1812: Revisited – Let That Be Your Last Battlefield

The war had become a stalemate, and peace negotiations reached an impasse. Drummond’s siege remained in place but had been reduced to ineffective artillery fire, and most of his troops were reduced by illness due to the ongoing rain and poor conditions in the camp. Drummond’s requests for additional troops had been granted, and elements of the 4th and 82nd Regiments marched with heavy siege artillery to Niagara. On 4 September, the American defenders of Fort Erie did attempt to dislodge the British attackers. The short skirmish resulted in several deaths, including the traitor Joseph Willcocks and many of his Canadian Volunteers in the short and pointless action. Washington DC, remained in ruins, but President Madison’s call had rallied thousands of troops, which now had constructed a ring of defenses around Baltimore. A series of earthworks and artillery redoubts from the land while additional artillery batteries coordinated from Fort McHenry defended the city’s harbour. General George Prevost and General John Sherbrooke were using additional veteran reinforcements to plan upstate New York and the District of Maine invasions on the east coast. While Sherbrooke had given the command to choice field commanders, Prevost had no such desire. Instead, he put some of Lord Wellington’s top generals under the command of General Francis de Rottenburg as they marched south to Plattsburg.

The ongoing war did not sit well in New England; the local population enjoyed an easy relationship and profitable trade with the maritime provinces. Both sides avoided any significant actions save for the capture of Moose Island. General John Cope Sherbrooke, Nova Scotia governor, had gone so far as to introduce trade passports to American merchants to allow for continued trade. He did not fear an American attack against Nova Scotia, thanks to Halifax’s large Royal Navy presence. When General Prevost ordered the creation of a faster land route between the Maritimes and Quebec City, there was little choice but to invade and occupy part of the District of Maine (then still a part of Massachusetts). Tasking Major-General Gerand Gosselin and Rear-Admiral Richard Colpoys to secure the region east of the Penobscot River. The Americans in the area had also enjoyed an easy war. While there were some garrisons of regular troops, most had seen little combat as the local Militia troops. When news of the large British squadron reached the American defenders, Captain Charles Morris of US Sloop Adams decided to take shelter further up the Penobscot River near the village of Hampden. The movements, spotted by HM Sloop Rifleman, were relayed to the main squadron, then joined in the force headed for the small town of Castine. Castine had seen British occupation during the American Revolution and even withstood a siege by the rebel forces. The small settlement had a small garrison at Fort Madison, commanded by Lieutenant Lewis, with less than one hundred regulars and a small artillery battery. When sentries sounded the alarm of the approaching squadron on 1 September, Lewis ordered his four 24-pound guns to fire several rounds before striking the colours and marching off with a couple of smaller field artillery pieces and the garrison. The town leaders graciously accepted the terms of the British surrender, most willing to swear allegiance to the Crown. Gossen and Colpoys ordered the remains of the old Fort George reconstructed and a garrison established; they also promised good prices from local farmers and merchants for supplies. Several brigades were deployed to force the other small fortifications in the region to surrender. But the main concern was the force under Captain Morris; fearing a counter-attack, Colpoys ordered Captain Robert Barrie to take his ship, HM Ship Dragon, along with HM Sloop Sylph and HM Brig Peruvian, with 750 troops to capture or destroy any American force further up the river. In Hampden, Captain Morris convinced Major-General John Blake, the local Militia commander, to call out as many troops as possible to arrange for a defence. Leaving Adams moored at Crosby Warf and removing half her guns, Blake positioned his Militia in the centre, with the sailors and Lewis’s regulars on the flanks with the artillery pieces. On 2 September, Barrie landed his force at Bald Head Cove, making camp before marching the next morning. The heavy fog made it difficult to see. The rifle-armed troops of the 60th (Royal American) Regiment began to pick off the American pickets by seven in the morning. Morris ordered his artillery to fire blindly into the fog, but lacking canister and grape shot made the artillery fire ineffective as the main body of troops marched into view with bayonets fixed. The skirmish was short and bloody, with both sides taking casualties. The steady fire from the British drove the Americans back. Seeing the writing on the wall, Morris ordered his ship destroyed and the survivors to retreat. Barrie quickly arranged the town’s surrender before continuing north. Barrie arrived in Bangor to no resistance; located on the western bank of the River, Barrie demanded the town’s surrender along with supplies and quarters for his troops. The citizens accepted the surrender and moved quickly to meet the demands. When some British troops found a stash of alcohol and proceeded to get drunk and begin to vandalise and destroy property, Barrie ordered the destruction of all the town’s alcohol. The troops quickly followed the orders and ended up destroying a great deal of private property in the process. However, this only stopped when several local leaders promised additional supplies and several small boats for service in the British navy that were still under construction. While Massachusetts made plans to launch an expedition to retake the district, nothing ever came of the plans, and the district settled into their new role as the Province of New Ireland.

