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t h e Ox f o r d H a n d b o o k o f

E X P E RT I SE
AND
DE M O C R AT IC
P OL I T IC S
the Oxford Handbook of

EXPERTISE
AND
DEMOCRATIC
POLITICS
Edited by
GIL EYAL and THOMAS MEDVETZ
 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

© Oxford University Press 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
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rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Names: Eyal, Gil, editor. | Medvetz, Thomas, editor.
Title: The Oxford handbook of expertise and democratic politics /
edited by Gil Eyal, Thomas Medvetz.
Other titles: Handbook of expertise and democratic politics
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2023. |
Series: Oxford handbooks series |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022030824 (print) | LCCN 2022030825 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190848927 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190848941 (epub) |
ISBN 9780190848958
Subjects: LCSH: Information society—Political aspects. | Knowledge,
Theory of—Political aspects. | Expertise—Political aspects. |
Objectivity—Political aspects. | Democracy. | Democratization. | Populism.
Classification: LCC HM851 .O977 2023 (print) | LCC HM851 (ebook) |
DDC 303.48/33—dc23/eng/20221018
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022030824
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022030825

DOI: 10.1093/​oxfordhb/​9780190848927.001.0001

Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

 Contents

Contributors ix

1. Introduction  1
Gil Eyal and Thomas Medvetz

PA RT I . T H E F R AU G H T R E L AT ION S B E T W E E N
E X P E RT I SE A N D DE M O C R AC Y
2. Trust and Distrust of Scientific Experts and the Challenges of the
Democratization of Science  29
Peter Weingart
3. The Third Wave and Populism: Scientific Expertise as
a Check and Balance  52
Harry Collins, Robert Evans, Darrin Durant,
and Martin Weinel
4. The Meaning and Significance of Lay Expertise  76
Steven Epstein
5. On the Multiplicity of Lay Expertise: An Empirical and Analytical
Overview of Patient Associations’ Achievements and Challenges  103
Madeleine Akrich and Vololona Rabeharisoa
6. The Political Climate and Climate Politics—​Expert Knowledge and
Democracy  134
Nico Stehr and Alexander Ruser

PA RT I I . T RU ST
7. Mistrust of Experts by Populists and Politicians  155
Robert P. Crease
8. A Regulatory State of Exception  181
Andrew Lakoff
vi   Contents

PA RT I I I . OB J E C T I V I T Y
9. Experts in Law  195
Tal Golan
10. Institutions of Expert Judgment: The Production and Use of
Objectivity in Public Expertise  214
Brice Laurent
11. Expertise and Complex Organizations  237
Stephen Turner
12. Data and Expertise: Some Unanticipated Outcomes  258
Theodore M. Porter and Wendy Nelson Espeland
13. Experts in the Regulation of Technology and Risk: An Ecological
Perspective on Regulatory Science  282
David Demortain
14. Expert Power and the Classification of Human Difference  314
Daniel Navon

PA RT I V. J U R I SDIC T IONA L S T RU G G L E S
15. Battle of the Experts: The Strange Career of Meta-​Expertise  345
Frank Pasquale
16. Gender and Economic Governance Expertise  362
Maria J. Azocar
17. Field Theory and Expertise: Analytical Approaches and the Question
of Autonomy  379
Zachary Griffen and Aaron Panofsky

PA RT V. M A K I N G T H E F U T U R E P R E SE N T
18. Addressing the Risk Paradox: Exploring the Demand Requirements
around Risk and Uncertainty and the Supply Side Limitations of
Calculative Practices  401
Denis Fischbacher-​Smith
 Contents   vii

19. Expertise and the State: From Planning to Future Research  433
Jenny Andersson

PA RT V I . T H E T R A N SF OR M AT ION A N D
P E R SI ST E N C E OF P ROF E S SION S
20. Professional Authority  453
Ruthanne Huising
21. The Postindustrial Limits of Professionalization  470
Paul Starr
22. (In)expertise and the Paradox of Therapeutic Governance  482
E. Summerson Carr

PA RT V I I . N E W M E DIA A N D E X P E RT I SE
23. The Social Distribution of the Public Recognition of Expertise  513
Jakob Arnoldi
24. Media Metacommentary, Mediatization, and the Instability of
Expertise  530
Eleanor Townsley

Index 557
 Contributors

Madeleine Akrich
Mines Paris, PSL University, Centre for the Sociology of Innovation (CSI), i3
UMR CNRS
Jenny Andersson
Sciences Po, Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics
Jakob Arnoldi
Department of Management, Aarhus University
Maria J. Azocar
College of the Sequoias
E. Summerson Carr
Department of Anthropology and Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and
Practice, University of Chicago
Harry Collins
School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University
Robert P. Crease
Stony Brook University
David Demortain
Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Sciences Innovations Sociétés (LISIS), French National
Institute for Research for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE)
Darrin Durant
School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne
Steven Epstein
Department of Sociology, Northwestern University
Wendy Nelson Espeland
Northwestern University
Robert Evans
School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University
Gil Eyal
Department of Sociology, Columbia University
x   Contributors

Denis Fischbacher-​Smith
University of Glasgow Business School
Tal Golan
Department of History, University of California, San Diego
Zachary Griffen
University of California, Los Angeles
Ruthanne Huising
Emlyon Business School
Andrew Lakoff
Department of Sociology, University of Southern California
Brice Laurent
Mines Paris, PSL University, Center for the Sociology of Innovation (CSI), i3 UMR
CNRS
Thomas Medvetz
Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego
Daniel Navon
Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego
Aaron Panofsky
University of California, Los Angeles
Frank Pasquale
Brooklyn Law School
Theodore M. Porter
Department of History, University of California, Los Angeles
Vololona Rabeharisoa
Mines Paris, PSL University, Centre for the Sociology of Innovation (CSI), i3
UMR CNRS
Alexander Ruser
University of Agder
Paul Starr
Princeton University
Nico Stehr
Zeppelin University
Eleanor Townsley
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Mt. Holyoke College
 Contributors   xi

Stephen Turner
Department of Philosophy, University of South Florida
Martin Weinel
School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University
Peter Weingart
Bielefeld University
 1

Introdu c t i on

Gil Eyal and Thomas Medvetz

When the idea for this handbook was first conceived, back in 2017, we knew that the
topic was important. We just didn’t know how important, or how quickly it would
come to dominate politics. If anybody thought that the role of experts in democratic
politics is a sideshow to the more important distributional or ideological politics, the
Coronavirus pandemic should have disabused them of this notion. There is hardly a var-
iable currently more predictive of the distinctive fortunes of countries (and thus, of the
life chances of millions of people) than the way in which the relations between experts,
decision-​makers, and the public are configured. Where these relations seem to be in
deep crisis, further exacerbated by the pandemic, as in the United States and United
Kingdom, the death toll is still climbing. Where there was no such crisis to begin with,
as in China, Thailand, and South Korea, the response has been decisive and the recovery
relatively swift. We venture, therefore, the immodest claim that this handbook is dealing
with the most important challenge facing democratic politics in our era. Period.

