Combat· War of 1812
Battle of Fort George
The capture of Fort George at the mouth of the Niagara River was the high-water mark of the American campaign on that frontier.
In a well-coordinated amphibious operation, Commodore Chauncey's Lake Ontario squadron covered the landing of the army with naval gunfire that suppressed the British batteries, while the troops went ashore and drove the defenders out of the fort and the surrounding works. Marines aboard the squadron supported the assault from the water. The British abandoned Fort George and fell back, and for a moment the whole Niagara peninsula seemed open to the Americans. The advantage was not held: British counterattacks and the American failure to pursue soon reversed the gains, and the frontier settled back into a bloody stalemate. Still, the landing itself was a model of Army-Navy cooperation, the kind of combined operation Marines were built to support.
Podcast episodes on War of 1812
Record no. 223