For Honour's Sake by Mark Zuehlke Page B

two miles west of Government House and the blockhouse. Three companies hit the beach and quickly forced the single company of regulars to withdraw, but not before about half of its strength was eliminated in a fierce clash. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment was caught trying to reach the beach and thrown back with a loss of thirty-six men.
    Disaster befell the British when they attempted to rally around the westernmost artillery battery only to have it accidentally blown apart when a gunner dropped his match into a wooden chest containing one of the gun’s magazines. Confused and demoralized, the British retreated in disarray toward Government House. Pike drew his men up before the blockhouse shortly after noon, quickly knocked out the single artillery battery, and prepared to storm the remaining strongpoint. Realizing further resistance was futile, Sheaffe decided to run for it with his regulars to the protection of Kingston. He ordered that the British flag remain flying over the blockhouse to give his men time to get away and left a party to blow up the magazine. York would be sacrificed to save his precious regulars.
    Pike was interrogating a British prisoner about a hundred yards from the magazine when there was a terrific detonation. Finan of the Newfoundland Regiment, near the rear of the British line, turned to see “an immense cloud” rising from where the magazine stood. “A great confused mass of smoke, timber, earth … assumed the shape of a vast balloon.” A giant chunk of stone smashed Pike down and literallycrushed the life out of him. British and Americans alike were killed and wounded by a deadly hail of debris. 20 The Americans estimated 40 of their own were killed and more than 200 wounded by the explosion. What few medical men were ashore “waded in blood, cutting off arms, legs, and trepanning heads,” one surgeon wrote, who himself “cut and slashed for 48 hours without food or sleep” before all the injured were treated. 21
    Had Sheaffe not been in the midst of flight, he might have wheeled about and put in an attack after the explosion that could have carried the day. But he was already on the outskirts of York, pausing only so long as it took to tell the senior militia commanders present that it was their responsibility to contact the Americans and arrange terms for surrendering the town. This they did, but first they obeyed Sheaffe’s additional order to burn
Sir Isaac Brock.
    The Americans were in a foul mood because of the casualties suffered when the magazine exploded and the fact that the ship they had hoped to capture was burned, but their commanders held them back from occupying York until terms of the capitulation were signed the next day. Under the agreement, private property was to be protected while all public property was subject to forfeiture. But the occupation soon turned sour as troops ran rampant looting empty houses, vandalizing property, and bullying unarmed citizens. The legislative building, Government House, and most of the military barracks were burned, the government printing press smashed, and the £2,000 in the public treasury commandeered. They floated
Duke of Gloucester
off as a prize. A large amount of military stores—much intended to resupply the British forces on Lake Erie—was loaded aboard Chauncey’s boats. 22 On May 2, the Americans embarked their ships but were then trapped in the harbour until May 8 by a heavy gale.
    Although Chauncey’s fleet sailed that day to Fort Niagara and put soldiers ashore to carry out the planned attack on Fort George, they were too “sickly and depressed” to immediately carry out the operation. Dearborn sent Chauncey back to Sackets Harbor to gather reinforcements, for he had lost 320 killed and wounded at York. Meanwhile, he and his men would “recruit their health and their spirits.” In a letter toArmstrong, the general said his intention was “to collect