AHC: Major Ship of The Line battle...On Lake Ontario

During the war of 1812, some of the most vicious naval battles were fought on the Great Lakes, including the famous climax of the battle of Lake Erie, where Oliver Hazard Perry lead an American flotilla to victory over an similar assortment of British ships ("We have met the enemy and they are ours"). However, even in that penultimate battle on the Lakes the largest combatants in both "fleets" were brigs and schooners, because due to the Niagara falls and (for any ships on lake Ontario) the impassible Montreal rapids all major fighting ships on the Great Lakes had to be either converted from merchant ships or built from scratch on the shores of the lakes. However, during the war massive ship building programs were commissioned by both sides for building not just brigs or even frigates (like USS Constitution) but fully fledged Ships of the Line, the prime example of which was the HMS St. Lawrence, a First Rate with a whopping 112 guns (more than Nelson's HMS Victory and more than all other British ships at that time commissioned on Lake Ontario COMBINED) which was launched in 1814 from the Kingston dockyard on Lake Ontario. The Americans for their part were building their own major fleet on the lake and had laid down an 84 gun warship, the USS New Orleans at Sackets Harbor, New York, which was laid up when peace was declared.

It seems like with a few tweaks of history in the War of 1812 (maybe either through extending the war or intensifying the laying down of major warships early in the war?), it would have been possible to get a situation involving a major fleet engagement on Lake Ontario, between the USN and the RN and have created the unique situation of having massive wooden battleships fight fleet engagements over the lake rather then the small schooner and brig engagements of real life. How do you think it would be possible to engineer this "storm in a teacup" scenario? And how would the unique circumstances surrounding this scenario (ie. ships limited to a fresh water lake with very limited room to maneuver n a strategic scene) have shaped the potential conflict (would it have devolved into a melee rather than a European line of battle)? Also how would the RN and USN have managed crew these ships? Would they have been able to divert and transport enough sailors from their fleets in the Atlantic to have an experienced crew aboard the "lake warships" or would they have had to heavily rely on drawing from the local merchant sailor populations on the Lakes to crew these ships? Also, which navy do you think would ultimately have the advantage in this unique battle?

Overall this scenario on Lake Ontario feels like it had the potential to be one of the most unique (and frankly weird) naval battles that could have occurred in the last 200 years and really has no similar scenario anywhere in modern Western naval history to draw examples from so it would be fascinating to see how it would unfold.



NOTE: The HMS St. Lawrence was decommissioned in 1815, sold in 1832 and sunk and is now a popular diving attraction. USS New Orleans was laid up for nearly 70 years until it was sold in 1883 (the USN really doesn't seem to like throwing away warships). The Rush Bagot treaty of 1818 demilitarized the Great Lakes limiting the US and Great Britain to one warship (max 100 tons) and one cannon. Later developments such as the Rideau canal made the great lakes accessible to sea going vessels. The Great Lakes remain demilitarized to this day.
 
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No one have any thoughts? This seems like an AH.com dream battle because it seems so ASB, but there really were at least one giant wooden battleship sailing on a landlocked little lake!
 
Growing up in Michigan I always fantasized about Great Lakes naval engagements like what you described.

So the way to increase the number and significance of battles is to have several countries competing for lake passage, perhaps even some landlocked entities in a disunited states scenario - but those ships will probably be pretty small. Only large powers with something like a 50% share of the lakes like what we ended up with in OTL have the capacity for and potential gain from building large ships.
 
@kichinichini

The War of 1812 already had the kind of small ship (schooners mainly and brigs as flagships) fights on the great lakes (see Oliver Hazard Perry's campaign). What is interesting is that near the end of the war it looked like the UK and USA were both gearing up to dramatically escalate the battle with full fledged ships of the line, including ships with 100+ guns (HMS St. Lawrence was commissioned and patrolled lake Ontario in the final months of the war), which makes it a really interesting "what if scenario" in a tactical sense in my mind because it would really have been a totally unique situation: Full ships of the line fighting it out on what was functionally a landlocked lake (at that time). It just seems like one of the weirdest sea battles that could have happened!

