On July 27, before the Secretary could know of Lundy's Lane, but when he did anticipate that Brown must fall back on Fort Erie, he wrote to Izard that it would be expedient for him to advance against Montreal, or against Prescott,—on the St. Lawrence opposite Ogdensburg,—in case large re-enforcements had been sent from Montreal to check Brown's advance, as was reported. His own inclination pointed to Prescott, with a view to the contingent chance of an attack upon Kingston, in co-operation with Chauncey and the garrison at Sackett's.[332] This letter did not reach Izard till August 10. He construed its somewhat tentative and vacillating terms as an order. "I will make the movement you direct, if possible; but I shall do it with the apprehension of risking the force under my command, and with the certainty that everything in this vicinity, save the lately erected works at Plattsburg and Cumberland Head, will, in less than three days after my departure, be in possession of the enemy."[333] Izard, himself, on July 19, had favored a step like this proposed; but, as he correctly observed, the time for it was when Brown was advancing and might be helped. Now, when Brown had been brought to a stand, and was retiring, the movement would not aid him, but would weaken the Champlain frontier; and that at the very moment when the divisions from Wellington's army, which had embarked at Bordeaux, were arriving at Quebec and Montreal.

On August 12, Armstrong wrote again, saying that his first order had been based upon the supposition that Chauncey would meet and beat Yeo, or at least confine him in port. This last had in fact been done; but, if the enemy should have carried his force from Montreal to Kingston, and be prepared there, "a safer movement was to march two thousand men to Sackett's, embark there, and go to Brown's assistance."[334] Izard obediently undertook this new disposition, which he received August 20; but upon consultation with his officers concluded that to march by the northern route, near the Canada border, would expose his necessarily long column to dangerous flank attack. He therefore determined to go by way of Utica.[335] On August 29 the division, about four thousand effectives, set out from the camp at Chazy, eight miles north of Plattsburg, and on September 16 reached Sackett's. Bad weather prevented immediate embarkation, but on the 21st about two thousand five hundred infantry sailed, and having a fair wind reached next day the Genesee, where they were instantly put ashore. A regiment of light artillery and a number of dragoons, beyond the capacity of the fleet to carry, went by land and arrived a week later.

In this manner the defence of Lake Champlain was deprived of four thousand fairly trained troops at the moment that the British attack in vast superiority of force was maturing. Their advance brigade, in fact, crossed the frontier two days after Izard's departure. At the critical moment, and during the last weeks of weather favorable for operations, the men thus taken were employed in making an unprofitable march of great length, to a quarter where there was now little prospect of successful action, and where they could not arrive before the season should be practically closed. Brown, of course, hailed an accession of strength which he sorely needed, and did not narrowly scrutinize a measure for which he was not responsible. On September 27, ten days after the successful sortie from Fort Erie, he was at Batavia, in New York, where he had an interview with Izard, who was the senior. In consequence of their consultation Izard determined that his first movement should be the siege of Fort Niagara.[336] In pursuance of this resolve his army marched to Lewiston, where it arrived October 5. There he had a second meeting with Brown, accompanied on this occasion by Porter, and under their representations decided that it would be more proper to concentrate all the forces at hand on the Canadian bank of the Niagara, south of the Chippewa, and not to undertake a siege while Drummond kept the field.[337]

Despite many embarrassments, and anxieties on the score of supplies and provisions while deprived of the free use of the lake, the British general was now master of the situation. His position rested upon the Chippewa on one flank, and upon Fort Niagara on the other. From end to end he had secure communication, for he possessed the river and the boats, below the falls. By these interior lines, despite his momentary inferiority in total numbers, he was able to concentrate his forces upon a threatened extremity with a rapidity which the assailants could not hope to rival. Fort Niagara was not in a satisfactory condition to resist battery by heavy cannon; but Izard had none immediately at hand. Drummond was therefore justified in his hope that "the enemy will find the recapture of the place not to be easily effected."[338] His line of the Chippewa rested on the left upon the Niagara. On its right flank the ground was impassable to everything save infantry, and any effort to turn his position there would have to be made in the face of artillery, to oppose which no guns could be brought forward. Accordingly when Izard, after crossing in accordance with his last decision, advanced on October 15 against the British works upon the Chippewa, he found they were too strong for a frontal attack, the opinion which Drummond himself entertained,[339] while the topographical difficulties of the country baffled every attempt to turn them. Drummond's one serious fear was that the Americans, finding him impregnable here, might carry a force by Lake Erie, and try to gain his rear from Long Point, or by the Grand River.[340] Though they would meet many obstacles in such a circuit, yet the extent to which he would have to detach in order to meet them, and the smallness of his numbers, might prove very embarrassing.

Izard entertained no such project. After his demonstration of October 15, which amounted to little more than a reconnaisance in force, he lapsed into hopelessness. The following day he learned by express that the American squadron had retired to Sackett's Harbor and was throwing up defensive works. With his own eyes he saw, too, that the British water service was not impeded. "Notwithstanding our supremacy on Lake Ontario, at the time I was in Lewiston [October 5-8] the communication between York and the mouth of the Niagara was uninterrupted. I saw a large square-rigged vessel arriving, and another, a brig, lying close to the Canada shore. Not a vessel of ours was in sight."[341] The British big ship, launched September 10, was on October 14 reported by Yeo completely equipped. The next day he would proceed up the lake to Drummond's relief. Chauncey had not waited for the enemy to come out. Convinced that the first use of naval superiority would be to reduce his naval base, he took his ships into port October 8; writing to Washington that the "St. Lawrence" had her sails bent, apparently all ready for sea, and that he expected an attack in ten days.[342] "I confess I am greatly embarrassed," wrote Izard to Monroe, who had now superseded Armstrong as Secretary of War. "At the head of the most efficient army the United States have possessed during this war, much must be expected from me; and yet I can discern no object which can be achieved at this point worthy of the risk which will attend its attempt." The enemy perfectly understood his perplexity, and despite his provocations refused to play into his hands by leaving the shelter of their works to fight. On October 21, he broke up his camp, and began to prepare winter quarters for his own command opposite Black Rock, sending Brown with his division to Sackett's Harbor. Two weeks later, on November 5, having already transported all but a small garrison to the American shore, he blew up Fort Erie and abandoned his last foothold on the peninsula.

During the operations along the Niagara which ended thus fruitlessly, the United States Navy upon Lake Erie met with some severe mishaps. The Cabinet purpose, of carrying an expedition into the upper lakes against Michilimackinac, was persisted in despite the reluctance of Armstrong. Commander Arthur Sinclair, who after an interval had succeeded Perry, was instructed to undertake this enterprise with such force as might be necessary; but to leave within Lake Erie all that he could spare, to co-operate with Brown. Accordingly he sailed from Erie early in June, arriving on the 21st off Detroit, where he was to embark the troops under Colonel Croghan for the land operations. After various delays St. Joseph's was reached July 20, and found abandoned. Its defences were destroyed. On the 26th the vessels were before Mackinac, but after a reconnaisance Croghan decided that the position was too strong for the force he had. Sinclair therefore started to return, having so far accomplished little except the destruction of two schooners, one on Lake Huron, and one on Lake Superior, both essential to the garrison at Mackinac; there being at the time but one other vessel on the lakes competent to the maintenance of their communications.

This remaining schooner, called the "Nancy," was known to be in Nottawasaga Bay, at the south end of Georgian Bay, near the position selected by the British as a depot for stores coming from York by way of Lake Simcoe. After much dangerous search in uncharted waters, Sinclair found her lying two miles up a river of the same name as the bay, where she was watching a chance to slip through to Mackinac. Her lading had been completed July 31, and the next day she had already started, when a messenger brought word that approach to the island was blocked by the American expedition. The winding of the river placed her present anchorage within gunshot of the lake; but as she could not be seen through the brush, Sinclair borrowed from the army a howitzer, with which, mounted in the open beyond, he succeeded in firing both the "Nancy" and the blockhouse defending the position. The British were thus deprived of their last resource for transportation in bulk upon the lake. What this meant to Mackinac may be inferred from the fact that flour there was sixty dollars the barrel, even before Sinclair's coming.

Having inflicted this small, yet decisive, embarrassment on the enemy, Sinclair on August 16 started back with the "Niagara" and "Hunter" for Erie, whither he had already despatched the "Lawrence"—Perry's old flagship—and the "Caledonia." He left in Nottawasaga Bay the schooners "Scorpion" and "Tigress," "to maintain a rigid blockade until driven from the lake by the inclemency of the weather," in order "to cut the line of communications from Michilimackinac to York." Lieutenant Daniel Turner of the "Scorpion," who had commanded the "Caledonia" in Perry's action, was the senior officer of this detachment.

