Providence Blessed Our Efforts

Thus the United States were forced into a war which they had not provoked;---America took up arms in support of her rights, and for the preservation of her national honour, with a firm determination not lay them down until the object should be attained. Providence blessed our efforts, and our arms were crowned with the most brilliant triumphs over those of our enemy. The army and navy exhibited a noble rivalship of zeal, devotion, and glory. In the one Lawrence, Bainbridge, Decatur, Perry, McDonough, Porter; — in the other *Pike, Scott, Brown, Jackson, and many more, proved to the enemy, and to the world that we possessed resolution to defend our rights, and power to avenge our injuries. [Source]

*Portrait Of Zebulon Pike (Seen At Fort Pike, Louisiana)

Jackson And Horseshoe Bend (Alabama)

The Age Of Liberty Established 1800 To 1824

Source

Major General Bennett Riley

A better version of Riley's portrait here.

Source

He Was Only Fifteen

From The Genesee Country

"As my father was only fifteen they thought he had better stay at home.  But the war got him.  In 1813 he was hauling stone for the old arsenal when General Scott's officers came along and impressed his team and him.  He was sent to Albany to bring on supplies.  He got a land warrant for eighty acres of land for this involuntary service.  He said that it was the only time that lightning ever struck him."

General (Then Colonel) Scott Rescued

Fold3

Life In Canada:

Captain Robert Charles Wilkins

Mr. Wilkins was appointed Captain of a flank company in Kingston. He was to obtain supplies for the army and to secure safe transportation for the troops.

Source

Daniel Randall

From The Founders of Anne Arundel and Howard Counties, Maryland...:

Daniel Randall...was in active service during the War of 1812, as a volunteer, and thereafter was commissioned as Paymaster in the Regular Army.

Fold3 - Daniel Randall Paymaster Paperwork

He served as such during the Indian Wars and the Mexican War under General Scott and was at the time of his death in 1851, Assistant Paymaster General and in charge of the Pay-Department of the Army.

He was highly esteemed and Fort Randall, then on the frontier, was named after him, as evidence of his universal popularity.

In Concert With Scott

Source - Fort Erie

The life and military and civic services of Lieut.-Gen. Winfield Scott: complete up to the present period :


"The little troop moving on Niagara had noble incentives to duty."

"...Lieutenant Elliott and a company of seamen to Black Rock where in concert with Scott he conceived the project of cutting out two British brigs of war just arrived from Detroit, and then lying snugly under the guns of Fort Erie--a British fortress opposite Buffalo. This enterprise of great daring was gallantly executed on the morning of October 9th. (1812)."

George Davenport And Lundy's Lane

Source

George Davenport, who started his career aboard a British merchant ship, was injured during a shipwreck and left behind in America.  [He was] out of money and a stranger among strangers in a strange land. He had some friends at Carlyle, Penn., whither he went and soon attracted the attention of Gen. Wilkinson of the U.S. army who...offered him the position and pay of Sergeant in the regular army, which he accepted... .

The war of 1812-14 found Sgt. Davenport wearing the epaulets of a colonel in the regular army and July 25, 1814, he did gallant service at the terrible battle of the Niagara or Lundy's Lane. His regiment reached the battlefield from a distant point just in time to join Gen. Scott in his charge against the left wing of the British army, which turned the scale of battle and saved the day; but Gen. Scott was seriously wounded and Col. Davenport personally superintended the carrying of the hero of Lundy's Lane from the field.

Arrival On The Niagara Frontier

Life of General Winfield Scott: To which is added a sketch of the life of Wm. A. Graham:

I Will Try

Source - Norwich University

The Norwich University and their motto explained:

It was thought for generations..."that the words, 'I will try' were first uttered in 1847 by Colonel Truman B. Ransom in the heat of battle during the Mexican War."

The answer...to the...question, "who did coin the University motto, and when?" can be found in the first volume of Ellis' History of Norwich University (1912). [which stated that] the origins of the words "I will try" can be traced to the War of 1812.

They were uttered by Colonel James Miller of New Hampshire.

Source

Captain Samuel B. Archer

Source

...with [Captain Samuel B.] Archer's company of artillery were stationed near the mouth of Stony Creek for the better security of the boats and baggage ascending the lake...

Samuel B. Archer was a native of Virginia.  He was a captain in Scott's Second Regiment of artillery and was breveted major for his gallant conduct....  He died on the 11th of December 1823 [FindAGrave says 1825].

