Abstract
In December 1837 British military forces based in Canada learned that a private American ship, the Caroline, was ferrying arms, recruits, and supplies from Buffalo, New York, to a group of anti-British rebels on Navy Island on the Canadian side of the border. On the night of December 29, British and Canadian forces together set out to the island to destroy the ship. They did not find the Caroline berthed there, but they tracked it down in U.S. waters. While most of the crew slept, the troops boarded the ship, attacked the crew and passengers, and set it on fire. They then towed and released the Caroline into the current headed toward Niagara Falls, where it broke up and sank. Most on board escaped, but one man was apparently executed and several others remained unaccounted for and presumed dead.
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© 2004 Elizabeth A. Castelli and Janet R. Jakobsen
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Crawford, N.C. (2004). The Best Defense?. In: Castelli, E.A., Jakobsen, J.R. (eds) Interventions. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403981561_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403981561_10
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