The story of the deeds of the American naval sailors on the fresh-water seas during 1814 may very well begin with the actions in the extreme west. The Lake Erie victory of September 10, 1813, had annihilated the British naval power west of Niagara Falls, and no attempt to build another British fleet there has been made since that day. Nevertheless, in 1814, there were British successes afloat on both Lake Huron and Lake Erie that showed at once the resourcefulness and bravery of the British officers and men—that proved they were still able to damage the Yankee cause even if without shipping.

As the reader will remember, Perry, when operating on Lake Erie, was subordinate to, though fortunately not under the immediate supervision of, Captain Chauncey, who made his headquarters at Sackett’s Harbor. It would have been fortunate for the American cause had Perry superseded Chauncey, but he was brought to the Atlantic instead, where circumstances prevented his accomplishing anything, while Captain Arthur Sinclair was sent to take charge of the American fleet west of the Niagara, and that region was made an independent station—Sinclair was responsible only to the Navy Department. Sinclair had first seen active service as a midshipman in the Constellation along with Macdonough, under Truxton, when the French frigate Insurgent was whipped. He next appeared in history as the captain of the brig Argus that sailed with the squadron of Rodgers—a squadron of which the United States was a member, and that was the cruise when the Macedonian was captured. The Argus took five merchantmen and reached port in safety—it was something to the credit of an American captain to bring in his ship when one remembers the overwhelming naval force the British kept on the western side of the Atlantic.

Aside from keeping watch over the enemy’s coast of the great lakes to see that no more war-ships were built there, Sinclair had but one thing to do really worth doing, and that was to recapture the important frontier trading post of Mackinaw that the British had surprised on the morning of July 17, 1812, and with an overwhelming force captured without resistance. The American garrison had not even heard that war had been declared! Besides retaking Mackinaw, the Americans wished to destroy some union posts occupied by the British, and damage the British fur trading company as much as possible, because the company’s officials had been the active and efficient agents of the British Government in securing the aid of the western savages with their scalping-knives for attacks on the American settlements.

With the Niagara, the Caledonia, the Ariel, the Scorpion, and the Tigress, Captain Sinclair sailed into Lake Huron late in July, carrying along nearly one thousand soldiers including some militia.

On July 20, 1814, the fleet reached the trading post of St. Joseph’s, in what may be called the northwest corner of Lake Huron. Everything of value there was destroyed, including a small fort. Then a number of men went on to Sault Sainte Marie, at the head of the rapids, at the outlet of Lake Superior. This was the chief post of the British fur company, and it was burned. The Perseverance, a small vessel belonging to the company, was fired by the company’s agent as he fled. The Americans extinguished the flames, but lost the vessel on the rocks as they were bringing her through the rapids.

Then the fleet sailed to Mackinaw, only to find that the guns of the ships could not reach up to the hill-top fort, and that the number of American troops was inferior to the garrison of the island. An assault was made, but the Americans were repulsed with considerable loss.

Sailing thence, Captain Sinclair went to the Nautawassaga River, where he destroyed a blockhouse, and found the fur company’s schooner Nancy had been burned by the British lieutenant in charge.

