Читать книгу THEODORE ROOSEVELT Boxed Set - Henry Cabot Lodge - Страница 27

Table of Contents

PRELIMINARY.—The combatants starting nearly on an equality—Difficulties of creating a naval force—Difficulty of comparing the force of the rival squadrons—Meagreness of the published accounts—Unreliability of James—ONTARIO—Extraordinary nature of the American squadron—Canadian squadron forming only a kind of water militia—Sackett's Harbor feebly attacked by Commodore Earle—Commodore Chauncy bombards York—ERIE—Lieutenant Elliott captures the Detroit and Caledonia—Unsuccessful expedition of Lieutenant Angus.

At the time we are treating of, the State of Maine was so sparsely settled, and covered with such a dense growth of forest, that it was practically impossible for either of the contending parties to advance an army through its territory. A continuation of the same wooded and mountainous district protected the northern parts of Vermont and New Hampshire, while in New York the Adirondack region was an impenetrable wilderness. It thus came about that the northern boundary was formed, for military purposes, by Lake Huron, Lake Erie, the Niagara, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence, and, after an interval, by Lake Champlain. The road into the States by the latter ran close along shore, and without a naval force the invader would be wholly unable to protect his flanks, and would probably have his communications cut. This lake, however, was almost wholly within the United States, and did not become of importance till toward the end of the war. Upon it were two American gun-boats, regularly officered and manned, and for such smooth water sufficiently effective vessels.

What was at that time the western part of the northern frontier became the main theatre of military operations, and as it presented largely a water front, a naval force was an indispensable adjunct, the command of the lakes being of the utmost importance. As these lakes were fitted for the manoeuvring of ships of the largest size, the operations upon them were of the same nature as those on the ocean, and properly belong to naval and not to military history. But while on the ocean America started with too few ships to enable her really to do any serious harm to her antagonist, on the inland waters the two sides began very nearly on an equality. The chief regular forces either belligerent possessed were on Lake Ontario. Here the United States had a man-of-war brig, the Oneida, of 240 tons, carrying 16 24-pound carronades, manned by experienced seamen, and commanded by Lieutenant M. T. Woolsey. Great Britain possessed the Royal George, 22, Prince Regent, 16, Earl of Moira, 14, Gloucester, 10, Seneca, 8, and Simco, 8, all under the command of a Commodore Earle; but though this force was so much the more powerful it was very inefficient, not being considered as belonging to the regular navy, the sailors being undisciplined, and the officers totally without experience, never having been really trained in the British service. From these causes it resulted that the struggle on the lakes was to be a work as much of creating as of using a navy. On the seaboard success came to those who made best use of the ships that had already been built; on the lakes the real contest lay in the building. And building an inland navy was no easy task. The country around the lakes, especially on the south side, was still very sparsely settled, and all the American naval supplies had to be brought from the seaboard cities through the valley of the Mohawk. There was no canal or other means of communication, except very poor roads intermittently relieved by transportation on the Mohawk and on Oneida Lake, when they were navigable. Supplies were thus brought up at an enormous cost, with tedious delays and great difficulty; and bad weather put a stop to all travel. Very little indeed, beyond timber, could be procured at the stations on the lakes. Still a few scattered villages and small towns had grown up on the shores, whose inhabitants were largely engaged in the carrying trade. The vessels used for the purpose were generally small sloops or schooners, swift and fairly good sailors, but very shallow and not fitted for rough weather. The frontiersmen themselves, whether Canadian or American, were bold, hardy seamen, and when properly trained and led made excellent man-of-war's men; but on the American side they were too few in number, and too untrained to be made use of, and the seamen had to come from the coast. But the Canadian shores had been settled longer, the inhabitants were more numerous, and by means of the St. Lawrence the country was easy of access to Great Britain; so that the seat of war, as regards getting naval supplies, and even men, was nearer to Great Britain than to us. Our enemies also possessed in addition to the squadron on Lake Ontario another on Lake Erie, consisting of the Queen Charlotte, 17, Lady Prevost, 13, Hunter, 10, Caledonia, 2, Little Belt, 2, and Chippeway, 2. These two squadrons furnished training schools for some five hundred Canadian seamen, whom a short course of discipline under experienced officers sufficed to render as good men as their British friends or American foes. Very few British seamen ever reached Lake Erie (according to James, not over fifty); but on Lake Ontario, and afterward on Lake Champlain, they formed the bulk of the crews, "picked seamen, sent out by government expressly for service on the Canada lakes." 141 As the contrary has sometimes been asserted it may be as well to mention that Admiral Codrington states that no want of seamen contributed to the British disasters on the lakes, as their sea-ships at Quebec had men drafted from them for that service till their crews were utterly depleted. 142 I am bound to state that while I think that on the ocean our sailors showed themselves superior to their opponents, especially in gun practice, on the lakes the men of the rival fleets were as evenly matched, in skill and courage, as could well be. The difference, when there was any, appeared in the officers, and, above all, in the builders; which was the more creditable to us, as in the beginning we were handicapped by the fact that the British already had a considerable number of war vessels, while we had but one.

