by James Laxer
Aware of the vise closing in on his troops, Major General Van Rensselaer crossed the river to the Canadian side to hold a brief council with his officers. As he prepared to cross the river again to summon reinforcements, a number of panic-stricken American soldiers stormed his vessel and shoved off. When they reached the U.S. side of the river, they fled.
Meanwhile, as the British regulars, Canadian militiamen, and native warriors closed in on the U.S. troops on Queenston Heights, a fierce firefight erupted. The Americans resisted, but some of their officers were quick to favour retreat. After a final stand, the remnants of the American force that had crossed the river in the early hours of October 13 had no choice but to lay down their weapons.23
It took some time to halt the mopping-up by British forces, which in places was degenerating into slaughter. Some of the U.S. troops threw down their arms and ran for the boats on the shore, while others jumped off the cliff. Three times, the Americans sent forward men carrying a flag of truce in a desperate bid to get the message across that the fight was over. Some U.S. soldiers dove into the swift current of the Niagara River to try to swim to the other side as British troops and native warriors kept up a sporadic fire. At last, around 4:00 p.m., a British bugle call, repeated a number of times, stopped the shooting. The victorious British took a cache of American muskets and ammunition, as well as a 6-pounder, and sent a captured stand of New York militia colours to Britain to celebrate the triumph at Queenston.
Just two months after the fall of Fort Detroit, the battle along the Niagara River dealt a further blow to the American cause, not least to American national pride. Although no fully accurate numbers were available on the American side, Major General Van Rensselaer reported to Major General Dearborn that 60 U.S. soldiers died and 170 were wounded. During the following week, between eight hundred and one thousand Americans deserted their units across the river in New York.
Sheaffe’s force suffered nineteen casualties, including five warriors. Eighty-five were wounded; among those, between seven and nine were warriors from Grand River.24 In his dispatches, Sheaffe singled out the Iroquois, John Norton in particular, stating that they merited “the highest praise for their good order and spirit.”25 Later, as civil and military leader of Upper Canada, Sheaffe bestowed on Norton the rank of “Captain of the Confederate Indians,” the same rank held by Joseph Brant during the American Revolutionary War.26 Following the Battle of Queenston Heights, most of the Six Nations warriors returned to Grand River. Norton and a small party stayed at Niagara until the end of 1812. During this time, the Americans tried several attacks that came to nothing.27
Taken prisoner along with the other Americans at Queenston, Winfield Scott and the regulars were marched to Lower Canada, while the militiamen were released. A year later, Scott was sent back to the United States in a prisoner exchange. Known as “Old Fuss and Feathers,” Scott rose to hold the position of commanding general of the United States Army for twenty years, longer than any other officer to hold the rank. After the War of 1812, he wreaked havoc on the Cherokee Nation in 1836, during the administration of President Andrew Jackson. This exercise in ethnic cleansing became known as the Trail of Tears. During the Mexican War of 1846–48, Scott commanded the southern arm of the two U.S. armies. At the end of that conflict, he was appointed military commander of Mexico City. Following an unsuccessful run for the U.S. presidency in 1852, Scott stayed on as general-in-chief of the U.S. Army. He held that position at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, and devised the Anaconda Plan to defeat the Confederacy, a strategy that would be used by succeeding commanders of the U.S. Army. Finally, in November 1861, suffering from gout and rheumatism, weighing over three hundred pounds, and unable to mount his horse, Scott resigned his military office.
