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While the British government may have been surprised by the United States’ declaration of war on June 18, the colonial government in Canada had been expecting it and had already formulated a defensive strategy. Although the Ottawa River was the boundary between Upper and Lower Canada, the military plan divided Canada into three divisions. The Left Division included Quebec and reached as far west as Kingston (essentially all of the territory bordering the St. Lawrence River), the Centre Division was composed of York and Niagara, while the remaining area to the west made up the Right Division. With only 5,600 regulars (1,200 in Upper Canada) to guard a 1,200 mile long communication line from Quebec to the most distant western outpost, Fort St. Joseph, Lieutenant-General Sir George Prevost, governor-general of Canada, felt that everything outside of the Left Division was too remote to be defended and was therefore expendable. His strategy was to hold on to Quebec until reinforcements could arrive from England. Since England was engaged in a desperate struggle with Bonaparte, it was not likely that reinforcements would arrive promptly. The commander of Upper Canada, Major-General Isaac Brock, opposed the idea of simply abandoning almost all of Upper Canada, and believed that close cooperation with Britain’s Indian allies would counterbalance the American superiority in numbers.

Aware that the fortress of Quebec would prove almost impossible to capture, American planners had decided to launch three separate campaigns: against Kingston and Montreal, westward across the Niagara River into Upper Canada and eastward from Detroit at the western end of Lake Erie. By June, the regular army numbered less than 7,000, although an additional 5,000 men had just been recruited. The lack of regular troops was expected to be solved by drawing on the more than 700,000 militia.

Major-General Henry Dearborn, the senior officer in the army, was in charge of organizing the assault on Montreal but he was nearing retirement and did not bring any urgency to the planning of the invasion. His task was not made any easier by the refusal of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island to allow the federal government to replace regular units in their states with militia units, which would have freed up the regular units for the invasion.

William Hull was given responsibility for the eastward campaign from Detroit but although he had served in the Revolution, he was the governor of Michigan Territory, not a career officer. His goal was the naval dockyard at Amherstburg, opposite Detroit, which had been built to replace Detroit when it was given to the United States in 1796 in accordance with Jay’s Treaty (1794). Although the army left Dayton, Ohio on June 10, it took thirty-five days for the two thousand Ohio militia and regulars to carve out a two hundred mile long road to Detroit. To speed up the process, the heavy baggage, sick and official documents, including his plans for the campaign, were sent on a schooner. News of the declaration of war reached the British at Amherstburg sooner than expected and the ship was captured three days before he reached Detroit on July 5, therefore the element of surprise was lost. Although his troops occupied the other side of the river a week later, problems soon began to develop. A significant number of Ohio militia refused to leave American territory, while the majority of local inhabitants surprisingly resisted the urge to flock to the American flag. As a result, he decided to wait until heavy artillery could be transported over the river. Unknown to Hull, the fort’s garrison numbered roughly 300 regulars and 400 Indians led by Shawnee chieftain Tecumseh.

However, Hull’s supply line was not secure. After several small supply trains had failed to reach Fort Detroit from the supply base at Frenchtown, eighteen miles south of Detroit, two separate forces were sent by Hull to escort them but they were ambushed by Tecumseh’s followers, with support from British regulars and militia, on August 5 and 9 respectively. Actually, the Americans had driven off the British and their Indian allies during the second battle but they had taken too many casualties to continue with their mission, so they returned to Detroit. The failure of these forces to break through convinced him that he faced a strong enemy, and British control of Lake Erie meant that supplies could not be transported by water.

On August 7, the guns were finally in position but when he learned that British reinforcements were sailing from York across Lake Erie, he pulled back across the river that night, leaving only a small force to protect the beachhead. Aside from the broken supply line, other events had made Hull realize that the situation had become dangerous. Fort Mackinac (Michilimackinac according to the French and British), which guarded the area between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, had been captured on July 17. This victory was largely due to the fact that Hull had neglected to inform Lieutenant Porter Hanks, the commander of Mackinac, that war had been declared. Hanks only learned of the war when a force of 45 British regulars, 200 voyageurs of the North West Company and 400 Indians appeared outside his fort. The British had dragged a small cannon up to the top of a nearby hill that overlooked the fort, and Hanks feared that his tiny garrison of sixty-one men would be massacred by Indians unless he surrendered early. This decision ensured the safety of his men and they were released under parole, so Hanks told Hull in person about the surrender on August 2.

The fall of Mackinac led Hull to order Fort Dearborn on Lake Michigan to be abandoned. Given its small force of fifty-four regulars and twelve militia, it probably would not have held out for long, but the majority of the troops and their families were massacred by Indians on August 15 once they were out in the open, which shows the consequences of Hull’s failure to take the danger to the exposed outposts into consideration.

