1812: The Navy's War

by George Daughan

  Elliott set to work immediately, buying three merchant vessels and converting them to armed schooners. While he was doing so, two British warships appeared nearby and anchored across the Niagara River at Fort Erie. They were the Detroit—formerly the Adams that General Brock had just seized at Detroit—and the brig Caledonia, taken from Jacob Astor for the attack on Fort Michilimackinac.

  On September 22, while Elliott was contemplating how he might capture the two British ships, ninety men arrived in camp. Chauncey had sent them from New York. Elliot decided to put them to work right away. As luck would have it, a brigade of American regulars was in Buffalo at the time, under Brigadier General Alexander Smyth—part of the army that was supposed to have invaded Canada weeks before. With help from General Smyth and a new arrival, Lieutenant Colonel Winfield Scott, Elliott set out at one o’clock in the morning on October 8 in two large boats from Buffalo Creek with a mixed force of a hundred men—fifty to a boat—to “cut out [the] two British vessels under the guns of Fort Erie.”

  Elliott’s boats pulled silently across the Niagara River, and within minutes they were alongside the enemy unobserved. Taken by surprise, the watches aboard the ships surrendered after a short, sharp fight in which two Americans were killed outright and four mortally wounded.

  Once in control of the ships, Elliott sheeted home the topsails and made for the opposite shore. The wind was light and the current running at a brisk four miles an hour. The Caledonia, under Sailing Master George Watts, struggled across the river to Black Rock, where Watts beached her near a protective battery. Elliott was aboard the larger brig Detroit, but the breeze wasn’t strong enough to take her into safe water. Instead, the current carried her down past the batteries at Fort Erie. Alerted by all the commotion, British gunners sprayed the Detroit with round, grape, and canister shot as she sailed by. Elliott continued drifting downriver, firing back at Fort Erie until he was beyond the reach of her guns. He landed on the American side at Squaw Island and went ashore with his officers and prisoners. As soon as he arrived, he asked Lieutenant Colonel Scott to protect the Detroit with his artillery. Scott began firing on a party of forty British soldiers sent in three boats to retrieve the abandoned brig. In a short time, nearly every British soldier was dead, and the brig badly shot up. The few British soldiers who were still alive retreated, but the Detroit could not be salvaged.

  Despite the loss of the Detroit, Elliott did manage to capture the Caledonia, and he took sixty prisoners. He also salvaged four twelve-pounders, a large quantity of shot, and two hundred muskets, depriving General Brock of two scarce vessels and an important supply of munitions at a critical moment in the subsequent battle of Queenston.

  WHILE CHAUNCEY WAS straining every nerve to gain naval supremacy on Lake Ontario, preparations for crossing the Niagara River and invading Canada were moving at a glacial pace. Dearborn’s dithering had allowed General Brock to rush from Detroit to the Niagara area and take personal command of all the troops in the area. On August 17, only one day after Hull’s surrender, Brock set sail from Amherstburg. Fighting contrary winds the entire way, he arrived at Fort Erie on August 23. His haste was unnecessary. The disorganized American army was not in the least ready to cross the Niagara. Its leader, New York militia general Stephen Van Rensselaer, had only just arrived in Lewiston to take command.

  The Niagara region is a thirty-six-mile-wide neck of land separating Lake Ontario from Lake Erie. The Niagara River, the boundary between the United States and Canada, flows through it northward for thirty-one miles from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. Fort Erie was located at the southern end of the river on the Canadian side, directly across the river from Buffalo, a small town of around five hundred. Fort George was at the northern end of the river on the Canadian side. Opposed to it on the American side was old Fort Niagara, built originally by the French in 1729. General Dearborn was headquartered outside Albany, a distant three hundred miles away.

  When Major General Van Rensselaer rode into Lewiston on the twenty-third of August, he found that only four hundred regulars and a few hundred unreliable militiamen were scattered along the river. Before doing anything else, he consolidated them at Lewiston, six miles north of Niagara Falls. He was appalled at their condition. The army’s inadequate supply system left the men improperly clothed, many without shoes, no tents, less than ten rounds of ammunition per man, and all with pay in arrears. Van Rensselaer’s position was so weak he feared Brock would attack him, rather than the other way around. Dearborn feared the same thing.

