CHAPTER VIII.
Armstrong’s embarrassment was great in getting rid of the generals whom Madison and Eustis left on his hands. Dearborn was one example of what he was obliged to endure, but Wilkinson was a worse. According to Armstrong’s account,[209] New Orleans was not believed to be safe in Wilkinson’s keeping. The senators from Louisiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky remonstrated to the President, and the President ordered his removal. Armstrong and Wilkinson had been companions in arms, and had served with Gates at Saratoga. For many reasons Armstrong wished not unnecessarily to mortify Wilkinson, and in conveying to him, March 10, the abrupt order[210] to proceed with the least possible delay to the headquarters of Major-General Dearborn at Sackett’s Harbor, the Secretary of War added, March 12, a friendly letter of advice:[211]—
“Why should you remain in your land of cypress when patriotism and ambition equally invite to one where grows the laurel? Again, the men of the North and East want you; those of the South and West are less sensible of your merits and less anxious to have you among them. I speak to you with a frankness due to you and to myself, and again advise, Come to the North, and come quickly! If our cards be well played, we may renew the scene of Saratoga.”
The phrase was curious. Saratoga suggested defeated invasion rather than conquest; the surrender of a British army in the heart of New York rather than the capture of Montreal. The request for Wilkinson’s aid was disheartening. No one knew better than Armstrong the feebleness of Wilkinson’s true character. “The selection of this unprincipled imbecile was not the blunder of Secretary Armstrong,” said Winfield Scott long afterward;[212] but the idea that Wilkinson could be chief-of-staff to Dearborn,—that one weak man could give strength to another,—was almost as surprising as the selection of Wilkinson to chief command would have been. Armstrong did not intend that Wilkinson should command more than a division under Dearborn;[213] but he must have foreseen that in the event of Dearborn’s illness or incapacity, Wilkinson would become by seniority general-in-chief.
![[(Larger)]](#206127883311517536_i_172_large.jpg.id-7077237376570352075.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
REMARKS
Cedars: A small Village, a place of business, built pretty compact, several stone houses: Settlers, Scottish and 9 or 10 French.
River d l’Isle The course of this River is S. and E. till within 4 or 5 miles of the St. Lawrence thence it runs almost parallel with that river to its mouth at the Coteau. It is about 4 rods wide at its mouth and is shoal. One mile above the confluence the distance is only ¾ mile between the two rivers: The banks of both are low and flat.
There is a settlement of 60 French Families or upwards 4 miles above Coteau. No road thence to Point Bodet distant 7½ miles.
The road is excellent from Pt. Bodet to Raisin R.
McPherson keeps Tavern at Pt. Mouille and a Ferry to Pt. Bodet.
McGee keeps Tavern at Pt. Bodet and a Ferry down the Lake.
There is a Ferry from Coteau to Pt. Bodet.
MAP OF THE
RIVER ST. LAWRENCE
AND ADJACENT COUNTRY
From Williamsburg to Montreal.
FROM AN ORIGINAL DRAWING
IN THE
WAR DEPARTMENT.
Military and Topographical Atlas
By JOHN MELISH, 1815.
STRUTHERS & CO., ENGR’S, N.Y.
Wilkinson at New Orleans received Armstrong’s letter of March 10 only May 19,[214] and started, June 10, for Washington, where he arrived July 31, having consumed the greater part of the summer in the journey. On arriving at Washington, he found that Dearborn had been removed, and that he was himself by seniority in command of the Ninth Military District.[215] This result of Dearborn’s removal was incalculably mischievous, for if its effect on Wilkinson’s vanity was unfortunate, its influence on the army was fatal. Almost every respectable officer of the old service regarded Wilkinson with antipathy or contempt.
Armstrong’s ill-fortune obliged him also to place in the position of next importance Wilkinson’s pronounced enemy, Wade Hampton. A major-general was required to take command on Lake Champlain, and but one officer of that rank claimed employment or could be employed; and Wade Hampton was accordingly ordered to Plattsburg.[216] Of all the major-generals Hampton was probably the best; but his faults were serious. Proud and sensitive even for a South Carolinian; irritable, often harsh, sometimes unjust, but the soul of honor,[217] Hampton was rendered wholly intractable wherever Wilkinson was concerned, by the long-standing feud which had made the two generals for years the heads of hostile sections in the army.[218] Hampton loathed Wilkinson. At the time of his appointment to command on Lake Champlain he had no reason to expect that Wilkinson would be his superior; but though willing and even wishing to serve under Dearborn, he accepted only on the express understanding that his was a distinct and separate command,[219] and that his orders were to come directly from the War Department. Only in case of a combined movement uniting different armies, was he to yield to the rule of seniority. With that agreement he left Washington, June 15, and assumed command, July 3, on Lake Champlain.