Then Sinclair returned to Detroit, leaving the schooner Tigress, Captain Champlin, and the Scorpion, Captain Turner, to blockade the Nautawassaga, for that was the route by which supplies were carried to the British force at Mackinaw. For a time this duty was done efficiently, and food really became scarce at Mackinaw, but blockading is dull work, vigilance was relaxed, and on September 3, 1814, the British began their work of revenging the assaults of the squadron. The watchful British scouts found that the two Yankee schooners were posted fifteen miles or more apart. So a force of twenty sailors and seventy-two soldiers got into four boats and at 9 P.M.—and a very dark night at that—they made a dash at the Tigress. They were within fifty yards of her when first seen. The captain fired his long twenty-four at them, with no effect, and then mustered his crew at the rail to repel boarders. But he had only twenty-eight men to the enemy’s ninety-two. The Americans fought bravely, killed three seamen, and wounded a Lieutenant Bulger, who commanded the enemy, and seven of his soldiers, besides wounding several seamen who were not enumerated by Bulger. Then the Tigress surrendered. The captured Americans were set on shore, and on September 5th, the captured Tigress, with her American colors flying, got within ten yards of the Scorpion when the concealed British soldiers jumped up, poured a volley into the unsuspecting Yankees on the Scorpion, and then carried her by assault. The British authorities strove to magnify this victory to the utmost. They not only conceded that Champlin bravely defended his vessel—the British Adjutant-General published a general order announcing to the world that the vessels “had a crew of three hundred men each.” The vessels “were valued by the proper officers at £16,000 sterling.” So says Allen. It was a lucky affair for the ninety-two.

Meantime a gallant party of British seamen had done still better down at the foot of Lake Erie—rather in the head of Niagara River. Three little American schooners, the Ohio, the Somers, and the Porcupine, were lying off Fort Erie on the Canada side, which was then in the possession of the Americans. That these vessels were lying in perfect security their crews could very well believe, because the British did not have even a row-boat anywhere in that vicinity. Nevertheless, when feeling most secure, two of them were captured and the third escaped only because the current of the river swept the enemy down stream so rapidly that they passed her before ready to attack.

On the night of August 12, 1814, Captain Alexander Dobbs of the British brig Charwell and Lieutenant Coplestone Radcliffe of the British brig Netly, two vessels which were lying at the head of Lake Ontario, started with seventy-five seamen and marines to carry the Charwell’s gig overland to Lake Erie. By relieving one another the men carried the gig twenty miles (from Queenstown to Frenchman’s Creek). There they were joined by a body of Canadian militia, with the aid of whom they carried five big flat-bottomed scows, together with the gig, for eight miles more to the beach of Lake Erie, where all six boats were launched and filled with armed men. So expeditiously was this work done that soon after 11 P.M. this little fleet was within hail of the Yankee schooner Somers. When the anchor watch on her deck asked who they were, they replied:

“Provision boats.”

Provision boats were frequently allowed to pass at night, and the watch on the Somers were entirely deceived. A moment later the British were upon her, a volley of musketry was fired that wounded two of the watch, her cable was cut, and away she went fairly in possession of the enemy.

The Ohio was next in line, and the British were soon around her, but her crew had come tumbling on deck at the sound of the muskets. They made a right good fight, too, considering the circumstances, for Lieutenant Conkling, who commanded the Yankee squadron, Sailing-Master M. Cally, and one seaman were shot down, and four more were wounded, while the British lost Lieutenant Radcliffe and one sailor killed and six wounded. But each of these little vessels had a crew of only thirty all told, and the British force coming on in such a fashion necessarily triumphed.

Certainly this was one of the most gallant actions of the whole war on the lakes; the enterprise of the British officers in getting afloat was most remarkable. But it is nowhere recorded that they got any such a sum of prize-money as was given to the men who, with far less risk and far less enterprise, took the Tigress and Scorpion. Allen says the Porcupine was unmolested because the current swept the conquering host down-stream too rapidly to permit an attack. This is probably true; that is to say, before the Ohio’s crew had surrendered the whole fleet of boats and the two captured vessels had been swept below the Porcupine, and it was impossible to return. The number of militia taking part in the assault is not given.

Although they had nothing worth mention afloat on the upper lakes, the honors there for 1814 were with the British.

On Lake Ontario the contest during 1814 was made with whip-saw, adze, and maul rather than with guns, powder, and shot. The British under the braggart, Sir James Yeo, at Kingston, and the Americans under the over-cautious Captain Chauncey, at Sackett’s Harbor, “had been bending all their energies during the preceding winter in making preparations for securing the command of Lake Ontario.” The side that could get the greater number of guns afloat was certain, under the circumstances, to win. “As soon as one, by building, acquired the superiority, the foe at once retired to port, where he waited until he had built another vessel or two, when he came out, and the other went into port in turn.”

