For Honour's Sake by Mark Zuehlke Page A

they were too sparse on the ground to hope to hold whatever they captured against a major British offensive. Great Britain would still be free to pour in more soldiers and supplies via the St. Lawrence River and carry out a campaign the following year to wrest back everything the United States might win in 1813. Only by seizing Montreal to create a blocking position on the St. Lawrence could the Americans hope to choke off British reinforcement of Upper Canada.
    Dearborn embraced Chauncey’s strategy and proceeded to listlessly gather troops for the planned operations despite Armstrong’s urgings to make haste. The strategy the general determined to follow was, in the words of one analyst, akin to someone who, “desiring to fell a tree, shouldprocure a ladder and begin cutting the outermost branches, instead of striking at the trunk by the ground.” 15 Presented with the details of the revised plan, Armstrong reluctantly approved it on March 29. 16
    Not until April 24 did Dearborn rouse to action and lead 1,700 soldiers onto fourteen of Chauncey’s vessels. Aboard the corvette
Madison,
the commodore then led the expedition out onto the lake. It was a foul day. The ships pitched and yawed wildly in heavy weather. Realizing some of the small, heavily laden vessels might founder, Chauncey soon ordered the fleet to come about and return to harbour. The next day the weather was better and the fleet sailed toward York. Below decks, hundreds of the soldiers became violently ill anyway because of the close confines they had to endure. There was a general sense of relief when York was spotted in the distance on the afternoon of the next day.
    P. Finan, a soldier of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment stationed there, described York—which had a population of less than a thousand—as a “pleasant little town, the houses generally of wood, and containing some good shops. Being the seat of government of the upper province, it has a house of assembly, court house, etc. It is situated at the lower end of a long bay formed by a narrow peninsula stretching up the lake, parallel with the shore, about two miles. On the extremity of this, called Gibraltar Point, stands a light-house, and exactly opposite to it, on the mainland, the garrison is situated.” 17
    That garrison was pathetically small: 700 militia, dockworkers, and a few Indians along with five under-strength companies of regulars. There was no fort, just a temporary munitions magazine, a two-storey wooden blockhouse, and a defensive ditch surrounding Government House. Several lightly entrenched batteries stood along the shore to the west of the town and another battery stood next to the blockhouse. In the Front Street shipyard a large frigate named
Sir Isaac Brock
was nearing completion and nearby the old schooner
Duke of Gloucester
was under repair. Although not in command of the garrison, Sir Roger Sheaffe took immediate charge of the town’s defence.
    Aboard
Madison,
Dearborn was seasick and disinclined to lead the amphibious assault. The old general’s fighting days were well past. At 250 pounds, he could barely walk. When horse and carriage wereunavailable, a couple of soldiers pulled him about in a two-wheeled cart. Dearborn passed command to thirty-four-year-old Brig. Gen. Zebulon Montgomery Pike, a professional soldier with nineteen year.’ service behind him. Ambitious and impulsive, Pike determined to attain glory taking York or die trying. 18
    As Chauncey’s ships had clearly been sighted by the British, the landing was put off to the following morning. April 27 was a lovely spring day, and the sailing vessels glided across the calm waters of the lake with several boats full of troops preparing for the landing in tow. It was, P. Finan noted, “an elegant and imposing appearance.” 19
    The first wave of Americans went ashore in flat-bottomed boats under covering fire from Chauncey’s dozen warships, landing about