The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 Part 2

Amid the prolonged vicissitudes of these western campaigns, two subordinate officers, the boyish Major Croghan at Fort Stephenson and the das.h.i.+ng Colonel Johnson with his Kentucky mounted infantry, displayed qualities which accord with the best traditions of American arms. Of kindred spirit and far more ill.u.s.trious was Captain Oliver Hazard Perry of the United States Navy. Perry dealt with and overcame, on a much larger scale, similar obstacles and discouragements-untrained men, lack of material, faulty support-but was ready and eager to meet the enemy in the hour of need. If it is a sound axiom never to despise the enemy, it is nevertheless true that excessive prudence has lost many an action. Farragut's motto has been the keynote of the success of all the great sea-captains, "L'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace."

It was not until the lesson of Hull's surrender had aroused the civil authorities that Captain Chauncey of the navy yard at New York received orders in September, 1812, "to a.s.sume command of the naval force on Lakes Erie and Ontario and to use every exertion to obtain control of them this fall." Chauncey was an experienced officer, forty years old, who had not rusted from inactivity like the elderly generals who had been given command of armies. He knew what he needed and how to get it. Having to begin with almost nothing, he busied himself to such excellent purpose that he was able to report within three weeks that he had forwarded to Sackett's Harbor on Lake Ontario, "one hundred and forty s.h.i.+p carpenters, seven hundred seamen and marines, more than one hundred pieces of cannon, the greater part of large caliber, with musket, shot, carriages, etc. The carriages have nearly all been made and the shot cast in that time. Nay, I may say that nearly every article that has been forwarded has been made."

It was found impossible to divert part of this ordnance to Buffalo because of the excessively bad roads, which were pa.s.sable for heavy traffic only by means of sleds during the snows of winter. This obstacle spoiled the hope of putting a fighting force afloat on Lake Erie during the latter part of 1812. Chauncey consequently established his main base at Sackett's Harbor and lost no time in building and buying vessels. In forty-five days from laying the keel he launched a s.h.i.+p of the corvette cla.s.s, a third larger than the ocean cruisers Wasp and Hornet, "and nine weeks ago," said he, "the timber that she is composed of was growing in the forest."

Lieutenant Elliott at the same time had not been idle in his little navy yard at Black Rock near Buffalo, where he had a.s.sembled a small brig and several schooners. In December Chauncey inspected the work and decided to s.h.i.+ft it to Presqu' Isle, now the city of Erie, which was much less exposed to interference by the enemy. Here he got together the material for two brigs of three hundred tons each, which were to be the main strength of Perry's squadron nine months later. Impatient to return to Lake Ontario, where a fleet in being was even more urgently needed, Chauncey was glad to receive from Commander Oliver Hazard Perry an application to serve under him. To Perry was promptly turned over the burden and the responsibility of smas.h.i.+ng the British naval power on Lake Erie. Events were soon to display the notable differences in temperament and capabilities between these two men. Though he had greater opportunities on Lake Ontario, Chauncey was too cautious and held the enemy in too much respect; wherefore he dodged and parried and fought inconclusive engagements with the fleet of Sir James Yeo until destiny had pa.s.sed him by. He lives in history as a competent and enterprising chief of dockyards and supplies but not as a victorious seaman.

To Perry, in the flush of his youth at twenty-eight years, was granted the immortal spark of greatness to do and dare and the personality which impelled men gladly to serve him and to die for him. His difficulties were huge, but he attacked them with a confidence which nothing could dismay. First he had to concentrate his divided force. Lieutenant Elliott's flotilla of schooners at that time lay at Black Rock. It was necessary to move them to Erie at great risk of capture by the enemy, but vigilance and seamans.h.i.+p accomplished this feat. It then remained to finish and equip the larger vessels which were being built. Two of these were the brigs ordered laid down by Chauncey, the Lawrence and the Niagara. Apart from these, the battle squadron consisted of seven small schooners and the captured British brig, the Caledonia. In size and armament they were absurd c.o.c.klesh.e.l.ls even when compared with a modern destroyer, but they were to make themselves superbly memorable. Perry's flags.h.i.+p was no larger than the ancient coasting schooners which ply today between Bangor and Boston with cargoes of lumber and coal.