The Crisis of Expertise

What is this challenge? What has gone wrong in the relations between experts and dem-
ocratic politics? A headline run by the New York Times in August 2020 can serve as our
way into this labyrinth: “Scientists worry about political influence over Coronavirus
vaccine project.” (LaFraniere 2020) The article quotes Paul Offit, a member of the FDA’s
vaccine advisory committee, who warns: “There are a lot of people on the inside of this
process who are very nervous about whether the administration is going to reach their
hand into the Warp Speed bucket, pull out one or two or three vaccines, and say, ‘We’ve
tested it on a few thousand people, it looks safe, and now we are going to roll it out.’ ” At
first sight, this seems fairly straightforward. There is a scientific process of developing
and testing vaccines to make sure they are safe and efficacious. Impinging upon it from
without, however, is political pressure—​with the vivid image of a hand reaching “in”
2    Gil Eyal and Thomas Medvetz

and pulling “out.” The White House wanted to develop a vaccine at “warp speed” to
boost Trump’s re-​election chances. The scientists worried that this could lead to “cut-
ting corners,” resulting in a vaccine that was neither safe nor efficacious. When you
are dealing with a vaccine that will be administered to hundreds of millions of people,
even the smallest error or the rarest of side effects could have potentially catastrophic
consequences.
But things are not so simple. The White House wanted to short-​circuit the three-​
phase sequence of clinical trials. This sequence itself was established by a political pro-
cess culminating in the celebrated Kefauver-​Harris legislation in reaction to another
politically charged public health crisis of global dimensions (the Thalidomide affair;
Carpenter 2010, 228–​297). The considerations that went into crafting the sequence
were both scientific and political. The aptly named “confidence levels” designed by the
statisticians had as much to do with the need to shore up public trust in the administra-
tive process, as they did with the methods of statistical inference. Accordingly, perhaps
even more than they were worried about the actual risks of fast-​tracked vaccines, the
scientists were worried about the appearance of haste and undue influence and its im-
pact on trust. A failed effort, or merely the appearance that the process had been rushed
and rife with conflicts of interest, would play directly into the hands of vaccine skeptics
and “fuel public distrust of vaccines.”
Or, at least, this is what they said out loud. As Andrew Lakoff argues convincingly
in this handbook, “While trust in the safety of technical objects such as vaccines
is often seen as depending on the autonomy of regulatory agencies and the objec-
tivity of experts, here the converse was the case: experts and regulatory officials
used the construct of public trust—​or rather, mistrust—​as a means to preserve
their autonomy.” What the experts discovered is that the bureaucratic device of the
Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), put in place in 2004 as part of a new logic of
“preparedness,” could potentially undermine their autonomy, especially with an ex-
ecutive determined to use it to score political points. In the bureaucratic struggle that
ensued, the danger of losing the public’s “trust” was mobilized as a resource in the
scientists’ hands.
And so, once more, the tables turned. The vaccines’ skeptic-​in-​chief in the White
House suddenly became their biggest booster, staking his political future on their ex-
peditious rollout; and the champions of vaccination, including the much-​maligned
big pharmaceuticals standing to make a profit from a universal vaccination cam-
paign, began sounding the alarm, worried about their “reputational risk.” The very
mechanisms developed to generate trust, themselves became mistrusted. The three-​
phase structure and deliberate pace of clinical trials were meant to give them the ap-
pearance of mechanical objectivity (Carpenter 2010; Daston and Galison 1992; Porter
1995). The religiously followed protocol was meant to draw a boundary between sci-
ence and politics, between means and ends. Now the protocol, too, was dragged into
the struggle. It no longer appeared as an umpire, but as a contestant. To cut corners
would be unethical. It could endanger the public or its trust in vaccines or both. To
not cut corners, however, “would also be unethical,” according to a White House
 Introduction   3

official, because it would entail withholding “an effective vaccine for an extra three
or four months while more people died just to check the boxes of a more routine
trial process.” Cynical political ploy? No doubt. But it is exactly the same argument
that ACT UP activists made during the AIDS epidemic decades earlier (Carpenter
2010; Epstein 1995), and that other patients’ advocates have been making ever since.
The protocol is not innocent, they argued; its objectivity is not objective. Its “me-
chanical” application is murderous and must be tempered with “compassionate use”
exemptions. And so, they dance, round and round, changing places and exchanging
costumes, the vaccine skeptic-​in-​chief rehearsing the arguments of the radical
activists of ACT UP, and the champions of vaccines being forced to explain the risks
they entail and to warn that short-​circuiting the process would lead to loss of trust.
The predictable result of this dance can only be further erosion of the public’s trust in
vaccines.
The sense of crisis hovers over practically all the contributions to this handbook.
The relationship between expertise and democratic politics, which has always been
full of friction, as E. Summerson Carr points out in her contribution, has now reached
an impasse. This is not because experts are somehow less relevant or less needed in
liberal democratic polities. On the contrary. The crisis is characterized by what Peter
Weingart in his contribution calls the “paradox of expertise”: Experts are needed more
than ever, and experts are less credible than ever. The two relations—​dependence
and distrust—​feed off and amplify one another (see also Eyal 2019). Increasing de-
pendence on experts leads to warnings about technocracy and undemocratic rule by
experts. This was already a staple of New Left critiques in the 1960s (Habermas 1970)
and of neoconservative analyses of the “new class” in the 1970s (Bruce-​Briggs 1979).
In the pandemic, it has taken the form of warnings from Supreme Court Justice Alito
about “rule by experts” encroaching on constitutionally guaranteed liberties (Wehle
2020). This consciousness of a tension between democratic ideals and the authority
of expertise can infuse not only academic discussions of politics with a capital P, but
also how ordinary people perceive their interactions with a more mundane sort of ex-
pert, as Carr demonstrates in her analysis of Motivational Interviewing (MI), a form
of nondirective therapy. But the obverse is also true. The increasing distrust and plu-
ralization of expertise leads to even greater reliance on experts of some sort. This is
happening today in dramatic fashion with the Extinction Rebellion movement, as
Alexander Ruscher and Nico Stehr recount in their chapter. In his contribution to
this handbook, Jakob Arnoldi calls it a “tragic paradox . . . at the heart of modern
technological society”: The more there are different and conflicting types of know-
ledge, creating uncertainty about expertise, the greater the demand for authoritative
syntheses provided by experts, though these syntheses may no longer be the official
ones. As epidemiologists disagree with one another, people turn to “Coronavirus
influencers” to sort out the mess (Broderick 2020). Even MI therapists, committed to
being nondirective and to treating the patient as expert, find that they need to exert
authority, however tacitly. So dependence breeds distrust, but distrust breeds further
dependence, and the dance continues.
4    Gil Eyal and Thomas Medvetz

What Is Expertise?

