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POLTROONS
AND PATRIOTS

Courtesy Library of Co

GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON

1 Poltroons
and Patriots

A Popular Account of the War
of!812

By GLENN TUCKER

Maps by W. T. Tucker
Volume II

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY, INC.

Publishers
Indianapolis New York

Copyright, 1954, by The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 54-6059

First Edition

The diagram maps of the Battle of Lake Erie, p. 330, and the Battle of Lake
Champlain, p. 633, are reprinted from Admiral A. T. Mahan, Sea Power in Its
Relation to the War of 1812 (Little, Brown & Co., 1905). Permission to reprint
was kindly granted by Litde, Brown & Co. The photostats were provided by
the Naval History Division, Office of Chief of Naval Operations.

Contents

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Thirty-one

Thirty-two

Thirty-three

Thirty-four

Thirty-five

Thirty-six

Thirty-seven

Volume II

"MIST-TAKING CANADA"

A WAR ON CREDIT

THE CREEK WAR

AN "ALLY" FALLS

HOSTAGES EXCHANGED

BRITISH INVASION PLANS

WASHINGTON THREATENED

DEFEAT AT BLADENSBURG

REDCOATS ON THE AVENUES

BIRTH OF A SONG

"DON'T GIVE UP THE SOIL"

HONOR AT NIAGARA

NORTHERN INVASION

CLEANING THE GULF COAST

THE HARTFORD CONVENTION

PEACE THAT LASTED

THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS

NOTES

INDEX

430

43 6
470
491
501

508

535
552
585
599
606
620
640
651
667

<$73
709
763

Copyright, 1954, by The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 54-6059

First Edition

The diagram maps of the Battle of Lake Erie, p. 330, and the Battle of Lake
Champlain, p. 633, are reprinted from Admiral A. T. Mahan, Sea Power in Its
Relation to the War of 1812 (Little, Brown & Co., 1905). Permission to reprint
was kindly granted by Little, Brown & Co. The photostats were provided by
the Naval History Division, Office of Chief of Naval Operations.

Contents

CHAPTER

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Thirty-one

Thirty-two

Thirty-three

Thirty-four

Thirty-five

Thirty-six

Thirty-seven

Volume II

"MIST-TAKING CANADA"

A WAR ON CREDIT

THE CREEK WAR

AN "ALLY" FALLS

HOSTAGES EXCHANGED

BRITISH INVASION PLANS

WASHINGTON THREATENED

DEFEAT AT BLADENSBURG

REDCOATS ON THE AVENUES

BIRTH OF A SONG

"DON'T GIVE UP THE SOIL"

HONOR AT NIAGARA

NORTHERN INVASION

CLEANING THE GULF COAST

THE HARTFORD CONVENTION

PEACE THAT LASTED

THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS

NOTES

INDEX

4*3
430

436
470
491

5 01
508

535
552
585

599
606
620
640

6 5 i
667

6 73
709
763

List of Illustrations

Volume II
General Andrew Jackson -frontispiece

FACING PAGE

The United States Capitol after the Fire of August 24,

1814 432

Jackson Quelling the Mutiny 433

Weatherford Surrendering to Jackson 464

Washington as It Looked during the War of 1812 465
The President's House in 1816, Still Showing Traces of

the Fire 560
American Sloops Growler and Eagle Chasing Three British

Gunboats 561

Macdonough's Victory on Lake Champlain 592

Scenes in the Capture of Washington 593

The Death of Ross, at Baltimore 656

The Capture of American Gunboats on Lake Borgne 657

The Battle of New Orleans 688

Battle Maps

Volume II

PAGE

The Creek War Theater 455

The Battle of Horseshoe Bend '464

The Chesapeake Bay Theater 524

The Battle of Bladensburg 545

The Battle of Lake Champlain 630

The Battle of Lake Champlain , 633

The Battle of New Orleans 695

POLTROONS
AND PATRIOTS

Twenty-one

a Mist>taking Canada 95

There had been another humiliating disaster on the Niagara
border Colonel Charles G. Boerstler, of the i4th U.S. Infantry
Regiment, had surrendered in an affair at Beaver Dams, about
seventeen miles from Fort George.

Boerstler had taken 540 men and two fieldpieces on the simple
assignment of destroying an enemy storehouse. On June 24,
1813, when he was near St. David's, he was attacked by 260
Indians. He fought them off, but they caused him to abandon
the purpose of his expedition. Boerstler called on Dearborn for
reinforcements and began a retreat. Lieutenant James Fitzgibbon,
with fifty men of the British 49 th Infantry, boldly took a stand
in front of the Americans and, seeing their confusion, demanded
they surrender. Boerstler outnumbered the British regulars more
than ten to one, but he was so distracted and fearful that more
British were coming up that he complied.

News of this latest ignominy reached Washington on July 6
and caused a sensation in the lobby of the House of Representa-
tives. Speaker Clay sent Representative Charles J. Ingersoll to call
on Madison and demand Dearborn's dismissal. Madison was will-
Ing to follow the recommendation of Congress. He and Arm-
strong had been thinking along these lines for some time, and
Armstrong had already, in early March, written Wilkinson about
replacing Dearborn. Orders were issued immediately after the
arrival of Clay's agent and on July 15, 1813, Dearborn left the
Niagara border.

i.

When James Wilkinson finally reported for duty as com-
mander of the Northern armies, Secretary of War Armstrong

413

4 i4 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

kept him In Washington eleven days discussing the Canadian
campaign. Then the Secretary of War and the general rode to-
gether to the Northern theater for the beginning of the grand
operations. They reached Sackets Harbor on August 20, 1813,
and Wilkinson took over the command which Dearborn had
yielded more than a month earlier.

; As the two blustering strategists, Armstrong and Wilkinson,
rode north, having no more confidence in each other than their
respective records justified, they mapped out a series of move-
ments that made up one of the most extraordinary of American
military campaigns.

They fell to quarreling almost at once. Wilkinson wanted to
clean up the Niagara frontier and move west to the capture of
Maiden. He apparently believed Harrison could not be counted
on. Armstrong thought the war to the west would merely
"wound the tail of the lion," the heart of the beast being
Montreal]

Wilkinson then wanted to "descend like lightning with our
whole force on Kingston." Armstrong also wanted to capture
Kingston, but the method seemed more important to each than
the end. More than a month was devoted to wrangling. The plan
that eventually evolved was for Wilkinson to board his army on
boats and move down the St. Lawrence, effect a juncture with
Wade Hampton, who had assumed command in the Lake Cham-
plain area, and inarch into Montreal.

I Wilkinson commanded an army of from 12,000 to 15,000 men,
including Hampton's force of 4,000. Hampton would neither
speak to his commander nor receive orders from him. When he
learned that he had been placed under an officer of Wilkinson's
notorious reputation, he wrote to Armstrong that his own com-
mand was separate from Wilkinson's, but if such were not the
case, his resignation was therewith rendered. No action was
taken on the resignation, nor was there prospect of harmonious
co-operation between the two wings of the American army. In
order to placate Hampton, Secretary Armstrong agreed that
Wilkinson's orders should be relayed to Hampton through the
Wax Department. He set up a War Department office at Sackets

"Mist-taking Canada" 415

Harbor partly to handle this exchange. A second motive, it later
developed, was that Armstrong hoped he could conduct opera-
tions free from President Madison's close supervision.

Wilkinson visited Fort George and nearly cleared the Niagara
border of troops in order to concentrate a sizable army at Sackets
Harbor. He left Colonel Scott in command at Fort George.
After Harrison had defeated Proctor at the Thames the British
had withdrawn temporarily from the Niagara area and taken
a defensive position at Burlington Heights on Lake Ontario.
Scott consequently marched his 800 regulars across New York
to Utica, where he encountered Secretary Armstrong and ob-
tained permission to fall in with Wilkinson at Ogdensburg. f
/ This left Fort George and the Niagara border under the com-
mand of Brigadier General George McClure, of the New York
militia. In the grand movement against Montreal, no one was giv-
ing this frontier much attention.

Just as in 1812, the campaign against Montreal had now been
deferred until late in the season. On October 17, 1813, Wilkin-
son loaded his army of about 8,000 men on 600 boats that had
been built or assembled at Sackets Harbor, and started down the
river. The expedition was elaborately planned. Each unit had
a distinctive flag, and the commanding general had a key by
which he could identify a division at any time by the flag on its
boats. Order was soon lost when a gale scattered the boats, f

Hampton meanwhile began a complementary movement along
the Chateaugay River toward the St. Lawrence preparatory to
effecting a juncture with his despised commander. His circuitous
route passed the town of Chateaugay, New York, and then
turned north into Lower Canada. He took a position on the
Chateaugay near the juncture of Outard Creek, roughly fifteen
miles from the St. Lawrence and forty in a direct line from
Montreal He had heard nothing from Wilkinson but decided to
attack a British force in a forest in his front. His key unit was
a regiment under Colonel Robert Purdy which was to give the
signal for the assault. First it strayed and never located its objec-
tive and then was surprised and scattered, although it lost only
one man. Hampton, believing he was about to be attacked by

416 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

another British force, retreated and brought his campaign to
an end.

Wilkinson's movement by boats turned into an utter failure,
principally because he lacked the determination to press it vigor-
ously. General Jacob Brown moved as an advance guard along
the north bank of the St. Lawrence, and Colonel Alexander
Macomb conducted a flank movement farther back, but the rear
was unprotected. General Brown cleared the British in Wilkin-
son's front five miles above Cornwall, and the commanding
general, who was again feeling "the heavy hand of disease,"
addressed a note to him "from my bed," telling him of rear-
guard difficulties. British gunboats and about 1,000 men from
Kingston fell in behind Wilkinson and caused him such annoy-
ance that on November 11, 1813 he debarked about 2,000 men.
General John Parke Boyd deployed them on a farm, owned by
Canadian militia officer John Chrysler, situated a few miles below
Williamsburg and about fifteen miles above Cornwall, Ontario.

Boyd delivered an attack against the British and Indians in the
rear. The engagement, fought for five hours in a snow and drizzle,
and known as the Battle of Chrysler's Farm, ended in Boyd's de-
feat. He was saved from a rout by the timely arrival of 600 fresh
troops under Colonel Timothy Upham, who checked the British
advance until darkness ended the fighting. The British lost twenty-
two killed, 150 wounded; the Americans 102 killed, 237 wounded.
Although the battle was by no means decisive, it annoyed Wilkin-
son sufficiently to make him call off the movement against Mont-
real. He was so angry when he learned that Hampton was not
awaiting him at St. Regis, close to the departure of the New York
boundary from the St. Lawrence River, that he threatened to
arrest Hampton. On reflecting, he did no more than emit a few
curses. Some of the officers felt that with General Brown in com-
mand the army could have gone to Montreal. Wilkinson took it
up the Salmon River to French Mills, New York, built huts and
went into winter quarters. 1 The boats were soon frozen in the
river. Later, to prevent their capture, they were burned. The prin-
cipal movement against Montreal in the War of 1812 was thus
ended.

"Mist-taking Canada" 4 1 ?

In addition to displaying his incapacity, Wilkinson's efforts
revealed to the whole country the mutual distrust between him
and the War Secretary. About Armstrong, Wilkinson confided
personally to Dearborn: "I know of his secret underworkings,
and have therefore, to take the bull by the horns, demand an arrest
and a court martial. . . . Good God! I am astonished at the man's
audacity, when he must be sensible to the power I have over him."
With this as the Army commander's attitude, that of his sub-
ordinate, Hampton, is understandable.

Wilkinson wrote a letter asking for a court-martial to place the
blame for the failure of the St. Lawrence expedition. It had
scarcely been dispatched when he decided to demonstrate the
true character of his leadership by a bold, overland march into
Montreal. He sent Brown with 2,000 men to Sackets Harbor to
protect his rear, then moved his main force to Plattsburg. Boiling
with rage against Armstrong, pitying himself because he was
misunderstood and distrusted, he faced north and entered
Canada.

Five miles across the border he reached La Colle River, where
Dearborn's invasion had been checked in the first winter of the
war. There the British had a force of 200 men in a stone mill
with walls eighteen inches thick and heavy timbers, pierced with
loopholes for muskets, across the windows. Wilkinson had 4,000
men. The ground was soft from melting snow and the Ameri-
cans could get only a few guns into action. Wilkinson sur-
rounded the mill, placed Forsyth's riflemen in the rear to cut off
a retreat by the British, and opened on the structure with one
1 2 -pounder and one five-inch mortar. For two hours he kept up
a bombardment without effecting a breach.

Some sorties attempted by the British were easily repulsed.
Then Wilkinson apparently decided he had vindicated himself
sufficiently and ordered a retreat. The action, dignified by the
title of the Battle of La Colle Mill, was Wilkinson's last. He went
to Washington to engage in his last grand controversy with
Armstrong over the failure to take Montreal, which he had not
even approached. Wilkinson's campaigns were satirized in the
New England press;

4 i 8 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

What fear we, the Canadians cry,
What dread have we from these alarms?
For sure, no danger now Is nigh,
'Tis only Wilkinson in arms. 2

2.

But the unfortunate consequences of the campaign laid out by
Wilkinson and Armstrong to "renew the scenes of Saratoga"
were only beginning.

The New York militia general, George McClure, who was
left in command at Fort George on the Canadian side of the
Niagara River, had been a carpenter in Londonderry, Ireland.
He emigrated to Baltimore to ply his trade there and in Cham-
bersburg, Pennsylvania. Later he moved to Bath, New York, to
set up as a merchant and came to own the local distillery and
flour and woolen mills. Finally he appeared before the national
public as the brigadier general commanding New York militia on
the Niagara border.

McClure, who had 500 soldiers after the departure of Scott
and the regulars, turned to rhetoric and fashioned florid procla-
mations. Suddenly he found that his enlistments were expiring
and that his army was going home for the holidays. He offered
a bounty for further service, which many of his men collected
as they departed. With no reinforcements in sight, he moved the
100 remaining militiamen to the New York side of the river. But
before crossing he put his mark on Canada by tossing firebrands
around Newark and leaving the people homeless in the chill of
winter. The Ontario Repository of December 21, 1813, told
of the destruction:

In the village, at least 130 buildings were consumed; and the
miserable tenants of them, to the number of nearly four hundred,
consisting mostly of women and children, were exposed to all the
severities of deep snow and a frosty sky, almost in a state of
nakedness. How many perished by the inclemency of the
weather, it is, at present, impossible to ascertain.

A special indignity was visited on Mrs. William Dickson,
whose husband, a lawyer, was a prisoner of the Americans. She
was ill, but was moved out of her house and left on her bed in

"Mist-taking Canada" 419

the snow. Her husband's library, valued at between 500 and
600, was burned.

McClure's contention that he fired the town to deprive the
British of winter quarters sounded most inept when it developed
that the only structures he left standing were the Army barracks,
with tents stored therein for 1,500 additional men, along with
artillery and quantities of ammunition. The approaching enemy
was to be well provisioned for the next campaign.

It is possible that McClure misread a letter from Secretary of
War Armstrong which authorized him to destroy Newark in the
defense of the fort if necessary. Fighting appeared to be the last
of McClure's intentions. u The enemy is much exasperated," he
wrote as he retreated.

His information was entirely accurate. This time apologies,
such as Dearborn advanced after the burning of the Parliament
buildings at York, made no impression. Residents of the Ameri-
can side were preparing for their Christmas observances when
the British, riding in sleighs and trailed by 600 Indians, came up
to the river. That night they crossed. Someone had left the front
gate of Fort Niagara open, despite numerous warnings that the
enemy was at hand, and the garrison commander was sleeping
with neighbors. The British bayoneted sixty-seven American
soldiers before acknowledging a surrender. 3 Then the Indians
were turned loose. By New Year's Day Buff alo was a cinder, and
Black Rock, Lewiston, Youngstown, Manchester, Schlosser and
Tuscarora village were black piles of smoking rubbish. A section
thirty-six miles long and twelve miles wide was a barren waste.
All public and private property was destroyed.

"Retaliation with a vengeance! " the New York Spectator
called it, and published on New Year's Day, 1814, a colorful
description of the beginning of the work of devastation. The
account was taken from an express which passed through Her-
kimer on Christmas Day:

As we predicted in our paper this morning, the tragic scene
has commenced. Death and desolation pervade our defenseless
frontiers! Oh, folly; Oh, madness! We learn that on Sunday last,
the British and Indians under General Vincent crossed the Niag-

420 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

ara, in number about 1,200 took Fort Niagara by storm, and
put every man to death excepting two, who were fortunate
enough to make their escape, and, like the messengers of Job,
relate the woeful tale. Everything for 12 miles back in the coun-
try was destroyed and burnt, and every person that fell in the
way of the incensed enemy massacred. At the last advices, the
enemy were progressing rapidly, spreading ruin and destruction
in every direction. The express informed us that when he came
away, the enemy were but a few miles from Buffalo, and ere this
that place was doubtless in ashes! an awful responsibility rests
somewhere!

The New York Commercial Advertiser* published a letter
from Cayuga, New York, dated December 24, 1813, which gave
a similar account of the capture of Fort Niagara and added:

After exasperating the enemy by acts of the most wanton
barbarity then to dismiss the troops before a fresh conscription
had been ordered to supply their places, leaving the inhabitants
on the lines naked and exposed to an enemy in plain sight and
acquainted with their condition evinces such incompetence in
our commander in chief, as would disgrace the meanest private.

The devastation of the border country was such sensational
news that handbills describing it were issued by the Commercial
Advertiser late at night January 3, 1814. The results of this turn
of warfare on civilians were evidenced by a letter to the Albany
Argus, dated December 26, 1813:

^ I proceeded with thirty mounted volunteers to Lewistpn. The
sight we there witnessed was shocking beyond description; our
neighbors were seen lying dead in the fields and roads; some
horribly cut and mangled with tomahawks, others eaten by the
hogs, which were ^ probably left for the purpose, as they were
almost the only animals found alive. It is not yet ascertained how
many were killed, as most of the bodies were thrown into the
burning houses and consumed. We found the bodies of William
Gardner, deputy sheriff, John E. Low and E. St. John (whose
family cannot be found), attorneys, Dr. Alverd and six others
whose names I have forgotten.

The story was the same all along the border strip. Heads were
cut off, hearts cut out. The atrocities continued to Buffalo and

"Mist-taking Canada" 421

the party of retaliation retired to the Canadian side of the river
without molestation.

"This was a melancholy, but just retaliation," said the British
commander, Lieutenant General George Gordon Drummond.
But retaliation was not likely to end this medieval type of war-
fare. Rather than balance accounts, it bred deeper hatreds. Pre-
vost, apparently ashamed of the slaughter and burning, issued
a proclamation in early January 1814, stating that he would not
continue the policy which was "so revolting to his own feelings
and so little congenial to the British character" unless the future
measures of the United States compelled it. On the American
side many considered that the balance had been left too thor-
oughly in Prevost's favor. Officially the government might write
regrets and off er reparations. The press might denounce, Arm-
strong storm and Madison display another wrinkle from his con-
cern and humiliation, but the upstate people appeared to hold
nothing against McClure. They elected him sheriff and then sent
him off to the assembly in Albany.

3-

Zest soon overcame another American detachment on Lake
Erie. It fitted out an expedition of five vessels at Erie, Pennsyl-
vania, and crossed to Long Point, where Ontario extends a thin
strip southward into the Lake. The party was commanded by
John B. Campbell, the colonel who earlier in the war had led the
expedition against the Indian villages on the Mississinewa River.
Campbell had 250 regulars and 600 militiamen under Colonel
Fenton of the Pennsylvania line. It is not difficult to determine
the intent of the foray because on May 15, before the detach-
ment had returned from the other side of the lake, the Erie
correspondent of the New York Spectator sent in a dispatch
saying "the object of the expedition is to capture a quantity of
flour at the mills at Long Point, and, it is said, burn the mills."

The flour mills were burned, to be sure. In addition, according
to the Greensburg, Pennsylvania, Gazette of May 28, 1814, saw-
mills, distilleries, about one hundred houses, a fulling mill with
1,000 yards of cloth and all other buildings for eight miles inland

422 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

were destroyed. The detachment marched on the town of Port
Dover, wiped it out and drove off the inhabitants, permitting them
to carry only a few bedclothes. The excuses offered were that "the
town contained a character who, during our Revolution, was
a Tory," and that many inhabitants belonged to the Army, "as
was proved by the regimentals found in their houses."

After Dover was burned the Americans re-embarked. They
went twenty miles along the lake and capped their campaign by
stopping at the home of an aged clergyman, who had preached
twenty years in the neighborhood. They burned his gristmill and
carried off his geese and chickens, and started to burn other
property near by. When they heard of a collection of 200 British
troops three miles away, "Colonel Campbell hurriedly set sail
and reached Erie in safety! "

The details were related in letters from volunteers received in
Greensburg, Pennsylvania. These volunteers blamed Colonel
Campbell's regulars and the sailors of the transports and insisted
that the militia "did not plunder a dollar's worth and went on the
expedition without knowing its intention." Much good loot
found its way to the American side. "One of our citizens," re-
lated an Erie resident, "on his return, has richly furnished his
house with looking glasses, china, plate, etc. I fear that in conse-
quence of this destruction of private property, we may expect
from the enemy a similar treatment." 5

That, indeed, was the general apprehension. The New York
Spectator condemned the expedition and sounded the alarm.

It cannot be too severely censured. It would have dishonoured
the savages of the wilderness. But it was not less impolitic than
inhuman. It will raise a retaliatory spirit in the enemy, which will
probably soon be felt, not only throughout our whole frontier,
but also along our extensive and exposed seacoast. The United
States have a hundred vulnerable points where the enemy have
one. A single company of our militia, by so base an enterprise,
may bring misery and ruin upon ten thousand of their honest and
innocent fellow citizens.

The Pittsburgh Mercury had similar condemnation:

We turn with disgust and indignation from a scene in which
the American character is disgraced by a wanton attack on de-

"Atist-taking Canada" 423

fenseless women and children; where the military are suffered to
become, not the honorable and proud defenders of the country's
rights, but miserable incendiaries for the burning and destruction
of private property.

Colonel Campbell was required to write immediately an ex-
planation of this foray. In a letter to General Jacob Brown, who
had taken over the Niagara command from Wilkinson, he stated
that "this expedition was undertaken by me without orders, and
upon my own responsibility."

To this admission Campbell added a paragraph which was a
bit impertinent, or which at least conveyed the idea that he was
without remorse and probably would do the whole thing over
again if he had the chance. General Brown ran his pen through
that paragraph and sent the original letter on to Prevost in the
hope of forestalling retaliation by letting the British commander
know the expedition was a flare-up of individual genius and not
the deliberate move of responsible leadership.

Colonel Campbell was tried by a court-martial presided over
by Brigadier General Winfield Scott. The court held Campbell
guilty of the offense of committing an "error of judgment."
Even that censure was softened, for the court attributed his
actions to his recollection of the River Raisin and Miami and of
the recent devastation of the Niagara frontier. The military tri-
bunal, cautioned, however, that retaliation should be left to deci-
sion by higher authority.

Unfortunately for the Americans, Colonel Campbell's expedi-
tion occurred at a time when the balance of military power was
shifting to the British. When news of it reached Prevost and
when he learned how brazenly his January ultimatum had been
defied, his anger rose to new heights. He skipped the explanations
and hastened off a letter, dated June 2,1814, instructing Sir Alex-
ander Cochrane, vice-admiral of the British Navy, recently
appointed to command His Majesty's warships in American
waters, to "assist in inflicting that measure of retaliation which
shall deter the enemy from a repetition of similar outrages." This
further retaliation, it may be noted, was not to be only for Long
Point and Dover. It was to be cumulative and all-embracing; it

424 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

was to extend back of requited Newark to the original instance
of the York Parliament buildings.

The orders from the governor-general reached Cochrane at
Bermuda. They left him little latitude. In compliance with them
he issued a circular, dated July 18, to the forces under his com-
mand blockading the American coast from Maine to Louisiana.
They were "to destroy and lay waste such towns and districts
upon the coast as [they might] find assailable." The circular led
to a later exchange between Cochrane and Secretary of State
Monroe, in which the admiral held that such orders were "impe-
riously my duty." In the circular he made this explanation:

For only by carrying this retributory justice into the country
of your enemy can we hope to make him sensible of the impro-
priety as well as of the inhumanity of the system he has adopted.
You will take every opportunity of explaining to the people how
much I lament the necessity of following the rigorous example
of the commander of the American forces. 6

Cochrane's commands were going by dispatch boats to the
British frigates when the Americans on the border again became
restive. A detail of General Peter B. Porter's dragoons crossed
at Queenston, just above the ruins of Newark on the Niagara
River, and penetrated to St. David's, four miles inland. They
drove out the Canadians and gave the village over to fire and
plunder. They considered that the general would be interested
and sent three wagonloads of booty to Porter's headquarters.
What they got in return was the severest condemnation that had
yet been meted out in the Army. General Brown was putting
some system into the border operations. He wanted subordinates
held accountable for their depredations. He fastened the blame
for St. David's on the senior officer present, Lieutenant Colonel
Isaac W. Stone, whose men were described as "licensed plunder-
ers" by the British General Riali Stone, although he professed
innocence, was relieved of his command. The New York Post
saw the gravity of this resumption of the fire feud:

. . . We hope the property will be restored to its owners, and
we are happy to find that Colonel Stone, who burnt the village
and committed the other outrages, has been dismissed from the

"Mist-taking Canada" 425

service. We cannot avoid expressing our utter detestation of this
kind of petty warfare, waged against defenseless villages and
farm houses. The burning and plundering business has disgraced
many commanders on both sides, during this unnatural war; and
we did hope that our people, when our cities and villages are so
much exposed to the depredations of the enemy, would have re-
frained from it as much as possible. 7

4-

Apart from Perry's success on Lake Erie and Harrison's de-
struction of Proctor's army, the war to the spring of 1814 had
brought only defeat, disappointment and shame. The American
frigates were now blockaded. Coastwise American shipping was
no more than a memory. Long trains of wagons rumbled on
creaking axles over muddy roads. 8 More than 800 waiting wag-
ons were counted at a single Pennsylvania ferry more than ever
lined up in Sunday-night ferry congestion in the early days of
automobile popularity. Goods became scarce, prices soared. The
main roads were so crowded that circuitous routes were em-
ployed. Hundreds of wagonloads of cotton from Savannah,
bound for Providence, Rhode Island, passed through Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, and teamsters were required to sell portions of
their products for subsistence costs. Sleepy villages became boom
towns on the wagon roads.

