THE THEATRE OF OPERATIONS
War being now immediately at hand, it is advisable, for the better
appreciation of the course of events, the more accurate estimate of
their historical and military value, to consider the relative
conditions of the two opponents, the probable seats of warlike
operations, and the methods which it was open to either to pursue.
Invasion of the British Islands, or of any transmarine possession of
Great Britain--save Canada--was denied to the United States by the
immeasurable inferiority of her navy. To cross the sea in force was
impossible, even for short distances. For this reason, land operations
were limited to the North American Continent. This fact, conjoined
with the strong traditional desire, received from the old French wars
and cherished in the War of Independence, to incorporate the Canadian
colonies with the Union, determined an aggressive policy by the United
States on the northern frontier. This was indeed the only
distinctively offensive operation available to her upon the land;
consequently it was imposed by reasons of both political and military
expediency. On the other hand, the sea was open to American armed
ships, though under certain very obvious restrictions; that is to say,
subject to the primary difficulty of evading blockades of the coast,
and of escaping subsequent capture by the very great number of
British cruisers, which watched all seas where British commerce went
and came, and most of the ports whence hostile ships might issue to
prey upon it. The principal trammel which now rests upon the movements
of vessels destined to cripple an enemy's commerce--the necessity to
renew the motive power, coal, at frequent brief intervals--did not
then exist. The wind, upon which motion depended, might at particular
moments favor one of two antagonists relatively to the other; but in
the long run it was substantially the same for all. In this respect
all were on an equal footing; and the supply, if fickle at times, was
practically inexhaustible. Barring accidents, vessels were able to
keep the sea as long as their provisions and water lasted. This period
may be reckoned as generally three months, while by watchful
administration it might at times be protracted to six.
It is desirable to explain here what was, and is, the particular
specific utility of operations directed toward the destruction of an
enemy's commerce; what its bearing upon the issues of war; and how,
also, it affects the relative interests of antagonists, unequally
paired in the matter of sea power. Without attempting to determine
precisely the relative importance of internal and external commerce,
which varies with each country, and admitting that the length of
transportation entails a distinct element of increased cost upon the
articles transported, it is nevertheless safe to say that, to nations
having free access to the sea, the export and import trade is a very
large factor in national prosperity and comfort. At the very least, it
increases by so much the aggregate of commercial transactions, while
the ease and copiousness of water carriage go far to compensate for
the increase of distance. Furthermore, the public revenue of maritime
states is largely derived from duties on imports. Hence arises,
therefore, a large source of wealth, of money; and money--ready money
or substantial credit--is proverbially the sinews of war, as the War
of 1812 was amply to demonstrate. Inconvertible assets, as business
men know, are a very inefficacious form of wealth in tight times; and
war is always a tight time for a country, a time in which its positive
wealth, in the shape of every kind of produce, is of little use,
unless by freedom of exchange it can be converted into cash for
governmental expenses. To this sea-commerce greatly contributes, and
the extreme embarrassment under which the United States as a nation
labored in 1814 was mainly due to commercial exclusion from the sea.
To attack the commerce of the enemy is therefore to cripple him, in
the measure of success achieved, in the particular factor which is
vital to the maintenance of war. Moreover, in the complicated
conditions of mercantile activity no one branch can be seriously
injured without involving others.
This may be called the financial and political effect of "commerce
destroying," as the modern phrase runs. In military effect, it is
strictly analogous to the impairing of an enemy's communications, of
the line of supplies connecting an army with its base of operations,
upon the maintenance of which the life of the army depends. Money,
credit, is the life of war; lessen it, and vigor flags; destroy it,
and resistance dies. No resource then remains except to "make war
support war;" that is, to make the vanquished pay the bills for the
maintenance of the army which has crushed him, or which is proceeding
to crush whatever opposition is left alive. This, by the extraction of
private money, and of supplies for the use of his troops, from the
country in which he was fighting, was the method of Napoleon, than
whom no man held more delicate views concerning the gross impropriety
of capturing private property at sea, whither his power did not
extend. Yet this, in effect, is simply another method of forcing the
enemy to surrender a large part of his means, so weakening him, while
transferring it to the victor for the better propagation of
hostilities. The exaction of a pecuniary indemnity from the worsted
party at the conclusion of a war, as is frequently done, differs from
the seizure of property in transit afloat only in method, and as peace
differs from war. In either case, money or money's worth is exacted;
but when peace supervenes, the method of collection is left to the
Government of the country, in pursuance of its powers of taxation, to
distribute the burden among the people; whereas in war, the primary
object being immediate injury to the enemy's fighting power, it is not
only legitimate in principle, but particularly effective, to seek the
disorganization of his financial system by a crushing attack upon one
of its important factors, because effort thus is concentrated on a
readily accessible, fundamental element of his general prosperity.
That the loss falls directly on individuals, or a class, instead of
upon the whole community, is but an incident of war, just as some men
are killed and others not. Indirectly, but none the less surely, the
whole community, and, what is more important, the organized
government, are crippled; offensive powers impaired.
But while this is the absolute tendency of war against commerce,
common to all cases, the relative value varies greatly with the
countries having recourse to it. It is a species of hostilities easily
extemporized by a great maritime nation; it therefore favors one whose
policy is not to maintain a large naval establishment. It opens a
field for a sea militia force, requiring little antecedent military
training. Again, it is a logical military reply to commercial
blockade, which is the most systematic, regularized, and extensive
form of commerce-destruction known to war. Commercial blockade is not
to be confounded with the military measure of confining a body of
hostile ships of war to their harbor, by stationing before it a
competent force. It is directed against merchant vessels, and is not
a military operation in the narrowest sense, in that it does not
necessarily involve fighting, nor propose the capture of the blockaded
harbor. It is not usually directed against military ports, unless
these happen to be also centres of commerce. Its object, which was the
paramount function of the United States Navy during the Civil War,
dealing probably the most decisive blow inflicted upon the
Confederacy, is the destruction of commerce by closing the ports of
egress and ingress. Incidental to that, all ships, neutrals included,
attempting to enter or depart, after public notification through
customary channels, are captured and confiscated as remorselessly as
could be done by the most greedy privateer. Thus constituted, the
operation receives far wider scope than commerce-destruction on the
high seas; for this is confined to merchantmen of belligerents, while
commercial blockade, by universal consent, subjects to capture
neutrals who attempt to infringe it, because, by attempting to defeat
the efforts of one belligerent, they make themselves parties to the
war.