Through the winter and spring of 1813, the carpenters, calkers, and smiths were fitting the new vessels together from the green timber and planking which the choppers and sawyers wrought out of the forest. The iron, the canvas, and all the other material had to be hauled by horses and oxen from places several hundred miles distant. Late in July the squadron was ready for active service but was dangerously short of men. This, however, was the least of Perry's concerns. He had reckoned that seven hundred and forty officers and sailors were required to handle and fight his s.h.i.+ps, but he did not hesitate to put to sea with a total force of four hundred and ninety.

Of these a hundred were soldiers sent him only nine days before he sailed, and most of them trod a deck for the first time. Chauncey was so absorbed in his own affairs and hazards on Lake Ontario that he was not likely to give Perry any more men than could be spared. This reluctance caused Perry to send a spirited protest in which he said: "The men that came by Mr. Champlin are a motley set, blacks, soldiers, and boys. I cannot think you saw them after they were selected."

As the superior officer, Chauncey resented the criticism and replied with this warning reproof: "As you have a.s.sured the Secretary that you should conceive yourself equal or superior to the enemy, with a force of men so much less than I had deemed necessary, there will be a great deal expected from you by your country, and I trust they will not be disappointed in the high expectations formed of your gallantry and judgment."

The quick temper of Perry flared at this. He was about to sail in search of the British fleet with what men he had because he was unable to obtain more, and he had rightly looked to Chauncey to supply the deficiency. Impulsively he asked to be relieved of his command and gave expression to his sense of grievance in a letter to the Secretary of the Navy in which he said, among other things: "I cannot serve under an officer who has been so totally regardless of my feelings... . The critical state of General Harrison was such that I took upon myself the responsibility of going out with the few young officers you had been pleased to send me, with the few seamen I had, and as many volunteers as I could muster from the militia. I did not shrink from this responsibility but, Sir, at that very moment I surely did not antic.i.p.ate the receipt of a letter in every line of which is an insult." Most fortunately Perry's request for transfer could not be granted until after the battle of Lake Erie had been fought and won. The Secretary answered in tones of mild rebuke: "A change of commander under existing circ.u.mstances, is equally inadmissible as it respects the interest of the service and your own reputation. It is right that you should reap the harvest which you have sown."

Perry's indignation seems excusable. He had shown a cheerful willingness to shoulder the whole load and his anxieties had been greater than his superiors appeared to realize. Captain Barclay, who commanded the British naval force on Lake Erie and who had been hovering off Erie while the American s.h.i.+ps were waiting for men, might readily have sent his boats in at night and destroyed the entire squadron. Perry had not enough sailors to defend his s.h.i.+ps, and the regiment of Pennsylvania militia stationed at Erie to guard the naval base refused to do duty on s.h.i.+pboard after dark. "I told the boys to go, Captain Perry," explained their worthless colonel, "but the boys won't go."

Perry's lucky star saved him from disaster, however, and on the 2d of August he undertook the perilous and awkward labor of floating his larger vessels over the shallow bar of the harbor at Erie. Barclay's blockading force had vanished. For Perry it was then or never. At any moment the enemy's topsails might reappear, and the American s.h.i.+ps would be caught in a situation wholly defenseless. Perry first disposed his light-draft schooners to cover his channel, and then hoisted out the guns of the Lawrence brig and lowered them into boats. Scows, or "camels," as they were called, were lashed alongside the vessel to lift her when the water was pumped out of them. There was no more than four feet of water on the bar, and the brig-of-war b.u.mped and stranded repeatedly even when lightened and a.s.sisted in every possible manner. After a night and a day of unflagging exertion she was hauled across into deep water and the guns were quickly slung aboard. The Niagara was coaxed out of harbor in the same ingenious fas.h.i.+on, and on the 4th of August Perry was able to report that all his vessels were over the bar, although Barclay had returned by now and "the enemy had been in sight all day."