PS: I wonder where the US and Canada keep their one treaty allotted cannon each nowadays ;)
 

TinyTartar

Banned
From what I have read, the ships built were not really the same kind of ocean sailing ships that we are familiar with but rather specifically designed for shore bombardment and terror bombing. The British wanted to burn Sacketts Harbor to the ground to relieve pressure on their defenses in the Toronto Region, and the New York Militia cooked up some crazy plan to sail a fleet right up the Saint Lawrence and launch an amphibious attack on the defenses southwest of Montreal but not past the rapids, and thought they'd need a massive ship to destroy the defenses.

If such a battle was to occur on the lake, it would be a confused affair much like Perry's victory, but it would probably be a hell of a lot more deadly for 19th century standards. These massive ships would have trouble on the Lake, and need a ton of escort schooners, but close combat would be utterly brutal.
 
It amuses me that the USN felt it necessary to build a lake-bound ship of the line while the East Coast was blockaded. Anyway, I suspect a battle between the New Orleans and St. Lawrence would end up as either a horrendous loss of life or a complete farce, or perhaps both.

Can anyone else think of a campaign involving lake-bound capital ships?
 

TinyTartar

Banned
It amuses me that the USN felt it necessary to build a lake-bound ship of the line while the East Coast was blockaded. Anyway, I suspect a battle between the New Orleans and St. Lawrence would end up as either a horrendous loss of life or a complete farce, or perhaps both.

Can anyone else think of a campaign involving lake-bound capital ships?

I think that Cortes built some Carracks for his siege of Tenochtitlan. It didn't take that long due to the massive amounts of native troops under his command, and he used them to keep food from getting into the city, as well as to bombard Aztec positions on the causeway.

These ships were probably the best that Cortes could have built, and it paid off. However, it wasn't an equal battle, as the Aztec canoes sent against the ships were massacred by gun and cannon fire.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
The dynamics of arms races are interesting,

No one have any thoughts? This seems like an AH.com dream battle because it seems so ASB, but there really were at least one giant wooden battleship sailing on a landlocked little lake!

The dynamics of arms races are interesting; historically, they tend to start small - as in the brigs and schooners - and escalate whenever on side or the other appears to have gained an advantage.

The point being, it is rare that one side builds a gunboat and the other counters immediately with a battleship, so to speak.

So for either navy to build, commission, and maintain capital ships would have required either a) 1812-15 to last longer - fairly doubtful given the British defeats in 1814 that predated Ghent, much less New Orleans and then the 100 Days, or b) tensions to remain high after the war - also doubtful given the mutual economic interests in play, or c) war to break out in 1862.

Unfortunately for the "battleships on the Lakes" concept, if war broke out in 1862, the advantage in terms of population, wealth, resources, shipyards, sailors, and professional officers on the Lakes is all in the US favor, and the issue is likely to be decided before anything resembling a "battleship" could be built on the Lakes.

Best,
 
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From what I have read, the ships built were not really the same kind of ocean sailing ships that we are familiar with but rather specifically designed for shore bombardment and terror bombing. The British wanted to burn Sacketts Harbor to the ground to relieve pressure on their defenses in the Toronto Region, and the New York Militia cooked up some crazy plan to sail a fleet right up the Saint Lawrence and launch an amphibious attack on the defenses southwest of Montreal but not past the rapids, and thought they'd need a massive ship to destroy the defenses.

If such a battle was to occur on the lake, it would be a confused affair much like Perry's victory, but it would probably be a hell of a lot more deadly for 19th century standards. These massive ships would have trouble on the Lake, and need a ton of escort schooners, but close combat would be utterly brutal.

I would be interested in hearing the design differences you allude to, between traditional ships of the line and the "lake" version. What in particular would be some major differences? My first guess would be a shallower draft, but Lake Ontario is pretty deep so I am not sure that would be necessary. According to the Wikipedia article, it seems the HMS St. Lawrence was laid down, built and launched all within one year, which was unusually quick which I would agree suggests cutting corners in construction (perhaps using green wood?).

@TFSmith121

Whats really weird about this scenario is they seemed to have skipped all the intermediate steps in an arms race going straight from what is essentially converted merchant ships (schooners and the like) to 100+ gun first rates! You have to wonder why they didn't think a couple of frigates which would have been cheaper and quicker to build and much easier to man (first rates typically took 800+ sailors to man + additional soldiers to defend it and the British at least, only had a couple thousand professional soldiers in all of Upper Canada/present day Ontario). The whole scenario just seems stupidly ridiculous, and yet this was the fight both sides were preparing for and that is why it would be so interesting to see what would have actually happened.

