PEACE WITH HONOR
The raids of the British navy on the American sea-coast through the last two years of the war were so many efforts to make effective the blockade which began with the proclamation of December, 1812, closing Chesapeake and Delaware bays. Successive orders in 1813 closed practically all the seaports from New London, Connecticut, to the Florida boundary, and the last sweeping proclamation of May, 1814, placed under strict blockade "all the ports, harbors, bays, creeks, rivers, inlets, outlets, islands, and seacoasts of the United States." It was the blockade of ports of the Middle States which caused such widespread ruin among merchants and shippers and which finally brought the Government itself to the verge of bankruptcy.
The first serious alarm was caused in the spring of 1813 by the appearance of a British fleet, under command of Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren and Rear-Admiral George Cockburn, in the Chesapeake and Delaware bays. Apparently it had not occurred to the people of the seaboard that the war might make life unpleasant for them, and they had undertaken no measures of defense. Unmolested, Cockburn cruised up Chesapeake Bay to the mouth of the Susquehanna in the spring of 1813 and established a pleasant camp on an island from which five hundred sailors and marines harried the country at their pleasure, looting and burning such prosperous little towns as Havre de Grace and Fredericktown. The men of Maryland and Virginia proceeded to hide their chattels and to move their families inland. Panic took hold of these proud and powerful commonwealths. Cockburn had no scruples about setting the torch to private houses, "to cause the proprietors who had deserted them and formed part of the militia which had fled to the woods to understand and feel what they were liable to bring upon themselves by building forts and acting toward us with so much useless rancor." Though Cockburn was an officer of the British navy, he was also an unmitigated ruffian in his behavior toward non-combatants, and his own countrymen could not regard his career with satisfaction.
Admiral Warren had more justification in attacking Norfolk, which had a navy yard and forts and was therefore frankly belligerent. Unluckily for him the most important battery was manned by a hundred sailors from the Constellation and fifty marines. Seven hundred British seamen tried to land in barges, but the battery shattered three of the boats with heavy loss of life. Somewhat ruffled, Admiral Warren decided to go elsewhere and made a foray upon the defenseless village of Hampton during which he permitted his men to indulge in wanton pillage and destruction. Part of his fleet then sailed up to the Potomac and created a most distressing hysteria in Washington. The movement was a feint, however, and after frightening Baltimore and Annapolis, the ships cruised and blockaded the bay for several months.
In September of the following year another British division harassed the coast of Maine, first capturing Eastport and then landing at Belfast, Bangor, and Castine, and extorting large ransoms in money and supplies. New England was wildly alarmed. In a few weeks all of Maine east of the Penobscot had been invaded, conquered, and formally annexed to New Brunswick, although two counties alone might easily have furnished twelve thousand fighting men to resist the small parties of British sailors who operated in leisurely security. The people of the coastwise towns gave up their sheep and bullocks to these rude trespassers, cut the corn and dug the potatoes for them, handed over all their powder and firearms, and agreed to finish and deliver schooners that were on the stocks.
Cape Cod was next to suffer, for two men-of-war levied contributions of thousands of dollars from Wellfleet, Brewster, and Eastham, and robbed and destroyed other towns. Farther south another fleet entered Long Island Sound, bombarded Stonington, and laid it in ruins. The pretext for all this havoc was a raid made by a few American troops who had crossed to Long Point on Lake Erie, May 15, 1814, and had burned some Canadian mills and a few dwellings. The expedition was promptly disowned by the American Government as unauthorized, but in retaliation the British navy was ordered to lay waste all towns on the Atlantic coast which were assailable, sparing only the lives of the unarmed citizens.
Included in the British plan of campaign for 1814 was a coastal attack important enough to divert American efforts from the Canadian frontier. This was why an army under General Ross was loaded into transports at Bermuda and escorted by a fleet to Chesapeake Bay. The raids against small coastwise ports, though lucrative, had no military value beyond shaking the morale of the population. The objective of this larger operation was undecided. Either Baltimore or Washington was tempting. But first the British had to dispose of the annoying gunboat flotilla of Commodore Joshua Barney, who had made his name mightily respected as a seaman of the Revolution and who had never been known to shake in his shoes at sight of a dozen British ensigns. He had found shelter for his armed scows, for they were no more than this, in the Patuxent River, but as he could not hope to defend them against a combined attack by British ships and troops he wisely blew them up. This turn of affairs left a fine British army all landed and with nothing else to do than promenade through a pleasant region with nobody to interfere. The generals and admirals discussed the matter and decided to saunter on to Washington instead of to Baltimore. In the heat of August the British regiments tramped along the highways, frequently halting to rest in the shade, until they were within ten miles of the capital of the nation. There they found the American outposts in a strong position on high ground, but these tarried not, and the invaders sauntered on another mile before making camp for the night. It is difficult to regard the capture of Washington with the seriousness which that lamentable episode deserves. The city was greatly surprised to learn that the enemy actually intended a discourtesy so gross, and the Government was pained beyond expression. But beyond this display of emotion nothing was done. The war was now two years old but no steps whatever had been taken to defend Washington, although there was no room for doubt that a British naval force could ascend the river whenever it pleased.
The disagreeable tidings that fifty of the enemy's ships had anchored off the Potomac, however, reminded the President and his advisers that not a single ditch or rampart had been even planned, that no troops were at hand, that it was rather late for advice which seemed to be the only ammunition that was plentiful. Quite harmoniously, the soldier in command was General Winder who could not lose his head, even in this dire emergency, because he had none to lose. His record for ineptitude on the fighting front had, no doubt, recommended him for this place. He ran about Washington, ordering the construction of defenses which there was no time to build, listening to a million frenzied suggestions, holding all manner of consultations, and imploring the Governors of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to send militia.
The British army was less than five thousand strong. To oppose them General Winder hastily scrambled together between five and six thousand men, mostly militia with a sprinkling of regulars and four hundred sailors from Barney's flotilla. During the night before the alleged battle the camp was a scene of such confusion as may be imagined while futile councils of war were held. The troops when reviewed by President Madison realized Jefferson's ideal of a citizen soldiery, unskilled but strong in their love of home, flying to arms to oppose an invader. General Jacob Brown and Winfield Scott at Lundy's Lane, which was fought within the same month, could have pointed out, in language quite emphatic, that a large difference existed between the raw material and the finished product.
On the 24th of August the British army advanced to Bladensburg, five miles from Washington, where a bridge spanned the eastern branch of the Potomac. Here the hilly banks offered the Americans an excellent line of defense. The Cabinet had gone to the Washington Navy Yard, by request of General Winder, to tell him what he ought to do, but this final conference was cut short by the news that the enemy was in motion. The American forces were still mobilizing in helter-skelter fashion, and there was a wild race to the scene of action by militiamen, volunteers, unattached regulars, sailors, generals, citizens at large, Cabinet members, and President Madison himself.
Some Maryland militia hastily joined the Baltimore troops on the ridge behind the village of Bladensburg, but part of General Winder's own forces were still on the march and had not yet been assigned positions when the advance column of British light infantry were seen to rush down the slope across the river and charge straight for the bridge. They bothered not to seek a ford or to turn a flank but made straight for the American center. It was here that Winder's artillery and his steadiest regiments were placed and they offered a stiff resistance, ripping up the British vanguard with grapeshot and mowing men down right and left. But these hardened British campaigners had seen many worse days than this on the bloody fields of Spain, and they pushed forward, closing the gaps in their ranks, until they had crossed the bridge and could find a brief respite under cover of the trees which lined the stream. Advancing again, they ingeniously discharged flights of rockets and with these novel missiles they not only disorganized the militia in front of them but also stampeded the battery mules. Most of the American army promptly followed the mules and endeavored to set a new record for a foot race from Bladensburg to Washington. The Cabinet members and other dignified spectators were swept along in the rout.