In fact, commercial blockade, though most effective as a military
measure in broad results, is so distinctly commerce-destructive in
essence, that those who censure the one form must logically proceed to
denounce the other. This, as has been seen,[389] Napoleon did;
alleging in his Berlin Decree, in 1806, that war cannot be extended to
any private property whatever, and that the right of blockade is
restricted to _fortified_ places, actually invested by competent
forces. This he had the face to assert, at the very moment when he was
compelling every vanquished state to extract, from the private means
of its subjects, coin running up to hundreds of millions to replenish
his military chest for further extension of hostilities. Had this
dictum been accepted international law in 1861, the United States
could not have closed the ports of the Confederacy, the commerce of
which would have proceeded unmolested; and hostile measures being
consequently directed against men's persons instead of their trade,
victory, if accomplished at all, would have cost three lives for every
two actually lost. It is apparent, immediately on statement, that
against commerce-destruction by blockade, the recourse of the weaker
maritime belligerent is commerce-destruction by cruisers on the high
sea. Granting equal efficiency in the use of either measure, it is
further plain that the latter is intrinsically far less efficacious.
To cut off access to a city is much more certainly accomplished by
holding the gates than by scouring the country in search of persons
seeking to enter. Still, one can but do what one can. In 1861 to 1865,
the Southern Confederacy, unable to shake off the death grip fastened
on its throat, attempted counteraction by means of the "Alabama,"
"Sumter," and their less famous consorts, with what disastrous
influence upon the navigation--the shipping--of the Union it is
needless to insist. But while the shipping of the opposite belligerent
was in this way not only crippled, but indirectly was swept from the
seas, the Confederate cruisers, not being able to establish a
blockade, could not prevent neutral vessels from carrying on the
commerce of the Union. This consequently suffered no serious
interruption; whereas the produce of the South, its inconvertible
wealth--cotton chiefly--was practically useless to sustain the
financial system and credit of the people. So, in 1812 and the two
years following, the United States flooded the seas with privateers,
producing an effect upon British commerce which, though inconclusive
singly, doubtless co-operated powerfully with other motives to dispose
the enemy to liberal terms of peace. It was the reply, and the only
possible reply, to the commercial blockade, the grinding efficacy of
which it will be a principal object of these pages to depict. The
issue to us has been accurately characterized by Mr. Henry Adams, in
the single word "Exhaustion."[390]
Both parties to the War of 1812 being conspicuously maritime in
disposition and occupation, while separated by three thousand miles of
ocean, the sea and its navigable approaches became necessarily the
most extensive scene of operations. There being between them great
inequality of organized naval strength and of pecuniary resources,
they inevitably resorted, according to their respective force, to one
or the other form of maritime hostilities against commerce which have
been indicated. To this procedure combats on the high seas were merely
incidental. Tradition, professional pride, and the combative spirit
inherent in both peoples, compelled fighting when armed vessels of
nearly equal strength met; but such contests, though wholly laudable
from the naval standpoint, which under ordinary circumstances cannot
afford to encourage retreat from an equal foe, were indecisive of
general results, however meritorious in particular execution. They had
no effect upon the issue, except so far as they inspired moral
enthusiasm and confidence. Still more, in the sequel they have had a
distinctly injurious effect upon national opinion in the United
States. In the brilliant exhibition of enterprise, professional skill,
and usual success, by its naval officers and seamen, the country has
forgotten the precedent neglect of several administrations to
constitute the navy as strong in proportion to the means of the
country as it was excellent through the spirit and acquirements of its
officers. Sight also has been lost of the actual conditions of
repression, confinement, and isolation, enforced upon the maritime
frontier during the greater part of the war, with the misery and
mortification thence ensuing. It has been widely inferred that the
maritime conditions in general were highly flattering to national
pride, and that a future emergency could be confronted with the same
supposed facility, and as little preparation, as the odds of 1812 are
believed to have been encountered and overcome. This mental
impression, this picture, is false throughout, alike in its grouping
of incidents, in its disregard of proportion, and in its ignoring of
facts. The truth of this assertion will appear in due course of this
narrative, and it will be seen that, although relieved by many
brilliant incidents, indicative of the real spirit and capacity of the
nation, the record upon the whole is one of gloom, disaster, and
governmental incompetence, resulting from lack of national
preparation, due to the obstinate and blind prepossessions of the
Government, and, in part, of the people.
This was so even upon the water, despite the great names--for great
they were in measure of their opportunities--of Decatur, Hull, Perry,
Macdonough, Morris, and a dozen others. On shore things were far
worse; for while upon the water the country had as leaders men still
in the young prime of life, who were both seamen and officers,--none
of those just named were then over forty,--the army at the beginning
had only elderly men, who, if they ever had been soldiers in any truer
sense than young fighting men,--soldiers by training and
understanding,--had long since disacquired whatever knowledge and
habit of the profession they had gained in the War of Independence,
then more than thirty years past. "As far as American movements are
concerned," said one of Wellington's trusted officers, sent to report
upon the subject of Canadian defence, "the campaign of 1812 is almost
beneath criticism."[391] Instructed American opinion must sorrowfully
admit the truth of the comment. That of 1813 was not much better,
although some younger men--Brown, Scott, Gaines, Macomb, Ripley--were
beginning to show their mettle, and there had by then been placed at
the head of the War Department a secretary who at least possessed a
reasoned understanding of the principles of warfare. With every
material military advantage, save the vital one of adequate
preparation, it was found too late to prepare when war was already at
hand; and after the old inefficients had been given a chance to
demonstrate their incapacity, it was too late to utilize the young
men.