Nearly a month afterward Wilkinson arrived in Washington, and reported at the War Department. By that time Armstrong had lost whatever chance he previously possessed of drawing the army at Niagara back to a position on the enemy’s line of supply. Three insuperable difficulties stood in his way,—the season was too late; the army was too weak; and the generals were incompetent. Armstrong found his generals the chief immediate obstacle, and struggled perseveringly and good-humoredly to overcome it. Wilkinson began, on arriving at Washington, by showing a fancy for continuing the campaign at Niagara.[220] Armstrong was obliged to give an emphatic order, dated August 8, that Kingston should be the primary object of the campaign, but he left Wilkinson at liberty to go there by almost any route, even by way of Montreal.[221] Disappointed at the outset by finding Wilkinson slow to accept responsibility or decided views,[222] he was not better pleased when the new general began his duties in Military District No. 9.
Wilkinson left Washington August 11, and no sooner did he reach Albany than he hastened to write, August 16, two letters to General Hampton, assuming that every movement of that general was directly dependent on Wilkinson’s orders.[223] Considering the relations between the two men, these letters warranted the inference that Wilkinson intended to drive Hampton out of his Military District, and if possible from the service. Hampton instantly leaped to that conclusion, and wrote to Armstrong, August 23, offering his resignation in case Wilkinson’s course was authorized by government.[224] Wilkinson also wrote to the secretary August 30, substantially avowing his object to be what Hampton supposed:[225]—
“You have copies of my letters to Major-General Hampton, which I know he has received, yet I have no answer. The reflection which naturally occurs is that if I am authorized to command he is bound to obey; and if he will not respect the obligation, he should be turned out of the service.”
Armstrong pacified Hampton by promising once more that all his orders and reports should pass through the Department. Hampton promised to serve cordially and vigorously through the campaign, but he believed himself intended for a sacrifice, and declared his intention of resigning as soon as the campaign was ended.[226] Wilkinson, after having at Albany provoked this outburst, started for Sackett’s Harbor, where he arrived August 20.
At Sackett’s Harbor Wilkinson found several general officers. Morgan Lewis was there in command, Commodore Chauncey was there with his fleet. Jacob Brown was also present by virtue of his recent appointment as brigadier-general. The quartermaster-general, Robert Swartwout, a brother of Burr’s friend who went to New Orleans, was posted there. Wilkinson summoned these officers to a council of war August 26, which deliberated on the different plans of campaign proposed to it, and unanimously decided in favor of one called by Armstrong “No. 3 of the plans proposed by the government.”[227] As defined in Wilkinson’s language[228] the scheme was—
“To rendezvous the whole of the troops on the Lake in this vicinity, and in co-operation with our squadron to make a bold feint upon Kingston, slip down the St. Lawrence, lock up the enemy in our rear to starve or surrender, or oblige him to follow us without artillery, baggage, or provisions, or eventually to lay down his arms; to sweep the St. Lawrence of armed craft, and in concert with the division under Major-General Hampton to take Montreal.”
Orders were given, August 25, for providing river transport for seven thousand men, forty field-pieces, and twenty heavy guns, to be in readiness by September 15.[229]
The proposed expedition closely imitated General Amherst’s expedition against Montreal in 1760, with serious differences of relative situation. After Wolfe had captured Quebec and hardly twenty-five hundred French troops remained to defend Montreal, in the month of July Amherst descended the river from Lake Ontario with more than ten thousand men, chiefly British veterans, capturing every fortified position as he went. Wilkinson’s council of war proposed to descend the river in October or November with seven thousand men, leaving a hostile fleet and fortresses in their rear, and running past every fortified position to arrive in the heart of a comparatively well populated country, held by a force greater than their own, with Quebec to support it, while Wilkinson would have no certain base of supplies, reinforcements, or path of escape. Knowledge of Wilkinson’s favorite Quintus Curtius or of Armstrong’s familiar Jomini was not required to satisfy any intelligent private, however newly recruited, that under such circumstances the army would be fortunate to escape destruction.[230]
Wilkinson next went to Niagara, where he arrived September 4, and where he found the army in a bad condition, with Boyd still in command, but restrained by the President’s orders within a strict defensive. Wilkinson remained nearly a month at Fort George making the necessary preparations for a movement. He fell ill of fever, but returned October 2 to Sackett’s Harbor, taking with him all the regular troops at Niagara. At that time Chauncey again controlled the Lake.