Commodore Joshua Barney and his four hundred weather-beaten bluejackets declined to join this speed contest. They were used to rolling decks and had no aptitude for sprinting, besides which they held the simple-minded notion that their duty was to fight. Up to this time they had been held back by orders and now arrived just as the American lines broke in wild confusion. With them were five guns which they dragged into position across the main highway and speedily unlimbered. The British were hastening to overtake the fleeing enemy when they encountered this awkward obstacle. Three times they charged Barney's battery and were three times repulsed by sailors and marines who fought them with muskets, cutlasses, and handspikes, and who served those five guns with an efficiency which would have pleased Isaac Hull or Bainbridge.
Unwilling to pay the price of direct attack, the British General Ross wisely ordered his infantry to surround Barney's stubborn contingent. The American troops who were presumed to support and protect this naval battery failed to hold their ground and melted into the mob which was swirling toward Washington. The sailors, though abandoned, continued to fight until the British were firing into them from the rear and from both flanks. Barney fell wounded and some of his gunners were bayoneted with lighted fuses in their hands. Snarling, undaunted, the sailors broke through the cordon and saved themselves, the last to leave a battlefield upon which not one American soldier was visible. They had used their ammunition to the end and they faced five thousand British veterans; wherefore they had done what the navy expected of them. On a day so shameful that no self-respecting American can read of it without blushing they had enacted the one redeeming episode. Commodore Barney described this action in a manner blunt and unadorned:
The engagement continued, the enemy advancing and our own army retreating before them, apparently in much disorder. At length the enemy made his appearance on the main road, in force, in front of my battery, and on seeing us made a halt. I reserved our fire. In a few minutes the enemy again advanced, when I ordered an eighteen-pounder to be fired, which completely cleared the road; shortly after, a second and a third attempt was made by the enemy to come forward but all were destroyed. They then crossed into an open field and attempted to flank our right. He was met there by three twelve-pounders, the marines under Captain Miller, and my men acting as infantry, and again was totally cut up. By this time not a vestige of the American army remained, except a body of five or six hundred posted on a height on my right, from which I expected much support from their fine situation.
Barney was made a prisoner, although his men stood by him until he ordered them to retreat. Loss of blood had made him too weak to be carried from the field. General Ross and Admiral Cockburn saw to it personally that he was well cared for and paid him the greatest respect and courtesy. As for the other British officers, they, too, were sportsmen who admired a brave man, even in the enemy's uniform, and Barney reported that they treated him "like a brother."
The American army had scampered to Washington with a total loss of ten killed and forty wounded among the five thousand men who had been assembled at Bladensburg to protect and save the capital. The British tried to pursue but the afternoon heat was blistering and the rapid pace set by the American forces proved so fatiguing to the invaders that many of them were bowled over by sunstroke. To permit their men to run themselves to death did not appear sensible to the British commanders, and they therefore sat down to gain their breath before the final promenade to Washington in the cool of the evening. They found a helpless, almost deserted city from which the Government had fled and the army had vanished.
The march had been orderly, with a proper regard for the peaceful inhabitants, but now Ross and Cockburn carried out their orders to plunder and burn. At the head of their troops they rode to the Capitol, fired a volley through the windows, and set fire to the building. Two hundred men then sought the President's mansion, ransacked the rooms, and left it in flames. Next day they burned the official buildings and several dwellings and, content with the mischief thus wrought, abandoned the forlorn city and returned to camp at Bladensburg. But more vexation for the Americans was to follow, for a British fleet was working its way up the Potomac to anchor off Alexandria. Here there was the same frightened submission, with the people asking for terms and yielding up a hundred thousand dollars' worth of flour, tobacco, naval stores, and shipping.
The British squadron then returned to Chesapeake Bay and joined the main fleet which was preparing to attack Baltimore. The army of General Ross was recalled to the transports and was set ashore at the mouth of the Patapsco River while the ships sailed up to bombard Fort McHenry, where the star-spangled banner waved. To defend Baltimore by land there had been assembled more than thirteen thousand troops under command of General Samuel Smith. The tragical farce of Bladensburg, however, had taught him no lesson, and to oppose the five thousand toughened regulars of General Ross he sent out only three thousand green militia most of whom had never been under fire. They put up a wonderfully good fight and deserved praise for it, but wretched leadership left them drawn up in an open field, with both flanks unprotected, and they were soon driven back. Next morning—the 13th of September—the British advanced but found the roads so blocked by fallen trees and entanglements that progress was slow and laborious. The intrenchments which crowned the hills of Baltimore appeared so formidable that the British decided to await action by the fleet and attempt a night assault.
General Ross was killed during the advance, and this loss caused confusion of council. The heavy ships were unable to lie within effective range of the forts because of shoal water and a barrier of sunken hulks, and Fort McHenry was almost undamaged by the bombardment of the lighter craft. All through the night a determined fire was returned by the American garrison of a thousand men, and, although the British fleet suffered little, Vice-Admiral Cochrane concluded that a sea attack was a hopeless enterprise. He so notified the army, which thereupon retreated to the transports, and the fleet sailed down Chesapeake Bay, leaving Baltimore free and unscathed.
Among those who watched Fort McHenry by the glare of artillery fire through this anxious night was a young lawyer from Washington, Francis Scott Key, who had been detained by the British fleet down the bay while endeavoring to effect an exchange of prisoners. He had a turn for verse-making. Most of his poems were mediocre, but the sight of the Stars and Stripes still fluttering in the early morning breeze inspired him to write certain deathless stanzas which, when fitted to the old tune of Anacreon in Heaven, his country accepted as its national anthem. In this exalted moment it was vouchsafed him to sound a trumpet call, clear and far-echoing, as did Rouget de Lisle when, with soul aflame, he wrote the Marseillaise for France. If it was the destiny of the War of 1812 to weld the nation as a union, the spirit of the consummation was expressed for all time in the lines which a hundred million of free people sing today:
O! say can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
The luckless endeavor to capture Baltimore by sea and land was the last British expedition that alarmed the Atlantic coast. The hostile army and naval forces withdrew to Jamaica, from which base were planned and undertaken the Louisiana campaign and the battle of New Orleans.
The brilliant leadership and operations of Andrew Jackson were so detached and remote from all other activities that he may be said to have fought a private war of his own. It had seemed clear to Madison that, as a military precaution, the control of West Florida should be wrenched from Spain, whose neutrality was dubious and whose Gulf territory was the rendezvous of privateers, pirates, and other lawless gentry, besides offering convenient opportunity for British invasion by sea. As early as the autumn of 1812 troops were collected to seize and hold this region for the duration of the war. The people of the Mississippi Valley welcomed the adventure with enthusiasm. It was to be aimed against a European power presumably friendly, but the sheer love of conquest and old grudges to settle were motives which brushed argument aside. Andrew Jackson was the major general of the Tennessee militia, and so many hardy volunteers flocked to follow him that he had to sift them out, mustering in at Nashville two thousand of whom he said: "They are the choicest of our citizens. They go at our call to do the will of Government. No constitutional scruples trouble them. Nay, they will rejoice at the opportunity of placing the American eagle on the ramparts of Pensacola, Mobile, and Fort St. Augustine."
Where the fiery Andrew Jackson led, there was neither delay nor hesitation. At once he sent his backwoods infantry down river in boats, while the mounted men rode overland. Four weeks later the information overtook him at Natchez that Congress had refused to sanction the expedition. When the Secretary of War curtly told him that his corps was "dismissed from public service," Andrew Jackson in a furious temper ignored the order and marched his men back to Nashville instead of disbanding them. He was not long idle, however, for the powerful confederacy of the Creek Indians had been aroused by a visit of the great Tecumseh, and the drums of the war dance were sounding in sympathy with the tribes of the Canadian frontier. In Georgia and Alabama the painted prophets and medicine men were spreading tales of Indian victories over the white men at the river Raisin and Detroit. British officials, moreover, got wind of a threatened uprising in the South and secretly encouraged it.