On top of the blockade by the British warships was the new
embargo the government found it necessary to impose in Decem-
ber r 8 1 3 to prevent New England shipowners from provisioning
British troops in Canada. Flour was moving by the thousands of
barrels. Animals were passing the border in herds too large for
the highways and had to make their own paths through the
forests. Governor-General Prevost wrote Lord Bathurst that
two thirds of the army in Canada was at that moment eating beef
provided by American contractors. 9

Before the blockade was tightened, American ships were busy
provisioning Wellington's army on the Spanish Peninsula. The
London Times of January 9, 1813, stated:

The Portuguese markets are literally glutted with grain. In the
first twenty-five days in December, no fewer than 1 16 American

426 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

vessels entered the Tagus. Their cargoes were estimated at
148,000 barrels of flour, 100,000 bushels of wheat, 24,000 barrels
of Indian corn.

An unusual experiment in manufacturing occurred when the
British blockage became so effective that nitrate, always in higher
demand in wartime, could not be imported. American ingenuity
and resource went into action and the result was the establish-
ment of workings in Mammoth Cave which developed the ni-
trate so badly needed for gunpowder from the bat droppings.

One of the two amusing incidents in connection with trade
with the enemy revived discussion for a moment of the rights
of neutral shipping. The war had been in progress two years
when the Boston Advertiser entertained itself with a news story
saying it had confirmed the report that "neutral" vessels were
transporting goods on Lake Champlain. The paper was indignant
that "the monstrous doctrine that a yard of bunting precludes all
inquiry into the nationality of the goods beneath it is acknowl-
edged by our officers in that quarter." 10 The district collector
issued a denial, which got poor display space. At about the same
time two wagons marked as "neutral" arrived in Boston, loaded
with British goods from Canada. The marshal seized them, but
ordered their release when they exhibited a certificate of entry.
The entire population observed this illicit wagon trade across the
border, which usually proceeded without anyone bothering to
use the neutral flags or labels. The press carried comments as
routine news. Nile? Register reported in the late summer of
1814 the passage through Troy, New York, of 100 wagons
bound with British products from Montreal to New York.

Thus marked by every foul disgrace
Goes on this war for power and place.
The nation, pillaged of its fame,
Is sunk in infamy and shame.

The country was jittery. Petitions circulated in Maryland
called for Madison to abdicate; others demanded impeachment.
"Should the perverse nature of Mr. Madison induce him to hold
on to the government," said Mr. Hanson's Federal Republican,

"Mist-taking Canada" 427

"it may still have the happiest effect for the nation to step for-
ward and invite him to retire." n

A typical wartime dispatch appeared in the Herkimer, New
York, American of July 8, 1814. It complained ironically about
the lack of economy. "Waggons," it said, "are not infrequently
seen passing each other freighted with Cannon Balls, some bound
from Rome to New York, and others from New York to
Rome." 12

Federal officers were suspicious of strangers. Washington was
brimming over with rumors of espionage and sedition. In Boston
a young man was hauled before the United States marshal three
times on charges that he was a spy. Each time he was released
he was rearrested. But the press reported that "the only suspi-
cious circumstances that could be developed against him were that
he carried a long whip, wore an unusual number of buttons on
his pantaloons and bore the name of one of our disgraced gen-
erals." 13 Considering the restless temper of the country the
young man was fortunate that with such evidence, he finally
escaped.

The newspapers, pointing out that the national debt was
mounting by a million dollars a week and had reached such colos-
sal proportions that none could ever expect it to be paid, com-
plained that "the camps are deserted while the cities and towns
are crowded with army officers." 14 They listed the discredited
generals, thirteen in number, headed by "Granny" Dearborn.
The popular attitude is reflected by the refrain that made the
rounds during General Hull's court-martial, which the Army
finally convened more than a year after Detroit was surrendered:

Pray, General Dearborn, be impartial,
When President of a Court-Martial;
Since Canada has not been taken,
Say General Hull was much mistaken.
Dearborn himself, as records say,
Mistaken was, the self -same way.
And Wilkinson, and Hampton, too,
And Harrison, and all the crew.
Strange to relate, the self-same way
Have all mist-taken Canada. 15

428 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Enlistments were difficult. The cost of a substitute for militia
duty amounted to $300.00, with takers scarce. The unusual al-
lurements offered to get recruits were indicated by the notice of
an ensign of rangers, calling for fifty additional men, which the
Rhode Island American said it found in an unnamed Western
newspaper. SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS A DAY TO DO NOTHING read the
heading of the singular appeal It continued:

We have lately received orders from Colonel Russell to recruit
without delay our company of Rangers. This is a glorious open-
ing to young gentlemen who feel too lazy to work; such will do
well to come forward immediately and be sworn in, while they
have yet an opportunity. Reflect but a moment on the horrors
that attend the cornfield in the hot months of July and August,
and the pleasures of laying on your back under a shady beach, or
strolling lordly through the woods with your gun, and common
sense will point out the choice.

Reporting directions followed. The document, which looked
like drollery, was published with a straight face.

President Madison's questionings about Armstrong mean-
while had matured into complete distrust. Restricted to the State
Department, Monroe awaited the inevitable results of the incapa-
ble management of the adjacent offices. He considered that Arm-
strong "wants the head to fit the station," and predicted in a note
to Madison, at the time when the Niagara border was being
ravaged, that Armstrong would ruin the administration and the
future of the Republican party and cause, if continued in office.
"Indolent except to improper purposes," Monroe told the Presi-
dent, "he is incapable of that combination and activity which the
times require. My advice to you, therefore, is to remove him at

once." 16

Monroe completed the picture by mentioning, as causes for
dismissal, Armstrong's failure to reinforce McClure at Fort
George and the burning of Newark, if that had been done by
the Secretary's orders. He put in what looked like a clincher:
"His removal . . . would revive the hopes of our party now de-
sponding." Madison did not comply fully, but he did determine to
curb Armstrong. He directed the Secretary not to issue orders

"Mist-taking Canada" 4 2 9

to departmental commanders without first submitting them to the
executive for approval.

Restrained by Madison and watched suspiciously by Monroe,
Armstrong thereafter had a mere semblance of authority, but
was by no means prevented from developing constructive meas-
ures for the prosecution of the war. Had Armstrong done so,
Madison, in his anxiety to get something accomplished, would
have been delighted to ratify the measures. But instead of under-
taking to work closely with his chief and closing the chasm be-
tween them, Armstrong preferred to lapse into indolence and
await developments. What Monroe expected was that when the
indifferent generals had been relegated one by one to the scrap
heap, Armstrong would then come forward with his orginal plan
and insist on leading the Army in person. The Army, meanwhile,
was an excellent source of patronage, and Armstrong's critics
were suspicious that he was utilizing it to build up a personal
organization among the officers in order to forward his presiden-
tial ambitions. They felt that Armstrong had tried to make the
promotion of Andrew Jackson from brigadier to major general,
clearly ordered by Madison, look like his own rather than the
President's decision. 17

Monroe, however, diagnosed the public attitude correctly
when he informed Madison that Armstrong had few friends, and
among those, "some cling to him rather . . . from improper
motives." Armstrong's opportunity rested in a successful cam-
paign, but he did not seem to sense it.

Twenty -two

A War on Credit

A difficult problem was how to finance the war. Political
considerations, with an election less than five months distant at
the time war was declared, made new taxes unpopular with
House and Senate members who had to face their constituents.
The question of revenue was deferred until the next session.

When Congress adjourned July 6, 1812, the national debt, a
heritage from the Revolutionary War, stood at $45,000,000.
This was looked on as large. It was, in fact, inconsiderable only
about $4.50 per individual citizencompared with a debt of
roughly $1,700 per capita in 1954.

In 1812 government income was $9,674,000, which was a
sharp reduction from $14,363,000 collected in i8ir. The de-
crease was due mainly to a sharp falling off in customs collec-
tions. The government's fiscal year at that time coincided with
the calendar year.

Due to the rapid growth of the country the general trend of
peacetime revenues was upward. Almost any tax would yield
continually higher revenues at the same rate. Few governments
ever entered a war in sounder financial condition than the United
States did in 1812. Nonetheless public confidence was lacking.
Many citizens questioned whether the United States could win
the war; more feared the country would fall apart. Lack of pub-
lic confidence made money rates high.

The estimate was that the war would cost between thirty and
forty million annually. It actually did increase the debt by
$78,000,000. This, for the two and a half years of the war, was
at a rate of $3 1,200,000 of new debt annually. In addition the gov-
ernment spent what it could collect in revenues at a time when

430

A War on Credit 431

smuggling was rampant and many sections were indifferent to the
Treasury's need of cash.

Despite the healthy financial conditions, the plan adopted in
1812, contrary to the urgency of Cheves and Lowndes of South
Carolina, was to fight the war on borrowed money.

Langdon Cheves, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee,
prudently felt that the war should be paid for as much as possible
by the imposition of new taxes. He and his pay-as-you-go col-
league were weak voices until after the fall elections of 1812,
although some customs rates were increased in that year. Con-
gress got around to the revenue question in the special session
beginning May 25, 1813, to which Madison recommended a sys-
tem of new taxes.

On July 24, 1813, Congress gave the country a real "setfast,"
one which Representative Nathaniel Macon had not thought of
when he predicted that war would saddle America with a perma-
nent navy and industry. 1 The office of Commissioner of Revenue
was created, and a long list of internal revenues was provided.
Some of the stipulated taxes were; four cents a pound on sugar
refined in the United States, one cent on auction sales, $20.00 on
a coach, $14.00 on a chaise and $10.00 on a phaeton. In addition,
there were to be taxes on loans and notes, and, after all of the
early argument, a tax on stills and liquor, which was increased
as the war continued. Customs also were increased, some of the
items being $ i .00 a ton on pig iron, five per cent ad valorem on
boots, eight per cent ad valorem on umbrellas and twenty per
cent ad valorem on tobacco products.

The average yield per year of the domestic war taxes was
$5,300,000. The levies were abolished as soon as it became clear
that the government could get along with money from other
sources. The average duration of the war taxes was three years
and the total yield was about $16,000,000. Ingersoll, a member
of the Congress which enacted them, pointed out that if these
taxes had been continued until 1840, the yield would have be-
come $20,000,000 annually at the same rate, instead of $5,300,-
ooo. The growth of the country would have accounted for the
gain.

432 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Customs receipts, with the higher rates, increased from
$8,958,000 in 1812 to $13,244,000 in 1813, but they dropped to
$5,998,000 in 1814. The blockade was effective. The larger vol-
ume of imports came in duty-free because it was smuggled. In
1816, the first full year after the war, customs yielded $36,306,-
ooo, or nearly four times the amount of the whole federal income
in 1812, a year in which there was virtually no blockade and
little smuggling. 2

Requirements of the first partial year of the war were placed
at $11,000,000, and a loan of that amount, with interest at six
per cent, was authorized before the actual declaration. As an
inducement to the banks, the Treasury agreed that subscriptions
should remain on deposit in the subscribing banks until the
Treasury required the money. But the bank subscriptions were
slow, and on June 30, 1812, the Treasury issued notes for
$5,000,000 payable in one year and bearing interest of five and
two fifths per cent. The notes were receivable in payment of all
obligations to the Treasury and were designed to serve as paper
money. Eventually the balance of the $i 1,000,000 was subscribed
chiefly by the banks.

Purchase of government bonds was openly opposed by the
press and, in some instances, by the pulpit in New England. One
of the newspapers declared subscribers forfeited any claim to
common honesty and courtesy. In some New England churches
subscribers to war loans were denounced as "participants in the
unholy, unrighteous, wicked, abominable and unnatural war." 8

Advertisements promising that the names of subscribers would
not be made public were finally published in the Boston papers.

Despite the opposition, the loans did succeed, and for two rea-
sons. The first was the public spirit and confidence in the future
of the country felt by Stephen Girard and David Parish, both
wealthy Philadelphians, and John Jacob Astor of New York.
The other reason was that the loans were condemned so heartily
in the newspapers that they came to be regarded as good bar-
gains, which they certainly were, to the subscribers. The issue of
$16,000,000 floated in early 1813 was offered at eighty-eight and
six per cent interest, or at par with an annuity of one and one

ffi
H

O

D
O

O

CO

W

u

A War on Credit 433

half per cent plus interest. They were known as "Gallatin's
loans." Because Girard and Parish took $7,000,000 of this loan
and Astor $2,000,000, some newspapers commented that the
only means the United States had of carrying the war were pro-
vided by "foreigners." Gallatin, the issuing authority, was of
Swiss birth, Stephen Girard was French, and Parish and Astor
were both born in Germany. This claim continued throughout
the war, as the two succeeding Secretaries of the Treasury were
George Washington Campbell, 4 born in Scotland, and Alexander
J. Dallas, born a British subject in Jamaica.

The total in loans and Treasury notes issued from 1812 to
1815, inclusive, was:

1812 $12,837,000

1813 $26,183,000

1814 $23,337,000

1815 $35,263,000

1816 $ 9,494,000

The total borrowing was about $i 10,000,000 and the total of
revenue and customs collected during the period was $47,403,-
ooo. Of the amount borrowed, approximately $32,000,000 was
retired during the war. Thus the cost of the War of 1812 was
roughly $125,000,000.

The attitude of New England on the loans was important
because the specie was moving to that section in payment of
goods smuggled from Canada and Great Britain and of articles
manufactured in this enterprising section which had no extensive
agriculture to command its time. During the early part of the
war the British blockade was not applied against New England.
Boston made use of this trade advantage to become the financial
capital of the country. New England had two advantages for
maintaining an illicit trade with Canada. The first was its prox-
imity to Canadian markets and the other was the cold tempera-
ture. When water transportation was suspended the best means
of transport was by sleigh across the snow, for which good roads
were not required.

But if New England had manufactured articles for sale, the
New England people had to pay through the nose for food im-

43 4 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

ports from the South. Flour that sold for $4.50 a barrel in Rich-
mond had a $7.50 transportation charge added by the time it
reached Boston, where the price was $ 1 2 .00.

That the trade advantage did rest with New England, how-
ever, may be seen by figures published by Nile? Register. The
statistics showed that deposits in the banks of Massachusetts
increased from $2,671,000 in 1810 to $8,875,000 in 1814, and
that during the same period, specie increased from $1,561,000 to
$6,393,000. While New England was obtaining specie from the
rest of the country, it was being compelled to send gold to
Canada in payment for goods, the balance of the illicit trade
being in favor of the Canadians and their British principals. This
was particularly true toward the close of the war. The specie in
the hands of Massachusetts banks on July i, 1814, amounted to
$5,468,000, and by January i, 1815, it had declined to $1,999,000,
a loss of about $3,500,000 in six months. But New England in-
dustry had been firmly established by that time.

At the close of the war Treasury notes were selling at about
twenty-five per cent below par and the six per cent bonds at
thirty per cent below par. Stronger control over governmental
finances was exercised when Dallas became Secretary of the
Treasury, October 6, 1814. Through his urgency Congress finally
passed, in April 1 8 1 6, an act establishing the United States Bank.

Secretary Dallas' earlier moves for a national bank with a
capital of $50,000,000, although unsuccessful because of Madi-
son's veto, tended to restore such confidence that by January
1815 Treasury notes were approaching par. Those who did back
the United States financially in the War of 1812 realized hand-
somely on their investments, but not even they could have antici-
pated the great forward sweep that was to be made by the
United States during the benign administration of James Monroe.

The press of the day was aware of the industrial change that
was making the United States more independent of old-world
manufactures. Making a play on words, the National Intelli-
gencer in its issue of November 14, 1812, gave a thumbnail
sketch of Anglo-American relations when it said: "Great Britain
STAMPED us into independent states. She has COUNCILED us into

A War on Credit 435

a manufacturing people, and now she is FIGHTING us into a mari-
time power."

The trend toward manufacturing, which had begun during
the embargo and was most evidenced in New England, had made
substantial headway by the end of i8i2. 5 The National Intelli-
gencer pointed out in its issue of December 15, 1812, that "super
fine" broadcloth, as fine as could be found on the market, was
being made in this country, whereas three years earlier such
American textiles were unknown. Samples were brought to
Washington and exhibited from new mills in Massachusetts,
Connecticut, New York and Delaware.

We can state that the President of the United States is clothed
in a coat manufactured by Elkanah Watson, Esq., of Pittsfield,
Mass., and from wool of his own growing, which is admitted by
the best judges to be superior as to both material and workman-
ship to any piece of foreign broadcloth which has been imported
into the United States in the past year.

Such are the recoiling effects of that system of injustice which
has been exercised against us.

Another resume of the growth of industry was published by
the Intelligencer in April 1813. It told of the setting up of the
"Bronx River Paint Company," an industry as complete as any
European paint manufacturer and prepared to make paint "from
metallic substances." Other new manufacturers made paper,
earthenware, and snuff and tobacco products. All were located
at West Farms, twelve miles from. New York on the Boston
turnpike. It was the beginning of industry in the Bronx and
Westchester County, New York, one of the "setfasts" predicted
by Macon.

The same account continued:

The trader will be convinced of the facility with which
Americans can manufacture their own supplies and of the useful
policy of encouraging every description of industry and im-
provement, whether roads, canals or manufacturesor what
other branches of industry, that will lead to the independence,
the comfort or the elegancies of civilized life.

Chapter Twenty-Three
The Creek War

i.

On June 26, 1812, the day on which news had reached
Nashville, Tennessee, that Congress had declared war on Great
Britain, Andrew Jackson, commander of the Tennessee mili-
tia, had offered his services to Governor William Blount and
through the governor to the War Department.

Jackson was a tough, ready fighter, forty-five years old. He
stood six feet one inch and appeared to be taller because of his
crest of graying hair. He was already the idol of the Southwest,
where the kind of personal courage he frequently displayed in
the turbulent life of the new state of Tennessee was a prereq-
uisite for popularity. He had been the state's first representative
in the House, then one of its senators and later judge of the Ten-
nessee Supreme Court. In 1804 he retired to private life at his
own choice and then it was said of him that "although he was
a private citizen, he was the most public man in Tennessee." 1
Governor William Blount described him as a man who "has a
peculiar pleasure in treating his enemies as such." 2

Jackson's elevation to popular favor had been won over the
opposition of John Sevier, the state's first governor, who had
fought in Lord Dunmore's War and the Revolution. In 1801,
when Sevier was out of the Tennessee governorship temporarily,
the field officers of the Tennessee militia balloted for a major
general to command the state troops and the election resulted in
a tie between Sevier and Jackson. Sevier's name had lost some
of its luster by association with land frauds in the state, and Gov-
ernor Roane, Sevier's successor, broke the tie and cast the decid-
ing vote for Jackson. 3 The militia was commanded by Jackson

436

The Creek War 437

during Sevier's second period of service as governor, extending
from 1803 to 1809, and there was no pretense of harmony.
Sevier's attempts to belittle Jackson, who was the last man in the
state to be intimidated, ended in the governor's, not Jackson's,
loss of prestige. Sevier gave clear proof that he was not anxious
to answer Jackson's challenge, and failed to appear on two
occasions. 4

Jackson's conduct in this and other altercations appeared to be
bellicose, yet he was only acting according to his understanding
of the injunctions of his devoted and intelligent mother, who had
reared him in the Waxhaw settlement of South Carolina. Her last
letter to him reads like a thumbnail sketch of his career, except-
ing her admonition for calmness:

Andrew, if I should not see you again I wish you to remember
and treasure up some things I have already said to you: In this
world you will have to make your own way. To do that you
must have friends. You can make friends by being honest, and
you can keep them by being steadfast. You must keep in mind
that friends worth having will in the long run expect as much
from you as they give to you. To forget an obligation or be un-
grateful for a kindness is a base crime-not merely a fault or a sin
but an actual crime. Men guilty of it sooner or later must suffer
the penalty.

In personal conduct be always polite, but never obsequious.
No one will respect you more than you esteem yourself. Avoid
quarrels as long as you can without yielding to imposition. But
sustain your manhood always. Never bring suit at law for assault
and battery or for defamation. The law affords no remedy for
such outrages that can satisfy the feelings of a true man. Never
wound the feelings of others. Never brook wanton outrage upon
your own feelings. If ever you have to vindicate your feelings
or defend your honor do it calmly. If angry at first, wait till your
wrath cools before you proceed." 5

As commanding officer of the Tennessee militia, Jackson could
easily bring into the field a division of 2,500 men and more In an
emergency. Because he was not in the good esteem of Washing-
ton, his offer of men resulted for four months in no more than
a courteous reply by Secretary Eustis to Governor Blount. Jack-
son was looked on with distrust by Jefferson, who while serving

438 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

as Vice-President had formed a dislike for him. Jefferson, when
presiding over the Senate, observed that Jackson could not speak
without choking with rage. Jefferson nourished his misgivings,
and they matured into a distinct aversion at the time of the trial
of Aaron Burr, during which Jackson, a bold defense witness for
Burr, declaimed against Jefferson loudly on the Richmond
streets. 6

At the outbreak of the war James Wilkinson, a brigadier gen-
eral in the Regular Army, commanded the Southwestern Depart-
ment, with headquarters at New Orleans. He continually feared
slave revolts and British invasions. After Hull's surrender of
Detroit, Secretary Eustis, on October 21, 1812, called on Gov-
ernor Blount to send troops to strengthen Wilkinson in New
Orleans. Jackson's cavalry, numbering 670, was commanded by
an officer of extraordinary merit, Colonel John Coffee. Jackson's
two infantry regiments, each numbering about 700 men, were
led by Colonels Thomas H. Benton, later senator from Missouri,
and William Hall. His brigade inspector was William Carroll,
destined to fame with Jackson. On December 10, 1812, a day
when an early blizzard struck through the South, the Tennessee
army assembled at Nashville. On January 7, 1813, the infantry
units boarded small craft and went down the Cumberland River,
for a rendezvous with Coffee's cavalry at Natchez on the Missis-
sippi. Mindful that the New York militia had declined to serve
outside their own state, Jackson wrote the War Department that
his men did not quibble about where they should fight.

I am now at the head of 2,070 volunteers, the choicest of our
citizens who go at the call of their country to execute the will of
the government, who have no constitutional scruples, and, if the
government orders, will rejoice at the opportunity of placing the
American eagle on the ramparts of Mobile, Pensacola and Fort
St. Augustine. 7

Jackson's expedition fell afoul of the intriguers, Wilkinson and
Armstrong. Wilkinson had no intention of allowing any militia
officer of superior rank, especially Jackson, to come to New
Orleans and deprive him of the command there. He directed
Jackson to remain in Natchez. 8 The esprit de corps of Jackson's

The Creek War 439

troops was high. His division was perhaps the most resolute in
the entire service, yet it was permitted by the War Department
to remain idle for weeks in barracks near Natchez and then was
coldly dismissed from the service by Secretary Armstrong two
days after he took charge of the War Department. Not knowing
the type of man with whom he was dealing, Armstrong ordered
Jackson to muster out his men immediately "on the receipt of
this letter" and turn over his military property to Wilkinson.
Jackson had traveled a thousand miles by the water route to
Natchez and had no intention of discharging his men that far
from home. Armstrong's order, considering travel difficulties
of 1812, was fully as inconsiderate as if the War Department of
1953 had discharged a division of soldiers in Korea and told the
men to get home as best they could. Jackson decided at once that
he would pay no attention to Armstrong. He wrote heated let-
ters, one of them to Wilkinson:

These brave men, at the call of their country, voluntarily ral-
lied around its insulted standard. They followed me to the field;
I shall carefully march them back to their homes. It is for the
agents of the government to account to the State of Tennessee
and the whole world for their singular and unusual conduct to
this detachment. 9

Wilkinson made the insulting reply that if Jackson wanted to
help the country he might get his men to enlist in the Regular
Army. This added fuel to Jackson's rage. When one of Wilkin-
son's recruiting agents appeared, Jackson informed him that if he
were caught trying to "seduce" a single Tennessee volunteer into
the Regular Army he would be drummed out of the lines. 10

Scarcely mollified by a more conciliatory letter from the War
Department, Jackson was compelled to give his personal security
for the food, clothing and equipment required to march the men
across country to Nashville. The Natchez merchants trusted
him. He made rapid progress, moving eighteen miles a day. En
route he wrote an offer to take his army north to capture Maiden
if the War Department consented. "I have a few standards wear-
ing the American eagle," he said, "that I should be happy to
place upon the ramparts of Maiden." With troops of this quality

440 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

and Jackson in command, the promise might have been fulfilled,
but Armstrong was not interested. The offer went unheeded.

