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[Illustration: "_OLD IRONSIDES_"
The old frigate _Constitution_ as she appears today in her snug
berth at the Boston Navy Yard where she is preserved as an
historical relic.
Photograph by N. L. Stebbins, Boston.]
THE FIGHT FOR A FREE SEA
A CHRONICLE OF THE WAR OF 1812
BY RALPH D. PAINE
[Illustration]
VOLUME 17
THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA SERIES
ALLEN JOHNSON, EDITOR
1920
CONTENTS
I. "ON TO CANADA!"
II. LOST GROUND REGAINED
III. PERRY AND LAKE ERIE
IV. EBB AND FLOW ON THE NORTHERN FRONT
V. THE NAVY ON BLUE WATER
VI. MATCHLESS FRIGATES AND THEIR DUELS
VII. "DON'T GIVE UP THE SHIP!"
VIII. THE LAST CRUISE OF THE ESSEX
IX. VICTORY ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN
X. PEACE WITH HONOR
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
INDEX
ILLUSTRATIONS
"OLD IRONSIDES"
The old frigate _Constitution_ as she appears today in her snug berth at
the Boston Navy Yard where she is preserved as an historical relic.
Photograph by N. L. Stebbins, Boston.
THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS IN THE WAR OF 1812
Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographical Society.
OLIVER HAZARD PERRY AT THE BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE
Painting by J. W. Jarvis. In the City Hall, New York, owned by the
Corporation. Reproduced by courtesy of the Municipal Art Commission of
the City of New York.
ISAAC CHAUNCEY
Painting in the Comptroller's Office, City Hall, New York, owned by the
Corporation. Reproduced by courtesy of the Municipal Art Commission of
the City of New York.
COMMODORE STEPHEN DECATUR
Painting by Thomas Sully, 1811. In the Comptroller's Office, owned by
the City of New York. Reproduced by courtesy of the Art Commission of
the City of New York.
CONSTITUTION AND GUERRIÈRE
An old print, illustrating the moment in the action at which the
mainmast of the _Guerrière_, shattered by the terrific fire of the
American frigate, fell overside, transforming the former vessel into a
floating wreck and terminating the action. The picture represents
accurately the surprisingly slight damage done the _Constitution_: note
the broken spanker gaff and the shot holes in her topsails.
ISAAC HULL
Painting by J. W. Jarvis. In the City Hall, New York, owned by the
Corporation.
WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE
Painting by J. W. Jarvis. In the City Hall, New York, owned by the
Corporation. Reproduced by courtesy of the Municipal Art Commission of
the City of New York.
A FRIGATE OF 1812 UNDER SAIL
The _Constellation_, of which this is a photograph, is somewhat smaller
than the _Constitution_, being rated at 38 guns as against 44 for the
latter. In general appearance, however, and particularly in rig, the two
types are very similar. Although the Constellation did not herself see
action in the War of 1812, she is a good example of the heavily armed
American frigate of that day--and the only one of them still to be seen
at sea under sail within recent years. At the present time the
_Constellation_ lies moored at the pier of the Naval Training Station,
Newport, R. I. Photograph by E. Müller, Jr., Inc., New York.
JACOB BROWN
Painting by J. W. Jarvis. In the City Hall, New York, owned by the
Corporation.
THOMAS MACDONOUGH
Painting by J. W. Jarvis. In the City Hall, New York, owned by the
Corporation.
CHAPTER I
"ON TO CANADA!"
The American people of today, weighed in the balances of the greatest
armed conflict of all time and found not wanting, can afford to survey,
in a spirit of candid scrutiny and without reviving an ancient grudge,
that turbulent episode in the welding of their nation which is called
the War of 1812. In spite of defeats and disappointments this war was,
in the large, enduring sense, a victory. It was in this renewed defiance
of England that the dream of the founders of the Republic and the ideals
of the embattled farmers of Bunker Hill and Saratoga achieved their
goal. Henceforth the world was to respect these States, not as so many
colonies bitterly wrangling among themselves, but as a sovereign and
independent nation.
