CHAPTER VII.
The new Secretaries of War and Navy who took office in January, 1813, were able in the following October to show Detroit recovered. Nine months solved the problem of Lake Erie. The problem of Lake Ontario remained insoluble.
In theory nothing was simpler than the conquest of Upper Canada. Six months before war was declared, Jan. 2, 1812, John Armstrong, then a private citizen, wrote to Secretary Eustis a letter containing the remark,—
“In invading a neighboring and independent territory like Canada, having a frontier of immense extent; destitute of means strictly its own for the purposes of defence; separated from the rest of the empire by an ocean, and having to this but one outlet,—this outlet forms your true object or point of attack.”
The river St. Lawrence was the true object of attack, and the Canadians hardly dared hope to defend it.
“From St. Regis to opposite Kingston,” said the Quebec “Gazette” in 1814, “the southern bank of the river belongs to the United States. It is well known that this river is the only communication between Upper and Lower Canada. It is rapid and narrow in many places. A few cannon judiciously posted, or even musketry, could render the communication impracticable without powerful escorts, wasting and parcelling the force applicable to the defence of the provinces. It is needless to say that no British force can remain in safety or maintain itself in Upper Canada without a ready communication with the lower province.”
Closure of the river anywhere must compel the submission of the whole country above, which could not provide its supplies. The American, who saw his own difficulties of transport between New York and the Lakes, thought well of his energy in surmounting them; but as the war took larger proportions, and great fleets were built on Lake Ontario, the difficulties of Canadian transport became insuperable. Toward the close of the war, Sir George Prevost wrote to Lord Bathurst[150] that six thirty-two-pound guns for the fleet, hauled in winter four hundred miles from Quebec to Kingston, would cost at least £2000 for transport. Forty twenty-four-pounders hauled on the snow had cost £4,800; a cable of the largest size hauled from Sorel to Kingston, two hundred and fifty-five miles, cost £1000 for transport. In summer, when the river was open, the difficulties were hardly less. The commissary-general reported that the impediments of navigation were incalculable, and the scarcity of workmen, laborers, and voyageurs not to be described.[151]
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UPPER CANADA
NEW YORK
EAST END OF
LAKE ONTARIO
AND
RIVER ST. LAWRENCE
FROM
Kingston to French Mills
REDUCED FROM AN
ORIGINAL DRAWING IN THE
NAVAL DEPARTMENT
BY JOHN MELISH.
STRUTHERS & CO., ENGR’S, N.Y.
If these reasons for attacking and closing the river St. Lawrence had not been decisive with the United States government, other reasons were sufficient. The political motive was as strong as the military. Americans, especially in New England, denied that treasonable intercourse existed with Canada; but intercourse needed not to be technically treasonable in order to have the effects of treason. Sir George Prevost wrote to Lord Bathurst, Aug. 27, 1814,[152] when the war had lasted two years,—
“Two thirds of the army in Canada are at this moment eating beef provided by American contractors, drawn principally from the States of Vermont and New York. This circumstance, as well as that of the introduction of large sums of specie into this province, being notorious in the United States, it is to be expected Congress will take steps to deprive us of those resources, and under that apprehension, large droves are daily crossing the lines coming into Lower Canada.”
This state of things had then lasted during three campaigns, from the beginning of the war. The Indians at Malden, the British army at Niagara, the naval station at Kingston were largely fed by the United States. If these supplies could be stopped, Upper Canada must probably fall; and they could be easily stopped by interrupting the British line of transport anywhere on the St. Lawrence.
The task was not difficult. Indeed, early in the war an enterprising officer of irregulars, Major Benjamin Forsyth, carried on a troublesome system of annoyance from Ogdensburg, which Sir George Prevost treated with extreme timidity.[153] The British commandant at Prescott, Major Macdonnell, was not so cautious as the governor-general, but crossed the river on the ice with about five hundred men, drove Forsyth from the town, destroyed the public property, and retired in safety with a loss of eight killed and fifty-two wounded.[154] This affair, Feb. 23, 1813, closed hostilities in that region, and Major Forsyth was soon ordered to Sackett’s Harbor. His experience, and that of Major Macdonnell, proved how easy the closure of such a river must be, exposed as it was for two hundred miles to the fire of cannon and musketry.
