USA > New York > Franklin County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 15
USA > New York > Jefferson County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 15
USA > New York > Lewis County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 15
USA > New York > Oswego County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 15
USA > New York > St Lawrence County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 15
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To make matters worse, the frontier was practically defenseless. The settlers found themselves being rushed into a war which they did not want and for which they were totally unprepared yet the national government, with blissful unconcern, refused to take any steps whatsoever in the way of national defense. Four years before the declaration of war a committee representing every town in Jef- ferson county had written President Thomas Jefferson urging that the government construct a fort in the north, but the president con- tented himself with sending on the petition to Governor Tompkins with the opinion that the building of such a fort would only "produce a greater accumulation of hostile forces in that quarter."
Nothing could be expected of the state militia, most of whom were hopelessly lacking in training and equipment. Officers were selected by that Council of Appointment which selected the sheriffs and justices of the peace, and politics entered into one selection almost as much as it did into the other. If there was a man of "sound principles" available, to use a favorite expression of the time,
...
COURT HOUSE, PULASKI, N. Y.
BRIDGE OVER SALMON RIVER, PULASKI, N. Y.
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why pick a Federalist. So when the question of the commander of the St. Lawrence county militia regiment came up for decision, Ma- jor David Ford of Morristown, an experienced soldier but a Fed- eralist, was overlooked and another candidate chosen.
In the city hall in New York City hangs a portrait of a forceful- looking young man attired in the stiff, uncomfortable uniform of War of 1812 days. The time came when the name of General Jacob Brown was known from one end of the country to the other, when he was granted the freedom of the City of New York and the thanks of Congress, and in time attained the rank of commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States, but at the outbreak of the War of 1812 Jacob Brown's chief claim to fame was the fact that he was a member of the Agricultural and Philosophical Society of the State of New York and was a friend of Gouverneur Morris.
In 1812 Brown was ranking officer of militia along the Northern New York border. True, he knew nothing about war, but then neither did any of the other militia generals and few of the regulars. He did, however, have certain commendable qualities including the ability to handle men, a reckless bravery and the most unbounded confidence in his own ability to accomplish any task which he set out to do.
When Jacob Brown died in Washington in February, 1828, John Quincy Adams recorded in his diary: "Gen. Brown was one of the eminent men of this age, and though bred a Quaker, he was a man of lofty and martial spirit and in the late war contributed perhaps more than any other man to redeem and establish the military character of his country. He had a high sense of honor and cour- tesy, an unassuming deportment, and conduct irreproachable in private life. He was commander-in-chief of the army from the time of its reduction in 1821. The splendor of the defense of New Orleans has cast into the shade Brown's military fame, but his campaign on the Canadian frontier in 1814 was far more severely contested than were the achievements of Jackson, who was aided by good fortune and by the egregious errors of the enemy."
And then came the declaration of war. Silas Stow, representa- tive in Congress from the Northern New York counties, voted against it as did most of his colleagues from New York. To him and to
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them it was simply "Mr. Madison's War" and they wanted no re- sponsibility for it. Not so with Brown. Now that there was to be a war, politics were forgotten so far as he was concerned.
"I place much reliance on your abiliies and valor in protecting our frontier inhabitants until the arrival of further troops and sup- plies," Governor Tompkins wrote his northern commander.
"We will try to keep them at bay," Brown wrote back and within an hour had men on fast horses speeding into every section of North- ern New York calling out the reluctant militia. Within twenty-four hours the farmer-soldiers came straggling into Sackets Harbor and Ogdensburg. The little stone arsenals at Watertown and Russell were ransacked for arms and equipment. Col. Thomas B. Benedict of DeKalb drew up his militiamen in an uneven line along the water front at Ogdensburg and waited for orders. Gen. Walter Martin sat in his big, stone house at Martinsburg, his horse saddled and ready. Brown, who knew nothing about war, was a genius at organ- izing men. Within the week the frontier was guarded after a fashion. With less than 600 men Brown was holding it from St. Regis to Oswego.
