THE WAR FOR "SAILORS' RIGHTS" AND WESTWARD EXPANSION, 1812-1815
The second war between the United States and the mother country, unlike
the first, was scarcely more than a minor {216} annoyance to the
stronger party. In the years 1812-1814, England was engaged in
maintaining an army in Spain, in preying on French commerce by blockade
and cruising, and was spending immense sums to subsidize the European
nations in their final struggle against Napoleon. The whole military
and financial strength of the country, the whole political and
diplomatic interest were absorbed in the tremendous European contest.
Whig and Tory, landowner, manufacturer, and labourer were united in
unbending determination to destroy the power of the Corsican. The
Liverpool Ministry contained little of talent, and no genius, but the
members possessed certain traits which sufficed to render others
unnecessary, namely, an unshakable tenacity and steady hatred of the
French. The whole country stood behind them on that score.
In these circumstances, the English, when obliged to fight the United
States, were at liberty to send an overwhelming naval force to blockade
or destroy American commerce, but were in great straits to provide men
to defend Canada. It was not until a full year after the declaration
of war that any considerable force of regular troops could be collected
and sent there, and not for two years that anything approaching a
genuine army could be directed against America. {217} The defence of
Canada had to be left to the efforts of some few officers and men and
such local levies as could be assembled.
On the side of the United States, the war was bound to take the form of
an effort to capture all or part of Canada, for that was the only
vulnerable British possession. On the sea the United States could hope
at most to damage British commerce by means of the few national
cruisers and such privateers as the shipowners of the country could
send out. Without a single ship-of-the-line and with only five
frigates, there existed no possibility of actually fighting the British
navy. But on land it seemed as though a country with a population of
over seven millions ought to be able to raise armies of such size as to
overrun, by mere numbers, the slender resources of Canada; and it was
the confident expectation of most of the western leaders that within a
short time the whole region would be in American hands. "The
acquisition of Canada this year," wrote Jefferson, "as far as the
neighbourhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will
give us experience for the attack on Halifax, the next and the final
expulsion of England from the American continent."
Unfortunately for the success of these dreams, the policy of the
Republican administrations had been such as to set up {218} insuperable
difficulties. The regular army, reduced under Jefferson's "passion for
peace" to a bare minimum, was scattered in a few posts; the War
Department was without means for equipping, feeding, and transporting
bodies of troops; the whole mechanism of war administration had to be
created. Further, the Secretary of the Army and nearly all the
generals were elderly men, veterans of the Revolutionary Army, who had
lost whatever energy they once possessed. The problem of war finances
was rendered serious by the fact that revenue from the tariff, the sole
important source of income, was sure to be cut off by the British naval
power. The National Bank had been refused a new charter in 1811, and
the government, democratic in its finances as in other matters, relied
upon a hundred odd State banks of every degree of solvency for aid in
carrying on financial operations.
The temper of the American people was exactly what it had been in
colonial days. They regarded war as a matter to be carried on at the
convenience of farmers and others, who were willing to serve in defence
of their homes, but strongly objected to enlisting for any length of
time. On the more pugnacious frontier, the prevailing military ideal
was that of the armed mob or crowd--a body of fighters following a
chosen leader against Indians. {219} Everywhere the elementary
conceptions of obedience and duty were unknown. The very men who
wished for war were unwilling to fight except on their own terms.
Still more fatal to military efficiency was the fact that the
Federalists, and many of the northern Republicans, inhabiting the
regions abutting on Canada, were violently opposed to the war, wished
to see it fail, and were firmly resolved to do nothing to aid the
administration. The utmost the Federalists would do was to defend
themselves if attacked, but they would do that on their own
responsibility and not under federal orders.
The only exception to this prevailing unmilitary condition was to be
found in the navy, where, through cruising and through actual service
against the Barbary corsairs, a genuinely trained body of officers and
men had been created. Unable to do more than give a good account of
themselves on the ocean in single combats, these officers found a
chance on the northern lakes to display a fighting power and skill
which is one of the few redeeming features of the war on the American
side.
