1812: OFF TO THE FRONT
President Madison sent his message to Congress on the
1st of June and signed the resultant 'war bill' on the
18th following. Congress was as much divided as the nation
on the question of peace or war. The vote in the House
of Representatives was seventy-nine to forty-nine, while
in the Senate it was nineteen to thirteen. The government
itself was 'solid.' But it did little enough to make up
for the lack of national whole-heartedness by any efficiency
of its own. Madison was less zealous about the war than
most of his party. He was no Pitt or Lincoln to ride the
storm, but a respectable lawyer-politician, whose forte
was writing arguments, not wielding his country's sword.
Nor had he in his Cabinet a single statesman with a genius
for making war. His war secretary, William Eustis, never
grasped the military situation at all, and had to be
replaced by John Armstrong after the egregious failures
of the first campaign. During the war debate in June,
Eustis was asked to report to Congress how many of the
'additional' twenty-five thousand men authorized in
January had already been enlisted. The best answer he
could make was a purely 'unofficial opinion' that the
number was believed to exceed five thousand.
The first move to the front was made by the Navy. Under
very strong pressure the Cabinet had given up the original
idea of putting the ships under a glass case; and four
days after the declaration of war orders were sent to
the senior naval officer, Commodore Rodgers, to 'protect
our returning commerce' by scattering his ships about
the American coast just where the British squadron at
Halifax would be most likely to defeat them one by one.
Happily for the United States, these orders were too
late. Rodgers had already sailed. He was a man of action.
His little squadron of three frigates, one sloop, and
one brig lay in the port of New York, all ready waiting
for the word. And when news of the declaration arrived,
he sailed within the hour, and set out in pursuit of a
British squadron that was convoying a fleet of merchantmen
from the West Indies to England. He missed the convoy,
which worked into Liverpool, Bristol, and London by
getting to the north of him. But, for all that, his sudden
dash into British waters with an active, concentrated
squadron produced an excellent effect. The third day out
the British frigate _Belvidera_ met him and had to run
for her life into Halifax. The news of this American
squadron's being at large spread alarm all over the routes
between Canada and the outside world. Rodgers turned
south within a few hours' sail of the English Channel,
turned west off Madeira, gave Halifax a wide berth, and
reached Boston ten weeks out from Sandy Hook. 'We have
been so completely occupied in looking out for Commodore
Rodgers,' wrote a British naval officer, 'that we have
taken very few prizes.' Even Madison was constrained to
admit that this offensive move had had the defensive
results he had hoped to reach in his own 'defensive' way.
'Our Trade has reached our ports, having been much favoured
by a squadron under Commodore Rodgers.'
The policy of squadron cruising was continued throughout
the autumn and winter of 1812. There were no squadron
battles. But there was unity of purpose; and British
convoys were harassed all over the Atlantic till well on
into the next year. During this period there were five
famous duels, which have made the _Constitution_ and the
_United States_, the _Hornet_ and the _Wasp_, four names
to conjure with wherever the Stars and Stripes are flown.
The _Constitution_ fought the first, when she took the
_Guerriere_ in August, due east of Boston and south of
Newfoundland. The _Wasp_ won the second in September, by
taking the _Frolic_ half-way between Halifax and Bermuda.
The _United States_ won the third in October, by defeating
the _Macedonian_ south-west of Madeira. The _Constitution_
won the fourth in December, off Bahia in Brazil, by
defeating the _Java_. And the _Hornet_ won the fifth in
February, by taking the _Peacock_, off Demerara, on the
coast of British Guiana.
This closed the first period of the war at sea. The
British government had been so anxious to avoid war, and
to patch up peace again after war had broken out, that
they purposely refrained from putting forth their full
available naval strength till 1813. At the same time,
they would naturally have preferred victory to defeat;
and the fact that most of the British Navy was engaged
elsewhere, and that what was available was partly held
in leash, by no means dims the glory of those four
men-of-war which the Americans fought with so much bravery
and skill, and with such well-deserved success. No wonder
Wellington said peace with the United States would be
worth having at any honourable price, 'if we could only
take some of their damned frigates!' Peace was not to
come for another eighteen months. But though the Americans
won a few more duels out at sea, besides two annihilating
flotilla victories on the Lakes, their coast was blockaded
as completely as Napoleon's, once the British Navy had
begun its concerted movements on a comprehensive scale.
