Engagement on Lake Huron

The Engagement on Lake Huron was actually a series of minor engagements, which left the British in control of the lake and thus of the Old Northwest for the latter stages of the War of 1812.

Background

On September 10, 1813, the Americans won the decisive Battle of Lake Erie, which allowed them to recapture Detroit, and also cut the British supply line to Mackinac. It was too late in the year for the Americans to send ships and troops into Lake Huron to attack Mackinac. During the ensuing winter, the British opened another supply line to Mackinac from York via the Nottawasaga River.

In 1814, the Americans mounted an expedition to recover Mackinac. The American force initially consisted of five vessels (the brigs Lawrence, Niagara and Caledonia, and the gunboats Scorpion and Tigress) under Commodore Arthur Sinclair, with 700 soldiers (half of them regulars from the 17th, 19th and 24th U.S. Infantry, the other half volunteers from the Ohio Militia) embarked under Lieutenant Colonel George Croghan.

The expedition sailed from Detroit and entered Lake Huron on July 12. They first searched Matchedash Bay for the British supply base but failed to find it. (An earlier British base there had been abandoned during the winter, after the route via the Nottawasaga had been opened.) The Americans then attacked the British post at St. Joseph Island on July 20 but found that it too had been abandoned. On August 4, they attacked the main British position at Fort Mackinac in the Battle of Mackinac Island but were repulsed with heavy losses.

Action at Nottawasaga

In spite of their victory, the British at Mackinac were very short of provisions and would starve if they were not resupplied before Lake Huron froze at the start of winter. Sinclair had earlier captured a small schooner (the Mink) belonging to the North West Company, and learned from one of the prisoners that the British supply base was at Nottawasaga Bay.^[1] He arrived there with the Niagara, Scorpion and Tigress on August 13.

The British detachment at Nottawasaga consisted of 21 sailors under Lieutenant Miller Worsley and 9 French Canadian voyageurs. A few days before the Americans arrived, Lieutenant Robert Livingston of the Indian Department had arrived, carrying a warning from McDouall of the American presence. Livingston was able to gather 23 Indians to help Worsley's party. The unarmed schooner HMS Nancy was present at the Nottawasaga, loaded with 300 barrels of provisions. The Nancy was towed two miles (3 km) up the Nottawasaga River, and a crude blockhouse armed with two 24-pounder carronades and a 6-pounder field gun was hastily constructed for her protection.

The Americans believed that the Nancy was still en route and intended to intercept her on the lake, but Croghan's troops landed to set up an encampment on the spit of land at the mouth of the river, and foraging parties chanced on the schooner's hiding place. The next day, Croghan's troops (three companies of regular infantry) landed and attacked. The American ships opened fire over intervening sand hills without success, but the Americans landed a detachment of artillery with one (or two) 5.5-inchhowitzers. Worsley had already decided that further defence was impossible and had made preparations to destroy the blockhouse and schooner when a hit from a howitzer shell ignited the powder trail he had laid, and did the job for him. His party then retreated, having suffered one killed and one wounded.^[2]

The Americans recovered the guns from the wrecked blockhouse and then felled trees across the river. Sinclair departed for Detroit in the Niagara, leaving the gunboats to maintain a blockade of the bay.

Movements in late August

The Americans had missed one hundred barrels of provisions, two batteaux and a large canoe which had been moved higher up the river. Worsley removed the obstructions from the river and sailed for Fort Mackinac with his sailors and Lieutenant Livingston, carrying seventy barrels, late on August 18. Accounts vary; some state that Worsley evaded the gunboats, which were forced back into Lake Huron by a storm (which also nearly sank the Niagara) a few days later^[3]; other accounts state that one or both gunboats had left the Nottawasaga almost as soon as the Niagara was out of sight, hoping to capture boats and canoes involved in the fur trade with their valuable cargoes, leaving the Nottawasaga unguarded.

