fcRUiKSHANK] FROM ISLE AUX NOIX TO CHATEAUGUAY 101 



the United States. The management of the hospitals and the quarter- 

 master's department was bitterly criticised. By the 1st of February, 

 the hospitals at Malone were crammed and no accommodation could 

 be found for two hundred very sick men, sent forward from the camps 

 without notice. Four of these miserable men actually died from 

 exposure on the road. Two-fifths of the entire force were then reported 

 unfit for any service. The abandonment of this ill-chosen position 

 had become inevitable to preserve the health of the remainder. 1 



Between the 12th and 16th of February, the camps at the French 

 Mills and Four Corners were evacuated. The barracks and block- 

 houses which had been constructed with much labour and at great 

 expense were partially burned and the large flotilla of gunboats and 

 small craft was similarly damaged as much as its situation in the ice 

 would admit. Some of the heaviest guns of the siege train were buried 

 and the remainder removed together with the greater part of the 

 stores and provisions. When this movement became known at Mont- 

 real instructions were given to Colonel Scott to advance from Coteau 

 with a light column of picked troops, composed of detachments of 

 Royal Artillery, the 19th Light Dragoons, 89th, 103rd, Canadian 

 Fencibles, 5th Embodied Militia, and Glengarry and Stormont Militia, 

 numbering 1,308 of all ranks. This force was conveyed in sleighs 

 across the St. Lawrence on the ice on the morning of February 19 

 and reached the French Mills in time to obtain contact with the rear 

 guard of the American division. A considerable number of soldiers 

 were taken prisoners at that place and Malone, being chiefly men who 

 were too sick to be removed. They were paroled together with their 

 attendants and a number of inhabitants who had been enrolled in 

 the militia. Detachments were sent to Madrid, Hopkinton and other 

 villages where considerable quantities of flour and salted meat were 

 seized. A reconnoitering patrol advanced within four miles of Platts- 

 burg, and at the crossing of the Au Sable captured a courier bearing 

 important despatches. It was ascertained that two infantry regi- 

 ments from the camp at the French Mills had gone to Sackett's Har- 

 bour and the remainder of that division to Plattsburg, where the num- 

 ber of troops was estimated to amount to 5,000 with 4,000 at Bur- 

 lington. General Wilkinson had established his headquarters at 

 Plattsburg. 



The destruction of the barracks, blockhouses and boats at the 

 French Mill, and Malone was completed. Teams and sleighs were 

 impressed from the inhabitants and a hundred loads of provisions 

 and stores were brought off. Scott then proceeded to the Four Corners 

 where he was joined by a party of Indians from Lower Canada who 

 1 Mann, Medical Sketches of the Campaigns of 1812, 1813, 1814, pp. 116-127. 



