For Honour's Sake (47 page)

Meanwhile, the British situation steadily worsened. September brought incessant rains that reduced the camp into “a lake in the midst of a thick wood.” Chauncey's blockade reduced the flow of supplies that reached Drummond to a thin trickle. Ammunition was particularly short. Hundreds of men were sick and the rain depressed them all. Yet they laboured on and by mid-month had placed guns in a third battery only 500 yards from the fort, from which their fire could tear great holes in its breastworks.

Recognizing the threat on the afternoon of September 17, Brown ordered 1,600 troops to destroy the battery standing on the extreme British right flank facing Snake Hill. Another 400 ventured from the fort to eliminate the second, more distant battery. Under cover of a veritable deluge, Gen. Peter B. Porter led the 1,600 men from Snake Hill through woods toward the battery. With the guns of Fort Erie bombarding the battery with covering fire, Porter's men achieved complete surprise. The guns were quickly spiked and the magazine blown, and the large column swung to assist the smaller force assaulting the second battery. A fierce fight ensued and much damage was caused before the Americans withdrew to the protection of their fortifications.

Three of Drummond's six siege guns were disabled. He also lost 115 soldiers killed, 178 wounded, and 316 missing. The Americans counted 79 dead and 432 wounded or missing. But they had checked Drummond's efforts.
²¹
To Prevost on September 21, Drummond reported that because of sickness amongthe troops and “their situation … of such extreme wretchedness from the torrents of rain … I feel it to be my duty no longer to persevere in a vain attempt to maintain a blockade of so vastly a superior and increasing force of the enemy.”
²²
Drummond lifted the siege and retreated to the Chippawa that night.

The Americans, reinforced by 3,500 men under command of Maj. Gen. George Izard, who had marched overland for weeks from Lake Champlain to reach Brown, now numbered 6,300. This was the strongest and undoubtedly most efficient force the United States had yet managed to deploy inside Canada. With Izard in command, they set off
on September 28 in pursuit of Drummond, who could do little but delay them by destroying bridges as he surrendered ground without offering a fight. Soon the Americans were again camped at Sandy Creek, intent on forcing the Chippawa the next morning. In a few days Izard expected to carry Fort George with supporting fire from Chauncey's fleet.

Once again fortune turned against the Americans. Commodore Yeo hoisted his flag aboard the mighty 120-gun
St. Lawrence
and Chauncey immediately fled to the safety of Sackets Harbor. The lake was again British.

In despair, fearful that his line could easily be turned by amphibious forces if he ventured anywhere near Lake Ontario, Izard straggled back to Fort Erie. On November 5, he blew up the fort and crossed to Buffalo. From there he wrote Armstrong that his health was failing and to endure a northern winter might be his death. He headed south to recuperate. America's last campaign against Canada was over.
²³

It had been Armstrong's ill-advised decision to send Izard from Lake Champlain. His fixation on the Niagara region led him to disregard Izard's warning that the Champlain corridor was being left open, a route used over hundreds of years by native, French, British, and American forces to attack either the St. Lawrence region or upstate New York. “I will make the movement you direct,” Izard wrote on July 27, “but the lately erected works at Plattsburg and Cumberland Head will, in less than three days after my departure, be in the possession of the enemy.” Izard had offered a spoiling attack on Montreal to pin British forces that might otherwise be transferred to Niagara, but Armstrong dismissed his fears. On August 29, Izard had dutifully marched off at the head of 4,000 men. Left behind were 1,500 regulars and a matching number of militia and volunteers commanded by Brig. Gen. Alexander Macomb.
²⁴

It seemed incomprehensible that Armstrong would order the Champlain garrison reduced by more than half its strength when July had seen the British take the offensive along the American coast and from Nova Scotia into Maine. First there had been the expedition early in the month from Halifax against the long-disputed Passamaquoddy
Bay that resulted in Eastport on Moose Island being quickly captured and the eighty-eight-man garrison there taken prisoner. The bay was declared annexed to New Brunswick.

More astounding was Armstrong's failure to countermand his orders after August 18, when a large British fleet entered Chesapeake Bay with about 4,000 troops aboard. Half of these men were Peninsular veterans, and their commander, Maj. Gen. Robert Ross, had been one of Wellington's best officers. During July this force had gathered in Bermuda. On August 3, they boarded ships commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane. Ross's instructions from Lord Bathurst had been simple: he was to “effect a diversion on the coasts of the United States of America in favour of the army employed in the defence of Upper and Lower Canada.”
²⁵

While Cochrane was in overall command, he left coordination of the naval and army units to Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn. The forty-two-year-old Cockburn had garnered much experience raiding the American coast and was Cochrane's favourite for such ventures. Five years older than Cockburn, Ross had never served in North America. He had little idea what resistance to expect or how the landscape would influence events, so he relied on Cockburn's strategic and tactical advice. Cockburn's plan was audacious. He would deliver a blow that would realize the very worst of President James Madison's fears—a dual attack against Washington and Baltimore.
²⁶

Neither Cockburn nor Cochrane intended to spare these cities from destruction. They well remembered the winter devastation of the Niagara Peninsula, and in late May an American force had crossed Lake Erie to burn the village of Port Dover. Even though an American court of enquiry had disavowed this destruction of private property and the government was at pains to deny that the burning of villages on the Niagara Peninsula had been officially sanctioned, the British Admiralty formally approved a general order from Cochrane to “lay waste” to towns whenever possible. Unarmed civilians were to be spared, but anyone resisting was fair game. Cochrane hoped to frighten the coastal populace into neutrality, but it cleared the decks for Cockburn and other naval commanders to do their worst.
²⁷

Attacking Washington was bold, but also politically and militarily sound. Politicall'y capturing the American capital would affirm British control of the American coast—proving that the Royal Navy could do as it pleased. Cockburn knew the city was poorly defended, literally defenceless, so victory was virtually assured.