The Falls of Niagara interrupt navigation between Erie and Ontario; so there were three independent centres of naval operations on the northern frontier. The first was on Lake Champlain, where only the Americans possessed any force, and, singularly enough, this was the only place where the British showed more enterprise in ship-building than we did. Next came Lake Ontario, where both sides made their greatest efforts, but where the result was indecisive, though the balance of success was slightly inclined toward us. Our naval station was at Sackett's Harbor; that of our foes at Kingston. The third field of operations was Lake Erie and the waters above it. Here both sides showed equal daring and skill in the fighting, and our advantage must be ascribed to the energy and success with which we built and equipped vessels. Originally we had no force at all on these waters, while several vessels were opposed to us. It is a matter of wonder that the British and Canadian governments should have been so supine as to permit their existing force to go badly armed, and so unenterprising as to build but one additional ship, when they could easily have preserved their superiority.

It is very difficult to give a full and fair account of the lake campaigns. The inland navies were created especially for the war, and, after it were allowed to decay, so that the records of the tonnage, armament, and crews are hard to get at. Of course, where everything had to be created, the services could not have the regular character of those on the ocean. The vessels employed were of widely different kinds, and this often renders it almost impossible to correctly estimate the relative force of two opposing squadrons. While the Americans were building their lake navy, they, as makeshifts, made use of some ordinary merchant schooners, which were purchased and fitted up with one or two long, heavy guns each. These gun-vessels had no quarters, and suffered under all the other disadvantages which make a merchant vessel inferior to a regularly constructed man-of-war. The chief trouble was that in a heavy sea they had a strong tendency to capsize, and were so unsteady that the guns could not be aimed when any wind was blowing. Now, if a few of these schooners, mounting long 32's, encountered a couple of man-of-war brigs, armed with carronades, which side was strongest? In smooth water the schooners had the advantage, and in rough weather they were completely at the mercy of the brigs; so that it would be very hard to get at the true worth of such a contest, as each side would be tolerably sure to insist that the weather was such as to give a great advantage to the other. In all the battles and skirmishes on Champlain. Erie, and Huron, at least there was no room left for doubt as to who were the victors. But on Lake Ontario there was never any decisive struggle, and whenever an encounter occurred, each commodore always claimed that his adversary had "declined the combat" though "much superior in strength." It is, of course, almost impossible to rind out which really did decline the combat, for the official letters flatly contradict each other; and it is often almost as difficult to discover where the superiority in force lay, when the fleets differed so widely in character as was the case in 1813. Then Commodore Chauncy's squadron consisted largely of schooners; their long, heavy guns made his total foot up in a very imposing manner, and similar gun-vessels did very good work on Lake Erie; so Commodore Yeo, and more especially Commodore Yeo's admirers, exalted these schooners to the skies, and conveyed the impression that they were most formidable craft, by means of which Chauncy ought to have won great victories. Yet when Yeo captured two of them he refused to let them even cruise with his fleet, and they were sent back to act as coast gun-boats and transports, which certainly would not have been done had they been fitted to render any effectual assistance. Again, one night a squall came on and the two largest schooners went to the bottom, which did not tend to increase the confidence felt in the others. So there can be no doubt that in all but very smooth water the schooners could almost be counted out of the fight. Then the question arises in any given case, was the water smooth? And the testimony is as conflicting as ever.