From that time forward the British began to win the naval
war, although they won no battles and only one duel that
has lived in history. This dramatic duel, fought between
the _Shannon_ and the _Chesapeake_ on June 1, 1813, was
not itself a more decisive victory for the British than
previous frigate duels had been for the Americans. But
it serves better than any other special event to mark
the change from the first period, when the Americans
roved the sea as conquerors, to the second, when they
were gradually blockaded into utter impotence.
Having now followed the thread of naval events to a point
beyond the other limits of this chapter, we must return to
the American movements against the Canadian frontier and
the British counter-movements intended to checkmate them.
Quebec and Halifax, the two great Canadian seaports, were
safe from immediate American attack; though Quebec was
the ultimate objective of the Americans all through the
war. But the frontier west of Quebec offered several
tempting chances for a vigorous invasion, if the American
naval and military forces could only be made to work
together. The whole life of Canada there depended absolutely
on her inland waterways. If the Americans could cut the
line of the St Lawrence and Great Lakes at any critical
point, the British would lose everything to the west of
it; and there were several critical points of connection
along this line. St Joseph's Island, commanding the
straits between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, was a vital
point of contact with all the Indians to the west. It
was the British counterpoise to the American post at
Michilimackinac, which commanded the straits between Lake
Huron and Lake Michigan. Detroit commanded the waterway
between Lake Huron and Lake Erie; while the command of
the Niagara peninsula ensured the connection between Lake
Erie and Lake Ontario. At the head of the St Lawrence,
guarding the entrance to Lake Ontario, stood Kingston.
Montreal was an important station midway between Kingston
and Quebec, besides being an excellent base for an army
thrown forward against the American frontier. Quebec was
the general base from which all the British forces were
directed and supplied.
Quick work, by water and land together, was essential
for American success before the winter, even if the
Canadians were really so anxious to change their own flag
for the Stars and Stripes. But the American government
put the cart before the horse--the Army before the
Navy--and weakened the military forces of invasion by
dividing them into two independent commands. General
Henry Dearborn was appointed commander-in-chief, but only
with control over the north-eastern country, that is,
New England and New York. Thirty years earlier Dearborn
had served in the War of Independence as a junior officer;
and he had been Jefferson's Secretary of War. Yet he was
not much better trained as a leader than his raw men were
as followers, and he was now sixty-one. He established
his headquarters at Greenbush, nearly opposite Albany,
so that he could advance on Montreal by the line of the
Hudson, Lake Champlain, and the Richelieu. The intended
advance, however, did not take place this year. Greenbush
was rather a recruiting depot and camp of instruction
than the base of an army in the field; and the actual
campaign had hardly begun before the troops went into
winter quarters. The commander of the north-western army
was General William Hull. And his headquarters were to
be Detroit, from which Upper Canada was to be quickly
overrun without troubling about the co-operation of the
Navy. Like Dearborn, Hull had served in the War of
Independence. But he had been a civilian ever since; he
was now fifty-nine; and his only apparent qualification
was his having been governor of Michigan for seven years.
Not until September, after two defeats on land, was
Commodore Chauncey ordered 'to assume command of the
naval force on Lakes Erie and Ontario, and use every
exertion to obtain control of them this fall.' Even then
Lake Champlain, an essential link both in the frontier
system and on Dearborn's proposed line of march, was
totally forgotten.
To complete the dispersion of force, Eustis forgot all
about the military detachments at the western forts. Fort
Dearborn (now Chicago) and Michilimackinac, important as
points of connection with the western tribes, were left
to the devices of their own inadequate garrisons. In 1801
Dearborn himself, Eustis's predecessor as Secretary of
War, had recommended a peace strength of two hundred men
at Michilimackinac, usually known as 'Mackinaw.' In 1812
there were not so many at Mackinaw and Chicago put
together.
It was not a promising outlook to an American military
eye--the cart before the horse, the thick end of the
wedge turned towards the enemy, three incompetent men
giving disconnected orders on the northern frontier, and
the western posts neglected. But Eustis was full of
self-confidence. Hull was 'enthusing' his militiamen.