Secretary Armstrong also came to Sackett’s Harbor, September 5, and established the War Department at that remote point for nearly two months.[231] When Wilkinson arrived, October 2, Armstrong’s difficulties began. Wilkinson, then fifty-six years old, was broken by the Lake fever. “He was so much indisposed in mind and body,” according to Brigadier-General Boyd,[232] “that in any other service he would have perhaps been superseded in his command.” According to Wilkinson’s story, he told Secretary Armstrong that he was incapable of commanding the army, and offered to retire from it; but the secretary said there was no one to take his place, and he could not be spared. In private Armstrong was believed to express himself more bluntly, and Wilkinson was told that the secretary said: “I would feed the old man with pap sooner than leave him behind.”[233] Wilkinson’s debility did not prevent him from giving orders, or from becoming jealous and suspicious of every one, but chiefly of Armstrong.[234] Whatever was suggested by Armstrong was opposed by Wilkinson. Before returning to Sackett’s Harbor, October 4, Wilkinson favored an attack on Kingston.[235] On reaching Sackett’s Harbor, finding that Armstrong also favored attacking Kingston, Wilkinson argued “against my own judgment” in favor of passing Kingston and descending upon Montreal.[236] Ten days afterward Armstrong changed his mind. Yeo had succeeded in returning to Kingston, bringing reinforcements.
“He will bring with him about fifteen hundred effectives,” wrote Armstrong;[237] “and thanks to the storm and our snail-like movements down the Lake, they will be there before we can reach it. The manœuvre intended is lost, so far as regards Kingston. What we now do against that place must be done by hard blows, at some risk.”
Accordingly, October 19, Armstrong wrote to Wilkinson a letter advising abandonment of the attack on Kingston, and an effort at “grasping the safer and the greater object below.”[238]
“I call it the safer and greater object, because at Montreal you find the weaker place and the smaller force to encounter; at Montreal you meet a fresh, unexhausted, efficient reinforcement of four thousand men; at Montreal you approach your own resources, and establish between you and them an easy and an expeditious intercourse; at Montreal you occupy a point which must be gained in carrying your attacks home to the purposes of the war, and which, if seized now, will save one campaign; at Montreal you hold a position which completely severs the enemy’s line of operations, which shuts up the Ottawa as well as the St. Lawrence against him, and which while it restrains all below, withers and perishes all above itself.”
As Armstrong veered toward Montreal Wilkinson turned decidedly toward Kingston, and wrote the same day to the secretary a letter[239] of remonstrance, closing by a significant remark:—
“Personal considerations would make me prefer a visit to Montreal to the attack of Kingston; but before I abandon this attack, which by my instructions I am ordered to make, it is necessary to my justification that you should by the authority of the President direct the operations of the army under my command particularly against Montreal.”
The hint was strong that Wilkinson believed Armstrong to be trying to evade responsibility, as Armstrong believed Wilkinson to be trying to shirk it. Both insinuations were probably well-founded; neither Armstrong nor Wilkinson expected to capture Kingston, and still less Montreal. Wilkinson plainly said as much at the time. “I speak conjecturally,” he wrote; “but should we surmount every obstacle in descending the river we shall advance upon Montreal ignorant of the force arrayed against us, and in case of misfortune, having no retreat, the army must surrender at discretion.” Armstrong’s conduct was more extraordinary than Wilkinson’s, and could not be believed except on his own evidence. He not only looked for no capture of Montreal, but before writing his letter of October 19 to Wilkinson, he had given orders for preparing winter quarters for the army sixty or eighty miles above Montreal, and did this without informing Wilkinson. In later years he wrote:[240]—
“Suspecting early in October, from the lateness of the season, the inclemency of the weather, and the continued indisposition of the commanding general, that the campaign then in progress would terminate as it did,—‘with the disgrace of doing nothing, but without any material diminution of physical power,’—the Secretary of War, then at Sackett’s Harbor, hastened to direct Major-General Hampton to employ a brigade of militia attached to his command, in constructing as many huts as would be sufficient to cover an army of ten thousand men during the winter.”
The order dated October 16 and addressed to the quartermaster-general,[241] prescribed the cantonment of ten thousand men within the limits of Canada, and plainly indicated the secretary’s expectation that the army could not reach Montreal. In other ways Armstrong showed the same belief more openly.
