Battle of Chippawa

Early in 1814, it was clear that Napoleon was defeated in Europe, and seasoned British veteran soldiers from the Peninsular War would be redeployed to Canada. The United States Secretary of War, John Armstrong Jr., was eager to win a victory in Canada before British reinforcements arrived there. Major General Jacob Brown was ordered to form the Left Division of the Army of the North. Armstrong intended him to mount an attack on Kingston, the main British base on Lake Ontario, with a diversion by militia across the Niagara River to distract the British. He had drawn up alternative orders for a major attack across the Niagara, possibly as a contingency plan, but probably to mislead the British through deliberate leaks. Brown thought that he was being presented with two possible plans, and was free to choose between them. Although Brigadier General Edmund P. Gaines tried to persuade Brown to make the attack on Kingston, Brown was unable to gain cooperation from Commodore Isaac Chauncey (commanding the American naval squadron based at Sackets Harbor, New York), which he considered essential for such an attack across Lake Ontario. Chauncey was waiting for new warships to be completed in the shipyard at Sackets Harbor and refused to make any move before the middle of July. Brown made the attack across the Niagara the main focus of his forces. At Buffalo, Scott instituted a major training program. He drilled his troops for ten hours every day, using the 1791 Manual of the French Revolutionary Army. (Prior to this, various American regiments had been using a variety of different manuals, making it difficult to manoeuvre any large American force). Scott also purged his units of any remaining inefficient officers who had gained their appointments through political influence rather than experience or merit, and he insisted on proper camp discipline including sanitary arrangements. This reduced the wastage from dysentery and other enteric diseases which had been heavy in previous campaigns. There was only one major deficiency; Scott had been unable to obtain enough regulation blue uniforms for his men. Although they had been manufactured and sent to the northern theater, they had been diverted to Plattsburgh and Sackets Harbor. The United States Army's commissary general, Callender Irvine, hastily ordered 2,000 uniforms to be made and despatched to Buffalo for Scott's other units, but because there was insufficient blue cloth, short jackets (roundabouts) of gray cloth were used instead. Armstrong suggested that Brown should therefore capture and hold Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, while waiting for Chauncey to ready his squadron. Brown assented, but was prepared to push much further than the immediate vicinity of Fort Erie. in Upper Canada, Major General Phineas Riall assumed the American forces in the area were drawn from the militia. Late in the day, Scott encountered British defences on the far bank of Chippawa Creek, near the town of Chippawa. After a brief exchange of artillery fire, Scott withdrew a few miles to Street's Creek. Here he planned to give his troops a belated Fourth of July parade the next day, while Brown manoeuvred other units to cross the Chippawa upstream. Opposed to Scott was the Right Division of the British Army in Upper Canada, under Major General Phineas Riall. Riall believed that Fort Erie was still holding out, and the Americans would therefore have detached large numbers of troops to mask it, leaving only 2,000 men to face his division. He may also have believed that his opponents were militia but was comparatively new to command in Canada and relied on information from Lieutenant Colonel John Harvey, the deputy adjutant general for the forces in Upper Canada, that even the United States regulars were of poor quality. Riall determined to cross the Chippawa River and mount an attack to drive the Americans back across the Niagara and relieve Fort Erie. ==Battle==

Early on July 5, British light infantry, militia and Indians crossed the Chippawa ahead of Riall's main body and began sniping at Scott's outposts from the woods to their west. (Some of them nearly captured Scott, who was having breakfast in a farmhouse.) Meanwhile, Scott's troops deployed into line with the 25th U.S. Infantry on the left near the woods, the 11th U.S. Infantry and 9th U.S. Infantry in the centre and the grey-clad 22nd U.S. Infantry on the right with Towson's guns. At first, Riall was under the impression that the American line was composed of grey-clad militia troops, whom the professional British soldiers held in much contempt. He expected the poorly trained soldiers to fall back in disarray after the first few volleys. But the American line held steady under British artillery fire. The British infantry, with the 1st (Royal Scots) Foot and the 100th Foot leading and the 8th (King's) Foot in reserve, advanced in line, becoming disordered over the grassy, uneven ground. This slowed them and put them under fire from the American artillery for longer. Riall sacrificed the advantage of greater firepower (versus advancing in column) by ordering his infantry to fire only one volley before closing with the bayonet. As the 1st and 100th Regiments moved forward, their own artillery had to stop firing to avoid hitting them. Meanwhile, the American gunners switched from firing roundshot to firing canister. Once the opposing lines had closed to less than 100 yards, Scott advanced his wings, forming his brigade into a "U" shape which allowed his flanking units to catch Riall's advancing troops in a heavy crossfire. Scott halted his brigade, although some of Porter's Iroquois pursued the British almost to the Chippawa. Casualties The American official casualty return stated the loss as 60 killed, 249 wounded and 19 missing. British losses had been heavy; the 100th Regiment, which held the centre, was reduced to ...one Captain & 3 subalterns doing duty, with 250 effective men. The official casualty return gave 148 killed, 321 wounded and 46 missing. However, 20th century research by Canadian archivist Douglas Hendry Two British officers, Captains Bird and Wilson, appear in the official casualty list in the "wounded" category with additional information that they have also been taken prisoner. The actual British loss at Chippawa therefore appears to have been 74 regulars, 18 Canadian militiamen and 16 Indian warriors killed; 303 British regulars (not including Captains Bird and Wilson, who come under the 'wounded prisoners' category), 16 Canadian militiamen and an unknown number of Indian warriors wounded; 75 British regulars (including Captains Bird and Wilson) wounded and captured by the Americans; 9 British regulars, one officer of the British Indian Department and 5 Indian warriors taken prisoner unwounded. A further 9 British soldiers and 9 Canadian militiamen appear to have deserted. This gives a grand total of 108 killed, 319 wounded, 75 wounded prisoners, 15 unwounded prisoners and 18 missing. ==Aftermath==

Two days after the battle, Brown completed his original intended maneuver and crossed the Chippawa upstream of Riall's defenses, forcing the British to fall back to Fort George. It was not possible to attack this fortified British position because Commodore Chauncey was still failing to support the American army on the Niagara peninsula. No reinforcements or siege artillery could be brought to Brown's army. At the same time, the British were able to rush reinforcements to the Niagara front and soon became too strong for Brown to risk a direct attack. Eventually, a series of feints and maneuvers led to the Battle of Lundy's Lane a few weeks later. ==Legacy==

The Battle of Chippawa proved the worthiness of American regulars when pitted against their British counterparts, and the fearsome effectiveness of American marksmanship:The best test of British and American military qualities, both for men and weapons, was Scott's battle of Chippawa. Nothing intervened to throw a doubt over the fairness of the trial. Two parallel lines of regular soldiers, practically equal in numbers, armed with similar weapons, moved in close order toward each other, across a wide open plain, without cover or advantage of position, stopping at intervals to load and fire, until one line broke and retired. **** Marksmanship decided the result, and the returns proved that the American fire was superior to that of the British in the proportion of more than fifty per cent if estimated by the entire loss, and of two hundred and forty-two to one hundred if estimated by the deaths alone.It is generally considered that Riall, although misled as to the strength of the American forces and their quality The reasons given in 1815 for its selection were simply that it wore well and was considerably cheaper than the blue one. The site is preserved in the Chippawa Battlefield Park, a unit of the Niagara Parks Commission, with a battle monument and interpretive plaques south of Niagara Falls in the town of Chippawa, Ontario. The site of the battle was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1921. Chippewa Square in Savannah, Georgia, is named for the battle. ==Notes==