1812:Revisited – Shadow Dancing

The war had ground to an unceremonious stalemate; it had not gone to plan for both the British and Americans. The Americans continued believing that the Canadians would welcome them as liberators rather than invaders and join them in an easy campaign to free them all from the shackles of the Crown and a distant parliament. The British believed that once Napoleon was safely taken care of, a series of campaigns on the eastern seaboard would help the Americans sue for peace on British terms. None of that happened. Instead, the Americans were left to command a small sliver along the Detroit River of Upper Canada and Lake Erie. The British controlled Lake Ontario and Lake Huron, Fort Niagara, Mackinac Island, Prairie du Chen, and the district of Maine. While the army of Major-General Robert Ross had left Washington DC in ashes, the failure to capture Baltimore had sent the fleet hurrying south to meet up with a new commander and additional reinforcements. Treaty negotiations continued in Ghent, but with neither side having an advantage, almost all the conditions held were being dropped. The British team had bigger fish to fry, with the Congress of Vienna opening in November 1814 to discuss what would happen in Europe now that Napoleon was out of the picture.

For some, the lack of action in the war had been wearing on them, including Brigadier-General Duncan McArthur. Once the second-in-command to Major-General William Henry Harrison (who had resigned in protest in May), General McArthur had been reduced to garrison duty along the thin strip of territory controlled by the American occupation. McArthur had come up with a plan to conduct a series of hit-and-run attacks against British targets through the no-mans land between Amherstburg and the Grand River before heading towards Burlington and forcing Lieutenant-General Gordon Drummond to divide his forces between maintaining the garrison in the Niagara Region and defending Burlington Heights. The British attacks on the eastern seaboard dampened the plan, so when summer turned to fall, McArthur was forced to gather a strictly volunteer force of Ohio and Kentucky militia along with local rangers and indigenous allies. Unlike other armies, this “flying column” would carry only twelve days of supplies, along with rifles and ammunition. There would be no artillery or supply wagons trailing along behind. When their horses were tired, they would take whatever supplies they needed from the local population. They would move fast, striking at warehouses, mills, and bridges, making it out before any organised resistance could be gathered. Then, once the column reached the Grand River, they would turn south and join General Jacob Brown at Fort Erie and catch Drummond’s army between the two forces. With McArthur in the lead, the force rode from Fort Detroit in late October. Riding hard, they reached Moraviantown, where the swollen Thames River delayed them for a few days. Once crossed, McArthur’s force began raids along the river valley, destroying any mills they came across, taking or destroying supplies and burning bridges. Despite their speed, word did get to Burlington Heights, where the garrison commander, Lieutenant-Colonel William Smelt, sent an urgent dispatch to General Drummond about a force of American ruffians causing trouble. Colonel Smelt also sent word to the Mohawks near Brant’s Force for additional reinforcements. Word would also reach Major Adam Muir, who altered the local militia commanders. Marshalling the militia fell to Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Bostwick, who raised the alarm for any Oxford and Norfolk county militia members. Major Muir took his small detachment of the 41st Regiment of Foot. He rode for the Mohawks in the Six Nations reserve to drum up additional support and guard Brant’s Ford. As Bostwick set up a headquarters, two locals from Oxford, Jacob Woodhouse and George Nicol, warned him that McArthur’s column was riding to Oxford. On 4 November, McArthur burned the town’s mills and warehouses. When a pro-American resident told McArthur that the British had been alerted and who had altered them, McArthur ordered the homes and businesses of Woodhouse and Nicol destroyed in retribution. McArthur rode towards Brant’s Ford, hoping to find a crossing. While Muir had only managed to gather a small force of Mohawk soldiers under Captain John Norton, a small troop from the 19th Light Dragoons, it would not be enough to fight the American column. They had managed to destroy any boat or bridge across the river in advance. When McArthur received word from his advance scouts of the strong British position and risk being caught between two forces, McArthur chose not to engage Muir but ride towards the militia troops gathering at Malcolm’s Mills. The force at Malcolm’s Mills had no hope of outright defeating the American column. The militia did command a good position on the high ground with the swollen creek between them. When McArthur arrived on 6 November, he engaged the militia in a static battle while two Ohio and Kentucky militia detachments dismounted and marched downstream to find a viable crossing. In their haste, the militia had missed a jam of logs and driftwood, creating a fordable spot. Crossing, the Americans attacked the militia’s flank; the troops which had been holding their own panicked and retreated in disorder. McArthur ordered the mills destroyed and was ready to ride on now that he could comfortably engage the force guarding the Grand River. But he learned that Major-General George Izard had gone to Winter Quarters, and additional reinforcements were gathering at Burlington Heights. With over three hundred kilometres between his column and the border and an increasingly hostile population that was now on his tail, McArthur opted to return home. McArthur would burn the mills and warehouses of Port Dover and Sauvareen Mills and return to Detroit by 17 November. The British did give chase but never got closer than eleven kilometres from the Americans and broke off the pursuit before they reached the occupation zone.