The building at Sackett’s Harbor began in February; two twenty-two-gun brigs were laid down under the names of Jefferson and Jones, and a huge frigate, the Superior, which was at first designed to carry fifty guns, but was lengthened to accommodate sixty-two, when a deserter came in from Kingston and described the largest ship that Sir James Yeo was building. “The Jefferson was launched on April 7th, the Jones on the 10th, and the Superior on May 2d.” She had been eighty days only on the stocks, which shows that Mr. Henry Eckford, the master ship-builder, was a great man in the craft. He did it, too, in spite of sickness in camp that “almost assumed the proportions of a plague.”

Meantime, however, the Canadians over at Kingston had done better in that they had an efficient number of ships ready for sea by the first of May, although it was near the end of the season before they spread their canvas on their big line-of-battle ship, which the Superior was designed to match. By getting his squadron out on the lake first, Sir James Yeo obtained an opportunity of which he failed to take full advantage, as will appear farther on.

But before he sailed he tried to blow some of the Yankee ships at Sackett’s Harbor out of water by means of torpedoes, and this is probably the first effort made by the British to use this class of weapons against the Americans. It was on the night of April 25, 1814. “Lieutenant Dudley, while out with two guard-boats, discovered there three others in Black River Bay. Not answering his hail, he fired. They fled. On searching, six barrels of gunpowder were found, each containing a fuse.” They were slung in pairs by ropes and it was supposed that venturesome sailors intended to swim into the harbor with them and attach them to the vessels afloat and, after firing the fuse, swim away to safety.

To fully understand what a great opportunity Sir James Yeo had when he got his ships out on the lake ahead of Chauncey one must recall the fact that all of the supplies for the Yankee fleet—sails and rigging, guns and ammunition—had to be brought from New York City, and the route included the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers to where Rome now stands, where everything was carried overland to the head of navigation in Wood’s Creek, and thence down that and the Oswego River to Oswego. From that port the supplies had to be conveyed by boats on the lake a distance of sixty miles to Sackett’s Harbor. By commanding the lake, Sir James Yeo might shut off the supplies destined to Sackett’s Harbor. As it happened, he might have done still more. He might have captured a very large part of the supplies that had been forwarded to fit out the new Yankee ships, for these supplies had reached the falls of the Oswego, twelve miles above the lake, when Sir James took Oswego. They had been forwarded when navigation in the Mohawk was good or when the snows made the sledding good on the road alongside the various streams in this inland-water route.

Sir James sailed with six ships from Kingston Harbor on May 4, 1814, and early the next morning he was off Oswego. The port was defended by a wretched little fort mounting three guns in good order, besides one that had lost its trunnions and two that were in the mud. This was garrisoned by a “battalion of less than three hundred men.” The Yankee schooner Growler was in port and had been loaded with seven of the long cannon sent up for Chauncey’s fleet at Sackett’s Harbor.

Seeing the enemy in overwhelming force the naval men sank the schooner and then went to help the garrison of the fort. The attempt of the British to land on the day of their arrival was frustrated by a gale of wind, but on the 6th the fleet was placed to cover the landing and bombard the fort. The Princess Charlotte, of forty-two guns—twenty-six long twenty-fours, two long sixty-eights, and fourteen short thirty-twos; the Montreal, of seven long twenty-fours and eighteen long eighteens, and the Niagara, of two long twelves and twenty short thirty-twos, were placed to fire on the fort, which had only two long twenty-fours, one long twelve, and one long six in place to return the fire. The Charwell and the Star, mounting two long twelves and fourteen short thirty-twos, were ordered to “scour the woods with grape and clear them of militia.” In addition, there were a number of gun-boats, but these amounted to nothing in the attack.