The day after his defeat, Van Rensselaer, with an eye on his future career, sent a lengthy letter from his headquarters at Lewiston to General Dearborn, setting out the best possible case for himself. He explained that on October 5 he had written to General Smyth “requesting an interview with him . . . for the purpose of conferring on the subject of future operations.” By October 10, he had learned that “General Smyth had not yet then agreed upon any day for the consultation.” The following day, Van Rensselaer wrote, “Orders were . . . sent to General Smyth to send down from Buffalo such detachment from his brigade as existing circumstances in that vicinity might warrant.” Following his extensive review of the course of the battle, which he claimed had resulted in victory for American arms until the very end, he concluded, “The enemy succeeded in repossessing their battery, and gaining advantage on every side. The brave men who had gained the victory, exhausted of strength and ammunition, and grieved at the unpardonable neglect of their fellow-soldiers gave up the conflict . . . I can only add, that the victory was really won, but lost for the want of a small reinforcement; one-third part of the idle men might have saved all.”28 But for lack of cooperation with Smyth and the consequent failure to maintain enough troops to finish the job, the day would have been Van Rensselaer’s, according to his own account.
Brock had celebrated his forty-third birthday a week before he rushed to Queenston to counter the American thrust across the Niagara. The body of the slain general lay in state prior to his interment at Fort George alongside Lieutenant Colonel John Macdonell, his aide-de-camp. On October 16, three days after the battle, a funeral procession conveyed the bodies of Brock and Macdonell from Government House to Fort George, where the caskets were lowered into graves prepared at the northeastern corner of the fortress. Lining the route of the procession were British soldiers, Canadian militiamen, and native warriors. In three salvos, the British fired a twenty-one-gun salute. The American garrison across the river at Fort Niagara fired its own salute out of respect for the fallen general. More than five thousand people were present for the funeral, a striking number considering the small population of Upper Canada in 1812.
The Quebec Gazette described the loss of General Brock as a “public calamity.” In Montreal, a newspaper warned darkly that the Americans “have created a hatred which panteth for revenge.”29
Brock was knighted in recognition of his leadership in the capture of Detroit. However, the news that he had been bestowed such an honour did not reach Fort George until a few days after he was killed. Thus he is known today as Sir Isaac Brock, though he himself was never aware that he bore the title.
Brock never set out to make himself a Canadian hero, but that is what he became. Along with Tecumseh, he changed the course of the history of the British colonies. The victories at Detroit and Queenston Heights refuted the American conceit that the capture of Canada would require no great military effort. While the populations of the Canadas would have to endure further invasions and periods of occupation in some regions until the end of the war, Canada’s connection to the British Empire was much more durable than the War Hawks had anticipated. That connection would endure, and out of it a new transcontinental country would emerge.
* * *
§§ Born in Berthier, Lower Canada, in 1791, the son of a United Empire Loyalist, the infant Robinson was moved with his family to Kingston, Upper Canada, and then to York. As a child he was sent to Kingston to pursue his studies. When he was twelve years old, his family dispatched him to Cornwall, where he lived and studied with Reverend John Strachan. Later to be the first Anglican bishop of Toronto, Strachan was a staunch supporter of the British Empire. He became a key member of the Family Compact and a fierce opponent of American republicanism and the institution of slavery in the United States.
Chapter 12
York in Flames
DETROIT AND QUEENSTON HEIGHTS threw Washington into turmoil. The Americans had started the war confident that their armies could seize Canada, or a large enough piece of Canadian territory that the British would be forced to the bargaining table and Tecumseh’s native confederacy would be pushed out of the war.
The
Madison administration had staked its political fortunes on the war. The president and his supporters could not allow two unexpected defeats to determine the outcome. Remaining firm in his commitment to the war, Madison led the United States through a political exercise that had been hitherto unknown in the history of the world, a democratic wartime election. It was a significant test of the durability of the United States Constitution, which had been drafted a quarter of a century before.
A month before the U.S. declared war on Great Britain in June 1812, a Democratic-Republican congressional nominating caucus picked Madison as its presidential candidate. A few days later, a caucus of dissident Democratic-Republicans chose DeWitt Clinton, the mayor of New York City and the lieutenant-governor of New York, as its standard-bearer. In September, a Federalist nominating caucus, meeting in New York City, decided after much wrangling to endorse Clinton for the presidency, seeing him as their best chance to defeat Madison.