Also as a potential POD to maybe extend 1812: What if the signing of the treaty of Ghent is delayed a few weeks until after the battle of New Orleans and before negotiations are concluded the American diplomats hear the news of the victory. Would that embolden them to reject status quo ante bellum and make another push to conquer a good chunk of Canada before going back to peace negotiations? I have heard that the US treasury was in a pretty bad state at this time so I am not sure whether this option would even have been available to them based on strictly financial reasons. Thoughts?

One difference between 1812 and 1862 is the Rideau Canal. With that in place the British can simply dispatch ocean going vessels to Lake Ontario if they so desire it, rather than have to build them from scratch at Kingston harbour, as was the case in 1812. The challenge then is to get the Union to get a major warship onto the lake. However at this point it really isn't the same " ship in a bottle" scenario that it was in 1814 (Not to mention that you would need a POD to get the UK to intervene in the ACW).
 
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TFSmith121

Banned
Wintertime ...

I would be interested in hearing the design differences you allude to, between traditional ships of the line and the "lake" version. What in particular would be some major differences? My first guess would be a shallower draft, but Lake Ontario is pretty deep so I am not sure that would be necessary. According to the Wikipedia article, it seems the HMS St. Lawrence was laid down, built and launched all within one year, which was unusually quick which I would agree suggests cutting corners in construction (perhaps using green wood?).

@TFSmith121

One difference between 1812 and 1862 is the Rideau Canal. With that in place the British can simply dispatch ocean going vessels to Lake Ontario if they so desire it, rather than have to build them from scratch at Kingston harbour, as was the case in 1812. The challenge then is to get the Union to get a major warship onto the lake. However at this point it really isn't the same " ship in a bottle" scenario that it was in 1814 (Not to mention that you would need a POD to get the UK to intervene in the ACW).

Wintertime ... Trent was in November, 1861 and there's no Atlantic cable; by the time any potential war breaks out, the Saint Lawrence is iced over, the Beauhornais is south of the river (as is the GTR, which doesn't connect Upper Canada with New Brunswick, anyway), and nothing much larger than a wooden-hulled gunboat can pass through the Rideau at a time the US is already building iron hulled screw steamers at Oswego, and the lakes and rivers thaw from the south toward to north...

Likewise, in 1814, the Americans had commissioned frigates and sloops of war/corvettes, as had the British, before the ships of the line hit the water.

The "extend war into 1815" actually happened; Ghent had been negotiated, but the war continued until the treaty was ratified, as witness New Orleans; that being said, given the strategic realities both nations faced in 1815, it seems pretty clear both were content to let it end.

Best,
 
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It appears that the ship building going on on Lake Ontario at the end of the war was even more extensive than I thought. Upon further research it appears I was wrong about frigates as by the end of the war both the UK (Prince Regent and Prince Charlotte) and US (Mohawk and Superior) each had 2 frigates commissioned on Lake Ontario. Furthermore both countries had more battleships under construction: For the Americans, in addition to the USS New Orleans, which seems to have been pretty near completion by the end of the war, another ship of the line, the USS Chippewa and the frigate USS Plattsburgh were under construction. The British had two sister ships to the St. Lawrence, under construction (HMS Wolfe and HMS Canada) and the frigate HMS Psyche (which was actually completed just after the end of the war and was later laid-up due to the Rush-Bagot treaty. Considering the St. Lawrence went from being laid down to being armed, crewed and commissioned in just 10 months, it seems likely that had the war lasted an extra year we could have a naval war involving up to 5 very large ships of the line and 6 frigates with both squadrons being supported by an array of sloops and brigs. All on a lake!

The real question would be would it really eve get that far? With the advantage at the time of the treaty in firepower on the lake being decisively in the hands of the British (until New Orleans would be commissioned) would the British have attacked Sackets harbor as soon as they could to burn the ships under construction? How heavily defended was the port at that time? Would have been enough to turn back the British squadron led by St. Lawrence? NOTE: One reason this raid likely never happened because St. Lawrence was commissioned mere weeks before peace was declared.