It is not too easy to reconcile the official letters of the commanders, and it is still harder to get at the truth from either the American or British histories. Cooper is very inexact, and, moreover, paints every thing couleur de rose, paying no attention to the British side of the question, and distributing so much praise to everybody that one is at a loss to know where it really belongs. Still, he is very useful, for he lived at the time of the events he narrates, and could get much information about them at first hand, from the actors themselves. James is almost the only British authority on the subject; but he is not nearly as reliable as when dealing with the ocean contests, most of this part of his work being taken up with a succession of acrid soliloquies on the moral defects of the American character. The British records for this extraordinary service on the lakes were not at all carefully kept, and so James is not hampered by the necessity of adhering more or less closely to official documents, but lets his imagination run loose. On the ocean and seaboard his account of the British force can generally be relied upon; but on the lakes his authority is questionable in every thing relating either to friends or foes. This is the more exasperating because it is done wilfully, when, if he had chosen, he could have written an invaluable history; he must often have known the truth when, as a matter of preference, he chose either to suppress or alter it. Thus he ignores all the small "cutting out" expeditions in which the Americans were successful, and where one would like to hear the British side. For example, Captain Yeo captured two schooners, the Julia and Growler, but Chauncy recaptured both. We have the American account of this recapture in full, but James does not even hint at it, and blandly puts down both vessels in the total "American loss" at the end of his smaller work. Worse still, when the Growler again changed hands, he counts it in again, in the total, as if it were an entirely different boat, although he invariably rules out of the American list all recaptured vessels. A more serious perversion of facts are his statements about comparative tonnage. This was at that time measured arbitrarily, the depth of hold being estimated at half the breadth of beam; and the tonnage of our lake vessels was put down exactly as if they were regular ocean cruisers of the same dimensions in length and breadth. But on these inland seas the vessels really did not draw more than half as much water as on the ocean, and the depth would of course be much less. James, in comparing the tonnage, gives that of the Americans as if they were regular ocean ships, but in the case of the British vessels, carefully allows for their shallowness, although professing to treat the two classes in the same way; and thus he makes out a most striking and purely imaginary difference. The best example is furnished by his accounts of the fleets on Lake Erie. The captured vessels were appraised by two captains and the ship-builder, Mr. Henry Eckford; their tonnage being computed precisely as the tonnage of the American vessels. The appraisement was recorded in the Navy Department, and was first made public by Cooper, so that it could not have been done for effect. Thus measured it was found that the tonnage was in round numbers as follows: Detroit, 490 tons; Queen Charlotte, 400; Lady Prevost, 230; Hunter, 180; Little Belt, 90; Chippeway, 70. James makes them measure respectively 305, 280, 120, 74, 54, and 32 tons, but carefully gives the American ships the regular sea tonnage. So also he habitually deducts about 25 percent, from the real number of men on board the British ships; as regards Lake Erie he contradicts himself so much that he does not need to be exposed from outside sources. But the most glaring and least excusable misstatements are made as to the battle of Lake Champlain, where he gives the American as greatly exceeding the British force. He reaches this conclusion by the most marvellous series of garblings and misstatements. First, he says that the Confiance and the Saratoga were of nearly equal tonnage. The Confiance being captured was placed on our naval lists, where for years she ranked as a 36-gun frigate, while the Saratoga ranked among the 24-gun corvettes; and by actual measurement the former was half as large again as the latter. He gives the Confiance but 270 men; one of her officers, in a letter published in the London Naval Chronicle, 143 gives her over 300; more than that number of dead and prisoners were taken out of her. He misstates the calibre of her guns, and counts out two of them because they were used through the bow-ports; whereas, from the method in which she made her attack, these would have been peculiarly effective. The guns are given accurately by Cooper, on the authority of an officer 144 who was on board the Confiance within 15 minutes after the Linnet struck, and who was in charge of her for two months.

