On 1 April 1814, in conformity with directions from the Secretary of the Navy [William Jones], Commodore Isaac Chauncey instructed the master commandant at Erie, Pennsylvania, Jesse Elliott, to prepare the brigs Niagara and the Lawrence and other such vessels as required for proceeding into Lake Huron as soon as the ice would permit. The object was to reduce the posts of the enemy in that lake. The directive called for Elliott to go to Put-in-Bay, take command of two ships waiting there, and sail for Detroit, mooring his vessels under protection of that garrison.
All was well intentioned. Yet delays, both political and military, ensued. The Navy Department worried that, the St. Clair River being so narrow, enemy forces might mount batteries on its banks that could command these waters, putting any American warships that might venture this way at great risk. An additional anxiety was lack of trained sailors, and, in consequence, the need to bring up militia to serve in the ships. The War Department did not share the Navy’s worries, and thought that the British were not likely to reinstate themselves on the eastern banks of the Detroit River and on Lake Huron. Indeed, Army intelligence advised, no British forces were known to be within 100 miles of the intended passageway.
Elliott’s responsibilities for carrying out the Lake Huron campaign fell to Captain Arthur Sinclair. . . . Instructions from the Navy Department, dated 15 April, invested Sinclair with the command on Lake Erie and called for him, with his stout fleet of 17 vessels, to prosecute the war against the enemy with energy. In particular, Sinclair’s instructions called for him to (1) prevent the enemy from gaining any ascendancy, (2) attain the complete command of all the waters between Erie and Lake Superior, and (3) reduce the posts of Michilimackinac and St. Joseph as well as that at the mouth of the French River. . . . Sinclair was to hide away the Detroit and Queen Charlotte in Erie Harbor, the former Presque Isle, in such a secure place so that the enemy could not recover them. For the Lake Huron campaign Sinclair’s first task at Presque Isle was to enter into correspondence with his counterpart, Lieutenant Colonel George Croghan, commanding at Detroit.
And what of the force of the enemy? Sinclair was told that two small detachments of British seamen and mechanics had been sent to Lake Huron. . . . Commodore Sinclair, however, lacked the royal jelly of a good fleet commander. Hypersensitivity, ambition, and anxiety plagued him.
His Army counterpart, the young Croghan, age 23, a Kentuckian and an officer of the 17th U.S. Infantry, had . . . learned that at Matchedash the British had built 25 boats, each carrying two guns, and he concluded that they were probably bateaux used more for provisioning those posts than for acting offensively. He was correct in this assumption. Croghan planned to help the Navy by building a fort. . . . On 14 May elements of the 2d Infantry commanded by Captain Charles Gratiot established Fort Gratiot on the west bank of the St. Clair River, half a mile from the outlet of Lake Huron (now in the town of Port Huron, St. Clair County). Some 150 men were stationed there.
Two weeks later, on 22 or 23 May, a pair of U.S. men- of-war plus six gunboats, containing about 300 men, passed up the River St. Clair bound for Lake Huron. For a time three schooners—the Caledonia, Scorpion, and Ohio— cruised in company on the lake, all under Lieutenant Samuel Woodhouse. Indian allies told British commanders of these developments, and this intelligence caused further worry that British Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDouall’s “last brigade of boats for Michilimackinac,” which had cleared the Nottawasaga River mouth on the 20th of the same month, might not have reached its destination safely. As it was, the two forces missed each other.
Meanwhile, at Detroit. . . Croghan feared the worst and contended that the North West Company would do all in its power to reinforce Michilimackinac. The matter settled heavily on his mind, for he now took the ominous view that it would be hard to oust the British from the island fortress. . . . Thus Croghan declined to cooperate with the Navy in operations in Lake Huron until ordered to do so by the War Department.
