The Second War with England, Vol. 2 of 2

by Joel Tyler Headley

Aug. 13.

Having completed his trenches and erected his batteries, Drummond, on the 13th, opened his fire. Shot and shells were incessantly hurled all that and the succeeding day against the fort without materially weakening its strength. The British commander then resolved to carry it by assault. The garrison was composed of about 2500 men, while the force under Drummond was estimated at four thousand. As night approached, and the cannonading ceased, General Gaines observed a commotion in the British camp, and suspecting that preparations were making for an assault, ordered one third of the garrison to stand to their arms all night.

Drummond had resolved to assail the works in three separate strong columns, of from twelve to fifteen hundred men each, moving simultaneously against three separate points. One against Towson's battery, occupying the extreme north-east angle of the fortifications; a second against the right, and the third full on the fort itself. The day had been stormy, with torrents of rain deluging the earth, and the night set in dark and dismal. The watch fires of the enemy's camp could scarcely be discerned through the gloom, and dead silence reigned over both encampments. Hour after hour wore slowly away, till midnight came, and yet no sound but the moaning of the wind as it swept over the water and the woods, broke the stillness.

At length about two o'clock in the morning, the muffled tread of the advancing columns was distinctly heard in the darkness. The one directed against Towson's batteries near the water, came first within range, when a tremendous fire opened upon it. In an instant, the whole scenery was lit up by the blaze of the guns, which threw also a red and baleful light over the serried ranks, pressing with fixed bayonets to the assault. Although Towson kept his batteries in fierce play, and sheets of flame went rolling on the doomed column, it kept resolutely on till it approached within ten feet of the infantry. But its strength was exhausted; it could stagger on no farther; and first wavering, it then halted, and finally recoiled. Rallied to a second attack, it advanced with loud shouts, only to be smitten with the same overwhelming fire. Encouraged to a third effort, it swerved from the direct assault, and endeavored to wade around an abattis of loose brushwood, that stretched from the batteries to the shore. Pressing forward, up to their arm-pits in the water, some few reached the enclosure within, but only to perish, and the remainder retreated. The column advancing against the right battery, commanded by Douglas, was allowed to approach within fifty yards, when such a rapid and wasting fire was poured upon it, that it recoiled in confusion. The central column, led on by Lieutenant-Colonel Drummond, pressed firmly and rapidly through the fire of Hindman's guns, applied their ladders to the walls, and began to mount. Repulsed, they made a second and third desperate effort to reach the parapets, but without success. Stubborn and brave, this officer was resolved not to abandon the attempt, and favored by the darkness, led his troops quietly along the ditch to a point where no assault was expected, and applying his ladders, mounted to the top of one of the bastions. Enraged by his successive repulses, and maddened by the slaughter of his troops, this intrepid but brutal leader no sooner gained the parapet than he cried out "give the damned Yankees no quarter." The latter instantly closed on him with a sternness and ferocity that made that single bastion swim in blood. Carrying out his own inhuman orders, Drummond shot Lieutenant Macdonough as he lay prostrate and wounded, bravely beating off the soldiers who refused his cry for quarter. The next instant the barbarous act was avenged by a soldier, who shot him dead in his footsteps. The troops, however, courageously maintained the advantage they had gained, till daylight, when some cartridges in a stone building near by, catching fire by accident, exploded with a tremendous concussion, lifting the platform of the bastion from its bed, and hurling the shattered and affrighted occupants of it to the ground. A disorderly flight followed, and the British troops withdrew to their encampment.

General Drummond, however, did not abandon the siege, but sat down before the fort with a stronger determination than ever to reduce it.

General Gaines being wounded by a shell, now retired to Buffalo, leaving Ripley in command. When the state of affairs was reported to General Brown, he saw at once that another and heavier assault would soon be made, and though his wounds were yet unhealed, repaired to the fort, and assumed the command. Sept. 2. The brave Jessup with his arm in a sling, and still suffering from his wounds, volunteered his services, and every preparation was made for a desperate resistance.

Owing to the sickness of Commodore Chauncey the co-operation expected from the fleet had entirely failed, so that the brilliant victories of the summer, on the Niagara frontier, had not advanced the original plan of the campaign, and the American army instead of marching to Burlington Heights, and thence on Kingston, was compelled to stand on the defensive. Commodore Chauncey was a gallant and skillful commander, and had reduced his crews to a state of discipline rarely equaled. But he lay sick in Sackett's Harbor till the 2d of July, and then was carried on board his ship. His arrival near Aug. 5. Niagara was too late to be of any service to the army shut up in Fort Erie, and he cruised in the lake, blockading Yeo in Kingston, and striving in vain to bring him to an engagement. It was no fault of his that Ontario was not signalized by a victory equal to that on Lake Erie.

General Izard, after sitting on the court-martial of Wilkinson, was appointed to take command of the northern army at Plattsburg. May 4. He was an accomplished officer, but like his predecessors, too much of a martinet to effect any thing with irregular troops. He fell a victim to military rules, which, in the changing, disorderly army under his command, could not be applied. Cut adrift from them he knew not what to do. A thoroughly-educated officer, he became a slave to his knowledge, and without the genius to create resources, or skill to mould and apply the materials that surrounded him, he made matters worse by grumbling. Quarrels, duels among the officers, desertion, the mixture of black and white recruits, misrule, and bad appointments, discouraged and disgusted him with the army he commanded. In the mean time, the arrival of fresh troops from England rendered some movement necessary, and Izard, at the head of seven thousand men, such as they were, was ordered to Sackett's Harbor, to plan an attack on Kingston, if circumstances rendered it prudent, or succor General Brown. Leaving three thousand under Macomb, at Plattsburgh, he with the remainder took up his sulky and discontented march for Sackett's Harbor, where he arrived on the 13th of September. Three days previously, Brown wrote him from Fort Erie, imploring his assistance, saying unless it was rendered speedily, the fate of his army was doubtful. The accounts, however, which he received of the dilatory manner in which Izard marched, and of the feelings he entertained, left him no hope from that quarter, and he said, "We must, if saved, do the business ourselves." He fell back on himself, and his little band resolved to defend the fort to the last, against whatever force might be brought against it. Weak from his wounds, he yet toiled day and night to strengthen his defences. Neither his sickness, nor the torrents of rain that fell almost daily, could deter him from exertion, and by his energy and bearing he diffused an air of cheerfulness and confidence amid and around those entrenchments, which are always the forerunner of great deeds. Having ascertained what formidable preparations were making to press the siege, he resolved not to wait their completion, but with one bold sortie overwhelm the batteries of the enemy and destroy their works. A council of officers was called, to whom he submitted his plans. Their decision was adverse, which chagrined him much; he was also annoyed to find himself opposed by his next in command. He, nevertheless, was determined to carry out his purpose, and said to Jesup, "We must keep our own counsels; the impression must be made that we are done with the affair; but as sure as there is a God in heaven the enemy shall be attacked in his works, and beaten, too, as soon as all the volunteers shall have passed over." These were rapidly coming in at the call and efforts of General Porter, who was worthy to command them, and with whom they knew no disgrace could occur.

General Brown having made himself perfectly acquainted with the position and designs of the enemy, quietly matured his own plans. Drummond's army, four thousand strong, was encamped in an open field surrounded by a forest, two miles distant from his entrenchments in order to be out of reach of the American cannon. One-third of this force protected the artillerists in completing their batteries and the workmen in digging trenches and erecting blockhouses.