchester moved north to drive
these men away from American soil. But Procter crossed
the Detroit from Amherstburg on the ice, and defeated
Winchester's thousand whites with his own five hundred
whites and five hundred Indians at dawn on January 22,
making Winchester a prisoner. Procter was unable to
control the Indians, who ran wild. They hated the Westerners
who made up Winchester's force, as the men who had deprived
them of their lands, and they now wreaked their vengeance
on them for some time before they could be again brought
within the bounds of civilized warfare. After the battle
Procter retired to Amherstburg; Harrison began to build
Fort Meigs on the Maumee; and a pause of three months
followed all over the western scene.
But winter warfare was also going on elsewhere. A month
after Procter's success, Prevost, when passing through
Prescott, on the upper St Lawrence, reluctantly gave
Colonel Macdonell of Glengarry provisional leave to attack
Ogdensburg, from which the Americans were forwarding
supplies to Sackett's Harbour, sending out raiding parties,
and threatening the British line of communication to the
west. No sooner was Prevost clear of Prescott than
Macdonell led his four hundred regulars and one hundred
militia over the ice against the American fort. His direct
assault failed. But when he had carried the village at
the point of the bayonet the garrison ran. Macdonell then
destroyed the fort, the barracks, and four vessels. He
also took seventy prisoners, eleven guns, and a large
supply of stores.
With the spring came new movements in the West. On May
9 Procter broke camp and retired from an unsuccessful
siege of Fort Meigs (now Toledo) at the south-western
corner of Lake Erie. He had started this siege a fortnight
earlier with a thousand whites and a thousand Indians
under Tecumseh; and at first had seemed likely to succeed.
But after the first encounter the Indians began to leave;
while most of the militia had soon to be sent home to
their farms to prevent the risk of starvation. Thus
Procter presently found himself with only five hundred
effectives in face of a much superior and constantly
increasing enemy. In the summer he returned to the attack,
this time against the American position on the lower
Sandusky, nearly thirty miles east of Fort Meigs. There,
on August 2, he tried to take Fort Stephenson. But his
light guns could make no breach; and he lost a hundred
men in the assault.
Meanwhile Dearborn, having first moved up from Plattsburg
to Sackett's Harbour, had attacked York on April 27 with
the help of the new American flotilla on Lake Ontario.
This flotilla was under the personal orders of Commodore
Chauncey, an excellent officer, who, in the previous
September, had been promoted from superintendent of the
New York Navy Yard to commander-in-chief on the Lakes.
As Chauncey's forte was building and organization, he
found full scope for his peculiar talents at Sackett's
Harbour. He was also a good leader at sea and thus a
formidable enemy for the British forces at York, where
the third-rate Sheaffe was now in charge, and where
Prevost had paved the way for a British defeat by allowing
the establishment of an exposed navy yard instead of
keeping all construction safe in Kingston. Sheaffe began
his mistakes by neglecting to mount some of his guns
before Dearborn and Chauncey arrived, though he knew
these American commanders might come at any moment, and
though he also knew how important it was to save a new
British vessel that was building at York, because the
command of the lake might well depend upon her. He then
made another mistake by standing to fight in an untenable
position against overwhelming odds. He finally retreated
with all the effective regulars left, less than two
hundred, burning the ship and yard as he passed, and
leaving behind three hundred militia to make their own
terms with the enemy. He met the light company of the
8th on its way up from Kingston and turned it back. With
this retreat he left the front for good and became a
commandant of bases, a position often occupied by men
whose failures are not bad enough for courts-martial and
whose saving qualities are not good enough for any more
appointments in the field.
The Americans lost over two hundred men by an explosion
in a British battery at York just as Sheaffe was marching
off. Forty British had also been blown up in one of the
forts a little while before. Sheaffe appears to have been
a slack inspector of powder-magazines. But the Americans,
who naturally suspected other things than slack inspection,
thought a mine had been sprung on them after the fight
was over. They consequently swore revenge, burnt the
parliament buildings, looted several private houses, and
carried off books from the public library as well as
plate from the church. Chauncey, much to his credit,
afterwards sent back all the books and plate he could
recover.