Perry endeavored to force an engagement without delay, but the British fleet retired to Amherstburg because Barclay was waiting for a new and powerful s.h.i.+p, the Detroit, and he preferred to spar for time. The American vessels thereupon anch.o.r.ed off Erie and took on stores. They had fewer than three hundred men aboard, and it was bracing news for Perry to receive word that a hundred officers and men under Commander Jesse D. Elliott were hastening to join him. Elliott became second in command to Perry and a.s.sumed charge of the Niagara.

For almost a month the Stars and Stripes flew unchallenged from the masts of the American s.h.i.+ps. Perry made his base at Put-in Bay, thirty miles southeast of Amherstburg, where he could intercept the enemy pa.s.sing eastward. The British commander, Barclay, had also been troubled by lack of seamen and was inclined to postpone action. He was nevertheless urged on by Sir George Prevost, the Governor General of Canada, who told him that "he had only to dare and he would be successful." A more urgent call on Barclay to fight was due to the lack of food in the Amherstburg region, where the water route was now blockaded by the American s.h.i.+ps. The British were feeding fourteen thousand Indians, including warriors and their families, and if provisions failed the red men would be likely to vanish.

At sunrise of the 10th of September, a sailor at the masthead of the Lawrence sighted the British squadron steering across the lake with a fair wind and ready to give battle. Perry instantly sent his crews to quarters and trimmed sail to quit the bay and form his line in open water. He was eager to take the initiative, and it may be a.s.sumed that he had forgotten Chauncey's prudent admonition: "The first object will be to destroy or cripple the enemy's fleet; but in all attempts upon the fleet you ought to use great caution, for the loss of a single vessel may decide the fate of a campaign."

Small, crude, and hastily manned as were the s.h.i.+ps engaged in this famous fresh-water battle, it should be borne in mind that the proven principles of naval strategy and tactics used were as sound and true as when Nelson and Rodney had demonstrated them in mighty fleet actions at sea. In the final council in his cabin, Perry echoed Nelson's words in saying that no captain could go very far wrong who placed his vessel close alongside those of the enemy. Chauncey's counsel, on the other hand, would have lost the battle. Perry's decision to give and take punishment, no matter if it should cost him a s.h.i.+p or two, won him the victory.

The British force was inferior, both in the number of vessels and the weight of broadsides, but this inferiority was somewhat balanced by the greater range and hitting power of Barclay's longer guns. Each had what might be called two heavy s.h.i.+ps of the line: the British, the Detroit and the Queen Charlotte, and the Americans, the Lawrence and the Niagara. Next in importance and fairly well matched were the Lady Prevost under Barclay's flag and the Caledonia under Perry's. There remained the light schooner craft of which the American squadron had six and the British only three. Perry realized that if he could put s.h.i.+p against s.h.i.+p the odds would be largely in his favor, for, with his batteries of carronades which threw their shot but a short distance, he would be unwise to maneuver for position and let the enemy pound him to pieces at long range. His plan of battle was therefore governed entirely by his knowledge of Barclay's strength and of the possibilities of his own forces.

With a light breeze and working to windward, Perry's s.h.i.+p moved to intercept the British squadron which lay in column, topsails aback and waiting. The American brigs were fanned ahead by the air which breathed in their lofty canvas, but the schooners were almost becalmed and four of them straggled in the rear, their crews tugging at the long sweeps or oars. Two of the faster of these, the Scorpion and the Ariel, were slipping along in the van where they supported the American flags.h.i.+p Lawrence, and Perry had no intention of delaying for the others to come up. Shortly before noon Barclay opened the engagement with the long guns of the Detroit, but as yet Perry was unable to reach his opponent and made more sail on the Lawrence in order to get close.

The British gunners of the Detroit were already finding the target, and Perry discovered that the Lawrence was difficult to handle with much of her rigging shot away. He ranged ahead until his s.h.i.+p was no more than two hundred and fifty yards from the Detroit. Even then the distance was greater than desirable for the main battery of carronades. A good golfer can drive his tee shot as far as the s.p.a.ce of water which separated these two indomitable flags.h.i.+ps as they fought. It was a different kind of naval warfare from that of today in which superdreadnaughts score hits at battle ranges of twelve and fourteen miles.

