The Insolent Enemy

By David Butters

The story started when I was in Clayton, New York for a two year stint. It was in this historic area, and along the beautiful St. Lawrence River, that I became interested in the War of 1812. All around were battlegrounds and markers of important sites. I thought of writing an essay but as I researched, I realized that the story of Captain Benjamin Forsyth had yet to be told. I think I have brought the tale and the man to life. I had a lot of help along the way from my wife, Maggie, who accompanied me on long excursions to small towns along the border searching for the waypoints of the raids that had taken place. We had fun and I hope the reader will have as much enjoyment from my book as we did.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Butters
• Release date: Oct 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466037625

David Butters

A Canadian trained physician who is also an amatuer historian.

Book preview

The Insolent Enemy

By DE Butters

Copyright 2011 David Butters

Smashwords Edition

Chapter 1

First Rifles to the Border

The new Watertown Armory stood five hundred feet from the Black River and the falls after which the town had been named. It was an imposing building of brick and stone. It measured sixty by forty feet and was protected by a pair of cannon mounted on the roof, standing wheel to wheel on their supporting platform. Around the whole was a palisade of square-hewn logs, twelve feet high and spiked at the top. Guard- houses were manned at the front and the back. Inside, on the first floor, rested a complete artillery train and racks of muskets and wooden canteens. Ammunition and other supplies had been stored there at the order of the governor of New York State. Watertown was central to the frontier towns that were being raised throughout the northern part of the state. It was, however, well enough away from the Great Lakes to be safe should war with Britain break out over tariffs.

In July of 1812, a special delegation of military might including General Brown from Brownsville were gathered in front of the armory to greet the first regular army unit to arrive in the North Country, as the locals referred to it. Riders in relay kept them abreast of the newcomer's progress. Crowds gathered as the day wore on, and finally, the sound of bugles and fifes could be heard passing up Columbus Avenue. The crowds surged forward and were rewarded by the sight of a double column of soldiers dressed in green shirts with black chevrons on the face, with a high black collar with gold trimmings and green pants. Over this they wore a hunting cape of green linen fringed with gold across the shoulders and down the front meeting a similar fringe at the base. Their green cylindrical shakos supported a gleaming brass plate above which stood a tall plume of green feathers. On the face of the diamond shaped brass plate was etched an eagle with thunderbolts and an olive branch held in its talons. Below the eagle was a rack of four rifles, a United States flag, and a bugle. The shako itself was decorated with gold tassels on the right with a gold rope extending back and front attaching to a green cockade with a gold center. A white linen ammunition bag was slung over their shoulder and their belts held a wicked looking skinning knife or tomahawk. The officer marching at the front of the column was a tall and rangy middle-aged man with a dark complexion and brown eyes and somewhat long dark hair. In the manner of the day, his sideburns came to the bottom of his ears but he was otherwise clean shaven. In most men’s company, he would be thought of as a big man but his troops were equally framed. They marched with the confidence of men who had seen much, and indeed, they had as they were chosen from the pick of the frontiersmen to be members of an elite military unit.

Benjamin Forsyth, the Captain of the First Regiment of Rifles, was a North Carolinian who had led his unit to New Orleans and back. He and his men had weathered the swamps and the mosquitoes and were now the vanguard of regular forces posted to the area. They wheeled up in front of the armory and Captain Forsyth brought them to attention as the general delivered a welcoming speech. The crowds gave the Regiment three huzzahs and a bumper in appreciation. Captain Forsyth thanked the General and turned to the crowd to speak. He told the expectant audience that they were proud to be in Watertown and offered them, since they had come to the trouble of turning out in such respectable numbers, a demonstration of marksmanship such as had never been seen before in the North Country. The old soldiers in the crowd slapped their pant legs and hooted. Everyone in the North Country was a hunter and they prided themselves on their shooting. If the soldier boys could do better, they wanted to see this.