NOTE: Different sources list USS New Orleans and USS Chippewa as being intended to have between 74 cannons (third rate) to 130 cannons (which would make them the most heavily armed ships on earth!)

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagements_on_Lake_Ontario#Vessels_on_Lake_Ontario_in_1814

http://militaryhistorynow.com/2013/08/16/3665/


@TFSmith121

I don't really know much about the historical dimensions of the Rideau Canal during the ACW so I cant really comment on that, but I will take your word for it. I do however know that the main purpose behind its creation was to be able to quickly transport troops and supplies to what is now Ontario (I believe this is mentioned in its UNESCO world heritage site description) in the event of war with the US, so I imagine it must have been able to handle a significant volume of shipping. As to the whole UK intervention in the ACW, I personally don't really think there is much to add here, as every aspect of that has been done to DEATH of AH.com, and unlike in the war of 1812, I am not sure that the lakes would have such am major strategic influence as to justify major shipbuilding/fleet activities. Personally I find the threat of direct UK intervention in the ACW to be a bit overblown as neither country was really keen on taking the other on (the Union certainly wouldn't want to give the confederates an ally and the UK had nothing really to gain from an expensive war/loss of trade with the Union). Indeed I always found it was funny that when the UK was reinforcing Canada in the wake of Trent, the US government offered to to let the UK transport its troops across Maine by train to cut down on their travel time (the offer was declined).
 
I find it funny that while the USN had hardly any large ships seeing service in the Atlantic and they were building three ships of the line in a lake !
 
I find it funny that while the USN had hardly any large ships seeing service in the Atlantic and they were building three ships of the line in a lake !

The US was building ships of the line of the east coast as well. The first two, Independence and Washington, were close enough to completion (I believe one was commissioned before the end of the war) that the Admiralty had already started reinforcing the the blockade with three-deckers to counter them.
 
I find it funny that while the USN had hardly any large ships seeing service in the Atlantic and they were building three ships of the line in a lake !

Well part of that would be that on the Great Lakes, the USN could actually compete with the RN on an equal footing, since both sides had to build their ships on site. The USN never had a hope of breaking the RN blockade and once Napoleon had been defeated and the full force of the Royal Navy could be brought to bear on the US coast a handful of battleships really wouldn't have helped the USN, as they would have been forced to stay in port or have faced a a force several orders of magnitude larger than itself. Considering the huge disparity in forces of the USN and RN, the USN did very well. It didn't waste resources focusing on building ships of the line in a futile attempt to try and break a massively superior blockading force and instead focused on building a series of heavily armed super-frigate that were fast enough to evade the blockades and hunt down and kill the smaller British frigates while still able to outrun the large British ships of the line. As a result the USN had a series of victories in single ship actions at the beginning of the war, which while strategically unimportant were a huge morale boost, and helped boost American spirits in light of the disastrous first stages of the war on land (the failed first invasion of Canada, loss of Fort Mackinaw, Siege of Detroit). The USN definitely deserves a lot of credit for using their limited ships and resources to maximum effect.

Again, on the Lakes though this was an entirely different story as both side essentially had to build all their ships on-site, and for the Americans victory on Lake Ontario would have made all of Upper Canada, most importantly the towns of York (present day Toronto) and Kingston untenable for the British and would have opened the way for a serious invasion of Montreal (the Americans figured out early how bad an overland invasion of Montreal would turn out: Half the troops either died of disease or deserted and the invading armies never even reached the city before turning back). An OTL battle of Lake Ontario wouldn't only have been really interesting from a tactical sense, its results would have also had a strategic major impact and have shaped the borders of North America.
 
