Battle of Queenston Heights

Battle of Queenston Heights

Part of: British-American War

Major General Brock dies at the Battle of Queenston Heights. Painting by John David Kelly, 1896.

date	October 13, 1812
place	near Queenston (Ontario) on the Niagara River in Canada
output	British victory

Parties to the conflict
United Kingdom	United States
Commander
Sir Isaac Brock † Sir Roger Hale Sheaffe	Stephen Van Rensselaer
Troop strength
1,300 men regular troops 300 men militias Indians	6,000 men
losses
14 dead 77 wounded	100 dead 300 wounded 925 prisoners

The Battle of Queenston Heights from 13. October 1812 took place between the US and the allies of the British - Indian troops during the War of 1812 on the Niagara River near the town of Queenston ( Ontario ) in Canada instead. It ended in a British victory.

prehistory

After the Americans had experienced one of the most embarrassing military debacles in history during their invasion of Canada from Detroit in the summer of 1812 and the ensuing surrender of an army under Brigadier General William Hull , there was great pressure on those responsible to forget this disgrace by winning do. A truce between the British Governor General Sir George Prevost and the American General Henry Dearborn enabled the Americans to recover from the shock of defeat and to consolidate their so-called Army of the Center on the Niagara River . The US Commander Major General Stephen Van Rensselaer was not convinced that his troops - often poorly trained militias - could carry out a successful attack, but was under considerable pressure from President James Madison . Van Rensselaer's situation was made more difficult by the fact that he was a militia officer and a politician and therefore received little respect from the professional officers of the regular army. For this reason, his orders were partially disregarded. In addition, there was a lack of equipment of all kinds, for which the general blamed the machinations of political opponents. In addition, the soldiers' morale was poor as they had not been paid for months and suffered from lack of food, clothes and other things. Nor did it improve their mood that the British demonstratively marched American prisoners of war along their banks. Despite his doubts, Van Rensselaer finally bowed to government pressure and decided to cross the Niagara.

Command on the British side was carried out by Major General Sir Isaac Brock , the victor of Detroit, at his Fort George headquarters at the mouth of the Niagara River in Lake Ontario . Since Brock did not know where the American attack would take place, he divided the 1,600 regular soldiers and 300 militiamen available to him on Fort George and Fort Erie and left the river bank only sparsely occupied. At the last moment, however, the British were warned as a British officer who visited Van Rensselaer on October 12 to negotiate a prisoner exchange was watching boats and other preparations and drew the right conclusions. Brock was therefore able to alert the militias before the attack began and put his troops in Fort George on alert.

Course of the battle

The Americans launched their attack from Lewiston on the British-held Queenston Heights early in the morning of October 13th. At 3:00 am the crossing of the Niagara River began. A diversionary attack was supposed to take place near Buffalo, but General Alexander Smyth did not move despite direct orders from Van Rensselaer. In addition, it turned out that, despite appropriate orders from the commander, too few boats had been procured to cross over the invading army, and the existing ones were too small for the artillery. At the beginning of the battle there were only 300 British soldiers against more than 4,000 Americans. Another 1,000 men under General Roger Hale Sheaffe came to their aid from Fort George, but had not yet arrived when the first wave of American attacks landed. Brock himself rode ahead and took command of the defenders.

The first wave of Americans consisted of 13 boats with 300 regular soldiers under Colonel John Chrystie and the same number of militiamen under Colonel Solomon van Rensselaer, a cousin of the general. Only ten boats reached the bank. Chrystie's boat was also damaged and drifted downstream. The second wave fared even worse. Many soldiers have already been killed or wounded on the river by British artillery and musket fire. Three boats drifted downstream through strong currents, where their crews fell into the hands of the British. A number of officers, including Solomon van Rensselaer, were wounded by musket fire. Even so, the Americans managed to land below the heights and push the British defenders back on Queenston. Brock then concentrated most of his troops there, leaving only a handful of infantrymen to cover the heavy artillery on the heights. The US captain John Wool had heard from a local about a fishing path that led to the otherwise inaccessible ridge. In this way he now led a surprising attack on the British artillery posted there, which caused heavy losses among the Americans. The completely surprised gunners had to give up their guns and withdrew to Queenston, but nailed them up beforehand so that the Americans could not use them.