Jefferson, with curious insanity of optimism, had once written, "We
begin to broach the idea that we consider the whole Gulf Stream as of
our waters, within which hostilities and cruising are to be frowned on
for the present, and prohibited as soon as either consent or force
will permit;"[392] while at the same time, under an unbroken
succession of maritime humiliations, he of purpose neglected all naval
preparation save that of two hundred gunboats, which could not venture
out of sight of land without putting their guns in the hold. With like
blindness to the conditions to which his administration had reduced
the nation, he now wrote: "The acquisition of Canada this year [1812],
as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of
marching."[393] This would scarcely have been a misappreciation, had
his care for the army and that of his successor given the country in
1812 an effective force of fifteen thousand regulars. Great Britain
had but forty-five hundred in all Canada,[394] from Quebec to St.
Joseph's, near Mackinac; and the American resources in militia were to
hers as ten to one. But Jefferson and Madison, with their Secretary of
the Treasury, had reduced the national debt between 1801 and 1812 from
$80,000,000 to $45,000,000, concerning which a Virginia Senator
remarked: "This difference has never been felt by society. It has
produced no effect upon the common intercourse among men. For my part,
I should never have known of the reduction but for the annual Treasury
Report."[395] Something was learned about it, however, in the first
year of the war, and the interest upon the savings was received at
Detroit, on the Niagara frontier, in the Chesapeake and the Delaware.
The War of 1812 was very unpopular in certain sections of the United
States and with certain parts of the community. By these, particular
fault was found with the invasion of Canada. "You have declared war, it
was said, for two principal alleged reasons: one, the general policy of
the British Government, formulated in the successive Orders in Council,
to the unjustifiable injury and violation of American commerce; the
other, the impressment of seamen from American merchant ships. What
have Canada and the Canadians to do with either? If war you must, carry
on your war upon the ocean, the scene of your avowed wrongs, and the
seat of your adversary's prosperity, and do not embroil these innocent
regions and people in the common ruin which, without adequate cause,
you are bringing upon your own countrymen, and upon the only nation
that now upholds the freedom of mankind against that oppressor of our
race, that incarnation of all despotism--Napoleon." So, not without
some alloy of self-interest, the question presented itself to New
England, and so New England presented it to the Government and the
Southern part of the Union; partly as a matter of honest conviction,
partly as an incident of the factiousness inherent in all political
opposition, which makes a point wherever it can.
Logically, there may at first appear some reason in these arguments.
We are bound to believe so, for we cannot entirely impeach the candor
of our ancestors, who doubtless advanced them with some degree of
conviction. The answer, of course, is, that when two nations go to
war, all the citizens of one become internationally the enemies of the
other. This is the accepted principle of International Law, a residuum
of the concentrated wisdom of many generations of international
legists. When war takes the place of peace, it annihilates all natural
and conventional rights, all treaties and compacts, except those which
appertain to the state of war itself. The warfare of modern
civilization assures many rights to an enemy, by custom, by precedent,
by compact; many treaties bear express stipulations that, should war
arise between the parties, such and such methods of warfare are
barred; but all these are merely guaranteed exceptions to the general
rule that every individual of each nation is the enemy of those of the
opposing belligerent.
Canada and the Canadians, being British subjects, became therefore,
however involuntarily, the enemies of the United States, when the
latter decided that the injuries received from Great Britain compelled
recourse to the sword. Moreover, war, once determined, must be waged
on the principles of war; and whatever greed of annexation may have
entered into the motives of the Administration of the day, there can
be no question that politically and militarily, as a war measure, the
invasion of Canada was not only justifiable but imperative. "In case
of war," wrote the United States Secretary of State, Monroe, a very
few days[396] before the declaration, "it might be necessary to invade
Canada; not as an object of the war, but as a means to bring it to a
satisfactory conclusion." War now is never waged for the sake of mere
fighting, simply to see who is the better at killing people. The
warfare of civilized nations is for the purpose of accomplishing an
object, obtaining a concession of alleged right from an enemy who has
proved implacable to argument. He is to be made to yield to force what
he has refused to reason; and to do that, hold is laid upon what is
his, either by taking actual possession, or by preventing his
utilizing what he still may retain. An attachment is issued, so to
say, or an injunction laid, according to circumstances; as men in law
do to enforce payment of a debt, or abatement of an injury. If, in the
attempt to do this, the other nation resists, as it probably will,
then fighting ensues; but that fighting is only an incident of war.
War, in substance, though not perhaps in form, began when the one
nation resorted to force, quite irrespective of the resistance of the
other.
Canada, conquered by the United States, would therefore have been a
piece of British property attached; either in compensation for claims,
or as an asset in the bargaining which precedes a treaty of peace. Its
retention even, as a permanent possession, would have been justified
by the law of war, if the military situation supported that course.
This is a political consideration; militarily, the reasons were even
stronger. To Americans the War of 1812 has worn the appearance of a
maritime contest. This is both natural and just; for, as a matter of
fact, not only were the maritime operations more pleasing to
retrospect, but they also were as a whole, and on both sides, far more
efficient, far more virile, than those on land. Under the relative
conditions of the parties, however, it ought to have been a land war,
because of the vastly superior advantages on shore possessed by the
party declaring war; and such it would have been, doubtless, but for
the amazing incompetency of most of the army leaders on both sides,
after the fall of the British general, Brock, almost at the opening of
hostilities. This incompetency, on the part of the United States, is
directly attributable to the policy of Jefferson and Madison; for had
proper attention and development been given to the army between 1801
and 1812, it could scarcely have failed that some indication of men's
fitness or unfitness would have preceded and obviated the lamentable
experience of the first two years, when every opportunity was
favorable, only to be thrown away from lack of leadership. That even
the defects of preparation, extreme and culpable as these were, could
have been overcome, is evidenced by the history of the Lakes. The
Governor General, Prevost, reported to the home government in July and
August, 1812, that the British still had the naval superiority on Erie
and Ontario;[397] but this condition was reversed by the energy and
capacity of the American commanders, Chauncey, Perry, and Macdonough,
utilizing the undeniable superiority in available resources--mechanics
and transportation--which their territory had over the Canadian, not
for naval warfare only, but for land as well.