All the available troops on or near Lake Ontario were concentrated at Sackett’s Harbor about the middle of October, and did not exceed seven thousand effectives, or eight thousand men.[242] “I calculate on six thousand combatants,” wrote Wilkinson after starting,[243] “exclusive of Scott and Randolph, neither of whom will, I fear, be up in season.” The army was divided into four brigades under Generals Boyd, Swartwout, Jacob Brown, and Covington,—the latter a Maryland man, forty-five years old, who entered the service in 1809 as lieutenant-colonel of dragoons. The brigades of Boyd and Covington formed a division commanded by Major-General Morgan Lewis. The second division was intended for Major-General Hampton; a reserve under Colonel Macomb, and a park of artillery under Brigadier-General Moses Porter, completed the organization.[244]
The men were embarked in bateaux, October 17, at Henderson’s Bay, to the westward of Sackett’s Harbor. The weather had been excessively stormy, and continued so. The first resting-point to be reached was Grenadier Island at the entrance of the St. Lawrence, only sixteen or eighteen miles from the starting-point; but the bateaux were dispersed by heavy gales of wind, October 18, 19, and 20, and the last detachments did not reach Grenadier Island until November 3. “All our hopes have been nearly blasted,” wrote Wilkinson October 24; but at length, November 5, the expedition, numbering nearly three hundred boats, having safely entered the river, began the descent from French Creek. That day they moved forty miles, and halted about midnight six miles above Ogdensburg. The next day was consumed in running the flotilla past Ogdensburg under the fire of the British guns at Prescott. The boats floated down by night and the troops marched by land. November 7 the army halted at the White House, about twenty miles below Ogdensburg. There Wilkinson called a council of war, November 8, to consider whether the expedition should proceed. Lewis, Boyd, Brown, and Swartwout voted simply in favor of attacking Montreal. Covington and Porter were of the opinion “that we proceed from this place under great danger, ... but ... we know of no other alternative.”[245]
More than any other cause, Armstrong’s conduct warranted Wilkinson in considering the campaign at an end. If the attack on Montreal was seriously intended, every motive required Armstrong to join Hampton at once in advance of Wilkinson’s expedition. No one knew so well as he the necessity of some authority to interpose between the tempers and pretensions of these two men in case a joint campaign were to be attempted, or to enforce co-operation on either side. Good faith toward Hampton, even more than toward Wilkinson, required that the secretary who had led them into such a situation should not desert them. Yet Armstrong, after waiting till Wilkinson was fairly at Grenadier Island, began to prepare for return to Washington. From the village of Antwerp, half way between Sackett’s Harbor and Ogdensburg, the secretary wrote to Wilkinson, October 27, “Should my fever continue I shall not be able to approach you as I intended.”[246] Three days later he wrote again from Denmark on the road to Albany,—
“I rejoice that your difficulties are so far surmounted as to enable you to say with assurance when you will pass Prescott. I should have met you there; but bad roads, worse weather, and a considerable degree of illness admonished me against receding farther from a point where my engagements call me about the 1st proximo. The resolution of treading back my steps was taken at Antwerp.”[247]
From Albany Armstrong wrote, November 12, for the last time, “in the fulness of my faith that you are in Montreal,”[248] that he had sent orders to Hampton to effect a junction with the river expedition. Such letters and orders, whatever Armstrong meant by them, were certain to impress both Wilkinson and Hampton with a conviction that the secretary intended to throw upon them the whole responsibility for the failure of an expedition which he as well as they knew to be hopeless.
Doubtless a vigorous general might still have found means if not to take Montreal, at least to compel the British to evacuate Upper Canada; but Wilkinson was naturally a weak man, and during the descent of the river he was excessively ill, never able to make a great exertion. Every day his difficulties increased. Hardly had his flotilla begun its descent, when a number of British gunboats commanded by Captain Mulcaster, the most energetic officer in the British naval service on the Lake, slipping through Chauncey’s blockade, appeared in Wilkinson’s rear, and caused him much annoyance. Eight hundred British rank-and-file from Kingston and Prescott were with Mulcaster, and at every narrow pass of the river, musketry and artillery began to open on Wilkinson from the British bank. Progress became slow. November 7, Macomb was landed on the north bank with twelve hundred men to clear away these obstructions.[249] The day and night of November 8 were consumed at the White House in passing troops across the river. Brown’s brigade was landed on the north shore to reinforce Macomb. The boats were delayed to keep pace with Brown’s march on shore, and made but eleven miles November 9, and the next day, November 10, fell down only to the Long Saut, a continuous rapid eight miles in length. The enemy pressed close, and while Brown marched in advance to clear the bank along the rapid, Boyd was ordered to take all the other troops and protect the rear.
