Two days later, General Brown led an advance party to French Creek on the St. Lawrence, guarded by Chauncey’s vessels. On November 2 sloops and gunboats of the Royal Navy, under Captain William Howe Mulcaster, slipped out of Kingston, past Chauncey’s screen at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and attacked Brown, but he was well prepared and beat them off, forcing Mulcaster to return to Kingston.
The following day, November 1, Chauncey convoyed the rest of Wilkinson’s army to French Creek. Wilkinson, who was still sick, was the last to arrive.
On the fifth Brown led a flotilla of three hundred boats down the St. Lawrence toward Montreal. As he did, Yeo appeared with his fleet in the North Channel near the mouth of the river, while Chauncey and his fleet were in the South Channel. Wolfe Island separated them. Chauncey was anxious to engage the British fleet in a decisive action and made every effort to get at Yeo, who inexplicably retreated to Kingston.
Wilkinson now proceeded down the river, but Chauncey did not follow to protect his rear. Instead, he moved in stages back to Sackets Harbor. The commodore’s first priority was still protecting his fleet and base, not taking Montreal. By November 11 he had all his vessels safely tucked in for the winter at Sackets Harbor. “It is now blowing a heavy gale from the westward with snow,” he wrote to Secretary Jones, “and every appearance of the winter [has] set in.”
Wilkinson landed his men just above Ogdensburg on November 6, and during the night he ran the empty boats that had transported his troops safely past the guns of Fort Wellington in Prescott. From the American camp seven miles above Ogdensburg he wrote to General Hampton, ordering him to move his army to St. Regis (opposite Cornwall) by the ninth or tenth, when they would join together for the attack on Montreal. Wilkinson added that Hampton was to bring two or three months’ worth of supplies for the entire army. Wilkinson claimed his provisions would last only a few more weeks.
As far as Wilkinson knew, Hampton had a force of 4,000, whose principal object was to join him in attacking Montreal. He was aware that Hampton despised him and would not follow his orders if he could help it, which is why Wilkinson preferred to work through Armstrong, but the secretary, who was in upstate New York at the time, forced Wilkinson to communicate directly with Hampton. Armstrong’s unwillingness to coordinate the movements of the two armies at this stage probably meant that he had lost faith in the enterprise and did not want to be blamed for its failure. People in Washington wondered where the elusive secretary was exactly, what he was doing, and why he was not at the War Department. He did not return to Washington until December 24.
Wilkinson’s order surprised Hampton, who thought the attack on Montreal had been canceled because of the lateness of the season. Weeks earlier, a messenger from Sackets Harbor had arrived at Hampton’s headquarters with instructions from Armstrong to build winter quarters for 10,000 men. Hampton assumed that Armstrong had given up the plan to attack Montreal. Thus, even before Wilkinson had embarked on the St. Lawrence, Hampton had put aside coordinating an attack on Montreal. Prevost knew of Hampton’s withdrawal well before either Wilkinson or Armstrong did.
Wilkinson was unaware that back on October 26 Hampton had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of 1,300 French and English militiamen and a few Indians, commanded by Charles de Salaberry, a French-Canadian aristocrat of considerable experience, skill, and flair. At the time, Hampton had been trying to position himself for a junction with Wilkinson by traveling across the border toward Montreal via the Chateaguay River, which empties into the St. Lawrence just below the city. Secretary Armstrong knew of Hampton’s movements and approved them, but Wilkinson did not.
On that day in October, Hampton ran into de Salaberry at Allan’s Corners, near present-day Ormstown, Quebec, on the Chateaguay, fifty miles northeast of Cornwall and thirty-six miles southeast of Montreal. The subsequent fight became known as the Battle of Chateaguay, but it was hardly a battle. Hampton vastly overestimated the size of the enemy and withdrew before the fight was really joined. Embarrassed, discouraged, and confused, he retreated back across the border to Four Corners, New York, where he received Wilkinson’s command to join him. By then, Hampton was totally demoralized and had no intention of carrying out the order.