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TFSmith121

Banned
In terms of an 1862 Anglo-American war,

It appears that the ship building going on on Lake Ontario at the end of the war was even more extensive than I thought. Upon further research it appears I was wrong about frigates as by the end of the war both the UK (Prince Regent and Prince Charlotte) and US (Mohawk and Superior) each had 2 frigates commissioned on Lake Ontario. Furthermore both countries had more battleships under construction: For the Americans, in addition to the USS New Orleans, which seems to have been pretty near completion by the end of the war, another ship of the line, the USS Chippewa and the frigate USS Plattsburgh were under construction. The British had two sister ships to the St. Lawrence, under construction (HMS Wolfe and HMS Canada) and the frigate HMS Psyche (which was actually completed just after the end of the war and was later laid-up due to the Rush-Bagot treaty. Considering the St. Lawrence went from being laid down to being armed, crewed and commissioned in just 10 months, it seems likely that had the war lasted an extra year we could have a naval war involving up to 5 very large ships of the line and 6 frigates with both squadrons being supported by an array of sloops and brigs. All on a lake!

The real question would be would it really eve get that far? With the advantage at the time of the treaty in firepower on the lake being decisively in the hands of the British (until New Orleans would be commissioned) would the British have attacked Sackets harbor as soon as they could to burn the ships under construction? How heavily defended was the port at that time? Would have been enough to turn back the British squadron led by St. Lawrence? NOTE: One reason this raid likely never happened because St. Lawrence was commissioned mere weeks before peace was declared.

NOTE: Different sources list USS New Orleans and USS Chippewa as being intended to have between 74 cannons (third rate) to 130 cannons (which would make them the most heavily armed ships on earth!)

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engagements_on_Lake_Ontario#Vessels_on_Lake_Ontario_in_1814

http://militaryhistorynow.com/2013/08/16/3665/


@TFSmith121

I don't really know much about the historical dimensions of the Rideau Canal during the ACW so I cant really comment on that, but I will take your word for it. I do however know that the main purpose behind its creation was to be able to quickly transport troops and supplies to what is now Ontario (I believe this is mentioned in its UNESCO world heritage site description) in the event of war with the US, so I imagine it must have been able to handle a significant volume of shipping. As to the whole UK intervention in the ACW, I personally don't really think there is much to add here, as every aspect of that has been done to DEATH of AH.com, and unlike in the war of 1812, I am not sure that the lakes would have such am major strategic influence as to justify major shipbuilding/fleet activities. Personally I find the threat of direct UK intervention in the ACW to be a bit overblown as neither country was really keen on taking the other on (the Union certainly wouldn't want to give the confederates an ally and the UK had nothing really to gain from an expensive war/loss of trade with the Union). Indeed I always found it was funny that when the UK was reinforcing Canada in the wake of Trent, the US government offered to to let the UK transport its troops across Maine by train to cut down on their travel time (the offer was declined).

In terms of an 1862 Anglo-American war, in British Preparations for War with the North, 1861-1862, Kenneth Bourne wrote the following:

Communications with and within the Canadian provinces were both incomplete and insecure. Between the Maritime Provinces and Canada there was no railway link whatever, and the only established road lay dangerously close to the Maine frontier. The best means of communication was by water-along the St. Lawrence river and canals from the sea to the Great Lakes. But this route too had serious weaknesses. In the first place it was completely closed by ice between December and April and, above all, it could easily be cut, particularly between Montreal and Kingston by an attack on the canals, one of which-the Beauharnois-lay on the south side of the St. Lawrence and so was not even sheltered from the Americans by the river. There was an alternative route along the Ottawa river and Rideau canal but only very small vessels could pass through this into the lakes. These weak communications presented serious obstacles to the British command of the lakes. In such virtually enclosed waters the command, once established, would be permanent ... Moreover, if the Beauharnois were cut then Lake Ontario too would be barred to all but the smallest class of gunboats which alone could pass the Ottawa canals. ...
The problem could only have been met by large measures in advance of war and as these had not been carried out before winter nothing could now be done. Even if the gunboats had been sent up to the lakes in time they still might not have been of much use. They could only pass the canals because they were light, wooden boats and there were no facilities in Canada for protecting them with armour. But wooden gunboats would have been useless against rifled artillery. The Americans, on the other hand, did have the means of converting their ships ...

As an example, at the end of the 1850s, there were almost 1,200 U.S.-registered vessels on the Lakes, in comparison to only 321 under Canadian registry. Even more importantly, the total tonnage was 399,443 for the U.S., and only 59,580 for those under Canadian registry. This meant the typical American ship averaged 335 tons displacement; the typical Canadian, 186 tons. In addition, there were some 13,000 merchant seaman employed on American ships in the same period.

