The Clash of Titans: The Anglo-American War and Beyond

By Raymond Smith, published in Timstown, Jefferson

"...The Battle of San Jacinto River occurred on February 12th of 1834 and was one of the bloodiest battles of the Anglo-American War. After receiving orders to make an eastern push to remove the British presence in Texas, Brigadier General William Henry Harrison was given a very difficult task of fighting (and defeating) an enemy that had nearly equal numbers to his own army group and superior artillery. Not only that, but the British still maintained a naval presence in the area, and the guns of the British fleet had more than enough range to reach General Harrison's men should they attempt to push into the British lines. His opponent, fifty-four-year-old Brigadier Samuel Benjamin Auchmuty (one of the few Anglo-Irish that were allowed to serve as an officer), was an experienced veteran that had fought in the First and Second Coalition War. He had seen the innovation of military doctrines and weapons through firsthand experience and was a skilled officer in his own right. And he had one specific order from the chain of command: do not push westward until further reinforcements arrive (before the battle, three thousand Portuguese soldiers were to arrive in early March to allow the Brigadier to make a push into Clarkston). Therefore, General Harrison and the Second Infantry Division, along with the 1st Rangers Battalion, had a daunting task ahead of them: defeat an entrenched enemy with superior firepower and force them away from Clarkston, one of the biggest settlements in Texas.

Unlike General Bonapart or General Kim (who was appointed as second in command of all the United States Armed Forces in late January of 1834), General Harrison did not have any artillery pieces to bombard the enemy, nor did he have military balloons to relay intelligence to him during the heat of battle (his unit had left behind their military balloons and mortars back in Oregon on the orders of the Chief of Staff and was unable to receive supplies from the West Coast due to the lack of communications and infrastructure). Therefore, "Old Greenwood" (a nickname he earned fighting in the forestlands of Oregon) needed a thorough plan to cross the San Jacinto River and quickly strike the British before their superior long-range firepower could decimate his own men. The two bridges that once provided routes over the river were destroyed in December by American engineers in order to halt the British advance. As such, the Second Infantry Division needed to rebuild the bridges or find another path over the river in order to advance eastward. After surveying the enemy defenses and inspecting various geographical maps of the region, General Harrison firmly decided on a course of action that would affect the ensuing battle...

Port Cedar was one of the most westward occupied settlements in the United States (with the exception of settlements out in the Western Territories). A small port town with two thousand inhabitants, it was used as a small logistical hub for the British soldiers fighting in Texas. However, it was only guarded by a garrison of approximately five hundred or so men, with the remaining fourteen thousand British soldiers defending the banks of Bear Lake, San Jacinto Bay, and the southern parts of San Jacinto River. This meant that the main forces of the British Army within Texas were several kilometers north of Port Cedar, which left Port Cedar a potential breakthrough point for the American Army if it was captured. The biggest obstacle to the capture of the town was the British Navy that was based out of New Orleans. Approximately ten ships made routine, daily patrols around Port Cedar and Cedar Bay (in which the occupied settlement was located in). If the American forces in Texas attempted a desperate naval invasion without the support of any American ships while the British patrol fleet was in the area, then they would be easily destroyed without much of an afterthought. This meant that the pattern of the British patrol fleet needed to be studied extensively in order for the American forces to pull off the risky maneuver. For two weeks, General Harrison gathered resources and planned for the daring strike as he received reports on the habits of the British patrol fleet. On February 11th, he decided that it was time to bring the battle upon the British and ordered the execution of the plan. The unit that would carry out the naval landing would be the 1st Rangers Battalion...

On February 12th, at five o'clock in the morning, the one thousand or so men of the 1st Rangers Battalion (supported by an engineering company in order to blow the port facilities of Port Cedar should the attack fail) sailed across Cedar Bay towards its target. The British patrol fleet, which usually made its appearance from nine in the morning, was nowhere in sight. The invasion "fleet" purposely landed a kilometer south of Port Cedar, near Cedar Bayou, in order to avoid any British soldiers watching Cedar Bay. The invasion was orderly and swift; within two hours, the entire Battalion had landed on the British side of the waterways and began its push northward. At approximately seven-thirty (as the group purposely slowed down to match the timing with the planned American assault on the San Jacinto River), the Rangers Battalion made contact with British soldiers that were patrolling the streets at the southern end of the town and started the battle. Out of the five British soldiers that initially engaged the enemy, one of them managed to flee and roused up the garrison forces within the town. Two hundred answered the call within the first ten minutes and they managed to form a makeshift defense line towards the center of the town. The Rangers, using their horses, managed to surround the area quickly and strike the barracks that were filled wth unprepared British soldiers. The British soldiers that were not within the center of the town surrendered in quick order and the ones that were up in arms against the Americans were surrounded and outnumbered within mere minutes. After suffering nearly one hundred casualties, the remaining British soldiers surrendered and the surrendering troops were tossed into a warehouse that was shifted into a makeshift prison (which the locals eagerly provided). The Americans now held a beachhead in Port Cedar and had the ability to flank the British positions up north. However, the "decisive breakthrough" General Harrison hoped for was not as decisive as he had hoped...