Perry's plans were now endangered by the failure of his other heavy s.h.i.+p, the Niagara, to take care of her own adversary, the Queen Charlotte, which forged ahead and took a station where her broadsides helped to reduce the Lawrence to a ma.s.s of wreckage. A bitter dispute which challenged the courage and judgment of Commander Elliott of the Niagara was the aftermath of this flaw in the conduct of the battle. It was charged that he failed to go to the support of his commander-in-chief when the flags.h.i.+p was being destroyed under his eyes. The facts admit of no doubt: he dropped astern and for two hours remained scarcely more than a spectator of a desperate action in which his s.h.i.+p was sorely needed, whereas if he had followed the order to close up, the Lawrence need never have struck to the enemy.

In his defense he stated that lack of wind had prevented him from drawing ahead to engage and divert the Queen Charlotte and that he had been instructed to hold a certain position in line. At the time Perry found no fault with him, merely setting down in his report that "at half-past two, the wind springing up, Captain Elliott was enabled to bring his vessel, the Niagara, gallantly into close action." Later Perry formulated charges against his second in command, accusing him of having kept on a course "which would in a few minutes have carried said vessel entirely out of action." These doc.u.ments were pigeonholed and a Court of Inquiry commended Elliott as a brave and skillful officer who had gained laurels in that "splendid victory."

The issue was threshed out by naval experts who violently disagreed, but there was glory enough for all and the flag had suffered no stain. Certain it is that the battle would have lacked its most brilliantly dramatic episode if Perry had not been compelled to s.h.i.+ft his pennant from the blazing hulk of the Lawrence and, from the quarter-deck of the Niagara, to renew the conflict, rally his vessels, and s.n.a.t.c.h a triumph from the shadow of disaster. It was one of the great moments in the storied annals of the American navy, comparable with a John Paul Jones shouting "We have not yet begun to fight!" from the deck of the shattered, water-logged Bon Homme Richard, or a Farragut lashed in the rigging and roaring "d.a.m.n the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"

Because of the failure of Elliott to bring the Niagara into action at once, as had been laid down in the plan of battle, Perry found himself in desperate straits aboard the beaten Lawrence. Her colors still flew but she could fire only one gun of her whole battery, and more than half the s.h.i.+p's company had been killed or wounded-eighty-three men out of one hundred and forty-two. It was impossible to steer or handle her and she drifted helpless. Then it was that Perry, seeing the laggard Niagara close at hand, ordered a boat away and was transferred to a s.h.i.+p which was still fit and ready to continue the action. As soon as he had left them, the survivors of the Lawrence hauled down their flag in token of surrender, for there was nothing else for them to do.

As soon as he jumped on deck, Perry took command of the Niagara, sending Elliott off to bring up the rearmost schooners. There was no lagging or hesitation now. With topgallant sails sheeted home, the Niagara bore down upon the Detroit, driven by a freshening breeze. Barclay's crippled flags.h.i.+p tried to avoid being raked and so fouled her consort, the Queen Charlotte. The two British s.h.i.+ps lay locked together while the American guns pounded them with terrific fire. Presently they got clear of each other and pluckily attempted to carry on the fight. But the odds were hopeless. The officer whose painful duty it was to signal the surrender of the Detroit said of this British flags.h.i.+p: "The s.h.i.+p lying completely unmanageable, every brace cut away, the mizzen-topmast and gaff down, all the other masts badly wounded, not a stay left forward, hull shattered very much, a number of guns disabled, and the enemy's squadron raking both s.h.i.+ps ahead and astern, none of our own in a position to support us, I was under the painful necessity of answering the enemy to say we had struck, the Queen Charlotte having previously done so."

It was later reported of the Detroit that it was "impossible to place a hand upon that broadside which had been exposed to the enemy's fire without covering some portion of a wound, either from grape, round, canister, or chain shot." The crew had suffered as severely as the vessel. The valiant commander of the squadron, Captain Barclay, was a fighting sailor who had lost an arm at Trafalgar. In the battle of Lake Erie he was twice wounded and had to be carried below. His first lieutenant was mortally hurt and in the critical moments the s.h.i.+p was left in charge of the second lieutenant. In this gallant manner did Perry and Barclay, both heirs of the bulldog Anglo-Saxon strain, wage their b.l.o.o.d.y duel without faltering and thus did the British sailor keep his honor bright in defeat.