Between 1840 and 1849, 81 propeller-driven steam vessels were built at (US) Great Lakes shipyards. During the next ten years, 133 more were added and during the 1860s another 88 were built, not including screw tugs. Screw propelled steamers, including passenger ships and package freighters, grew in size during the 19th century, along with deepening channels and improvements in shipbuilding technology. The average size grew from 141 feet (337 tons) in 1845 to 182 feet (641 tons) in 1862.

As typical for merchant marines in the era, the vast majority of the vessels were sailing craft (as an example, nine of ten ocean-going merchant ships under the British flag were sailing vessels in the 1860s), but the number of steam-powered vessels, the most important in time of war, was still heavily in the U.S. favor. The first steam vessels had been built at Oswego, for example, in 1816; between 1859-62, some 97 steam vessels, both sidewheel and screw (generally known as “propellors” on the lakes), were built in U.S. yards on the Great Lakes. The first propeller on Lake Ontario, in fact, was the 138-ton Vandalia, built at Oswego, in 1841.

The importance of Oswego and the other cities and town in upstate New York cannot be overestimated; in contrast to 1812-15, when both the British and Americans built yards in what amounted to the wilderness (the Americans at Sacketts Harbor and the British at Kingston), the reality is that by 1861, the shipbuilding center of the entire lake was the city of Oswego, on the river of the same name, roughly 50 miles from Sacketts Harbor to the northeast and 75 from Rochester to the west, itself another 80 miles from Youngstown, at the north end of the Niagara River. In general terms, the American cities on the lake were larger (and, by extension, provided a deeper well of troops, labor, and locally-produced supplies for the war effort) than their Upper Canadian counterparts.

The largest cities on the Canadian side, for example, were Toronto (formerly York), with 56,000 residents in 1861; Hamilton, with 26,700; Kingston, 12,400; and St. Catharines, with some 6,000. On the American side of the lake, and south to the Erie Canal, cities and towns with more than 5,000 people included Rochester, with some 48,000 residents in the 1860 census; Syracuse, 28,000; Utica, 22,500; Oswego, 16,800; Lockport, 13,500; Volney, 8,000; Watertown, 7,800; Rome, 6,200; Verona, 6,000; Manlius, 6,000; Ellisburg, 5,600; and Onandaga, 5,100. And although Kingston was a defended port, so were Oswego and Sacketts, while the other American towns, even Rochester, were far enough inland to be unapproachable by any British squadron, unlike the Canadian towns on the lake itself.

Bottom line, in any remotely possible 1862-?? conflict (as in the once sketched out in BROS), the Lakes are not going be much of a battleground.

I agree it is an unlikely war, but since there are those who have (historically) been interested, I thought trying to work out the correlation of forces at the point of departure and likely courses of action, for all sides, month by month until things became obvious would be an entertaining effort, and it has been...;)

Interesting point re 1815, as well; there was exactly one nation state building steam-powered warships in North America at that point, and it was not Britain.

Best,
 
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What if the battle is fought similarly to the Battle of New Orleans .The British and Americans fight the battle after the treaty of Ghent is ratified and the British score a major victory that opens up the whole of the great lakes to the British military .Then just before the British can make good on their control of the lakes and invade the U.S .They hear of the new treaty just before their General steps aboard the ship and the whole thing is called off .
The victory then bolsters the British moral that had been lain quite low due to three years of naval and land defeats and ends the war on a good note for the British .
 
What if the battle is fought similarly to the Battle of New Orleans .The British and Americans fight the battle after the treaty of Ghent is ratified and the British score a major victory that opens up the whole of the great lakes to the British military .Then just before the British can make good on their control of the lakes and invade the U.S .They hear of the new treaty just before their General steps aboard the ship and the whole thing is called off .
The victory then bolsters the British moral that had been lain quite low due to three years of naval and land defeats and ends the war on a good note for the British .

That could be another interesting effect. A naval victory on Ontario for the British would certainly stall a US offensive. However the British would still have to take back Lake Erie before they could really make a deep push back into Michigan territory, and that would be difficult because even if Lake Ontario is taken and the American flotilla is crushed, it would be impossible to transfer the ships to Lake Erie because of Niagara falls. Hence it would be difficult for them to find a way to neutralize Perry's fleet. However a more successful UK would likely push for the creation of a Native buffer state (rather than accept status quo as in OTL) in the North-West which would have severely curtailed US expansion.

