XXV. CHAPTER were not obeyed. In fact, that column, instead of advancing, fell back to Urbana. Harrison had been very 1812. sanguine of retaking Detroit before winter, but, having failed in every thing except the destruction of two Potawatomie villages on the St. Joseph's, by an Ohio detachment of 500 mounted men, under Colonel Trimble, ct. 28. he was compelled to suspend operations till the freezing of the swamps might facilitate his advance. Nov. After the discharge of his mutinous troopers, Hopkins undertook another expedition, composed of 1200 infantry and a small party of regulars under Taylor, promoted to the rank of major for his late successful defense of Fort Harrison. They marched up the Wabash to the mouth of the Tippecanoe; but the approach of winter, and the insufficient clothing of the troops, obliged them to return, after breaking up two or three Indian villages. Nor were these Western failures redeemed by better success on the New York frontier. The column under Dearborn's immediate command, composed of Bloomfield's and Chandler's brigades, by this time near 5000 strong, with 3000 militia from New York and Vermont, had pushed up Lake Champlain as far as Plattsburg, and thence to the frontier. But, though Dearborn had pressing orders to strike some blow, and unlimited authority as to expense, and though the road to Montreal was almost bare of troops, little was attempted and still Oct. 19. less was accomplished. Pike led a party across the line, and burned a block-house. Another detachment surprised a British guard stationed at the Indian village of St. Regis, on the St. Lawrence. Some prisoners were made here, the first on land during the war. There was some exultation, also, over a captured flag, said to have been taken by William L. Marcy, then first commencing his public career; but this, the British alleged, was no DEARBORN AND SMYTHE. 363 XXV. 1812. Nov. 17. military standard, only the flag of the Indian agent. CHAPTER The great effort of the campaign was the advance, by night, of a column of 1500 men, against the extreme southern outpost of the enemy, a block-house behind the River La Colle, occupied by a party of British and Indians, who broke through the advance of the assailants and escaped. A second American detachment coming up, was mistaken, in the darkness, by those of the first, for a British party, and a smart firing ensued, with considerable loss. The mistake being discovered, both detachments retreated, leaving their dead behind. The main army soon after retired into winter quarters at Plattsburg and Burlington; the regulars greatly enfeebled by sickness, the militia, as Dearborn alleged, refusing to march into Canada, though the greater part had volunteered to do so. Even the single success in the neigh borhood of St. Regis was counterbalanced by the capture Nov. 23. of an American party at Salmon River, near by. Smythe, meanwhile, on the Niagara frontier, had issued two grandiloquent proclamations, one of which, addressed to the men of New York, had drawn out a body of volunteers for the special purpose of invading Canada. These volunteers were commanded by Porter, late chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, who took this opportunity to redeem his pledge of personal participation in the "war feast." Smythe's force at Black Rock was thus swelled to 4000 effective men, including about 1500 regulars. The advance of the intended invasion consisted of two parties; one, including a body of sailors, just arrived at Buffalo to man the Erie fleet, was sent to surprise a small British post on the opposite Nov. 29. shore; the other, under Colonel Boerstler, was to destroy the bridge over the Chippewa, so as to interrupt the advance of the British from their stations below. Not more XXV. CHAPTER than half of either party succeeded in landing. The post was surprised and taken; but the sailors, on their 1812. return, brought off the boats belonging to the soldiers of their party, whom they supposed to have recrossed already; and these soldiers, thus deprived of the means of crossing, fell into the enemy's hands. Boerstler's party returned without effecting any thing. A third party, under Colonel Winder, sent to look after those left behind, was repulsed with some loss. Dec. 1. Another attack was still talked of, and body of troops was actually embarked; but a council of war advised to give it up, the regulars were so sickly, and the volunteers and militia so insubordinate, those from Pennsylvania deserting without ceremony in large numbers. The campaign ended with a gasconading call on Fort Erie to surrender, and a violent newspaper controversy, followed by a bloodless duel, between