The Americans then heard that several boats of the Canadian Voyageurs under Captain J. M. Lamothe were attempting to reach Mackinac Island with supplies via the Ottawa River, Lake Nipissing and the French River. To intercept this party, the gunboats cruised in a narrow channel about thirty-six miles east of Mackinac Island, known as the Detour Passage. The voyageur party were warned and temporarily turned back up the French River.^[4]

Having rowed and paddled 360 miles, Worsley encountered the two gunboats in the Detour on August 24 but was able to turn aside without being spotted. He concealed the batteaux at a secluded bay and reached Mackinac Island with the canoe on September 1.

Capture of the gunboats

Worsley asked Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDouall, the commandant at Fort Mackinac, for reinforcements to be used to attack the gunboats. He received 60 men of the Royal Newfoundland Fencibles, all expert boatmen, in four large boats. Lieutenants Bulger (whose boat was armed with a 3-pounder gun), Armstrong and Raderhurst of the Royal Newfoundland commanded three of the boats. Worsley, with 17 seamen and a 6-pounder gun, commanded the other. Two hundred Indians in nineteen canoes followed them in case any warriors were fighting for the Americans.

Late on August 2, the boats and canoes landed on Detour Island. Worsley and Livingston went scouting the next day, and spotted the Tigress anchored a few miles away. That night, the British and Indians set out towards the gunboat. The Indians (except for Robert Dickson (fur trader) and three chiefs) were told to wait three miles away. In the early hours of September 4, Worsley's four boats approached the Tigress silently. The crew (thirty-one sailors and marines, under Sailing Master Champlin) of the gunboat spotted them too late, and their fire missed. The attackers swarmed on board and overpowered them, after a sharp struggle. Three Americans were killed and five wounded (including Champlin). Three British were killed and seven wounded, including Lieutenant Bulger.^[5]

Livingston set off to find the Scorpion, and returned two hours later to report that she was approaching. The captured Americans were hastily sent ashore. The next day, the Scorpion came into view and anchored about two miles away, but appeared not to have heard any of the fight. At dawn on September 6, Worsley set sail towards her, under American colours and with most of his men below decks or concealed under their greatcoats. Worsley came within few yards of the Scorpion and fired a volley of muskets and a 24-pounder cannon. As the ships came into contact, his men swarmed aboard the American vessel. The surprised Americans made little resistance. Two Americans were killed and two wounded. There were no British casualties.^[6]

Scorpion (but not Tigress) had boarding nettings rigged and might have been able to fight off a boarding attempt from small boats, but not from a vessel of equal size.

Aftermath

The captured Scorpion and Tigress were renamed Confiance and Surprise. It was too late in the year for American ships to re-enter Lake Huron to engage them. They sailed at once for the Nottawasaga and returned at the start of October with six months' provisions. This was sufficient to keep the garrison of Mackinac and their Indian allies supplied until the end of the war.

The British planned to build a frigate at Penetanguishene on Matchedash Bay in 1815. Together with the construction of other vessels at Chippawa which would contest the American control of Lake Erie, this would have further reinforced the British advantage in the area. The end of the war put a halt to its construction (although a naval base was opened at Penetanguishene in 1817).

Results

Although trifling in scale, the British and Indian successes on Lake Huron were vital, given the remoteness and sparse population of the theatre.

Some American historians maintain that the expedition to recapture Mackinac Island was a waste of resources. The troops would have been better employed in the battles on the Niagara peninsula and the crews of the vessels more use in the squadron on Lake Ontario.^[7] On the other hand, a mere 300 extra regular soldiers and the same number of sailors would have made little difference given the scale of the battles further east; and the successful recovery of Fort Mackinac would have spared other American troops tied down in garrisons in the west by hostile Native Americans.

Notes

^ Zaslow (ed), The Defended Border, p.148
^ Zaslow (ed), The Defended Border, p.150
^ Zaslow (ed), p.151
^ Zaslow (ed), The Defended Border, p.153
^ Roosevelt, The Naval War of 1812, p.206
^ Zaslow (ed), The Defended Border, p.152
^ John R. Elting, Amateurs to Arms, p.273

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