Nov. 20.
Thus the autumn wore away, till at last, Dearborn seemed to awake from his torpor. Moving his army from the little town of Champlain, he forded the La Cole, and attacked and captured an English block-house. The grand movement had now commenced, and the British Governor-General prepared to meet the most serious invasion that had yet been attempted. But to his astonishment he discovered that all this display of force was to obtain possession of a guard-house, and retain it for half an hour. This feat being accomplished, General Dearborn, amid much confusion, marched his six thousand men back again, and resting on his honors soon after retired into winter quarters. After protracted delays and unaccountable inaction, he seemed at last to feel the necessity of obeying the urgent orders of the government, "not to lose a moment in attacking the British posts in his front." These he had now obeyed to the letter—he had attacked a block-house and fled. The great tragedy had begun and ended in a farce. The surrender of Hull was an unmitigated disgrace, and the nation turned towards Niagara for relief. The failure of Van Rensalaer was not unmixed with consolation. He and the officers and men who bore the brunt of that day's battle, had shown what American troops could do. Van Rensalaer has been charged with acting rashly, and exposing himself to discomfiture, when success would have been of no advantage. But those who suppose that a victory is fruitless, because no important position is gained, or territory is wrested from the enemy, commit a vital error. They forget that moral power is half, even when every thing depends on hard blows. When confidence is lost, and despondency has taken the place of courage and hope, a battle that should restore these would be a victory, at almost any sacrifice. So Van Rensalaer thought, and justly. His preparations and mode of procedure were not careful and prudent, as they should have been, exhibiting a want of thoroughness which a longer experience would have rectified; still, his plan might have succeeded but for the dastardly conduct of the militia, and a new impulse been given to the movements along the northern frontier. This cowardly behavior of his troops he could not anticipate, for they had hitherto shown no disinclination to fight. At Hull's surrender there were no indications of a craven spirit—on the contrary, the soldiers cursed their commander, and the general feeling was, that give the men a gallant leader and they would fight bravely. Van Rensalaer knew that his troops would not fail through reluctance on his part to lead them to battle, and it was enough to break his noble heart, as he stood bleeding from four wounds, to see them refuse to come to his rescue.
General Smythe's conduct admits of no apology. His excuse for countermanding his last order, after the troops had embarked, is groundless. He says that his orders were strict, not to attempt an invasion of Canada with less than three thousand men, and that he but fifteen hundred. Yet in his last attempt all but some two hundred of his troops were actually embarked, when he commanded them to re-land. He was either not aware how many soldiers composed his army until he counted them as they lay off in their boats, ready to pull for the opposite shore, or he knew it before. If the latter be true, why all this display, designed to eventuate in nothing? On the other hand, the confession of ignorance is still worse. This much is clear, all these difficulties and objections could not have occurred to him for the first time when he saw the army drawn up on shore or afloat. The excuse, if honest, is worse than the act itself.
Aug. 1.
Dearborn's inactivity furnished less salient points of criticism, but it was fully as culpable as Smythe's failure. In the first place, he received orders from the Secretary of War to make a diversion in favor of Hull at Niagara and Kingston, as soon as possible. His position might have been such that no blame could attach to him for not making such diversion, but nothing could warrant him in entering into an armistice with the enemy, in which Hull was excluded. If he assumed such a responsibility in the hope that peace would be secured, he was bound to make as one of the first conditions, that no reinforcements should be sent to Malden and Detroit. One such act is sufficient to cause the removal of a commander, for he can never be an equal match against a shrewd and energetic enemy. Prevost wrote to Gen. Brock: "I consider it most fortunate that I have been able to prosecute this object of Government, (the armistice,) without interfering with your operations on the Detroit. I have sent you men, money, and stores of all kinds."[22]
One cannot read this letter without feeling chagrin that the Senior Major-General of the American army could be so easily overreached.
In the second place, his delay in breaking off this armistice when peremptorily ordered by government, was clearly reprehensible, while the fact that with an army of six thousand men under his immediate command, he accomplished absolutely nothing, is incontrovertible proof of his inefficiency as a commander. The isle of Aux Noix was considered the key of Central Canada, and this he could have taken at any moment and held for future operations; yet he went into winter quarters without having struck a blow.
The troops, regular and militia, under his general direction, amounted in the latter part of September to thirteen thousand men. Six thousand three hundred were stationed along the Niagara, two thousand two hundred at Sackett's Harbor, and five thousand on Lake Champlain. To oppose this formidable force, Sir George Provost had not more than three thousand troops,[23] and yet not even a battle had been fought, if we except that of Van Rensalaer's detachment, while instead of gaining we had lost both fortresses and territory.
One naturally inquires what could be the cause of such a complete failure where success was deemed certain. In the first place, there was not a man in the cabinet fit to carry out a campaign, however well planned. The sudden concentration of so large a force on our northern frontier, before reinforcements could arrive from England, was a wise movement, and ought to have accomplished its purpose. But there the wisdom ended, and vacillation and doubt took the place of promptness, energy and daring.
In the second place, inefficient commanders were placed at the head of our armies. Both Dearborn and Hull had been gallant officers in the Revolution, but they were wholly unaccustomed to a separate command, and while imitating the caution of their great exemplar, exhibited none of his energy and daring. They remembered his Fabian inactivity, but they forgot the overwhelming reasons that produced it, and forgot, also, Trenton, Princeton and Monmouth.