And it was a discouraging prospect. It was bad enough to have the whole countryside in a panic with entire families deserting their homes and fleeing to the Mohawk. Brown worked prodigiously to reassure the people who had abandoned their farm work to build blockhouses. He rode many weary miles through Jefferson county, from town to town and from settlement to settlement, and then wrote Tompkins that he was leaving for St. Lawrence county where he had learned that "the people are abandoning it in a most shame- ful manner." St. Lawrence county surely needed looking after. The astute and wealthy Mr. David Parish, who now owned the village of Ogdensburg, was not above "playing both ends against the middle." At the same time that Mr. Parish in Philadelphia was making a substantial loan to the United States to help carry on the war, he was dispatching his young nephew, Mr. John Ross, to Ogdensburg to see to it that the British knew where his sympathies were.
Ross took his employer's instructions literally. Long into the night the windows of the big Red Villa glowed with mellow light as Mr. Ross entertained his majesty's scarlet-coated officers with Mr. Parish's rare wines. Not only did British officers boldly cross the
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river to dine at Mr. Parish's house but they openly shopped in Ogdensburg stores and neither the British nor Col. Benedict's mili- tia seemed to see anything strange about it. For several months after the declaration of war the British commander at Prescott, Col. MacDonald, was a frequent guest at the Parish mansion. Na- turally when later the British captured Ogdensburg the extensive properties of Mr. Parish were untouched although his agent com- plained that the concussion of the cannon broke many of the windows in the mansion house. However, by this time Parish, who never neglected to make an honest dollar, had opened his iron foundries at Rossie and was offering to make cannon ball for the United States, to mow down his British friends, at $85 a ton. After all it was Mr. Madison's War.
THE FIRST ATTACKS
But if some of the Federalist landowners of Northern New York were not above making a private peace with the British, not so Jacob Brown, brigadier general of militia. While the war depart- ment deliberated and did nothing, Governor Tompkins acted. He ap- preciated that Northern New York was to be one of the main thea- tres of the war and at great expense and with infinite labor heavy guns and muskets were sent northward. The route ordinarily taken was the familiar one of the Mohawk river, Wood creek, the Oswego river and the lake, but occasionally heavy wagons loaded with equip- ment creaked and groaned as they were hauled from Utica to Sackets Harbor and Watertown over the atrocious roads of the period.
In the meantime the first gun of the war had been fired at Sack- ets Harbor. The British frigates, headed by the Royal George, stood off the village, and after a demand for surrender had been refused, proceeded to fire a few bombardments in the general direction of the shore. The Americans had mounted a big naval gun on the shore and returned the British fire so briskly that the frigates soon turned and made for the open lake. The naval gun, which so quickly ended the attack, was affectionately called by the Americans "Old Sow" and now occupies a place of honor in the cemetery at Turin, Lewis county, but how it ever reached there, no one knows.
One day a big, strapping youth at the head of a company of green-jacketed riflemen with jaunty, feathered hats, marched into
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little Sackets Harbor. The first regulars had arrived in the person of Captain Ben Forsythe and his company. Captain Ben, described by one who served under him as "a great, big, good-looking damned fool," soon won a reputation for himself as a raider. He had the habit of appearing dramatically and unexpectedly at Canadian vil- lages along the St. Lawrence and he never went away empty handed. When he raided Brockville he came home with a half hundred pris- oners. Even the matter of fact Tompkins waxed enthusiastic. . "I would like to meet that intrepid and brave officer," he wrote Brown.
But Brown was now in Ogdensburg. Somewhat sulkily he had relinquished the main command to a Gen. Richard Dodge of Oneida county who had appeared with his brigade of Central New York militia. Brown proceeded to let Ogdensburg know there was a war going on. No longer did scarlet-coated officers saunter down Ogdens- burg streets and do their shopping in Ogdensburg stores. Perhaps because they resented the new order of things the British at Pres- cott essayed an attack on the town but Brown had a couple of old cannon which had been captured from Burgoyne at Saratoga and a few, well-directed shots sent the invaders back towards Prescott.
