A School History of the United States Part 26

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WAR FOR COMMERCIAL INDEPENDENCE

%263. Fighting on the Frontier.%--"Mr. Madison's War," as the Federalists delighted to call our war for commercial independence, opened with three armies in the field ready to invade and capture Canada. One under Hull, then governor of the territory of Michigan, was to cross the river at Detroit, and march eastward through Canada. A second, under General Van Rensselaer, was to cross the Niagara River, take Queenstown, and join Hull, after which the two armies were to capture York, now Toronto, and go on eastward toward Montreal. Meantime, the third army, under Dearborn, was to go down Lake Champlain, and meet the troops under Hull and Van Rensselaer before Montreal. The three were then to capture Montreal and Quebec, and complete the conquest of Canada.

The plan failed; for Hull was driven from Canada, and surrendered his army and the whole Northwest, at Detroit; Van Rensselaer, defeated at Queenstown, was unable even to get a footing in Canada; while Dearborn, after reaching the northern boundary line of New York, stopped, and the year 1812 ended with nothing accomplished.

The surrender of Hull filled the people with indignation, aroused their patriotism, and forced the government to gather a new army for the recapture of Detroit. The command was given to William Henry Harrison, who hurried from Cincinnati across the wilderness of Ohio, and in the dead of winter reached the sh.o.r.es of Lake Erie. General Winchester, who commanded part of the troops, was now called on to drive the British from Frenchtown, a little hamlet on the river Raisin, and (in January, 1813) tried to do so. But the British and Indians came down on him in great numbers, and defeated and captured his army, after which the Indians were allowed to ma.s.sacre and scalp the wounded.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Canadian Frontier and Vicinity of Was.h.i.+ngton]

And now the British became aggressive, invaded Ohio, and attacked the Americans under Harrison at Fort Meigs, and then at Fort Stephenson, where Major Croghan and 160 men, with the aid of one small cannon, defeated and drove off 320 Canadians and Indians.

%264. Battle of Lake Erie.%--Again the Americans in turn became aggressive. Since the early winter, a young naval officer named Oliver Hazard Perry had been hard at work, with a gang of s.h.i.+p carpenters, at Erie, in Pennsylvania, cutting down trees, and had used this green timber to build nine small vessels. With this fleet he sailed, in September, in search of the British squadron, which had been just as hastily built, and soon found it near Sandusky, Ohio. His own s.h.i.+p he had named the _Lawrence_, in honor of a gallant American captain who had been killed a few months before in a battle with an English frigate. As Perry saw the enemy in the distance, he flung to the breeze a blue flag on which was inscribed, "Don't give up the s.h.i.+p" (the dying order of Lawrence to his men), sailed down to meet the enemy, and fought the two largest British s.h.i.+ps till the _Lawrence_ was a wreck. Then, with his flag on his arm, he jumped into a boat, and amidst a shower of shot and bullets was rowed to the _Niagara_. Once on her deck, he again hastened to the attack, broke the British line of battle, and captured the entire fleet. His dispatch to Harrison is as famous as his victory: "We have met the enemy, and they are ours--two s.h.i.+ps, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop."

%265. Battle of the Thames.%--Perry's victory was a grand one. It gave him command of Lake Erie, and enabled him to carry Harrison's soldiers over to Canada, where, on the Thames River, Harrison defeated the British and Indians. These two victories regained all that had been lost by the surrender of Hull.

Along the New York border little was done during 1813. The Americans made a raid into Canada, and to their shame burned York. The British attacked Sacketts Harbor and were driven off. The Americans sent an expedition down the St. Lawrence against Montreal, but the leaders got frightened and took refuge in northern New York.

%266. Campaign of 1814.%--In 1814 better officers were put in command, and before winter came the Americans, under Jacob Brown and Winfield Scott, had won the battles of Chippewa and Lundys Lane, and captured Fort Erie. But the British returned in force, burned Black Rock and Buffalo in revenge for the burning of York, and forced the Americans to leave Canada.

The fighting along the Niagara River, by holding the army in that place, prevented the Americans from attacking Montreal, and enabled the British to gather a fleet on Lake Champlain, and send an army down from Quebec to invade New York state just as Burgoyne had in 1777. But the land force was defeated by General Macomb at Plattsburg, while Thomas McDonough utterly destroyed the fleet in Plattsburg Bay. This was one of the great victories of the war.