The loss of General Ross, a veteran of the Peninsular Wars, had been a major blow to the fleet, but Vice-Admiral Alexander Cochrane sailed south to Bermuda to meet the new commander and link up with additional reinforcements. Command fell to Major-General Edward Pakenham, who had orders to disrupt the American economy in the Gulf of Mexico. The area had not escaped the war unscathed. The theatre saw a series of battles, collectively the Creek War, which saw Major-General Andrew Jackson fight against the Muscogee people, ending in the Treaty of Fort Jackson and the Muscogee surrendering twenty-two million acres of territory to the United States in the summer of 1813. The British Fleet would lay siege to Fort Boyer in Alabama in September. After they refused to surrender, Cochrane and Packenham decided to cut off the southern end of the Mississippi River by attacking New Orleans. General Jackson rushed to defend the city and the waterway, and the locals quickly realised that the access to the inland waterways was woefully under-defended. Directing Captain Thomas Jones to establish a small flotilla to defend the entrance into the waterways. Jones had limited resources and assembled a small flotilla of gunboats, US Sloop Alligator, and US Schooner Seahorse. Through early December, Jones ensured he knew where the British fleet sailed, playing a cat-and-mouse game with the fleet and occasionally trading fire with the British warships. However, Jones had one advantage: Cochrane lacked vessels to navigate the waterways, so the British could not bring their big ships into the inland waterways. Directing Captain Nicolas Lockleyer to use all the available barges, launches, and longboats from the fleet and supplying ample sailors and marines to operate them to remove the American threat. Pulling against the current, on 13 December, the British flotilla engaged Seahorse, which successfully pushed back multiple attacks. But when her captain could not take another assault, he destroyed the ship. In the meantime, Jones had arranged Alligator and all his gunboats in a line across Lake Borgen, blocking the entrance to the Rigoletts and the inland waterways. After a gruelling thirty-six-hour trip, the British flotilla paused for a rest and breakfast in the early morning of 14 December. Once rested and continuing to row against the current, Locklery divided his flotilla into three columns and rowed under heavy fire with Locklery heading straight for the American flagship, grandly named Gunboat No. 156. Within a half-hour, 156 had been captured. The rest of the American ships were heavily attacked and quickly surrendered to the British. With the way clear, Packenham directed Major-General John Keene to lead an advance force to construct a forward base to stage and ferry troops further inland. It would take six days to ferry the troops to the forward base. However, once General Keene could take three possible routes into New Orleans, two were impossible due to heavy defence, and the lack of big ships would make for a costly assault. The third option would put the army within eleven kilometres of the city. Again, moving the infantry and artillery forward presented a logistical nightmare. In the meantime, General Jackson called out as many troops as he could muster to defend the city and began to set up field fortifications along the Mississippi River; militia, cavalry, regular infantry, volunteers, and even pirates joined the defence. By 23 December, Keene had 2,000 regulars, and a small artillery battery camped throughout the Chalmette, La Costa, and Villré Plantations. Major George Villré, narrowly escaping the British, made for General Jackson’s headquarters along the Rodriguez Canal. After reacting angrily to the British camp, Jackson immediately ordered a strike and sent three attack columns against Keene’s camp. The Americans achieved the needed surprise, but the hardened troops quickly rallied and pushed the Americans back, ensuring they would not be moved further back. It cost both sides casualties and cost Jackson additional time. General Packenham ordered Keene to hold and wait for additional troops to move up before launching any probing or assaults against the American defences. Across the ocean, the negotiations at Ghent ended on 24 December, with all parties affixing their signatures and seals to the peace treaty. The terms all pointed to the same thing: a return to how things were before the war, with all territory and property returned to how it stood in 1812. For Packenham, news of the treaty would not arrive for a couple of months, and his immediate concern was the assault on New Orleans. The arrival of additional artillery allowed for US Sloop Louisiana’s destruction and US Schooner Carolina’s withdrawal. On 28 December, Pakenham ordered a force against the still incomplete defensive line to see where the line was the weakest. The show of force of a large veteran army set several of the more poorly trained and led troops to flee in terror, which allowed for the right flank to make an impressive push against the defense’s flank. But the left flank came under heavy American artillery fire; spooked by the heavy counter-attack on the left flank, Pakenham ordered a total retreat rather than reinforce and push through the right. He needed more time and additional troops to make a better assault, and again, his delay bought the Americans more time.