In the course of time the exploits of Brown and Forsythe became known in Washington which was still downcast over the news of the loss of Detroit and the decisive defeat in the Niagara sector. There was rejoicing that at least at one place on the border the Americans were holding their own and suddenly there dawned upon President Madison and his associates the realization that Northern New York was to be one of the main battlegrounds of the war. Commodore Isaac Chauncey, veteran of the war with Tripoli and at one time in command of the frigate, Chesapeake, was ordered to Lake Ontario. The most cautious man in the world when it came to fighting, he was a genius as an organizer. Tompkins returning to Albany from New York on the steamboat was surprised to find forty ship carpenters aboard bound for Sackets Harbor. They told him that marines and sailors were on their way and that ordnance of every description was being rushed northward.
Sleepy Sackets Harbor changed in appearance almost over night. The place was alive with activity. Veteran tars who had sailed the seven seas and who swore strange, foreign oaths swaggered through the streets and boasted of Rodgers, Decatur and Hull. Chauncey
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raised his broad pennant on the masthead of the brig, Oneida, and in forty-five days from the time the trees were cut in Antwerp his ship carpenters had constructed the frigate, Madison. The governor, hearing what was going on, rode northward himself. He found snow falling and a chill wind blowing in from the lake. But he found time to complain to the government because regulars had not been sent on and to complain to the postmaster general because everyone was reading the letters posted at the Sackets postoffice. Then, shivering, he hastened southward.
But the government was awakened at last. All winter long, regular soldiers, muffled to the ears in their great watch coats, trudged northward over snow-filled roads. True they were regulars only in name and not much more reliable than the raw militiamen but at least they did not expect to return home in a month. There was almost a steady procession of sleighs moving towards Water- town from Utica, loaded high with munitions of war. Sackets Har- bor became a military camp of the first magnitude. Artillerymen, their long, blue coats piped with scarlet, jaunty dragoons, infantry- men in the high caps of the period and riflemen in feathered hats and fringed jackets rubbed shoulders with sailors and marines from Marblehead and Boston.
Officers whose names were already becoming household words were stationed there. Gen. Zebulon Pike, already famed as the discoverer of Pike's Peak, marched in from Champlain on snow- shoes at the head of his regiment. The enormous figure of Col. Win- field Scott, who was to command the armies of the United States in another war, became a familiar one about the village. General Covington of Maryland, who was to fall at the head of his men at Chrysler's Farm and whose body still rests in the military cemetery at Sackets Harbor, was there, as were Gen. Boyd, who was to com- mand at York after Pike fell, and Col. Ripley, whose name after the Niagara campaign was to be known to every school boy. Finally came the day when the troops were drawn up stiffly along the shores and as the drums rolled and the cannon boomed in salute, old Maj. Gen. Dearborn, himself, with much grumbling and complaining was helped ashore. The most effective fighting force in all the United States was concentrated at Sackets Harbor.
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But the government made no effort to repair the dilapidated works at Fort Ontario in Oswego, despite the fact that the water highway of the Mohawk, Wood creek, Oneida Lake and the Oswego river was the main route by which munitions could be moved from Albany to Lake Ontario. A few companies of Cayuga county militia under command of Col. George Flemming were stationed there soon after the outbreak of the war and two Oswego schooners, the Julia and the Charles and Ann, later renamed the Governor Tompkins, were taken over by the federal government and converted into war ships. The militia at the old fort was constantly being changed. In June, 1813, a small body of regulars was stationed there. This same month the British frigate, General Wolfe, appeared off Oswego and opened fire. The American batteries responded and for a time there was a brisk cannonade but no damage was done on either side and after a time the British frigate retired.
THE RAID ON OGDENSBURG
In the meantime the prosperous, little village of Ogdensburg had been raided and looted by the British. Brown, who had demanded a brigadier general's commission in the regular army and had been refused, had retired in a huff to his stone house at Brownville. For- sythe, the raider, had succeeded him in command at Ogdensburg. On February 6th, Forsythe at the head of two hundred men, crossed the ice from Morristown, the raider leading one section and Col. Benedict of the St. Lawrence county militia the other, invaded Eliza- bethtown (now Brockville), rescued a number of American prison- ers being held in the jail there, took a few British prisoners, and returned to Ogdensburg, only one American being wounded.
