Pierre Berton's War of 1812 (73 page)

FitzGibbon faces a problem. How can his tiny force disarm five hundred of the enemy without his subterfuge being discovered—especially when the real Major De Haren is nowhere to be found? Fortunately, a more senior officer, Lieutenant-Colonel John Clark, arrives, followed shortly after by De Haren himself with a body of troops.

FitzGibbon has a further problem: he must explain his deception to De Haren before the Major unwittingly reveals it to the enemy. Moreover, he wants credit for the surrender and fears that De Haren will rob him of it. To his discomfiture, De Haren brushes him aside. Clearly, he is about to offer surrender conditions of his own to Boerstler.

FitzGibbon is not Brock’s disciple for nothing. Impulsive action is called for. He steps up quickly, lays his hand on the neck of the Major’s horse, speaks in a low, firm voice:

“Not another word, sir; these are my prisoners.”

Steps back and cries loudly:

“Shall I proceed to disarm the American troops?”

De Haren cannot but agree.

FitzGibbon is still afraid that the Major will, by some remark, ruin everything. The Americans can easily overwhelm them if the deception is revealed. He quickly orders the troops into file, and as soon as some are formed raps out an order to the men to march, thus driving Boerstler and De Haren forward to prevent further conversation between them.

The marching Americans, still armed, are rapidly approaching FitzGibbon’s small force of Bloody Boys. He suggests to De Haren that the captives ground arms at once.

“No,” says De Haren harshly, “let them march through between our men and ground their arms on the other side.”

What folly!
thinks FitzGibbon.
When they see our handful will they really ground their weapons?

Turns to De Haren: “Do you think it prudent to march them through with arms in their hands in the presence of the Indians?”

At the mention of the dreaded word
Indians
, Boerstler throws up a hand:

“For God’s sake, sir, do what this officer bids you.”

De Haren agrees, and as the prisoners drop their weapons, the tribesmen appear from behind trees and bushes and rush toward them. Some of Boerstler’s men, terrified, seize their weapons once more, whereupon FitzGibbon, springing up on a stump, shouts that no one will be hurt. The Indians are allowed to plunder muskets, knives, swords, and other equipment, but the chiefs, having promised they will not injure their captives, hold their men in check. Ducharme and his Caughnawagas are displeased; they are not allowed to scalp the dead, and much of the plunder goes to the Mohawks, who did little fighting. As Norton, the Mohawk chief, puts it in a long-to-be-remembered aside: “The Caughnawaga Indians fought the battle, the Mohawks got the plunder and FitzGibbon got the credit.”

The Battle of Beaver Dams confirms the inability of the invaders to break out of their enclave at Fort George. Boerstler has lost more than five hundred men, including Chapin and twenty-one of his mounted corps. The big doctor is not a prisoner for long. About three weeks later, while being conveyed to Kingston by boat, he succeeds in overpowering his captors and escaping with two boatloads of prisoners. For the United States it is the only bright spot in an otherwise sorry picture.

Dearborn is stunned by the disaster. He describes the Battle of Beaver Dams as “an unfortunate and unaccountable event.” But generals must be accountable, and when the news reaches Washington there is an immediate demand for the sick old soldier’s removal. Congress is in session when this “climax of continual mismanagement and misfortune” (to quote Congressman Charles Ingersoll) reaches the capital. By this time Dearborn is too sick to care. His officers—those who have not been killed, wounded, captured, or driven to their beds by the fever raging within the fort—urge him to move the army back to American soil at once. A council of war finally agrees to hold fast. Dearborn is removed at last, as much to his own relief as to that of his officers. Only when his replacement is named are eyebrows raised. The new commander, James Wilkinson—Pike’s hero—is perhaps the most despised general officer in the army. Before the year is over and Fort George finally returns to British hands, many will long for Dearborn’s return.

NEAR FORT ERIE, UPPER CANADA, JULY 10, 1813

James FitzGibbon, concealed behind the willows that fringe the Niagara’s high bank, peers through his glass at the American community of Black Rock, directly across the gorge. Here, for the taking, are vast quantities of stores as well as extensive military and naval barracks. FitzGibbon, whose Bloody Boys are hidden in nearby barns, is convinced that a lightning attack against the settlement, if managed with complete surprise, can deal the enemy a serious blow and also serve to stretch the dwindling supplies of the British.