After Sinclair's departure the gales became frequent and violent. Finding no good anchorage in Nottawasaga Bay, Turner thought he could better fulfil the purpose of his instructions by taking the schooners to St. Joseph's, and cruising thence to French River, which enters Georgian Bay at its northern end. On the night of September 3, the "Scorpion" being then absent at the river, the late commander of the "Nancy," Lieutenant Miller Worsley, got together a boat's crew of eighteen seamen, and obtained the co-operation of a detachment of seventy soldiers. With these, followed by a number of Indians in canoes, he attacked the "Tigress" at her anchors and carried her by boarding. The night being very dark, the British were close alongside when first seen; and the vessel was not provided with boarding nettings, which her commander at his trial proved he had not the cordage to make. Deprived of this essential defence, which in such an exposed situation corresponds to a line of intrenched works on shore, her crew of thirty men were readily overpowered by the superior numbers, who could come upon them from four quarters at once, and had but an easy step to her low-lying rail. The officer commanding the British troops made a separate report of the affair, in which he said that her resistance did credit to her officers, who were all severely wounded.[343] Transferring his men to the prize, Worsley waited for the return of the "Scorpion," which on the 5th anchored about five miles off, ignorant of what had happened. The now British schooner weighed and ran down to her, showing American colors; and, getting thus alongside without being suspected, mastered her also. Besides the officers hurt, there were of the "Tigress'" crew three killed and three wounded; the British having two killed and eight wounded. No loss seems to have been incurred on either side in the capture of the "Scorpion." In reporting this affair Sir James Yeo wrote: "The importance of this service is very great. Had not the naval force of the enemy been taken, the commanding officer at Mackinac must have surrendered."[344] He valued it further for its influence upon the Indians, and upon the future of the naval establishment which he had in contemplation for the upper lakes.

When Sinclair reached Detroit from Nottawasaga he received news of other disasters. According to his instructions, before starting for the upper lakes he had left a division of his smaller vessels, under Lieutenant Kennedy, to support the army at Niagara. When Brown fell back upon Fort Erie, after Lundy's Lane, three of these, the "Ohio," "Somers," and "Porcupine," anchored close by the shore, in such a position as to flank the approaches to the fort, and to molest the breaching battery which the British were erecting. As this interfered with the besiegers' plans for an assault, Captain Dobbs, commanding the naval detachment on Ontario which Yeo had assigned to co-operate with Drummond, transported over land from below the falls six boats or batteaux, and on the night of August 12 attacked the American schooners, as Worsley afterwards did the "Tigress" and "Scorpion." The "Ohio" and "Somers," each with a crew of thirty-five men, were carried and brought successfully down the river within the British lines. Dobbs attributed the escape of the "Porcupine" to the cables of the two others being cut, in consequence of which they with the victorious assailants on board drifted beyond possibility of return.[345] To these four captures by the enemy must be added the loss by accident of the "Caledonia"[346] and "Ariel," reported by Sinclair about this time. Perry's fleet was thus disappearing by driblets; but the command of the lake was not yet endangered, for there still remained, besides several of the prizes, the two principal vessels, "Lawrence" and "Niagara."[347]

With these Sinclair returned to the east of the lake, and endeavored to give support to the army at Fort Erie; but the violence of the weather and the insecurity of the anchorage on both shores, as the autumn drew on, not only prevented effectual co-operation, but seriously threatened the very existence of the fleet, upon which control of the water depended. In an attempt to go to Detroit for re-enforcements for Brown, a gale of wind was encountered which drifted the vessels back to Buffalo, where they had to anchor and lie close to a lee shore for two days, September 18 to 20, with topmasts and lower yards down, the sea breaking over them, and their cables chafing asunder on a rocky bottom. After this, Drummond having raised the siege of Fort Erie, the fleet retired to Erie and was laid up for the winter.

FOOTNOTES:

[266] Ante, pp. 118-121.

[267] Documentary History of the Campaign on the Niagara Frontier in 1814, by Ernest Cruikshank, Part I. p. 5.

[268] Captains' Letters, Feb. 24, March 4 and 29, 1814.

[269] Canadian Archives, C. 682, p. 32.

[270] Niles' Register, Feb. 5, 1814, vol. v. pp. 381, 383.

[271] Canadian Archives. C. 682, p. 90.

[272] Armstrong, Notices of the War of 1812, vol. ii. p. 213.

[273] Canadian Archives, C. 683, p. 10.

[274] Ibid., pp. 53, 61-64.

[275] Ibid., C. 682, p. 194.

[276] Niles' Register, April 9, 1814, vol. vi. p. 102.

[277] Captains' Letters, April 11, 1814.

[278] Writings of Madison, Edition of 1865, vol. ii. p. 413.

[279] Wilkinson's letter to a friend, April 9, 1814. Niles' Register, vol. vi. p. 166. His official report of the affair is given, p. 131.

[280] Yeo's Report, Canadian Archives, M. 389.6, p. 116.

[281] The armaments of the corresponding two British vessels were: "Prince Regent", thirty long 24-pounders, eight 68-pounder carronades, twenty 32-pounder carronades; "Princess Charlotte", twenty-four long 24-pounders, sixteen 32-pounder carronades. Canadian Archives, M. 389.6, p. 109.

[282] Captains' Letters.

[283] Canadian Archives, C. 683, p. 157.

[284] Woolsey's Report, forwarded by Chauncey June 2, is in Captains' Letters. It is given, together with several other papers bearing on the affair, in Niles' Register, vol. vi. pp. 242, 265-267. For Popham's Report, see Naval Chronicle, vol. xxxii. p. 167.

[285] Canadian Archives, C. 683, p. 225.

[286] Cruikshank's Documentary History, 1814, pp. 18-20.

[287] Writings of Madison (Edition of 1865), vol. iii. p. 403.

[288] Captains' Letters.

[289] Ibid.

[290] Yeo to Admiralty, May 30, 1815. Canadian Archives, M. 389.6, p. 310. For Chauncey's opinion to the same effect, see Captains' Letters, Nov. 5, 1814.

[291] Captains' Letters, June 15, 1814.

[292] Armstrong to Madison, April 31 (sic), 1814. Armstrong's Notices of War of 1812, vol. ii. p. 413.

[293] These official returns are taken by the present writer from Mr. Henry Adams' History of the United States.

[294] Cruikshank's Documentary History of the Niagara Campaign of 1814, p. 37.

[295] Cruikshank, Documentary History.

[296] Ibid., p. 4.

[297] Scott's Autobiography, vol. i. pp. 130-132.

[298] Cruikshank's Documentary History, p. 31.

[299] Niles' Register, vol. vii. p. 38.

[300] Captains' Letters.

[301] Secretary of the Navy to Chauncey, July 24, 1814, Secretary's Letters.

[302] Secretary to Chauncey, Aug. 3, 1814. Ibid.

[303] Ibid., Dec. 29, 1813.

[304] Chauncey to Brown, Aug. 10, 1814. Niles' Register, vol. vii. p. 38.

[305] August 27. Cruikshank's Documentary History, pp. 180-182. The whole letter has interest as conveying an adequate idea of the communications difficulty.

[306] This word is wanting; but the context evidently requires it.

[307] Cruikshank's Documentary History, 1814, pp. 58, 60.

[308] Cruikshank's Documentary History, 1814, p. 134.

[309] Captains' Letters. Aug. 19, 1814.

[310] Cruikshank's Documentary History, 1814, p. 191.

[311] Cruikshank's Documentary History, 1814, p. 68.

[312] Cruikshank's Documentary History, 1814. Riall to Drummond, July 20, 21, 22, pp. 75-81.

[313] Ibid., p. 87.

[314] Ibid., p. 78.

[315] "Sir James Yeo has not been nearer Sackett's Harbor than the Ducks since June 5." Captains' Letters, Aug. 19, 1814.

[316] Cruikshank's Documentary History, 1814, pp. 82, 84.

[317] Brown's Report of Lundy's Lane to Secretary of War, Aug. 7, 1814. Ibid., p. 97.

[318] Drummond's Report of the Engagement, July 27. Cruikshank, pp. 87-92.

[319] Brown's Report. Ibid., p. 99.

[320] Brown to Governor Tompkins, Aug. 1, 1814. Cruikshank, p. 103.

[321] Ibid., p. 207.

[322] Cruikshank's Documentary History, 1814, p. 131. Author's italics.

[323] The American account of this total is: killed, left on the field, 222; wounded, left on the field, 174; prisoners, 186. Total, 582.

Two hundred supposed to be killed on the left flank (in the water) and permitted to float down the Niagara.

[324] Aug. 16. Cruikshank, pp. 146-147.

[325] Cruikshank's Documentary History, 1814, pp. 199, 200. Author's italics.

[326] Bathurst was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies.

[327] Cruikshank's Documentary History, 1814, pp. 229, 245.

[328] Ibid., p. 207. Brown to Tompkins, Sept. 20, 1814.

[329] Cruikshank's Documentary History, p. 205.

[330] An interesting indication of popular appreciation is found in the fact that two ships of the line laid down by Chauncey in or near Sackett's Harbor, in the winter of 1814-15, were named the "New Orleans" and the "Chippewa." Yeo after the peace returned to England by way of Sackett's and New York, and was then greatly surprised at the rapidity with which these two vessels, which he took to be of one hundred and twenty guns each, (Canadian Archives, M. 389.6, p. 310), had been run up, to meet his "St. Lawrence" in the spring, had the war continued. The "New Orleans" remained on the Navy List, as a seventy-four, "on the stocks," until 1882, when she was sold. For years she was the exception to a rule that ships of her class should bear the name of a state of the Union. The other square-rigged vessels on Ontario were sold, in May, 1825. (Records of the Bureau of Construction and Repair, Navy Department.)

