by Mark Zuehlke
Disaster befell the British when they attempted to rally around the westernmost artillery battery only to have it accidentally blown apart when a gunner dropped his match into a wooden chest containing one of the gun’s magazines. Confused and demoralized, the British retreated in disarray toward Government House. Pike drew his men up before the blockhouse shortly after noon, quickly knocked out the single artillery battery, and prepared to storm the remaining strongpoint. Realizing further resistance was futile, Sheaffe decided to run for it with his regulars to the protection of Kingston. He ordered that the British flag remain flying over the blockhouse to give his men time to get away and left a party to blow up the magazine. York would be sacrificed to save his precious regulars.
Pike was interrogating a British prisoner about a hundred yards from the magazine when there was a terrific detonation. Finan of the Newfoundland Regiment, near the rear of the British line, turned to see “an immense cloud” rising from where the magazine stood. “A great confused mass of smoke, timber, earth … assumed the shape of a vast balloon.” A giant chunk of stone smashed Pike down and literally crushed the life out of him. British and Americans alike were killed and wounded by a deadly hail of debris.20 The Americans estimated 40 of their own were killed and more than 200 wounded by the explosion. What few medical men were ashore “waded in blood, cutting off arms, legs, and trepanning heads,” one surgeon wrote, who himself “cut and slashed for 48 hours without food or sleep” before all the injured were treated.21
Had Sheaffe not been in the midst of flight, he might have wheeled about and put in an attack after the explosion that could have carried the day. But he was already on the outskirts of York, pausing only so long as it took to tell the senior militia commanders present that it was their responsibility to contact the Americans and arrange terms for surrendering the town. This they did, but first they obeyed Sheaffe’s additional order to burn Sir Isaac Brock.
The Americans were in a foul mood because of the casualties suffered when the magazine exploded and the fact that the ship they had hoped to capture was burned, but their commanders held them back from occupying York until terms of the capitulation were signed the next day. Under the agreement, private property was to be protected while all public property was subject to forfeiture. But the occupation soon turned sour as troops ran rampant looting empty houses, vandalizing property, and bullying unarmed citizens. The legislative building, Government House, and most of the military barracks were burned, the government printing press smashed, and the £2,000 in the public treasury commandeered. They floated Duke of Gloucester off as a prize. A large amount of military stores—much intended to resupply the British forces on Lake Erie—was loaded aboard Chauncey’s boats.22 On May 2, the Americans embarked their ships but were then trapped in the harbour until May 8 by a heavy gale.
Although Chauncey’s fleet sailed that day to Fort Niagara and put soldiers ashore to carry out the planned attack on Fort George, they were too “sickly and depressed” to immediately carry out the operation. Dearborn sent Chauncey back to Sackets Harbor to gather reinforcements, for he had lost 320 killed and wounded at York. Meanwhile, he and his men would “recruit their health and their spirits.” In a letter to Armstrong, the general said his intention was “to collect the main body of troops at this place and, as soon as Commodore Chauncey returns and the forces from Oswego arrive, to commence operations in a spirited and effectual a manner as practicable.”23
This effort was launched when Chauncey’s fleet returned on May 25 and subjected the fort to a heavy bombardment. Before the American attackers could overwhelm the defences, Brig. Gen. John Vincent ordered the fort abandoned. After spiking the cannon and destroying the ammunition, the British and Canadian militia withdrew to the safety of a new position near Beaver Dams.
FIFTEEN
A Succession of Defeats
SUMMER 1813
The burning of York and the fact that Commodore Isaac Chauncey’s fleet was “capable of commanding every port on the lakes and in actual possession of the Niagara frontier shores” cast a pall of gloom over Upper Canada. Settlers and British soldiers alike reflected on the loss of Fort George and the defeat at York and could hardly consider that anything “but the entire evacuation of the western peninsula seemed possible.” Morale in the British ranks was low. Most of the militiamen were frantically sowing their fields and worried that the inevitable call-out would result in yet another crop going unharvested. If they did not die on a blood-soaked battlefield, they and their families were likely to starve in the coming winter.1 There was little cause to think that the American tide could be turned back. Everywhere large American forces gathered, poised to cut through the thin red lines that could hardly be expected to hold back their onslaught.