The St. Lawrence was therefore the proper point of approach and attack against Upper Canada. Armstrong came to the Department of War with that idea fixed in his mind. The next subject for his consideration was the means at his disposal.
During Monroe’s control of the War Department for two months, between Dec. 3, 1812, and Feb. 5, 1813, much effort had been made to increase the army. Monroe wrote to the chairman of the Military Committee Dec. 22, 1812, a sketch of his ideas.[155] He proposed to provide for the general defence by dividing the United States into military districts, and apportioning ninety-three hundred and fifty men among them as garrisons. For offensive operations he required a force competent to overpower the British defence, and in estimating his wants, he assumed that Canada contained about twelve thousand British regulars, besides militia, and three thousand men at Halifax.
“To demolish the British force from Niagara to Quebec,” said Monroe, “would require, to make the thing secure, an efficient regular army of twenty thousand men, with an army of reserve of ten thousand.... If the government could raise and keep in the field thirty-five thousand regular troops, ... the deficiency to be supplied even to authorize an expedition against Halifax would be inconsiderable. Ten thousand men would be amply sufficient; but there is danger of not being able to raise that force, and to keep it at that standard.... My idea is that provision ought to be made for raising twenty thousand men in addition to the present establishment.”
Congress voted about fifty-eight thousand men, and after deducting ten thousand for garrisons, counted on forty-eight thousand for service in Canada. When Armstrong took control, Feb. 5, 1813, he began at once to devise a plan of operation for the army which by law numbered fifty-eight thousand men, and in fact numbered, including the staff and regimental officers, eighteen thousand nine hundred and forty-five men, according to the returns in the adjutant-general’s office February 16, 1813. Before he had been a week in the War Department, he wrote, February 10, to Major-General Dearborn announcing that four thousand men were to be immediately collected at Sackett’s Harbor, and three thousand at Buffalo. April 1, or as soon as navigation opened, the four thousand troops at Sackett’s Harbor were to be embarked and transported in boats under convoy of the fleet across the Lake at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, thirty-five miles, to Kingston. After capturing Kingston, with its magazines, navy-yards, and ships, the expedition was to proceed up the Lake to York (Toronto) and capture two vessels building there. Thence it was to join the corps of three thousand men at Buffalo, and attack the British on the Niagara River.[156]
In explaining his plan to the Cabinet, Armstrong pointed out that the attack from Lake Champlain on Montreal could not begin before May 1; that Kingston, between April 1 and May 15, was shut from support by ice; that not more than two thousand men could be gathered to defend it; and that by beginning the campaign against Kingston rather than against Montreal, six weeks’ time would be gained before reinforcements could arrive from England.[157]
Whatever defects the plan might have, Kingston, and Kingston alone, possessed so much military importance as warranted the movement. Evidently Armstrong had in mind no result short of the capture of Kingston.
Dearborn received these instructions at Albany, and replied, February 18, that nothing should be omitted on his part in endeavoring to carry into effect the expedition proposed.[158] Orders were given for concentrating the intended force at Sackett’s Harbor. During the month of March the preparations were stimulated by a panic due to the appearance of Sir George Prevost at Prescott and Kingston. Dearborn hurried to Sackett’s Harbor in person, under the belief that the governor-general was about to attack it.
Armstrong estimated the British force at Kingston as nine hundred regulars, or two thousand men all told; and his estimate was probably correct. The usual garrison at Kingston and Prescott was about eight hundred rank-and-file. In both the British and American services, the returns of rank-and-file were the ordinary gauge of numerical force. Rank-and-file included corporals, but not sergeants or commissioned officers; and an allowance of at least ten sergeants and officers was always to be made for every hundred rank-and-file, in order to estimate the true numerical strength of an army or garrison. Unless otherwise mentioned, the return excluded also the sick and disabled. The relative force of every army was given in effectives, or rank-and-file actually present for duty.
