USA > New York > The Empire State: a compendious history of the commonwealth of New York > Part 41
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Harrison advanced immediately to the Maumee Rapids, where, oppo- site the site of present Perrysburg, he built a strong earthwork, with bastions, and named it Fort Meigs. There he was besieged many weeks afterward by Proctor and Tecumtha and their respective followers. The assailants appeared before the fort at the close of April, and though the post was strong and the garrison had many great guns mounted, they were in imminent peril for a while. The fort was relieved by the arrival of forces under General Green Clay, of Kentucky, early in May, and the siege was abandoned. Active military operations in the West then ceased for a while.
At Lower Sandusky (now Fremont, Ohio) was a regular earth and stockaded military work named Fort Stephenson, garrisoned by one hundred and sixty men under the command of young Major George Croghan, then only twenty-one years of age. In July Proctor and Tecumtha, with four thousand followers, again appeared before Fort Meigs, but soon left it and pushed across the country to fall upon Fort Stephenson. They made a furious attack upon it, but Croghan and his men so skilfully and gallantly defended the post and made such havoc among the assailants that the latter fled in haste and great confusion to Detroit.
The control of Lake Erie was as important to both parties as was that of Lake Ontario, and to secure it the Americans and the British each
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PERRY'S FLEET ON LAKE ERIE.
hastened to create a fleet of war-vessels thereon. The British built at Malden, the Americans built at Presque Isle, now Erie, Pa.
Captain Oliver Hazard Perry," a zealous young naval officer of Rhode Island, offered his services on the lakes. At the middle of January, 1813, he was ordered to report to Commodore Chauncey, and to take with him all the best men from a flotilla of gun-boats which he had com- manded on Narraganset Bay. He sent them forward in three companies, fifty in each. Meeting Chauncey at Albany, they journeyed together through the dark wilderness to Sackett's Harbor in a sleigh. Perry soon proceeded to Presque Isle to superin- tend the construction and equipment of a navy in that sheltered harbor to co-operate with Harrison in an attempt to recover Michigan.
At Black Rock Henry Eckford had fashioned five merchant vessels into war-craft. These were sent to Presque Isle, where Perry had four vessels built. Early in July he had a squadron of nine vessels ready for men and supplies. These were de- layed several weeks, while a British squadron under Commodore Barclay was proudly and defiantly patrolling OLIVER HAZARD PERRY. the lake. Late in July Perry wrote to Chauncey : . " Send me men and I will have them all [the British ves- sels] in a day or two. . Barclay has been bearding me for several days ; I long to be at him."
At length Perry left the harbor, his vessels fully manned, and on September 10th the two squadrons met toward the western end of the lake and engaged in a fierce and sanguinary battle. The flag-ship Lawrence, bearing on a blue burgee the words of the dying hero in whose honor she had been named-" DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP "-bore the brunt of conflict about two hours, when she lay upon the water an
* Oliver Hazard Perry was born at South Kingston, R. I., August 23d, 1785 ; died in Trinidad, W. I., of yellow fever, August 23d, 1819. He entered the navy as a midship- man in 1799, served in the Tripolitan War, and was called to the command of a fleet on Lake Erie in the summer of 1813, having first served with Chauncey on Lake Ontario. In a battle on Lake Erie on September 10th, 1813, with a British squadron he gained a signal victory. Perry assisted Harrison in retaking Detroit, late in 1813. In 1815 he commanded the Java in Decatur's squadron on the Mediterranean.
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
almost total wreck. The slaughter had been dreadful. The Niagara, a stanch vessel, was near and unhurt. To her Perry went in a boat, through a tempest of bullets and grape-shot. He hoisted his pennant over her, dashed through the British line, and in eight minutes after- ward the colors of Barclay's flag-ship, the Detroit, were struck, and all but two vessels of his squadron were surrendered. Resting his naval cap on his knee, Perry wrote to Harrison, with a pencil on the back of a letter, his famous despatch :
" We have met the enemy and they are ours ; two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop."
The control of Lake Erie by the Americans was now secured. Harri- son pushed forward toward Detroit. A part of his troops were taken across the lake on Perry's vessels. Proctor set fire to Malden, and fled into the interior of Canada with Tecumtha and his Indians.