A book about expertise and democratic politics could have begun with a definition
of its subject matter—​namely, expertise. We chose to start, instead, where there is
agreement among our contributors—​namely, the shared sense that expertise is in
crisis. There is no similar agreement, however, about what expertise is and where (or
whether) to draw the boundaries of the phenomenon. In fact, the broad outlines of
the dance we have just described are replicated in the debates about the notion of ex-
pertise itself. Scholars concerned with this topic have often conceptualized expertise,
in keeping with the term’s everyday use, as the knowledge or skill needed to perform
a particular task in a particular area (Dreyfus and Dreyfus 2003; Collins and Evans
2007). But there are problems with this way of defining expertise for analytic purposes.
These problems run parallel to the dilemmas of trust and credibility sketched above.
In the first place, we cannot reduce expertise to knowledge or skill, even if we define
both broadly to include both abstract and practical knowledge (i.e., explicit rules and
ideas, on the one hand, and embodied mastery and tacit knowhow, on the other). To
explain the successful performance of a task, after all, requires more than identifying
the knowledge or skill mobilized by an expert. There are also tools, instruments,
concepts, measures, and institutional and spatial settings that are all mobilized in the
successful and speedy performance of a task, as well as, perhaps, the know-​how of
other participants who are not typically recognized as experts (Eyal 2013, 2019). By
the same token, certain forms of complex knowledge and skill are not ordinarily seen
as “expertise,” which suggests that something is left out by the innocent phrase “in a
particular area.” Becoming a competent speaker of a language, for example, requires
the mobilization of an enormously complex skillset. Collins and Evans (2007) are cer-
tainly correct to call this a “ubiquitous” form of expertise. Yet it is also clear that this is
not the meaning of expertise indexed in the title of this book; nor would it be ordinary
usage, for that matter, to call a child who becomes proficient in her native language an
“expert.”
Recognizing these problems, other scholars have taken the alternate approach of de-
fining expertise as an “attribution,” or a quality that attaches to someone by virtue of
recognition granted by significant others (Friedson 1986; Abbott 1988). Experts, on this
view, are those who succeed in earning and maintaining the designation of expert, par-
ticularly in their relationships with established authorities. This approach gets around
the problem of having to define expertise in terms of substantive qualities, but it, too, is
unsatisfying. Above all, it tends to trivialize the phenomenon by implying that expertise
is a kind of fiction, a matter of attracting the right forms of approval, as opposed to a real
and substantive skill (Fuller 2006).
We will probably not settle this debate here. It is perhaps better seen as an enduring
feature of the phenomenon of expertise itself (namely, that its scope and nature are
essentially contested). Instead, we would like to offer a maximally flexible analytical
 Introduction   5

framework that does not prejudge the answers to these contested questions yet is
attuned to the specific subject matter of this volume. This can be done, we argue, by
thinking of expertise as a historically specific type of performance aimed at linking scien-
tific knowledge with matters of public concern. This approach has the immediate benefit
of recognizing that expertise—​say, the performance of a concert pianist—​invariably
requires advanced knowledge and skill to carry off. At the same time, it accounts for the
fact that other ingredients are needed to perform expert tasks. Like the concert perfor-
mance, expertise requires the proper tools and instruments; typically, it also depends
on the contributions of various “backstage” figures (e.g., mentors, intermediaries),
who are not, strictly speaking, performers themselves. And if we are concerned with
how the performance becomes an authoritative intervention in public affairs, then
we must include relevant features of the surrounding context in our conception, such
as the venue in which the performance takes place and the response it elicits from
audiences and critics, who must recognize the authority claim that the performance
enacts. All these points speak to the historical variability of what counts as “expertise.”
Indeed, it may even appear as its opposite, as “(in)expertise,” as Carr shows. But the
second part of this definition is equally important: Expertise is a phenomenon of the
interface between specialized (professional, technical, scientific, bureaucratic, or even
“experience-​based”) knowledge and (political, legal) decision-​making. This means that
studies of expertise train their attention on the modalities of speech and action, and
the types of statements and performances, that are capable of enacting authority in this
interface.
One virtue of thinking about expertise in this way, we argue, is that it encourages
scholars to set aside the search for an immutable essence or substance in favor of a rela-
tional understanding of expertise. The value of a relational approach becomes visible,
for example, in Dan Navon’s contribution to this volume, which focuses on the role of
experts in the classification of human differences. Surveying recent research on this
topic, Navon finds that thinking about expertise in relational terms reveals an aspect
of the phenomenon that tended to elude scholars of the past. Whereas scholars once
depicted categories of human difference as straightforward “outputs” of expert work,
classification is better seen as a complex, historically contingent give-​and-​take between
the experts and the “targets” of their classification. Factoring centrally into this account
is Ian Hacking’s notion of “looping,” whereby a classification changes the people being
classified in ways that ultimately require a change in the classification. The looping re-
lationship has been observed most extensively in medical and psychiatric contexts,
where classifications elicit organized responses among patients and stakeholders. The
use of a new diagnostic category, for example, may “lead to the formation of support
groups, foundations, social clubs, [and] activist organizations,” which may in turn in-
crease public awareness of the condition. The loop is completed when this growing
awareness leads to a change in the classification, as when an expanded pool of those
seeking diagnosis and treatment leads doctors to identify new types and subtypes of
the condition.
6    Gil Eyal and Thomas Medvetz