Smythe and Porter. Porter accused Smythe of cowardice; Smythe replied that Porter's anxiety for crossing into Canada grew entirely out of his hope of getting rid, in that way, of a losing contract for supplying the troops with provisions. The insubordination of Porter did not lack imitators; and Smythe, after being shot at in the streets, was hissed and hooted from one place to another, till at last he sought refuge in his native Virginia. For these repeated disasters and failures by land, so humbling to the pride of the war party, and ridiculed without mercy in the Federal newspapers, unexpected consolation was found in the exploits of the little despised Federal navy. The ships in commission at the commencement of the war were three first-class frigates, the President, the Constitution, and the United States; the Congress and Essex, frigates of the second class; the John Adams, which, however, was soon laid up as AMERICAN NAVY. 365 XXV. unfit to cruise; the Wasp, and the Hornet, sloops of war; CHAPTER the Argus, Syren, Nautilus, Enterprise, and Vixen, brigs. Three second-class frigates, the Chesapeake, Constella- 1812. tion, and John Adams, were undergoing repairs. These, with a hundred and seventy gun-boats, and three old frigates, too rotten to be repaired, constituted the entire American navy. When war was declared, the ships in commission were all on the coast except the Wasp, then on her way home from France. If concentrated, they might have proved a match for the British squadron, under Captain Broke, then on the American station, which consisted of the Africa 64, an old ship, the Shannon, Guerriere, Belvidera, and Eolus, second-class frigates, and several smaller vessels. But so far from any such scheme, though they were ordered to assemble at New York, a design seems to have been formed, in accordance with the views of the anti-naval party, not to expose the ships to inevitable capture by sending them to sea, but to retain them at home for harbor defense; if not, indeed, to save the expense of their equipments by laying them up in ordinary; a design abandoned only in consequence of the earnest remonstrances of Bainbridge and Stewart. Rodgers lay in the harbor of New York when war was declared, with the President, the Essex, Captain Porter, and the Hornet, Commander Lawrence; and he was joined there three days after by the United States, Captain Decatur, the Congress, Captain Smith, and the Argus, Captain Sinclair. The moment he received official notice of hostilities, he hastened to get to sea with these vessels, except the Essex, which was not quite ready-as much, it would seem, from apprehension of being detained by his own government, as in hope of intercepting the homeward bound Jamaica convoy, understood then to be off the coast. XXV. CHAPTER TWO days out, a British frigate, known afterward to be the Belvidera, was discovered, to which the squadron gave 1812. chase. The President, shooting ahead of her consorts, Jane 23. gained upon the flying frigate, and an exchange of shots took place, not without effect on both sides. By the bursting of one of the President's guns, sixteen of her men were killed or wounded, the forecastle deck blown up, and Rodgers himself badly hurt. The chase still continued, but the British frigate effected her escape, though not without difficulty, and carried to Halifax the first news of the war. Broke, with the Asia and his four frigates, then proceeded to cruise off the port of New York. The Essex had got out a few days before; but the Nautilus, which had reached New York shortly after Rodgers's departure, in attempting to follow the Essex to sea, fell among the British ships and was taken. The Constitution, Captain Hull, as she approached New York from Annapolis, under orders to join Rodgers, fell in also July 29. with the British squadron. After a remarkable chase, protracted through four days; sometimes towed by her boats, for the wind came in light breezes with frequent calms; sometimes forcing herself forward by means of kedge anchors carried ahead, for the chase was mostly over soundings; exhausting, in fact, with the greatest skill and perseverance, every nautical resource, and now and then exchanging shots with the headmost of her pursuers, the Constitution escaped into Boston. Orders were immediately forwarded to Hull to remain there, but he had anticipated their arrival by putting to sea. Rodgers, meanwhile, continued to follow the Jamaica fleet, of which he constantly discovered new traces; but having reached the chops of the British Channel without overtaking it, he stood for Madeira, and thence by way of the Grand Bank for Boston, without capturing any |