Battle of Mackinac Island
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The Battle of Mackinac Island (pronounced Mackinaw), was a British victory in the War of 1812. Fort Mackinac was an important American trading post in the straits between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. It was important for its influence and control over the Native American tribes in the area, which was sometimes referred to in historical documents as "Michilimackinac".
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[edit] Background
On July 18, 1812, a British force captured the island in the first Battle of Mackinac Island, before the American defenders knew that war had been declared. Many Indians had taken part in the British expedition, and as a result of this success, many more Indians rallied to the British cause, contributing to several more British victories over the next year. The British meanwhile abandoned their own defences at St. Joseph Island and concentrated their forces at Mackinac Island.
For the rest of the year and through much of 1813, the British hold on Mackinac was secure since they also held Detroit, which the Americans would have to take before attacking Mackinac. Then on September 10, 1813, the Americans won the Battle of Lake Erie, which allowed them to recover Detroit and win the subsequent Battle of the Thames. Although it was too late in the year to allow them to mount an expedition to Mackinac, they had nevertheless cut the British supply lines to the post. The British garrison were placed on half rations but were suffering severe shortages by the end of the winter.
[edit] British Defences
In February 1814, a British party under Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDouall of the Glengarry Light Infantry opened a new supply line from York via Lake Simcoe to the Nottawasaga River on Georgian Bay. His party consisted of ninety men of the Royal Newfoundland Fencibles, eleven artillerymen with four field guns. He also brought with him twenty-one sailors of the Royal Navy to reinforce the crew of the schooner Nancy and thirty carpenters to assist in constructing thirty batteaux.[1]
On April 19, McDouall's batteaux began descending the river, and reached the Lake on April 25. He arrived at Mackinac on May 18, carrying a large quantity of provisions for the hungry garrison and the Native allies, having lost only one boat en route despite stormy weather. A few days later he was reinforced by another 200 Indians, who were under the nominal leadership of Lieutenant Robert Dickson of the Indian Department.[1]
McDouall ordered the defences of the island to be strengthened. The existing fort was situated on a ridge which overlooked the harbour on the south side of the island, but was itself overlooked by another wooded ridge, the highest point on the island. In 1812, the British had dragged artillery to this ridge to compel the fort to surrender.[2] McDouall's troops now built a stockade and blockhouse on the upper ridge, naming the new fortification Fort George.
[edit] American Plans
In July 1814, the Americans attempted to retake the island as part of a larger campaign designed by Lieutenant Colonel George Croghan and his superior General William Henry Harrison to regain control of the Great Lakes and sever the fur trade alliance between the British and the tribes of the region. The two-pronged campaign included an assault on Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi River.
On July 3, a squadron of five U.S. ships under Commodore Arthur Sinclair sailed from Detroit, carrying a landing force of 700 soldiers under the command of Croghan. The force was made of an ad hoc battalion of regular infantry (made up of detached companies of the 17th, 19th and 24th U.S. Infantry, under Major Andrew Holmes) and a battalion of volunteers from the Ohio militia, with detachments of artillery.
Rather than make directly for Mackinac, the American squadron first searched Matchedash Bay, in thick fog, for the base from which the British at Mackinac were supplied. As this base had been abandoned when McDouall had established himself on the Nottawasaga, the Americans found nothing. They then sailed to St. Joseph Island, which had been the original British military post in 1812, but found it had been abandoned. They burned the empty post, and the Canadian North West Company trading post at Sault Sainte Marie.
The Americans finally arrived off Mackinac on July 26. Their delayed arrival had given McDouall ample warning, and he had further reinforced his defences by calling in the last militia left to defend St. Joseph Island and Sault Ste. Marie.[3]
[edit] Battle
The American ships shelled the fort for two days, with most of the shells falling harmlessly in vegetable gardens around the fort. Sinclair discovered that the new British blockhouse stood too high for the naval guns to reach. A dense fog then forced the American squadron away from the island for a week. When they returned, Croghan decided to land on the north side of the island (roughly where the British had landed in 1812), and work his way through the woods to attack the blockhouse. The American brigs and gunboats bombarded the woods around the landing site to flush out any Indians, further sacrificing any chance of gaining surprise.[4]
McDouall advanced from the fort to place a force of 140 men of the Royal Newfoundland and Michigan Fencibles, with 150 Menominee Indians from the Wisconsin River and one 6-pounder and one 3-pounder field guns, behind low breastworks at the end of a clearing which lay on the Americans' path.[5] A false report of a landing west of the fort caused him to withdraw his redcoated infantry, but when the Americans emerged from the woods into the clearing, they were easy targets for the British guns.
Croghan sent his Ohio Volunteers, leading the advance, throught the woods to outflank the British left, and the detachment of regulars to outflank the British right. The regulars were ambushed by the Indians. Thirteen Americans were killed, including Major Holmes and two other officers, and fifty-one were wounded. Because of the heavy losses and confusion, and the return of McDouall's infantry, Croghan was forced to order his men to retreat back through the woods to the beach.[4] (Two wounded Americans were left to be taken prisoner.) The Americans rowed back to their ships, leaving the fort in the hands of the British until the end of the war.
[edit] Aftermath
The United States attempted, unsuccessfully, to blockade the British on Mackinac Island with the gunboats USS Tigress and USS Scorpion. In the Engagement on Lake Huron, both vessels fell into British hands, securing the British hold on the entire region.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Amateurs to Arms, John R. Elting, Da Capo Press, New York, 1995, ISBN 0-306-80653-3
- The Defended Border, Morris Zaslow (ed), Macmillan of Canada, 1964 ISBN 0-7705-1242-9