In his reply to Wilkinson, Hampton wrote that his army was in terrible condition, that supplies were nonexistent, and that he could not possibly form a junction with him at St. Regis. Instead, he told Wilkinson he intended to retreat all the way back to Plattsburgh for the winter.
ON NOVEMBER 8, as of yet unaware of Hampton’s situation, Wilkinson dispatched General Brown with 2,500 men to the Canadian side of the river with orders to clear enemy militia obstructing the road to Cornwall, seventy miles from Montreal. Brown met with weak resistance from Canadian militiamen and quickly dispatched them.
Meanwhile, a small force of about six hundred British regulars under Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Morrison left Kingston on November 6 to trail Wilkinson and hang on his rear. Commander William Howe Mulcaster of the Royal Navy transported them. Ice on the St. Lawrence did not encumber his squadron of two schooners, seven gunboats, and numerous bateaux. Since Commodore Chauncey’s entire fleet was at Sackets Harbor, Mulcaster could traverse the St. Lawrence unimpeded. By the ninth Morrison was at Prescott, where two hundred fifty men from Fort Wellington reinforced him.
Bad weather on November 10 forced Wilkinson and the pursuing British to pause. Morrison established himself at John Crysler’s farm and made preparations should Wilkinson detach a part of his force to get rid of the pesky enemy in his rear. This is exactly what Wilkinson did: He dispatched Brigadier General John Boyd with 2,000 men to attack Morrison.
The resulting Battle of Crysler’s Farm began early in the afternoon of November 11, becoming heavy around two o’clock. Boyd’s larger but poorly organized force attacked and was met by seasoned British regulars who stopped the ill-trained Americans and turned them back. Mulcaster’s gunboats aided in the fight, pouring fire into the American lines. After two hours of close combat, Boyd’s men went running back to their boats in a disorderly retreat. Most escaped to the American side of the river, but 100 were taken prisoner. In the fighting, 103 of Boyd’s men were killed and 237 wounded, many of whom were left on the battlefield. The British had 22 killed, 148 wounded, and 9 missing and presumed dead.
The following day, Wilkinson, who had been sick during the battle and was still in poor condition, gathered what remained of his force and ran the Long Sault rapids, meeting up with General Brown and his men at Barnhart’s Island above Cornwall. Wilkinson was still planning to attack Montreal, but his stores had nearly run out. He was counting on Hampton to bring supplies, as well as 4,000 reinforcements. But when Wilkinson arrived on Barnhart’s Island, Colonel Henry Atkinson was waiting for him with a letter from Hampton, informing him that he was not coming to St. Regis for a rendezvous and that even if he did, he had no way of supplying the provisions Wilkinson requested. Hampton claimed that he had enough problems feeding his own men. Wilkinson was furious. He sent a blistering letter, telling Hampton that he could not find “language to express my sorrow” at Hampton’s actions. Deprived of help, Wilkinson postponed the attack on Montreal and removed his army to winter quarters at nearby French Mills (Fort Covington), New York, just over the border.
Hampton’s claim that he could not find sufficient supplies and Wilkinson’s insistence that he was dependent on Hampton for provisions were curious, considering that New York farmers were then supplying all the food the British needed and would have done the same for the American armies if Wilkinson and Hampton could have somehow found the money. A month earlier Hampton had written that “we have and can have, an unlimited supply of good beef cattle.” Wilkinson could have had plenty of food as well, but without Hampton’s troops he had a perfect excuse for not attacking Montreal.
Wilkinson’s decision was a relief to Governor-General Prevost, who had been working hard for weeks to improve Montreal’s defense. When he first became aware tha
t the Americans were going to attack Montreal and not Kingston, he rushed to Montreal to bolster its defenses, arriving on September 25. He brought marines from Quebec and called up a substantial number of militiamen, who looked formidable on paper but were untested. As Wilkinson approached, Prevost had mustered well over 10,000 militiamen, and he had 5,000 regulars under Major General Sheaffe. Prevost’s sizable army would have, in all probability, administered a crushing defeat to Wilkinson.