The Fraught Relations between

Expertise and Democracy

The recognition that expertise is bound up with the dilemmas of political decision-​
making helps explain why the current crisis of expertise has given new urgency to
the question of who may participate in expert debates. Among citizens, activists, and
scholars who are engaged with this question, a broad opposition has intensified. On
the one side, the critique of technocracy has fueled campaigns for democratizing ex-
pertise, or efforts to extend participation in expert debates to those who are not
ordinarily described as “experts.” Prominent among these campaigns are the envi-
ronmental and patients’ rights movements. Two contributions to this handbook—​by
Steven Epstein and by Madeleine Akrich and Vololona Rabeharisoa—​eloquently argue
that this has been a genuine, though still limited, democratization. Lay experts, they
show, are typically collectives. The type of expertise they develop is a hybrid of quasi-​
scientific practices and socially innovative forms of organizing. The combination
challenges technocratic frames and, instead, creates a space where the experiences and
values of the affected parties—​patients and their families, communities suffering en-
vironmental degradation—​are taken into account and often have priority. Although
the authors recognize that the political consequences of lay expertise can sometimes be
less than salutary—​patients’ groups have sometimes been co-​opted by pharmaceuticals
(Abraham and Davis 2011); their focus can be quite narrow, to the detriment of other,
less well-​organized, affected parties; and there is likely to be conflict with scientists who
consider them to have distorted research priorities—​they assess their overall impact to
have been an enhancement of what Callon et al. (2009) called “technical democracy.”
On the other side of the debate, however, are Harry Collins and his coauthors, Darrin
Durant, Robert Evans and Martin Weinel, who worry that there is an elective affinity be-
tween lay expertise—​and the science studies scholars who champion it—​and populism.
Lay expertise has undermined the distinction between laypeople and experts, failing
to recognize that this distinction, when institutionalized, is one of the “checks and bal-
ances” necessary for the functioning of liberal democracies. Expertise is a check and
balance because it makes it more difficult for a government to do whatever it wants to do
(like distribute a vaccine that has not yet been fully vetted, as Russia did in the summer
of 2020), and then justify it as “the will of the people.” Expert calculations—​however
dry and seemingly neutral they may be—​can contest the political elites’ monopoly over
the ability to represent “the will of the people,” because they can demonstrate that it is
not in the people’s interest to take a particular step. The risk will be too high. This was
demonstrated with particular force in the Thalidomide affair. The FDA emerged from
the affair with new powers because it was able to present itself as a bulwark, defending
the American public even as national politicians and national corporate champions had
failed it (Carpenter 2010). The more it is possible, therefore, for self-​appointed “alterna-
tive” experts to present their viewpoints as being equal in value to those of the scientific
 Introduction   7

establishment, the weaker this check and balance is and the more vulnerable the polity is
to populism, understood as “a discursive and stylistic repertoire, a set of tropes, gestures,
and stances” (Brubaker 2017, 2021) that makes an invidious distinction between the “real
people” and the others, who do not really belong (be they “elites,” ethnic minorities, or
the “undeserving poor”; Müller 2016).
An extreme version of this diagnosis is currently articulated by some in the environ-
mentalist movement, especially activists and scientists affiliated with the Extinction
Rebellion. The problem of climate change, they argue, is symptomatic of a crisis of rep-
resentative democracy, its inability to act decisively because alternative experts (some
of whom are funded by corporations, and some of whom articulate a populist position)
have weakened the check and balance represented by climate scientists. As Ruscher and
Stehr recount in this handbook, some of these activists feel that the urgency of the crisis
justifies exceptions to democratic politics, a sort of “expertocracy” defending the true
interests of the people. In the language of Collins et al., they feel that this check and
balance has been so weakened that a radical counterweight must be introduced to re-
store equilibrium. It is deeply ironic—​and symptomatic of the crisis of expertise—​that
the demand for an expertocracy is being made from within the very same circles that
formulated the critique of technocracy. Dependency led to distrust. Distrust, however,
led to uncertainty and the heterogeneity of expertise, and these provoke the most ex-
treme demand for an “authoritative synthesis,” as Arnoldi argues. Ruscher and Stehr
reject this proposal, saying that it reflects a simplistic understanding of the relations
between science and democracy. They concur with Collins et al. about the need to re-
draw the line between the technical and the political. But they also note that, in this
matter, there are distinct differences depending on how the relations between experts
and decision-​makers are institutionalized. The crisis is more acute, they argue, where
these relations are organized in a competitive and adversarial fashion, as they are in
the United States. Experts become identified with partisan positions and issue advo-
cacy organizations. Their public clashes undermine trust in experts. In Germany, on
the other hand, the relations between experts and decision-​makers are organized as a
“closed shop.” There is a relatively small network of academics who collaborate with the
ministries, and alternative experts are excluded. The differences, however, are a matter
of degree, not essence.
Collins et al. draw mostly on Durkheim in explicating their thesis, but theirs is an
eminently Weberian theme: the process of democratization, by increasing inclusion,
undermines itself. It weakens the mechanisms by which the governed can hold the gov-
erning accountable, expertise being one of those mechanisms (Weber 1978, 956–​1005).
For Weber, this was an irreconcilable antinomy. It is arguable that with the current crisis
of expertise, we are still in its tentacles. After all, lay expertise, too—​as described by
Steven Epstein, Madeleine Akrich, and Vololona Rabeharisoa—​is a way of making the
authorities more accountable to ordinary people. Administrative agencies cannot hide
behind “what the experts say,” but must explicate the hybrid technopolitical calculus
behind their decisions and regulations (as in the three-​phase structure of clinical trials).
Yet if Collins et al. are right, this salutary democratization has the unsavory effect of
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new base, and their retreat precipitated on the Moravian town the
confusion of flight already resembling rout.
Six miles on their way they met General Proctor returning from
the Moravian town, and as much dissatisfied with them as they with
him. Pressed closely by the American advance, the British troops
made what haste they could over excessively bad roads until eight
o’clock in the evening, when they halted within six miles of the
137
Moravian town. The next morning, October 5, the enemy was
again reported to be close at hand, and the British force again
retreated. About a mile and a half from the Moravian town it was
halted. Proctor had then retired as far as he could, and there he
must either fight, or abandon women and children, sick and
wounded, baggage, stores, and wagons, desert his Indian allies, and
fly to Lake Ontario. Probably flight would not have saved his troops.
More than a hundred miles of unsettled country lay between them
and their next base. The Americans had in their advance the
mounted regiment of R. M. Johnson, and could outmarch the most
lightly equipped British regulars. Already, according to Proctor’s
report, the rapidity of the Americans had destroyed the efficiency of
138
the British organization: —

