Video
Guns Across the Lakes: Episode 1- Fort Mackinac
Transcript
Good Morning and welcome to the opening episode of Guns Across the Lakes: A Virtual Series of the Old Northwest in the War of 1812. My name is David Harkelroad Interpretation Coordinator here at Fort Mackinac State Historic Site on historic Mackinac Island Michigan. In this episode I will be discussing the opening of the war of 1812 in the Straits of Mackinac and the upper great lakes with the pre-emptive British, Canadian, and Native capture of here at Fort Mackinac and the larger implications of this opening action on the overall theater of operations in the upper great lakes.
Fort Mackinac itself was actually built by the British not the Americans between 1779 and 1781 at the tail end of the American Revolution, however; at the end of the American revolution belatedly the British would turn over the fort to the Americans in 1796 as part of the larger treaty negotiations that ended the war as part of the Treaty of Paris. The American concern with Fort Mackinac was as a post to defend the British-Canadian and American border. As well as maintaining oversight of America's strategic fur trade interests in the upper great lakes. However tensions never really completely went away between the two countries. After the American Revolution and these tensions are going to be escalated with the Napoleonic wars between Britain and France. During this time period Britain is seizing neutral American merchantmen and even warships taking sailors off that they suspect as being deserters from the British Royal Navy. In addition to that outrage perceived by Americans at least the British Canadians are suspected of supplying the natives in the Great Lakes region and the western territories in general with muskets to defend their traditional homelands and to act as a buffer between British Canada and the Americas. The Americans of course see this as the British interfering with their right to move westward and expand into these western territories. So with these repeated outrages perceived by the Americans the Americans will declare war on Great Britain on 18 June 1812. Under President James Madison with this declaration of war, The War Department the American War Department will notify its commanders that the two nations are at war unfortunately for the American side they will make the choice of sending these dispatchers through the regular mail service. The British military professionals will notify their commanders through official military dispatches. So the British commander captain Charles Roberts located at Fort St Joseph about 40 miles northeast of Mackinac island will receive word actually before the American commander Lieutenant Porter Hanks here at Fort Mackinac. In addition to receiving word first the British had also preemptively been planning for a possible declaration of war between their two countries so Captain Charles Roberts had been uh working on relations with the local natives the Odawa, the Chippewa, as well as other natives further out to include the Wyandotte uh the nominee and even the Sioux to uh recruit them to come support the British war effort against America if war was declared which of course it was. So the British commander when war is declared is able to quickly gather up uh Canadian militia over 150 as well as over 400 native allies along with his men from the 10th Royal Veterans Battalion around 41 soldiers in that company. They will form a united front and depart from Fort St. Joseph on the night of July the 16th 1812. The American garrison has no idea that the two countries are even at war let alone an attack is imminent on the morning early morning hours around three in the morning of July the 17th the British allied force will land on the north end of Mackinac Island in the middle of the night. They're going to move the two miles from the north end to the south end where Fort Mackinac is located and they will form a position on the rising ground to my rear. The trees that you see back there actually would not have been there at the time of the battle the entire hillside had been denuded which gave the British and their allies a clear field of fire line of sight on the American position.
The Americans are shocked to see the British and their native allies surrounding the fort. They will very quickly receive a surrender demand to quote "avoid the effusion of blood" from Captain Charles Roberts Before he commences uh his bombardment with his one six-pound smoothbore that he brought along. The most intimidating sight was just the size of the British troop strength with their allies that really intimidated the Americans into quickly accepting those terms of surrender without even firing a shot. The fort will be surrendered around noon on the afternoon of July the 17th the entire American garrison of 61 soldiers including their commander Lieutenant Porter Hanks will accept terms that allows them to move south to Fort Detroit not as prisoners of war but as parolees. Which means that they will have to cease fighting until they can be properly exchanged for British prisoners of war. This is seen as a very humiliating defeat for Lieutenant Porter Hanks. He will actually be brought up on charges however; he will never have time to respond to those charges because the British command will then follow up with their victory here at Fort Mackinac with an attack on Fort Detroit. In which Porter Hanks will be killed in the opening act in that opening action. So the larger consequences of this uh first engagement which is a British victory of a war declared by the United States ironically is that it will give the British initiative to launch their subsequent attack on Fort Detroit.
This campaign will be discussed in the next week's episode of Guns Across the Lakes by our friends with Parks Canada at Fort Malden Historic Site and hope you can join us again.
Description
In this episode will be discuss the opening of the War of 1812 in the Straits of Mackinac and the Upper Great Lakes with the-preemptive British, Canadian, and Native capture of the US army garrison here at Fort Mackinac and the larger implications of this opening action on the overall theater of operations in the Upper Great Lakes.
Duration
7 minutes, 30 seconds
Credit
Mackinac State Historic Parks
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