Prelude to Glory, Vol. 9

by Ron Carter

  Madison peered into Armstrong’s face in question. “Odd that you’re preparing news articles before the event. What becomes of all this if the campaign fails? The Republican party would be the laughingstock.”

  Armstrong passed it off casually. “The plan will work. Even if we experience problems, the election will be completed before it becomes an issue.”

  Madison straightened at the terrible risk Armstrong was proposing and raised a hand as if to speak, then dropped it and remained silent, caught between his inner sense of right and wrong, and the terrible need to be reelected to the presidency.

  Armstrong went on. “The man I propose to take charge of this entire campaign is General Henry Dearborn.”

  Madison recoiled. “Dearborn? After his failure at Detroit and Niagara and Montreal last fall? He very nearly lost the war for us! A total disaster!”

  Armstrong paused for a moment to let Madison settle. “I’m well aware. The sole reason I suggest him is that in my opinion there is no one else available right now who would accept the position. Do you have someone else in mind?”

  Madison turned and paced a few steps, then returned to the desk, torment in his eyes. “Dearborn.”

  “Good. The only remaining formality is to have your approval of this plan at the earliest time possible. You intend presenting it at the cabinet meeting tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Tomorrow. You will present it, not me.”

  Armstrong bobbed his head. “Very good, sir. I shall be prepared.” He folded his map, assembled his papers, slipped them all back into his satchel, bid goodbye to Madison, and walked out, leaving the president standing alone, hands clasped behind his back, head tipped forward as he stared at the polished hardwood floor, struggling with the rising fear that the entire campaign was too fragile.

  Too many assumptions. Too many uncontrollable contingencies. What if the ice on the lakes holds until the end of April? What will the British do when they see the buildup of American naval forces on the Lakes? What of this twenty-seven-year-old Commodore Perry?—too young—too young. What of Adam Dunson—unproven—he knows the Lakes, but what will he do in battle? Dearborn! What will the country say when we put Dearborn in command?—the one who led us into that disaster last fall? Newspaper articles to be published before the event, announcing great and glorious victories? If those articles appear and then Dearborn bungles the whole campaign, who will ever again trust the Republican party!

  Half a dozen times throughout the day Madison rose from behind his desk to pace while he battled with his growing fears. Chauncey—capable? Perry—too young? Dunson—untried in battle. The British—what will they do? Dearborn! The worst of it!

  It was late when he turned out the lamps and went to his bed to spend a sleepless night tossing and turning while the darkness played havoc with his mind.

  Morning broke bleak with ice on the Potomac, a blanket of frost covering Washington, D.C., and a dull gray overcast. Madison’s cabinet arrived on the porch one at a time, bundled in capes, vapors rising from their breath. They hung their winter wraps in the cloak room and took their places at the long, oval, polished oak table in the luxurious room with paintings and murals and gold lamps on the walls, where Armstrong had placed maps and a written outline of his war campaign for 1813. At nine o’clock Madison entered the room, called them to order, made a perfunctory statement of agenda, and turned the meeting into the eager hands of John Armstrong.

  His presentation was crisp and precise, but he was not five minutes into the meat of it before every man at the table had studied the map and the outline, and was caught up in silent skepticism, and then in abject pessimism at the growing number of dangerous contingencies that became all too apparent. Debate opened, and the challenges came, frank and strong. Armstrong answered, dodging and turning, but in the end it all came down to the simple question that was the foundation on which life in Washington, D.C., finally came to rest: What must I do to get reelected and maintain my power?

  Every concern, every objection to the plan would fade and die if the men gathered in the luxury of the Executive Mansion cabinet room could believe it would permit them to remain in office.

  Very artfully Armstrong reached his blunt conclusion. “The New York election is seventy-eight days away. If any man in this room can conceive of a better plan to swing it to the Republican party, now is the time to lay it on the table.”

  A tense silence continued for ten seconds before Armstrong concluded.

  “Thank you, gentlemen.” He turned to Madison. “Mister President, I have nothing further.”

  Madison said, “Gentlemen, your reactions? Do you approve Mister Armstrong’s proposal?”

  Murmurings were exchanged, then the men quieted.

  Madison stood. “Very well. Mister Armstrong, start immediately. Notify General Dearborn of his appointment to take command of the campaign. Time is against us. This meeting is concluded. Please leave all papers and maps on the table.”

  There was little talk among the cabinet members as they rose and took their leave while Armstrong gathered up his maps and paperwork and buckled them into his satchel, while Madison watched, silent, caught up in his own reservations.

  “Mister President, I’ll notify General Dearborn of his appointment today.”

  “Thank you.”

  In the cloak room, Armstrong buckled his winter cape about his shoulders and set his tricorn on his head. His boot heels clicked a steady cadence in the long hallway as he made his way to the heavy door. He scarcely noticed the hush that had settled in the streets, or the large, lazy snowflakes that had begun drifting in the gray, dead air. He walked the two blocks to his own small, austere office, hung his wraps, and took his place at his desk.

  It was midafternoon before he called his assistant with a sealed document in his hand.