The British Parliament and Crown ratified the treaty on 30 December. Still, the ship carrying the treaty to Washington, DC, would take much longer to reach Congress. Packenham and Jackson lined up a major assault in force; Line Jackson now had eight artillery batteries and carried some serious firepower. And while Packenham had more guns, the ability to keep them supplied with ammunition remained the sticking point; despite Cochranes’s promises, the movement of supplies remained slow. On 1 January 1815, the British guns opened up, and within the first ten minutes, General Jackson had levelled the McCatty House, where he had established his headquarters and was enjoying breakfast. Jackson and his staff escaped, and the American guns returned fire. Packenham did try to send a small assault force against the right flank. A small force of militia and Indigenous allies countered them. Over the next several days, the two sides traded artillery fire, stopping only when Packenham’s guns ran out of ammunition but not before dealing out some damage against Jackson’s guns. But the Americans had knocked out far more British guns, which, combined with the loss of all the ammunition, ensured that the British would have no artillery support when the infantry assaulted the defenses. Packenham planned to have two assault columns to move against the flanks of the line led by General Keene and Major-General Samuel Gibbs. A detachment under Colonel John Thorton, aided by the Royal Navy, would cross the Mississippi, capture an American battery, and turn the guns into the American line. In the early hours of 8 January, Thorton’s detachment made a horrible discovery: the small dam, hastily constructed to aid in the cross, failed. They had to move through deeper water and thick mud with men and materials. Having no way to know of the delay, Pakenham ordered the infantry columns forward, having only the darkness to cover their approach and screened by the rifle-armed soldiers of the 95th (The Rifles) Regiment. The early morning fog rolled in, further screening the British assault troops, but as the mist lifted, the Americans could quickly fire their artillery into the packed columns. The rifle troops scrambled for cover where they could but now could no longer screen the main body of troops. But the hardened troops marched in under the heavy American fire. When Gibb’s column reached the earthworks, the lead troops of the 44th Regiment realised the ladders had been left behind. In the chaos, General Gibbs fell, and Packenham signalled General Keene to move along the line with the 93rd Regiment to shore up the other flank. On the march, Keene was wounded and had to be carried from the field. The British would succeed in breaching the wall in one section. The assault was soon contained by the arrival of regulars from the 7th US Infantry. Chaos reigned as the officers were quickly killed, including Packenham, leaving only the reserve column intact under Major-General John Lambert. Rather than throw more troops at a lost cause, Lambert moved up his division and sounded the retreat covered by the fresh troops. Colonel Thorton would also be forced to retreat, having achieved his goals, but it was too little and too late. Admiral Cochrane, not wanting to admit defeat, sent his big ships around to bombard Fort St. Philips in preparation for a naval assault. After ten days, the fort refused to surrender. By 27 January, the survivors of the army had been ferried back to the fleet. Cochrane and Lambert returned to Alabama forcing the surrender for Fort Boyer. The British would only hold the fort for twenty-four hours as the arrival of HM Sloop Brazen brought news of the peace treaty, and Lambert retreated under orders and returned the post to the Americans. The treaty would be ratified by the US Government on 17 February, although the last action of the war would take place on 30 June 1815 where US Sloop Peacock fired on India Company Ship Nautilus, the two ships parted when Captain Boyce informed the Americans of the treaty.

