Pierre Berton's War of 1812 (37 page)

By now, General Stephen Van Rensselaer has, in the words of his cousin Solomon, “resolved to gratify his own inclinations and those of his army” and commence operations. The British show no inclination to attack. Dearborn has demanded action. For better or for worse, Stephen is determined that he shall have it.

If numbers mean anything, his chances for success are excellent. He now has some eight thousand troops under his command, half of them regulars, of whom forty-two hundred are encamped at Lewiston. (The remainder are at Fort Niagara and either at Buffalo or, in the case of some two thousand Pennsylvania volunteers, en route to Buffalo.) To counter this force Brock has about one thousand regular troops, some six hundred militia, and a reserve of perhaps six hundred militia and Indians, strung out thinly from Fort Erie to Fort George. The bulk of his strength he must keep on his wings to prevent the Americans from turning one of his flanks and attacking his rear. Thus his centre at Queenston is comparatively weak.

Yet numbers do not tell the whole story. Morale, sickness, discipline, determination—all these Van Rensselaer must take into account. By his own count he has only seventeen hundred
effective
militia men at Lewiston. The state of his army is such that he knows he must act swiftly, if at all:

“Our best troops are raw, many of them dejected by the distress their families suffer by their absence, and many have not necessary clothing. We are in a cold country, the season is far advanced and
unusually inclement; we are half deluged by rain. The blow must be struck soon or all the toil and expense of the campaign will go for nothing, and worse than nothing, for the whole will be tinged with dishonor.”

The key word is “dishonor.” It creeps like a fog through the sodden tents of the military, blinding all to reality. It hangs like a weight over the council chambers in Albany and Washington. Stephen Van Rensselaer feels its pressure spurring him to action,
any
action. No purpose now in disputing the war and its causes, no sense in further recriminations or I-told-you-so’s. Detroit must be avenged! “The national character is degraded, and the disgrace will remain, corroding the public feeling and spirit until another campaign, unless it be instantly wiped away by a brilliant close of this.” The words might have sprung from the lips of Porter, the War Hawk; they are actually those of Van Rensselaer, the Federalist and pacifist.

He knows that with his present force at Lewiston it would be rash to attempt an attack. But Smyth has arrived with an almost equal number and that is enough. He plans a two-pronged assault: Smyth’s regulars will cross the river near Newark and storm Fort George from the rear while he leads the militia from Lewiston to carry the heights above Queenston. This will divide the thinly spread British forces, cut their line of communications, drive their shipping from the mouth of the Niagara River (which will become an American waterway), provide the troops with warm and extensive winter quarters, act as a springboard for the following season’s campaign, and—certainly not least—“wipe away part of the score of our past disgrace.”

The scheme is plausible, but it depends on the co-operation of Brigadier-General Smyth; and Smyth has no intention of co-operating. He acts almost as if Van Rensselaer did not exist. The Commander invites him to a council of officers to plan the attack. Smyth does not reply. The General writes again, more explicitly. Still no reply. Several days pass. Nothing. A fellow officer now informs Van Rensselaer that he has seen Smyth, who is unable to name the day when he can come to Lewiston for a council. The General
thereupon sends a direct order to Smyth to bring his command “with all possible dispatch.” Silence.

In no other army would such insubordination be tolerated, but America is not yet a military nation. The amiable Van Rensselaer does not court-martial his recalcitrant underling; he simply proceeds without him. He has already told Dearborn that it would be rash to attack Queenston with the militiamen under his command at Lewiston. Now, with Smyth’s regulars apparently out of the picture, he determines to do just that.

He has very little choice for, at this juncture, an incident occurs near Black Rock that reduces his options.

BLACK ROCK, NEW YORK
, October 8, 1812. Lieutenant Jesse Elliott of the U. S. Navy, a veteran of the 1807 attack on
Chesapeake
(and said to be a nephew of Matthew Elliott), supervising the construction of three ships of war for service in Lake Erie, finds himself tempted by the sight of two British ships, newly anchored under the guns of Fort Erie. One is the North West Company’s two-gun schooner
Caledonia
, which Captain Roberts impressed into service during the successful attack on Michilimackinac. The other is a former American brig,
Adams
, mounting six guns, captured at Detroit and renamed for that city by the British. Elliott conceives a daring plan: if he can capture both vessels and add them to the fleet under construction, the balance of power will shift to the American side on Lake Erie.

He needs seamen. Fortunately some ninety American sailors are on the march from Albany. Elliott sends a hurry-up call, selects fifty for the job. Isaac Roach, a young artillery adjutant (and a future mayor of Philadelphia), offers fifty more men from his own regiment. There is a scramble to volunteer. The battalion commander, Winfield Scott, then on the threshold of what will be a long and glorious career, warns his men that they can expect a hard fight, but this only excites them further. When Roach, a mere second-lieutenant,
orders “Volunteers to the front: March!” the entire battalion steps forward. Officers senior to Roach attempt to resign their commissions in order to serve under him. Men are so eager for battle that Roach finds he must select ten more than his quota.

The attack is made in two longboats, each carrying about fifty armed men, who must track their craft against the rapid current of the Niagara to the mouth of Buffalo Creek—difficult work. Here the men are forced to wade into the freezing water to their shoulders to haul the empty longboats over the bar at the creek’s mouth in order to enter Lake Erie. It is past midnight; the troops, soaking wet, with a chill sleet falling about them, must now row for three hours up the lake “and not allowed to even laugh to keep ourselves warm.”