The commander of the American garrison in Plattsburg, New York, had no hope of meeting the British army marching south head-to-head, so Brigadier-General Alexander McComb hoped to beat them through daring and guile. Most of the garrison under Major-General George Izard had marched to Sacketts Harbor to transfer to the Niagara Peninsula. Still, McComb would not stand idle and wait for the British to come to him. Calling out as much of the New York Militia as he could muster, he sent a small expeditionary force north to meet the British at Chazy, New York. While Prevost’s army made quick work of the American force, it allowed for a delay and the Americans to retreat in good order while destroying bridges, changing signs and blocking roads while returning south. Against the odds, Commodore Thomas McDonagh had completed a small American squadron and sailed back onto Lake Champlain, which caused panic at Île aux Noix, where Commodore George Downie scrambled to finish work on his new flagship. At the same time, General Prevost harassed him to make sail for Lake Champlain. Downie was not the only one unhappy with Prevost; the three veteran generals, Major-General Thomas Brisbane, Major-General Fredrick Robinson, and Major-General Manly Powers, were also at odds with Prevost. Each of them continued to press Prevost to take stronger action to scout ahead, pay locals for information, and get some idea of what they could face in Plattsburg. All these were things they were used to having access to in Europe, which allowed for better planning of the battle ahead, but the Prevost kept the strings of his purse shut. Prevost’s army would arrive in Plattsburg on 6 September, having plenty of warning, McComb withdrew across the Saranac River and destroyed all the bridges across. Ordering an immediate attack, General Robinson’s force was quickly turned back due to a lack of information on where the American weak points were. The generals pushed Prevost and de Rottenburg to send scouting forces along the river to find a flanking ford and to get better intelligence. Prevost had become convinced that the lake needed to be taken to win on land. Commodore Downie rushed to complete his flagship and reluctantly agreed to Prevost’s demands but on the condition that both attacks would happen simultaneously. Prevost ordered artillery batteries to bombard the American positions. A raid across the river by the Americans forced the British to move further away, reducing the artillery fire’s effectiveness. McDonagh, in the meantime, knowing he could not meet the British squadron head-on, anchored his ships across Plattsburg Bay with a system in place on his bigger ships to allow for a quick manoeuvre to spin the ships along their axis to bring the second battery to bear should to fist battery be taken out of action. When Downie saw this position, he took confidence that he would easily defeat the American squadron, much like Lord Nelson had defeated the French at the Battle of the Nile. The only trouble was that Plattsburg Bay had a different geography, and Nelson’s tactic would not work. Meanwhile, the three generals had started to take the matter of gathering intelligence. They located a ford across the river that could allow for a flanking manoeuvre of the American defences. Prevost pushed for an attack on 10 September, but unfavourable winds hit Downie. While Downie planned to use Nelson’s tactics, Prevost called for Robertson and Powers to cross by the ford, while Brisbane feinted a direct attack across the destroyed bridge; then, when the lake had been secured, Brisbane would cross and join the battle. The winds shifted into the British favour on 11 September, and Downie sailed onto the lake, dry-firing his ship’s cannons as a signal to Prevost to begin his attack. On hearing the signal, Prevost ordered the troops to get ready but to wait an hour before marching off. The Americans opened the action with US Brig Eagle, but the shots fell short of hitting HM Frigate Confiance. Seeing the flagship fired on, HM Sloop Linette fired on US Corvette Saratoga but failed to cause major damage. As the rest of the squadron came into action, the two flagships continued to pound each other, causing major damage. Downie continued to sail right into the American line. Still, a change in the winds forced Downie to line up a broadside further away than he wanted. The manoeuvre cost Confiance some of her anchors. Her broadside crashed into Saratoga, and the American crew responded in kind, the blow killing Downie. HM Sloop Chubb and Linette moved in to support Confiance, but Eagle quickly forced Chubb out of action. The situation on land was equally hampered; the attack across the ford had been delayed due to American actions to misdirect Robertson and Powers, while Brisbane’s feint fell under heavy fire, forcing them to defend themselves. While the fighting continued on the lake, HM Sloop Finch finally forced one American ship, US Schooner Prebel, to surrender. However, it came under heavy fire from US Schooner Ticonderoga. It found itself out of control and grounded on Crab Island. The big ships were at the breaking point. With its main batteries no longer effective, Eagle winds itself to bring the second battery into action but opens up a chance for Linette to disable Saratoga’s battery. McDonagh quickly winds Saratoga. Seeing this, James Robinson aboard Confiance tries to perform the same manoeuvre. With all the damage, the frigate is left at an awkward angle and opened to raking fire, which both Eagle and Saratoga took advantage of. The last ship to surrender, Linette caused the American crew to let up a cheer. Having taken the Ford, Robinson had put himself in a position to flank the American defences, taking the pressure off Brisbane, and was ready to launch a general attack. Upon hearing the cheers from the lake, Robinson sent a runner back to Prevost to see if the victory had been achieved on the lake. Prevost sent word back to retreat as Downie had failed to capture the lake, and any further attack could not achieve victory. Robinson, Brisbane and Powers contested the order, stating that they could easily win against the American defenders, turn their batteries against the battered naval ships, and still win the day. But Prevost fell for an old ruse when a letter stated that some twenty thousand Militia troops would soon arrive. It took some time, but the British retreated, but in the disorder, the 76th Regiment was cut off and cut to shreds by the Americans. The march back to Lower Canada proved miserable, with equipment and men scattered in the wake of the retreating army, many regulars deserting along the way.