The British at Prescott determined to attack Ogdensburg in re- taliation. The village was poorly defended, as the British well knew. Near the intersection of Ford and the present State street, stood an iron twelve-pounder, one of the cannon captured by the Americans at Saratoga from Burgoyne. On the west side of Ford street, between State and Isabella, was a brass six-pounder. North of Mr. Parish's store was a wooden breastwork, defended by an iron twelve-pounder, another trophy of Burgoyne's surrender, mounted on a sled. On the site, where the lighthouse now stands, was a brass nine-pounder, also mounted on a sled. Back of the wall
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of the old stone fort were two old-fashioned iron cannon and to the left a six-pounder, also mounted on a sled. Forsythe had only his own company and a few militiamen from Canton under command of Captain John Conkey.
Lieut. Col. McDonald commanded the British force which moved over the ice towards Ogdensburg in two columns on the morning of February 22, 1813. There were 800 men in all. One force of 500 men advanced toward Parish's store while the other of 300 men marched toward the old stone garrison. Forsythe's regulars sta- tioned behind the stone walls opened fire on this force, compelling them to retire for the moment. But the other British column had dislodged the Americans on the other side of the Oswegatchie and captured their cannon. Now they could give all their attention to Forsythe and his little band of regulars. The British fired from in back of Mr. Parish's store and the American replied from their stone breastwork. Five Americans were killed and eighteen wounded. The British officials reports admits they lost eight men killed and forty-eight wounded, among them seven officers.
Seeing that further resistance in the face of such overwhelming odds was useless, Forsythe gave the order to retreat through the woods to DePeyster. The British made no attempt to follow but proceeded to loot the town. "Most of the houses in the village were plundered," an Ogdensburg woman wrote at the time. "You will be astonished when I tell you that they were not contented with what the Indians and the soldiers could plunder, but after it was over, the women on the other side came across and took what was left." But the British did not plunder all the houses. They were careful to overlook the houses of prominent Federalists, including that of Judge Ford, a fact which did not escape such administration journals as the Albany Argus.
In the meantime Forsythe had rallied his shattered forces at Kel- logg's Tavern in DePeyster and from there wrote the secretary of war that "we have killed two of the enemy to one of ours killed by them. We want ammunition and some provisions sent to us, also sleighs for the wounded. If you can send three hundred men, all shall be retaken, and Prescott, too, or I will lose my life in the attempt." Joseph Rosseel, Parish's land agent, who hurried from Ogdensburg with the land office papers, found the utmost confusion
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prevailing at De Peyster. "Forsythe and his rifle corps were at Kellogg's and I found the militia at Remington's (Heuvelton)" he writes. "They would not allow me to go any further until I told them my errand. The teamster who drove me was very drunk and never minded the challenge from the pickets placed here and there along the road, which was narrow, I sometimes feeling their rifles touching our bodies. At Kellogg's I found almost all Ogdensburg, soldier and civilian, all pell-mell."
Forsythe, after waiting for reinforcements which did not come, marched his little force of riflemen to Sackets Harbor. He arrived just in time to get action and plenty of it. Stubborn, old Gen. Dear- born, who had been ordered by the secretary of war to attack Kings- ton, decided that instead he would attack York.
The force that Dearborn, sick and complaining, led to York, now Toronto, represented the flower of the American army. Pike was to be the actual commander of the army on the field. Chauncey's new fleet was to transport the troops. It is no part of this story to tell the tale of that expedition, how Forsythe and his riflemen led the advance, how the grape from Chauncey's guns drove the In- dians from the woods and how a bayonet charge by the 15th United States Infantry to the strains of Yankee Doodle finally won the day. But it was a victory dearly won. An exploding British magazine killed or disabled a fifth of the American force, including one the nation could ill spare. Just as the Union Jack came down Pike died. It was a badly shattered and discouraged force which returned to the American side. Dearborn, far behind the lines, had won an empty victory.
