Posted on 10/26/2003 12:00:43 AM PDT by SAMWolf
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are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
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Major-General Wade Hampton planned to attack Lower Canada by following the Lake Champlain route, while Major-General James Wilkinson planned to move on Montreal from Lake Ontario. The American chances to succeed looked very good. Hampton had 5,000 men, while Wilkinson had 8,000 men stationed at Sackett's Harbor. But, the two general's were bitter enemies and Hampton resented that he was to serve under Wilkinson. This was to be a well coordinated plan of attack, but ended up being one party ignoring the other to the detriment of the project. On 17 October, Wilkinson left Sackett's Harbor in a flotilla of bateaux and headed down the St. Lawrence River. At once bad luck came to the Americans in the way of a early snow storm, they became snowbound on Grenadier Island with a number of their boats being damaged beyond repair. While on the island Jarvis Hanks of the 11th U.S. Infantry remembered a farmer that still had potatoes in the ground. The men who as a rule do not care how they appropriate food offered the farmer fifty cents a bushel for the potatoes. The farmer said he could get a dollar a bushel for them from the British in Kingston. Well talk spread around the American camp that the farmer was suppling the enemy with potatoes so the men just took them, without paying any money at all. The farmer complained to the American officers but they did nothing to help him. He left thinking how unwise his decision was not to sell the potatoes for fifty cents a bushel. Wilkinson pressed on despite the cold weather. Part of his army was forced to march down the American side while the rest used the boats. Major General James Wilkinson News of the continued American movement reached Kingston, Sir George Prevost directed that, if the American force moved down river, the 49th and 89th Regiments should be sent in pursuit, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Morrison of the 89th Regiment. His force consisted of 630 rank and file: nine companies of the 89th totalled about 450 men, but the battalion companies of the 49th Foot had been reduced by casualties to a total of about 160 men and there were less than 20 artillerymen with two 6 pounder field guns. On November 6th this force embarked on two schooners the "Lord Beresford" and the "Sir Sydney Smith" and seven gunboats and a number of bateaux . Naval command was entrusted by Sir James Yeo to his subordinate Commander William Mulcaster R.N., who was serving as a captain on Lake Ontario. General Wilkinson was now approaching Prescot. Since the guns of Fort Wellington commanded the St. Lawrence at Prescot, Wilkinson landed his army above Ogdensburg and floated the empty boats down river in the dark, the boats slipped quietly by the British guns at Fort Wellington. Wilkinson then re-embarked his troops. Whenever the Americans came to a narrowing in the river they were being shot at by Canadian farmers who were turning out as militia. Wilkinson ordered 1,200 troops to land on the Canadian shore at Iroquoois, below Prescot, as an advance guard to drive them off. This they succeeded in doing. Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Wanton Morrison The Americans reached Long Sault Rapids on 8 November. They deployed a force under Winfield Scott on the Canadian shore to oppose any attempt to interfere with the movement of the bateaux through the rapids. On 10 November Scott's troops along with Jacob Brown's brigade began to march on Cornwall leaving John Boyd's brigade to deal with Morrison's small force. Lieutenant-Colonel Morrison's pursuing force landed at Prescot on the morning of November 9th. His "corps of observation" was increased by a detachment of 240 troops commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Pearson. These consisted of two flank companies of the 49th Foot, a detachment of Canadian Fencibles, three companies of Canadian Voltigeurs, a handful of miltia artillerymen with a 6-pr gun and a half dozen Provincial Dragoons to serve a couriers. Captain Morrison now had about 900 officers and men. Commander William Mulcaster R.N. had to leave his armed schooners at Prescot but his gunboats pressed on to harass the American boats, as the American bateaux began to move through the rapids Mulcaster's gunboats opened fire and the small British force attacked. Meanwhile Colonel Morrison, had established his headquarters in John Crysler's farmhouse, he decided that he had a good defensive position should the Americans choose to turn on him. From the farmhouse a dirt road ran on right angles to the river as far as a swamp that was impassable a half mile inland. There were log fences that provided protection for the troops and in front of them was a large field of winter wheat. Canadian Voltigeurs and Mohawk warrior, two of the Canadian units that stood with British regulars under Morrison's command and turned back Wilkinson's army on November 