There was also, during the winter, a skirmish at Longwood, in which the British, who were the assailants, retired with a loss of two officers and twelve men killed.
The campaign opened with the opening of the navigation, in May. Sir James Yeo, with the co-operation of that talented, skilful, and excellent officer, General Drummond, planned an attack upon Oswego, with the view of destroying the naval stores, sent by way of that town for the equipment of the American fleet in Sackett's Harbour. The British fleet having been strengthened by two additional ships, the Prince Regent and the Princess Charlotte, General Drummond sent on board of it six companies of DeWatteville's regiment, the light companies of the Glengary militia, and the second battalion of the Royal Marines, with a detachment of Royal Artillery, and two field pieces, a detachment of a rocket company, and some sappers and miners. This expedition left Kingston on the 4th of May, and arrived off Oswego about noon on the day following. It was then however, blowing a gale of wind, from the northwest, and it was considered expedient to keep off and on the port, until the weather calmed. It was the morning of the 6th, before a landing could be effected, when about one hundred and forty men, under Colonel Fischer, and two hundred seamen, under Captain Mulcaster, Royal Navy, were sent ashore, in the face of a heavy fire of grape and round shot from the enemies' batteries, and of musketry from a detachment of the American army, posted on the brow of a hill and partially sheltered by an adjoining wood. The British, nevertheless, charged the battery and captured it, the enemy leaving about sixty wounded men behind them, in their hurried retreat. The stores in the fort were taken possession of, the fort itself dismantled, and the barracks were destroyed. In this successful assault, Captain Holtaway, of the Marines, was killed, Captain Mulcaster was severely and dangerously wounded in the head, and Captain Popham was wounded severely, two officers of the line and two other naval officers were wounded. Eighteen rank and file of the army and marines were killed, and sixty wounded, and three sailors were killed and seven wounded. The naval stores, however, were not captured, as they had been deposited at the Falls of the Onondago, some miles above Oswego. The troops were re-embarked and the fleet sailed for Kingston on the 7th of May.
Sir James Yeo being still very anxious about the naval stores which the enemy were so industriously collecting at Sackett's Harbour, determined to try if possession of at least a part of them could not be obtained. Accordingly, he blockaded Sackett's Harbour, and on the morning of the 29th of May, a boat belonging to the enemy, laden with a cable large enough for a ship of war, and with two twenty-four pounders, forming one of a flotilla of sixteen boats from Oswego, containing naval and military stores, was intercepted and captured. Captains Popham and Spilsbury, having with them two gun-boats and five barges, were immediately sent in search of the other boats. They soon learned where the missing boats were. Fearing capture, the Americans had taken shelter in Sandy Creek. It was resolved to root them out, if possible, and accordingly the British gun-boats and barges entered the Creek. Captains Popham and Spilsbury immediately looked about them, and found the enterprise to be rather hazardous. The creek was narrow and winding. An attack was, nevertheless, determined upon. For about half a mile the assailants proceeded cautiously up the creek, when, as they turned its elbow, the enemy's boats were in full view. The troops immediately landed on both banks and were advancing when the sixty-eight pounder carronade in the foremost boat was disabled, and it was necessary to bring the twenty-four pounder in the stern of the boat to bear upon the enemy. But no sooner had an effort been made to get the boat round than the enemy took it into their heads that the attacking party designed to make off, and advancing hastily in considerable numbers, rifles, militia, cavalry, regular infantry, and Indians, the British, unable to retreat, were overpowered, the captured being with difficulty rescued by their humane American enemies, from the tomahawks and scalping knives of the Indians.
On Lake Champlain an attempt was made on the 14th of May, to capture or destroy two new American vessels building at Vergennes, by Captain Pring, of the Royal Navy, but finding the enemy prepared to receive him more warmly than courteously, Captain Pring desisted and returned to Isle-aux-Noix.
