“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.
CHAPTER IX.
Military movements in the Southern department attracted little notice, but were not the less important. The Southern people entered into the war in the hope of obtaining the Floridas. President Madison, like President Jefferson, gave all the support in his power to the scheme. Throughout the year 1812 United States troops still occupied Amelia Island and the St. Mary’s River, notwithstanding the refusal of Congress to authorize the occupation. The President expected Congress at the session of 1812–1813 to approve the seizure of both Floridas, and took measures in advance for that purpose.
October 12, 1812, Secretary Eustis wrote to the Governor of Tennessee calling out fifteen hundred militia for the defence of the “lower country.” The force was not intended for defence but for conquest; it was to support the seizure of Mobile, Pensacola, and St. Augustine by the regular troops. For that object every man in Tennessee was ready to serve; and of all Tennesseeans, Andrew Jackson was the most ardent. Governor Blount immediately authorized Jackson, as major-general of the State militia, to call out two thousand volunteers. The call was issued November 14; the volunteers collected at Nashville December 10; and Jan. 7, 1813, the infantry embarked in boats to descend the river, while the mounted men rode through the Indian country to Natchez.
“I have the pleasure to inform you,” wrote Jackson to Eustis in departing,[293] “that I am now at the head of two thousand and seventy volunteers, the choicest of our citizens, who go at the call of their country to execute the will of the Government; who have no Constitutional scruples, and if the Government orders, will rejoice at the opportunity of placing the American eagle on the ramparts of Mobile, Pensacola, and Fort St. Augustine.”
The Tennessee army reached Natchez, February 15, and went into camp to wait orders from Washington, which were expected to direct an advance on Mobile and Pensacola.