In the distribution of British forces in Canada for 1812–1813, the garrison at Prescott was allowed three hundred and seventy-six rank-and-file, with fifty-two officers including sergeants. To Kingston three hundred and eighty-four rank-and-file were allotted, with sixty officers including sergeants. To Montreal and the positions between Prescott and the St. John’s River about five thousand rank-and-file were allotted.[159] At Prescott and Kingston, besides the regular troops, the men employed in ship-building or other labor, the sailors, and the local militia were to be reckoned as part of the garrison, and Armstrong included them all in his estimate of two thousand men.
The British force should have been known to Dearborn nearly as well as his own. No considerable movement of troops between Lower and Upper Canada could occur without his knowledge. Yet Dearborn wrote to Armstrong, March 9, 1813, from Sackett’s Harbor,[160]—
“I have not yet had the honor of a visit from Sir George Prevost. His whole force is concentrated at Kingston, probably amounting to six or seven thousand,—about three thousand of them regular troops. The ice is good, and we expect him every day.... As soon as the fall [fate?] of this place [Sackett’s Harbor] shall be decided, we shall be able to determine on other measures. If we hold this place, we will command the Lake, and be able to act in concert with the troops at Niagara.”
A few days later, March 14, Dearborn wrote again.[161]
“Sir George,” he said, had “concluded that it is too late to attack this place.... We are probably just strong enough on each side to defend, but not in sufficient force to hazard an offensive movement. The difference of attacking and being attacked, as it regards the contiguous posts of Kingston and Sackett’s Harbor, cannot be estimated at less than three or four thousand men, arising from the circumstance of militia acting merely on the defensive.”
Clearly Dearborn did not approve Armstrong’s plan, and wished to change it. In this idea he was supported, or instigated, by the naval commander on the Lake, Isaac Chauncey, a native of Connecticut, forty years of age, who entered the service in 1798 and became captain in 1806. Chauncey and Dearborn consulted together, and devised a new scheme, which Dearborn explained to Armstrong about March 20:[162]—
“To take or destroy the armed vessels at York will give us the complete command of the Lake. Commodore Chauncey can take with him ten or twelve hundred troops to be commanded by Pike; take York; from thence proceed to Niagara and attack Fort George by land and water, while the troops at Buffalo cross over and carry Forts Erie and Chippewa, and join those at Fort George; and then collect our whole force for an attack on Kingston. After the most mature deliberation the above was considered by Commodore Chauncey and myself as the most certain of ultimate success.”
Thus Dearborn and Chauncey inverted Armstrong’s plan. Instead of attacking on the St. Lawrence, they proposed to attack on the Niagara. Armstrong acquiesced. “Taking for granted,” as he did[163] on Dearborn’s assertion, “that General Prevost ... has assembled at Kingston a force of six or eight thousand men, as stated by you,” he could not require that his own plan should be pursued. “The alteration in the plan of campaign so as to make Kingston the last object instead of making it the first, would appear to be necessary, or at least proper,” he wrote to Dearborn, March 29.[164]
The scheme proposed by Dearborn and Chauncey was carried into effect by them. The contractors furnished new vessels, which gave to Chauncey for a time the control of the Lake. April 22 the troops, numbering sixteen hundred men, embarked. Armstrong insisted on only one change in the expedition, which betrayed perhaps a shade of malice, for he required Dearborn himself to command it, and Dearborn was suspected of shunning service in the field.