The general considerations that have been advanced are sufficient to
indicate what should have been the general plan of the war on the part
of the United States. Every war must be aggressive, or, to use the
technical term, offensive, in military character; for unless you
injure the enemy, if you confine yourself, as some of the grumblers of
that day would have it, to simple defence against his efforts,
obviously he has no inducement to yield your contention. Incidentally,
however, vital interests must be defended, otherwise the power of
offence falls with them. Every war, therefore, has both a defensive
and an offensive side, and in an effective plan of campaign each must
receive due attention. Now, in 1812, so far as general natural
conditions went, the United States was relatively weak on the sea
frontier, and strong on the side of Canada. The seaboard might,
indeed, in the preceding ten years, have been given a development of
force, by the creation of an adequate navy, which would have
prevented war, by the obvious danger to British interests involved in
hostilities. But this had not been done; and Jefferson, by his gunboat
policy, building some two hundred of those vessels, worthless unless
under cover of the land, proclaimed by act as by voice his adherence
to a bare defensive. The sea frontier, therefore, became mainly a line
of defence, the utility of which primarily was, or should have been,
to maintain communication with the outside world; to support commerce,
which in turn should sustain the financial potency that determines the
issues of war.
The truth of this observation is shown by one single fact, which will
receive recurrent mention from time to time in the narrative. Owing
partly to the necessities of the British Government, and partly as a
matter of favor extended to the New England States, on account of
their antagonism to the war, the commercial blockade of the coast was
for a long time--until April 25, 1814--limited to the part between
Narragansett Bay and the boundary of Florida, then a Spanish colony.
During this period, which Madison angrily called one of "invidious
discrimination between different parts of the United States," New
England was left open to neutral commerce, which the British, to
supply their own wants, further encouraged by a system of licenses,
exempting from capture the vessels engaged, even though American.
Owing largely to this, though partly to the local development of
manufactures caused by the previous policy of restriction upon foreign
trade, which had diverted New England from maritime commerce to
manufactures, that section became the distributing centre of the
Union. In consequence, the remainder of the country was practically
drained of specie, which set to the northward and eastward, the
surplusage above strictly local needs finding its way to Canada, to
ease the very severe necessities of the British military authorities
there; for Great Britain, maintaining her own armies in the Spanish
peninsula, and supporting in part the alliance against Napoleon on the
Continent, could spare no coin to Canada. It could not go far south,
because the coasting trade was destroyed by the enemy's fleets, and
the South could not send forward its produce by land to obtain money
in return. The deposits in Massachusetts banks increased from
$2,671,619, in 1810, to $8,875,589, in 1814; while in the same years
the specie held was respectively $1,561,034 and $6,393,718.[398]
It was a day of small things, relatively to present gigantic
commercial enterprises; but an accumulation of cash in one quarter,
coinciding with penury in another, proves defect in circulation
consequent upon embarrassed communications. That flour in Boston sold
for $12.00 the barrel, while at Baltimore and Richmond it stood at
$6.50 and $4.50, tells the same tale of congestion and deficiency, due
to interruption of water communication; the whole proving that, under
the conditions of 1812, as the United States Government had allowed
them to become, through failure to foster a navy by which alone coast
defence in the true sense can be effected, the coast frontier was
essentially the weak point. There Great Britain could put forth her
enormous naval strength with the most sensible and widespread injury
to American national power, as represented in the financial stability
which constitutes the sinews of war. Men enough could be had; there
were one hundred thousand registered seamen belonging to the country;
but in the preceding ten years the frigate force had decreased from
thirteen of that nominal rate to nine, while the only additions to the
service, except gunboats, were two sloops of war, two brigs, and four
schooners. The construction of ships of the line, for six of which
provision had been made under the administration which expired in
1801, was abandoned immediately by its successor. There was no navy
for defence.
Small vessels, under which denomination most frigates should be
included, have their appropriate uses in a naval establishment, but in
themselves are inadequate to the defence of a coast-line, in the true
sense of the word "defence." It is one of the first elements of
intelligent warfare that true defence consists in imposing upon the
enemy a wholesome fear of yourself. "The best protection against the
enemy's fire," said Farragut, "is a rapid fire from our own guns." "No
scheme of defence," said Napoleon, "can be considered efficient that
does not provide the means of attacking the enemy at an opportune
moment. In the defence of a river, for instance," he continues, "you
must not only be able to withstand its passage by the enemy, but must
keep in your own hands means of crossing, so as to attack him, when
occasion either offers, or can be contrived." In short, you must
command either a bridge or a ford, and have a disposable force ready
to utilize it by attack. The fact of such preparation fetters every
movement of the enemy.
At its very outbreak the War of 1812 gave an illustration of the
working of this principle. Tiny as was the United States Navy, the
opening of hostilities found it concentrated in a body of several
frigates, with one or two sloops of war, which put to sea together.
The energies of Great Britain being then concentrated upon the navy of
Napoleon, her available force at Halifax and Bermuda was small, and
the frigates, of which it was almost wholly composed, were compelled
to keep together; for, if they attempted to scatter, in order to watch
several commercial ports, they were exposed to capture singly by this
relatively numerous body of American cruisers. The narrow escape of
the frigate "Constitution" from the British squadron at this moment,
on her way from the Chesapeake to New York, which port she was unable
to gain, exemplifies precisely the risk of dispersion that the British
frigates did not dare to face while their enemy was believed to be at
hand in concentrated force. They being compelled thus to remain
together, the ports were left open; and the American merchant ships,
of which a great number were then abroad, returned with comparative
impunity, though certainly not entirely without losses.