The flotilla stopped on the night of November 10 near a farm called Chrystler’s on the British bank; and the next morning, November 11, at half-past ten o’clock Brown having announced that all was clear below, Wilkinson was about to order the flotilla to run the rapids when General Boyd sent word that the enemy in the rear were advancing in column. Wilkinson was on his boat, unable to leave his bed;[250] Morgan Lewis was in no better condition; and Boyd was left to fight a battle as he best could. Boyd never had the confidence of the army; Brown was said to have threatened to resign rather than serve under him,[251] and Winfield Scott, who was that day with Macomb and Brown in the advance, described[252] Boyd as amiable and respectable in a subordinate position, but “vacillating and imbecile beyond all endurance as a chief under high responsibilities.”
The opportunity to capture or destroy Mulcaster and his eight hundred men was brilliant, and warranted Wilkinson in turning back his whole force to accomplish it. Boyd actually employed three brigades, and made an obstinate but not united or well-supported attempt to crush the enemy. Colonel Ripley with the Twenty-first regiment drove in the British skirmishers, and at half-past two o’clock the battle became general. At half-past four, after a stubborn engagement, General Covington was killed; his brigade gave way, and the whole American line fell back, beaten and almost routed.
This defeat was the least creditable of the disasters suffered by American arms during the war. No excuse or palliation was ever offered for it.[253] The American army consisted wholly of regulars, and all the generals belonged to the regular service. Wilkinson could hardly have had less than three thousand men with him, after allowing for his detachments, and was alone to blame if he had not more. Boyd, according to his own account, had more than twelve hundred men and two field-pieces under his immediate command on shore.[254] The reserve, under Colonel Upham of the Eleventh regiment, contained six hundred rank-and-file,[255] with four field-pieces. Wilkinson’s official report admitted that eighteen hundred rank-and-file were engaged; Colonel Walbach, his adjutant-general, admitted two thousand,[256] while Swartwout thought that twenty-one hundred were in action. The American force was certainly not less than two thousand, with six field-pieces.
The British force officially reported by Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison of the Eighty-ninth regiment, who was in command, consisted of eight hundred rank-and-file, and thirty Indians. The rank-and-file consisted of three hundred and forty-two men of the Forty-ninth regiment, about as many more of the Eighty-ninth, and some Canadian troops. They had three six-pound field-pieces, and were supported on their right flank by gunboats.[257]
On the American side the battle was ill fought both by the generals and by the men. Wilkinson and Morgan Lewis, the two major-generals, who were ill on their boats, never gave an order. Boyd, who commanded, brought his troops into action by detachments, and the men, on meeting unexpected resistance, broke and fled. The defeat was bloody as well as mortifying. Wilkinson reported one hundred and two killed, and two hundred and thirty-seven wounded, but strangely reported no missing,[258] although the British occupied the field of battle, and claimed upward of one hundred prisoners.[259] Morrison reported twenty-two killed, one hundred and forty-eight wounded, and twelve missing. The American loss was twice that of the British, and Wilkinson’s reports were so little to be trusted that the loss might well have been greater than he represented it. The story had no redeeming incident.
If three brigades, numbering two thousand men, were beaten at Chrystler’s farm by eight hundred British and Canadians, the chance that Wilkinson could capture Montreal, even with ten thousand men, was small. The conduct of the army showed its want of self-confidence. Late as it was, in the dusk of the evening Boyd hastened to escape across the river. “The troops being much exhausted,” reported Wilkinson,[260] “it was considered most convenient that they should embark, and that the dragoons with the artillery should proceed by land. The embarkation took place without the smallest molestation from the enemy, and the flotilla made a harbor near the head of the Saut on the opposite shore.” In truth, neither Wilkinson nor his adjutant gave the order of embarkation,[261] nor was Boyd willing to admit it as his.[262] Apparently the army by common consent embarked without orders.
Early the next morning, November 12, the flotilla ran the rapids and rejoined Brown and Macomb near Cornwall, where Wilkinson learned that General Hampton had taken the responsibility of putting an end to an undertaking which had not yet entered upon its serious difficulties.
Four months had passed since Hampton took command on Lake Champlain. When he first reached Burlington, July 3, neither men nor material were ready, nor was even a naval force present to cover his weakness. While he was camped at Burlington, a British fleet, with about a thousand regulars, entered the Lake from the Isle aux Noix and the Richelieu River, and plundered the American magazines at Plattsburg, July 31, sweeping the Lake clear of American shipping.[263] Neither Hampton’s army nor McDonough’s small fleet ventured to offer resistance. Six weeks afterward, in the middle of September, Hampton had but about four thousand men, in bad condition and poor discipline.