From the moment Dearborn turned away from the St. Lawrence and carried the war westward, the naval and military movements on Lake Ontario became valuable chiefly as a record of failure. The fleet and army arrived at York early in the morning of April 27. York, a village numbering in 1806, according to British account, more than three thousand inhabitants, was the capital of Upper Canada, and contained the residence of the lieutenant-governor and the two brick buildings where the Legislature met. For military purposes the place was valueless, but it had been used for the construction of a few war-vessels, and Chauncey represented, through Dearborn, that “to take or destroy the armed vessels at York will give us the complete command of the Lake.” The military force at York, according to British account, did not exceed six hundred men, regulars and militia; and of these, one hundred and eighty men, or two companies of the Eighth or King’s regiment, happened to be there only in passing.[165]
Under the fire of the fleet and riflemen, Pike’s brigade was set ashore; the British garrison, after a sharp resistance, was driven away, and the town capitulated. The ship on the stocks was burned; the ten-gun brig “Gloucester” was made prize; the stores were destroyed or shipped; some three hundred prisoners were taken; and the public buildings, including the houses of Assembly, were burned. The destruction of the Assembly houses, afterward alleged as ground for retaliation against the capitol at Washington, was probably the unauthorized act of private soldiers. Dearborn protested that it was done without his knowledge and against his orders.[166]
The success cost far more than it was worth. The explosion of a powder magazine, near which the American advance halted, injured a large number of men on both sides. Not less than three hundred and twenty Americans were killed or wounded in the battle or explosion,[167] or about one fifth of the entire force. General Pike, the best brigadier then in the service, was killed. Only two or three battles in the entire war were equally bloody.[168] “Unfortunately the enemy’s armed ship the ‘Prince Regent,’” reported Dearborn,[169] “left this place for Kingston four days before we arrived.”
Chauncey and Dearborn crossed to Niagara, while the troops remained some ten days at York, and were then disembarked at Niagara, May 8, according to Dearborn’s report, “in a very sickly and depressed state; a large proportion of the officers and men were sickly and debilitated.”[170] Nothing was ready for the movement which was to drive the British from Fort George, and before active operations could begin, Dearborn fell ill. The details of command fell to his chief-of-staff, Colonel Winfield Scott.
The military organization at Niagara was at best unfortunate. One of Secretary Armstrong’s earliest measures was to issue the military order previously arranged by Monroe, dividing the Union into military districts. Vermont and the State of New York north of the highlands formed the Ninth Military District, under Major-General Dearborn. In the Ninth District were three points of activity,—Plattsburg on Lake Champlain, Sackett’s Harbor on Lake Ontario, and the Niagara River. Each point required a large force and a commander of the highest ability; but in May, 1813, Plattsburg and Sackett’s Harbor were denuded of troops and officers, who were all drawn to Niagara, where they formed three brigades, commanded by Brigadier-Generals John P. Boyd, who succeeded Pike, John Chandler, and W. H. Winder. Niagara and the troops in its neighborhood were under the command of Major-General Morgan Lewis, a man of ability, but possessing neither the youth nor the energy to lead an army in the field, while Boyd, Chandler, and Winder were competent only to command regiments.
Winfield Scott in effect assumed control of the army, and undertook to carry out Van Rensselaer’s plan of the year before for attacking Fort George in the rear, from the Lake. The task was not very difficult. Chauncey controlled the Lake, and his fleet was at hand to transfer the troops. Dearborn’s force numbered certainly not less than four thousand rank-and-file present for duty. The entire British regular force on the Niagara River did not exceed eighteen hundred rank-and-file, and about five hundred militia.[171] At Fort George about one thousand regulars and three hundred militia were stationed, and the military object to be gained by the Americans was not so much the capture of Fort George, which was then not defensible, as that of its garrison.
