Elements of Military Art and Science, Henry Wager Halleck [top young adult novels txt] 📗

French army was concentrated at Montreal. As the English divisions advanced, one by Oswego, one by Lake Champlain, and the third by Quebec, they afforded to the French a fine opportunity for the strategic movement from a centre against converging lines; but the garrison was too weak to hope for success in either direction, and therefore awaited the enemy within their works. Montreal, being but slightly fortified, was soon reduced, and with it fell the French empire erected in this country at infinite labor and expense.

At the first outbreak of the American Revolution, it was so obviously important to get possession of the military works commanding the line of Lake Champlain, that expeditions for this purpose were simultaneously fitted out by Massachusetts and Connecticut. The garrisons of these works were taken by surprise. This conquest, says Botta, the able and elegant historian of the Revolution, "was no doubt of high importance, but it would have had a much greater influence upon the course of the whole war, if these fortresses, which are the bulwarks of the colonies, had been defended in times following, with the same prudence and valor with which they had been acquired."

In the campaign of 1775, an army of two thousand seven hundred and eighty-four effective men, with a reserve of one thousand at Albany, crossed the lake and approached the fortress of St. John's about the 1st of September. The work was garrisoned by only about five or six hundred regulars, and some two hundred militia. This was the only obstacle to prevent the advance of our army into the very heart of Canada; to leave it unreduced in rear would cut off all hope of retreat. Allen had already made the rash and foolish attempt, and his whole army had been destroyed, and he himself made prisoner. The reduction of this place was therefore deemed absolutely necessary, but was not effected till the 3d of November, and after a long and tedious siege. This delay decided the fate of the campaign; for, although Montreal fell immediately afterwards, the season was so far advanced that a large portion of our troops, wearied with their sufferings from cold and want of clothing, now demanded their discharge. The eastern division, of one thousand men under Arnold, crossing the country by the Kennebeck and Chaudiere, through difficulties and suffering almost unparalleled, arrived opposite Quebec on the 9th of November. The place was at this time almost without defence, and, had Arnold possessed a suitable pontoon equipage, it might easily have been taken by surprise. But by the time that the means for effecting a passage could be prepared, and a junction could be effected between the two American armies, Quebec was prepared to sustain their attack. The result of that attack is too well known to require a repetition here.

Early the next season it was deemed necessary to withdraw the American army from Canada. This retreat of undisciplined troops, in the presence of vastly superior numbers of the enemy, would have been extremely hazardous had it not been effected on a line of forts which were held by our own troops. As it was we sustained no considerable loss.

Carleton pursued on rapidly, to co-operate with General Howe, who was now lying at New York with over one hundred ships and about thirty-five thousand troops; but he received a decided check from the guns of Ticonderoga, and retired again to Canada.

By the British plan of campaign in 1777, the entire force of their northern army was to concentrate at Albany. One division of fifteen hundred men, including Indians, advanced by Oswego, Wood Creek, and the Mohawk; but Fort Stanwix, with a garrison of only six hundred men, arrested their progress and forced them to return. Another, leaving New York, ascended the Hudson as far as Esopus; but its progress was so much retarded by the small forts and water-batteries along that river, that it would have been too late to assist Burgoyne, even if it could possibly have reached Albany. The principal division of the enemy's army, numbering about nine thousand men, advanced by the Champlain route. Little or no preparations were made to arrest its progress. The works of Ticonderoga were so out of repair as to be indefensible on the flanks. Its garrison consisted of only fifteen hundred continental troops, and about as many militia, over whom the general had no control. Their supply of provisions was exhausted, and only one man in ten of the militia had bayonets to their guns. Under these circumstances it was deemed best to withdraw the garrison six days after the investment. Burgoyne now advanced rapidly, but with so little precaution as to leave his communications in rear entirely unprotected. Being repulsed by the American forces collected at Saratoga, his line of supplies cut off by our detached forts, his provisions exhausted, his troops dispirited, and his Indian allies having deserted him, retreat became impossible, and his whole army was forced to capitulate. This campaign closed the military operations on our northern frontier during the war of the Revolution.

We now come to the war of 1812. In the beginning of this war the number of British regulars in the Canadas did not exceed three thousand men, who were scattered along a frontier of more than nine hundred miles in extent. In the whole of Upper Canada there were but seven hundred and twenty men, and at Montreal, Three Rivers, and on the whole line of the Sorel the whole defensive force amounted to only thirteen hundred and thirty men, and the garrison of Quebec was so small, that no detachment could be made without great inconvenience and danger. The fortifications of Isle aux Noix, then emphatically the key of central Canada, was without a garrison during nearly the whole of the first campaign. Under these circumstances an American force of fifteen hundred or two thousand men marching rapidly from Albany, might readily have broken the enemy's line of defence, and cut off all Upper Canada from supplies and reinforcements from England by way of Quebec. Let us see what course was pursued.