The Alabama settlers took alarm and left their log houses and clearings to seek shelter in the nearest blockhouses and stockades. One of these belonged to Samuel Mims, a half-breed farmer, who had prudently fortified his farm on a bend of the Alabama River. A square stockade enclosed an acre of ground around his house and to this refuge hastened several hundred pioneers and their families, with their negro slaves, and a few officers and soldiers. Here they were surprised and massacred by a thousand naked Indians who called themselves Red Sticks because of the wands carried by their fanatical prophets. Two hundred and fifty scalps were carried away on poles, and when troops arrived they found nothing but heaps of ashes, mutilated bodies, and buzzards feeding on the carrion.
From Fort Mims the Indians overran the country like a frightful scourge, murdering and burning, until a vast region was emptied of its people. First to respond to the pitiful calls for help was Tennessee, and within a few weeks twenty-five hundred infantry and a thousand cavalry were marching into Alabama, led by Andrew Jackson, who had not yet recovered from a wound received in a brawl with Thomas H. Benton. Among Jackson's soldiers were two young men after his own heart, David Crockett and Samuel Houston. The villages of the fighting Creeks, at the Hickory Ground, lay beyond a hundred and sixty miles of wilderness, but Jackson would not wait for supplies. He plunged ahead, living somehow on the country, until his men, beginning to break under the strain of starvation and other hardships, declared open mutiny. But Jackson cursed, threatened, argued them into obedience again and again. When such persuasions failed, he planted cannon to sweep their lines and told them they would have to pass over his dead body if they refused to go on.
The failure of other bodies of troops to support his movements and a discouraged Governor of Tennessee could not daunt his purpose. He was told that the campaign had failed and that the struggle was useless. To this he replied that he would perish first and that energy and decision, together with the fresh troops promised him, would solve the crisis. Months passed, and the militia whose enlistments had expired went home, while the other broke out in renewed and more serious mutinies. The few regulars sent to Jackson he used as police to keep the militia in order. The court-martialing and shooting of a private had a beneficial effect.
With this disgruntled, unreliable, weary force, Jackson came, at length, to a great war camp of the Creek Indians at a loop of the Tallapoosa River called Horseshoe Bend. Here some ten hundred picked warriors had built defensive works which were worthy of the talent of a trained engineer. They also had as effective firearms as the white troops who assaulted the stronghold. Andrew Jackson bombarded them with two light guns, sent his men over the breastworks, and captured the breastworks in hand-to-hand fighting in which quarter was neither asked nor given. No more than a hundred Indians escaped alive, and dead among the logs and brushwood were the three famous prophets, gorgeous in war paint and feathers, who had preached the doctrine of exterminating the paleface.
The name of Andrew Jackson spread far and wide among the hostile Indian tribes, and the fiercest chiefs dreaded it like a tempest. Some made submission, and others joined in signing a treaty of peace which Jackson dictated to them with terms as harsh as the temper of the man who had conquered them.
For his distinguished services Jackson was made a major general of the regular army. He was then ordered to Mobile, where his impetuous anger was aroused by the news that the British had landed at Pensacola and had pulled down the Spanish flag. The splendor of this ancient seaport had passed away, and with it the fleets of galleons whose sailors heard the mission bells and saw the brass guns gleam from the stout fortresses which in those earlier days guarded the rich commerce of the overland trade route to St. Augustine.
Aforetime one of the storied and romantic ports of the Spanish Main, Pensacola now slumbered in unlovely decay and was no more than a village to which resorted the smugglers of the Caribbean, the pirates of the Gulf, and rascally men of all races and colors. The Spanish Governor still lived in the palace with a few slovenly troops, but he could no more than protest when a hundred royal marines came ashore from two British sloops-of-war, and the commander, Major Nicholls, issued a thunderous proclamation to the oppressed people of the American States adjoining, letting them know that he was ready to assist them in liberating their paternal soil from a faithless, imbecile Government. They were not to be alarmed at his approach. They were to range themselves under the standard of their forefathers or be neutral.
Having fired this verbal blunderbuss, Major Nicholls sent a sloop-of-war to enlist the support of Jean and Pierre Lafitte, enterprising brothers who maintained on Barataria Bay in the Gulf, some forty miles south of New Orleans, a most lucrative resort for pirates and slave traders. There they defied the law and the devil, trafficking in spoils filched from honest merchantmen whose crews had walked the plank. Pierre Lafitte was a very proper figure of a pirate himself, true to the best traditions of his calling. But withal he displayed certain gallantry to atone for his villainies, for he spurned British gold and persuasions and offered his sword and his men to defend New Orleans as one faithful to the American cause.
If it was the purpose of Nicholls to divert Jackson's attention from New Orleans which was to be the objective of the British expedition preparing at Jamaica, he succeeded admirably; but in deciding to attack Jackson's forces at Mobile, he committed a grievous error. The worthy Nicholls failed to realize that he had caught a Tartar in General Jackson—"Old Hickory," the sinewy backwoodsman who would sooner fight than eat and who was feared more than the enemy by his own men. As might have been expected, the garrison of one hundred and sixty soldiers who held Fort Bowyer, which dominated the harbor of Mobile, solemnly swore among themselves that they would never surrender until the ramparts were demolished over their heads and no more than a corporal's guard survived. This was Andrew Jackson's way.
Four British ships, with a total strength of seventy-eight guns, sailed into Mobile Bay on the 15th of September and formed in line of battle, easily confident of smashing Fort Bowyer with its twenty guns, while the landing force of marines and Indians took position behind the sand dunes and awaited the signal. The affair lasted no more than an hour. The American gunnery overwhelmed the British squadron. The Hermes sloop-of-war was forced to cut her cable and drifted under a raking fire until she ran aground and was blown up. The Sophie withdrew after losing many of her seamen, and the two other ships followed her to sea after delaying to pick up the marines and Indians who merely looked on. Daybreak saw the squadron spreading topsails to return to Pensacola.
Andrew Jackson was eager to return the compliment but, not having troops enough at hand to march on Pensacola, he had to wait and fret until his force was increased to four thousand men. Then he hurled them at the objective with an energy that was fairly astounding. On the 3d of November he left Mobile and three days later was demanding the surrender of Pensacola. The next morning he carried the town by storm, waited another day until the British had evacuated and blown up Fort Barrancas, six miles below the city, and then returned to Mobile. Sickness laid him low but, enfeebled as he was, he made the journey to New Orleans by easy stages and took command of such American troops as he could hastily assemble to ward off the mightiest assault launched by Great Britain during the War of 1812. It was known, and the warning had been repeated from Washington, that the enemy intended sending a formidable expedition against Louisiana, but when Jackson arrived early in December the Legislature had voted no money, raised no regiments, devised no plan of defense, and was unprepared to make any resistance whatever.
A British fleet of about fifty sail, carrying perhaps a thousand guns, had gathered for the task in hand. The decks were crowded with trained and toughened troops, the divisions which had scattered the Americans at Bladensburg with a volley and a shout, kilted Highlanders, famous regiments which had earned the praise of the Iron Duke in the Spanish Peninsula, and brawny negro detachments recruited in the West Indies. It was such an army as would have been considered fit to withstand the finest troops in Europe. In command was one of England's most brilliant soldiers, General Sir Edward Pakenham, of whom Wellington had said, "my partiality for him does not lead me astray when I tell you that he is one of the best we have." He was the idol of his officers, who agreed that they had never served under a man whose good opinion they were so desirous of having, "and to fall in his estimation would have been worse than death." In brief, he was a high-minded and knightly leader who had seen twenty years of active service in the most important campaigns of Europe.
