HMS Albion-- Part 1: Launching and Service in the Napoleonic Wars

From Wikipedia.

A 74-gun 3rd rate  ship of the line in the Royal Navy.   Launched at Perry's Blackwall Yard on the Thames River on 17 June 1802 and broken up at the Chatham.

The ship was 175 feet long and had a 47.6 foot beam.

In 1803, it joined the English fleet of Admiral Cornwallis (brother of Charles Cornwallis who surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, in case you're wondering) which was blockading the French port of Brest.  There she took part in the capture of (and prize money of) five enemy ships.

From there, the Albion was detached to the Indian Ocean for several years.

On December 21, 1803, she and another ship captured a French privateer.

Much of the rest of the Albion's service during the Napoleonic Wars consisted of convoy duty.

--Brock-Perry

What Tecumseh Fought For-- Part 5: Aftermath of Tecumseh's War

The Battle of Moraviantown (Battle of the Thames) produced a considerable array of elected officials, among them three Kentucky governors, a vice president (Richard Johnson), and a president, an aging William Henry Harrison, who campaigned in 1840 under the slogan of "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too").

And because Tecumseh had died in a British fight, near a river that borrowed its name from England, his doomed war was  easily swallowed up by the larger War of 1812 between the British and Americans.

And then, an unrelenting stream of Americans poured into the Old Northwest Territory and Indians began fighting an increasingly lost war to delay them.  Tecumseh's War presaged  the Black Hawk War of 1832 in Illinois and Wisconsin; the deadly removal of Potawatomi people from Indiana to the Great Plains in  1838; the Dakota Uprising of 1862, in Minnesota.

Trace such conflicts back to Pontiac's Rebellion and what emerges  is not a picture of  innocent pioneer settlement in the continental heartland but a full century of Midwestern dispossession and resistance.

--Brock-Perry

What Tecumseh Fought For-- Part 3: The Battle of the Thames

Continued from October 30.

The British figured that each Indian warrior was worth three American soldiers and when they marched into battle in their traditional red coats, Tecumseh and his warriors would be protecting the flanks.

Tecumseh seemed to be everywhere during the first years of fighting: fighting, recruiting, saving prisoners from torture from his men,  cajoling the British to maintain supplies, food and men, and even rallying their troops in the field on occasion.

The British failed in almost every aspect of the war.  (Of course a big part of this was because Britain was much more heavily engaged with Napoleon and his French army in the war for control of Europe.)  The world's strongest maritime power lost  the fight for the Great Lakes, saw its supply lines to  the Northwest cut, and , in the fall of 1813, were chased by William Henry Harrison and a large American force into a panicked retreat across Upper Canada.

British commander, General Henry Procter, made a strategic blunder before taking an ill-prepared stand near Moraviantown on the Thames River, in early October.

Tecumseh and  some five hundred warriors supported the British line in what became known as the Battle of the Thames, but those lines collapsed almost immediately in the face of an American cavalry charge.  A small group of Americans led by Richard Mentor Johnson, a Kentucky militia colonel,  charged the Indian lines on horseback, hoping to draw their fire and thus reveal the Indian positions for the next wave of soldiers.

--Brock-Perry

Robert Smith Todd (Mary Lincoln's Father)-- Part 3: At Battles of Frenchtown and Thames

In July 1812, when the 5th Kentucky Regiment left Lexington, , it contained Robert , three of his brothers and eight Todd cousins.  Initially, Robert did not receive his commission, although his two older brothers did.

Along with his younger brother, Samuel, Robert enlisted as a private.  Before he could leave Ohio, however, he caught pneumonia and had to stay there to recover.

After recovering (and during which time he returned home to marry Eliza Parker), he went to the front of military action and  fought at the Battle of Frenchtown in Michigan in January 1813 and later in the fall was at the Battle of the Thames, where Tecumseh was killed and which ended fighting in that part of the war.

Before the end of the war, Robert was promoted to captain.

--Brock-Perry

Dueling Frigates-- Part 4: Get Out With a Duel?

The day of the battle between the Chesapeake and Shannon off Boston, Captain Stephen Decatur of the 56-gun frigate USS United States, 38-gun frigate USS Macedonian (previously the HMS Macedonian) and 20-gun USS Hornet, into the Thames River, by New London, Connecticut.

They then found themselves blockaded there by British ships for the next six months.

Decatur tried various schemes to break out.  One of the first attempts were the blue light signals which caused him to cancel one attempt.  Then, he hit upon another scheme.