During the election campaign, Clinton presented himself as an anti-war candidate in the Northeast, the region most opposed to the war, and as a pro-war candidate in the South and West, the regions where the war was popular. Madison carried eleven states, winning 128 electoral votes, while Clinton carried seven states. With the exception of Vermont, Clinton took all of New England, and prevailed in New York, New Jersey, and Delaware, winning a total of 89 electoral votes.
The military disasters at Detroit and Queenston Heights forced the Americans to rethink their approach to the war. In November 1812, from his estate at Monticello, former president Thomas Jefferson wrote a brief letter to President Madison, regretting that commanders in the field had sold Americans short. “Two of them have cost us a great many men,” he commented ruefully. “We can tell from his plumage whether a cock is dunghill or game. But with us, cowardice and courage wear the same plume. Hull will, of course, be shot for cowardice and treachery. And will not Van Rensselaer be broke for cowardice and capacity?”
On a more hopeful note, he reckoned that Dearborn and Harrison could fare better. They, at least, would have “no longer a Brock to encounter.” He concluded acidly, “If we could but get Canada to Trois rivieres [sic] in our hands we should have a set off against spoliations to be treated of, and in the mean time separate the Indians from them and set the friendly to attack the hostile part with our aid.”1 No longer in office, Jefferson understood just how lethal the combination of Brock and Tecumseh had been to the initial war plans of the United States.
In Washington, someone had to pay the price for the calamitous course of the war. In mid-December 1812, Secretary of War William Eustis’s offer to resign was swiftly accepted by President Madison. To temporarily fill the gap, Madison added the position of acting secretary of war to James Monroe’s duties as secretary of state. John Armstrong Jr. soon replaced Monroe as the secretary of war. As was the case with so many of the appointments made by the Madison administration in the early phase of the war, Armstrong, who had served in the militia during the American Revolutionary War, was widely distrusted in political circles. With his reputation for intrigue, Armstrong’s nomination as secretary of war was confirmed by the narrow margin of 18 to 15 in the U.S. Senate.2 With a new secretary of war in place, the administration could hope for a favourable turn in American military fortunes.
The year 1812 sputtered to its end with failed and relatively minor U.S. attempts to return to the offensive along the Niagara Frontier and an effort to launch an offensive toward Montreal that went nowhere. In December 1812, there was some speculation in the American press that Napoleon Bonaparte, whose Grande Armée had invaded Russia in June, was likely dictating peace terms in Moscow.3 In fact, despite having suffered huge casualties in the Battle of Borodino near Moscow in September, Czar Alexander I refused to capitulate. The overstretched French army faced a reinvigorated Russian force and began a disastrous retreat westward. In December, Napoleon abandoned his ravaged army and rushed back to Paris to secure his political position at home. Although much fighting still lay ahead in Europe, Napoleon’s Russian disaster was very good news for the British, who would now be able to send additional troops to fight the Americans. For that reason, Napoleon’s calamities dealt a blow to the United States.
While the Americans were drawing up plans during the winter of 1813 for the war campaign that would begin in the spring of 1813, there was action on the diplomatic front. On February 24, 1813, news reached Washington that the Russian government was offering to mediate an end to the war between the Americans and the British. In fact, the Russian effort had been underway for a number of months, but President Madison and Secretary of State Monroe were unaware of this because of slow communications. On March 8, Count Andrei Daschkov, the Russian minister to the United States, formally transmitted the offer to Monroe. Three days later, Monroe accepted the initiative, without consulting Congress.4 The president then appointed commissioners to negotiate with the British under the mediation of the Russians. The commissioners were Senator James A. Bayard, Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, and John Quincy Adams, who was then serving as the American minister to Russia.