About the end of June, the Americans concentrated at Buffalo, Black Rock, and other places, on the Niagara frontier, for the invasion of Upper Canada, only waited for the co-operation of the fleet, which had not, as yet, come out of Sackett's Harbour. The army was commanded by General Brown, however, an officer, of considerable judgment, and now not by any means inexperienced in the art of war, who could not remain long inactive. On the 3rd of July, he despatched Brigadiers Scott and Ripley, with their two strong brigades, to effect a landing on the Canada shore. They landed from boats and batteaux, at two different points. One brigadier landed above Fort Erie, and the other below it, the brigades being two miles apart, and the fort in the centre. Captain Buck, of the 8th regiment, was in command of Fort Erie, and, oddly enough, although he had put it in a tolerably good state for defence, he at once surrendered it, and his garrison of seventy men, to the enemy. Scott and Ripley now marched on Chippewa, and were making preparations to carry that post when they were met by General Riall, with fifteen hundred regular troops, and a thousand Indians and militia, and offered battle. The offer was no sooner made than accepted, and at five in the afternoon, a battle was commenced, which proved disastrous to Riall. The enemy were overwhelmingly numerous. Riall's militia and Indians attacked the American light troops vigorously, but they were unable to cope with Kentucky riflemen, sheltered behind trees. Death came with every rifle flash, and the militia and Indians must have given way, had not the light companies of the Royal Scotts and 100th regiments come to their relief. Now came the main and, on the part of Riall, ill-judged attack. He concentrated his whole force, while the Americans stretched out in line. He approached in column, attempting to deploy under a most galling fire, and the result was, as might have been anticipated, fearfully disastrous. With 151 men killed and 320 wounded, among whom was Lieutenant-Colonel, the Marquis of Tweedale, the British were compelled to retire. Riall's object in retiring was to gain his intrenched camp, but General Brown, who now commanded the Americans, discovered a cross road, and Riall, abandoning Queenston, fell back to Twenty Mile Creek. The loss of the Americans was 70 killed and 9 officers and 240 men wounded. This was the most sanguinary of any battle that had been fought during the war, and the enemy, gaining courage, advanced gradually, and made demonstrations upon Forts George and Mississaga. On the 25th of July, Brown, not considering it expedient to advance and, unsafe to stand still, retreated upon Chippewa, the village of St. David's having been previously set on fire, by a Lieutenant-Colonel Stone, whom Brown compelled to retire from the army for his barbarity. General Riall now again advanced, when the enemy wheeled about and endeavoured to cut him off from his expected reinforcement. But he failed in doing so, General Drummond having come up with about three thousand men, of whom eighteen hundred were regulars. The enemy was five thousand strong, but General Drummond seized a commanding eminence which swept the whole field of battle. Nothing daunted, however, by this superiority of position, the Americans resolutely advanced to the charge, and the action, which commenced about six in the evening, soon became general along the whole line, the brunt of the battle falling, nevertheless, upon the British centre and left. General Riall, who commanded the left division of the army was forced back with his division, wounded, and made prisoner. The centre firmly maintained their ground. It was composed of the 89th, the Royals, and the King's regiment, well supported by the artillery, whose guns, worked with prodigious activity, carried great havoc in the enemy's ranks. Brown soon perceived that unless the guns were captured, the battle was lost; and he consequently bent all his energies to the accomplishment of that object. He ordered General Millar to charge up the hill and take the guns. The order was vigorously obeyed and five guns fell into the hands of the Americans, the British artillerymen being positively bayoneted in the act of loading, while the muzzles of the American guns were within a few yards of the English battery. It was now night and extremely dark. During the darkness some extraordinary incidents occurred. The British having, for a moment, been thrust back, some of the British guns remained for a few minutes in the enemy's hands. They were, however, not only quickly recovered, but the two pieces, a six pounder and a five and a half inch howitzer, which the enemy had brought up, were captured by the British, together with several tumbrils; and in limbering up the British guns, at one period, one of the enemy's six-pounders was put, by mistake, upon a British limber, and one of the British six-pounders was limbered on one of the enemy's. So that although American guns had been captured, yet as the Americans had captured one of the British guns, the British only gained, by the dark transaction, one gun. It was now 9 o'clock, and there was a short intermission of firing. Apparently the combatants sank to rest from pure exhaustion. It was a terrible repose. The din of battle had ceased, to be succeeded by the monotonous roar of the Great Falls. The moon had risen and at intervals glanced out of the angry blackish looking clouds, to reveal the pale faces of the dead, with still unrelaxed features, and some even yet, as it were, in an attitude of defiance. The field of strife was one sea of blood, and the groans of the wounded and the dying sent a shudder through the boldest. Occasionally the flash of a gun or a few bright flashes of musketry revealed more strikingly than even the moon's pale rays, the living, the dying, and the dead. Short as was the respite, the enemy was not idle while it lasted. Brown was busily employed in bringing up the whole of his remaining force, and he afterwards renewed the attack with fresh troops, to be everywhere repulsed, with equal gallantry and success. Drummond had not neglected to bring up Riall's wing which had been previously ordered to retire. He placed them in a second line, with the exception of the Royal Scots, with which he prolonged his front line, on the right, where he was apprehensive of being outflanked by the enemy. The enemy's efforts to carry the hill were continued until about midnight, when he had suffered so severely from the superior steadiness and discipline of the British that he gave up the contest and retreated with great precipitation to his camp, beyond the Chippewa, which he abandoned on the following day, throwing the greatest part of his baggage, camp equipage, and provisions, into the rapids. He then set fire to Street's Mills, destroyed the bridge at Chippewa, and, in great disorder, continued his retreat towards Fort Erie. General Drummond detached his light troops, cavalry, and Indians, in pursuit, to harass his rear.