Then James states that there were but 10 British gallies, while Sir George Prevost's official account, as well as all the American authorities, state the number to be 12. He says that the Finch grounded opposite an American battery before the engagement began, while in reality it was an hour afterward, and because she had been disabled by the shot of the American fleet. The gallies were largely manned by Canadians, and James, anxious to put the blame on these rather than the British, says that they acted in the most cowardly way, whereas in reality they caused the Americans more trouble than Downie's smaller sailing vessels did. His account of the armament of these vessels differs widely from the official reports. He gives the Linnet and Chubb a smaller number of men than the number of prisoners that were actually taken out of them, not including the dead. Even misstating Downie's force in guns, underestimating the number of his men, and leaving out two of his gun-boats, did not content James; and to make the figures show a proper disproportion, he says (vol. vi, p. 504) that he shall exclude the Finch from the estimate, because she grounded, and half of the gun-boats, because he does not think they acted bravely. Even were these assertions true, it would be quite as logical for an American writer to put the Chesapeake's crew down as only 200, and say he should exclude the other men from the estimate because they flinched; and to exclude all the guns that were disabled by shot, would be no worse than to exclude the Finch. James' manipulation of the figures is a really curious piece of audacity. Naturally, subsequent British historians have followed him without inquiry. James' account of this battle, alone, amply justifies our rejecting his narrative entirely, as far as affairs on the lakes go, whenever it conflicts with any other statement, British or American. Even when it does not conflict, it must be followed with extreme caution, for whenever he goes into figures the only thing certain about them is that they are wrong. He gives no details at all of most of the general actions. Of these, however, we already possess excellent accounts, the best being those in the "Manual of Naval Tactics," by Commander J. H. Ward, U. S. N. (1859), and in Lossing's "Field-Book of the War of 1812," and Cooper's "Naval History." The chief difficulty occurs in connection with matters on Lake Ontario, 145 where I have been obliged to have recourse to a perfect patchwork of authors and even newspapers, for the details, using Niles' Register and James as mutual correctives. The armaments and equipments being so irregular I have not, as in other cases, made any allowance for the short weight of the Americans shot, as here the British may have suffered under a similar disadvantage; and it may be as well to keep in mind that on these inland waters the seamen of the two navies seem to have been as evenly matched in courage and skill as was possible. They were of exactly the same stock, with the sole exception that among and under, but entirely distinct from, the Canadian-English, fought the descendants of the conquered Canadian-French; and even these had been trained by Englishmen, were led by English captains, fought on ships built by English gold, and with English weapons and discipline.

ON LAKE ONTARIO.

There being, as already explained, three independent centres of inland naval operations, the events at each will be considered separately.

At the opening of the war Lieutenant Woolsey, with the Oneida, was stationed at Sackett's Harbor, which was protected at the entrance by a small fort with a battery composed of one long 32. The Canadian squadron of six ships, mounting nearly 80 guns, was of course too strong to be meddled with. Indeed, had the Royal George, 22, the largest vessel, been commanded by a regular British sea-officer, she would have been perfectly competent to take both the Oneida and Sackett's Harbor; but before the Canadian commodore, Earle, made up his mind to attack, Lieut. Woolsey had time to make one or two short cruises, doing some damage among the merchant vessels of the enemy.

On the 19th of July Earle's ships appeared off the Harbor; the Oneida was such a dull sailor that it was useless for her to try to escape, so she was hauled up under a bank where she raked the entrance, and her off guns landed and mounted on the shore, while Lieut. Woolsey took charge of the "battery," or long 32, in the fort. The latter was the only gun that was of much use, for after a desultory cannonade of about an hour, Earle withdrew, having suffered very little damage, inflicted none at all, and proved himself and his subordinates to be grossly incompetent.

Acting under orders, Lieut. Woolsey now set about procuring merchant schooners to be fitted and used as gun-vessels until more regular cruisers could be built. A captured British schooner was christened the Julia, armed with a long 32 and two 6's, manned with 30 men, under Lieut. Henry Wells, and sent down to Ogdensburg. "On her way thither she encountered and actually beat off, without losing a man, the Moira, of 14, and Gloucester, of 10 guns." 146 Five other schooners were also purchased; the Hamilton, of 10 guns, being the largest, while the other four, the Governor Tompkins, Growler, Conquest, and Pert had but 11 pieces between them. Nothing is more difficult than to exactly describe the armaments of the smaller lake vessels. The American schooners were mere makeshifts, and their guns were frequently changed, 147 as soon as they could be dispensed with they were laid up, or sold, and forgotten.

It was even worse with the British, who manifested the most indefatigable industry in intermittently changing the armament, rig, and name of almost every vessel, and, the records being very loosely kept, it is hard to find what was the force at any one time. A vessel which in one conflict was armed with long 18's, in the next would have replaced some of them with 68-pound carronades; or, beginning life as a ship, she would do most of her work as a schooner, and be captured as a brig, changing her name even oftener than any thing else.