On the western frontier, newly promoted Maj. Gen. William Henry Harrison had constructed a major fort just below the Maumee Rapids to serve as a strong base for his spring operations. At Presque Isle, Oliver Hazard Perry and a handful of men were hammering together several ships that would enable the Americans to challenge British domination of Lake Erie. From Amherstburg on the lake’s northwestern shore Henry Procter, whose victory over James Winchester had brought promotion to brigadier general at the young age of twenty-six, watched this American industriousness with growing concern.
The British situation on Lake Erie was precarious. While Harrison had relatively secure supply lines stretching back to Ohio, and Perry could draw on the American West’s main industrial centre of Pittsburgh only about 150 miles to the south, Procter depended on a supply route that passed through the threatened Niagara Peninsula. Normally he would feed his troops by local purchase, but the militia call-out the previous fall had resulted in serious losses to the autumn harvest. The forthcoming American attack could only worsen this critical food shortage.
Procter was short of men and supplies of every sort, but his appeals to Governor Sir George Prevost went largely unanswered. Not only did he lack supplies for his men, as the region’s civil administrator he could not provide for the needs of either the settlers or the Indians. The latter had begun gathering at Amherstburg with the melting of the snows, responding to a call sent throughout the confederacy by Tecumseh. On April 17, the warrior chief had walked into Procter’s headquarters. It had been seven months since the two men had last met. Always ambivalent about the Indians, Procter both respected and feared Tecumseh. Though he distrusted their loyalty, failing to recognize that the confederacy did not share British war aims, his lack of troops required him to rely on them as allies.2 The British could never prevail on the frontier without Indian support, but their support came at a price. Procter must be seen to be carrying the fight to the Americans. Tecumseh and his chiefs saw no value in a defensive war. Only through offensive action could they regain the lands stolen by the Americans through war and deceit. Tecumseh came seeking word of where the next attack would fall, not to hear that Procter preferred to sit in Amherstburg and Fort Malden and wait for Harrison to strike.
Despite Prevost’s instruction to Procter that a defensive strategy was preferred, the newly appointed brigadier had no intention of complying unless directly ordered. Nothing in his instructions restricted spoiling raids like those he had led against Winchester. An attack on Fort Meigs could nip Harrison in the bud, gaining Procter most of the summer to beg more supplies and men and also to give the militiamen opportunity to sow their seed for the autumn harvest.
Consequently, on April 28, Procter loaded 550 regulars, 464 militia, and 63 fencibles aboard two gunboats, six other vessels, and a flotilla of bateaux and crossed the lake to the mouth of the Maumee River. There, they joined 1,500 confederacy warriors under Tecumseh’s command. While the troops and warriors moved toward the fort on a mud-drenched track with oxen dragging a small number of cannon, the two gunboats laboriously worked their way into the river to bring the fort into range of the nine-pounder gun each mounted.3
The British erected gun batteries on each side of the
river and along with the gunboats pounded away at the fort while Tecumseh’s warriors took up positions to the south of its walls and fired on the parapets with muskets. Investing the fort by direct assault would be suicidal, for it was stoutly constructed and Harrison’s garrison appeared determined to fight. Procter hoped instead to subdue it through bombardment. Between May 1 and May 5, 1,600 shots hit the fort with little effect.
