The Second War forIndependence and theUpsurge of Nationalism

1812-1824THE AMERICAN CONTINENTS ••.•. ARE HENCEFORTH

NOT TO BE CONSIDERED AS SUBJECTS FOR FUTURE

COLONIZATION BY ANY EUROPEAN POWERS.

PRESIDENT JAMES MONROE, DECEMBER 2, 1823

The War of 1812 was an especially divisive andill-fought war. There was no burning national anger,

as there had been in 1807 following the Chesapeakeoutrage. The supreme lesson of the conflict was the follyof leading a divided and apathetic people into war. Andyet, despite the unimpressive military outcome andeven less decisive negotiated peace, Americans cameout of the war with a renewed sense of nationhood. Forthe next dozen years, an awakened spirit of nationalismwould inspire activities ranging from protecting manu-facturing to building roads to defending the authority ofthe federal government over the states.

On to Canadaover Land and Lakes

On the eve of the War of 1812, the regular army wasill-trained, ill-disciplined, and widely scattered. It had tobe supplemented by the even more poorly trained

militia, who were sometimes distinguished by their speedof foot in leaving the battlefield. Some of the rankinggenerals were semisenile heirlooms from the Revolu-tionary War, rusting on their laurels and lacking in vigorand vision.

Canada became an important battleground in theWar of 1812 because British forces were weakest there.A successful American offensive might have quashedBritish influence among the Indians and garnered newland for settlers. But the Americans' offensive strategywas poorly conceived. Had the Americans capturedMontreal, the center of population and transportation,everything to the west might have died, just as the leavesof a tree wither when the trunk is girdled. But instead oflaying ax:to the trunk, the Americans frittered away theirstrength in the three-pronged invasion of 1812.The trioof invading forces that set out from Detroit, Niagara, andLake Champlain were all beaten back shortly after theyhad crossed the Canadian border.

By contrast, the British and Canadians displayedenergy from the outset. Early in the war, they captured

233

234 CHAPTER 12 The SecondWarfor Independence and the UpsurgeofNationalism, 1812-1824

The Three U.S. Invasions of 1812

the American fort ofMichilimackinac, which commandedthe upper Great Lakes and the Indian-inhabited area tothe south and west. Their brilliant defensive operationswere led by the inspired British general Isaac Brock andassisted (in the American camp) by "General Mud" and"General Confusion."

When several American land invasions of Canadawere again hurled back in 1813, Americans looked forsuccess on the water. Man for man and ship for ship,the American navy did much better than the army. Incomparison to British ships, American craft on thewhole were more skillfully handled, had better gun-ners' and were manned by non-press-gang crewswho were burning to avenge numerous indignities.Similarly,the American frigates, notably the Constitution("Old Ironsides"), had thicker sides, heavier firepower,and larger crews, of which one sailor in six was a freeblack.

Control of the Great Lakes was vital, and an ener-getic American naval officer, Oliver Hazard Perry,managed to build a fleet of green-timbered ships on theshores of Lake Erie, manned by even greener seamen.When he captured a British fleet in a furious engage-ment on the lake, he reported to his superior, "We havemet the enemy and they are ours." Perry's victory andhis slogan infused new life into the drooping Americancause. Forced to withdraw from Detroit and FortMalden, the retreating redcoats were overtaken byGeneral Harrison's army and beaten at the Battle ofthe Thames in October 1813.

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~ U.S. invasions fCampaigps of 1813

Despite these successes, the Americans by late 1814,far from invading Canada, were grimly defending theirown soil against the invading British. In Europe thediversionary power of Napoleon was destroyed in mid-1814, and the dangerous despot was exiled to theMediterranean isle of Elba. The United States, whichhad so brashly provoked war behind the protectiveskirts of Napoleon, was now left to face the music alone.Thousands of victorious veteran redcoats began to pourinto Canada from the Continent.

Assembling some ten thousand crack troops, theBritish prepared in 1814 for a crushing blow into NewYorkalong the familiar lake-river route. In the absence of roads,the invader was forced to bring supplies over the LakeChamplain waterway. A weaker American fleet, com-manded by the thirty-year-old Thomas Macdonough,challenged the British.The ensuing battle was desperatelyfought near Plattsburgh on September 11, 1814, on float-ing slaughterhouses. The American flagship at one pointwas in grave trouble. But Macdonough, unexpectedlyturning his ship about with cables, confronted the enemywith a fresh broadside and snatched victory from thefangs of defeat.

The results of this heroic naval battle were momen-tous. The invading British army was forced to retreat.Macdonough thus saved at least upper New York fromconquest, New England from further disaffection, andthe Union from possible dissolution. He also profoundlyaffected the concurrent negotiations of the Anglo-American peace treaty in Europe.

