Prelude to Glory, Vol. 9

by Ron Carter

  Experienced eyes went over the map again and again while comments and proposals were put out on the table, discussed, dismembered, and discarded. Slowly the talk died.

  Chauncey seized the moment. “I propose we agree on Mister Dunson’s plan. There is risk, but it is acceptable risk, and if it succeeds we will have accomplished our major objective. We will have our victory, and the nation will be lifted!”

  Adam raised a hand in caution, and the room became silent as he spoke. “There are two remaining questions. Do we have a commander capable of getting our troops from the ships to the shore in longboats and bateau, and then leading them to Fort York at double-time and taking the town? And who are the British officers we will be facing? How capable are they?”

  Every eye turned to Dearborn, expectant, waiting in the silence.

  He shifted his feet before he spoke. “I will have to consider which army officer should lead the attack. As for the British officers we will be facing, my information is that their commanding officer is Sir George Prevost. He is capable. Sir Roger Sheaffe leads their army troops. His military record is very good. Commodore James Lucas Yeo is expected to become their naval commander but has not yet arrived. He is a cautious man, but competent.”

  Meaningful glances were exchanged around the table with a few comments before they all turned back to Dearborn.

  “If there is nothing else, this meeting is concluded. Mister Chauncey and Mister Dunson, remain here to assist in drafting the new proposal for delivery to Secretary Armstrong and President Madison.”

  It was late afternoon before an exhausted Dearborn signed the six-page document addressed to Secretary of War John Armstrong, then leaned back to dig the heels of his hands into weary eyes. He drew a great breath and released it slowly before he stood.

  “Gentlemen, I shall personally deliver this to Secretary Armstrong. While I am gone, Brigadier General Zebulon Pike will be in command of the army here. He will be under orders to prepare for the British attack.”

  There was no attack. On April first, the ice was still thick on the lake. Strain and raw nerves at both Sacketts Harbor and Kingston took its toll on soldiers and sailors who waited and watched through day after day of bleak, freezing cold, and storms with gale force winds that cut through their heavy coats to chill them to the bone. By mid-April the ice had begun to turn rotten, and by April nineteenth only patches remained along the shoreline. On April twentieth, Dearborn returned from Washington, D.C., to Sacketts Harbor and resumed command of his forces. The morning of April twenty-first he called both Chauncey and Pike to his office.

  “Secretary Armstrong approved our plan. We attack York immediately.” He turned to Pike. “Start loading your troops onto Mister Chauncey’s boats and bateaux tomorrow morning.”

  Chauncey raised a hand to cut him off. “We have a storm coming in. A big one. I strongly recommend we wait until it passes.”

  Dearborn shook his head emphatically. “We’re already three weeks late. Storm or no, we load tomorrow and proceed.”

  The morning of April twenty-second broke dismal gray with thick, purple clouds riding low, driven by heavy winds. Captain Chauncey bit down on his need to wait out the storm, and General Pike gritted his teeth against his innermost fears as he ordered his men to board the ships and the bateaux for the attack.

  The loading began. In an unending procession the longboats left the docks filled with soldiers from Pike’s army, rowed out to the waiting ships with the bateau tied behind, and tried to hold steady in the rising swells while the soldiers climbed netting up to the rocking decks above. Then they broke away from the ships to make way for the longboats waiting behind, and returned to the docks for the next load. They continued through the afternoon, with the winds rising, whistling in the rigging of the ships, whipping spray from whitecaps onto the huddled troops.

  The ships steadily filled, with soldiers jammed into every compartment, every corner—in the hold of the ship and crammed onto the main deck, standing shoulder to shoulder. On the USS Madison, more than six hundred men were squeezed together in a space designed for one hundred fifty. On every ship, no more than half the men could go below deck at one time, so they began a rotation—half above and half below deck—to avoid freezing that could cost fingers and toes and noses.

  Dusk came gray with the winds holding strong, singing in the rigging, kicking up swells and whitecaps that drenched the men and swamped the longboats and slammed them into the sides of the pitching, rolling ships and bateaux. With full darkness upon them, Chauncey shouted the orders that stopped the longboats, and they returned to shore to wait for morning.