Major-General Samuel Smith had hastily constructed a series of defences against any possible landward attack against the city of Baltimore. As one of the major commercial ports on the American east coast, any attack would be costly. Both the Americans and British knew this, and Major-General Robert Ross aimed to weaken the American economy to force favourable terms in the ongoing peace negotiations. While General Smith prepared for an attack by land, Major George Armistead ensured that any naval bombardment would not have the same effect by moving Fort McHenry’s powder magazine further away and constructing an elaborate series of earthworks. Both General Ross and Rear-Admiral George Cockburn would attack the city by land. In contrast, Vice-Admiral Alexander Cochrane would attack the harbour. Ross and Cockburn landed at North Point on 12 September to march on the city’s defences; when General Smith learned of the landing, he ordered Brigadier-General John Stricker to take his brigade to occupy a series of fortifications at Hampstead Hill, a point halfway between North Point and the main defensive line around Baltimore. Sending scouts forward, General Stricker learned that Ross had stopped the army for a mid-day meal; rather than risk an attack at night or on Ross’ terms, he ordered his light troops forward to force the British into a fight. Major Robert Heath took his orders to heart, moved up, and began to engage the British pickets. Accurate American rifle and musket fire sounded the camp’s alarm, and Ross and Cockburn rode to the action. Ross began to issue orders for his light troops to push forward against the Americans. Cockburn urged caution, suggesting that Ross mobilise the main body of troops in case a trap lay ahead. Ross agreed and turned to issue the order, but a bullet found the general, and he dropped to the ground, mortally wounded. Ross would turn over command to Colonel Arthur Brooke before being carried back to the landing point, dying while en route. Brooke would proceed and order the main army forward, advancing under heavy fire; Brooke would push Major Heath back to the main line of defences at Hampstead Hill and quickly fall under canister and rifle fire from the defenders. The steady veteran troops stood up to the fire and pushed back with crack volleys and artillery fire. When the 4th Regiment began to flank the American line, Stricker ordered his steadiest troops to hold the line. At the same time, an orderly retreat back to Baltimore took place.

