Battle of Bridgewater, The

DESCRIPTION: "On the twenty-fifth of July, as you may hear them say, We had a short engagement on the plains of Chippewa." Although the British have 8000 men, and American generals Brown and Scott are wounded, the Americans win the day
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1916 (Cox)
KEYWORDS: battle soldier death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
July 25, 1814 - Battle of Lundy's Lane (Bridgewater)
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Cox-FolkSongsSouth 61, "The Battle of Bridgewater" (1 text)
Roud #4030
NOTES [1616 words]: This is item dA32 in Laws's Appendix II.
The name "Bridgewater" for the battle shows how old this song is. Graves, p. 173: "For many year after it ended, there was confusion over the name of the action fought on 25 July 1814 along a pretty country lane near the falls of Niagara. British documents officially termed it the battle of Niagara while, in the United States, it was called either the battle of the Falls, or of the Cataract or, sometimes, the battle of Bridgewater after the little hamlet that Ripley burned to the ground [as the Americans retreated]. In Canada it has always been called the battle of Lundy's Lane, and it is now universally known by that homely title."
The first year of the War of 1812 went very badly for the Americans on the Canadian front, with every move repulsed (see the notes to "The Battle of Queenston Heights" and "Brave General Brock [Laws A22]"). In 1813, things went better for the Americans, as they won the Battle of Lake Erie (see the notes to "James Bird" [Laws A5]) and managed to move into Canada. But that year also saw the war turn ugly. An American militia officer named George McClure (1770-1851), left to garrison Fort George on the Canadian side of the Niagara River, decided he had to evacuate (according to Heidler/Heidler, p. 332, he had only "60 sick regulars, 40 volunteers, and a band of Canadians who favored the United States") -- and burned the town of Newark as he left.
McClure's order from the War Department gave him authority to burn the town, according to Heidler/Heidler, p. 332, but his subordinates disapproved. It probably does qualify as an atrocity -- it was December, and the 400 civilian residents of the town were turned out into snow-covered ground in sub-freezing temperatures. From then on, Canadian apathy turned to anger, and the British -- with Napoleon soon to be out of the picture -- were able to escalate the war. On December 30, they burned Buffalo (Borneman, pp., 170-171).
1814 saw the Americans start their last offensive; a new commander, Jacob Brown, sent his chief subordinate Winfield Scott across the Niagara River on July 3 (Borneman, p. 185; Hickey, p. 185). They quickly swallowed up the British garrison at Fort Erie. Major General Phineas Riall, the British commander at Fort George (the main base in the area), brought together what troops he could on the Chippewa River, but of course Brown was also bringing up troops. Brown's army on July 4 marched the 16 miles to the Chippewa River (Fort Erie is on the shores of Lake Erie, the Chippewa about half way between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, just above Niagara Falls)
The two armies met on July 5. It appears, from the numbers in Borneman (p. 189), that neither army was fully engaged; most of the fighting on the American side was done by Scott's brigade -- who, however, heavily pounded Riall's troops. That encouraged Brown to bring his entire force across the Niagara River (Hickey, p. 187).
Brown then started to march toward Queenston, the town near Lake Ontario which the Americans had signally failed to take in 1812. This time, they took Queenston Heights -- and retreated. Brown requested naval support from Commodore Isaac Chauncey, the American commander on Lake Ontario. It was not forthcoming (Borneman, p. 189; Hickey, p. 187), meaning that Brown's supply line was the tenuous one from Fort Erie. The British, as it turned out, weren't getting naval support either -- but they were getting help. Lt. General Gordon Drummond, the British commander in Upper Canada, arrived to take charge, and troops were also trickling in. There were rumors that the British were sending forces to the American side of the Niagara. Brown fell back to the Chippewa (Borneman, p. 190).
Brown did not sit tight, though. On July 25, he sent Scott on a reconnaissance. Scott had marched only a couple of miles north toward Queenston when he ran into nearly the entire British army in position at Lundy's Lane (which was just what it sounded like: A minor dirt road). Heavily outnumbered, Scott nonetheless stood his ground and called for help from the rest of the American army. Brown brought forward his other two brigades (though he committed only one of them).
