The siege of Fort Erie, also known as the Battle of Erie, from 4 August to 21 September 1814, was one of the last engagements of the War of 1812, between British and American forces. It took place during the Niagara campaign, and the Americans successfully defended Fort Erie against a British army under Gordon Drummond. During the siege, Drummond's troops suffered high casualties in a failed storming attempt; they also suffered casualties from sickness and exposure in their rough encampments. Unaware that the British were about to abandon the siege, the American garrison launched a sortie to destroy the British siege batteries, during which both sides again suffered high losses.
After the British abandoned the siege, the reinforced American army followed up cautiously and forced a second retreat at Cook's Mills but, with the onset of winter and shortage of supplies, they withdrew. They demolished Fort Erie before leaving the area. The attempted siege ended one of the last British offensives along the northern border, the other being the failed British assault on Plattsburgh.
Background
American forces under Major General Jacob Brown had crossed the Niagara River and captured Fort Erie on 3 July 1814. After defeating a British force at the Battle of Chippawa, they advanced north but the British reinforced their troops in the Niagara peninsula. On 25 July, the bloody but indecisive Battle of Lundy's Lane was fought, during which Brown was severely wounded. Following the battle, the outnumbered American troops, now under the command of Brigadier General Eleazer Wheelock Ripley, withdrew to Fort Erie. Ripley advocated abandoning the fort and retreating across the Niagara, but Brown overruled him and summoned Brigadier General Edmund P. Gaines from Sackets Harbor to assume command.
The British, under the command of Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond (the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada), had suffered high casualties at Lundy's Lane. Drummond nevertheless claimed that the Americans had been forced to retreat in disorder, and he intended to drive them from the Canadian side of the Niagara. His troops followed the Americans slowly and reached the fort on 4 August. Drummond's division numbered 3,000, but Drummond complained about the quality of the troops and the degree to which the units were composed of mixed detachments and companies. His slow advance gave the Americans vitally needed time to reorganise and to reinforce their defences.
Defences
The original British fort consisted of two two-story barrack buildings, with fortified cannon bastions connected to them. The barracks were connected by a thick stone curtain with the main gate located in the centre. The rear of the fort (facing away from Lake Erie) consisted of an open terreplein, raised 6 feet (1.8 m) above the base of the dry ditch which surrounded the fort, with two redoubts located on the corner. The redoubts were incomplete and offered little protection. The front of the fort was protected by a large earth wall with a forward gun emplacement. The fort was also divided in half by an earth wall and ditch, but this too was incomplete. At least a third of the rear defenses were makeshift wooden walls or earthworks, some of which were only 1 metre (3.3 ft) high. A gun emplacement was located in the centre redan (raised platform). The fort contained a total of six guns.
The dry ditch surrounding the fort had a 9 feet (2.7 m) high wooden wall in the centre. This wall was angled outwards and was sharpened to prevent any enemy from leaping into the ditch, which also had sharpened sticks placed up and down the walls to help impale or wound enemy soldiers. The ditch was used as a garbage dump and a sewer by the defenders, creating a slippery and smelly swamp at the base that would slow enemy attacks and likely cause disease in any wounds.
Since capturing the fort, the Americans had made significant improvements to its defenses under Brown's direction and now redoubled their efforts to entrench themselves. Since the fort was too small to hold the entire American force, they extended the earth wall to the south for an additional 800 metres (0.50 mi) to a rise made of sand, known as Snake Hill, where they constructed a gun battery. To protect the north end of the position, the Americans threw up an earth wall connecting the northeast bastion of the fort to the lake. On the shore was another fortified gun emplacement, known as the Douglass Battery from its commander, Lieutenant David Douglass of the U.S. Corps of Engineers. Abatis (obstacles made of felled trees) were placed in front of the earth walls.
By the close of the siege, the Americans had also built three log blockhouses in the rear of the fort and had strengthened the defences and redoubts.
Preliminaries
Raid on Black Rock and Buffalo
When the British force reached Fort Erie, Drummond first sent a force on 3 August across the Niagara in batteaux to raid Buffalo and Black Rock. He hoped to capture or destroy American supplies and provisions. The force consisted of two columns: one made up of the two flank companies and four of the centre companies of the 41st Foot under Lieutenant Colonel Evans of the 41st. The other was composed of the light companies of the 2nd Battalion, the 89th Foot and the 100th Foot, and the flank companies of the 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot, under Lieutenant Colonel William Drummond of Kelty, General Drummond's nephew. With some artillerymen, the force numbered 600 men in total. The force was under the overall command of Lieutenant Colonel John Tucker, the senior Lieutenant Colonel of the 41st Foot.
The raid was a failure. On landing on the American side of the Niagara, Tucker found that the bridge over Conjocta Creek (now known as Scajaquada Creek) had been destroyed. The creek could not be forded, and an American detachment of 240 men of the 1st U.S. Rifle Regiment under Major Lodowick Morgan, with some volunteers, were defending the creek to prevent the bridge being repaired. The British casualties were 11 killed, 17 wounded, and 5 missing. The Americans took 6 prisoners, indicating that one of the British soldiers who had been recorded as "killed" had been captured. Tucker complained that the troops panicked and fled, though they subsequently rallied. The Americans lost 2 killed and 8 wounded. Major Morgan was killed a few days later in a clash between outposts.