Walking with his troops, sharing every exertion and hardship,
Jackson caused some of his men to comment that he was "tough
as hickory." The remark was even more descriptive of his char-
acter than physique. Inevitably it suggested the name of "Old
Hickory" which Jackson retained. 11 The nickname fitted him like
a newly tailored suit. When his men were discharged in Nash-
ville, the War Department declined to honor his vouchers. That
was indicative of the type of management of the Department
under Armstrong and it came near to alienating the enthusiastic
state of Tennessee from the administration. Jackson was faced
with ruin. 12 Thomas H. Benton went to Washington to present
the case of the militiamen and was advised that nothing could be
done for Jackson. He finally laid the matter before Madison per-
sonally, who decided the government should honor the bills. 13

One of Jackson's contemporaries, Major General Ferdinand
L. Claiborne, brother of the governor of Louisiana, was not so
fortunate in having his accounts honored. When he left for the
Creek War in the following year, only a scant quartermaster
fund was available, and he, too, gave his note and secured it with
his personal estate. The accounts were not honored. After his
death his estate was sold to satisfy the costs of the troops in bat-
tling the Creeks. 14

On reaching Nashville, however, Jackson was soon incapaci-
tated for service by a needless affray brought on as much by his
own belligerence as any other factor.

After the return from Natchez, a campaign in which William
Carroll and John Coffee had so endeared themselves to Jackson
as to establish lifelong friendships, 15 Carroll was challenged by
Lieutenant Littleton Johnson because of the severity of Carroll's
inspection methods. Carroll refused to meet Johnson, maintaining
he was not a gentleman. Jesse Benton, brother of Thomas H.
Benton, who had commanded one of Jackson's regiments, then
challenged Carroll, for the reason that he had carried Johnson's
message. Carroll accepted this challenge and requested Jackson
to serve as his second.

The Creek War 44 1

Jackson did not approve the duel and tried to call it off. He
went to Thomas Benton and for a time it seemed he would be
successful, but all adjustment eventually fell through and Jack-
son accompanied his young friend Carroll to the field. Benton
fired first, missed, and then apparently took fright. He crouched
and received Carroll's bullet in the seat of his trousers, to the
amusement of most of the state and no more than superficial
damage to Benton. There the matter might readily have stopped,
had not Jackson possessed the scarcely controllable anger, the
quality in him which first attracted the notice and disfavor of
Thomas Jefferson.

The Bentons lived in Franklin, where Thomas had settled to
practice law after his graduation from William and Mary Col-
lege. When they came to Nashville after the Carroll duel, they
made it a point to go to the City Hotel in order to avoid Jackson
and his followers, who customarily frequented the Nashville Inn,
diagonally across the courthouse square. When Jackson and
Coffee went to the post office they avoided the City Hotel,
where Jesse Benton stood on the walk and Thomas at the door.
Returning, Jackson and Coffee went directly by the hotel. There
Jackson, armed with a whip, shouted to Thomas Benton, "Now
defend yourself you damned rascal/" and started at him. Before
Benton could draw Jackson had his pistol out and with its muzzle
against Benton's chest, backed him down the hotel corridor. Just
then Jesse Benton came up from behind and shot Jackson. Jack-
son's fire merely burned Thomas Benton's sleeve. Jackson fell
grievously injured in his shoulder.

Jackson fortunately escaped with his life but he was seriously
incapacitated for his next and vastly important campaign and he
carried the effect of the injury for the rest of his life. Said his
biographer Parton:

He could not mount his horse without assistance when the
time came for him to move toward the rendezvous. His left arm
was bound and in a sling. He could not wear his coat-sleeve; nor,
during any part of his military career, could he long endure on
his left shoulder the weight of an epaulette. Often, in the crisis of
a maneuver, some unguarded movement would send such a thrill

442 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

of agony through his attenuated frame as almost to deprive him
of consciousness. It could not have been a pleasant thought that
he had squandered in a paltry, puerile, private contest, the
strength he needed for the defense of his country. Grievous was
his fault; bitter the penalty; noble the atonement. 16

2.

In the autumn and early winter of 1812, while Proctor com-
manded at Maiden and the Indians were massacring Winchester's
men at the River Raisin, Tecumseh was absent from the Northern
lakes, on another of his long journeys to the South. 17 The Creek
War, the most relentless ever carried on against a tribe of Indians
in this country, had its inception in this visit of the Shawnee
leader.

Late in October Tecumseh appeared at the Creek town of
Coosawda, situated where the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers join
to form the Alabama. He told a great gathering about the cap-
ture of Detroit and the success of the British and Indians on the
Great Lakes. Inspired by the enthusiastic reception he received
from his old friends, Tecumseh moved on to the capital of the
Creek confederation, Toockabatcha. The Indians had been sum-
moned into convention by the representative of the United
States government, Indian Agent Colonel Benjamin Hawkins.
Tecumseh appeared on the fringe of the gathering with his escort
of thirty braves. He listened to the addresses. Then on the second
day he forced his way into the center of the great throng of
warriors and braves, where all but one chief gave him welcome.
The dissenter was Big Warrior, who shook the buffalo horns that
adorned his head and called Tecumseh a "bad man," a man no
greater than himself. Tecumseh did not speak until Indian Agent
Hawkins had departed and the tribe was in its own council.
Although Hawkins reported that Tecumseh delivered a peaceful
talk, and Adams says he talked only in pantomime, 18 the address
proved not only an appeal for war, but also one of great power
and eloquence. Parton gives a detailed account:

Every day, Tecumseh appeared in the square to deliver his
Talk/ and all were ever anxious to hear it; but, late in the eve-

The Creek War 443

ning, he would rise and say, 'The sun has gone too far today
I will make my talk tomorrow.' At length Hawkins terminated
his business and departed. . . . That night, a grand council was
held in the great Round-house. Tecumseh, presenting his grace-
ful and majestic form above the heads of hundreds, made known
his mission in a long speech, full of fire and vengeance. He ex-
horted them to return to their primitive customs, to throw aside
the plow and loom, and to abandon agricultural life, which was
unbecoming Indian warriors. He told them that after the whites
had possessed the greater part of their country, turned its
beautiful forests into large fields, and stained their rivers with the
washings of the soil, they would then subject them to African
servitude. He exhorted them to assimilate in no way with the
grasping, unprincipled race, to use none of their arms, and wear
none of their clothes, but dress in the skins of beasts which the
Great Spirit had given his red children for food and raiment, and
to use the war-club, the scalping-knife, and the bow. He con-
cluded by announcing that the British, their former friends, had
sent him from the Big Lakes to procure their services in expelling
the Americans from all Indian soil; that the King of England
was ready handsomely to reward all who would fight for his

cause." 19

The Creeks, among the most civilized of the North American
tribes, heard the moving address with eagerness and excitement.
Probably it was the most influential speech in the history of the
Indians. It and it aloneled the Creek nation into a war against
the whites at a time when these Indians were living in compara-
tive wealth and comfort and had no actual cause for hostility.

3-

The Creeks were a federation with a lofty tradition, recorded
on beads, each one of which carried its message of lore and his-
tory. The story was preserved by a Frenchman, Le Clerc Mil-
fort, who lived with the Creeks twenty years in the latter part of
the eighteenth century, then returned to France, became a briga-
dier general and in 1802 wrote a book about them.

The tradition, briefly, was that the original Creeks, the Mus-
kogee, had been allies of the Aztecs in fighting Cortez, and when
the Spaniards were victorious, had moved north, where they
encountered the Alibamu. 20 They drove the Alibamu ahead of

444 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

them on a long circuit of the Missouri River, then across to the
Ohio and finally south to the region of the Coosa, Tombigbee
and Alabama rivers. There the running warfare ended and the
Muskogee and Alibamu decided to merge. Other tribes came
under their protection and a federation, or nation, was formed.
They settled along the small streams running into the larger
rivers. These tributaries were numerous and the early whites
called the region the "creek country" and, in turn, the Indian
inhabitants the "Creeks."

By the time the whites came, the nation gave impressive evi-
dence of either an advancing or declining civilization. It was sur-
prising that Tecumseh could appeal to them with his huntsman
doctrine, for the Creeks had long been agriculturists. They en-
joyed local self-government, each town having its ruler selected
from a leading family. They possessed a system of family rank akin
to nobility; leading families were named for animals or forces of
nature, such as the bear or wind. The Creeks possessed rigid laws,
as distinguished from the hunting customs or rules of other tribes,
and regulations for marriage and divorce. They built houses and
made and wore clothing of fabrics instead of skins. They had
buildings and codes for conduct of public business and a system
of military promotions. They received the early whites with
friendship, listened to the missionaries, often intermarried with
whites and sent their children to the missionaries' schools. During
the period of the Revolutionary War and the Washington ad-
ministration they were ably led by their chief Alexander McGil-
livray, who styled himself "emperor," and who at different times
held colonelcies in the British and Spanish armies and the com-
mission and pay of a brigadier general in the Army of the United
States. His Scottish father had been a Tory in the American
Revolution and had had his property confiscated. For that reason
the son sought refuge and made his life with the Indians. 21

After Tecumseh's oration, leadership of the Creek war faction
was assumed by a half-breed chief, Red Eagle. His name accord-
ing to the white custom was William Weatherford. He was a
handsome, intelligent man thirty-one years old. Tecumseh per-

The Creek War 445

ceived that Weatherford was the keyman among the Southern
tribes and made especial efforts to convert him.

There is little detail about Weatherf ord's early life, except that
he stubbornly resisted opportunities to obtain a formal education,
never learned to read or write even his own name, but early be-
came one of the best horsemen and hunters of the Alabama
region. Wealthy beyond the ambitions of most Indians, persua-
sive in his eloquence, fluent in conversation, noble in appearance,
he could have chosen almost any life in America or abroad, yet
he preferred to live as a Muskogee Indian and boast that "there
is not one drop of Yankee blood in my veins." 22

His father, Charles Weatherford, was a shrewd Scottish ped-
dler who came from Georgia to trade with the Indians. He mar-
ried the beautiful Sehoy, of the leading family of the tribe, the
Wind family. She was a half sister of the "emperor" and "be-
loved man," McGillivray, and a sister-in-law of the French
general and historian, Le Clerc Milfort. Charles Weatherford
prospered and soon had baronial estates at Hickory Ground, on
the east bank of the Alabama River, not far below the juncture
of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers, and opposite the Indian
town of Coosawda. On his plantation he bred fine horses and
laid out a race track where races were held and the white settlers
came to place their bets. He acted as a sort of secretary of state
for "Emperor" McGillivray, who consulted him on diplomatic
transactions with the other powers. 23

Here, probably in 1780, William Weatherford was bom. The
conditions of his birth were vastly different from those that
marked Tecumseh's humble beginning in a tent on the Mad
River. Weatherford's two noted uncles, Le Clerc Milfort and
"Emperor" McGillivray, undertook to tutor him in elementary
subjects, but he resisted reading and writing. From them he must
have obtained his poise and self-confidence. He studied English
by conversational methods, and when he found that the knowl-
edge of a second language helped his speaking ability, he moved
on to the acquisition of conversational French and Spanish. He
visited Mobile and Pensacola and from the Spaniards learned to

446 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

dislike the Americans. He rode his father's blooded Arabian
horses; it was said that "the squaws all quit hoeing corn when-
ever he rode by the corn patch." 24 He took a place in the council
of the Creeks but never spoke until some commanding question
come before the body. Then he employed his fine reasoning and
unusual oratorical gifts to direct the decision.

Just before the war with Great Britain, the United States had
negotiated the right to run a roadway through the Creek terri-
tory. The tribe had originally assented, but later a group of Indi-
ans, stimulated by the Spaniards, raised strenuous objection to this
invasion by the Americans. These Indians charged that the road
opened the way for continual encroachments on three sides
from Georgia, Tennessee and Louisiana. The Spaniards con-
trolled the Gulf coast on the fourth side. The Creeks were finding
themselves hemmed in. They also claimed the whites were de-
pleting the game, and there is no doubt it was being exhausted
more rapidly than the game of the Northwest.

Mainly because of his aversion to the Americans and because
of his resentment of the whites' growing control of the country
over which he and his family had ruled with almost a feudal
splendor, Weatherford was sympathetic to Tecumseh's plan for
a red confederation.

The Shawnee leader employed his mystical powers to initiate
some Creek prophets. One named Josiah Francis was shut in a
cabin for ten days and was taught by Tecumseh's sorcerers. He
emerged allegedly without sight, but he recovered his vision and
became a soothsayer and leader of the war party. Others were
Sinquista and High Head Jim. All became lieutenants of Weath-
erford, who used them without accepting their sorcery. Tecurn-
seh told the defiant Big Warrior that the Creeks would know
when he returned to his home territory. They would be able to
feel the stamp of his foot when he entered Detroit. After the
elapse of about the time required for such a journey an earth-
quake did shake Alabama and knocked over houses. Tecumseh
thereby won many converts.

Tecumseh's mission to the Creeks resulted in a northern visit
by a band of thirty Creeks headed by Chief Little Warrior, who

The Creek War 447

was feted at Maiden and softened toward the British. On their
return south the Creeks halted near the mouth of the Ohio River
and killed two white families, then passed into the Chickasaw
country, where they murdered seven other families and carried
off a woman. The enraged Chickasaw, who had held aloof from
Tecumseh, appealed to the Indian agent to enforce the treaties
and punish Little Warrior and his band. Hawkins organized a
posse of Creeks under two friendly chiefs, Mclntosh and Isaacs,
and beat the brush for Little Warrior. Little Warrior went into
hiding with a party of friends, including a brave from the Creek
town of Tuskegee, known as Tuskegee Warrior.

Little Warrior was inveigled by treachery to come out of his
swamp refuge and was shot down. 25 Tuskegee Warrior was
burned to death in a house at the Hickory Ground and two of
his brothers were tomahawked. Others were hunted down and
killed by the friendly Creeks.

The slaughter of Little Warrior and his band caused the
Creeks to divide sharply. The larger and more warlike faction
was comprised mainly of the Upper Creeks, who lived in the
higher valleys of the Gulf Coast streams. This faction wanted
Little Warrior avenged. They hunted down his executioners and
killed all they could lay hands on. The Lower Creeks, who lived
chiefly along the lower Chattahoochee and Apalachicola rivers,
did not want war with the whites, and held aloof from their more
emotional kinsmen.

Fired by Tecumseh and angered by the loss of Little Warrior,
bands of the Upper Creeks began to attack white settlers and the
Lower Creeks. They robbed the United States mail and took the
bundles to Pensacola. When Big Warrior, who favored the Amer-
icans, sent a message they killed his messenger. During the spring
of 1813 the Creek country was seething with warnings of ap-
proaching conflict.

Through Tecumseh the Creeks were advised that they could
obtain military stores from the British fleet off Pensacola. That
message led to open hostilities. With the assent of the Spanish
governor the British landed agents at Pensacola in early 1813,
set up a base and began the distribution of firearms to all Indians

448 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

unfriendly to the Americans. Three chiefs Peter McQueen, a
half -breed from the Tallahassee region, Prophet Josiah Francis,
and High Head Jim had been making raids on white settlements.
They decided to take the booty they had collected to Pensacola
and exchange it for whisky and provisions. They also planned to
pick up guns and powder there.

The chiefs and their 300 warriors drove a herd of cattle before
them and attracted such attention that the white settlers planned
to intercept them upon their return.

Militia under Colonel James Caller and Captain Sam Dale, an
Indian fighter famous in the Mississippi territory, undertook to
surprise the McQueen party at Burnt Corn Creek. One hundred
and eighty Americans descended on the Indians while they were
eating. The attackers routed and scattered their victims, but made
the mistake of not organizing a pursuit into the canebrake. While
the militia lingered to plunder the Indian baggage, McQueen ral-
lied his red forces and made a surprise attack on the unwary
Americans. Dale was wounded and the American victory was
turned into a complete rout. The troops fled in confusion, leaving
the reds in possession of the baggage and the battlefield. Colonel
Caller wandered for fifteen days before he found friends. His
command was never brought together again.

This victory gave the ascendency to the war party among the
Creeks, who were reassured by the British that if the Americans
pressed them back, they would be taken aboard British ships to
Havana. The Creek nation numbered 30,000 of whom 7,000
were warriors. 26 Probably more than half, or 4,000, warriors
were in the war faction. Weatherford had not wanted the war
so early but when it came he gave it his untiring support.

4-

The Battle of Burnt Corn was the signal for white families to
move into forts, just as the whites of the Wabash did after the
Battle of Tippecanoe.

One of the main posts in southern Alabama was Fort Mims,
situated on Tensaw Lake, about ten miles above the juncture of

The Creek War 449

the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers and forty miles north of Mo-
bile. It was one mile back from the Alabama just below the cutoff
that forms Nannahubba Island. Here the elderly Mims, who was
part Indian, operated a trading post, a plantation and a ferry
across the Alabama. He had built a spacious plantation house and
during the summer of 1813 had surrounded it with a high picket
fence enclosing approximately an acre of ground.

When danger from the Indians was imminent numerous other
buildings were added inside the enclosure and the settlers entered
for safety. General Ferdinand L. Claiborne, an experienced In-
dian fighter who had served under Anthony Wayne, made an
inspection of the fort and was not satisfied with its defenses.
He ordered blockhouses constructed at commanding positions.
The garrison had been brought to a strength of 200 volunteers,
commanded by a half-breed, Major Daniel Beasley. Beasley does
not appear to have feared further hostilities from the Creeks any
more than General Thomas Flournoy, the Department com-
mander who succeeded Wilkinson. Flournoy was anxious to
avoid aggressive measures that might extend the war. 27

The number of persons inside Fort Mims at the end of August
1813, was 553, of whom about 100 were children. Many warnings
of Indian activity came to the fort. One was given by a Negro
slave who had escaped from a gathering of the Creeks at McGirth's
plantation up the river. He had accurate information on the war-
riors' preparations for a descent on the fort, but it was distrusted.
The garrison was becoming contemptuous of danger signals. On
August 29, 1813, two other Negro slaves were sent outside the
stockade to round up some beef cattle. Soon they were running
back into the fort, their eyes bulging with fear. When questioned
they said they had seen Indians decked out with war paint hiding
in the canebrake and swamp. A small scouting party searched the
spot pointed to by the slaves and found no trace of Indians.
Major Beasley ordered the Negroes flogged for exciting a false
alarm. One owner objected to the flogging but yielded when told
by the dictatorial Beasley that he would have to take his family
out of the fort unless he obeyed orders and applied the lash. The

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

front gate of the fort remained open as an evidence of the gar-
rison's indifference to warnings of danger. Dirt and sand had
drifted against the gate and made it difficult to close.

Beasley had no conception of military discipline and conducted
no drills. The troops loafed about the fort, played cards and did
not even take time to complete the blockhouses. 28 The soldiers
and settlers were beginning their dinner on August 30, when
Weatherford, who had awaited the signal of the fort's noon
drums, led a thousand whooping Creeks through the front gate.
One of the Negroes who had been whipped saw the Indians
when they were some distance from the gate, but he was afraid
to sound an alarm for fear of another punishment. 29 Beasley and
some of his men saw the Indians just before they reached the
gate and ran to stop them. The gate would not budge, and Beas-
ley was killed in the first onslaught.

Inside the fort the soldiers made a defense along a second line
of pickets. For five hours a battle of extermination was carried
on by the red assailants, who now invested the fort from all sides
and eventually breached the picket near one of the unfinished
corner blockhouses. They shot through the portholes and gradu-
ally forced the whites from building to building. Captain Dixon
Bailey, who had fought at Burnt Corn Creek, led the defense
after the death of Beasley and kept up the battle until nearly sun-
down. The Indians fired the last building with flaming arrows
and made the whites concentrate in a small enclosure known as
the bastion.

At this point Weatherford tried to check his followers and
wanted to request the whites to surrender. But the warriors, in-
flamed by their heavy losses, would not hear him. They threat-
ened to kill him if he interfered. Not caring to see the bestial
finish of the carnage he had begun, he mounted his beautiful
black horse and rode away from the action. 30 Although Weather-
ford was later exonerated by the whites of responsibility for the
slaughter that followed, it was evident that he had expected
butchery. He was in love with a girl, Lucy Cornells, of mixed
blood, whose father earlier had sought refuge in Fort Mims.

The Creek War 45 1

Weatherf ord had sent him a warning and he had left the fort in
advance of the attack. 31

Bailey finally was slain and all defense ended. Dr. Thomas G.
Holmes and about ten others cut their way through the Indians
and escaped into the woods. A few Negroes were spared to serve
as slaves to the Creeks. One half-breed woman and her children
were saved by a Creek warrior whom she had befriended. In all,
seventeen survived out of the 553 who were in Fort Mims when
Weatherford attacked. 32

Weatherford later said: "My warriors were like famished
wolves and the first taste of blood made their appetites insatia-
ble." 33 That night the Indians trimmed their scalps and smoked
their pipes. The fort was a smoldering ruin.

Nothing in the war gave the American nation a greater shock
than the massacre at Fort Mims. In the Northern cities the dis-
patches were at first obscured to some extent by celebrations of
Perry's victory on Lake Erie, then in progress. When the enor-
mity of the grisly news was appreciated, the demand for venge-
ance was widespread and insistent. In the Southwest the horror
at the slaughter was followed by a fear that Weatherford would
be emboldened to conduct forays into the more settled sections
of Tennessee, Georgia and Louisiana, or attack Mobile, then in
American hands. The Spanish governor, who wanted to recap-
ture Mobile, wrote a dissuading letter to Weatherford from Pen-
sacola. He said, "I hope you will not put into execution the
project you tell me of to burn the town, since these houses and
properties do not belong to the Americans, but to true Span-
iards." 34 Weatherford turned north and did not molest the coastal

communities. 35

When news of the massacre at Fort Mims reached Nashville,
Andrew Jackson was recovering from his affray with the Benton
brothers. He was in bed at the Nashville Inn with a shattered
shoulder and a second bullet, a companion to the one he had
carried since his duel with Dickinson, embedded in his body. A
mass meeting was held by Nashville citizens and an expedition
against the Creeks was demanded. The legislature was in session.

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

It voted for 2,500 new volunteers-and appropriated $300,000 for
immediate expenses. Mindful of Jackson's difficulty in getting his
accounts paid, it voted also to pay the expenses of the campaign
out of the state's treasury in case the bills were not assumed by
the federal government.

The insistence by the Tennesseans that Jackson lead their army
against the Creeks is evidence of that soldier's commanding per-
sonality. His campaign to Natchez had been barren of glory. His
military background was not impressive. As a boy he had served
with South Carolina partisans in the Revolution, and as a private
he had been with Major James Ore in a minor expedition up the
Tennessee River in 1794. He had never commanded an army in
battle. But it was clear that if the young men of the state were
to march against the Creeks, Jackson must head them. They
trusted him. He wrote and issued from his bed a ringing appeal
for volunteers, in which he appointed Fayetteville, in south-
central Tennessee, for the rendezvous October 4, 1813. Soon,
scarcely a young man could be seen on the Nashville streets.

An immediate concern was the reaction of the other tribes
to the Creek outbreak. Tecumseh's appeal had been carried by
medicine men and prophets to the Cherokee, who inhabited the
mountains of northern Georgia, western North and South Caro-
lina, and Eastern Tennessee. After Tecumseh's visit to the Creeks
the Cherokee assembled at their capital, Ustanili, for a medicine
dance and parley. Their prophets reproved them for imitating
the whites and using beds and tables. "Some even have books and
cats," said these exhorters. 36 They called for the Cherokee to
"put on paint and buckskin and be Indians again."

But the prophets were too brash. They forecast a calamity and
urged the faithful to meet on a peak of the Great Smoky Moun-
tains. The tribesmen left their homes, animals and bees and even
abandoned their slaves. They sacrificed all methods and posses-
sions they had obtained from the whites. The prophets misjudged
the capricious mountain weather. The great storm did not come
and the disillusioned Cherokee straggled back to their crops and
bees. Then a Cherokee woman was killed by Creeks near Eto-
wah, Georgia. The Cherokee pursued the band of murderers and

The Creek War 453

killed them. They decided then to support the Americans. They
served in good numbers with the American armies and 500, led
by their chief, Junaluska, were with Jackson at the final battle
of Horseshoe Bend.

Years later, when he was President, Jackson enforced the mi-
gration of the Cherokee from their ancient lands in one of the
choice scenic and climatic sections of America. These lands had
long been recognized as theirs by treaty. When moved to the
flatlands of Indian Territory, Junaluska said, "If I had known
that Jackson would drive us from our homes, I would have killed
him that day at the Horseshoe." S7

5-

At the outset the Creeks had no conception of the great power
of the white settlers in surrounding states, nor did they realize
that the British would be able to provide but meager assistance.
Jackson, with Coffee's cavalry in advance, pressed against the
Creeks from the north. Major General John Cocke and Brigadier
General James White marched down from East Tennessee. Gen-
eral John Floyd moved in with Georgia troops. Claiborne was
in the field from Mississippi.

But it was Jackson's war, dominated by the drive and energy
he put behind an undisciplined army in a campaign over an al-
most trackless territory filled with swamps and numerous rivers.
Jackson's troops were tough, sturdy, independent men, before
whom many conventions of Army life would have to give way.
A striking personality among them was Davy Crockett, "the
merriest of the merry, keeping the camp alive with his quaint
conceits and marvelous narratives." 38 Both of his grandfathers
had been killed by the Creeks and it was natural to find him in
the ranks.