The War of 1812, like the American Revolution, was a valiant contest
for survival on the part of the spirit of freedom. It was essentially
akin to the world-wide struggle of a century later, when sons of the old
foemen of 1812--sons of the painted Indians and of the Kentucky pioneers
in fringed buckskins, sons of the New Hampshire ploughboys clad in
homespun, sons of the Canadian militia and the red-coated regulars of
the British line, sons of the tarry seamen of the _Constitution_ and the
_Guerrière_--stood side by side as brothers in arms to save from brutal
obliteration the same spirit of freedom. And so it is that in Flanders
fields today the poppies blow above the graves of the sons of the men
who fought each other a century ago in the Michigan wilderness and at
Lundy's Lane.
The causes and the background of the War of 1812 are presented elsewhere
in this series of Chronicles.[1] Great Britain, at death grips with
Napoleon, paid small heed to the rights and dignities of neutral
nations. The harsh and selfish maritime policy of the age, expressed in
the British Navigation Acts and intensified by the struggle with
Napoleon, led the Mistress of the Seas to perpetrate indignity after
indignity on the ships and sailors which were carrying American commerce
around the world. The United States demanded a free sea, which Great
Britain would not grant. Of necessity, then, such futile weapons as
embargoes and non-intercourse acts had to give place to the musket, the
bayonet, and the carronade. There could be no compromise between the
clash of doctrines. It was for the United States to assert herself,
regardless of the odds, or sink into a position of supine dependency
upon the will of Great Britain and the wooden walls of her invincible
navy.
[Footnote 1: See _Jefferson and His Colleagues_, by Allen Johnson (in
_The Chronicles of America_).]
"Free Trade and Sailors' Rights!" was the American war cry. It expressed
the two grievances which outweighed all others--the interference with
American shipping and the ruthless impressment of seamen from beneath
the Stars and Stripes. No less high-handed than Great Britain's were
Napoleon's offenses against American commerce, and there was just cause
for war with France. Yet Americans felt the greater enmity toward
England, partly as an inheritance from the Revolution, but chiefly
because of the greater injury which England had wrought, owing to her
superior strength on the sea.
There were, to be sure, other motives in the conflict. It is not to be
supposed that the frontiersmen of the Northwest and Southwest, who
hailed the war with enthusiasm, were ardently aroused to redress wrongs
inflicted upon their seafaring countrymen. Their enmity towards Great
Britain was compounded of quite different grievances. Behind the recent
Indian wars on the frontier they saw, or thought they saw, British
paymasters. The red trappers and hunters of the forest were bloodily
defending their lands; and there was a long-standing bond of interest
between them and the British in Canada. The British were known to the
tribes generally as fur traders, not "land stealers"; and the great
traffic carried on by the merchants of Montreal, not only in the
Canadian wilderness but also in the American Northwest, naturally drew
Canadians and Indians into the same camp. "On to Canada!" was the slogan
of the frontiersmen. It expressed at once their desire to punish the
hereditary foe and to rid themselves of an unfriendly power to the
north.
The United States was poorly prepared and equipped for military and
naval campaigns when, in June, 1812, Congress declared war on Great
Britain. Nothing had been learned from the costly blunders of the
Revolution, and the delusion that readiness for war was a menace to
democracy had influenced the Government to absurd extremes. The regular
army comprised only sixty-seven hundred men, scattered over an enormous
country and on garrison service from which they could not be safely
withdrawn. They were without traditions and without experience in actual
warfare. Winfield Scott, at that time a young officer in the regular
army, wrote:
The old officers had very generally sunk into either sloth,
ignorance, or habits of intemperate drinking.... Many of the
appointments were positively bad, and a majority of the remainder
indifferent. Party spirit of that day knew no bounds, and was of
course blind to policy. Federalists were almost entirely excluded
from selection, though great numbers were eager for the field....
Where there was no lack of educated men in the dominant party, the
appointments consisted generally of swaggerers, dependents, decayed
gentlemen, and others "fit for nothing else," which always turned
out utterly unfit for any military purpose whatever.