Wilkinson, though unable to begin his own movement, was earnest that Hampton should advance on Montreal.[264] Apparently in order to assist Wilkinson’s plans, Hampton moved his force, September 19, to the Canada line. Finding that a drought had caused want of water on the direct road to Montreal, Hampton decided to march his army westward to the Chateaugay River, forty or fifty miles, and established himself there, September 26, in a position equally threatening to Montreal and to the British line of communication up the St. Lawrence. Armstrong approved the movement,[265] and Hampton remained three weeks at Chateaugay, building roads and opening lines of communication while waiting for Wilkinson to move.
October 16 Armstrong ordered Hampton, in view of Wilkinson’s probable descent of the river, to “approach the mouth of the Chateaugay, or other point which shall better favor our junction, and hold the enemy in check.”[266] Hampton instantly obeyed, and moved down the Chateaugay to a point about fifteen miles from its mouth. There he established his army, October 22, and employed the next two days in completing his road, and getting up his artillery and stores.
Hampton’s movements annoyed the British authorities at Montreal. Even while he was still within American territory, before he advanced from Chateaugay Four Corners, Sir George Prevost reported, October 8, to his government,[267]—
“The position of Major-General Hampton at the Four Corners on the Chateaugay River, and which he continued to occupy, either with the whole or a part of his force, from the latest information I have been able to obtain from thence, is highly judicious,—as at the same time that he threatens Montreal and obliges me to concentrate a considerable body of troops in this vicinity to protect it, he has it in his power to molest the communication with the Upper Province, and impede the progress of the supplies required there for the Navy and Army.”
If this was the case, October 8, when Hampton was still at Chateaugay, fifty miles from its mouth, the annoyance must have been much greater when he advanced, October 21, to Spear’s, within ten miles of the St. Lawrence on his left, and fifteen from the mouth of the Chateaugay. Hampton accomplished more than was expected. He held a position equally well adapted to threaten Montreal, to disturb British communication with Upper Canada, and to succor Wilkinson.
That Hampton, with only four thousand men, should do more than this, could not fairly be required. The defences of Montreal were such as required ten times his force to overcome. The regular troops defending Montreal were not stationed in the town itself, which was sufficiently protected by a broad river and rapids. They were chiefly at Chambly, St. John’s, Isle aux Noix, or other points on the Richelieu River, guarding the most dangerous line of approach from Lake Champlain; or they were at Coteau du Lac on the St. Lawrence about twenty miles northwest of Hampton’s position. According to the general weekly return of British forces serving in the Montreal District under command of Major-General Sir R. H. Sheaffe, Sept. 15, 1813, the aggregate rank-and-file present for duty was five thousand seven hundred and fifty-two. At Montreal were none but sick, with the general staff. At Chambly were nearly thirteen hundred effectives; at St. John’s nearly eight hundred; at Isle aux Noix about nine hundred. Excluding the garrison at Prescott, and including the force at Coteau du Lac, Major-General Sheaffe commanded just five thousand effectives.[268]
Besides the enrolled troops, Prevost could muster a considerable number of sailors and marines for the defence of Montreal; and his resources in artillery, boats, fortifications, and supplies of all sorts were ample. In addition to the embodied troops, Prevost could count upon the militia, a force almost as good as regulars for the defence of a forest-clad country where axes were as effective as musketry in stopping an invading army. In Prevost’s letter to Bathurst of October 8, announcing Hampton’s invasion, the governor-general said:—
“Measures had been in the mean time taken by Major-General Sir Roger Sheaffe commanding in this district, to resist the advance of the enemy by moving the whole of the troops under his command nearer to the frontier line, and by calling out about three thousand of the sedentary militia. I thought it necessary to increase this latter force to nearly eight thousand by embodying the whole of the sedentary militia upon the frontier, this being in addition to the six battalions of incorporated militia amounting to five thousand men; and it is with peculiar satisfaction I have to report to your Lordship that his Majesty’s Canadian subjects have a second time answered the call to arms in defence of their country with a zeal and alacrity beyond all praise.”
Thus the most moderate estimate of the British force about Montreal gave at least fifteen thousand rank-and-file under arms.[269] Besides this large array of men, Prevost was amply protected by natural defences. If Hampton had reached the St. Lawrence at Caughnawaga, he would still have been obliged to cross the St. Lawrence, more than two miles wide, under the fire of British batteries and gunboats. Hampton had no transports. Prevost had bateaux and vessels of every description, armed and unarmed, above and below the rapids, besides two river steamers constantly plying to Quebec.
Hampton’s command consisted of four thousand infantry new to service, two hundred dragoons, and artillery.[270] With such a force, his chance of suffering a fatal reverse was much greater than that of his reaching the St. Lawrence. His position at the Chateaugay was not less perilous than that of Harrison on the Maumee, and far more so than that which cost Dearborn so many disasters at Niagara.