And Dearborn was for the moment surpassing both, by
proposing to 'operate, with effect, at the same moment,
against Niagara, Kingston, and Montreal.'
From the Canadian side the outlook was also dark enough
to the trained eye; though not for the same reasons. The
menace here was from an enemy whose general resources
exceeded those in Canada by almost twenty to one. The
silver lining to the cloud was the ubiquitous British
Navy and the superior training and discipline of the
various little military forces immediately available for
defence.
The Maritime Provinces formed a subordinate command,
based on the strong naval station of Halifax, where a
regular garrison was always maintained by the Imperial
government. They were never invaded, or even seriously
threatened. It was only in 1814 that they came directly
into the scene of action, and then only as the base from
which the invasion of Maine was carried out.
We must therefore turn to Quebec as the real centre of
Canadian defence, which, indeed, it was best fitted to
be, not only from its strategical situation, but from
the fact that it was the seat of the governor-general
and commander-in-chief, Sir George Prevost. Like Sir John
Sherbrooke, the governor of Nova Scotia, Prevost was a
professional soldier with an unblemished record in the
Army. But, though naturally anxious to do well, and though
very suavely diplomatic, he was not the man, as we shall
often see, either to face a military crisis or to stop
the Americans from stealing marches on him by negotiation.
On the outbreak of war he was at headquarters in Quebec,
dividing his time between his civil and military duties,
greatly concerned with international diplomacy, and always
full of caution.
At York (now Toronto) in Upper Canada a very different
man was meanwhile preparing to checkmate Hull's
'north-western army' of Americans, which was threatening
to invade the province. Isaac Brock was not only a soldier
born and bred, but, alone among the leaders on either
side, he had the priceless gift of genius. He was now
forty-two, having been born in Guernsey on October 6,
1769, in the same year as Napoleon and Wellington. Like
the Wolfes and the Montcalms, the Brocks had followed
the noble profession of arms for many generations. Nor
were the De Lisles, his mother's family, less distinguished
for the number of soldiers and sailors they had been
giving to England ever since the Norman Conquest. Brock
himself, when only twenty-nine, had commanded the 49th
Foot in Holland under Sir John Moore, the future hero of
Corunna, and Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was so soon to
fall victorious in Egypt. Two years after this he had
stood beside another and still greater man at Copenhagen,
'mighty Nelson,' who there gave a striking instance of
how a subordinate inspired by genius can win the day by
disregarding the over-caution of a commonplace superior.
We may be sure that when Nelson turned his blind eye on
Parker's signal of recall the lesson was not thrown away
on Brock.
For ten long years of inglorious peace Brock had now been
serving on in Canada, while his comrades in arms were
winning distinction on the battlefields of Europe. This
was partly due to his own excellence: he was too good a
man to be spared after his first five years were up in
1807; for the era of American hostility had then begun.
He had always been observant. But after 1807 he had
redoubled his efforts to 'learn Canada,' and learn her
thoroughly. People and natural resources, products and
means of transport, armed strength on both sides of the
line and the best plan of defence, all were studied with
unremitting zeal. In 1811 he became the acting
lieutenant-governor and commander of the forces in Upper
Canada, where he soon found out that the members of
parliament returned by the 'American vote' were bent on
thwarting every effort he could make to prepare the
province against the impending storm. In 1812, on the
very day he heard that war had been declared, he wished
to strike the unready Americans hard and instantly at
one of their three accessible points of assembly-Fort
Niagara, at the upper end of Lake Ontario, opposite Fort
George, which stood on the other side of the Niagara
river; Sackett's Harbour, at the lower end of Lake Ontario,
thirty-six miles from Kingston; and Ogdensburg, on the
upper St Lawrence, opposite Fort Prescott. But Sir George
Prevost, the governor-general, was averse from an open
act of war against the Northern States, because they were
hostile to Napoleon and in favour of maintaining peace
with the British; while Brock himself was soon turned
from this purpose by news of Hull's American invasion
farther west, as well as by the necessity of assembling
his own thwarting little parliament at York.