[331] Izard to Secretary of War, May 7, 1814. Official Correspondence of the Department of War with Major-General Izard, 1814 and 1815.

[332] Izard Correspondence, p. 64.

[333] Izard Correspondence, p. 65.

[334] Ibid., p. 69.

[335] Ibid., p. 63.

[336] Izard Correspondence, p. 93.

[337] Ibid., p. 98.

[338] Oct. 6, 1814. Cruikshank's Documentary History, 1814, p. 240.

[339] Izard Correspondence, p. 102; Cruikshank, p. 242.

[340] Cruikshank, p. 240.

[341] Izard Correspondence, p. 103.

[342] Captains' Letters.

[343] Canadian Archives, C. 685, pp. 172-174.

[344] Ibid., M. 389.6, p. 222.

[345] The Reports of Captain Dobbs and the American lieutenant, Conkling, are in Cruikshank's Documentary History, p. 135.

[346] Captains' Letters, Sept. 12, 1814.

[347] This account of naval events on the upper lakes in 1814 has been summarized from Sinclair's despatches, Captains' Letters, May 2 to Nov. 11, 1814, and from certain captured British letters, which, with several of Sinclair's, were published in Niles' Register, vol. vii. and Supplement.



CHAPTER XVI

SEABOARD OPERATIONS IN 1814. WASHINGTON, BALTIMORE, AND MAINE

The British command of the water on Lake Ontario was obtained too late in the year 1814 to have any decisive effect upon their operations. Combined with their continued powerlessness on Lake Erie, this caused their campaign upon the northern frontier to be throughout defensive in character, as that of the Americans had been offensive. Drummond made no attempt in the winter to repeat the foray into New York of the previous December, although he and Prevost both considered that they had received provocation to retaliate, similar to that given at Newark the year before. The infliction of such vindictive punishment was by them thrown upon Warren's successor in the North Atlantic command, who responded in word and will even more heartily than in deed. The Champlain expedition, in September of this year, had indeed offensive purpose, but even there the object specified was the protection of Canada, by the destruction of the American naval establishments on the lake, as well as at Sackett's Harbor;[348] while the rapidity with which Prevost retreated, as soon as the British squadron was destroyed, demonstrated how profoundly otherwise the spirit of a simple defensive had possession of him, as it had also of the more positive and aggressive temperaments of Drummond and Yeo, and how essential naval control was in his eyes. In this general view he had the endorsement of the Duke of Wellington, when his attention was called to the subject, after the event.

Upon the seaboard it was otherwise. There the British campaign of 1814 much exceeded that of 1813 in offensive purpose and vigor, and in effect. This was due in part to the change in the naval commander-in-chief; in part also to the re-enforcements of troops which the end of the European war enabled the British Government to send to America. Early in the year 1813, Warren had represented to the Admiralty the impossibility of his giving personal supervision to the management of the West India stations, and had suggested devolving the responsibility upon the local admirals, leaving him simply the power to interfere when circumstances demanded.[349] The Admiralty then declined, alleging that the character of the war required unity of direction over the whole.[350] Later they changed their views. The North Atlantic, Jamaica, and Leeward Islands stations were made again severally independent, and Warren was notified that as the American command, thus reduced, was beneath the claims of an officer of his rank,—a full admiral,—a successor would be appointed.[351] Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane accordingly relieved him, April 1, 1814; his charge embracing both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. At the same period the Lakes Station, from Champlain to Superior inclusive, was constituted a separate command; Yeo's orders to this effect being dated the same day as Cochrane's, January 25, 1814.

Cochrane brought to his duties a certain acrimony of feeling, amounting almost to virulence. "I have it much at heart," he wrote Bathurst, "to give them a complete drubbing before peace is made, when I trust their northern limits will be circumscribed and the command of the Mississippi wrested from them." He expects thousands of slaves to join with their masters' horses, and looks forward to enlisting them. They are good horsemen; and, while agreeing with his lordship in deprecating a negro insurrection, he thinks such bodies will "be as good Cossacks as any in the Russian army, and more terrific to the Americans than any troops that can be brought forward." Washington and Baltimore are equally accessible, and may be either destroyed or laid under contribution.[352] These remarks, addressed to a prominent member of the Cabinet, are somewhat illuminative as to the formal purposes, as well as to the subsequent action, of British officials. The sea coast from Maine to Georgia, according to the season of the year, was made to feel the increasing activity and closeness of the British attacks; and these, though discursive and without apparent correlation of action, were evidently animated throughout by a common intention of bringing the war home to the experience of the people.

As a whole, the principal movements were meant to serve as a diversion, detaining on the Chesapeake and seaboard troops which might otherwise be sent to oppose the advance Prevost was ordered to make against Sackett's Harbor and Lake Champlain; for which purpose much the larger part of the re-enforcements from Europe had been sent to Canada. The instructions to the general detailed to command on the Atlantic specified as his object "a diversion on the coast of the United States in favor of the army employed in the defence of Upper and Lower Canada."[353] During the operations, "if in any descent you shall be enabled to take such a position as to threaten the inhabitants with the destruction of their property, you are hereby authorized to levy upon them contributions in return for your forbearance." Negroes might be enlisted, or carried away, though in no case as slaves. Taken in connection with the course subsequently pursued at Washington, such directions show an aim to inflict in many quarters suffering and deprivation, in order to impress popular consciousness with the sense of an irresistible and ubiquitous power incessantly at hand. Such moral impression, inclining those subject to it to desire peace, conduced also to the retention of local forces in the neighborhood where they belonged, and so furthered the intended diversion.

The general purpose of the British Government is further shown by some incidental mention. Gallatin, who at the time of Napoleon's abdication was in London, in connection with his duties on the Peace Commission, wrote two months afterwards: "To use their own language, they mean to inflict on America a chastisement which will teach her that war is not to be declared against Great Britain with impunity. This is a very general sentiment of the nation; and that such are the opinions of the ministry was strongly impressed on the mind of —— by a late conversation he had with Lord Castlereagh. Admiral Warren also told Levett Harris, with whom he was intimate at St. Petersburg, that he was sorry to say the instructions given to his successor on the American station were very different from those under which he acted, and that he feared very serious injury would be done to America."[354]

Thus inspired, the coast warfare, although more active and efficient than the year before, and on a larger scale, continued in spirit and in execution essentially desultory and wasting. As it progressed, a peculiar bitterness was imparted by the liberal construction given by British officers to the word "retaliation." By strict derivation, and in wise application, the term summarizes the ancient retribution of like for like,—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; and to destroy three villages for one, as was done in retort for the burning of Newark, the inhabitants in each case being innocent of offence, was an excessive recourse to a punitive measure admittedly lawful. Two further instances of improper destruction by Americans had occurred during the campaign of 1814. Just before Sinclair sailed for Mackinac, he suggested to a Colonel Campbell, commanding the troops at Erie, that it would be a useful step to visit Long Point, on the opposite Canada shore, and destroy there a quantity of flour, and some mills which contributed materially to the support of the British forces on the Niagara peninsula.[355] This was effectively done, and did add seriously to Drummond's embarrassment; but Campbell went further and fired some private houses also, on the ground that the owners were British partisans and had had a share in the burning of Buffalo. A Court of Inquiry, of which General Scott was president, justified the destruction of the mills, but condemned unreservedly that of the private houses.[356] Again, in Brown's advance upon Chippewa, some American "volunteers," despatched to the village of St. David's, burned there a number of dwellings. The commanding officer, Colonel Stone, was ordered summarily and immediately by Brown to retire from the expedition, as responsible for an act "contrary to the orders of the Government, and to those of the commanding general published to the army."[357]

In both these cases disavowal had been immediate; and it had been decisive also in that of Newark. The intent of the American Government was clear, and reasonable ultimate compensation might have been awaited; at least for a time. Prevost, however, being confined to the defensive all along his lines, communicated the fact of the destruction to Cochrane, calling upon him for the punishment which it was not in his own power then to inflict. Cochrane accordingly issued an order[358] to the ships under his command, to use measures of retaliation "against the cities of the United States, from the Saint Croix River to the southern boundary, near the St. Mary's River;" "to destroy and lay waste," so he notified the United States Government, "such towns and districts upon the coast as may be found assailable."[359] In the first heat of his wrath, he used in his order an expression, "and you will spare merely the lives of the unarmed inhabitants of the United States," which he afterwards asked Prevost to expunge, as it might be construed in a sense he never meant;[360] and he reported to his Government that he had sent private instructions to exercise forbearance toward the inhabitants.[361] It can easily be believed that, like many words spoken in passion, the phrase far outran his purposes; but it has significance and value as indicating the manner in which Americans had come to be regarded in Great Britain, through the experience of the period of peace and the recent years of war.