The Americans lost, in this fiercely contested struggle, at least 1,500 men, in killed, wounded, and prisoners: among the wounded were the two generals commanding, Brown and Scott. There were 5,000 Americans engaged, and only 2,800 British. General Drummond received a musket ball in the neck, but, concealing the circumstance from his troops, he remained on the ground until the close of the action. Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison, of the 89th regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel Pearson, Captain Robinson, of the King's regiment, in command of the militia, and several other officers were severely wounded. The British loss, in all, was eight hundred and seventy men, including forty-two made prisoners, among whom were General Riall and his staff.
The Americans, now under the command of General Ripley, retreated upon Fort Erie, and intrenched themselves in its neighborhood. Gen'l. Gaines then assumed the command at Fort Erie, having come from Sackett's Harbour, in the fleet which was to have co-operated with the army, now cooped up in Fort Erie and altogether indifferent to such co-operation. The fleet went back again.
Still following up his successes, General Drummond laid siege to Fort Erie and the intrenched camp near it, and while he was doing so, three armed schooners, anchored off the fort, were captured by a body of marines, who pushed off in boats during the night, under Captain Dobbs, of the Royal Navy. General Drummond did not simply sit down before Fort Erie and the entrenchment, he did his best to effect a breach, and with that view kept up a constant fire from the two 24-pounder field guns which had proved more than ordinarily useful at the battle of Chippewa. It was not long indeed before he considered an assault practicable. He made the necessary preparations, and on the fourteenth, three columns, one under Colonel Fischer, consisting of the 8th and DeWatteville's regiment, and the flank companies of the 89th and 100th regiments, with a detachment of artillery, a second under Colonel Drummond, of the 104th regiment, made up of the flank companies of the 41st and 104th regiments, with a few seamen and marines, in charge of Captain Dobbs, and the other under Colonel Scott, consisting of his own regiment, the 103rd, and two companies of the royals. Colonel Fischer's column gained possession of the enemy's batteries at the point assigned for its attack, two hours before daylight, but the other columns were behind time, having got entangled by marching too near the lake, between the rocks and the water, and the enemy being now on the alert, opened a heavy fire upon the leading column of the second division which threw it into confusion. Fischer's column had in the meanwhile almost succeeded in capturing the fort. They had actually crept into the main fort through the embrasures, in spite of every effort to prevent them. Nay, they turned the guns of the fort upon its defenders, who took refuge in a stone building, in the interior, and continued to resist. This desperate work continued for nearly an hour, when a magazine blew up, mangling most horribly nearly all the assailants within the fort. Of course there was a panic. The living, surrounded by the dying and the dead, the victims of accident, believed that they stood upon an infernal machine, to which the match had only to be placed. No effort could rally men impressed with such an idea. There was a rush, as it were, from inevitable death. Persuasion fell on the ears of men who could not hear. Persuasion fell upon the senses of men transfixed with one idea. Persuasion would have been as effectual in moving yonder blackened corpse into healthy life, as in moving to a sense of duty to themselves, men who could see nothing but the deadness around them, and whose minds saw only, under all, the blackness of immediate destruction. Those who were victors, until now, literally rushed from the fort. The reinforcements of the British soon arrived, but the explosion had again given the defenders heart, and they too, having received reinforcements, after some additional straggling, for the mastery, the British withdrew. The British loss amounted to 157 killed, 308 wounded, and 186 prisoners, among the killed being Colonels Scott and Drummond. The American loss was 84 in killed, wounded and missing.
A reinforcement was shortly afterwards obtained from Lower Canada. The 6th and the 82nd regiments came in time to compensate for previous losses, but General Drummond did not consider it expedient to make another attack. His purpose was equally well, and perhaps better obtained by keeping the whole American army of invasion prisoners in a prison selected by themselves, on British territory, and from which it was impossible to escape.
While these things were transpiring in Upper Canada, public attention was irresistibly drawn in another direction. About the middle of August, between fifty and sixty sail of British vessels of war arrived in the Chesapeake, with troops destined for the attack on Washington, the capital of the United States, Britain having now come to the determination of more vigorously prosecuting the war. Three regiments of Wellington's army, the 4th, 44th and 85th, were embarked at Bordeaux on the 2nd of June, on board the Royal Oak seventy-four, and Dictator and Diadem, of sixty-four guns each, and, having arrived at Bermuda on the 24th, they were there joined by the fusiliers, and by three regiments, from the Mediterranean, in six frigates, forming altogether a force of three thousand five hundred men. General Ross commanded the troops; Admiral Cockburn the fleet. Tangier's Island was first taken possession of, fortifications being erected, structures built, and the British flag hoisted. The negroes on the plantations adjoining were promised emancipation if they revolted, and fifteen hundred did revolt, were drilled, and formed into a regiment. They were useful but exceedingly costly, for on the conclusion of peace the proprietors of the negroes were indemnified, and His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Russia, than whom no one better knew the value of a serf, being the referee, awarded the enormous sum of £250,000, or nearly £150 for each negro that had gained his freedom, as the compensation adequate to the injury which the urgency of war made it necessary to inflict upon the cultivators of human farm stock.