As word of the war’s end spread, it was met with mixed reactions across North America. Soon, all eyes were back on Europe, and storm clouds seemed to gather as the Congress of Vienna continued to negotiate the future of Europe. The Coalition forces came to Congress with plans and schemes to further their power on the cotenant, hoping to redraw the map in their favour. From his island exile, Napoleon watched the goings on from afar and heard stories of how the restored monarchy under King Louis XVIII had mistreated the people and veterans of France. Unwilling to stand for it, Napoleon slipped away from Elba at the end of February and landed in the south of France on 1 March. He was welcomed by most of the population, and he carefully planned his route to avoid the Royalist areas of the country as he headed for Paris. King Louis ordered Field Marshal Michel Ney to bring Napoleon to Paris in an iron cage. More and more regiments joined Napoleon, even ones with Royalist leanings. Despite working for King Louis, Ney reasserted his loyalty to the former Emperor. Now almost unstoppable, King Louis fled Paris ahead of Napoleon’s arrival on 20 March. In Vienna, the Congress quickly formed the Seventh Coalition and declared war not against France but against Napoleon. The only outside support for Napoleon came from the Kingdom of Naples. Each coalition member promised to send 150,000 troops, and the war-weary countries again began to ferry troops to the United Netherlands. Napoleon also faced the need to rebuild his army; while he had a solid foundation, he needed more soldiers to counter almost the entirety of Europe, and by May, he had nearly 200,000 soldiers ready. However, the question was whether Napoleon would fight a defensive or offensive war. In North America, General Drummond was promoted and appointed Governor-General of British North America after the recall of Lieutenant-General George Prevost to answer for his actions at Plattsburg (he would die before being able to defend them before a court marshal). Drummond’s orders were to facilitate the return of the captured territory to the Americans and rebuild the shattered defences. Drummond also faced further troop shortages as many troops moved back to Europe. The small garrison at Fort Niagara, which had faced a hostile local population, gladly returned the post to the Americans. The garrisons to the north were less eager, especially when the news reached the Indigenous allies. Many of them now faced a return of the American colonial expansion, and many would swear to fight whenever and wherever they could (and many did, causing even more violence in the coming decades). Mackinac Island was returned to the Americans intact. Fort McKay in Prairie du Chen was burned when the garrison marched out. Fort York got a significant upgrade in the last year of the war and now held a far better position to counter any attacks from the lake or land. A new garrison was established on Drummond Island, a small brick barrack was built in the ruins of Fort Malden in Amherstburg, and a temporary encampment was made in Fort Erie. In Newark, Fort Mississauga commanded the entrance to the Niagara River. Still, most of the main garrison was well outside American artillery range. Hence, the entire town relocated further away from the American guns. The District of Maine would be returned to the American government and further push for statehood. However, the taxes collected would be brought with the British authorities and used to construct a library in Halifax. The last territory to be returned was Moose Island in 1818. However, the war also left a significant anti-American sentiment across Upper Canada. Many civilians began to use their power and influence to reshape the government. They put themselves in the circle of power and only let those who held strong leanings towards the colonial order make any progress in the province.