Early on the morning of May 27, when the mist cleared away, the British General Vincent saw Chauncey’s fleet, “in an extended line of more than two miles,” standing toward the shore. When the ships took position, “the fire from the shipping so completely enfiladed and scoured the plains, that it became impossible to approach the beach,” and Vincent could only concentrate his force between the Fort and the enemy, waiting attack. Winfield Scott at the head of an advance division first landed, followed by the brigades of Boyd, Winder, and Chandler, and after a sharp skirmish drove the British back along the Lake shore, advancing under cover of the fleet. Vincent’s report continued:[172]—
“After awaiting the approach of the enemy for about half an hour I received authentic information that his force, consisting of from four to five thousand men, had reformed his columns and was making an effort to turn my right flank. Having given orders for the fort to be evacuated, the guns to be spiked, and the ammunition destroyed, the troops under my command were put in motion, and marched across the country in a line parallel to the Niagara River, toward the position near the Beaver Dam beyond Queenston mountain.... Having assembled my whole force the following morning, which did not exceed sixteen hundred men, I continued my march toward the head of the Lake.”
Vincent lost severely in proportion to his numbers, for fifty-one men were killed, and three hundred and five were wounded or missing, chiefly in the Eighth or King’s regiment.[173] Several hundred militia were captured in his retreat. The American loss was about forty killed and one hundred and twenty wounded. According to General Morgan Lewis, Col. Winfield Scott “fought nine-tenths of the battle.”[174] Dearborn watched the movements from the fleet.
For a time this success made a deep impression on the military administration of Canada, and the abandonment of the whole country west of Kingston was thought inevitable.[175] The opportunity for achieving a decided advantage was the best that occurred for the Americans during the entire war; but whatever might be said in public, the battle of Fort George was a disappointment to the War Department[176] as well as to the officers in command of the American army, who had hoped to destroy the British force. The chief advantage gained was the liberation of Perry’s vessels at Black Rock above the Falls, which enabled Perry to complete his fleet on Lake Erie.
On Lake Ontario, May 31, Chauncey insisted, not without cause, on returning to Sackett’s Harbor. Dearborn, instead of moving with his whole force, ordered Brigadier-General Winder, June 1, to pursue Vincent. Winder, with eight hundred or a thousand men marched twenty miles, and then sent for reinforcements. He was joined, June 5, by General Chandler with another brigade. Chandler then took command, and advanced with a force supposed to number in the aggregate two thousand men[177] to Stony Creek, within ten miles of Vincent’s position at Hamilton, where sixteen hundred British regulars were encamped. There Chandler and Winder posted themselves for the night, much as Winchester and his Kentuckians had camped at the river Raisin four months earlier.[178]
Vincent was not to be treated with such freedom. Taking only seven hundred rank-and-file,[179] he led them himself against Chandler’s camp. The attack began, in intense darkness, at two o’clock in the morning of June 6. The British quickly broke the American centre and carried the guns. The lines became mixed, and extreme confusion lasted till dawn. In the darkness both American generals, Chandler and Winder, walked into the British force in the centre, and were captured.[180] With difficulty the two armies succeeded in recovering their order, and then retired in opposite directions. The British suffered severely, reporting twenty-three killed, one hundred and thirty-four wounded, and fifty-five missing, or two hundred and twelve men in all; but they safely regained Burlington Heights at dawn.[181] The American loss was less in casualties, for it amounted only to fifty-five killed and wounded, and one hundred missing; but in results the battle at Stony Creek was equally disgraceful and decisive. The whole American force, leaving the dead unburied, fell back ten miles, where Major-General Lewis took command in the afternoon of June 7. An hour later the British fleet under Sir James Yeo made its appearance, threatening to cut off Lewis’s retreat. Indians hovered about. Boats and baggage were lost. Dearborn sent pressing orders to Lewis directing him to return, and on the morning of June 8 the division reached Fort George.[182]
These mortifications prostrated Dearborn, whose strength had been steadily failing. June 8 he wrote to Armstrong: “My ill state of health renders it extremely painful to attend to the current duties; and unless my health improves soon, I fear I shall be compelled to retire to some place where my mind may be more at ease for a short time.”[183] June 10, his adjutant-general, Winfield Scott, issued orders devolving on Major-General Morgan Lewis the temporary command not only of the Niagara army but also of the Ninth Military district.[184] “In addition to the debility and fever he has been afflicted with,” wrote Dearborn’s aid, S. S. Connor, to Secretary Armstrong, June 12,[185] “he has, within the last twenty-four hours, experienced a violent spasmodic attack on his breast, which has obliged him to relinquish business altogether.” “I have doubts whether he will ever again be fit for service,” wrote Morgan Lewis to Armstrong, June 14;[186] “he has been repeatedly in a state of convalescence, but relapses on the least agitation of mind.” June 20 Dearborn himself wrote in a very despondent spirit both in regard to his health and to the military situation: “I have been so reduced in strength as to be incapable of any command. Brigadier-General Boyd is the only general officer present.”[187]
The sudden departure of Morgan Lewis, ordered to Sackett’s Harbor, left General Boyd for a few days to act as the general in command at Niagara. Boyd, though well known for his success at Tippecanoe, was not a favorite in the army. “A compound of ignorance, vanity, and petulance,” wrote his late superior, Morgan Lewis,[188] “with nothing to recommend him but that species of bravery in the field which is vaporing, boisterous, stifling reflection, blinding observation, and better adapted to the bully than the soldier.”