It was Pakenham's misfortune to be unacquainted with the highly irregular and unconventional methods of warfare as practiced in America, where troops preferred to take shelter instead of being shot down while parading across open ground in solid columns. Improvised breastworks were to him a novelty, and the lesson of Bunker Hill had been forgotten. These splendidly organized and seasoned battalions of his were confident of walking through the Americans at New Orleans as they had done at Washington, or as Pakenham himself had smashed the finest French infantry at Salamanca when Wellington told him, "Ned, d'ye see those fellows on the hill? Throw your division into column; at them, and drive them to the devil."
Stranger than fiction was the contrast between the leaders and between the armies that fought this extraordinary battle of New Orleans when, after the declaration of peace, the United States won its one famous but belated victory on land. On the northern frontier such a man as Andrew Jackson might have changed the whole aspect of the war. He was a great general with the rare attribute of reading correctly the mind of an opponent and divining his course of action, endowed with an unyielding temper and an iron hand, a relentless purpose, and the faculty of inspiring troops to follow, obey, and trust him in the last extremity. He was one of them, typifying their passions and prejudices, their faults and their virtues, sharing their hardships as if he were a common private, never grudging them the credit in success.
In the light of previous events it is probable that any other American general would have felt justified in abandoning New Orleans without a contest. In the city itself were only eight hundred regulars newly recruited and a thousand volunteers. But Jackson counted on the arrival of the hard-bitted, Indian-fighting regiments of Tennessee who were toiling through the swamps with their brigadiers, Coffee and Carroll. The foremost of them reached New Orleans on the very day that the British were landing on the river bank. Gaunt, unshorn, untamed were these rough-and-tumble warriors who feared neither God nor man but were glad to fight and die with Andrew Jackson. In coonskin caps, buckskin shirts, fringed leggings, they swaggered into New Orleans, defiant of discipline and impatient of restraint, hunting knives in their belts, long rifles upon their shoulders. There they drank with seamen as wild as themselves who served in the ships of Jackson's small naval force or had offered to lend a hand behind the stockades, and with lean, long-legged Yankees from down East, swarthy outlaws who sailed for Pierre Lafitte, Portuguese and Norwegian wanderers who had deserted their merchant vessels, and even Spanish adventurers from the West Indies.
The British fleet disembarked its army late in December after the most laborious difficulties because of the many miles of shallow bayou and toilsome marsh which delayed the advance. A week was required to carry seven thousand men in small boats from the ships to the Isle aux Poix on Lake Borgne chosen as a landing base. Thence a brigade passed in boats up the bayou and on the 23d of December disembarked at a point some three miles from the Mississippi and then by land and canal pushed on to the river's edge. Here they were attacked at night by Jackson with about two thousand troops, while a war schooner shelled the British left from the river. It was a weird fight. Squads of Grenadiers, Highlanders, Creoles, and Tennessee backwoodsmen blindly fought each other in the fog with knives, fists, bayonets, and musket butts. Jackson then fell back while the British brigade waited for more troops and artillery.
On Christmas Day Pakenham took command of the forces at the front now augmented to about six thousand, but hesitated to attack. And well he might hesitate, in spite of his superior numbers, for Jackson had employed his time well and now lay entrenched behind a parapet, protected by a canal or ditch ten feet wide. With infinite exertion more guns were dragged and floated to the front until eight heavy batteries were in position. On the morning of the 1st of January the British gunners opened fire and felt serenely certain of destroying the rude defenses of cotton bales and cypress logs. To their amazement the American artillery was served with far greater precision and effect by the sailors and regulars who had been trained under Jackson's direction. By noon most of the British guns had been silenced or dismounted and the men killed or driven away. "Never was any failure more remarkable or unlooked for than this," said one of the British artillery officers. General Pakenham, in dismay, held a council of war. It is stated that his own judgment was swayed by the autocratic Vice-Admiral Cochrane who tauntingly remarked that "if the army could not take those mud-banks, defended by ragged militia, he would undertake to do it with two thousand sailors armed only with cutlases and pistols."
Made cautious by this overwhelming artillery reverse, the British army remained a week in camp, a respite of which every hour was priceless to Andrew Jackson, for his mud-stained, haggard men were toiling with pick and shovel to complete the ditches and log barricades. They could hear the British drums and bugles echo in the gloomy cypress woods while the cannon grumbled incessantly. The red-coated sentries were stalked and the pickets were ambushed by the Indian fighters who spread alarm and uneasiness. Meanwhile Pakenham was making ready with every resource known to picked troops, who had charged unshaken through the slaughter of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and San Sebastian, and who were about to justify once more the tribute to the British soldier: "Give him a plain, unconditional order—go and do that—and he will do it with a cool, self-forgetting pertinacity that can scarcely be too much admired."
It was Pakenham's plan to hurl a flank attack against the right bank of the Mississippi while he directed the grand assault on the east side of the river where Jackson's strength was massed. To protect the flank, Commodore Patterson of the American naval force had built a water battery of nine guns and was supported by eight hundred militia. Early in the morning of the 8th of January twelve hundred men in boats, under the British Colonel Thornton, set out to take this west bank as the opening maneuver of the battle. Their errand was delayed, although later in the day they succeeded in defeating the militia and capturing the naval guns. This minor victory, however, was too late to save Pakenham's army which had been cut to pieces in the frontal assault.
Jackson had arranged his main body of troops along the inner edge of the small canal extending from a levee to a tangled swamp. The legendary cotton bales had been blown up or set on fire during the artillery bombardment and protection was furnished only by a raw, unfinished parapet of earth and a double row of log breastworks with red clay tamped between them. It was a motley army that Jackson led. Next to the levee were posted a small regiment of regular infantry, a company of New Orleans Rifles, a squad of dragoons who were handling a howitzer, and a battalion of Creoles in bright uniforms. The line was extended by the freebooters of Pierre Lafitte, their heads bound with crimson kerchiefs, a group of American bluejackets, a battalion of blacks from San Domingo, a few grizzled old French soldiers serving a brass gun, long rows of tanned, saturnine Tennesseans, more regulars with a culverin, and rank upon rank of homespun hunting shirts and long rifles, John Adair and his savage Kentuckians, and, knee-deep in the swamp, the frontiersmen who followed General Coffee to death or glory.
A spirit of reckless elation pervaded this bizarre and terrible little army, although it was well aware that during two and a half years almost every other American force had been defeated by an enemy far less formidable. The anxious faces were those of the men of Louisiana who fought for hearth and home, with their backs to the wall. Many a brutal tale had they heard of these war-hardened British veterans whose excesses in Portugal were notorious and who had laid waste the harmless hamlets of Maryland. All night Andrew Jackson's defenders stood on the qui vive until the morning mist of the 8th of January was dispelled and the sunlight flashed on the solid ranks of British bayonets not more than four hundred yards away.
At the signal rocket the enemy swept forward toward the canal, with companies of British sappers bearing scaling ladders and fascines of sugar cane. They moved with stolid unconcern, but the American cannon burst forth and slew them until the ditch ran red with blood. With cheers the invincible British infantry tossed aside its heavy knapsacks, scrambled over the ditch, and broke into a run to reach the earthworks along which flamed the sparse line of American rifles. Against such marksmen as these there was to be no work with the bayonet, for the assaulting column literally fell as falls the grass under the keen scythe. The survivors retired, however, only to join a fresh attack which was rallied and led by Pakenham himself.
He died with his men, but once more British pluck attempted the impossible, and the Highland brigade was chosen to lead this forlorn hope. That night the pipers wailed Lochaber no more for the mangled dead of the MacGregors, the MacLeans, and the MacDonalds who lay in windrows with their faces to the foe. This was no Bladensburg holiday, and the despised Americans were paying off many an old score. Two thousand of the flower of Britain's armies were killed or wounded in the few minutes during which the two assaults were so rashly attempted in parade formation. Coolly, as though at a prize turkey shoot on a tavern green, the American riflemen fired into these masses of doomed men, and every bullet found its billet.