Exactly a month later, on May 27, Chauncey and Dearborn
appeared off Fort George, after a run back to Sackett's
Harbour in the meantime. Vincent, Sheaffe's successor in
charge of Upper Canada, had only a thousand regulars and
four hundred militia there. Dearborn had more than four
times as many men; and Perry, soon to become famous on
Lake Erie, managed the naval part of landing them. The
American men-of-war brought the long, low, flat ground
of Mississauga Point under an irresistible cross-fire
while three thousand troops were landing on the beach
below the covering bluffs. No support could be given to
the opposing British force by the fire of Fort George,
as the village of Newark intervened. So Vincent had to
fight it out in the open. On being threatened with
annihilation he retired towards Burlington, withdrawing
the garrison of Fort George, and sending orders for all
the other troops on the Niagara to follow by the shortest
line. He had lost a third of the whole force defending
the Niagara frontier, both sides of which were now
possessed by the Americans. But by nightfall on May 29
he was standing at bay, with his remaining sixteen hundred
men, in an excellent strategical position on the Heights,
half-way between York and Fort George, in touch with
Dundas Street, the main road running east and west, and
beside Burlington Bay, where he hoped to meet the British
flotilla commanded by Yeo.
Captain Sir James Lucas Yeo was an energetic and capable
young naval officer of thirty, whom the Admiralty had
sent out with a few seamen to take command on the Lakes
under Prevost's orders. He had been only seventeen days
at Kingston when he sailed out with Prevost, on May 27,
to take advantage of Chauncey's absence at the western
end of the lake. Arrived before Sackett's Harbour, the
attack was planned for the 29th. The landing force of
seven hundred and fifty men was put in charge of Baynes,
the adjutant-general, a man only too well fitted to do
the 'dirty work' of the general staff under a weak
commander-in-chief like Prevost. All went wrong at
Sackett's Harbour. Prevost was 'present but not in
command'; Baynes landed at the wrong place. Nevertheless,
the British regulars scattered the American militiamen,
pressed back the American regulars, set fire to the
barracks, and halted in front of the fort. The Americans,
thinking the day was lost, set fire to their stores and
to Chauncey's new ships. Then Baynes and Prevost suddenly
decided to retreat. Baynes explained to Prevost, and
Prevost explained in a covering dispatch to the British
government, that the fleet could not co-operate, that
the fort could not be taken, and that the landing party
was not strong enough. But, if this was true, why did
they make an attack at all; and, if it was not true, why
did they draw back when success seemed to be assured?
Meanwhile Chauncey, after helping to take Fort George,
had started back for Sackett's Harbour; and Dearborn,
left without the fleet, had moved on slowly and
disjointedly, in rear of Vincent, with whom he did not
regain touch for a week. On June 5 the Americans camped
at Stoney Creek, five miles from the site of Hamilton.
The steep zigzagging bank of the creek, which formed
their front, was about twenty feet high. Their right
rested on a mile-wide swamp, which ran down to Lake
Ontario. Their left touched the Heights, which ran from
Burlington to Queenston. They were also in superior
numbers, and ought to have been quite secure. But they
thought so much more of pursuit than of defence that they
were completely taken by surprise when '704 firelocks'
under Colonel Harvey suddenly attacked them just after
midnight. Harvey, chief staff officer to Vincent, was a
first-rate leader for such daring work as this, and his
men were all well disciplined. But the whole enterprise
might have failed, for all that. Some of the men opened
fire too soon, and the nearest Americans began to stand
to their arms. But, while Harvey ran along re-forming
the line, Major Plenderleath, with some of Brock's old
regiment, the 49th, charged straight into the American
centre, took the guns there, and caused so much confusion
that Harvey's following charge carried all before it.
Next morning, June 6, the Americans began a retreat which
was hastened by Yeo's arrival on their lakeward flank,
by the Indians on the Heights, and by Vincent's
reinforcements in their rear. Not till they reached the
shelter of Fort George did they attempt to make a stand.