  “It is imperative that this reach General Henry Dearborn in Albany as soon as possible. Send it by courier.”

  Four days later a light, two-masted schooner broke through the ragged ice that reached fifty feet from the wharf at Albany out into the Hudson River. The gangplank thumped into place on the frigid docks, and a man with a small suitcase in his hand and vapor trailing from his nose and mouth stepped gingerly ashore. Twenty minutes later Henry Dearborn raised his head at his desk, startled at the loud, insistent rap at his door. The courier, short, wiry, with nervous eyes, handed him the sealed document and stood waiting, shifting from one foot to the other while Dearborn read it twice before he looked up.

  “Wait in the foyer. I’ll have an answer within the hour for you to deliver back to Secretary Armstrong.”

  For a time Dearborn arranged thoughts and words in his mind before he reached for a sheet of paper and his quill and began to write.

  “ . . . I understand I am to immediately assemble four thousand troops at Sacketts Harbor for an assault on Kingston, and an additional three thousand troops at Buffalo for the subsequent assault on York and the Niagara Peninsula. I further understand that I shall have available the services of naval forces under command of Captain Isaac Chauncey and Commodore Oliver H. Perry, and their ships, to transport troops and lend firepower should it be required. I must voice my principal concern in the plan as I understand it. The British will observe that we are concentrating large forces and supplies at Sacketts Harbor and shall correctly conclude that we intend attacking their facility at Kingston. My deep concern is that should they do so, we will once again find ourselves lacking in men and material in sufficient supply to take possession of Kingston. However, notwithstanding my concern, I shall proceed at once . . .”

  For days Dearborn buried himself in the endless paperwork that politics and war demand. Sealed orders were sent by courier to Isaac Chauncey and Oliver Perry, ordering them to gather their ships and crews—Chauncey at Sacketts Harbor on Lake Ontario to prepare for the assault on Kingston, Perry on Lake Erie, at Presque Isle. Commissary and supply agents were sent to contract for the purchase of the massive stockpiles of materials
necessary to support ten thousand men through the last months of winter and into the spring. Through the remaining days of February and deep into the month of March, troops arrived to take up camp at the naval base at Sacketts Harbor, along with mountainous stockpiles of uniforms, shoes, muskets, rifles, cannon, mortars, gunpowder, shot, shells, blankets, wheat, dried fish, barrels of salt pork and beef, potatoes, rice, sugar, coffee, medicines, and bandages.

  From his office in Washington, D.C., Armstrong was watching Dearborn in Albany like a hawk, to be certain he did not repeat the fatal performance that had cost the United States the entire campaign of 1812. When bold leadership had been the critical need in the assaults on Fort George and Montreal, Dearborn had hidden behind paperwork and protocol and abandoned any pretense of uniting and leading his men into battle. The result was disaster. It was not going to happen again, if Armstrong could stop it. He arranged contact with picked officers and purchasing agents, under orders that they were to keep him abreast of every development among the troops and their supplies, and Armstrong read and reread their incoming messages daily.

  It was late in March when he sensed it. With the date to commence the assault on Kingston just days away, Dearborn was still in Albany, vacillating, spending his days in bookwork and communications, ignoring the crying need for him to step up and lead! Armstrong sent him a direct order.

  “You are hereby ordered to travel from Albany to Sacketts Harbor to command the American forces in person!”

  Reluctantly, almost fearfully, Dearborn made the wintry journey up the Hudson River the few miles to the Mohawk River and then west on the water to Rome, and on northwest overland to Sacketts Harbor. The day he arrived at the naval base he took his first shock.

  The harbor was still frozen with ice thick enough to march an army to Canada, or for the British to march an army to the United States! Chauncey and his boats had no chance of reaching Kingston.

  Two days later Dearborn took his second shock. An exhausted messenger with a great brown wool coat and a beard with icicles hanging banged on his door to hand him a message scrawled by one of the captains out on patrol.

  “The British have assembled between six and eight thousand regulars at Kingston . . . they intend marching on Sacketts Harbor.”

  Dearborn recoiled as though struck. His worst fear—the one he had stated so clearly to Armstrong months before—had come to pass. British patrols had reported the buildup of men and materiel at Sacketts Harbor, and the British war council had correctly concluded the Americans meant to attack Kingston. Their response? Gather their own forces and strike Sacketts Harbor first!

  Eight thousand British regulars at Kingston, poised for an attack? How could his own four thousand American soldiers survive such a battle?

  Behind the closed door of his office he paced back and forth, near distraction, unable to force his shattered thoughts to any sense of logic or reason. In his panic, it never occurred to Dearborn to send out other patrols to confirm the number of British troops actually gathered at Kingston, nor to determine their state of readiness to make an all-out march and attack on Sacketts Harbor. He would never know that had he done so, he would have learned that the British forces at Kingston were not eight thousand. Far from it! They were less than three thousand, and they were not prepared to march anywhere, least of all across ice where they would be visible for miles, to make an attack on Sacketts Harbor!

  Within one hour he had issued grim orders to his war council.

  “You will immediately make all preparations to receive and resist an attack from the British at Kingston.”

