the officers and crews of the Salt Battery at Youngstown solved a supply problem during the exchange: “These two officers [Lieutenant John Gansevoort and Lieutenant Hains (First Regiment U.S. Artillery)] and their men in the warmest part of the cannonading, having fired away all their cartridges cut up their flannel waistcoats and shirts and the soldiers their trowsers, to supply their guns.”[3] (Lieutenant Colonel McFeeley to Brigadier General Smyth.) In the second story, the garrison at Fort Niagara had the help of a Mrs. Fanny Doyle, the wife of Private Andrew Doyle (First U.S. Artillery Regiment) who had been captured at Queenston the previous month and was now a prisoner on his way to Quebec. Mrs. Doyle served valiantly throughout the day’s action, coming under heavy fire as she helped to load and fire a 6-pounder cannon that was mounted on the fort’s mess-house roof.[4]
Elsewhere along the frontier, Sheaffe was hard-pressed to find sufficient troops to secure the exposed riverbank from further American incursions and was forced to divide his force into pockets of men, each guarding extended lengths of the riverbank. As a result, when the Americans attempted another invasion, the only force covering the actual landing point near Fort Erie were the reduced detachments from the 41st and 49th Regiments, backed by a single Royal Artillery and two militia artillery detachments. On November 25, 1812, Smyth planned to use over seventy boats, each capable of carrying a hundred men, supported by ten scows, each capable of carrying complete gun teams, limbers, and crew, in order to transport 3,000 men across the Niagara at Black Rock. This assault was designed to swamp the defenders and overrun their positions before reinforcements could be brought up from Chippawa. However, the commander of the proposed invasion (Colonel Winder) was so concerned that an epidemic of pneumonia had broken out only three days before and had already killed over 200 men, with 400 more showing symptoms of the disease, that on November 25 he wrote to Smyth asking for a postponement: “Sir … the indisposition of the officers to cross is such, and the real difficulties for the want of a little preparatory arrangement, that I fear the issue will be disgraceful and fatal. I would venture to recommend a delay of the expedition.”[5]
Calling off this attack, Smyth revised his plans and on the morning of the 26th sent a flag of truce over to the British, ostensibly demanding an immediate surrender, but in reality as an opportunity to make a reconnaissance of the proposed landing points for his new operation. This attack was to be a smaller-scale sortie, designed to eliminate the British batteries along the riverbank and secure a bridgehead before following it up with a larger assault and invasion force. Inevitably, on November 27, 1812, Smyth prefaced his planned attack with yet another proclamation:
Friends of your country! The moment you have wished for has arrived. Think of your country’s honor lost, her rights trampled on, her sons enslaved, and her infants perishing by the hatchet. Be strong! Be brave! And let the ruffian power of the British King cease on this continent….[6]
Around 3:00 a.m. on Saturday November 28, 1812, a force of around 420 troops pushed out into the icy water of the upper Niagara River and pulled for the far shore.*[7] The attack was planned to consist of two assault groups, taken from the commands of Colonel William H. Winder and Lieutenant Colonel Charles G. Boerstler, supported by sailors detached from several boats docked at Buffalo. Winder’s target, under the joint field command of Captain William King (Fourteenth Infantry) and Lieutenant Samuel Angus (U.S. Navy), was to eliminate the three artillery batteries opposite Black Rock, just below Fort Erie; while Boerstler’s target was further downriver at the bridge over Frenchman’s Creek. By this it was hoped that the invaders could cut off communications with Sheaffe’s troops stationed at Chippawa while providing a secure bridgehead for the main American force to link up with King’s force and establish a foothold in Upper Canada.
Under cover of the darkness, King and Angus’s troops initially rowed upriver, keeping close to the American riverbank, before moving out into the open water and allowing the current to bring them down onto the Canadian shore. In the darkness, the boats manned by the soldiers found the current difficult to manage and became scattered, while the boats under Lieutenant Angus and his more experienced naval party moved ahead of the pack. Approaching the shoreline, Angus’s boats were detected and fired upon by a detachment of some thirty-five men of Lieutenant Lamont’s 49th Regiment at what was referred to as the “Red House.” This was immediately supported by fire from the gun battery adjacent to the Red House and manned by a detachment of Royal Artillerymen under Lieutenant King (Royal Artillery). Suffering casualties and with one of his craft holed by a cannon ball, Angus’s naval unit landed and, without waiting for additional support, made a direct assault upon the battery, while Lieutenant Lamont and his men rushed into the battery to join the artillerymen in fighting off the attack. As the American Naval surgeon, Usher Parsons later remembered and recorded in his diary:
28 November 1813
Our Commander, Lieutenant Angus unwisely volunteered to cross in the night and spike the enemy’s cannon…. It was about 3 in the morning when the boats were crossing but were undiscovered and not expected until within 50 rods of the opposite shore. They were hailed and fired upon by the Sentinel. Three cheers were instantly returned by our men mingled with the sound of the enemy’s muskets, and in two minutes from the first musket of the Sentinel came a discharge of a 12 pounder, loaded with grape and canister, followed by others. The contents of one of them struck one of the boats and killed & wounded half a dozen. The men sprang from their boats as soon as they struck the shore and it was an incessant crackling of musketry by both sides — and a tremendous yells and uproar of voices mingled with cannon.[8]
In the ensuing fight, the Americans suffered the loss of nine of their twelve officers and twenty-two men killed or wounded before being driven back to the beach. There, they established a defensive position under the cover of the shoreline embankment and continued to fire upon the British in the battery. Meanwhile, Captain King landed three boats undetected slightly further downriver (north) and succeeded in outflanking the northern gun position manned by men of the 1st and 2nd Norfolk militias. Attacking the position from the rear, the Americans charged the guns and, after a fierce hand-to-hand fight, succeeded in overwhelming the position, driving off the militiamen. Having secured this position and spiked the guns, King’s force marched upriver (south) seeking to link up with Angus’s naval force. Because they were dressed in long blanket coats of the style worn by militia forces in both of the opposing armies, Lieutenant Lamont was initially deceived into believing that the advancing men were the Canadian militia coming to his aid. However, he was soon disabused of that notion when King’s men fired a volley into the 49th and charged. After some additional hand-to-hand fighting, Lamont’s surviving seventeen men were forced to retire south toward Lieutenant Bryson’s battery, leaving their wounded behind to be taken prisoner. Capturing the Red House battery and linking up with Angus’s troops, King’s force also headed for Bryson’s battery, only to find that the gun’s crew and its covering detachment of infantry from the 41st Regiment, not knowing of the relatively weak strength of the American force, had already spiked their gun and abandoned the position. Having suffered several casualties, King now looked for the remaining boats of his flotilla to continue his mission, but none appeared out of the darkness, either because they had been swept too far downstream by the strong current or had abandoned the attempt to land once the element of surprise had been lost. Having succeeded in his assigned objectives, King and his men returned to their landing ground, only to find that the naval unit had also gone, abandoning their own damaged boats and taking King’s to transport themselves and the wounded back to Black Rock, leaving Captain King and the remains of his detachment stranded on the enemy’s shore.
Meanwhile