“In the attempt to save provisions we became encumbered

with boats not suited to the state of navigation. The Indians and
the troops retreated on different sides of the river, and the boats
to which sufficient attention had not been given became
particularly exposed to the fire of the enemy who were
advancing on the side the Indians were retiring, and most
unfortunately fell into possession of the enemy, and with them
several of the men, provisions, and all the ammunition that had
not been issued to the troops and Indians. This disastrous
circumstance afforded the enemy the means of crossing and
advancing on both sides of the river. Finding the enemy were
advancing too near I resolved to meet him, being strong in
cavalry, in a wood below the Moravian town, which last was not
cleared of Indian women and children, or of those of the troops,
nor of the sick.”
 The whole British force was then on the north bank of the river
Thames, retreating eastward by a road near the river bank. Proctor
could hardly claim to have exercised choice in the selection of a
battleground, unless he preferred placing his little force under every
disadvantage. “The troops were formed with their left to the river,” his
report continued, “with a reserve and a six-pounder on the road, near
the river; the Indians on the right.” According to the report of officers
of the Forty-first regiment, two lines of troops were formed in a thick
forest, two hundred yards apart. The first line began where the six-
pound field-piece stood, with a range of some fifty yards along the
road. A few Canadian Light Dragoons were stationed near the gun.
To the left of the road was the river; to the right a forest, free from
underbrush that could stop horsemen, but offering cover to an
139
approaching enemy within twenty paces of the British line. In the
wood about two hundred men of the British Forty-first took position
as well as they could, behind trees, and there as a first line they
waited some two hours for their enemy to appear.
The second line, somewhat less numerous, two hundred yards
behind the first, and not within sight, was also formed in the wood;
and on the road, in rear of the second line, Proctor and his staff
stationed themselves. The Indians were collected behind a swamp
on the right, touching and covering effectually the British right flank,
while the river covered the left.
Such a formation was best fitted for Harrison’s purposes, but the
mere arrangement gave little idea of Proctor’s weakness. The six-
pound field-piece, which as he afterward reported “certainly should
have produced the best effect if properly managed,” had not a round
140
of ammunition, and could not be fired. The Forty-first regiment
was almost mutinous, but had it been in the best condition it could
not have held against serious attack. The whole strength of the
Forty-first was only three hundred and fifty-six rank-and-file, or four
141
hundred and eight men all told. The numbers of the regiment
actually in the field were reported as three hundred and fifteen rank-
142
and-file, or three hundred and sixty-seven men all told. The
dragoons were supposed not to exceed twenty. This petty force was
unable to see either the advancing enemy or its own members. The
only efficient corps in the field was the Indians, who were estimated
by the British sometimes at five hundred, at eight hundred, and
twelve hundred in number, and who were in some degree covered
by the swamp.
A. B. Advance Guard on foot at head of 5 Collumns—the
1st Battalion of the mounted Regiments.
C. D. Capt. Slecker’s Comp. of 100 men on foot at head
of 2 Collumns
Note: five Brigades & Reserved Corps, Governor Shelbys
troops
G. D. E. represents the whole of the 2d Battalion after I
was wounded & finding it impracticable on account of
logs & the thickness of the woods to break through the
Indian line & form in their rear, I ordered the men to
dismount & fight the Indians in their own way, part of
the time the Indians contended for the ground at the
2d Swamp.
 ACCOMPANYING COL. R. M. JOHNSON’S LETTER OF NOV.
21st 1813, DETAILING THE AFFAIR OF THE 5th AT THE
RIVER THAMES, ETC.—WAR DEPARTMENT ARCHIVES, MSS.

Harrison came upon the British line soon after two o’clock in the
afternoon, and at once formed his army in regular order of battle. As
the order was disregarded, and the battle was fought, as he
reported, in a manner “not sanctioned by anything that I had seen or
143
heard of,” the intended arrangement mattered little. In truth, the
battle was planned as well as fought by Richard M. Johnson, whose
energy impressed on the army a new character from the moment he
joined it. While Harrison drew up his infantry in order of battle,
Johnson, whose mounted regiment was close to the British line,
144
asked leave to charge, and Harrison gave him the order, although
he knew no rule of war that sanctioned it.
Johnson’s tactics were hazardous, though effective. Giving to his
brother, James Johnson, half the regiment to lead up the road
against the six-pound gun and the British Forty-first regiment, R. M.
Johnson with the other half of his regiment wheeled to the left, at an
angle with the road, and crossed the swamp to attack twice his
number of Indians posted in a thick wood.
James Johnson, with his five hundred men, galloped directly
145
through the British first line, receiving a confused fire, and
passing immediately to the rear of the British second line, so rapidly
146
as almost to capture Proctor himself, who fled at full speed. As
the British soldiers straggled in bands or singly toward the rear, they
found themselves among the American mounted riflemen, and had
no choice but to surrender. About fifty men, with a single lieutenant,
contrived to escape through the woods; all the rest became
prisoners.
R. M. Johnson was less fortunate. Crossing the swamp to his
left, he was received by the Indians in underbrush which the horses
could not penetrate. Under a sharp fire his men were obliged to
dismount and fight at close quarters. At an early moment of the
battle, Johnson was wounded by the rifle of an Indian warrior who
sprang forward to despatch him, but was killed by a ball from
Johnson’s pistol. The fighting at that point was severe, but Johnson’s
men broke or turned the Indian line, which was uncovered after the
British defeat, and driving the Indians toward the American left,
brought them under fire of Shelby’s infantry, when they fled.
In this contest Johnson maintained that his regiment was alone
engaged. In a letter to Secretary Armstrong, dated six weeks after
147
the battle, he said: —

“I send you an imperfect sketch of the late battle on the river

Thames, fought solely by the mounted regiment; at least, so
much so that not fifty men from any other corps assisted....
Fought the Indians, twelve hundred or fifteen hundred men, one
hour and twenty minutes, driving them from the extreme right to
the extreme left of my line, at which last point we came near
Governor Shelby, who ordered Colonel Simrall to reinforce me;
but the battle was over, and although the Indians were pursued
half a mile, there was no fighting.”

