The Battle of York was a battle of the War of 1812 fought on April 27, 1813, at York, Upper Canada (present day Toronto). An American force supported by a naval flotilla landed on the lake shore to the west, defeated the defending British force and captured the fort, town and dockyard. The Americans themselves suffered heavy casualties, including Brigadier General Zebulon Pike who was leading the troops, when the retreating British blew up the fort's magazine.
The American forces subsequently carried out several acts of arson and looting in the town before withdrawing.
Though the Americans won a clear victory, it did not have decisive strategic results as York was a less important objective in military terms than Kingston, where the British armed vessels on Lake Ontario were based.
Read more about Battle Of York: Background, US Planning, Battle, Casualties, Surrender, Burning of York, Aftermath, Later Attack
Famous quotes containing the words battle and/or york:
“In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it’s more dangerous to lose than to win.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“New York was a new and strange world. Vast, impersonal, merciless.... Always before I had felt like a person, an individual, hopeful that I could mold my life according to some desire of my own. But here in New York I was ignorant, insignificant, unimportant—one in millions whose destiny concerned no one. New York did not even know of my existence. Nor did it care.”
—Agnes Smedley (1890–1950)