The Madison administration was well aware that any initiative to end the conflict could take a very long time to yield results. In the meantime, Secretary of War John Armstrong crafted a military strategy with a multi-pronged attack on Upper Canada as its centrepiece. American military ambitions faced south as well as north. In February 1813, the U.S. Congress secretly approved the occupation of the Spanish territory of West Florida, east of New Orleans. On April 15, in a bloodless operation, the Americans seized Mobile and Fort Charlotte, on the Gulf of Mexico. West Florida turned out to be the only permanent acquisition of territory by the United States during the War of 1812, and there the foe was Spain, not Britain.
Turning to the more important northern front, on February 10, 1813, Secretary Armstrong sent a letter to Major General Henry Dearborn, commander of the U.S. Army’s Northern Department, outlining the president’s orders, “which you will immediately institute against Upper Canada.” Seven thousand troops were to be assembled for the attacks, just over four thousand of them at Sackets Harbor and three thousand in the vicinity of Buffalo.5
The first target was Kingston. The U.S. fleet on Lake Ontario was to transport the soldiers from Sackets Harbor to Kingston, whose “garrison and the British ships wintering in the harbor of that place, will be the first object.” The second object of the campaign was “York, the stores collected and the two frigates building there.” The posts on the Upper Canadian bank of the Niagara River, “Forts George and Erie, and their dependencies,” were to be the third object, and for its attainment there was to be “co-operation between the two corps.” The assaults were to begin with the opening of Lake Ontario to vessels, “which usually takes place about the first of April.”6
An essential part of the U.S. plan was to gain control of Lakes Ontario and Erie. Building local fleets on both lakes would allow the Americans to move men and supplies by water, which was much more manageable than travel by land — there were few roads, and the ones that existed were of poor quality. U.S. fleets could tie up the British in their ports. A few weeks after the fall of Detroit, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton chose Isaac Chauncey, a highly experienced forty-year-old naval captain, “to assume command of the naval force on Lakes Erie and Ontario, and to use every exertion to obtain control of them this fall.”7
Born in Connecticut in 1772, Chauncey had run away to sea at the age of twelve, and since then ships had been his life. He commanded vessels for John Jacob Astor’s fur trade empire when he was only nineteen. In 1798, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the newly established U.S. Navy. As the executive officer on the USS President and then on the USS Chesapeake, he saw action during the American war against the Barbary pirates, North African pirates whom the United States fought between 1801 and 1805 to halt attacks on American merchant vessels. In addition to his naval experience, Chauncey
was a skilled shipbuilder, a talent that Hamilton was counting on when he picked him for the task on the Great Lakes.8
As soon as Chauncey arrived at Sackets Harbor in mid-November 1812, he took vigorous control of the U.S. fleet there and reported to Hamilton that his ships had driven British vessels into harbours on Lake Ontario. “We have now the command of the lake,” Chauncey wrote, “and that we can transport troops and stores to any part of it without any risk of an attack from the enemy.”9
The Americans soon dropped the idea of beginning their assault on Upper Canada at Kingston. Armstrong received reports from General Dearborn that the British had been moving companies of the 1st Royal Scots, the 8th Regiment, and the Voltigeurs Canadiens west to Kingston. Armstrong had reckoned the British force at Kingston at no more than two thousand men. Dearborn convinced him that the enemy had concentrated six or seven thousand men, three thousand of whom were British regulars, at the strongpoint at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. The general feared that the British could launch an assault on the American post at Sackets Harbor, which lay on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario just across from Kingston. Instead, the Americans decided to attack York first.10
Apart from its symbolic significance as the capital of Upper Canada, York was not of much military value. The only real prize was the warship Sir Isaac Brock, which was being slowly and rather ineffectually built, in part from the remains of the dismantled Duke of Gloucester, which had been damaged in a naval engagement against a U.S. ship the previous July.
Sir Roger Sheaffe, the general who had replaced Brock at Queenston, commanded the British forces at York. The seven hundred men at his disposal comprised a company of the Glengarry Light Infantry Fencibles, a company-sized unit of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, the 3rd York Regiment of Militia, and about fifty Mississauga and Chippewa warriors. In addition, there were three hundred dockyard workers.11