The little American schooners played a part in smas.h.i.+ng the enemy. The Ariel and Scorpion held their positions in the van and their long guns helped deal the finis.h.i.+ng blows to the Detroit, while the others came up when the breeze grew stronger and engaged their several opponents. The Caledonia was effective in putting the Queen Charlotte out of action. When the larger British s.h.i.+ps surrendered, the smaller craft were compelled to follow the example, and the squadron yielded to Perry after three hours of battle. It was in no boastful strain but as the laconic fact that he sent his famous message to the nation. He had met the enemy and they were all his. It was leaders.h.i.+p-brilliant and tenacious-which had employed makes.h.i.+ft vessels, odd lots of guns, and crews which included militia, sick men, and "a motley set of blacks and boys." Barclay had labored under handicaps no less heavy, but it was his destiny to match himself against a superior force and a man of unquestioned naval genius. Oliver Hazard Perry would have made a name for himself, no doubt, if his career had led him to blue water and the command of stately frigates.

On Lake Ontario, Chauncey dragged his naval campaign through two seasons and then left the enemy in control. Perry, by opening the way for Harrison, rewon the Northwest for the United States because he sagaciously upheld the doctrine of Napoleon that "war cannot be waged without running risks." Behind his daring, however, lay tireless, painstaking preparation and a thorough knowledge of his trade.

CHAPTER IV

EBB AND FLOW ON THE NORTHERN FRONT

The events of the war by land are apt to be as confusing in narration as they were in fact. The many forays, skirmishes, and retreats along the Canadian frontier were campaigns in name only, ambitiously conceived but most haltingly executed. Major General Dearborn, senior officer of the American army, had failed to begin operations in the center and on the eastern flank in time to divert the enemy from Detroit; but in the autumn of 1812 he was ready to attempt an invasion of Canada by way of Niagara. The direct command was given to Major General Stephen Van Rensselaer of the New York State militia, who was to advance as soon as six thousand troops were a.s.sembled. At first Dearborn seemed hopeful of success. He predicted that "with the militia and other troops there or on the march, they will be able, I presume, to cross over into Canada, carry all the works in Niagara, and proceed to the other posts in that province in triumph."

The fair prospect soon clouded, however, and Dearborn, who was of a doubtful, easily discouraged temperament, partly due to age and infirmities, discovered that "a strange fatality seemed to have pervaded the whole arrangements." Yet this was when the movement of troops and supplies was far brisker and better organized than could have been expected and when the armed strength was thrice that of Brock, the British general, who was guarding forty miles of front along the Niagara River with less than two thousand men. At Queenston which was the objective of the first American attack there were no more than two companies of British regulars and a few militia, in all about three hundred troops. The rest of Brock's forces were at Chippawa and Fort Erie, where the heavy a.s.saults were expected.

An American regular brigade was on the march to Buffalo, but its commander, Brigadier General Alexander Smyth, was not subordinate to Van Rensselaer, and the two had quarreled. Smyth paid no attention to a request for a council of war and went his own way. On the night of the 10th of October Van Rensselaer attempted to cross the Niagara River, but there was some blunder about the boats and the disgruntled troops returned to camp. Two nights later they made another attempt but found the British on the alert and failed to dislodge them from the heights of Queenston. A small body of American regulars, led by gallant young Captain Wool, managed to clamber up a path hitherto regarded as impa.s.sable. There they held a precarious position and waited for help. Brock, who was commanding the British in person, was instantly killed while storming this hillside at the head of reinforcements. In him the enemy lost its ablest and most intrepid leader.

The forenoon wore on and Captain Wool, painfully wounded, still clung to the heights with his two hundred and fifty men. A relief column which crossed the river found itself helpless for lack of artillery and intrenching tools and was compelled to fall back. Van Rensselaer forgot his bickering with General Smyth and sent him urgent word to hasten to the rescue. Winfield Scott, then a lieutenant colonel, came forward as a volunteer and took command of young Captain Wool's forlorn hope. Gradually more men trickled up the heights until the ground was defended by three hundred and fifty regulars and two hundred and fifty militia.