Harrison’s official report gave another idea of the relative share

taken by the Kentucky infantry in the action; but the difference in
dispute was trifling. The entire American loss was supposed to be
only about fifteen killed and thirty wounded. The battle lasted, with
sharpness, not more than twenty minutes; and none but the men
under Johnson’s command enjoyed opportunity to share in the first
and most perilous assault.
The British loss was only twelve men killed and thirty-six
wounded. The total number of British prisoners taken on the field
and in the Moravian town, or elsewhere on the day of battle, was
four hundred and seventy-seven; in the whole campaign, six
hundred. All Proctor’s baggage, artillery, small arms, stores, and
hospital were captured in the Moravian town. The Indians left thirty-
three dead on the field, among them one reported to be Tecumthe.
After the battle several officers of the British Forty-first, well
acquainted with the Shawnee warrior, visited the spot, and identified
his body. The Kentuckians had first recognized it, and had cut long
strips of skin from the thighs, to keep, as was said, for razor-straps,
148
in memory of the river Raisin.
After Perry’s victory on Lake Erie, Tecumthe’s life was of no
value to himself or his people, and his death was no subject for
regret; but the manner chosen for producing this result was an
expensive mode of acquiring territory for the United States. The
Shawnee warrior compelled the government to pay for once
something like the value of the lands it took. The precise cost of the
Indian war could not be estimated, being combined in many ways
with that of the war with England; but the British counted for little,
within the northwestern territory, except so far as Tecumthe used
them for his purposes. Not more than seven or eight hundred British
soldiers ever crossed the Detroit River; but the United States raised
fully twenty thousand men, and spent at least five million dollars and
many lives in expelling them. The Indians alone made this outlay
necessary. The campaign of Tippecanoe, the surrender of Detroit
and Mackinaw, the massacres at Fort Dearborn, the river Raisin, and
Fort Meigs, the murders along the frontier, and the campaign of 1813
were the price paid for the Indian lands in the Wabash Valley.
No part of the war more injured British credit on the American
continent than the result of the Indian alliance. Except the capture of
Detroit and Mackinaw at the outset, without fighting, and the qualified
success at the river Raisin, the British suffered only mortifications,
ending with the total loss of their fleet, the abandonment of their
fortress, the flight of their army, and the shameful scene before the
Moravian town, where four hundred British regulars allowed
themselves to be ridden over and captured by five hundred Kentucky
horsemen, with hardly the loss of a man to the assailants. After such
a disgrace the British ceased to be formidable in the northwest. The
Indians recognized the hopelessness of their course, and from that
moment abandoned their dependence on England.
 The battle of the Thames annihilated the right division of the
British army in Upper Canada. When the remnants of Proctor’s force
were mustered, October 17, at Ancaster, a hundred miles from the
149
battlefield, about two hundred rank-and-file were assembled.
Proctor made a report of the battle blaming his troops, and Prevost
issued a severe reprimand to the unfortunate Forty-first regiment on
the strength of Proctor’s representations. In the end the Prince
Regent disgraced both officers, recognizing by these public acts the
loss of credit the government had suffered; but its recovery was
impossible.
So little anxiety did General Harrison thenceforward feel about
the Eighth Military District which he commanded, that he returned to
Detroit October 7; his army followed him, and arrived at Sandwich,
October 10, without seeing an enemy. Promptly discharged, the
Kentucky Volunteers marched homeward October 14; the mounted
regiment and its wounded colonel followed a few days later, and
within a fortnight only two brigades of the regular army remained
north of the Maumee.
At Detroit the war was closed, and except for two or three distant
expeditions was not again a subject of interest. The Indians were for
the most part obliged to remain within the United States jurisdiction.
The great number of Indian families that had been collected about
Detroit and Malden were rather a cause for confidence than fear,
since they were in effect hostages, and any violence committed by
the warriors would have caused them, their women and children, to
be deprived of food and to perish of starvation. Detroit was full of
savages dependent on army supplies, and living on the refuse and
offal of the slaughter-yard; but their military strength was gone.
Some hundreds of the best warriors followed Proctor to Lake
Ontario, but Tecumthe’s northwestern confederacy was broken up,
and most of the tribes made submission.
 CHAPTER VII.
The new Secretaries of War and Navy who took office in
January, 1813, were able in the following October to show Detroit
recovered. Nine months solved the problem of Lake Erie. The
problem of Lake Ontario remained insoluble.
In theory nothing was simpler than the conquest of Upper
Canada. Six months before war was declared, Jan. 2, 1812, John
Armstrong, then a private citizen, wrote to Secretary Eustis a letter
containing the remark,—

“In invading a neighboring and independent territory like

Canada, having a frontier of immense extent; destitute of means
strictly its own for the purposes of defence; separated from the
rest of the empire by an ocean, and having to this but one outlet,
—this outlet forms your true object or point of attack.”

The river St. Lawrence was the true object of attack, and the
Canadians hardly dared hope to defend it.

“From St. Regis to opposite Kingston,” said the Quebec

“Gazette” in 1814, “the southern bank of the river belongs to the
United States. It is well known that this river is the only
communication between Upper and Lower Canada. It is rapid
and narrow in many places. A few cannon judiciously posted, or
even musketry, could render the communication impracticable
without powerful escorts, wasting and parcelling the force
applicable to the defence of the provinces. It is needless to say
that no British force can remain in safety or maintain itself in
Upper Canada without a ready communication with the lower
province.”
 Closure of the river anywhere must compel the submission of the
whole country above, which could not provide its supplies. The
American, who saw his own difficulties of transport between New
York and the Lakes, thought well of his energy in surmounting them;
but as the war took larger proportions, and great fleets were built on
Lake Ontario, the difficulties of Canadian transport became
insuperable. Toward the close of the war, Sir George Prevost wrote
150
to Lord Bathurst that six thirty-two-pound guns for the fleet,
hauled in winter four hundred miles from Quebec to Kingston, would
cost at least £2000 for transport. Forty twenty-four-pounders hauled
on the snow had cost £4,800; a cable of the largest size hauled from
Sorel to Kingston, two hundred and fifty-five miles, cost £1000 for
transport. In summer, when the river was open, the difficulties were
hardly less. The commissary-general reported that the impediments
of navigation were incalculable, and the scarcity of workmen,
151
laborers, and voyageurs not to be described.
 (Larger)

UPPER CANADA
NEW YORK
EAST END OF
L A K E O N TA R I O
AND
RIVER ST. LAWRENCE
FROM
Kingston to French Mills
REDUCED FROM AN
ORIGINAL DRAWING IN THE
NAVAL DEPARTMENT
 BY JOHN MELISH.
STRUTHERS & CO., ENGR’S, N.Y.

If these reasons for attacking and closing the river St. Lawrence
had not been decisive with the United States government, other
reasons were sufficient. The political motive was as strong as the
military. Americans, especially in New England, denied that
treasonable intercourse existed with Canada; but intercourse needed
not to be technically treasonable in order to have the effects of
treason. Sir George Prevost wrote to Lord Bathurst, Aug. 27,
152
1814, when the war had lasted two years,—

“Two thirds of the army in Canada are at this moment eating

beef provided by American contractors, drawn principally from
the States of Vermont and New York. This circumstance, as well
as that of the introduction of large sums of specie into this
province, being notorious in the United States, it is to be
expected Congress will take steps to deprive us of those
resources, and under that apprehension, large droves are daily
crossing the lines coming into Lower Canada.”

This state of things had then lasted during three campaigns,

from the beginning of the war. The Indians at Malden, the British
army at Niagara, the naval station at Kingston were largely fed by
the United States. If these supplies could be stopped, Upper Canada
must probably fall; and they could be easily stopped by interrupting
the British line of transport anywhere on the St. Lawrence.
The task was not difficult. Indeed, early in the war an enterprising
officer of irregulars, Major Benjamin Forsyth, carried on a
troublesome system of annoyance from Ogdensburg, which Sir
153
George Prevost treated with extreme timidity. The British
commandant at Prescott, Major Macdonnell, was not so cautious as
the governor-general, but crossed the river on the ice with about five
hundred men, drove Forsyth from the town, destroyed the public
property, and retired in safety with a loss of eight killed and fifty-two
 154
wounded. This affair, Feb. 23, 1813, closed hostilities in that
region, and Major Forsyth was soon ordered to Sackett’s Harbor. His
experience, and that of Major Macdonnell, proved how easy the
closure of such a river must be, exposed as it was for two hundred
miles to the fire of cannon and musketry.
The St. Lawrence was therefore the proper point of approach
and attack against Upper Canada. Armstrong came to the
Department of War with that idea fixed in his mind. The next subject
for his consideration was the means at his disposal.
During Monroe’s control of the War Department for two months,
between Dec. 3, 1812, and Feb. 5, 1813, much effort had been
made to increase the army. Monroe wrote to the chairman of the
155
Military Committee Dec. 22, 1812, a sketch of his ideas. He
proposed to provide for the general defence by dividing the United
States into military districts, and apportioning ninety-three hundred
and fifty men among them as garrisons. For offensive operations he
required a force competent to overpower the British defence, and in
estimating his wants, he assumed that Canada contained about
twelve thousand British regulars, besides militia, and three thousand
men at Halifax.

