Part 3 (1/2)
Though he had given the enemy a sound thras.h.i.+ng, Jacob Brown found his righteous satisfaction spoiled by the destruction of the naval barracks, s.h.i.+pping, and storehouses. This was the act of a flighty lieutenant of the American navy who concluded too hastily that the battle was lost and therefore set fire to the buildings to keep the supplies and vessels out of the enemy's hands. Jacob Brown in his straightforward fas.h.i.+on emphatically placed the blame where it belonged:
The burning of the marine barracks was as infamous a transaction as ever occurred among military men. The fire was set as the enemy met our regulars upon the main line; and if anything could have appalled these gallant men it would have been the flames in their rear. We have all, I presume, suffered in the public estimation in consequence of this disgraceful burning. The fact is, however, that the army is ent.i.tled to much higher praise than though it had not occurred. The navy alone are responsible for what happened on Navy Point and it is fortunate for them that they have reputations sufficient to sustain the shock.
A few weeks later General Dearborn, after his repeated failures to shake the British grip on the Niagara front and the misfortunes which had darkened his campaigns, was retired according to his wish. But the American nation was not yet rid of its unsuccessful generals. James Wilkinson, who was inscrutably chosen to succeed Dearborn, was a man of bad reputation and low professional standing. ”The selection of this unprincipled imbecile,” said Winfield Scott, ”was not the blunder of Secretary Armstrong.” Added to this, Wilkinson was a man of broken health. He was s.h.i.+fted from command at New Orleans because the Southern Senators insisted that he was untrustworthy and incompetent. The regular army regarded him with contempt.
Secretary Armstrong endeavored to mend matters by making his own headquarters at Sackett's Harbor, where the next offensive, directed against Montreal, was planned under his direction. Success hung upon the cooperation and junction of two armies moving separately, the one under Wilkinson descending the St. Lawrence, the other under Wade Hampton setting out from Plattsburg on Lake Champlain. The fact that these two officers had hated each other for years made a difficult problem no easier. Hampton possessed uncommon ability and courage, but he was proud and sensitive, as might have been expected in a South Carolina gentleman, and he loathed Wilkinson with all his heart. That he should yield the seniority to one whom he considered a blackguard was to him intolerable, and he accepted the command on Lake Champlain with the understanding that he would take no orders from Wilkinson until the two armies were combined.
The expedition from Sackett's Harbor was ready to advance by way of the St. Lawrence in October, 1813, and comprised seven thousand effective troops. Even then the commanding general and the Secretary of War had begun to regard the adventure as dubious and were accusing each other of dodging the responsibility. Said Wilkinson to Armstrong: ”It is necessary to my justification that you should, by the authority of the President, direct the operations of the army under my command particularly against Montreal.” Said Armstrong to Wilkinson: ”I speak conjecturally, but should we surmount every obstacle in descending the river we shall advance upon Montreal ignorant of the force arrayed against us and in case of misfortune having no retreat, the army must surrender at discretion.” This was scarcely the spirit to inspire a conquering army. As though to clinch his lack of faith in the enterprise, the Secretary of War ordered winter quarters built for ten thousand men many miles this side of Montreal, explaining in later years that he had suspected the campaign would terminate as it did, ”with the disgrace of doing nothing.”
On the 17th of October the army embarked in bateaux and coasted along Lake Ontario to the entrance of the St. Lawrence. After being delayed by stormy weather, the flotilla pa.s.sed the British guns across from Ogdensburg and halted twenty miles below. There Wilkinson called a council of war to decide whether to proceed or retreat. Four generals voted to attack Montreal and two were reluctant but could see ”no other alternative.” Wilkinson then became ill and was unable to leave his boat or to give orders. Several British gunboats evaded Chauncey's blockade and annoyed the rear of the expedition. Eight hundred British infantry from Kingston followed along sh.o.r.e and peppered the boats with musketry and canister wherever the river narrowed. Finally it became necessary for the Americans to land a force to drive the enemy away. Jacob Brown took a brigade and cleared the bank in advance of the flotilla which floated down to a farm called Chrystler's and moored for the night.
