(September 27, 1772–October 10, 1854)
English General
Drummond was the first native-born Canadian to hold both military and civil commands during the War of 1812. He proved himself an extremely capable administrator and also possessed a “bulldog” tenacity in combat. Drummond’s stubborn refusal to retreat won the Battle of Lundy’s Lane and helped blunt the most serious invasion of Upper Canada (present-day Ontario) ever mounted by the United States.
Gordon Drummond was born in Quebec on September 27, 1772, the son of an army paymaster. He was educated in England and joined the army in 1789 as an ensign in the First Regiment of Foot, the famous Royal Scots. In service young Drummond proved a most enterprising officer, and rapid promotion followed. He became a lieutenant in 1791, a captain in 1792, then transferred as a major in the Eighth Foot (King’s Own) in 1794 before rising to lieutenant colonel that same year. Drummond first experienced combat during the siege of Nijmegen, Netherlands, in 1794 and subsequently distinguished himself during the reconquest of Egypt in 1801. Having completed several tours of garrison duty in the Mediterranean, he rose to major general in 1805 and, three years later, returned to Quebec under Governor-General Sir James Craig. His rapid rise notwithstanding, Drummond had seen real combat only on two occasions and lacked real combat experience. Nevertheless, in 1811 he gained promotion to lieutenant general after 22 years of dedicated service; he temporarily replaced Craig as commander in chief of British forces pending the arrival of Sir George Prevost. In October of that same year, Drummond transferred to northern Ireland and was absent when hostilities erupted between England and the United States in June 1812.
Drummond remained in Ireland until August 1813, when Prevost requested his presence in Canada. He arrived that fall and replaced Gen. Francis de Rottenburg as governor-general of Upper Canada. Drummond found the province in disarray owing to recent American victories on Lake Erie and Ontario’s Thames River. Moreover, much of the population was openly sympathetic to the United States, and both the military and civilian sectors were beset by acute supply shortages. His were daunting tasks, but Drummond threw himself into them with characteristic abandon. He felt that the military situation was critical and had to be addressed first.
Reaching the Niagara frontier on December 16, 1813, he orchestrated the surprise capture of Fort Niagara three days later, along with vast quantities of prisoners, supplies, and ammunition. He then directed a subordinate, Gen. Phineas Riall, to conduct punitive raids along the length of the Niagara River in retaliation for the burning of Newark, Upper Canada. In short order, Black Rock and Buffalo were reduced to ashes, and British control of the Niagara frontier was firmly reestablished. Drummond next sought to maintain the strategic initiative by hitting Presque Isle (Erie), Pennsylvania, where the Americans’ Lake Erie fleet was frozen in place, but the onset of warm weather thwarted his ambitions. By February 1814, he finally felt at leisure to return to York (Toronto) to convene a session of the provincial legislature. He enjoyed better luck than Gen. Isaac Brock in having the writ of habeas corpus suspended as a wartime expedient to suppress collaboration with the enemy. This, in turn, led to the largest civil trial for treason in Canadian history, with 15 defendants being tried and eight ultimately hanged.
But an even more pressing issue before Drummond was the question of food. Previously, the general had warned Prevost that Upper Canada might have to be abandoned simply to prevent the troops from starving! His supply situation remained poor because farmers refused to sell products to the army, and Drummond, like de Rottenburg before him, felt obliged to impose martial law as a final recourse. It was an unpopular move politically, but it did allow the military to obtain the necessary goods at fixed prices. Hence, a supply crisis, long neglected, was averted.
With the military, political, and supply situations in hand, Drummond relocated to Kingston to confer with Commodore Sir James Lucas Yeo, commanding the Lake Ontario squadron. Both men believed that British control of Lake Ontario was absolutely essential for the preservation of Upper Canada, and they desired to attack Sackets Harbor, home of the American fleet. However, the governor-general felt the strategy too risky and declined to send reinforcements. Drummond and Yeo then rummaged about for an easier target, and on May 5, 1813, their combined forces stormed Oswego, New York, stoutly defended by the Third U.S. Artillery under Lt. Col. George E. Mitchell. This well-conceived and -executed preemptive strike failed to seize the heavy cannons and other naval supplies intended for Commodore Isaac Chauncey’s ships, but it did upset his ship construction timetable by several weeks. Drummond and Yeo then both repaired to Kingston to await the outcome of events on the American side. Canada was undergoing a surge of confidence it had not experienced since the heady days of Isaac Brock.