Harrison crossed the river and pursued the fugitives. He overtook them at the Moravian Towns on the little river Thames, where a sharp battle was fought on October 5th, 1813. Tecumtha was killed, the British were defeated, and Proctor, with a few followers, escaped to the head of Lake Ontario. At this battle the Americans recaptured six brass field-pieces which had been surrendered by Hull, on two of which were engraved the words : "SURRENDERED BY BURGOYNE AT SARATOGA." These precious relics of the old war for independence are now at West Point, on the Hudson.
All the territory which Hull had lost was now recovered. The Indian Confederacy on the north-western border of the republic was broken up, and war in that region was ended.
During the summer of 1813 the United States were involved in war with the Indians in the region of the Gulf of Mexico. In the spring Tecumtha went among them to aronse them to wage war on the white people. The powerful Creeks yielded to his persuasions. Late in August a large party of them surprised and captured Fort Menis, on the Alabama River, and massacred about four hundred men, women, and children. This event aroused the whole South to vigorous retaliation, and General Andrew Jackson, afterward President of the United States, led twenty-five hundred Tennesseeans into the Creek country, where he waged a destructive subjugating war against them.
Early in November General Coffee, Jackson's second in command, with nine hundred men, surrounded an Indian force at Tallashatchee, and slew two hundred of them. Not a warrior escaped. Within ten weeks afterward bloody battles had been fought at Talladega (November Stlı), Autosee (November 29th), and Emuckfaw (January 22d, 1814),
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THE CHEROKEE NATION RUINED.
and several skirmishes had taken place. The Tennesseeans were always victorious, yet they lost many brave soldiers. The Creeks finally estab- lished a fortified camp at the Great Horseshoe Bend of the Tallapoosa River, and there a thousand warriors, with their women and children, determined to make a last decisive stand. On March 27th, 1814, they were surrounded by Jackson's troops and attacked. The dusky warriors fought desperately, for they knew that there would be no future for their nation in case of a defeat. They disdained to surrender, and almost six hundred of them were slain. Only two or three were made prisoners, with about three hundred women and children. The result of the battle crushed the spirit and the power of the Creek nation. It was a sad picture for the eyes of good men to see one of the ancient tribes of our land, who were then making rapid strides in the progress of civilization, so ruthlessly and utterly ruined by the destructive hand of war.
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CHAPTER XXIX.
EARLY in 1813 important military movements occurred at Ogdensburg and its vicinity. There were hostile incursions by both parties across the St. Lawrence. Major Forsythe, in command at Ogdensburg, had crossed over to Brockville early in February, released all the prisoners in jail there, and seized some troops and citizens, who were carried to his camp in triumph.
Retaliation soon ensued. Sir George Prevost, Governor-General of Canada, arrived at Prescott, opposite Ogdensburg, on his way to York, the capital of Upper Canada, and assented to a proposal for troops to cross the river on the ice and assail the American village. Considering his own person in danger of capture, Sir George hastened forward toward York, directing Lieutenant-Colonel McDonnell to conduct the attack.
At dawn on the morning of February 22d McDonnell appeared on the frozen river with about eight hundred soldiers, in two columns, and pushed on to the village at separate points. Forsythe, informed by spies of this intended assault, had prepared to receive the invaders ; but he could not withstand them. It was a sort of surprise. Some of the inhabitants were in bed, others were at breakfast. They nearly all fled in consternation, and after a conflict of an honr in the streets, Forsythe and his troops retreated to Black Lake, eight or nine miles distant. The British became masters of the village. They plundered every house in the town excepting three, burned the barracks near the river and two gun-boats and two armed schooners frozen in the ice, and returned to Canada with a great amount of plnnder. These events accelerated the gathering of militia on the northern frontier, especially at Sackett's IIarbor.
General Dearborn, the commander-in-chief of the Northern Depart- ment, unable to afford assistance to the exposed points of the frontier of New York, resolved to invade Canada. He was then in direct command of the Army of the North, which was abont six thousand strong, and were all within the State of New York. These were to defend the frontier from Buffalo to St. Regis. Dearborn determined to attempt the capture of Montreal, in Lower Canada, and York (now Toronto), the capital of the upper province. Chauncey, as we have seen, had
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EXPEDITION AGAINST YORK (TORONTO).
gained the control of Lake Ontario, and believed he could keep the ice- bound British navy in the harbor of Kingston until the reduction of York.
