THIS WEEK in the War of 1812 (November 2-November 8, 1814)

Fires in the North.

November  5

Defense of Fort Erie late summer 1814

At the Eastern end of Lake Erie, U.S. troops end their occupation of Canada’s Fort Erie. After setting off a series of explosive charges within the post, they cross the Niagara River and take up winter quarters in Buffalo, New York.

The blasts destroy the fort’s walls and set the buildings ablaze.

November 5-7

At the other end of Lake Erie, Brigadier General Duncan McArthur’s raiding party of 700 mounted infantry from Kentucky and Ohio, encounters about 100 Canadian militia and their Mohawk allies at Brant’s Ford on the Grand River. The Canadians hold the high ground and after a brief exchange of fire, McArthur decides to find an easier place to cross and return to U.S. territory.

The next day McArthur’s troops drive off  about 550 British and Canadian troops at the Battle of Malcom’s Mills in what is now Ontario Province. On November 7th, he burns the fmills, depriving British and Canadian troops of a key source of flour.

Learning that more than 1,000 reinforcements of Canadian militia are heading his way, McArthur orders his horsemen back to Detroit, Michigan Territory. He burns every significant settlement on Canada’s Lake Erie shore along the way. His troops suffer only one killed and six wounded. The British and Canadians lose 18 dead, nine killed and about 100 captured.

Storm Clouds over the Gulf

Andrew Jackson

November 6-8

Almost 1,000 due South of McArthur’s raiders, Major General Andrew Jackson is preparing to drive the British out of Florida. Without authorization from Washington, leads about 4,000 U.S. troops and militiamen from what is now Alabama into the Florida panhandle (known as Spanish East Florida in 1814).

At this time, Spain is a neutral country in the war between the United States and Britain. What is now the State of Alabama is part of the U.S. Territory of Mississippi, extending from Georgia and the Spanish colony of Florida west to the Mississippi River and the State of Louisiana.

After a year of bloody warfare, Jackson has crushed the anti-American “Red Stick” faction of the Creek Indian nation at Horseshoe Bend and pressed tribal leaders to accept the Treaty of Fort Jackson  forcing the devastated Creeks to surrender 23 million acres of land in Georgia and Alabama.

Map created by Dystopos via Wikipedia
Click on image to enlarge

Concerned that the British have designs on Mobile (Alabama) as a base of operations and may be enlisting recalcitrant Creek warriors and fugitive black slaves from America to join their ranks for an attack on New Orleans, Jackson decides to strike first.

Spooked by Jackson’s bellicose warning letters, to allow U.S. troops into Florida — or else — the Spanish governor actually invites the British into Florida to bolster his tiny force of 500 soldiers. The Spanish man Fort San Miguel at Pensacola and a small British garrison holds Fort San Carlos 14 miles to the West. The Spanish fort and Pensacola fall quickly to Jackson’s larger force but the British blow up Fort San Carlos and withdraw before Jackson can attack. Shortly thereafter, Jackson learns the British are about to land near New Orleans and he begins marching West to defend the city.

 

 

THIS WEEK in the War of 1812 (October 19-October 25,1814)

Raids and Skirmishes (Food Fights)

October 18-19

Cook’s Mills, Upper Canada.

Northern Frontier 1812-1814
(Map: U.S. Army Center of Military History)

While the British are building up an army in the Caribbean to invade Louisiana and seize New Orleans, skirmishing and raids continue along the U.S. Canadian border and in and around the Chesapeake Bay.

On October 18, Brigadier General Daniel Bissell leads an American force of 1,200 Army regulars out of Fort Erie toward the British line along Chippawa Creek in Canada. British Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond orders Colonel Christopher Myers to conduct a reconnaissance towards Cook’s Mills to learn where the Americans are vulnerable.

On October 19, 750 British and Canadian troops, heavily entrenched and supported by a cannon and Congreve rockets, attack a brigade of roughly 900 U.S. soldiers. The Americans outflank the British, forge across Lyons Creek at Cooks Mills, seizing the town and its important millworks.  The British-Canadian force withdrew, but the following day — October 19 — 700 British troops march west to engage the Americans and retake the town. Then on October 20, it’s the Americans’ turn to withdraw and on the 21st they joined General George Izard‘s general retreat to Fort Erie, and back to Buffalo, effectively ending combat on the Niagara frontier.

