Ripley’s brigade suffered less; but although, after the British guns were captured, the Americans were exposed only to musketry fire, the brigades of Ripley and Porter reported a loss of two hundred and fifty-eight men, killed, wounded, and missing. The three artillery companies suffered a loss of forty-five men, including Captain Ritchie. The total loss of eight hundred and fifty-three men was as nearly as possible one third of the entire army, including the unengaged pickets and other details.
When Ripley, following the artillery, arrived in camp toward one o’clock in the morning,[95] Brown sent for him, and gave him an order to return at day-break to the battle-field with all the force he could collect, “and there to meet and beat the enemy if he again appeared.”[96] The order was impossible to execute. The whole force capable of fighting another battle did not exceed fifteen or sixteen hundred effectives, almost without officers, and exhausted by the night battle.[97] The order was given at one o’clock in the morning; the army must employ the remainder of the night to reorganize its battalions and replace its officers, and was expected to march at four o’clock to regain a battle-field which Brown had felt himself unable to maintain at midnight, although he then occupied it, and held all the enemy’s artillery. The order was futile. Major Leavenworth of the Ninth regiment, who though wounded commanded the first brigade after the disability of Scott, Brady, Jesup, and McNeil, thought it “the most consummate folly to attempt to regain possession of the field of battle,” and declared that every officer he met thought like himself.[98]
Yet Ripley at dawn began to collect the troops, and after the inevitable delay caused by the disorganization, marched at nine o’clock, with about fifteen hundred men, to reconnoitre the enemy. At about the same time Drummond advanced a mile, and took position in order of battle near the Falls, his artillery in the road, supported by a column of infantry. A month earlier Drummond, like Riall, would have attacked, and with a force greater by one half could hardly have failed to destroy Ripley’s shattered regiments; but Chippawa and Lundy’s Lane had already produced an effect on the British army. Drummond believed that the Americans numbered five thousand, and his own force in the ranks was about twenty-two hundred men. He allowed Ripley to retire unmolested, and remained at the Falls the whole day.
Ripley returned to camp at noon and made his report to Brown. The question requiring immediate decision was whether to maintain or abandon the line of the Chippawa River. Much could be said on both sides, and only officers on the spot could decide with certainty how the enemy could be placed under most disadvantage, and how the army could be saved from needless dangers. Ripley, cautious by nature, recommended a retreat to Fort Erie. With the assent, as he supposed, of Brown and Porter,[99] Ripley immediately broke up the camp at Chippawa, and began the march to Fort Erie, sixteen miles in the rear. Although complaint was made of the retreat as confused, hasty, and unnecessary, it was conducted with no more loss or confusion than usual in such movements,[100] and its military propriety was to be judged by its effects on the campaign.
The same evening, July 26, the army arrived at Fort Erie and camped. Brown was taken from Chippawa across the river to recover from his wound. Scott was also removed to safe quarters. Ripley was left with the remains of the army camped on a plain, outside the unfinished bastions of Fort Erie, where the destruction of his entire force was inevitable in case of a reverse. Ripley favored a withdrawal of the army to the American side; but Brown, from his sick bed at Buffalo, rejected the idea of a retreat, and fortunately Drummond’s reinforcements arrived slowly. The worst result of the difference in opinion was to make Brown harsh toward Ripley, who—although his record was singular in showing only patient, excellent, and uniformly successful service—leaned toward caution, while Brown and Scott thought chiefly of fighting. The combination produced admirable results; but either officer alone might have failed.
PLAN
of the Attack and Defence
of Fort Erie,
By Jn. Le Breton, Lt. Dy. Ag. Q. M. Gen’l.
Ms. British Archives.
STRUTHERS & CO., ENGR’S, N.Y.
Distrusting Ripley, and angry at losing the British cannon at Lundy’s Lane as well as at the retreat from Chippawa, Brown wrote, August 7, to the Secretary of War a report containing an improper implication, which he afterward withdrew, that Ripley was wanting either in courage or capacity.[101] He also summoned Brigadier-General Gaines from Sackett’s Harbor to command the army.[102] Gaines arrived, and as senior brigadier assumed command at Fort Erie, August 4, while Ripley resumed command of his brigade. During the week that elapsed before Gaines’s arrival, the army, under Ripley’s orders, worked energetically to intrench itself in lines behind Fort Erie; and after Gaines took command the same work was continued without interruption or change of plan, under the direction of Major McRee, Major Wood, and Lieutenant Douglass of the Engineers.