Correspondence in Relation to the Capture of the British Brigs

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Excerpt from Correspondence in Relation to the Capture of the British Brigs: Detroit and Caledonia, on the Night of October 8, 1812 Sir - My attention was called to the enclosed article, which had been cut out of the Boston Courier and sent to a friend of mine in this place, with a request that he would obtain from me a statement of the services performed by the artillery under my command in the capture of the brigs Detroit and Caledonia, and of the circumstances under which the latter was saved from being burnt to prevent recapture. I understood the information was wanted for publication, to correct what was believed to be erroneous in the article that appeared in the Courier, and to claim for the army whatever credit it was entitled to for that affair. On reflection, I thought that if such publication was made, it should be done by me, and under my name, and on further consideration, I concluded to make it, but before my statement was prepared, I noticed several paragraphs in the public prints relating to you, altogether of an unfriendly character, and I thought that a publication, at that time, contradicting the article in the Courier, which was intended to do you honor, would have the appearance of taking an unfair advantage of the feeling produced by these paragraphs. This, together with the important fact that you were then absent from the country, determined me to postpone it. Your return to the United States moves the objection sooner than I anticipated. It occurs to me, however, that it will be most agreeable to you to make the corrections yourself, and to give my command the credit to which it is entitled. The object of this communication is, therefore, to ascertain from you which course you would prefer. Your official report, dated October 9th, 1812, the day on which the capture was made, gives but an imperfect account of the boarding of the Caledonia, and says nothing about the subsequent preservation of that vessel under circumstances similar to those which induced you to cause the Detroit to be burnt. Your report says: "By 4 o'clock in the afternoon, I had my men in two boats, which I had previously prepared for the purpose. With these boats, fifty men in each, and under circumstances very disadvantageous, my men having scarcely had time to refresh themselves after a fatiguing march of five hundred miles, I put off from the mouth of Buffalo Creek at 1 o'clock the following morning, and at 3 o'clock I was alongside the vessels. In the space of ten minutes I had the prisoners secured, the topsails sheeted home and the vessels underway." From this, as well as from the statement in the Courier, it would appear that the vessels must have been anchored close together, that they were boarded at the same time under your superintendence and immediate orders, and that the part performed by the volunteers from the army, was not sufficiently important to be particularly noticed. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.