by Mark Zuehlke
Knowing this, the British naval commander, Capt. Robert Heriot Barclay, kept vessels standing off the bay at all times. An experienced officer, Barclay had lost an arm at Trafalgar and his career had since suffered. Middle-aged, he was still only a commander, his captaincy temporary and contingent on continued command of the Lake Erie fleet—a fleet that was poor at best. Barclay had two main fighting ships afloat, the 12-gun Lady Prevost and the 18-gun Queen Charlotte. At Amherstburg he was building the larger Detroit. But Barclay was hampered by the same personnel shortages that dogged Perry. Worse, the ship’s guns had been lost during the American raid on York, along with many stores Barclay’s little fleet sorely needed.4 If Perry got loose from Presque Isle, Barclay would be hard pressed to retain control of the lake. So he had to keep the blockade cork firmly in place.
While the two naval commanders glared at each other across the sandbar, Maj. Gen. Henry Procter had come to the demoralizing conclusion that his superiors were ready to cede the Lake Erie frontier, at least temporarily, to the Americans. When Maj. Gen. Francis de Rottenburg assumed command in Upper Canada, he advised Procter that should the Americans gain control of Lake Ontario he intended to withdraw east of Kingston. Procter and his men, de Rottenburg said, would escape via Lake Huron to Lake Superior. There they could commandeer North West Company canoes and follow a tortuous old river route that would eventually bring them safely to Montreal.
Stunned by these defeatist instructions, Procter had immediately gone over de Rottenburg’s head to Governor Sir George Prevost. If the British abandoned Lake Erie, he argued in a July 11 letter, they would lose the support of Tecumseh’s confederacy. Procter wanted to seize the initiative on Lake Erie by capturing Perry’s fleet at Presque Isle. But that demanded reinforcement from the east.5
Over the next two days, Procter discussed matters with Tecumseh. As the warrior chief preferred, they met in the open. Tecumseh sat comfortably on the ground, legs crossed, smoking his tomahawk-pipe. Both men treated the other coolly. The failure at Fort Meigs had distanced them more than ever. Never sure what to think of his ally and always a poor communicator, Procter found explaining his strategy difficult. Tecumseh little trusted the British general and doubted his competency. The Fort Meigs failure, he believed, had resulted from a lack of both skill and will on the part of the British. Tecumseh wanted to try again and was uninterested in Procter’s notion that attacking the smaller Fort Stephenson on the Sandusky River would be easier. What would success there accomplish? Presque Isle and Fort Meigs were where the Americans were concentrated. Even most of Procter’s officers saw no utility in an operation on the Sandusky.
Procter argued that it was impossible to transport heavy siege guns to breach the walls at Fort Meigs, but Fort Stephenson was poorly constructed and its garrison small. A victory there would keep Harrison on the defensive.
Tecumseh wanted to destroy Harrison and his army. Scouts kept him informed of the American dispositions. At Fort Meigs there were about 2,000 troops under command of Brig. Gen. Green Clay. Harrison was nine miles up the Sandusky River at Seneca Town with about the same number. From here the American commander could reinforce either Fort Meigs or Fort Stephenson. Although Harrison had overall numerical superiority, Tecumseh had more warriors than Clay had soldiers.
For the past two months the confederacy had been gathering at Amherstburg and Fort Malden, and now 3,000 warriors waited impatiently for action. The warriors would not stay put for long unless given a chance to fight. Looking at Procter, Tecumseh lowered his pipe and sardonically suggested that if the British could not breach the walls at Fort Meigs they should supply his warriors with shovels to dig a trench into the fort.
Procter started hectoring the chief. Suddenly Tecumseh angrily shook the tobacco from his pipe and jumped to his feet. “What does he say?” the warrior harshly demanded of the Indian agent who was translating. The agent put a restraining hand on Tecumseh’s arm. “Never mind what he says,” the man said gently.