This actual experience illustrates exactly the principle of coast
defence by the power having relatively the weaker navy. It cannot,
indeed, drive away a body numerically much stronger; but, if itself
respectable in force, it can compel the enemy to keep united. Thereby
is minimized the injury caused to a coast-line by the dispersion of the
enemy's force along it in security, such as was subsequently acquired
by the British in 1813-14, and by the United States Navy during the
Civil War. The enemy's fears defend the coast, and protect the nation,
by securing the principal benefit of the coast-line--coastwise and
maritime trade, and the revenue thence proceeding. In order, however,
to maintain this imposing attitude, the defending state must hold ready
a concentrated force, of such size that the enemy cannot safely divide
his own--a force, for instance, such as that estimated by Gouverneur
Morris, twenty years before 1812.[399] The defendant fleet, further,
must be able to put to sea at a moment inconvenient to the enemy; must
have the bridge or ford Napoleon required for his army. Such the United
States had in her seaports, which with moderate protection could keep
an enemy at a distance, and from which escape was possible under
conditions exceedingly dangerous for the detached hostile divisions;
but although possessing these bridge heads leading to the scene of
ocean war, no force to issue from them existed. In those eleven
precious years during which Great Britain by American official returns
had captured 917 American ships,[400] a large proportion of them in
defiance of International Law, as was claimed, and had impressed from
American vessels 6,257 seamen,[401] asserted to be mostly American
citizens, the United States had built two sloops of 18 guns, and two
brigs of 16; and out of twelve frigates had permitted three to rot at
their moorings. To build ships of the line had not even been attempted.
Consequently, except when weather drove them off, puny divisions of
British ships gripped each commercial port by the throat with perfect
safety; and those weather occasions, which constitute the opportunity
of the defendant sea power, could not be improved by military action.
Such in general was the condition of the sea frontier, thrown
inevitably upon the defensive. With the passing comment that, had it
been defended as suggested, Great Britain would never have forced the
war, let us now consider conditions on the Canadian line, where
circumstances eminently favored the offensive by the United States;
for this war should not be regarded simply as a land war or a naval
war, nor yet as a war of offence and again one of defence, but as
being continuously and at all times both offensive and defensive, both
land and sea, in reciprocal influence.
Disregarding as militarily unimportant the artificial boundary
dividing Canada from New York, Vermont, and the eastern parts of the
Union, the frontier separating the land positions of the two
belligerents was the Great Lakes and the river St. Lawrence. This
presented certain characteristic and unusual features. That it was a
water line was a condition not uncommon; but it was exceptionally
marked by those broad expanses which constitute inland seas of great
size and depth, navigable by vessels of the largest sea-going
dimensions. This water system, being continuous and in continual
progress, is best conceived by applying to the whole, from Lake
Superior to the ocean, the name of the great river, the St. Lawrence,
which on the one hand unites it to the sea, and on the other divides
the inner waters from the outer by a barrier of rapids, impassable to
ships that otherwise could navigate freely both lakes and ocean.
The importance of the lakes to military operations must always be
great, but it was much enhanced in 1812 by the undeveloped condition
of land communications. With the roads in the state they then were,
the movement of men, and still more of supplies, was vastly more rapid
by water than by land. Except in winter, when iron-bound snow covered
the ground, the routes of Upper Canada were well-nigh impassable; in
spring and in autumn rains, wholly so to heavy vehicles. The mail from
Montreal to York,--now Toronto,--three hundred miles, took a month in
transit.[402] In October, 1814, when the war was virtually over, the
British General at Niagara lamented to the Commander-in-Chief that,
owing to the refusal of the navy to carry troops, an important
detachment was left "to struggle through the dreadful roads from
Kingston to York."[403] "Should reinforcements and provisions not
arrive, the naval commander would," in his opinion, "have much to
answer for."[404] The Commander-in-Chief himself wrote: "The command
of the lakes enables the enemy to perform in two days what it takes
the troops from Kingston sixteen to twenty days of severe marching.
Their men arrive fresh; ours fatigued, and with exhausted equipment.
The distance from Kingston to the Niagara frontier exceeds two hundred
and fifty miles, and part of the way is impracticable for
supplies."[405] On the United States side, road conditions were
similar but much less disadvantageous. The water route by Ontario was
greatly preferred as a means of transportation, and in parts and at
certain seasons was indispensable. Stores for Sackett's Harbor, for
instance, had in early summer to be brought to Oswego, and thence
coasted along to their destination, in security or in peril, according
to the momentary predominance of one party or the other on the lake.
In like manner, it was more convenient to move between the Niagara
frontier and the east end of the lake by water; but in case of
necessity, men could march. An English traveller in 1818 says: "I
accomplished the journey from Albany to Buffalo in October in six days
with ease and comfort, whereas in May it took ten of great difficulty
and distress."[406] In the farther West the American armies, though
much impeded, advanced securely through Ohio and Indiana to the shores
of Lake Erie, and there maintained themselves in supplies sent
over-country; whereas the British at the western end of the lake,
opposite Detroit, depended wholly upon the water, although no hostile
force threatened the land line between them and Ontario. The battle of
Lake Erie, so disastrous to their cause, was forced upon them purely
by failure of food, owing to the appearance of Perry's squadron.