%267. The Sea Fights.%--While our army on the frontier was accomplis.h.i.+ng little, our war s.h.i.+ps were winning victory after victory on the sea. At the opening of the war, our navy was the subject of English ridicule and contempt. We had sixteen s.h.i.+ps; she had 1200. She laughed at ours as "fir-built things with a bit of striped bunting at their mastheads." But before 1813 came, these "fir-built things" had destroyed her naval supremacy.[1] With the details of all these victories on the sea we will not concern ourselves. Yet a few must be mentioned because the fame of them still endures, and because they are examples of naval warfare in the days when the s.h.i.+ps fought lashed together, and when the boarders, cutla.s.s and pistol in hand, climbed over the bulwarks and met the enemy on his own deck, man to man. During 1812 the frigate _Const.i.tution_, whose many victories won her the name of "Old Ironsides," sank the _Guerriere_; the _United States_ captured and brought to port the _Macedonian_; and the _Wasp_, a little sloop of eighteen guns, after the most desperate engagement of the whole war, captured the British sloop _Frolic_.

[Footnote 1: One reason for the success of the American navy was the experience it had gained in the clash with France, and also in a war with Tripoli in 1801-1805. At that time the Christian nations whose s.h.i.+ps sailed the Mediterranean Sea were accustomed to pay annual tribute to Tripoli and other piratical states on the north coast of Africa, under pain of having their s.h.i.+ps seized and their sailors reduced to slavery. A dispute with the United States led to a war which gained for our s.h.i.+ps the freedom of the Mediterranean.]

When these sloops were some two hundred feet apart, the _Wasp_ opened with musketry and cannon. The sea, lashed into fury by a two days'

cyclone, was running mountain high. The vessels rolled till the muzzles of their guns dipped in the water. But the crews cheered l.u.s.tily and the fight went on. When at last the crew of the _Wasp_ boarded the _Frolic_, they were amazed to find that, save the man at the wheel and three officers who threw down their swords, not a living soul was visible. The crew had gone below to avoid the terrible fire of the _Wasp_. Scarcely was the battle over when the British frigate _Poictiers_ bore down under a press of sail, recaptured what was left of the _Frolic_, and took the _Wasp_ in addition.

During 1813 the _Const.i.tution_ took the _Java_; the _Hornet_ sank the _Peac.o.c.k_; the _Enterprise_ captured the _Boxer_ off Portland, Maine.

These and many more made up the list of American victories. But there were British victories also. The _Argus_, after destroying twenty-seven vessels in the English Channel, was taken by the _Pelican_; the _Ess.e.x_, after a marvelous cruise around South America, was captured by two frigates. The _Chesapeake_ was forced to strike to the _Shannon._

The _Chesapeake_ was at anchor in Boston harbor, in command of James Lawrence, when the British frigate _Shannon_ ran in and challenged her.

Lawrence went out at once, and after a short, fierce fight was defeated and killed. As his men were carrying him below, mortally wounded, he cried, "Don't give up the s.h.i.+p!" words which Perry, as we have seen, afterwards put on his flag, and which his countrymen have never since forgotten.[1]

[Footnote 1: On the naval war read Maclay's _History of the Navy_, Part Third; Roosevelt's _Naval War of 1812_; McMaster, Vol. IV., pp. 70-108.]

%268. The British blockade the Coast.%--Never, in the course of her existence, had England suffered such a series of defeats as we inflicted on her navy in 1812 and 1813. The record of those years caused a tremendous excitement in Great Britain, all the vessels she could spare were sent over, and with the opening of 1814, the whole coast of the United States was declared to be in a state of blockade.[1] In New England, Eastport (Moose Island) and Nantucket Island quickly fell. A British force went up the Pen.o.bscot to Hampden, and burned the _Adams_.

The eastern half of Maine was seized, and Stonington, in Connecticut, was bombarded.

[Footnote 1: All except New England had been blockaded since 1812; and in 1813 the coast of Chesapeake Bay had been ravaged.]

%269. Burning of Was.h.i.+ngton.%--Further down the coast a great fleet and army from Bermuda, under General Ross and Admiral c.o.c.kburn, came up the Chesapeake Bay, landed in Maryland, and marched to Was.h.i.+ngton. At Bladensburg, a little hamlet near the capital, the Americans made a feeble show of resistance, but soon fled; and about dark on an August night, 1814, a detachment of the British reached Was.h.i.+ngton, marched to the Capitol, fired a volley through the windows, entered, and set fire to the building. When the fire began to burn brightly, Ross and c.o.c.kburn led the troops to the President's house, which was sacked and burned.