The two armies now faced each other astride of the
lake-shore road and the Heights. The British left advanced
post, between Ten and Twelve Mile Creeks, was under Major
de Haren of the 104th, a regiment which, in the preceding
winter, had marched on snow-shoes through the woods all
the way from the middle of New Brunswick to Quebec. The
corresponding British post inland, near the Beaver Dams,
was under Lieutenant FitzGibbon of the 49th, a cool,
quick-witted, and adventurous Irishman, who had risen
from the ranks by his own good qualities and Brock's
recommendation. Between him and the Americans at Queenston
and St David's was a picked force of Indian scouts with
a son of the great chief Joseph Brant. These Indians
never gave the Americans a minute's rest. They were up
at all hours, pressing round the flanks, sniping the
sentries, worrying the outposts, and keeping four times
their own numbers on the perpetual alert. What exasperated
the Americans even more was the wonderfully elusive way
in which the Indians would strike their blow and then be
lost to sight and sound the very next moment, if, indeed,
they ever were seen at all. Finally, this endless skirmish
with an invisible foe became so harassing that the
Americans sent out a flying column of six hundred picked
men under Colonel Boerstler on June 24 to break up
FitzGibbon's post at the Beaver Dams and drive the Indians
out of the intervening bush altogether.
But the American commanders had not succeeded in hiding
their preparations from the vigilant eyes of the Indian
scouts or from the equally attentive ears of Laura Secord,
the wife of an ardent U. E. Loyalist, James Secord, who
was still disabled by the wounds he had received when
fighting under Brock's command at Queenston Heights.
Early in the morning of the 23rd, while Laura Secord was
going out to milk the cows, she overheard some Americans
talking about the surprise in store for FitzGibbon next
day. Without giving the slightest sign she quietly drove
the cattle in behind the nearest fence, hid her milk-pail,
and started to thread her perilous way through twenty
miles of bewildering bypaths to the Beaver Dams. Keeping
off the beaten tracks and always in the shadow of the
full-leaved trees, she stole along through the American
lines, crossed the no-man's-land between the two desperate
enemies, and managed to get inside the ever-shifting
fringe of Indian scouts without being seen by friend or
foe. The heat was intense; and the whole forest steamed
with it after the tropical rain. But she held her course
without a pause, over the swollen streams on fallen
tree-trunks, through the dense underbrush, and in and
out of the mazes of the forest, where a bullet might come
from either side without a moment's warning. As she neared
the end of her journey a savage yell told her she was at
last discovered by the Indians. She and they were on the
same side; but she had hard work to persuade them that
she only wished to warn FitzGibbon. Then came what, to
a lesser patriot, would have been a crowning disappointment.
For when, half dead with fatigue, she told him her story,
she found he had already heard it from the scouts. But
just because this forestalment was no real disappointment
to her, it makes her the Anglo-Canadian heroine whose
fame for bravery in war is worthiest of being remembered
with that of her French-Canadian sister, Madeleine de
Vercheres. [Footnote: For Madeleine de Vercheres see
_The fighting Governor_ in this Series.]
Boerstler's six hundred had only ten miles to go in a
straight line. But all the thickets, woods, creeks,
streams, and swamps were closely beset by a body of
expert, persistent Indians, who gradually increased from
two hundred and fifty to four hundred men. The Americans
became discouraged and bewildered; and when FitzGibbon
rode up at the head of his redcoats they were ready to
give in. The British posts were all in excellent touch
with each other; and de Haren arrived in time to receive
the actual surrender. He was closely followed by the 2nd
Lincoln Militia under Colonel Clark, and these again by
Colonel Bisshopp with the whole of the advanced guard.
But it was the Indians alone who won the fight, as
FitzGibbon generously acknowledged: 'Not a shot was fired
on our side by any but the Indians. They beat the American
detachment into a state of terror, and the only share I
claim is taking advantage of a favourable moment to offer
protection from the tomahawk and scalping knife.'
June was a lucky month for the British at sea as well as
on the land; and its 'Glorious First,' so called after
Howe's victory nineteen years before, now became doubly
glorious in a way which has a special interest for Canada.
The American frigate _Chesapeake_ was under orders to
attack British supply-ships entering Canadian waters;
and the victorious British frigate _Shannon_ was taken
out of action and into a Canadian port by a young Canadian
in the Royal Navy.
The _Chesapeake_ had a new captain, Lawrence, with new
young officers. She carried fifty more men than the
British frigate _Shannon_. But many of her ship's company
were new to her, on recommissioning in May; and some were
comparatively untrained for service on board a man-of-war.
