Engagements On Lake Huron - Action at Nottawasaga

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 Canadian North West Company, and learned from one of the prisoners that the British supply base was at Nottawasaga Bay. Having sent the Lawrence and Caledonia back to Detroit with the militia, he arrived at the Nottawasaga with the Niagara, Scorpion and Tigress on 13 August.

The British detachment at Nottawasaga consisted of a Midshipman and 21 sailors of the Royal Navy under Lieutenant Miller Worsley, and 9 French Canadian voyageurs. The schooner HMS Nancy was present at the Nottawasaga, loaded with 300 barrels of provisions (salted pork, flour, spirits etc.) for the garrison at Mackinac. A few days before the Americans appeared, Lieutenant Robert Livingston of the Indian Department had arrived, carrying a warning from Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDouall, the commandant at Mackinac, of the American presence. The Nancy was towed 2 miles (3.2 km) up the Nottawasaga River, and a crude blockhouse armed with two 24-pounder carronades removed from the Nancy and a 6-pounder field gun was hastily constructed for her protection. Livingston had proceeded onwards to York to request reinforcements, but none were available. (Almost all the British regular troops in Upper Canada were already engaged in the Siege of Fort Erie, and the militia could not be persuaded to turn out.) On his return, Livingston was able to gather 23 Ojibwa Indians to help Worsley's party.

The Americans believed that the Nancy was still en route to the Nottawasaga and intended to intercept the schooner on the lake, but on 14 August, some of 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 then landed a detachment of artillery with one (or two) 5.5–inch howitzers to support the infantry.

Worsley had decided that further defence was impossible and made preparations to destroy the blockhouse and schooner. A line of powder was set running to the Nancy and from there to the blockhouse. At four o'clock, the Nancy was set alight which in turn by way of the powder train, set off an explosion in the blockhouse. The blockhouse explosion surprised Sinclair, causing him to think that one of the howitzer's shots had found its mark. Worsley's party then retreated into the woods, having suffered one killed and one wounded.

The Americans recovered the guns from the wrecked blockhouse and then felled trees across the river to block it. Sinclair departed for Detroit in the Niagara, leaving the gunboats under Lieutenant Daniel Turner to maintain a blockade of the bay. Sinclair's orders were that the gunboats were to remain until they were driven from the Lake by bad weather in October, by which time it would be impossible for small boats to re-establish communications between the Nottawasaga and Mackinac. He did however authorize the Tigress to cruise for a week or two around St. Joseph Island to intercept fur canoes. The gunboats' crews were reinforced by twenty-five men of the 17th U.S. Infantry, to serve as marines.