  Their fears were justified. Even though Brock had no more than 2,000 men guarding the Niagara area and only 300 at Queenston (directly across the river from Van Rensselaer’s headquarters at Lewiston), he seriously considered crossing the river and disrupting Van Rensselaer’s invasion plans, as he had done so effectively against Hull. Brock thought that waiting for the American army to get stronger was a strategic mistake. In his view, remaining on the defensive would bring disaster to Upper Canada. But at the moment he had no choice. The armistice prevented him from taking immediate action, and he had orders from Governor-General Prevost not to invade New York.

  Brock was fortunate in his opponent, General Van Rensselaer, an earnest man and a patriot but with no military experience. The head of the vastly wealthy Van Rensselaer family from the Albany area, he was a formidable Federalist politician and a likely candidate for governor, but he was not a soldier. Why Republican governor Daniel Tompkins appointed him was a mystery. If Van Rensselaer successfully invaded Canada, his chances of becoming governor, or even president, would be greatly enhanced. Van Rensselaer wasn’t going anywhere soon, however. He believed that Brock had 3,000 soldiers at Queenston, rather than 300. His intelligence was as bad as General Hull’s had been.

  Van Rensselaer received word of Dearborn’s armistice on August 18, even before he reached Lewiston, and a few days later he was informed of Hull’s surrender. The defeat stunned him, but at the same time, he was relieved that the armistice would allow him time to assemble more men, guns, equipment, and supplies. Without them, an invasion was inconceivable.

  The armistice began officially on August 20. But six days later, when Dearborn received orders from Washington to get on with the invasion, he notified Governor-General Prevost that the armistice would end in four days. This did not matter to Van Rensselaer, who felt he could not begin his attack until many weeks later.

  In the meantime, Dearborn, for once, worked hard sending troops to the front. Governor Tompkins gave him indispensable aid. Thanks for the most part to the energetic Tompkins, men and equipment began pouring into Lewiston and Buffalo. As they did, Van Rensselaer worried that Brock might attack him before he was ready. And Brock might well have, but Prevost kept him on a tight leash, continuing to forbid any further invasion of American territory. By the middle of October, Van Rensselaer had assembled 2,400 regulars and 4,000 militiamen, mostly from New York but some from Pennsylvania. Even though half of the militiamen were untrained, Van Rensselaer now had more than enough fighters to overpower Brock, who by then had 1,200 regulars, 810 Canadian militiamen, and 300 or 400 Native American warriors.

  While Van Rensselaer was building his army, Brigadier General Alexander Smyth, the adjutant general of the U. S. Army, appeared at Dearborn’s camp and asked for a command at the front. Dearborn obliged, sending him to Buffalo with a brigade. He made it clear to Smyth, however, that Van Rensselaer was in overall command.

  Smyth arrived at Buffalo on September 29 and soon became convinced that the main action in the Niagara region would be above the falls, and for that reason he insisted on remaining at Buffalo. Van Rensselaer, however, planned to attack Brock below the falls at Fort George and Queenston. Refusing to subordinate himself to a state militia officer, Smyth stubbornly maintained his independence and stayed at Buffalo with his brigade of regulars, cooperating only when it suited him. He even failed to attend Van Rensselaer’s councils of war.

  Neither Dearborn nor Van Rensselaer fo
rced Smyth to cooperate. Having never held a command before, Van Rensselaer was unsure of himself. An experienced, confident officer would have quickly put Smyth in his place. Dearborn—far away in Albany—acted as if he were unaware of Smyth’s gross insubordination. He also ignored the fact that New York militia general Amos Hall and quartermaster Peter B. Porter were remaining in Buffalo and not giving Van Rensselaer their full cooperation either.

  Even with all his difficulties, Van Rensselaer had an overwhelming advantage in numbers, and Dearborn, not understanding what the delay was, ordered him to get on with the invasion. Dearborn still hoped to make simultaneous attacks at Detroit, Queenston, and Montreal before winter set in.

  Van Rensselaer’s troops were just as unhappy with his lack of initiative as Dearborn was. With winter getting closer, their morale was sinking fast. Van Rensselaer reported that “the partial success of Lieutenant Elliott at Black Rock began to excite a strong disposition on the part of the troops to act,” threatening that “they would go home” otherwise.”