The main reliance was to be on militia and volunteers, an army of the
free people rushing to arms in defense of their liberties, as voiced by
Jefferson and echoed more than a century later by another spokesman of
democracy. There was the stuff for splendid soldiers in these farmers
and woodsmen, but in many lamentable instances their regiments were no
more than irresponsible armed mobs. Until as recently as the War with
Spain, the perilous fallacy persisted that the States should retain
control of their several militia forces in time of war and deny final
authority to the Federal Government. It was this doctrine which so
nearly wrecked the cause of the Revolution. George Washington had
learned the lesson through painful experience, but his counsel was
wholly disregarded; and, because it serves as a text and an
interpretation for much of the humiliating history which we are about to
follow, that counsel is here quoted in part. Washington wrote in
retrospect:
Had we formed a permanent army in the beginning, which by the
continuance of the same men in service had been capable of
discipline, we never should have had to retreat with a handful of
men across the Delaware in 1776, trembling for the fate of America,
which nothing but the infatuation of the enemy could have saved; we
should not have remained all the succeeding winter at their mercy,
with sometimes scarcely a sufficient body of men to mount the
ordinary guards, liable at every moment to be dissipated if they
had only thought proper to march against us; we should not have
been under the necessity of fighting Brandywine with an unequal
number of raw troops, and afterwards of seeing Philadelphia fall a
prey to a victorious army; we should not have been at Valley Forge
with less than half the force of the enemy, destitute of
everything, in a situation neither to resist or to retire; we
should not have seen New York left with a handful of men, yet an
overmatch for the main army of these States, while the principal
part of their force was detached for the reduction of two of them;
we should not have found ourselves this spring so weak as to be
insulted by 5000 men, unable to protect our baggage and magazines,
their security depending on a good countenance and a want of
enterprise in the enemy; we should not have been, the greatest part
of the war, inferior to the enemy, indebted for our safety to their
inactivity, enduring frequently the mortification of seeing
inviting opportunities to ruin them pass unimproved for want of a
force which the country was completely able to afford, and of
seeing the country ravaged, our towns burnt, the inhabitants
plundered, abused, murdered, with impunity from the same cause.
The War of 1812, besides being hampered by short enlistments, confused
authority, and incompetent officers, was fought by a country and an army
divided against itself. When Congress authorized the enrollment of one
hundred thousand militia, the governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut
refused to furnish their quotas, objecting to the command of United
States officers and to the sending of men beyond the borders of their
own States. This attitude fairly indicated the feeling of New England,
which was opposed to the war and openly spoke of secession. Moreover,
the wealthy merchants and bankers of New England declined to subscribe
to the national loans when the Treasury at Washington was bankrupt, and
vast quantities of supplies were shipped from New England seaports to
the enemy in Canada. It was an extraordinary paradox that those States
which had seen their sailors impressed by thousands and which had
suffered most heavily from England's attacks on neutral commerce should
have arrayed themselves in bitter opposition to the cause and the
Government. It was "Mr. Madison's War," they said, and he could win or
lose it--and pay the bills, for that matter.
The American navy was in little better plight than the army. England
flew the royal ensign over six hundred ships of war and was the
undisputed sovereign of the seas. Opposed to this mighty armada were
five frigates, three ships, and seven brigs, which Monroe recommended
should be "kept in a body in a safe port." Not worth mention were the
two hundred ridiculous little gunboats which had to stow the one cannon
below to prevent capsizing when they ventured out of harbor. These craft
were a pet notion of Jefferson. "Believing, myself," he said of them,
"that gunboats are the only water defense which can be useful to us and
protect us from the ruinous folly of a navy, I am pleased with
everything which promises to improve them."
A nation of eight million people, unready, blundering, rent by internal
dissension, had resolved to challenge an England hardened by war and
tremendously superior in military resources. It was not all madness,
however, for the vast empire of Canada lay exposed to invasion, and in
this quarter the enemy was singularly vulnerable. Henry Clay spoke for
most of his countrymen beyond the boundaries of New England when he
announced to Congress: "The conquest of Canada is in your power. I trust
that I shall not be deemed presumptuous when I state that I verily
believe that the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place
Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet. Is it nothing to the British
nation; is it nothing to the pride of her monarch to have the last
immense North American possession held by him in the commencement of his
reign wrested from his dominions?" Even Jefferson was deluded into
predicting that the capture of Canada as far as Quebec would be a mere
matter of marching through the country and would give the troops
experience for the attack on Halifax and the final expulsion of England
from the American continent.
