Battle of Big Sandy Creek

Date	May 29–30, 1814
Location	Ellisburg, New York
Result	American victory

Belligerents

United Kingdom

United States

Commanders and leaders

Stephen Popham

Melancthon Taylor Woolsey

Strength

153 marines and sailors

250 regulars
125 Indians

Casualties and losses

13 killed
140 captured (30 of whom were wounded)

2 wounded

The Battle of Big Sandy Creek was fought in northwestern New York on May 29–30, 1814, during the War of 1812. The battle was an American victory in which American militia and Oneida Indians launched a surprise attack on British soldiers who were chasing them inland from Lake Ontario.

After the successful attack on Fort Oswego on May 5–6, 1814, the British withdrew to the Galloo Islands in northern Lake Ontario where they could monitor and intercept any supplies on their way north to Sackets Harbor, New York. At the American ship yards in Sackets Harbor, two brigs, the USS Jefferson and the Jones, and a frigate, the Superior, waited for armament and rigging necessary for their launch. The supplies needed to outfit the ships had been transported from the Brooklyn Naval Yards on Long Island to Albany, New York, and from Albany up the Mohawk River to Wood Creek and Oneida Lake, finally arriving at the Oswego River. These supplies still needed to be transported from Oswego to Sackett’s Harbor, but it needed to be done without alerting the British.

On April 21, 1814, Commodore Isaac Chauncey sent orders from Sackets Harbor to Lieutenant Melancthon Taylor Woolsey directing him to choose five officers and twenty-five men to proceed in the USS Lady of the Lake to Oswego and then bring the shipbuilding supplies north to the shipyards.

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