By 1 June the Navy Department had issued revised orders to Sinclair, calling for a more select naval force than previously imagined. These instructions called for examining the several ports of Lake Huron in order to ascertain the real force and designs of the enemy in that quarter, and there to frustrate every enemy project. The recovery of Michilimackinac besides the capture of St. Joseph would he important for bringing the Indians to the side of the United States. The President [James Madison] had expressly informed the Secretary of the Navy that in this operation private property was to he respected. . . . Thus, he [Sinclair] was to take no more seamen on his northern cruise than absolutely necessary to work the guns, with a few for the rigging. The Secretary was reluctant to send both brigs, the Niagara and the Lawrence, into Lake Huron, for the duties of the squadron on Lake Erie remained heavy, consisting chiefly of ferrying troops hither and yon. But he gave Sinclair discretionary powers to decide if one or both were needed. The nervous Sinclair decided, in the circumstances, that he needed as much force as he could muster for the northern cruise. He took both and wore his flag in the Niagara.
On 19 June the U.S. squadron sailed from Presque Isle for Michilimackinac. . . . Seven of the largest vessels of the Navy’s Lake Erie squadron, mounting 60 guns in all and manned by 500 seamen and Marines, were deployed on this service. When the ships gathered off Fort Gratiot, near the exit of Lake Huron, [Oliver Hazard] Perry’s old flagship Lawrence and Elliott’s Niagara were the largest vessels then seen in those waters. These champions of Put-in- Bay now had new commanders. The brigs Caledonia and the General Hunter and two schooners, likewise veterans of the Battle of Lake Erie, the Scorpion and Tigress, and also the schooner Ohio completed the fleet-—a sum tonnage of 1,170. The Scorpion, incidentally, had been in Lake Huron gathering intelligence of the enemy. To Sinclair she had brought news that the British were preparing a large naval force.
Although Croghan and his seniors continued to worry that Detroit would now be defenseless, with British forces preoccupied at Niagara and Fort Erie in American hands the only real danger with regard to Detroit, under the circumstances, was an Indian force. ... Croghan was instructed to leave behind a competent garrison, but drafts of militia from Kentucky and Ohio were called upon to provide added defense at Detroit until the return of the fleet. The alarm for Detroit was unnecessary, thought the Secretary of War [John Armstrong], and reports of great detachments having arrived from England were much exaggerated.
Heavy winds and unexpected difficulties caused delays in getting the large sailing vessels through the flats of Lake St. Clair. . . . No previous survey of a systematic nature had been made of this great freshwater sea, and this placed American commanders at a woeful disadvantage. For all these reasons, Sinclair’s squadron did not arrive in Lake Huron until 12 July. ... By the 15th they had worked their way carefully through various channels and were abreast of Cabot Head with its appearance of slumbering lions. The mariners now steered south and east, possibly past Cape Chin and Cape Croker. There was talk abroad that perhaps the land lying now to the west (Bruce Peninsula) was in fact an island. Speculation mounted that perhaps an alternate way could be found back to the rapids of St. Clair. There was chatter, too, that the force had not gone far enough north before entering the waters leading to Matchedash Bay.
The first order of business was to break up any British shipbuilding. Thus Sinclair planned to look in at Matchedash Bay, southeast Georgian Bay, where he might find a British storehouse and shipbuilding yard. He was correctly advised on these counts, and he suspected, too, that he might find there any transport vessels the British still could boast of, such as the Nancy, or vessels of the North West Company.
From Lake Huron to Matchedash Bay Sinclair would face two barriers of islands. He had got through the first by sailing around Cape Hurd, abreast of where Tobermory now is, via the main channel, then east beyond Cabot Head and the extremity of Bruce Peninsula.
Given the time devoted to the search it seems likely that he was trying to pick his way through the second barrier, beyond Hope Island. If, in fact, he were north of Hope Island, and into the rock-infested approach to Muskoka Landing Channel he would indeed have been beyond hope. But logic would suggest that he had not found the access to Midland Bay south of Beausoleil Island and thence via Severn Sound and Waubaushene Channel to Matchedash Bay. Without chart or sailing directions Sinclair could not find his way through this maze of rock and water, and sympathy alone dictates our understanding as to why he could not find the British shipbuilding establishment, so nicely squirreled away in the Upper Canada bush.
