Bushwhacking into history
Had anyone been sitting on the easternmost peak of the Jay Range with a spyglass in early September 1814, they would have been able to spot a handful of gunboats under sail from a shipyard on Otter Creek in Vergennes, Vermont, up Lake Champlain to the New York town of Plattsburgh to the north.
Neither the British nor the Americans were particularly enthusiastic about fighting the War of 1812 so soon after the close of the Revolution. The Brits had their hands full with Napoleon on the Continent, and most Americans had better things to do, getting to the profitable work of building a new nation.
But—stop me if you’ve heard this one—some in Congress became incensed with British insults on the high seas, and in the name of honor demanded that President James Madison declare war, which he did against his better judgment.
Lake Champlain was defended at the time by a two-boat fleet that early on in the war got out over its skis in pursuit of a British gunboat and wound up getting themselves captured after misjudging wind and current.
The responsibility for bringing order to this mess