11, 1813. November 11th at 8 o'clock in the morning an alarm is sounded. An Indian had fired on an American reconnaissance patrol causing each side to believe that the other was about to attack. General Wilkinson ordered General Boyd to advance in three columns, Boyd had 2,000 U.S. troops. He was to outflank the British and capture their field guns. A force this large had no difficulties driving back skirmishers earlier, however the advancing American troops were stopped by the volley firing of companies of the 49th and 89th Regiments. The Americans tried to turn the British left flank but the 89th companies were swung around almost 90 degrees to counter this move successfully. The Americans became flustered when they realized that the men wearing the grey greatcoats were not militia, but were the 49th Regiment of Foot. The order came to advance and Major Charles Plenderleath of the 49th Regiment led his troops against the American guns 120 yards in front of them. All of a sudden to the right of him a troop of American Dragoons were seen galloping down the King's Highway toward their position. If they could get behind them they could charge their rear turning the tide of the battle against them. Captain Ellis's orders to his company on the right flank were, "Halt ... front... pivot...cover... left wheel into line... fire by platoons from the center to the flanks." Ellis had wheeled his company backward to the left to face the cavalry. Ellis waited as the cavalry charged down on his men, then smoke and fire erupted from the British line shattering the American charge and eliminated the threat. Captain Ellis held his fire to that last moment to maximize the effect. His company wheeled back to the advance and the 49th captured the American guns. Major General Wade Hampton The Americans were forced to withdraw from the field and that night crossed back across the river to the American side. The army pushed on to make their junction with Hampton's army beyond the Long Sault, but Hampton, having been defeated at Chateauguay, refused to meet Wilkinson at St. Regis. Wilkinson, ill and discouraged, abandoned the campaign. Lieutenant Colonel Morrison's troops had defeated the Americans that day against overwelming odds, however there was one American unit that caught his eye. He was so impressed with the U.S. 25th infantry's steadiness in battle that he sent a note to their commander, Colonel Edmund Gaines, hoping that they might meet after the war as friends. Morrison reported his own casualties for the Battle of Crysler's Farm as being 22 killed, 148 wounded and 9 missing. General Boyd reported 102 killed, 237 wounded and more than 100 missing. On the Niagara Frontier the humiliating defeats of Stoney Creek and Beaverdams forced the Americans to withdaw into Fort George. The victory at the Battle of the Thames did little to lift morale of those American troops on the Niagara Peninsula. Foraging parties were ambushed and Merritt's Dragoons harassed pickets and patrols alike. The pickets were especially vulnerable to Indain attacks that kept them constantly in a state of agitation. The scene was now set for one of the most callous acts of the war, the burning of Newark. An act that would have far reaching effects for Americans living on the east bank of the Niagara.
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By November 10, British Captain William Howe Mulcaster was hot on Wilkinsons heels with a flotilla of gunboats carrying two regiments of British soldiers. The Americans had now reached the dreaded Long Sault rapids. To lighten the boats, and to clear the bank of enemies, Wilkinson landed his army near a farm owned by a man named John Chrysler.
In the early afternoon, an American regiment advanced towards the British left. Suddenly, a unit of concealed Voltigeurs and First Nations warriors rose and fired. They traded shots with the enemy briefly before the sheer number of U.S. troops forced them to run for their lives, with the Americans in hot pursuit. This was a critical point - if the Americans had managed to force their way between the British 89th Regiment and the swamp beside them, they could have turned and attacked the British rear. But Morrison had the 49th execute a parade-ground maneuver, making it swing backwards one quarter turn as a single unit so as to face the charging Americans with a solid volley. The Americans broke up and ran.
Boyd next sent a cavalry unit galloping down a road that ran between the river and the British right. If they had got past the British, they could have turned and charged from behind, but Morrison had yet another parade-ground maneuver to deal with such a threat. The 49th Regiment wheeled backwards to the left to face the cavalry and fired, and all but destroyed the entire American cavalry unit with a single shattering volley.
By this time the entire American army was being moved back, by the relentadvancing British. The Americans were only saved from a rout by the proximity of their boats into which they piled up and rowed off to the safety of their own side of the river.