The frigates themselves were practically equal in size
and armament. But Captain Broke had been in continuous
command of the _Shannon_ for seven years and had trained
his crew into the utmost perfection of naval gunnery.
The vessels met off Boston in full view of many thousands
of spectators. Not one British shot flew high. Every day
in the Shannon's seven years of preparation told in that
fight of only fifteen minutes; and when Broke led his
boarders over the Chesapeake's side her fate had been
sealed already. The Stars and Stripes were soon replaced
by the Union Jack. Then, with Broke severely wounded and
his first lieutenant killed, the command fell on Lieutenant
Wallis, who sailed both vessels into Halifax. This young
Canadian, afterwards known as Admiral-of-the-Fleet Sir
Provo Wallis, lived to become the longest of all human
links between the past and present of the Navy. He was
by far the last survivor of those officers who were
specially exempted from technical retirement on account
of having held any ship or fleet command during the Great
War that ended on the field of Waterloo. He was born
before Napoleon had been heard of. He went through a
battle before the death of Nelson. He outlived Wellington
by forty years. His name stood on the Active List for
all but the final decade of the nineteenth century. And,
as an honoured centenarian, he is vividly remembered by
many who were still called young a century after the
battle that brought him into fame.
The summer campaign on the Niagara frontier ended with
three minor British successes. Fort Schlosser was surprised
on July 5. On the 11th Bisshopp lost his life in destroying
Black Rock. And on August 24 the Americans were driven
in under the guns of Fort George. After this there was
a lull which lasted throughout the autumn.
Down by the Montreal frontier there were three corresponding
British successes. On June 3 Major Taylor of the 100th
captured two American gunboats, the _Growler_ and the
_Eagle_, which had come to attack Isle-aux-Noix in the
Richelieu river, and renamed them the _Broke_ and the
_Shannon_. Early in August Captains Pring and Everard,
of the Navy, and Colonel Murray with nine hundred soldiers,
raided Lake Champlain. They destroyed the barracks, yard,
and stores at Plattsburg and sent the American militia
flying home. But a still more effective blow was struck
on the opposite side of Lake Champlain, at Burlington,
where General Hampton was preparing the right wing of
his new army of invasion. Stores, equipment, barracks,
and armaments were destroyed to such an extent that
Hampton's preparations were set back till late in the
autumn. The left wing of the same army was at Sackett's
Harbour, under Dearborn's successor, General Wilkinson,
whose plan was to take Kingston, go down the St Lawrence,
meet Hampton, who was to come up from the south, and then
make a joint attack with him on Montreal.
In September the scene of action shifted to the West,
where the British were trying to keep the command of Lake
Erie, while the Americans were trying to wrest it from
them. Captain Oliver Perry, a first-rate American naval
officer of only twenty-eight, was at Presqu'isle (now
Erie) completing his flotilla. He had his troubles, of
course, especially with the militia garrison, who would
not do their proper tour of duty. 'I tell the boys to
go, but the boys won't go,' was the only report forthcoming
from one of several worthless colonels. A still greater
trouble for Perry was getting his vessels over the bar.
This had to be done without any guns on board, and with
the cumbrous aid of 'camels,' which are any kind of
air-tanks made fast to the sides low down, in order to
raise the hull as much as possible. But, luckily for
Perry, his opponent, Captain Barclay of the Royal Navy,
an energetic and capable young officer of thirty-two,
was called upon to face worse troubles still. Barclay
was, indeed, the first to get afloat. But he had to give
up the blockade of Presqu'isle, and so let Perry out,
because he had the rawest of crews, the scantiest of
equipment, and nothing left to eat. Then, when he ran
back to Amherstburg, he found Procter also facing a state
of semi-starvation, while thousands of Indian families
were clamouring for food. Thus there was no other choice
but either to fight or starve; for there was not the
slightest chance of replenishing stores unless the line
of the lake was clear.
So Barclay sailed out with his six little British vessels,
armed by the odds and ends of whatever ordnance could be
spared from Amherstburg and manned by almost any crews
but sailors. Even the flagship _Detroit_ had only ten
real seamen, all told. Ammunition was likewise very
scarce, and so defective that the guns had to be fired
by the flash of a pistol. Perry also had a makeshift
flotilla, partly manned by drafts from Harrison's army.