  Continuing to be overly cautious, Van Rensselaer decided to attack only Queenston for the moment, not Fort George. He planned to make his crossing under the cover of darkness on October 13. What would happen if he succeeded was unclear. Dearborn had no general plan to exploit a victory; he apparently just wanted to establish a foothold on Canadian soil before winter arrived.

  Crossing the river at any time, but particularly at night, would be dangerous. In the Queenston-Lewiston area, the Niagara was two hundred fifty yards wide and had a fast, four-mile-an-hour current with swirling eddies. Astonishingly, Van Rensselaer had only thirteen bateaux assembled for the crossing. Dozens existed on the American side, but he was able to muster only thirteen. If all the boats made it across, they could bring over only three hundred men at a time.

  The invasion began as planned on the cold clear night of October 13. Thirteen bateaux began embarking from Lewiston at 3:30 in the morning with roughly twenty-five men in each boat. They were all regulars. Confusion at the embarkation point forced the assembled militiamen to wait for the second wave. An experienced officer, state militia lieutenant colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer, the general’s cousin and chief advisor, went in the first wave. Unlike his cousin, Solomon was a strong, competent leader. Lieutenant Colonel John Christie led the regulars, along with Captain John Wool.

  As expected, the passage was difficult. The current caught three of the bateaux and carried them swirling downstream, where they landed with great difficulty on the American side. The men were lucky not to have drowned. Christie was in one of the lost boats, and Wool had to take over for him.

  With British sentries firing on them from the top of a forty-foot-high bank, the other ten bateaux crossed the river. When they reached the Canadian side, they quickly debarked on the beach, sent the boats back, and raced for cover. Once the Americans had all landed, the sentries retired. Lieutenant Colonel Van Rensselaer and Captain Wool led the men as they crawled up the treacherous bank and marched toward Queenston Heights, the commanding hill that overlooked the village and the British encampment. On the opposite shore a few American cannon fired tentatively to support the landing. It was so dark the gunners did not know where to fire without hitting their own troops. They soon had to stop and wait for daylight.

  The gunfire alerted the British camp, and redcoats hurriedly assembled. Captain James Dennis, their commander, directed an attack on the American column, and a fierce firefight developed. Solomon Van Rensselaer was shot several times and badly wounded. Although injured himself, Captain Wool assumed command. Savage fighting continued, and under Wool’s leadership, the Americans drove off the British, who retreated back to Queenston Village. Wool then moved Van Rensselaer and the rest of their men back down to the beach to regroup.

  When alerted to the American attack, General Brock was at Fort George. He called for his horse and galloped seven difficult miles in the dark to Queenston, arriving at daybreak. The first thing he did was climb to the battery on Queenston Heights and survey the battlefield. He left a short time later, narrowly avoiding capture, for just after he departed, the enterprising Wool, taking an unguarded path up the back of the hillside, appeared suddenly on the hilltop with two hundred and forty men. The British artillerymen working the battery panicked and ran.

  Not wanting to concede the strategic heights and the cannon on it, Brock hastily organized fifty men at the base of the hill and counterattacked, leading the charge himself. He had no idea how many enemy fighters were above. At six feet three inches tall, in full uniform, brandishing a sword, he was an easy target. One of Wool’s sharpshooters stepped forward, leveled his musket, and shot Brock in the chest. George Jervis, a lad of fifteen, was fighting at General Brock’s side and saw him slump to the ground, put a hand on his chest, and expire without saying a word. The shock of his death caused the attack to collapse, and the British retreated.

  Captain Wool, with blood still oozing from his wound, now commanded the heights. If reinforcements arrived in time, victory was assured. And reinforcements did come, swelling Wool’s force to four hundred men, but he needed far more to hold his position. He did manage to beat back a determined counterattack by Lieutenant Colonel John Macdonell and Captain John Williams later that morning. Williams was wounded and Macdonell killed. Afterward, Captain Dennis, who was now the senior British officer, ordered a retreat to the village, and then evacuated it, intending to regroup and attack the heights again when reinforcements arrived. If General Van Rensselaer could ferry more troops over the now undefended river, he could easily secure Queenston and win a great victory.