The delay in attacking Amherstburg combined with Dearborn’s inactivity had given Brock enough time to gather troops for a relief expedition to reinforce Amherstburg. When Brock appeared with three hundred men on the night of August 13, there were now 300 regulars and 400 militiamen, along with a large number of Indian allies, to oppose the Americans. The British began shelling Fort Detroit from the British side on August 15 and were able to cross the river early the next day, stopping a mile from the fort. Already intimidated by the displays of Brock’s Indian allies, when the British bombardment became more accurate and killed several men, including an officer in the officers’ mess, Hull surrendered on August 17, hoping to avoid an Indian massacre. The militiamen were paroled but his regulars were transported to Quebec, while Brock received all of Hull’s artillery, weapons and ammunition, which were used to equip the Canadian militia. The surrender of a key fort to a weaker force won Hull a court-martial and he would have been executed but he was granted leniency because of his age.

The first of the three campaigns had been blocked and the whole Northwest frontier was now exposed to Indian raids. However, the capture of Fort Detroit was marred by the inability of Prevost to send Brock the reinforcements needed to secure Michigan Territory. However, Brock decided to hold the area to reassure his Indian allies that they would not be abandoned to the Americans.

Militia Major General Stephen Van Rensselaer was given command of the army that advanced across the Niagara River in the hope that appointing a Federalist general would win Federalist support for the war. However, his complete lack of military experience meant that the senior regular officer in the region, Brigadier General Alexander Smyth, simply refused to serve under or even cooperate with Rensselaer. Even without Smyth’s 1,650 regulars, Rensselaer worked hard during the summer and gathered 3,500 men. With only 1,200 regulars, 800 militia and 300 Indian allies, Brock was outnumbered and most of his troops were at Forts George and Erie, at the northern and southern ends of the Niagara River respectively. Worried that winter was approaching, Rensselaer wanted to gain a beachhead on the Canadian side of the Niagara River, so he decided to capture Queenston Heights and use it as a base for an attack on Fort George, ten kilometers to the north. 600 militia and regulars crossed the river at 3am October 13 under the cover of a bombardment from the American side. Brock heard the sound of cannon from Fort George and rode off alone to supervise the British troops there who already had the main American force pinned down. Suddenly, American regulars under the command of Captain John Wool managed to find a steep, winding path up to the heights in the early morning light and captured the guns that dominated the river. A hands-on commander, Brock led the counterattack but his flashy uniform made him stand out and he was fatally wounded, which ended the attack.

Lt. Colonel Winfield Scott was sent to take command of the heights but his six hundred men were clearly outnumbered by the approaching garrison of Fort George, while a shortage of bateaux meant that reinforcements arrived slowly. Worse, many of his troops realized the odds were unfavorable and made their way back across the river. Brock’s second-in-command, Major-General Roger Sheaffe, skillfully maneuvered his troops and Indian allies to surround the Americans, so that their backs were to the river. Scott dug in and waited for reinforcements but since the New York militia chose to remain on American territory, it was not long before he was forced to surrender. American casualties were almost 1,200, of whom almost three quarters were prisoners, against British casualties of 127.

Van Rensselaer resigned his command and was replaced by Smyth, who proved to encounter the same problem with militia when he attacked Fort Erie on November 28 and then again two days later. His poor track record meant that his application to be relieved of command was not opposed by the War Department.

Unfortunately for the Americans, the third prong of the invasion met with even less success. Aside from a brief movement by the advance force that was quickly repelled, Dearborn’s invasion force never actually entered Canada because of the reluctance of the militia, half his force, to cross the border. His regulars had advanced across the border on November 20, but aside from the lack of support from the militia, many of his regulars were struck by dysentery, and the invasion was called off after three days.

Since Hull had been defeated early in the war, it was believed that there was still time for a second attempt under a more vigorous commander. While it would have been natural to replace Hull with a regular army officer, command was given to William Henry Harrison, famed Indian fighter and governor of Indiana Territory. He found himself in charge of almost 7,000 men, mostly militia from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Kentucky, and a force of regulars under Brigadier General James Winchester. The troops were divided into three separate columns that were to converge at the Maumee Rapids (Toledo, Ohio) by early October but progress through the wilderness was painfully slow, so they had still not reached their goal by mid-December. However, the Detroit River was frozen so Harrison felt that his men would be able to cross the river and easily overwhelm the British garrisons at Detroit and Amherstburg.

