War on the Lakes

As the autumn of 1813 approached, the American leaders began to make more urgently threatening movements, apparently determined to make some decisive use of their masses of collected troops.

Continuing Canada Versus USA 1812-1814,
with a selection from The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 15 by Agnes M. Machar published in 1905. This selection is presented in 7 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Canada Versus USA 1812-1814.

After a sharp contest the British troops were obliged to retire from the unequal struggle —— doubly unequal since the fleet was about to attack the town in front. Sheaffe accordingly retired toward Kingston, and the defenseless town fell into the hands of the enemy, whose advance column, on reaching the fort, was nearly destroyed by the explosion of the powder-magazine, fired by a sergeant named Marshall. The American general, Zebulon Pike, lost his life in the catastrophe. The ship then building, the dockyard, and a quantity of marine stores had been destroyed or removed by the British before deserting the town; and the Americans, previous to evacuating it on May 2nd, completed the work of destruction by burning the public buildings and plundering the church and the library.

If this harassing war is, comparatively, little known to fame, it certainly extended over an area far wider than that of many a world-renowned European campaign. Along a frontier one thousand seven hundred miles in length, border frays of varying importance and success were harassing the country. Far to the west, among the rich alluvial forests and tangled jungles of the Detroit district, Proctor, aided by Tecumseh and his Indians, was waging an unequal and somewhat ineffectual struggle with Harrison and his “Army of the West,” while near him, on the waters of Lake Erie, Captain Barclay was doing all he could to aid him in naval encounters with Commodore Perry. On the Niagara frontier, within sight of the spray of the Falls, attacks and reprisals were going on as just described. On the broad bosom of Lake Ontario, Chauncey and Yeo were fighting a naval duel, with some success to the latter, while the former made a second descent upon York, just then undefended, and completed the devastation previously begun, demolishing barracks and boats, throwing open the jail, and ill-treating and plundering a number of the inhabitants.

Among the picturesque windings of the Thousand Islands, in the mazes of the blue St. Lawrence, American attacking parties were intercepting convoys of batteaux, carrying provisions for Western garrisons —- a serious misfortune in days when, in our now rich and fertile Canada, not only the regular troops, but the militia and the Indian allies, had to be fed on the Irish mess pork, and “hard-tack” from Portsmouth, all stores having to be laboriously carried westward from Montreal. Amid the landlocked, mountain-girdled bays of the beautiful Lake Champlain, hostilities, chiefly in the shape of naval encounters, were proceeding, an American fleet attempting to surprise Isle-aux-Noix, and, in return, destructive reprisals being made by the British upon Plattsburg, Burlington, Scranton, and Champlain town; while far out on the misty Atlantic, British and American men-of-war were “storming with shot and shell,” the British Pelican taking the American Argus, and the American Enterprise and Decatur —with great advantage of guns and numbers —- taking respectively the Dominica and the Boxer. In the early part of the year, Sir John Borlase, as a prudential measure, had established a vigilant blockade of the American coast, which hemmed in most of the American frigates in their ports, sending their officers and crews to the service of the lakes, harassed the maritime towns and naval arsenals, and, by keeping the merchantmen idle in the harbors, intercepted the coasting trade, ruined the commerce, and diminished the national revenue by two-thirds.

As the autumn of 1813 approached, the American leaders began to make more urgently threatening movements, apparently determined to make some decisive use of their masses of collected troops. Hampton, on the eastern frontier, at the head of nearly five thousand men, crossed Lake Champlain to Plattsburg, in advance on Montreal. At Sackett’s Harbor, Wilkinson threatened Kingston with a force of ten thousand men. And General Harrison, in the West, was only awaiting the naval success of Captain Perry, on Lake Erie, in order to advance upon Proctor with an army of six thousand men.

Notwithstanding the difficulty of procuring facilities for ship building in that far inland region, Captain Barclay had been doing his utmost, by fitting out the Detroit, a larger vessel than his little squadron had hitherto possessed, to keep from Perry the command of the lake. But Perry was well armed and well sup plied, while Barclay was driven to the greatest straits for lack of the supplies which it was impossible for him to procure. He succeeded, however, in blockading Perry for a time in the harbor of Presqu’ile, where the water on the bar was too shallow to allow his ships to float out with heavy guns on board. But, a gale driving Barclay away, Perry got out, and established his position between the land force and the vessels acting as their store-ships. It became absolutely necessary, at last, to fight the enemy in order to enable the fleet to get supplies, there being, in Barclay’s own words, “not a day’s flour in the store, and the squadron being on half allowance of many things.”

A desperate engagement took place, in the course of which Barclay reduced the Lawrence, Perry’s flag-ship, to an unmanageable hulk; and the mixed crews of seamen, militia, and soldiers, in the proportion of one of the first to six of the last, fought as true Britons fight, till, overpowered by superior numbers and heavier metal, aided by a favoring breeze, Barclay’s squadron was forced to surrender, only, however, when every vessel had become unmanageable, every officer had been killed or wounded, and a third of the crews put hors de combat. Barclay himself, when, some months later, mutilated and maimed, he appeared before the Admiralty, presented a spectacle which moved stern warriors to tears, and drew forth a just tribute to his patriotism and courage.

But that defeat was a fatal one for General Proctor. It destroyed his last hope, and retreat or ruin lay before him.

Agnes M. Machar begins here. David Ramsay begins here.

More information here and here, and below.

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