Dearborn concentrated troops at Sackett's Harbor and Buffalo ; but in March (1813) he found only three thousand troops at the former place. He directed General Brown to summon several hundred militia to the field, and called Brigadier-General Z. M. Pike to the harbor with four hundred of his best men, then at Plattsburg, on Lake Champlain. Henry Eckford was charged with the building of six war schooners at the harbor, and Chauncey was authorized to purchase as many vessels as the exigencies of the service might require.
At the middle of April a plan was matured for a land and naval force to cross the lake, capture York, and assail Fort George, near the mouth of the Niagara River. At the same time troops were to cross the river at Buf- falo, capture Fort Erie and the redoubt at Chippewa, and meet- ing the force from York at Fort George, reduce that work, and then all press on to the capture of Kingston.
ZEBULON MONTGOMERY PIKE.
On April 25th (1813) seven- teen hundred troops, under the immediate command of General Pike, sailed from Sackett's Harbor in Chauncey's fleet, and on the morning of the 27th appeared before York, then pretty strongly fortified. The land forces were disembarked about two miles west of the British outworks in the face of a destructive fire from regulars and Indians under General Sheaffe. The former were soon driven to their fortifications, and the Americans, led by Pike," pressed forward and captured two redoubts. At the same time Chauncey was smiting the foc with a tempest of grape- shot from his naval cannons. The Indians, terrified by the roar of artil-
* Zebulon M. Pike was born at Lamberton, N. J., in January, 1779. He entered the army in his youth, and was made captain in 1806. In 1805 and 1806 he was engaged in searching for the sources of the Mississippi River, and exploring a portion of the vast territory of Louisiana. He was commissioned a major in 1808, and rose to brigadier-gen- eral in 1813. Early in that year he was appointed adjutant and inspector-general in the Northern Department. He lost his life in an attack upon York, April 27th, 1813.
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lery, had deserted the British at the beginning, and fled as fast as their legs could carry them.
Sheaffe now took post with the garrison near the governor's house, and opened a heavy fire of round and grape-shot from a battery. This battery was soon silenced by Pike's heavy guns, and he was expecting a white-flag token of submission, when an awful catastrophe occurred. The British, unable to hold the fort, fired a magazine of gunpowder on the edge of the lake. The explosion which followed was terrible in its effects. Timbers and stones, of which the magazine was built, were scattered many hundred feet in every direction, carrying death and destruction. Fifty-two Americans and forty British soldiers were slain, and a much larger number were wounded.
General Pike at the time of the explosion was sitting on the stump of a tree talking with a captive British officer. The general, two of his aides, and the captive officer were mortally hurt by the flying missiles. The dying leader was taken on board Chauncey's flag-ship. His dulled ears heard the shouts of victory, and just before he died the captured British flag was brought to him. He smiled, and made a sign to have it placed under his head. It was done, and a moment afterward he expired.
Early in May the victorious Americans sailed from Sackett's Harbor to attack Fort George. The British had at that post and smaller works along the Niagara River about eighteen hundred men, commanded by General Vincent. The American troops landed and encamped five miles east of Fort Niagara, where they prepared for the task before them. On the morning of May 27th they were conveyed by Chauncey's squadron to the mouth of the Niagara on the Canada side.
Led by Colonel Winfield Scott and Commodore Perry, the latter in command of the boats, the invaders ascended the bank in the face of a shower of bullets and of glittering bayonets, and after a sharp conflict they pushed back the British. Vincent, discouraged, ordered the guns of Fort George to be spiked, the ammunition to be destroyed, and the garrison to join him in a retreat toward Burlington Bay, at the west end of Lake Ontario. The whole British force retreated first to a strong position in the hilly region of the Beaver Dams, where Vincent had a magazine of stores and provisions. Forts Erie and Chippewa were abandoned, and the Niagara frontier in Canada passed into the possession of the Americans.
Generals Chandler and Winder were sent in pursuit of Vincent. They encamped at Stony Creek on the night of June 6th, seven miles east of the British forces, where they were attacked by the latter at mid-
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BRITISH ATTACK ON SACKETT'S HARBOR.
night. The darkness was intense ; surprised and confused in the gloom, the two American generals were made prisoners. Expecting a renewal of the attack, the Americans made a hasty retreat toward the Niagara, menaced on the way by a British squadron on the lake at their left, and by barbarians and local militia on the heights at their right. They reached Fort George in safety.
