Sir George Prevost and the army were ready to move before Downie’s fleet could be prepared. Marching directly forward with the utmost confidence, Sir George turned the advanced American position at Dead Creek Bridge and drove away the gunboats that covered it. He reached the Saranac River September 6, and saw beyond it a ridge “crowned with three strong redoubts and other field-works, and blockhouses armed with heavy ordnance, with their flotilla at anchor out of gunshot from the shore.”[175] The description was not exaggerated. Izard was himself a trained engineer, and the works built by him, under the direction of Major Totten of the Engineer Corps, were believed capable of resisting for three weeks a combined attack by land and water, even if the British fleet were victorious.[176] Three good companies of artillery manned the guns. Excellent officers of every arm were in command.
Prevost properly halted, and declined to assault without the co-operation of the fleet. He waited five days impatiently for Downie to appear. Not till seven o’clock on the morning of September 11 did the British flotilla sail round Cumberland Head. At the same time Prevost ordered his troops to cross the Saranac and storm the American works.
Downie intended, without regarding his superiority in long-range guns, to sail in and to lay the “Confiance” alongside of the “Saratoga;” but the wind was light and baffling, and his approach was so slow that he could not long bear the raking fire of the American guns. As he came within carronade range the wind baffling, he was obliged to anchor at two cables’ lengths,[177] or three hundred yards,[178] and begin action. With the same discipline that marked the movements of the troops on shore, Downie came to, anchored, made everything secure, and then poured a full broadside into Macdonough’s ship. The “Saratoga” shivered under the shock of sixteen twenty-four-pound shot and canister charges striking her hull; almost one-fifth of her crew were disabled; but she stood stoutly to her work, and the whole line was soon hotly engaged.
Americans usually had a decided advantage in their better gunnery, but three hundred yards was a long range for thirty-two-pound carronades, which at point-blank carried less than two hundred and fifty yards, and lost accuracy in proportion to elevation.[179] Macdonough was slow to prove superiority. Early in the battle the British suffered a severe, and perhaps in the experience of this war a decisive, loss in their commander, Captain Downie, instantly killed by one of his own guns thrown off its carriage against him by a solid shot. Yet at the end of two hours’ combat the British squadron was on the whole victorious, and the American on the point of capture. Of the three smaller American vessels, the “Preble” on the extreme right was driven out of the engagement, and the British gunboats, turning the American flank, attacked the “Ticonderoga,” which maintained a doubtful battle. The American left was also turned, the “Eagle” having been driven to take refuge between the “Saratoga” and “Ticonderoga,” in the centre. Macdonough’s ship was then exposed to the concentrated fire of the “Confiance” and “Linnet,” and his battery was soon silenced. The “Saratoga” could no longer use a gun on the engaged side, and the battle was nearly lost.
Then Macdonough’s forethought changed the impending defeat into victory. His fire had nearly silenced the “Confiance,” and disregarding the “Linnet,” he ceased attention to the battle in order to direct the operation of winding ship. Little by little hauling the ship about, he opened on the “Confiance” with one gun after another of the fresh broadside, as they bore; and the “Confiance,” after trying in vain to effect the same operation, struck her colors. Then the British fleet was in the situation which Downie had anticipated for the Americans in the event of silencing the “Saratoga.” The three smaller vessels were obliged to surrender, and the gunboats alone escaped. The battle had lasted from quarter past eight till quarter before eleven.
POSITIONS
OF THE
BRITISH AND AMERICAN FORCES
AT
PLATTSBURG
AFTER A SKETCH BY BRIG. GEN. MACOMB
By land, the British attack was much less effective than by water. The troops were slow in reaching their positions, and had time to make no decisive movement. A column under Major-General Robinson was ordered to move round by the right flank to a ford previously reconnoitred, some distance up the Saranac, in order to gain a position whence they could reverse the American works and carry them by assault; but Robinson’s column missed its way, and before reaching the ford heard the cheers of the American troops, and halted to ascertain its cause.[180] The remainder of the army waited for Robinson’s column to assault. The casualties showed that nothing like a serious engagement took place. The entire loss of the British army from September 6 to September 14 was officially reported as only thirty-seven killed and one hundred and fifty wounded, and of this loss a large part occurred previous to the battle of September 11. The entire American loss was thirty-seven killed and sixty-two wounded.
In the naval battle, Macdonough reported fifty-two killed and fifty-eight wounded, among about eight hundred and eighty men. The British reported fifty-seven killed and seventy-two wounded, in crews whose number was never precisely known, but was probably fully eight hundred. In neither case was the loss, though severe, as great relatively to the numbers as the severity of the action seemed to imply. The “Saratoga” lost twenty-eight killed in a crew of two hundred and forty. In Perry’s battle on Lake Erie, the “Lawrence” lost twenty-two men killed in a crew of one hundred and thirty-one. About one man in eight was killed on Macdonough’s ship; about one man in six on Perry’s.