{
 "slug": "chippawa",
 "title": "Battle of Chippawa",
 "status": "draft",
 "era": "1775–1815",
 "date_text": "5 July 1814",
 "start": "1814-07-05",
 "end": "1814-07-05",
 "war": "War of 1812",
 "cdb90_war": "WAR OF 1812",
 "place": {
  "name": "The plain between Street's Creek and the Chippawa River, Niagara River frontier, Upper Canada (now Niagara Falls, Ontario)",
  "lat": 43.05,
  "lon": -79.025,
  "wikidata": "Q1793109"
 },
 "lede": "On 5 July 1814 Riall's British regulars advanced across the Chippawa plain, taking Winfield Scott's grey-jacketed Americans for militia. Scott's trained brigade and Towson's guns beat them in open battle, the first time American regulars had done so in the war.",
 "result": "American victory",
 "result_cdb90": "attacker loss",
 "belligerents": [
  {
   "role": "attacker",
   "name": "British Right Division, with Upper Canadian militia and Indigenous allies",
   "commanders": [
    "Maj. Gen. Phineas Riall",
    "Lt. Col. Thomas Pearson (covering force)"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 2000,
    "low": 2000,
    "high": 2100,
    "source": "s1"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 515,
    "low": 515,
    "high": 604,
    "source": "s1"
   }
  },
  {
   "role": "defender",
   "name": "American Left Division under Brown, with Porter's militia and Iroquois",
   "commanders": [
    "Maj. Gen. Jacob Brown",
    "Brig. Gen. Winfield Scott",
    "Brig. Gen. Peter B. Porter (militia and Indigenous allies)",
    "Capt. Nathaniel Towson (artillery)"
   ],
   "strength": {
    "value": 3564,
    "low": 2000,
    "high": 3564,
    "source": "s1"
   },
   "casualties": {
    "value": 328,
    "low": 318,
    "high": 335,
    "source": "s1"
   }
  }
 ],
 "sections": {
  "background": "In early 1814 Napoleon's defeat in Europe was freeing British veterans for service in Canada, and Secretary of War John Armstrong wanted an American victory there before they arrived. He ordered Major General Jacob Brown to form the Left Division of the Army of the North. Armstrong intended an attack on Kingston, with a militia diversion across the Niagara, but he also issued alternate orders for a major crossing of the Niagara. Brown judged that he could choose. Commodore Isaac Chauncey's squadron at Sackets Harbor would not cooperate before mid-July, so Brown focused on the Niagara.\n\nAt Buffalo Brigadier General Winfield Scott ran a hard training programme. He drilled his troops ten hours a day from the 1791 manual of the French Revolutionary army, removed officers who owed their posts to political influence, and enforced sanitary discipline that cut dysentery and other disease. There was too little blue cloth, so about 2,000 uniforms were issued as grey roundabouts.\n\nOn 3 July Brown's force crossed the Niagara and took Fort Erie from two weak companies. A direct attack on Fort George was out of the question without Chauncey, and Armstrong suggested taking Fort Erie while waiting for the navy. On 4 July Porter's militia brigade of about 750 and about 600 Iroquois arrived. Scott advanced north along the portage road beside the river, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Pearson's covering force fell back, and Scott halted at the Chippawa River that evening, then pulled back to Street's Creek to plan a belated Fourth of July parade. Brown meanwhile planned to cross the Chippawa upstream.",
  "forces": "The Americans' striking force was Scott's brigade of regulars: the 9th, 11th, 22nd and 25th Infantry, 1,377 men on 3 July, with Captain Nathaniel Towson's artillery. Accounts differ on his guns: three 12-pounders in one source, two 6-pounders and a howitzer in another. Scott's men had drilled ten hours a day, and the grey roundabouts of the 22nd were to matter. Brown also had Ripley's brigade, Porter's militia and the Iroquois.\n\nRiall commanded the Right Division and was new to Canada. He believed Fort Erie was still holding out, so he assumed the Americans had detached troops to mask it and thought he faced only about 2,000 men. He also believed his opponents were militia, relying on Lieutenant Colonel John Harvey's view that even American regulars were poor. His force had about 2,000 men. The 1st (Royal Scots) Foot and the 100th Foot led the infantry, with the 8th (King's) Foot in reserve, and he had Canadian militia and warriors as well. The British had two light 24-pounders and a 5.5-inch howitzer on the field, with three 6-pounders to cover the withdrawal.",
  "course": "**Morning, 5 July.** Riall decided to cross the Chippawa and drive the Americans back across the Niagara to relieve Fort Erie. Early on 5 July British light infantry, militia and warriors crossed ahead of his main body and harassed Scott's outposts from the woods to the west; some nearly captured Scott at breakfast in a farmhouse. Brown ordered Porter's militia and the Iroquois to clear the woods. They did, then fell back when they met Riall's advancing regulars.\n\n**The guns and the lines, about 16:30.** Scott was already moving forward from Street's Creek when Towson's guns deployed on the portage road and opened fire. Riall's guns, two light 24-pounders and a 5.5-inch howitzer, tried to answer; Towson's fire destroyed an ammunition wagon and knocked out most of them. Scott deployed in line with the 25th Infantry on the left near the woods, the 11th and 9th in the centre, and the grey-clad 22nd on the right with Towson's guns. Riall, who thought he faced militia, took the grey-clad troops for them, a force British regulars despised, and expected them to break after a few volleys.\n\n**The advance, about 17:00.** The Royal Scots and the 100th Foot advanced in line over uneven ground, which broke their formation and lengthened their exposure to the American guns. Riall ordered a single volley before the bayonet, which gave up the advantage of firepower. As the regiments advanced, their own artillery stopped firing to avoid hitting them, and the American gunners switched to canister. When the lines were under 100 yards apart, Scott advanced his wings into a shallow U so that his flanking units caught the British in a crossfire. The 25th pushed through the woods to attack the flank of the 8th Foot. An artillery duel followed in which a British 12-pounder and the American howitzer were reported knocked out.\n\n**The exchange and the withdrawal, about 17:30–18:30.** Both lines stood and exchanged volleys for about 25 to 30 minutes. Riall was struck in his coat by a bullet, and, after Brown sent another regiment around the British flank and brought up more artillery, ordered a withdrawal at about 18:30. The 1st Battalion of the 8th Foot, which had been in reserve, formed a line to cover the retreat, three British 6-pounders came into action, and two more fired from entrenchments north of the Chippawa. The British crossed the river in good order and broke the bridge behind them. Scott halted his brigade, and some of Porter's Iroquois pursued the British almost to the river.",