  The following day he summoned Chauncey and his naval commanders, among them Adam Dunson, to his office for a session to be conducted behind locked doors. Agitated, hands trembling, he wasted no time in spreading a map before them and the usual formalities were forgotten as he jammed a finger on the map at the place marked Kingston.

  “Gentlemen, reports reached this office yesterday that the British have about eight thousand troops gathered at Kingston and that they intend making a full-scale attack on our facility here at Sacketts Harbor.”

  The room went silent, and Dearborn droned on.

  “I have no reason to doubt the reports. I have ordered our army to prepare for a massive assault. If it comes, we have no choice other than to engage the British here, which we shall do.”

  He paused while the alarmed officers exchanged open exclamations, then settled. Dearborn continued. “If the British do not attack, we have the option of completing our attack on Kingston as planned. However, with eight thousand British regulars there to defend their facility, there is little chance of our success with only four thousand to make the assault.”

  Adam Dunson sat still, only his eyes moving as he watched Chauncey, then the other lesser naval officers and then Dearborn, and Adam saw the near-panic in Dearborn’s eyes.

  “My orders,” Dearborn continued, “are to deliver a victory, and I will not engage in a battle we cannot win. It is clear to me that we must reconsider the standing orders to take Kingston. I brought you here to discuss an alternative plan. I am open to suggestions.”

  There it was, plain, simple, ugly. With no confirming reports, with no definition of how the British forces were disbursed, or the number of their cannon, or the officers in command, Dearborn was once again in full-blown retreat from horrors that existed only in his mind.

  Chauncey sensed it and was the first to speak. “If that’s true, then may I suggest we reverse our plan. Take York first, then back to take Fort George, and on east to take Kingston last.”

  Adam saw the first light of hope come into Dearborn’s eyes. “Yes, go on.”

  Chauncey continued, his voice rising, hands gesturing. “York is the capital of Canada. Small, but the capital nonetheless. There is only a small British force there to defend it, less than one thousand. It is accessible from the lake. Once the ice is gone, we can make an amphibious landing. Our gunboats can give cannon cover to the troops as they march on the town.”

  Adam saw the relief coming into Dearborn’s face. “How do you propose getting our troops from here to the York harbor and then ashore?”

  Chauncey considered for a moment, then turned to Adam. “Mister Dunson, you’ve been inside the York harbor before, correct?”

  “Yes. Many times. Picking up and delivering shipped goods.”

  “How would you go about attacking the town?”

  Adam rose from his chair and for several seconds studied the map. Then he moved his finger along the Canadian shore of Lake Ontario, east of the York harbor, as he spoke.

  “Scarborough Heights are here. The British have picket posts about every three or four miles with semaphore flags to pass messages. If there is no fog, they’ll see our squadron coming long before we get to the York harbor, and they’ll relay the message on to Fort York. They’ll be waiting for us.”

  A tense silence settled over the officers as Adam paused, then went on.

  “But I think there’s a way to surprise them. Track with me.”

  He placed his finger on the west side of the harbor, near the top.

  “The blockhouse and the legislative buildings are here.”

  He moved his finger down, speaking as it went. “The naval dock yards are in this area.”

  He stopped about halfway to the mouth of the harbor. “Fort York and the village are here. The governor’s house is right here, and next to it is a powder magazine. A huge one.”

  He moved his finger a short distance farther down. “There is a battery of cannon right there. Those guns can reach anything approaching Fort York and the village from the water, before it gets there.”

  He shifted his finger further south, on the west side of the very mouth of the harbor. “There is an old fort here, built years ago by the French. I doubt there are any guns still active there, but there could be.”

  He moved his finger around the curving mouth of the harbor to the shoreline of Lake Ontario and moved it west and
stopped.

  “If I were to do it, when the ice will allow, I would not take the squadron into the harbor to face the British guns that will be waiting for us. I would put my men ashore here. From Lake Ontario, outside the harbor. It’s about one and one half miles from the town. From there, they can march northeast behind the old French fort and behind that battery of guns, directly to the town. They can hit the town from the west side and the rear at the same time. While they’re marching, we can send gunboats into the harbor and pin down the defenders with our cannon to keep them from preparing to meet the land attack. For a short time, the British are going to be in a state of confusion, trying to decide whether they should engage the soldiers coming from the west on land, or the ships coming into the harbor from the south.”

  There was excitement in Chauncey’s eyes as he responded. “You would not attempt an amphibious landing from the harbor directly on the town? If we land troops on both sides of the town, we can trap the defenders. Leave them no way out.”

  Adam nodded his head. “It is my guess they will be expecting us to do that. If they do, they will divide their force, most of them on each edge of the town, facing outward. That will reduce their forces by about one half, either direction. If we can get our troops ashore quickly enough down here to the west, and if they can cover the ground fast enough while we open fire from our gunboats with all available cannon, it is my opinion we can pin down the British long enough for our troops to overrun the defenders on the west side of town before the other half of their fighting force can get there to help them. We can be into the town before they get organized.”

  Chauncey looked at Dearborn, waiting for a response.

  Dearborn cleared his throat. “Does anyone have other options?”