The secrets of Georgian Bay kept Sinclair from reaching Matchedash Bay. . . . Unable to procure a pilot for that unfrequented part of the lake, and finding it filled with islands and sunken rocks, which would inevitably prove to be the destruction of the fleet, he had to give up the attempt. Croghan, who had a history of independent thinking bordering on rebelliousness, put a slightly different slant on this matter. The joint commanders, by whom he meant Sinclair and himself, imagined a safe arrival at Matchedash Bay in a few days. At the end of a week, Sinclair, for want of pilots, “despaired of being able to find a passage through the islands into the bay.”
It was more complicated than that. . . . Dense fog lay over Georgian Bay and enveloped the shoreline for days upon end. Sinclair, bereft of charts and sailing directions, without local knowledge or a pilot, had no intention of losing ships in those rock-infested and shoaling waters. Nor did he intend to become separated from any man-of-war boats he might send on reconnaissance duties. The Army’s provisions were growing short.
At this juncture, on 16 July, Sinclair consulted with Croghan. They agreed to shape a course for St. Joseph. Underlying his intentions was the necessity to intercept any remaining North West Company trade and thereby knock off balance the Indian alliance. Any Nor’Wester vessels, therefore, offered tempting prizes for Sinclair’s flotilla, and this prize hunt drew U.S. ships northward in advance of the military requirements for a successful campaign on Lake Huron.
St. Joseph Island was reached on 19 July with good winds. Sinclair expected to find a British garrison holed up there and, when once a little pressure were applied from ships’ guns or from landing parties, ready to surrender. There was no one home. Again Sinclair faced disappointment. . . . He sent spies ashore, hoping to gain intelligence about Michilimackinac. They came back empty-handed. He sent in two launches and a total of 200 men to destroy the fort buildings. The Americans left Fort St. Joseph a smoldering ruin. Once again they had been thwarted by an enemy they could not find. To that point no news had been gained of the enemy’s whereabouts.
Sinclair remained in the dark about British shipbuilding. His Matchedash excursion had been abandoned. Now, from an informant, he learned vital details of how the British were projecting their military power north of York and on to Georgian Bay. “An attempt was made,” wrote Sinclair, “to transport them [artificers and supplies] by way of Matchedash, but it was found impracticable from all the portages being a morass.” And so, he added, “they resorted to a small river called Nottawasaga, situated to the south of Matchedash, from which there is a good portage of three leagues over which to transport reinforcements and supplies from Lake Simcoe. This place is very narrow and has six or eight feet of water in it, and is then a muddy rapid shallow for forty-five miles to the portage where their armada was built and their storehouses are now situated. The navigation is dangerous and difficult, and so obscured by rocks and bushes that no stranger could ever find it. I have, however, availed myself of this means of discovering it.”
Sinclair had good reason to be pleased with himself. He had got the details correct, for this bush and swamp, then less drained than nowadays, offered just the opposite of an easy access across the Upper Canada peninsula. In particular, he had learned of the Nottawasaga River route, of Schooner Town depot, and of Fort Willow.
Prior to shaping his course southward for these targets, Sinclair had one final duty to effect in Lake Huron’s northern reaches. When the Mink had been captured he had received intelligence that the North West Company’s schooner Perseverance was lying above the falls at the lower end of Lake Superior, in wait to transport inbound cargo to Fort William. Accordingly, on 22 July, Sinclair dispatched two launches under Lieutenant Daniel Turner of the Scorpion, “an active enterprising officer,” to capture her and, if possible, ease her down the falls. His next target was therefore the North West Company’s post on St. Marys River, Sault Ste. Marie.