In 1812 hostilities began with a feeble attempt on the part of the
United States to invade Canada, an effort whose details are of interest
only in showing how impossible {220} it is for an essentially
unmilitary people to improvise warfare. Congress had authorized a
loan, the construction of vessels, and the enlistment of an army of
36,000 men; but the officers appointed to assemble a military force
found themselves unable, after months of recruiting and working, to
gather more than half that number of raw troops, with a fluctuating
body of State militia. With these rudiments of a military force,
attempts to "invade" Canada were made in three directions--from
Detroit, from the Niagara River, and from the northern end of Lake
Champlain.
To meet these movements, there were actually less than 2,800 British
soldiers west of Montreal; but fortunately they were commanded by Isaac
Brock, an officer of daring and an aggressive temper. He at once
entered into alliance with Tecumseh and the western Indians, and thus
brought to the British assistance a force of hundreds of warriors along
the Ohio and Kentucky frontier. While General Hull, with about 2,000
troops, mainly volunteers from the West, marched under orders to
Detroit and then, in July, invaded upper Canada, the outlying American
posts at Chicago and Mackinac were either captured or destroyed by the
Indians. Brock, gathering a handful of men, marched against Hull,
terrified him for the safety of {221} his communications with the
United States, forced the old man to retreat to Detroit, and finally,
by advancing boldly against the slight fortifications of the post,
frightened him into surrender. Hull had been set an impossible task,
to conquer upper Canada with no sure means of getting reinforcements or
supplies through a region swarming with Indians; but his conduct
indicated no spark of pugnacity, and his surrender caused the loss of
the entire north-west. Tecumseh and his warriors now advanced against
the Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio frontiers; and the nameless horrors of
Indian massacre and torture surged along the line of settlements. The
frontiersmen flew to arms. General Harrison, with a commission from
Kentucky, headed a large expedition to regain lost ground; but he only
succeeded in building forts in north-western Ohio and waging a
defensive war against the raids of Tecumseh and the British general,
Proctor, Brock's successor.
At Niagara, no move was made until the late autumn, when two American
generals in succession--Van Rensselaer and Smyth--tried to lead a
motley array of militia and regulars across the river. Brock met the
first detachment and was killed in a skirmish, but his men were able to
annihilate the main attack, on the brink of the river, while several
thousand American militia, {222} refusing, on constitutional grounds,
to serve outside the jurisdiction of their state, watched safely from
the eastern bank. The second effort in November, under General Smyth,
proved an even worse fiasco. Meanwhile General Dearborn, the supreme
commander, tried to invade near Lake Champlain; but, after he had
marched his troops to the Canadian border, the militia refused to leave
the soil of the United States, and so the campaign had to be abandoned.
The military efforts of the United States were, as the Canadian
historian phrases it, "beneath criticism."
The only redeeming feature of the year was the record of the little
American navy and the success of the privateers, who rushed to prey
upon British commerce. Upwards of two hundred British vessels were
captured, while all but about seventy American ships reached home
safely. The British sent squadrons of cruisers, but were unable to
begin a blockade. Their aim was to capture American men-of-war as
rapidly as possible, to prevent their doing damage, so they
unhesitatingly attacked American vessels whenever they met them,
regardless of slight differences in size or gun-power. The British
sea-captain of the day had a hearty contempt for Americans, and never
dreamed that their navy could be any more dangerous than the {223}
French. To the unlimited delight of the American public, and the
stupefaction of England, five American cruisers in succession captured
or sank five British in the autumn of 1812, utilizing superior weight
of broadside and more accurate gunnery with merciless severity. These
blows did no actual damage to a navy which comprised several hundred
frigates and sloops, but the moral effect was great. It had been
proved that Americans, after all, could fight.
In 1813 there was a change in administrative officers. Doctor Eustis
was replaced in the War Department by John Armstrong, who had served in
the Revolution, and William Jones of Philadelphia succeeded Paul
Hamilton as Secretary of the Navy. Congress authorized more men, to
the number of 58,000, and more ships, and voted more loans. Finally,
in the summer it was actually driven to impose internal taxes like
those which, when imposed by Federalists, had savoured of tyranny.
On the northern frontier, renewed efforts were made to collect a real
army, and, with late comprehension of the necessities of the case,
naval officers were sent to build flotillas to control Erie, Ontario,
and Champlain. On their part, the British Ministry sent out a few
troops and officers to Canada, but {224} relied this year chiefly upon
a strict blockade, which was proclaimed first in December, 1812, and
was extended, before the end of the year, to cover the entire coast,
except New England. Ships-of-the-line, frigates, and sloops patrolled
the entrances to all the seaports, terminating not only foreign but
coastwise commerce.