Sackett's Harbor was now the chief depot of the military and naval supplies of the Americans on Lake Ontario, and offered a tempting object to the enemy. When the British at Kingston heard of the de- parture of a large portion of Chauncey's squadron with the land troops from the harbor, they resolved to attempt the capture of that post.
On the evening of May 27th Sir James Lucas Yeo," the commander of the British squadron, sailed from Kingston, and at about noon the next day appeared off Sackett's Harbor with six armed vessels and forty bateaux, bearing over a thousand land troops, the whole armament under the command of Sir George Prevost, the governor-general.
There were only a few regular troops at the harbor, commanded by Colonel Backus. General Brown, who was at his home a few miles dis- tant, hastened to the threatened post. He sent expresses in all directions to summon the militia to the field, and fired aların-guns to rouse the inhabitants. The militia on their arrival were sent to Horse Island, close by, where it was supposed the invaders would first attempt to land.
The British troops were embarked from the war-vessels in bateaux, but were soon ordered back, when the whole squadron put to sea. Sir George, who was a timid man, had been alarmed by the appearance of some American gun-boats bearing a regiment from Oswego to re-enforce the little garrison at the harbor. As soon as he perceived the real weak- ness of the approaching foe he returned, and on the morning of the 29th landed a considerable force, with artillery, upon Horse Island. The American militia were called from the island and placed behind a gravel-
Sir James Lucas Yeo was born in Southampton, England, in 1782, and died in his native country in 1819. He was an active but very cautious officer. He was given to boasting and promising more than he could perform. Offended with Captain Porter, of the American ship Essex, because of the latter's disparaging remarks concerning the baronet, he sent, by a paroled prisoner, a message to Porter inviting him to a combat be- tween their two ships, saying he " would be glad to have a tête-à-tête anywhere between the Capes of the Delaware and the Havana, when he would have pleasure to break his own [Captain Porter's] sword over his d-d head, and put him down forward in irons." Porter accepted the challenge in more decorous terms, but owing to the extreme caution of Sir James, the meeting never occurred. His conduct on Lake Ontario on two or three occasions was such that the wits of the day interpreted his cautious movements as specimens of "heart disease" known to cowards. He had been instructed to "risk nothing."
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THE EMPIRE STATE.
ridge on the main, from which they seampered at the first fire of the invaders. The indignant General Brown attempted to rally them while the regulars and a few Albany volunteers disputed the advance of the foe inch by inch. At that moment a dense smoke arose in the rear of the American forees. Brown was alarmed, but was soon relieved of anxiety when he learned that a friend and not a foe was the incendiary. When the militia fled the officer in charge of the public property at the harbor, believing the post would be taken, set fire to the store-houses and their contents, and a ship on the stocks.
General Brown sent some regulars to intercept the fugitive militia. These, with the gathering of others, deceived and alarmed Sir George. IIe liad mounted a high stump and swept the horizon with his field- glass. Seeing numerous men, he supposed them to be re-enforcements of regulars in large numbers, and immediately ordered a retreat. That movement became a disorderly flight. The fugitives left their dead and wounded behind, fled pell-mell to their vessels, and the whole squadron hastily withdrew from the harbor. The post and the ship on the stocks were saved, but stores worth half a million dollars were lost. Sackett's Harbor was never again attacked, and it remained a chief place of deposit of supplies for the Northern Army during the remainder of the war.
General Vineent established an advanced post at the Beaver Dams under the command of Lieutenant Fitzgibbon. Late in June Colonel Bærstler was sent from Fort George, with six hundred men, to capture the garrison and stores at the Beaver Dams. Informed of their approach, Fitzgibbon was prepared to receive them. Furiously assailed by Indians under John Brant, and alarmed by an exaggerated account of the number of the foe, Bærstler surrendered his whole force, when the British pressed forward and menaced Queenstown and Fort George. The infirmities of General Dearborn now caused him to resign his com- mand, and he was succeeded by General James Wilkinson, another officer of the old war for independence.
The attempts to seize Canada had been decided failures, and yet the Government seemed not to have learned wisdom by dear-bought experi- ence. The Secretary of War was John Armstrong," who had been a
* Jolın Armstrong was born at Carlisle, Pa., in November, 1758, and died at Red Hook, N. Y., in April, 1843. He was a student at Princeton when the Revolutionary War broke out, joined a Pennsylvania regiment as a volunteer, and was on the staff of General Mercer. He was afterward on the staff of General Gates with the rank of major, and remained so until the end of the war. He wrote the famous "Newburg Ad- dresses." Ile held important civil offices in Pennsylvania ; conducted military operations
.
