American Dragoon Commander Wounded

Lieutenant Colonel Electus Backus, leader of the U.S. Light Dragoons, served as commanding officer before General Jacob Brown assumed the post. During the battle, while holding the line of defense with his dragoons from a nearby drainage ditch, Backus was wounded and removed from the field. He was taken after the battle to Brownsville, New York, where he died eight days later. Fellow officers considered his leadership during the battle critical to containing the British attack. Backus was buried in the military cemetery in Sackets Harbor, and after the war his body and those of other officers, including Zebulon Pike, were moved to the military cemetery near Madison Barracks. Following the battle, Smith's Cantonment, an enclosed fortified barracks for 2,500 troops, was built on part of this land, but it was abandoned with the development of Madison Barracks in 1816. The nearby well house stands over the cantonment well of 1814.

Sackets Harbor, New York · United States