Ogdensburgh And The War

Ogdensburgh And The War. . , Northern Front American War planners ignored Ogdensburg as a way to choke off the British supply lines, instead focusing their attention and troops on grandiose invasions like General James Wilkinson's ill-fated march on Montreal, illustrated above. On October 19, 1813, eight months after the British captured Ogdensburgh (partly because Wilkinson had refused to provide the Ogdensburgh troops with the reinforcements they desperately needed) Wilkinson launched his grand invasion of Montreal from Sackett's Harbor (Illustrated above). During Wilkinson's invasion, the general learned that one of the prices he and his troops had to pay for abandoning Ogdensburgh was that his men were forced to disembark above Ogdensburgh on November 8, 1813, march overland around the village (out of the reach of the British cannon at Fort Wellington which commanded the river at Prescott) and re-embark two days later. Three days later, the British (with a smaller force) overtook the Americans, defeating them on November 11 at Crysler's Farm (across the river from Waddington). On November 12-13, Wilkinson retires to Fort Covington, abandoning the attack on Montreal, forcing the U.S. Army to give up its dream of capturing Canada from the British.