Things went little if any better for the United States. The army was
on paper 58,000 men; but the people of the north and west would not
enlist. The utmost efforts at recruiting did not succeed in bringing
one-half the nominal force into the field. The people would not take
the war seriously, and the administration was helpless. To make
matters worse, not only did the north-western frontier agonize under
Indian warfare, but the south-west became involved, when, in August,
1813, the Creek Indians, affected by Tecumseh's influence, rose and
began a war in Tennessee and Georgia. For months Andrew Jackson,
General of Tennessee militia, with other local commanders, carried on
an exhausting and murderous conflict in the swamps and woods of the
south-west. The war was now assuming the character of the last stand
of the Indians before the oncoming whites.
In the north-west, decisive blows were struck in this year by General
Harrison and {225} Commander Perry. The latter built a small fleet of
boats, carrying in all fifty-four guns, and sailed out to contest the
control of Lake Erie. Captain Barclay, the British commander, with
scantier resources, constructed a weaker fleet, with sixty-three
lighter guns, and gallantly awaited the Americans on September 9. In a
desperately fought battle, Perry's sloop, the _Lawrence_, was
practically destroyed by the concentrated fire of the British; but the
greater gun-power of the Americans told, and the entire British
flotilla was compelled to surrender. This enabled Harrison, who had
been waiting for months in his fortifications, to advance and pursue
Proctor into upper Canada. On October 5 he brought him to action near
the river Thames, winning a complete victory and killing Tecumseh. The
Americans then returned to Detroit, and the Indian war gradually
simmered down, until in August, 1814, the leading tribes made peace.
To the eastward no such decisive action took place. Sir James Yeo and
Commodore Chauncey, commanding the British and American vessels
respectively on Lake Ontario, were each unwilling to risk a battle
without a decisive superiority; and the result was that no serious
engagement occurred. This rendered it impossible for either side to
attain any military success in that region; and so the year 1813 {226}
shows only a succession of raids, a species of activity in which the
British proved much the more daring and efficient. During one of these
affairs, General Dearborn occupied the Canadian town of York, now
Toronto, and burned the public buildings--an act of needless
destruction for which the United States was destined to pay heavily.
Further eastward, General Wilkinson and General Hampton began a joint
invasion of lower Canada, Wilkinson leading a force of over 6,000 men
down the St. Lawrence, Hampton advancing with 4,000 from Lake Champlain
toward the same goal, Montreal. But at Chrystler's Farm, on November
11, the rearguard of Wilkinson's army suffered a thorough defeat at the
hands of a small pursuing force; and Hampton underwent a similar
repulse from an inferior body of French-Canadians under Colonel de
Salaberry, at Chateauguy, on October 25. Finally, Hampton, suspecting
that Armstrong and Wilkinson intended in case of any failure to throw
the blame on him, decided to withdraw, November 11, and Wilkinson
followed. The whole invasion came to an inglorious conclusion.
At sea the uniform success of American cruisers came to a stop, for,
out of four naval duels, two were British victories, notably the taking
of the unlucky _Chesapeake_ by the {227} _Shannon_. Only where
privateers and sloops swept West Indian waters and hung about British
convoys was there much to satisfy American feelings; and all the while
the blockading squadrons cruised at their ease in Chesapeake and
Delaware bays and Long Island Sound. The country was now subjected to
increasing distress from the stoppage of all commerce; not only was the
Federal government sorely pinched from loss of tariff revenue, but the
New England towns suffered from starvation prices for food products,
while in the middle and southern States grain was used to feed the
cattle or allowed to rot.
For the season of 1814, it was necessary again to try to build up
armies; and now the time was growing short during which the United
States could hope to draw advantage from the preoccupation of England
in the European struggle. During the winter of 1814, the final
crushing of Napoleon took place, ending with his abdication and the
restoration of the Bourbons. Simultaneously, the British campaign in
Spain was carried to its triumphant conclusion, and after April British
armies had no further European occupation. Unless peace were made, or
unless the United States gained such advantages in Canada as to render
the British ready to treat, it was practically certain that the {228}
summer would find the full power of the British army, as well as the
navy, in a position to be directed against the American frontier and
the American sea-coast.