Brig. Gen. William Winder had not enthusiastically assumed responsibility for defending the city. Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River provided ample spots for troops to land and then march on Washington. Both were winding watercourses riddled with inlets. The Patuxent River pointed like the tip of a bayonet from the bay toward the capital. With hundreds of miles of confused shoreline to guard, where was he to begin? Having no idea, Winder spent much of July riding about surveying the coast in hopes of divining where the British would put ashore.
²⁸
His movements were so frantic that mail seldom caught up to him and he remained almost continually out of communication with superiors and subordinates alike. No sooner did someone catch wind of his location than he was already gone elsewhere. While industriously carried out, the effort was fruitless. Winder's command was a chimera. He had no troops to construct fortifications.

Armstrong had refused to authorize calling out the militia in July to prepare for possible attack. The secretary of war instead allowed the general to deploy the militia only once it was clear a British attack was under way. Winder thought this madness, but was unable to change Armstrong's mind. Complacently waiting until a British attack to “disseminate through the intricate and winding channels the various orders to the militia” would ensure he would be able to meet the crisis only with “a disorderly crowd without arms, ammunition or organization.”
²⁹

There was also the problem of Baltimore, which lay up Chesapeake Bay to the north of Washington. Winder was supposed to defend it as well. If he concentrated what regular troops he had to cover approaches to the capital, Baltimore would be unprotected. In the end Winder scattered his troops ineffectually about, trying to defend everything while actually defending nothing.

Consequently, when the British fleet appeared in the bay on August 18, Winder and Armstrong were caught flat-footed. Both men had gone out
of their way to persuade authorities in Washington, Baltimore, and Maryland's state government that the probability of attack was remote, so when the British did appear there was not only no military readiness but also a lack of psychological preparedness. Typifying the overall lassitude was the fact that Madison did not become aware that Washington faced danger until August 20. Two days later he was preparing to evacuate the government from the city, which was swept by panic.
³⁰
The disorderly crowd Winder had feared was exactly what he now had to try to stave off the British with. That task was beyond him.

T
hree days after the British fleet sailed from Bermuda, coaches bearing the British commissioners clattered through the streets of Ghent and delivered the three men and their entourage to the doorstep of the Hôtel Lion d'Or. Unlike the Americans, who each had at least one private secretary, the British brought only Anthony St. John Baker, the former attaché to Washington. Also amid their number was Henry Goulburn's wife, Jane, and fifteen-month-old child, Harry, plagued with infantile fever since birth. Desiring not to be separated from his wife for what could be months and worried by the child's frail condition, Goulburn had insisted he would go to Ghent only if his family accompanied him. Knowing that the young man would not unreasonably put family ahead of duty, Bathurst consented.
¹

Barely a week had passed between Viscount Castlereagh's providing instructions to the commissioners and their arrival in Ghent. The foreign secretary's challenge had been to write clear directions for topics not yet determined. The war declaration had cited several offences as justifying resort to arms, but were these the only issues at play? And which issues really mattered?

There were four overarching headings under which all the possible issues at hand could be categorized. Firstly, maritime rights, of which the most important in His Majesty's eyes was the right to “enforce in war the allegiance and service of his subjects; [seco]ndly, the protection which the Indians, as allies, are entitled to claim at our hands; [third]ly,
the regulation of the frontier to prevent hereafter, as far as possible, jealousy or collision; and [fourt]hly, the question of the Fishery.”
²

Castlereagh knew the American commissioners might not be empowered to agree to terms on all aspects of these issues, so Gambier, Goulburn, and Adams were to draw out what they were able to treat on without committing Britain to anything. While conceding little, Castlereagh wanted his commissioners to assert an array of non-negotiable stipulations.

The Americans wanted an end to impressment and searching of ships. Britain, he emphasized, “can never recede from the principle of holding their own subjects to their duty to allegiance.” At best he might consider some system of indulgences to individuals naturalized as United States citizens. As for right of search and withdrawal of British seamen, this could “never be given up.” However, Britain could agree to limits to “check abuse.” Castlereagh acknowledged that the whole issue was complex and messy, so perhaps it might be better to “waive this discussion altogether” given the issue had been laid to rest “by the return of peace.” The threesome was, therefore, to deny having authority to discuss it without reference to Castlereagh.

The foreign secretary considered that Indian and border issues surpassed maritime matters in importance. It would be an absolute, or, as he phrased it, a
sine qua non,
that the treaty secure the boundaries of Indian territory. Britain and the United States must “place their mutual relationships with each other, as well as with several Indian nations, upon a footing of less jealousy and irritation.” This could be accomplished by “a mutual guarantee of the Indian possessions, as they shall be established upon the peace, against encroachment on the part of either State.” If both governments regarded “Indian territory as a useful barrier between both States” each would “have a common interest to render these people … peaceful neighbours.” America could end the costly and bloody Indian wars while its seemingly insatiable desire for expansion would be checked to the satisfaction of the Indians and Britain. Given that the United States already controlled vast parts of North America, this need for continued expansion baffled Castlereagh. It was more logical to accept limits and avert further Indian wars.