Charles Roberts (officer)
| Charles Roberts | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1772 |
| Died | 4 May 1816 |
| Occupation | Army officer |
Charles Roberts (c. 1772–4 May 1816) was a captain in the British Army during the War of 1812. He is best known for his field command of the mixed British-Canadian-First Nations column that captured a United States strongpoint, Fort Mackinac, on 17 July 1812 in one of the opening movements of the war.
Until 1812, Roberts' record had been that of a low-ranking British officer. After being awarded a commission as an ensign in 1795, he served for approximately eleven years in British posts in the Caribbean Sea, particularly on the island of Trinidad. He was promoted to captain in 1801. Roberts' health declined sharply in the mid-1800s. The West Indies, then subject to frequent attacks of malaria and yellow fever, were not seen as a suitable post for a career officer with health concerns. The British Army had organized several battalions of "veterans" for career soldiers in equivocal health, and Roberts succeeded in transferring his commission. His new unit, the 10th Royal Veteran Battalion, arrived in Canada in 1807 for service in what was then a comparatively peaceful wing of the British Empire, far away from the Napoleonic Wars.
As an army captain, Roberts was eligible for a low-ranking independent command. Despite continued complaints of ill health, he was slated in 1811 to take command at Fort St. Joseph, a border garrison and frontier fur-trading post located on St. Joseph Island in northern Lake Huron. Captain Roberts promptly reported to his superiors that his new 46-man command was struggling with alcoholism or as he called it, "unconquerable drunkenness." Fort St. Joseph proved to be ill-supplied by the British army and dependent for its sustenance on private and semi-private fur traders who, with licenses from British Canadian authorities, maintained ties with friendly First Nations people and worked with their Native kinfolk to sustain the upper Great Lakes economy. In November 1811 Captain Roberts even had to beg the post's resident fur trader, John Askin, Jr., for point blankets in order to sew winter clothing for his garrison.
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