Meanwhile, in the north, the Second Infantry Division began its push eastward. Making use of a narrow, shallow part of the river up in the very north, General Harrison committed nearly all of his forces to strike the British formations near the San Jacinto from the north. Meanwhile, he maintained a thousand soldiers on the American side of the San Jacinto in case the British attempted a direct assault towards Clarkston over the river. In the defense of the river banks, the thousand or so men from the Second Infantry Division were supported by approximately five hundred militiamen from various parts of Texas. The general himself was part of the attacking force, leading the way to rapidly converge on the British ranks before the guns could be turned towards him and his men. Now, it is important to recall that the British had a defensive line that stretched from San Jacinto Bay to parts of the San Jacinto River. While the British had plenty of spotters in the northern parts of the San Jacinto River (indeed, an attempt to build a bridge in the northern parts of the river was caught and destroyed by British forces), the British were unaware that the river became shallow enough to cross after a certain season. However, the Americans (especially the Texan locals) were very much aware of this fact. With almost no rainfall during January and February (which was typical for Texas), the northern end of the river became just shallow enough for General Harrison and his men to wade through (though the water came up nearly up to their chest and they were forced to carry their equipment above their heads). However, the army group was spotted by a group of British skirmishers, which managed to flee south to warn their southern brethren that the Americans had landed on the British side of the river and were marching to fight the British directly. As the British turned to face their opponents in the north, the 1st Rangers Battalion struck Brownwood (a small community where a large chunk of the British artillery pieces was located), capturing nearly fifteen guns and negating a significant part of the British artillery advantage. The Rangers took approximately fifty casualties while inflicting two hundred, forcing the British to back off from the elevated defensive position. Despite the loss of Brenwood, the British still had thirty-five additional guns at their disposal and most of them were located near the main bodies of the British Army, forcing the 1st Rangers Battalion to hold its position in Brownwood. Even so, the engineering company that traversed with the Battalion managed to turn their newly captured equipment towards the British lines and fired on them relentlessly...

At ten o'clock, General Harrison's forces engaged the British approximately seven kilometers north of Jonesburg (which was the "mid" point between the Second Infantry Divison and Port Cedar). Brigadier Auchmuty, who suspected that the American forces in the south were nothing but a diversion, committed twelve thousand soldiers to fight the American troops in the north and utilized the remainders of his soldiers to reinforce his southern flank. The British troops were armed with the Nottingham Rifles, while the Americans were still primarily armed with the old Lee Rifles (which matched the Nottingham Rifles in terms of range, but with a slightly slower fire rate). Since the British still had artillery at their disposal, General Harrison ordered his troops (which had superior numbers) to engage the British directly instead of skirmishing from a distance. While the British attempted to build trenches facing the north to blunt the American offensive, they were only able to set up a disconnected line of defenses before the Second Infantry Division was upon them. During the American charge, British artillery fired upon General Harrison's soldiers with canister shots, inflicting a significant number of casualties before the battle even began. What followed was a four-hours long bloody struggle between the American soldiers and the British regulars, with the two sides firing at point-blank range and fighting in hand to hand combat. As the attack began, the 1st Rangers Battalion pushed up from the south in an attempt to flank the enemy but faced its own struggle against the two thousand British troops in the south. The British patrol fleet arrived halfway throughout the battle and fired upon the engineers that were on Brownwood, knocking out several of the guns and killing a dozen Americans. The fleet proceeded to bombard the American defenders that were waiting on the banks of the San Jacinto River, as they were now close enough for the British ships to attack them.

The fighting finally died down around two-thirty in the afternoon, with Brigadier Auchmuty calling for a general withdrawal eastward after the 1st Rangers Battalion managed to break the southern flank and moved northward to flank the main body of British troops. The British retreated in an orderly fashion as General Harrison consolidated on the eastern banks of the San Jacinto (his troops were far too exhausted to chase Brigadier Auchmuty and his remaining men). The British patrol fleet witnessed the retreat of the ground forces and proceeded to unleash explosive shells on Port Cedar, killing approximately two hundred inhabitants of the town and even a few dozen British troops (that were trapped in a warehouse as prisoners). They would be the final casualties of the Battle of San Jacinto River, one of the bloodiest battles of the entire war.

The United States suffered over ten thousand casualties from the battle (just under half of all the American soldiers committed to the battle), with four thousand American soldiers dead (nearly a quarter of all the American soldiers committed to the battle). General Harrison had his victory (and the security of Texas), but at an enormous price: his unit was no longer combat effective enough to continue the push eastward. For the time being, the Second Infantry Division was forced to consolidate their holdings and focus on improving the defenses in the area to prevent any further Alliance invasions of the western territory...

Great Britain suffered approximately eight thousand casualties from the battle (more than half of all the British regulars committed to the battle), with four thousand dead (over a quarter of all the British regulars committed to the battle). Brigadier Auchmuty would be rewarded with a Distinguished Service Order due to the massive casualties he inflicted upon his opponent (with inferior numbers) and his orderly withdrawal from Texas. He would be placed in charge of the Jefferson front during the American counterattack, which would lead to him inflicting further American casualties and making him one of the only Anglo-Irish officers distinguished in the entire war...

The Battle of San Jacinto River turned out to be a pyrrhic American victory, securing Clarkston from the British and preventing an Alliance takeover of Texas. However, the resulting casualties led to a stalemate in the region, which only ended after the United States began to push back the Alliance forces in April of 1834...