  "aftermath": "The British lost about 515 men by the official return and the Americans about 330. Henry Adams wrote that marksmanship decided the result, with American fire superior by more than fifty per cent in total losses. Chippawa was the first time American regulars had beaten a British force of equal size in an open battle in the war, and historians often present it as proof that trained American regulars could hold their own.\n\nTwo days later Brown crossed the Chippawa upstream of Riall's defences and the British fell back to Fort George. Brown could not attack the fortified position because Chauncey would not support him on the Niagara peninsula and no siege artillery or reinforcements arrived. The British rushed in reinforcements and soon became too strong for a direct attack. A series of feints and manoeuvres led to the Battle of Lundy's Lane a few weeks later.\n\nThe battle is remembered in the United States as the origin of the 6th Infantry's motto, 'Regulars, by God', and, probably as legend, of West Point's grey uniform. The battlefield is Chippawa Battlefield Park, a National Historic Site of Canada since 1921, and Chippewa Square in Savannah, Georgia, is named for the battle.",
  "wargaming": "Chippawa is a small battle that is ideal for a regimental or battalion-scale game at one figure to 10 or 20 men: about 100 figures a side. It is over in an hour or so of game time, with a very clear decision at the centre.\n\nThe interest is in perception. Riall thinks he faces militia, and the British player can be given that as a rule: until the American line has stood a volley, British units assume low-quality opponents and advance in line with a single volley and then the bayonet. The American player has well-drilled regulars, a gun line that destroys the British artillery and then switches to canister, and a flexible line that can wrap its wings around a column.\n\nThe terrain is open, with the Niagara on one flank, Street's Creek between the armies and woods on the western side, where Porter's militia and the Iroquois fight a skirmishing action first. Let the British guns be silenced early, and have the Royal Scots and the 100th disordered by the uneven ground.\n\nWhat-ifs: Riall waiting for better information, or a British commander who keeps his artillery firing and his line closed; an American Scott who is not allowed to advance his wings; and a battle with Ripley's brigade added. The strategic aftermath is Lundy's Lane."
 },
 "images": [
  {
   "file": "File:Chippewa.jpg",
   "kind": "painting",
   "caption": "The Battle of Chippawa, 5 July 1814, painted by H. Charles McBarron Jr.",
   "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Chippewa.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original",
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   "artist": "H. Charles McBarron, Jr.",
   "credit": "US Army Center of Military History DA Poster 21-39 The Battle of Chippewa",
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  {
   "file": "File:Battle chippiwa map.jpg",
   "kind": "map",
   "caption": "A map of the Battle of Chippawa.",
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   "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_chippiwa_map.jpg",
   "licence": "Public domain",
   "licence_url": "",
   "artist": "Benson J. Lossing",
   "credit": "Archives of Ontario Library Photo image obtained/rendered by Gwillhickers .",
   "width": 620
  },
  {
   "file": "File:Niagra River and Territory, 1812.jpg",
   "kind": "map",
   "caption": "The Niagara River and its frontier, 1812.",
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   "licence": "Public domain",
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   "artist": "Unknown author Unknown author",
   "credit": "Lossing, Benn, (1896). Pictorial Field Book of the War of 1812, p. 382",
   "width": 1473
  },
  {
   "file": "File:Sir Phineas Riall.jpg",
   "kind": "portrait",
   "caption": "Major General Sir Phineas Riall, who commanded the British.",
   "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Sir_Phineas_Riall.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original",
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   "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_Phineas_Riall.jpg",
   "licence": "Public domain",
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   "artist": "Unknown author Unknown author",
   "credit": "http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/Warof1812/2008/Issue10/c_Riall.html",
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  },
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   "file": "File:Battle of Chippawa National Historic Site - Chippawa, ON.jpg",
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   "caption": "Chippawa Battlefield Park, Ontario.",
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   "licence": "CC BY-SA 3.0",
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   "artist": "JFVoll",
   "credit": "Own work",
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  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  {
   "id": "s1",
   "title": "Battle of Chippawa (Wikipedia)",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chippawa",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s2",
   "title": "Battle of Chippawa (The Canadian Encyclopedia)",
   "url": "https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/battle-of-chippawa",
   "kind": "web"
  },
  {
   "id": "s3",
   "title": "Donald E. Graves, Red Coats & Grey Jackets: The Battle of Chippawa, Dundurn, 1994 (not read; cited by s1)",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
  },
  {
   "id": "s4",
   "title": "Ernest A. Cruikshank, ed., A Documentary History of the Campaigns on the Niagara Frontier in the Year 1814, 1971 (not read; cited by s1)",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
  },
  {
   "id": "s5",
   "title": "Douglas Hendry, British Casualties Suffered at Chippawa, 5 July 1814, unpublished report, 1991 (not read; cited by s1)",
   "url": null,
   "kind": "book"
  }
 ],
 "cdb90": [
  147
 ],
 "order": 94,
 "url": "https://battles.georgewyrd.com/chippawa/",
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