On the right of the line a gallant British onslaught led by Colonel Rennie swept over a redoubt and the American defenders died to a man. But the British wave was halted and rolled back by a tempest of bullets from the line beyond, and the broken remnant joined the general retreat which was sounded by the British trumpeters. An armistice was granted next day and in shallow trenches the dead were buried, row on row, while the muffled drums rolled in honor of three generals, seven colonels, and seventy-five other officers who had died with their men. Behind the log walls and earthworks loafed the unkempt, hilarious heroes of whom only seventy-one had been killed or hurt, and no more than thirteen of these in the grand assault which Pakenham had led. "Old Hickory" had told them that they could lick their weight in wildcats, and they were ready to agree with him.
Magnificent but useless, after all, excepting as a proud heritage for later generations and a vindication of American valor against odds, was this battle of New Orleans which was fought while the Salem ship, Astrea, Captain John Derby, was driving home to the westward with the news that a treaty of peace had been signed at Ghent. With a sense of mutual relief the United States and England had concluded a war in which neither nation had definitely achieved its aims. The treaty failed to mention such vital issues as the impressment of seamen and the injury to commerce by means of paper blockades, while on the other hand England relinquished its conquest of the Maine coast and its claim to military domination of the Great Lakes. English statesmen were heartily tired of a war in which they could see neither profit nor glory, and even the Duke of Wellington had announced it as his opinion "that no military advantage can be expected if the war goes on, and I would have great reluctance in undertaking the command unless we made a serious effort first to obtain peace without insisting upon keeping any part of our conquests." The reverses of first-class British armies at Plattsburg, Baltimore, and New Orleans had been a bitter blow to English pride. Moreover, British commerce on the seas had been largely destroyed by a host of Yankee privateers, and the common people in England were suffering from scarcity of food and raw materials and from high prices to a degree comparable with the distress inflicted by the German submarine campaign a century later. And although the terms of peace were unsatisfactory to many Americans, it was implied and understood that the flag and the nation had won a respect and recognition which should prevent a recurrence of such wrongs as had caused the War of 1812. One of the Peace Commissioners, Albert Gallatin, a man of large experience, unquestioned patriotism, and lucid intelligence, set it down as his deliberate verdict:
The war has been productive of evil and of good, but I think the good preponderates. Independent of the loss of lives, and of the property of individuals, the war has laid the foundation of permanent taxes and military establishments which the Republicans had deemed unfavorable to the happiness and free institutions of our country. But under our former system we were becoming too selfish, too much attached exclusively to the acquisition of wealth, above all, too much confined in our political feelings to local and state objects. The war has renewed and reinstated the national feeling and character which the Revolution had given, and which were daily lessening. The people have now more general objects of attachment, with which their pride and political opinions are connected. They are more Americans; they feel and act more as a nation; and I hope that the permanency of the Union is thereby better secured.
After a hundred years, during which this peace was unbroken, a commander of the American navy, speaking at a banquet in the ancient Guildhall of London, was bold enough to predict: "If the time ever comes when the British Empire is seriously menaced by an external enemy, it is my opinion that you may count upon every man, every dollar, and every drop of blood of your kindred across the sea."
The prediction came true in 1917, and traditional enmities were extinguished in the crusade against a mutual and detestable foe. The candid naval officer became Vice-Admiral William S. Sims, commanding all the American ships and sailors in European waters, where the Stars and Stripes and the British ensign flew side by side, and the squadrons toiled and dared together in the finest spirit of admiration and respect. Out from Queenstown sailed an American destroyer flotilla operated by a stern, inflexible British admiral who was never known to waste a compliment. At the end of the first year's service he said to the officers of these hard-driven vessels:
I wish to express my deep gratitude to the United States officers and ratings for the skill, energy, and unfailing good nature which they have all so consistently shown and which qualities have so materially assisted in the war by enabling ships of the Allied Powers to cross the ocean in comparative freedom.
To command you is an honor, to work with you is a pleasure, to know you is to know the finest traits of the Anglo-Saxon race.
The United States waged a just war in 1812 and vindicated the principles for which she fought, but as long as the poppies blow in Flanders fields it is the clear duty, and it should be the abiding pleasure, of her people to remember, not those far-off days as foemen, but these latter days as comrades in arms.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Of the scores of books that have been written about the War of 1812, many deal with particular phases, events, or personalities, and most of them are biased by partisan feeling. This has been unfortunately true of the textbooks written for American schools, which, by ignoring defeats and blunders, have missed the opportunity to teach the lessons of experience. By all odds the best, the fairest, and the most complete narrative of the war as written by an American historian is the monumental work of Henry Adams, History of the United States of America, 9 vols. (1889-91). The result of years of scholarly research, it is also most excellent reading.
Captain Mahan's Sea Power in its Relation to the War of 1812, 2 vols. (1905), is, of course, the final word concerning the naval events, but he also describes with keen analysis the progress of the operations on land and fills in the political background of cause and effect. Theodore Roosevelt's The Naval War of 1812 (1882) is spirited and accurate but makes no pretensions to a general survey. Akin to such a briny book as this but more restricted in scope is The Frigate Constitution (1900) by Ira N. Hollis, or Rodney Macdonough's Life of Commodore Thomas Macdonough (1909). Edgar Stanton Maclay in The History of the Navy, 3 vols. (1902), has written a most satisfactory account, which contains some capital chapters describing the immortal actions of the Yankee frigates.
Benson J. Lossing's The Pictorial Field Book of the War of 1812 (1868) has enjoyed wide popularity because of his gossipy, entertaining quality. The author gathered much of his material at first hand and had the knack of telling a story; but he is not very trustworthy.
As a solemn warning, the disasters of the American armies have been employed by several military experts. The ablest of these was Bvt. Major General Emory Upton, whose invaluable treatise, The Military Policy of the United States (1904), was pigeonholed in manuscript by the War Department and allowed to gather dust for many years. He discusses in detail the misfortunes of 1812 as conclusive proof that the national defense cannot be entrusted to raw militia and untrained officers. Of a similar trend but much more recent are Frederic L. Huidekoper's The Military Unpreparedness of the United States (1915) and Major General Leonard Wood's Our Military History; Its Facts and Fallacies (1916).
Of the British historians, William James undertook the most diligent account of them all, calling it A Full and Correct Account of the Military Occurrences of the Late War between Great Britain and the United States of America, 2 vols. (1818). It is irritating reading for an American because of an enmity so bitter that facts are willfully distorted and glaring inaccuracies are accepted as truth. As a naval historian James undertook to explain away the American victories in single-ship actions, a difficult task in which he acquitted himself with poor grace. Theodore Roosevelt is at his best when he chastises James for his venomous hatred of all things American.
To the English mind the War of 1812 was only an episode in the mighty and prolonged struggle against Napoleon, and therefore it finds but cursory treatment in the standard English histories. To Canada, however, the conflict was intimate and vital, and the narratives written from this point of view are sounder and of more moment than those produced across the water. The Canadian War of 1812 (1906), published almost a century after the event, is the work of an Englishman, Sir Charles P. Lucas, whose lifelong service in the Colonial Office and whose thorough acquaintance with Canadian history have both been turned to the best account. Among the Canadian authors in this field are Colonel Ernest A. Cruikshank and James Hannay. To Colonel Cruikshank falls the greater credit as a pioneer with his Documentary History of the Campaign upon the Niagara Frontier, 8 vols. (1896-). Hannay's How Canada Was Held for the Empire; The Story of the War of 1812 (1905) displays careful study but is marred by the controversial and one-sided attitude which this war inspired on both sides of the border.
Colonel William Wood has avoided this flaw in his War with the United States (1915) which was published as a volume of the Chronicles of Canada series. As a compact and scholarly survey, this little book is recommended to Americans who comprehend that there are two sides to every question. The Canadians fought stubbornly and successfully to defend their country against invasion in a war whose slogan "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights" was no direct concern of theirs.