On 15 June, it became clear that Napoleon chose the offensive route and sent his army over the French border and into the United Netherlands at Charleroi; his goal was to drive a wedge between the two main armies of the Coalition, the Anglo-Dutch Army under Field Marshal Sir Arthur Wellesley (Lord Wellington) and the Prussians under Field Marshal Gebhard Lebrecht Von Blücher. Napoleon’s rapid movements would scatter the Prussian forces on the border and sound the alarm. Lord Wellington would learn of the movements while attending the Duchess of Richmond’s Ball in Brussels and almost immediately begin to move the armies to counter the French. But Napoleon had already made to drive a wedge between the Prussians and the Anglo-Dutch forces, sending a force to capture a key crossroads, Quatré-Bras and a second to block Blücher at Ligney. Skirmishing at Quatré-Bras started almost immediately through the overnight of 15 June as cavalry troops harassed each other. Still, by the following day, the fighting had died out. Marshal Ney moved on Quatré-Bras and, by two in the afternoon, opened fire on the defenders with his artillery; eighty kilometres away, Napoleon waited to hear the sound of the artillery and, knowing his flank was secure, opened fire a half-hour later on the Prussians. Taking advantage of their surprise and combined actions, the French pushed the defenders as both armies moved up reinforcements, allowing the fighting to grow along the line. Attacks were countered, and vice-versa; within an hour, the French had pushed through the outskirts and brought the fight into Ligney, but the Prussians would force the French into deadly street fighting. The tired troops at Quatré-Bras were given a brief chance to regroup as Dutch cavalry made a charge to distract the French, only to face a rebuttal by Ney’s cavalry. Each battle continued, and both sides viciously mauled each other. Blücher sent for aid from Wellington and Napoleon from Ney. Neither could afford to redirect troops out of fear of losing the crossroads. But to respond to his emperor, Ney would pour on the fire to the Anglo-Dutch force, who stood up to the combined attacks. Wellington, an expert at defensive battles, would pour in additional divisions, holding the French in a stalemate. Blücher tried a more direct action and was wounded in the process, but soon realised that Napoleon could not be beaten and began an orderly retreat to Wavre. Both battles would slowly die out as the sides beat each other into a stalemate. While Napoleon would order Field Marshal Emmanuel de Grouchy to pursue the retreating Prussians, he believed that the army would retreat towards Liegé. With the delay, Grouchy found himself behind instead of in front of the Prussians. Wellington would regroup the military in front of the village of Mont-Sainte-Jean near the town of Waterloo, where he could set up a better defensive line. But the next battle would have to wait as the storm grew. The rain created a morass of the roads and the fields, and the troops spent a bitter night in the field, unable to do anything but wait. Supply wagons and artillery moved slowly. Wellington worked hard to convince Blücher to bring as many troops as possible to Waterloo, and Blücher, in turn, worked hard to persuade his generals to do the same thing. The loss at Ligney and the tactical victory at Quatré-Bras had cost the Prussians, Anglo-Dutch and French armies dearly. Wellington would rest briefly and wake in the early hours of 18 June to write letters and by dawn had started to deploy his forces in the rain soaked fields.

Blücher would move from agreeing to send a single corps up to sending three corps to the aid of Wellington. The muddy roads and delays along the way made movements slow. The heavy rains had softened the ground, and artillery fire would prove difficult to control and properly sight the guns. Despite this, Napoleon felt that his victory was all but assured and began to move his forces into position, assuming that Wellington’s lines were inside the village of Mont-Sainte-Jean rather than on the ridge outside the village where they were. Wellington also positioned troops inside two walled farms, Château d’Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte. The wet ground continued to dog Napoleon, and it wasn’t until late in the morning that he could begin to move his troops forward. The fighting started around Hougoumont by eleven. The goal was to force Wellington to commit his reserve forces early. The troops inside the farm and around the property fought back, and by noon, the first cannons opened up. The defenders were pushed back behind the walls as the fighting increased around the farm. The French did manage to breach the gates once, but the arrivals of the Coldstream and Scots Guards turned the tide, and the gates were closed, and the French pushed back. After an hour of artillery bombardment, the first French columns marched onto the field, and fighting quickly started across the main line. The first Prussian troops had begun to trickle into the area, and Napoleon sent for Groucy to march towards Waterloo. When the message reached him, his force was too far to help. The King’s German Legion troops threw back multiple attacks against La Haye Sainte. Wellington drew the columns close and fired into the densely packed groups of French soldiers with accurate and deadly volley fire from his lines. Not wanting to miss their chance, the British cavalry charged in, only to face a counter-attack by French lancers and other light cavalry units. By three in the afternoon, the Prussians were fully committed to the battle, and both sides had dealt heavy damage against the other. Hoping to shore up his lines, Wellington redeployed his forces, which Napoleon viewed as a retreat, ordering his heavy cavalry to charge the lines. The British move quickly from the line and into a square formation and meet the charge with shot and bayonet, but the French overwhelm the defenders of La Haye Sainte and capture the farm. Napoleon orders the old guard, his elite Imperial guard, left with little choice, to move up. With kettle drums booming and bearskin hats towering over the field, the Old Guard came onto the field. Tired as they were, the combined armies of the Prussians and Anglo-Dutch forces had enough fight to break the Imperial guard. With the French line in disarray, Napoleon rode towards Paris. The victory at Waterloo would see the Prussians lead the pursuit of the shattered army of Napoleon, crossing into France on 21 June. They met little resistance as Napoleon would abdicate on 22 June in favour of his four-year-old son, but the end was already near. King Louis XVIII returned to Paris on 8 July, and Napoleon surrendered on 15 July, with sporadic fighting continued through the rest of the month. France would be forced to accept an army of occupation for five years, and Napoleon returned to exile, this time on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic and under British Control, where he would die in May 1821.