Next morning the torch was applied to the Treasury building and to the Departments of State and War. Several private houses and a printing office were also destroyed before the British began a hasty retreat to the Chesapeake.[1]

[Footnote 1: Adams's _History_, Vol. VIII., Chaps. 5, 6; McMaster's _History_, Vol. IV., pp. 135-148; _Memoirs of Dolly Madison_, Chap. 8.]

%270. Baltimore attacked.%--Once on the bay, the army was hurried on board the s.h.i.+ps and carried to Baltimore, where for a day and a night they sh.e.l.led Fort McHenry.[2] Failing to take it, and Ross having been killed, c.o.c.kburn reembarked and sailed away to Halifax.

[Footnote 2: Francis S. Key, an American held prisoner on one of the British s.h.i.+ps, composed the words of _The Star-Spangled Banner_ while watching the bombardment.]

%271. The Victory at New Orleans.%--The army was taken to Jamaica in order that it might form part of one of the greatest war expeditions England had ever fitted out. Fifty of the finest s.h.i.+ps her navy could furnish, mounting 1000 guns and carrying on their decks 20,000 veteran soldiers and sailors, had been quietly a.s.sembled at Jamaica during the autumn of 1814, and in November sailed for New Orleans.

News of this intended attack had reached Madison, and he had given the duty of defending New Orleans to Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, one of the most extraordinary men our country has produced. The British landed at the entrance of Lake Borgne in December, 1814, and hurried to the banks of the Mississippi. But Jackson was more than a match for them.

Gathering such a force of fighting men as he could, he hastened from the city and with all possible speed threw up a line of rude earthworks, and waited to be attacked. This line the British under General Pakenham attacked on January 8, 1815, and were twice driven back with frightful loss of life. Never had such a defeat been inflicted on a British army.

The loss in killed, wounded, and missing was 2036 men. Jackson lost seventy-one men. Five British regiments which entered the battle 3000 strong reported 1750 men killed, wounded, and missing.[1]

[Footnote 1: Adams's _History_, Vol. VIII., Chaps. 12-14; McMaster, Vol.

IV., pp. 182-190]

%272. Peace.%--For a month after this defeat the British lingered in their camp. At last, in February, the army departed to attack a fort on Mobile Bay. The fort was taken, and two days later the news of peace put an end to war. The treaty was signed at Ghent in December, 1814; but it did not reach the United States till February, 1815.

In the treaty not a word was said about the impressment of our sailors, nor about the right of search, nor about the Orders in Council, nor about inciting the Indians to attack our frontier, all of which Madison had declared to be causes of the war. Yet we gained much. Our naval victories made us the equal of any maritime power, while at home the war did far more to arouse a national sentiment, consolidate the union, and make us a nation than any event which had yet occurred.

SUMMARY

1. The land war may be divided into:

A. War along the frontier.

B. War along the Atlantic coast.

C. War along the Gulf coast.

2. War along the Canadian frontier resulted in a gain to neither side.

In 1812 Americans were beaten at Detroit and at Queenstown, and failed to invade Canada. In 1813 the Americans were beaten at Frenchtown, but defeated the Canadians at Forts Meigs and Stephenson, and at the Thames River, and recovered Detroit. Perry won the battle of Lake Erie. The Americans failed in the attempt to take Montreal. In 1814 the battles of Chippewa and Lundys Lane were won, and Fort Erie was taken. But the British burned Buffalo and Black Rock and drove the Americans out of Canada. McDonough won the battle of Lake Champlain.

3. During 1812-13 the British blockaded the coast from the east end of Long Island south to the Mississippi. New England was not blockaded till 1814. Then depredations began, and during the year Was.h.i.+ngton was taken and partly burned, and Baltimore attacked.

4. Later in the year the British, after the attack on Baltimore, went south, and early in 1815 were beaten by Jackson at New Orleans.

5. The navy won a series of successive victories. The defeats were about half as numerous as the victories.

6. Peace was announced in February, 1815.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

/ / / / 1812. Hull surrenders Detroit.

1812. Harrison attempts to recover it.

Detroit . . < 1813.="">

Battle of Lake Erie.

The Harrison invades Canada and wins expeditions the battle of the Thames.

against Canada. < 1812.="" van="" rensselaer="">

War 1813. York taken and burned.