Congress, however, did nothing new. It authorized a loan, raised the
bounty for enlistments, voted a further increase of the army, and
adjourned. Armstrong, the Secretary of War, succeeded in replacing the
worn-out veterans who had mismanaged the campaigns of 1812-1813 with
fighting generals, younger men, such as Jacob Brown, Scott, Ripley, and
Jackson, the Indian fighter; but he could not induce men to enlist any
more freely, nor did he show any ability in planning operations. So
events dragged on much as before.
On Lake Ontario, Chauncey and Yeo continued their cautious policy,
building vessels continually and never venturing out of port unless for
the moment in overwhelming force. The result was that first one then
the other controlled the lake; but they never met. The only serious
fighting took place near Niagara, where General Brown, with a little
force of 2,600 men, tried to invade Canada, and was met first by
General Riall, and later by General Drummond, with practically equal
forces. Here the Americans actually fought, and fought hard, winning a
slight success at Chippawa on July 5, and engaging {229} in a drawn
battle at Lundy's Lane on July 25. Later forced to take refuge in Fort
Erie, Brown made a successful defence against Drummond, and obliged him
to abandon an effort at siege. Here, as in the naval combats, the
military showing of the Americans was at last creditable; but the
campaign was on too trivial a scale to produce any results. In the
south-west this year, Jackson pushed through his attack on the Creeks
to a triumphant conclusion, and in spite of mutinous militia and
difficult forests compelled the Indians on August 9, 1814, to purchase
peace by large cessions of land.
By the middle of the summer, however, the British were ready to lay a
heavy hand on the United States and punish the insolent country for its
annoying attack in the rear. New England was now subjected to the
blockade, and troops from Wellington's irresistible army were sent
across, some to the squadron in the Chesapeake, others to Canada, and
later still others in a well-equipped expedition to New Orleans to
conquer the mouth of the Mississippi.
The Chesapeake squadron, after raiding and provisioning itself at the
expense of the Virginia and Maryland farmers, made a dash at
Washington, sending boats up the Patuxent and Potomac rivers, and
landing a body of about 2,000 men. On August 24, with absurd {230}
ease, this force scattered in swift panic a hasty collection of
militia, and entered Washington, sending the President and Cabinet
flying into the country. In retaliation for the damage done at York,
the British officers set fire to the capital and other public
buildings, before retreating swiftly to their ships. A similar attack
on Baltimore, September 11, was better met, and, although the British
routed a force of militia, the attempt to take the city was abandoned.
The humiliation of the capture of Washington led to the downfall of
Armstrong as Secretary of State, although not until after he had almost
ruined another campaign.
While the British were threatening Washington, another force was
gathering north of Lake Champlain, and a large frigate was being built
to secure command of that lake. By the end of August, nearly 16,000
men, most of them from Wellington's regiments, were assembled to invade
New York, probably with the intention of securing the permanent
occupation of the northern part. In the face of this, Armstrong sent
most of the American troops at Plattsburg on a useless march across New
York State, leaving a bare handful under General McComb to meet the
invasion. When Sir George Prevost, Governor-General of Canada,
advanced to Plattsburg on September 6, he found nothing {231} but
militia and volunteers before him. Fortunately for the United States,
Prevost was no fighter, and he declined to advance or attack unless he
had a naval control of the lake. On September 11 the decisive contest
took place. McDonough, the American commander, with a small squadron,
entirely defeated and captured the British flotilla under Downie. It
was Lake Erie over again, with the difference that in this battle the
American fleet was not superior to the British. It was a victory due
to better planning and better gunnery, and it led to the immediate
retreat of Prevost, who tamely abandoned the whole campaign, to the
intense mortification of his officers and men. The remaining
expedition, under General Pakenham, comprising 16,000 Peninsular
veterans, under convoy of a strong fleet, sailed to the Gulf of Mexico
and advanced to capture New Orleans. General Andrew Jackson was at
hand, and with him a mass of militia and frontiersmen. Driven by the
furious energy of the Indian fighter, the Americans showed
aggressiveness and courage in skirmishes and night attacks, and finally
won an astounding victory on January 8, 1815. On that day the British
force tried to storm, by frontal attack, a line of intrenchments armed
with cannon and packed with riflemen. In twenty-five minutes their
columns were so badly cut up by {232} grapeshot and musketry that the
whole attack was abandoned, after Pakenham himself had been killed.