Galled by complaints of the imbecility of the army, Boyd, with Dearborn’s approval,[189] June 23, detached Colonel Boerstler of the Fourteenth Infantry with some four hundred men and two field-pieces, to batter a stone house at Beaver Dam, some seventeen miles from Fort George.[190] Early in the morning of June 24 Boerstler marched to Beaver Dam. There he found himself surrounded in the woods by hostile Indians, numbering according to British authority about two hundred. The Indians, annoying both front and rear, caused Boerstler to attempt retreat, but his retreat was stopped by a few militia-men, said to number fifteen.[191] A small detachment of one hundred and fifty men came to reinforce Boerstler, and Lieutenant Fitzgibbon of the British Forty-ninth regiment, with forty-seven men, reinforced the Indians. Unable to extricate himself, and dreading dispersion and massacre, Boerstler decided to surrender; and his five hundred and forty men accordingly capitulated to a British lieutenant with two hundred and sixty Indians, militia, and regulars.
Dearborn reported the disaster as “an unfortunate and unaccountable event;”[192] but of such events the list seemed endless. A worse disaster, equally due to Dearborn and Chauncey, occurred at the other end of the Lake. Had they attacked Kingston, as Armstrong intended, their movement would have covered Sackett’s Harbor; but when they placed themselves a hundred and fifty miles to the westward of Sackett’s Harbor, they could do nothing to protect it. Sackett’s Harbor was an easy morning’s sail from Kingston, and the capture of the American naval station was an object of infinite desire on the part of Sir George Prevost, since it would probably decide the result of the war.
Prevost, though not remarkable for audacity, could not throw away such an opportunity without ruining his reputation. He came to Kingston, and while Dearborn was preparing to capture Fort George in the night of May 26–27, Prevost embarked his whole regular force, eight hundred men all told,[193] on Yeo’s fleet at Kingston, set sail in the night, and at dawn of May 27 was in sight of Sackett’s Harbor.[194]
Had Yeo and Prevost acted with energy, they must have captured the Harbor without serious resistance. According to Sir George’s official report, “light and adverse winds” prevented the ships from nearing the Fort until evening.[195] Probably constitutional vacillation on the part of Sir James Yeo caused delay, for Prevost left the control wholly to him and Colonel Baynes.[196]
At Sackett’s Harbor about four hundred men of different regular regiments, and about two hundred and fifty Albany volunteers were in garrison; and a general alarm, given on appearance of the British fleet in the distance, brought some hundreds of militia into the place; but the most important reinforcement was Jacob Brown, a brigadier-general of State militia who lived in the neighborhood, and had been requested by Dearborn to take command in case of an emergency. Brown arrived at the Harbor in time to post the men in order of battle. Five hundred militia were placed at the point where the British were expected to land; the regulars were arranged in a second line; the forts were in the rear.
