Fight at Gananoqui—Expedition against Ogdensburg—Elliott captures two War-vessels—Gathering of Forces on the Niagara—Battle of Queenstown—Death of General Brock.
Hull's surrender by no means put an end to the design of invading Canada, but neither did it have any effect in changing the vicious plan of striking the enemy on the wrong flank.
In the night of September 20th, Captain Benjamin Forsyth embarked at Cape Vincent, New York, with about a hundred men, and in the morning landed near the village of Gananoqui, Canada. Here an engagement took place with about an equal number of British troops—regulars and militia—at the close of which the enemy fled, leaving ten men dead on the field and several wounded and prisoners. Captain Forsyth then burned the military storehouse—which was the object of his expedition—paroled the captured militia, and returned to the American shore with a few regulars as prisoners of war and a considerable quantity of arms and ammunition. One man of his party had been killed. In retaliation, the Canadians fitted out a much more formidable expedition against Ogdensburg. It consisted of about seven hundred and fifty men, who on the 2d of October embarked in forty boats, and under the escort of two gunboats moved up the St. Lawrence. At the same time, the British batteries at Prescott, opposite Ogdensburg, opened fire on that place, which was returned by an American battery. The next day was spent in preparations, and in the forenoon of Sunday, the 4th, the final embarkation was made from Prescott, in twenty-five boats and the two gunboats. As a blind, they proceeded up the river past Ogdensburg for some distance. Then suddenly they turned about and bore down upon that place, while at the same instant the British batteries reopened fire on the village. The American battery, together with a company of riflemen, all under command of General Jacob Brown, reserved fire till the flotilla was within point-blank range, and then opened all at once, the fire was returned, and kept up steadily for an hour. Two of the boats were so damaged that they had to be abandoned, and another, with its crew, was captured. The expedition then returned to Prescott without having effected a landing on American soil.
In the surrender of Detroit was included the brig-of-war Adams, which left the Americans with no naval force whatever on the upper lakes. Lieutenant Jesse D. Elliott, of the navy, was sent to Buffalo to organize a flotilla, and soon after a detachment of sailors to man it was ordered thither from New York. In October the Adams, which the British had renamed Detroit, and a smaller vessel, the Caledonia, which had taken part in the capture of Michilimackinac, came down Lake Erie, and cast anchor near Fort Erie. Elliott formed a plan for their capture, and with a force of fifty sailors and fifty soldiers embarked in boats at midnight of the 8th. They rowed silently across the river, and before they were discovered leaped upon the decks of the vessels, secured the crews, weighed anchor, and headed for the American shore. As the wind was too light to carry them up stream, they were obliged to run down past the British batteries. The Caledonia, which had a valuable cargo of furs, was run ashore at Black Rock and secured. The Detroit fought the enemy's batteries while unsuccessful efforts were made to tow her beyond their reach. Finally she drifted ashore at Squaw Island, where her captors abandoned her, taking away their prisoners. A party of British soldiers subsequently boarded her, but were driven off by fire from a battery. In the course of the day she underwent a heavy fire from both sides, and in the evening a British party were preparing to recover her, when they were anticipated by an American party who boarded her and set her on fire. For this exploit, in which half a dozen of his men were killed, Congress gave Lieutenant Elliott a vote of thanks and a sword.
These comparatively trifling incidents of border war were succeeded by one much more serious, though not more effective. In the summer General Dearborn had entered into an armistice with Sir George Prevost, the British commander in Canada, which set free the enemy's troops on the Niagara frontier, who were promptly moved against Hull at Detroit. That campaign being finished, a large part of them was drawn back to the line of the Niagara, and when in the autumn a movement in that quarter was contemplated by the Americans, they were confronted by a considerable force at every point where a crossing was possible, while General Brock, the victor of Detroit, was on the ground, commanding the whole, and ready to concentrate them at any point that might be attacked. He expected the crossing to take place at the mouth of the river.
General Stephen Van Rensselaer, commanding all the forces on the American side of the Niagara, determined to cross from Lewiston, at the foot of the rapids, seven miles below the great Falls, and seize Queenstown. The importance of the place arose from the fact that it was the terminus of the portage between Lake Ontario and the upper lakes. At this point the high ground through which the great Chasm of the river below the Falls has been cut slopes down to a lower plateau, on which stands the village of Queenstown.
The British had one piece of artillery on the Heights, south of the village, and another on the bank of the river a mile below. It was believed by many that General Van Rensselaer, who had been a prominent Federalist, was opposed to the war and purposely delayed moving against the enemy. Whether this was true or not, the discontent with his tardiness was so loudly expressed and had begun so to demoralize his troops, that at last he acknowledged himself compelled by it to move. He had minute information as to the situation and strength of each post of the enemy on the western bank of the river, and could choose his own point for crossing. He had about six thousand troops under his command—regulars, volunteers, and militia. The immediate command of the attacking force was assigned to his cousin, Lieutenant-Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer, which occasioned serious dissatisfaction, because he was only an officer of New York militia, while some of the officers who had been ordered to join the expedition were commissioned in the United States regular army, and therefore ranked him.
Thirteen large boats, capable of carrying 340 men, with their equipments, were brought on wagons and launched at Lewiston on the 10th of October, and arrangements were made for crossing before daylight the next morning.
That night a cold, northeast storm set in, and the troops, who were promptly brought to the rendezvous, stood shivering for hours in the rain and darkness, on the river-bank, waiting for the boats, which, did not come. At length day dawned, and the crossing had to be postponed. It afterward appeared that the boats had been intrusted to one Lieutenant Sims, who was said to have taken them up the river, far beyond the point at which they were wanted, and then abandoned the expedition. No sufficient motive has ever been assigned for this extraordinary conduct on the part of the lieutenant. It has been suggested that he was so incensed at seeing the command given to an officer of militia, that he was willing to destroy his own reputation, if he had any, for the sake of frustrating the movement.
Two days later the attempt was renewed. Three hundred regulars under Lieutenant-Colonel John Chrystie, and an equal number of militia under Colonel Van Rensselaer, were to cross the river before daybreak of the 13th, and storm the Heights of Queenstown, and the remainder of the troops to follow and reenforce them. Lieutenant-Colonel Winfield Scott arrived from Buffalo on the evening of the 12th, and asked leave to join the expedition, but was refused. Yet he placed a battery on Lewiston Heights, to protect the troops while they were crossing.