The greater skill of the Americans was not due to special training; for the British service was better trained in gunnery, as in everything else, than the motley armies and fleets that fought at New Orleans and on the Lakes. Critics constantly said that every American had learned from his childhood the use of the rifle; but he certainly had not learned to use cannon in shooting birds or hunting deer, and he knew less than the Englishman about the handling of artillery and muskets. The same intelligence that selected the rifle and the long pivot-gun for favorite weapons was shown in handling the carronade, and every other instrument however clumsy.
Another significant result of the war was the sudden development of scientific engineering in the United States. This branch of the military service owed its efficiency and almost its existence to the military school at West Point, established in 1802. The school was at first much neglected by government. The number of graduates before the year 1812 was very small; but at the outbreak of the war the corps of engineers was already efficient. Its chief was Colonel Joseph Gardner Swift, of Massachusetts, the first graduate of the academy: Colonel Swift planned the defenses of New York Harbor. The lieutenant-colonel in 1812 was Walker Keith Armistead, of Virginia,--the third graduate, who planned the defenses of Norfolk. Major William McRee, of North Carolina, became chief engineer to General Brown and constructed the fortifications at Fort Erie, which cost the British General Gordon Drummond the loss of half his army, besides the mortification of defeat. Captain Eleazer Derby Wood, of New York, constructed Fort Meigs, which enabled Harrison to defeat the attack of Proctor in May, 1813. Captain Joseph Gilbert Totten, of New York, was chief engineer to General Izard at Plattsburg, where he directed the fortifications that stopped the advance of Prevost's great army. None of the works constructed by a graduate of West Point was captured by the enemy; and had an engineer been employed at Washington by Armstrong and Winder, the city would have been easily saved.
Perhaps without exaggeration the West Point Academy might be said to have decided, next to the navy, the result of the war. The works at New Orleans were simple in character, and as far as they were due to engineering skill were directed by Major Latour, a Frenchman; but the war was already ended when the battle of New Orleans was fought. During the critical campaign of 1814, the West Point engineers doubled the capacity of the little American army for resistance, and introduced a new and scientific character into American life.
THE BATTLE BETWEEN THE CONSTITUTION AND THE GUERRIÈRE
From 'History of the United States': 1890, by Charles Scribner's Sons.
As Broke's squadron swept along the coast it seized whatever it met, and on July 16th caught one of President Jefferson's sixteen-gun brigs, the Nautilus. The next day it came on a richer prize. The American navy seemed ready to outstrip the army in the race for disaster. The Constitution, the best frigate in the United States service, sailed into the midst of Broke's five ships. Captain Isaac Hull, in command of the Constitution, had been detained at Annapolis shipping a new crew until July 5th, the day when Broke's squadron left Halifax; then the ship got under way and stood down Chesapeake Bay on her voyage to New York. The wind was ahead and very light. Not until July 10th did the ship anchor off Cape Henry lighthouse, and not till sunrise of July 12th did she stand to the eastward and northward. Light head winds and a strong current delayed her progress till July 17th, when at two o'clock in the afternoon, off Barnegat on the New Jersey coast, the lookout at the masthead discovered four sails to the northward, and two hours later a fifth sail to the northeast. Hull took them for Rodgers's squadron. The wind was light, and Hull being to windward determined to speak the nearest vessel, the last to come in sight. The afternoon passed without bringing the ships together, and at ten o'clock in the evening, finding that the nearest ship could not answer the night signal, Hull decided to lose no time in escaping.
Then followed one of the most exciting and sustained chases recorded in naval history. At daybreak the next morning one British frigate was astern within five or six miles, two more were to leeward, and the rest of the fleet some ten miles astern, all making chase. Hull put out his boats to tow the Constitution; Broke summoned the boats of the squadron to tow the Shannon. Hull then bent all his spare rope to the cables, dropped a small anchor half a mile ahead, in twenty-six fathoms of water, and warped his ship along. Broke quickly imitated the device, and slowly gained on the chase. The Guerrière crept so near Hull's lee beam as to open fire, but her shot fell short. Fortunately the wind, though slight, favored Hull. All night the British and American crews toiled on, and when morning came the Belvidera, proving to be the best sailer, got in advance of her consorts, working two kedge anchors, until at two o'clock in the afternoon she tried in her turn to reach the Constitution with her bow guns, but in vain. Hull expected capture, but the Belvidera could not approach nearer without bringing her boats under the Constitution's stern guns; and the wearied crews toiled on, towing and kedging, the ships barely out of gunshot, till another morning came. The breeze, though still light, then allowed Hull to take in his boats, the Belvidera being two and a half miles in his wake, the Shannon three and a half miles on his lee, and the three other frigates well to leeward. The wind freshened, and the Constitution drew ahead, until, toward seven o'clock in the evening of July 19th, a heavy rain squall struck the ship, and by taking skillful advantage of it Hull left the Belvidera and Shannon far astern; yet until eight o'clock the next morning they were still in sight, keeping up the chase.
Perhaps nothing during the war tested American seamanship more thoroughly than these three days of combined skill and endurance in the face of the irresistible enemy. The result showed that Hull and the Constitution had nothing to fear in these respects. There remained the question whether the superiority extended to his guns; and such was the contempt of the British naval officers for American ships, that with this expedience before their eyes they still believed one of their thirty-eight-gun frigates to be more than a match for an American forty-four, although the American, besides the heavier armament, had proved his capacity to outsail and out-manoeuvre the Englishman. Both parties became more eager than ever for the test. For once, even the Federalists of New England felt their blood stir; for their own President and their own votes had called these frigates into existence, and a victory won by the Constitution, which had been built by their hands, was in their eyes a greater victory over their political opponents than over the British. With no half-hearted spirit the seagoing Bostonians showered well-weighed praises on Hull when his ship entered Boston Harbor, July 26th, after its narrow escape, and when he sailed again New England waited with keen interest to learn his fate.
Hull could not expect to keep command of the Constitution. Bainbridge was much his senior, and had the right to a preference in active service. Bainbridge then held and was ordered to retain command of the Constellation, fitting out at the Washington Navy Yard; but Secretary Hamilton, July 28th, ordered him to take command also of the Constitution on her arrival in port. Doubtless Hull expected this change, and probably the expectation induced him to risk a dangerous experiment; for without bringing his ship to the Charlestown Navy Yard, but remaining in the outer harbor, after obtaining such supplies as he needed, August 2d, he set sail without orders, and stood to the eastward. Having reached Cape Race without meeting an enemy, he turned southward, until on the night of August 18th he spoke a privateer, which told him of a British frigate near at hand. Following the privateersman's directions, the Constitution the next day, August 19th, [1812,] at two o'clock in the afternoon, latitude 41 deg. 42 min., longitude 55 deg. 48 min., sighted the Guerrière.