Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 11

The Battle of Châteauguay

by Victor J. H. Suthren

Events To The War's Conclusion, 1814

The main American column under James Wilkinson was descending upon Montreal at the time of Hampton's withdrawal, and still posed the most serious threat to Lower Canada. Upper Canadian defence had been shaken by the victory Perry had scored on Lake Erie, and the subsequent rout of Procter by American forces under William Harrison on the Thames. A successful attack by Wilkinson would have made the whole Canadian defence situation serious.

As fortune had it, a force of 800 men slipped successfully out of Kingston under Colonel Morrison and raced to overtake Wilkinson's army, hoping for an opportunity to strike. This opportunity presented itself finally at Crysler's Farm on 11 November 1813. An uncoordinated American attack against the tight, disciplined line of Morrison's 800 came to no avail, and Wilkinson, battling illness, used the next day's news of Hampton's withdrawal to call off the campaign. A council of war sent his army back to winter quarters in the United States.

The disasters in the west were softened somewhat for the British by the good luck in the east; to this was added the opportunity which now presented itself in the Niagara region, left by Wilkinson under little more than a militia guard. Swift action by Lieutenant General Drummond and Colonel Murray saw British troops not only retake Fort George, but cross to seize Fort Niagara at bayonet point. Passions were high as the year drew to a close. The American garrison holding Fort George had put the Canadian village of Newark to the torch while retreating, and Drummond's force carried their own torches in retaliation, capturing and destroying Fort Schlosser, Black Rock, Lewiston, and Buffalo. The year 1813 ended with the real American victories at the Thames and on Lake Erie obscured by the failures of Wilkinson and Hampton, and finally overshadowed by the destructive British sweep along the Niagara frontier.

As the 1814 season approached, there was ground for optimism in the Canadas. Almost as Procter fled from the Thames and Morrison and de Salaberry stood firm further east, the Grande Armée of Napoleon was being decimated at Leipzig (16-19 October 1813). The might of Britain and her European allies combined with the exhaustion and disillusionment of the French brought about Napoleon's abdication in April, 1814. The British government informed Prevost that there was every intention of releasing veteran British regular units to Canada, and of undertaking an aggressive policy against the United States. Not only would the ruinous coastal blockade be tightened but the British War Office formulated a plan of broad dimensions. An invasion south through the Champlain route was intended to encourage the already strong New England aversion to continuance of the war, and amphibious forces were to direct punitive raids along the eastern seaboard culminating in the seizure and blockade of New Orleans and the Mississippi. The Duke of Wellington frankly stated he knew of no particular manner in which a single attack could injure the far-flung republic and viewed the plans with some pessimism; the War Office was determined to press on.

American feelings were mixed. The British coastal blockade was enormously successful and promised to become even more formidable. The impending arrival of veteran British regular units into Canada posed only trouble for Secretary Armstrong and his inconsistent forces, and produced a sense of desperation.

A cause for American pride, however, was the rapidly developing capacity of their troops in the field. Younger men such as Winfield Scott and Izard occupied senior command positions. Scott himself relentlessly drilled his own brigade on the Niagara frontier over the 1813-14 winter until it was the equal in quality of anything the British could field. The mood as the snows began to melt was one of urgency. The American army had new tools to do the job; the question was whether the job could be done before Wellington's veterans began pouring in numbers from the ships at Quebec.

June became the critical month. Aside from the naval construction race on Lake Ontario, little was accomplished in the early spring by either side, each suffering from financial and manpower over-extension. The American army in the Niagara region slowly built its strength toward a June invasion across the river. Prevost's European reinforcements did not begin arriving until June. Both sides contented themselves with brief raids and depredations along the Montreal-Niagara frontier, and unimportant action in the remote west.

In July, the United States moved decisively across the Niagara River. Fort Erie fell to General Brown's new army, and the British-Canadian defending forces at Fort George, under Riall, marched south to engage them. The result was a vindication of Winfield Scott's tireless training, as his brigade and the other American units fought a steady battle that forced Riall to retire on 4 July at Chippawa. Only lack of co-operation from the American naval forces on Lake Ontario prevented Brown from making a deep advance into Upper Canada. As it was, he was forced to withdraw while the British regrouped, both to pursue him and menace his American depots. Brown turned and threw his troops against the British at Lundy's Lane on 25 July. This indecisive but savage engagement ended with British possession of the battlefield and the withdrawal of Brown's tattered force to Fort Erie. Here he resisted a determined British assault until 21 September when the latter finally retired. Both sides suffered heavily from this engagement, perhaps the most hotly contested confrontation of the war. Although Izard arrived with reinforcements from Plattsburg, he could accomplish little without naval help, and merely carried out raids until the final evacuation and destruction of Fort Erie in November.

Meanwhile, the invasion down the Champlain valley had been undertaken at Prevost's decision, after the British government had given him the choice of Sackets Harbor or Plattsburg. Izard had fortified the latter before being sent protesting to the Niagara frontier.

The American naval inadequacy on the lake had been rectified by the efforts of Thomas Macdonough, U.S.N.; nonetheless, when Prevost crossed the border with a well-trained army of 15,000 on 3 September, there was little standing in his way. Prevost's hesitancy caused him to halt at Plattsburg to await a naval victory on the lake beside him. When Macdonough defeated Downie's incompletely prepared British lake force and his own attack scheme ran into initial difficulties, Prevost retired to Montreal, to the great disgust of the veterans he led.

The British had been putting pressure on the eastern seaboard, where Robert Ross's force had burned public buildings in Washington on 24 August. The one gleam in an otherwise gloomy picture for the Americans was the Fort McHenry bombardment at Baltimore, where the surviving flagstaff inspired Francis Scott Key three days after Prevost's retreat from Plattsburg. As fall and winter approached, nothing permanent has been achieved in any northern theatre. The one remaining major military operation of the war, the assault on New Orleans, climaxed on 8 January 1815 with the appalling loss of over 2,000 British regulars before the cotton bale palisades of Andrew Jackson's defenders.

The American government, deep in the gloom of March 1813, had agreed to an offer from the czar of Russia to mediate, and had hurried a negotiating team to St. Petersburg to conclude peace. Britain declined comment until the new year, 1814, when, while rejecting the czar's offer of mediation, she offered to negotiate directly with the United States. It was not until after Napoleon's defeat that the meeting place of Ghent was agreed to, by which time British public opinion was calling for punishment of the United States rather than negotiation. The negotiations commenced in August, with British demands being somewhat severe. As time, however, brought news of Prevost's retirement, the inconclusive coastal expeditions and growing uneasiness in Europe, these demands were eased. Moderation was further supported by the Duke of Wellington, who argued against excessive British claims.

The belligerency of both sides faded as Christmas approached, and the earnest desire of both parties to conclude matters produced a peace settlement on Christmas Eve, 1814, based on status quo ante bellum. None of the original problems which had led to the war were resolved. The neutrality of the settlement left resolution of the differences which caused the war to the years ahead.

Some historians speculate that the news of the British disaster at New Orleans, which arrived too late to influence the Treaty of Ghent, might have hardened the American position. Yet this position was fairly uncomplicated from the beginning; peace without any concessions. What it might have done was speed British determination to end the affair. This, too, was already present. Meanwhile the Canadian colonies realized that their existence had been preserved in no small part by their own work and determination.