Preparations for the siege
Drummond lost several vital subordinates during the next few days, forcing him to take personal charge of the siege. Major General Phineas Riall, the commander of the "Right Division" on the Niagara Peninsula, had been wounded and captured at Lundy's Lane. His replacement, Major General Henry Conran, recently arrived from England, broke a leg in a fall from a horse and was incapacitated. Colonel Stewart of the Royal Scots was summoned from York to replace him, but fell ill with ague. Colonel Hercules Scott of the 103rd Foot requested permission to relinquish his command of a brigade and revert to command of his regiment.
Capture of Ohio and Somers
While the British constructed their siege lines and batteries, three American schooners anchored in the Niagara River harassed them with gunfire. At the time, three small craft from the British naval squadron on Lake Ontario were blockaded in the mouth of the Niagara River by three larger American vessels. Commander Alexander Dobbs, in command of the British vessels, and his sailors and Royal Marines dragged a gig and five other boats overland from below Niagara Falls and launched a boarding attack on the American schooners off Fort Erie on the night of 12 August. The crews of the schooners spotted and challenged them, but the British replied "Provision boats", and deceived the Americans long enough to bring their boats alongside. They captured Ohio and Somers. The crew of Porcupine escaped by cutting their anchor cables before slipping away, but were accidentally fired upon by US artillery on the shore. The British lost 2 killed and 4 wounded in the engagement, while the Americans had 1 killed and 70 captured, of whom 8 were wounded. This victory raised British morale but Drummond mistakenly believed that it depressed American morale to the same extent. Some American deserters reported this, as well as saying that the defenders numbered only 1,500, when there were 2,200 troops.
British assault
On 13 August, Drummond opened fire on the fort with two light 24-pounder field guns and four 18-pounder or 24-pounder naval guns. Because the bombardment was fired from too long a range, it was ineffective against the fort's walls. Drummond launched a three-pronged attack on the night of 15/16 August, with each arm of the attack aimed at one of the American batteries. The largest column, of 1,300 soldiers led by Lieutenant Colonel Victor Fischer would outflank the south end of the defenses at Snake Hill. Another column of 700 soldiers under Colonel Hercules Scott would attack the Douglass Battery and the north end of the defenses, and sweep into the U.S. camp, meeting Fischer's column in the middle. Finally, a column of 360 soldiers, sailors and marines led by Lieutenant Colonel William Drummond would attack the fort once the other assaults were under way, with the objective of capturing the old British barrack buildings. A reserve of nearly 700 men (the 1st Battalion of the Royal Scots, the Glengarry Light Infantry, the Incorporated Militia of Upper Canada and those soldiers from the Regiment de Watteville who had not volunteered to take part in Fischer's attack on the Snake Hill battery) was left in the siege lines under Lieutenant Colonel Tucker.
Colonel Scott and Lieutenant Colonel Drummond were both experienced soldiers and had little confidence in General Drummond's plan. Both men arranged their affairs before heading into battle, sending their papers home to their wives. Drummond gave away his sword (a gift from Lloyd's of London) to Surgeon William "Tiger" Dunlop of the 89th. Shortly before moving out, both men wished each other luck and bade farewell.
The columns moved out after dark, but the garrison at the fort had seen their preparations. Surprise would be nearly impossible to achieve. While Fischer's column made its long march to the south of Snake Hill, Scott's and Drummond's columns waited in the pouring rain in a ravine a few hundred yards north of the fort. An hour before the assault began, the British bombardment of the fort ceased, having inflicted casualties on the garrison of 10 killed and 35 wounded.
American preparations
In the fort, Gaines ordered his men to stand to. This produced rumblings from the troops forced to stand in their positions in heavy rain but would prove invaluable in the coming battle. He also ordered that the charges in all guns were to be drawn and replaced, ensuring the guns would not misfire through damp powder.
Ripley defended Snake Hill with the 21st and 23rd U.S. Infantry. The Hill was topped with a large gun emplacement containing six guns under the command of Captain Nathaniel Towson. The fort itself was defended by two companies of the 19th U.S. Infantry, and three guns under Captains Williams and Gookin. The wall between the fort and the Douglass Battery (which held one gun) was manned by the 9th U.S. Infantry, a company of volunteers from the New York and Pennsylvania state militias, the dismounted New York Volunteer Dragoons, and another gun.
The long wall between the fort and the Snake Hill, which was not attacked, was defended by Brigadier General Peter B. Porter with detachments of the 1st and 4th U.S. Rifle Regiments, the 5th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Swift's Regiment of Detached New York Militia, and five guns. Finally, two companies of the 11th and 22nd U.S. Infantry and a detachment of the U.S. Light Dragoons were in reserve.
Fischer's attack
Fischer's column consisted of the light companies of the 2/89th Foot and the 100th Foot, the remnants of the 1st Battalion, 8th (King's) Foot, which had suffered heavy casualties in earlier engagements, and volunteers from Fischer's own regiment, the Regiment de Watteville. De Watteville's nominally Swiss regiment was made up of men from all over Europe, many of them former prisoners of war or deserters from the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the British commanders suspected their loyalty. On the approach march, the roll was called every hour to prevent desertion. Except for a few steady men, the entire column was ordered to remove their firearms' flints and take the enemy battery on the hill with the bayonet.