On the 1st of June an army of two thousand men was collected at Dayton, in Ohio, placed under the command of an imbecile old officer of the Revolution, and directed by Detroit against the Canadian Peninsula. The dilatory march, absurd movements, and traitorous surrender of Hull's army to a British force of three hundred regulars and four hundred militia, are but too well known. Another American army of about ten thousand men was afterwards raised in the west; the main division of this army under Harrison marched by three separate routes to invade Canada by way of Malden; but they failed to reach their destination, and wintered behind the river Portage. The Eastern army was collected at Albany in the early part of the summer and placed under the command of General Dearborn, another old officer of the Revolution. Instead of pushing this force rapidly forward upon the strategic line of Lake Champlain, the general was directed to divide it into three parts, and to send one division against the Niagara frontier, a second against Kingston, and a third against Montreal. These orders were dispatched from Washington the 26th of June, nearly a month after Hull had begun his march from Dayton. Dearborn's army, on the first of September, consisted of six thousand five hundred regulars and seven thousand militia—thirteen thousand five hundred in all: six thousand three hundred for the Niagara frontier, two thousand two hundred at Sacketts Harbor, and five thousand for Lake Champlain. Even with this absurd plan of campaign and faulty division of the forces, we might have succeeded if the general had acted with energy, so exceedingly weak were the Canadian means of defence; but instead of taking advantage of his superiority in numbers and the favorable circumstances of the time, he entered into an armistice with the British general, and his whole army of thirteen thousand five hundred men lay inactive till the 13th of October, when the absurd project of crossing the Niagara at Lewiston failed, because the New-York militia had constitutional scruples against crossing a river so long as the enemy were on the other side. The Lake Champlain column, consisting of three thousand regulars and two thousand militia, a considerable portion of which had been collected as early as the first of August, had in four months advanced as far as La Cole river, a distance of about two hundred miles from Albany. The unimportant action at this place terminated the campaign, and the army of the North returned to winter-quarters.

All the early part of the campaign of 1813, on the northern frontier, was spent in a war of detachments, in which our troops captured Fort George and York, and repelled the predatory excursions of the enemy. In these operations our troops exhibited much courage and energy, and the young officers who led them, no little skill and military talent. But nothing could have been more absurd than for a general, with superior forces in the vicinity of an enemy, to act only by detachments at a time when his opponents were daily increasing in number. This useless war of outposts and detachments was continued till July, when General Dearborn was recalled, and General Wilkinson, another old officer of the Revolution, put in his place. It was now determined to make a push for Montreal, with the combined forces of the Northern army. Wilkinson, with 8,000 men, descended the St. Lawrence, but did not reach Prescott till the 6th of November, thus affording to the English plenty of leisure to prepare for his reception. Hampton, another old officer of the Revolution, ascended Lake Champlain with another column of 4,000 men, but refused to form any co-operation with Wilkinson, and after the unimportant combat of Chrystler's Field, the whole army again retired to winter-quarters.

In the mean time the army of the West, under Harrison, who was assisted by the military skill and science of McCrea and Wood, and the bravery of Croghan and Johnson, held in check the British and Indians; and the battle of the Thames and the victory of Lake Erie formed a brilliant termination to the campaign in that quarter. Had such victories been gained on the Montreal or eastern portion of the frontier, they would have led to the most important results.

The plan of operations for the campaign of 1814 was of the same diverse and discordant character as before. But the command of the troops had now fallen into the hands of young and energetic officers, and Brown, assisted by such men as Wood, McCrea, Scott, Ripley, Miller, soon gained the victories of Fort Erie, Chippewa, and Lundy's Lane; while McComb and McDonough drove back the enemy from the line of Lake Champlain. With these operations terminated the Northern campaign of 1814, the last which has been conducted on that frontier.

Let us now turn to the system of works projected for the defence of this line.

The first works are at the Falls of St. Mary, on the western extremity of the line.

The second works are at Mackinaw.

The third works are at the foot of Lake Huron.

The fourth works are near Detroit.

The fifth works are near Buffalo.

The sixth works are at the mouth of the Niagara river.

The seventh works are at Oswego.

The eighth works are at Sacketts Harbor.

The ninth works are below Ogdensburg.

The tenth works are at Rouse's Point.

The eleventh works are near the head-waters of the Kennebec or the Penobscot.

The twelfth works are at Calais, on the St. Croix.

All these works are small, and simple in their character, well calculated to assist the operations of armed forces in the field, but incapable of resisting a protracted siege. They are entirely different in their character from those on the coast, the latter being intended principally for the use of our citizen-soldiery, in the defence of our seaport towns, while the former are intended merely as auxiliaries to the