Engagement at Nanticoke Creek

The engagement at Nanticoke Creek on 13 November 1813 was a small action in which Norfolk County militia intercepted and destroyed an American raiding party that had crossed Lake Erie to plunder the settlements of the Long Point region in Upper Canada.

Lieutenant Colonel Henry Bostwick assembled approximately 180 militiamen upon receiving reports that a party of American raiders — variously described as regular soldiers, volunteers, or irregulars — had landed on the north shore of Lake Erie and were moving through the countryside, seizing livestock, grain, and other property from Canadian farms.

Bostwick’s militia caught the raiders near Nanticoke Creek and engaged them in a sharp action that lasted approximately an hour. The Americans, caught in the open and outnumbered, suffered heavily: 18 were killed and approximately 40 captured. The remainder escaped to their boats and retreated across the lake. Militia casualties were 3 killed and 4 wounded.

The engagement was minor in scale but significant as an example of Canadian militia effectively defending their own communities. The Norfolk militia had personal stakes in the outcome — the farms being plundered were their neighbours’ farms, and in some cases their own. This local motivation produced a fighting effectiveness that the same men might not have displayed in a conventional military operation far from home.

The pattern was consistent throughout the war: militia performed best when defending their own communities and worst when asked to serve on offensive operations or at distant posts. The British command understood this instinctively, deploying militia in defensive roles and relying on regulars and Indigenous warriors for offensive operations. The American command, which attempted to use militia for the invasion of Canada, never fully grasped the lesson.