“To demolish the British force from Niagara to Quebec,” said

Monroe, “would require, to make the thing secure, an efficient
regular army of twenty thousand men, with an army of reserve of
ten thousand.... If the government could raise and keep in the
field thirty-five thousand regular troops, ... the deficiency to be
supplied even to authorize an expedition against Halifax would
be inconsiderable. Ten thousand men would be amply sufficient;
but there is danger of not being able to raise that force, and to
keep it at that standard.... My idea is that provision ought to be
made for raising twenty thousand men in addition to the present
establishment.”

Congress voted about fifty-eight thousand men, and after

deducting ten thousand for garrisons, counted on forty-eight
thousand for service in Canada. When Armstrong took control, Feb.
5, 1813, he began at once to devise a plan of operation for the army
which by law numbered fifty-eight thousand men, and in fact
numbered, including the staff and regimental officers, eighteen
thousand nine hundred and forty-five men, according to the returns
in the adjutant-general’s office February 16, 1813. Before he had
been a week in the War Department, he wrote, February 10, to
Major-General Dearborn announcing that four thousand men were to
be immediately collected at Sackett’s Harbor, and three thousand at
Buffalo. April 1, or as soon as navigation opened, the four thousand
troops at Sackett’s Harbor were to be embarked and transported in
boats under convoy of the fleet across the Lake at the mouth of the
St. Lawrence, thirty-five miles, to Kingston. After capturing Kingston,
with its magazines, navy-yards, and ships, the expedition was to
proceed up the Lake to York (Toronto) and capture two vessels
building there. Thence it was to join the corps of three thousand men
156
at Buffalo, and attack the British on the Niagara River.
In explaining his plan to the Cabinet, Armstrong pointed out that
the attack from Lake Champlain on Montreal could not begin before
May 1; that Kingston, between April 1 and May 15, was shut from
support by ice; that not more than two thousand men could be
gathered to defend it; and that by beginning the campaign against
Kingston rather than against Montreal, six weeks’ time would be
157
gained before reinforcements could arrive from England.
Whatever defects the plan might have, Kingston, and Kingston
alone, possessed so much military importance as warranted the
movement. Evidently Armstrong had in mind no result short of the
capture of Kingston.
Dearborn received these instructions at Albany, and replied,
February 18, that nothing should be omitted on his part in
158
endeavoring to carry into effect the expedition proposed. Orders
were given for concentrating the intended force at Sackett’s Harbor.
During the month of March the preparations were stimulated by a
panic due to the appearance of Sir George Prevost at Prescott and
Kingston. Dearborn hurried to Sackett’s Harbor in person, under the
belief that the governor-general was about to attack it.
Armstrong estimated the British force at Kingston as nine
hundred regulars, or two thousand men all told; and his estimate was
probably correct. The usual garrison at Kingston and Prescott was
about eight hundred rank-and-file. In both the British and American
services, the returns of rank-and-file were the ordinary gauge of
numerical force. Rank-and-file included corporals, but not sergeants
or commissioned officers; and an allowance of at least ten sergeants
and officers was always to be made for every hundred rank-and-file,
in order to estimate the true numerical strength of an army or
garrison. Unless otherwise mentioned, the return excluded also the
sick and disabled. The relative force of every army was given in
effectives, or rank-and-file actually present for duty.
In the distribution of British forces in Canada for 1812–1813, the
garrison at Prescott was allowed three hundred and seventy-six
rank-and-file, with fifty-two officers including sergeants. To Kingston
three hundred and eighty-four rank-and-file were allotted, with sixty
officers including sergeants. To Montreal and the positions between
Prescott and the St. John’s River about five thousand rank-and-file
159
were allotted. At Prescott and Kingston, besides the regular
troops, the men employed in ship-building or other labor, the sailors,
and the local militia were to be reckoned as part of the garrison, and
Armstrong included them all in his estimate of two thousand men.
The British force should have been known to Dearborn nearly as
well as his own. No considerable movement of troops between
Lower and Upper Canada could occur without his knowledge. Yet
Dearborn wrote to Armstrong, March 9, 1813, from Sackett’s
160
Harbor, —

“I have not yet had the honor of a visit from Sir George
Prevost. His whole force is concentrated at Kingston, probably
amounting to six or seven thousand,—about three thousand of
them regular troops. The ice is good, and we expect him every
day.... As soon as the fall [fate?] of this place [Sackett’s Harbor]
 shall be decided, we shall be able to determine on other
measures. If we hold this place, we will command the Lake, and
be able to act in concert with the troops at Niagara.”

161
A few days later, March 14, Dearborn wrote again.

“Sir George,” he said, had “concluded that it is too late to

attack this place.... We are probably just strong enough on each
side to defend, but not in sufficient force to hazard an offensive
movement. The difference of attacking and being attacked, as it
regards the contiguous posts of Kingston and Sackett’s Harbor,
cannot be estimated at less than three or four thousand men,
arising from the circumstance of militia acting merely on the
defensive.”

Clearly Dearborn did not approve Armstrong’s plan, and wished

to change it. In this idea he was supported, or instigated, by the
naval commander on the Lake, Isaac Chauncey, a native of
Connecticut, forty years of age, who entered the service in 1798 and
became captain in 1806. Chauncey and Dearborn consulted
together, and devised a new scheme, which Dearborn explained to
162
Armstrong about March 20: —

