Battle of Plattsburgh - Invasion

Invasion

On 31 August, Prévost began marching south. Macomb sent forward 450 regulars under Captain Sproul and Major John E. Wool, 110 riflemen under Major Daniel Appling, 700 New York militia under Major General Benjamin Mooers and two 6-pounder guns under Captain Leonard to fight a delaying action. At Chazy, New York, they first made contact with the British. Slowly falling back, the Americans set up road blocks, burned bridges and mislabelled streets to slow down the British. The British nevertheless advanced steadily, not even deploying out of column of march or returning fire, except by flank guards. When Prévost reached Plattsburgh on 6 September, the American rearguards retired across the Saranac, tearing up the planks from the bridges. Prévost did not immediately attack. On 7 September, he ordered Major General Robinson to cross the Saranac, but to Robinson's annoyance, Prévost had no intelligence on the American defences or even the local geography. Some tentative attacks across the bridges were repulsed by Wool's regulars.

Prévost abandoned his efforts to cross the river for the time being and instead began constructing batteries. The Americans responded by using cannon balls heated red-hot to set fire to sixteen buildings in Plattsburgh which the British were using as cover, forcing the British to withdraw farther away. On 9 September, a night raid across the Saranac River by 50 Americans led by Captain George McGlassin destroyed a British Congreve rocket battery only 500 yards (460 m) from Fort Brown, one of the three main American fortifications.

While skirmishing and artillery fire continued, the British located a ford (Pike's Ford) across the Saranac 3 miles (4.8 km) above Macomb's defences. Prévost planned that, once Downie's ships arrived, they would attack the American ships in Plattsburgh Bay. Simultaneously, Major General Brisbane would make a feint attack across the bridges while Major General Robinson's brigade would cross the ford to make the main attack against the American left flank, supported by Major General Power's brigade. Once the American ships had been defeated, Brisbane would make his feint attack into a real one.