First of all, I’d better warn you to turn the dial, if you don’t want
to hear some shocking things about ourselves--things I daresay you
haven’t heard before. You remember what Hegel said--“We learn from
history that we learn nothing from history.” I think he meant that we
just won’t say, “Because Mark Anthony, Aaron Burr and Belgium did those
things, we won’t do them either.” O no, we must poke our nose right
into the fire and get our fair eyebrows burnt off, before we beware.
You and I often take singeings like that and charge them up to human
nature. But as a people after our Revolution we took red-hot scorchings
all over the face and down the body over and over again. Never did we
profit less by the bungling of any activity than we did in those years
following our escape into freedom. But I’d better tell you the facts
and let you judge for yourself.
And yet--I hesitate to tell them--these black things that our histories
cover up with a sheet, a lily white sheet. As often as I have looked
at them I still get a quake in the stomach. But maybe it’s best that
we do look them in the face--in order to enter into the big charity of
preventive medicine.
Well here goes! After the Revolution, in the face of Washington’s
pleading, Steuben’s example, and stout statesmen’s warnings, we cast
out discipline and training like life boats from a new ship and reduced
the army to eighty men. Then we put seven hundred on legal paper,
who couldn’t be raised or kept going. Three years after the war we
had for the common defense less than a thousand men poorly equipped
and trained and scattered in the lonely forts on our borders--the
equivalent of one hundred policemen on the outskirts of Boston today,
with none in the city. So when Daniel Shay organized his rebellion,
forced the court to adjourn and marched on Springfield, he had things
pretty much his own way. It was only after tumult and bloodshed that
peace was restored, whereas a small, well-trained force at hand would
doubtless have kept the uprising from even starting. But the people
refused to look at this picture--refused to take out preventives or
insurance against the dreadful happenings to follow. Even when the
United States became a nation and our Constitution was adopted, we had
an army of the magnificent size of five hundred ninety-five men. Can
you believe it? But listen to the consequence of this neglect. Seven
years after Revolution, one thousand souls in Kentucky alone perished
by tomahawk and arrow, with no one to protect them. Then a force of
hastily recruited men in Ohio were ambushed and wiped out. The next
year fourteen hundred quickly raised defenders were also annihilated.
And of course our weakness furnished the savage with a new courage for
depredations, so that the thousands of persons who perished cannot
now even be estimated. There was only one bright spot in this decade
of terror. Washington, despite the laxness of the country, selected
Anthony Wayne to lead troops against the Indians. Wayne, who had seen
Steuben’s careful coaching, trained his men for over a year before he
took them into action. At the Battle of Fallen Timber, eleven years
after the Revolution, he won our first well-executed victory over any
sort of disorder. The Indians were so completely spanked that they let
the settler live in peace for a long time--and thousands of lives were
thus saved. But this action was a live coal in a bed of ashes. For
soon the war scares crept steadily upon us--with France fifteen years
after the Revolution, with Spain twenty years after, with Great Britain
twenty-five years after. At each new scare, Congress voted huge sums
of money and called out thousands of men on paper, but at no time did
our actual forces even poorly trained, number four thousand men. The
soldier seemed to be the thermometer of the nation’s fear. His numbers
would rise and fall like the encased mercury to record the heat and
cold of the people. But he never rose in time before, or stayed long
enough afterward, to have any effect upon the temperature. He just
didn’t exist in time. William Duane in his writings of the period
complained, “There is no discipline; there is even no system; and there
are gross misconceptions on the subject. There appears to have been a
disposition to discourage the acquisition of military knowledge.” So we
arrived at our Second War with Great Britain, twenty-nine years after
the Revolution, weaker proportionally than when we faced that war.
Now the land warfare of 1812 would be so funny, if it weren’t tragic;
so laughable, if it weren’t shameful, that our school histories just
must omit much of it, if they’re going to show that we are the perfect
people of the world. You could scarcely describe the affair in football
language, as I did with the Revolution, because the candidates for that
gridiron didn’t stay long enough to last much after the kick-off. It
had better be classified as an open tournament of all games and events,
under any rules which the particular coach wanted to make, and at any
time he wanted to play. It probably could be described somewhat as a
track-meet, if it were confined to running events. I tell you those
men who played against or rather opposite Great Britain the second
time, and who took no coaching for their particular stunts, could
outsprint anything you’ve seen in shorts. The first event was staged
at Detroit where our force of eighteen hundred had covered themselves
up with fortifications. On the appearance of only twelve hundred of
the enemy, the eighteen hundred gallantly surrendered without firing a
shot or putting up any sort of resistance. This display of talent was
soon followed by even a more disgraceful one at Queenstown. General
Van Rensselaer got together nearly three thousand hastily recruited
fellows at Lewiston to take the heights across the river. Two hundred
and twenty-five picked men succeeded in crossing and stormed the place.