Battles on Land and Sea 235

Constitution and Guertiere, 1812 The GuerriEne was heavily outweighed and outgunned,yet its British captain eagerly-and foolishly-sought combat. His ship was destroyed.Historian Henry Adams later concluded that this duel "raised the United States in one halfhour to the rank of a first-class Power in the world." The buckler on the sword from the USSConstitution commemorates the famous battle. Today the Constitution, berthed in Bostonharbor, remains the oldest actively commissioned ship in the U.S.Navy.

Washington Burnedand New Orleans Defended

A second formidable British force, numbering aboutfour thousand, landed in the Chesapeake Bay area inAugust 1814.Advancing rapidly on Washington, it easilydispersed some six thousand panicky militia atBladensburg ("the Bladensburg races"). The invadersthen entered the capital and set fire to most of thepublic buildings, including the Capitol and the WhiteHouse. But whileWashington burned, the Americans atBaltimore held firm. The British fleet hammered FortMcHenry with their cannon but could not capture thecity. Francis Scott Key,a detained American anxiouslywatching the bombardment from a British ship, wasinspired by the doughty defenders to write the wordsof "The Star-Spangled Banner." Set to the tune of asaucy English tavern refrain, the song quickly attainedpopularity.

A third British blow of 1814,aimed at New Orleans,menaced the entire Mississippi Valley. Gaunt and

hawk-faced Andrew Jackson, fresh from crushing thesouthwest Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend,was placed in command (see the map on p. 251). Hishodgepodge force consisted of seven thousand sailors,

Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) appealed to thegovernor of Louisiana for help recruiting freeblacks to defend New Orleans in 1814:"The free men of colour in [your]city areinured to the Southern climate andwould make excellent Soldiers .... Theymust be for or against us-distrust them,and you make them your enemies, placeconfidence in them, and you engagethem by every dear and honorable tie tothe interest of the country, who extendsto them equal rights and [privileges]with white men."

236 CHAPTER 12 The SecondWaJ:for Independence and the UpsurgeofNationalism,1812-1824

The Fall of Wa:;;hington. or Maddy in Full Flight President Madison ("Maddy") wasforced into humiliating withdrawal from the capital in 1814. when British forces putthe torch to Washington. D.C.

regulars, pirates, and Frenchmen, as well as militiamenfrom Louisiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Among thedefenders were two Louisiana regiments of free blackvolunteers, numbering about four hundred men. TheAmericans threw up their entrenchment, and in thewords of a popular song,

Behind it stood our little force-None wished it to be greater;For eo'ry man was half a horse,And half an alligator.

The overconfident British, numbering some eightthousand battle-seasoned veterans, blundered badly.They made the mistake oflaunching a frontal assault, onJanuary 8, 1815, on the entrenched American riflemenand cannoneers. The attackers suffered the most devas-tating defeat of the entire war, losing over two thousand,killed and wounded, in half an hour, as compared withsome seventy for the Americans. It was an astonishingvictory for Jackson and his men.

News of the victory struck the country "like a clapof thunder," according to one contemporary. AndrewJackson became a national hero as poets and politicianslined up to sing the praises of the defenders of ew

Orleans. It hardly mattered when word arrived that apeace treaty had been signed at Ghent, Belgium, ending

. the war two weeks before the battle. The United Stateshad fought for honor as much as material gain. TheBattle of New Orleans restored that honor, at least inAmerican eyes, and unleashed a wave of nationalismand self-confidence.

Its wrath aroused, the Royal Navy had finallyretaliated by throwing a ruinous naval blockade alongAmerica's coast and by landing raiding parties almost atwill. American economic life, including fishing, wascrippled. Customs revenues were choked off, and nearthe end of the war, the bankrupt Treasury was unable tomeet its maturing obligations.

The Treaty of GhentTsar Alexander I of Russia, feeling hard-pressed byNapoleon's army and not wanting his British ally tofritter away its strength in America, proposed mediationbetween the clashing Anglo-Saxon cousins in 1812. Thetsar's feeler eventually set in motion the machinery

MISSOURITERRITORY

Madison:o Democratic-Republican

D Clinton:Federalist

~ Divided

Presidential Election of 1812(with electoral voteby state) The Federalists showed impressivestrength in the North, and their presidentialcandidate, DeWitt Clinton, the future "Father ofthe Erie Ccnol." almost won. If the 25electoralvotes of Pennsylvania had gone to the New Yorker,he would have won, 114to 103.

that brought five American peacemakers to the quaintBelgian city of Ghent in 1814.The bickering group washeaded by early-rising, puritanical John Quincy Adams,son of John Adams, who deplored the late-hour cardplaying of his high-living colleague Henry Clay.

