Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812. Volume 1

by A. T. Mahan

In historical value, the death of Brock was the one notable incident of the day, which otherwise was unproductive of results beyond an additional mortification to the United States. The Americans gradually accumulated on the height to the number of some six hundred, and, had they been properly re-enforced, could probably have held their ground, affording an opening for further advance. It was found impossible to induce the raw, unseasoned men on the other side to cross to their support, and after many fruitless appeals the American general was compelled to witness the shameful sight of a gallant division driven down the cliffs to the river, and there obliged to surrender, because their comrades refused to go betimes to their relief.

Van Rensselaer retired from service, and was succeeded by General Smyth, who now held command of the whole line, thirty miles, from Buffalo to Fort Niagara, opposite Fort George, where the river enters Lake Ontario. A crossing in force, in the upper part of the river, opposite Black Rock, was planned by him for November 28. In preparation for it an attack was to be made shortly before daylight by two advance parties, proceeding separately. One was to carry the batteries and spike the guns near the point selected for landing; the other, to destroy abridge five miles below, by which re-enforcements might arrive to the enemy.

To the first of these was attached a party of seventy seamen, who carried out their instructions, spiking and dismounting the guns. The fighting was unusually severe, eight out of the twelve naval officers concerned being wounded, two mortally, and half of the seamen either killed or wounded. Although the bridge was not destroyed, favorable conditions for the crossing of the main body had been established; but, upon viewing the numbers at his disposal, Smyth called a council of war, and after advising with it decided not to proceed. This was certainly a case of useless bloodshed. General Porter of the New York militia, who served with distinguished gallantry on the Niagara frontier to the end of the war, was present in this business, and criticised Smyth's conduct so severely as to cause a duel between them. "If bravery be a virtue," wrote Porter, "if the gratitude of a country be due to those who gallantly and desperately assert its rights, the government will make ample and honorable provision for the heirs of the brave tars who fell on this occasion, as well as for those that survive."[463] Another abortive movement toward crossing was made a few days later, and with it land operations on the Niagara frontier ended for the year 1812. Smyth was soon afterward dropped from the rolls of the army.

In the eastern part of Dearborn's military division, where he commanded in person, toward Albany and Champlain, less was attempted than at Detroit or Niagara. To accomplish less would be impossible; but as nothing was seriously undertaken, nothing also disastrously failed. The Commander-in-Chief gave sufficient disproof of military capacity by gravely proposing to "operate with effect at the same moment against Niagara, Kingston, and Montreal."[464] Such divergence of effort and dissemination of means, scanty at the best, upon points one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles apart, contravened all sound principle; to remedy which no compensating vigor was discoverable in his conduct. In all these quarters, as at Detroit, the enemy were perceptibly stronger in the autumn than when the war began; and the feebleness of American action had destroyed the principal basis upon which expectation of success had rested—the disaffection of the inhabitants of Canada and their readiness to side with the invaders. That this disposition existed to a formidable extent was well known. It constituted a large element in the anxieties of the British generals, especially of Brock; for in his district there were more American settlers than in Lower Canada.[465] On the Niagara peninsula, especially, climatic conditions, favorable to farming, had induced a large immigration. But local disloyalty is a poor reed for an assailant to rest upon, and to sustain it in vigorous action commonly requires the presence of a force which will render its assistance needless. Whatever inclination to rebel there might have been was effectually quelled by the energy of Brock, the weakness of Hull, and the impotence of Dearborn and his subordinates.

In the general situation the one change favorable to the United States was in a quarter the importance of which the Administration had been slow to recognize, and probably scarcely appreciated even now. The anticipated military laurels had vanished like a dream, and the disinclination of the American people to military life in general, and to this war in particular, had shown itself in enlistments for the army, which, the President wrote, "fall short of the most moderate calculation." The attempt to supplement "regulars" by "volunteers," who, unlike the militia, should be under the General Government instead of that of the States—a favorite resource always with the Legislature of the United States—was "extremely unproductive;" while the militia in service were not under obligation to leave their state, and might, if they chose, abandon their fellow-countrymen outside its limits to slaughter and capture, as they did at Niagara, without incurring military punishment. The governors of the New England States, being opposed to the war, refused to go a step beyond protecting their own territory from hostilities, which they declared were forced upon them by the Administration rather than by the British. For this attitude there was a semblance of excuse in the utter military inefficiency to which the policy of Jefferson and Madison had reduced the national government. It was powerless to give the several states the protection to which it was pledged by the Constitution. The citizens of New York had to fortify and defend their own harbor. The reproaches of New England on this score were seconded somewhat later by the outcries of Maryland; and if Virginia was silent under suffering, it was not because she lacked cause for complaint. It is to be remembered that in the matter of military and naval unpreparedness the great culprits were Virginians. South of Virginia the nature of the shore line minimized the local harrying, from which the northern part of the community suffered. Nevertheless, there also the coasting trade was nearly destroyed, and even the internal navigation seriously harassed.