This little courageous band withstood charge after charge of the
enemy, hoping for reenforcements. But the large force on the American
side refused to budge or even help their stricken comrades, who were
finally killed or captured. After seeing their gallant fellows perish,
they made their way to their homes quite quickly. A little later
General Harrison got together from four states ten thousand men with
no background or experience of warfare. After a short march and slight
flurry with the Indians their speed in getting back to their homes
and camp was far beyond the most sanguine expectations. You couldn’t
exactly say they ran. No, they evaporated and their work was over. Then
General Dearborn sent an expedition of fifteen hundred men against a
small post on the River LaColle. The British garrison consisted of only
two hundred men, seven and one-half times smaller force than ours. But
by unskilled leadership the American columns were separated and had an
exciting time firing into each other while the enemy escaped. After all
these escapades, along came General Smythe, who openly confessed how
wrong other leaders had been and how he was the one hope of the war. By
bombastic proclamations he induced over five thousand men to come to
him at Black Rock for an invasion of Canada. On the promised day for
the crossing, less than half the command embarked in the morning and
waited there for the order to push across. In the afternoon, Smythe
sensing the weakness of his troops, ordered them to disembark, and
stated that the expedition was temporarily postponed. The men were so
resentful that he promised he would invade Canada at a later date.
Three days afterward he got them into the boats--and then out of them
the very same way. The scene of riot and discontent was indescribable.
Men fired off their weapons in every direction, and threatened
Smythe’s life. Hunted and pursued, he finally made his way to his home
in Virginia, and his command dispersed in disorder.
The next episode was that of General Winchester who sent Colonel
Lewis to take Frenchtown, which he captured with a superior force.
But after he had gained his victory, his soldiers were so lawless,
undisciplined and ignorant of the first essentials of precaution, that
the enemy returned and killed or captured the whole of the ten hundred
and fifty Americans. Then came two successful expeditions. General
Pike with seventeen hundred picked men took Toronto garrisoned by half
that number and General Harrison with a force three times as great
as the enemy, won a victory at Thames River. But these engagements
were isolated and did not have much effect upon the war. Then General
Hampton marched on Montreal with about five thousand untrained men,
who met eight hundred Canadian regulars, before whom they fled in
utter panic. After this General Wilkinson tried the same thing with a
similar force. When his advance guard of sixteen hundred men met eight
hundred British at Chrysler’s Field, they did the usual scampering and
Wilkinson gave up the idea of invading Canada. After all this weakness
there was nothing to stop the enemy from swooping down upon us. They
took Fort Niagara, occupied Lewiston, Youngstown and Manchester and
burned Buffalo. When six hundred and fifty British and Indians appeared
before Black Rock, nearly three thousand Americans going by the name of
soldiers ran away without even aiming--ran to cover so fast that the
enemy had no trouble pillaging and destroying everything in sight.
But through these lowering clouds of neglect and ignorance there
came a rift of sunshine. Three young generals, Brown, Scott, Ripley,
in spite of the backward administration, decided on their own hook
in these dark ages to pull out of their shelves the old learning of
Washington and Steuben, to have a little renaissance of their own.
For a year they worked on preparing thirty-five hundred men for real
service in the field. And they were rewarded by the heroic battles
of Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane. Ah, yes, our histories record these
actions, but they don’t tell why they were successful. The men were
trained and disciplined. And these two contests put a wholesome stop to
depredations and invasions of American soil in the north.
Yet much of that work was counteracted by Bladensburg, the prime
disgrace of American History. Little anxiety had been felt in
Washington, over three thousand British troops who had been hovering
about in the Chesapeake for a year. The Secretary of War, the
President and General Winder fell into a lengthy argument about how
many troops should be called out to oppose this force. Meanwhile,
the enemy was marching uninterruptedly toward our Capital. Finally
sixty-four hundred Americans were collected just before the battle to
oppose the invaders. The camp of men was wild with disorder and drink,
while our so-called leaders were stupid with perplexity. Just before
actual contact the three gentlemen mentioned above, fell to discussing
the situation as if it were something quite new. The troops were
posted on the heights--badly. At the firing of some harmless rockets,
our force which outnumbered the enemy two to one, fled right through
the nation’s Capitol, leaving it open to plunder and rapine. Why the
British chose to burn only the public buildings, was probably due to
their sportsmanship.
Of course, General Jackson did excellent defensive work at New Orleans,
but that was after the war was over--after the whistle had blown. Of
course the Navy, too, did perfect work. The government had seen to it
that they had been well-trained for a long time before the war. There
were no novices in that organization.
All these actions on land were really more disgraceful than I have
described them. Throughout the War of 1812, as you see, most any
unqualified man could be put in the saddle and every kind of unprepared
man could be put in the field to fight. We were helpless, hopeless,
impatient, disgraceful, because we had discarded training and foresight
in the years beforehand. In this war, over two decades after we had
become a nation, we committed all the errors of the Revolution to a
greater degree--and one more. We had no management or leadership--no
commander-in-chief or the commonest business organization. Fine
manhood, for want of previous training was held up to ridicule,
suffering, casualties, and disgrace. Now for the figures. We called
out over half a million men and could not drive a maximum of sixteen
thousand from our shores for over two years. We spent nearly two
hundred million dollars, not counting pensions, when two per cent
of that sum with a small well-trained force would have sufficed.
And above all we sacrificed six thousand lives in camp and on the
battlefield, when that figure should not have been over two hundred.
As far as might, efficiency, planning and management were concerned,
we muddled this war on land to the tune of death and shame. Again we
couldn’t defend our country against our enemies and had to thank God
for European weariness from Napoleon, which called off the British.
That’s the reason why, when our raw material is finer and greater
than anywhere else in the world, the soldier is so wrought up over
our people rushing into future extravagance, unnecessary slaughter
and possible defeat. For somehow war has a habit of sneaking up on us
craftily and quickly, like a thug.
_VI_