V&F – Battle of Chippawa, July 1814.

Background

The Battle of Chippawa, also known as the Battle of Chippewa, was a victory for the United States Army in the War of 1812, during its invasion on July 5, 1814, of the British Empire’s colony of Upper Canada along the Niagara River. This battle and the subsequent Battle of Lundy’s Lane demonstrated that trained American troops could hold their own against British regulars.

Early on July 5, British light infantry, militia and Indians crossed the Chippawa ahead of Riall’s main body and began sniping at Scott’s outposts from the woods to their west. (Some of them nearly captured Scott, who was having breakfast in a farmhouse.)  Brown ordered Porter’s brigade and Indians to clear the woods. They did so, but they met Riall’s advancing regulars and hastily retreated.

Scott was already advancing from Street’s Creek. His artillery (Captain Nathaniel Towson’s company, with three 12-pounder guns) deployed on the portage road and opened fire. Riall’s own guns (two light 24-pounder guns and a 5.5-inch howitzer) attempted to reply, but Towson’s guns destroyed an ammunition wagon and put most of the British guns out of action.

Meanwhile, Scott’s troops deployed into line with the 25th U.S. Infantry on the left near the woods, the 11th U.S. Infantry and 9th U.S. Infantry in the centre and the 22nd U.S. Infantry on the right with Towson’s guns. At first, Riall was under the impression that the American line was composed of grey-clad militia troops, whom the professional British soldiers held in much contempt. He expected the poorly trained soldiers to fall back in disarray after the first few volleys. But the American line held steady under British artillery fire.

The British infantry, with the 1st (Royal Scots) Foot and the 100th Foot leading and the 8th (King’s) Foot in reserve, advanced in line, becoming disordered over the grassy, uneven ground. This slowed them and put them under fire from the American artillery for longer. Riall sacrificed the advantage of greater firepower (versus advancing in column) by ordering his infantry to fire only one volley before closing with the bayonet.  As the 1st and 100th Regiments moved forward, their own artillery had to stop firing to avoid hitting them. Meanwhile, the American gunners switched from firing roundshot to firing canister. Once the opposing lines had closed to less than 100 yards, Scott advanced his wings, forming his brigade into a “U” shape which allowed his flanking units to catch Riall’s advancing troops in a heavy crossfire.

Two days after the battle, Brown completed his original intended maneuver and crossed the Chippawa upstream of Riall’s defenses, forcing the British to fall back to Fort George. It was not possible to attack this fortified British position because Commodore Chauncey was still failing to support the American army on the Niagara peninsula. No reinforcements or siege artillery could be brought to Brown’s army. At the same time, the British were able to rush reinforcements to the Niagara front and soon became too strong for Brown to risk a direct attack. Eventually, a series of feints and maneuvers led to the Battle of Lundy’s Lane a few weeks later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chippawa

The Game

We tried the larger Lundy’s Lane a few weeks ago, so I figured we could take a shot at the smaller Battle of Chippawa, as I knew I would only have three or four players. All the troops were provided by a buddy of mine, with the terrain being out of my collection. Unfortunately, my body did not realize I wanted his fences, so I had to make do with hedge lines made of foliage clusters to represent them.

We based the scenario on the Fire and Fury variant scenario of the same name. I followed the game length and terrain. Like the scenario, there would be a bonus point for taking the portion of Ussher Lane next to the Street’s house in the center. All the other points would be assigned based on Brigade Waivers.

I generally followed the terrain layout in the scenario, but added a bit more depth (my cloth was longer). So, I shifted it to allow the British to set up all their forces on the table, instead of marching on during turn one and two.

I decided to try to make all the main units oversized for the game rules, so each was eight stands large. I wanted to see if this would make things a little more ridged and of course make the units more resilient. Most of the other units were either four stand light units or two stand detachments covering Street’s House. I used the British and British allied Fate card decks.

The game began with a bit of a mad dash, as the Americans shot up the road in march column to take positions on the lane before the British could cover the distance. In the woods, the British light force raced forward to try to use their advantage to overwhelm the defending Americans.

While the British were trying to get forward, the Americans deployed all their troops along the lane and moved their detachments forward to further slow the British advance. This resulted in good overall results, as the British lost their first battalion and then fell back with the rest of their infantry to form up again and redeploy for another shot. The Americans did loose some of their detachments and also rolled poorly on their Fortitude tests, giving the Brits a victory point.

As the British reconfigured there lines, the rest of the American artillery arrived and started to set up. By this time, the British had gotten the upper hand in the woods and the American light force was mostly wiped out. This caused the Americans to try to send in a regular force to help out. once again, the Americans had some Fortitude failures…

We were getting to the end of the game and the British came forward one more time in an all out attack. They were able to push close to the lane, but not quite far enough. They Americans lost a few more units, but so did the British.

We totaled the ante and the Brits had four victory points, while the Americans only had three. This really came down to the British having a little more luck on their valor and fortitude tests. With that result, we had an unhistorical British victory!

I tried something a little different this time. First was going for the larger units. This worked out fine, but I think I would have been better served just upping the stats and staying with six bases units. I also just went with linear tactics (half move to the flanks) with the infantry in line this time. I think this gave far too much flexibility in movement to units in open order and unlimbered artillery. I think we will put the restrictions on everyone, except march columns next time, to give a more Napoleonic feel.

• Manteuffel