Even Sir George Prevost, governor general of Canada, never noted for aggressiveness could not well ignore the fact that the expedition to York had left the important American naval post of Sackets Harbor practically defenseless. On a day late in May he embarked his force of some 800 men on Sir James Yeo's fleet and set sail for the American side, the 24-gun frigate Royal George leading the way. The American scout, the Lady of the Lake, sighted the enemy fleet just in time and put on full sail for Sackets Harbor, firing alarm guns the while. In command of a skeleton force at Sackets was Col. Backus of the dragoons who immediately sent men on fast horses to arouse the militia. From Champion and Rutland
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and Watertown, from Adams, Brownville and Ellisburg came the farmers fresh from the plow. And from Brownville, too, his indig- nities forgotten, came Jacob Brown, glowing with the prospect of a good fight. Relieved, Backus turned over the command, just as the line of British frigates hove too just off the harbor.
THE BATTLE OF SACKETS HARBOR
Even to this day one speaks with respect of the battle of Sackets Harbor. True it was not an important engagement so far as num- bers go but it was important in its effect. For one thing the capture of Sackets Harbor at this time with its rich store of military and naval equipment would have all but decided the outcome of the war. The British defeat on the other hand was a most inspiring thing to the Americans. It made Brown a national figure almost over night. It gave him the opportunity for which he had been waiting. It won him the commission of brigadier general in the regular army which such a short time before he had sought in vain, and eventually it resulted in him being given the command of the armies of the United States.
For a time it looked as though the British would surely succeed in their object. The landing was made without difficulty, the Amer- ican volunteers posted near the shore fleeing in disorder before the steady advance of the scarlet-coated grenadiers of the line. The militia, terrified by the blazing muskets, joined in the rout. The roads to Adams and Sandy Creek were filled with fleeing men seek- ing the safety of their farm homes. Brown cursing himself into a frenzy could do nothing with them. But Backus' dragoons advanc- ing as steadily as on parade were of different calibre. They yielded but slowly before the British assault, stubbornly contesting every inch of the ground. Backus fell almost in Brown's arms. A naval officer thinking all was lost set fire to the navy yard and before it could be extinguished valuable stores were lost. In the meantime the dragoons had taken refuge in the log barracks, while from little Fort Tompkins the artillerymen poured grape into the scarlet ranks.
Time after time the veteran British 110th and 100th regiments charged the American position. As many times they retreated to reform their lines out of the range of musket fire. Far to the rear Sir George Prevost and Sir James Yeo watched the battle through
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glasses. The British loss was heavy. "I do not exaggerate when I tell you that the shot, both of musketry and grape, was falling about us like hail," a British officer wrote. The British Major Gray had fallen, both Prevost and Col. Baynes were convinced that the Amer- ican position could not possibly be taken and, to make matters worse, Brown had succeeded in rallying a few of the militia who were ad- vancing on the British boats. It was enough for Prevost. The re- treat was sounded. Later the governor general was to make an official report in which he said that he had "reluctantly ordered the troops to leave a beaten enemy whom they had driven before them for upwards of three hours" but Col. Baynes, the British field com- mander, was candid enough to admit that the American blockhouses "could not be carried by assault nor reduced by field-pieces had we been provided with them." Brown insisted that had not the British retired "with the utmost precipitation" under the guns of their vessels they would never have returned to Kingston. Some of them never did. Of Prevost's 800 men he lost 259 in killed, wounded and missing, nearly a third of his force.
The Rev. William Case, a Methodist circuit rider of the period, has left an interesting picture of the battle in his diary. True, Elder Case did not arrive at Sackets in time for the fighting. He and an- other preacher were just preparing for a camp meeting in Rutland, ten miles from the harbor, when they heard the thunder of the big guns. The two pastors took only time to kneel in prayer and "to weep aloud" before mounting their horses and starting for the scene of battle. There they arrived just after the British had retreated and when the dead and wounded still lay on the field of battle. "We were then conducted to the remains of Col. Mills of the Albany vol- unteers," writes the elder. "He and the British general, Gray, were laid out together, both brave 'by mutual wounds expired' but now sleep peacefully together." Elder Case was shocked to find that one "Brother Day of Ellisburg," who had apparently made it for home early in the engagement, had fallen in with Indians who shot and scalped him. The good pastor, however, was consoled by the fact that the Indians were interrupted in their gruesome task and in hasty flight left scalp and knife. "His scalp is in the possession of the widow," he writes.
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