“To take or destroy the armed vessels at York will give us the
complete command of the Lake. Commodore Chauncey can
take with him ten or twelve hundred troops to be commanded by
Pike; take York; from thence proceed to Niagara and attack Fort
George by land and water, while the troops at Buffalo cross over
and carry Forts Erie and Chippewa, and join those at Fort
George; and then collect our whole force for an attack on
Kingston. After the most mature deliberation the above was
considered by Commodore Chauncey and myself as the most
certain of ultimate success.”
 Thus Dearborn and Chauncey inverted Armstrong’s plan.
Instead of attacking on the St. Lawrence, they proposed to attack on
the Niagara. Armstrong acquiesced. “Taking for granted,” as he
163
did on Dearborn’s assertion, “that General Prevost ... has
assembled at Kingston a force of six or eight thousand men, as
stated by you,” he could not require that his own plan should be
pursued. “The alteration in the plan of campaign so as to make
Kingston the last object instead of making it the first, would appear to
be necessary, or at least proper,” he wrote to Dearborn, March
164
29.
The scheme proposed by Dearborn and Chauncey was carried
into effect by them. The contractors furnished new vessels, which
gave to Chauncey for a time the control of the Lake. April 22 the
troops, numbering sixteen hundred men, embarked. Armstrong
insisted on only one change in the expedition, which betrayed
perhaps a shade of malice, for he required Dearborn himself to
command it, and Dearborn was suspected of shunning service in the
field.
From the moment Dearborn turned away from the St. Lawrence
and carried the war westward, the naval and military movements on
Lake Ontario became valuable chiefly as a record of failure. The fleet
and army arrived at York early in the morning of April 27. York, a
village numbering in 1806, according to British account, more than
three thousand inhabitants, was the capital of Upper Canada, and
contained the residence of the lieutenant-governor and the two brick
buildings where the Legislature met. For military purposes the place
was valueless, but it had been used for the construction of a few
war-vessels, and Chauncey represented, through Dearborn, that “to
take or destroy the armed vessels at York will give us the complete
command of the Lake.” The military force at York, according to
British account, did not exceed six hundred men, regulars and militia;
and of these, one hundred and eighty men, or two companies of the
165
Eighth or King’s regiment, happened to be there only in passing.
Under the fire of the fleet and riflemen, Pike’s brigade was set
ashore; the British garrison, after a sharp resistance, was driven
away, and the town capitulated. The ship on the stocks was burned;
the ten-gun brig “Gloucester” was made prize; the stores were
destroyed or shipped; some three hundred prisoners were taken;
and the public buildings, including the houses of Assembly, were
burned. The destruction of the Assembly houses, afterward alleged
as ground for retaliation against the capitol at Washington, was
probably the unauthorized act of private soldiers. Dearborn protested
166
that it was done without his knowledge and against his orders.
The success cost far more than it was worth. The explosion of a
powder magazine, near which the American advance halted, injured
a large number of men on both sides. Not less than three hundred
and twenty Americans were killed or wounded in the battle or
167
explosion, or about one fifth of the entire force. General Pike, the
best brigadier then in the service, was killed. Only two or three
168
battles in the entire war were equally bloody. “Unfortunately the
169
enemy’s armed ship the ‘Prince Regent,’” reported Dearborn, “left
this place for Kingston four days before we arrived.”
Chauncey and Dearborn crossed to Niagara, while the troops
remained some ten days at York, and were then disembarked at
Niagara, May 8, according to Dearborn’s report, “in a very sickly and
depressed state; a large proportion of the officers and men were
170
sickly and debilitated.” Nothing was ready for the movement
which was to drive the British from Fort George, and before active
operations could begin, Dearborn fell ill. The details of command fell
to his chief-of-staff, Colonel Winfield Scott.
The military organization at Niagara was at best unfortunate.
One of Secretary Armstrong’s earliest measures was to issue the
military order previously arranged by Monroe, dividing the Union into
military districts. Vermont and the State of New York north of the
highlands formed the Ninth Military District, under Major-General
Dearborn. In the Ninth District were three points of activity,—
Plattsburg on Lake Champlain, Sackett’s Harbor on Lake Ontario,
and the Niagara River. Each point required a large force and a
commander of the highest ability; but in May, 1813, Plattsburg and
Sackett’s Harbor were denuded of troops and officers, who were all
drawn to Niagara, where they formed three brigades, commanded by
Brigadier-Generals John P. Boyd, who succeeded Pike, John
Chandler, and W. H. Winder. Niagara and the troops in its
neighborhood were under the command of Major-General Morgan
Lewis, a man of ability, but possessing neither the youth nor the
energy to lead an army in the field, while Boyd, Chandler, and
Winder were competent only to command regiments.
Winfield Scott in effect assumed control of the army, and
undertook to carry out Van Rensselaer’s plan of the year before for
attacking Fort George in the rear, from the Lake. The task was not
very difficult. Chauncey controlled the Lake, and his fleet was at
hand to transfer the troops. Dearborn’s force numbered certainly not
less than four thousand rank-and-file present for duty. The entire
British regular force on the Niagara River did not exceed eighteen
171
hundred rank-and-file, and about five hundred militia. At Fort
George about one thousand regulars and three hundred militia were
stationed, and the military object to be gained by the Americans was
not so much the capture of Fort George, which was then not
defensible, as that of its garrison.
Early on the morning of May 27, when the mist cleared away, the
British General Vincent saw Chauncey’s fleet, “in an extended line of
more than two miles,” standing toward the shore. When the ships
took position, “the fire from the shipping so completely enfiladed and
scoured the plains, that it became impossible to approach the
beach,” and Vincent could only concentrate his force between the
Fort and the enemy, waiting attack. Winfield Scott at the head of an
advance division first landed, followed by the brigades of Boyd,
Winder, and Chandler, and after a sharp skirmish drove the British
back along the Lake shore, advancing under cover of the fleet.
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Vincent’s report continued: —

“After awaiting the approach of the enemy for about half an

hour I received authentic information that his force, consisting of
from four to five thousand men, had reformed his columns and
 was making an effort to turn my right flank. Having given orders
for the fort to be evacuated, the guns to be spiked, and the
ammunition destroyed, the troops under my command were put
in motion, and marched across the country in a line parallel to
the Niagara River, toward the position near the Beaver Dam
beyond Queenston mountain.... Having assembled my whole
force the following morning, which did not exceed sixteen
hundred men, I continued my march toward the head of the
Lake.”

Vincent lost severely in proportion to his numbers, for fifty-one

men were killed, and three hundred and five were wounded or
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missing, chiefly in the Eighth or King’s regiment. Several hundred
militia were captured in his retreat. The American loss was about
forty killed and one hundred and twenty wounded. According to
General Morgan Lewis, Col. Winfield Scott “fought nine-tenths of the
174
battle.” Dearborn watched the movements from the fleet.
For a time this success made a deep impression on the military
administration of Canada, and the abandonment of the whole
175
country west of Kingston was thought inevitable. The opportunity
for achieving a decided advantage was the best that occurred for the
Americans during the entire war; but whatever might be said in
public, the battle of Fort George was a disappointment to the War
176
Department as well as to the officers in command of the
American army, who had hoped to destroy the British force. The
chief advantage gained was the liberation of Perry’s vessels at Black
Rock above the Falls, which enabled Perry to complete his fleet on
Lake Erie.
On Lake Ontario, May 31, Chauncey insisted, not without cause,
on returning to Sackett’s Harbor. Dearborn, instead of moving with
his whole force, ordered Brigadier-General Winder, June 1, to pursue
Vincent. Winder, with eight hundred or a thousand men marched
twenty miles, and then sent for reinforcements. He was joined, June
5, by General Chandler with another brigade. Chandler then took