Battle of Plattsburgh

Battle of Plattsburgh, battle during the War of 1812, fought on September 6–11, 1814, by land and naval forces of Britain and the United States. The battle resulted in an important American victory on Lake Champlain, one that likely saved New York from British invasion by way of the Hudson River valley. The victory at Plattsburgh helped the Americans gain favorable terms in the peace agreement formalized by the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. The battle was one of the last major engagements of the war and was as strategically important as the Battle of New Orleans.

Departing from Canada, a British army of some 14,000 troops under Sir George Prevost reached Plattsburgh in a joint land and sea operation. Prevost, the governor general of Canada, intended to seize the American base at Plattsburgh and destroy the American fleet on Lake Champlain, gaining both control of the lake and a measure of security for Lower Canada, always in imminent danger of American invasion.

Indeed, Plattsburgh was undermanned because some of its garrison had been sent north to disrupt communication between British units at Montreal and Kingston, Ontario. The American defenders included only 1,500 regulars and about 2,500 militia commanded by Gen. Alexander Macomb, supported by an American naval squadron under Commodore Thomas Macdonough consisting of the warships USS Saratoga, Eagle, Ticonderoga, and Preble, as well as ten gunboats.

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Against the American squadron was Captain George Downie’s British flotilla, numbering HMS Confidence, Linnet, Chubb, and Finch, as well as twelve gunboats. Downie was preparing his line for battle on September 11 when the wind died, hampering his ships’ movements. The two lines fired across the water at each other, and in the exchange of broadsides Downie was killed. Ships on both sides were heavily damaged, but the British squadron surrendered soon after Downie’s flagship, Confidence, struck its colors.

Watching this disaster unfold on the water, Prevost called off his land attack, not knowing how greatly his land forces outnumbered the American defenders. Against the protests of his brigade commanders, all veterans of the Peninsular War against Napoleon’s forces in Spain, Prevost ordered his force back to Canada the following day. Prevost was so heavily criticized for his poor performance at Plattsburgh that he took the unusual step of requesting a court-martial inquest, but he died of illness before it could be convened.

Losses: U.S., some 100 dead, 120 wounded; British, some 380 killed or wounded, more than 300 captured or deserted.