When the four ships with their eighty-nine guns had begun to make the air vibrate around the fort, and the two brigs with their thirty-two guns were making the bark and branches fly from the trees of the forests round about, eight hundred British soldiers were landed under Lieutenant-Colonel Fischer, while two hundred sailors, armed with boarding-pikes, were sent along, under Captain Mulcaster. Covered by the fire of the four ships, mounting eighty-nine guns, and two brigs, mounting thirty-two guns, “the debarkation of the troops” was “very cleverly accomplished,” according to one author; and when this was done “the soldiers and seamen behaved with great gallantry and steadiness, their officers leading them, sword in hand, up a long, steep hill.” In short, by behaving “with great gallantry” this body of 1,000 men, supported by ships carrying one hundred and twenty-one guns, were able to drive Lieutenant-Colonel Mitchell and almost three hundred soldiers and sailors away from his four guns!

But in doing so they lost twenty-two killed and seventy-three wounded, including “the gallant Captain Mulcaster, dangerously.” These figures are from the report of the British Colonel Fischer. The Montreal was “set on fire three times and much cut up in hull, masts; and rigging” by the fire of the two long twenty-fours of the fort, that were worked steadily in spite of the storm of iron fired from the British fleet. The Americans lost six killed, thirty-eight wounded, and twenty-five missing, both of these last falling into the enemy’s hands.”

“Mitchell then fell back unmolested to the falls, where there was a large quantity of stores. But he was not again attacked.” It was here that Sir James Yeo missed his opportunity, for with his superior force he might easily have driven Mitchell still farther away, one would suppose, and at the falls were stored twenty-two long thirty-two pounder cannon, ten long twenty-fours, three short forty-twos, ten big anchor cables, and no end of other material for Chauncey’s squadron, and all of this was within a month or so conveyed to Sackett’s Harbor, though not without some adventure. Sir James made no effort to take it, but contented himself with raising the Growler with her valuable cargo, and destroying the fort and barracks.

After his victory at Oswego, Sir James Yeo refitted and then sailed to Sackett’s Harbor and established a blockade that for a time was not a little annoying to the Americans, for it prevented their bringing in the war material from Oswego. However, in spite of the blockade, Master Commandant M. T. Woolsey volunteered to bring the supplies around by water as far as Stony Creek, which was but three miles from Sackett’s Harbor, whence, in spite of bad roads, they could be easily brought in. Accordingly the big guns and cables were loaded on nineteen barges at Oswego Falls, and at sunset of May 28, 1814, this little fleet rowed boldly out into the lake. The weather was thick, but the water was smooth, and fair progress was made during the night. At sunrise, next morning, the boats were obliged to put into Big Sandy Creek, which was eight miles from the harbor; that is, all but one put into this creek. The nineteenth, loaded with two long twenty-four pounder cannon and a cable, went astray in the fog and one of the British cruisers picked it up.

This seemed on the face of it very hard fortune, but in the end it proved just the reverse. Sir James, having learned from the captured crew all about the rest of the transports, sent two heavy gun-boats, three cutters, and a gig, under Captain Popham, of the Montreal, to capture the whole fleet. The British boat squadron carried one long thirty-two pounder, one short sixty-eight, one short thirty-two, two long twelves, and two brass sixes. The crews aggregated one hundred and eighty men.

It was on the evening of May 29, 1814, that this British flotilla arrived off the mouth of the Big Sandy. They were seen by a resident, Mr. James Otis, who hastened to inform the officers of the American fleet, and in consequence a very neat ambush was arranged.

Meantime the spreading of the news of the British invasion brought reinforcements a-plenty to the Americans—one hundred and twenty riflemen, under Major Appling; a battery of two six-pounders, under Captain George Melvin; a troop of cavalry, under Captain Harris; sixty Oneida Indians, and “some infantry.” Under Woolsey’s orders, the one hundred and twenty riflemen and the sixty Indians were placed in the bush near the first bend in the creek reached in coming up-stream from the lake, while the remainder of the forces took post near the flotilla of transports, to make a fight in case the ambush failed. But the ambush did not fail.

