The Battle of York   Fort York in 1813   Further Reading The British at the Battle of York The Americans at the Battle of York The Aftermath of the Battle of York: The British and Canadian Perspective The Aftermath of the Battle of York: The American Perspective

Background to the Battle of York In the winter of 1813, American Secretary of War John Armstrong's strategy is simple: secretly mass an army at Sackett's Harbour before spring break-up. Once Lake Ontario is open to navigation, Commodore Isaac Chauncey's ships will ferry the troops across Lake Ontario to Kingston, which they should capture easily enough, given that it is known to be but lightly defended. Furthermore, once Kingston is in U.S. hands, Upper Canada must soon enough fall as well. From Kingston, it is but an easy sail down the St. Lawrence River and the capture of difficult to defend Montreal; and from Montreal, Quebec City is not so very far away.... On paper, at least, it seems like a perfectly good plan. But, as Armstrong is about to learn, in the real world, nothing happens as it does on paper. The British get wind of American intentions and rush reinforcements on a winter snowshoeing journey of epic proportions, all the way from Fredericton, New Brunswick, to Kingston, Upper Canada. Chauncey and American army commander, General Henry Dearborn, hear rumours of the fresh troops' arrival at Kingston. The American army at Sackett's Harbour still greatly outnumbers the British defenders of Kinston, but in the American commanders' overheated imagination, it is the other way around; it is they who are now outnumbered. Why risk defeat at Kingston, reason the timorous Americans, when attacking York, the Upper Canadian capital, could serve just as well? Besides, the frigates Isaac Brock and Duke of Gloucester are still under construction at York. The balance of naval power on Lake Ontario is so precarious that the loss of two ships could deal the British a blow from which they might never recover. Somehow, Chauncey and Dearborn manage to convince Armstrong that the taking of York would be just as effective against the British as the taking of Kingston could have been. In fact, what they propose amounts to attempting to fell a tree by chopping off one of its limbs rather than its trunk.