Red Coats & Grey Jackets: The Battle of Chippawa, 5 July 1814.

Description

Mr.Graves does an excellent job descirbing an obscure, yet compelling battle of the War of 1812. Winfield Scott professionally trained and lead his famed brigade at Chippewa where he managed to get the better of the British in a brief, but hard fought firer-fight. The book correctly dispels many of the myths associated with this battle. Contrary to popular opinion, the British did not attack in column, as many histories of the war have asserted. The British were a linear army, they generally deployed and fought in a two rank line. This is how they fought and defeated Napeolean in Spain. It would have been illogical of them to have fought any other way at this battle.Although the British were known to employ the column on occasion, Chippewa was not one of them. Another myth dispelled is that Scott's brigade routed Gen. Riall's command. The British were bested in a fair-firefight, and retired in good order. They did not rout or run off the field as claimed in many works. Also, there is no documented evidence that Gen. Riall exclaimed "By God those are regulars!" when he saw Scott's brigade advancing in a professional manner against him. Graves asserts that this famous quote, found in every history on the War of 1812 was first used by Scott himself in his memoirs written many years later. Scott had a tendency to inflate his own importance and liked to refer to himself in the third person in order to do so! Still another myth associated with this battle is that the grey jackets worn by many of Scott's brigade were adopted by West Point to commemorate the battle. Evidence suggests that the US Military Academy had already adopted the grey jacket at least a year before the event. Scott had no particular preference whether his men wore grey or regualtion blue uniforms. All he was concerned with was a professional appearence. The grey jackets were sent because that was all that was available. Normally militia wore such uniforms in the US army.