INDEX
Adair, John, [215]
Adams, Henry, quoted, [20], [117]
Adams (ship), [141]
Alabama, Indians aroused in, [201]
Alabama raids compared with those of Essex, [154]
Albany, militia at Sackett's Harbor from, [77]
Alexandria, British fleet at, [197]
Allen, Captain W. H., [142], [143]
Amherstburg, Canadian post, [11];
Hull plans assault, [11], [14], [16];
Brock at, [17];
defeat of British, [21], [42];
Harrison against, [24], [25];
Procter commands, [26];
British advance from, [27]
Anderson, James, of the Essex, [162]
Annapolis, British fleet at, [187]
Argus (brig), [94];
and the Pelican, [142-44]
Ariel (brig), [57], [62]
Armstrong, John, Secretary of War, [37], [175];
plans offensive, [72], [80], [84];
and Wilkinson, [81-82];
orders winter quarters, [82]
Army, in 1812, [5-8];
state control, [6-8];
incapable officers, [10-11];
at Niagara, [14-15];
Hull's forces, [15];
mutiny, [17];
failure to supply, [24];
forces under Winchester, [25];
at New Orleans, [210-11]
Astrea (ship), [218]
Avon (British brig), fight with Wasp, [146-47]
Bainbridge, Captain William, [90], [95], [117], [121], [127], [136-137], [138]
Baltimore, British fleet at, [187];
attack on, [197-99], [219]
Bangor (Me.), British land at, [187]
Barclay, Captain R. H., British officer, [52], [53], [54], [56], [60], [61]
Barney, Commodore Joshua, [92], [189], [193], [194];
account of battle of Bladensburg, [195]
Barrancas, Fort, [208]
Barron, Commodore James, [91]
Belfast (Me.), British at, [187]
Belvidera (British frigate), [96];
fight with President, [94-95]
Benton, T. H., and Jackson, [202]
Betsy (brig), [104]
Biddle, Lieutenant James, on the Wasp, [111-12]
Biddle, Captain Nicholas, [92]
Black Rock, navy yard at, [39], [48];
Elliott at, [49];
invasion of Canada from, [70];
Indians against, [88]
Bladensburg, battle, [191-96]
Blakely, Captain Johnston, [137], [144], [145], [146], [147]
Blockade, [124-25], [148], [185]
Blyth, Captain Samuel, [140]
Boerstler, Colonel, [76]
Bonne Citoyenne (British sloop-of-war), [126]
Bowyer, Fort, [206], [207]
Boxer, duel with Enterprise, [189-40]
Boyd, General J. P., [74], [76], [83]
Brewster (Mass.), war levy, [188]
Brock, Major General Isaac, British commander, [12-13], [14];
against Hull, [15], [17];
Hull surrenders Detroit to, [18-19];
on Elliott's victory, [40];
on Niagara River, [65];
killed, [66]
Broke, Captain P. V., of the Shannon, [96], [128-29], [130], [134], [138-39]
Brown, General Jacob, at Sackett's Harbor, [77], [78], [79];
at Chrystler's Farm, [82-83];
Niagara campaign, [167], [168], [169], [170];
at Lundy's Lane, [171-72], [191]
Budd, George, second lieutenant on Chesapeake, [134]
Buffalo, Elliott at, [38];
difficulty of taking supplies to, [47];
American regulars sent to, [65];
base of operations, [70], [72];
Indians against, [88]
Burrows, Captain William, of the Enterprise, [139]
Cabinet advises General Winder, [192]
Caledonia (British brig), [38-39];
Elliott captures, [39];
in American squadron, [49-50], [56]
Canada, "On to Canada!" slogan of frontiersmen, [4];
vulnerable point in War of 1812, [9], [10];
population and extent, [10];
plans for invasion of, [13-14];
Hull abandons invasion of, [16];
Niagara campaign, [64] et seq., [167-77]
Canning, George, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, [92]
Carden, Captain J. S., of the Macedonian, [114], [115], [116]
Cass, Colonel Lewis, [18]
Castine, British land at, [187]
Champlain, Lake, Dearborn on, [71];
Hampton in command, [80], [81];
Macdonough's victory, [166] et seq.
Chandler, General John, [74], [75]
Chateauguay River, Hampton on, [84], [85]
Chauncey, Captain Isaac, leads sailors from New York to Buffalo, [39];
in command of naval forces on Lakes Erie and Ontario, [47], [48];
extreme caution, [49], [55], [56], [170-71];
on Lake Ontario, [49], [50], [63];
and Perry, [50-51], [55], [56];
and Niagara campaign, [72], [73], [74], [77], [82], [170-71]
Cherub (British sloop-of-war), [157], [159], [160], [161]
Chesapeake (frigate), and Leopard, [91];
Lawrence on, [96], [127-28];
defeated by Shannon, [128-39];
Allen on, [142]
Chesapeake Bay, blockade of [185];
Cockburn in, [186];
British army comes to, [189];
British fleet in, [197]
Chippawa, Brock's forces at [65], [67];
battle, [168-70]
Chrystler's Farm, battle, [83]
Chub (British schooner), [180]
Clay, Brigadier General Green, [31]
Clay, Henry, on conquest of Canada, [9]
Cleveland, Harrison's headquarters at, [33]
Cochrane, Vice Admiral Alexander, [198], [218]
Cockburn, Rear Admiral George, [186], [195], [196]
Cod, Cape, British raids on, [188]
Coffee, General John, [211], [215]
Confiance (British frigate), [179], [180]
Congress, declares war on Great Britain (1812), [4];
and the navy, [90];
votes prize money for Constitution, [107];
prize money for Wasp, [113];
and maritime trouble with France, [152];
refuses to sanction Jackson's expedition, [201]
Congress (frigate), [94], [141]
Connecticut, attitude toward War of 1812, [7]
Constellation (frigate), [92], [141], [187]
Constitution (frigate), [2], [125];
Hull and, [95], [116], [128];
now in Boston Navy Yard, [95-96];
encounter with British squadron, [96-99];
and Guerrière, [100-07], [108], [122-23];
"Old Ironsides," [101];
under Bainbridge, [116-17];
health conditions on, [117-18];
encounter with Java, [118-21], [123-24], [154];
Lawrence and, [126];
influence, [139];
in 1813, [141];
gains open sea in 1814, [147]
Creek Indians, [201]
Creighton, Captain J. O., [137]
Crockett, David, [202]
Croghan, Major George, at Fort Stephenson, [34-35], [36], [38], [46]
Crowninshield, Captain George, [136]
Cyane (British frigate), [147]
Dacres, Captain John, of the Guerrière, [100], [101], [102], [103], [104]
Dayton (O.), Hull takes command at, [12]
Dearborn, Major General Henry, plans invasion of Canada, [13], [73];
commander-in-chief of American forces, [14];
incompetency, [14];
and Niagara campaign, [64], [65], [74-75], [76];
campaign against Montreal, [71-72];
wishes to retire, [72], [75];
Armstrong and, [72];
Brown reports battle of Sackett's Harbor to, [78-79];
retired, [80];
age, [117]
Dearborn, Fort (Chicago), burned, [19];
massacre, [20]
Decatur, Captain Stephen, [138];
and the Philadelphia (1804), [92];
squadron commander, [94];
on the United States, [114], [115];
on the President, [148], [149];
Defiance, Fort, [24]
Delaware Bay, blockade of, [185]
Derby, Captain John, [218]
Detroit, [64];
first campaign from, [11], [14];
Hull at, [12], [13], [14], [15], [16];
mutiny at, [15];
surrender of, [17-18], [19], [20], [22], [106-07];
in British hands, [31];
Procter abandons, [42];
Harrison returns to, [45]
Detroit (brig), taken from Hull, [38];
Elliott captures, [39-40]
Detroit (British ship), [54], [56], [57], [60]
Downes, Lieutenant John, [155], [156]