The British Provinces, extending twelve hundred miles westward to Lake
Superior, had a population of less than five hundred thousand; but a
third of these were English immigrants or American Loyalists and their
descendants, types of folk who would hardly sit idly and await invasion.
That they should resist or strike back seems not to have been expected
in the war councils of the amiable Mr. Madison. Nor were other and
manifold dangers taken into account by those who counseled war. The
Great Lakes were defenseless, the warlike Indians of the Northwest were
in arms and awaiting the British summons, while the whole country beyond
the Wabash and the Maumee was almost unguarded. Isolated here and there
were stockades containing a few dozen men beyond hope of rescue,
frontier posts of what is now the Middle West. Plans of campaign were
prepared without thought of the insuperable difficulties of transport
through regions in which there were neither roads, provisions, towns,
nor navigable rivers. Armies were maneuvered and victories won upon the
maps in the office of the Secretary of War. Generals were selected by
some inscrutable process which decreed that dull-witted, pompous
incapables should bungle campaigns and waste lives.
It was wisely agreed that of all the strategic points along this
far-flung and thinly held frontier, Detroit should receive the earliest
attention. At all costs this point was to be safeguarded as a base for
the advance into Canada from the west. A remote trading post within
gunshot of the enemy across the river and menaced by tribes of hostile
Indians, Detroit then numbered eight hundred inhabitants and was
protected only by a stout enclosure of logs. For two hundred miles to
the nearest friendly settlements in Ohio, the line of communications was
a forest trail which skirted Lake Erie for some distance and could
easily be cut by the enemy. From Detroit it was the intention of the
Americans to strike the first blow at the Canadian post of Amherstburg
near by.
The stage was now set for the entrance of General William Hull as one of
the luckless, unheroic figures upon whom the presidential power of
appointment bestowed the trappings of high military command. He was by
no means the worst of these. In fact, the choice seemed auspicious. Hull
had seen honorable service in the Revolution and had won the esteem of
George Washington. He was now Governor of Michigan Territory. At sixty
years of age he had no desire to gird on the sword. He was persuaded by
Madison, however, to accept a brigadier general's commission and to lead
the force ordered to Detroit. His instructions were vague, but in June,
1812, shortly before the declaration of war, he took command of two
thousand regulars and militia at Dayton, Ohio, and began the arduous
advance through the wilderness towards Detroit. The adventure was
launched with energy. These hardy, reliant men knew how to cut roads, to
bridge streams, and to exist on scanty rations. Until sickness began to
decimate their ranks, they advanced at an encouraging rate and were
almost halfway to Detroit when the tidings of the outbreak of
hostilities overtook them. General Hull forthwith hurried his troops to
the Maumee River, leaving their camp equipment and heavy stores behind.
He now committed his first crass blunder. Though the British controlled
the waters of Lake Erie, yet he sent a schooner ahead with all his
hospital supplies, intrenching tools, official papers, and muster rolls.
The little vessel was captured within sight of Detroit and the documents
proved invaluable to the British commander of Upper Canada, Major
General Isaac Brock, who gained thereby a complete idea of the American
plans and proceeded to act accordingly. Brock was a soldier of uncommon
intelligence and resolution, acquitting himself with distinction, and
contrasting with his American adversaries in a manner rather painful to
contemplate.
At length Hull reached Detroit and crossed the river to assume the
offensive. He was strongly hopeful of success. The Canadians appeared
friendly and several hundred sought his protection. Even the enemy's
militia were deserting to his colors. In a proclamation Hull looked
forward to a bloodless conquest, informing the Canadians that they were
to be emancipated from tyranny and oppression and restored to the
dignified station of freemen. "I have a force which will break down all
opposition," said he, "and that force is but the vanguard of a much
greater."
