Upper Canada Preserved — War of 1812 6-Book Bundle. Richard Feltoe
the main British flotilla sitting idly well out of firing range, the only British naval presence fell to the gunboats and HMS Beresford, a former merchant topsail schooner adapted to carry ten 18-pounder carronades and two long 9-pounders. This vessel had been laboriously rowed in under fire from the American gun positions until it was positioned off the exposed flank of Fort Tompkins and directly in line with the left flank of the batteries on Navy Point. Once the Beresford opened fire it ignited the Marine Barracks behind the large 32-pounder in Fort Tomkins. So hot did this fire become that the gun had to be abandoned, temporarily ending its damaging bombardment of the British troops. In addition, any rounds that overshot Fort Tompins landed among the crews of the Navy Point batteries, persuading them that Fort Tompkins had fallen and its guns were now trained on them, precipitating a cascade abandonment of these otherwise strong artillery positions by their crews. As a result, the Beresford was able to move round the point and opened fire directly into the heart of the port.
Moving slowly up the bay under oars, the Fair American and Pert exchanged a long-range passing fire with the Beresford but made no attempt to seriously engage her. Under this flanking fire, and with deserters and casualties coming back from both Navy Point and the fighting over the hill indicating that the British had either taken Fort Tompkins or the Americans were abandoning the position, the secondary orders left by Commodore Chauncey and reiterated by Lieutenant Chauncey (now sailing up the bay in the Fair American) were implemented by his subordinates, Master Commandant Leonard, Joseph Gamble, Sailing Master Hutton, and Lieutenant Drury. These prior orders stated that in the event of a British attack actually overrunning the American defences or appearing to carry the garrison a red flag would be raised and then lowered aboard the Fair American. Upon seeing this command, all of the battery artillery positions were to be spiked, the warehouses and other military structures were to be set on fire, and the vessels in the harbour were to be scuttled or fired to deny their use to the enemy. Although there were procedures to prevent any accidental or premature implementation of these last-resort orders, the defeatist reports coming back from the battlefield, plus the subsequent sworn testimonies of those at several locations that the red flag was indeed raised and lowered aboard the Fair American, led to the implementation of the self-destruct instructions. As a result, despite Lieutenant Chauncey’s later vehement denial that he had raised the red-flag order, the torches were set and the buildings began to burn.
Back on the main battlefield, the American defensive line was under great strain and suffering casualties, but it had not broken. However, with all of his available effective troops committed and pushed back to the American entrenchments, it was not long before Lieutenant Colonel Backus decided to order his line to retire on Fort Volunteer. As the American troops began to disengage and pull back, Backus received a mortal wound and command fell upon Major Laval, who confirmed the retreat orders. Inside Fort Tompkins, however, the artillerists manning the guns, backed by the remnants of the Ninth and Twenty-First Infantry, remained in place and continued the engagement, while infantry stragglers and elements of the First Dragoons either joined the now isolated garrison inside the fort or fled through the town, spreading alarm and panic. A British victory and the fall of the harbour seemed inevitable.
What the Americans did not know was that the British offensive was slowly but surely running out of steam, as its casualties mounted. By now the depleted remnants of the British attacking force had finally reached the Basswood Cantonment and, using its cover, had made several attempts to storm the Fort Tompkins position. But after fierce point-blank firing, they were driven off each time by the determined resistance of the ad hoc defending garrison.
Behind the British line, Sir George Prevost had been with the main body throughout the day’s action. As the titular senior officer, he was in command of the entire British battle strategy and execution. Unfortunately, Prevost was first and foremost an administrative commander and, compared to some of his subordinates, relatively inexperienced in battlefield command situations. From his perspective, his command had suffered crippling numbers of casualties from enemy fire while the expected artillery support of his naval contingent was sitting idly offshore, contributing nothing to the attack. To his front, while most of the enemy’s forces had retreated from the field, its principal fortification was stubbornly holding out and blocking his advance to gain his ultimate objective of the harbour. As such, he had had no way of knowing that the Americans on the other side of the rise in ground were in full flight and beginning to do his work of destruction for him. He also had no reconnaissance information about what was occurring on his right flank or in the area beyond his immediate vision, leaving open the potential that the longer he was delayed, the more likely that the Americans were going to receive reinforcements and make a counterattack upon his position. There was also the possibility that because of the delay of over twenty-four hours in making the initial attack, Commodore Chauncey’s fleet might appear on the horizon, cutting off his line of retreat to Kingston aboard his waiting flotilla. Under these conditions, Prevost personally ordered the cessation of the attack and the sounding of the recall for all units.
Despite their shock at hearing the call to retreat at what seemed the moment of victory, the disciplined British soldiers obeyed their orders and began to fall back, surrendering the hard-won ground without a fight. As the British line assembled out of firing range of the American defenders, hoping for the opportunity to make one more concerted attack by the entire remaining force, Major Drummond personally went forward under a flag of truce and called for the Americans to surrender. Despite being almost out of ammunition and with only a few unwounded men to man the walls, Major Laval met Drummond’s call with defiance, correctly assessing that the bugle calls and British withdrawal signalled a weakness in the British resolve to continue the action. Hearing of Laval’s defiance from Major Drummond, Sir George Prevost made the decision to terminate all operations and ordered his force to retreat to their boats. Upon being pressed by Major Drummond to make one final push and not abandon the fruits of the victory already attained, Prevost rebuked his subordinate, reminding him of his primary duty to obey his superiors’ orders and demanded the retreat begin immediately.
Across the field, the British and Canadian units heard the sounds of the bugle calling retreat with varying degrees of astonishment and frustrated anger. Some were in a position to see the dockyards burning and the Americans in full flight. Initially they could not fathom the need for a withdrawal and so only reluctantly obeyed. Other units, interpreting that the order meant American reinforcements were arriving, or a major counterattack was about to take place, made off toward the boats with speed — a situation that soon transmuted their nonexistent danger into a panicked imagining of imminent disaster. This unfettered rumour quickly transmitted itself to other units and turned the orderly withdrawal of Prevost’s forces into a partial rout, with the Americans in Fort Tompkins watching in astonishment as the all-but-triumphant enemy melted away before them.
Back on the landing beaches, discipline amongst the returning troops had almost collapsed. Prompted by the wild rumours, weapons and supplies were abandoned as the men sought places in the shuttle of boats returning to the flotilla. Such was the disorder of this re-embarkation that several units of latecomers and the rearguard found themselves stranded without boats, forcing them to search for their own evacuation transport, which they eventually found, returning to the British flotilla around 9:00 a.m.*[8]
With the British in full retreat, some of the American mounted dragoon commanders, who had played little significant part in the day’s events, wanted to initiate an immediate pursuit. However, to their annoyance, Major Laval vetoed this idea and ordered all units to remain in position and secure the defensive perimeter of the harbour. Likewise, within the harbour itself, once the Beresford was seen to be retreating toward the flotilla, the Fair American and Pert started rowing back toward Fort Volunteer and the docks, while volunteer crews from the yard began to extinguish the fires in order to salvage as much as possible from total destruction. Only then did General Brown reappear on the field. Reviewing the situation and deciding that the British were definitely abandoning the offensive, Brown rode off once again to cajole the reluctant militia formations gathered outside the village to return to their posts and help salvage the dockyard warehouses. He also made sure