A Glimpse at History

On September 4, Prevost began marching south. At Chazy, New York, the advance units made contact with the British. They began to have to fall back and as they did so, they set up road blocks, burned bridges and mislabeled streets to slow down the British forces. Meanwhile, Macomb’s forces worked hard to complete a series of forts and blockhouses circling Platsburgh, which were important in their defense strategy. (Its quite obvious at this point, a battle took much longer to get ready for, the building alone of these fortresses even in their most crudest of states took hand labor to accomplish) Prevost reached Platsburgh Bay on September 6, but he did not attack. Instead he waited for Captain Downie’s fleet to arrive. Several gunboats preceded Downie’s main fleet into the Lake and they set up a battery on Isle_La_Motte, Vermont. This was the first time a British force had steeped foot onto Vermont Soil. The Vermonters were not happy with the arrival of the British and they came across the lake to defend Platsburgh in any way they could.

Again it can be stated that, 1 man defending his home is as good as ten hired soldiers!

Filed under: War of 1812 by Savannah Meade