Btw I don't know how low British morale would have been on the Canadian front in 1814, as the two American invasions had largely been thwarted and British successes in the region over the past three years on the whole outweighed their failures as they were mainly fighting a (successful) holding action in Canada. Specifically if any troops on the Canadian front had had a history of morale issues it would have been the American militia, which single-handedly were responsible for some major US defeats (eg. refusing to cross the border to reinforce the regulars at Queenston heights). Furthermore by 1814 with Napoleon defeated the UK was finally able to send a significant amount of troops to North America and go on the offensive for really the first time in the war (with admittedly very mixed results). Also by this time the US has largely replaced the incompetent generals that were the source of much of the US Army's early troubles and they had recently killed Tecumseh, effectively ending the threat of his Native Alliance, so it would be hard to tell who would have better morale at this point.
 
Btw I don't know how low British morale would have been on the Canadian front in 1814, as the two American invasions had largely been thwarted and British successes in the region over the past three years on the whole outweighed their failures as they were mainly fighting a (successful) holding action in Canada.

Don't forget Prevost's advance on Ticonderoga. He gave up at Plattsburg, but the fact that a commander as cautious as he was even launched such an offensive speaks volumes of the balance of power on the St Lawrence front.

Furthermore by 1814 with Napoleon defeated the UK was finally able to send a significant amount of troops to North America and go on the offensive for really the first time in the war (with admittedly very mixed results).

It also meant that a) the rest of Europe had gone back to business as usual while British shipping was still paying wartime insurance rates and having to travel in convoy, and b) all the rivalries between the great powers that had been suppressed by the need to focus on Napoleon were flaring up again. The UK therefore had far more important things to worry about and the American war was an unwanted distraction, hence the Treaty of Ghent.
 
It seems like there is still a lot more to be analyzed on this topic. In OTL in at the end of the war there were already two squadrons of warships each containing multiple frigates and 1 (112 gun) battleship already commissioned and sailing Lake Ontario. If the war had continued, within a year both sides would have had fleets led by multiple battleships and frigates, all contained on a small fresh-water lake. Anyone want to weigh in on how this may have turned out if the war had lasted an extra year?
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Considering the US gained control of Erie in 1813 and

It seems like there is still a lot more to be analyzed on this topic. In OTL in at the end of the war there were already two squadrons of warships each containing multiple frigates and 1 (112 gun) battleship already commissioned and sailing Lake Ontario. If the war had continued, within a year both sides would have had fleets led by multiple battleships and frigates, all contained on a small fresh-water lake. Anyone want to weigh in on how this may have turned out if the war had lasted an extra year?

Considering the US gained control of Erie in 1813 and Champlain (not one of the Great Lakes, but similar issues in terms of the resource differential) in 1814, it seems a fair bet the same will hold true on Ontario in 1815. Time and distance is all in the US favor, as are the relative local resources.

The biggest question, however, is why? The British had been fighting the French almost without a respite for five decades, and the Americans had their fill of being on the periphery of the Anglo-French conflict by 1815, as well - the strategic situation in North America (as a whole) was a stalemate between the US and UK, as witness the inability of the US to operate north of the Lakes into BNA and the inability of the UK to operate south of the Lakes into the US, or make much of an impact on the Atlantic or Gulf coasts. In addition, with the overarching stresses of the Anglo-French conflict(s) finally put to rest, the foundational issue of the conflicts in the Western Hemisphere in (roughly) the same time frame was decided, and quite decisively.

The French, Spanish, Portuguese, and British empires in the Western Hemisphere, certainly in terms of the majority of the populations that had been subject to those same empires in the Eighteenth Century, were (essentially) gone by the end of the second decade of the Nineteenth Century, and none of them were not going back...

The end of the Anglo-French rivalry for Europe and the Med in 1815 is really comparable to the end of the Cold War in the 1990s; it took several decades before new (potential) conflicts in Europe arose, and by then, the US and UK were (essentially) reconciled.

Best,
 
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