The troops are in a bad way. The commissariat is out of salt, the necessary item to preserve meat. The Green Tigers, as the 49th are dubbed, are in the words of one officer “literally naked.” The 41st on the Detroit frontier is in rags and without shoes. A stream of urgent, almost frantic pleas from Major-General Henry Procter at Amherstburg makes it clear that the Right Division is in a bad way.

FitzGibbon lowers his glass to discover that two lieutenant-colonels, Cecil Bisshopp, a regular officer, and Thomas Clark of the 2nd Lincoln militia, have happened upon his hiding place. Both are in uniform, the former resplendent in scarlet and gold braid, and both are walking about in full view of the enemy. FitzGibbon is aghast. The success of his plan depends on keeping the Americans ignorant of the British return to the frontier.

Bisshopp tells FitzGibbon that he has already proposed an attack on Black Rock and has asked the new commander, De Rottenburg (Sheaffe’s replacement), for three hundred men to do the job. De Rottenburg has allowed him two hundred. Does FitzGibbon think the barracks can be taken and the stores destroyed or captured with such a small force?

FitzGibbon can barely resist a smile. He has been planning to attack Black Rock with his forty-four Bloody Boys! When Bisshopp hears this, he laughs: “Oh, then! I need ask you no more questions but go and bring the two hundred men.”

He orders the impetuous FitzGibbon to wait until the following morning when he and his boys will lead the advance across the river and, if necessary, cover the retreat.

The boats, brought up from their hiding place at Chippawa Creek, push off at two the following morning in a thick mist. A strong current forces FitzGibbon’s party well below the landing place. The main party is drifting even farther downriver and FitzGibbon realizes that they will land half an hour later than planned. Nonetheless, he follows orders—to advance immediately upon landing—and leads his men on a concealed march through the woods toward the marine barracks and blockhouse half a mile downriver from Black Rock.

So complete is the surprise that an eight-man picket, all raw militia, is captured before it can give any alarm. FitzGibbon fires the blockhouse and barracks, then, moving rapidly through the town, reaches the army camp at Fort Gibson, guarded by 150 militia.

Peter B. Porter, Quartermaster General for the state of New York, in charge of the militia at Black Rock, has been on watch for most of the night and has just managed to get to sleep in his big stone house on the main street when FitzGibbon’s advance guard dashes by. Porter leaps up and, clad only in a linen nightshirt, climbs out of a window at the back, finds a horse, mounts it with some difficulty, and dashes off toward Buffalo to rouse the militia. Five minutes later, Bisshopp’s advancing troops seize his house.

In Hawley’s Tavern on the river bank a small drama is being enacted. James Sloan, an itinerant pedlar of goods and groceries, is asleep when the sound of FitzGibbon’s bugle causes him to jump out of bed. To his astonishment, the tavern is empty; all have fled at the sight of Bisshopp’s approaching troops. A luckless baker named Wright, who also tried to escape into the woods, lies dead in the street below.

Sloan decides that bed is the safest place for him and climbs back under the covers. A few moments later he sees a strange Irish face peering at him through the window.

“Sergeant Kelly!” says the face. “Here is a man in bed.”

The door bursts open as two Green Tigers enter the room and order Sloan out of bed.

Can’t get out of bed
, says Sloan, cowering under the covers.
I’m sick
.

The remark enrages the two Irishmen, who swear they’ll skivver him where he lies.

At that Sloan jumps up and pulls on his clothes. Sergeant Kelly in a more kindly tone asks if he has any liquor. The pedlar produces a demijohn of cherry bounce, the two soldiers fill their canteens, and all three take several hearty pulls on the jug.

The trio are soon on the best of terms. Sloan’s new friends suggest that he return to bed: it is the safest place to be in Black Rock at the moment. Sloan agrees, leaps back under the covers, and the two tipsy Irishmen depart.

But Sloan’s curiosity gets the better of him. What is happening out there? Emboldened by cherry bounce, he climbs out of bed, peers through the window at the drama in the street. He can see the naval and military barracks and the fifty-ton schooner
Zephyr
all in flames. British troops are stripping Porter’s warehouse and an adjoining store of army property. An officer in a red coat rides up and down the street.