Jackson's moderate orders to preserve discipline were looked
on as excessively severe by some of the frontiersmen. The orders
prohibited the sale of liquor without written permission from
headquarters. For drunkenness an officer was liable to arrest, a
soldier to confinement and court-martial. Civilians were not
allowed to enter or leave the camp at night. Soldiers might sleep

454 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

away from camp only with permission. "On parade, silence, the
duty of a soldier, is positively commanded." 39

Jackson was not well enough to be present on the assembly
date of October 4, 1813, and when he finally appeared on Octo-
ber 7 he bore the marks of his brawl with the Bentons. He estab-
lished a base in Huntsville, in northern Alabama. His strokes
were swift. He routed the Indians from Littefutchee and sent
Coffee, now a brigadier general, against them at Tallasehatche,
where they had gathered in force. On November 3,1813, Coffee
slaughtered them after they made an unyielding resistance. He
said not one survived. The Indian dead counted on the field
numbered 186. Coffee lost five killed and fourteen wounded. 40

Among the eighty-four women and children Coffee captured
was a small boy who was trying to suckle the breast of his dead
mother. Indian women refused to care for the baby, saying, "All
his relations are dead. Kill him too." Jackson, who could be as
humane as he could be relentless, pitied the infant. He gave him
sugar water and paid for his nursing at Huntsville. At the end of
the war he took the child back to the Hermitage, educated him
and apprenticed him as a saddler in Nashville. The young Indian,
named Lincoyer, held the deep affection of both Andrew and
Rachel Jackson. He contracted tuberculosis in late adolescence
and died at the Hermitage, where he was buried in the family
plot.

Jackson's principal difficulty in the campaign was in getting
supplies. 41 With hungry men he built Fort Strother on the Coosa
River. Then he got word that hostile Creeks were besieging
friendly Indians at Talladega, thirty miles south. 42 He marched
at midnight with 1,200 infantry and 800 cavalry. He sent a re-
quest to General White, who was at Turkeytown, twenty-five
miles away, to move and protect Fort Strother with its wounded.
But White, never co-operative with Jackson, thought he had
other work to do. Therefore, on November 9, 1813, Jackson,
unaided, put his famished army of 2,000 into action against an
Indian force of 1,090. In fifteen minutes his men surrounded the
Indians and broke their ranks, killing 293 warriors. Jackson prob-
ably would have destroyed the enemy force entirely had not

The Creek War

455

incautious or laggard subordinates left a gap through which a
large number of fleeing Creeks found an outlet from a carefully
planned encirclement. Jackson lost fifteen killed and eighty-five
wounded.

The Battle of Talladega was an outstanding victory. But
though it avenged Fort Mims, it left Jackson with a still hungry

The Creek War Theater

45 6 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

army and no prospects of food. To get provisions for the men
and forage for the horses, he had to retire to Fort Strother, and
there, to his intense disappointment, he found the commissary
was not functioning. The troops set up a grumble which only
food or Jackson could have prevented from progressing into a
mutiny. During the march one of the soldiers angrily approached
the general, who was resting and eating under a tree, and de-
manded food. Jackson cheerfully turned over part of his meal
It was acorns. The humiliated soldier disappeared in the ranks. 43
At Fort Strother the men ate tripe and decided they had had
sufficient excitement for a time and would go home to put some
flesh on their ribs. Mutiny was becoming a serious threat. Unwill-
ing to abandon the fort, Jackson announced that he would march
with them for a while; if supplies were met en route he would
insist that they return to the campaigning. Twelve miles north
the column met 150 beeves, some of which were immediately
slaughtered. The troops were nonetheless determined to go home.
The situation was not dissimilar to that which had occurred along
the Canadian border. The most significant difference was, how-
ever, that this time the militiamen were commanded by Jackson.
A company had resumed the homeward march north when it
suddenly found Jackson across its path. With him were Coffee
and a few supporting soldiers. Jackson, mounted and holding
a menacing rifle across his horse's neck, faced the disgruntled men
and declared he would shoot the first man who moved a step
forward. He still had one weak arm, yet his eyes flashed fire and
not a man doubted he would keep his word. The would-be de-
serters stood silent. This was one of the tense, dramatic moments
that were sprinkled generously throughout Jackson's career. One
man of great personal power stood against the crowd. And he
won. The malcontents were cowed. Not one tried the road to
Nashville. Not one moved a step toward Jackson after he raised
his rifle. 44

6.

A large number of the Creeks who fought Jackson at Talla-
dega were from a group of Indian villages known as the Hillabee

The Creek War 457

towns, in what is now Cherokee County, Alabama. Those who
escaped returned to the towns and determined at once to make
peace overtures. They induced an elderly Scotsman, Robert
Graison, who had lived with the Creeks, to serve as emissary.

On November 13, 1813, Graison left for Jackson's headquar-
ters at Fort Strother and on November 17 received Jackson's
acceptance of the surrender, with certain conditions, and started
on the return journey. The conditions were that property seized
from the whites or friendly Creeks must be returned and that the
leaders who had plotted the Fort Mims massacre must be turned
over for punishment. Jackson concluded the negotiations by say-
ing: "Upon those who are disposed to remain friendly I neither
wish nor intend to make war." It appeared likely that the submis-
sion of the important Hillabee towns would be followed by that
of other Creek communities and that the war would be ended
in 1813.

While Graison was returning with his pleasant news that peace
had been granted to the Hillabees, General James White and his
East Tennessee troops, accompanied by 400 Cherokee, was ap-
proaching the town. Jackson had asked White's superior, Gen-
eral John Cocke, to unite their forces at Fort Strother, but Cocke
had held that supplies were not ample to sustain so large an army.
The main consideration was that the East Tennessee general
wanted to do his own fighting and win some of the acclaim that
was going to Jackson. White had ample food to take three days'
rations with him.

Marching toward the Hillabee towns, White destroyed the
Creek communities of Little Ockfuske, Genalga and Netta Chap-
toa. Genalga was an established town of about ninety houses.
White's army surrounded the Hillabee towns at dawn on No-
vember 1 8, 1813. The community that had sued for and expected
peace offered no resistance. But apparently to terrify the Indi-
ans elsewhere, the American commander attacked the peaceful
Indians and slaughtered sixty. Not, one of his own men was killed
or wounded. It was the type of action which, if perpetrated by
the Indians, would have been called a brutal massacre. White
took as prisoners 250 widows and orphans of Creeks who had

The Creek War 457

towns, in what is now Cherokee County, Alabama. Those who
escaped returned to the towns and determined at once to make
peace overtures. They induced an elderly Scotsman, Robert
Graison, who had lived with the Creeks, to serve as emissary.

On November 13, 1813, Graison left for Jackson's headquar-
ters at Fort Strother and on November 17 received Jackson's
acceptance of the surrender, with certain conditions, and started
on the return journey. The conditions were that property seized
from the whites or friendly Creeks must be returned and that the
leaders who had plotted the Fort Mims massacre must be turned
over for punishment. Jackson concluded the negotiations by say-
ing: "Upon those who are disposed to remain friendly I neither
wish nor intend to make war." It appeared likely that the submis-
sion of the important Hillabee towns would be followed by that
of other Creek communities and that the war would be ended
in 1813.

While Graison was returning with his pleasant news that peace
had been granted to the Hillabees, General James White and his
East Tennessee troops, accompanied by 400 Cherokee, was ap-
proaching the town. Jackson had asked White's superior, Gen-
eral John Cocke, to unite their forces at Fort Strother, but Cocke
had held that supplies were not ample to sustain so large an army.
The main consideration was that the East Tennessee general
wanted to do his own fighting and win some of the acclaim that
was going to Jackson. White had ample food to take three days'
rations with him.

Marching toward the Hillabee towns, White destroyed the
Creek communities of Little Ockfuske, Genalga and Netta Chap-
toa. Genalga was an established town of about ninety houses.
White's army surrounded the Hillabee towns at dawn on No-
vember 1 8, 1813. The community that had sued for and expected
peace offered no resistance. But apparently to terrify the Indi-
ans elsewhere, the American commander attacked the peaceful
Indians and slaughtered sixty. Not.one of his own men was killed
or wounded. It was the type of action which, if perpetrated by
the Indians, would have been called a brutal massacre. White
<5 nrkoners ico widows and orphans of Creeks who had

458 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

been slain in this action and at Talladega. He marched back to
the post which General Cocke had built on the Coosa River.
In honor of the Secretary of War the post was named Fort
Armstrong. 45

Not understanding the divided responsibility among the
Americans, the Creeks attributed the slaughter at the Hillabee
towns to the perfidy of General Jackson. Survivors of other
communities in the Hillabee section thought the suit for peace
had been answered by treachery. They believed the whites
intended to exterminate them and concluded that their only re-
course was a fight to the finish. The war was continued in deep
hatred. Cocke must have felt there was no glory for his command
in the type of battle his subordinate, White, had won over the
unresisting Hillabees. He agreed to merge his force with Jack-
son's and promptly marched to Fort Strother. 46

Other contingents pressed their attacks against the Creeks.
General Floyd and his Georgia troops gained allies from the
Lower Creeks, led by the half -breed, William Mclntosh, who
had helped catch Little Warrior. Floyd had about 1,000 militia
and 400 Indians. On November 29, 181 3, he sent his whole force
against Auttose, a settlement having twin towns. Together the
towns had about 400 houses, many of an attractive and substan-
tial construction, described as a "fine Indian architecture," which
evidenced the civilization of the Creeks. 47 They were on what
the Creek prophets called u holy ground," land set aside by the
Great Spirit exclusively for the red men; whites who entered
the area would, they believed, die. Auttose was on the Tallapoosa
River twenty miles above its juncture with the Coosa. The Indi-
ans defended themselves with desperation born of their convic-
tion that they would be butchered if they surrendered. Their
efforts were futile against the artillery and bayonets of the Ameri-
cans. Two hundred Indians were killed; Floyd's loss was eleven
killed and fifty-four wounded. When every house in the In-
dian settlement had been burned, Floyd marched back to the
Chattahoochee. 48

Nearer Mobile, General Flournoy unleashed Claiborne's com-
mand which he had held inactive until the Fort Mims massacre.

The Creek War 459

Now he ordered it into the Creek territory "to kill, burn and
destroy all their negroes, horses, cattle, and other property that
could not be conveniently brought to the depots." 49 Claiborne
turned north toward the Creeks, but he regretted that he could
not attack the Spaniards and British at Pensacola who were pro-
viding the Creeks with the weapons and ammunition. He wrote
that he "wished to God he was authorized to take that sink of
iniquity, the depot of tories and instigators of disturbances on the
southern frontier." 50 Claiborne built a fort, named after him, in
present Monroe County, Alabama, and in a spirit of co-operation
sent word to Jackson that supplies were being collected there. He
informed Jackson that additional British vessels had come into
Pensacola with munitions for the Creeks.

With an army of 1,000 Mississippi militia and Choctaw Indians
and the 3rd U.S. Infantry under Colonel Gilbert C. Russell, Clai-
borne moved into the heart of the Creek country, building forts
as he went. He attacked Econochaca, another city on "holy
ground" where it was not supposed whites could survive. Here
Weatherford had built a refuge and shrine which Tecumseh's
Shawnee prophets had dedicated. Situated on a bluff overlooking
the Alabama River, in deep woods difficult to penetrate, it served
as a haven for the Creeks after their defeats, a hospital for their
wounded, and a religious center for their prophets. It was pro-
tected in the rear by swamps, canebrakes and ravines. In order
to keep its existence a military secret, the Creeks refrained from
making a trail that would lead to it through the woods. But
Indians friendly to the whites disclosed its existence and Clai-
borne moved against it. The action was known as the Battle of
the Holy Ground.

Claiborne attacked in three columns at daybreak December 23,
1813. The Indians, who had sent their women and children across
the river as the whites approached, began a determined resistance
under Weatherford's eye and the admonitions of two prophets,
Josiah Francis and Sinquista, and three "Shawnees of distinc-
tion." 51 To Weatherford's chagrin, his red warriors suddenly
broke and fled into the forest, where the ravines made pursuit
difficult. One of Claiborne's colonels left a gap along the river-

460 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

bank, which the fugitives found. Weatherford refused to join in
the flight until he was entirely deserted. Then it appeared that
he had waited too long. He was mounted on a beautiful gray
horse described as of "unsurpassed strength and fleetness." It was
an animal of such distinction that it was known by horse fanciers
in Alabama. Pickett, the early historian of the state, remarked that
"the Weatherf ords always had fine horses." 52

Weatherford galloped easily along the bluff that reared above
the Alabama River while the Mississippi volunteer cavalry under
Colonel Carson gradually hemmed him in. His white enemies were
on three sides and on the fourth, beneath an apparently impass-
able bluff, was the river. Suddenly Weatherford turned his re-
sponsive horse toward the river, urged the steed forward and
dashed off the bluff into the swirling stream below. The feat was
so sensational that the Mississippi cavalrymen marveled at it and
gave it the name of "Weatherford's Leap." The pursuing soldiers
saw horse and rider sink beneath the rushing current, then rise
together. The Indian was holding the horse's mane with one hand
and in the other was still clutching his rifle. Thus horse and Indian
swam until Weatherford regained his saddle and rode defiantly
up the opposite shore. The struggle of this resourceful man to
escape when flight seemed impossible apparently held his pursu-
ers spellbound, for none shot him as he braved the river and
mounted the opposite bank.

The height from which Weatherford leaped is not known. A
bluff one hundred feet above the river was long pointed to. Then
a fifty-foot bluff, where a ravine neared the river, was identified
as the spot. Pickett, however, gave the distance as "10 to 15
feet," and Parton said fifteen. It was enough of a leap to awe
those who observed it. 53

Claiborne burned the refuge city of Econochaca. The Creeks
left no food, and his own provisions were exhausted. On Christ-
mas, in the ruins of the smoldering town, his men ate parched
corn. The troops were marched back to Fort Claiborne, where
the regulars were put in the garrison and the Mississippi volun-
teers, whose term of enlistment had expired, were discharged.

The Creek War 461

On January 23, a month after the battle, Claiborne had only
sixty men remaining.

Although Jackson had quelled the mutiny, he could not im-
pose full trust in the men who had defied him. He waited until
Governor Blount sent down two fresh detachments, numbering
850 men, on January 14, 1814. They were sixty-day volunteers.
In order to employ them, Jackson projected a campaign that
would serve as a diversion for the Georgia troops advancing
across the Chattahoochee and at the same time further weaken
the Creek resistance. He was joined by 200 Cherokee and
friendly Creeks, These allies expressed concern over his meager
numbers.

Jackson marched his men past the old battlefield of Talladega
to the Hillabee country and at Enotachopco he encountered the
trails of a large body of Indians. He camped on the night of
January twenty-second in a hollow square on Emuckfau Creek.
At six o'clock the next morning, just before daylight, the Creeks
fell suddenly on his left flank and rear. Coff ee charged them after
daylight and drove them two miles; but they returned to attack
Colonel William Carroll, the able soldier commanding Jackson's
other flank. Carroll was joined by Coffee, and with their com-
bined forces they drove the assailants three miles. The most
costly aspect of this action, known as the Battle of Emuckfau,
was that General Coffee was severely wounded.

Because of the fury with which the Creeks had attacked and
the gradual reduction of his command to 767 militia and less than
200 Indians, Jackson decided to return to Fort Strother. 54 The
Indians thought he was fleeing and were emboldened to attack
him again, on January 24, 1814, while he was fording Enota-
chopco Creek. His rear guard gave way and the little army was
threatened with defeat, but was saved by a single 6-pounder that
poured grape into the charging Indians and by the militia ele-
ments that stood firm and followed the Indians when the grape-
shot scattered them.

In the end Jackson's victory was decisive and his loss was
light. In the two engagements, his casualties were twenty killed

462 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

and seventy-five wounded. The Indian dead numbered 189. But
Jackson was not pleased with this campaign. The Indians op-
posed to him numbered only 500. Most of the warriors were
fighting under Weatherford against Floyd's army or were at
work fortifying the Horseshoe, a site on the Tallapoosa which
allowed strong defense.

Floyd's campaign, for which Jackson was providing a di-
version, resulted in a desperate engagement at Calebee Creek.
Floyd had marched back into Alabama. The Creeks were com-
manded by Weatherford, under whom they did their most de-
termined fighting. The assault was delivered in the early-morn-
ing darkness, which was prolonged and made depressive by the
heavy pine forest in which Floyd camped. Urged on by Weath-
erford, the spirited Indians, who fought the entire war without
a single fieldpiece, pressed close to the mouths of the cannon in
their attack. But they could not remain firm before the artillery
fire or the lines of charging bayonets, and they fled when the
whites counterattacked. They lost thirty-seven killed; the Geor-
gians lost seventeen killed and 132 wounded. Floyd marched
back to the Chattahoochee. His men, their terms of enlistment
having expired, were soon discharged. 55

Tennessee was now recruiting another army for Jackson and
enlistments came readily because the sixty-day men praised him
unstintingly upon their return to their homes. While he awaited
the arrival of troops, Jackson had boats built at Fort Strother
which would transport men and supplies down the Coosa River
for a campaign in central Alabama designed to bring the Creeks
into submission. The 3pth U.S. Infantry arrived February 6 56
and was followed by the almost indispensable Coffee, who had
recovered from his wound. He brought a partial brigade of
mounted men, to whom were added dragoons from East Tennes-
see, The militia from East Tennessee assembled at Lookout
Mountain, and those from West Tennessee at Huntsville, Ala-
bama. By the middle of February 1814, Jackson had an army

The Creek War 463

aggregating 5,000 men, the largest assembled in the Creek War.
In it were Choctaw and Cherokee Indians.

Friendly Indians brought him word on February 15 that
Creeks from a number of towns had moved to the great bend of
the Tallapoosa River, in the northeastern part of what is now
Tallapoosa County, Alabama, and had fortified it so that it was
nearly impregnable to infantry attack. The site was about five
miles from the Emuckfau battleground where Jackson had
fought on January 23, and the general was familiar with the
surrounding territory. The bend of the Tallapoosa formed a
peninsula with an area of a hundred acres.

The Indians called the place Tohopeka, or Horseshoe. In the
center was timbered high ground covered with underbrush. An
Indian village of log huts was situated on the riverbank within
the enclosure. Hundreds of canoes were moored at the village
and along the river and provided an emergency crossing.

White engineers from Pensacola had helped the Creeks fortify
the peninsula. Across the narrow neck of the peninsula an abatis
and breastwork five to eight feet high had been formed. The
breastwork was pierced with a double row of portholes ingeni-
ously arranged so that an attacking party would be subjected to
cross fire. The number of warriors behind the defensive line was
1,000, and 250 women were in the village or at work helping to
strengthen the fortifications. The Indians had brought in a sup-
ply of food judged sufficient to last through a prolonged siege.
They were prepared in all respects except leadership. Weather-
ford was not with them. No one gave attention to the details of
a battle plan, not even such an important one as providing for
the security of the boats along the river.

Jackson left a strong garrison at Fort Strother, sent his supplies
down the Coosa on flatboats protected by the regulars and began
his march overland for the Horseshoe. On March 26, 1814, he
camped with 2,000 men five miles distant. Early on the following
morning he detached Coffee with the cavalry and Indian allies.
Coffee's orders were to cross the Tallapoosa two miles below the
Horseshoe, gain possession of the high ground along the river
across from the Indian stronghold and close all means of escape

464

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

in the rear. Jackson planned to storm the breastworks across the
neck when Coff ee was In position.

Coffee executed the movement faithfully. When he patrolled
the opposite shore the eager Cherokee in his command swam the
river, captured the canoes and paddled them back to the Arneri-

COFFEE.

The Battle of Horseshoe Bend

can side. Jackson moved to the breastwork and advanced two
fieldpieces to within eighty yards of the timber barricade. At
10:30 A.M. on March 27, 1814, the battle began. Jackson opened
with grape from the fieldpieces. The small pellets from the can-
non sank harmlessly into the great timbers, and the Indians set

The Creek War 465

up a scornful shout. Jackson saw at once he could not effect a
breech with his artillery.

As Jackson opened his fire, Coffee, that vigilant officer, put
200 dismounted cavalrymen in the canoes and ordered them
across the river to seize the Indian town. The Tennesseans cap-
tured it and set it on fire. The smoke and flames signaled to Gen-
eral Jackson the success of his men in the enemy's rear.

When he noted a slackening of the gunfire near the village,
Jackson mistakenly thought Coffee's troops were hard pressed.
By then it was after noon and the ineffectual bombardment of
the Indian defenses had been in progress two hours. He decided
to carry the breastwork with an infantry charge. The assault
party consisted of the 3pth U.S. Infantry under Colonel John
Williams and an East Tennessee brigade under Colonel Bunch.
The men moved forward steadily under a heavy fire and reached
the portholes. Then at close range they returned the fire of the
Indians through these apertures while some of their companions
were mounting the breastwork with their bayonets fixed. The
first man to reach the' top was the East Tennessee major, Lemuel
Purnell Montgomery, a relative of General Richard Montgom-
ery, who was killed in 1775 in the American attack on Quebec.
Major Montgomery, twenty-eight years old, was the only orator
in Tennessee credited with the ability to stand against the elo-
quent War Hawk Congressman, Felix Grundy. Now, as he
waved his sword to his men to follow, an Indian rifle ball hit him
in the head and killed him instantly. Jackson shed tears when he
saw Montgomery's body. "I have lost the flower of my army,"
he said.

A county in Alabama was named for this courageous major.
The capital of the state, which was also the first capital of the
Confederacy, is situated in this county and bears the same name.
But the city was named in honor of the major's more famous
kinsman. 57

The youth who leaped to the top of the breastwork just as
Montgomery fell was destined to much greater glory. He was
Ensign Sam Houston. Although hit in the thigh by an Indian
bullet and in the body by a barbed arrow at almost the same

466 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

time, he went on over the log breastwork, calling on his men to
follow. He pitched into the hard battle that soon raged inside
the Indian lines. It was an action which earned him Jackson's
lasting gratitude and affection and initiated his career to the
governorship of Tennessee, the presidency of Texas and numer-
ous other honors and distinctions.

The infantrymen soon were piling over the barricade. Here,
as in other actions against the Creeks, the bayonet was persua-
sive. The Indians were pressed back to the high timberland in the
center of the peninsula, and they suffered fearful losses with each
yard of earth they yielded to the advancing infantry. Some hid
in the bluffs and caves along the river; most of the others seemed
to desire only to sell their lives at the highest price they could
exact in the blood of the whites.

Jackson now saw that he had achieved an overwhelming
victory. He was anxious not to destroy a race which he looked
on as fearless. He sent a messenger to the pocket of resistance in
the center of the peninsula with the assurance of clemency if
the surviving Indians would surrender. The Creeks answered by
firing at the messenger and sending up new shouts of defiance. 58
The messenger, an interpreter, came back bloody with wounds.
The fieldpieces were brought up and the peninsula was swept
with grape. A pocket of Creeks remained on the riverbank be-
hind a part of the abatis. Jackson asked for volunteers to carry
the position. Again Ensign Houston stepped forward. He was
hit by two additional bullets in his shoulder and had to be carried
from the field. Finally the abatis was fired and the Indians rushed
into the open, where they were shot down without mercy. The
gunfire and carnage continued until darkness fell on the great
bend of the Tallapoosa. The nation of the Creeks had almost
ceased to exist.

On the next morning the Tennesseans counted 557 Indian
bodies on the peninsula. How many others were shot or drowned
in trying to cross the river was never known. Jackson's loss was
thirty-two killed and ninety-nine wounded. 59 The retaliation for
the massacre at Fort Mims was terrible and complete.

Jackson moved down the Tallapoosa the day after the battle

The Creek War 4 6 7

and reached the Hickory Ground of the Indians, where the
Coosa and Tallapoosa join to form the Alabama River. At a
place four miles above the confluence, where the Frenchman,
Governor Bienville, had built Fort Toulouse a century earlier,
Jackson cleaned out the old entrenchments. Here, where the
rivers approach to within 600 yards of each other, he constructed
a new stronghold which was called Fort Jackson. It was at the
very heart of the Creek "empire 57 ruled for many years by Chief
McGillivray with pomp and splendor. Near by were the planta-
tion lands of the Scottish peddler, Charles Weatherford, where
the defeated Red Eagle was born. From this encampment Jack-
son sent word that he would receive the submission of the sur-
viving leaders of the nation.

The Battle of the Horseshoe ended the Creek War. Bands of
Indians came to Jackson and asked amnesty. One by one the
chiefs submitted. 60 Weatherford finally bowed to the inevitable.
As he approached the camp of the whites he shot a deer that ran
across his path and threw it across his horse's neck. Then he
double-shotted his rifle. The two bullets were intended for Big
Warrior, the Creek chief who had boasted at the tribal gathering
in 1812 that he was as great as Tecumseh and whose name has
remained in history principally because of that boast. Big War-
rior had served with the whites. Weatherford intended, in case
his surrender was not accepted, to dispatch Big Warrior before
his own end. Big Warrior was lounging in front of Jackson's
marquee when Weatherford rode up, mounted on the fine, gray
thoroughbred that had carried him over the bluff at the Holy
Ground.

Big Warrior leaped to his feet. "Ah, Billy Weatherford, we
have got you at last!" he exclaimed.

"You damned traitor," Weatherford answered. "If you give
me any insolence I will blow a ball through your cowardly
heart"

Jackson heard the commotion and rushed out of his tent. The
group was surrounded quickly by numerous officers and enlisted
men. Jackson demanded, "How dare you ride up to my tent,
after having murdered the women and children at Fort Mims?"