At three they come silently upon their unsuspecting quarry. A fire in the caboose of
Detroit
gives them a light to steer by. Roach and Elliott, in the lead boat, head straight for the vessel. Sailing Master George Watts and Captain Nathan Towson of Winfield Scott’s regiment take their boat under the stern of
Caledonia
. It is not possible to achieve complete surprise for the sleet has ended, the night is calm, the lake glassy. Two volleys of musket fire pour into the lead boat from the deck of
Detroit
, whose captain is the same Lieutenant Frederic Rolette who captured
Cuyahoga
at the start of the war. Rolette and his crew are quickly overpowered as Elliott manages to loose the topsails in an attempt to get the ship underway. Suddenly a British cannon opens up; a heavy ball whizzes twenty feet above the heads of the boarding party (“John Bull always aims too high,” says Roach), ricochets onto the opposite shore where half of Winfield Scott’s men are lined up to watch the action and tears an arm off a Major Cuyler of the New York militia, knocking him from his horse, mortally wounded. Roach, with a bundle of lighted candles in his hand, touches off
Detroit
’s six-pound deck guns in reply.

Aboard
Caledonia
, the commander, a young Scot, Second-Lieutenant Robert Irvine, roused from his bed, has thrown himself down the gangway, calling on his inexperienced crew of a dozen men to follow him and discharging his blunderbuss into the attackers. He has time only for a second charge before he is felled
by a cutlass stroke, but he has managed to kill or wound several of the boarding party. Watts and Towson get
Caledonia
underway—thus distracting the enemy fire from
Detroit
, whose attackers are axing through her cables—and sail her across the river, where she anchors under the protection of the American batteries at Black Rock. She is a considerable prize, being loaded with pork destined for Amherstburg, a rich cargo of furs, and a good many American prisoners captured at Michilimackinac and Detroit who now find themselves free men again.

Elliott and Roach, still facing a concentrated fire from Fort Erie, drift down the river, unable to manoeuvre
Detroit
. A half mile below Black Rock she grounds on the British side of Squaw Island. Exposed to enemy fire, the Americans abandon ship, taking the captured Lieutenant Rolette and his men and all but three American prisoners of war who had been held in the hold.

A seesaw battle ensues for the shattered
Detroit
. A British detachment crosses the river, seizes her, attempts to pull her off the shoal. This is too much for Winfield Scott, who dispatches another party to land on the northeast shore of Squaw Island and drive the British away. The Americans do their best to warp
Detroit
into open water, but she has lost her anchor and the British fire is so hot they are forced to abandon the attempt. They strip her of armament and supplies and burn her to the water line, thus denying her to the enemy.

It is a considerable blow to the British. The Americans have captured four cannon, two hundred muskets, and so much pork that Procter’s men at Amherstburg will be forced on to half rations. But the real effect of the loss of one ship and the seizure of another will not be felt until the following year at the Battle of Lake Erie.

Brock, who gallops directly to the scene as soon as he receives the news, instantly sees the danger. The event, he tells Prevost, “may reduce us to incalculable distress. The enemy is making every effort to gain a naval superiority on both lakes, which, if they accomplish, I do not see how we can retain the country.” Brock cannot resist a small gibe at Prevost’s continuing policy of caution: “Three vessels
are fitting out for war on the other side of Squaw Island, which I would have attempted to destroy but for Your Excellency’s instructions to forbear. Now such a force is collected for their protection as would render any operation against them very hazardous.”

Jesse Elliott’s bold adventure has another equally far-reaching result. The only American victory on the frontier, its success will goad the Americans into premature attack. The newspapers seize upon it thirstily. The Buffalo
Gazette
headlines it as a GALLANT AND DARING EXPLOIT. Congress publicly thanks Elliott and presents him with a sword. A thrill runs through the nation. At Lewiston, General Van Rensselaer is presented with an ultimatum from his troops, who are now hot for action—or claim to be. The General is warned that if he does not take the offensive immediately, they will all go home. With Smyth sulking in his tent at Buffalo, Van Rensselaer decides to abandon his two-pronged attack and launch a single assault upon Queenston on October 11. What follows is high farce.

He has planned to cross the river at night in thirteen boats, each capable of carrying twenty-five men. Lieutenant-Colonel John Fenwick’s artillery will come up from Niagara to support the attack, and it is hoped that Smyth will send further reinforcements. The crossing will be made from the old ferry landing directly opposite the heights of Queenston where the river is a tumult of eddies and whirlpools; thus experienced boatmen are mandatory. The best man for the job is one Lieutenant Sims, who is sent ahead in the darkness while the troops follow in wagons.

Now an extraordinary incident takes place which defies explanation. Sims, by accident or design, passes the embarkation point, lands his boat far upriver where it cannot be found, then, perhaps through panic at his error or perhaps from cowardice, abandons his boat and is not seen again. In the growing drizzle, the troops wait in vain for him to return. Solomon Van Rensselaer, roused from his sickbed to command the assault and shaking with fever, waits with them. Nothing can be done because, for reasons unexplained, the oars for all the boats are with the wretched Sims.

The troops wait all night as the storm rises in fury. (It will continue for twenty-eight hours, deluging the camp.) Finally, as daylight breaks, they are marched back to camp, the boats half-concealed in the rushes. Van Rensselaer calls a council, hoping that the incident will dampen the spirits of his eager officers. On the contrary, they are even keener to attack. Lieutenant-Colonel John Chrystie, newly arrived on the scene, has already reported that his officers and men are “full of ardor and anxious to give their country proof of their patriotism.” Everybody, the General discovers, seems to “have gained new heat from the recent miscarriage.” Events not of his making have him in their grasp. A friend in Albany, the Federalist congressman Abraham Van Vechten, realizes this and in a letter (delivered too late) warns Solomon that “the General’s reputation forbids rashness. To shun the Enemy improperly would be censurable—but to seek him under manifest disadvantages would be madness.” The time has long passed, however, when the General can accept such cool advice. The pressure on him is so great that he realizes that “my refusal to act might involve me in suspicion and the service in disgrace.”