It dawns on the pedlar that he can be an instant hero: he can slip unobserved through the front door of the tavern and capture that officer! His fears vanish as glory beckons. But first he will need a gun; surely, somewhere in this tavern there must be a weapon! He rummages about vainly until he is halted by a cry from the river. Unhappily for him, the boats that brought the British across the Niagara are being poled up to the rendezvous point and are at this very moment passing the tavern. Somebody spots him through a window on the river side and shouts a warning. A cordon of troops surrounds the house and batters at the hall door. Sloan opens it, and two officers, who look more like peasants to him, announce that he is their prisoner. Sloan falls back on an old excuse, says he is too sick to move. It does not work.

They take him to Bisshopp, the officer on the horse whom Sloan thought to capture.

“Young man,” says Bisshopp, breaking in on his protestations, “you must go to Canada.”

Well, that is all right with James Sloan. The idea, in fact, rather appeals to him. He will see something of a new country and of the famous British Army. When his curiosity is satisfied he will simply nail two or three rails together with strips of bark and, being a strong swimmer, propel himself back across the Niagara.

Sloan cannot help liking Lieutenant-Colonel Bisshopp. He considers him a mild and humane-looking man and guesses his age at about thirty-six. Actually Bisshopp is barely thirty, but his years of service in the guards, as military attaché in St. Petersburg, as aide to Wellington in Portugal, as an infantry officer in Holland, have matured him. The oldest surviving son of a baronet, a one-time
Member of Parliament, he is heir to an ancient title and a considerable fortune. Duty and duty alone keeps him in Canada. Service in this coarse colonial backwater is “complete banishment,” and “were it not for the extensive command I have and the quantity of business I have to do, I should hang myself.” His men adore him; he thinks more of their welfare than he does of his own. To FitzGibbon, he is “a man of most gentle and generous nature,” more beloved by the militia than anyone else.

But FitzGibbon also believes that Bisshopp is lacking in judgement. The events that follow underline the accuracy of that assessment. Having dealt Black Rock a heavy blow, the leader of the Bloody Boys wants to be off before the Americans can rush reinforcements from Buffalo. The British have not lost a man. The boats, brought up from the landing place, are ready to take off the troops. But Bisshopp insists on waiting until eighty or ninety barrels of salt, so precious to the army, are brought out of Porter’s warehouse and rolled to the water’s edge. That is his undoing.

The owner of the salt, Peter B. Porter, is at this moment galloping about in the woods between Buffalo and Black Rock in his nightshirt, seeking to rally the militia. This war is partially of his making; as chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee and a key member of Henry Clay’s determined little group of War Hawks, he pushed for declaration in the spring of 1812. The war has brought him a measure of wealth, for he is a provisioner to the militia as well as quartermaster, ordering from himself and selling to himself the contents of the warehouse being looted by the British. Now in the Two Mile Woods he encounters a troop of dragoons en route to Black Rock from Buffalo. He orders them to fall back and wait in a field while he proceeds to collect the scattered citizen soldiers.

By seven o’clock, Porter has 250 men formed up in some sort of order, to whose ranks are added thirty Indians, mainly Senecas, under two chiefs, Farmer’s Brother and Young King. This is the first time in the war that the Americans have employed Indians as combatants—the first time, in fact, that any large group of natives has
wanted to fight on the side of the Long Knives. But these tribesmen feel that their own territory is under attack and so attach themselves to Porter’s advancing forces.

Half of Bisshopp’s force has already been sent back across the river. The remainder is engaged in loading the boats with salt and other stores when the attack comes. The American militia and the Indians burst from the woods on either flank, catching Bisshopp off guard.

Bisshopp is shaken. As he will ruefully remark, a body of Cossacks could not have surprised him more. He orders the main body of his men to make for the boats, then with FitzGibbon at his side leads a small detachment up a hill to meet the attackers and cover the withdrawal. As he rushes forward, a bullet from an Indian rifle shatters his left thigh. Some of his men turn back and rush to the prostrate figure of their commander.

“Oh, my lads,” cries Bisshopp, “dead or alive don’t leave me here.”