Finally Tecumseh, who had proposed the trench merely to embarrass Procter and truly doubted a siege could succeed, proposed a deception plan. The appearance of a large force before the fort must prompt Clay to ask Harrison for reinforcement. So the aim would be to ambush the relief column. If, however, Harrison did not immediately send troops, the Indians and British would conduct a mock battle along the reinforcement route. Clay, believing the relief force under attack, would undoubtedly come to its rescue. Outside the safety of their walls, the Americans could be destroyed.
Procter reluctantly agreed to the plan.6 But his lack of enthusiasm was expressed by the token numbers he committed. On July 20, Procter set out with just 300 men and a few small guns. Moving alongside the boats carrying the British were 3,000 warriors in canoes, a vast flotilla that darkened the water and warned Clay that Fort Meigs was in jeopardy.7The general sent a courier to inform Harrison that he was about to face a siege. Shortly before the British and Indians appeared in the woods around the fort on July 25, Harrison’s reply arrived. Help would soon be on its way.
The next day, Tecumseh’s warriors divided into two groups on each side of the track that a relief column would travel and embarked on a good imitation of a battle. Muskets fired, warriors whooped and cried. Inside the fort the troops could well imagine their comrades being massacred. Guns were shouldered, the men anxious to run to their rescue. But Clay ordered them to stand down. He smelled a rat. How could Harrison have responded so quickly? Hours passed, the gunfire and shouts became more ragged, and then stilled entirely. The deception had failed.8
Procter and Tecumseh kept the fort surrounded for two days, but clearly the Americans intended to stay put. Nor did a relief column present itself for ambush. Harrison would not move unless forced to do so. Too many Americans had been slaughtered in the past trying to march in column through this country’s dense woods. Soon his scouts reported that the British and Indians had moved instead, heading toward Fort Stephenson.
The fort was a cluster of little wooden buildings linked by a weak palisade around which a ditch had been dug. Inside were just 160 United States regulars commanded by twenty-one-year-old Maj. George Croghan, who had fought with Harrison at Tippecanoe. His artillery consisted of a single six-pound gun. Against the thousands of Indians headed his way Croghan stood little chance. Harrison ordered the major to set the fort alight and fall back on Seneca Town, seven miles upriver. The courier carrying the order, however, lost his way and the message did not reach Croghan until after nightfall. Nearby the British gathered, and Indians were detected in the woods. Croghan read the note in a fury. He sought glory, had sworn to “defend this post to the last extremity.” His reply to Harrison was terse. The orders were too late, there was no time to retreat. “We have determined to maintain this place and by heavens we can.”9
Upon receiving the message, Harrison ordered Croghan relieved of command for disobedience, but it was too late to withdraw the garrison. Battle was joined on August 1 when Procter opened with a barrage by three six-pounders and two five-and-a-half-inch mortars. The shot bounced ineffectually off the palisade. Procter by now had little faith in success. Once he left Fort Meigs the majority of the Indians, including Tecumseh, had drifted off into the woods. Tecumseh still thought an attack on Fort Stephenson pointless and would play no part in it. Only about 300 warriors remained.
In the mid-afternoon the British general decided that the guns had achieved all they could and formed his infantry and the Indians into three columns that moved toward the fort at “double-quick time” under the lingering cover of cannon smoke. Croghan ordered the defenders to hold fire until the British were within 150 feet. As the redcoats and warriors reached the defensive ditch Croghan unleashed the first volley. Muskets flared along the length of the palisade’s top and out of loopholes lower down, and the single cannon loosed a devastating cluster of grapeshot. Immediately the Indians realized the hopelessness of the situation and withdrew. But the redcoats kept coming on. They were of th
e 41st Regiment of Foot, tough troops with long service in Canada and great discipline. Into the smoke and rain of steel they pressed, some even reaching the fort wall. But there were no fascines or ladders to climb it, the axes too dull to hack through it. Many suffered multiple wounds before finally falling. With darkness the attack collapsed.10 Procter retreated to Amherstburg. The losses were horrific. Of approximately 250 British that went into the attack, 96 were killed or wounded.11 The Americans claimed to have found 50 corpses in the ditch. Croghan went from facing summary court martial for disobeying a direct order to being a national hero and celebrity.12
Procter left the battlefield with tears running down his cheeks at the sight of so many of his men dead on the ground. But his subsequent reports on the action expressed little remorse for launching an obviously doomed attack that had sent his men into “the severest fire I ever saw.” Instead he claimed that the Indians had deserted the British, in fact “scarcely came into Fire, before they ran off out of its Reach.” Yet the attack had been made at their insistence and to not have done so “would have ever stigmatized the British Character.” Finally the losses suffered, he argued, represented “a more than adequate sacrifice … made to Indian opinion.” He closed by appealing for more men.13
Prevost’s response was scathing. “I cannot refrain from expressing my regret at your having allowed the clamour of the Indian Warriors to induce you to commit a part of your valuable force in an unequal & hopeless combat.