The nine days' session, from July 27 to August 5, yielded
the indispensable supplies. But the suspension of the
Habeas Corpus Act, as a necessary war measure, was
prevented by the disloyal minority, some of whom wished
to see the British defeated and all of whom were ready
to break their oath of allegiance whenever it suited them
to do so. The patriotic majority, returned by the votes
of United Empire Loyalists and all others who were British
born and bred, issued an address that echoed the appeal
made by Brock himself in the following words: 'We are
engaged in an awful and eventful contest. By unanimity
and despatch in our councils and by vigour in our operations
we may teach the enemy this lesson: That a country defended
by free men, enthusiastically devoted to the cause of
their King and Constitution, can never be conquered.'
On August 5, being at last clear of his immediate duties
as a civil governor, Brock threw himself ardently into
the work of defeating Hull, who had crossed over into
Canada from Detroit on July 11 and issued a proclamation
at Sandwich the following day. This proclamation shows
admirably the sort of impression which the invaders wished
to produce on Canadians.
The United States are sufficiently powerful to afford
you every security consistent with their rights and
your expectations. I tender you the invaluable blessings
of Civil, Political, and Religious Liberty... The
arrival of an army of Friends must be hailed by you
with a cordial welcome. You will be emancipated from
Tyranny and Oppression and restored to the dignified
station of Freemen... If, contrary to your own interest
and the just expectation of my country, you should
take part in the approaching contest, you will be
considered and treated as enemies and the horrors and
calamities of war will Stalk before you. If the
barbarous and Savage policy of Great Britain be pursued,
and the savages let loose to murder our Citizens and
butcher our women and children, this war will be a
war of extermination. The first stroke with the
Tomahawk, the first attempt with the Scalping Knife,
will be the Signal for one indiscriminate scene of
desolation. No white man found fighting by the Side
of an Indian will be taken prisoner. Instant destruction
will be his Lot...
This was war with a vengeance. But Hull felt less confidence
than his proclamation was intended to display. He knew
that, while the American government had been warned in
January about the necessity of securing the naval command
of Lake Erie, no steps had yet been taken to secure it.
Ever since the beginning of March, when he had written
a report based on his seven years' experience as governor
of Michigan, he had been gradually learning that Eustis
was bent on acting in defiance of all sound military
advice. In April he had accepted his new position very
much against his will and better judgment. In May he had
taken command of the assembling militiamen at Dayton in
Ohio. In June he had been joined by a battalion of
inexperienced regulars. And now, in July, he was already
feeling the ill effects of having to carry on what should
have been an amphibious campaign without the assistance
of any proper force afloat; for on the 2nd ten days before
he issued his proclamation at Sandwich, Lieutenant Rolette,
an enterprising French-Canadian officer in the Provincial
Marine, had cut his line of communication along the
Detroit and had taken an American schooner which contained
his official plan of campaign, besides a good deal of
baggage and stores.
There were barely six hundred British on the line of the
Detroit when Hull first crossed over to Sandwich with
twenty-five hundred men. These six hundred comprised less
than 150 regulars, about 300 militia, and some 150 Indians.
Yet Hull made no decisive effort against the feeble little
fort of Malden, which was the only defence of Amherstburg
by land. The distance was nothing, only twelve miles
south from Sandwich. He sent a sort of flying column
against it. But this force went no farther than half-way,
where the Americans were checked at the bridge over the
swampy little Riviere aux Canards by the Indians under
Tecumseh, the great War Chief of whom we shall soon hear
more.
Hull's failure to take Fort Malden was one fatal mistake.
His failure to secure his communications southward from
Detroit was another. Apparently yielding to the prevalent
American idea that a safe base could be created among
friendly Canadians without the trouble of a regular
campaign, he sent off raiding parties up the Thames.
According to his own account, these parties 'penetrated
sixty miles into the settled part of the province.'
According to Brock, they 'ravaged the country as far as
the Moravian Town.' But they gained no permanent foothold.
By the beginning of August Hull's position had already
become precarious. The Canadians had not proved friendly.
The raid up the Thames and the advance towards Amherstburg
had both failed. And the first British reinforcements
had already begun to arrive. These were very small. But
even a few good regulars helped to discourage Hull; and
the new British commander, Colonel Procter of the 41st,
was not yet to be faced by a task beyond his strength.
