18131776 Club
Kahnawake and Mohawk warriors ambush Boerstler's column; 512 U.S. troops surrender near Beaver Dams
Ducharme's men hammer the column's flanks in thick woods for hours; the wounded colonel yields to a British reserve of just 46.
Three weeks after the U.S. Army captured Fort George and pushed the British to Burlington Heights, Brigadier General John Parker Boyd sent Colonel Charles Boerstler and roughly 570 men northwest toward a British outpost at DeCou's house — a raid meant to clear Indigenous raiders and lift flagging morale. On June 24, 1813, Kahnawake and Mohawk warriors under Captain Dominique Ducharme ambushed the column in thick woods near Beaver Dams, hammering its flanks and rear until Boerstler — wounded — surrendered to Lieutenant James FitzGibbon and his 46-man British reserve. Twenty-three officers and 489 enlisted men went into captivity, and U.S. forces at Fort George rarely ventured more than a mile from its walls for the rest of the year…