468 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

"General Jackson, I am not afraid of you," replied Weather-
ford. "I fear no man, for I am a Creek warrior. I have nothing to
request on behalf of myself. You can kill me if you desire. But I
have come to beg you to send for the women and children of the
war party, who are starving in the woods. Their fields and cribs
have been destroyed by your people, who have driven them to
the woods without an ear of corn. . . . I exerted myself in vain to
prevent the massacre of the women and children at Fort Mims.
I am now done fighting. The Red Sticks are nearly all killed. If
I could fight you any longer I would most heartily do so. Send
for the women and children. They never did you any harm. But
kill me if the white people want it done."

When he had finished there were cries from the crowd: "Kill
him. Kill him!"

In stern tones Jackson called for silence. "Any man who
would kill as brave a man as this would rob the dead," he de-
clared. Then he invited the chief into his tent, where Weather-
ford gave Jackson the deer and they drank brandy. Jackson
explained the peace terms and said Weatherford could accept
them or could depart and keep on fighting, but that if he fought
and was captured he would pay for his persistence with his life.
Weatherford said he would accept any terms Jackson offered;
he knew Jackson would not exact conditions to which a con-
quered people could not honorably accede. 61 Once, he com-
mented, he had a choice between war and peace. Then he added:
"I have none now. Even hope has ended. Once I could animate my
warriors. But I cannot animate the dead. My warriors can no
longer hear my voice. Their bones are at Talladega, Tallase-
hatche, Emuckfau and Tohopeka."

Weatherford left the camp a free man and devoted his time to
inducing other Creek warriors to accept peace. Those who re-
fused to surrender fled to join the Seminole in Florida. About
the only requirement Jackson imposed on those who surrendered
was good conduct. Jackson gave Weatherford the highest tribute
he could pay: "He is fit to command armies."

Some of the settlers were at first not disposed to deal as gener-
ously as Jackson with the man who had commanded the Indians

The Creek Ww

at Fort Mlms. Weatherford tried to settle in the section of
Alabama that gave him birth. 62 Threats on his life were made
continually by relatives of those who had died at Fort Mims.
When hatreds subsided at the end of the war he obtained posses-
sion of a good farm in Monroe County in southern Alabama. He
operated it profitably with a number of slaves and recovered his
financial independence, but he never regained the wealth he had
known before he led the Creeks in their unfortunate uprising.
Weatherford won the respect of his neighbors by his faultless
honor and integrity. "No man," it was said, "was more fastidious
in complying with his engagements. His word was held by him
to be more sacred than the most binding legal obligations." 6S

Weatherford made one other appearance in the public affairs
of his section. In 1820 an old man whose son had fought at Burnt
Corn Creek and later lost his life in the Creek War was murdered
by two desperate characters in the presence of a group of local
citizens. Weatherford observed the murder and also the murder-
ers' defiance of the crowd. They dared anyone to try to take
them. The county judge was present and ordered the men seized,
but nobody wanted to challenge them. Finally Weatherford,
contemptuous, advanced.

"These, I suppose, are white men's laws," he said. "You stand
aside and see a man an old man killed, and not one of you will
avenge his blood. If he had one drop of Indian blood mixed with
that which runs upon the ground there, I would instantly kill his
murderers."

When the judge, named Henderson, assured him he would not
be touched by white men's laws if he subdued the murderers,
Weatherford drew a long, silver-handled knife. He went up to the
first of the men, grabbed him by the throat and turned him over
to the authorities. Then he turned to the second murderer.

"I will not resist you, Billy Weatherford," the man shouted.
These men who had stood off the crowd surrendered quietly to
the lone Red Eagle of the departed Creeks.

True to his Indian heritage, Weatherford remained a hard
rider and hunter. Six years after his encounter with the murder-
ers he died of exhaustion, while on a bear hunt. 64

Chapter Twenty -Four
An "Ally" Falls

The brig Ida, out of La Rochelle, reached Boston May 12,
1814, with smallpox on board. The harbor authorities communi-
cated with the Idsfs captain from their boats and at safe distance.
The words that were shouted from the brig electrified the coun-
try. The allies had entered Paris.

So it was finally decided! Ever since Leipzig, America had
been divided into two schools: one was confident that Napoleon's
defense would crumble; the other was quite willing to match his
wits, energy and luck against the stupendous resources of man
power moving against him. The latter school's faith was ex-
pressed in Napoleon's own dictum: "Men count for nothing; a
man, everything."

That inspiration would dominate mass had become almost the
normal expectancy in the wars of the Empire. The idea had even
been grudgingly accepted by President Madison, whose glowing
republicanism was in ceaseless revolt against its enforced alliance
with the colossus of tyranny. M. Serurier, the fervid and irre-
pressible French minister at Washington, had reported to De
Bassano, minister of foreign affairs, his conversation with Mr,
Madison about the "monstrous coalition" * renewed against the
Emperor after the retreat from Moscow. In the course of the
talk he pointed to the advantage shared by France and America:
that while the coalition had ten heads, France had but one.

"And what a powerful head!" the President replied quickly,
but M. Serurier noted Madison spoke "with less grace than con-
viction in his whole countenance." 2 When he appointed his first
cabinet, the harassed American executive had discovered that
politics thrust peculiar types of companions upon him; after the

470

An "Ally" Falls 47 *

experience of the last two years, he had learned that war supplied
even more grotesque bedfellows.

Four days after the Ida, the cartel ship Fair American came
through the Narrows 3 with a variety of information: muffs were
passing out of Paris fashion, only eight having been seen on the
last Sunday at the Tuileries; the most distinguished hats were of
white beaver; the Duchess of Oldenburg, Archduchess of all
the Russians, was expected on a visit to London; and it was true
that Paris had capitulated, old Bliicher having descended into the
city from the heights of Montmartre on March 30, the Tsar and
Prussian Emperor riding with him.

Just as the country was assimilating this confirmatory intelli-
gence, it was rudely jolted by the appearance in Charleston,
South Carolina, of a handbill containing the well-nigh incredible
information that the Tsar and Prussian Emperor had indeed
entered Paris, along with 20,000 soldiers, not as victors, but as
prisoners of war to Bonaparte, whose genius had flashed in an-
other brilliant triumph. 4 The word went by courier and the
nation paused. Reflection caused the majority to distrust news so
startling from a source that was not quite clear. One New York
barbershop at 104 Broadway wanted to bet. It advertised a "Bul-
letin Congratulatory," which "imperially invited" all "French
gentlemen and their partisans" to come in and furnish themselves
with beaver hats if they cared to back their opinion that the
allied monarchs were captured. If the report proved groundless,
the price for shaving would be fifty dollars. 5

But firsthand information of unquestionable accuracy was on
its way to America. On the night of June 8, 1814, a warship
stood off Sandy Hook, and the next morning she made her way
up the bay. Glasses were focused on her, and it was discovered
she flew a white ensign from her mainmast. A generation had
passed since such a flag had been displayed in American waters.
Word circulated through the city and a crowd assembled at the
Battery to gaze on the banner of the Bourbons. Reaching Gov-
ernor's Island, the ship belched forth a national salute of twenty-

472 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

one guns, which Castle William answered with eighteen. Her
canvas fluttered and her anchor went down. When her officers
came ashore they were wearing white cockades.

The strange craft, which had come from Lorient, bore the
striking name of Olive Branch. She was an armed brig of His
Majesty Louis XVIII, King, by the grace of God and British
persistency, of France and Navarre. Napoleon had abdicated,
and the Bourbon monarchy was restored.

Probably no warring nation ever possessed an ally more re-
sourceful than Napoleon. But certainly none ever lost military
assistance of any variety with enthusiasm greater than that of the
United States in the early summer of 1814. The arrival of the
Olive Branch was the signal for wild rejoicing in what had been
a season of dullness and disappointment. No fifty-dollar shaves
were recorded, but an abundance of preliminary celebrating is
testified to by contemporary reports. The taverns resounded
with the clinking glasses of exultant Federalists. The New York
Gazette exemplified the mood when it proclaimed: "The arrival
of a ship under the ancient French colours recalls the feeling of
our glorious revolution; and for the first time, during a lapse of
more than twenty years, enables us to reiterate our regards for
the French people through the medium of an heir to that gener-
ous King, who so largely contributed to sustain us in the 'times
that tried men's souls.' " G

So significant was the occasion that the harbor artillery com-
mander, Colonel James House, made a public apology that the
Castle William battery had fired only eighteen guns in recogniz-
ing the white pennant. America at that time had not adopted the
twenty-one-gun national salute of Great Britain and France, but
regulations specified that on highly formal occasions a salute
should answer gun for gun. Colonel House said he gave orders
for the full twenty-one, but the firing squad deplorably limited
the reply to the customary American national salute for a gun
for each state in the Union. Thus the officers of the French
warship might know that there was no affront intended to the
Bourbon monarchy in the hour of its brilliant restoration.

An "Ally" Falls 473

Between the middle of June and the observance of Independ-
ence Day the American people ignored their own conflict and
devoted themselves to a series of elaborate services and entertain-
ments feting the "unexampled blessings promised the whole
Christian world" by the overthrow of the "colossal tyrant," "the
destroyer of nations," "the most hideous ironhanded despotism
that has ever oppressed mankind." 7 As though these spontaneous
epithets were not sufficiently expressive of American sentiment,
the newspapers offered such substitutes as the "sanguinary ruffian
of Corsica," "the blasphemer of heaven," and the "Scourge of
God," and John Randolph of Roanoke contributed, "the de-
flowerer of the virginity of republics."

At Charleston, South Carolina, the Catholic churches started
the Te Deums that sounded in the cities throughout the country
over the liberation of the Pope. 8 America groped for a fitting
title to bestow on the young Tsar, the "virtuous Alexander,"
"the undoubted friend of the American people," 9 who had
earned American good will by declining to close Russian harbors
to neutral commerce and who now emerged in the newspaper
accounts as Bonaparte's nemesis. Robert Goodloe Harper, the
well-known Baltimore attorney, Congressman and boy soldier of
the Revolution, had used the accepted title at an early meeting
in Georgetown, at which Federalists, representatives of the Rus-
sian legation and anti-Bonapartists celebrated the ejection of the
Grand Army from Russian soil. Harper had lifted his glass to
"Alexander the Deliverer," 10 a name which soon echoed from
toasts at a hundred stately banquets and made its way to Europe,
throwing a mantle of democracy over an autocrat no less abso-
lute under his outer habiliments than the fallen French Emperor.

The Baltimore Federal Gazette contrasted Napoleon's abdica-
tion scornfully with the glorious death of many men who had
fought for his cause. The Federal Gazette saw in the abdication
proof of the maxim "The cruel are always cowards." The Dela-
ware Gazette began a series of facetious "Dear James" letters,
replete with patronizing advice from Elba to the American
President and conveying also kindly wishes to Mr. Jefferson.

474 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

The Trenton Federalist judged that "no event which has oc-
curred in the present, or perhaps any other age, is so striking
and wonderful 77 n

Boston prepared one of the city's grand occasions. The more
formal observance, a religious festival, was held in Chapel Church.
Two thousand prominent residents were admitted by ticket,
among them the governor and lieutenant governor of Massachu-
setts, members of the state senate and house, the Boston city
council, business and commercial leaders and "a great concourse
of ladies. 77 A choir sang Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus, 77 and joined
with the band, organ and congregation in the timely hymn:

When mad ambition flies to arms,
And rage, and noise, and tumult reign:

And war resounds its dire alarms,
And slaughter dyes the hostile plain;

Thy sovereign eye looks calmly down,

And marks its course, and bounds its power:

The tyrant falls Thy hand we own,
And noise and war are heard no more.

Another poetic tribute, an ode for the occasion, was written
by L. M. Sargeant, Esq., at the request of the committee on
arrangements. It was set to the tune of "Ye Mariners of Eng-
land, 77 some of whom were hovering at the time on the blockade
just outside Boston harbor. 12 The scriptural readings were so
judiciously selected that the press commented: "It almost seemed
that the Bible had expressly and personally doomed Bonaparte to
the calamities which have befallen him. 77 The minister, the vigor-
ous and elequent Reverend William Ellery Channing, spoke
from the Ninth Psalm:

Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked,
thou hast put out their name for ever and ever.

The discourse was described as "finished, pathetick and patri-
otic," and seemed- highly appropriate even though Napoleon's
name was scarcely obscured for all time. The committee had
requested the people to light their houses, and that night most
complied, it being noted with satisfaction that the house of the
late Governor John Hancock, the father of independence, was

An "Ally* Falls 475

"illuminated in handsome style." The State House was radiant
with 2,600 lamps, one for each small square of glass in the build-
ing. Boston Common was packed with people, for whose enjoy-
ment the committee discharged 500 rockets and fifty carbonic
comets; the latter rose to such heights that they made a splendid
display for the surrounding territory and shipping anchored idly
in the harbor.

The Massachusetts House of Representatives detected in the
Corsican's collapse "the signal interposition of a wise, merciful
and overruling Providence, for the punishment of lawless ambi-
tion and the restoration of peace and tranquillity," The Boston
Patriot, a small voice raised amid the exultations, found a favor-
able comparison for the deflated Emperor in that "he excelled
Pompey in dignity of conduct after his downfall." To this the
Salem Gazette added: "We must confess, too, that he puts to
shame John Adams, for the moment his term of office expired
his evacuation of the seat of government was as precipitate as
the flight of Jefferson when Tarleton's Legion had him in the
wind." 1S

This Salem newspaper was discerning enough to perceive
the true victor over Napoleon and bold, or perhaps indiscreet,
enough to proclaim its findings. To its own questionto whom
is the restoration of world liberty principally due? it answered:
"Yea; to that very nation which the unprincipled men whose
counsels bear sway in our country (themselves slave drivers by
profession) have held up to their unsuspecting countrymen as
the enemy of liberty and the oppressor of mankind." England,
and "the immortal Pitt," were responsible for the joy "which the
whole civilized world feels for this signal deliverance." 14

At a large dinner held at Bennett's Coffee House in Hartford
Wellington was applauded and wine was raised "to the liberation
of enslaved Europe." Other communities entered the celebration
with equal enthusiasm. 15 Newburgh and Morristown held formal
banquets. At Newburyport "the colors were displayed from the
naked stumps of our few remaining shipping." l5 Bells rang at
eleven o'clock and salutes sounded at high noon. Washington's
picture was illuminated at the observatory. The city hall was

476 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

adorned with a bust of Alexander, beneath which large capitals
proclaimed: NAPOLEON DETHRONED, TYRANNY DESTROYED, EU-
ROPE FREE.

Up at Hanover, New Hampshire, a traveler brought in the
news at sunset. The scene is described in a letter written by one
of the residents. The Dartmouth students collected on the plain
in front of the college building, gave a series of huzzas and
appointed a committee to receive the dispatches expected the
following day. On the next afternoon the entire college assem-
bled and hauled out a fieldpiece that had been used by New
Hampshire troops in the Revolution. When the mails arrived
one of the committee members mounted the cannon and read
each communication aloud. As a dispatch was completed the
cannon was fired and the cheerleader called for nine huzzas,
whereupon the reading was resumed.

It happened that a recruiting officer was in the village trying
to drum up enlistments. He failed to sympathize with the tri-
umph of a cause in which Britain was an important beneficiary.
Approaching the gathering, he ordered the firing stopped. The
student who was loading bluntly advised him to carry his griev-
ance elsewhere. At this the officer whipped out his sword and
slashed at the youthful artillerist. One of the other students
stretched out his arm and broke the blow. The second student
received a bad cut, while the one at whom it was directed had
his belt severed and his body grazed by the sword point. The
latter quickly had the officer on his back and gripped him
strongly about the throat until his eyes bulged from their sock-
ets. It was severe treatment for a uniform symbolizing federal
authority. Just as the victim was nearly throttled, the crowd
suggested mercy and the student released him, bent his sword
double, threw it away and u sent its insolent owner off to his
quarters." The reading of the dispatches was completed and the
students took their gun on a parade about the village. They fired
a series of salutes in front of the president's house, cheered some
more and that night held a big illumination. The demise of tyr-
anny had to be observed fittingly by youthful republicans. 17

Philadelphia was amused by a light news story on a rumor

An "Ally" Falls 477

that Bonaparte planned to open a dancing academy in the "Ma-
sonick Hall in Chestnut Street," but probably would fare poorly
because he was unversed in the "Cossack swing."

British newspapers took pleasure in republishing from Han-
son's antiadministration Federal Republican an editorial stating
that the United States had done everything possible to perpetuate
Napoleon's tyranny. The editorial asserted: "To England, stig-
matized as a nation of shopkeepers and pirates, we owe the
emancipation of our liberties."

While the people were rejoicing and the Federalist newspa-
pers were smacking their lips over their extraordinary opportun-
ity for spirited editorializing, the administration press found it
difficult to conceal its resentment. These newspapers could not
deplore the loss of such an exemplification of oppression as
Bonaparte, but they could denounce the extraordinary pleasure
obtained by the Federalists out of the administration's discom-
fiture. In reply to criticism from proadministration newspapers
the Rhode Island American asserted that the people were giving
voice to deep-seated principles, so fundamental that they tran-
scended all reasons of state. "They rejoice," it said, "at the tri-
umph of liberty over tyranny, of truth over error, of mercy
over cruelty. The honest emotions of joy should not be repressed
at this interesting crisis, and every one who feels should fearlessly
express them." 1S

New York citizens met on June 16 at the Tontine Coffee
House to adopt plans for the observances. The celebration was
held over the July 4 period, beginning on June 29 with a meeting
that filled the Presbyterian Church on Cedar Street, at which
the Reverend Mr. Mason read from the prophecy of the tenth
chapter of Isaiah:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be
taken from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck.

The high point came with an address delivered " in a strain of
eloquence rarely equaled" by Gouverneur Morris. Morris had
been recalled as United States minister to France at the request
of the Directory at the same time President Washington was

47 8 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

dismissing Citizen Genet as the French minister to the United
States. The ex-minister introduced his remarks with the thought
common to most Americans at the moment "The long agony
is over." Like many other Americans Morris forgot that the
United States was involved in a bitter war on its own account
and that a host of British soldiers now disengaged in Europe
might be turned westward at any minute.

The speaker was elegant in his powdered wig. That hair style
was not followed by the younger republicans, but was one nat-
ural to a veteran of the Continental Congress and a father of the
Constitution. His voice was deep and melodious, his carriage
erect, his stately figure supported by his wooden leg. The fire of
his unyielding spirit still flashed from the embers of his declining
years. Moved by no purpose except the country's good, he tow-
ered above the charges of treason that might affect lesser men
and hurled his invectives against the association of the republic
for which he had labored with the mad usurper whose trail over
Europe was washed with blood.

Morris called to America to arouse herself: "My dear, abused,
self-murdered country, bleeding as thou art, rejoice! " At the
American Bonapartists he cast this defiance: "Let those who
would know the idol of their devotion . . . seek him on the
Island of Elba." His remarks expressed an estimate of Bonaparte
held by a large, and certainly the most articulate, part of the
United States at the hour of the Corsican's first abdication:

In the month of September, 1812, the son of an obscure family,
in a small island of the Mediterranean, was at the head of a
greater force than was ever yet commanded by one man, during
the long period to which history extends. His brow encircled
with an imperial diadem, his sword red with the blood of con-
quered nations, his eye glaring on the fields he had devoted to
plunder, his feet trampling on the neck of kings, his mind glow-
ing with wrath, his heart swollen with the consciousness of power
unknown before, he moved, he seemed, he believed himself a
god.

After the church services the celebrators moved up Broadway
to Washington Hall, where a large dinner was served. It was
presided over by Rufus King, who, although a Federalist, was so

An "Ally" Falls 479

distinguished for independent thought and action that he had but
recently been returned to the Senate by a legislature with a
strong Republican majority. At the banquet King was thought-
ful and original enough to insert among the many toasts one for
the President of the United States, "our wise leader." 19

The dinner threatened for a time to transfer the war into the
heart of New York City. While the diners were seated a mob of
about 2,000 people formed and hurled stones at the building. Win-
dows were broken and missiles crashed on the banquet tables.
Two of the banqueters were injured before the police arrived.
The city custodians managed to quell the disturbance without
summoning troops. They made twenty or thirty arrests. The
principal result was a season of more pronounced bitterness be-
tween two of the city's newspapers. The Commercial Advertiser
contended that the administration organ, the Columbian, had in-
cited the riot by its unseemly attacks on those who were fittingly
observing a fall of a dictator. The Columbian exuded its wrath
in a campaign assailing Gouverneur Morris, whom the Commer-
cial Advertiser aggressively defended.

That the anti-Bonapartists were in the ascendency which did
not necessarily mean that the majority was antagonistic to Madi-
sonwas evidenced by the extraordinary enthusiasm that at-
tended the July 4 festivities. The day had new meaning. Bells
rang and salutes sounded from sunup to sundown. The Declara-
tion of Independence, read aloud according to custom, seemed
a more stable, proven creed. The exercises were followed by a
mammoth parade in which the Washington Guards, the Washing-
ton benevolent societies, the Hamilton societies and the Tam-
many Society were important participants. 20 Tammany took
occasion to cement friendly relations with the oncoming genera-
tion of voters, and it was commented that the braves "turned
out with all their might; they particularly exhibited a fine show
of papooses just under twenty."

2.

In Washington President Madison and his cabinet observed
these rejoicings with little enthusiasm. It was clear that the cele-

4 8o POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

brations In many cities were being promoted by Federalists eager
to embarrass the administration and those in New England by
the deep-seated commercial opposition to the war. Yet whole
sections of the public entered into the festivities enthusiastically.
They could not be dismissed as partisan demonstrations. Madison
had long smarted under the charge that he was Bonaparte's "sat-
ellite," "creature," and "humble tool." But it was difficult for
him to wax enthusiastic over an event so portentous as the tri-
umph of British armies on the Continent. Madison had been ill
and out of touch with the country during the late summer and
autumn of 1813. He had passed the time in retirement at Mont-
pelier, 21 and was just beginning to reassert his control when
Napoleon's fortunes spiraled downward. Madison had offered
no official view on the steady tramp of the allied armies toward
Paris. Now that peace in Europe was an accomplished fact, the
people watched for an indication of the administration's attitude.
It came informally, but none the less authoritatively, from Joe
Gales, the National Intelligencer editor who was recognized as
Madison's mouthpiece. The statement was guarded, but never-
theless sufficiently clear to show that the President would not try
to resist the sweep of national sentiment.

"On the friends of liberty, in whatever country residing,
Bonaparte has no claims," the Intelligencer asserted. It went on
to say that Napoleon had really been an object of distrust. He
had destroyed American commerce so extensively that the gov-
ernment had been forced to hesitate in determining whether its
course would be against England or France; he had so invaded
neighboring nations that had the United States been adjacent to
France it doubtless would have been arrayed against him with
the other allies. Thus the position of the administration was
finally clarified. 22

The Commercial Advertiser observed:

They now have a rallying ground. They need no more to
knock their heads against each other, being at a loss to determine
in what light the news should be viewed; whether they should
still eulogize their old friend Napoleon, or load him with execra-
tions. The die is now cast. It has been determined at headquarters

An "Ally" Falls 481

that all should rejoice; that it is the duty of every liege subject of
Mr. Madison to give the once super-eminent Napoleon a kick as
he is passing downhill from his exalted elevation. 23

After Joe Gales had committed the President to indifference
to the banishment of the French militarist, the administration
could not hold aloof from the celebrations in the capital city.

M. Serurier received word on June 14 that he represented
King Louis rather than the Emperor Napoleon. It was perhaps
due more to M. Serurier's agility than to chance that he was the
only diplomatic representative of the Empire continued at his
post by the Bourbon restoration. His ear had been close enough
to the ground for him to have on hand a store of white cockades,
which immediately made their appearance on the capital streets.
He announced to the French residents of America that they
could pledge allegiance to the monarchy through the French
consuls. 24 Then, at a season which was to have been devoted to
the observance of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of the
Bastille, M. Serurier made arrangements for a formal testimonial
dinner to the ancient, legitimate Bourbon house, which Ameri-
can Jacobins, by the strange twist of circumstance, were now
required to look on as the epitome of virtue. It was a brilliant
gathering, attended by nearly everyone of importance in Wash-
ington except the President and Secretary of State Monroe.
Attorney General Rush, the President's close friend, and the
spokesman whom the administration had put forward to defend
the war, was there with his suite, along with Supreme Court
justices, Army officers and a host of Congressmen.

The toasts went the round of the table. They discreetly omit-
ted reference to Wellington, but were unrestrained in flattery of
Louis and high tribute to Tsar Alexander, who at that very
moment was being feted about London by the Prince Regent
and his coterie of macaronies.

Amid the celebrating very little attention was given to an item
tucked away in the news columns relating that a number of Brit-
ish transports had appeared in the Garonne River at Bordeaux to
board detachments of Wellington's army. 25 Some prominence,
however, was accorded a paragraph reprinted earlier from a

482 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

London newspaper asserting that Britain was preparing to bring
the United States into "unconditional submission." The comment
which followed, in the New York Commercial Advertiser,
showed that the depths of the American nation had not been
touched: "Let them clearly manifest such an intention, and the
people of this country will at once unite in the war, not to sup-
port a weak and misguided administration, but to maintain their
National Independence and their Honor." 2G

Some time before the receipt of intelligence from abroad,
President Madison had talked at length about the contingencies
that would arise if the war ended in Europe. Two years had
made a vast difference. It was one thing for the United States to
be at war with England when Napoleon was commanding the
greatest army of modern history, and quite another when Napo-
leon was leading a forlorn hope against the combined might of
Europe. The President went so far as to mention to Attorney
General Rush, and perhaps others, the possibility of an attack on
Washington. But popular enthusiasm over the fall of Bonaparte,
curiosity about the government he was setting up on Elba and
interest in the measures by which Louis was reorganizing France
overshadowed the potential menace to America from more
aggressive British action on this continent.