Harrison knew that help would soon arrive, if he could hold out. In the early morning hours, Brig. Gen. Green Clay and 1,200 Kentucky troops aboard eighteen flat-bottomed boats shot the rapids above the fort. Most landed on the north bank and overran the British batteries. Prevost counterattacked with the 41st Regiment supported by Tecumseh’s warriors. A bloody melee ensued as the redcoats and Indians broke the Kentucky line and routed them into the forest. About 450 surrendered while only 150 of the 800 who had landed on that side of the river regained their boats and escaped. The surviving Kentucky troops soon withdrew into the safety of the fort, managing to carry in only a small amount of supplies. The rest were quickly plundered by the Indians.4
As had proved true after the Raisin River battle, Procter made poor allowances for protection of his captives, merely removing them to the ruins of Fort Miami on the river’s mouth and placing them under the guard of a handful of men. Soon a party of Indians, who mostly had played no part in the battle, burst in and began tomahawking the helpless men. Hearing their screams, Tecumseh ran to the building and threatened to kill any warrior who continued murdering prisoners. About a dozen Americans were killed before Tecumseh’s intervention. The warrior chief also had to prevent a party of Wyandot warriors from torturing and executing four Shawnee who had fought alongside the Kentucky troops. He shook each man’s hand, promised them safe passage home, and provided them with protection.5
Procter won a tactical victory on May 5, but this success did little to alter the situation. Harrison was still unassailable inside his fort and had been modestly reinforced. Meanwhile, the Canadian militia, who made up almost half Procter’s force, announced that they had to return home to start sowing crops—something the brigadier badly wanted, too. Great numbers of the Indian warriors were already departing, heading home to deliver the captured goods. Reluctantly, Procter lifted the siege on May 9 and returned to Amherstburg. Between those lost as prisoners and those killed or wounded, the Americans suffered 1,000 casualties, while the British counted only 15 killed, 46 wounded, and 41 taken prisoner.6 But the inequity of the butcher’s bill failed to mitigate the fact that Procter had failed in his purpose. Harrison still threatened the Erie frontier.
On the vital front of the Niagara Peninsula, critical to the continuance of British support for Procter, Brig. Gen. John Vincent—who now commanded the region—watched the American buildup at Fort Niagara with trepidation. Barely 1,000 yards of Niagara River separated the two forts, and ranks of cannon bristled on the opposing shores and along the fortress walls. The little village of Niagara, standing alongside the mouth of the Niagara, lay between Fort George and Lake Ontario. Directly opposite, the American bastion hulked. Seldom did either side bother firing shot across the water. Both husbanded their limited supply. Vincent was badly outnumbered, the Fort George garrison numbering only about 1,000 regulars and 300 militiamen. The fort itself was rundown. If Chauncey brought the American lake fleet into play its naval guns would easily demolish the walls. His only option was to anticipate where the Americans would land and to meet them on the beaches. That was where the battle would be decided.
The dawn of May 25 was signalled by the harsh thundering roll of cannon firing from the batteries directly facing Fort George—hot shot, designed to set anything wooden alight. Within minutes fires raged within every single barrack. The American guns fired for the next two days, sometimes continuously, more often by fits and starts.
Vincent anxiously watched the river for signs that the Americans might force a crossing under protection of the fortress guns. At the same time he nervously looked to his left, knowing that they more likely would come at him from there aboard Chauncey’s damnable fleet that sailed Lake Ontario with smug impunity. He had to keep pickets out along both shores and man the gun batteries covering each line of approach. The British were stretched desperately thin. Fort Niagara’s guns banged continuously, fraying nerves and setting more fires. On the second day of the bombardment thick fog cloaked the lake and river. Vincent could see nothing beyond the hazy shoreline. Then, shortly after dawn on May 27, the fog lifted and there stood Chauncey’s fleet in a great arc.
The American soldiers had boarded the ships the previous day, using the covering fog to close on Fort George. Lacking breeze, the sailors had rowed the vessels toward the British shore. It had taken longer than hoped, the dawn had beaten them and the fog had lifted. No surprise was achieved. But Vincent’s screen of troops was terribly thin, most held at the fort to meet an attack from either direction. Hundreds of Americans poured off the ships into landing boats and paddled hard for shore. Vincent sent 170 Glengarrians, light troops trained to move fast, to intercept them.
Typically, Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn had claimed illness and turned command over to his brigadiers John Boyd, William Winder, and John Chandler. That was the order by which they were to take their respective brigades ashore in lifts—more than 4,000 troops. But the initial landing was led by Dearborn’s adjutant general, the recently exchanged Col. Winfield Scott, who had been taken prisoner at Queenston Heights. Scott was at the head of a detachment of New York riflemen commanded by Capt. Benjamin Forsyth, sharpshooters clad in green uniforms.