In July 1814, the campaign season commenced when troops under American Gen. Jacob Brown crossed the Niagara River and captured Fort Erie. Unlike previous American invasions, in which soldiers and generals alike were ill-trained and bordering on amateurish, his Left Division was disciplined and had been placed in a high state of readiness by Gen. Winfield Scott. On July 5, Scott’s brigade met and soundly defeated Riall’s troops at the Battle of Chippawa, the first American victory over British troops on an open plain. Riall then retreated to Fort George, with Brown in hot pursuit. The Americans subsequently waited near the mouth of the Niagara River in the hopes that Commodore Chauncey would deliver men and supplies. Two weeks lapsed before Brown realized Chauncey was not coming, and he sullenly fell back upon Chippawa. Drummond, meanwhile, collected numerous men and supplies, sailed from York, and arrived at Fort George on July 24, 1814. He fully planned to drive down the peninsula and give battle to Brown once various elements of his army, scattered throughout Niagara, had been united. To divert American attention, on July 25 he dispatched a raid from captured Fort Niagara down the American side of the river. As it turns out, neither side was seeking a decisive engagement on that sultry July day.
Brown’s forces were resting at Chippawa in anticipation of a sudden advance upon Burlington Heights, which would cut off the peninsula. However, when news of the British raid arrived, he surmised that the British were actually intending to attack his main supply depot at Schlosser, New York. He reacted by sending General Scott’s brigade northward as a feint against Fort George, to lure the British back. Scott had proceeded only as far as a road junction called Lundy’s Lane when he encountered the forces of Riall, who had been shadowing the Americans at a respectful distance for several days. The aggressive Scott thereupon deployed to attack and Riall retreated, only to run headlong into Drummond’s column, marching south to join him. After a few frantic moments, Drummond sorted out his men and reoccupied the heights of Lundy’s Lane about six o’clock that evening. A battle of tremendous proportions then erupted. Scott battered his brigade against the British line for nearly two hours, suffering heavy casualties. By the time he drew off it was nightfall, and Drummond was convinced he had won the battle. What he did not know—and could not see—was that the balance of Brown’s army had arrived in the darkness and was preparing to renew the contest.
At length the brigade of Gen. Eleazar W. Ripley deployed below Lundy’s Lane and advanced to storm a British battery posted on the heights. Drummond, who had failed to post any scouts to his front, received his first indication of trouble when Col. James Miller suddenly burst out of the darkness and captured the British cannons. Additional forces under Col. George M. Brooke arrived to assist, and all of the British lines recoiled downhill in confusion. A third militia brigade under Gen. Peter B. Porter also arrived and deployed across the heights. Drummond’s predicament was truly lamentable; from a perceived sense of victory he had suddenly lost both his cannons—and then his entire position—to a seemingly more numerous enemy (the actual numbers were 2,800 Americans and 3,200 British). Nonetheless, he rallied his shaken men and personally led them back up the slope. Three times the British charged in the dark, and three times they were blasted back. Casualties were heavy on both sides, with Brown, Scott, and Drummond all sustaining serious wounds. Drummond finally called off the attack at midnight and prepared to retreat. Unknown to him, Brown had also ordered a withdrawal back to Chippawa, and the captured cannons were abandoned. In the early hours of July 26, British forces suddenly reoccupied Lundy’s Lane and claimed a victory. This was confirmed later that afternoon when American forces under Ripley marched up to the field but failed to initiate combat. Brown then took the battered remnants of his army and fell back to Fort Erie.
Lundy’s Lane was the costliest and hardest-fought battle of the War of 1812 in Canada, with 858 American casualties to a British total of 878 killed and wounded. Drummond’s stubborn refusal to yield the field, even though he was clearly defeated, paid immediate dividends. At great cost he had blunted the most serious American offensive of the war. The battle also revealed serious shortcomings in his generalship, but where brilliance failed, perseverance triumphed.