Meanwhile the British troops were mustering up the river at Chippawa, and the red lines of their veterans were descried advancing from Fort George below. Bands of Indians raced by field and forest to screen the British movements and to hara.s.s the American lines. The tragic turn of events appears to have dazed General Van Rensselaer. The failure to save the beleaguered and outnumbered Americans on the heights he blamed upon his troops, reporting next day that his reinforcements embarked very slowly. "I pa.s.sed immediately over to accelerate them," said he, "but to my utter astonishment I found that at the very moment when complete victory was in our hands the ardor of the unengaged troops had entirely subsided. I rode in all directions, urged the men by every consideration to pa.s.s over; but in vain."

The candid fact seems to be that this general of militia had made a sorry mess of the whole affair, and his men had lost all faith in his ability to turn the adverse tide. He stood and watched six hundred valiant American soldiers make their last stand on the rocky eminence while the British hurled more and more men up the slope. One concerted attack by the idle American army would have swept them away like chaff. But there was only one Winfield Scott in the field, and his lot was cast with those who fought to the bitter end as a sacrifice to stupidity. The six hundred were surrounded. They were pushed back by weight of opposing numbers. Still they died in their tracks, until the survivors were actually pushed over a cliff and down to the bank of the river.

There they surrendered, for there were no boats to carry them across. The boatmen had fled to cover as soon as the Indians opened fire on them. Winfield Scott was among the prisoners together with a brigadier general and two more lieutenant colonels who had been bagged earlier in the day. Ninety Americans were killed and many more wounded, while a total of nine hundred were captured during the entire action. Van Rensselaer had lost almost as many troops as Hull had lost at Detroit, and he had nothing to show for it. He very sensibly resigned his command on the next day.

The choice of his successor, however, was again unfortunate. Brigadier General Alexander Smyth had been inspector general in the regular army before he was given charge of an infantry brigade. He had a most flattering opinion of himself, and promotion to the command of an army quite turned his head. The oratory with which he proceeded to bombard friend and foe strikes the one note of humor in a chapter that is otherwise depressing. Through the newspapers he informed his troops that their valor had been conspicuous "but the nation has been unfortunate in the selection of some of those who have directed it ... The cause of these miscarriages is apparent. The commanders were popular men, 'dest.i.tute alike of theory and experience' in the art of war." "In a few days," he announced, "the troops under my command will plant the American standard in Canada. They are men accustomed to obedience, silence, and steadiness. They will conquer or they will die. Will you stand with your arms folded and look on this interesting struggle? ... Has the race degenerated? Or have you, under the baneful influence of contending factions, forgot your country? ... Shame, where is thy blush? No!"

This invasion of Canada was to be a grim, deadly business; no more trifling. His heroic troops were to hold their fire until they were within five paces of the enemy, and then to charge bayonets with shouts. They were to think on their country's honor torn, her rights trampled on, her sons enslaved, her infants peris.h.i.+ng by the hatchet, not forgetting to be strong and brave and to let the ruffian power of the British King cease on this continent.

Buffalo was the base of this particular conquest of Canada. The advance guard would cross the Niagara River from Black Rock to destroy the enemy's batteries, after which the army was to move onward, three thousand strong. The first detachments crossed the river early in the morning on the 28th of November and did their work well and bravely and captured the guns in spite of heavy loss. The troops then began to embark at sunrise, but by noon only twelve hundred were in boats. Upstream they moved at a leisurely pace and went ash.o.r.e for dinner. The remainder of the three thousand, however, had failed to appear, and Smyth refused to invade unless he had the full number. Altogether, four thousand troops, all regulars, had been sent to Niagara but many of them had been disabled by sickness.