The British lose 19 men killed or wounded and the American losses total 67 men. The skirmish had little consequence, apart from the American destruction of 200 bushes of wheat and flour

Castle Haven, Maryland

Meanwhile, far to the south, a British raiding party comprising of eighteen barges and a schooner entered the Choptank River on Maryland’s Easter Shore on October 19. Landing at Castle Haven they seize poultry and cattle from a tenant farmer.

October 21

Ghent, Belgium

At the peace treaty talks in Ghent, Belgium, they haven’t heard about the British failures in September to take Baltimore and Plattsburgh, New York. The British delegation are still ecstatic over the Americans’ rout at Bladensburg, Maryland and the burning of the White House, Capitol and other public buildings in Washington, so they’re pretty smug in their negotiations. They offer to end the fighting and send a treaty of uti possidetis: where both sides get to keep whatever territory they occupy. For the British, this would mean ownership of eastern Maine and parts of the Upper Mississippi Valley near present day Wisconsin and Mackinac Island where Lake Michigan and Lake Superior meet.

The Americans hold only a small bit of land in Canada surrounding  Fort Erie across the Niagara River from Buffalo, New York.

 

THIS WEEK in the War of 1812 (October 5-October 11, 1814) [UPDATE]

Maritime Setbacks.

USS Wasp in 1814
(via Wikipedia)

 

October 9 [Restores dropped material and fixes typos]

The American sloop-of-war, USS Wasp, is lost at sea. Under Master Commandant Johnston Blakeley, the 22-gun vessel, sank, burned or captured 15 British ships — including three warships — during two raiding cruises in the summer of 1814.

After capturing the British brig Atalanta on September 21, Blakeley sends the prize back to the United States manned by some of his 173-man crew. The Wasp is last seen by a neutral merchant vessel in the mid Atlantic around October 9.

HMS St. Lawrence
(Paining by C.H.J. Snider)

 

October 10

The British launch the HMS St. Lawrence, a three-deck gunship from Kingston Navy Dockyard in what is now Ontario. Bigger than HMS Victory, Admiral Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar, the St. Lawrence is the biggest wooden ship built for fresh water sailing and upends the naval balance of power on Lake Ontario. The big ship will see no action, however, as the war has largely moved south to the Gulf of Mexico.

October 11

The American relief force sent to break the siege of Fort Erie finally arrives on the scene, but the British have already departed. General George Izzard, commander of the U.S. Northern Army, has marched over from Sackets Harbor, New York with more than 4,000 men. Back in August, then-Secretary of War John Armstrong orders Izzard — who was based at Plattsburgh awaiting a British attack on Lake Champlain — to take 4,000 men and march to Sacket’s Harbor, which Armstrong fears is vulnerable to a British amphibious assault. The move leaves Plattsburgh with less than 2,000 troops to defend the vital Lake Champlain Valley. In September he is ordered to relieve Major General Brown and his troops at Fort Erie.

Combined with the Fort Erie defenders, Izard decides he has overwhelming numerical superiority to the retreating British. After two days’ delay, he heads north on the Canadian side of the Niagara River to intercept the retreating British commanded by Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond.

Northern Frontier 1812-1814
(Map: U.S. Army Center of Military History)

Be sure to click on the map to enlarge the image. Lake Champlain and Plattsburgh are on the far right. You can follow the St. Lawrence River Southwest (to the left) past Sacket’s Harbor and Kingston on Lake Ontario. Then continue West to Fort Erie and the Niagara River (towards the middle of the map). Put in Bay is where the Battle of Lake Erie was fought in 1813, followed by the Battle of Thames (Moraviantown) a few weeks later.

THIS WEEK in the War of 1812 (September 21-September 27, 1814)

Historic re-enactors of British troops at Fort Erie.
(Courtesy of Parks Canada)

Siege Ends.