“You cannot be ignorant of the limited nature of the force at my disposal, for the defence of an extensive frontier & ought therefore not to count too largely upon my disposition to strengthen the right division [Procter’s command].” He urged Procter and Captain Barclay to work together “in honourably surmounting … the numerical superiority of the enemy’s force.” In closing he pointed out that Commodore James Yeo’s conduct on Lake Ontario should inspire Barclay “only to dare & the Enemy is discomfited.”14
Prevost’s claim that Yeo had engaged in an act of daring greatly stretched the truth. Throughout July the British commodore had trolled Lake Ontario in a vain attempt to embarrass Commodore Isaac Chauncey into coming out of the shelter of Sackets Harbor to give battle. But the American refused the challenge, content to wait until his flagship General Pike was ready. While Yeo could claim mastery of the lake during the early summer, there was scant value in it as the army was in no position to carry out offensive operations. And inevitably Chauncey would venture forth. When he did, control of the lake would shift to the Americans.
There was nothing Yeo could do to prevent this unless he was blessed with inordinate good fortune. It was simply a straightforward outcome of the strength of the American squadron on the lake compared to that of the British. Yeo had six vessels that varied in size and sailing rig but were all able enough warships and capable of working well together in formation. Chauncey had more vessels, but they were a hodgepodge of types. Ten were civilian schooners of various sizes that had been converted into fighting ships simply by loading them up with cannon. There were also three corvettes, including General Pike, which were fighting ships. The great weight of the guns rendered the schooners sluggish in response to their sails, and all the crews were poorly trained, so the ability of the ships to manoeuvre as a squadron was poor. This reduced the value of Chauncey’s superior numbers. The American’s trump card lay in the type of guns his ships carried, for of the two principal classes of naval cannon available in 1813, Chauncey had the type best suited for lake warfare. His ships mounted long guns, which in accordance to their designation had long range but fired a fairly light shot. Yeo’s ships were fitted out with carronades, short-ranged cannon that fired heavy shot.
So long as Chauncey stayed beyond range of Yeo’s ships, he could batter the British at will. Yeo’s only chance was to get right in among the American vessels, and to achieve that he would require a strong breeze combined with an advantageous position to enable his ships to close before Chauncey could escape. Another advantage would come Yeo’s way if he could force a fight at extremely close range. The cannon on the American schooners were mounted on the decks, and these ships, having not been intended for combat, lacked the bulwarks common to warships that protected crews from enemy fire. Sailors on the schooner decks were exposed from the feet up, and carronades fired a type of shot perfect for butchering ship.’ crews—canister. A case usually packed with small iron balls—when these were unavailable, nails, spikes, or any scraps of iron sufficed—canister separated upon being discharged to spray a wide area in the same manner as buckshot. Its ability to maim or kill men caught in the open was terrific. But its range was extremely short and it was easily blunted. A six-inch-thick bulwark was sufficient armour.
The long gun was not as good a killing weapon. It generally fired solid shot intended to smash holes in hulls, split masts, and tear down rigging. Cumulative damage, literally bashing the opposing ship into bits and pieces, was the key to success. Each American schooner carried only a small number of guns, so had only limited hitting power. General Pike was entirely different. She was big: displacement 875 tons, length 146 feet, beam 37 feet, crew 300. Twenty-six guns that fired shot weighing 24 pounds. A single broadside striking any of the British ships would wreak havoc.15 In the right circumstance, this colossus could single-handedly sink Yeo’s entire squadron. Yeo determined to avoid a direct contest.
