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This month's Forgotten Battle is...
The Siege of Fort Erie
Intro
The Siege of Fort Erie was fought from August 4 to September 21, 1814, during the War of 1812. It was fought in present-day Ontario between the American and British/Canadian armies. For just over a month, several battles were fought over possession of the strategic fortification called, Fort Erie. This siege was the longest and bloodiest fight during the War of 1812.
By August of 1814, the War of 1812 was in its second year. Vicious fighting was being waged on multiple fronts between the United States and Great Britain. The majority of the fighting took place along the border between the United States and what is now, Canada. One of the most hotly contested fronts was the Niagara Frontier.
On July 3, American soldiers under the command of Major General Jacob Brown marched into the Canadian province of Ontario and captured Fort Erie (named for the great lake that it borders). From there, he hoped to advance further into Canada. On July 5, the Americans successfully attacked and scattered a British army at the Battle of Chippawa. However, twenty days later at the Battle of Lundy's Lane (aka: the Battle of Niagara) their advance was stopped by another British army of more than 3,500 soldiers led by General Gordon Drummond.
Although this battle had ended in a tactical stalemate, the American casualties were higher than those suffered by the British. This caused Brown's army to fall back to Fort Erie and strengthen its defenses. General Drummond (who believed the Americans were retreating back to New York) decided to wait a few days before pursuing (as is own army had suffered heavy losses).
Part II
Drummond's delay gave the Americans at Fort Erie time to expand the fort to accommodate more soldiers. In command of the garrison, was General Edmund Gaines. He ordered his soldiers to clear fields and construct redoubts that contained up to eight cannons. In addition, he also ordered the garrison to construct a dry ditch around the fort's walls and lined it with wooden spikes. He also utilized the ditch as a garbage dump (which effectively poisoned the spikes). When General Drummond arrived with his army, he found himself facing a very formidable outpost.
Drummond believed that the best course of action was to attack the American outposts that were sending supplies to the garrison at Fort Erie. He dispatched two raiding parties to attack the Americans stationed at Buffalo and Black Rock. However, these raids were both repulsed and the British were forced to lay siege to Fort Erie. Things got even more dire when American gunboats began arriving to provide extra artillery support for the garrison. After launching more raids and successfully capturing the gunboats, the British starting constructing siege batteries on August 13.
Part III
The British began a two-day bombardment of Fort Erie that began on August 13 and continued into the night of the 14th. General Drummond planned to launch a three-pronged attack on the fort on August 15. Their right (and largest) column was to attack Snake Hill at the fort's left flank. The center column was to assault Fort Erie itself. Leading this column was General Drummond's nephew, Lieutenant-Colonel William Drummond. Finally, the left column was assigned to storm Douglass' Battery on the fort's right flank. What the British didn't know was that the bombardment did very little damage to the fort and the Americans were ready for their attack.Three days earlier, they had moved three groups of soldiers to the fort's weakest points who quickly dug in.
Late on the night of August 14, the British and Canadians began advancing under the cover of darkness. Their attack began at 2 AM on the morning of the 15th. Snake Hill (a sand mound) was just over 700 meters from Fort Erie and had been fortified with a series of earthworks up to 20 feet high. When the British regulars attacked, the Americans (under the command of Brigadier General Eleazer Ripley) caught them in a lethal crossfire. To make matters worse, the British had been ordered to remove the flints from their muskets and capture Snake Hill with bayonets only. As a direct result, all assaults on Snake Hill were easily beaten back.
At 3 AM, the other two columns launched their attacks on Fort Erie and Douglass' Battery. At the latter, the British made it as far as the abatis (where the poisoned spikes were) and were shot down in droves. None of them got closer than 50 yards to the battery. They pulled back after their commander (Col. Hercules Scott) was killed. However, Lieutenant-Colonel Drummond's attack managed to reach Fort Erie.
Although the Americans in Fort Erie repulsed two charges, the British finally scaled the fort's wall on their third attempt. Drummond and a handful of British soldiers initially managed to capture a single bastion and kill the defenders. Unfortunately, William Drummond was shot and killed and a massive explosion beneath the bastion (the powder magazine had caught fire) killed or wounded almost all of the British who had come over the wall in rapid succession. With that, General Drummond ordered the surviving soldiers to pull back and called off further assaults on Fort Erie. The failed night attack had cost his army more than 900 casualties while the Americans only lost 62.
Epilogue
The siege of Fort Erie lasted for another month. During which, both armies suffered heavy casualties. The siege finally ended on September 21, when General Drummond was ordered to pull his army back to Fort George. At its height, the Americans stationed at the fort numbered more than 6,000 soldiers and sailors. But in October, General Jacob Brown received orders to move most of his garrison (and the ships supporting them) back to Sackets Harbor in New York. This left General George Izard in command of Fort Erie.
Unfortunately, after this shift in troops, the garrison became severely undermanned. With supplies running low and winter approaching, General Izard decided to abandon Fort Erie. On November 5, the Americans blew up the fort and retreated back across the Niagara River to Buffalo. The entire ordeal had cost them 1,075 casualties (213 KIA, 565 wounded, 240 captured, and 57 missing). The British casualties were 1,551 (285 KIA, 508 wounded, 748 captured, and 12 missing).
After the bloody siege was over, negotiations to end the War of 1812 finally began. On December 24, 1814, the US and Great Britain signed a bilateral peace treaty in the Dutch city of Ghent (now in Belgium). Brought about by John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay of the US and Lord James Gambier and Henry Goulburn of the UK, the treaty was approved by the British parliament and signed by the Prince Regent (future King George IV) on December 30. Although bloody battles continued to be fought for the next two months, President James Madison signed the treaty on February 17, 1815. This finally brought the War of 1812 to an end (although fighting on the ocean would continue until June 30)
After the war, the British decided not to rebuild the ruined fort. Although it was somewhat used as a barracks building for the next eight years, they abandoned it for good in 1823. In 1901, the fort's remains were sold to the Niagara Parks Commission. In 1937, the Commission restored Fort Erie to its original 1812 period. Two years later, it was officially opened to the public on July 1, 1939. Monuments to the fallen on both sides were erected and the fort is now registered as a Canadian historic sight and has attracted thousands of visitors every year. It remains a fitting tribute to those who died during the terrible siege that occurred during the War of 1812.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/war-1812/battles/siege-fort-erie
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/siege-of-fort-erie-war-of-1812
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/old-fort-erie-the-defiant-stand-during-the-war-of-1812/
https://www.warof1812.ca/forterie.htm