The result was chaotic. On the American side, Scott was wounded, then Brown, leaving the army under the command of a junior brigadier, who interpreted one of Brown's orders as a command to retreat (Graves, pp. 159-160, has no doubt that the order was to leave the field). This Brigadier, Eleazar Wheelock Ripley, did so, even leaving some British guns in the field (Borneman, p. 195; Graves, p. 160, says there weren't enough horses even to pull back the American guns). The British had their own casualties -- Riall, hit in the arm, was captured (Graves, p. 118) and lost an arm and Drummond suffered a lesser wound that may have affected his performance -- but they held the field, and they had perhaps the slight advantage in casualties suffered: they lost about 875-900, representing probably 25-27% of their forces in the field (Borneman, p. 195; Hickey, p. 188); American losses were about 850, but that's something like a third of their total force (I read somewhere that American casualties may even have been in the 40-50% range). Graves, pp. 173-175, gives what may be the official numbers: For the British, 84 killed, 559 wounded, 193 missing, and 42 known prisoners -- a total of 878, or 24% of troops engaged. The American report, which was compiled five days after the battle, listed 860 casualties: 173 dead, 571 wounded, 117 missing. On pp. 221-223, Graves tries to estimate the total American force; many parts of the estimate are rough, but his best guess is 2778, making the American casualties 31%. And its command structure was decimated, with the two top generals wounded and only one unwounded colonel and one unwounded lieutenant colonel (Graves, p. 188). No matter what the exact numbers, it is clear both sides had been fought out.
The Americans pulled back to Fort Erie, but it was four days before the British army moved, which shows how badly both sides had been hurt (Graves, p. 187). A preliminary British attempt to clear the road south was heavily defeated due to the incompetence of the officer in charge, costing another 44 casualties (Graves, p. 190). Drummond then ordered his artillery to reduce the fort -- but his artillery officers, who knew little of sieges, set up their battery too far away and did little damage -- they merely convinced Brigadier Edmund P. Gaines, who had been appointed to command the fort in the absence of Brown and Scott, that an assault was coming (Graves, pp. 192-193). Drummond's attack plan was excessively complicated, involving four different bodies of troops attacking three different points. None of the assaults succeeded -- except in blowing up a magazine, which probably cost the attackers more than the defenders (Graves, pp. 193-195). Drummund suffered 57 dead, 309 wounded, and 539 missing (captured or dead in the explosion), or 905 out of about 2500 in the attacking force (Graves, p. 195) -- in other words, more losses in Lundy's Lane.
The British besieged Fort Erie from August 2 to September 16, but the August 15 assault was the last direct attack. Brown returned to command on September 2 -- but by then the strategic situation was completely different, with the Americans threatening both Washington and the Champlain (Graves, p. 199; for the latter situation, see "The Siege of Plattsburg"). Both sides were leaving the Niagara mostly to its own devices. Brown attacked the British on September 16, even as the British were retreating (Graves, pp. 198, 200), resulting in a bloody draw that cost each side about 500 more casualties (Graves, p. 201).
Meanwhile, George Izard, the commander of the American "Right Division" was approaching the front, and he had seniority over Brown, commander of the "Left Division" on the New York front. Izard came to the Niagara on September 21, but instead of joining Brown in going after Drummond, his forces wandered around the area without engaging in any major combat (Graves, p. 203). Izard on October 24 sent the Left Division back to the United States, and took his own division back on November 5 (Graves, p. 203). The Americans blew up Fort Erie as the retreated, and the Niagara front was finally quiet (Borneman, p. 198; Hickey, p. 189).
Graves, p. 205, concludes, "Major General Jacob Brown has a good claim to have won a tactical victory at Lundy's Lane" because he took the key to the British position and captured some artillery, but "the American withdrawal allowed Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond to also claim a tactical victory" -- though Graves adds that he thinks that "this assertion has less validity." On page 206, Graves reluctantly states that the whole campaign was a strategic victory for the British, because the Americans did nothing after Lundy's Lane to exploit it, and eventually left Canada. But Graves concludes that nothing that happened really had any effect on the war, because "the campaign itself was not based on any clear strategic aim." I'd say that's basically true -- and, indeed, that description could be applied to the whole stupid war.
Drummond, despite his several failures in the campaign, did well afterward; presumably all London noticed was that the Americans were out of Canada. He succeeded George Prevost as military commander in Canada and eventually became a full general (Graves, p. 208). The officers of the Left Division were destined for even greater things; as Graves says on p. 210, Left Division officers served as the American general-in-chief for 28 of the 46 years from 1815 to 1861- RBW
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File: JHCox061

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