The Battle of Plattsburgh, also known as the Battle of Lake Champlain, ended the final British invasion of the northern states of the United States during the War of 1812. Two British forces, an army under Lieutenant General Sir George Prevost and a naval squadron under Captain George Downie converged on the lakeside town of Plattsburgh, New York. Plattsburgh was defended by New York and Vermont militia and detachments of regular troops of the United States Army, all under the command of Brigadier General Alexander Macomb, and ships commanded by Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough.
Downie's squadron attacked shortly after dawn on 11 September 1814, but was defeated after a hard fight in which Downie was killed. Prevost then abandoned the attack by land against Macomb's defences and retreated to Canada, stating that even if Plattsburgh was captured, any British troops there could not be supplied without control of the lake.
When the battle took place, American and British delegates were meeting at Ghent in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, attempting to negotiate a treaty acceptable to both sides to end the war. The American victory at Plattsburgh, and the successful defense at the Battle of Baltimore, which began the next day and halted British advances in the Mid-Atlantic states, denied the British negotiators leverage to demand any territorial claims against the United States on the basis of uti possidetis, i.e., retaining territory they held at the end of hostilities. The Treaty of Ghent, in which captured or occupied territories were restored on the basis of status quo ante bellum, i.e., the situation as it existed before the war, was signed three months after the battle. However, this battle may have done little to advance the objectives of either side.
Background
British plans
In 1814, most of Britain's army was engaged in the Peninsular War in Spain. Then in April, Napoleon I abdicated the throne of France. This provided Britain the opportunity to send 16,000 veteran troops from the Peninsula and other garrisons to North America. Several experienced Major-Generals were also detached from the Duke of Wellington's army to command them.
The Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, the Earl of Bathurst, sent instructions to Lieutenant-General Sir George Prevost, the Commander-in-Chief in Canada and Governor General of the Canadas, authorizing him to launch offensives into American territory, but cautioning him against advancing too far and thereby risking being cut off. Bathurst suggested that Prevost should give first priority to attacking Sackett's Harbor on Lake Ontario, where the American fleet on the lake was based, and seize control of Lake Champlain as a secondary objective. Prevost lacked the means to transport the troops necessary for an attack on Sackett's Harbor and the supplies for them up the Saint Lawrence River. Furthermore, the American ships controlled Lake Ontario, making an attack impossible until the British launched the first-rate ship of the line HMS St. Lawrence on 15 October, too late in the year for major operations to be undertaken.
Prevost therefore prepared to launch his major offensive to Lake Champlain, up the Richelieu River. (Since the Richelieu was the only waterway connecting Lake Champlain to the ocean, trade on the lake naturally went through Canada.) Prevost's choice of route on reaching the lake was influenced by the attitude of the American state of Vermont, on the eastern side of the lake. The state had shown itself to be less than wholeheartedly behind the war and its inhabitants readily traded with the British, supplying them with all the cattle consumed by the British army, and even military stores such as masts and spars for the British warships on Lake Champlain. To spare Vermont from becoming a seat of war, Prevost therefore determined to advance down the western, New York State, side of the lake. The main American position on this side was at Plattsburgh.
Prevost organized the troops which were to carry out the invasion into a division commanded by Major General Sir Francis de Rottenburg, the Lieutenant Governor of Lower Canada. The division consisted of the 1st Brigade of veterans of the Peninsular War under Major General Frederick Philipse Robinson (the 3/27th, 39th, 76th and 88th Regiments of Foot); the 2nd Brigade of troops already serving in Canada under Major General Thomas Brisbane (the 2/8th, 13th, and 49th Regiments of Foot, the Regiment de Meuron, the Canadian Voltigeurs, and the Canadian Chasseurs); and the 3rd Brigade of troops from the Peninsula and various garrisons under Major General Manley Power (the 3rd, 5th, 1/27th, and 58th Regiments of Foot). Each brigade was supported by a battery of five 6-pounder guns and one 5.5-inch howitzer of the Royal Artillery. A squadron of the 19th Light Dragoons was attached to the force. There was also a small "siege train" of artillery, consisting of two 24-pounder brass field guns, an 8-inch brass howitzer, and three 24-pounder naval carronades mounted on field carriages, and a Congreve rocket detachment. The force numbered 11,000 in total. However, some units were detached and some sick men did not take part, so the actual number of troops present at Plattsburgh was just over 8,000.
There was some tension within the force between the brigade and regimental commanders who were veterans of the Peninsular War or of earlier fighting in Upper Canada, and Prevost and his staff. Prevost had not endeared himself by complaining about the standards of dress of the troops from the Peninsular Army, where the Duke of Wellington had emphasized musketry and efficiency above turnout. Furthermore, neither Prevost, nor de Rottenburg, nor Prevost's Adjutant General (Major General Edward Baynes) had the extensive experience of battle gained by their brigade commanders, and had already gained a reputation for caution and hesitancy. Prevost's Quartermaster General, Major General Thomas Sydney Beckwith, was a veteran of the early part of the Peninsular campaign and of operations in Chesapeake Bay in 1813, but even he was to be criticized, mainly for failures in the intelligence.
American defenses
On the American side of the frontier, Major General George Izard was the commander of the Northern Army, deployed along the Northeast frontier. In late August, Secretary of War John Armstrong ordered Izard to take the majority of his force, about 4,000 troops, to reinforce Sackett's Harbor. Izard's force departed on 23 August, leaving Brigadier General Alexander Macomb in command at Plattsburgh with only 1,500 American regulars. Most of these troops were recruits, invalids or detachments of odds and ends.
Macomb ordered General Benjamin Mooers to call out the New York militia and appealed to the governor of Vermont for militia volunteers. 2,000 troops eventually reported to Plattsburgh under the command of Major General Samuel Strong. Macomb put these recent volunteers to work digging trenches and building fortifications.