But, on the whole, the odds in his favour were fairly
shown by the number of vessels in the respective flotillas,
nine American against the British six.
Barclay had only thirty miles to make in a direct
south-easterly line from Amherstburg to reach Perry at
Put-in Bay in the Bass Islands, where, on the morning of
September 10, the opposing forces met. The battle raged
for two hours at the very closest quarters till Perry's
flagship _Lawrence_ struck to Barclay's own _Detroit_.
But Perry had previously left the _Lawrence_ for the
fresh _Niagara_; and he now bore down on the battered
_Detroit_, which had meanwhile fallen foul of the only
other sizable British vessel, the _Queen Charlotte_. This
was fatal for Barclay. The whole British flotilla
surrendered after a desperate resistance and an utterly
disabling loss. From that time on to the end of the war
Lake Erie remained completely under American control.
Procter could hardly help seeing that he was doomed to
give up the whole Lake Erie region. But he lingered and
was lost. While Harrison was advancing with overwhelming
numbers Procter was still trying to decide when and how
to abandon Amherstburg. Then, when he did go, he carried
with him an inordinate amount of baggage; and he retired
so slowly that Harrison caught and crushed him near
Moravian Town, beside the Thames, on the 5th of October.
Harrison had three thousand exultant Americans in action;
Procter had barely a thousand worn-out, dispirited men,
more than half of them Indians under Tecumseh. The
redcoats, spread out in single rank at open order, were
ridden down by Harrison's cavalry, backed by the mass of
his infantry. The Indians on the inland flank stood longer
and fought with great determination against five times
their numbers till Tecumseh fell. Then they broke and
fled. This was their last great fight and Tecumseh was
their last great leader.
The scene now shifts once more to the Montreal frontier,
which was being threatened by the converging forces of
Hampton from the south and Wilkinson from the west. Each
had about seven thousand men; and their common objective
was the island of Montreal. Hampton crossed the line at
Odelltown on September 20. But he presently moved back
again; and it was not till October 21 that he began his
definite attack by advancing down the left bank of the
Chateauguay, after opening communications with Wilkinson,
who was still near Sackett's Harbour. Hampton naturally
expected to brush aside all the opposition that could be
made by the few hundred British between him and the St
Lawrence. But de Salaberry, the commander of the British
advanced posts, determined to check him near La Fourche,
where several little tributaries of the Chateauguay made
a succession of good positions, if strengthened by abattis
and held by trained defenders.
The British force was very small when Hampton began his
slow advance; but 'Red George' Macdonell marched to help
it just in time. Macdonell was commanding a crack corps
of French Canadians, all picked from the best 'Select
Embodied Militia,' and now, at the end of six months of
extra service, as good as a battalion of regulars. He
had hurried to Kingston when Wilkinson had threatened it
from Sackett's Harbour. Now he was urgently needed at
Chateauguay. 'When can you start?' asked Prevost, who
was himself on the point of leaving Kingston for
Chateauguay. 'Directly the men have finished their dinners,
sir!' 'Then follow me as quickly as you can!' said Prevost
as he stepped on board his vessel. There were 210 miles
to go. A day was lost in collecting boats enough for this
sudden emergency. Another day was lost _en route_ by a
gale so terrific that even the French-Canadian voyageurs
were unable to face it. The rapids, where so many of
Amherst's men had been drowned in 1760, were at their
very worst; and the final forty miles had to be made
overland by marching all night through dense forest and
along a particularly difficult trail. Yet Macdonell got
into touch with de Salaberry long before Prevost, to whom
he had the satisfaction of reporting later in the day:
'All correct and present, sir; not one man missing!'
The advanced British forces under de Salaberry were now,
on October 25, the eve of battle, occupying the left, or
north, bank of the Chateauguay, fifteen miles south of
the Cascade Rapids of the St Lawrence, twenty-five miles
south-west of Caughnawaga, and thirty-five miles south-west
of Montreal. Immediately in rear of these men under de
Salaberry stood Macdonell's command; while, in more
distant support, nearer to Montreal, stood various posts
under General de Watteville, with whom Prevost spent that
night and most of the 26th, the day on which the battle
was fought.