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MOVEMENTS ON THE NIAGARA FRONTIER.
subaltern in the war for independence. He was possessed of a fiery and obstinate spirit. He and Wilkinson could not agree. There was another ficry spirit in the field in New York at that time -- Wade Hampton, of South Carolina-the largest slaveholder in the republic, who had been a partisan officer with Marion. He was haughty and imperious, and could not brook official control. These old Revolutionary officers, jealons of each other, could not bear with complacency com- mands from one of their number who might be superior in official station. They were a decided disadvantage to the service from the beginning,
and until they were succeeded by younger men the American armies were generally unsuccessful.
Made bold by their success at the Beaver Dams, the British be- came aggressive on the Niagara frontier. They closely invested Fort -1 George. On the night of July 4th, 1813, a few Canadian militia and Indians crossed the river to Schlosser, and captured a guard, arms, ammunition, and stores. On the 11th Lieutenant-Colonel Bis- shopp, with a motley force of four hundred regulars, Canadians, and JOHN ARMSTRONG. Indians, crossed the river from Fort Erie and surprised the post at Black Rock, a little before dawn. His object was to seize the stores collected there and the shipyard. They were defended by a few militia. These, with others at Buffalo, two miles distant, were under the command of General Peter B. Porter. The militia at Black Rock fled. Porter rallied a portion of them, and with fifty volunteer citizens drove the invaders across the river. Bis- shopp was mortally wounded in the flight, and dicd five days afterward.
Wilkinson prepared for another invasion of Canada, or to " strike a deadly blow somewhere." He left eight hundred troops at Fort George,
against settlers in the Wyoming Valley, in 1784 ; and declined the office of judge for the North-western Territory, in 1787. Two years later he married a sister of Chancellor Livingston, and purchasing a farm within the bounds of the Livingston Manor, devoted himself to agriculture. He was United States senator in 1800-1804, and succeeded his brother-in-law, Livingston, as minister at the French Court. In 1812 he was commis- sioned a brigadier-general, and entered Madison's cabinet the next year as Secretary of War, resigning in 1814. He never entered public life afterward.
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under Colonel Winfield Seott, and with the remainder of the forees on the Niagara frontier he sailed eastward to undertake an expedition against Montreal. He instructed Seott, in case the British should leave that frontier, to join his expedition on the St. Lawrence. This con- tingency soon occurred. When Vineent heard of the defeat of Proctor on the Thames, he called his troops from the Niagara to Burlington Heights. Meanwhile the Secretary of War (Armstrong) had come on to reconcile differences between Wilkinson and Hampton, and to assume the conduct of the invading expedition. Armstrong established the seat of the War Department at Sackett's Harbor.
When Wilkinson * took com- mand of the Army of the North in the summer of 1813, military affairs on Lake Champlain and in its vicinity were in a peculiar posi- tion. Captain Thomas Macdonough had been charged with the con- struction of a fleet on the lake in JAMES WILKINSON. the spring. At the beginning of June he had two staneh armed ves- sels-Eagle and Growler-ready for service. They were sent to the foot of the lake to look after some British gun-boats that were depredating there. They ran far into the Sorel, when, turning southward, they were chased by British armed vessels and assailed by land troops on each side of the narrow river. The Eagle was sunk by a heavy round- shot, and the Growler was captured.
* James Wilkinson was born in Maryland in 1757, and died near the city of Mexico in December, 1825. He joined the Continental Army at Cambridge in 1775, and was an active subaltern officer during the whole war. At its close he engaged in mercantile business in Lexington, Ky. He was lieutenant-colonel in an expedition against the Ind- ians in 1791, and was made brigadier-general the next year. He commanded the right wing of Wayne's army on the Maumee in 1794, and was general-in-chief of the United States Army from 1796 to 1798 and from 1800 to 1812. He was one of the commission- ers to receive Louisiana from the French late in 1803, and was governor of that territory from 1805 to 1807. Wilkinson became entangled with Burr. Made major-general in 1813, he was ordered to the command on the northern frontier. His campaign against Montreal was a failure, chiefly because of the conduct of Wade Hampton. He left the army at the close of the war. Having become possessed of large estates in Mexico, he removed to that country, and died there.
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