General Boyd, who had been sent back with a strong force to protect the rear, reported next morning that the enemy was advancing in column. He was told to turn back and attack. This he did with three brigades. It was a brilliant opportunity to capture or destroy eight hundred British troops led by a das.h.i.+ng naval officer, Captain Mulcaster. Boyd lived up to his reputation, which was such that Jacob Brown had refused to serve under him. At this engagement of Chrystler's Farm, with two thousand regulars at his disposal, he was unmercifully beaten. Both Wilkinson and Morgan Lewis were flat on their backs, too feeble to concern themselves with battles. The American troops fought without a coherent plan and were defeated and broken in detail. Almost four hundred of them were killed, wounded, or captured. Their conduct reflected the half-hearted att.i.tude of their commanding general and some of his subordinates. The badly mauled brigades hastily took to the boats and ran the rapids, stopping at the first harbor below. There Wilkinson received tidings from Wade Hampton's army which caused him to abandon the voyage down the St. Lawrence, and it is fair to conjecture that he shed no tears of disappointment.
In September Hampton had led his forces, recruited to four thousand infantry and a few dragoons, from Lake Champlain to the Canadian border in faithful compliance with his instructions to join the movement against Montreal. His line of march was westward to the Chateauguay River where he took a position which menaced both Montreal and that vital artery, the St. Lawrence. Building roads and bringing up supplies, he waited there for Wilkinson to set his own undertaking in motion. Word came from Secretary Armstrong to advance along the river, hold the enemy in check, and prepare to unite with Wilkinson's army. Hampton acted promptly and alarmed the British at Montreal, who foresaw grave consequences and a.s.sembled troops from every quarter. Hampton then learned that his army faced an enemy which was of vastly superior strength and which had every advantage of natural defense, while he himself was becoming convinced that Wilkinson was a broken reed and that no further support could be expected from the Government. General Prevost's own reports and letters showed that he had collected in the Montreal district and available for defense at least fifteen thousand rank and file, including the militia which had been mustered to repel Hampton's advance. The American position at Chateauguay was not less perilous than that of Harrison on the Maumee and far more so than that which had cost Dearborn so many disasters at Niagara.
Hampton moved forward half-heartedly. He had received a message from the War Department that his troops were to prepare winter quarters and these orders confirmed his suspicions that no attempt against Montreal was intended. ”These papers sunk my hopes,” he wrote in reply, ”and raised serious doubts of that efficacious support that had been antic.i.p.ated. I would have recalled the column, but it was in motion and the darkness of the night rendered it impracticable.”
The last words refer to a collision with a small force of Canadian militia, led by Lieutenant Colonel de Salaberry, who had come forward to impede the American advance. These Canadians had obstructed the road with fallen trees and abatis, falling back until they found favorable ground where they very pluckily intrenched themselves. The intrepid party was comprised of a few Glengarry Fencibles and three hundred French-Canadian Voltigeurs. Colonel de Salaberry was a trained soldier, and he now displayed brilliant courage and resourcefulness. Two American divisions attacking him were unable to carry his breastworks and were driven along the river bank and routed. Hampton's troops abandoned much of their equipment, and returned to camp with a loss of about fifty men.
There was great rejoicing in Canada and rightly so, for a victory had been handsomely won without the aid of British regulars; and Colonel de Salaberry's handful of French Canadians received the credit for thwarting the American plans against Montreal. But, without belittling the signal valor of the achievement, the doc.u.mentary evidence goes to prove that Hampton's failure was largely due to the neglect of his Government. His state of mind at this time was such that he wrote: ”Events have no tendency to change my opinion of the destiny intended for me, nor my determination to retire from a service where I can feel neither security nor expect honor.”