However the British Government might justify in terms the impressment of seamen from American ships, or the delay of atonement for such an insult as that of the Chesapeake, the nation which endured the same, content with reams of argument instead of blow for blow, had sunk beneath contempt as an inferior race, to be cowed and handled without gloves by those who felt themselves the masters. Nor was the matter bettered by the notorious fact that the interference with the freedom of American trade, which Great Britain herself admitted to be outside the law, had been borne unresisted because of the pecuniary stake involved. The impression thus produced was deepened by the confident boasts of immediate successes in Canada, made by leading members of the party which brought on the war; followed as these were by a display of inefficiency so ludicrous that opponents, as well native as foreign, did not hesitate to apply to it the word "imbecility." The American for a dozen years had been clubbed without giving evidence of rebellion, beyond words; now that he showed signs of restiveness, without corresponding evidence of power, he should feel the lash, and there need be no nicety in measuring punishment. Codrington, an officer of mark and character, who joined Cochrane at this time as chief of staff, used expressions which doubtless convey the average point of view of the British officer of that day: President Madison, "by letting his generals burn villages in Canada again, has been trying to excite terror; but as you may shortly see by the public exposition of the Admiral's orders, the terror and the suffering will probably be brought home to the doors of his own fellow citizens. I am fully convinced that this is the true way to end this Yankee war, whatever may be said in Parliament against it."[362]

It is the grievous fault of all retaliation, especially in the heat of war, that it rarely stays its hand at an equal measure, but almost invariably proceeds to an excess which provokes the other party to seek in turn to even the scale. The process tends to be unending; and it is to the honor of the United States Government that, though technically responsible for the acts of agents which it was too inefficient to control, it did not seriously entertain the purpose of resorting to this means, to vindicate the wrongs of its citizens at the expense of the subjects of its opponent. Happily, the external brutality of attitude which Cochrane's expression so aptly conveyed yielded for the most part to nobler instincts in the British officers. There was indeed much to condemn, much done that ought not to have been done; but even in the contemporary accounts it is quite possible to trace a certain rough humanity, a wish to deal equitably with individuals, for whom, regarded nationally, they professed no respect. Even in the marauding of the Chesapeake, the idea of compensation for value taken was not lost to view; and in general the usages of war, as to property exempt from destruction or appropriation, were respected, although not without the rude incidents certain to occur where atonement for acts of resistance, or the price paid for property taken, is fixed by the victor.

If retaliation upon any but the immediate culprit is ever permissible, which in national matters will scarcely be contested, it is logically just that it should fall first of all upon the capital, where the interests and honor of the nation are centred. There, if anywhere, the responsibility for the war and all its incidents is concrete in the representatives of the nation, executive and legislative, and in the public offices from which all overt acts are presumed to emanate. So it befell the United States. In the first six months of 1814, the warfare in the Chesapeake continued on the same general lines as in 1813; there having been the usual remission of activity during the winter, to resume again as milder weather drew on. The blockade of the bay was sustained, with force adequate to make it technically effective, although Baltimore boasted that several of her clipper schooners got to sea. On the part of the United States, Captain Gordon of the navy had been relieved in charge of the bay flotilla by Commodore Barney, of revolutionary and privateering renown. This local command, in conformity with the precedent at New York, and as was due to so distinguished an officer, was made independent of other branches of the naval service; the commodore being in immediate communication with the Navy Department. On April 17, he left Baltimore and proceeded down the bay with thirteen vessels; ten of them being large barges or galleys, propelled chiefly by oars, the others gunboats of the ordinary type. The headquarters of this little force became the Patuxent River, to which in the sequel it was in great measure confined; the superiority of the enemy precluding any enlarged sphere of activity. Its presence, however, was a provocation to the British, as being the only floating force in the bay capable of annoying them; the very existence of which was a challenge to their supremacy. To destroy it became therefore a dominant motive, which was utilized also to conceal to the last their purpose, tentative indeed throughout, to make a dash at Washington.

The Patuxent enters Chesapeake Bay from the north and west, sixty miles below Baltimore, and twenty above the mouth of the Potomac, to the general direction of which its own course in its lower part is parallel. For boats drawing no more than did Barney's it is navigable for forty miles from its mouth, to Pig Point; whence to Washington by land is but fifteen miles. A pursuit of the flotilla so far therefore brought pursuers within easy striking distance of the capital, provided that between them and it stood no obstacle adequate to impose delay until resistance could gather. It was impossible for such a pursuit to be made by the navy alone; for, inadequate as the militia was to the protection of the bay shore from raiding, it was quite competent to act in conjunction with Barney, when battling only against boats, which alone could follow him into lairs accessible to him, but not to even the smaller vessels of the enemy. Ships of the largest size could enter the river, but could ascend it only a little way. Up the Patuxent itself, or in its tributaries, the Americans therefore had always against the British Navy a refuge, in which they might be blockaded indeed, but could not be reached. For all these reasons, in order to destroy the flotilla, a body of troops must be used; a necessity which served to mask any ulterior design.

In the course of these operations, and in support of them, the British Navy had created a post at Tangier Island, ten miles across the bay, opposite the mouth of the Potomac.[363] Here they threw up fortifications, and established an advanced rendezvous. Between the island and the eastern shore, Tangier Sound gave sheltered anchorage. The position was in every way convenient, and strategically central. Being the junction of the water routes to Baltimore and Washington, it threatened both; while the narrowness of the Chesapeake at this point constituted the force there assembled an inner blockading line, well situated to move rapidly at short notice in any direction, up or down, to one side or the other. At such short distance from the Patuxent, Barney's movements were of course well under observation, as he at once experienced. On June 1, he left the river, apparently with a view to reaching the Potomac. Two schooners becalmed were then visible, and pursuit was made with the oars; but soon a large ship was seen under sail, despatching a number of barges to their assistance. A breeze springing up from southwest put the ship to windward, between the Potomac and the flotilla, which was obliged to return to the Patuxent, closely followed by the enemy. Some distant shots were exchanged, but Barney escaped, and for the time was suffered to remain undisturbed three miles from the bay; a 74-gun ship lying at the river's mouth, with barges plying continually about her. The departure of the British schooners, however, was construed to indicate a return with re-enforcements for an attack; an anticipation not disappointed. Two more vessels soon joined the seventy-four; one of them a brig. On their appearance Barney shifted his berth two miles further up, abreast St. Leonard's Creek. At daylight of June 9, one of the ships, the brig, two schooners, and fifteen rowing barges, were seen coming up with a fair wind. The flotilla then retreated two miles up the creek, formed there across it in line abreast, and awaited attack. The enemy's vessels could not follow; but their boats did, and a skirmish ensued which ended in the British retiring. Later in the day the attempt was renewed with no better success; and Barney claimed that, having followed the boats in their retreat, he had seriously disabled one of the large schooners anchored off the mouth of the creek to support the movement.

There is no doubt that the American gunboats were manfully and skilfully handled, and that the crews in this and subsequent encounters gained confidence and skill, the evidences of which were shown afterwards at Bladensburg, remaining the only alleviating remembrance from that day of disgrace. From Barney would be expected no less than the most that man can do, or example effect; but his pursuit was stopped by the ship and the brig, which stayed within the Patuxent. The flotilla continued inside the creek, two frigates lying off its mouth, until June 26, when an attack by the boats, in concert with a body of militia,—infantry and light artillery,—decided the enemy to move down the Patuxent. Barney took advantage of this to leave the creek and go up the river. We are informed by a journal of the day that the Government was by these affairs well satisfied with the ability of the flotilla to restrain the operations of the enemy within the waters of the Chesapeake, and had determined on a considerable increase to it. Nothing seems improbable of that Government; but, if this be true, it must have been easily satisfied. Barney had secured a longer line of retreat, up the river; but the situation was not materially changed. In either case, creek or river, there was but one way out, and that was closed. He could only abide the time when the enemy should see fit to come against him by land and by water, which would seal his fate.[364]

On June 2 there had sailed from Bordeaux for America a detachment from Wellington's army, twenty-five hundred strong, under Major-General Ross. It reached Bermuda July 25, and there was re-enforced by another battalion, increasing its strength to thirty-four hundred. On August 3 it left Bermuda, accompanied by several ships of war, and on the 15th passed in by the capes of the Chesapeake. Admiral Cochrane had preceded it by a few days, and was already lying there with his own ship and the division under Rear-Admiral Cockburn, who hitherto had been in immediate charge of operations in the bay. There were now assembled over twenty vessels of war, four of them of the line, with a large train of transports and store-ships. A battalion of seven hundred marines were next detailed for duty with the troops, the landing force being thus raised to over four thousand. The rendezvous at Tangier Island gave the Americans no certain clue to the ultimate object, for the reason already cited; and Cochrane designedly contributed to their distraction, by sending one squadron of frigates up the Potomac, and another up the Chesapeake above Baltimore.[365] On August 18 the main body of the expedition moved abreast the mouth of the Patuxent, and at noon of that day entered the river with a fair wind.

The purposes at this moment of the commanders of the army and navy, acting jointly, are succinctly stated by Cochrane in his report to the Admiralty: "Information from Rear-Admiral Cockburn that Commodore Barney, with the Potomac flotilla, had taken shelter at the head of the Patuxent, afforded a pretext for ascending that river to attack him near its source, above Pig Point, while the ultimate destination of the combined force was Washington, should it be found that the attempt might be made with any prospect of success."[366] August 19, the troops were landed at Benedict, twenty-five miles from the mouth of the river, and the following day began their upward march, flanked by a naval division of light vessels; the immediate objective being Barney's flotilla.