Captain Decatur was at Brown's tavern in New London, Ct., in January 1813, when Captain Nicholas Moran, a coasting ship commander, came to him and said that he had just been the "guest" aboard the HMS Ramillies, and that Captain Henry Hope of the 46-gun HMS Endymion had said he thought Decatur was afraid of an engagement between their two ships.

Moran also claimed that Sir Thomas Hardy had "remarked, that he should be delighted to see a match between the [HMS] Statira and [USS] Macedonian since they were sister ships."

In Other Word, "Duel."  --Brock-PerryDuel

Stephen Champlin-- Part 16: Cleanup Operations

"The 'Scorpion' later was involved in transporting General (later, U.S. President) Harrison's Army from Portage River to the Middle Sister, from which they were taken by the fleet (including the Scorpion) to Malden and accompanying them up the Thames River.

After this, theses are John Lisle's words.

"During the winter of 1813-1814, Stephen was put in charge of the captured ships 'Queen Charlotte' and 'Detroit' at Put-In-Bay, Ohio

"His next cruise was on Lake St. Clair and the river Thames.  He took the Scorpion 40 miles up the river to within 3 miles of where Colonel Johnson had defeated and slain Chief Tecumseh, and secured a vessel loaded with baggage of the British army and took it and the severely wounded Johnson back to Detroit.

--Brock-Perry

USS Tigress-- Part 2: Battle of the Thames and Mackinac Island

After the Battle of Lake Erie, the Americans took advantage of their new superiority captured Fort Malden and Detroit.  The Tigress, Scorpion and Porcupine, under command of Lt. Jesse Elliott went up the Thames River to support U.S. troops under General William Henry Harrison and the victory at the Battle of the Thames in which Indian warrior chief Tecumseh was killed.

Then the Tigress was sent to Lake Huron where it blockaded the mouth of the Nottawasaga River, the sole supply source for the British garrison on Mackinac Island.  By early September, the situation for the British on the island was dire.  Something had to be done.

It was under the command of Stephen Champlin.

Brock-Perry

Battle of the Thames-- Part 7: Consequences

**  Proved to the First Nations that Britain had a lack of resolution toward them.

**  The coalition of First Nations Indians collapsed without Tecumseh and Stiahta.

**  Peace agreements were signed between Harrison representing the U.S. government and various tribes in a move to divide and nullify Britain's chief ally in the war, the First Nations.

**  Most of the prisoners the Americans took were interned in an encampment at Sanduskey, Ohio, and suffered greatly.

--Brock-Perry

Canada's Fairfield on the Thames National Historic Site-- Part 1

From Canada's Historic Places.

I was looking for information from the Canadian side of the battle and found this site.

Fairfield on the Thames National Historic Site of Canada.  Recognized May 16, 1945.

Fairfield was established in 1792 on the north bank of the Thames River in what is today Ontario, Canada.  It is between present-day cities of Thamesville and Bothwell, Ontario.

There are no remains of the former village of Fairfield.

It was founded in 1792 for Aboriginal refugees and Moravian missionaries from Ohio.

The site has a large plot of land with a cemetery, the Fairfield Museum, a plaque and cairn erected by the Historical Sites and Monuments Board of Canada in 1948.

I had to look up cairn.  It is a heap of stones piled up as a memorial or landmark.

Learn Something Every Day.  --Brock-Perry

Battle of the Thames-- Part 9: Thamesville and Moraviantown

**  The site of the battle is near present-day Thamesville, Ontario.

**  During the battle, Henry Proctor fought with the Thames River on his left flank.

**  Moraviantown was established in 1729 by the Delaware Indians who had converted to Christianity by the Moravian missionaries.  By October 1813, it had 100 homes, a meeting house, school house and a common garden.

--Brock-Perry

The Battle of the Thames-- Part 1: Chasing Proctor

With all the writing about Richard M. Johnson at this battle and other references, here is the Thought Co.  account of the battle.

After the Battle of Lake Erie, the British withdrew from Fort Malden, Upper Canada (near Detroit).  William Henry Harrison reoccupied Detroit and Sandwich.  He left garrisons at each and took his 3,700 men in pursuit of Proctor's British forces, pressing hard after him.

Proctor reached the Christian Native American settlement of Moraviantown on October 4, 1813, and turned to fight.  He had with him 1,300 men.  He placed his regulars, mostly of the 41st Regiment of Foot and one cannon on the left along the Thames River.

