In such a war the people of the United States had only themselves to fear; but their dangers were all the more formidable. Had the war deeply disturbed the conditions of society, or brought general and immediate distress, government and Union might easily have fallen to pieces; but in the midst of military disaster and in plain sight of the Government’s incompetence, the general public neither felt nor had reason to fear much change in the routine of life. Commerce had long accustomed itself to embargoes, confiscations, and blockades, and ample supplies of foreign goods continued to arrive. The people made no serious exertions; among a population exceeding seven millions, not ten thousand men entered the military service. The militia, liable to calls to the limit of one hundred thousand, served for the most part only a few weeks in the autumn, went home in whole regiments when they pleased,[338] and in the East refused to go out at all. The scarcity of men was so great that even among the sea-goingclass, for whose rights the war was waged, only with the utmost difficulty and long delays, in spite of bounties and glory, could sailors be found to man half-a-dozen frigates for a three-months cruise, although the number of privateers was never great.
The nation as a whole saw nothing of actual warfare. While scarcely a city in Europe had escaped capture, and hardly a province of that continent was so remote as not to be familiar with invading armies or to have suffered in proportion to its resources, no American city saw or greatly feared an enemy. The rich farms of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia produced their usual harvests, and except on exposed parts of the coast the farmers never feared that their crops might be wasted by manœuvring armies, or their cattle, pigs, and poultry be disturbed by marauders. The country was vast, and quiet reigned throughout the whole United States. Except at the little point of Niagara, occupied by a few hundred scattered farmers, and on the extreme outskirts of Ohio and Indiana, the occupations and industries of life followed in the main their daily course.
The country refused to take the war seriously. A rich nation with seven million inhabitants should have easily put one hundred thousand men into the field, and should have found no difficulty in supporting them; but no inducement that the Government dared offer prevailed upon the people to risk life and property on a sufficient scale in 1812. The ranks of the army were to be filled in one of two ways,—either by enlistment in the regular service for five years, with pay at five dollars a month, sixteen dollars bounty, and on discharge three months pay and one hundred and sixty acres of land; or by volunteer organizations to the limit of fifty thousand men in all, officered under State laws, to serve for one year, with the pay of regular troops but without bounty, clothed, and in case of cavalry corps mounted, at their own expense. In a society where the day-laborers’ wages were nowhere less than nine dollars a month,[339] these inducements were not enough to supply the place of enthusiasm. The patriotic citizen who wished to serve his country without too much sacrifice, chose a third course,—he volunteered under the Act of Congress which authorized the President to call one hundred thousand State militia into service for six months; and upon this State militia Dearborn, Hull, Van Rensselaer, and Smyth were obliged chiefly to depend.
If the war fever burned hotly in any part of the country Kentucky was the spot. There the whole male population was eager to prove its earnestness. When Henry Clay returned to Lexington after the declaration of war, he wrote to Monroe[340] that he was almost alarmed at the ardor his State displayed; about four hundred men had been recruited for the regular army, and although no one had volunteered for twelve months, the quota of six-months militia was more than supplied by volunteers.
“Such is the structure of our society, however,” continued Clay, “that I doubt whether many can be engaged for a longer term than six months. For that term any force whatever which our population can afford may be obtained. Engaged in agricultural pursuits, you are well aware that from about this time, when the crop is either secured in the barn or laid by in the field until the commencement of the spring, there is leisure for any kind of enterprise.”
Clay feared only that these six-months militia corps, which had armed and equipped themselves for instant service, might not be called out. His friends were destined not to be disappointed, for early in August pressing letters arrived from Hull’s army at Detroit begging reinforcements, and the governor of Kentucky at once summoned two thousand volunteers to rendezvous, August 20, at Newport, opposite Cincinnati. This reinforcement could not reach Detroit before the middle of September, and the difficulties already developed in Hull’s path showed that the war could not be finished in a single campaign of six months; but the Kentuckians were not on that account willing to lengthen their term of service even to one year.
The danger revealed by Hull’s position threw a double obstacle in the way of public energy, for where it did not check, it promised to mislead enthusiasm, and in either case it shook, if it did not destroy, confidence in the national government. The leaders of the war party saw their fears taking shape. Henry Clay wrote without reserve to Monroe,[341]—
“Should Hull’s army be cut off, the effect on the public mind would be, especially in this quarter, in the highest degree injurious. ‘Why did he proceed with so inconsiderable a force?’ was the general inquiry made of me. I maintained that it was sufficient. Should he meet with a disaster, the predictions of those who pronounced his army incompetent to its object will be fulfilled; and the Secretary of War, in whom already there unfortunately exists no sort of confidence, cannot possibly shield Mr. Madison from the odium which will attend such an event.”
Clay was right in thinking that Eustis could not shield Madison; but from the moment that Eustis could no longer serve that purpose, Clay had no choice but to shield the President himself. When the threatened disaster took place, victims like Eustis, Hull, Van Rensselaer, Smyth, were sacrificed; but the sacrifice merely prepared new material for other and perhaps worse disasters of the same kind. In Kentucky this result was most strongly marked, for in their irritation at the weakness of the national Government the Kentuckians took the war into their own hands, appointed William Henry Harrison to the command of their armies, and attempted to conquer Canada by a campaign that should not be directed from Washington. August 25 Clay described the feelings of his State by a comparison suggesting the greatest military misfortunes known in history:[342]
“If you will carry your recollections back to the age of the Crusaders and of some of the most distinguished leaders of those expeditions, you will have a picture of the enthusiasm existing in this country for the expedition to Canada and for Harrison as commander.”