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.