September 21, Fort Erie, Canada

British Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond, after weeks of failed attacks and bombardment, calls off his siege of Fort Erie and marches away into the rainy night. The 48-day-long siege has cost British-Canadian-First Nations (Indian) forces more than 280 killed, 500 wounded and over 700 captured or missing. The Americans have lost 213 dead, over 500 wounded and more than 250 missing or captured.

Drummond heads north along the Niagara River to Chippawa Creek near the scene of two bloody battles in July.

That same day, The Baltimore Patriot is the first newspaper to print Francis Scott Key’s four-stanza poem, “Defense of Fort M’Henry.” I becomes wildly popular – first in Baltimore – and then throughout the country. It becomes even better known when set to music (a difficult-to-sing – but popular — tune) and the title is changed to “The Star-Spangled Banner” (but the song does not become the official national anthem of the United States until 1931).

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At Sea

September 26-27, the Portuguese Azores

The U.S. privateer Gen. John Armstrong
(U.S. Navy via Wikipedia)

The American privateer, General Armstrong, a Baltimore clipper, has been raiding British shipping in the Atlantic for over a year when she puts into port at Fayal (now Faial) in the Azores, a Portuguese colony. The Armstrong is named for Brigadier General John Armstrong Senior, a commander in the Revolutionary War as well as the earlier French and Indian War. The privateer, a non-military ship authorized by the U.S. government to raid commercial shipping, has captured or destroyed several British ships since 1813.

A squadron of three British warships heading for Jamaica and the British military buildup for an attack on New Orleans, sails into the port, spies the Armstrong and send several small boats to try and board her. Contemporary British, American and Portuguese accounts differ on who did what to whom – and when.

What is certain: Samuel Chester Reid, the captain of the eight-gun Armstrong, ordered his canon to fire on approaching boats carrying British sailors and Marines, driving them off. The British tried to board the American vessel again but were again driven off after a fierce hand-to-hand fight on deck (like something out of the novels of Patrick O’Brian or C.S. Forester). At least two large British rowboats were sunk.

A Currier and Ives print of the British attack on the American privateer Gen. John Armstrong Sr.

The next day, September 27, the infuriated British commander, Captain Robert Lloyd, orders his smallest warship, the brig HMS Carnation, to attack. Reid fires on the Carnation, doing some damage but sees he is outnumbered with no way out. He orders his crew to abandon ship and scuttles the Armstrong. Historians don’t even agree on who set fire to the ship. Reid and his crew (two dead, seven wounded) take refuge on the island, which is neutral territory, and the Portuguese governor refuses to allow the British to land and hunt them down. Lloyd and his ships sail for the West Indies and historians again disagree on whether this has any bearing on the Battle of New Orleans. British losses in the fracas are put at 36 dead and 93 wounded.

Historical Footnote: The man the General Armstrong is named for is the father of the second U.S. Secretary of War during the War of 1812, John Armstrong Junior, who is largely blamed for not fortifying Washington before the British attacked and burned parts of the U.S. capital.

THIS WEEK in the War of 1812 (September 14-September 20, 1814) UPDATE

Silent Emblem.

September 14, Baltimore

UPDATES with final action in Fort Erie Siege September 17

Bombardment of Fort McHenry by Peter Rindlisbacher
(Courtesy of Royal Canadian Geographic Society/Parks Canada)

Some 20 Royal Navy ships – bomb and rocket vessels, frigates and troop-carrying barges – continue their futile assault on Fort McHenry and the outer defenses of Baltimore. The ships, blocked by sunken hulks, a chain boom and batteries on either side of the channel east of the fort leading to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, are forced to bombard McHenry from two miles out – beyond the range of the American guns.

An amphibious assault at an area west off the fort in the wee hours of the 14^th is repulsed when Americans manning two fortifications outside McHenry, spot the British barges carrying infantry and open fire with deadly effect.

