duels out
at sea.

There were some searchings of heart at Washington when
all these military and naval misjudgments stood revealed.
Eustis soon followed Hull into enforced retirement; and
great plans were made for the campaign of 1813, which
was designed to wipe out the disgrace of its predecessor
and to effect the conquest of Canada for good and all.

John Armstrong, the new war secretary, and William Henry
Harrison, the new general in the West, were great
improvements on Eustis and Hull. But, even now, the
American commanders could not decide on a single decisive
attack supported by subsidiary operations elsewhere.
Montreal remained their prime objective. But they only
struck at it last of all. Michilimackinac kept their
enemy in touch with the West. But they left it completely
alone. Their general advance ought to have been secured
by winning the command of the Lakes and by the seizure
of suitable positions across the line. But they let the
first blows come from the Canadian side; and they still
left Lake Champlain to shift for itself. Their plan was
undoubtedly better than that of 1812. But it was still
all parts and no whole.

The various events were so complicated by the overlapping
of time and place all along the line that we must begin
by taking a bird's-eye view of them in territorial
sequence, starting from the farthest inland flank and
working eastward to the sea. Everything west of Detroit
may be left out altogether, because operations did not
recommence in that quarter until the campaign of the
following year.

In January the British struck successfully at Frenchtown,
more than thirty miles south of Detroit. They struck
unsuccessfully, still farther south, at Fort Meigs in
May and at Fort Stephenson in August; after which they
had to remain on the defensive, all over the Lake Erie
region, till their flotilla was annihilated at Put-in
Bay in September and their army was annihilated at Moravian
Town on the Thames in October. In the Lake Ontario region
the situation was reversed. Here the British began badly
and ended well. They surrendered York in April and Fort
George, at the mouth of the Niagara, in May. They were
also repulsed in a grossly mismanaged attack on Sackett's
Harbour two days after their defeat at Fort George. The
opposing flotillas meanwhile fought several manoeuvring
actions of an indecisive kind, neither daring to risk
battle and possible annihilation. But, as the season
advance