Confident after their military successes, the Britishenvoys made sweeping demands for a neutralizedIndian buffer state in the Great Lakes region, control ofthe Great Lakes, and a substantial part of conqueredMaine. The Americans flatly rejected these terms, andthe talks appeared stalemated. But news of Britishreverses in upper New York and at Baltimore, andincreasing war-weariness in Britain, made Londonmore willing to compromise. Preoccupied with redraft-ing Napoleon's map of Europe at the Congress ofViennaand eyeing still-dangerous France, the British lionresigned itself to licking its wounds.

The Treaty of Ghent, signed on Christmas Eve in1814, was essentially an armistice. Both sides simplyagreed to stop fighting and to restore conqueredterritory. No mention was made of those grievancesfor which America had ostensibly fought: the Indian

The Treatyof Ghent 237

In a letter to her friend Mercy Otis Warren,Abigail Adams (1744-1818) fretted that theBritish were taking advantage of Americans'disagreement over the War of 1812:"We have our firesides, our comfortablehabitations, our cities, our churchesand our country to defend, our rights,privileges and independence to pre-serve. And for these are we not justlycontending? Thus it appears to me.Yet I hear from our pulpits, and readfrom our presses, that it is an unjust,a wicked, a ruinous, and unnecessarywar. ... A house divided upon itsel£-and upon that foundation do our ene-mies build their hopes of subduing us."

menace, search and seizure, Orders in Council,impressment, and confiscations. These discreet omis-sions have often been cited as further evidence of theinsincerity of the war hawks. Rather they are proofthat the Americans had not managed to defeat theBritish. With neither side able to impose its will, thetreaty negotiations-like the war itself-ended as avirtual draw.RelievedAmericans boasted "Not One Inchof Territory Ceded or Lost"-a phrase that contrastedstrangely with the "On to Canada" rallying cry of thewar's outset.

Federalist Grievancesand the Hartlord Convention

'"Defiant NewEngland remained a problem. It prosperedduring the conflict, owing largely to illicit trade with theenemy in Canada and to the absence of a British block-ade until 1814. But the embittered opposition of theFederalists to the war continued unabated:

As the war dragged on, New England extremistsbecame more vocal. Asmall minority of them proposedsecession from the Union, or at least a separate peaceWith Britain. Ugly rumors were afloat about "BlueLight" Federalists-treacherous New Englanders who

238 CHAPTER 12 The SecondWarfor Independence and the UpsurgeofNationalism, 1812-1824

supposedly flashed lanterns on the shore so thatblockading British cruisers would be alerted to theattempted escape ofAmerican ships.

The most spectacular manifestation of Federalistdiscontent was the ill-omened Hartford Convention. Latein 1814,when the capture of New Orleans seemed immi-nent, Massachusetts issued a call for a convention atHartford, Connecticut. The states of Massachusetts, Con-necticut, and Rhode Island dispatched full delegations;neighboring New Hampshire and Vermont sent partialrepresentation. This group of prominent men, twenty-sixin all, met in complete secrecy for about three weeks-December 15, 1814, to January 5, 1815-to discuss theirgrievances and to seek redress for their wrongs.

In truth, the Hartford Convention was actually lessradical than the alarmists supposed. Though a minorityof delegates gave vent to wild talk of secession, the con-vention's final report was quite moderate. It demanded

financial assistance from Washington to compensate forlost trade and proposed constitutional amendmentsrequiring a two-thirds vote in Congress before anembargo could be imposed, new states admitted, or wardeclared. Most of the demands reflected Federalist fearsthat a once-proud New England was falling subservientto an agrarian South and West. Delegates sought toabolish the three-fifths clause in the Constitution(which allowed the South to count a portion of its slavesin calculating proportional representation), to limitpresidents to a single term, and to prohibit the electionof two successive presidents from the same state. Thislast clause was aimed at the much-resented "VirginiaDynasty"-by 1814aVirginian had been president for allbut four years in the Republic's quarter-century of life.

Three special envoys from Massachusetts carriedthese demands to the burned-out capital ofWashington.The trio arrived just in time to be overwhelmed by the

Massachusetts, Connecticut. and Rhode Island Contemplate Abandoning the Union,engraving by William Charles, 1814 This anti-Federalist cartoon shows Great Britainwelcoming back its "Yankee boys" with open arms. promising them "plenty molassesand codfish. plenty of goods to smuggle. honours. titles. and nobility into the bargain."

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