A School History of the United States

by John Bach McMaster

%263. Fighting on the Frontier.%—"Mr. Madison's War," as the Federalists delighted to call our war for commercial independence, opened with three armies in the field ready to invade and capture Canada. One under Hull, then governor of the territory of Michigan, was to cross the river at Detroit, and march eastward through Canada. A second, under General Van Rensselaer, was to cross the Niagara River, take Queenstown, and join Hull, after which the two armies were to capture York, now Toronto, and go on eastward toward Montreal. Meantime, the third army, under Dearborn, was to go down Lake Champlain, and meet the troops under Hull and Van Rensselaer before Montreal. The three were then to capture Montreal and Quebec, and complete the conquest of Canada.

The plan failed; for Hull was driven from Canada, and surrendered his army and the whole Northwest, at Detroit; Van Rensselaer, defeated at Queenstown, was unable even to get a footing in Canada; while Dearborn, after reaching the northern boundary line of New York, stopped, and the year 1812 ended with nothing accomplished.

The surrender of Hull filled the people with indignation, aroused their patriotism, and forced the government to gather a new army for the recapture of Detroit. The command was given to William Henry Harrison, who hurried from Cincinnati across the wilderness of Ohio, and in the dead of winter reached the shores of Lake Erie. General Winchester, who commanded part of the troops, was now called on to drive the British from Frenchtown, a little hamlet on the river Raisin, and (in January, 1813) tried to do so. But the British and Indians came down on him in great numbers, and defeated and captured his army, after which the Indians were allowed to massacre and scalp the wounded.

[Illustration: The Canadian Frontier and Vicinity of Washington]

And now the British became aggressive, invaded Ohio, and attacked the Americans under Harrison at Fort Meigs, and then at Fort Stephenson, where Major Croghan and 160 men, with the aid of one small cannon, defeated and drove off 320 Canadians and Indians.

%264. Battle of Lake Erie.%—Again the Americans in turn became aggressive. Since the early winter, a young naval officer named Oliver Hazard Perry had been hard at work, with a gang of ship carpenters, at Erie, in Pennsylvania, cutting down trees, and had used this green timber to build nine small vessels. With this fleet he sailed, in September, in search of the British squadron, which had been just as hastily built, and soon found it near Sandusky, Ohio. His own ship he had named the Lawrence, in honor of a gallant American captain who had been killed a few months before in a battle with an English frigate. As Perry saw the enemy in the distance, he flung to the breeze a blue flag on which was inscribed, "Don't give up the ship" (the dying order of Lawrence to his men), sailed down to meet the enemy, and fought the two largest British ships till the Lawrence was a wreck. Then, with his flag on his arm, he jumped into a boat, and amidst a shower of shot and bullets was rowed to the Niagara. Once on her deck, he again hastened to the attack, broke the British line of battle, and captured the entire fleet. His dispatch to Harrison is as famous as his victory: "We have met the enemy, and they are ours—two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop."

%265. Battle of the Thames.%—Perry's victory was a grand one. It gave him command of Lake Erie, and enabled him to carry Harrison's soldiers over to Canada, where, on the Thames River, Harrison defeated the British and Indians. These two victories regained all that had been lost by the surrender of Hull.

Along the New York border little was done during 1813. The Americans made a raid into Canada, and to their shame burned York. The British attacked Sacketts Harbor and were driven off. The Americans sent an expedition down the St. Lawrence against Montreal, but the leaders got frightened and took refuge in northern New York.

%266. Campaign of 1814.%—In 1814 better officers were put in command, and before winter came the Americans, under Jacob Brown and Winfield Scott, had won the battles of Chippewa and Lundys Lane, and captured Fort Erie. But the British returned in force, burned Black Rock and Buffalo in revenge for the burning of York, and forced the Americans to leave Canada.

The fighting along the Niagara River, by holding the army in that place, prevented the Americans from attacking Montreal, and enabled the British to gather a fleet on Lake Champlain, and send an army down from Quebec to invade New York state just as Burgoyne had in 1777. But the land force was defeated by General Macomb at Plattsburg, while Thomas McDonough utterly destroyed the fleet in Plattsburg Bay. This was one of the great victories of the war.