  The winds held through the night, and with dawn approaching the rain squalls came freezing, driven, slanting, to soak every man and the rigging of every ship, whipping the water as it ran from their beards and blankets and coats and the sails of the bucking vessels.

  On the Margaret, Adam ran flags up the mainmast that told Chauncey, “There is danger to men and vessels. Do we continue loading?”

  Chauncey answered. “Danger recognized. Will inquire.”

  Quickly he sent a written message ashore to Armstrong with an officer in a departing longboat.

  “Imperative that we cease loading and wait for the storm to abate . . . there is risk of longboats or ships capsizing.”

  The answer came back. “Continue loading. Make sail for Kingston when finished.”

  Chauncey silently cursed Armstrong for a fool and sent flags up the mainmast with the message to Adam and all other ships.

  “Ordered to continue loading.”

  Adam shook his head in disbelief, and the Margaret continued battling the treacherous winds and rains with the crew holding its breath, desperately straining to avoid a mistake on the swamped decks that would kill or maim the men coming aboard from the longboats.

  Shortly before noon the last longboat was unloaded, and it broke away from the ship to fight its way back toward the docks. Obedient to his orders, Chauncey ran the signal flag up the mainmast, and commanders of the thirteen ships, each with one or more bateau lashed on behind, stared for a moment in stunned amazement, then weighed anchor and followed Chauncey on the flagship, with the Margaret right behind, out of the partial shelter of Sacketts Harbor into the full fury of the storm.

  The masts of the schooners creaked and groaned as the freezing, howling winds from the southeast stretched the sails to their limits, and the great, surging whitecaps came sweeping over the railings to bury the decks of the overloaded ships and the bateau, and send them wallowing, pitching, leaning violently, first to port, then starboard. Time had no meaning as Chauncey stood stony faced on his quarterdeck, conscious of but one thing. Every ship in his squadron was loaded double and triple beyond its design, with hundreds of huddled men and far too much weight on the main decks. They were unstable, leaning fifteen and twenty degrees beyond their limits. The question was not, would one or more of them capsize? The question was, when would one of them capsize?

  He had reached Stony Point before he overrode Armstrong’s orders. He barked his own orders to his first mate, and the man ran signals up the mainmast, “Return to port immediately.”

  One by one the ships made the turn and fought their way back to Sacketts Harbor to drop anchor and ride out the storm while the troops remained on the decks with their soggy blankets pulled about their shoulders to hold in what heat they could. The following day the storm blew itself out, and by evening the clouds separated to a glowing sunset. At dawn the next morning, beneath clear skies, with a steady southeast wind, the entire squadron weighed anchor and once again took a bearing due west, out of Sacketts Harbor into the open waters of Lake Ontario with the Julia leading, the Growler in the rear, and the Madison, Oneida, and Margaret in the center. The wind held, and the line of ships, each towing its flat-bottomed bateau, sped steadily west, watching the distant shoreline of the lake slip past throughout the day.

  The sun was low in the west when Adam extended his telescope and
for a time stood on his quarterdeck studying the faint, dark line to the north that was Scarborough Heights on the shore of the lake. He could not see them, but he knew there were British outposts on the heights, and that red coated pickets would be there with their own telescopes, intently watching for the first sighting of the sails of the approaching American squadron.

  Have they seen us yet? What will their General Sheaffe do when the report reaches him? Will he set up his defenses the way we expect? Or are we sailing into a surprise? A trap? Time will tell. We’ll see.

  Onshore, a British sergeant at a picket post near the top of the Heights raised his telescope to his eye to scan the lake on his regular fifteen-minute interval. Suddenly he tensed, and his arm shot up to point. “There!” he exclaimed to the three startled soldiers beside him. “A squadron! It has to be the Americans! The ones we were told about.”

  “How many?” blurted the corporal next to him.

  Seconds passed while the sergeant slowly moved his telescope, counting.

  “Thirteen ships, and it looks like they’re towing bateau! It’s them! Their main force! On a heading for York harbor! Send the message. Now!”

