he resumed his march. Before April 1 he
reached Batavia, where his instructions read he would receive further
orders. General Scott was already at Buffalo, and there the troops
were placed under his immediate charge for organization and drill;
Brigadier-General Gaines being sent back to command at Sackett's,
where he arrived April 10.

At this moment Chauncey was undergoing his turn of qualms. "The
enemy," he wrote the following day, "have prepared a force of three
thousand troops, with gunboats and a number of small craft, to attack
the harbor the moment the fleet leaves it. They may, however, be
determined to make the attack at all hazards, and I am sorry to say
our force is but little adapted to the defence of the place. There are
not a thousand effective men besides the sailors and marines."[277]
His information was substantially correct. Drummond had arranged to
concentrate three thousand men from the north shore of the lake; but
he wanted besides eight hundred from the peninsula, and for lack of
these the project was abandoned.

The movement of Brown's small contingent to Buffalo, though contrary
to the intention of the Government, may be considered to have opened
the campaign of 1814; destined to prove as abortive in substantial
results as that of the year before, but not so futile and inglorious
to the American arms. The troops engaged had been formed under the
skilful organization and training of Scott. Led by Brown, who, though
not an educated soldier nor a master of the technicalities of the
profession, was essentially an aggressive fighting man of masculine
qualities, they failed indeed to achieve success, for which their
numbers were inadequate; but there was no further disgrace.

Wilkinson, indeed, in his district, contrived to give to the beginning
of operations the air of absurdity that ever hung round his path.
Although he was the senior officer on the whole frontier, the Department
had not notified him of Brown's orders. This vicious practice of
managing the campaign from a point as distant as Washington then was,
ignoring any local centre of control, drew subsequently the
animadversion of the President, who in a minute to the Secretary
remarked that "it does not appear that Izard,"--Wilkinson's
successor,--"though the senior officer of the district, has been made
acquainted with the plan of operations under Brown."[278] On the present
occasion Wilkinson explained that, hearing of Brown's march by