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EAST END
OF
LAKE ONTARIO
STRUTHERS & CO., ENGR’S., N.Y.
At dawn of May 28, under command of Colonel Baynes, the British grenadiers of the One Hundredth regiment landed gallantly under “so heavy and galling a fire from a numerous but almost invisible foe, as to render it impossible to halt for the artillery to come up.”[197] Pressing rapidly forward, without stopping to fire, the British regulars routed the militia and forced the second line back until they reached a block-house at the edge of the village, where a thirty-two pound gun was in position, flanked by log barracks and fallen timber. While Brown with difficulty held his own at the military barracks, the naval lieutenant in charge of the ship-yard, being told that the battle was lost, set fire to the naval barracks, shipping, and store-houses. Brown’s indignation at this act was intense.
“The burning of the marine barracks was as infamous a transaction as ever occurred among military men,” he wrote to Dearborn.[198] “The fire was set as our regulars met the enemy upon the main line; and if anything could have appalled these gallant men it would have been the flames in their rear. We have all, I presume, suffered in the public estimation in consequence of this disgraceful burning. The fact is, however, that the army is entitled to much higher praise than though it had not occurred. The navy are alone responsible for what happened on Navy Point, and it is fortunate for them that they have reputations sufficient to sustain the shock.”
Brown’s second line stood firm at the barracks, and the British attack found advance impossible. Sir George Prevost’s report admitted his inability to go farther:[199]—
“A heavier fire than that of musketry having become necessary in order to force their last position, I had the mortification to learn that the continuation of light and adverse winds had prevented the co-operation of the ships, and that the gunboats were unequal to silence the enemy’s elevated batteries, or to produce any effect on their block houses. Considering it therefore impracticable without such assistance to carry the strong works by which the post was defended, I reluctantly ordered the troops to leave a beaten enemy whom they had driven before them for upwards of three hours, and who did not venture to offer the slightest opposition to the re-embarkation, which was effected with proper deliberation and in perfect order.”
If Sir George was correct in regarding the Americans as “a beaten enemy,” his order of retreat to his own troops seemed improper; but his language showed that he used the words in a sense of his own, and Colonel Baynes’s report gave no warrant for the British claim of a victory.[200]
“At this point,” said Baynes,[201] “the further energies of the troops became unavailing. Their [American] block-houses and stockaded battery could not be carried by assault, nor reduced by field-pieces had we been provided with them.... Seeing no object within our reach to attain that could compensate for the loss we were momentarily sustaining from the heavy fire of the enemy’s cannon, I directed the troops to take up the position we had charged from. From this position we were ordered to re-embark, which was performed at our leisure and in perfect order, the enemy not presuming to show a single soldier without the limits of his fortress.”
Another and confidential report was written by E. B. Brenton of Prevost’s staff to the governor’s military secretary, Noah Freer.[202] After describing the progress of the battle until the British advance was stopped, Brenton said that Colonel Baynes came to Sir George to tell him that the men could not approach nearer the works with any prospect of success:—
“It was however determined to collect all the troops at a point, to form the line, and to make an attack immediately upon the battery and barracks in front. For this purpose the men in advance were called in, the line formed a little without the reach of the enemy’s musketry, and though evidently much fagged, was, after being supplied with fresh ammunition, again led in line. At this time I do not think the whole force collected in the lines exceeded five hundred men.”
The attack was made, and part of the Hundred-and-fourth regiment succeeded in getting shelter behind one of the American barracks, preparing for a farther advance. Sir George Prevost, under a fire which his aid described as tremendous,—“I do not exaggerate when I tell you that the shot, both of musketry and grape, was falling about us like hail,”—watched the American position through a glass, when, “at this time those who were left of the troops behind the barracks made a dash out to charge the enemy; but the fire was so destructive that they were instantly turned by it, and the retreat was sounded. Sir George, fearless of danger and disdaining to run or to suffer his men to run, repeatedly called out to them to retire in order; many however made off as fast as they could.”