He soundly reasoned that unless a movement could be launched against
Niagara, at the other end of Lake Erie, the whole strength of the
British might be thrown against him and that he was likely to be trapped
in Detroit. There was a general plan of campaign, submitted by Major
General Henry Dearborn before the war began, which provided for a
threefold invasion--from Sackett's Harbor on Lake Ontario, from
Niagara, and from Detroit--in support of a grand attack along the route
leading past Lake Champlain to Montreal. Theoretically, it was good
enough strategy, but no attempt had been made to prepare the execution,
and there was no leader competent to direct it.
In response to Hull's urgent appeal, Dearborn, who was puttering about
between Boston and Albany, confessed that he knew nothing about what was
going on at Niagara. He ranked as the commander-in-chief of the American
forces and he awoke from his habitual stupor to ask himself this amazing
question: "Who is to have the command of the operations in Upper Canada?
I take it for granted that my command does not extend to that distant
quarter." If Dearborn did not know who was in control of the operations
at Niagara, it was safe to say that nobody else did, and Hull was left
to deal with the increasing forces in front of him and the hordes of
Indians in the rear, to garrison Detroit, to assault the fort at
Amherstburg, to overcome the British naval forces on Lake Erie--and all
without the slightest help or cooperation from his Government.
Meanwhile Brock had ascertained that the American force at Niagara
consisted of a few hundred militia with no responsible officer in
command, who were making a pretense of patrolling thirty-six miles of
frontier. They were undisciplined, ragged, without tents, shoes, money,
or munitions, and ready to fall back if attacked or to go home unless
soon relieved. Having nothing to fear in that quarter, Brock gathered up
a small body of regulars as he marched and proceeded to Amherstburg to
finish the business of the unfortunate Hull.
That Hull deserves some pity as well as the disgrace which overwhelmed
him is quite apparent. Most of his troops were ill-equipped, unreliable,
and insubordinate. Even during the march to Detroit he had to use a
regular regiment to compel the obedience of twelve hundred mutinous
militiamen who refused to advance. Their own officer could do nothing
with them. At Detroit two hundred of them refused to cross the river, on
the ground that they were not obliged to serve outside the United
States. Granted such extenuation as this, however, Hull showed himself
so weak and contemptible in the face of danger that he could not expect
his fighting men to maintain any respect for him.
His fatal flaw was lack of courage and promptitude. He did not know how
to play a poor hand well. In the emergency which confronted him he was
like a dull sword in a rusty scabbard. While the enemy waited for
reinforcements, he might have captured Amherstburg. He had the superior
force, and yet he delayed and lost heart while his regiments dwindled
because of sickness and desertion and jeered at his leadership. The
watchful Indians, led by the renowned Tecumseh, learned to despise the
Americans instead of fearing them, and were eager to take the warpath
against so easy a prey. Already other bands of braves were hastening
from Lake Huron and from Mackinac, whose American garrison had been
wiped out.
Brooding and shaken, like an old man utterly undone, Hull abandoned his
pretentious invasion of Canada and retreated across the river to shelter
his troops behind the log barricades of Detroit. He sent six hundred men
to try to open a line to Ohio, but, after a sharp encounter with a
British force, Hull was obliged to admit that they "could only open
communication as far as the points of their bayonets extended." His only
thought was to extricate himself, not to stand and fight a winning
battle without counting the cost. His officers felt only contempt for
his cowardice. They were convinced that the tide could be turned in
their favor. There were steadfast men in the ranks who were eager to
take the measure of the redcoats. The colonels were in open mutiny and,
determined to set General Hull aside, they offered the command to
Colonel Miller of the regulars, who declined to accept it. When Hull
proposed a general retreat, he was informed that every man of the Ohio
militia would refuse to obey the order. These troops who had been so
fickle and jealous of their rights were unwilling to share the leader's
disgrace.
