STUDIES IN THE NAPOLEONIC WARS 087
War is Declared
11. War is Declared (6)
On June 18, 1812, President Madison had declared war on Great Britain. The news reached the Governor-General at Quebec on the 25th, but Brock had it a day earlier, on the 24th, by private letters from New York, and so was enabled to make up his plan of campaign some days before he received any communication from his chief. To the Americans at the western end of the lakes it came even more slowly—General Hull at Detroit got it only on July 2nd, eight days after Brock had his notice.
Hull’s force, on the extreme right flank of Upper Canada, was the only one ready for immediate action—it had been waiting the word to move for some days. On July 12th it had crossed the Detroit river and occupied Sandwich on the British shore. On the Niagara frontier, at the eastern end of Lake Erie, there was an assembly of New York State Militia under General van Rensselaer, but it was not ready to move, having to wait for a brigade of regular troops and other reinforcements. After another interval, beyond the other end of Lake Ontario, the American Commander-in-Chief, Dearborn, was collecting what he intended to be his main army, for an advance against Montreal.
President Madison had made the mistake of declaring war before he was ready—underestimating with the optimism of a civilian the time that it would take to assemble and organize the numerous but scattered resources at his disposal. It must be confessed that he was ill-served by the military men whom he had taken as his advisers—his senior officer, Dearborn, was most of all a master of procrastination and indecision. As an American historian has observed: “Madison’s orders to Hull and Dearborn passed beyond the bounds of ordinary incapacity, but Dearborn’s answers passed belief”. Nevertheless, if only the necessary weeks for mobilization and concentration were granted them, the Americans could certainly pour overwhelming forces over the frontier, and bear down all opposition.
This Brock saw, and took at once the only course open to a soldier who has a small but trustworthy force under his hand, while his enemy is slowly collecting his far-superior resources. He would strike at once, to right and left, before the opponent is ready. But in this case the difficulties of striking were enormous: his scanty numbers were not gathered, and a “minimum garrison” had to be left in the forts which watched the waterways. There were three companies of the 41st at Fort Maiden on the Detroit river, four more at Fort George on the Niagara frontier. The central reserve, with which Brock proposed to transfer himself from one end to another of a line 600 miles long, for offensive purposes, consisted of two companies of the 41st and under 300 volunteers from the York Militia! And the movement of this force of about 400 men was to be in open boats, along a lake 257 miles long, hugging a shore often precipitous, with unsafe anchorage on a rocky bottom, and in a region noted for its summer storms. Nevertheless, Brock started off from York on August 6th, after having harangued and dissolved the legislature of Upper Canada. His speech ended with the stirring words:
“We are engaged in an awful and eventful contest. By unanimity and dispatch in our councils, and by vigour in our operations, we may teach the enemy this lesson, that a country defended by free men, enthusiastically devoted to the cause of their king and constitution, can never be conquered.”
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