The Americans landed east of the mouth of Two Mile Creek, about 1,000 yards west of Niagara. As they spilled from the boats and clambered up a steep bank, the Glengarrians met them with bayonets and musket shot. Narrowly dodging a bayonet thrust, Scott tumbled into the water. But others gained the high ground and pushed the light troops back, forcing them in on the lines of the reinforcing King’s Regiment of Foot commanded by Maj. James Ogilvie.
Behind Scott’s riflemen Boyd’s brigade landed and spread out into fighting formation—too many for the British to repel. Vincent ordered a fighting withdrawal to delay the American advance long enough to spike the guns and destroy the ammunition stores. After three hours of intense fighting, Vincent’s men retreated toward Queenston. They left behind 52 dead and another 300 wounded or missing. The Americans had taken Fort George at a cost of just 150 casualties. Vincent gave up the Niagara Peninsula, withdrawing to Burlington Heights at the head of Lake Ontario from where he could threaten their control of the region.
The Americans had achieved a major victory, but Dearborn failed to exploit it by reboarding Chauncey’s ships and getting behind Vincent to force a battle that would eliminate the British army. Instead he allowed it to escape and remain a threat.7
Poor weather contributed to Dearborn’s lack of initiative. Heavy rain and weak winds left Chauncey’s sailors bedraggled and becalmed. Then, two days after the capture of Fort George, Chauncey received the news that Sackets Harbor was under attack, his precious base in jeopardy and even more the still-under-construction General Pike. Chauncey raised sails, deployed the sweeps and made best speed toward home, abandoning Dearborn’s army.
Surprisingly, the attack on Sackets Harbor was Sir George Prevost’s work. On May 25, hearing of the cannonade fired against Fort George, he decided on a diversionary attack of his own. With 800 men, he and Commodore Sir James Yeo sailed from Kingston. Prevost hoped to destroy the dockyard and the corvette under construction. Bedevilled by light winds, Yeo’s ships did not near the fort until just before nightfall, so Prevost decided to delay landing until morning. Yeo, who had combined operations experience, argued that keeping soldiers in the holds through the night would wear them out more than landing them immediately. The element of surprise the British now enjoyed would also be lost, giving the Americans time to call up their militia. Blithely dismissing Yeo’s concerns, the governor took to his bed.
; Come morning, Yeo’s prediction proved out as tired, dispirited British troops were met by a force of about 500 militiamen. Although the Americans were easily pushed back, every inch of ground was still contested, slowing the advance. Yeo, meanwhile, was prevented by an offshore breeze from bringing his ships into position to shell the dockyard. After three hours of hot fighting, Prevost ordered a retreat while declaring the enemy beaten. He seized three captured six-pound guns and 154 prisoners. The redcoats fell back unwillingly, bearing off 154 wounded and leaving 47 dead and 16 men missing. “Tired, hungry, wet and thirsty, highly mystified and looking very sheepish at one another,” the veteran troops believed they could have won the day under a bolder commander.8
The attack on Sackets Harbor achieved nothing in real currency, but it succeeded in one sense by the panic it instilled in Chauncey’s mind. On June 11, he wrote to Secretary of the Navy William Jones that he had been “prepared to proceed in quest of the enemy, but upon mature reflection, I determined to remain in this place and preserve the new ship at all hazards.” Suddenly Yeo was master of Lake Ontario. At least until Chauncey mustered his resolve and ventured forth.9
Unable to move men by ship, Dearborn ordered his army to pursue Vincent marching along the shore of Lake Ontario while he remained in Fort George. Refusing to relinquish command despite increasingly failing health, he sent Chandler and Winder forward with about 3,500 men and no clear instructions as to which man was in charge. Both were political appointees—Chandler a congressman who had been a blacksmith and then a tavernkeeper, Winder a Baltimore lawyer.10 Despite inarguable superiority of force, the two officers advanced gingerly, with cavalry well ahead, stopping at the slightest threat to conduct lengthy reconnaissance. Pausing at Forty Mile Creek, about two-thirds of the way between Fort George and Burlington Heights, they dallied to establish a supply depot to support the next stage of the advance. Then the Americans advanced another fifteen miles to Stoney Creek, encamping there on June 5.