General Smyth then called a council of war, s.h.i.+fted the responsibility from his own shoulders, and decided to delay the invasion. Again he changed his mind and ordered the men into the boats two days later. Fifteen hundred men answered the summons. Again the general marched them ash.o.r.e after another council of war, and then and there he abandoned his personal conquest of Canada. His army literally melted away, "about four thousand men without order or restraint discharging their muskets in every direction," writes an eyewitness. They riddled the general's tent with bullets by way of expressing their opinion of him, and he left the camp not more than two leaps ahead of his earnest troops. He requested permission to visit his family, after the newspapers had branded him as a coward, and the visit became permanent. His name was dropped from the army rolls without the formality of an inquiry. It seemed rather too much for the country to bear that, in the first year of the war, its armies should have suffered from the failures of Hull, Van Rensselaer, and Smyth.

It had been hoped that General Dearborn might carry out his own idea of an operation against Montreal at the same time as the Niagara campaign was in progress. On the sh.o.r.e of Lake Champlain, Dearborn was in command of the largest and most promising force under the American flag, including seven regiments of the regular army. Taking personal charge at Plattsburg, he marched this body of troops twenty miles in the direction of the Canadian border. Here the militia refused to go on, and he marched back again after four days in the field. Beset with rheumatism and low spirits, he wrote to the Secretary of War: "I had antic.i.p.ated disappointment and misfortune in the commencement of the war, but I did by no means apprehend such a deficiency of regular troops and such a series of disasters as we have witnessed." Coupled with this complaint was the request that he might be allowed "to retire to the shades of private life and remain a mere but interested spectator of pa.s.sing events."

The Government, however, was not yet ready to release Major General Dearborn but instructed him to organize an offensive which should obtain control of the St. Lawrence River and thereby cut communication between Upper and Lower Canada. This was the pet plan of Armstrong when he became Secretary of War, and as soon as was possible he set the military machinery in motion. In February, 1813, Armstrong told Dearborn to a.s.semble four thousand men at Sackett's Harbor, on Lake Ontario, and three thousand at Buffalo. The larger force was to cross the lake in the spring, protected by Chauncey's fleet, capture the important naval station of Kingston, then attack York (Toronto), and finally join the corps at Buffalo for another operation against the British on the Niagara River. But Dearborn was not eager for the enterprise. He explained that he lacked sufficient strength for an operation against Kingston. With the support of Commodore Chauncey he proposed a different offensive which should be aimed first against York, then against Niagara, and finally against Kingston. This proposal reversed Armstrong's programme, and he permitted it to sway his decision. Thus the war turned westward from the St. Lawrence.

The only apparent success in this campaign occurred at York, the capital of Upper Canada, where on the 27th of April one s.h.i.+p under construction was burned and another captured after the small British garrison had been driven inland. The public buildings were also destroyed by fire, though Dearborn protested that this was done against his orders. In the next year, however, the enemy retaliated by burning the Capitol at Was.h.i.+ngton. The fighting at York was b.l.o.o.d.y, and the American forces counted a fifth killed or wounded. They remained on the Canadian side only ten days and then returned to disembark at Niagara. Here Dearborn fell ill, and his chief of staff, Colonel Winfield Scott, was left in virtual control of the army.

In May, 1813, most of the troops at Plattsburg and Sackett's Harbor were moved to the Niagara region for the purpose of a grand movement to take Fort George, at the mouth of that river, from the rear and thus redeem the failure of the preceding campaign. Commodore Chauncey with his Ontario fleet was prepared to cooperate and to transport the troops. Three American brigadiers, Boyd, Winder, and Chandler, effected a landing in handsome fas.h.i.+on, while Winfield Scott led an advance division. Under cover of the s.h.i.+ps they proceeded along the beach and turned the right flank of the British defenses. Fort George was evacuated, but most of the force escaped and made their way to Queenston, whence they continued to retreat westward along the sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario. Vincent, the British general, reported his losses in killed and wounded and missing as three hundred and fifty-six. The Americans suffered far less. It was a clean-cut, workmanlike operation, and, according to an observer, "Winfield Scott fought nine-tenths of the battle." But the chief aim had been to destroy the British force, and in this the adventure failed.