For the defence of the capital of the United States, throughout the region by which it might be approached, the Government had selected Brigadier-General Winder; the same who the year before had been captured at Stoney Creek, on the Niagara frontier, in Vincent's bold night attack. He was appointed July 2 to the command of a new military district, the tenth, which comprised "the state of Maryland, the District of Columbia, and that part of Virginia lying between the Potomac and the Rappahannock;"[367] in brief, Washington and Baltimore, with the ways converging upon them from the sea. This was just seven weeks before the enemy landed in the Patuxent; time enough, with reasonable antecedent preparation, or trained troops, to concert adequate resistance, as was shown by the British subsequent failure before Baltimore.

The conditions with which Winder had to contend are best stated in the terms of the Court of Inquiry[368] called to investigate his conduct, at the head of which sat General Winfield Scott. After fixing the date of his appointment, and ascertaining that he at once took every means in his power to put his district in a proper state of defence, the court found that on August 24, the day of the battle of Bladensburg, he "was enabled by great and unremitting exertions to bring into the field about five or six thousand men, all of whom except four hundred were militia; that he could not collect more than half his men until a day or two previously to the engagement, and six or seven hundred of them did not arrive until fifteen minutes before its commencement; ... that the officers commanding the troops were generally unknown to him, and but a very small number of them had enjoyed the benefit of military instruction or experience." So far from attributing censure, the Court found that, "taking into consideration the complicated difficulties and embarrassments under which he labored, he is entitled to no little commendation, notwithstanding the result; before the action he exhibited industry, zeal, and talent, and during its continuance a coolness, a promptitude, and a personal valor, highly honorable to himself."

The finding of a court composed of competent experts, convened shortly after the events, must be received with respect. It is clear, however, that they here do not specify the particular professional merits of Winder's conduct of operations, but only the general hopelessness of success, owing to the antecedent conditions, not of his making, under which he was called to act, and which he strenuously exerted himself to meet. The blame for a mishap evidently and easily preventible still remains, and, though of course not expressed by the Court, is necessarily thrown back upon the Administration, and upon the party represented by it, which had held power for over twelve years past. A hostile corps of less than five thousand men had penetrated to the capital, through a well populated country, which was, to quote the Secretary of War, "covered with wood, and offering at every step strong positions for defence;"[369] but there were neither defences nor defenders.

The sequence of events which terminated in this humiliating manner is instructive. The Cabinet, which on June 7 had planned offensive operations in Canada, met on July 1 in another frame of mind, alarmed by the news from Europe, to plan for the defence of Washington and Baltimore. It will be remembered that it was now two years since war had been declared. In counting the force on which reliance might be placed for meeting a possible enemy, the Secretary of War thought he could assemble one thousand regulars, independent of artillerists in the forts.[2] The Secretary of the Navy could furnish one hundred and twenty marines, and the crews of Barney's flotilla, estimated at five hundred.[2] For the rest, dependence must be upon militia, a call for which was issued to the number of ninety-three thousand, five hundred.[370] Of these, fifteen thousand were assigned to Winder, as follows: From Virginia, two thousand; from Maryland, six thousand; from Pennsylvania, five thousand; from the District of Columbia, two thousand.[371] So ineffective were the administrative measures for bringing out this paper force of citizen soldiery, the efficiency of which the leaders of the party in power had been accustomed to vaunt, that Winder, after falling back from point to point before the enemy's advance, because only so might time be gained to get together the lagging contingents, could muster in the open ground at Bladensburg, five miles from the capital, where at last he made his stand, only the paltry five or six thousand stated by the court. On the morning of the battle the Secretary of War rode out to the field, with his colleagues in the Administration, and in reply to a question from the President said he had no suggestions to offer; "as it was between regulars and militia, the latter would be beaten."[372] The phrase was Winder's absolution; pronounced for the future, as for the past. The responsibility for there being no regulars did not rest with him, nor yet with the Secretary, but with the men who for a dozen years had sapped the military preparation of the nation.

Under the relative conditions of the opposing forces which have been stated, the progress of events was rapid. Probably few now realize that only a little over four days elapsed from the landing of the British to the burning of the Capitol. Their army advanced along the west bank of the Patuxent to Upper Marlborough, forty miles from the river's mouth. To this place, which was reached August 22, Ross continued in direct touch with the navy; and here at Pig Point, nearly abreast on the river, the American flotilla was cornered at last. Seeing the inevitable event, and to preserve his small but invaluable force of men, Barney had abandoned the boats on the 21st, leaving with each a half-dozen of her crew to destroy her at the last moment. This was done when the British next day approached; one only escaping the flames.

The city of Washington, now the goal of the enemy's effort, lies on the Potomac, between it and a tributary called the Eastern Branch. Upon the east bank of the latter, five or six miles from the junction of the two streams, is the village of Bladensburg. From Upper Marlborough, where the British had arrived, two roads led to Washington. One of these, the left going from Marlborough, crossed the Eastern Branch near its mouth; the other, less direct, passed through Bladensburg. Winder expected the British to advance by the former; and upon it Barney with the four hundred seamen remaining to him joined the army, at a place called Oldfields, seven miles from the capital. This route was militarily the more important, because from it branches were thrown off to the Potomac, up which the frigate squadron under Captain Gordon was proceeding, and had already passed the Kettle-bottoms, the most difficult bit of navigation in its path. The side roads would enable the invaders to reach and co-operate with this naval division; unless indeed Winder could make head against them. This he was not able to do; but he remained almost to the last moment in perplexing uncertainty whether they would strike for the capital, or for its principal defence on the Potomac, Fort Washington, ten miles lower down.[373]



For the obvious reasons named, because the doubts of their opponent facilitated their own movements by harassing his mind, as well as for the strategic advantage of a central line permitting movement in two directions at choice, the British advanced, as anticipated, by the left-hand road, and at nightfall of August 23 were encamped about three miles from the Americans. Here Winder covered a junction; for at Oldfields the road by which the British were advancing forked. One division led to Washington direct, crossing the Eastern Branch of the Potomac where it is broadest and deepest, near its mouth; the other passed it at Bladensburg. Winder feared to await the enemy, because of the disorder to which his inexperienced troops would be exposed by a night attack, causing possibly the loss of his artillery; the one arm in which he felt himself superior. He retired therefore during the night by the direct road, burning its bridge. This left open the way to Bladensburg, which the British next day followed, arriving at the village towards noon of the 24th. Contrary to Winder's instruction, the officer stationed there had withdrawn his troops across the stream, abandoning the place, and forming his line on the crest of some hills on the west bank. The impression which this position made upon the enemy was described by General Ross, as follows: "They were strongly posted on very commanding heights, formed in two lines, the advance occupying a fortified house, which with artillery covered the bridge over the Eastern Branch, across which the British troops had to pass. A broad and straight road, leading from the bridge to Washington, ran through the enemy's position, which was carefully defended by artillerymen and riflemen."[374] Allowing for the tendency to magnify difficulties overcome, the British would have had before them a difficult task, if opposed by men accustomed to mutual support and mutual reliance, with the thousand-fold increase of strength which comes with such habit and with the moral confidence it gives.

The American line had been formed before Winder came on the ground. It extended across the Washington road as described by Ross. A battery on the hill-top commanded the bridge, and was supported by a line of infantry on either side, with a second line in the rear. Fearing, however, that the enemy might cross the stream higher up, where it was fordable in many places, a regiment from the second line was reluctantly ordered forward to extend the left; and Winder, when he arrived, while approving this disposition, carried thither also some of the artillery which he had brought with him.[375] The anxiety of the Americans was therefore for their left. The British commander was eager to be done with his job, and to get back to his ships from a position militarily insecure. He had long been fighting Napoleon's troops in the Spanish peninsula, and was not yet fully imbued with Drummond's conviction that with American militia liberties might be taken beyond the limit of ordinary military precaution. No time was spent looking for a ford, but the troops dashed straight for the bridge. The fire of the American artillery was excellent, and mowed down the head of the column; but the seasoned men persisted and forced their way across. At this moment Barney was coming up with his seamen, and at Winder's request brought his guns into line across the Washington road, facing the bridge. Soon after this, a few rockets passing close over the heads of the battalions supporting the batteries on the left started them running, much as a mule train may be stampeded by a night alarm. It was impossible to rally them. A part held for a short time; but when Winder attempted to retire them a little way, from a fire which had begun to annoy them, they also broke and fled.[376]

The American left was thus routed, but Barney's battery and its supporting infantry still held their ground. "During this period," reported the Commodore,—that is, while his guns were being brought into battery, and the remainder of his seamen and marines posted to support them,—"the engagement continued, the enemy advancing, and our own army retreating before them, apparently in much disorder. At length the enemy made his appearance on the main road, in force, in front of my battery, and on seeing us made a halt. I reserved our fire. In a few minutes the enemy again advanced, when I ordered an 18-pounder to be fired, which completely cleared the road; shortly after, a second and a third attempt was made by the enemy to come forward, but all were destroyed. They then crossed into an open field and attempted to flank our right; he was met there by three 12-pounders, the marines under Captain Miller, and my men, acting as infantry, and again was totally cut up. By this time not a vestige of the American army remained, except a body of five or six hundred, posted on a height on my right, from whom I expected much support from their fine situation."[377]

