This heartbreaking result ought not to be charged to the soldiers so much as to the administration. John Armstrong, Secretary of War, allowed the British to land 5,000 men on the Chesapeake and to march fifty miles overland to Washington. Within a distance of two days' land travel from that city lived nearly 100,000 able-bodied men, most of them accustomed to handle a gun. Yet the British force was allowed to capture Washington, to burn the public buildings, and to retire to its fleet almost without losing a man. Till James Monroe became Secretary of War the whole administration was slack and incompetent.
ANDREW JACKSON
Victorious leader at the Battle of New Orleans. President, 1829–1837. From a drawing from life by J.B. Longacre
WAR AT SEA
A proof that the defeats of the War of 1812 were not due to lack of fiber among the American people as a whole, was the brilliant success of the operations on the high seas. Jefferson and Madison both thought the navy would do more harm than good. The British had twice seized the little navy of the Danes, and it seemed as though our ships would only be a whet to the appetite of the British naval giant. Against our 18 ships of war, of which only six were sizable frigates, the British could oppose 170 large ships and 700 others. They had the prestige of a hundred years of naval supremacy; they had driven the French and Spanish ships of war from the sea.
Therefore it was a joy to the nation when, seven weeks after the outbreak of the war, the frigate Constitution captured the Guerriere and later the Java; then the United States captured the Macedonian; the Frolic took the Wasp; the Essex, the first American ship of war to appear in the Pacific, captured numbers of British whalers there. In thirteen duels, one ship on each side, the Americans won eleven victories.
Gradually the fleet was worn down; the Chesapeake was taken by the Shannon; the President and the Adams were captured; and at the end of the war there was not a public ship on the ocean flying the flag of the United States. However the navy in two unexpected directions won new laurels. On Lake Erie Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British fleet at the battle of Put-in Bay, and sent his ever memorable despatch, "We have met the enemy and they are ours: two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop." On Lake Champlain, Commodore Macdonough beat the British; while McComb with his militia withstood and repelled the British attack at Plattsburg.
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON
Harrison was one of the few able leaders that the United States had during the War of 1812. He was President for only one month in 1841. He died in office.
From the portrait of by J.B. Lambdin
When the cruisers were driven off the sea, the privateers continued the naval war. At that time a merchantman could be turned into a capable fighting ship by adding strengthening timbers and providing the necessary guns. Such a ship, when commissioned as a privateer by the United States government, could capture the enemy's merchantmen and on occasion fight small cruisers. For instance, the brig Yankee, 160 tons burden, eighteen guns, 120 men, captured twenty-nine prizes, one of which sold for more than $500,000. The money was divided equally between the owners and the men on board. The privateers together captured about 2,000 British vessels; though over 1,500 American vessels were captured by the English. The whole British nation felt the shock of this unexpected naval resistance; and it was the pressure of the shippers and shipowners of England which caused that power to make favorable terms of peace.