The Battle of York (27 April 1813) was a major battle in the War of 1812. It saw an American army, under Brigadier General Zebulon Pike, defeat a British, Canadian, and Ojibwe force to seize York (present-day Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada. It was the first significant US victory to be won on land during the war.
Owen Staples (Public Domain)
The six months that followed the United States' declaration of war against the United Kingdom had not gone well for the Americans. An attempted invasion of Canada had culminated in disaster at the Siege of Detroit (15-16 August 1812), where US Brigadier General William Hull was forced to surrender both his army and Fort Detroit itself, thereby giving the British control of the Michigan Territory. Two months later, another US invasion was decisively defeated at the Battle of Queenston Heights (13 October), where nearly 1,000 US troops were taken prisoner. To make matters worse, a third American force was pulverized at the Battle of the River Raisin (18-23 January 1813) in Michigan, a bloody episode that concluded with the massacre of wounded US troops by Britain's Native American allies. These three defeats made it abundantly clear that a successful invasion of Canada would take a lot more than the "mere matter of marching" that had been anticipated by former president Thomas Jefferson.
Hoping for a reversal of the United States' dismal military fortunes, President James Madison appointed a new secretary of war, John Armstrong, Jr., in January 1813. Having studied the defeats of the previous year, Armstrong realized that control of the Great Lakes – specifically Lake Ontario – was essential for any attack on Canada to succeed. Working with Major General Henry Dearborn, the US commander of the Niagara frontier, and Commodore Isaac Chauncey of the US Navy, Armstrong planned for a squadron of ships to be built at Sacket's Harbor, on the New York side of Lake Ontario. Once completed, this squadron could ferry Dearborn's troops across the lake to strike at Kingston, the location of the major British dockyard on Lake Ontario; if captured, Kingston would give the Americans full control of the lake. Unfortunately for Armstrong, however, the British had the same idea and ordered the construction of two new sloops-of-war on Lake Ontario. The 20-gun HMS Wolfe was being built at Kingston while its sister ship, HMS Sir Isaac Brock – named after the British war hero recently slain at Queenston Heights – was under construction at York. Throughout the early winter months of 1813, therefore, the sounds of construction rang out across the lake as each side raced to get its ships in the water before the other.
Construction of the Warship HMS Sir Isaac Brock
Charles Henry Jeremy Snider (CC BY)
But as winter gave way to spring and the campaign season drew nearer, Dearborn and Chauncey started to second-guess their target. They believed Kingston was too well-guarded; according to some reports, the town was protected by 8,000 men, including 3,000 British regulars. This estimate was, in truth, a wild exaggeration – the British had only 900 regulars and a few hundred Canadian militia at Kingston – but Dearborn and Chauncey had no way of knowing this. Working under the assumption that Kingston was indeed too strong for an attack, they shifted the focus of their expedition to York (present-day Toronto). Though it was less strategically valuable than Kingston, York was the capital of Upper Canada, meaning its capture could at least help restore the United States' honor after the humiliations of 1812; the possibility of capturing the still-unfinished Sir Isaac Brock was a bonus as well. The two commanders succeeded in convincing Armstrong to sign off on the changed plan. Then, with Chauncey's ships afloat and Dearborn's soldiers gathered at Sacket's Harbor, the Americans had only to wait for the ice to finish thawing before they could learn whether their luck would change.
