John Parker Boyd

John Parker Boyd (1764 – 1830) was an officer in the United States Army, from various periods from 1786 to the end of the War of 1812. He commanded the troops defeated at the Battle of Crysler's Farm in late 1813.

A New Englander of Scottish descent, Boyd was too young to serve in the American War of Independence. He began his military career when he joined the U.S. Army as an ensign in 1786. He resigned three years later, to serve as a Soldier of Fortune in the army of the Nizam of Hyderabad, in Central India. Boyd was considered to be a highly successful cavalry commander. [Ronald Rosner, “John Parker Boyd: The Yankee Mughal,” Asian Affairs Vol. 34 Issue 3 (Nov2003), 297]

Rejoining the U.S. Army in 1808 as a Lieutenant-Colonel, he commanded the 4th U.S. Infantry under William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Tippecanoe.

When the war of 1812 broke out, Boyd initially commanded a brigade under General Henry Dearborn at Albany, New York and in some indecisive actions north of Lake Champlain.

In 1813, he successfully commanded a brigade at the Battle of Fort George. As illness or disgrace removed many of his contemporaries, he eventually commanded the garrison of captured Fort George, although the defeat at the Battle of Beaver Dams forced him to remain strictly on the defensive.

Moving his troops from Fort George to Sacket's Harbour, he participated in General James Wilkinson's ill-fated attack on Montreal. At the Battle of Crysler's Farm, the illness of Wilkinson and the army's second-in-command, Major General Morgan Lewis made him the commander of the attack on a smaller British force. His troops, already dispirited, straggled into action on unfavourable terrain, and were repulsed.

Boyd remained in command of a brigade at the winter camp of the Army at Salmon Creek, New York. After a half-hearted attack by Wilkinson at Lacolle Mill failed, he was sidelined into a rear-area assignment, and saw no further front-line service.

He published a defence of his actions in 1816.

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