Stricker would retreat to the main line of defences with Brooke hot on his tail. The massive line of earthworks all centred around a main redoubt. Brooke would send several probes against the bastion but quickly realised that any action taken against it would be a fool’s errand. It was too well defended with troops and artillery, and he lacked the needed equipment to lay an effective siege. Brooke did attempt to attempt the weaker right flank of the line but made little progress; he needed to have an assault against the shore for any impact to be made. He ordered his men to retreat to the boats to join any naval landings. Cochrane cautiously began to move his ships into Baltimore Harbor, a mixed set of rocket and bomb ships designed to lobe explosive rounds to prepare a fort for a naval landing. But the harbour defences gave him enough pause to keep his ships further from the shoreline. In the middle of this, a local lawyer, Francis Scott Key, had sailed into the British squadron under a flag of truce. Key wished to negotiate the return of prisoners taken by the British, but with dusk settling in, he was informed he would need to stay aboard the ship. Late in the day on 13 September, the ships opened up their bombardment. Lasting throughout the night, hundreds of explosives rained down on Fort McHenry, or at least that’s what the British thought. Cochrane’s caution and lack of scouting, combined with Major Armstead’s preparation, saw only a small percentage of the projectiles hit the target. Key would watch the bombardment, and when dawn came, he saw that in defiance, the Americans raised a massive garrison flag over Fort McHenry. Key would be driven to write the Defense of Fort M’Henry poem when he returned to the city. Seeing that any further attacks on the city would prove futile, Brooke, Cockburn and Cochrane decided to sail south to Bermuda to reinforce and try a different approach.

Drummond had used his reinforcements well and completed a third artillery battery further along his siege line; equipped with six heavy artillery pieces and a battery of rockets, the British could finally threaten the American defences. The garrison commander, however, was more inclined to sit and wait for Drummond to pick up and leave. But when Major-General Jacob Brown returned, he would have no such idleness. He ordered his pioneers to carve a path through the woods to provide a stealthy approach to the third battery. The actions would not be spotted or ignored by the British troops stationed at the battery because of fatigue or lack of sightlines around the sole blockhouse constructed to defend the battery. The British pioneers had failed to cut back the woods. Brown would send three columns of troops against the British line. General Porter would take the New York Militia and the 23rd US Infantry against battery three and easily overwhelm the troops of the de Wattville Regiment. At the same time, General Miller, with the 9th, 11th, and 19th US Infantries, made quick work of battery two’s defenders. A third column would attack battery one but be forced into a stalemate. With the alarm raised, Drummond called up his limited reserves. The 1st (Royal Scots) made for battery three, forcing the attackers to shift to a defence, managing to spike three of the guns before retreating into the woods. The 6th and 82nd regiments quickly forced the Americans back into the small bastion. When an officer met an end with an American bullet, they charged in and put the entire column to the bayonet. Now finding himself at a loss, General Brown quickly sounded the recall. What Brown did not realise is that Drummond had already ordered the siege to be broken but only kept his men in place due to the lack of transportation and animals to move his guns away. It was on the 21st that the siege lines were broken. Drummond had no desire to completely abandon the region, going only as far as Fort Chippawa.

On 28 September, Major-General George Izard arrived from Sacketts Harbor with an entire division of troops, taking command of Fort Erie; Brown quickly urged Izard to march on Chippawa before Drummond could reinforce. Izard also hoped to catch Drummond between two armies with the aid of Commodore Chauncy, who moved his squadron onto Lake Ontario and forced Yeo back to Kingston. While Izard waited, Drummond took the opportunity of control of Lake Ontario to move additional reinforcements to Niagara. Izard’s delay also allowed Yeo to launch his new flagship, HM Ship St Lawrence, a heavily armed ship-of-the-line. Chauncy had lost the arms race, and General Brown was quickly ordered back to Sacketts Harbor should the British attack. Izard had little choice but to push forward and moved his force up to lay siege to Chippawa. A short artillery bombardment on 16 October resulted in Drummond sitting tight. Izard decided to try a different angle and try to outflank the British. But Drummond had arranged to destroy all the bridges across Lyons and Chippawa Creeks. Izard learned of a small supply depot at Cook’s Mills and ordered Brigadier-General Daniel Bissel to steal any supplies and destroy the mills and storehouses. Bissel marched on Cook’s Mills with infantry, riflemen and dragoons. When word reached Drummond, he sent Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Myers with the 6th and 104th Regiments, elements of the Glengarry Light Infantry, with a battery of rockets to drive back the Americans. Arriving on 19 October, Myers sent the Glengarry up to draw out the Americans. It only resulted in pointless skirmishing for a half hour. When Myers spotted a second group of Americans on approach, he feared being outflanked and surrounded and ordered a retreat. Bissel, who had been sitting tight, took advantage of the retreat and perused them almost back to the main camp before breaking off the pursuit. Returning to the settlement, he quickly carried off supplies and burned everything. The loss of supplies proved only a temporary setback as Drummond quickly captured an American supply column. By November, with winter setting in and no chance of either side moving, General Izard ordered the garrison across to Black Rock and winter quarters and destroyed the fort. Drummond would send Captain James FitzGibbon and a detachment of the Glengarry Light Infantry forward on 6 November to scout the fortifications and found only rubble.