These reports agreed that the British attack was totally defeated, with severe loss, before the retreat was sounded. Such authorities should have silenced dispute; but Prevost had many enemies in Canada, and at that period of the war the British troops were unused to defeat. Both Canadians and English attacked the governor-general privately and publicly, freely charging him with having disgraced the service, and offering evidence of his want of courage in the action.[203] Americans, though not interested in the defence of Prevost, could not fail to remark that the British and Canadian authorities who condemned him, assumed a condition of affairs altogether different from that accepted by American authorities. The official American reports not only supported the views taken by Prevost and Baynes of the hopelessness of the British attack, but added particulars which made Prevost’s retreat necessary. General Brown’s opinion was emphatic: “Had not General Prevost retired most rapidly under the guns of his vessels, he would never have returned to Kingston.”[204] These words were a part of Brown’s official report. Writing to Dearborn he spoke with the same confidence:[205]—
“The militia were all rallied before the enemy gave way, and were marching perfectly in his view towards the rear of his right flank; and I am confident that even then, if Sir George had not retired with the utmost precipitation to his boats, he would have been cut off.”
Unlike the Canadians, Brown thought Prevost’s conduct correct and necessary, but was by no means equally complimentary to Sir James Yeo, whom he blamed greatly for failing to join in the battle. The want of wind which Yeo alleged in excuse, Brown flatly denied. From that time Brown entertained and freely expressed contempt for Yeo, as he seemed also to feel little respect for Chauncey. His experience with naval administration on both sides led him to expect nothing but inefficiency from either.
Whatever were the true causes of Prevost’s failure, Americans could not admit that an expedition which cost the United States so much, and which so nearly succeeded, was discreditable to the British governor-general, or was abandoned without sufficient reason. The British return of killed and wounded proved the correctness of Prevost, Baynes, and Brown in their opinion of the necessity of retreat. According to the report of Prevost’s severest critics, he carried less than seven hundred and fifty rank-and-file to Sackett’s Harbor.[206] The returns showed forty-four rank-and-file killed; one hundred and seventy-two wounded, and thirteen missing,—in all, two hundred and twenty-nine men, or nearly one man in three. The loss in officers was relatively even more severe; and the total loss in an aggregate which could hardly have numbered much more than eight hundred and fifty men all told, amounted to two hundred and fifty-nine killed, wounded, and missing, leaving Prevost less than six hundred men to escape,[207] in the face of twice their numbers and under the fire of heavy guns.[208]
The British attack was repulsed, and Jacob Brown received much credit as well as a commission of brigadier-general in the United States army for his success; but the injury inflicted by the premature destruction at the navy-yard was very great, and was sensibly felt. Such a succession of ill news could not but affect the Government. The repeated failures to destroy the British force at Niagara; the disasters of Chandler, Winder, and Boerstler; the narrow and partial escape of Sackett’s Harbor; the total incapacity of Dearborn caused by fever and mortification,—all these evils were not the only or the greatest subjects for complaint. The two commanders, Dearborn and Chauncey, had set aside the secretary’s plan of campaign, and had substituted one of their own, on the express ground of their superior information. While affirming that the garrison at Kingston had been reinforced to a strength three or four times as great as was humanly possible, they had asserted that the capture of York would answer their purpose as well as the capture of Kingston, to “give us the complete command of the Lake.” They captured York, April 27, but the British fleet appeared June 6, and took from them the command of the Lake. These miscalculations or misstatements, and the disasters resulting from them, warranted the removal of Chauncey as well as Dearborn from command; but the brunt of dissatisfaction fell on Dearborn alone. Both Cabinet and Congress agreed in insisting on Dearborn’s retirement, and the President was obliged to consent. July 6, Secretary Armstrong wrote,—
“I have the President’s orders to express to you the decision that you retire from the command of District No. 9, and of the troops within the same, until your health be re-established and until further orders.”