On the morning of the 30th the British rowed into the creek. “In the door of a fisherman’s house (yet standing when I visited the spot in 1860) Popham saw a woman, and ordered her to have breakfast ready for himself and officers when they should return. She knew how well Woolsey was prepared to receive his pursuers, and said, significantly:

“‘You’ll find breakfast ready up the creek.’”

So says Lossing. “The British passed on in jolly mood up the creek”—they were jolly until they had arrived within a short distance of the first bend in the creek. Here the Yankee transports were first seen, some distance above, and the British opened fire on the transports with solid shot, while grape and canister were fired into the brush on both sides of the creek. Having by the grape-discharges cleared the brush, as they supposed, the British landed a flanking party on each side of the creek, and these started marching up while the boats continued firing solid shot at the Yankee transports.

The opportunity of the Americans had now come, and “so furious and unexpected was the assault on front, flank, and rear that the British surrendered within ten minutes.” The British “force was captured with hardly any resistance.” This seems the more remarkable when it is known that the sixty Oneida Indians had been frightened away by the grape of the British and the fight was made by Appling’s one hundred and twenty riflemen only. Captain Popham, commanding the British forces, reported eighteen of his men killed and fifty dangerously wounded; but Appling reported only fourteen British killed and twenty-eight wounded. This discrepancy is noteworthy; it is a right lonesome discrepancy, because rarely have the British acknowledged a greater loss than that the Americans credited them with.

The Americans had one man and one Indian slightly wounded. The number of British captured was one hundred and thirty-three aside from the wounded. The advantage of this victory, of course, far outweighed the loss of the one transport that led to the invasion.

This blow disheartened Sir James Yeo so much that on June 6th he raised the blockade of Sackett’s Harbor.

Thereafter neither the British nor the Yankee commander did anything in the way of fighting, though both were very busy superintending ship-carpenters. Sir James was eager to get a liner afloat, that was to carry one hundred guns, while Chauncey was working over his sixty-two-gun frigate. Sir James had a force afloat that was stronger than the Yankee force, but once the Yankee Superior was in commission, the preponderance would be the other way, and Sir James (like Chauncey) was not going to take any chances in battle unless he had the greater force. For six weeks the two squadrons lay idly in port.

Meantime, however, Lieutenant F. H. Gregory of the American navy engaged in “two very gallant cutting-out expeditions.” On June 16th, with twenty-two men in three row-boats, he started away across the lake to intercept some of the enemy’s provision-schooners, and on the 19th fell in with the British gun-boat Blacksnake armed with a short eighteen-pounder and carrying eighteen men. Gregory at once carried the boat by assault without the loss of a man. He burned the boat and carried the men into Sackett’s Harbor; and then on July 1st he descended on Presqu’ Isle, where he “burned a fourteen-gun schooner just ready for launching” and once more escaped without loss.

With these two incidents only to mar the calm, the time passed until July 31st, when Chauncey got clear of the port. He now had a fleet of eight vessels, of which the largest (the Superior) carried a crew of five hundred men, with thirty long thirty-two pounders, two long twenty-fours, and twenty-six short forty-twos. The smallest, a brig, the Oneida, carried one hundred men and was armed with two long twelves and fourteen short twenty-fours. As a whole the squadron measured 5,941 tons, carried 1,870 men, and mounted two hundred and twenty-eight guns that fired 3,352 pounds of metal at a broadside. Sir James Yeo had as many ships as Chauncey, but the best of the British squadron carried thirty-two long twenty-fours, four short sixty-eights, and twenty short thirty-twos—an inferior armament to that of the Yankee Superior; and the whole Yankee force is fairly said to be as six to five in comparison with the British. Sir James conceded this superiority of force, “which would certainly preclude Yeo from advancing any claims to superiority in skill or courage.” So there was no fight. Perhaps it should be added that Chauncey was dangerously sick during July and had to be carried on board ship when he sailed, on July 31st.

