The Americans, being strongly re-enforced, a month later made a vigorous sally from the fort, but were driven back, with a loss on the part of both assailants and assailed of about four hundred men. Shortly after, General Izzard blew up the works and re- crossed the river to United States territory. The fortress, constructed at such a cost, and assailed and defended with such valour, soon fell to utter ruin. Where earth-shaking war achieved such vast exploits, to-day the peaceful waters of the placid lake kiss the deserted strand, and a few grass-grown and mouldering ram-mounds alone mark the grave of so much military pomp, power, and unavailing valour. [Footnote: Engravings of these are given in Lossing's "Field Book of the War.">[
Nor were the ravages of the war confined alone to the Niagara frontier. Far otherwise. They extended from the upper waters of the Mississippi to the Atlantic seaboard, and to the Gulf of Mexico. In the West, Michilimackinac was re-enforced, and Prairie du Chien, a fort on the Mississippi, was captured by a body of six hundred and fifty Canadians and Indians, without the loss of a single man. An American attempt to recapture Michilimackinac, by a force of a thousand men, was a total failure, the only exploit of the expedition being the inglorious pillage and destruction of the undefended trading-post of Ste. Marie.
Meanwhile, Sir John Sherbrooke, the Governor of Nova Scotia, despatched several hostile expeditions from Halifax against the coast of Maine.
Eastport, Castine, Bangor, Machias, and the whole region from the Penobscot to the St. Croix, surrendered to the British, and were held by them to the close of the war.
The arrival, in August, of sixteen thousand of Wellington's Peninsular troops, the heroes of so many Spanish victories, placed at the command of Sir George Prevost the means of vigorously undertaking offensive operations. A well-appointed force of eleven thousand men advanced from Canada to Lake Champlain. Captain Downie, with a fleet on which the ship carpenters were still at work as he went into action, was to co-operate with the army in an attack on Plattsburg, which was defended by five well-armed vessels and by fifteen hundred regulars and as many militia, under General Macomb. The British fleet gallantly attacked the enemy, but after a desperate battle, in which Captain Downie was slain, and nine of the ill-manned gunboats fled, it was compelled to surrender to a superior force. Prevost, notwithstanding that his strength was ten times greater than that of the enemy, had awaited the assistance of the fleet. As he tardily advanced his storming columns, the cheers from the fort announced its capture. Although on the verge of an easy victory, Prevost, fearing the fate of Burgoyne, and humanely averse to the shedding of blood, to the intense chagrin of his soldiers gave the signal to retreat. Many of his officers for very shame broke their swords, and vowed that they would never serve again. While an able civil governor, Prevost was an incompetent military commander. He was summoned home by the Horse Guards to stand a court-martial, but he died the following year, before the court sat.
The launch at Kingston of the "St. Lawrence," an "oak leviathan"
of a hundred guns, gave the British complete naval supremacy of
Lake Ontario, and enabled them strongly to re-enforce General
Drummond with troops and stores.
We will now trace very briefly the further events of the war, which lay altogether outside of Canada. Along the Atlantic seaboard the British maintained a harassing blockade. The close of the Continental war enabled Great Britain to throw more vigour into the conflict with the United States. Her giant navy was, therefore, free from service in European waters, and Admiral Cockburn, with a fleet of fifty vessels, about the middle of August, arrived in Chesapeake Bay with troops destined for the attack on the American capital. Tangier Island was seized and fortified, and fifteen hundred negroes of the neighbouring plantations were armed and drilled for military service. They proved useful but very costly allies, as, at the conclusion of the war, the Emperor of Russia, who was the referee in the matter, awarded their owners an indemnity of a million and a quarter of dollars, or over eight hundred dollars each for raw recruits for a six weeks' campaign.
There are two rivers by which Washington may be approached—the Potomac, on which it is situated, and the Patuxent, which flows in its rear. The British commander chose the latter, both on account of the facility of access, and for the purpose of destroying the powerful fleet of gunboats which had taken refuge in its creeks. This object was successfully accomplished on the 20th of August— thirteen of the gunboats being destroyed and one captured, together with fourteen merchant vessels. The army, under the command of General Ross, on the following day disembarked. It numbered, including some marines, three thousand five hundred men, with two hundred sailors to drag the guns—two small three- pounders.
For the defence of Washington, General Winder had been assigned a force of sixteen thousand six hundred regulars, and a levy of ninety-three thousand militia had been ordered. Of the latter, not one appeared; of the former, only about one-half mustered. The Americans had, however, twenty-six guns against two small pieces possessed by the British. General Winder took post at Bladensburg, a few miles from Washington. His batteries commanded the only bridge across the East Potomac. Ross determined to storm the bridge in two columns. Not for a moment did the war-bronzed veterans of the Peninsular war hesitate. Amid a storm of shot and shell, they dashed across the bridge, carried a fortified house, and charged on the batteries before the second column could come to their aid. Ten guns were captured. The American army was utterly routed, and fled through and beyond the city it was to defend. The lack of cavalry and the intense heat of the day prevented the pursuit by the British. The brilliant action was saddened to the victors by the loss of sixty-one gallant men slain and one hundred and eighty-five wounded.
Towards evening the victorious army occupied the city. The destruction of the public buildings had been decreed, in retaliation for the pillage of Toronto and the wanton burning of Niagara. An offer was made to the American authorities to accept a money payment by way of ransom, but it was refused. The next day, the torch was ruthlessly applied to the Capitol, with its valuable library, the President's house, treasury, war office, arsenal, dockyard, and the long bridge across the Potomac. The enemy had already destroyed a fine frigate, a twenty-gun sloop, twenty thousand stand of arms, and immense magazines of powder. Even if justifiable as a military retaliation, this act was unworthy of a great and generous nation.