From Lake Superior to the head of the first rapid of the St. Lawrence,
therefore, the control of the water was the decisive factor in the
general military situation. Both on the upper lakes, where water
communication from Sault Sainte Marie to Niagara was unbroken, and on
Ontario, separated from the others by the falls of Niagara, the
British had at the outset a slight superiority, but not beyond the
power of the United States to overtake and outpass. Throughout the
rapids, to Montreal, military conditions resembled those which
confront a general charged with the passage of any great river. If
undertaken at all, such an enterprise requires the deceiving of the
opponent as to the place and time when the attempt will be made, the
careful provision of means and disposition of men for instant
execution, and finally the prompt and decisive seizure of opportunity,
to transfer and secure on the opposite shore a small body, capable of
maintaining itself until the bulk of the army can cross to its
support. Nothing of the sort was attempted here, or needed to be
undertaken in this war. Naval superiority determined the ability to
cross above the rapids, and there was no occasion to consider the
question of crossing between them. Immediately below the last lay
Montreal, accessible to sea-going vessels from the ocean. To that
point, therefore, the sea power of Great Britain reached, and there it
ended.
The United States Government was conscious of its great potential
superiority over Canada, in men and in available resources. So
evident, indeed, was the disparity, that the prevalent feeling was not
one of reasonable self-reliance, but of vainglorious self-confidence;
of dependence upon mere bulk and weight to crush an opponent, quite
irrespective of preparation or skill, and disregardful of the factor
of military efficiency. Jefferson's words have already been quoted.
Calhoun, then a youthful member of Congress, and a foremost advocate
of the war, said in March, 1812: "So far from being unprepared, Sir, I
believe that in four weeks from the time a declaration of war is
heard, on our frontier, the whole of Upper Canada"--halfway down the
St. Lawrence--"and a part of Lower Canada will be in our power." This
tone was general in Congress; Henry Clay spoke to the same effect.
Granting due preparation, such might indeed readily have been the
result of a well-designed, active, offensive campaign. Little hope of
any other result was held by the British local officials, and what
little they had was based upon the known want of military efficiency
in the United States. Brock, by far the ablest among them, in February
declared his "full conviction that unless Detroit and Michilimackinac
be both in our possession at the commencement of hostilities, not only
Amherstburg"--on the Detroit River, a little below Detroit--"but most
probably the whole country, must be evacuated as far as
Kingston."[407] This place is at the foot of Ontario, close to the
entrance to the St. Lawrence. Having a good and defensible harbor, it
had been selected for the naval station of the lake. If successful in
holding it, there would be a base of operations for attempting
recovery of the water, and ultimately of the upper country. Failing
there, of course the British must fall back upon the sea, touch with
which they would regain at Montreal, resting there upon the navy of
their nation; just as Wellington, by the same dependence, had
maintained himself at Lisbon unshaken by the whole power of Napoleon.
There was, however, no certainty that the Lisbon of Canada would be
found at Montreal. Though secure on the water side, there were there
no lines of Torres Vedras; and it was well within the fears of the
governors of Canada that under energetic attack their forces would not
be able to make a stand short of Quebec, against the overwhelming
numbers which might be brought against them. In December, 1807,
Governor General Craig, a soldier of tried experience and reputation,
had written: "Defective as it is, Quebec is the only post that can be
considered tenable for a moment. If the Americans should turn their
attention to Lower Canada, which is most probable, I have no hopes
that the forces here can accomplish more than to check them for a
short time. They will eventually be compelled to take refuge in
Quebec, and operations must terminate in a siege."[408] Consequent
upon this report of a most competent officer, much had been done to
strengthen the works; but pressed by the drain of the Peninsular War,
heaviest in the years 1809 to 1812, when France elsewhere was at
peace, little in the way of troops had been sent. As late as November
16, 1812, the Secretary for War, in London, notified Governor General
Prevost that as yet he could give no hopes of reinforcements.[409]
Napoleon had begun his retreat from Moscow three weeks before, but the
full effects of the impending disaster were not yet forecast. Another
three weeks, and the Secretary wrote that a moderate detachment would
be sent to Bermuda, to await there the opening of the St. Lawrence in
the spring.[410] But already the United States had lost Mackinac and
Detroit, and Canada had gained time to breathe.
Brock's remark, expanded as has here been done, defines the decisive
military points upon the long frontier from Lake Superior to Montreal.
Mackinac, Detroit, Kingston, Montreal--these four places, together
with adequate development of naval strength on the lakes--constituted
the essential elements of the military situation at the opening of
hostilities. Why? Mackinac and Detroit because, being situated upon
extremely narrow parts of the vital chain of water communication,
their possession controlled decisively all transit. Held in force,
they commanded the one great and feasible access to the northwestern
country. Upon them turned, therefore, the movement of what was then
its chief industry, the fur trade; but more important still, the
tenure of those points so affected the interests of the Indians of
that region as to throw them necessarily on the side of the party in
possession. It is difficult for us to realize how heavily this
consideration weighed at that day with both nations, but especially
with the British; because, besides being locally the weaker, they knew
that under existing conditions in Europe--Napoleon still in the height
of his power, never yet vanquished, and about to undertake the
invasion of Russia--they had nothing to hope from the mother country.
Yet the leaders, largely professional soldiers, faced the situation
with soldierly instinct. "If we could destroy the American posts at
Detroit and Michilimackinac," wrote Lieutenant-Governor Gore of Upper
Canada, to Craig, in 1808, "many Indians would declare for us;" and he
agrees with Craig that, "if not for us, they will surely be against
us."[411]
It was Gore's successor, Brock, that wrested from the Americans at
once the two places named, with the effect upon the Indians which had
been anticipated. The dependence of these upon this water-line
communication was greatly increased by various punitive expeditions by
the United States troops in the Northwest, under General Harrison, in
the autumn and winter of 1812-13. To secure further the safety of the
whites in the outer settlements, the villages and corn of the hostile
natives were laid waste for a considerable surrounding distance.[412]
They were thus forced to remove, and to seek shelter in the Northwest.