The British army was incapable of resuming operations for several weeks after Lundy’s Lane, and not until August 2 could Drummond advance upon Fort Erie. This formerly vulnerable post had been transformed by the defenders into an extremely formidable position. Drummond, who lacked adequate supplies and siege cannons, tried an end run around the fort by throwing a handpicked force of light infantry across the river in an attempt to capture American supplies at Buffalo. This daring gambit was foiled at Conjocta Creek by the elite American Riflemen under Maj. Ludowick Morgan on August 3, 1814. This setback forced Drummond to undertake a formal siege for which his troops were ill-prepared. For several days his small battery of light guns hammered away at the American defenses, inflicting what he viewed as serious damage. On the night of August 14, 1814, he directed a complicated three-pronged attack against the defenders, but the American commander, Gen. Edmund P. Gaines, was alert for such a move and ready to receive it. Throughout the early-morning hours, British troops valiantly charged prepared American positions and suffered heavily. A small party of British managed to storm Fort Erie itself, but an accidental magazine explosion wiped them out. By dawn the assailants withdrew in confusion, having lost 906 men to an American total of 84. This was the biggest British defeat in Canada during the entire war. But despite this tremendous setback, for which Drummond blamed foreign troops of the DeWatteville Regiment, he remained grimly determined to maintain the siege.
Incessant rains during late August increased the hardships of the troops and deteriorated the health of both armies. Drummond himself was suffering from the effects of his Lundy’s Lane wound, but he stubbornly disregarded the advice of his adjutant, Col. John Harvey, to retire. The impasse was broken only when General Gaines was wounded by a cannon shot and General Brown, still hobbled by wounds, arrived to take command. Working stealthily at night, he managed to transport several thousand New York militia across the Niagara River. On the rainy afternoon of September 17, 1814, Brown then staged a violent and successful sortie against British siege lines. Drummond, who had been forewarned by deserters, took no special precautions against attack and consequently lost two of his three batteries. Casualties in this savage encounter were also heavy, amounting to 511 Americans and 611 British. But the combination of poor health, worsening weather, and determined resistance finally compelled Drummond to abandon Fort Erie in late September.
The following month, Brown was reinforced by a large army commanded by Gen. George Izard, and Drummond dug in his battle-weary survivors behind Chippawa Creek in defiance. Izard, however, refused to frontally attack such strong positions, and he was further dissuaded when Commodore Yeo took control of Lake Ontario that fall. The Americans subsequently abandoned Fort Erie without a struggle that November and returned to New York. Word of peace arrived the following February, and Drummond, although severely handled, could look upon events of the past summer with satisfaction. Through his efforts, not a square inch of the Niagara Peninsula was in American hands by the time hostilities ceased. It was a performance worthy of Brock himself.
After the war, Governor-General Prevost was recalled back to England, and Drummond reassumed civil administration duties back in Quebec. There the general oversaw the transfer of previously captured regions back to the United States, in accordance with the Treaty of Ghent. He remained so situated until May 1816, when he returned to England and was named a knight of the Order of Bath in reward for distinguished services. Drummond rose to full general in May 1825; at the time of his death in London on October 10, 1854, he was the most senior general in the British army. With the possible exception of Isaac Brock, Drummond was the most effective military leader and administrator to serve in Canada during the War of 1812. He was not the most able tactician of that conflict, but his combination of natural aggressiveness and gritty determination thwarted a possible conquest of the Niagara frontier.
Bibliography
Barbuto, Richard V. Niagara, 1814: America Invades Canada. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000; Fredriksen, John C. Green Coats and Glory: The United States Regiment of Riflemen, 1808–1821. Youngstown, NY: Old Fort Niagara Association, 2000; Graves, Donald E. The Battle of Lundy’s Lane on the Niagara Frontier in 1814. Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation of America, 1993; Griffen, D. Massey. “Forging an 1812 General: The Early Life of Sir Gordon Drummond.” Ontario History 88 (1996): 297–313; Johnson, Timothy. Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998; Malcomson, Robert. “War on Lake Ontario: A Costly Victory at Oswego, 1814.” Beaver 75, no. 2 (1995): 4–13; Morris, John D. Sword of the Border: Major General Jacob Jennings Brown, 1775–1828. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2000; Stanley, George F.G. The War of 1812: Land Operations. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1983; Turner, Wesley. British Generals in the War of 1812: High Command in the Canadas. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1999; Whitehorne, Joseph A. While Washington Burned: The Battle for Fort Erie, 1814. Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation, 1992.