When Chauncey got away from port he sailed up to the head of the lake. The British brig Magnet was found in the Niagara River, and her crew burned her and fled ashore when the Yankee Sylph, a brig of slightly superior force, was sent in to attack her. Leaving three brigs to blockade the Niagara, Chauncey sent the brig Jones cruising alongshore between Sackett’s Harbor and Oswego, and with his four ships went to Kingston and blockaded Sir James Yeo’s four ships that were in the port. The American force was “superior by about fifteen per cent., and Sir James Yeo very properly declined to fight with the odds against him although it was a nicer calculation than British commanders had been accustomed to enter into.”

But in blockading Kingston Chauncey refused to co-operate with the American army in a well-considered plan for invading Canada, and this refusal was all, as it now appears, that stood in the way of capturing Kingston and the British fleet. He wrote, when asked to co-operate in the invasion of Canada, that he thought the request was a “sinister attempt to render us subordinate to, or an appendage of, the army.” Then, in an attempt to pose as a gallant knight, he writes that, “to deprive the enemy of an apology for not meeting me, I have sent ashore four guns from the Superior, to reduce her armor in number to an equality with the Prince Regent’s, yielding the advantage of their sixty-eight pounders.” He “yielded the advantage” of the sixty-eights but retained the advantage of long thirty-twos over long twenty-fours, something he was dishonest enough to omit mentioning.

Save for the transportation of 3,000 soldiers from Sackett’s Harbor to the mouth of the Genesee River Chauncey did nothing but blockade Kingston until the liner of one hundred guns (called the St. Lawrence) was completed there. Then he retired to Sackett’s Harbor.

The young officers under him were apparently worthy of an efficient commander—of one who, like Perry, would say, “To windward or leeward they shall fight to-day;” for when Lieutenant Gregory, with Midshipman Hart and six men, while scouting in Kingston Harbor, fell in with two barges and thirty men, the thirty men conquered only after they had killed Hart and wounded the lieutenant and four of his six men. And then, just before the close of navigation Midshipman McGowan headed an expedition into Kingston to blow up the new British liner with a torpedo. This expedition fell in with two of the enemy’s guard-boats, and captured both of them. It is not unlikely that they would have succeeded in destroying the liner but for the fact that she was not in the harbor.

Sir James Yeo got out of Kingston with his new liner and the rest of his squadron on October 15th and assisted the British army on the Niagara frontier, until November 21st, when the ice ended navigation.

The Americans in the January following began the building of two line-of-battle ships to regain the control of Lake Ontario which Sir James Yeo had gained with his liner St. Lawrence. One keel was stretched at Sackett’s Harbor—a keel that was 183 feet 7½ inches long. She was to be 214 feet long over all, 56 feet wide and 47 feet deep, with a draught of 27 feet. She was pierced for one hundred and twenty guns, “eighteens and forty-fours.” The work was pushed with extraordinary rapidity, but before she was finished news of the peace came, so a house was built over her and thereafter she stood on the keel-blocks as a spectacle for tourists for about eighty years, when her rotten condition made it necessary to burn her. She was called the New Orleans. The other, called the Chippewa, was laid down farther up the bay, but very little work was done there.

On the whole, the British ships controlled Lake Ontario during four months in 1814, while the Americans held it two and a half. On the other hand, the British loss in men was about three hundred to the American loss of eighty. And the British lost a fourteen-gun brig, a ten-gun schooner (burned when ready for launching), three gun-boats, three cutters, and a gig. The Americans lost the schooner Growler, loaded with seven guns; a transport barge loaded with two guns and a hawser, a gig, and the four cannon destroyed at the Oswego fight. The story of the war on Lake Ontario in 1814 is not of the stirring kind, but the Americans certainly had the best of it.