Downie, Captain George, British officer, [178], [183]
Drummond, General Sir George Gordon, [172]
Eagle (brig), [180]
Eastham (Mass.), war levy, [188]
Eastport (Me.), captured, [187]
Elliott, Lieutenant J. D., builds fleet on Lake Erie, [38], [48];
captures Caledonia and Detroit, [39-40];
with Perry, [54], [58]
Endymion (British frigate), [150]
Enterprise (brig), encounter with Boxer, [139-40]
Epervier (British brig), fight with Peacock, [144]
Erie, Barclay off, [52];
see also Presqu' Isle
Erie, Fort, Elliott captures ships near, [39];
Brock at, [65];
Americans capture, [168];
Scott and Brown occupy, [173]
Erie, Lake, Hull's schooner captured on, [12];
Perry on, [21], [40] et seq.;
Harrison on shores of, [24], [30];
Chauncey in command on, [47], [48]
Essex (frigate), [141], [147];
last cruise, [151] et seq.;
building of, [153];
capture by Hillyar, [161-65]
Essex, Junior (cruiser), [156], [159]
Eustis, William, Secretary of War, [24]
Faneuil Hall, banquet for Hull at, [106]
Farragut, Admiral D. G., [181];
motto, [46];
cited, [59];
midshipman on Essex, [161-62]
Finch (British schooner), [180]
Florida, West, Jackson and, [200]
France, American feeling toward, [3];
as maritime enemy, [151-52], [154]
Fredericktown burned, [186]
"Free Trade and Sailors' Rights," [3], [91], [137]
Frenchtown, see Raisin River
Frolic (British brig), encounter with Wasp, [108-13]
Galapagos Islands, Essex at, [155]
Gallatin, Albert, quoted, [219-220]
George, Fort, British fort, [67];
evacuated by British, [74-75];
retaken, [87]
Georgia, Indians aroused in, [201]
Georgiana (British whaling ship), Essex captures, [155];
renamed Essex, Junior, [156]
Great Britain, and free sea, [2-3];
Indian wars, [4];
war declared on (1812), [4];
and Indians, [10];
and Napoleon, [124];
blockading measures, [124-25]
Great Lakes, British on, [38]
Guerrière (British frigate), [2], [96];
encounter with Constitution, [100-07], [108], [122-23];
celebration of capture, [116]
Hamilton, Alexander, Izard aide to, [175]
Hampton, General Wade, in campaign against Montreal, [80], [81], [83-84], [86];
and Wilkinson, [80-81];
cause of failure, [86];
age, [117]
Hampton, British foray on village of, [187]
Haraden, Captain Jonathan, [153]
Harrison, General W. H., campaign, [22] et seq.;
report to Secretary of War, [29-30];
Croghan and, [35];
Armstrong on, [37-38];
and Perry's victory, [41], [63];
resumes campaign, [42];
becomes President of United States, [45]
Havre de Grace burned, [186]
Hazen, Benjamin, of the Essex, [162]
Henry (brig), [186], [187]
Hermes (British sloop-of-war), [207]
Hillyar, Captain James, British officer, [157], [158], [159-60], [161], [164-65]
Hornet (sloop-of-war), [48], [94];
Lawrence on, [126];
and Peacock, [127];
in South American waters, [154]
Horseshoe Bend, battle, [204]
Houston, Samuel, [202]
Hull, Captain Isaac, of the Constitution, [95], [128], [138];
and British squadron, [96], [97], [98], [99];
and Guerrière, [101], [102], [103], [106];
and Dacres, [104];
victory celebrated, [106], [107], [108];
gives up command of Constitution, [116-17];
at Lawrence's funeral, [136]
Hull, General William, [34], [68], [71], [88], [98];
Detroit campaign, [11] et seq.;
troops, [15], [17];
surrender, [19];
court-martial, [19-20];
Harrison and, [22];
age, [117]
Impressment of seamen, [90]
Indian wars, enmity toward Great Britain because of, [4]
Indians, British and, [10], [55];
against Americans, [16], [67], [76];
in Canadian army, [17];
Procter and, [26];
abandon British cause, [44];
ravage frontier, [88];
massacre at Fort Mims, [202]
Izard, General George, [175], [176]
Jackson, Andrew, at New Orleans, [17-18], [208] et seq.;
and Florida expedition, [200-03];
at Horseshoe Bend, [204];
at Pensacola, [207-08]
Jacob Jones (destroyer), [109]
Java (British frigate), encounter with Constitution, [118-20], [154]
Jefferson, Thomas, and gunboats, [8-9];
on conquest of Canada, [9-10]
Johnson, Allen, Jefferson and his Colleagues, cited, [2]
Johnson, Colonel R. M., [41], [43], [44], [46];
Jones, Captain, Jacob, of the Wasp, [109], [110], [111], [113];
Jones, John Paul, cited, [59];
American naval officers serve with, [92];
on the Ranger, [141]
Kentucky, defends western border, [22];
militia, [24], [31]
Key, F. S., Star-Spangled Banner, [198-99]
Kingston, plan to capture, [72], [73];
Prevost embarks at, [77]
Lady Prevost (British schooner), [56]
Lafitte, Jean, [206]
Lafitte, Pierre, [206], [211], [215]
Lambert, Captain Henry, of the Java, [118]
Lang, Jack, sailor on the Wasp, [111]
La Vengeance (French ship) and Constellation, [93]
Lawrence, Captain James, of the Chesapeake, [96], [127-28], [129-30];
on the Hornet, [126], [127];
fights Shannon, [130-136];
death, [131], [133], [135];
account of funeral, [136-37]
Lawrence (brig), [49], [53], [55], [56], [57], [58]
Leopard and Chesapeake, [91], [142]
Levant (British sloop-of-war), fight with Constitution, [147]
Lewis, General Morgan, [75-76], [83]
Linnet (British brig), [180]
L'Insurgente (French ship) and Constellation, [92]
Long Island Sound, British fleet in, [188]
Ludlow, Lieutenant A. C, of the Chesapeake, [133], [136], [137]
Lundy's Lane, battle, [2], [171-173]
McArthur, Colonel, [18]
Macdonough, Commodore Thomas, on Lake Champlain, [166], [167], [171], [178], [179-84]
Macedonian (British frigate), Decatur captures, [114-16], [142];
as American frigate, [141]
McHenry, Fort, [197], [198]
Mackinac, fall of, [19], [20]
Mackinaw, see Mackinac
M'Knight, Lieutenant, S. D., of the Essex, [163]
Macomb, Brigadier General Alexander, [177]
Madison, James, and Hull, [12], [19];
reviews troops, [191];
at battle of Bladensburg, [192];
policy as to West Florida, [200]
Mahan, Captain A. T., quoted, [128]
Maine, British raids, [187]
Malden (Amherstburg), [43];
see also Amherstburg
Massachusetts, attitude toward War of 1812, [7], [91]
Maumee Rapids, Harrison at, [30]
Maumee River, Hull at, [12]
Meigs, Fort, massacre at, [20], [32];
built, [30];
Procter besieges, [31-32], [36];
Harrison again at, [33]
Merchant marine, [93]
Miller, Captain, at battle of Bladensburg, [195]
Miller, Colonel John, [17], [33]
Mims, Samuel, [202]
Mims, Fort, massacre, [202]
Mississippi Valley and invasion of Florida, [200]
Mobile, Jackson at, [204], [206-207], [208]
Montreal, plan of attack, [14];
campaign against, [71], [82-87]
Moraviantown, Procter goes to, [42]
Morris, Lieutenant Charles, on the Constitution, [101], [107]
Mulcaster, Captain W. H., [83]
Murray, Colonel, British officer, [87]
Napoleon, Great Britain and, [2];
offenses against American commerce, [8]
Navy, [8-9], [38];
on Lake Erie, [46] et seq.;
on the sea, [89] et seq.;
augmented by private subscriptions, [152];
victory on Lake Champlain, [166] et seq.
