Engagements On Lake Ontario - Operations in 1812

Operations in 1812

When war was first declared, the British had an early advantage on the Great Lakes in that they possessed a quasi-naval body, the Provincial Marine. Although not particularly well-manned or efficient, its ships were initially unopposed on Lake Erie and Lake Huron, and made possible the decisive early victories of Major General Isaac Brock.

On Lake Ontario, they possessed the ships Royal George and Prince Regent, and the brigs Earl of Moira and Duke of Gloucester, based at the Kingston Royal Naval Dockyard. The schooners Seneca and Simcoe were also taken into service. The chief officer was Commodore John Steel, who was seventy-five years old, or even older. He was retired and replaced by Commander Hugh Earle. The Americans possessed only one brig, the Oneida under Lieutenant Melancthon Taylor Woolsey, and a small navy yard at Sackets Harbor, New York. On 19 July, five vessels of the Provincial Marine attacked Oneida in the First Battle of Sackett's Harbor but were beaten off.

To redress matters, on 3 September, the United States Navy appointed Commodore Isaac Chauncey, then commanding the New York Navy Yard, to command on the lakes. Although Chauncey was nominally in charge of the naval force on Lake Erie also, he took little part in its construction or operations there but concentrated his attention on Lake Ontario. To supplement the Oneida, he first purchased or commandeered several trading vessels (including some captured Canadian schooners), but he also despatched large numbers of carpenters, shipwrights and so on to Sacket's Harbor to construct proper fighting ships. The chief architects were Adam Brown, his brother Noah and Henry Eckford. They launched their first new ship, the corvette Madison, on 26 November. The trees from which it was constructed had still been standing in September.

Chauncey hoisted his broad pendant aboard Oneida on 6 November and with his squadron, pursued the British ship Royal George into Kingston. He too was beaten off, partly by shore batteries and gunboats, and partly because a gun exploded aboard the schooner Pert, mortally injuring the schooner's commander and throwing the American squadron into confusion. After this engagement winter closed in, immobilising the ships of both sides in port. Chauncey feared an attack across the ice by British regular soldiers, and kept his carpenters sawing the ice from around his vessels so that they could at least bring fire to bear on any attackers. However, the British had no intention at that stage of making such an attack.

The British began building two corvettes to match the Madison, one each at Kingston and York. Their efforts were hindered, especially at York, by disputes between shipwright Thomas Plucknett, who had been selected by Lieutenant General Sir George Prevost, the Governor General, to superintend the work, and officers such as Captain Andrew Gray, a staff officer in the Army in Upper Canada. Plucknett's work was reckoned to be disorganised, as was that of the shipwright at Kingston, who was dismissed and replaced by the more experienced Daniel Allen. Allen in turn was removed after fomenting disputes over working conditions in March, 1813.

Three officers (acting Commanders Robert Heriot Barclay, Robert Finnis and Daniel Pring) had been detached by Vice Admiral Herbert Sawyer from the Royal Navy's North American Station in Halifax, Nova Scotia to the Provincial Marine, and did much over the winter to refit the existing vessels at Kingston. However, the Admiralty independently appointed Captain James Lucas Yeo to command the naval establishment on the Great Lakes. He collected reinforcements and materials in Britain, and crossed the Atlantic early in 1813.