Even though Prévost soon returned to Lower Canada, and deserters and pro-American Canadian civilians reported that the true size of Kingston's garrison was 600 regulars and 1,400 militia, Chauncey and Dearborn chose to accept the earlier inflated figure. Furthermore, even after two brigades of troops under Brigadier General Zebulon Pike reinforced the troops at Sackett's Harbor after a gruelling winter march from Plattsburgh, the number of effective troops available to Dearborn fell far short of the 7,000 planned, mainly as a result of sickness and exposure. During March, Chauncey and Dearborn recommended to Armstrong that when the ice on the lake thawed, they should attack the less well defended town of York instead of Kingston. Although York was the Provincial capital of Upper Canada, it was far less important than Kingston as a military objective. Historians such as John R. Elting have pointed out that this change of plan effectively reversed Armstrong's original strategy, and by committing the bulk of the American forces at the western end of Lake Ontario, it left Sackett's Harbor vulnerable to an attack by British reinforcements arriving from Lower Canada.