As Hampton came on with his cumbrous American thousands
de Salaberry felt justifiable confidence in his own
well-disciplined French-Canadian hundreds. He and his
brothers were officers in the Imperial Army. His Voltigeurs
were regulars. The supporting Fencibles were also regulars,
and of ten years' standing. Macdonell's men were practically
regulars. The so-called 'Select Militia' present had been
permanently embodied for eighteen months; and the only
real militiamen on the scene of action, most of whom
never came under fire at all, had already been twice
embodied for service in the field. The British total
present was 1590, of whom less than a quarter were
militiamen and Indians. But the whole firing line comprised
no more than 460, of whom only 66 were militiamen and
only 22 were Indians. The Indian total was about one-tenth
of the whole. The English-speaking total was about
one-twentieth. It is therefore perfectly right to say
that the battle of Chateauguay was practically fought
and won by French-Canadian regulars against American odds
of four to one.
De Salaberry's position was peculiar. The head of his
little column faced the head of Hampton's big column on
a narrow front, bounded on his own left by the river
Chateauguay and on his own right by woods, into which
Hampton was afraid to send his untrained men. But, crossing
a right-angled bend of the river, beyond de Salaberry's
left front, was a ford, while in rear of de Salaberry's
own column was another ford which Hampton thought he
could easily take with fifteen hundred men under Purdy,
as he had no idea of Macdonell's march and no doubt of
being able to crush de Salaberry's other troops between
his own five thousand attacking from the front and Purdy's
fifteen hundred attacking from the rear. Purdy advanced
overnight, crossed to the right bank of the Chateauguay,
by the ford clear of de Salaberry's front, and made
towards the ford in de Salaberry's rear. But his men lost
their way in the dark and found themselves, not in rear
of, but opposite to, and on the left flank of, de
Salaberry's column in the morning. They drove in two of
de Salaberry's companies, which were protecting his left
flank on the right, or what was now Purdy's, side of the
river; but they were checked by a third, which Macdonell
sent forward, across the rear ford, at the same time that
he occupied this rear ford himself. Purdy and Hampton
had now completely lost touch with one another. Purdy
was astounded to see Macdonell's main body of redcoats
behind the rear ford. He paused, waiting for support from
Hampton, who was still behind the front ford. Hampton
paused, waiting for him to take the rear ford, now occupied
by Macdonell. De Salaberry mounted a huge tree-stump and
at once saw his opportunity. Holding back Hampton's
crowded column with his own front, which fought under
cover of his first abattis, he wheeled the rest of his
men into line to the left and thus took Purdy in flank.
Macdonell was out of range behind the rear ford; but he
played his part by making his buglers sound the advance
from several different quarters, while his men, joined
by de Salaberry's militiamen and by the Indians in the
bush, cheered vociferously and raised the war-whoop. This
was too much for Purdy's fifteen hundred. They broke in
confusion, ran away from the river into the woods under
a storm of bullets, fired into each other, and finally
disappeared. Hampton's attack on de Salaberry's first
abattis then came to a full stop; after which the whole
American army retired beaten from the field.
Ten days after Chateauguay dilatory Wilkinson, tired of
waiting for defeated Hampton, left the original rendezvous
at French Creek, fifty miles below Sackett's Harbour.
Like Dearborn in 1812, he began his campaign just as the
season was closing. But, again like Dearborn, he had the
excuse of being obliged to organize his army in the middle
of the war. Four days later again, on November 9, Brown,
the successful defender of Sackett's Harbour against
Prevost's attack in May, was landed at Williamsburg, on
the Canadian side, with two thousand men, to clear the
twenty miles down to Cornwall, opposite the rendezvous
at St Regis, where Wilkinson expected to find Hampton
ready to join him for the combined attack on Montreal.
But Brown had to reckon with Dennis, the first defender
of Queenston, who now commanded the little garrison of
Cornwall, and who disputed every inch of the way by
breaking the bridges and resisting each successive advance
till Brown was compelled to deploy for attack. Two days
were taken up with these harassing manoeuvres, during
which another two thousand Americans were landed at
Williamsburg under Boyd, who immediately found himself
still more harassed in rear than Brown had been in front.