With this tame conclusion the armies of Wilkinson and Hampton tucked themselves into log huts for the winter. Both accused the Secretary of War of leading them into an impossible venture and of then deserting them, while he in his turn accepted their resignations from the army. The fiasco was a costly one in quite another direction, for the Niagara sector had been overlooked in the elaborate attempt to capture Montreal. The few American troops who had gained a foothold on the Canadian side, at Fort George and the village of Niagara, were left unsupported while all the available regulars were sent to the armies of Wilkinson and Hampton. As soon as the British comprehended that the grand invasion had crumbled, they bethought themselves of the tempting opportunity to recover their forts at Niagara.
Wilkinson advised that the Americans evacuate Fort George, which they did on the 10th of December, when five hundred British soldiers were marching to retake it. There was no effort to reinforce the garrison, although at the time ten thousand American troops were idle in winter quarters. Fort Niagara, on the American side, still flew the Stars and Stripes, but on the night of the 18th of December Colonel Murray with five hundred and fifty British regulars rushed the fort, surprised the sentries, and lost only eight men in capturing this stronghold and its three hundred and fifty defenders. It was more like a ma.s.sacre. Sixty-seven Americans were killed by the bayonet. A few nights later the Indian allies were loosed against Buffalo and Black Rock and ravaged thirty miles of frontier. The settlements were helpless. The Government had made not the slightest attempt to protect or defend them.
The war had come to the end of its second year, and by land the United States had done no more than to regain what Hull lost at Detroit. The conquest of Canada was a shattered illusion, a sorry tale of wasted energy, misdirected armies, sordid intrigue, lack of organization. A few worthless generals had been swept into the rubbish heap where they belonged, and this was the chief item on the credit side of the ledger. The state militia system had been found wanting; raw levies, defying authority and miserably cared for, had been squandered against a few thousand disciplined British regulars. The nation, angry and bewildered, was taking these lessons to heart. The story of 1814 was to contain far brighter episodes.
CHAPTER V
THE NAVY ON BLUE WATER
It has pleased the American mind to regard the War of 1812 as a maritime conflict. This is natural enough, for the issue was the freedom of the sea, and the achievements of Yankee s.h.i.+ps and sailors stood out in brilliant relief against the somber background of the inefficiency of the army. The offensive was thought to be properly a matter for the land forces, which had vastly superior advantages against Canada, while the navy was compelled to act on the defensive against overwhelming odds. The truth is that the navy did amazingly well, though it could not prevent the enemy's squadrons from blockading American ports or raiding the coasts at will. A few single s.h.i.+p actions could not vitally influence the course of the war; but they served to create an imperishable renown for the flag and the service, and to deal a staggering blow to the pride and prestige of an enemy whose ancient boast it was that Britannia ruled the waves.
The amazing thing is that the navy was able to accomplish anything at all, neglected and almost despised as it was by the same opinion which had suffered the army system to become a melancholy jest. During the decade in which Great Britain captured hundreds of American merchant s.h.i.+ps in time of peace and impressed more than six thousand American seamen, the United States built two sloops-of-war of eighteen guns and allowed three of her dozen frigates to hasten to decay at their mooring buoys. Officers in the service were underpaid and shamefully treated by the Government. Captain Bainbridge, an officer of distinction, asked for leave that he might earn money to support himself, giving as a reason: ”I have hitherto refused such offers on the presumption that my country would require my services. That presumption is removed, and even doubts entertained of the permanency of the naval establishment.”
But, though Congress refused to build more frigates or to formulate a programme for guarding American sh.o.r.es and commerce, the tiny navy kept alive the spark of duty and readiness, while the nation drifted inevitably towards war. There was no scarcity of capable seamen, for the merchant marine was an admirable training-school. In those far-off days the technique of seafaring and sea fighting was comparatively simple. The merchant seaman could find his way about a frigate, for in rigging, handling, and navigation the s.h.i.+ps were very much alike. And the American seamen of 1812 were in fighting mood; they had been whetted by provocation to a keen edge for war. They understood the meaning of ”Free Trade and Sailors' Rights,” if the landsmen did not. There were strapping sailors in every deep-water port to follow the fife and drum of the recruiting squad. The militia might quibble about ”rights,” but all the sailors asked was the weather gage of a British man-of-war. They had no patience with such spokesmen as Josiah Quincy, who said that Ma.s.sachusetts would not go to war to contest the right of Great Britain to search American vessels for British seamen. They had neither forgotten nor forgiven the mortal affront of 1807, when their frigate Chesapeake, flying the broad pennant of Commodore James Barron, refused to let the British Leopard board and search her, and was fired into without warning and reduced to submission, after twenty-one of the American crew had been killed or wounded.