--Brock-Perry

USS Porcupine-- Part 2: More Service Afterwards

The USS Porcupine was anchored at the head of the Niagara River 12 August 1814, along with the USS Ohio and USS Somers, when they were attacked by 6 or 8 boats manned with English seamen and Canadian militia.  The other two were captured, but the Porcupine escaped.

It remained in Lake Erie providing transportation and support William Henry Harrison's army at the battle to recover Detroit and the Battle of the Thames.  It was still commanded by George Senat when it transported supplies to Harrison's Army to the north of the Thames and went up the Thames to provide artillery and logistics support.

It was laid up in Erie, Pennsylvania, until 1819, when it was refitted and turned over to the Collector of Revenue at Detroit 2 June.

Returned to the Navy 2 August 1821, it remained inactive until sold 8 August 1825.  Afterwards it served as a cargo vessel on the Great Lakes until it was determined to be unseaworthy and beached on the sand at Spring Lake near Grand Haven, Michigan.

--Brock-Perry

The Frontier in Flames-- Part 23: Battle of the Thames

William Henry Harrison, meanwhile, had a well-provisioned and motivated army of about 3,000 men.  They landed in Canada in late September and headed up the Thames River in pursuit of Henry Proctor.  The forces met on October 5,1813.   Proctor had his forced arrayed in two lines, with the small swamp in front of them.

Eyeing the battlefield ground, Harrison's cavalry leader, Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, proposed a cavalry charge against each of the British lines -- an unusual tactic in such a situation.

Harrison agreed.  Johnson attacked the British right, which was held by Tecumseh and his Indians, while Johnson's brother, James, attacked the British left.  The surprise maneuver broke the British lines and set up a deadly crossfire that forced their surrender.

--Brock-Perry

The Frontier In Flames-- Part 22: A Last Stand at Moraviantown

Instead, Proctor suggested moving a few miles farther upstream on the Thames River to Moraviantown, which could be more easily defended.  A river would protect one flank of the British Army, a large swamp shielded the other and there was a small swamp directly in front of British lines which would necessitate the Americans to divide their forces in an attack.

It was a desperate move.  The men were hungry, tired and dispirited.  Proctor's force comprised 800 militia and regulars; some 1,200 warriors when it began its march, but as many as 700 had left ranks since the retreat had begun.

--Brock-Perry

The Frontier in Flames-- Part 21: Leading Up to the Battle of the Thames

Furious, Tecumseh accused Proctor of cowardice and vowed to remain and fight.  "We must compare our Father's [Proctor's] conduct to a fat animal that carries its tail upon its back, but when affrighted, it drops it between its legs and runs off," Tecumseh angrily told Proctor.

Knowing how important Tecumseh's warriors were to his side, Henry Proctor tried to sooth him by proposing relocating to present-day Chatham, Ontario, and fortifying it and making a stand against advancing Americans.  Tecumseah agreed, but when he arrived at Chatham he was stunned to find it unfortified.

--Brock-Perry

The Frontier in Flames-- Part 20: Leading Up to the Battle of the Thames

While American soldiers had struggled with little success on land, U.S,. naval forces under Oliver hazard Perry won control of Lake Erie at the Battle of Lake Erie in early fall 1813, effectively cutting Proctor's main supply lines which ran through the lake.

When Proctor learned that Harrison and  Perry were preparing for a major invasion of Canada, he decided to leave Fort Malden and withdraw up the Thames River farther into Upper Canada (Ontario).

--Brock-Perry

Fort Trumbull, Connecticut

From the Feb. 21, 2013, The Day (Ct.) "War of 1812 focus at Fort Trumbull" by Judy Benson.

Fort Trumbull State Park at New London, Connecticut.

There will be a series of programs beginning this spring that feature Fort Trumbull, built to protect the mouth of the Thames River and keep the British fleet blockading Long Island Sound in 1813 anchored off Great Gull Island.

Other talks will be about the Raid on Essex, the Battle of Stonington, Battle of Long Island, Battle of Groton Heights and burning of New London.

Today's fort is the third one constructed at the site which was built in 1838 to replace the War of 1812 one which was built in 1809. There is still one building at the current fort remaining from the War of 1812 one, the Block House, made of granite and protecting the powder magazine and also served as living quarters for some of the garrison.

A model of the 1812 fort is in the visitors center and there is a painting of it at the Lyman Allyn Museum.

--Brock-Perry