An American army had once again suffered defeat at the hands of a much smaller foe. And once more the defeat was due to poor leadership. By attacking first one side, and then another, rather than attacking all at once, Boyd had played into the hands of Morrisons small but experienced force.
www.galafilm.com/1812
library.thinkquest.org
www.law.umkc.edu
members.attcanada.ca/~htfergus
www.warof1812.ca
www.americaslibrary.gov
www.cryslersfarm.com
'The Battle of Chrysler's Farm is the story of General James Wilkinson's ill-fated attempt at invasion and the taking of Montreal, which was an abject failure. While the troops employed by the Americans were Regulars, they were both ill-trained and badly led, these rookies having a generally hard time campaigning in the rugged Canadian wilderness, and being roughly handled by a smaller number of experienced British Regulars and Canadians. Wilkinson himself was a political hack, a "confidence man in uniform," who, as second in command to Anthony Wayne with the Legion of the United States in 1794, had tried to backstab that very competent general in his campaign to defeat the tribes in the Old Northwest. More interested in his own comfort, and happy to cheat his men out of their rations to fill his own wallet, Wilkinson set the stage for disaster in this abortive offensive, that former President Thomas Jefferson remarked would "only be a matter of marching."' Donald E. Graves |
Veterans Day is right around the corner.
It only takes a few minutes to write a letter to the kids and share a story of why you served.
If you aren't a Veteran then share your thoughts on why it is important to remember our Veterans on Veterans Day.
It's an opportunity for us to support our troops, our country and show appreciations for our local veterans. It's another way to counter the Anti-Iraq campaign propaganda. Would you like to help? Are there any VetsCoR folks on the Left Coast? We have a school project that everyone can help with too, no matter where you live. See the end of this post for details.
Three Northern California events have been scheduled and we need help with each:
Veterans in School - How you can help if you're not close enough to participate directly. If you are a veteran, share a story of your own with the children. If you have family serving in the military, tell them why it's important that we all support them. Everyone can thank them for having this special event. Keep in mind that there are elementary school kids.
Help us by passing this message around to other Veteran's groups. I have introduced VetsCoR and FreeperFoxhole to a number of school teachers. These living history lessons go a long way to inspire patriotism in our youth. Lets see if we can rally America and give these youngsters enough to read for may weeks and months ahead. If we can, we'll help spread it to other schools as well.
G'morning people!!!! :)
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"The Era of Osama lasted about an hour, from the time the first plane hit the tower to the moment the General Militia of Flight 93 reported for duty."
Toward FREEDOM
THANK YOU service men and women, past and present, for your service to our country!
Today's classic warship, USS Rhode Island (BB-17)
Virginia class battleship
Displacement, 14,948 t.
Lenght. 441' 8"
Beam. 76' 3"Draft. 23' 9"
Speed. 19 k.
Complement. 812
Armament. 4 12", 8 8", 12 6", 12 3", 12 3-pdr., 4 21" tt.
The USS Rhode Island was launched 17 May 1904 by Fore River Shipbuilding Co., Quincy, Mass.; sponsored by Mrs. F. C. Dumaine; and commissioned 19 February 1906, Capt. Perry Garst in command.
Rhode Island underwent extensive shakedown and acceptance trials on the U.S. east coast between Hampton Roads and Boston before being assigned to Division 2, Squadron 1, Atlantic. Fleet 1 January 1907. The battleship departed Hampton Roads 9 March 1907 for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to participate in gunnery practice and squadron operations evolutions. She then returned north to cruise between Hampton Roads and Cape Cod Bay.
Arriving in Hampton Roads 8 December 1907, Rhode Island joined 15 other battleships, a torpedo boat squadron, and transports, for the great fleet review which began the cruise of the Atlantic Fleet to the west coast and around the world. President Theodore Roosevelt reviewed the "Great White Fleet " 16 December and sent it on the first leg of the long voyage. Rhode Island called at Trinidad, British West Indies, Rio de Janeiro, Punta Arenas, Callao, and Magdalena Bay before arriving at San Diego, Calif., 14 April 1908.