This new British force in Boyd's rear was only a thousand
strong; but, as it included every human element engaged
in the defence of Canada, it has a quite peculiar interest
of its own. Afloat, it included bluejackets of the Royal
Navy, men of the Provincial Marine, French-Canadian
voyageurs, and Anglo-Canadian boatmen from the
trading-posts, all under a first-rate fighting seaman,
Captain Mulcaster, R.N. Ashore, under a good regimental
leader, Colonel Morrison--whose chief staff officer was
Harvey, of Stoney Creek renown--it included Imperial
regulars, Canadian regulars of both races, French-Canadian
and Anglo-Canadian militiamen, and a party of Indians.
Early on the 11th Brown had arrived at Cornwall with his
two thousand Americans; Wilkinson was starting down from
Williamsburg in boats with three thousand more, and Boyd
was starting down ashore with eighteen hundred. But
Mulcaster's vessels pressed in on Wilkinson's rear, while
Morrison pressed in on Boyd's. Wilkinson then ordered
Boyd to turn about and drive off Morrison, while he
hurried his own men out of reach of Mulcaster, whose
armed vessels could not follow down the rapids. Boyd
thereupon attacked Morrison, and a stubborn fight ensued
at Chrystler's Farm. The field was of the usual type:
woods on one flank, water on the other, and a more or
less flat clearing in the centre. Boyd tried hard to
drive his wedge in between the British and the river.
But Morrison foiled him in manoeuvre; and the eight
hundred British stood fast against their eighteen hundred
enemies all along the line. Boyd then withdrew, having
lost four hundred men; and Morrison's remaining six
hundred effectives slept on their hard-won ground.
Next morning the energetic Morrison resumed his pursuit.
But the campaign against Montreal was already over.
Wilkinson had found that Hampton had started back for
Lake Champlain while the battle was in progress; so he
landed at St Regis, just inside his own country, and went
into winter quarters at French Mills on the Salmon river.
In December the scene of strife changed back again to
the Niagara, where the American commander, McClure,
decided to evacuate Fort George. At dusk on the 10th he
ordered four hundred women and children to be turned out
of their homes at Newark into the biting midwinter cold,
and then burnt the whole settlement down to the ground.
If he had intended to hold the position he might have
been justified in burning Newark, under more humane
conditions, because this village undoubtedly interfered
with the defensive fire of Fort George. But, as he was
giving up Fort George, his act was an entirely wanton
deed of shame.
Meanwhile the new British general, Gordon Drummond, second
in ability to Brock alone, was hurrying to the Niagara
frontier. He was preceded by Colonel Murray, who took
possession of Fort George on the 12th, the day McClure
crossed the Niagara river. Murray at once made a plan to
take the American Fort Niagara opposite; and Drummond at
once approved it for immediate execution. On the night
of the 18th six hundred men were landed on the American
side three miles up the river. At four the next morning
Murray led them down to the fort, rushing the sentries
and pickets by the way with the bayonet in dead silence.
He then told off two hundred men to take a bastion at
the same time that he was to lead the other four hundred
straight through the main gate, which he knew would soon
be opened to let the reliefs pass out. Everything worked
to perfection. When the reliefs came out they were
immediately charged and bayoneted, as were the first
astonished men off duty who ran out of their quarters to
see what the matter was. A stiff hand-to-hand fight
followed. But every American attempt to form was instantly
broken up; and presently the whole place surrendered.
Drummond, who was delighted with such an excellent
beginning, took care to underline the four significant
words referring to the enemy's killed and wounded--_all
with the bayonet_. This was done in no mere vulgar spirit
of bravado, still less in abominable bloody-mindedness.
It was the soldierly recognition of a particularly gallant
feat of arms, carried out with such conspicuously good
discipline that its memory is cherished, even to the
present day, by the 100th, afterwards raised again as
the Royal Canadians, and now known as the Prince of
Wales's Leinster regiment. A facsimile of Drummond's
underlined order is one of the most highly honoured
souvenirs in the officers' mess.
Not a moment was lost in following up this splendid feat
of arms. The Indians drove the American militia out of
Lewiston, which the advancing redcoats burnt to the
ground. Fort Schlosser fell next, then Black Rock, and
finally Buffalo. Each was laid in ashes. Thus, before
1813 ended, the whole American side of the Niagara was
nothing but one long, bare line of blackened desolation,
with the sole exception of Fort Niagara, which remained
secure in British hands until the war was over.