The Americans would attempt to destroy St Lawrence on a couple of occasions. Each time, their efforts were thwarted or caused little damage to the massive ship. Yeo had effectively contained Chauncy at Sacketts Harbor to work on similar ships. Failure to capture Plattsburg and Baltimore and the threat of a renewed war with France forced the British to drop most of their demands in the peace negotiations. Similarly, the loss of Maine and Niagara would force the Americans to reconsider their demands. If Prevost had listened to the generals, what had happened at Plattsburg may have turned out differently and along similar lines. If Ross and Cochrane had gotten their wish and attacked Baltimore rather than Washington, would the war have ended on a different note? Ross would be returned to Halifax and interred in that city; Major Armstead would suffer post-traumatic stress disorder from the bombardment of Fort McHenry and die a broken man. Francis Scott Key’s poem would be burned into the American mythos and, in 1931, become the American national anthem. Both sides settled into an uneasy truce as winter rolled into North America, but the war had still one last trip to take before it burned out.

The British occupation of Maine flies under the radar in the greater history of the war, but thanks to the efforts of local historical societies, it is notable that Castine, Maine, is well remembered locally. Plaques have been placed in the town to note the location of Fort Madison and Fort George. Fort Madison has a single cannon that dates back to the War of 1812, while the earthworks are from the American Civil War. Most of the earthworks from Fort George still survive from the American Revolution and the War of 1812, some casemate ruins, and a single cannon from 1812. The local museum put on a display in 2014 to mark the 200th anniversary and has kept some artefacts, but the display has mainly been stored away. If you travel north along US-1a, you will eventually reach Bald Head Cove and head into Hampden. No plaques mark the battle, but if you go behind Mystic Lodge No. 65, you’ll find an old burying ground and the grave of a British soldier and sailor from the action. The Crosby Warf is long destroyed, but if the water is low enough, the remains can be seen, but they are on private property. Nothing in Bangor save a cannon on the waterfront that dates to the American Revolution. The Battle of Plattsburg is well marked in the city’s downtown; a museum on Washington Street outlines the battle and has several artefacts, and the McDonagh Monument towers near the Saranac River to memorialise the American victory. You can also follow the invasion route by driving along US-9 from the Canadian/American border; you will find a house in Chazy, New York, that served as a headquarters for General Prevost. You can find three memorials to the Battle of Baltimore in the city: the battle memorial, the Wells and McComas Monument and the Francis Scott Key memorial. A plaque marking the British landing at North Point is inside the former Fort Howard and is private property; permission is needed to get to the plaque. There are several plaques and memorials on the original battlefield. Visiting the high point of Patterson Park, you can find a series of cannons that mark the central redoubt or Roger’s Bastion, which were part of the city’s defence. However, the main draw is Fort McHenry. At the same time, the fort remained in service until the end of the American Civil War; it has since become a National Memorial and Shrine. It is well worth a visit, but it is much smaller than you would expect. I will also note that every new version of the American flag flies first at Fort McHenry before anywhere else. Major Armstead’s “Star Spangled Banner” can be seen in Washington at the Museum of American History and is also well worth visiting. Two ships that bombarded Fort McHenry, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, were refitted as artic exploration vessels and were a part of the doomed 1845 Franklin Expedition; their wreaks can be found near King William Island in the Northwest Territory. You can find a historic plaque at Fort Chippawa in Niagara Falls Kingsbridge Park. In Cook’s Mills, now part of Welland, Ontario, there is a memorial park with interpretive plaques on Lyons Creek Road and an original historical marker at the intersection of Lyons Creek Road and Matthews Road. Several stones from the original Fort Erie were carried off in ruins to serve as construction material for buildings in Fort Erie, notably Saint Paul’s Anglican Church. The two tactical skirmishes in September 1814 are portrayed during Sunday’s annual siege event at Fort Erie.