  Meanwhile, Major General Roger Hale Sheaffe was at Fort George directing a bombardment of Fort Niagara and the village of Niagara when he learned of Brock’s death. Sheaffe had already received an urgent request for reinforcements, and he was soon on the road to Queenston with eight hundred men, supplemented by an Indian contingent under John Norton, a protégé of Joseph Brant, the fiercely anti-American Iroquois leader who died in 1807. John Brant, Joseph’s son, was with Norton. Sheaffe was a much different character from the beloved, charismatic Brock. A heartless martinet from a Boston Tory family, he was a successful, although far from brilliant, soldier.

  When Sheaffe arrived at Queenston, he assembled a counterattack aimed at the heights. By then, Lieutenant Colonel Winfield Scott had crossed the river and had taken command at the heights, replacing Brigadier General William Wadsworth of the New York militia and Lieutenant Colonel John Christie, who had recrossed the river and sent the wounded Wool back to Lewiston for care. The Americans now had over 925 men in Queenston. But a third of them were stuck at the riverbank, huddled down, not taking part in the action, leaving Scott with fewer than 600 fighting men. And his numbers were dwindling. Some men died fighting off John Norton’s Iroquois snipers, and others, frightened by the Indians, deserted.

  Meanwhile, all was confusion on the American side of the river, where the hapless Van Rensselaer was trying desperately to move more men across the river and into the fight. If he had succeeded, Scott would have had overwhelming numbers, and Sheaffe would have been forced to retreat. Sheaffe’s Indian allies would likely have melted back into the woods and gone home. But Van Rensselaer was unable to persuade more militiamen to cross. While he was trying, the British were cannonading the embarkation points, making getting into the bateaux so dangerous that finding rowers was difficult. The New York militiamen claimed they could not be forced to invade another country. Undoubtedly frightened by the Iroquois, they were willing to leave their comrades—many of whom were militiamen like themselves—stranded.

  Communications with General Smyth in Buffalo remained poor. Smyth tried to send men to help Van Rensselaer earlier, but bad weather had driven them back, and now he was unaware that his regulars were sorely needed at Queenston. They could have made the difference. They would not have refused to cross. But deprived of Smyth’s men, Van Rensselaer became convinced he had run out of options, and he sen
t word to Scott that he could expect no reinforcements. Van Rensselaer, as he had throughout the battle, stayed on the New York side of the river away from the fighting. He had crossed only once and remained briefly; otherwise he kept away, uncertain how to proceed. His severely wounded cousin Solomon was not available to advise him, and he appeared lost.

  In the meantime, the British force under Sheaffe was swelling to over 1,000, not including Norton’s men, while Scott’s contingent on the heights had dwindled to fewer than 400. Sheaffe attacked and pushed Scott down to the riverbank, where he was trapped. By four o’clock Scott was forced to give up. He had a hard time getting to Sheaffe to surrender, however. The Indians wanted no compromise; they were intent on a massacre. When Scott, at great personal risk, finally reached Sheaffe, his surrender was accepted, saving himself and his men from a merciless scalping. To Sheaffe’s amazement, he rounded up 958 prisoners, many of them men who had crossed the river but had remained hidden under the cover of the high riverbank. Ninety Americans were killed during the day and a hundred wounded. The British suffered fourteen killed, eighty-four wounded, and fifteen missing.

  In his report to Dearborn, General Van Rensselaer wrote, “the victory was really won, but lost for want of a small reinforcement; one-third of the idle men might have saved all.” Sheaffe sent the American regulars, including Scott, to prison in Quebec and paroled the militiamen to their homes.

  On October 16, Van Rensselaer resigned, and Dearborn, who was quick to put all the blame for the disaster on Van Rensselaer, replaced him with Smyth, who had plans to attack Fort Erie and plant the American standard on Canadian soil before winter. Dearborn hoped to attack Montreal at the same time. While Smyth was preparing his invasion, Dearborn organized a campaign against Montreal. He had over 6,000 men, the largest army on either side of the border. Brigadier General Joseph Bloomfield was at Plattsburg in command of the troops, but he was ill, and Dearborn decided to lead the attack himself with 3,000 regulars and nearly 4,000 militiamen.