The American public believed that the United States would
be included, in normal course, in the general pacification. 27 An
American peace delegation went to Europe in 1 8 1 3. When Arm-
strong was named Secretary of War, Albert Gallatin asked to be
relieved. He had completed a dozen years as Secretary of the
Treasury, had clashed with Armstrong while the latter was com-
manding in New York City and had been disgusted with Arm-
strong's appointment of his Pennsylvania enemy, William Duane,
as Adjutant General Many in Washington regarded Gallatin the
ablest man in the federal service. But he was tired of receiving
little co-operation and was persuaded that nobody in his adopted
country understood the elementary principles of conducting
warfare. Congress was continually denouncing him because he
could not produce money by painless methods. In order to cover
his departure with an atmosphere of harmony, he took advantage

An "Ally" Falls 483

of Alexander's request for mediation and asked assignment on the
American commission which the President, although reluctant,
was compelled to grant. James A. Bayard, of Delaware, an out-
standing Federalist, was appointed with Galiatin. They sailed in
May, 1 8 1 3, for Russia, where they joined the third commissioner,
John Quincy Adams, the American minister at St. Petersburg.
Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell were added when the commis-
sion was reappointed later.

While America gave her attention to the coming peace negoti-
ations, England did not press the peace talks. Instead she hur-
riedly embarked detachments of Wellington's army on the
Atlantic.

Overseas there was similar rejoicing. On the first day of
August, 1814, the people of London were joined by milling
throngs from the length and breadth of Britainbustling trades-
men, squat Sussex farmers, Birmingham artisans, lean-faced sail-
ors from the Channel ports. All turned out in festive spirit to
celebrate in the gala fashion of Georgian England the one-
hundredth anniversary of the accession of the House of Bruns-
wick, or Hanover. The day was also the anniversary of Nelson's
victory of the Nile, which annually called for commemorative
rejoicing. But more especially it was to be Britain's mammoth
peace demonstration, the first prearranged season of carnival
since Napoleon's abdication had crowned British arms with new
splendor. The Corsican had been returned to the Mediterranean
a retribution for its offense of delivering him, twenty-five
years earlier, to the training school at Brienne. Safely deposited
on Elba, he might reflect at leisure on the eventual fate of those
who challenge England on land or sea. The sword of Frederick
was back in Berlin once more. Talleyrand, Metternich and Gas-
tlereagh were studying their tricky phrasings for the approach-
ing Conress of Vienna. England, luxuriating in victories by Well-
ington as resplendent as those of Marlborough, seemed at peace,
and London was given over to pageantry and jubilee.
There was little for a discerning population to extol, to be

484 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

sure, in a century of Hanoverian guidance, except that it fol-
lowed a century of Stuarts. 28 The House of Brunswick really
presented a dual noxiousness. It was personified at the moment
by the decaying George III, whose imbecility was no longer
broken by lapses to lucid obstinacy, and by the sensual middle-
aged Prince Regent, on whom profligacy now sat much less
gracefully than it had when he was a youth. But peace was in the
air, "happily accomplished under the auspices of his Royal High-
ness," and Bonaparte was finished. The long fear of invasion was
past and general fiesta well might be observed for the four
Georges.

Plans for the jubilation had sprung up spontaneously after the
departure of the Russian and Prussian monarchs, who had visited
England with their trains of "royal, princely and illustrious per-
sonages." 29 including Metternich and gruff old General Bliicher,
a short rime after their grand entry into Paris. The picturesque
Cossack hetman, PlatofF, whose detachment escorted Alexander
and gave delighted British crowds their first view of the famous
horsemen from the steppes (and incidentally prompted inquiries
in Parliament as to who had authorized foreign soldiers to land
on British soil), soon ceased to be the subject of general talk.
Platoff had startled the world by offering 100,000 ducats and his
daughter to anyone who would assassinate Napoleon, but Alex-
ander annulled the proposition as "infamous in honorable war-
fare." 30 The preparations for the celebrations obscured the open-
ing of a dramatic version of Byron's new Corsair at Sadler's
Wells. 31 They momentarily overshadowed interest in the day-
by-day activities of the Elban exile, despite a late rumor that
Maria Louisa was planning a reconciliation as the initial move in
a Hapsburg scheme to vest him with command of the Austrian
armies. 32

Carpenters labored by day and night on booths, bridges and
pavilions. They erected a splendid Temple of Concord "enriched
by transparencies, fountains and statues," and a Gothic castle,
symbolic of war, so constructed that it could be converted into
a peace palace at a moment's notice. The metamorphosis was to
occur at a high point in the rejoicing. "Innumerable butts of beer

An "Ally" Falls 485

and vast quantities of all sorts of provisions" were carried into
Hyde, Green and St. James's parks. 33 Trees along the Serpentine
River blossomed with ornate clusters of Chinese lanterns. Over
the royal booth in the center of the principal gallery was in-
scribed in large letters the thought common to all England:

PEACE RESTORED UNDER THE REGENCY

While these preparations were in progress, reflections occurred
which threw the proceedings into temporary disorder. An occa-
sion of such magnitude for a nation that lived under the tradition
of Drake, Howard, Rodney and Nelson called for gaiety culmi-
nating in mimic naval warfare which would reveal to the street
people and farm people how the fleets of England triumphed on
far-flung oceans. An essential requirement for mimic warfare,
in turn, was a hostile flotilla against which the majesty of the
British line might be displayed. And in casting about for the
composition of this enemy squadron, the functionaries of the
huge peace demonstration found themselves face to face with
the glaring inconsistency that England was not at peace after all
and jubilee was hardly in order. The dust had been collecting on
affairs in North America.

The American war was vital to the Empire and had to be recog-
nized even though it conflicted with the general mood. The in-
scription over the royal booth, heralding an era of concord for
Britain and her dependencies, was taken down. Peace could be
celebrated, but war was not over. England paused as did the
United States in 1945 when the people wondered whether the for-
mal celebration of V-E Day should be at once or more appropri-
ately should await the surrender of Japan. In London there was
a period of uncertainty about the principal object of the festivities;
then the newspapers explained the purpose: "A sort of general
celebration is made of War, Peace and the accession of the House
of Brunswick." 34

Although slightly muddled, the motif commanded no less pop-
ular enthusiasm than complete peace would have. "So immense
a number of people at large were never brought together in any
previous instance, by any description of public rejoicings or any

486 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

of the great events which have so often gilded the page of the
British story." 35 There appears to be no reason to challenge this
estimate by a Times reporter, even though he had not counted
noses at the execution of Charles I nor witnessed the happy fes-
tivities of the Restoration. He was observing an extraordinary
assemblage. Hosts of country people camped in fields and streets.
Chevaux-de-frise were erected to protect houses. When the
throngs started for the parks early on the appointed Monday
morning they filled the streets so compactly that vehicular traffic
was excluded and pedestrians found it impossible to make head-
way in any other direction. Shops were closed. The city aban-
doned itself to rejoicing.

Obviously, most of the ships in the mock hostile squadron
which would test British sea power in the pageant had to be
French. That was demanded by the Nile anniversary. But a fair
representation of American warcraft, "those fir-built frigates
manned by bastards and outlaws," was added. The London
Times felt the flotilla did not do justice to England's naval tradi-
tion. The minature British Navy was a bit too strong, it thought,
for the number of adversaries, and the Times hoped there were
more ships in the mock battle than would be "necessary to the
victory of a British fleet fighting in sight of its own shores."
Nonetheless, the paper conceded that "gallant ships they were,
moored in a line ahead, and ready for action." Fireworks lined
the Kensington bank. One of the new captive balloons, sufficient
in itself for a spectacle of ordinary proportions, was held near by
to rise with the tidings of victory.

Thus, with the Union standard arrayed against the Stars and
Stripes in the mimic battle before a vast assembly, all England
was dramatically notified of the continuation of the North
American conflict.

As the din heightened along the Serpentine and the miniature
fleets engaged before the great galleries of cheering spectators,
the American frigates ignominiously hauled down their ensigns
and fell in as prizes, while the French ships burst into flames and
sank. "Bastards and outlaws" could not be allowed the gallant
conduct of fighting to the finish. 36

An "Ally" Falls 487

Applause echoed throughout the city. London was pleased and
excited. The people were thinking finally of the struggle across
the Atlantic. Since France offered no further fighting amuse-
ment, the surplus of martial fervor that flamed when Wellington
inarched out of the Pyrenees might now be directed toward the
treacherous former colonies, whose impertinence entitled them
to a final chastisement.

British newspapers had been publishing news from the Ameri-
can war theaters, but the minor New World affrays had at-
tracted no more public notice alongside such magnificent butch-
eries as Borodino, Leipzig and Vittoria than a mouse's squeak in
a slaughterhouse.

About all the British public could understand from the ac-
counts they read was that across the Atlantic a fawning wor-
shiper of Napoleon, whom the press described as a loathsome
little man with no vestige of character or honor to whom any
term of contempt might be applied, ruled the United States in
accordance with the dictates of the Tuileries. The public re-
quired a spectacular peace demonstration, with its rockets and
flotillas, its excitement and cheering, before it could attend seri-
ously to the neglected North American conflict. Madison, it
was asserted, had promoted this war, the origin of which was
wrapped up in a maze of diplomatic nonsense and chicanery. The
cardinal fact was that Britain had tried to avoid it and she had even
conformed to rather distastefully presented American demands.

A review of newspaper files of the early nineteenth-century
period suggests that its war propaganda excelled that of the next
century in color and vitality. The wars of the French Revolution
and Empire caused the British scribes to dust off their choicest
phrases of aspersion. The writing was artful, even fascinating.
Full of gossip, exaggeration and innuendo, this propaganda ap-
peased the popular appetite for information during the long
periods which in an age of slow communication intervened be-
tween arrivals of official intelligence. Unlike later propaganda,
which has evoked the remark that "truth is the first casualty in
war," it usually had some factual foundation on which its embel-

4 88 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

lishnients might rest. But at times it was no more than emotional
vituperation.

After the fall of Napoleon the United States was reintroduced
to English newspaper readers as a mingling of semibarbaric fron-
tiersmen, fugitive thieves, renegades and nondescript drifters
who inhabited a new continent because they could not succeed
in the ordered competition of the old. Americans were the resid-
uum cast off by advancing civilization.

England could easily rationalize the unwanted, far-off war for
which, she saw clearly, she was not responsible. American politi-
cians had been the aggressors. Some, like Madison, were fum-
bling idealists, imbued with the absurd notion that Bonaparte
stood for popular progressive revolt against the old monarchic
order. Others were anxious to weaken England and build up
America commercially. All had perceived an opportunity to grab
territory while England was being bled by Napoleon's armies.
"Let us not forget that the present war is an unprovoked attack
on the very existence of Great Britain. The arch conspirators, of
whom Madison is the ostensible, and Jefferson the real head,
fancied that whilst our army was employed in Spain, they could
wrest Canada from our dominion." 37 The facts were clear.
Madison's war message had been approved in Washington in the
very week Napoleon crossed the Niemen and most of Europe
was marching behind the tricolor against an England shorn of
virtually all her allies.

4-

When the English people had been instructed on the causes
of the conflict, they asked what was to happen with the war in
North America. For this question the cabinet, for once, had the
answer. Lord Liverpool had given the American campaign his
fullest consideration when he was worrying over the disposition
the cabinet might make of the numerous British soldiers who
would be released when the noose that was being tightened about
France choked out the Empire. Before Bonaparte was en route
to his island seclusion, the cabinet began preparations which, in
its opinion, would terminate the conflict and probably leave

An "Ally" Falls 489

Britain possessed of New England and the vast, disputed ex-
panses of Louisiana that Napoleon had transferred with ques-
tionable title, according to the British viewpoint, to Thomas
Jefferson.

The first expeditionary force, consisting of two brigades,
would provide an effective army for Sir George Prevost. New
England was believed to be so unsympathetic to Madison's war
that it might be brought back into the fold of the mother country.
Victory in the North would permit Britain to adjust the Canadian
border. There were various notions about how this should be
done, but the general view was that after the creation of a buffer
state, the border, west of New England, should be moved south
of the Great Lakes, perhaps a hundred miles, so that those waters
would be entirely British.

To divert attention from this major enterprise and prevent
Southern and Central militia from assisting the American border
army, a second squadron would convey four line regiments to
harass the American seaboard more intensely. A third detach-
ment of troops would go out later to reinforce the second and
capture New Orleans. Thus British rather than American juris-
diction would extend from Hudson Bay to the Gulf. Capturing
New Orleans would bottle up the Kentuckians who had led the
war agitation.

With these projects in motion, the American war received
nourishment sufficient to mature it into a conflict of imposing
proportions. Odd North American names replaced those of fa-
miliar Spanish and French villages in the leading news columns.
The Times explained: "American news now presses upon us at
intervals with stronger demands for consideration than when the
chief energy of our minds was directed to the nearer concerns of
the Continent."

The peace negotiations initiated by the Tsar when Napoleon
was pressing toward Moscow, which for a year had kept an
American delegation roaming about Europe, ceased to interest
the Foreign Office. Foreign Minister Castlereagh, indifferent to
the American commissioners who were cooling their heels in
Holland or looking for him in London, was busy in Paris. The

49 o POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Times shed light on the deplorable characters of the men selected
by America to treat with distinguished, cultured British repre-
sentatives. John Quincy Adams was alleged to be a dunce in
diplomacy whose misinformation had led Madison into uncon-
scionable blunders. Gallatin was a poor Swiss nonentity "whom
crime may have driven to the common sewer of nations"; Jona-
than Russell "a mere cypher," a, clerk of a shopkeeper in Boston;
and Bayard a gentleman, but inactive on the commission. Henry
Clay was considered the most perfect example of frontier gross-
ness and perfidy: "This gentle creature exhibited last winter at
Washington, and in the President's presence, a razor strop
formed, for his particular use, from the skin of the great and
gallant Tecumseh, your Indian ally, who had been slain by the
Americans and publicly flayed in the center of the camp." 3S

The Times told a little later that British representatives of
"great respectibility" had been designated to meet "the Genevese
democrat Gallatin, the furious orator Clay, the surly Bayard and
Mr. Russell, the worthy defender of the forged revocation of
the Berlin and Milan decrees."

But before peace, the former colonies would have chastisement.

Twenty-Five

Hostages Exchanged

More than a year had passed since Great Britain had cap-
tured twenty-three Irish-born American soldiers under Winfield
Scott and taken them to England to stand trial for treason,
These Irish- Americans still awaited trial and it appeared that they
would have little chance against English law, which declared that
the Irish were British subjects whether or not they had migrated
to America and enlisted in United States armies, 1

When England forcibly reclaimed these soldiers, the competi-
tion for hostages began. To insure the safety of his men Winfield
Scott held twenty-three British prisoners as hostages. The Prince
Regent, in turn, set aside as double protection for his captive
subjects forty-six American commissioned and noncommissioned
officers. The prospects of both the American and the British
hostages looked bleak indeed.

In the United States there was growing anger against this
practice of holding prisoners of war as hostages. Most Ameri-
cans had never heard of the citizenship precedents of ancient
times. A straightforward policy was advocated, especially along
the frontier; if the British hanged any American prisoners of war,
the United States should hang an equal number of British prison-
ers. Whether the hanged Americans had been born in Ireland or
Kentucky should make no difference.

i.

On October 27, 1813, Governor-General Prevost published in
Montreal orders from London which showed the Prince Regent
had set his elegantly buckled foot down on any yielding to the
Americans on the question of hostages. Britain's right to try her

491

492 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

own subjects in her own way, regardless of where or in what
circumstances they might be apprehended, was not to be con-
tested. Immediately the American public demanded reprisals. For
the first time in the course of the war traces of American solidar-
ity appeared.

In response to the public demand President Madison had set
aside forty-six British prisoners as guarantees for the last batch
of Americans held by the British. The British then found sixteen
American sailors alleged to be British- or Irish-born and impris-
oned them at Halifax to await deportation to England. Madison
replied by holding sixteen British sailors. Prevost continued with
another group of forty-six, and then all exchanges of prisoners of
war ended. The point had been reached where hostage hunting
received more attention from the two government than the pros-
ecution of military operations. Each side stood firm and waited
for the other to commit the overt act that would start the series
of retaliatory hangings.

Soon virtually all prisoners of war were hostages, and before
long special and select hostages came to be required. An example
is the case of Joshua Penny, a New York harbor pilot and fisher-
man who lost his liberty because he got interested in the then
experimental weapon, the torpedo. Robert Fulton and his group
of pioneering associates were renewing research with the tor-
pedo. Before the war Fulton had peddled the idea around Eu-
rope and had exploded a brig at a demonstration in the Thames
River in front of Pitt's house. Subsequent demonstrations were
given in America but they were not considered successful. The
fact that few Americans believed the torpedo could be used
practically in warfare did not diminish the terror of British naval
officers when intelligence of the new experiments seeped out of
New York. In the spring of 1814 Sir Thomas Hardy was com-
manding off New York. According to information reaching the
Niles* Register, Hardy did not sleep for nine nights in succession,
so great was his fear for his flagship, the Rawrillies, when reports
about the torpedoes reached him. Later, when torpedo attempts
were made against the Ramillies, he kept her in motion constantly
and swept her bottom with a cable every two hours. 2

Hostages Exchanged 493

The British regarded the underwater weapon as diabolical and
denounced its use as unfair and contrary to the rules of warfare.
This moralistic attitude caused several American newspapers to
wonder how the British justified their very free use of rockets in
the air. American public opinion sanctioned the torpedo and the
experiments were continued.

Joshua Penny became Stephen Decatur's pilot when Decatur
took over the defense of New York Harbor in 1814. Penny was
experimenting with a torpedo in a whaleboat near his home on
Long Island. One night the British landed a small party which
quietly made its way to his house, snatched him from his bed and
carried him away to the Ramillies., where he was shackled in
solitary confinement in the brig and treated very much as though
he might have been a rattlesnake.

When President Madison heard of the incident he ordered two
British prisoners set apart as special hostages for Penny. By this
time the United States had its military prisons filled with hostages
and had to farm new ones elsewhere about the country. The
sixteen sailors were held in jail at Ipswich. Eighty British officers
captured at the Battle of the Thames were hostage prisoners at
Newport, Kentucky. A detention camp at Chillicothe, Ohio, was
filled. British officers and sailors captured by Perry on Lake Erie
were guarded by the United States marshal of Ohio. Fort Sewall,
outside Marblehead, Massachusetts, was loaded with hostages, as
was the Kentucky state penitentiary at Frankfort. 3

Reports that the American hostages in Canada were shame-
fully mistreated passed the Northern border and spread rapidly
over the country. It was said American prisoners were held in
close confinement under rigorous rules and restrictions, fed on
scant rations and generally handled as criminals. Persons reaching
Plattsburg, New York, from Canada told of a local boy who was
almost starved.

Reaction in the United States is indicated by a resolution
passed without a dissenting voice by the Pennsylvania legislature.
It denounced the enemy on the issue of hostages and reprisals.
With the public thoroughly aroused, Congress took closer inter-
est in the controversy. The Senate called on Secretary of State

494 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Monroe for all Information. What was the situation with respect
to the hostages? What action did Great Britain take with the
Americans who were serving on British ships at the outbreak
of the war? What precedents existed for the British course in
claiming the right to try prisoners of war captured on the bat-
tlefields? Monroe glanced into the lawbooks and hastened to
assure Congress that it would Involve long research to compile
the precedents. 4 Fortunately from his standpoint Congress was
approaching an adjournment. He did not have to prepare a his-
tory of the treatment of prisoners of war, but he did present a
strong case for the American soldiers without seeking the sup-
port of ancient custom. Every nation in Europe, he stated,
naturalized citizens of other nations and employed them in their
armies. Citizenship, he contended, was a temporary, dissoluble
relationship, not necessarily a permanent association between the
individual and the country of his nativity, and it obtained only
during the individual's residence in that country. The right to
emigrate, recognized by all, implied the right to change alle-
giance and to support a new government and a new flag.

Thus the American position sharply opposed the British con-
tention that the individual's nationality was governed by the
monarch's pleasure. To England, the obligations of the individual
to the state were inalienable; to the United States, by Monroe's
reasoning, those obligations might be assumed or terminated,
under certain conditions of change in residence, by the individ-
ual's choice. Although he did not mention this argument, Monroe
might have emphasized that the British theory had been invali-
dated when the independence of the colonists, born under the
British Crown, was recognized by England in 1783. Monroe's
reasoning established the citizenship policy of America. It has
been generally enforced by treaties, the first of which was nego-
tiated by George Bancroft, the historian, cabinet member and
diplomat.

While the United States was seething over the hostages, Gov-
ernor-General Prevost, the Prince Regent's agent of retaliation,
was incensed also. He wanted to make some adjustment about
the ordinary run of prisoners but could get no response from the

Hostages Exchanged 495

inflamed Americans. The reason proved to be Dearborn's indif-
ference or carelessness. At the rime when the first group of
forty-six Americans was set aside, Prevost saw difficulties ahead
with all the other prisoners and wrote a letter to General Dear-
born inquiring about their status. The elderly American com-
mander allowed three months to elapse before sending Prevost's
letter to Washington and requesting instructions.

This delay had fomented need for action in a greatly irked
Prevost; he promptly put every American officer who was a
prisoner in Canada in close confinement. Paroles were ended, and
those who had been given the liberty of the town were forced
to remain in their none too spacious quarters. American prisoners
were taxing the facilities of Canada, a country which did not
possess the building accommodations for the many additional
requirements the war had imposed on it and could ill aif ord to
maintain Americans. The prisoners, in turn, complained about
being held when exchanges had been the common practice earlier
in the war. When Prevost told them Dearborn caused the trouble,
the prisoners protested against Dearborn's inaction in letters to
Congressmen in Washington.

The governor-general, his jail space filled, began to transport
prisoners to England. They sickened on the long voyage, and the
American newspapers inveighed against the practice as heartless
and unnecessary. Aroused by American newspaper charges of
brutal treatment of the hostages, Quebec authorities appointed a
grand jury of responsible citizens to visit the public jail, inspect
the prisoners, question them on the treatment they received and
inquire whether they had complaints. The finding of the jury, as
published in Quebec and sent in dispatches across the border, was
that "all expressed their satisfaction, by saying that they had
every comfort their situation would admit of." The dispatch
added, "This must silence all calumny in the states, against this
government, respecting its treatment of the prisoners of war."

Prevost had gathered a presentable galaxy of American officers
for close confinement in the Beauport jail near Quebec. The

496 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

most illustrious were Brigadier General William Henry Winder
and General Chandler, both captured at the Battle of Stoney
Creek.

General Winder was an amiable, captivating man of handsome
appearance and fluent address. He had obtained a good education
and legal background from his studies at the University of
Pennsylvania and in the law office of his uncle, John Henry, a
delegate to the Continental Congress from Maryland during
most of the Revolutionary War period. His training seemed to
indicate a career in politics, and consequently Winder, on being
admitted to the bar, had selected Tennessee as an inviting new
state and had ridden horseback across the mountains. After sam-
pling life with the frontiersmen, he decided he would fare better
with his own people, and his conclusion appeared to be justified
when he was elected on his return, at the age of twenty-three
years, to the Maryland legislature as a representative of his home
county of Somerset. Four years later, in 1 802, he removed to Balti-
more, where in the course of the next ten years he established
himself as one of the leading attorneys of the state. He also became
a friend of the great Luther Martin, but apparently was more ab-
stemious, although Secretary Armstrong regarded him as assail-
able on the basis of his "bottle friends." 5 Winder's pleasing
manner and ready speech were accepted as military quite as much
as courtroom attributes and quickly won him the command of
a brigade. Only Winfield Scott noted about him: "It is a misfor-
tune to begin a new career with too much rank, or rather, too late
in life."

Winder was soon on agreeable terms with his captors. He
received food enough to keep his mind active and his spirits
soaring and from his discussions with Prevost's adjutant general,
Colonel Baynes, he soon developed some ideas on a modus oper-
andi for an exchange of prisoners which offered promise of
breaking the deadlock.

From an American standpoint, with most of the people look-
ing for peace, the ending of the controversy over the prisoners
was desired most earnestly. Great Britain had asserted that she

Hostages Exchanged 497

would not enter peace negotiations until the hostage question
was dispensed with; she was determined that it should have no
place in the discussions.

Prevost, desirous on his own account to get rid of the prisoners
who were encumbering Canada, gave Winder a parole of sixty
days. He enjoined the American general not to impart any infor-
mation which would be advantageous to the American cause and
started him off for Washington.

Winder went by Baltimore and the city gave him an ovation. 6
At the capital he was closeted with Madison, a consultation
which caused the newspapers to speculate that he had brought a
message from the enemy which probably related to the hostages.
On returning to Quebec, he continued his discussions with Pre-
vost's adjutant general The convention which he proposed was
affirmed by the governor-general on April 15, 1814. It provided,
as Prevost explained to his army, for the release of all prisoners of
war "with the exception of the forty-six American officers and
non-commissioned officers placed in close confinement as hos-
tages in conformity with general orders of the zyth of October
last, in retaliation for twenty-three British born subjects [the
Irish], taken from the ranks of the enemy, and sent to England
for trial." Except for these, prisoners were to be exchanged mu-
tually. When unequal numbers were released, the extra men
would be withheld from military service, on parole, until ex-
changes to compensate for them could be effected. Prevost took
pleasure in pointing out that the British held more prisoners than
the Americans. General Winder won his release.