Meanwhile, Colonel Arthur Brooke, leading the land forces facing the Americans near heavily fortified Hampstead Hill in Baltimore finally receives a note from Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane. Cochrane, the expedition’s overall commander, explains that his ships in the Patapsco River won’t be able to offer supporting fire for any land attack on the other side of the city. It was up to Brooke to decide if he could take Baltimore with his force of less than 5,000 men. If not, Cochrane writes, it “would be only throwing the men’s lives away” and keep the expedition from performing other missions.

Brooke, has been planning a 2 a.m. attack on American General Samuel Smith’s 15,000-man force of soldiers, sailors, flotilla men, Marines, militia and volunteers spoiling for a little payback after the burning of Washington. But the note gives him pause – and an honorable out from an attack likely to end in failure. After a council of war with his officers, Brooke’s army slips away leaving campfire burning to fool the Americans into thinking the British were still there.

Francis Scott Key notes “that our flag was still there.” Photo courtesy of Library of Congress

At daybreak on the 14^th Cochrane calls off the bombardment. Maryland lawyer Francis Scott Key, stuck on a boat downstream from Fort McHenry during the attack, is thrilled to see the fort’s huge American flag still flying in the morning light. Fifty-years later, American General William Tecumseh Sherman will call it “the silent emblem of [our] country” but thanks to Key, the amateur poet, his opus “The Defense of Fort McHenry,” will immortalize the national flag as The Star Spangled Banner.

Brooke and his troops march back to where they first came ashore two days earlier and re-board the transports. Cochrane’s fleet eventually weighs anchor and heads for Canada. The Battle of Baltimore is over. Here is the seldom sung fourth, and final, verse of the poem that becomes the U.S. National Anthem …

Oh! thus be it ever, when free men shall stand

Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!

Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

*** *** ***

War Moves South

September 14-16, Mobile Bay

British leaders in London still have their eye on New Orleans and plan to send an invasion force there as part of the strategy to attack the United States from the north and south.

Maj. William Lawrence
(War of 1812 Alabama, Facebok page)

In preparation for that operation, the British plan to attack Fort Bowyer overlooking Mobile Bay on the Gulf Coast. Major General Andrew Jackson, expecting a British thrust from Pensacola (in what was then Spanish Florida) has beefed up the earth and timber fortification with 160 Army regulars and 20 canon under the command of Major William Lawrence of the 2nd U.S. Infantry Regiment..

If the British capture the small fort, it will enable them British to move on Mobile, and then head overland to Natchez in Mississippi Territory and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, cutting off New Orleans from the north.

Four British ships under Captain William Percy land 60 Royal Marines, 60 pro-British Indians and a small canon nine miles from the fort, but they are repulsed by the Americans September 14. The British ships attack the fort the next day but canon fire from the fort damages one ship which runs aground. That ship is set afire by the British after the beached ship’s crew is rescued. The other three ships sail away on September 16 after losing 34 killed and 35 wounded in the land and sea attacks. American casualties are only four killed and four wounded.

*** *** ***

Fort Erie Sortie

September 17, Canada

The British siege of Fort Erie on the Canadian side of the Niagara River continues after 42 days.

On September 17, two columns of American troops totaling 1,600 men sortie from the fort and sneak up on three British artillery batteries under cover of a heavy rain. One column, commanded by Brigadier General Peter Porter, consists of volunteers from the New York and Pennsylvania militia and elements of the 23rd U.S. Infantry Regiment. Porter’s men capture Battery Number 3. The other column, commanded by Brigadier General James Miller, includes detachments from the 9th, 11th and 19th U.S. Infantry regiments. Miller’s group captures Battery Number 2.

But there is fierce fighting after the British regroup and counter attack. The Americans are driven out of batteries 2 and 3 and are unable to take Battery Number 1. Three of the six siege guns in Battery Number 3 are destroyed, but the Americans are unable to spike the guns in Battery Number 2 before retreating following the two-hour engagement in the trenches.

In the often hand-to-hand fighting, the Americans suffer 79 killed, 216 wounded and 170 captured. The British losses are 49 killed, 178 wounded and 382 captured. A few days later, the British commander, Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond, decides to break off the siege.

East Bastion and barracks of Fort Erie today.
(photo by Ernest Mettendorf via Wikipedia)