Worse yet for the Americans, Brock might soon be expected
from the east; the Provincial Marine still held the water
line of communication from the south; and dire news had
just come in from the west.
The moment Brock had heard of the declaration of war he
had sent orders post-haste to Captain Roberts at St
Joseph's Island, either to attack the Americans at
Michilimackinac or stand on his own defence. Roberts
received Brock's orders on the 15th of July. The very
next day he started for Michilimackinac with 45 men of
the Royal Veterans, 180 French-Canadian voyageurs, 400
Indians, and two 'unwieldy' iron six-pounders. Surprise
was essential, to prevent the Americans from destroying
their stores; and the distance was a good fifty miles.
But 'by the almost unparalleled exertions of the Canadians
who manned the boats, we arrived at the place of Rendezvous
at 3 o'clock the following morning.' One of the iron
six-pounders was then hauled up the heights, which rise
to eight hundred feet, and trained on the dumbfounded
Americans, while the whole British force took post for
storming. The American commandant, Lieutenant Hanks, who
had only fifty-seven effective men, thereupon surrendered
without firing a shot.
The news of this bold stroke ran like wildfire through
the whole North-West. The effect on the Indians was
tremendous, immediate, and wholly in favour of the British.
In the previous November Tecumseh's brother, known far
and wide as the 'Prophet,' had been defeated on the banks
of the Tippecanoe, a river of Indiana, by General Harrison,
of whom we shall hear in the next campaign. This battle,
though small in itself, was looked upon as the typical
victory of the dispossessing Americans; so the British
seizure of Michilimackinac was hailed with great joy as
being a most effective counter-stroke. Nor was this the
only reason for rejoicing. Michilimackinac and St Joseph's
commanded the two lines of communication between the
western wilds and the Great Lakes; so the possession of
both by the British was more than a single victory, it
was a promise of victories to come. No wonder Hull lamented
this 'opening of the hive,' which 'let the swarms' loose
all over the wilds on his inland flank and rear.
He would have felt more uneasy still if he had known what
was to happen when Captain Heald received his orders at
Fort Dearborn (Chicago) on August 9. Hull had ordered
Heald to evacuate the fort as soon as possible and rejoin
headquarters. Heald had only sixty-six men, not nearly
enough to overawe the surrounding Indians. News of the
approaching evacuation spread quickly during the six days
of preparation. The Americans failed to destroy the strong
drink in the fort. The Indians got hold of it, became
ungovernably drunk, and killed half of Heald's men before
they had gone a mile. The rest surrendered and were
spared. Heald and his wife were then sent to Mackinaw,
where Roberts treated them very kindly and sent them on
to Pittsburg. The whole affair was one between Indians
and Americans alone. But it was naturally used by the
war party to inflame American feeling against all things
British.
While Hull was writing to Fort Dearborn and hearing bad
news from Michilimackinac, he was also getting more and
more anxious about his own communications to the south.
With no safe base in Canada, and no safe line of transport
by water from Lake Erie to the village of Detroit, he
decided to clear the road which ran north and south beside
the Detroit river. But this was now no easy task for his
undisciplined forces, as Colonel Procter was bent on
blocking the same road by sending troops and Indians
across the river. On August 5, the day Brock prorogued
his parliament at York, Tecumseh ambushed Hull's first
detachment of two hundred men at Brownstown, eighteen
miles south of Detroit. On the 7th Hull began to withdraw
his forces from the Canadian side. On the 8th he ordered
six hundred men to make a second attempt to clear the
southern road. But on the 9th these men were met at
Maguaga, only fourteen miles south of Detroit, by a mixed
force of British-regulars, militia, and Indians. The
superior numbers of the Americans enabled them to press
the British back at first. But, on the 10th, when the
British showed a firm front in a new position, the
Americans retired discouraged. Next day Hull withdrew
the last of his men from Canadian soil, exactly one month
after they had first set foot upon it. The following day
was spent in consulting his staff and trying to reorganize
his now unruly militia. On the evening of the 13th he
made his final effort to clear the one line left, by
sending out four hundred picked men under his two best
colonels, McArthur and Cass, who were ordered to make an
inland detour through the woods.
That same night Brock stepped ashore at Amherstburg.