Upper Canada Preserved — War of 1812 6-Book Bundle. Richard Feltoe
detailed information about the destination of the British flotilla, but it was evident that Sackets Harbor was a potential priority target. On the other hand, there was also the possibility that Yeo’s goal was to break through with reinforcements for Vincent and take on the American fleet while it was hamstrung in its manoeuvring by the need to maintain contact with Dearborn’s land forces. In addition, by his own orders, several vessels had been detached to make reconnaissance sweeps around the west end of the lake, thus leaving his fighting force reduced in firepower if the British appeared. Consequently, Chauncey notified Dearborn that effective immediately, he intended to leave and seek out the enemy fleet before returning to protect his naval base. He also pressured Dearborn to supply troops to augment the Sackets Harbor garrison. In reply, Dearborn detached 200 men, under Colonel Macomb, to travel with Chauncey, while Lieutenant Colonel Ripley and his regiment were ordered to march to the harbour by way of Oswego. However, despite the urgency of the moment, Chauncey was forced to wait over twenty-four hours until his vessels returned before sailing north toward York and the northern shore of Lake Ontario — it being the most likely route Yeo and Proctor would take if their intention was to link up with Vincent. When no enemy appeared, Chauncey set course for Kingston and Sackets Harbor with all sail. After locating the enemy back in port at Kingston, Chauncey reached his base late in the afternoon of June 1st.
Upon his arrival, Commodore Chauncey found that while most of the dockyard and the hull of his new warship had been saved from destruction, the same could not be said for the barracks and warehouses on Navy Point, which not only contained the fittings and supplies that were needed to finish her off and make her fit for sea but also the entire stock of captured supplies from York. Although Brigadier General Brown was in titular command, the post was in a state of virtual anarchy with no one, least of all Brown, taking the responsibility to coordinate repairs and see to the needs of the numerous detachments of militia and regulars who had descended on the port in the aftermath of the alert. In fact, within a short time after Chauncey and Macomb’s arrival, Brown had not only relinquished his command to Macomb but, instead of remaining to support the two officers, immediately left for his own community at Brownsville, a little way up the shoreline — leaving the two returnees to clean up the chaos of the moment, while he made sure that his version of the events surrounding the battle became public knowledge through leaks to the press.
While Colonel Macomb took charge of the reorganization of the base’s defences, Commodore Chauncey was left to deal with the political fallout of the near disaster and the inevitable blame game that flared up between the various participants. Major Laval found himself criticized and condemned by other officers for ordering the retreat to Fort Volunteer when the Americans seemed defeated and then not allowing a pursuit of the British when they, in turn, retreated. Similarly Lieutenant Chauncey, along with his subordinates Master Commandant Leonard, Joseph Gamble, Sailing Master Hutton, and Lieutenant Drury, were all accused of various offences. These included cowardice and dereliction of duty (for having the warehouses burned) and permitting the defences at Navy Point to be abandoned without any direct attack taking place on that position in contravention of orders.
Left with no option but to convene a court of inquiry, Commodore Chauncey personally selected the judges. Once empanelled, the judges quickly concluded that Major Laval had been justified in his command decisions and the officer was acquitted on all charges. In the case of Lieutenant Chauncey and his subordinates, however, more complicated issues were involved and testimonies were entered clearly implicating all four men. Suspiciously, the panel’s subsequent findings exonerated the lieutenant but found the remainder culpable. This led to the dismissal of Leonard, Gamble, and Hutton. In the case of Lieutenant Drury, while the initial findings of Chauncey’s hand-picked inquiry also held him guilty, testimonies given at his subsequent (and more independent) court martial not only contradicted the prior findings but also began to expose additional damaging details of Lieutenant Chauncey’s behaviour, orders, and actions during the day’s events. Before this line of inquiry had continued too far the court was summarily adjourned and almost immediately came back with a finding of not guilty on the major counts of disobedience of orders and cowardice. However, Drury was censured on a lesser infraction, leading to a private reprimand being put on his record by the commodore and, during the course of the following year, was repeatedly passed over for promotion while still under the command of that senior officer.
In addition, for Commodore Chauncey the near catastrophe of losing his new and still unnamed vessel, not to mention his entire base of operations, coupled with the actual loss of all the supplies intended to fit her out, left him determined to secure her completion and inclusion in his Lake Ontario fleet. Despite the fact that obtaining replacement supplies and completing the vessel would take at least a month or more, Chauncey made the decision that not only was he going to remain at Sackets Harbor to personally oversee the project to its completion, but that his entire fleet would remain there as well, for protection. Despite requests and then pleas from his captains to let them venture out under separate or independent commands to harass the enemy, Chauncey was determined that only he would lead his fleet and restricted them to either remaining at the harbour or being dispatched as picket vessels to guard the approaches to the harbour. As a result, the throttle-hold the Americans had on the British supply lines was suddenly and unilaterally released — a situation that the British were quick to take advantage of.
For Brigadier General Jacob Brown, the aftermath of the battle at Sackets Harbor was one of opportunity and advantage. Easily the most adept “political” general in American service, he avoided the negative inferences and implications revealed at the court of inquiry by making sure that he remained distinctly absent from the scene. He also made sure that his official reports were copied and distributed to most of the relevant political personalities in Washington, D.C., as well as the press. As a result, his credentials as the “saviour” of Sackets Harbor became such a matter of “known fact” that those who believed anything different found it in their own best interests not to challenge the instant celebrity of Brown, at least for the moment.
In addition, although Brigadier General Brown had already declined a previous official offer of a transfer from the militia to the regular army (because under the standard terms of this kind of transfer it would necessitate him losing his rank of general and being reduced to colonel), Brown used his celebrity status to parlay the “victory” into getting a transfer directly to the regular army without any loss of rank or seniority. This singular occurrence, made at the direction of the president, not only broke precedence and military protocols but was also, naturally, taken as a “slap in the face” for those regulars who were nominally next in line for promotion. This special treatment led to a strong degree of resentment against Brown within the corps of regular army officers. A resentment that was still very evident more than a year later when he commanded the Northern Army on the Niagara.
As for the effect the battle of Sackets Harbor had on the course of the campaign to control the Niagara frontier — it took less than a fortnight before the pendulum began to swing in an entirely new direction, halting the sweep of American victories thus far achieved.
CHAPTER 6
Confusion in the Darkness:
The Battle of Stoney Creek, June 6, 1813
Following what was later criticized as an inordinate delay, the American pursuit of the retreating British on the Niagara frontier finally began at dawn on June 1, 1813. Commanded by Brigadier General Winder, the original plan had been for Chauncey’s fleet to sail down the lake in conjunction with this land force, but with its abrupt departure, it left the army without the navy’s logistical, transport, and firepower support for the remainder of the campaign. In addition, by failing to order a proper reconnaissance that would have quickly revealed that the British rearguard only consisted of a detachment of Provincial Light Dragoons, Winder’s force made a cautious advance down the main Black Swamp trail that ran across the plain below the escarpment. This also put him under constant observation by parties of Native warriors, Incorporated Militia, and Embodied Militia on the commanding heights to the south. Nor did the weather co-operate, as a succession of rainstorms reduced the main road into a mud-choked quagmire, slowing the already slow American advance to a crawl that eventually reached the Forty Mile Creek on the morning of June 2nd, whereupon it halted and established an encampment.