Battle Of Lake Macdonough Essay

Lieutenant Thomas Macdonough’s victory at the Battle of Lake Champlain on 11 September 1814 was the decisive battle that secured an American victory in the War of 1812 by causing the British to withdraw from the north east and Chesapeake Bay. Without Macdonough’s genius strategy, the British would have secured Lake Champlain, taken Fort McHenry at Plattsburgh, and kept control in the Chesapeake Bay, which in turn would have resulted in a British victory of the war. After two years into the war, the British maintained the upper hand. Despite major naval victories by Chauncey and Perry at Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, the British still held a blockade across the east coast of the United States. Ultimately, they planned to choke out the US:

Control of the lake would give a safe passageway on the western shore for General Sir George Prevost and his army of 11,000 veterans from the Duke of Wellington’s European Army to take Fort McHenry. The attack on the small, outnumbered American garrison at Plattsburgh was also to be delayed until the Royal Navy had fully taken the lake. Without control of Champlain, the British could not properly invade from Canada and fulfill their plans from strangling the US at their three target areas, the Mississippi River at New Orleans, the Chesapeake Bay, and the north east. With success in the north east, the British could come that much closer to defeating the US in the war for good. Lake Champlain was crucial to the Americans if they wanted to prevent a massacre at Plattsburgh, keep Fort McHenry, and eventually win the

Regardless of the outcome, the victor was sure to be the winner of the war. Thomas Macdonough’s feat in keeping Lake Champlain was a turning point in the war for the Americans. Without his tenacity and strategy to protect Champlain, New York would have fallen to Prevost and the British; the Chesapeake Bay would have also been lost shortly after, and the outcome at New Orleans may not have made a difference at all. In the short term, Macdonough’s victory directly led to the Treaty of Ghent, giving the US territorial rights over the Great Lakes and inevitably ending the War of 1812 for good. In the long term, the United States had come out of the war as a rising power. In what seemed to be an easy victory for the British, the Americans not only survived through the war, but took steps forward in being recognized as a world influence. The use of the navy really helped pushed this movement towards a significant country among other powerful nations, forward. As French minister Louis Serurier said, “Finally the war has given the Americans what they so essentially lacked, a nation character founded on a glory common to all. The United States are at this moment, in my eyes, a naval power. Within ten years they will be masters in their waters and upon their coasts.” The uprising of a strong militaristic and effective naval culture was a main contributor to the start of America