  The corporal snatched up his semaphore flags and raced up the ladder rungs to the small platform at the rear of the post. He faced due west and with the flags fluttering in the wind, spelled out the warning over and over again, “Thirteen enemy gunboats with bateau approaching York harbor—thirteen enemy gunboats approaching York harbor.”

  Four miles farther west, with the sun setting behind, the next picket post read the message, waited for it to repeat, then turned and relayed it to the next picket post. In early dusk, the message reached Major General Sir Roger Hale Sheaffe at his desk in the government building at York. Sheaffe, aging, balding, heavy-lidded eyes, long tapered nose, calmly rose from his chair and called for his assistant.

  “The American squadron is approaching. Assemble the war council.”

  Within minutes the six officers were gathered around the plain pinewood table in his small conference room, waiting in apprehensive silence.

  “Gentlemen, there is a squadron of thirteen American gunboats with bateau approaching from the east. The total firepower of their cannon is about triple what we have here, and their complement of soldiers is more than double our total fighting force.”

  Wide-eyed silence gripped the room while Shaeffe spread a map and tapped his finger on Scarborough Heights, east of York harbor. “They were seen here less than half an hour ago. I expect them to be in the harbor about sunrise. I am open to suggestions of how we deploy our forces to meet them.”

  For more than one hour the officers leaned intently over the map, gesturing, debating, exclaiming in the give and take that slowly shapes a plan the majority can agree with. The moon had risen before they shrugged into their capes and clamped their tricorns on their heads and walked out into the freezing wind and hurried across the parade grounds to the barracks to give the orders that brought groans and murmured cursing. In the blustering cold, red-coated regulars shouldered their backpacks and slung their muskets over their shoulders and marched to follow their officers to their assigned positions to face the attack. One half of them took positions on the east end of town, around the legislative buildings and the old blockhouse, while the other half went west, to positions near the lone cannon battery. The gray of approaching dawn found them hungry, shivering in the cold, wiping at dripping noses, peering west toward the entrance to harbor, still hidden in the dark. The black silhouettes of the sails of the American gunboats came with first light, and then the rising sun caught the tops of the masts with the American flags snapping in the southeast wind about one mile west of town, not far from the ruins of the ancient French fort and nearly one mile off shore. There, in the frigid wind, the red-coated regulars watched as the American flotilla dropped anchor.

  On board the American ships, the captains gave the orders, and soldiers went over the sides into the more than thirty bateaux, hunched down while the seamen rowed to gather around the Madison, waiting for the signal to start for the distant shore where General Sheaffe had positioned the Eighth Infantry to oppose them, supported by the Glengarry Light Infantry, a few Newfoundland Fencibles, and a scatter of Canadian militia.

  American general Zebulon Pike, thirty-four years of age, a rising star in the United States Army, whose brusque leadership had irritated some of his fellow officers, had been assigned to lead the assault. He was in the lead bateau with a company of Benjamin Forsyth’s riflemen when the signal was given to start for the distant Canadian shore, watching for the first glimpse of movement that would mean British troops waiting, or for a British Union Jack flying in the stiff wind that was blowing hard from the right, driving the bateau to their left, west, out of line with the place picked for the landing.

  They were two hundred yards from the shore when the first cloud of white smoke erupted on the shoreline, and the first musket balls came whistling, and then the rolling blast from the first volley of the British regulars. They were fifty yards closer to shore when the second volley came whining, and some men in the leading bateau groaned and sat down. Two paddles in the first bateau shattered while the others continued to dig into the choppy waters, oarsmen straining to cover the last distance to shore to get off the water where they were prime targets.

  They were yet fifteen yards from shore when the riflemen in the first two bateau went over the side into water up to their belts to get ashore, rifles high above their heads to keep the powder dry while musket balls kicked up geysers two feet high in the water all around them. Then, as in a dream, the first of them were on the land, dripping, kneeling, some going down while the others fired back with their deadly Pennsylvania long rifles, and British redcoats were going down and any sense of time was lost as the two major forces collided in hand-to-hand fighting and then the British lines began to buckle, then bent and backed up and broke, and the Americans stormed after them into the trees, leaving the invaders in control of the beach and the forest while the British beat a full retreat back toward the town.

