This Day in History: British capture Fort Niagara

On or around this day in 1813, the British launch a plan to raze a series of New York towns and villages. They’d just captured Fort Niagara from American forces. The War of 1812 was on!

Unfortunately, the campaign against New York would be just the beginning.

Americans had gotten off to a good start during the spring of 1813. They’d captured Fort George and Newark, on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. Unfortunately, it was difficult to build upon this victory. American forces were said to be “disaffected” and “ungovernable.”

Their pay was in arrears. Supplies were lacking. Some forces left, diverted towards an effort to capture Montreal.

By December 1813, Brigadier General George McClure had only 100 unhappy men defending Fort George. He knew that he could not maintain a defense of the fort throughout the long winter months. He would need to retreat to the American side of the river. Before he left, he carried out orders to burn Fort George and Newark (modern-day Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario).

The decision would have disastrous consequences. 

Battle of Lake Erie, by William Henry Powell

The attempt to disable Fort George didn’t go too well. Moreover, hundreds of civilians in Newark were left homeless, just as winter was setting in. “Every building in Newark is reduced to ashes,” McClure later wrote, “the Enemy is much exasperated and will make a descent on this frontier if possible.”

All in all, it was a big mistake.

British Lt. General Gordon Drummond was furious! He would not let the destruction of Newark go unanswered. He sent Colonel John Murray to retaliate.

On the night of December 18-19, Murray crossed the river to attack the Americans, then encamped in Fort Niagara. Perhaps the Americans should have seen it coming? Instead, they were caught with their guard down, completely unprepared for the retaliatory attack. Most of the men were asleep. The fort’s commander was a few miles away at his family’s home. (Some say he was drunk!) Matters were tilted even more in favor of the British because they’d managed to learn the American countersign.

“Our men were nearly all asleep in their tents,” McClure later reported, “the Enemy rushed in and commenced a most horrid slaughter.”

More than 300 Americans were taken prisoner. Nearly 100 were killed or wounded. Only 20 men escaped. When the fort’s commander returned the next morning, he was also taken captive.

Unfortunately, the capture of Fort Niagara was just the beginning of the British effort. Drummond immediately began dispatching his forces into New York. They razed town after town. By the end of the year, as the state’s Governor would report, the “whole frontier from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie is depopulated & the buildings & Improvements, with a few exceptions, destroyed.” One eyewitness described a “scene of distress and destruction such as I have never before witnessed.”

Months of hardship would follow, culminating in the burning of Washington, D.C. in August 1814. But were these difficult months critical in the making of our nation?

The War of 1812 would effectively end in a draw by the end of 1814. Our ancestors felt the significance of the moment: For the second time in a row, a superpower like Great Britain had been unable to defeat us.

“The war has renewed and reinstated the national feelings and character which the Revolution had given, and which were daily lessened,” one contemporary observed. “The people . . . . are more American; they feel and act more as a nation; and I hope that the permanency of the Union is thereby better secured.”

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War of 1812 can be found on my website, HERE.

Primary Sources:

• Bvt. Maj. Gen. Emory Upton, The Military Policy of the United States (1917)

• Catherine Allgor, A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation (2006)

• Collection of the Official Accounts in detail, of all the battles fought by sea and land between the navy and army of the United States, and the navy and army of Great Britain (1817)

• Dispatch from Lt. General Gordon Drummond (Dec. 20, 1813) (reprinted on p. 434 HERE)

• Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (2012) (bicentennial edition)

• Letter from Brigadier General George McClure to the Secretary of War (Dec. 13, 1813) (reprinted on page 109 HERE)

• Letter from Brigadier General George McClure to the Secretary of War (Dec. 22, 1813) (reprinted on page 487 HERE)

• Lt. Col. E. Cruikshank, Drummond's Winter Campaign, 1813 (2d. ed. 1920)

• Paris M. Davis, An Authentick History of the Late War between the United States and Great Britain, with a full account of every battle by sea and land (1829)

• Public Papers of Daniel D. Tompkins, Governor of New York, 1807-1817 (1902) (Vol. III)

• Robert Malcomson, Historical Dictionary of the War of 1812 (2006)

• The Documentary History of the Campaign Upon the Niagara Frontier (Lt. Col. E Cruikshank ed. 1907)