This increase of population in that quarter, relatively to a store of
food never too abundant, made it the more urgent for them to remain
friends of those with whom it rested to permit the water traffic, by
which supplies could come forward and the exchange of commodities go
on. The fall of Michilimackinac, therefore, determined their side, to
which the existing British naval command of the upper lakes also
contributed; and these causes were alleged by Hull in justification of
his surrender at Detroit, which completed and secured the enemy's grip
throughout the Northwestern frontier. This accession of strength to
the British was not without very serious drawbacks. Shortly before the
battle of Lake Erie the British commissaries were feeding fourteen
thousand Indians--men, women, and children. What proportion of these
were warriors it is hard to say, and harder still how many could be
counted on to take the field when wanted; but it is probable that the
exhaustion of supplies due to this cause more than compensated for any
service received from them in war. When Barclay sailed to fight Perry,
there remained in store but one day's flour, and the crews of his
ships had been for some days on half allowance of many articles.
The opinion of competent soldiers on the spot, such as Craig and
Brock, in full possession of all the contemporary facts, may be
accepted explicitly as confirming the inferences which in any event
might have been drawn from the natural features of the situation. Upon
Mackinac and Detroit depended the control and quiet of the
Northwestern country, because they commanded vital points on its line
of communication. Upon Kingston and Montreal, by their position and
intrinsic advantages, rested the communication of all Canada, along
and above the St. Lawrence, with the sea power of Great Britain,
whence alone could be drawn the constant support without which
ultimate defeat should have been inevitable. Naval power, sustained
upon the Great Lakes, controlled the great line of communication
between the East and West, and also conferred upon the party
possessing it the strategic advantage of interior lines; that is, of
shorter distances, both in length and time, to move from point to
point of the lake shores, close to which lay the scenes of
operations. It followed that Detroit and Michilimackinac, being at the
beginning in the possession of the United States, should have been
fortified, garrisoned, provisioned, in readiness for siege, and placed
in close communication with home, as soon as war was seen to be
imminent, which it was in December, 1811, at latest. Having in that
quarter everything to lose, and comparatively little to gain, the
country was thrown on the defensive. On the east the possession of
Montreal or Kingston would cut off all Canada above from support by
the sea, which would be equivalent to insuring its fall. "I shall
continue to exert myself to the utmost to overcome every difficulty,"
wrote Brock, who gave such emphatic proof of energetic and sagacious
exertion in his subsequent course. "Should, however, the communication
between Montreal and Kingston be cut off, the fate of the troops in
this part of the province will be decided."[413] "The Montreal
frontier," said the officer selected by the Duke of Wellington to
report on the defences of Canada, "is the most important, and at
present [1826] confessedly most vulnerable and accessible part of
Canada."[414] There, then, was the direction for offensive operations
by the United States; preferably against Montreal, for, if successful,
a much larger region would be isolated and reduced. Montreal gone,
Kingston could receive no help from without; and, even if capable of
temporary resistance, its surrender would be but a question of time.
Coincidently with this military advance, naval development for the
control of the lakes should have proceeded, as a discreet precaution;
although, after the fall of Kingston and Montreal, there could have
been little use of an inland navy, for the British local resources
would then have been inadequate to maintain an opposing force.
Considered apart from the question of military readiness, in which
the United States was so lamentably deficient, the natural advantages
in her possession for the invasion of Canada were very great. The
Hudson River, Lake George, and Lake Champlain furnished a line of
water communication, for men and supplies, from the very heart of the
resources of the country, centring about New York. This was not indeed
continuous; but it was consecutive, and well developed. Almost the
whole of it lay within United States territory; and when the boundary
line on Champlain was reached, Montreal was but forty miles distant.
Towards Kingston, also, there was a similar line, by way of the Mohawk
River and Lake Oneida to Oswego, whence a short voyage on Ontario
reached the American naval station at Sackett's Harbor, thirty miles
from Kingston. As had been pointed out six months before the war
began, by General Armstrong, who became the United States Secretary of
War in January, 1813, when the most favorable conditions for
initiative had already been lost, these two lines were identical as
far as Albany. "This should be the place of rendezvous; because,
besides other recommendations, it is here that all the roads leading
from the central portion of the United States to the Canadas
diverge--a circumstance which, while it keeps up your enemy's doubts
as to your real point of attack, cannot fail to keep his means of
defence in a state of division."[415] The perplexity of an army, thus
uncertain upon which extreme of a line one hundred and fifty miles
long a blow will fall, is most distressing; and trebly so when, as in
this case, the means of communication from end to end are both scanty
and slow. "The conquest of Lower Canada," Sir James Craig had written,
"must still be effected by way of Lake Champlain;" but while this was
true, and dictated to the officer charged with the defence the
necessity of keeping the greater part of his force in that quarter,
it would be impossible wholly to neglect the exposure of the upper
section. This requirement was reflected in the disposition of the
British forces when war began; two thirds being below Montreal,
chiefly at Quebec, the remainder dispersed through Upper Canada. To
add to these advantages of the United States, trivial as was the naval
force of either party on Champlain, the preponderance at this moment,
and throughout the first year, was in her hands. She was also better
situated to enlarge her squadrons on all the lakes, because nearer the
heart of her power.
Circumstances thus had determined that, in general plan, the seaboard
represented the defensive scene of campaign for the United States,
while the land frontier should be that of offensive action. It will be
seen, with particular reference to the latter, that the character of
the front of operations prescribed the offensive in great and
concentrated force toward the St. Lawrence, with preparations and
demonstrations framed to keep the enemy doubtful to the last possible
moment as to where the blow should fall; while on the western
frontier, from Michilimackinac to Niagara, the defensive should have
been maintained, qualifying this term, however, by the already quoted
maxim of Napoleon, that no offensive disposition is complete which
does not keep in view, and provide for, offensive action, if
opportunity offer. Such readiness, if it leads to no more, at least
compels the opponent to retain near by a degree of force that weakens
by so much his resistance in the other quarter, against which the real
offensive campaign is directed.
