Battle of Fort George

The Battle of Fort George, fought on 27 May 1813, was one of the war’s most professionally executed American operations and one of its most squandered opportunities. A combined amphibious assault, supported by concentrated naval gunfire, captured the principal British fortification on the Niagara River. The failure to exploit the victory, however, ensured that it would lead to nothing of lasting consequence.

The operation was conceived as the centrepiece of the American 1813 campaign on the Niagara frontier. Major General Henry Dearborn, the overall commander, was elderly, ill, and largely ineffective. The real energy behind the operation came from Colonel Winfield Scott, Dearborn’s adjutant general, and Commodore Isaac Chauncey, commanding the Lake Ontario squadron. Together, they planned an assault that would combine naval bombardment with an infantry landing west of the fort.

Chauncey’s squadron provided devastating fire support. His ships closed to within range of the fort and subjected it to a prolonged bombardment that dismounted guns, destroyed earthworks, and inflicted significant casualties on the garrison before a single American soldier had landed. This was one of the few occasions during the war when the United States effectively coordinated naval and land forces in a joint operation.

The landing force, approximately 4,000 strong, went ashore west of Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake) under covering fire. The assault troops, led by Scott, advanced on the fort with professional efficiency. Brigadier General John Vincent, commanding the British garrison, recognised that his position was untenable. He had approximately 1,000 men against a force four times that size, backed by naval guns he could not suppress. Vincent ordered a retreat.

The British withdrawal was conducted with skill. Vincent gathered his scattered outposts along the Niagara River, disbanded the militia contingents who would slow his march, and retreated westward along the lake shore toward Burlington Heights at the head of Lake Ontario. He lost 52 killed and 306 wounded or captured in the battle, but the core of his regular force remained intact.

It was here that the American failure began. Dearborn, ill and indecisive, did not order an immediate pursuit. The Americans occupied Fort George and the surrounding area but made no serious effort to pursue Vincent’s retreating column. Days passed. Vincent reached Burlington Heights and began fortifying his position. The opportunity to destroy the British field force in Upper Canada – or at least to drive it back beyond the reach of effective action – slipped away.

When an American pursuit force was finally dispatched under Brigadier Generals Chandler and Winder, it moved with the leisurely pace that characterised American generalship throughout the war’s early years. The pursuing force encamped at Stoney Creek on 5 June, where it was surprised and defeated in Harvey’s night attack. Both American generals were captured, and the army retreated to Fort George, where it would remain, penned into a narrow perimeter, for the rest of the 1813 campaign season.

The Battle of Fort George illustrates a recurring pattern in the American conduct of the war: tactical competence undermined by strategic lethargy. The assault itself was well planned and well executed. Had it been followed by an immediate, aggressive pursuit, the consequences for British North America might have been severe. Instead, the Americans won a fort and lost a campaign. As Pierre Berton observed, the American army at Fort George had its best opportunity to conquer Upper Canada in the days immediately following the battle – and threw it away through inaction.