The War of 1812: A Most Paradoxical
Struggle
The "Second War of American Independence" was largely fought on the
frontier; the isolated settlements in western New York knew themselves
to be vulnerable, and contributed mightily to the war effort.
The Mother Country had, it seemed, never been reconciled to the loss
of her American colonies nearly 30 years earlier. The maintenance by
Great Britain of the right to search and even seize persons and property
from ships on the high seas had been a sore point for a long time, and
the presence of an armed British presence at Fort Niagara and elsewhere
did nothing to calm the fears of people living on the old lands of the
Senecas, British allies during the late war. The Simcoe Scare and other
incidents kept the pot boiling, but the poor success and unpopularity of
the embargo on British goods during Jefferson's second term made a new
war seem unlikely.
The United States declared war on Great Britain nevertheless, in June
1812. The American navy consisted of a few frigates and sloops, the army
was a half-drilled mob of recruits. The divisions in the country over
the wisdom of war prompted Connecticut and Massachusetts to refuse to
send men or materiel of war to the fighting, states which many of the
New York frontier settlers had called home.
Even before war was declared, several villages in the Genesee Country
had been designated as depositories for military stores. Every
able-bodied man between 18 and 45 was by law a member of a local militia
and obliged to perform routine maneuvers. Since the British had
maintained possession of their forts at Niagara and Oswego, western New
York was perhaps more than most areas of the country continually in fear
of an attack by the British and more particularly by the Senecas, who
had been dispossessed of the land the settlers now farmed in their
stead.
News of the declaration of war reached the New York frontier within a
few days. Several of the militia regiments that up to that time had
restricted their martial efforts to the required weekly maneuvers, now
marched off to fight. A corps of men otherwise exempt from military duty
was organized to form a home guard, in case the Indians should attack
while the other men were away; thankfully, they never had to defend
their homes against attack, and in fact several influential Seneca
chiefs, notably Red Jacket, kept their people out of the war.
The Battle of Queenston, fought 13 October 1812, brought Winfield
Scott and John Wool to prominence. By and large however it was a
disgrace to American arms. The first attempted attack, by night, ended
when the first boat across the Niagara River took with it the oars to
all the other boats. The next night, 13 boats crossed and drove back the
British defenders, and a party of regulars commanded by Wool seized a
battery of artillery that commanded the town. The main body of militia
was still at Black Rock on the American side, and they refused to join
the assault, since they had only signed on to repel invasion. The
Americans were finally driven back toward the river, and no one would
row across to save them; many were surrendered.
A second army was raised. On November 27 an advance party crossed and
spiked the Canadian guns. This accomplished, the sailors recrossed to
the American side, abandoning the soldiers, who were captured. The
commander of the main body halted a rescue attempt when he heard the
enemy's bugles and decided they were now alerted and an attack could not
succeed. Yet another attack was aborted, and one of the commander's
senior officers called him a coward and challenged him to a duel. The
army was treated to the edifying sight of their two most senior generals
firing at each other and missing. The commander was afterward hooted
whenever he ventured out among his men, and the whole campaign was
abandoned, after the waste of many lives and arms.
Joshua
Lee, surgeon to Colonel Avery Smith's Yates County militia regiment,
now grandiloquently called the 3rd New York Infantry and
Light Artillery, was one of the first to cross the Niagara River during
the October battle. In the same unit was surgeon's mate Walter Wolcott,
whose elder brother Roger was one of the many Connecticut natives who
had settled in Canada after the Revolution; Roger commanded a company of
Canadian militia during the war and many years later moved to St.
Charles in Illinois, where he died in 1863 at the age of 90.
(Ironically, Dr. Walter Wolcott's youngest son and namesake was a
merchant in Vicksburg, Mississippi at the outbreak of the Civil War in
1861; he commanded a Confederate company, and was killed at Gettysburg;
he is buried with his parents and the rest of his family in Hillside
Cemetery in Dundee, Yates County.)
The spring of 1813 saw the Buffalo campaign, which resulted in the
burning of that village by the Canadians and a threatened invasion of
the Genesee country. Many families fled their homes into the more
settled areas of what is now Ontario, Wayne and Yates Counties. The
state legislature voted the enormous sum of $40,000 to aid these people,
who were fed and sheltered by families without a great deal of either to
spare. At the same time, families native to New England who had settled
in Canada after the Revolution were driven out and a number arrived in
parts of Yates County, particularly the area of Starkey subsequently
called the Canada Settlement.
An army was formed in western New York in the spring of 1814,
comprising two brigades of regulars, and another of volunteers, some 500
from Pennsylvania, about 600 from New York, plus nearly 600 Iroquois
warriors. This army took part in the capture of Fort Erie, the battles
at Chippewa, Lundy's Lane and Conjockety Creek, and then the siege and
relief of Fort Erie, the last real action on the New York
frontier.
The War of 1812 has become something of a forgotten conflict, little
regarded in our history. Its biggest battle was fought at New Orleans
after the peace treaty was signed, and it resulted in disastrous defeats
at Baltimore and Washington. Its best-known lasting legacy has probably
been the national anthem, composed by Francis Scott Key during the
battle for Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor. However, the war did once
and for all settle the national boundary at Niagara and put an end to
British inflamation of the Senecas. The population of the New York
frontier exploded, the Erie Canal was begun and less than a decade after
the war's end, Yates County was organized with very nearly the same
population it has reattained now more than 170 years
later.