Upper Canada Preserved — War of 1812 6-Book Bundle. Richard Feltoe
motley collection of barely trained and poorly armed local militia from the Leeds County Embodied Militia Regiment, dressed in worn-out and cast-off redcoats acquired from Kingston. Believing they were facing regular troops, Forsyth’s men formed line and engaged the defenders. Following a short exchange of gunfire that inflicted around a dozen casualties among the Canadian militiamen, the American regulars advanced and quickly brushed aside the defender’s token resistance. They then occupied the village and ransacked the militia warehouse before burning the building and its contents of over 150 barrels of provisions. They then returned to Sackets Harbor with a haul of twelve prisoners, forty-one muskets, and three barrels of prepared ammunition.[10]
Tensions mounted once again in October, when troops led by General Brown and Captain Forsyth arrived at Ogdensburg, this time to stay. As he had done previously, Brown attempted to cut off the British line of communication and transport by firing his artillery at any British vessel that came in sight.
The British garrison post at Prescott, the first (easternmost) real defensive fortification on the St. Lawrence River in Upper Canada.
Library and Archives Canada, NMC.C-24808.
In response, the garrison at Prescott, under Colonel Robert Lethbridge, attempted to mount an attack against Ogdensburg on Sunday, October 4, 1812. Commencing with an artillery bombardment, some thirty boats, loaded with around 150 Canadian Fencible troops from the Glengarry Light Infantry Regiment and 600 militiamen drawn from the Leeds, Stormont, and Dundas Embodied Militia regiments, set out to land and capture Ogdensburg. As they approached the American shore, however, they came under an increasing level of American artillery and then musket fire from around 1,200 troops, which included Brown and Forsyth’s new arrivals, supported by detachments of local militia. In response, with their vessels being damaged and taking casualties amongst the tightly packed men, one boat after another abandoned the crossing. As a result, the entire flotilla attack collapsed, to the humiliation of the British and the added prestige of the American military commanders. From that point onward, the American presence at Ogdensburg was seen as a growing threat. Within weeks additional companies of riflemen, as well as three companies of artillerymen with three guns, had augmented the American garrison. On the British side of the river, the failure of the expedition led to the rapid replacement of the aging Colonel Lethbridge as Prescott’s garrison commander by a far more experienced combat officer, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Pearson (23rd Regiment). Under Pearson’s demanding and expert hand, the previously lethargic men of the regular forces were soon drilled into a better fighting efficiency, and the militias started a course of instruction to enable them to fight with better coordination and discipline alongside the regulars. Pearson also made detailed plans for the attack and destruction of Ogdensburg. Unfortunately, Prevost’s directives for maintaining a non-aggressive posture left Pearson and his now-ready troops frustrated, to say the least, as 1812 drew to a close.
A view from the 1813 earthen ramparts of Fort Wellington at Prescott. The existing central blockhouse is a postwar construction. The far bank, beyond the St. Lawrence River, is the United States.
CHAPTER 5
Threats and Counter-Threats Along the Niagara River,
July to October 1812
According to Secretary of War Eustis’s original plan to conquer the Canadas, diversionary attacks upon the Detroit and Niagara frontiers would draw British reserves away from Montreal and Quebec, thus allowing the main American thrust to enter Lower Canada through Vermont against reduced opposition. In reality, the failure of government recruiters to raise any significant military units in New England, coupled with the debacle of General Hull at Detroit, effectively derailed the 1812 American war effort. Desperate to create some kind of military success, the administration pressured General Dearborn to produce positive results on the Niagara front to counter their failures elsewhere. For Dearborn, this came as an unwelcome surprise, for he was hardly aware that the Niagara region came under his jurisdiction, while the quality of the region’s commanders had hardly risen to the challenge of the moment. In fact, although it had only been a month since war had been declared, the troops on the Niagara frontier had already been under the command of both Brigadier General William Wadsworth and Major General Amos Hall. On July 13, 1812, they gained their third new commander in the person of Major General Stephen Van Rensselaer.
A member of an influential New York State family, Van Rensselaer had been politically opposed to the prospect of war, but had been manoeuvred into accepting command of the “Army of the Centre” by his political opponent, the incumbent governor, Daniel D. Tompkins. For Tompkins, this seemingly contradictory act actually held political merit, for although a military victory would bring Van Rensselaer fame and honour, declining the post would brand him as failing to support his country in time of war. Furthermore, accepting the post would handicap Van Rensselaer’s ability to mount a political campaign against Tompkins, and any military defeat would seal Van Rensselaer’s political fate entirely.
General Stephen Van Rensselaer, artist unknown. Manipulated into a command he did not want, he later became the scapegoat for the American defeat at Queenston.
Library and Archives Canada, C-007796.
New York State Governor, Daniel D. Tompkins. Political opponent of General Stephen Van Rensselaer, he used the general’s defeat at Queenston to win re-election.
From the Conger Goodyear Manuscript Collection, Vol. 9. Courtesy of the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society Research Library, Buffalo, NY.
During the remainder of the summer, once he saw the task before him, Van Rensselaer was in a constant state of alarm that Brock would take the initiative and attack across the Niagara River, a circumstance for which he believed there was no effective defence:
Sir … At this hour I have received no reinforcements of men, no supplies of ordnance, tents nor ammunition. There are not ten rounds per man on the Niagara frontier, nor have we lead to make cartridges. We are extremely deficient of medicine and hospital stores; of lint and bandage cloth we have none, nor any surgical instruments…. The company lately under the command of Captain Jennings in Lieutenant Col. Swift’s regiment had become so clamorous for pay, and contended so strenuously that their time had expired, that I have ordered them to be dismissed.[1]
— Major General Van Rensselaer to Major General Dearborn, September 1, 1812
Under these circumstances, orders that had previously been issued to the various posts not to stir up any unnecessary trouble were reissued, a command that at least one detachment of over-enthusiastic young volunteers serving at the newly constructed Fort Tompkins, near Black Rock, found themselves unable to obey, with inevitable consequences.
I commanded the gun that threw the first ball at the enemy [on August 13, 1812] … until now we had not been permitted by our superiors to get up any quarrel with our neighbours, and were not allowed to fire a gun except with blank cartridges for the purpose of practice, and we were tired of lounging and doing nothing. So accordingly the British came near the river and commenced building a battery with some 30 or 40 men. Now the question was, should we permit them to do it? We could do nothing unless slyly done, orders being against us. However, it seemed most too much to allow our enemies to erect machines immediately under our noses to kill us with. We accordingly consulted as to whether we were able to get a ball to the gun unknown to our officers…. After waiting for a favourable opportunity, the ball went in, unknown to any except those engaged in it. Our next business was to gauge the range with the view to have the ball fall short of them, as we did not desire to kill them, but merely to