  Back on the water, Adam stood fast on his quarterdeck while the last of the bateau broke away from the Margaret and started for the shore amidst the continuous rattle of musket and rifle fire. Adam raised his telescope and studied the collision of the two armies, and watched with growing hope as the British wavered then suddenly began their retreat.

  He turned and barked his orders, pointing ashore. “Weigh anchor! All canvas! Move west to that open ground between the woods and the town! Full speed! All gun crews! Load with canister. Stand by to fire!”

  Seamen threw their weight against the windlass, and the anchor chain rattled on deck as it came reeling in. The gun crews banged the gun ports open, jerked the knots loose, and backed their cannon away to jam the sacks of gunpowder down the muzzles, followed by the pouches filled with canister, then strained on the ropes to drag the cannon back into firing position. Seamen on the arms high above the deck unfurled the sails, and they dropped to catch the wind, popped full, and the big ship came alive, cutting a thirty-foot curl as she plowed east, toward the town and the open ground through which the British had to pass. The redcoated regulars broke from the trees at the same moment the Margaret came abreast of them and Adam shouted, “Fire!”

  The nineteen heavy cannon on the port side of the ship bucked and roared in unison, and the wind whipped the great cloud of white smoke aside. Adam and his gun crews saw the British soldiers buckle and go down as the canister shot spread to rip through the trees and into the running soldiers.

  As fast as seasoned hands could move, the gun crews on the Margaret reloaded and sent a second broadside of canister shot whistling ashore to knock the fleeing British rolling. The companies Sheaffe had stationed on the other side of York, the east side, came at a sprint, intending to meet those running the gauntlet of the cannon on the American ships, but they stopped in the town, hesitant at first, then refusing to be caught on the open ground being ra
ked by the heavy cannon on the American ships, now two hundred yards off shore, delivering a near continuous barrage of grape and canister shot.

  The lone British battery belatedly returned fire at the ships, and two American schooners held back, fearful of the heavy explosive cannonballs that came at them. It was on the third volley that someone in the British crew made the fatal mistake of allowing the smoking lanyard to touch the budge barrel, and the keg of powder exploded. When the smoke cleared, the gun had been blown off its mount, and the gun crew was yards away, lying dead or dying. The British battery never fired another shot.

  In the town, at the governor’s residence, Sheaffe saw it coming. His forces had no chance of surviving the driving attack coming from the west, led by Pike and the crack riflemen, in combination with the American gunboats now relentlessly pounding the retreating British regulars and the village with continuous cannon fire. Quickly he rallied his officers and turned to Colonel William Chewett.

  “Set fire to the main powder magazine. The gunpowder and munitions must be kept out of American hands. Then march your command to Kingston, on the Kingston Road. Do it now!”

  Chewett gaped. “Sir,” he stammered, “there are more than two hundred barrels of gunpowder in the magazine, besides other munitions. Enough to blow half the town away!”

  Sheaffe raised a warning finger. “Set it on fire and get away from it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sheaffe turned to Major William Allan. “Set fire to ship—the Sir Isaac Brock—and all the stores at the dockyard storehouses. We cannot let the ship or the supplies fall to the Americans. Then order your command to follow Colonel Chewett on the Kingston Road. Save your men. Do you both understand?”

  There was no time to argue the order. Chewett and Allan both turned on their heels and trotted out of the building, back to their command.

  Within twenty minutes, gray smoke was rising from the powder magazine, while the Sir Isaac Brock was in flames that were spreading in the wind, and the British regulars were east of town on the Kingston Road in full retreat. In the small village, the American soldiers had stopped among the crude log homes and buildings, in the dirt streets, winded, fighting for breath after their sprint from the forest across the open ground and into the town. They saw the smoke rising from the powder magazine and the ship at the far end of the docks, and from the huge piles of crated supplies on the wharves, and some of them were trotting toward the powder magazine to stop the fire.