The end of the Napoleonic age did not bring as much peace as one would assume to a world in a near-constant state of global conflict since the middle of the 18th century. However, the wars proved to be minor regional conflicts, wars of conquest and empire. The United States would continue to push further west, and the Indigenous peoples would fight back, winning occasionally but more often losing in the end and being forced to surrender more and more of their traditional territories. The same story happened in Canada, where the results of the wars saw a push to colonise the backwater province further. Canada was rocked by rebellion in the late 1830s. It stumbled towards a responsible government and democracy and, eventually, Confederation in 1867. The United States would tear itself apart in a Civil War that would reshape its history. France was no better, with the monarchy giving way to a second French Republic and a second empire under Napoleon III (Napoleon’s nephew) before the formation of the Third French Republic (the current government is the French Fifth Republic). The biggest problem with the War of 1812 is that there was no clear winner; if there had been, the world in which we live today would look different. Canada and the United States claimed victory but avoided losing the war. Despite its place in American mythology, the Battle of New Orleans would have done nothing to change the needle on the peace treaty as it was already signed when the action took place. And if the British had succeeded, the result would have been the same: Pakenham would have packed up and left when the news arrived. While both sides were not the best of friends right away, the relationship grew and would set the standard for how national conflicts were resolved, not by fighting but by negotiation. The Napoleonic Wars would impact how the next hundred, even two hundred years of history would play out. The transformation of colonial governments and the ever-shifting set of alliances would see the First and Second World Wars and the modern War on Terror; it only shows that war never changes.

The Thames Valley Raids are not well remembered here in Ontario. However, a plaque in the former community of Malcolm’s Mills, today Oakland, Ontario, marks the battle and is located at the centre of town at the intersection of Oakland Road and King St N. Any building in Oakland is long gone. However, the Westbrook House survived and can be visited at Westfield Heritage Village in Rockton, Ontario. The Chalmette Battlefield in New Orleans, Louisiana, is well preserved with a memorial column, a reconstruction of a section of the defensive earthworks, several cannons on display, and a museum. Additionally, you can visit Fort Pike, which was constructed to better defend the Rigoletts, and there are historical markers for both the Lacoste Plantation and Villere Plantation. You can also find a statue of Andrew Jackson in the heart of New Orleans’s French Quarter commemorating his victory. Both Quatre Bras and Lignay battlefields are marked and have museums for the public. The Waterloo battlefield is well-marked and memorialised. There is a series of monuments and a museum. The battlefield itself does not look anything as it did 210 years ago, mostly because the entire battlefield was leveled out to construct the Lion’s Mound by the Dutch Crown. Both of the farms, Hougomont and La Haiye Sainte, are still standing; Hougomont is accessible to the public and is worth a visit, and La Haiye Sainte is private property and should be respected as such. This year, the 210th anniversary of the battle was celebrated with another big reenactment; while I was unable to attend, I did have the honour of participating in the 200th anniversary. After his death, Napoleon’s mortal remains were returned to France, and you can visit his tomb in Hôtel des Invalides.