For his part, Croghan selected a detachment of regular infantry and artillery, about 280 in all, under a young Virginian, Major Andrew Hunter Holmes. . . . Using ships’ boats, the expedition made its way to its destination unopposed. The force had come to the Sault, a place of remarkable geographical features and unique historical characteristics, a legendary crossroads of the continent. . . . Major Holmes’s force landed on the Canadian shore without opposition. The date was 23 July.
At this juncture, Lieutenant Turner sought out the Nor’Wester schooner Perseverance, of 85 tons, which like the Mink had been recently built on Lake Superior. Leaving matters ashore to Holmes, Turner proceeded to the Lake Superior end without a moment’s delay. There he spied the schooner.
The enemy, he said, “finding they could not get off with the vessel I was in quest of, set fire to her in several places, scuttled and left her. I succeeded in boarding her and by considerable exertion extinguished the flames and secured her from sinking.” Turner then “stript her,” that is, lowered the rigging, and prepared for getting her down the falls. On board the Perseverance he placed a man in charge and told him that he would get a reward (this had been offered by Sinclair) if he succeeded or would face death in case of treachery. Adverse winds prevented early action, until the 26th, “when every possible effort was used.” It was heaven or hell. She could not be got over safely. The channel was rough and the current ran at an alarming 20 to 30 knots. She bilged (was stoved in or sprung a leak), filled with water, and became a wreck. “She was a fine new schooner,” noted Turner, with regret, but he added, as consolation, that her loss would be severely felt by the North West Company.
Once Lieutenant Turner’s boats carrying Major Holmes’s soldiers left Sault Ste. Marie, the Nor’Westers scurried to prepare a defense in case the enemy should pay a return visit. Indians camped at nearby Pine Point agreed to help in case of need. The Nor’Westers, short of provisions, went on half rations. They sent a canoe to Michilimackinac with news of the event. It returned without accomplishing its mission—the island was blockaded by American warships. To get news to the garrison would have meant running great risk of being taken prisoner. For some time the situation of the Canadian fur traders at Sault Ste. Marie, and on Lake Superior, was grave.
With this North West Company’s key northern post of Sault Ste. Marie knocked on the head, much of the enemy shipping destroyed, and the flow of bounty to the Indians threatened, the Americans focused their energies and attention on that which they had lost, in 1812, to their total surprise and anger—Michilimackinac. At this precise moment, it may be remembered, Colonel William McKay and his frontier guard were campaigning in faraway Wisconsin—at Prairie du Chien. If this were not enough to weaken Michilimackinac, Lieutenant Miller Worsley and his sailors were away at the southern end of Georgian Bay, at Not- tawasaga, there hurriedly loading as many supplies for Michilimackinac as they could store in the Nancy. At Michilimackinac, therefore, Colonel McDouall had for defensive purposes a reduced force of regulars, militia, and Indians. As for guns it is said that the defenders had but two—a 6-pounder and a 3-pounder. No artillery officer was among them to instruct and discipline those who served the guns.
On 26 July Sinclair’s fleet appeared off Mackinac Island. They anchored off the southeast end of Round Island and south of Mackinac Island, adjacent to Bois Blanc Island. Sinclair, who had not deployed any vessels in advance to collect information on the enemy’s strength and disposition, now sent the brig Lawrence and schooner Scorpion to patrol the passage leading to Lake Michigan lying between Bois Blanc, the mainland and Point St. Ignace. A tedious spell of bad weather, said Sinclair, prevented a reconnaissance of Michilimackinac and delayed procuring intelligence about the enemy’s much-dreaded Indian force.
By 31 July the Americans understood that, according to rough estimate, there were about 300 regulars, 100 militia, and 400 Indians defending Michilimackinac—a considerable number. Sinclair grew cautious. Croghan, who had made his own inquiries on the mainland and among the islands, returned to the fleet, said Usher Parsons in his entry for that date, “with the determination to fight.” Croghan’s numbers, as given above, had been gleaned from two captives taken at Point St. Ignace.