In this expectation Barney was disappointed. The enemy desisted from direct attack and worked gradually round towards his right flank and rear. As they thus moved, the guns of course were turned towards them; but a charge being made up the hill by a force not exceeding half that of its defenders, they also "to my great mortification made no resistance, giving a fire or two, and retired. Our ammunition was expended, and unfortunately the drivers of my ammunition wagons had gone off in the general panic." Barney himself, being wounded and unable to escape from loss of blood, was left a prisoner. Two of his officers were killed, and two wounded. The survivors stuck to him till he ordered them off the ground. Ross and Cockburn were brought to him, and greeted him with a marked respect and politeness; and he reported that, during the stay of the British in Bladensburg, he was treated by all "like a brother," to use his own words.[378]

The character of this affair is sufficiently shown by the above outline narrative, re-enforced by the account of the losses sustained. Of the victors sixty-four were killed, one hundred and eighty-five wounded. The defeated, by the estimate of their superintending surgeon, had ten or twelve killed and forty wounded.[379] Such a disparity of injury is usual when the defendants are behind fortifications; but in this case of an open field, and a river to be crossed by the assailants, the evident significance is that the party attacked did not wait to contest the ground, once the enemy had gained the bridge. After that, not only was the rout complete, but, save for Barney's tenacity, there was almost no attempt at resistance. Ten pieces of cannon remained in the hands of the British. "The rapid flight of the enemy," reported General Ross, "and his knowledge of the country, precluded the possibility of many prisoners being taken."[380]

That night the British entered Washington. The Capitol, White House, and several public buildings were burned by them; the navy yard and vessels by the American authorities. Ross, accustomed to European warfare, did not feel Drummond's easiness concerning his position, which technically was most insecure as regarded his communications. On the evening of June 25 he withdrew rapidly, and on that of the 26th regained touch with the fleet in the Patuxent, after a separation of only four days. Cockburn remarked in his official report that there was no molestation of their retreat; "not a single musket having been fired."[381] It was the completion of the Administration's disgrace, unrelieved by any feature of credit save the gallant stand of Barney's four hundred.

The burning of Washington was the impressive culmination of the devastation to which the coast districts were everywhere exposed by the weakness of the country, while the battle of Bladensburg crowned the humiliation entailed upon the nation by the demagogic prejudices in favor of untrained patriotism, as supplying all defects for ordinary service in the field. In the defenders of Bladensburg was realized Jefferson's ideal of a citizen soldiery,[382] unskilled, but strong in their love of home, flying to arms to oppose an invader; and they had every inspiring incentive to tenacity, for they, and they only, stood between the enemy and the centre and heart of national life. The position they occupied, though unfortified, had many natural advantages; while the enemy had to cross a river which, while in part fordable, was nevertheless an obstacle to rapid action, especially when confronted by the superior artillery the Americans had. The result has been told; but only when contrasted with the contemporary fight at Lundy's Lane is Bladensburg rightly appreciated. Occurring precisely a month apart, and with men of the same race, they illustrate exactly the difference in military value between crude material and finished product.

Coincident with the capture of Washington, a little British squadron—two frigates and five smaller vessels—ascended the Potomac. Fort Washington, a dozen miles below the capital, was abandoned August 27 by the officer in charge, removing the only obstacle due to the foresight of the Government. He was afterwards cashiered by sentence of court martial. On the 29th, Captain Gordon, the senior officer, anchored his force before Alexandria, of which he kept possession for three days. Upon withdrawing, he carried away all the merchantmen that were seaworthy, having loaded them with merchandise awaiting exportation. Energetic efforts were made by Captains Rodgers, Perry, and Porter, of the American Navy, to molest the enemy's retirement by such means as could be extemporized; but both ships and prizes escaped, the only loss being in life: seven killed and forty-five wounded.

After the burning of Washington, the British main fleet and army moved up the Chesapeake against Baltimore, which would undoubtedly have undergone the lot of Alexandria, in a contribution laid upon shipping and merchandise. The attack, however, was successfully met. The respite afforded by the expedition against Washington had been improved by the citizens to interpose earthworks on the hills before the city. This local precaution saved the place. In the field the militia behaved better than at Bladensburg, but showed, nevertheless, the unsteadiness of raw men. To harass the British advance a body of riflemen had been posted well forward, and a shot from these mortally wounded General Ross; but, "imagine my chagrin, when I perceived the whole corps falling back upon my main position, having too credulously listened to groundless information that the enemy was landing on Back River to cut them off."[383]

The British approached along the narrow strip of land between the Patapsco and Back rivers. The American general, Stricker, had judiciously selected for his line of defence a neck, where inlets from both streams narrowed the ground to half a mile. His flanks were thus protected, but the water on the left giving better indication of being fordable, the British directed there the weight of the assault. To meet this, Stricker drew up a regiment to the rear of his main line, and at right angles, the volleys from which should sweep the inlet. When the enemy's attack developed, this regiment "delivered one random fire," and then broke and fled; "totally forgetful of the honor of the brigade, and of its own reputation," to use Stricker's words.[384] This flight carried along part of the left flank proper. The remainder of the line held for a time, and then retired without awaiting the hostile bayonet. The American report gives the impression of an orderly retreat; a British participant, who admits that the ground was well chosen, and that the line held until within twenty yards, wrote that after that he never witnessed a more complete rout. The invaders then approached the city, but upon viewing the works of defence, and learning that the fleet would not be able to co-operate, owing to vessels sunk across the channel, the commanding officer decided that success would not repay the loss necessary to achieve it. Fleet and army then withdrew.

The attacks on Washington and Baltimore, the seizure of Alexandria, and the general conduct of operations in the Chesapeake, belong strictly to the punitive purpose which dictated British measures upon the seaboard. Similar action extended through Long Island Sound, and to the eastward, where alarm in all quarters was maintained by the general enterprise of the enemy, and by specific injury in various places. "The Government has declared war against the most powerful maritime nation," wrote the Governor of Massachusetts to the legislature, "and we are disappointed in our expectations of national defence. But though we may be convinced that the war was unnecessary and unjust, and has been prosecuted without any useful or practicable object with the inhabitants of Canada, while our seacoast has been left almost defenceless, yet I presume there will be no doubt of our right to defend our possessions against any hostile attack by which their destruction is menaced." "The eastern coast," reports a journal of the time, "is much vexed by the enemy. Having destroyed a great portion of the coasting craft, they seem determined to enter the little outports and villages, and burn everything that floats."[385] On April 7, six British barges ascended the Connecticut River eight miles, to Pettipaug, where they burned twenty-odd sea-going vessels.[386] On June 13, at Wareham, Massachusetts, a similar expedition entered and destroyed sixteen.[387] These were somewhat large instances of an action everywhere going on, inflicting indirectly incalculably more injury than even the direct loss suffered; the whole being with a view to bring the meaning of war close home to the consciousness of the American people. They were to be made to realize the power of the enemy and their own helplessness.

An attempt looking to more permanent results was made during the summer upon the coast of Maine. The northward projection of that state, then known as the District of Maine,[388] intervened between the British provinces of Lower Canada and New Brunswick, and imposed a long detour upon the line of communications between Quebec and Halifax, the two most important military posts in British North America. This inconvenience could not be remedied unless the land in question were brought into British possession; and when the end of the war in Europe gave prospect of a vigorous offensive from the side of Canada, the British ministry formulated the purpose of demanding there a rectification of frontier. The object in this case being acquisition, not punishment, conciliation of the inhabitants was to be practised; in place of the retaliatory action prescribed for the sea-coast elsewhere.

Moose Island, in Passamaquoddy Bay, though held by the United States, was claimed by Great Britain to have been always within the boundary line of New Brunswick. It was seized July 11, 1814; protection being promised to persons and property. In August, General Sherbrooke, the Governor of Nova Scotia, received orders "to occupy so much of the District of Maine as shall insure an uninterrupted communication between Halifax and Quebec."[389] His orders being discretional as to method, he decided that with the force available he would best comply by taking possession of Machias and the Penobscot River.[390] On September 1, a combined naval and army expedition appeared at the mouth of the Penobscot, before Castine, which was quickly abandoned. A few days before, the United States frigate "Adams," Captain Charles Morris, returning from a cruise, had run ashore upon Isle au Haut, and in consequence of the injuries received had been compelled to make a harbor in the river. She was then at Hampden, thirty miles up. A detachment of seamen and soldiers was sent against her. Her guns had been landed, and placed in battery for her defence, and militia had gathered for the support necessary to artillery so situated; but they proved unreliable, and upon their retreat nothing was left but to fire the ship.[391] This was done, the crew escaping. The British penetrated as far as Bangor, seized a number of merchant vessels, and subsequently went to Machias, where they captured the fort with twenty-five cannon. Sherbrooke then returned with the most of his force to Halifax, whence he issued a voluminous proclamation[392] to the effect that he had taken possession of all the country between the Penobscot and New Brunswick; and promised protection to the inhabitants, if they behaved themselves accordingly. Two regiments were left at Castine, with transports to remove them in case of attack by superior numbers. This burlesque of occupation, "one foot on shore, and one on sea," was advanced by the British ministry as a reason justifying the demand for cession of the desired territory to the northward. Wellington, when called into counsel concerning American affairs, said derisively that an officer might as well claim sovereignty over the ground on which he had posted his pickets. The British force remained undisturbed, however, to the end of the war. Amicable relations were established with the inhabitants, and a brisk contraband trade throve with Nova Scotia. It is even said that the news of peace was unwelcome in the place. It was not evacuated until April 27, 1815.[393]

FOOTNOTES:

[348] "Some Account of the Life of Sir George Prevost." London, 1823, pp. 136, 137. The author has not been able to find the despatch of June 3, 1814, there quoted.