Only on the Great Lakes had the case of the United States improved, when winter put an end to most operations on the northern frontier. As in the Civil War a half century later, so in 1812, the power of the water over the issues of the land not only was not comprehended by the average official, but was incomprehensible to him. Armstrong in January, and Hull in March, had insisted upon a condition that should have been obvious; but not till September 3, when Hull's disaster had driven home Hull's reasoning, did Captain Chauncey receive orders "to assume command of the naval force on lakes Erie and Ontario, and to use every exertion to obtain control of them this fall." All preparations had still to be made, and were thrown, most wisely, on the man who was to do the work. He was "to use all the means which he might judge essential to accomplish the wishes of the government."[466] It is only just to give these quotations, which indicate how entirely everything to be done was left to the energy and discretion of the officer in charge, who had to plan and build up, almost from the foundation, the naval force on both lakes. Champlain, apparently by an oversight, was not included in his charge. Near the end of the war he was directed to convene a court-martial on some occurrences there, and then replied that it had never been placed under his command.[467]

Chauncey, who was just turned forty, entered on his duties with a will. Having been for four years in charge of the navy yard at New York, he was intimately acquainted with the resources of the principal depot from which he must draw his supplies. On September 26, after three weeks of busy collecting and shipping, he started for his station by the very occasional steamboat of those days, which required from eighteen to twenty hours for the trip to Albany. On the eve of departure, he wrote the Government that he had despatched "one hundred and forty ship-carpenters, seven hundred seamen and marines, more than one hundred pieces of cannon, the greater part of large caliber, with muskets, shot, carriages, etc. The carriages have nearly all been made, and the shot cast, in that time. Nay, I may say that nearly every article that has been sent forward has been made."[468] The words convey forcibly the lack of preparation which characterized the general state of the country; and they suggest also the difference in energy and efficiency between a man of forty, in continuous practice of his profession, and generals of sixty, whose knowledge of their business derived over a disuse of more than thirty years, and from experience limited to positions necessarily very subordinate. From the meagreness of steamer traffic, all this provision of men and material had to go by sail vessel to Albany; and Chauncey wrote that his personal delay in New York was no injury, but a benefit, for as it was he should arrive well before the needed equipment.

On October 6 he reached Sackett's Harbor, "in company with his Excellency the Governor of New York, through the worst roads I ever saw, especially near this place, in consequence of which I have ordered the stores intended for this place to Oswego, from which place they will come by water." Elliott had reported from Buffalo that "the roads are good, except for thirteen miles, which is intolerably bad; so bad that ordnance cannot be brought in wagons; it must come when snow is on the ground, and then in sleds." All expectation of contesting Lake Erie was therefore abandoned for that year, and effort concentrated on Ontario. There the misfortune of the American position was that the only harbor on their side of the lake, Sackett's, close to the entrance of the St. Lawrence, was remote from the highways of United States internal traffic. The roads described by Chauncey cut it off from communications by land, except in winter and the height of summer; while the historic water route by the Mohawk River, Lake Oneida, and the outlet of the latter through the Oswego River, debouched upon Ontario at a point utterly insecure against weather or hostilities. It was necessary, therefore, to accept Sackett's Harbor as the only possible navy yard and station, under the disadvantage that the maintenance of it—and through it, of the naval command of Ontario—depended upon this water transport of forty miles of open lake from the Oswego River. The danger, when superiority of force lapsed, as at times it did, was lessened by the existence of several creeks or small rivers, within which coasting craft could take refuge and find protection from attack under the muskets of the soldiery. Sackett's Harbor itself, though of small area, was a safe port, and under proper precautions defensible; but in neither point of view was it comparable with Kingston.

While in New York, Chauncey's preparations had not been limited to what could be done there. By communication with Elliott and Woolsey, he had informed himself well as to conditions, and had initiated the purchase and equipment of lake craft, chiefly schooners of from forty to eighty tons, which were fitted to carry one or two heavy guns; the weight of battery being determined partly by their capacity to bear it, and partly by the guns on hand. Elliott's report concerning Lake Erie led to his being diverted, at his own suggestion, to the mouth of the Genesee and to Oswego, to equip four schooners lying there; for arming which cannon before destined to Buffalo were likewise turned aside to those points. When Chauncey reached Sackett's, he found there also five schooners belonging mainly to the St. Lawrence trade, which had been bought under his directions by Woolsey. There was thus already a very fair beginning of a naval force; the only remaining apprehension being that, "from the badness of the roads and the lowness of the water in the Mohawk, the guns and stores will not arrive in time for us to do anything decisive against the enemy this fall."[469] Should they arrive soon enough, he hoped to seek the British in their own waters by November. Besides these extemporized expedients, two ships of twenty-four guns were under construction at Sackett's, and two brigs of twenty, with three gunboats, were ordered on Lake Erie—all to be ready for service in the spring, their batteries to be sent on when the snow made it feasible.

After some disappointing detention, the waters of the inlet and outlet of Lake Oneida rose sufficiently to enable guns to reach Oswego, whence they were safely conveyed to Sackett's. On November 2 the report of a hostile cruiser in the neighborhood, and fears of her interfering with parts of the armaments still in transit, led Chauncey to go out with the "Oneida," the only vessel yet ready, to cut off the return of the stranger to Kingston. On this occasion he saw three of the enemy's squadron, which, though superior in force, took no notice of him. This slackness to improve an evident opportunity may reasonably be ascribed to the fact that as yet the British vessels on the lakes were not in charge of officers of the Royal Navy, but of a force purely provincial and irregular. Returning to Sackett's, Chauncey again sailed, on the evening of November 6, with the "Oneida" and six armed schooners. On the 8th he fell in with a single British vessel, the "Royal George," of twenty-one guns, which retreated that night into Kingston. The Americans followed some distance into the harbor on the 9th, and engaged both the ship and the works; but the breeze blowing straight in, and becoming heavy, made it imprudent longer to expose the squadron to the loss of spars, under the fire of shore guns, when retreat had to be effected against the wind. Beating out, a British armed schooner was sighted coming in from the westward; but after some exchange of shots, she also, though closely pressed, escaped by her better local knowledge, and gained the protection of the port. The squadron returned to Sackett's, taking with it two lake vessels as prizes, and having destroyed a third—all three possible resources for the enemy.[470]