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Cossacks map: Chateauguay 1813

Description:

The latest battle from this war by Caludius. A 5-person proxy-battle, with 3 possible for the American invader (blue) and 2 the Canadian/British defenders. Heavily outnumbered, the Canadians (red) stand a chance with scores of upgrades. Most of the Americans' cannon is stuck in the mud. You still might wrestle some of it free though. All up-grades are permitted making the Canadian/British side extremely lethal. An open map. Below is history.

Chateauguay

October 26, 1813

This battles was a great triumph for the British and a great disgrace for the Americans. A army of 3700 Americans faced 1700 British and Canadians and were repulsed. EVen worse, it must be noted that only 339 of the Canadians actually faced action that day. Heres your chance to either match the glory of Charles de Salaberry's victory, or correct Hampton Wades disgrace depending of which side you pick. Note that the American soldiers fought very bravely in this battle. It was their generals that were a disgraced, not the soldiers.

This map is based on Donald Graves's (1994) very detailed account of the attempted invasion of Montreal: Field of Glory. (Publisher Robin Brass Studio, Toronto, Canada).

On the eve of this battle, the War of 1812 in North America has been going on for over a year, but the US has yet to score any real success over the much smaller Canadian army. John Hamilton has co-erced the officers in command to attack even though it is late in the season and the Canadian Winter is approaching. The 3764 men under the command of Hampton Wade are advancing North towards Montreal along the Chateauguay river, while Major General Wilkenson is advancing along the Ste. Lawrence. The Total US army deployed for this invasion was about 11,000 soldiers (However, of these, perhap 3000 were ill).

The British and Canadian have a total force about 7000 men but they are scattered across an enourmous country. Only about 4000 British and Canadian Soldiers are present in the present theatre of operations, and Montreal has no defences. The British may be outnumbered but they are for the most part a very disciplined and experienced army, while the Americans are mostly raw recruits. Even the British militia are highly trained. For example, the Voltageurs come from a 200 year old tradition of survival in the backwoods of Canada. They are fighting for their beloved city of Montreal.

This battle was fought on the Chateauguay river, about 30 miles south-west of Montreal. Montreal had no fortifications so Prevost, the commander in chief decided to stop the invasion on route to their city.

The Americans made one very big incorrect assumptions during this war -- they assumed that the Canadian people would actually join them as they marched into Canada. Some did, but most because fearlessly loyal. The English speaking canadian people were mostly loyalist refugees who had fled from the American Revolution. The French Canadiens didn't really like the British, but they liked the Americans less. Beside this was their most beloved city that was threatened. Nothing units a people so effectively as a common enemy!

The Americans also seemed to have miscalculated the nature of a Canadian winter (you know, its a whole country north of Buffalo) and started their campaign in the fall. Snow was beginning to fall by the time the first battles were joined. In a real sense the American soldiers were lucky they lost, in November, cause if they had won, that they might have frozen to death a couple weeks later nearer to Montreal.

The British forces in this battle are let by Colonel Charle de Salaberry a French Canadian who had served in the British army with distinction for several years. He was trained by Rottenberg, a man that had literally written the manual on how to use light infantry.

Salaberry had in fact raised one of the militia armies during this war -- the Voltigeurs -- derived from a long line of people who were used to long distance travel, hard work, and guerrilla war. These men were not an ordinary militia, but were experienced warriors.

The Americans are in blue. I have mostly used either French or Polish infanty because they seem closest to the uniforms of the Americans during this war. The other US units were largely selected for convenience. The Americans have 6 cannons and 2 holitzers, but they didn't use them in the battle so to be accurate I've made it so that you can only actually move 2 of your guns, the rest are stuck in the mud (which was actually pretty much the case in the real battle)!

The British units are represented here by several different cultures. Saxons musketeers are used for Canadian Fencibles. Russians are used for the select militia who wore riffle green (but did not have riffles). Bavaria musketeers are used for the Voltigeurs and are absolutely perfect match visually. I've also used Ukranian gunmen for the French Sedentary militia. Their coat and hat are the wrong colour -- they wore blue touques -- but other than that they do look the part. The British have no artillery. Algerian archers and gunmen were the best I could do as a match for the Amer-Indians. The British are outnumbered but have academies where they can upgrade some of their units (Russian, Saxon, British and Bavarian). They also have one other advantage. Food. This is Canada and its near the end of October and if the American's don't win quickly they will likely starve to death (much like Napoleons men in his "advance" from Moscow). In this game the Americans only have 300,000 units of food. If they don't attack hard right away, they will lose, but they only have two usable cannons so they will have to act quicly. Note that this battle has not yet been "field" tested so I cannot guarantee it is balanced.

This is a proxy battle with black (Hampton Wade hiself), orange (Izard -- the one of the few American generals of any value during this particular battle), and green (Purdy) as generals for the Americans and purple (Charles de Salaberry) and white as generals for the Britishwhite (Macdonell). Also with white is a big giant man -- thats supposed to be Prevost who arrived as the battle ending and essentially claimed the victory for himself, rather then giving
credit to de Salaberry).

Personally, if I were playing the American team (blue) I would not include black in my team and shoot Major General Wade at the first opportunity, he he.

Credit(s): [HWK]Claudius

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