[349] Warren to Croker, Feb. 26, 1813. Admiralty In-Letters MSS.

[350] Croker to Warren, March 20, 1813. Admiralty Out-Letters.

[351] Warren to Croker, Jan. 28, 1814. Canadian Archives MSS.

[352] Cochrane to Bathurst, July 14, 1814. War Office In-Letters MSS.

[353] Bathurst's Instructions to the officer in command of the troops detached from the Gironde. May 20, 1814. From copy sent to Cochrane. Admiralty In-Letters, from Secretary of State.

[354] Gallatin to Monroe, London, June 13, 1814. Adams' Writings of Gallatin, vol. i. p. 627.

[355] Sinclair, Erie, May 13, 1814. Captains' Letters.

[356] Cruikshank's Documentary History of the Campaign of 1814, p. 18.

[357] Ibid., p. 74.

[358] Cruikshank's Documentary History, pp. 414, 415.

[359] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. pp. 693, 694.

[360] Cochrane to Prevost, July 26, 1814. Canadian Archives MSS., C. 684, p. 231.

[361] Report on Canadian Archives, 1896, p. 54.

[362] Life of Sir Edward Codrington, vol. i. p. 313.

[363] See Map of Chesapeake Bay, ante, p. 156.

[364] This account of Barney's movements is summarized from his letters, and others, published in Niles' Register, vol. vi. pp. 244, 268, 300.

[365] Report of Admiral Cochrane, Naval Chronicle, vol. xxxii. p. 342.

[366] Report of Admiral Cochrane, Naval Chronicle, vol. xxxii. p. 342.

[367] American State Papers, Military Affairs, vol. i. p. 524.

[368] The finding of the Court of Inquiry was published in Niles' Register for Feb. 25, 1815, from the official paper, the National Intelligencer. Niles, vol. vii. p. 410.

[369] Report of Secretary Armstrong to a Committee of the House of Representatives. American State Papers, Military Affairs, vol. i. p. 526.

[370] Ibid., pp. 538, 540, 524.

[371] Ibid., p. 524.

[372] Works of Madison (Ed. 1865), vol. iii. p. 422.

[373] Winder's Narrative. American State Papers, Military Affairs, vol. i pp. 552-560.

[374] Ross's Despatch, Aug. 30, 1814. Naval Chronicle, vol. xxxii. p. 338.

[375] Narrative of Monroe, the Secretary of State. American State Papers, Military Affairs, vol. i. p. 536.

[376] Winder's Narrative.

[377] Barney's Report, Aug. 29, 1814. State Papers, Military Affairs, vol. i. p. 579.

[378] Barney's Report.

[379] American State Papers, Military Affairs, vol. i. p. 530.

[380] Ross's Despatch.

[381] Report of Rear-Admiral Cockburn, Naval Chronicle, vol. xxxii. p. 345.

[382] Ante, p. 213.

[383] Report of Brigadier-General Stricker of the Maryland militia. Niles' Register, vol. vii. pp. 27, 28.

[384] Ibid.

[385] Niles' Register, vol. vi. p. 317.

[386] Ibid., pp. 118, 133, 222.

[387] Ibid., p. 317.

[388] Maine was then attached politically to Massachusetts.

[389] Sherbrooke to Prevost, Aug. 2, 1814. Canadian Archives MSS., C. 685, p. 28.

[390] Sherbrooke to Prevost, Aug. 24, 1814. Ibid., p. 147.

[391] Morris' reports (Captains' Letters, Navy Dept.) are published in Niles' Register, vol. vii. pp. 62, 63; and Supplement, p. 136.

[392] Sept. 21, 1814. Niles' Register, vol. vii. p. 117.

[393] Ibid., p. 347, and vol. viii. pp. 13, 214.



CHAPTER XVII

LAKE CHAMPLAIN AND NEW ORLEANS

General Brown's retirement within the lines of Fort Erie, July 26, 1814, may be taken as marking the definitive abandonment by the United States of the offensive on the Canada frontier. The opportunities of two years had been wasted by inefficiency of force and misdirection of effort. It was generally recognized by thoughtful men that the war had now become one of defence against a greatly superior enemy, disembarrassed of the other foe which had hitherto engaged his attention, and imbued with ideas of conquest, or at least of extorting territorial cession for specific purposes. While Brown was campaigning, the re-enforcements were rapidly arriving which were to enable the British to assume the aggressive; although, in the absence of naval preponderance on the lakes, their numbers were not sufficient to compel the rectification of frontier by surrender of territory which the British Government now desired. Lord Castlereagh, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and the leading representative of the aims of the Cabinet, wrote in his instructions to the Peace Commissioners, August 14, 1814: "The views of the Government are strictly defensive. Territory as such is by no means their object; but, as the weaker Power in North America, Great Britain considers itself entitled to claim the use of the lakes as a military barrier."[394] The declaration of war by the United States was regarded by most Englishmen as a wanton endeavor to overthrow their immemorial right to the services of their seamen, wherever found; and consequently the invasion of Canada had been an iniquitous attempt to effect annexation under cover of an indefensible pretext. To guard against the renewal of such, the lakes must be made British waters, to which the American flag should have only commercial access. Dominion south of the lakes would not be exacted, "provided the American Government will stipulate not to preserve or construct any fortifications upon or within a limited distance of their shores." "On the side of Lower Canada there should be such a line of demarcation as may establish a direct communication between Quebec and Halifax."[395]

Such were the political and military projects with which the British ministry entered upon the summer campaign of 1814 in Canada. Luckily, although Napoleon had fallen, conditions in Europe were still too unsettled and volcanic to permit Great Britain seriously to weaken her material force there. Two weeks later Castlereagh wrote to the Prime Minister: "Are we prepared to continue the war for territorial arrangements?" "Is it desirable to take the chances of the campaign, and then be governed by circumstances?"[396] The last sentence defines the policy actually followed; and the chances went definitely against it when Macdonough destroyed the British fleet on Lake Champlain. Except at Baltimore and New Orleans,—mere defensive successes,—nothing but calamity befell the American arms. To the battle of Lake Champlain it was owing that the British occupancy of United States soil at the end of the year was such that the Duke of Wellington advised that no claim for territorial cession could be considered to exist, and that the basis of uti possidetis, upon which it was proposed to treat, was untenable.[397] The earnestness of the Government, however, in seeking the changes specified, is indicated by the proposition seriously made to the Duke to take the command in America.

Owing to the military conditions hitherto existing on the American continent, the power to take the offensive throughout the lake frontier had rested with the United States Government; and the direction given by this to its efforts had left Lake Champlain practically out of consideration. Sir George Prevost, being thrown on the defensive, could only conform to the initiative of his adversary. For these reasons, whatever transactions took place in this quarter up to the summer of 1814 were in characteristic simply episodes; an epithet which applies accurately to the more formidable, but brief, operations here in 1814, as also to those in Louisiana. Whatever intention underlay either attempt, they were in matter of fact almost without any relations of antecedent or consequent. They stood by themselves, and not only may, but should, be so considered. Prior to them, contemporary reference to Lake Champlain, or to Louisiana, is both rare and casual. For this reason, mention of earlier occurrences in either of these quarters has heretofore been deferred, as irrelevant and intrusive if introduced among other events, with which they coincided in time, but had no further connection. A brief narrative of them will now be presented, as a necessary introduction to the much more important incidents of 1814.

At the beginning of hostilities the balance of naval power on Lake Champlain rested with the United States, and so continued until June, 1813. The force on each side was small to triviality, nor did either make any serious attempt to obtain a marked preponderance. The Americans had, however, three armed sloops, the "President," "Growler," and "Eagle," to which the British could oppose only one. Both parties had also a few small gunboats and rowing galleys, in the number of which the superiority lay with the British. Under these relative conditions the Americans ranged the lake proper at will; the enemy maintaining his force in the lower narrows, at Isle aux Noix, which was made a fortified station.

On June 1, 1813, a detachment of British boats, coming up the lake, passed the boundary line and fired upon some small American craft. The "Eagle" and "Growler," being then at Plattsburg, started in pursuit on the 2d, and by dark had entered some distance within the narrows, where they anchored. The following morning they sighted three of the enemy's gunboats and chased them with a fair south wind; but, being by this means led too far, they became entangled in a place where manoeuvring was difficult. The officers of the royal navy designated for service on Lake Champlain had not yet arrived, and the flotilla was at the disposition of the commanding army officer at Isle aux Noix. Only one sloop being visible at first to the garrison, he sent out against her the three gunboats; but when the second appeared he landed a number of men on each bank, who took up a position to rake the vessels. The action which followed lasted three hours. The circumstances were disadvantageous to the Americans; but the fair wind with which they had entered was ahead for return, and to beat back was impossible in so narrow a channel. The "Eagle" received a raking shot, and had to be run ashore to avoid sinking. Both then surrendered, and the "Eagle" was afterwards raised. The two prizes were taken into the British service; and as this occurrence followed immediately after the capture of the "Chesapeake" by the "Shannon," they were called "Broke" and "Shannon." These names afterwards were changed, apparently by Admiralty order, to "Chub" and "Finch," under which they took part in the battle of Lake Champlain, where they were recaptured.