That shameful episode was in keeping with the att.i.tude of the British navy toward the armed s.h.i.+ps of the United States, ”a few fir-built things with bits of striped bunting at their mast-heads,” as George Canning, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, described them. Long before the declaration of war British squadrons hovered off the port of New York to ransack merchant vessels or to seize them as prizes. In the course of the Napoleonic wars England had met and destroyed the navies of all her enemies in Europe. The battles of Copenhagen, the Nile, Trafalgar, and a hundred lesser fights had thundered to the world the existence of an unconquerable sea power.
Insignificant as it was, the American naval service boasted a history and a high morale. Its s.h.i.+ps had been active. The younger officers served with seniors who had sailed and fought with Biddle and Barney and Paul Jones in the Revolution. Many of them had won promotions for gallantry in hand-to-hand combats in boarding parties, for following the bold Stephen Decatur in 1804 when he cut out and set fire to the Philadelphia, which had fallen into the hands of pirates at Tripoli, and helping Thomas Truxtun in 1799-1800 when the Constellation whipped the Frenchmen, L'Insurgente and La Vengeance. In wardroom or steerage almost every man could tell of engagements in which he had behaved with credit. Trained in the school of hard knocks, the sailor knew the value of discipline and gunnery, of the smart s.h.i.+p and the willing crew, while on land the soldier rusted and lost his zeal.
The bluejackets were volunteers, not impressed men condemned to brutal servitude, and they had fought to save their skins in merchant vessels which made their voyages, in peril of privateer, pirate, and picaroon, from the Caribbean to the China Sea. The American merchant marine was at the zenith of its enterprise and daring, attracting the pick and flower of young manhood, and it offered incomparable material for the naval service and the fleets of swift privateers which swarmed out to harry England's commerce.[2]
[2] For an account of the privateers of 1812, see The Old Merchant Marine, by Ralph D. Paine (in The Chronicles of America).
The American frigates which humbled the haughty Mistress of the Seas beyond all precedent were superior in speed and hitting power to anything of their cla.s.s afloat. It detracts not at all from the glory they won to remember that in every instance they were larger and of better design and armament than the British frigates which they shot to pieces with such methodical accuracy.
When war was declared, the American Government was not quite clear as to what should be done with the navy. In New York harbor was a squadron of five s.h.i.+ps under Commodore John Rodgers, including two of the heavier frigates or forty-fours, the President and the United States. Rodgers had also the lighter frigate Congress, the brig Argus, and the sloop Hornet. His orders were to look for British cruisers which were annoying commerce off Sandy Hook, chase them away, and then return to port for ”further more extensive and particular orders.” One hour after receiving these instructions the eager Rodgers put out to sea, with Captain Stephen Decatur as a squadron commander. The quarry was the frigate Belvidera, the most offensive of the British blockading force. This wars.h.i.+p was sighted by the President and overtaken within forty-eight hours. An unlucky accident then occurred. Instead of running alongside, the President began firing at a distance and was hulling the enemy's stern when a gun on the forecastle burst, and killed or wounded sixteen American sailors. Commodore Rodgers was picked up with a broken leg. Meanwhile the Belvidera cast overboard her boats and anchors, emptied the fresh water barrels to better her sailing trim, and, crowding on every st.i.tch of canvas, drew away and was lost to view. Rodgers then forgot his orders to return to New York and went off in search of the great convoy of British merchant vessels homeward bound from Jamaica, which was called the plate fleet. He sailed as far as the English Channel before quitting the chase and then cruised back to Boston.