Holding a playing card in his hand, Forsyth moved closer to the crowd. Can everyone see this card? It is the ace of spades of course and as you can see, in the middle of this card is a big black spade. I propose to fire at fifty paces and cut the spade right out of the card. I need a volunteer to hold the card for me. There were no takers and many stepped back a pace. Well, no heroes here in Watertown, I see. There weren’t in New Orleans either, if you have to know. I will ask my second in command, Lieutenant Daniel Appling to step forward and hold the card, not over his heart of course. Then that would be the ace of hearts, wouldn’t it, and I would need another officer.

The onlookers chuckled but he had their complete attention. Taking up his rifle, he held it up for all to see. You have never seen a weapon like this one, I assure you, so let me tell you all about it. General Dearborn had it specially made up for us at Harpers Ferry in 1803 and we have been toting it and practicing with it since we joined up. As you can see, it is short for a rifle but I think she is handsome in her own way. Your Pennsylvania or Kentucky rifles are .45 calibers and are long and graceful, but hard to carry on a long march and hard to maneuver around with when you are storming a bastion. This weapon is a .54 caliber, a quarter heavier ball than your long rifle and a man stopper, that’s a fact. Forty-nine inches long and nine pounds in weight, it has brass fittings, three wedding rings and a compartment in the stock for cleaning supplies. Seven grooves spin the ball once as it passes through the barrel, and she is deadly accurate up to two hundred yards as I am going to show you. Maybe I will inch up a bit so Daniel won't get too frightened but at fifty paces I think I can do the job justice

He positioned Lieutenant Appling against the outer wall of the armory and took thirty paces away and turned to face him. A ball the size of a man’s knuckle was taken from the linen pouch and rammed down over the powder just placed there from his powder horn and tamped it down with a spring steel ramrod which he returned to its clip under the barrel of his weapon. He drew the hammer back to full cock and aimed down the sights at the card held chest high ninety feet away.

Hey, Daniel, how come this thing doesn’t have a bayonet? called Forsyth. His assistant answered Heck, Captain, we don’t need a bayonet when we have a tomahawk right to hand

Daniel Appling, Georgian by birth, had a lazy drawl and a dry sense of humor. Cap, if you don’t shoot soon, the sun is going to go down and we’ll all be in bed. At that instant, the hammer fell on the firing pan and the primer flashed and the rifle spat a gout of smoke and flame. Ninety feet away, the card was shredded dead center and Daniel held his hand over his heart pretending to die before holding the card up for all to note the gaping hole where the spade used to be. The crowd clapped lustily but the captain held up his hands for silence.

Pretty good for an old man like me. Time to let the younger bucks have a try. Daniel, I’ll throw a canteen up in the air. You think you can hit a big target like that?

Daniel scratched his chin and answered Cap, I think that sounds too easy. How about I stand with my back to you and when you throw it, I’ll swivel around and drill it. Yell 'fire' when you toss it.

Sounds like Lieutenant Appling likes to show off. Well here she goes. I’m tossing it now…fire!

Fast as lightning, Daniel spun around, took aim at the canteen at the zenith of the toss and put a ball right through its center, spinning it end over end. Once again the crowd, clapped noisily.

Captain Forsyth went on. That was some fancy shooting, all right, but the folks here want to see the best that we have. Sergeant John Logan, front and center, at the quick step! The Sergeant will show you two shots that are so tricky that even I don’t know how he does them. Watch this closely, folks.

Striding up to the wooden stockade wall, Forsyth pulled out his skinning knife and stuck it hilt up into the wood at a steep angle, then stepped away. The Sergeant here says he can split his rifle ball in two, hitting the blade of my knife dead center. I can tell you that this trick isn’t too good for my knife, but it’s a fancy trick, if he can do it.

One of the old soldiers called out Cain’t be done, Captain. Not in my lifetime! The crowd cheered the old soldier and slapped him on the back.

Sergeant Logan drew a bead and once again, the Harpers Ferry rifle discharged with a flat clap and the knife spun away. Forsyth took the old soldier by his arm and led him over to the wall and, picking up his knife, dug two halves of the lead ball out of the wood either side of the mark where the knife had been driven in. Thunderstruck, the older man held the two pieces of lead for all to see and the onlookers broke out in a wild cheer.