Macomb's main position was a ridge on the south bank of the Saranac River. Its fortifications had been laid out by Major Joseph Gilbert Totten, Izard's senior Engineer officer, and consisted of three redoubts and two blockhouses, linked by other fieldworks. The position was reckoned to be well enough supplied and fortified to withstand a siege for three weeks, even if the American ships on the lake were defeated and Plattsburgh was cut off. After Izard's division departed, Macomb continued to improve his defences. He even created an invalid battery on Crab Island, where his hospital was sited, that was to be manned by sick or wounded soldiers who were at least fit to fire the cannon. The townspeople of Plattsburgh had so little faith in Macomb's efforts to repulse the invasion that by September nearly all 3,000 inhabitants had fled the city. Plattsburgh was left occupied only by the American army.
Naval background
The British had gained naval superiority on Lake Champlain on 1 June 1813, when two American sloops pursued British gunboats into the Richelieu River, and were forced to surrender when the wind dropped and they were trapped by British artillery on the banks of the river. They were taken into the British naval establishment at Ile aux Noix, under Commander Daniel Pring. Their crews, and those of several gunboats, were temporarily reinforced by seamen drafted from ships of war lying at Quebec under Commander Thomas Everard who, being senior to Pring, took temporary command. They embarked 946 troops under Lieutenant Colonel John Murray of the 100th Regiment of Foot, and raided several settlements on both the New York and Vermont shores of Lake Champlain during the summer and autumn of 1813. The losses they inflicted and the restriction they imposed on the movement of men and supplies to Plattsburgh contributed to the defeat of Major General Wade Hampton's advance against Montreal, which finally ended with the Battle of the Chateauguay.
Lieutenant Thomas Macdonough, commanding the American naval forces on the Lake, established a secure base at Otter Creek (Vermont), and constructed several gunboats. He had to compete with Commodore Isaac Chauncey, commanding on Lake Ontario, for seamen, shipwrights and supplies, and was not able to begin constructing larger fighting vessels until his second-in-command went to Washington to argue his case to the Secretary of the Navy, William Jones. Naval architect Noah Brown was sent to Otter Creek to superintend construction.
In April 1814, the Americans launched the corvette USS Saratoga of 26 guns and the schooner USS Ticonderoga of 14 guns (originally a part-completed steam vessel). Together with the existing sloop-rigged USS Preble of 7 guns, they gave the Americans naval superiority, and this allowed them to establish and supply a substantial base at Plattsburgh. Only a few days before the Battle of Plattsburgh, the Americans also completed the 20-gun brig USS Eagle.
The loss of their former supremacy on Lake Champlain prompted the British to construct the 36-gun frigate HMS Confiance at Ile aux Noix. Captain George Downie was appointed to command soon after the frigate was launched on 25 August, replacing Captain Peter Fisher, who in turn had superseded Pring. Like Macdonough, Downie had difficulty obtaining men and materials from the senior officer on Lake Ontario, Commodore James Lucas Yeo, and Macdonough had intercepted several spars which had been sold to the British by Vermonters; American Midshipman Joel Abbot led a cutting-out expedition which destroyed several of the spars. Downie could promise to complete Confiance only on 15 September, and even then the frigate's crew would not have been exercised. Prevost was anxious to begin his campaign as early as possible, to avoid the bad weather of late autumn and winter, and continually pressed Downie to prepare Confiance for battle more quickly. However, at the time of the battle Confiance mounted only 16 12-pounder long guns and was crewed largely by untrained provincials.
Invasion
On 31 August, Prevost began marching south. Macomb sent forward 450 regulars under Captain Sproul and Major John E. Wool, 110 riflemen under Major Daniel Appling, 700 New York militia under Major General Benjamin Mooers and two 6-pounder guns under Captain Leonard to fight a delaying action. At Chazy, New York, they first made contact with the British. Slowly falling back, the Americans set up road blocks, burned bridges and mislabelled streets to slow down the British. The British nevertheless advanced steadily, not even deploying out of column of march or returning fire, except by flank guards.
When Prevost reached Plattsburgh on 6 September, the American rearguards retired across the Saranac, tearing up the planks from the bridges. Prevost did not immediately attack. On 7 September, he ordered Major General Robinson to cross the Saranac, but to Robinson's annoyance, Prevost had no intelligence on the American defences or even the local geography. Some tentative attacks across the bridges were repulsed by Wool's regulars.
Prevost abandoned his efforts to cross the river for the time being and instead began constructing batteries. The Americans responded by using cannonballs heated red-hot to set fire to sixteen buildings in Plattsburgh which the British were using as cover, forcing the British to withdraw farther away. On 9 September, a night raid across the Saranac River by 50 Americans led by Captain George McGlassin destroyed a British Congreve rocket battery only 500 yards (460 m) from Fort Brown, one of the three main American fortifications. McGlassin and his fellow raiders also killed one British officer and six British troops while wounding several others. Once all of the British artillery equipment was destroyed, they withdrew safely, having suffered no casualties.
While skirmishing and exchanges of artillery fire continued, the British located a ford (Pike's Ford) across the Saranac 3 miles (4.8 km) above Macomb's defences. Prevost planned that, once Downie's ships arrived, they would attack the American ships in Plattsburgh Bay. Simultaneously, Major General Brisbane would make a feint attack across the bridges over the Saranac while Major General Robinson's brigade (less two of its battalions but reinforced by the light infantry companies of several other battalions) would cross the ford to make the main attack against the American left flank, supported by Major General Power's brigade. Once the American ships had been defeated, Brisbane would make his feint attack into a real one.