General Dearborn was not at all reconciled to letting the garrison of Fort George get clean away from him, and he therefore sent General Winder in pursuit with a thousand men. These were reinforced by as many more; and together they followed the trail of the retreating British to Stony Creek and camped there for the night. Vincent and his sixteen hundred British regulars were in bivouac ten miles beyond. The mishap at Fort George had by no means knocked the fight out of them. Vincent himself led six hundred men back in the middle of a black night (the 6th of June) and fell upon the American camp. A confused battle followed. The two forces intermingled in cursing, stabbing, swirling groups. The American generals, Chandler and Winder, walked straight into the enemy's arms and were captured. The British broke through and took the American batteries but failed to keep them. At length both parties retired, badly punished. The Americans had lost all ardor for pursuit and on the following day retreated ten miles and were soon ordered to return to Fort George.

General Dearborn was much distressed by this unlucky episode and was in such feeble health that he again begged to be relieved. He was, he said, "so reduced in strength as to be incapable of any command." General Morgan Lewis took temporary command at Niagara, but, being soon called to Sackett's Harbor, he was succeeded by General Boyd, whom Lewis was kind enough to describe, by way of recommendation, in these terms: "A compound of ignorance, vanity, and petulance, with nothing to recommend him but that species of bravery in the field which is vaporing, boisterous, stifling reflection, blinding observation, and better adapted to the bully than the soldier."

In order to live up to this encomium, Boyd sent Colonel Boerstler on the 24th of June, with four hundred infantry and two guns, to bombard and take an annoying stone house a day's march from Fort George. But two hundred hostile Indians so alarmed Boerstler that he attempted to retreat. Thirty hostile militia then caused him to halt the retreat and send for reinforcements. The reinforcements came to the number of a hundred and fifty, but the British also appeared with forty-seven more men. Colonel Boerstler thereupon surrendered his total of five hundred and forty soldiers. General Dearborn, still the nominal commander of the forces, sadly mentioned the disaster as "an unfortunate and unaccountable event."

There is a better account to be given, however, of events at Sackett's Harbor in this same month of May. The operations on the Niagara front had stripped this American naval base of troops and of the protection of Chauncey's fleet. Sir George Prevost, the Governor in Chief of Canada, could not let the opportunity slip, although he was not notable for energy. He embarked with a force of regulars, eight hundred men, on Sir James Yeo's s.h.i.+ps at Kingston and sailed across Lake Ontario.

Sackett's Harbor was defended by only four hundred regulars of several regiments and about two hundred and fifty militia from Albany. Couriers rode through the countryside as soon as the British s.h.i.+ps were sighted, and several hundred volunteers came straggling in from farm and shop and mill. In them was something of the old spirit of Lexington and Bunker Hill, and to lead them there was a real man and a soldier with his two feet under him, Jacob Brown, a brigadier general of the state militia, who consented to act in the emergency. He knew what to do and how to communicate to his men his own unshaken courage. On the beach of the beautiful little harbor he posted five hundred of his militia and volunteers to hamper the British landing. His second line was composed of regulars. In rear were the forts with the guns manned.

The British grenadiers were thrown ash.o.r.e at dawn on the 28th of May under a wicked fire from American muskets and rifles, but their disciplined ranks surged forward, driving the militia back at the point of the bayonet and causing even the regulars to give ground. The regulars halted at a blockhouse, where they had also the log barracks and timbers of the s.h.i.+pyard for a defense, and there they stayed in spite of the efforts of the British grenadiers to dislodge them. Jacob Brown, stout-hearted and undismayed, rallied his militia in new positions. Of the engagement a British officer said: "I do not exaggerate when I tell you that the shot, both of musketry and grape, was falling about us like hail ... Those who were left of the troops behind the barracks made a dash out to charge the enemy; but the fire was so destructive that they were instantly turned by it, and the retreat was sounded. Sir George, fearless of danger and disdaining to run or to suffer his men to run, repeatedly called out to them to retire in order; many, however, made off as fast as they could."

Before the retreat was sounded, the British expedition had suffered severely. One man in three was killed or wounded, and the rest of them narrowly escaped capture. Jacob Brown serenely reported to General Dearborn that "the militia were all rallied before the enemy gave way and were marching perfectly in his view towards the rear of his right flank; and I am confident that even then, if Sir George had not retired with the utmost precipitation to his boats, he would have been cut off."