The loss of the British troops amounted to one captain (Holtaway, of the Marines) and eighteen men killed, and two officers and sixty men wounded. That of the navy amounted to three men killed, and four officers and seven men wounded. Captain Mulcaster, while entering the fort at the head of his men, received a very severe and dangerous wound. Captain Popham was also severely wounded.
Although the service derived much benefit from this expedition, the main object contemplated was not accomplished, the principal part of the naval stores being saved by the enemy, who had taken the precaution of depositing them at the Falls, some miles from Oswego, up the river.
The British squadron having, for the present, a decided ascendency on Lake Ontario, blockaded Sackett's Harbour, in order to intercept the supplies which might, from time to time, be forwarded from Oswego for the equipment of the American fleet. On the 29th of May, they captured a boat laden with two twenty-four-pounders, and a large cable for one of the American ships of war, and, with two gun-boats and five barges, pursued fifteen other boats, loaded with naval and military stores, and which took shelter in Sandy Creek; but they were met in the Creek by an American force, consisting of 150 riflemen, nearly 200 Indians, and a strong body of militia and cavalry, which overpowered the British party, of whom eighteen were killed and fifty wounded—the rest being taken prisoners. Captain Popham, in his official dispatch to Sir James L. Yeo, on this affair, acknowledged with warmest gratitude the humane exertions of the American officers of the Rifle Corps, commanded by Major Appling, in saving the lives of many of the officers and men, whom the American soldiers and Indians were devoting to slaughter.
FOOTNOTES:
[220] History of the War of 1812.
CHAPTER LVIII.
Last Invasions and Last Battles of the War.
PART I.
GENERAL BROWN TAKES FORT ERIE—DEFEATS GENERAL RIALL ON THE PLAINS OF CHIPPEWA—ADVANCES TO FORT GEORGE—HIS OFFICERS AND ARMY PLUNDER THE INHABITANTS—RETREATS BACK TO CHIPPEWA—BURNS THE VILLAGE OF ST. DAVID'S ON THE WAY.