President Madison's first reaction to the Winder cartel had
been one of disapproval, but meanwhile the American govern-
ment had made inquiries about the twenty-three Irish soldiers
over whom the controversy started and had ascertained that they
were being treated in London exactly as the other prisoners of
war. Madison finally concluded that he would be justified in
assuming they would not be tried and might be regarded as on
the same basis as the other Americans held in England. The Irish-
Americans were, in fact, restored to the United States after the

49 8 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

war. Madison felt that even should his assumption prove wrong,
it would be possible to get new hostages. Colonel Tobias Lear,
former secretary to General Washington, was designated to meet
a British representative on Lake Champlain for the drafting of a
supplementary convention, which was completed July 16, 1814.
It released the balance of the hostages but made no mention of
the first twenty-three prisoners. Madison accepted it.

It appeared for a moment in midsummer of 1814 that the
wounds of retaliation were being healed. While the newspapers
were telling of the returning and departing of hostages, they
were describing also how Buffalo was rising from Its ashes. Less
than six months after the town was destroyed, new construction
had created a community of twenty-three houses, four dry-goods
and other general stores, three taverns, twelve groceries and
shops, three offices and "thirty or forty huts or shantas."

General Winder reached Plattsburg from Quebec on May 20,
1814, and started out for Washington again, this time to report
for duty. He had just passed Baltimore when he discovered Gen-
eral Wilkinson along the roadside. Wilkinson was bound for
Washington for the court-martial he had requested to resolve
whether he or Armstrong was at fault for the collapse of the
campaign against Canada. A hypochrondriac, he had become ill
just after leaving Baltimore and decided that he could not make
the distance to Washington on horseback. He stood on the road-
side and thumbed a ride from the first carriage, which happened
to have General Winder as its passenger. They reached the capi-
tal together in late June.

President Madison at the very moment was looking for a gen-
eral to command the proposed military department of the Chesa-
peake, the creation of which he was to discuss at the cabinet
meeting called for July iJ Fate dealt unkindly with him in
throwing into his hands a carriage load of Wilkinson and Winder.
The President had resigned himself in large measure to abiding
by the consoling conclusions of Jefferson, who wrote from
Monticello: "The Creator has not thought proper to mark those
on the forehead who are of the stuff to make good generals. We
are first, therefore, to seek them, blindfolded, and then let them

Hostages Exchanged 499

learn the trade at the expense of great losses." Jefferson's remarks
seemed to mean that one person was as likely a choice for a
general as another. The senior general in the Washington terri-
tory was Moses Parker, a Revolutionary War veteran who had
participated in the repulse of Admiral Warren at Norfolk, but
he was not seriously considered because he was backed by
Armstrong.

Winder's fortuitous arrival seemed to Madison, despite the
unfavorable company the general was keeping, to provide a
happy solution for the problem of defending Washington. It
chanced also that of all who had been critical about the defense
of the area to be embraced in the new department and of the
government's failure to drive Cockburn from the Chesapeake,
the most outspoken was Levin Winder, the Federalist governor
of Maryland and a veteran of the Revolution. The appointment
of Governor Levin Winder's cousin would silence complaints
from that quarter. President Madison ignored the Stoney Creek
campaign. Undoubtedly he was more impressed with the recep-
tion accorded Winder in Baltimore. Taken with his kinship to
the governor, the ovation evidenced that Winder would have the
support of Maryland in his defensive measures for the Chesa-
peake region. There was the adverse factor that Winder had
stood for Congress from Baltimore in 1808 and had received less
than 1,900 out of the 9,000 votes cast. But that might be attrib-
uted to the fact that he ran as a Federalist against the popular
Republican merchant Alexander McKim, a well-known horse
fancier. The passage of six years and the mob outrage in 1812
had given a Federalist a different standing in Maryland.

Refraining from consultation with Secretary Armstrong, Mr.
Madison made the choice. Winder should command the, army
that would be raised to defend the American capital. 8

In such manner did sad coincidence give the country General
Winder. The selection resulted chiefly because he arrived from
prison at the hour when the decision had to be made. The com-
mand of the Chesapeake Department proved to be the heaviest
responsibility of the American military service.

Winder found himself a general without an army, a staff,

500 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

equipment or even a secretary. Instead of occupying himself
with obtaining those prerequisites, he began a series of inspection
trips to the forts in his new department and over the terrain and
roads between Washington and the lower Patuxent River. He
examined the ground carefully and carried with him a mass of
maps and' papers. 9 When he finally returned to the capital he
amiably gave his time to anyone who drifted into his office to
chat. It was not until the end of July that he obtained the service
of a guard at his door. His large correspondence produced no
soldiers. The army, which requisitions issued on July 4, 1814, had
sought to conjure up, proved to be imaginary. Although one
might walk from the War Department to Annapolis in a day,
it required six days for the requisition to reach the Maryland
capital and ten days to reach the capital of Pennsylvania. The old
Pennsylvania militia law had expired and the new law would not
become effective until after the harvest, so no immediate drafts
could be provided by that state.

Governor Levin Winder of Maryland called for 3,000 men
for the new department and got less than 300, of whom 250
comprised the only force made available to Winder from outside
the District of Columbia.

Twenty -Six

British Invasion Plans

The principal instrument selected by the British cabinet for
the chastisement of the Americans was Robert Ross, a quiet,
deferential man who usually carried an air of preoccupation; of
cultured conversation such as befitted a landed proprietor; and
of courtly attitude, reflecting his Trinity education at Dublin.

One of his American prisoners called him "the perfect model
of the Irish gentlemen ... of easy and beautiful manners, hu-
mane and brave, and dignified in his deportment to everyone." *
His home, which he rarely saw, was in County Down, where he
owned the Rosstrevor Estates. He retained with his ease and
urbanity a solidity which made him coldly practical in his Army
transactions. He was known as one of the strict disciplinarians
in a service where the gods worshiped were high drill and fleck-
less accouterments. 2

He was born at Rosstrevor, where in after years the soldiers
of his old 2oth Regiment, the Lancaster Fusiliers, erected a mon-
ument in his memory. Leadership of the zoth was a measure of a
British officer's stature. It had been Wolfe's regiment, and with
it the hero of the Heights of Abraham had won early notice.
Britain might have fared better in North America if more former
colonels of the zoth like Wolfe and Ross had been elevated to
high command.

In the retreat of Sir John Moore to Corunna in 1809, Ross
commanded the rear guard. On the Peninsula again, Wellington
gave him promotion and mention in dispatches: "General Ross's
brigade distinguished themselves beyond all former precedent." s
At Sorauren Ross had two horses shot under him, while his divi-
sion won from Wellington the tribute, "The gallant fourth divi-

501

502 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

sion, which has so frequently been distinguished in this army,
surpassed their former good conduct."

Although the campaigning through Spain was exacting even
to veteran soldiers inured to all manner of hardship, Ross was
accompanied throughout by his spirited Irish wife. She hovered
on the side lines at the engagements and wished, with all her
courage, that her husband was well removed from the war,
secluded in the green hills of County Down. Ross was to feel her
absence from his expedition to America, from which the hazards
of the voyage and the prospect of naval engagements excluded
her. He made her one concession that America would be his last
campaign/'

i.

Wellington had battled Souk beyond Toulouse when news
came that Bonaparte had abdicated and the long war was ended.
In the armistice the Duke made arrangements to board British
troops at Bordeaux for America. Transports were soon waiting
in the Garonne River. While the soldiers celebrated the Army
buzzed with gossip as to which units would be selected for North
American adventures. Eleven regiments and demiregiments were
chosen for initial embarkation, a force aggregating about 8,000
men. An additional 8,000 would follow later in the season. It was
the cabinet's early intention to place Lieutenant General Sir
Rowland Hill, Wellington's principal lieutenant, in charge of the
entire North American Army, 5 but the first troops sailed under
their respective brigade commanders.

The men were not surprised that the Duke recommended Ross
for important overseas duty. Everyone liked the air of assurance
he carried on the battlefield. Lord Liverpool later was to bemoan
the mistake of assigning the larger British force to Canada instead
of to the Atlantic seaboard, where Ross was entrusted with inde-
pendent command. The prime minister pointed out that with
half the troops sent to Prevost, Ross could have captured every
American seaport city south of Philadelphia, and when the con-
dition of the American defenses is taken into account, the as-
sumption seems well founded. Britain rarely encountered such

British Invasion Plans 53

an open coast line; it invited everything down to petty freeboot-
ers and marauders. And the Irish disciplinarian revealed a percep-
tion unusual among British officers sent to the North American
wars.

The force given to Ross for his diversions along the American
coast contained the 4th (King's Own), the 44th and the 8jth
line regiments, to which a battalion was added at Bermuda. The
regiments typified the spirit that had made Wellington's fine
army stand firm at Torres Vedras, break the French at Talavera
and contribute in no small measure to the twelve votes of thanks
awarded its commander by the British Parliament. "I could have
done anything with that army," Wellington remarked affection-
ately in later reflections. With pride in the army's achievements
and with new dominance in world politics resulting from Napo-
leon's downfall, the British public heartily supported the plan of
dispatching Wellington's troops to punish America.

Two of Ross's regiments already had left their imprints on
New World history. The 4th had suffered forty-four casualties
on the first day of the American Revolution. When Lieutenant
Colonel Smith's detachment, harried by the Minute Men, retired
from the affair at Concord Bridge, on April 18, 1775, it found
safety at Lexington behind eight companies of the 4th. The old
Royal Lancaster Regiment comprised the bulk of the succoring
force dispatched by General Gage under Lord Percy to cover
the retreat into Boston. Two months later the 4th carried the
trenches with the bayonet in the third assault at Bunker Hill.
The regiment was one of Great Britain's oldest and had been so
recognized by the numeral given it when King William settled
the question of Army precedence in 1694. The 44th Regiment
had an even more extended record of North American cam-
paigning than the 4th. Its service during the Revolution under
Lord Howe had been preceded by combat with the French. It
marched with General Forbes over the Pennsylvania mountains
to Fort Duquesne, where it stood at parade alongside Washing-
ton's Virginians when the British flag was raised at the christen-
ing of Pittsburgh, the far outpost commanding the land beyond
the Alleghenies. The third regiment, the 85th, had been formed

5 o 4 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

in 1793 and was of light infantry. In 1793, it had won notices on
the Peninsula.

At their embarkation the 4th and 44th Regiments mustered
about 800 bayonets each, and the 8jth mustered 600. There
were detachments of engineers, sappers, artillerists, rocket men
and drivers, and units of medical and commissariat departments
a force altogether of about 2,800 men. They wore the plumed
black shakos of the resplendent Napoleonic period of army
dress. With scarlet coats and blue facings faded by sweat, rain
and Spanish sun, the regiments moved down to the transports
chanting a Spanish marching song. Their esprit de corps was
heightened by the knowledge that they had been designated out
of all the Peninsular Army to fight in America and by the buoy-
ing excitement that rises at the departing hour of every overseas
expedition. News of the embarkation, carried to England by the
British ship Clinker, stated that the soldiers were "in the highest
spirits; their superior state of discipline and courage in the field
had long been the admiration of their own officers." 6 The Bor-
deaux press complimented them on their good conduct in the
French city. The squadron of eleven ships dropped down the
Garonne and Gironde on June 2, 1814.

2.

The Bordeaux fleet found Bermuda a center of intense military
and naval activity. The soldiers were pleased with the chance to
get their shore legs. A few days after their arrival another British
squadron of six frigates and a number of transports appeared
from the Mediterranean and brought the 29th and 62nd regi-
ments and the first battalion of the 2 ist, the Royal Scots Fusiliers.
This battalion, which had 900 bayonets, was a substantial addition
to Ross's army. The 29th and 62nd regiments went on to Prevost.

The 2ist had appeared in British history at Bothwell Bridge,
where it fought with Monmouth against the Scottish revolters.
Its thistle badge and waist plate of St. Andrew's cross had moved
across the principal European battlefields for more than a century.

Admiral Cochrane was flying his pennant from the Tonnant,
a majestic vessel of eighty guns, one of Nelson's prizes from the

British Invasion Plans 505

French at the Nile. He assembled from his ample squadrons the
ships that would transport Ross to the American seaboard. He
designated Edward Codrington captain of the fleet. Codrington
was the young admiral who had commanded the Orion at
Trafalgar, and who later, in the naval battle of Navarino Bay,
destroyed the Turkish and Egyptian fleets, thereby cutting
through the tangle of diplomatic uncertainty and giving Greece
her independence.

General Ross's regiments included junior officers who would
rise to high rank and distinguished service in the next half cen-
tury of British empire building. Ross appointed a bustling captain
of British foot, Harry Smith, his assistant adjutant general. Smith
had joined Wellington's army to participate in the capture of
Badajoz, which the Duke took by a frontal assault that turned
the French ramparts into a shambles and made a mangled, bleed-
ing brute out of the British army. Suddenly casting off all re-
straint, indifferent to the provost marshal's threat to execute any
soldier found plundering, the soldiers plunged into a saturnalia
of lust and looting that badly sullied their Spanish record. All night
and for two days thereafter the revels of the troops continued.

On the morning after the capture two Spanish girls made their
way to the British camp outside the walls, and there encountered
friendly, effervescent Harry Smith and asked his protection.
One was the wife of a Spanish officer serving elsewhere on the
Peninsula. The other, her sister, Juana Maria de Los Dolores de
Leon, was a girl of such striking Spanish beauty as to make the
British officers who saw her catch their breath. In later years, invi-
tations to the illustrious levees she held were among the most
sought after missives of London society. Harry Smith hid the
sisters. 7 He and the younger were so enamored of each other that
they were married. The romance was enduring and remained one
of the most beautiful and inspiring of the service during the Vic-
torian era. The girl-wife stayed with the British army, followed
it through the Pyrenees and waited impatiently for Smith's return
from the war in America. General Ross selected Smith to carry
the dispatches from the Chesapeake to England. The assignment
was a recognition of the officer's bravery, but it was also a reward

5 o6 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

for the girl's affection, for Ross understood the situation, similar
to his own.

Nearly a century later, during the Boer War, the eyes of the
world were fastened on Sir Redvers Buller's efforts to relieve the
South African city of Ladysrnith, named in honor of this Spanish
girl. Smith rose through the different grades to become one of
Britain's first field officers. He fought with Gough against the
Sikhs and commanded at Aliwal, where he won from Wellington
the remark: "I never read an account of an affair in which an
officer has shown himself more capable than this officer did of
commanding troops In the field." He fought the Kaffirs and
Pretorius and the Boers. His famous ride from Cape Town to
Grahamstown in six days, rated by the travel routes at that time
as near 700 miles, was rarely equaled for combined speed and
distance even in the armies of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. He
served for many years as the British governor of the Cape Col-
ony, and is remembered in Natal by the city of Harrysmith. 8

Colonel William Thornton, who commanded the 85th Regi-
ment, was a familiar figure in British colonial work, having served
as military secretary and aide to Lieutenant General Craig when
he was governor-general of Canada. Sir George de Lacy Evans,
known to the home government for his daring on the Peninsula,
where he frequently volunteered for suicide-squad assignments
and was rewarded by citations, acted as Ross's deputy quarter-
master general. He rose in later years to the rank of lieutenant
general and commanded a wing of Lord Raglan's army in the
Crimea. "Black Charley" Napier sailed with the fleet. Lord By-
ron's cousin, Sir Peter Parker, grandson of the British admiral
who attacked Charleston and captured Newport in the American
Revolution, commanded the frigate Menelaus.

By August r the provisions were loaded and the ships were
ready for the embarkation. 9 It was a clear Bermuda day with a
fresh breeze blowing across the white and green islands. Back in
London the people were celebrating the peace, the Nile victory
and a hundred years of Brunswick. The frugal, deaf old king,
wrapped in his hallucinations, sat with his flute in his dressing
gown of purple velvet and conversed with the angels. They

British Invasion Plans 507

continually formed themselves into the beautiful young girl,
graceful and vivacious, who had walked in the lead of the stately
procession of countesses at his coronation. Fifty-four years had
slipped by, but the picture of this girl had lasted, gaining in vivid-
ness as other memories faded. 10

General Ross walked the deck of the Tonnant with his usual
air of detachment. He probably thought little of the Brunswick
Centennial. His thoughts must have gone back to earlier times in
the Army: the first wound at Krabbendam and the citation he
received there as a lieutenant ... the long drill at Minorca and
Malta . . . Corunna and the rest period that followed, which
had given him a chance five years ago to see the County Down
countryside . . . the names he had helped place on the colors of
the old 20th Regiment-~"Egypt," "Sphinx" and "Pyrenees." It
was a natural occasion for reflection. It was just twenty-five years
ago that very day when he had donned the scarlet uniform of an
ensign in His Majesty's foot.

The big sails billowed full on the morning of the third of
August, and Cochrane's squadron stood out to sea, carrying
Ross's army of retaliation to the Chesapeake.

Twenty -Seven
Washington Threatened

One of the reasons for the American government's apathy
about the danger to the Eastern seaboard and the capital city
from Admiral George Cockburn's raiding parties was the com-
placency of editor Joe Gales of the National Intelligencer.

Next to Madison, Gales was probably the man most odious in
America to the British invaders and the newspapers in London.
He was one of the select editorial group "whose lives are forfeit
under British laws" this because he was born in Eckington, near
Sheffield, where his father, before coming to the United States,
had published the Sheffield Register. Father and son fled to
America as political refugees In 1795 and a short time later the
father began publication in North Carolina of the Raleigh
Register. The son became the proprietor of the National Intel-
ligencer in 1 8 10 and two years later took his brother-in-law Wil-
liam W. Seaton, who had worked on the Raleigh Register, into
partnership with him. Gales continued the publication until his
death just before the War between the States and remained the
semiofficial Presidential spokesman until controversy with Jack-
son caused Jackson to call on Francis P. Blair to edit a new Demo-
cratic organ, the Globe.

Gales's great dome, like his careless bookkeeping, lent validity
to his title of editor. One of the senators described him as stand-
ing "as erect as the quills on a porcupine," and others, including
Clay, in later years called him the man best-informed on the
United States government save only John Quincy Adams. Gales
obtained his background of federal affairs from the years during

508

Washington Threatened 509

which he was the closest observer of the Senate and most atten-
tive listener to its debates.

When he left his father's Raleigh paper in 1807 and went to
Washington as a reporter for the National Intelligencer, then
published as a triweekly by S. Harrison Smith, Gales was assigned
to cover the Senate proceedings. The Senate had no official ste-
nographer and Gales's transcript provided the principal record.
The august Senate was unfamiliar with newspaper scribes and
had no press gallery until one was established on June 12, 1813.
Gales was provided with a chair on the front rostrum, alongside
the Vice-President's seat. He and Vice-President George Clinton
borrowed each other's snuffboxes while the senators declaimed. 1
In December 1813 Gales married Sarah Juliana Lee, niece of
Light-Horse Harry Lee, whose cousin, Robert E. Lee, had been
born the year Gales moved to Washington.

Being a naturalized American citizen, Gales was considered by
Cockburn a traitor to Great Britain, and the admiral's fingers
itched for the opportunity either to get at his throat or to pi his
type boxes. 2 Quite innocently the editor contributed toward the
latter eventuality by his eagerness to shield Madison from con-
demnation voiced freely because the Chesapeake area was kept
in an inviting condition for the invaders. Gales thought it better
to allay than arouse fears and he treated as a minor incident a
British squadron's capture of Poplar and Sharp's islands. What
was startling about it? An American vessel had taken over and
held for two weeks a small island off the coast of Scotland. In
mid-May the National Intelligencer was asserting, "We have no
idea of his [the enemy's] attempting to reach the vicinity of the
Capitol; and if he does, we have no doubt he will meet such a
reception as he had a sample of at Craney Island. The enemy
knows better than to thrust himself abreast of, or on this side of
Ft. Washington." This was a fort on the Potomac opposite
Alexandria.

i.

While Gales saw security and counseled contentment not for
the country as a whole, but emphatically for Washington others

5 io POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

found added reasons for preparedness in the June 20 news story
from Quebec, published in the New York newspapers July 11,
1814, and copied throughout the country. The article featured
the reopening of commerce between Quebec and Bordeaux the
first vessels had arrived from Bordeaux in fifty-five years, or since
Wolfe's victory on the Heights of Abraham. Only incidentally
did it relate that the vessels brought Wellington's soldiers and
publish the complete list of the regiments ordered to North
American duty.

The increased clamor for action rose most loudly from two
sources. The residents of southern Maryland could not under-
stand why Winder did not employ the "corps of observation" he
had at Wood Yard, consisting principally of the District of
Columbia troops, against Cockburn's marines. The District of Co-
lumbia residents, the other clamorous group, finally abandoned
hope that Armstrong would stir himself and prepare the city's
defenses. 3

Maryland complaints reached the New York newspapers. One
correspondent told on August i of British seizures of Negroes,
stock and tobacco. "Will the people of the United States believe,"
he added, "that a strong, regular force has been, for the past
three weeks, within fifty miles of an enemy laying waste the
whole country and that the Secretary of War has not, although
repeatedly solicited, ordered a solitary individual to our assist-
ance?" Another letter written three days later from Port To-
bacco to Baltimore described how the raiders had made Charles,
St. Marys and Calvert counties "unenviable places of residence."
Tobacco was burned, villages and houses destroyed. "Above, far
above us, and in perfect safety at present, the government have
a camp of regulars, under General Winder."

Washington residents began a search for reasons for Arm-
strong's inaction. They concluded that the Secretary was hostile
to the city as the capital. "They think he wishes to have the seat
of the government removed," said a correspondent to the New
York Post, "that he may destroy the Virginia combination, which
now stands in the way of his promotion to the next Presi-
dency." 4 The capital at the time was not convinced of its stabil-

Washington Threatened 51*

ity, as repeated attempts had been made in Congress in late years
to reopen the question of the location on the Potomac.

Armstrong's notorious hostility to Virginia gave credence to
the popular deduction that he did not want the city protected
because defenses would contribute to its permanency. This re-
port, which Armstrong did not deny, was accompanied by a
more specific rumor, published by the New York Post on the
authority of letters received from Washington: "We understand
that General Armstrong has given it as his opinion that the city
of Washington cannot be defended; and it is said he has engaged
quarters in Carlisle (Pen.) [sic] to which place it is supposed he
will retreat, should the British make their appearance in the Dis-
trict." The day this opinion was published in New York, August
8, 1814, the Post printed another interesting bit of correspond-
ence which proved prophetic:

Armstrong is suspected and cursed by almost every person
here. Deputations have been sent to the President both from this
city and Georgetown. They have declared to the President their
total want of confidence in Armstrong, and demanded in strong
terms that steps be immediately taken to place the District in a
state of defense. Armstrong and some others in power will be
well watched. If any disaster befall the District through their
neglect or disaffection to the seat of government, they may not
from the present temper of the people find it easy to escape.

Armstrong meanwhile was deeply involved in his rhetorical
battle with Wilkinson and seemed unconcerned about the storm
that was gathering around him. 5

2.

While Armstrong was inditing epistles about Wilkinson, a
single performer, a direct-actionist, was busy in the Chesapeake.
Joshua Barney, a ready tar from Baltimore, had been given com-
mand of 503 seamen and fourteen old scows and barges. He fitted
them out as gunboats in Baltimore harbor and took them against
the men of war, frigates, brigs and other hostile craft that had
come to be as much at home in the Chesapeake as in Plymouth
Harbor. Ordinarily such a flotilla would scarcely have caused

5 i2 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Cockburn to lift his eyebrows, but under Barney it kept a sizable
fleet of big vessels occupied. Commodore Barney was an Ameri-
can institution, a gay, flashily appareled officer of the old John
Paul Jones Navy school. At heart he was possibly only a shade
from being a buccaneer, and certainly from the day he began
work on a pilot boat at the age of twelve until the day he re-
ceived a final bullet at the Battle of Bladensburg he was a fighter.

Barney was present on important occasions in American begin-
nings. In 1776, when he was aboard the Andrea Doria at St.
Eustatius in the West Indies, the commander of the brig, Captain
Robinson, saluted the Dutch governor. The reply to that salute
was the first recognition in history of the American flag; it pre-
ceded that accorded the flag of John Paul Jones. Barney was in
France when the British signed on the line designated by Dr.
Franklin and he hastened back to America with his ship to bring
the first news of King George's recognition of American inde-
pendence, as well as a neat French loan in gold.

His principal Revolutionary War fame, however, rested on a
feat he performed in 1782, when at the age of twenty he com-
manded the Hyder-Ally, of sixteen 6-pounders and 1 1 o men. With
this small power, he captured the British sloop of war General
Monk off the cape of Delaware. It was an action, as James Feni-
more Cooper said, "justly deemed one of the most brilliant that
ever occurred under the American flag." Barney outfought the
much more powerful ship and won a gold-hiked sword from
Philadelphia, where the people sang a ballad:

Come all ye lads that know no fear,
To wealth and honor we will steer,
In the Hyder-Ally Privateer,
Commanded by bold Barney.

Barney sailed the General Monk to France. The exploit of the
handsome young officer caused such a sensation off Versailles that
the good-looking blonde Marie Antoinette kissed him heartily
before all the people of the court. Her example caused the maids
of honor and other court ladies to follow suit, thereby winning
for Barney some hard scowls from the courtiers. The occasion
was worth more than a few couplets and resulted in a full-length

Washington Threatened 513

popular song, "Barney, Leave the Girls Alone," which seemed to
accumulate a variety of verses not associated with the original
incident.