The British force in Hampton’s immediate front consisted at first of only three hundred militia, who could make no resistance, and retired as Hampton advanced. When Hampton made his movement to Spear’s, Lieutenant-Colonel de Salaberry in his front commanded about eight hundred men, and immediately entrenched himself and obstructed the road with abattis.[271] Hampton felt the necessity of dislodging Salaberry, who might at any moment be reinforced; and accordingly, in the night of October 25, sent a strong force to flank Salaberry’s position, while he should himself attack it in front.
The flanking party failed to find its way, and the attack in front was not pressed.[272] The American loss did not exceed fifty men. The British loss was reported as twenty-five. Sir George Prevost and his officers were greatly pleased by their success;[273] but Prevost did not attempt to molest Hampton, who fell back by slow marches to Chateaugay, where he waited to hear from the Government. The British generals at Montreal showed little energy in thus allowing Hampton to escape; and the timidity of their attitude before Hampton’s little army was the best proof of the incompetence alleged against Prevost by many of his contemporaries.
Hampton’s retreat was due more to the conduct of Armstrong than to the check at Spear’s or to the movements of Prevost. At the moment when he moved against Salaberry, October 25, a messenger arrived from Sackett’s Harbor, bringing instructions from the quartermaster-general for building huts for ten thousand men for winter quarters. These orders naturally roused Hampton’s suspicions that no serious movement against Montreal was intended.
“The papers sunk my hopes,” he wrote to Armstrong, November 1,[274] “and raised serious doubts of receiving that efficacious support that had been anticipated. I would have recalled the column, but it was in motion, and the darkness of the night rendered it impracticable.”
In a separate letter of the same date[275] which Hampton sent to Armstrong by Colonel King, assuming that the campaign was at an end, he carried out his declared purpose of resigning. “Events,” he said, “have had no tendency to change my opinion of the destiny intended for me, nor my determination to retire from a service where I can neither feel security nor expect honor. The campaign I consider substantially at an end.” The implication that Armstrong meant to sacrifice him was certainly disrespectful, and deserved punishment; but when Colonel King, bearing these letters, arrived in the neighborhood of Ogdensburg, he found that Armstrong had already done what Hampton reproached him for intending to do. He had retired to Albany, “suspecting ... that the campaign ... would terminate as it did.”
A week afterward, November 8, Hampton received a letter from Wilkinson, written from Ogdensburg, asking him to forward supplies and march his troops to some point of junction on the river below St. Regis.[276] Hampton replied from Chateaugay that he had no supplies to forward; and as, under such circumstances, his army could not throw itself on Wilkinson’s scanty means, he should fall back on Plattsburg, and attempt to act against the enemy on some other road to be indicated.[277] Wilkinson received the letter on his arrival at Cornwall, November 12, the day after his defeat at Chrystler’s farm; and with extraordinary energy moved the whole expedition the next day to French Mills, six or seven miles up the Salmon River, within the United States lines, where it went into winter quarters.
Armstrong and Wilkinson made common cause in throwing upon Hampton the blame of failure. Wilkinson at first ordered Hampton under arrest, but after reflection decided to throw the responsibility upon Armstrong.[278] The secretary declined to accept it, but consented after some delay to accept Hampton’s resignation when renewed in March, 1814. Wilkinson declared that Hampton’s conduct had blasted his dawning hopes and the honor of the army.[279] Armstrong sneered at Wilkinson for seizing the pretext for abandoning his campaign.[280] Both the generals believed that Armstrong had deliberately led them into an impossible undertaking, and deserted them, in order to shift the blame of failure from himself.[281] Hampton behaved with dignity, and allowed his opinion to be seen only in his contemptuous silence; nor did Armstrong publicly blame Hampton’s conduct until Hampton was dead. The only happy result of the campaign was to remove all the older generals—Wilkinson, Hampton, and Morgan Lewis—from active service.
The bloodless failure of an enterprise which might have ended in extreme disaster was not the whole cost of Armstrong’s and Wilkinson’s friendship and quarrels. In November nearly all the regular forces, both British and American, had been drawn toward the St. Lawrence. Even Harrison and his troops, who reached Buffalo October 24, were sent to Sackett’s Harbor, November 16, to protect the navy. Not a regiment of the United States army was to be seen between Sackett’s Harbor and Detroit. The village of Niagara and Fort George on the British side were held by a few hundred volunteers commanded by Brigadier-General McClure of the New York militia. As long as Wilkinson and Hampton threatened Montreal, Niagara was safe, and needed no further attention.
