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.”