It was on the evening of May 29, 1814, that this British flotilla arrived off the mouth of the Big Sandy. They were seen by a resident, Mr. James Otis, who hastened to inform the officers of the American fleet, and in consequence a very neat ambush was arranged.
Meantime the spreading of the news of the British invasion brought reinforcements a-plenty to the Americans—one hundred and twenty riflemen, under Major Appling; a battery of two six-pounders, under Captain George Melvin; a troop of cavalry, under Captain Harris; sixty Oneida Indians, and “some infantry.” Under Woolsey’s orders, the one hundred and twenty riflemen and the sixty Indians were placed in the bush near the first bend in the creek reached in coming up-stream from the lake, while the remainder of the forces took post near the flotilla of transports, to make a fight in case the ambush failed. But the ambush did not fail.
On the morning of the 30th the British rowed into the creek. “In the door of a fisherman’s house (yet standing when I visited the spot in 1860) Popham saw a woman, and ordered her to have breakfast ready for himself and officers when they should return. She knew how well Woolsey was prepared to receive his pursuers, and said, significantly:
“‘You’ll find breakfast ready up the creek.’”
So says Lossing. “The British passed on in jolly mood up the creek”—they were jolly until they had arrived within a short distance of the first bend in the creek. Here the Yankee transports were first seen, some distance above, and the British opened fire on the transports with solid shot, while grape and canister were fired into the brush on both sides of the creek. Having by the grape-discharges cleared the brush, as they supposed, the British landed a flanking party on each side of the creek, and these started marching up while the boats continued firing solid shot at the Yankee transports.
The opportunity of the Americans had now come, and “so furious and unexpected was the assault on front, flank, and rear that the British surrendered within ten minutes.” The British “force was captured with hardly any resistance.” This seems the more remarkable when it is known that the sixty Oneida Indians had been frightened away by the grape of the British and the fight was made by Appling’s one hundred and twenty riflemen only. Captain Popham, commanding the British forces, reported eighteen of his men killed and fifty dangerously wounded; but Appling reported only fourteen British killed and twenty-eight wounded. This discrepancy is noteworthy; it is a right lonesome discrepancy, because rarely have the British acknowledged a greater loss than that the Americans credited them with.
The Americans had one man and one Indian slightly wounded. The number of British captured was one hundred and thirty-three aside from the wounded. The advantage of this victory, of course, far outweighed the loss of the one transport that led to the invasion.
This blow disheartened Sir James Yeo so much that on June 6th he raised the blockade of Sackett’s Harbor.
Thereafter neither the British nor the Yankee commander did anything in the way of fighting, though both were very busy superintending ship-carpenters. Sir James was eager to get a liner afloat, that was to carry one hundred guns, while Chauncey was working over his sixty-two-gun frigate. Sir James had a force afloat that was stronger than the Yankee force, but once the Yankee Superior was in commission, the preponderance would be the other way, and Sir James (like Chauncey) was not going to take any chances in battle unless he had the greater force. For six weeks the two squadrons lay idly in port.
Meantime, however, Lieutenant F. H. Gregory of the American navy engaged in “two very gallant cutting-out expeditions.” On June 16th, with twenty-two men in three row-boats, he started away across the lake to intercept some of the enemy’s provision-schooners, and on the 19th fell in with the British gun-boat Blacksnake armed with a short eighteen-pounder and carrying eighteen men. Gregory at once carried the boat by assault without the loss of a man. He burned the boat and carried the men into Sackett’s Harbor; and then on July 1st he descended on Presqu’ Isle, where he “burned a fourteen-gun schooner just ready for launching” and once more escaped without loss.