Thank you, thank you but we saved the hardest for the last. I am going to lay a brass plate between Sergeant Logan and I, and he will try to ricochet a ball towards this here whiskey jug that I will be holding. I’m telling you I am going to hold it as far away from myself as I can and pray he hasn’t taken too much of the contents. Wait a minute, this seems to be pretty empty, Sergeant.

Logan licked his lips and patted his stomach convincingly and stumbled around a bit and the crowd laughed and warily backed off, clearly worried that a stray ball would come their way.

The Sergeant paced off the distance and adjusted the plate on the ground and knelt down to get a sight of the best angle and moved Forsyth and the jug a few feet forward. Finally he was ready and bringing his rifle up to his cheek, pulled back the hammer and aimed down toward the brass plate. Hold her steady Captain and say a prayer. Here she goes! With a clap the rifle fired and sent the ball towards the brass plate driving it into the ground before ricocheting back up to shatter the jug. The onlookers went wild throwing their hats into the air and cheering lustily. Gathering around the Riflemen, they clapped them on their backs and lifted Logan onto their shoulders.

As soon as things settled down, General Brown thanked all for coming and went on to say that if they didn’t mind, he and the riflemen had some military business at the armory that they had yet to tour. Happily, the well-wishers broke up, and the general gathered Forsyth and his officers to him and directed the troops to go for refreshments at the gates, which were being offered by the ladies of the town. The ladies were very interested in meeting these fine young heroes, it seemed.

Militia General Jacob Jennings Brown was a tall patrician man with curly auburn hair and wide set eyes. A reformed Quaker, he owned tens of thousands of acres on either side of the Black River extending to the Lake Ontario shoreline. He had built a sawmill and a grist mill near its mouth and a town he aptly named Brownsville. He was, as well, the agent for the LeRay family, wealthy landowners from France. In the process of clearing land to make it saleable, Brown had developed the production of potash from the burning of the trees and marketed the resulting fertilizer primarily to the British across the St. Lawrence River. Day and night, voluminous iron cauldrons turned slash into highly profitable potash paying $180 a barrel, a goodly sum of money in times where two hundred acres of land could be had for $2,000. However, the government had closed the border to trade in their disputes with Britain, and now potash was smuggled across the border by Durham boat or by sleigh when winter closed navigation. His local ties were extensive, and his financial interests varied and his plans forward thinking. Not above a little larceny, the militia under his guidance had built a military road to the river’s edge near the mouth of French Creek that gave his smugglers access to the river out of sight of the revenue cutters that tried to squash the smuggling. Since all the inhabitants of the North Country had a stake in the game in one way or the other, the border remained fairly leaky. He was a patriot, though, and was determined to prosecute the war to the best of his abilities.

Good shooting, Captain Forsyth. I hope your wife doesn’t worry about you being a target like that. My own wife, Pamelia would string me from her washing line if I even thought about it. I have told her that a General is likely to get shot at some time, but she prays I don’t."

I pray so too, General. Please call me Ben, my friends do. Oizabeth cautioned me not to get too brave for the sake of the six young’uns I left at home, but a man has to do his duty as he sees fit. She surely was a sad sight when I left Stokes County to help form the Rifle Regiment here. We keep in touch through letters, but you miss so much of the children growing up when you are on the march, and I miss her company long nights around the campfire. replied Forsyth.

Forsyth enjoyed the art of war and the chance of fame and fortune. He enjoyed the test of mettle it gave a man, and he scorned those who flinched in the face of long odds or enemy fire. He had done well in land speculation, and his family had been well provided for. He had tried politics, but the political game was not for him. The War of Independence had been hard fought in North Carolina with cousin fighting cousin. Loyalists and Whigs had bled each other badly with the chance of being shot or hung for your personal beliefs being more than a remote chance. He hated the Loyalists for their depredations upon his family. Now many of the Loyalist foes had come to live among the British on the other side of the St Lawrence and prospered, which rankled. One Loyalist in particular was well-remembered and much disliked, even hated, by the entire Regiment. Colonel Joel Stone, late of Connecticut, was now operating a mill on the Gananoque River on the Canadian side, due north of Watertown as the crow flies. A village had sprung up around the mill and the colonel was rumored to be both wealthy and the leader of the local militia. As Forsyth had said to Daniel on the way to Watertown, Colonel Stone is a notorious enemy and opposer to the government of the United States. Mark him well. He has taken land from patriots who have joined our troops here and there are many who would like to see him topple from his high perch. Maybe we can see to that while we are nearby.