WHILE ARMSTRONG AND Wilkinson were focused on attacking Montreal, Fort George and Fort Niagara were left with 850 regulars under Colonel Winfield Scott and 1,600 New York militiamen under Brigadier General George McClure. Believing the British had withdrawn from the Niagara region to defend Montreal, Wilkinson ordered Scott on October 13 to march most of his troops east to join the attack on Montreal, leaving McClure with only 324 regulars and the New York militiamen, whose six-month enlistments were about to expire. McClure was more of a politician than a soldier; he had no military credentials, and he could not inspire any loyalty in his troops. He watched nervously as almost all his militiamen—even with their pay in arrears—left forts George and Niagara and went home. By December 10 he was left with 150 militiamen and 300 plus regulars, who were guarding Fort Niagara.
Secretary Armstrong, hoping that Prevost had moved all the forces he could east, did not send reinforcements. McClure was already nervous and grew more so when he discovered that British brigadier general Vincent had moved men from Burlington closer to Fort George. McClure did not know how many.
On December 10 McClure learned that all his fears were confirmed—the British were advancing against Fort George. He evacuated the fort in a panic and ordered the nearby town of Newark, a thriving community with over one hundred buildings, including a library and a government center, burned. As many as four hundred innocent Canadians of all ages were driven from their homes with little notice during terrible weather. Snow and severe frost made finding shelter imperative, but none was available. Afterward, McClure led his men across the river to Fort Niagara. He claimed that he destroyed Newark in order to deprive the British of comfortable winter quarters and that Armstrong had given the order. But that simply was not the case. The administration denounced McClure for what he had done. Armstrong ordered Wilkinson, McClure’s superior, to publicly repudiate the act. But that was not enough for Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond, who had just replaced Major General Francis de Rottenburg as the leader of Upper Canada. Drummond announced that “retributive justice demanded of me a speedy retaliation on the opposite shore of America.” After his announcement, the British reoccupied Fort George.
On December 19, Drummond ordered a surprise attack on Fort Niagara. Lieutenant Colonel John Murray led the assault with six hundred men. Entering the fort at five o’clock in the morning, he caught the American regulars completely unawares. McClure wasn’t even in the fort; he had gone to Buffalo. By 5:30, without firing a shot, using only bayonets, Murray captured all the men in the fort and their huge stock of cannon, muskets, ammunition, and supplies.
While Murray was taking Fort Niagara, Major General Phineas Riall, intent on avenging Newark, had crossed the Niagara River on December 18 with 1,000 British regulars and 400 Indians and marched down the New York side, ravaging Lewiston and the neighboring villages of Youngstown and Manchester, burning and pillaging without restraint. The Albany Argus reported that “bodies were lying dead in the fields and roads, some horribly cut and mangled with tomahawks, others eaten by hogs, which were probably left for the purpose.”
Riall continued south, and on December 29, he overwhelmed weakly defended Black Rock, destroying four schooners that were part of the Lake Erie fleet wintering there, and threatening Buffalo. McClure was no longer in charge of the defense. Despised for burning Newark, even by his own people, and blamed for the Fort Niagara debacle and the massacre at Lewiston, he stole off to Batavia, lucky his own men had not killed him. Governor Tompkins appointed Major General Amos Hall to replace him.
Hall had 2,000 green militiamen to protect Buffalo, but at the first glimpse of British bayonets, panic seized them, and when they heard Indian cries, they broke and ran. “They gave way and fled on every side,” Hall said. “Every attempt to rally them was ineffectual.” Buffalo was left to face the enemy alone. Again, showing no mercy, Riall plundered and burned the town. Master Commandant Jesse Elliott feared he would attack the naval base at Presque Isle next, but the severity of the winter brought the British rampage to a halt.
Prevost justified Riall’s butchery by pointing to Newark. But McClure never authorized the slaughter that Riall encouraged. Also, Prevost overlooked the ravaging of Hampton, Virginia, back in June, an atrocity that had all of Riall’s savagery but no Indians to blame it on. When justifying their viciousness, the British liked to point to American violence, but it never remotely equaled the sadistic retaliation they practiced.