On the first of September Commodore Isaac Chauncy was appointed commander of the forces on the lakes (except of those on Lake Champlain), and he at once bent his energies to preparing an effective flotilla. A large party of ship-carpenters were immediately despatched to the Harbor; and they were soon followed by about a hundred officers and seamen, with guns, stores, etc. The keel of a ship to mount 24 32-pound carronades, and to be called the Madison, was laid down, and she was launched on the 26th of November, just when navigation had closed on account of the ice. Late in the autumn, four more schooners were purchased, and named the Ontario, Scourge, Fair American, and Asp, but these were hardly used until the following spring. The cruising force of the Americans was composed solely of the Oneida and the six schooners first mentioned. The British squadron was of nearly double this strength, and had it been officered and trained as it was during the ensuing summer, the Americans could not have stirred out of port. But as it was, it merely served as a kind of water militia, the very sailors, who subsequently did well, being then almost useless, and unable to oppose their well-disciplined foes, though the latter were so inferior in number and force. For the reason that it was thus practically a contest of regulars against militia, I shall not give numerical comparisons of the skirmishes in the autumn of 1812, and shall touch on them but slightly. They teach the old lesson that, whether by sea or land, a small, well-officered, and well-trained force, can not, except very rarely, be resisted by a greater number of mere militia; and that in the end it is true economy to have the regular force prepared beforehand, without waiting until we have been forced to prepare it by the disasters happening to the irregulars. The Canadian seamen behaved badly, but no worse than the American land-forces did at the same time; later, under regular training, both nations retrieved their reputations.

Commodore Chauncy arrived at Sackett's Harbor in October, and appeared on the lake on Nov. 8th, in the Oneida. Lieutenant Woolsey, with the six schooners Conquest, Lieutenant Elliott; Hamilton, Lieutenant McPherson; Tompkins, Lieutenant Brown; Pert, Sailing-master Arundel; Julia, Sailing-master Trant; Growler, Sailing-master Mix. The Canadian vessels were engaged in conveying supplies from the westward. Commodore Chauncy discovered the Royal George off the False Duck Islands, and chased her under the batteries of Kingston, on the 9th. Kingston was too well defended to be taken by such a force as Chauncy's; but the latter decided to make a reconnaissance, to discover the enemy's means of defence and see if it was possible to lay the Royal George aboard. At 3 P.M. the attack was made. The Hamilton and Tompkins were absent chasing, and did not arrive until the fighting had begun. The other four gun-boats, Conquest, Julia, Pert, and Growler, led, in the order named, to open the attack with their heavy guns, and prepare the way for the Oneida, which followed. At the third discharge the Pert's gun burst, putting her nearly hors de combat, badly wounding her gallant commander, Mr. Arundel (who shortly afterward fell overboard and was drowned), and slightly wounding four of her crew. The other gun-boats engaged the five batteries of the enemy, while the Oneida pushed on without firing a shot till at 3.40 she opened on the Royal George, and after 20 minutes' combat actually succeeded in compelling her opponent, though of double her force, to cut her cables, run in, and tie herself to a wharf, where some of her people deserted her; here she was under the protection of a large body of troops, and the Americans could not board her in face of the land-forces. It soon began to grow dusk, and Chauncy's squadron beat out through the channel, against a fresh head-wind. In this spirited attack the American loss had been confined to half a dozen men, and had fallen almost exclusively on the Oneida. The next day foul weather came on, and the squadron sailed for Sackett's Harbor. Some merchant vessels were taken, and the Simco, 8, was chased, but unsuccessfully.

The weather now became cold and tempestuous, but cruising continued till the middle of November. The Canadian commanders, however, utterly refused to fight; the Royal George even fleeing from the Oneida, when the latter was entirely alone, and leaving the American commodore in undisputed command of the lake. Four of the schooners continued blockading Kingston till the middle of November; shortly afterward navigation closed. 148

LAKE ERIE.