Winchester’s column reached the Maumee Rapids on January 10, 1813 and began building a camp while they waited for the other two columns. Supplies were limited, so he sent 550 men to take control of the nearby settlement at Frenchtown. The lone voice of dissent was the senior regular officer, who pointed out that Frenchtown was 35 miles from the rapids but 18 miles from Fort Amherstburg. Winchester disregarded the danger and his troops swiftly forced the British garrison to retreat on January 18. Winchester then brought 300 more reinforcements and settled in at Frenchtown but he made no effort to fortify the area. Colonel Henry Proctor, commander of the Right Division, knew that Winchester’s men had to be beaten before the rest of Harrison’s army arrived, so he led 1,100 British and Indians to attack at dawn on January 22. The Americans were taken by surprise and although the regulars were able to find cover, the militiamen were slaughtered or captured. Winchester was taken prisoner and easily persuaded to order the regulars to surrender. Harrison arrived too late to relieve Winchester and the elimination of one sixth of his army drove him to call off the invasion, partially because the militia, the majority of his force, was about to return home since their enlistments were about to expire, although he did build Fort Meigs at Maumee Rapids.

Despite the victory, Proctor was aware that his lack of regulars limited his ability to defend such a large area, so he advocated the formation of a battalion of rangers that would operate with the more reliable Indian allies to keep the pressure on the Americans and thus reduce their ability to launch an invasion but Prevost rejected the proposal as being too expensive. Part of the problem was that Proctor, like Brock before him, wanted to establish a Native buffer state but Prevost did not share his enthusiasm and was more concerned with defending a few vital transportation links. As a result, Prevost did not allow Proctor to attack Harrison at Fort Meigs, which enabled the construction of a surprisingly strong fort that would serve as an excellent base for a new offensive in the spring.

The three land campaigns had been a complete disaster and instead of simply plucking Canada, there existed a real danger of invasion from Canada, while Forts Mackinac and Detroit were under British control. Furthermore, the destruction of Napoleon’s army outside Moscow that winter meant that a number of units could be transferred from locations like Spain and Bermuda, while additional units were raised in Canada.

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Further Reading:

A Wampum Denied: Proctor’s War of 1812-Sandy Antal, Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1997.

The author examines the war on the Detroit frontier, focusing on the efforts of first Brock and then Proctor to work with Tecumseh to forge an Indian buffer state between Canada and the United States. He shows how despite their initial military victories, Prevost, the governor general of Canada, refused to give the necessary support to accomplish this goal. Antal’s impressive research challenges the traditional view that Proctor was incompetent, suggesting instead that he was an effective general who was eventually brought down by a lack of supplies caused by American control of Lake Erie. While he admits that the judgment on Proctor’s performance is open to debate, Antal has produced an excellent examination of the Detroit front of the war and explained the difficulty of fighting so far from the main settlement in Quebec, dependent on an extremely precarious supply line. In addition to extensive footnotes, brief sketches of what happened to the main participants after the War of 1812 are also provided.

1812: The War That Forged a Nation-Walter R. Borneman, New York: Harper Collins, 2004.

Although it is told from the American point of view, it is a good single volume account of the war that is both readable and well-researched. He provides a perceptive background to the simmering tensions that were building up before war was declared. For those confused by terms such as the weather gauge, Borneman provides brief but effective explanations of the complexities of naval battles. My sole frustration is that the maps are fine for individual campaigns but there no decent maps of the overall strategy.

1812: War with America-Jon Latimer, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.

While it is written from the British perspective, the book is a fair and surprisingly in-depth presentation of the war with very good maps. Latimer rightly points out that the desire to conquer Canada was a primary motivation for the Americans and the failure of the invasion guaranteed Canada’s independence. He explains the nuts and bolts of the British military well, including how much food and alcohol the sailors and soldiers were guaranteed respectively. The effect of privateers and the blockade on both American and British trade, and the illegal but widespread trade between Canada and New England are examined, so it is a good choice for those more interested in the economic aspect of the war. His concluding chapter summarizes how the war affected Anglo-American relations for the next generation and how the war has been viewed by American and British historians over the years.

The Incredible War of 1812: A Military History-J. Mackay Hitsman (updated by Donald E. Graves), Toronto: Robin Brass Studio, 1999.

The introduction by Graves shows that previous writing on the War of 1812 had entrenched the myth that the militia of Upper Canada with only token assistance from British regulars had repeatedly thrown back the American invaders and preserved the independence of Canada, ignoring political, diplomatic or economic aspects of the war. Therefore, the book was pretty much the first even-handed approach to the war that appeared in Canada. At the time, his respectful treatment of Prevost was considered controversial since he had previously been viewed as a dangerous incompetent. The original version did not include his references for all of the quotations and since he passed away from cancer shortly after it was published, four historians collaborated to produce references for the new edition. Hitsman provides a good explanation of the organization of the British military, the system for purchasing officer ranks and the type of people who were recruited into the army. As the title states, it is a military history and people might be put off the large amount of detail devoted to movements of troops and huge variety of units’ names, so it is best suited for the student of the era, rather than the general reader.


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