After November 13, when Wilkinson and Hampton withdrew from Canada, while the American army forgot its enemy in the bitterness of its own personal feuds, the British generals naturally thought of recovering their lost posts on the Niagara River. McClure, who occupied Fort George and the small town of Newark under its guns, saw his garrison constantly diminishing. Volunteers refused to serve longer on any conditions.[282] The War Department ordered no reinforcements, although ten or twelve thousand soldiers were lying idle at French Mills and Plattsburg. December 10 McClure had about sixty men of the Twenty-fourth infantry, and some forty volunteers, at Fort George, while the number of United States troops present for duty at Fort George, Fort Niagara, Niagara village, Black Rock, and Buffalo, to protect the people and the magazines, amounted to four companies, or three hundred and twenty-four men.
As early as October 4, Armstrong authorized McClure to warn the inhabitants of Newark that their town might suffer destruction in case the defence of Fort George should render such a measure proper.[283] No other orders were given, but Wilkinson repeatedly advised that Fort George should be evacuated,[284] and Armstrong did nothing to protect it, further than to issue a requisition from Albany, November 25, upon the Governor of New York for one thousand militia.[285]
The British, though not rapid in their movements, were not so slow as the Americans. Early in December Lieutenant-General Gordon Drummond came from Kingston to York, and from York to the head of the Lake where the British had maintained themselves since losing the Niagara posts in May. Meanwhile General Vincent had sent Colonel Murray with five hundred men to retake Fort George. McClure at Fort George, December 10, hearing that Murray had approached within ten miles, evacuated the post and crossed the river to Fort Niagara; but before doing so he burned the town of Newark and as much as he could of Queenston, turning the inhabitants, in extreme cold, into the open air. He alleged as his motive the wish to deprive the enemy of winter quarters;[286] yet he did not destroy the tents or military barracks,[287] and he acted without authority, for Armstrong Had authorized him to burn Newark only in case he meant to defend Fort George.
“The enemy is much exasperated, and will make a descent on this frontier if possible,” wrote McClure from the village of Niagara, December 13; “but I shall watch them close with my handful of men until a reinforcement of militia and volunteers arrives.... I am not a little apprehensive that the enemy will take advantage of the exposed condition of Buffalo and our shipping there. My whole effective force on this extensive frontier does not exceed two hundred and fifty men.”
Five days passed, and still no reinforcements arrived, and no regular troops were even ordered to start for Niagara. “I apprehended an attack,” wrote McClure;[288] and he retired thirty miles to Buffalo, “with a view of providing for the defence.” On the night of December 18 Colonel Murray, with five hundred and fifty regular rank-and-file, crossed the river from Fort George unperceived; surprised the sentinels on the glacis and at the gates of Fort Niagara; rushed through the main gate; and, with a loss of eight men killed and wounded, captured the fortress with some three hundred and fifty prisoners.
Nothing could be said on the American side in defence or excuse of this disgrace. From Armstrong at the War Department to Captain Leonard who commanded the fort, every one concerned in the transaction deserved whatever punishment the law or army regulations could inflict. The unfortunate people of Niagara and Buffalo were victims to official misconduct. The British, thinking themselves released from ordinary rules of war by the burning of Newark and Queenston, showed unusual ferocity. In the assault on Fort Niagara they killed sixty-seven Americans, all by the bayonet, while they wounded only eleven. Immediately afterward they “let loose”[289] their auxiliary Indians on Lewiston and the country around. On the night of December 29, Lieutenant-General Drummond sent a force of fifteen hundred men including Indians[290] across the river above the falls, and driving away the militia, burned Black Rock and Buffalo with all their public stores and three small war-schooners.[291]
These acts of retaliation were justified by Sir George Prevost in a long proclamation[292] dated Jan. 12, 1814, which promised that he would not “pursue further a system of warfare so revolting to his own feelings and so little congenial to the British character unless the future measures of the enemy should compel him again to resort to it.” The Americans themselves bore Drummond’s excessive severity with less complaint than usual. They partly suspected that the destruction effected on the Thames, at York and at Newark, by American troops, though unauthorized by orders, had warranted some retaliation; but they felt more strongly that their anger should properly be vented on their own government and themselves, who had allowed a handful of British troops to capture a strong fortress and to ravage thirty miles of frontier, after repeated warning, without losing two hundred men on either side, while thousands of regular troops were idle elsewhere, and the neighborhood ought without an effort to have supplied five thousand militia.
Fort Niagara, which thus fell into British hands, remained, like Mackinaw, in the enemy’s possession until the peace.