On July 20, Chauncey boarded General Pike and led the American squadron out onto Lake Ontario. About 2,000 sailors manned the ships. Chauncey sailed with a purpose. Stopping at Fort Niagara, he took on board almost 2,000 soldiers, intending to carry out an amphibious assault on Brig. Gen. John Vincent’s supply depot at Burlington. When the depot appeared too strongly defended, Chauncey cancelled the attack, sailing instead to York. Left defenceless after the last raid, the town was easily occupied on July 31. A few storehouses were burned and some property seized, but there was little profit in the action. Chauncey attacked York not for its worth but to throw a gauntlet in Yeo’s direction.
Chauncey returned to Fort Niagara and unburdened his vessels of the soldiers and plunder. When he turned about on August 7, Yeo was there with his two corvettes, two brigs, and two large schooners. Chauncey had the corvettes Madison and General Pike, the brig Oneida, and ten schooners. As night fell the two commanders manoeuvred for advantage, Yeo trying to close and Chauncey seeking to bring the British into range of the long guns but avoid getting tangled in a dogfight. At two in the morning a heavy squall started battering both squadrons. Suddenly the two schooners Hamilton and Scourge, which collectively mounted nineteen guns and were Chauncey’s best vessels of this class, capsized. This calamity resulted in part because the weight of the guns rendered the vessels top-heavy. All but sixteen men aboard drowned. After this accident Chauncey decided that Yeo enjoyed superiority, but breaking would look like running. In his calculations, Chauncey neglected to factor in the vast firepower of General Pike or even that of Madison, with its fourteen 18-pounders.
Seeing matters more clearly, Yeo carefully kept the wind to his advantage and avoided closing on the big ships. Instead he prowled out of range, seeking an opportunity to cut a couple of the schooners out of the pack. His opportunity came late the night of August 10, when Growler and Julia, appearing to bore of the long and tedious exercise in manoeuvre, broke out of Chauncey’s formation and cut across the British line. Yeo immediately came about and all six British ships bore down on the schooners, which were now hopelessly separated from the American squadron. Their commanders ordered the colours struck, and Yeo had a couple of prizes.16
He failed, however, to bring Chauncey to battle. Nor could the American force a contest that ensured the advantage he sought. All the rest of August and then most of September the two squadrons warily circled each other to no effect. Chauncey reported that it seemed Yeo was intent on picking off the schooners one by one, “and as his vessels in squadron sail better than our squadron, he can always avoid an action.”17
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On Lake Erie, Capt. Robert Barclay could not avoid battle. Critically short of seamen to crew his ships and needing provisions, Barclay had rolled the dice in a calculated gamble and lost. For three days, from August 2 to 4, he lifted the blockade at Presque Isle, thinking that Perry was not yet finished constructing Lawrence and Niagara.
Realizing the opportunity presented, the young American officer ordered the guns stripped from the two big ships to reduce their draft and wrapped anything he could find that might serve as a float around the hulls. On August 5, before Barclay’s return, Perry floated the ships over the sandbar. The American squadron was loose.
Too weak in ships and sailors to immediately challenge Perry, Barclay concentrated on finishing the brig Detroit. He also wanted to avoid a fight until the arrival of a party of one naval officer and about fifty British seamen reported to be en route from Kingston. This would much bolster his ranks, which numbered just seven British sailors and 108 Canadians of the Provincial Marine. Added to these men who knew boats were 160 British regulars provided by Procter to fill out the crews. But they were all infantrymen with no experience handling cannon, rigging sails, or much else in the way of useful skills.
Perry was not much better off. Chauncey had agreed that a complement of 740 seamen was needed to man the new brigs and eight schooners that formed the Lake Erie squadron. Yet he detailed only 490 men, 140 of whom were soldiers. Still, game to draw Barclay out to fight, Perry established a makeshift base at Put-in-Bay, about 30 miles southeast of Amherstburg, and spent the end of August parading past the village and Fort Malden in a clear demonstration of his mastery of the lake. Barclay refused to be drawn.