Similarly, the seaboard, defensive in general relation to the national
plan as a whole, must have its own particular sphere of offensive
action, without which its defensive function is enfeebled, if not
paralyzed. Having failed to create before the war a competent navy,
capable of seizing opportunity, when offered, to act against hostile
divisions throughout the world, it was not possible afterwards to
retrieve this mistake. Under the circumstances existing in 1812, the
previous decade having been allowed by the country to pass in absolute
naval indifference, offensive measures were necessarily confined to
the injury of the enemy's commerce. Had a proper force existed,
abundant opportunity for more military action was sure to occur. The
characteristics of parts of the American coast prevented close
blockade, especially in winter; and the same violent winds which
forced an enemy's ships off, facilitated egress under circumstances
favoring evasion. Escape to the illimitable ocean then depended at
worst upon speed. This was the case at Boston, which Commodore
Bainbridge before the war predicted could not be effectually
blockaded; also at Narragansett, recommended for the same reason by
Commodore John Rodgers; and in measure at New York, though there the
more difficult and shoaler bar involved danger and delay to the
passage of heavy frigates. In this respect the British encountered
conditions contrary to those they had know before the French Atlantic
ports, where the wind which drove the blockaders off prevented the
blockaded from leaving. Once out and away, a squadron of respectable
force would be at liberty to seek and strike one of the minor
divisions of the enemy, imposing caution as to how he dispersed his
ships in face of such a chance. To the south, both the Delaware and
Chesapeake could be sealed almost hermetically by a navy so superior
as was that of Great Britain; for the sheltered anchorage within
enabled a fleet to lie with perfect safety across the path of all
vessels attempting to go out or in. South of this again, Wilmington,
Charleston, and Savannah, though useful commercial harbors, had not
the facilities, natural or acquired, for sustaining a military navy.
They were not maritime centres; the commerce of the South, even of
Baltimore with its famous schooners, being in peace carried on chiefly
by shipping which belonged elsewhere--New England or foreign. The
necessities of a number of armed ships could not there be supplied;
and furthermore, the comparatively moderate weather made the coast at
once more easy and less dangerous for an enemy to approach. These
ports, therefore, were entered only occasionally, and then by the
smaller American cruisers.
For these reasons the northern portion of the coast, with its rugged
shores and tempestuous weather, was the base of such offensive
operations as the diminutive numbers of the United States Navy
permitted. To it the national ships sought to return, for they could
enter with greater security, and had better prospects of getting out
again when they wished. In the Delaware, the Chesapeake, and on the
Southern coast, the efforts of the United States were limited to
action strictly, and even narrowly, defensive in scope. Occasionally,
a very small enemy's cruiser might be attacked; but for the most part
people were content merely to resist aggression, if attempted. The
harrying of the Chesapeake, and to a less extent of the Delaware, are
familiar stories; the total destruction of the coasting trade and the
consequent widespread distress are less known, or less remembered.
What is not at all appreciated is the deterrent effect upon the
perfect liberty enjoyed by the enemy to do as they pleased, which
would have been exercised by a respectable fighting navy; by a force
in the Northern ports, equal to the offensive, and ready for it, at
the time that Great Britain was so grievously preoccupied by the
numerous fleet which Napoleon had succeeded in equipping, from Antwerp
round to Venice. Of course, after his abdication in 1814, and the
release of the British navy and army, there was nothing for the
country to do, in the then military strength of the two nations, save
to make peace on the best terms attainable. Having allowed to pass
away, unresented and unimproved, years of insult, injury, and
opportunity, during which the gigantic power of Napoleon would have
been a substantial, if inert, support to its own efforts at redress,
it was the mishap of the United States Government to take up arms at
the very moment when the great burden which her enemy had been bearing
for years was about to fall from his shoulders forever.
FOOTNOTES:
[389] Ante, p. 144.
[390] Adams, History of the United States, vol. viii. chap. viii.
[391] Sir J. Carmichael Smyth, Precis of Wars in Canada, p. 116.
[392] To Monroe, May 4, 1806. Jefferson's Writings, Collected and
Edited by P.L. Ford, vol. viii. p. 450.
[393] Ibid., vol. vi. p. 75.
[394] Kingsford's History of Canada, vol. viii. p. 183. The author is
indebted to Major General Sir F. Maurice, and Major G. Le M. Gretton,
of the British Army, for extracts from the official records, from
which it appears that, excluding provincial corps, not to be accounted
regulars, the British troops in Canada numbered in January, 1812,
3,952; in July, 5,004.
[395] Giles, Annals of Congress, 1811-12, p. 51.
[396] June 13, 1812. Works of James Monroe, vol. v. p. 207.
[397] Prevost to Liverpool, July 15, 1812. Canadian Archives, Q. 118.
[398] Niles' Register, vol. vii. p. 195.
[399] Ante, p. 71.
[400] American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii. p. 584.
[401] Niles' Register, vol. ii. p. 119. "Official Returns in the
Department of State" are alleged as authority for the statement.
Monroe to Foster, May 30, 1812, mentions "a list in this office of
several thousand American seamen who have been impressed into the
British service." American State Papers, Foreign Relations, vol. iii.
p. 454.
[402] Kingsford's History of Canada, vol. viii. p. 111.
[403] Drummond to Prevost, Oct. 20, 1814. Report on Canadian Archives,
1896, Upper Canada, p. 9.
[404] Ibid., Oct. 15.
[405] Prevost to Bathurst, Aug. 14, 1814. Report on Canadian Archives,
1896, Lower Canada, p. 36.
[406] Travels, J.M. Duncan, vol. ii. p. 27.
[407] Life of Sir Isaac Brock, p. 127.
[408] Report on Canadian Archives, 1893, Lower Canada, p. 1.
[409] Ibid., p. 75.
[410] Ibid.
[411] Report on Canadian Archives, 1893, Lower Canada, p. 3.
[412] Brackenridge, War of 1812, pp. 57, 63, 65, 66.
[413] Life of Brock, p. 193.
[414] Smyth, Precis of the Wars in Canada, p. 167.
[415] Armstrong to Eustis, Jan. 2, 1812. Armstrong's Notices of the
War of 1812, vol. i, p. 238.