Upper Canada Preserved — War of 1812 6-Book Bundle. Richard Feltoe
While initially successful and overrunning the riverside batteries, British countermoves cause many American troops to abandon the attempt and leave in the remaining boats, stranding the remainder of the American force. As a result, British counterattacks quickly retake the positions and fend off a follow-up wave of American boats bringing reinforcements. In response, U.S. forces at Buffalo effectively mutiny against their commander, Brigadier General Alexander Smyth, and the threat of invasion of Upper Canada collapses on the Niagara frontier.
December 3, 1812: [Washington] U.S. Secretary of War William Eustis resigns under a cloud of criticism for his mishandling of the American war effort to date.
CHAPTER 2
Pre-emptive Strikes
As 1813 began, the military events of 1812 played a major role in the plans developed by both sides for the upcoming campaign season. To the American government, its previous military defeats were embarrassments, but ones that could be rectified by the provision of future victories. On the other hand, the loss of the Territory of Michigan to the authority of the British Crown as part of the surrender at Detroit was a political disaster that almost toppled the administration and was looked on as a stain upon the national pride of the United States.
Furthermore, following Hull’s surrender, reports accumulated of Native warriors from the British alliance robbing and attacking wounded or sick American soldiers, terrorizing civilians, and looting isolated homes. Although these reports also repeatedly documented that whenever they were around, the British troops and their officers tried to restrain or prevent these depredations, these details of fact were not allowed to mitigate the political advantage these events gave to the War Hawks in calling for a massive retaliatory expansion of the American war effort.
One particularly vehement congressman, Henry Clay, stated:
Canada innocent? Canada unoffending? Is it not in Canada that the tomahawk of the savage has been moulded into its death-like form? Has it not been from Canadian magazines, Malden [Amherstburg] and others, that these supplies have been issued? Supplies which have enabled the savage hordes to butcher the garrison of Chicago and to commit other horrid murders? Was it not by the joint co-operation of Canadians and Indians that a remote American fort Michilimackinac, was assailed and reduced while in ignorance of war? What does this war represent? The united energies of one people arrayed against the combined energies of another![1]
North of the border, Sir George Prevost, the senior British commander, also saw this ceding as a worst-case scenario. Only from his point of view, his troops’ occupation of Michigan would become a cause that would unite the chronically divided political cabals in Washington, and precipitate a major backlash of American public opinion in favour of the continuation of the war. Despite his personal desire to withdraw his military forces back across the Detroit River and hand the territory back to American control, the need to maintain the vital Native support in preserving Upper Canada effectively forced Prevost to maintain the occupation. On the other hand, he was just as determined not to send any of his extensive reserves of troops or supplies west into Upper Canada, or beyond, to bolster the British positions; instead, his principal focus of protecting and maintaining Lower Canada and the Maritime colonies remained paramount.
At the same time, Prevost’s local commander, Colonel Henry Proctor, was in a no-win situation. Isolated at the far end of a tenuous and intermittent supply line with a miniscule force of worn-out regular troops and a militia of varying degrees of enthusiasm and loyalty, Proctor was expected to not only defend his frontier in Upper Canada, but also occupy, control, and defend a huge new undefined border against the threat of American military retaliation. He was also responsible for maintaining an alliance with an unreliable and constantly changing balance of power within the Native nations, who demanded he uphold their claims on the newly occupied territory; not to mention supply their warriors and dependents with their every need in food and supplies. At the same time, he had inherited a huge region of American territory, occupied by potentially or actively hostile civilian settlers who demanded his protection against the hostilities of his Native allies. Finally, he had reliable intelligence that the U.S. military were indeed preparing a large expeditionary force to retake Michigan, Detroit, and press on into Upper Canada.
As a result, he recognized that if he maintained his extended positions, he could not possibly hold out against an American counter assault. On the other hand, if he retreated it would mean abandoning Michigan’s civilian populace to probable escalating Native violence; while at the same time alienating those same Natives as being an abandonment of his treaty obligations. This, in turn, would threaten their further support of the British war effort and make them more likely to commit the very atrocities he was desperate to prevent in the first place.
THE BATTLE OF THE RIVER RAISIN
(FRENCHTOWN), January 22, 1813
Matters came to a head in early January 1813, when a force of over 6,300 American troops of the “Northwestern Army” under Indiana Governor Major General William H. Harrison began their campaign to retake the Michigan Territory and Detroit. With this task completed, they were then to cross the ice on the Detroit River and capture Amherstburg before marching up the Thames River Valley to attack Burlington Heights and the Niagara frontier from the rear (west). Facing this force, Proctor’s official roster of regular troops for the whole frontier consisted of some 12 officers and 367 other ranks, of which 114 were detached as the garrison at Detroit. His available militia forces were an unknown factor, as it would depend on how many actually responded to a call to arms. Finally, his Native allies were proving to be less and less co-operative, as many warriors had angrily abandoned the frontier in response to hearing of Sir George Prevost’s temporary armistice with the Americans at the end of the previous year.
Because of the huge logistical difficulties of engaging in a winter campaign, the American force advanced in three separate columns. Unfortunately, due to weather and transportation difficulties, inter-column communications soon broke down and the individual units in each column became strung out along their line-of-march. As a result, the isolated advance elements of the column under Brigadier General James Winchester reached the Maumee River Rapids on January 10th, well ahead of the remainder of their force. Despite having little in the way of proper winter clothing, suffering from malnutrition, disease, frostbite, and poor morale, the 1,300 men of the column still posed a significant threat to Proctor’s small detachment of militia and Natives stationed at Frenchtown (Monroe, MI), some thirty-five miles (56 kilometers) away. Eighteen miles (29 kilometers) further on, at Amherstburg, Proctor was notified of this American threat and issued orders for his troops to prepare for action.
At Brigadier General Winchester’s headquarters, confident that Major General Harrison was forwarding reinforcements to his position, Winchester authorized the seizure of Frenchtown by a detachment of 500 Kentucky militia. Augmented on the march to around 700 men, the Americans made their attack in three separate columns over the frozen River Raisin late in the afternoon of January 18th. Awaiting them were an alerted detachment of two small companies of Essex County Militia under the command of Major Ebenezer Reynolds, totalling only around fifty men, but supported by a small artillery howitzer and between 200 to 300 Native warriors.[2]
After an initial exchange of fire, the Americans advanced and outflanked the British position, forcing the defenders to make a fighting retreat into the woods, inflicting an estimated loss of twelve killed and fifty-five wounded on the Americans, for a loss on the defender’s part of fifteen warriors killed, one militiaman wounded, and two militiamen and a warrior captured.[3] Having gained a victory, the American force occupied the village and were soon reinforced by the arrival of General Winchester with a further 250 regular troops. However, in occupying Frenchtown, Winchester made little subsequent effort to make the position more