The expedition withdrew, and sailing to Mobile, a town in Spanish
territory, occupied by the Americans, retook it on February 11; but the
main purpose of their invasion was foiled.
In this year, while American land forces struggled to escape
destruction, the naval vessels were for the most part shut in by the
blockade. Occasional captures were still made in single combat; but
British frigates were now under orders to refuse battle with the larger
American vessels, and the captures by sloops were counterbalanced by
the British capture of the frigate _Essex_ by two antagonists in March,
1814. Practically the only extensive operations carried on were by
American privateers, who now haunted the British Channel and captured
merchantmen within sight of the English coasts. The irritation caused
by these privateers was excessive, and made British shipowners and
merchants anxious for peace; but it had no effect on the military
situation. England was not to be subdued by mere annoyance.
By the end of 1814, the time seemed to be at hand when the United
States must submit to peace on such terms as England chose to dictate,
or risk disruption and ruin. The administrative weaknesses of the
country {233} culminated in actual financial bankruptcy, which was due
in no small part to the fact that Federalist financiers and bankers,
determining to do all the damage possible, steadily refused to
subscribe to the loans or to give any assistance. The powerful New
England capital was entirely withheld. The result was that the strain
on the rest of the banks became too great; and after the capture of
Washington they all suspended specie payment, leaving the Government
only the notes of suspended banks, or its own depreciated treasury
notes for currency. All the coin in the country steadily flowed into
the vaults of New England banks, while the Federal Treasury was
compelled, on November 9, 1814, to admit its inability to pay interest
on its loans. Congress met in the autumn and endeavoured to remedy the
situation by chartering a bank; but under the general suspension of
specie payments it was impossible to start one solvent from the
beginning. When Congress authorized one without power to suspend
specie payments, Madison vetoed it as useless. All that could be done
was to issue more treasury notes. As for the army, a Bill for
compulsory service was brought in, showing the enormous change in
Republican ideals; but it failed to pass. Congress seemed helpless.
The American people would neither enlist for the war nor {234}
authorize their representatives to pass genuine war measures.
The Federalists, controlling most of the New England States, now felt
that the time had come to insist on a termination of their grievances.
Their governors had refused to allow militia to assist, their
legislatures had done nothing to aid the war; their capitalists had
declined to subscribe, and their farmers habitually sold provisions to
the British over the Canadian boundary, actually supplying Sir George
Prevost's army by contract. There met, at Hartford, on December 14,
1814, a convention of leading men, officially or unofficially
representing the five New England States, who agreed upon a document
which was intended to secure the special rights of their region. They
demanded amendments to the Constitution abolishing the reckoning of
slaves as basis for congressional representation, providing for the
partial distribution of government revenues among the States,
prohibiting embargoes or commercial warfare, or the election of
successive Presidents from the same State, and requiring a two-thirds
vote of Congress to admit new States or declare war. This was meant
for an ultimatum; and it was generally understood that, if the Federal
government did not submit to these terms, the New England States would
secede to {235} rid themselves of what they considered the intolerable
oppression of Virginian misgovernment.
Such was the state of things in the winter of 1815. The administration
of Madison had utterly failed to secure any of the ends of the war, to
inflict punishment on Great Britain, or to conquer Canada. It had also
utterly failed to maintain financial solvency, to enlist an army, to
create a navy capable of keeping the sea, or to prevent a movement in
New England which seemed to be on the verge of breaking the country
into pieces. But to lay this miserable failure--for such only can it
be called--to the personal discredit of Jefferson and Madison is
unfair, for it was only the repetition under new governmental
conditions of the old traditional colonial method of carrying on war as
a local matter. The French and Indian War, the Revolution, and the War
of 1812, repeated in different generations the same tale of amateur
warfare, of the occasional success and usual worthlessness of the
militia, the same administrative inefficiency, and the same financial
breakdown. Without authority and obedience, there can be carried on no
real war; and authority and obedience were no more known and no better
appreciated in 1812 than they had been in the days of Washington.
Jefferson, Madison, {236} and their party had gone with the current of
American tradition; that was their only fault.