Two days after his arrival at Amherstburg, General Brock sent to the
Americans a summons to surrender, adding with a crafty discernment of
the effect of the threat upon the mind of the man with whom he was
dealing: "You must be aware that the numerous body of Indians who have
attached themselves to my troops will be beyond my control the moment
the contest commences." Hull could see only the horrid picture of a
massacre of the women and children within the stockades of Detroit. He
failed to realize that his thousand effective infantrymen could hold out
for weeks behind those log ramparts against Brock's few hundred regulars
and volunteers. Two and a half years later, Andrew Jackson and his
militia emblazoned a very different story behind the cypress
breastworks of New Orleans. Besides the thousand men in the fort, Hull
had detached five hundred under Colonels McArthur and Cass to attempt to
break through the Indian cordon in his rear and obtain supplies. These
he now vainly endeavored to recall while he delayed a final reply to
Brock's mandate.
Indecision had doomed the garrison which was now besieged. Tecumseh's
warriors had crossed the river and were between the fort and McArthur's
column. Brock boldly decided to assault, a desperate venture, but he
must have known that Hull's will had crumbled. No more than seven
hundred strong, the little British force crossed the river just before
daybreak on the 16th of August and was permitted to select its positions
without the slightest molestation. A few small field pieces, posted on
the Canadian side of the river, hurled shot into the fort, killing four
of Hull's men, and two British armed schooners lay within range.
Brock advanced, expecting to suffer large losses from the heavy guns
which were posted to cover the main approach to the fort, but his men
passed through the zone of danger and found cover in which they made
ready to storm the defenses of Detroit. As Brock himself walked forward
to take note of the situation before giving the final commands, a white
flag fluttered from the battery in front of him. Without firing a shot,
Hull had surrendered Detroit and with it the great territory of
Michigan, the most grievous loss of domain that the United States has
ever suffered in war or peace. On the same day Fort Dearborn (Chicago),
which had been forgotten by the Government, was burned by Indians after
all its defenders had been slain. These two disasters with the earlier
fall of Mackinac practically erased American dominion from the western
empire of the Great Lakes. Visions of the conquest of Canada were thus
rudely dimmed in the opening actions of the war.
General Hull was tried by court-martial on charges of treason,
cowardice, and neglect of duty. He was convicted on the last two charges
and sentenced to be shot, with a recommendation to the mercy of the
President. The verdict was approved by Madison, but he remitted the
execution of the sentence because of the old man's services in the
Revolution. Guilty though he was, an angry and humiliated people also
made him the scapegoat for the sins of neglect and omission of which
their Government stood convicted. In the testimony offered at his trial
there was a touch, rude, vivid, and very human, to portray him in the
final hours of the tragic episode at Detroit. Spurned by his officers,
he sat on the ground with his back against the rampart while "he
apparently unconsciously filled his mouth with tobacco, putting in quid
after quid more than he generally did; the spittle colored with tobacco
juice ran from his mouth on his neckcloth, beard, cravat, and vest."
Later events in the Northwest Territory showed that the British
successes in that region were gained chiefly because of an unworthy
alliance with the Indian tribes, whose barbarous methods of warfare
stained the records of those who employed them. "Not more than seven or
eight hundred British soldiers ever crossed the Detroit River," says
Henry Adams, "but the United States raised fully twenty thousand men and
spent at least five million dollars and many lives in expelling them.
The Indians alone made this outlay necessary. The campaign of
Tippecanoe, the surrender of Detroit and Mackinaw, the massacres at Fort
Dearborn, the river Raisin, and Fort Meigs, the murders along the
frontier, and the campaign of 1813 were the prices paid for the Indian
lands in the Wabash Valley."
Before the story shifts to the other fields of the war, it seems
logical to follow to its finally successful result the bloody, wasteful
struggle for the recovery of the lost territory. This operation required
large armies and long campaigns, together with the naval supremacy of
Lake Erie, won in the next year by Oliver Hazard Perry, before the
fugitive British forces fell back from the charred ruins of Detroit and
Amherstburg and were soundly beaten at the battle of the Thames--the one
decisive, clean-cut American victory of the war on the Canadian
frontier. These events showed that far too much had been expected of
General William Hull, who comprehended his difficulties but made no
attempt to batter a way through them, forgetting that to die and win is
always better than to live and fail.