Battle of Queenston Heights, October 13, 1812. Painting by James B. Dennis

Since the heights were of central strategic importance and the guns were needed to impede the transport of US troops across the river, Brock decided to launch an immediate counterattack without waiting for the incoming reinforcements. In a first attack, the British succeeded in shaking Wool's position, but an American counterattack drove the outnumbered attackers back again. Brock, who was wounded in the hand in the attack, was shot in the chest at around 1 p.m. when he was ordering his soldiers for a second attack and died instantly. Brock's adjutant, Lieutenant Colonel John Macdonnell, led the British, reinforced by a troop of volunteers under Captain John Williams, to a second attack, which also failed in view of the great American superiority. Macdonnell himself was fatally wounded and Williams seriously wounded. The Americans also succeeded in occupying Queenston and silencing most of the British artillery.

The situation for the British was now dangerous and would have been even worse if the Americans had brought more troops across the Niagara River. There were only a little over 1,000 men under the command of Colonel Winfield Scott on the Canadian side, and the US militia refused to board the few remaining boats. On top of that, General Smyth not only hadn't carried out his diversionary attack, but he also refused to send reinforcements. The Americans had successfully established themselves on the other bank, but British reinforcements under General Sheaffe were on the march. In addition, the British Indian auxiliary troops, feared by the Americans, intervened in the fight - Mohawks under the British-raised chief John Norton attacked the US troops on the heights in the flanks. The battle cries of the Indians made the morale of the inexperienced soldiers sink further, their tactics of attacking and quickly withdrawing posed great problems for the Americans. Thereupon they vacated Queenston again and strengthened their position on the heights, which were now taken under fire by the newly arrived British artillery. Some of the American soldiers hid in the forest and did not intervene in the fight. General van Rensselaer, knowing that the British reserves were approaching, tried in vain to get his militias to cross the river in order to possibly win the battle after all. The militiamen invoked the right not to be deployed outside the US borders. The Americans did not even succeed in getting the boat crews to evacuate the US troops on the other bank. This sealed their fate.

Sheaffe planned his approach methodically and led his troops through a forest to protect them from the heavy US artillery on the other side of the river. Then he carefully formed them to fight and attacked the American bridgehead at 4:00 p.m. with about 1,000 soldiers. The British went into battle with the cry of “ avenge the general ” (German: “avenge the general”). Their demoralized opponents fled. A large number of Americans jumped into the river in fear of the Indians, with many killed or drowned on impact with rocks. About 300 regular soldiers under Colonel Scott attempted to retreat in an orderly formation, but this soon broke up when the soldiers fled to the riverbank. Here they were finally captured by the British and Indians and capitulated after a brief skirmish. After Scott's soldiers had given up, another 500 militiamen surrendered who had hidden in the vicinity of the heights.

consequences

Of General van Rensselaer's 6,000 soldiers, around 400 were killed or wounded and over 900 were taken prisoner by the British, including Brigadier General William Wadsworth , Colonel Winfield Scott, four other lieutenant colonels and 67 officers. Due to the lack of leadership of their commanders and the indiscipline of parts of the crews, the Americans suffered a humiliating defeat. General van Rensselaer resigned after the battle. The British had only 14 dead and 77 wounded (including James Secord, husband of the Canadian national heroine Laura Secord ). A loss that cannot be quantified, however, was the death of Major General Brock, by far the most capable commander on the British side. It is largely due to this untimely death and the incompetence of some of his successors ( Henry Procter , Sir George Prevost ) that the war on the Canadian front did not become a complete debacle for the Americans.

In part, the Battle of Queenston Heights is said to have had a decisive impact on the war, although the war lasted for another two years. Nevertheless, this classification is not without justification. It convinced the British authorities that Canada could be successfully defended despite the American superiority, and gave the British-Canadian troops a self-confidence that enabled further, sometimes spectacular, successes against oppressively superior US troops. General Brock's death made him a hero and martyr, whose memory united and motivated Franco-Canadians and Anglo-Canadians. The debacles of 1812 that culminated in this battle had a demoralizing effect on American soldiers. The resulting loss of self-confidence led to hesitant, fearful warfare, which repeatedly led to favorable situations not being used and small setbacks having disproportionate consequences. As a result, the US Army, despite oppressive superiority, could not achieve its goal of conquering Canada and did not achieve a partial quality improvement until 1814, when reinforcements from Europe made this goal unattainable.

See also

• List of battles

Web links

Commons : Battle of Queenston Heights  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Overview of the battle (English)