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​Part II The Naval Warof 1812 on Lake Ontario Kevin J. Crisman If any single location could have been called the epicenter of the War of 1812, it was Lake Ontario (fig. II.1). Geography, not size, conferred strategic significance: Ontario is the easternmost Great Lake, and the navy that held supremacy here controlled the principal supply routes for all military forces operating along the western frontier of the United States and Canada. The lake was particularly vital for the British, whose forces in Upper Canada relied on a slender supply line that extended up the St. Lawrence River from Montreal and Quebec. For the United States, the lake’s outlet offered an invasion route to Montreal and the heart of Lower Canada (the British Army demonstrated this in 1760 when it descended the St. Lawrence to conquer New France).1 Both belligerents had powerful incentives to command Lake Ontario, and throughout the War of 1812 both would apply their greatest ship building and outfitting efforts to achieve this end. Ontario is the smallest of the five Great Lakes in area (193 miles [311 km] in length by 53 miles [85 km] in maximum breadth), but it was the only lake where both the United States and Great Britain had naval vessels in service at the start of the war. The British Army had over a half-­ century of experience building and operating ships on Lake Ontario, a record that extended back to the French and Indian War and the American Revolution.2 In 1812 the Army Quartermaster Department’s Provincial Marine had the nearly new 20-­gun ship Royal George (fig. II.2), the 14-­gun ship Earl of Moira, the new 12-­ gun schooner Prince Regent, and the worn-­ out 6-­ gun schooner Duke of Gloucester.3 They were based at Kingston, a town near the head of the St. Lawrence River that served as the principal Canadian commercial and military entrepôt on the lake in the early nineteenth century. The United States had the 16-­ gun brig Oneida on Lake Ontario at the start of the war, the only US Navy warship in service on any lake (fig. II.3). Oneida was { 109 } Figure II.1. The Lake Ontario region during the War of 1812. (Map by Douglas Inglis.) { 110 } Crisman launched at Oswego, New York, in March 1809 to enforce a US embargo on trade with Britain. Actual commissioning was delayed until 1810, but the brig thereafter patrolled Ontario’s waters, sailing out of the tiny port of Sackets Harbor, New York, at the eastern end of the lake.4 With four warships and 40-­ plus guns, the Provincial Marine should have been more than a match for one US Navy vessel mounting 16 guns, but during the summer and fall of 1812, superiority in numbers and firepower did not result in the kind of easy victories that the British Army achieved at Mackinac Island and Detroit in the far west. Quite the contrary: the Lake Ontario squadron accomplished almost nothing. The problem was obvious to contemporary observers: the Provincial Marine had functioned as a peacetime transport service for three decades, and its personnel were unprepared for war. The crews were under strength, lacked knowledge of their profession, and showed little dedication to the cause (one Royal Army officer dismissed them as “totally incapable for any hasardous [sic] undertaking”).5 The British squadron made one half-­ hearted, abortive attack on Oneida at Sackets Harbor on July 19 but thereafter avoided contact with the US Navy.6 The commander of Oneida, Lt. Melancthon T. Woolsey, showed more initiative and as soon as he learned of the war’s declaration began rounding up merchant schooners to convert into naval vessels. During the summer of 1812, the US Navy Department provided little guidance or material support. Woolsey faced shortages of cannon, stores, and sailors and was forced to rely on militia volunteers to fill out his crews. The lieutenant particularly coveted a collection of merchant schooners blockaded at the St. Lawrence River port of Ogdensburg, New York, by the Provincial Marine. A temporary regional truce in early September allowed Woolsey to bring the schooners to Sackets Harbor, where preparations were begun to arm them.7 The US Army’s string of disasters in the far west, Figure II.2. The Provincial Marine (later Royal Navy) 20-­gun ship Royal George. The largest warship on Lake Ontario (or any of the lakes) at the start of the war, Royal...

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