The fleet remained on the west coast into July, Rhode Island steaming north to visit the Puget Sound area during June. The entire fleet departed San Francisco 7 July 1908 for Honolulu, Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, and Manila, arriving in the Philippines 2 October. From Manila Rhode Island made for Yokohama, Japan, returning to Olongapo, Philippine Islands, at the end of October. Departing Cavite 1 December, Rhode Island visited Colombo, Suez, Marseilles, and Gibraltar before returning to Hampton Roads 22 February 1909.
Modernized after this historic voyage, Rhode Island received "cage" masts and numerous other alterations before again taking up her duties with the Atlantic Fleet. Rhode Island was assigned 8 March 1909 to Division 3, Squadron 1. She continued to serve with the Atlantic Fleet into 1910, participating in exercises including deployment southward to the Caribbean during February 1910. Assigned 20 October 1910 to Division 4, Squadron 1, Rhode Island and other fleet units were reviewed 2 November at Boston by President Taft prior to their departure for European waters. In an elaborate battle and scouting problem, the fleet continued its training, Rhode Island subsequently visiting Gravesend, England, before returning to Guantanamo Bay 13 January 1911.
Rhode Island continued her duties attached to the Atlantic Fleet up to the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914. She cruised southward to Key West, Havana, and Guantanamo Bay during June and July 1912 but otherwise remained on the east coast operating between Hampton Roads and Rockland, Maine. Reassigned to Division 3, Squadron 1, Atlantic Fleet, Rhode Island became division flagship 17 July 1912. She transferred the division flag to New Jersey 1 August in the periodic rotation of additional flag duties among units of her division.
The Commander, Division 3, Squadron 1, transferred his flag from Virginia to Rhode Island 28 June 1913 and remained on board until 18 January 1914. At the end of 1913, Rhode Island cruised off the Mexican coast to protect citizens and property threatened by deteriorating political developments ashore. Arriving off Vera Cruz 4 November 1913, Rhode Island operated off Tampico and Tuxpan into February 1914. After 2 weeks at Guantanamo Bay the battleship returned northward to Virginia waters.
Rhode Island kept up her continuous schedule of annual docking and overhaul gunnery practice, and squadron maneuvers well into 1916. She remained off the U.S. eastern seaboard but occasionally steamed into more southerly waters; she called at Carib bean ports during October 1914 to March 1915 and January to February 1916. Rhode Island undertook additional duty as flagship, Division 4, Squadron 1, from 19 December 1914 until 20 January 1915.
Placed in reduced commission in reserve 15 May 1916 at Boston Navy Yard, Rhode Island was detached from the Atlantic Fleet the following day. The battleship flew the flag of the Commander-in-Chief, Reserve Force, Atlantic Fleet, from 24 June 1916 t o 28 September.
Returned to full commission 27 March 1917 at Hampton Roads, Rhode Island broke the flag of the Commander, Battleship Division 3, Atlantic Fleet, 3 May 1917 shortly after the United States entered World War I. Undertaking vigorous gunnery practice and emergency drills to reach combat readiness, Rhode Island was assigned antisubmarine patrol duty off Tangier Island, Md. Based at Hampton Roads into 1918, Rhode Island was transferred to Battleship Division 2 during April. Remaining ready for overseas deployment, Rhode Island undertook special torpedo proving trials during June 1918.
Upon the war's end in November 1918, Rhode Island was ordered to assist returning U.S. troops from France. Fitted with hundreds of extra bunks, the battleship made five round-trip voyages across the Atlantic between 18 December 1918 and 4 July 1919 . In all she transported over 5,000 men from Brest, France, to Hampton Roads and Boston.
Designated flagship of Battleship Squadron 1, Pacific Fleet, 17 July 1919 at Boston, Rhode Island departed Boston Navy Yard 24 July for Balboa, C.Z., and Mare Island Navy Yard to undertake her new assignment. After remaining at Mare Island into 1920, Rhode Island decommissioned 30 June and was placed in reserve.
Rendered incapable of any further warlike service 4 October 1923 in accordance with the Washington Treaty limiting naval armaments, Rhode Island was sold 1 November 1923 for scrapping.
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