From their ships the Americans spied out the British movements, looking for all possible weaknesses in their defenses. From friendly intelligence they learned about the best landing places. They pondered the various possibilities for the impending assault. For nearly a week the American men-of-war kept up a blockade, which characteristically grew tedious and became a source of nagging regret. The commanders dithered and could take no decision, and thereby lost all advantage of surprise.
On 3 August Croghan announced his determination to land. The artillery pieces, carried in the Mink, were now available. A delay had occurred because she had been lost in fog and out of touch with the commanders.
On the morning of 4 August troops were in a situation to land on Mackinac Island. . . . The commanders looked for a good beach on which to land infantry and haul guns ashore. This was precisely where the British had landed when they took the place from us, Parsons noted. They chose the shoreline at Dowsman’s Farm, situated at the opposite side of the island from the fort, on the northwest side of the island. Here the vessels anchored. The U.S. vessels were ranged in line of battle. They trained their ordnance on the open, gently rising ground that led from water’s edge toward the woods beyond. The ships’ guns, mainly carronades, could fire grape and canister to cover the landing of troops. All was intended to be completed without opposition or difficulty.
In the face of an anticipated, robust assault, the British commander had been obliged to act with decision and flexibility. “My situation was embarrassing,” confessed Colonel McDouall, who fully comprehended that he stood at a numerical disadvantage. “I knew that they [the Americans] would land upwards of 1,000 men; and, after manning the guns at the fort, I had only a disposable force of 140 to meet them. . . .”
If comparatively weak in numbers, he was strong in position. Behind and on the rear flanks lay woods. Before lay clear ground and an open field of fire down a gradual slope. McDouall had reason to conclude that imperial forces were in a fine state of defense. McDouall counted on Indians to prevent the Americans from gaining the woods, where they might run free and unopposed. He gave strictest orders that his men, lying within the protection of the natural breastwork, the redoubt, were to hold their fire until such time as they could pour in a murderous fire.
McDouall got early warning of American intentions when, on the eve of the landing, 3 August, the American fleet anchored off Dowsman’s Farm. Fort George rose before them on the spine-like ridge, and presumably the British had at least some of their guns placed there with a commanding view of all approaches. Croghan, we know now, had decided to land in open ground and there occupy some advantageous position from which they could “annoy the enemy” by slow, steady approach under cover of artillery. Croghan believed that once the Americans had taken up their favorable position, McDouall would, of necessity, be obliged to attack or risk the desertion of the Indians.
The naval fire support had been of little effect and did no effectual damage to the defenders. To counter the landing and enemy guns McDouall had ordered the two British field pieces to do what they could. . . . The Americans declined to meet the British on the open ground. Instead, the Americans eased along the forested perimeter and did so despite some initial Indian resistance. McDouall, seeing the rising tide of American advance, sent a party of Michigan Fencibles to counter it.
Now, however, the Americans complicated their arrangements. The men-of-war shifted anchor so as to get behind McDouall’s left flank. Troops landed from those vessels advanced by road toward the British emplacements. Accordingly, McDouall, so as to maintain communications, shifted to an intermediary position. There he gathered his force and in an act critical to the success of the whole operation gave support to the Fallavoines [Indians] and their chief, Thomas, who opened a spirited fire upon the enemy. Americans were taking casualties at an appalling rate: many officers and men lay dead or wounded upon the field of battle. By 4:30 p.m. [1630 modern military time] the American force was in retreat. Boats were ready at the shore to receive them. The retreat was well conducted under cover of the guns of their ships anchored within a few yards of the shore.
Casualty figures for this encounter bear testimony to the size of American losses: 66 killed wounded or missing is the American list. Heading the list of American officers dead was the bonny Major Andrew Hunter Holmes, the conqueror of Sault Ste. Marie, whose loss was much lamented by his comrades. On the 5th U.S. forces requested the body of Holmes, and this was granted. Of the wounded, seven died aboard the ships. As to imperial losses, one Indian killed is the tally.
