Vermont: A Study of Independence

by Rowland Evans Robinson

Two gunboats and the longboats then proceeded to Swanton, where they destroyed some old barracks and plundered several citizens, and committed similar piratical depredations at several points on the western shore.

The two sloops, late Growler and Eagle, now sailed under changed names and colors up the lake, accompanied by the other gunboats, and destroyed several boats engaged in transporting stores. They appeared before Burlington, firing a few shots upon the town, which were briskly returned by the batteries. That night they cut out four sloops laden with provisions, and burnt another with a cargo of salt, and then bore away northward with their booty.

In September Macdonough sailed down the lake with his little fleet and offered battle, but the British declined and sailed into the Richelieu, whither the brave commodore would not follow to be entrapped as Lieutenant Smith had been. Again, in December, when some of the British vessels came up to Rouse's Point on a burning and plundering expedition, Macdonough endeavored to get within striking distance near Point au Fer, but they refused to engage, and retired to the same safe retreat.

In October Colonel Isaac Clark, a Vermonter and a veteran of the Revolution, made a brilliant dash with a detachment of his regiment, the 11th, on a British post at St. Armand, on Missisquoi Bay. With 102 riflemen he surprised the enemy, killing nine, wounding fourteen, and taking 101 prisoners in an engagement that lasted only ten minutes. In November he again visited St. Armand, securing fifty head of cattle which had been taken there from the Vermont side of the line. A Canadian journal was "glad to give the Devil his due," and credited him with having "behaved very honorably in this affair."

During the autumn General Wade Hampton amused himself and tired his troops with abortive meanderings along the line. In October he entered Canada, and made an attack on a small body of British troops, accomplishing nothing but the loss to himself of thirty-five men, killed and wounded. He refused to coöperate with General Wilkinson, who was advancing from Sackett's Harbor down the St. Lawrence, and desired Hampton to join him at St. Regis, the object being the capture of Montreal. Hampton's inglorious campaign ended with his retiring to winter quarters at Plattsburgh. Many Vermonters served under him, their hardships unrewarded by victory, or even vigorous endeavor to gain it.

Wilkinson's movements were as abortive, though when his flotilla reached the head of the Long Sault, a brigade of his army engaged a force of the enemy at Chrysler's Farm. The raw and undisciplined American troops, of whom the Vermonters in a battalion of the 11th formed a part, distinguished themselves by frequently repulsing some of the tried veterans of the English army. Neither side gained a victory, but the British remained in possession of the field, though they suffered the heavier loss in killed and wounded, and the flotilla continued its inconsequential voyage. Arriving at St. Regis, and learning that Hampton would not coöperate with him, Wilkinson abandoned the movement against Montreal, and went into winter quarters at French Mills.

On the last of December a British force made a successful raid on a depot of supplies at Derby, Vermont, destroying barracks and storehouses, and carrying away a considerable quantity of stores. In consequence of this, and some threatening demonstration on the Richelieu, Wilkinson removed his quarters to Lake Champlain. While this pretense was made of undertaking a conquest which might result in the annexation of Canada to the United States, and a consequent increase of power in the north, a result desired neither by the secretary of war nor the generals here employed, hot and earnest blows were falling on the enemy at the westward. On Lake Erie Perry had overcome the British, and was master of that inland sea. Harrison had vanquished the English and their Indian allies at the battle of the Thames, and Michigan was regained.

Meantime a storm of abuse raged between the political parties of Vermont, each hurling at the other the hard names of Tories, traitors, and enemies of their country, and neighborhoods and families were divided in the bitter contest. The Federalist strength was so far increased by the growing unpopularity of the war, and the irksomeness of the restrictions on trade, that the party succeeded at the election of 1813 in placing Martin Chittenden, son of the old governor, at the head of the state government.

One of his earliest acts was to recall by proclamation a brigade of the state militia in service at Plattsburgh. In this the governor acted on the ground that it was unconstitutional to call the militia beyond the limits of the State without permission from the governor, their commander-in-chief, a view of the case supported by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and adhered to by most of the other New England States; and, further, that the militia of Vermont were more needed for the defense of their own State than for that of its stronger sister commonwealth. A number of the Vermont officers returned a protest whose vigor was weakened by its insolence. They refused to obey the proclamation of their captain-general, but nevertheless the rank and file, tired of inaction, less irksome to the officers, returned to their homes before the term of enlistment expired, and the affair passed without further notice.

The muskrats had long been housed in their lodges on the frozen marshes, and all waterfowl but the loons and mergansers had flown southward, when Macdonough withdrew his fleet from the stormy lake into Otter Creek, whose current was already thick with drifting anchor-ice. The craft were moored in a reach of the river known as the Buttonwoods, three fourths of a mile above Dead Creek, the ice closed around them, and they slept inert until the return of spring.