Nelson, Horatio, Viscount, quoted, [141]
New England, attitude toward War of 1812, [7-8];
British raids in, [187-88]
New Orleans, battle of, [166], [175], [208-18], [219]
New York, apprehension in, [148]
Niagara, campaign planned, [13-14];
American forces at, [14-15];
campaign, [64] et seq.;
renewal of struggle for region of (1814), [167-77]
Niagara (brig), [49], [53], [54], [56], [58], [59]
Niagara, Fort, [87]
Nicholls, Major Edward, [205]
Norfolk, Warren attacks, [187]
Northwest Territory regained for United States, [44], [63]
Ohio, Hull sends troops to, [16];
defends western border, [22];
militia, [31]
"Old Ironsides," [101], see also Constitution
Ontario, Lake, Chauncey in command on, [47], [48], [49], [50];
battle at Sackett's Harbor, [77-79]
Orne, Captain W. B., [104]
Paine, R. D., The Old Merchant Marine, cited, [93] (note)
Pakenham, General Sir Edward, at New Orleans, [209-210], [212], [213], [214], [216-17]
Patterson, Commodore D. T., at New Orleans, [214]
Peacock (British brig) and Hornet, [127]
Peacock (sloop-of-war), [144]
Pelican (British brig), [142]
Pennsylvania, brigade in Western campaign from, [23];
militia at Erie, [52-53]
Pensacola, British pull down Spanish flag at, [204-05];
Jackson at, [207-08]
Perry, O. H., [180-81];
victory on Lake Erie, [21], [46] et seq., [166];
and Harrison, [41], [63];
famous message, [41], [62]
Philadelphia (frigate), [92]
Phoebe (British frigate) and Essex, [157-65]
Pilot, The, on destruction of the Java, [123-24]
Plattsburg, Dearborn at, [71];
troops moved from, [74], [80];
Izard at, [175], [176];
Prevost at, [176], [177], [178]
Plattsburg Bay, battle of, [177-184], [219]
Poictiers (British ship), [113]
Pomone (British frigate), [150]
Porter, Captain David, of the Essex, [151];
raids on British whaling fleet, [154-56];
Phoebe and Cherub seek, [157-64];
account of surrender of Essex, [163-64]
President (frigate), [141], [147], [148], [149];
encounters Belvidera, [94-95];
Rodgers in command of, [101];
captured, [150]
Presqu' Isle (Erie), navy yard at, [48];
see also Erie
Prevost, Sir George, Governor General of Canada, [54];
crosses Lake Ontario, [77];
defends Montreal, [84-85];
goes to Plattsburg, [176], [177];
quoted, [176-77], [178-79]
Privateers, [93]
Procter, Colonel Henry, battle of the Raisin, [26];
character, [26];
and Harrison, [30], [34], [37-38];
at Fort Meigs, [31-32], [33];
at Fort Stephenson, [36];
blames Indians for defeat, [36-37];
Brock reports to, [40-41];
and Tecumseh, [42];
official disgrace, [45]
Put-in Bay, Perry at, [54]
Queen Charlotte (British ship), [56], [58], [60]
Queenston, attack on, [65-67];
British at, [168], [170]
Quincy, Josiah, [91]
Raisin River, massacre at, [20], [26-30], [36];
Winchester at Frenchtown, [25]
Ranger (frigate), [141]
Rattlesnake (brig), [137]
Reindeer (British brig), [145]
Rennie, Colonel, British officer, [217]
Riall, General Phineas, [168], [170]
Ripley, General E. W., [173]
Ripley, John, seaman on Essex, [162]
Rodgers, Commodore John, [94], [95], [101], [113-14]
Ross, General Robert, [188], [194];
and Barney, [195];
in Washington, [196];
against Baltimore, [197];
killed, [198]
Rush, Richard, quoted, [132]
Sackett's Harbor, Lake Ontario, invasion of Canada planned from, [13-14];
Chauncey, at, [47], [48];
in Niagara campaign, [72], [74], [76-77];
battle at, [77-79];
campaign against Montreal, [80], [81];
Brown at, [167];
fleet at, [170]
St. Lawrence River, plan to gain control of, [72];
Wilkinson's army descends, [80];
Wilkinson abandons voyage down, [83-84]
Salaberry, Colonel de, [85], [86]
Salem contributes Essex to navy, [152]
Salem Marine Society, [136]
Saratoga (flagship), [180]
Scorpion (brig), [57], [62]
Scott, Michael, Tom Cringle's Log, quoted, [145]
Scott, Winfield, quoted, [5];
at Queenston, [66];
at Chippawa, [68], [168-69];
taken prisoner, [68];
in control of army, [73];
at Fort George, [74];
on Wilkinson, [80];
trains Brown's troops, [167];
at Lundy's Lane, [171], [172], [191];
wounded, [173]
Seneca, Harrison at, [37], [38], [41]
Shannon (British frigate), encounter with Constitution, [96-99];
defeats Chesapeake, [128-39]
Shipbuilding on Lake Erie, [50]
Sims, Vice-Admiral W. S., [220-21]
Smith, General Samuel, [197]
Smyth, Brigadier General Alexander, [65], [66], [68-69], [70-71]
Sophie (British ship), [207]
Spain and West Florida, [200]
Squaw Island, Elliott at, [38]
Stephenson, Fort, Harrison at, [34];
Croghan at, [36], [46];
Procter's defeat, [36], [37-38]
Stewart, Captain Charles, [136], [147]
Stonington, British bombard, [188]
Stony Creek, battle, [75]
Tecumseh, [16], [18], [31], [32], [34], [42];
death, [44];
and Creek Indians, [201]
Tenedos (British frigate), [150]
Thames River, Procter's defeat at, [43-44]
Thornton, Colonel Sir William, British officer, [214]
Ticonderoga (schooner), [180]
Times, London, account of fight of Guerrière, [122-23]
Tippecanoe campaign, [20]
Toronto, see York
Transportation, effect of blockade on, [148]
United States (frigate), [94], [139];
captures Macedonian, [114-116], [142];
and blockade, [141]
Upper Sandusky, Harrison's headquarters, [33], [34]
Valparaiso, Essex at, [155], [156], [157];
Essex and Phoebe at, [158] et seq.
Van Rensselaer, Major General Stephen, [64], [65], [66], [68], [71]
Vincent, General John, British officer, [74], [75]
Virginia, brigades from, [23]
War of 1812, a victory, [1];
causes, [2-4];
army, [5-8];
"Mr. Madison's War," [8];
navy, [8-9], [89] et seq.;
campaign in West, [11] et seq.;
Perry and Lake Erie, [46] et seq.;
the Northern Front, [64] et seq.;
victory on Lake Champlain, [166] et seq.;
peace with honor, [185] et seq.;
bibliography, [223-25]
Warren, Admiral Sir J. B., [138], [185], [187]
Warrington, Captain Lewis, of the Peacock, [144]
Washington, George, on need of regular army, [6-7];
and Hull, [11]
Washington, Capitol burned, [73], [196];
naval ball to celebrate capture of Guerrière, [116];
British fleet causes consternation in, [187];
British decide to attack, [189];
capture of, [166], [190-96]
Wasp (sloop-of-war), [48];
encounter with Frolic, [108-13];
last cruise, [144-47];
disappearance, [147]
Wellfleet (Mass.), war levy, [188]
Whinyates, Captain Thomas, of the Frolic, [109], [112]
Wilkinson, James, succeeds Dearborn, [80];
character, [80];
Hampton and, [81], [84];
and Armstrong, [81];
campaign, [82], [83], [84], [86], [87];
age, [117]
Winchester, General James, as a leader, [24-25];
at Raisin River, [25], [26-27], [28]
Winder, General W. H., in Niagara campaign, [74], [75];
at Washington, [190-91], [192]
Wool, Captain J. E., at Queenston, [66]
Yeo, Sir James, [49], [77]
York (Toronto), plans to capture, [72], [73]
capture, [73]