Colonel Joseph Cilley

Memoirs and services of three generations...Cilley:

Joseph Cilley, at his election to the Senate, was an old man. Not only broken and shattered by the contests of three-score years and ten, but by the strife of his country s battlefields, in which he had borne gallant part. He was with Scott and Miller in all the bloody conflicts of the Canadian border in the war of 1812; and from those fields he had come with but one eye left, and his body weighted with the leaden bullets of his country's enemy.

There's more biographical information about Joseph Cilley here.

From Fold3:

From The Journal Of Major Isaac Roach

Source

Isaac Roach's Journal was published in The Pennsylvania magazine..., Volume 17:

 The 23rd regiment, to which I belonged, arrived in a few days, and I began to regret my promotion when I began to make comparisons with officers and men; for I sincerely think there could not be a nobler collection of warm hearts and willing hands than the officers of the 2nd Artillery then at headquarters,say...Spotswood Henry....Davis--Hook and Stewart--not one individual of whom but is borne on the reports as having been distinguished;--Scott, Towson, Biddle and McDonough in every battle that was fought, and McDonough only was killed. I believe all the others were wounded, except Hindman.

Court Martial Of Vindictiveness?

Such was the claim of the officer who was the subject of said court martial, General James Wilkinson.

Source

General Wilkinson's take on the reason for his court martial taken from his Memoirs of my own times, Volume 3, by James Wilkinson, Printed 1816:

"I [General James Wilkinson] had been arrested by President Madison, to gratify the personal policy, and vindictive passions, of his secretary of war, General Armstrong; but when I demanded Generals Scott and Macomb, as material witnesses in the cause, they were refused under pretexts of public duty..." .

A relevant document (from Fold3), "War Department, May 23, 1814," to General Wilkinson from Secretary of War Armstrong:

A list of witnesses from the same file:

General Eleazar Wheelock Ripley

A biography of the General:  Eleazar Wheelock Ripley of the War of 1812..."  Also here.

Source

After protracted and severe suffering. General Ripley so far recovered as to be able to travel, and started for Albany, where he arrived in January, 1815. During his long prostration, he received the constant and unremitted attention of his wife to whom he was married in 1811, and who was the daughter of the Reverend Thomas Allen, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a distinguished Revolutionary patriot.

The announcement of peace, which soon followed, rendered his presence unnecessary upon the frontier, and as soon as returning health permitted, he demanded and put in motion a Court of Inquiry as to his military conduct, which had been missrepresented and traduced.

The current of public opinion flowed strongly in his favor. Congress voted him a gold medal, for his gallant conduct at Chippewa, Lundy's Lane and Fort Erie, testimonials of esteem on every hand reminded him that his countrymen appreciated his services and at last, even Brown himself, whatever may have been his mental reservations and secret animosity, felt constrained to contribute the following letter to his vindication:

Upon the return of peace, the army was reduced to a peace establishment and was re-organized. Two Major Generals, Jackson and Brown, and four Major Generals by brevet, Macomb, Gaines, Scott and Ripley were retained in the service. 

The Genealogy of the Ripley Family here.

Unrecognized Heroics

Source

From A Sketch Of The Life Of General Towson...

Colonel Scott, to whom Captain Towson naturally looked for a report of his participation in the affair, was made prisoner at Queenstown, immediately after, and before he had an opportunity of mentioning the gallant achievement of the Captain.

The only report of the capture of the brigs therefore was made by the naval commander to whom the credit is due of originating the scheme. Lieut. Elliott received the thanks of Congress, while no notice was taken of Captain Towson; although the latter boarded and carried the Caledonia and afterwards by his persevering intrepidity saved her under circumstances of difficulty and danger, not less than those that caused the destruction of the other brig.

On the return of Lieut. Colonel Scott from captivity, some months afterwards, we are told he obtained a promise from Mr. Armstrong, then Secretary of War, to brevet Captain Towson for his highly distinguished part in that affair, but for reasons with which we are unacquainted, that promise was never fulfilled.

Nathan Towson Portrait

Source

Nathan Towson

See a post about his heroics.  At Black Rock he was with General Winfield Scott.  He was a member of the 2nd Artillery (as was my ancestor, William Hinds).

An Unintended Sacrifice

1812 Working Replica Boat - YouTube

From Historic Pittsburgh:

"Mr. [Brintnall] Robbins was not only unfortunate in his ship building venture, but he also never recovered payment for the boats which he built to carry General Scott's troops across the Niagara into Canada, during the War of 1812.  He died at Greensburg, Pa., in 1837." [Source]

Winfield Scott Portrait

Source

More about General Scott here.