Although not built for war, but simply purchased vessels of not over one hundred tons, this loss was serious; for by it superiority on the lake passed to the British, and with some fluctuation so remained for a twelvemonth,—till May, 1814. They were still too deficient in men to profit at once by their success; the difficulty of recruiting in Canada being as great as in the United States, and for very similar reasons. "It is impossible to enlist seamen in Quebec for the lakes, as merchants are giving twenty-five to thirty guineas for the run to England. Recruits desert as soon as they receive the bounty."[398] After some correspondence, Captain Everard, of the sloop of war "Wasp," then lying at Quebec, consented to leave his ship, go with a large part of her crew to Champlain, man the captured sloops, and raid the American stations on the lake. A body of troops being embarked, the flotilla left Isle aux Noix July 29. On the 30th they came to Plattsburg, destroyed there the public buildings, with the barracks at Saranac, and brought off a quantity of stores. A detachment was sent to Champlain Town, and a landing made also at Swanton in Vermont, where similar devastation was inflicted on public property. Thence they went up the lake to Burlington, where Macdonough, who was alarmingly short of seamen since the capture of the "Eagle" and "Growler," had to submit to seeing himself defied by vessels lately his own. After seizing a few more small lake craft, Everard on August 3 hastened back, anxious to regain his own ship and resume the regular duties, for abandoning which he had no authority save his own. The step he had taken was hardly to be anticipated from a junior officer, commanding a ship on sea service so remote from the scene of the proposed operation; and the rapidity of his action took the Americans quite by surprise, for there had been no previous indication of activity. As soon as Macdonough heard of his arrival at Isle aux Noix, he wrote for re-enforcements, but it was too late. His letter did not reach New York till the British had come and gone.[399]

Upon Everard's return both he and Captain Pring, of the royal navy, who had been with him during the foray and thenceforth remained attached to the fortunes of the Champlain flotilla, recommended the building of a large brig of war and two gunboats, in order to preserve upon the lake the supremacy they had just asserted in act. With the material at hand, they said, these vessels could all be afloat within eight weeks after their keels were laid.[400] This suggestion appears to have been acted upon; for in the following March it was reported that there were building at St. John's a brig to carry twenty guns, a schooner of eighteen, and twelve 2-gun galleys. However, the Americans also were by this time building, and at the crucial moment came out a very little ahead in point of readiness.

Nothing further of consequence occurred during 1813. After the British departed, Macdonough received a re-enforcement of men. He then went in person with such vessels as he had to the foot of the lake, taking station at Plattsburg, and advancing at times to the boundary line, twenty-five miles below. The enemy occasionally showed themselves, but were apparently indisposed to action in their then state of forwardness. Later the American flotilla retired up the lake to Otter Creek in Vermont, where, on April 11, 1814, was launched the ship "Saratoga," which carried Macdonough's pendant in the battle five months afterwards. On May 10, Pring, hoping to destroy the American vessels before ready for service, made another inroad with his squadron, consisting now of the new brig, called the "Linnet," five armed sloops, and thirteen galleys. On the 14th he was off Otter Creek and attacked; but batteries established on shore compelled him to retire. Macdonough in his report of this transaction mentions only eight galleys, with a bomb vessel, as the number of the enemy engaged. The new brig was probably considered too essential to naval control to be risked against shore guns; a decision scarcely to be contested, although Prevost seems to have been dissatisfied as usual with the exertions of the navy. The American force at this time completed, or approaching completion, was, besides the "Saratoga," one schooner, three sloops,[401] and ten gunboats or galleys. Of the sloops one only, the "Preble," appears to have been serviceable. The "President" and another called the "Montgomery" were not in the fight at Plattsburg; where Macdonough certainly needed every gun he could command. A brig of twenty guns, called the "Eagle," was subsequently laid down and launched in time for the action. Prevost reported at this period that a new ship was building at Isle aux Noix, which would make the British force equal to the American.



Before the end of May, 1814, Macdonough's fleet was ready, except the "Eagle"; and on the 29th he was off Plattsburg, with the "Saratoga," the schooner "Ticonderoga," the sloop "Preble," and ten galleys. The command of the lake thus established permitted the transfer of troops and stores, before locked up in Burlington. The "Saratoga" carried twenty-six guns; of which eight were long 24-pounders, the others carronades, six 42-pounders, and twelve 32's. She was so much superior to the "Linnet," which had only sixteen guns, long 12-pounders, that the incontestable supremacy remained with the Americans, and it was impossible for the British squadron to show itself at all until their new ship was completed. She was launched August 25,[402] and called the "Confiance."[403] The name excited some derision after her defeat and capture, but seems to have had no more arrogant origin than the affectionate recollection of the Commander-in-Chief on the lakes, Sir James Yeo, for the vessel which he had first and long commanded, to which he had been promoted for distinguished gallantry in winning her, and in which he finally reached post-rank. The new "Confiance," from which doubtless much was hoped, was her namesake. She was to carry twenty-seven 24-pounders. One of these, being on a pivot, fought on either side of the ship; thus giving her fourteen of these guns for each broadside. In addition, she had ten carronades, four of them 32-pounders, and six 24's.

On July 12, 1814, Prevost had reported the arrival at Montreal of the first of four brigades from Wellington's Peninsular Army. These had sailed from Bordeaux at the same period as the one destined for the Atlantic coast operations, under General Ross, already related. He acknowledged also the receipt of instructions, prescribing the character of his operations, which he had anxiously requested the year before. Among these instructions were "to give immediate protection to his Majesty's possessions in America," by "the entire destruction of Sackett's Harbor, and of the naval establishments on Lake Erie and Lake Champlain."[404] They will be obeyed, he wrote, as soon as the whole force shall have arrived; but defensive measures only will be practicable, until the complete command of Lakes Ontario and Champlain shall be obtained, which cannot be expected before September.[405] The statement was perfectly correct. The command of these lakes was absolutely essential to both parties to the war, if intending to maintain operations in their neighborhood.

On August 14, Prevost reported home that the troops from Bordeaux had all arrived, and, with the exception of a brigade destined for Kingston, would be at their points of formation by the 25th; at which date his returns show that he had under his general command, in Upper and Lower Canada, exclusive of officers, twenty-nine thousand four hundred and thirty-seven men. All these were British regulars, with the exception of four thousand seven hundred and six; of which last, two thousand two hundred belonged to "foreign" regiments, and the remainder to provincial corps. Of this total, from eleven thousand to fourteen thousand accompanied him in his march to Plattsburg. Under the same date he reported that the "Confiance" could not be ready before September 15; for which time had he patiently waited, he would at least have better deserved success. His decision as to his line of advance was determined by a singular consideration, deeply mortifying to American recollection, but which must be mentioned because of its historical interest, as an incidental indication of the slow progress of the people of the United States towards national sentiment. "Vermont has shown a disinclination to the war, and, as it is sending in specie and provisions, I will confine offensive operations to the west side of Lake Champlain."[406] Three weeks later he writes again, "Two thirds of the army are supplied with beef by American contractors, principally of Vermont and New York."[407]

That this was no slander was indignantly confirmed by a citizen of Vermont, who wrote to General Izard, June 27, "Droves of cattle are continually passing from the northern parts of this state into Canada for the British." Izard, in forwarding the letter, said: "This confirms a fact not only disgraceful to our countrymen but seriously detrimental to the public interest. From the St. Lawrence to the ocean an open disregard prevails for the laws prohibiting intercourse with the enemy. The road to St. Regis [New York] is covered with droves of cattle, and the river with rafts destined for the enemy. On the eastern side of Lake Champlain the high roads are insufficient for the cattle pouring into Canada. Like herds of buffaloes they press through the forests, making paths for themselves. Were it not for these supplies, the British forces in Canada would soon be suffering from famine."[408] The British commissary at Prescott wrote, June 19, 1814, "I have contracted with a Yankee magistrate to furnish this post with fresh beef. A major came with him to make the agreement; but, as he was foreman of the grand jury of the court in which the Government prosecutes the magistrates for high treason and smuggling, he turned his back and would not see the paper signed."[409] More vital still in its treason to the interests of the country, Commodore Macdonough reported officially, June 29, that one of his officers had seized two spars, supposed from their size to be for the fore and mizzen masts of the "Confiance," on the way to Canada, near the lines, under the management of citizens of the United States; and eight days later there were intercepted four others, which from their dimensions were fitted for her mainmast and three topmasts.[410] By this means the British ship was to be enabled to sail for the attack on the American fleet, and by this only; for to drag spars of that weight up the rapids of the Richelieu, or over the rough intervening country, meant at least unendurable delay. "The turpitude of many of our citizens in this part of the country," wrote Macdonough, "furnishes the enemy with every information he wants."[411]