On Lake Erie there was no American naval force; but the army had fitted out a small brig, armed with six 6-pounders. This fell into the hands of the British at the capture of Detroit, and was named after that city, so that by the time a force of American officers and seamen arrived at the lake there was not a vessel on it for them to serve in, while their foes had eight. But we only have to deal with two of the latter at present. The Detroit, still mounting six 6-pounders, and with a crew of 56 men, under the command of Lieutenant of Marines Rolette, of the Royal Navy, assisted by a boatswain and gunner, and containing also 30 American prisoners, and the Caledonia, a small brig mounting two 4-pounders on pivots, with a crew of 12 men, Canadian-English, under Mr. Irvine, and having aboard also 10 American prisoners, and a very valuable cargo of furs worth about 200,000 dollars, moved down the lake, and on Oct. 7th anchored under Fort Erie. 149 Commander Jesse D. Elliott had been sent up to Erie some time before with instructions from Commodore Chauncy to construct a naval force, partly by building two brigs of 300 tons each, 150 and partly by purchasing schooners to act as gun-boats. No sailors had yet arrived; but on the very day on which the two brigs moved down and anchored under Fort Erie, Captain Elliott received news that the first detachment of the promised seamen, 51 in number, including officers, 151 was but a few miles distant. He at once sent word to have these men hurried up, but when they arrived they were found to have no arms, for which application was made to the military authorities. The latter not only gave a sufficiency of sabres, pistols, and muskets to the sailors, but also detailed enough soldiers, under Captain N. Towson and Lieutenant Isaac Roach, to make the total number of men that took part in the expedition 124. This force left Black Rock at one o'clock on the morning of the 8th in two large boats, one under the command of Commander Elliott, assisted by Lieutenant Roach, the other under Sailing-master George Watts and Captain Towson. After two hours' rowing they reached the foe, and the attack was made at three o'clock. Elliott laid his boat alongside the Detroit before he was discovered, and captured her after a very brief struggle, in which he lost but one man killed, and Midshipman J. C. Cummings wounded with a bayonet in the leg. The noise of the scuffle roused the hardy provincials aboard the Caledonia, and they were thus enabled to make a far more effectual resistance to Sailing-master Watts than the larger vessel had to Captain Elliott. As Watts pulled alongside he was greeted with a volley of musketry, but at once boarded and carried the brig, the twelve Canadians being cut down or made prisoners; one American was killed and four badly wounded. The wind was too light and the current too strong to enable the prizes to beat out and reach the lake, so the cables were cut and they ran down stream. The Caledonia was safely beached under the protection of an American battery near Black Rock. The Detroit, however, was obliged to anchor but four hundred yards from a British battery, which, together with some flying artillery, opened on her. Getting all his guns on the port side, Elliott kept up a brisk cannonade till his ammunition gave out, when he cut his cable and soon grounded on Squaw Island. Here the Detroit was commanded by the guns of both sides, and which ever party took possession of her was at once driven out by the other. The struggle ended in her destruction, most of her guns being taken over to the American side. This was a very daring and handsome exploit, reflecting great credit on Commander Elliott, and giving the Americans, in the Caledonia, the nucleus of their navy on Lake Erie; soon afterward Elliott returned to Lake Ontario, a new detachment of seamen under Commander S. Angus having arrived.

On the 28th of November, the American general, Smith, despatched two parties to make an attack on some of the British batteries. One of these consisted of 10 boats, under the command of Captain King of the 15th infantry, with 150 soldiers, and with him went Mr. Angus with 82 sailors, including officers. The expedition left at one o'clock in the morning, but was discovered and greeted with a warm fire from a field battery placed in front of some British barracks known as the Red House. Six of the boats put back; but the other four, containing about a hundred men, dashed on. While the soldiers were forming line and firing, the seamen rushed in with their pikes and axes, drove off the British, capturing their commander, Lieut. King, of the Royal Army, spiked and threw into the river the guns, and then took the barracks and burned them, after a desperate fight. Great confusion now ensued, which ended in Mr. Angus and some of the seamen going off in the boats. Several had been killed; eight, among whom were Midshipmen Wragg, Dudley, and Holdup, all under 20 years old, remained with the troops under Captain King, and having utterly routed the enemy found themselves deserted by their friends. After staying on the shore a couple of hours some of them found two boats and got over; but Captain King and a few soldiers were taken prisoners. Thirty of the seamen, including nine of the twelve officers, were killed or wounded—among the former being Sailing-masters Sisson and Watts, and among the latter Mr. Angus, Sailing-master Carter, and Midshipmen Wragg, Holdup, Graham, Brailesford, and Irvine. Some twenty prisoners were secured and taken over to the American shore; the enemy's loss was more severe than ours, his resistance being very stubborn, and a good many cannon were destroyed, but the expedition certainly ended most disastrously. The accounts of it are hard to reconcile, but it is difficult to believe that Mr. Angus acted correctly.

Later in the winter Captain Oliver Hazard Perry arrived to take command of the forces on Lake Erie.