Daniel agreed and offered his own opinion. You know, Captain, I think we will only have to offer the Canadians a chance at joining the Republic, and they will throw off the yoke of the British, and stream to our cause and the war will be over in a trice. We have so many kin in Canada that they have to see us as almost family. We won’t need to fire a shot, but if we do, I pity those poor farm boys facing our rifles. I doubt the regulars are much better. Besides, we outnumber them by a long shot. Britain has so much on its plate on the European continent that it’s not likely that reinforcements would be on the way.

All too true, Daniel. We had better get the men on the road to Sackets Harbor where the general tells me he wants us to base our operations. He thinks the British have been eying our works there as a prize to be plucked. On the way, we will stop at Brownsville and pay our respects but I want to get into action as soon as I can. I have a plan that we will have us looking at the map of Gananoque before long.

Their destination, Sackets Harbor, sits southwest of Watertown on the mouth of the Black River. There, one finds a bay with a good holding ground protected by a long peninsula projecting into Lake Ontario. It was at this natural harbor that the United States had built a navy yard to counter the British facility across the lake at Kingston. It was an easy sail between the two and Sacket's was situated just south of the entrance to the mouth of the St Lawrence River, highway to the Atlantic Ocean and major route for all the supplies going upriver from Montreal. The British knew that the whole of the Niagara peninsula and the northern shore of Lake Ontario would be vulnerable if this major artery were severed and were determined to protect it.

As the only good harbor on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, the destruction of the works at Sackets Harbor would be a catastrophe for the United States and the forces at Kingston were strong enough to be a very real threat. They had a fleet based there and enough manpower to overwhelm the defenses at Sacket's if these were found to be wanting. General Brown was equally determined that they would not be found to be wanting and the Rifle Regiment and their professionalism was a welcome addition to the militia units stationed there.

Sackets Harbor

On their arrival in Sackets Harbor, General Brown held a conference with the officers of the Rifle Regiment. Coffee cups in hand, they studied a map of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. As you can see, he stated, "the eastern end of the lake appears as a wine glass with the stem being the St. Lawrence River. The north sides of the glass are the Canadas and the south sides the Unites States. Where the stem meets the north glass sides, we have their base at Kingston. On the south side of that junction, we have Gravelly Point. There are several large islands at the intake of the river dividing it into two channels and the British patrol the northern channel with schooners and gunboats.

The typical gunboat mounts one twenty-four pound cannon at its bow, sometimes two, and can be sailed or rowed by sweeps. These same gunboats are used to protect convoys as they make their way along the river. The south side of the glass is in United States territory and Sackets Harbor sits half way down the bowl from Oswego about twenty sea miles from Gravelly Point. We could patrol the south channels in the St. Lawrence River but we don’t. It is too early to provoke the British into a sea battle our naval commander tells me. You’ll get to meet Chauncey later. To continue, following the river east from Kingston, you can see that Gananoque is the first large settlement along the Canadian side of the river, and a long way farther down the river is Elizabethtown. Following the river farther east finds Prescott at head of the Long Sault Rapids. These rapids have to be traversed by empty boats so Prescott is the loading place for westward bound convoys. Above the rapids is Cornwall, where the boats are unloaded so that the goods can be sent on by wagon. If you follow the river far enough east, you would reach Montreal and Quebec City. Mark you, there hasn’t been a whole lot of settling on the American side of the river as of yet, though it is pretty country. Ogdensburg, on our side, was built beside the Oswegatchie River across from Prescott. There used to be an old French fort, there. You will find small hamlets on the American side like Morristown directly across the river from Elizabethtown and Massena, the same way, across from Cornwall. It seems we like to build near our northern neighbors, doesn’t it? Trade across the river has always been a boon to both sides. We have beef, they have money."

The officers