The armies now went into winter hibernation along the frozen border, each anticipating more ferocious fighting in the spring. The fort on Michilimackinac Island remained in British hands. After Harrison’s victory over Procter and Tecumseh, severe weather prevented an attack on the fort, which was sure to be an objective come spring.
The defeats along the Canadian border delivered another devastating blow to the president’s war plans and made getting Liverpool to the negotiating table all the more difficult. The British had been so successful not only against American arms but in garnering support from their Canadian subjects that their war aims, which initially had been purely defensive, now became far more expansive. Once the Napoleonic menace was destroyed, Liverpool and his colleagues could deal a crippling blow to the pretensions of the United States.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The War at Sea in 1813
IN THE LATTER part of 1813 the high seas were as much of a disappointment for the president as the disasters in Canada. Victories were hard to come by. One of the few occurred off the coast of Maine. On September 1, twenty-seven-year-old Lieutenant William Ward Burrows II, captain of the storied American warship Enterprise, weighed anchor and hove out of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard into the fast-moving current of the Piscataqua River, which formed the boundary between the District of Maine and the state of New Hampshire. The commandant of the yard, Captain Isaac Hull, ordered Burrows “to proceed to sea on a cruise along the coast [of Maine] to the eastward as far as the Kennebec River” to protect the coasting trade, “interrupted by small cruisers of the enemy of late.” The British were also using small craft to engage in unlawful trade with Mainers, who were ferrying goods out to them in defiance of the law. Hull wanted the Enterprise to put a stop to this traffic as well. He told Burrows to sail close to shore; British warships had grown in number, and Hull wanted the slow-sailing Enterprise to “have a port under your lee or near you, that you may run for.” He ordered Burrows to return to Portsmouth in two weeks.
Three months earlier, Burrows had been a prisoner in a British jail in Barbados. He landed there after obtaining a furlough from the navy so that he could go on a voyage to Canton, China, in a merchantman to replenish his shrinking wallet. On the way home the British captured his ship and sent him to Barbados as a prisoner of war, but he was soon paroled, exchanged, and back on duty. The Enterprise was his first assignment since rejoining the service. Burrows was a native of Philadelphia, active on the water his entire life. His father, William Ward Burrows I, was the first commandant of the Marine Corps when President Adams reestablished the Corps in 1798. Young Burrows was as committed to his country’s service as his father had been, and like his peers Lieutenant Burrows was anxious to distinguish himself.
Isaac Hull was happy to have Burrows; he desperately needed more help. Hull was commanding officer of the navy’s Eastern Station, in charge of building one of the 74-gun ships of the line (the Washington) approved by Congress in January 1813. He also had responsibility for protecting Portsmouth and the Maine coast, but he had practically no warships. When he asked for
some, Secretary Jones assigned him the small brigs Siren and Enterprise. Siren was laid up for repairs in Charleston, South Carolina, and would never arrive. The Enterprise appeared in June, under Master Commandant Johnston Blakeley. The previous year, Blakeley had radically altered the classic schooner, converting her to a brig. He hoped to strengthen her as a gun platform without compromising her sailing qualities. Unfortunately, he transformed her from a fast schooner carrying twelve six-pounders into a stodgy brig. He was unhappy with the result, and when he handed her over to Burrows, whom he knew well and respected, it was with a sense of relief. Blakeley wanted a better fighting ship. He was grateful when Secretary Jones assigned him to superintend construction of one of the new sloops of war, the Wasp, then building in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Blakeley had just been promoted to master commandant, and the Wasp was more suited to his rank.
WHEN THE WEATHER was dirty, sailing the sixty miles from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Portland, Maine, could take a long time, but Burrows had a short, pleasant cruise. As Cape Elizabeth came into view at the southern entrance to Casco Bay on the third of September, a lookout spied a schooner off Wood Island near Biddeford Pool, and Burrows chased her into Portland, where he captured her and then anchored for the night. The following morning he received word of enemy privateers operating near Pemaquid Point, and he set out from Portland to find them. Steering east, he soon approached Sequin Island at the mouth of the Kennebec River and then decided to sail on to Monhegan Island, twenty miles farther east.
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