Fort George National Historic Site of Canada

The Onset of War - The 1812 Campaign.

Charts

Some prominent characters of the British Command Structure in the year 1812

King George III

Secretary For War and the Colonies
Lord Henry Bathurst third Earl of Bathurst

Overall Military Command in the Canadas
Lieutenant General Sir George Prevost

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Some prominent characters of the American Command Structure in 1812

President James Madison

Secretary of War Dr. William Eustis

Overall Military Commander First
Major General Henry Dearborn

The Land Action charts are designed to give a simple overview of battles that occurred in one calendar year. This can be used to supplement the time line as it separates simultaneous activities and shows where they happened. The divisions (Right, Center and Left) are historical ones created in 1813. If you stood in center of Upper Canada and faced the States, the Windsor /Detroit area would be on your right, Niagara York and Fort Erie would be central, and Kingston, Prescott and Cornwall would be on your left.

When reading the chart the month is indicated in the left hand column , the number at the beginning of the entry is the day of the month. British victories are marked in bold, smaller actions are in italics, and American victories and neutral information are indicated in regular type. i..e. On August 5 the British skirmished (Brownstown is in italics) with the Americans at Brownstown, and the British won.. If you check the time line for this date you would read:

August 5^th, Battle of Brownstown
A small American force sent by Hull to escort incoming supplies to Fort Detroit is ambushed and defeated by a small group of Natives and British Regulars.

For teachers wishing to focus on Niagara, follow the action in the column marked Center Division, H.Q. Fort George and use it to select relevant dates from the time line.

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1812 Land Actions

British (Canadian/Native) victories are in bold typeface. Smaller actions(raids/skirmishes) are indicated in italics

Naval Charts are included in the package for two reasons. First, the role of the inland navy was crucial to the decisions land officers made. Most aggressive action between the U.S. and Canada required boats to cross the borders created by the Great Lakes. Once a crossing was achieved -could supplies reach them? Could the Navy evacuate them? Brigadier General Jacob Brown's failure to recapture the Niagara peninsula in 1814 was due to a lack of support from Commodore Isaac Chauncey on Lake Ontario. As the Great Lakes systems were the best passages in and out of the Canadian interior, boats were the fastest mass transport system of the period. An army's mobility depended on them. Control of the Great Lakes depended on the strength of the navy and naval battles often proved too costly (The loss of a single ship could tip the balance in the power struggle for control of the lakes) for the meagre number of ships and resources given to the Provincial Marine and the inland Navy.

Secondly, the charts are included to give a sampling of the conflict on the east coast of the continent, where the war was very different. Privateering, piracy, covert operations and full-fledged battles raged along the eastern seaboard as the United States fought the control of the British Navy on the Atlantic. Although this rarely had an impact for the war on the interior, for many Americans, control of their own commerce on the Atlantic was the main reason for the war.

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Naval Campaigns 1812

British (Canadian/Native) victories are indicated in bold typeface

• 1812 Time Line
• Charts
• Biographies