Barney was in and out of British prisons three times during the
Revolution, but managed nonetheless to unfurl the first Stars and
Stripes seen in Baltimore. When Baltimore celebrated the adop-
tion of the Federal Constitution he gave the city a thrill by mov-
ing a full-rigged ship down the street as a float. At the end of the
procession he left it on high ground overlooking the basin, a cir-
cumstance that awarded to this elevation the name it still holds,
"Federal Hill."

Barney had a falling out with the government when he thought
it, in selecting commodores for the six new frigates of the Consti-
tution class, gave a shore sailor a higher file than it gave him.
Instead of commanding one of these first warships of the Ameri-
can Navy, he took service with the French and participated in
the Santo Domingo expedition. There he met Napoleon's young-
est brother, Jerome, who was following a naval career. Barney
and Jerome became good friends. After Barney resigned from
the French service in 1802 and returned to Baltimore, Jerome
stopped by to visit him and passed several weeks at Barney's
home. Barney's son, William Bedford Barney, had married Mary
Chase, daughter of Samuel Chase, signer of the Declaration of
Independence. At the father's house Jerome met Miss Elizabeth
Patterson, took her to the Havre de Grace races and, despite the
commodore's efforts to prevent the match, married her, thereby
throwing the Emperor into one of his choice tantrums. When
in 1812, war with England came, Barney disappeared down the
Chesapeake aboard his schooner Rossie in search of British prizes.
He captured fifteen and sank nine before returning to Baltimore
to fight a duel and accept, on April 27, 1814, the commission of
captain of the Chesapeake flotilla.

In the fighting that followed Barney inflicted punishment on
larger British vessels and then ran for shallow water where the
big ships could not follow. His flagship, the only cutter of his
flotilla, was named appropriately the Scorpion. She had eight
carronades, a heavy long gun and furnaces for heating shot. With

5 1 4 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

this curious squadron and its 503 seamen, Barney set out after
the British schooner St. Lawrence and pursued her and half a
dozen smaller craft until they found a haven under the big guns
of the Dragon., with seventy-four guns, which in turn pursued
Barney back to shallow water. Because of Barney's enterprise the
British had to be continually vigilant. Cockburn, who had re-
turned to the Chesapeake in March 1814, could no longer under-
take movements of the proportions of the Havre de Grace
attack, but had to remain content with minor tobacco-gathering

incursions. 6

3-

A strong, easterly wind blew across the Virginia capes and up
the Chesapeake on the morning of August 15, 1814. Residents
of Yorktown, scanning the horizon, saw a great squadron of
square-rigged and lesser craft moving majestically across the
ruffled waters*

It was an extraordinary spectacle which revealed the full splen-
dor of British sea power. Observers on the shore counted six sail
of the line, twenty-one frigates, six brigs and a proportionate
number of smaller vessels more than half a hundred ships in all.
In the center rode a great line two-decker flying a blue admiral's
flag at the maintop. She was Cochrane's Tonnant, once one of
Brueys' mammoths at Aboukir Bay.

The favorable wind brought the British squadron in from the
sea on the fourteenth and took it up the bay in advance of over-
land intelligence of its arrival. Yorktown residents watched with
consternation as it passed the mouth of the York River. They
calculated that it must have a considerable army on board, pos-
sibly 10,000 men, a force large enough to undertake the subjuga-
tion of the entire district. One articulate resident immediately
dashed off a letter to the Virginia Patriot at Richmond; he de-
nounced the administration for its failure to prepare for just such
a contingency and complained that there was not a company of
regular troops and not more than 2,000 militia in the field. The
writer concluded ironically: "Thus we are about to taste the
blessings of Tree Trade and Sailors' Rights.' "

Washington Threatened 515

On the vessels Wellington's veterans were getting a delightful
first view of America. Their admiration was stirred by the spa-
ciousness of the bay and the majesty of the great rivers, the James,
the York and finally the Potomac, and by a country with "forests
and rivers sublime beyond description." 7 At the mouth of the
Potomac, on August 16, the fleet was met by Admiral Cockburn
with three ships of the line and a number of frigates, sloops and
gun brigs, comprising his original squadron and other vessels that
had joined August 2 for the grand concentration. With Cock-
burn were 700 British marines, with whom he had been harrying
the countryside and fighting Barney, and one hundred North
American Negroes, armed and drilled, who might be employed
in an emergency for combat as well as labor duty. General Ross
had instructions through Lord Bathurst not to inspire revolts
among the slaves nor to transport them to further servitude, but
to accept any Negroes who volunteered for duty.

After this union of British forces in the Chesapeake region,
Ross and Cockburn went ashore and reviewed the prospects of
the campaign.

An attack on Baltimore was suggested because that city was
of much greater commercial importance than Washington. It was
the third largest city of the United States and one of the principal
shipping centers of the New World. It possessed naval signifi-
cance because it was the home port of many of the privateersmen
sent out at the beginning of the war to drive the British merchant
shipping from the seas. British owners would be pleased to have
Baltimore placed under indemnity.

The plan finally adopted at the meeting was Cockburn's and it
was obviously the best available. The major portion of the fleet
was to enter the Patuxent, rather than the Potomac or Patapsco,
and the army was to debark and stand in readiness at a position
suitable for a descent on either Baltimore or Washington, or pos-
sibly Annapolis. This strategy would confuse the Americans and
tempt them to keep their available forces divided for the protec-
tion of three cities, and Fort Washington as well. Meanwhile, the
presence of Barney's flotilla in the Patuxent offered a plausible
motive for the concentration in that river and screened the true

5 i6 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

purpose of an advance on the capital. The plan called for the de-
tachment of a small fleet under Captain James A. Gordon, com-
mander of the frigate Seahorse, which would sail up the Potomac,
pass Fort Washington, capture Alexandria and co-operate with
Ross in front of Washington. 8

To create a minor diversion, Admiral Cockburn sent the frig-
ate Menelaus, commanded by Sir Peter Parker, for a cruise along
the eastern shore of Maryland. The move, of no military signifi-
cance, seems to have had no other purpose than to provide amuse-
ment for Sir Peter, who remarked that he "did not want to leave
America without a frolic with the Yankees/' It cost Sir Peter his
life in a small brush with militia. The balance of the squadron,
consisting of thirty-eight sail, entered Patuxent River on August
1 7 and, after being becalmed for a time, proceeded to the head
of fleet navigation at Benedict, thirty-eight miles overland from
Washington. There the four line regiments and the marines be-
gan debarking on August 19.

Ross found the town of Benedict, consisting of a number of
small houses neatly kept and uniformly painted white, deserted.
The residents had departed hurriedly without attempting to
transport their household effects. The town was surrounded by
patches of corn and orchards, beyond which stood a deep pine
forest described by Lieutenant George Robert Gleig as "of pro-
digious extent and gloomy appearance." The small clearings
seemed to the British soldiers, familiar with an open, well-culti-
vated country, as "petty thefts from the wild beasts and wilder
savages of these savannahs, which they care not to resent because
unworthy of notice/' Immediately after the first troops landed,
the general, with the prudence that characterized all his moves in
Maryland, posted pickets around the camp and thus commanded
every yard of ground from the river above his camp to the river
below. To the surprise of Admiral Cockburn, he issued strict
orders against the pillage of private houses.

Barney had his flotilla at Pig Point on the Patuxent River. The
flotilla now consisted of sixteen boats, behind which thirteen

Washington Threatened 517

tobacco-laden merchant schooners had sought security. The Brit-
ish plan was for Cockburn to take his marines up the river while
Ross marched along the roadway, the two to act in concert in an
attack on Barney. Ross completed his debarkation on August 20
and on the twenty-first began his movement along the river road,
while Cockburn loaded his marines on forty tenders and barges
and breasted the sluggish current of the river.

The entire British force in the Patuxent now consisted of 5,123
men available for combat duty. Weapons available were rocket
tubes and three guns two small 3 -pounders and one 6-pounder.
There were plenty of additional cannon with the fleet but there
were no animals. The guns were dragged by seamen.

General Ross anticipated an attack by an American army be-
fore he could progress very far from his shipping and, since
no hostile troops made their appearance during the two days
required for the debarking, he took precautions against an ambus-
cade, "for the happy application of which," wrote Lieutenant
Gleig, "the nature of the country afforded every facility." Before
he started his march he brigaded his army. The light troops were
withdrawn from three of the regiments and formed, with the
85th Light-Infantry Regiment, into the Light Brigade, the com-
mand of which was assigned to Colonel William Thornton, the
leader of the 85th.

As the army began its march, the Light Brigade took the ad-
vance. It was characteristic of General Ross that he frequently
rode with the advance party. 10

The British infantry, according to Gleig, found that laboring
over the heavy pike of South Maryland, under a blazing August
sun, was much more difficult than marching along the hard
Roman roads of Spain. Loaded with three days' provisions, eighty
rounds of ball cartridges, knapsacks, extra shoes and wooden
water kegs, and heavy long-barreled muskets and bayonets, they
required frequent rest periods. Their lack of vigor, however,
was due less to the conditions of the journey, severe as these
proved to be, than to their long voyage, on which they had soft-
ened. "Some of the finest and stoutest men of the army were
literally unable to go on," Gleig reported.

5 i8 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Washington was drowsing listlessly on the dull summer morn-
ing of August 1 8, 1814. The hot sun beating down made the day
already sluggish, and so few people were on the sidewalks that
the scene justified Washington living's complaint that the capital
city of the Republic was a "forlorn desert" when Congress was
not in session. Those citizens who were visible were lolling in the
thin shade of Jefferson's poplars along Pennsylvania Avenue
when a foam-spattered horseman dashed through the streets,
sending up great clouds of dust, and drew up at the War Depart-
ment. He was from the Army's observatory station at Point
Lookout, where the Potomac enters the Chesapeake. The news
he brought quickly shook the city out of its somnambulence. The
British Army had come at last.

Two hours later the situation was without precedent, even to
those who had been familiar elsewhere with the approach of the
British during the Revolution. The capital was charged with ex-
citementmost of the people on the streets; couriers riding madly
to summon the militia detachments that had never appeared;
women stacking their personal belongings on doorsteps; crowds
gathering at 6th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest, for
the Intelligencer bulletins; and Winder and the cabinet confer-
ring at length on what to do in an emergency of such gravity.

The two principal military figures of the city, Winder and
Armstrong, manifested in the crisis the extent of their innate re-
sourcefulness. Armstrong did nothing. Winder, like a lawyer
with a poor case and doubting clients, put on a show of intense
activity by darting in and out of meetings, riding about the city,
talking, writing general orders, and in the end accomplishing
little of value.

Monroe, the President's adviser, also showed his caliber, and
fortunately it was of a better kind. He had a somewhat different
conception of the requirements of an emergency. Sharing no
responsibility for the mobilization or conduct of the Army, con-
fined officially to the dull tasks of the State Department, he never-
theless perceived that the first need was for accurate intelligence

Washington Threatened 5*9

about the enemy's intentions and he correctly concluded that
Armstrong was not likely to produce it. Monroe had been a lieu-
tenant colonel of Continental cavalry. The past crowded in upon
himthe columns of marching men, the trumpet blasts and drum
roil. He could imagine himself back in the saddle once more. He
acted. Like one released from a long sleep, he ordered his horse
and galloped off to prevail on twenty-five men of Captain Thorn-
ton's militia troop from Alexandria to take the field at once an
easy task for a fellow Virginian. Soon he left a seething city be-
hind him as he rode happily toward the scene of action.

Monroe combed the Potomac and Patuxent regions and at ten
o'clock on the morning of the twentieth established contact with
General Ross's army at Benedict. There, secreted in the pine
forest, with his cavalry escort hidden at a distance, he watched
the redcoats leaving their ships, studied their camp and the size
of their pickets, and arrived at the fairly accurate estimate that
the full force numbered approximately 6,000 men. That day and
night he sent reports to Madison. Still undetected by the British
scouts, he retired in front of the invaders as they moved on the
next morning from Benedict to Nottingham.

Monroe was leaving Nottingham as the British entered, a cir-
cumstance which caused him in his enthusiasm over being back
in the cavalry saddle to suggest in one of his notes that he came
close to being captured. It was a pardonable exaggeration. He
probably had not observed closely enough to notice that the
invading forces had no horses except the general's mount. Mon-
roe's expedition is the only instance in American history of the
ranking cabinet officer serving as a simple cavalry scout, 11 and it
demonstrated to Madison that his friend and helper had the cour-
age to hover alone in the near proximity of the enemy, while the
tactician who dreamed of repeating the scenes at Saratoga clung
to his War Department desk and awaited developments. 12

In Washington Winder called out the District of Columbia
militia and ordered the mobilization at the Tiber River, at the
west foot of Capitol Hill, for Friday night, August 19. The exo-
dus of citizens began. The countryside along the road leading
toward Montgomery Court House (now Rockville, Maryland)

520 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

was white with the dust of the fugitives. The banks removed
their specie to Hagerstown. Federal Departments packed records.
The city, not yet in receipt of Monroe's estimate, was fed with
rumors that the British had landed seven, ten, fifteen thousand
men, commanded by Lord Hill in person. Stage passengers to
New York spread the alarm to the cities on the route. The com-
mon assertion was that not only Rowland Hill but also Thomas
Picton, another of the better-known of Wellington's generals,
whose reputation had reached to virtually every American village,
accompanied the troops.

General Wilkinson, awaiting his court-martial, offered his
services if his arrest should be lifted temporarily, but Madison
concluded that Wilkinson's talents for confusing things were not
required in a situation that was already thoroughly confounded
and refrained from answering the letter Wilkinson addressed
through Monroe.

The District of Columbia militia, consisting of two brigades,
was commanded by John P. Van Ness, a militia major general
who had officiated at the drills and reviews. Van Ness was some-
thing of a man of parts in Washington banker and property
owner and in later years mayor. He had worn Armstrong's
threshold thin during the last year requesting defenses for the
city, and now that the British were present he called at the War
Department again to reflect his alarms and say that the enemy
probably intended to strike a forceful blow.

"Oh, yes, by God! " Armstrong exclaimed. "They would not
come with such a fleet without meaning to strike somewhere, but
they certainly will not come here. What in the devil will they do
here?"

Van Ness explained that they would do nothing more nor less
than capture the seat of the American government, which would
be worth writing home about.

"No, no! " the Secretary asserted. "Baltimore is the place, sir.
That is of much more consequence."

In view of the doubts about Winder among the Washington
militia soldiers, Van Ness felt that the responsibility of defending
the District of Columbia should be upon a banker's rather than

Washington Threatened 521

a kwyer's shoulders. When President Madison decided the ques-
tion of seniority in favor of Winder, Van Ness petulantly re-
signed his commission, leaving the militia of the district under the
leadership of Brigadier General Walter Smith of Georgetown,
who was subject to Winder's orders.

When the men assembled on the Tiber Friday night, they were
so indifferently armed, equipped and uniformed that Smith dis-
missed them until the following morning with orders to go home
and get some better shoes and, in effect, if they couldn't find a
gun to bring a butcher knife. 13 On Saturday morning the militia-
men formed again in slightly better fighting condition and were
mustered into the federal service.

6.

The sight of the militia fired many of the residents, including
Editor Joe Gales, with confidence. With his ardor mounting as
he wrote for his August 22 issue of the Intelligencer, Gales con-
fused conditions with those of the Revolution and harkened back
to thoughts of the Hessian hirelings. He predicted:

In a few hours thousands of brave men will be prepared to re-
sist the host of mercenaries that now threatens us. Arrayed in
defense of all that renders life a blessing, and for protecting from
insult and desolation the metropolis of our country, every arm
will be nerved with a vigor irresistible. Great as the public anxiety
must naturally be at such a time, all look with confidence to the
capacity and vigilance of the Commanding General, and we feel
no doubt that his foresight and activity will leave nothing un-
done that our security requires.

The Washington City Gazette felt more pride than assurance,
It described how the militia, with its artillery, cavalry and rifle-
men, took up the march toward Benedict:

Nothing could exceed the alacrity and cheerfulness with which
these true Americans left the comforts of home to repel the
ferocious invader. With few exceptions, almost everyone capable
of bearing arms, assembled on the Capitol Hill; and about 2
o'clock P.M., after giving three cheers, took the road to meet the
enemy. Such men are worthy of the blessings of liberty. Heaven
and the prayers of the country go with them. 14

522 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

General Winder took command at the Wood Yard on August
21, where he was joined on the morning of the twenty-second by
Barney with 400 of the 503 flotilla seamen. Barney had ordered
the others to follow later. Fie had left them to blow up his gun-
boats when the British advanced. Secretary of the Navy Jones,
concluding that Barney's squadron was likely to fall into British
hands and that Barney could be employed more effectively in de-
fense of the capital than of the barges, issued orders on August
20 that if the British started toward Washington the flotilla
should be destroyed. At the Wood Yard General Winder's army,
undetected by Ross, was on the flank of the British column as it
moved to Upper Marlboro. It was just such an opportunity as
many generals pray for and seize eagerly when presented, but
Winder did nothing about it. He observed the British inarch,
to be sure. On going out with some scouts, he found an elevation
that commanded a distant view of the roadway, and from it
studied the column through his glasses. 15 No efforts were made
to impede the advance of the British, although Armstrong, had
he not remained in Washington, might have described to Winder
and helped execute some of the delaying measures taken against
Burgoyne in ijjj. 16

Both Winder's and Ross's armies heard the series of explosions
as Barney's gunboats were destroyed. Ross entered Upper Marl-
boro and waited at the home of Dr. William Beanes until he
could gain reliable information from spies on the situation in
Washington, the nature of the defending army, the capacity
of its leadership and the best approach to the city. Cockburn
already had spies in Washington and apparently Ross, on landing,
added to their number. 17

At two o'clock on the afternoon of the twenty-second Ross
received the intelligence for which he had been waiting. The de-
liberation which had attended his earlier movements suddenly
ended. Leaving 500 marines and his 6-pounder at Upper Marl-
boro to protect his rear, which might be attacked by the militia
gathering at Annapolis, he put the balance of his army, 3,500
men, on the roadway toward Washington and resumed his posi-
tion with the advance guard.

Washington Threatened 523

7-

General Winder's camp at Long Old Fields, now the town of
Forestville, Maryland, was the scene of confusion on the night
of August 22 while Ross's army slept peacefully half a dozen
miles away. Winder's army at this stage was an aggregation of
indefinite form and size, rated by him to number 3,200 men, but
according to the Gazette, he drew rations for 7,000 from the
quartermaster corps for delivery on the morning of the twenty-
third. Even at that his men were poorly provisioned because the
quartermaster was scarcely functioning. The supply wagons
were transporting government records to Virginia. Winder's
army, being then without the reinforcements from Baltimore,
probably did not number more than 4,000, with an additional
1,500 subject to his call at Fort Washington and Alexandria. The
largest unit was Smith's Georgetown brigade.

Subsequent testimony showed that the camp was "as open as
a racetrack," and "noisy as a fair." 18 Militia soldiers were coming
and going through the night. There was boisterous talk and quar-
reling. No one trusted the discretion of the pickets. Those enter-
ing the camp shouted the countersign from a distance, taking no
chances of surprising the sentries and drawing their impetuous
fire. Anyone desiring access might have obtained it by waiting
fifty yards in the woods until the password was revealed. The
army was still without tents and camped in the open fields.

Repose finally settled over the assembly after midnight, but it
was repose of short duration. At two o'clock on the morning of
the twenty-third the false alarm, which usually overtakes raw
troops on their first bivouac in the presence of the enemy, caused
Winder, mindful of the night surprise of the British at Stoney
Creek, to turn out the entire army and keep it in formation until
daylight. It was the second night without sleep for the soldiers.
During the night the President, Secretary Armstrong, Attorney
General Rush and a number of orderlies arrived for a review of
the troops at nine o'clock in the morning.

Mr. Madison, who had slept little, conversed with Winder and
Smith while the parade was being arranged. 19 The men straggled

I

<D
O<

Washington Threatened 525

past the reviewing stand in fair order, yet their appearance was
nothing to disconcert any spies who might observe it. Half the men
were in civilian attire and others were only partially uniformed.
Barney's seamen closed the procession. The commander was
garbed in a flashy blue uniform and imparted a bit of swagger to
his small command.

Just after the review ended Colonel Thomas L. McKenney,
superintendent of Indian Affairs, who was serving as a voluntary
aide on the staff of General Smith, rode in with some vedettes
with whom he had been scouting around the British camp at
Upper Marlboro. McKenney had picked up two men who de-
scribed themselves as British deserters. He brought these prison-
ers forward and Mr. Madison, in his role as commander in chief
of the Army, examined them. The learned President did not
prove to be adept as a third-degree inquisitor, for according to
McKenney's report the deserters divulged less than nothing about
the complexion of the invading army. They did not know the
name of the general who commanded them, which was still a
mystery to the Americans. They did not know where they had
been or what the British destination might be. They were entirely
unenlightened about the size of the British force. Colonel Mc-
Kenney then took over the questioning and asked the prisoners
to look about at Winder's army and say whether the British was
equal to it. They looked about, smiled pleasantly and responded:
"We think it is." 20

President Madison saw that little was to be gained by prolong-
ing his research among prisoners. With him men were less com-
municative than books. He gathered his party and returned to
Washington.

Winder's urgent calls on Baltimore for assistance awakened
a response in that city, although it had its own defense problems
to consider and could not part with all its troops. Baltimore was
commanded by the veteran Revolutionary War general and sena-
tor, Samuel Smith, who had three brigades of volunteer and
drafted militia, in addition to the small regular force at Fort
McHenry under Major George Armistead.

General Smith recognized that Winder's need was the more

526 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

urgent and assigned to Winder the brigade of General Tobias E.
Stansbury, another Revolutionary War soldier, and half of
Strieker's brigade, consisting of the 5th Maryland Infantry com-
manded by Lieutenant Colonel Sterett. Smith sent also two com-
panies of artillery and a rifle battalion led by former Ambassador,
Congressman and Attorney General William Pinkney to act
under Winder's orders.

During his parsimonious administration of the War Depart-
ment, Secretary Eustis had saved money on Army uniforms, with
the result that none were available for federal issue to the Balti-
more units now being mustered into the federal service. Equip-
ment owned by Stansbury's brigade included winter but not sum-
mer uniforms. Those who marched in the woolen regimentals
suffered severely from the intense heat.

Stansbury was in a position at Bladensburg on the early eve-
ning of August 22. Another Maryland unit assigned to Winder
was a regiment of 800 men under Colonel William D. Beall, also
a soldier of the Revolution, which guarded Annapolis. The
Maryland militia which concentrated at or near Bladensburg on
August 23 made an army of about 3,300 men. With these, plus
his own 4,000 men at Long Old Fields, ten miles away, Winder
should have been able to stop the British advance.

8.

News that the British were at Upper Marlboro, less than
twenty miles via the Navy Yard bridge from the President's
house, intensified the excitement in Washington. A correspond-
ent to New York merchants wrote on the twenty-second: "I
have just returned from taking a load of children eight miles out
of town and the road was filled with women and children." 21

Another letter of the same date to Cox and Montandvert, New
York merchants, gave a clearer picture of the confusion:

The distress here in Georgetown is beyond description-
women and children running in every direction. All the papers
from the public offices have been removed today and all persons
who could get a conveyance have moved what they could. Gen-
eral Hill commands the enemy in person and has from 7,000 to

Washington Threatened 527

10,000 men, only 300 of which are mounted. Our troops ad-
vanced about 1 8 miles today but are retiring. All is confusion^ as
you may easily imagine. I never saw so much distress in my life
as today. I am fearful by 12 o'clock tomorrow this city will not
be ours. 22

Still another letter from Georgetown described the consterna-
tion:

I cannot find language to express the situation of the women
and children, who are running the streets in a state bordering on
distraction; their husbands, fathers and brothers all under arms,
scarce a man to be seen in the city. Some are trying to remove
their bedding, clothes and furniture, while others are determined
to stay by their homes until they are burnt round them.

When the British started toward Washington, S. Pleasanton,
one of Monroe's State Department clerks, began packing the
Department files. Believing that a government depends more on
its records than its buildings, Pleasanton had immediately ordered
a large number of linen sacks, and as soon as they were delivered
he began to transfer the official papers to them. Secretary of War
Armstrong, passing down the hallway from the adjacent War
Department, observed the activity and put his head through the
door to remark that it "looked to him like an unnecessary
alarm." 23

Pleasanton nevertheless obtained wagons and on the twenty-
second transferred the State Department to a gristmill owned by
Edgar Patterson on the Virginia side of the chain bridge. The
mill did not impress him as being sufficiently secure, so a day later
the records were carried on to Leesburg, Virginia, where an un-
occupied house was rented and the government papers were
placed under the custodianship of the Reverend Mr. Little] ohn,
collector of internal revenues for the district. President Madison,
acting on Monroe's advice, was taking an interest in the preserva-
tion of the papers. Soon the War Department files, also despite
Armstrong's complacency, were on the way to Leesburg. Thus
the original records of the Revolutionary War soldiers, or those
which had survived the War Department fire of 1800 and the
Treasury fire of 1 800, were saved. 24

528 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

9-

General Ross moved about five miles down the road toward
Washington. Then sometime after 3:30 o'clock on the afternoon
of August 2 3 his head of column touched the American outpost
in advance of Barney's and Peter's batteries. The American pick-
ets were at the bottom of a wooded ridge, on the crest of which
the artillery was concealed. Ross had noticed the rising ground
ahead and had ridden forward to the point of his army when the
Americans saluted the British with scattering musket fire. 25 He
drove in the American picket, thereby unmasking the batteries,
which were supported on the elevation by what appeared to be
1,000 to 1,200 Ainerican infantry. Ross made a feint toward Fort
Washington 26 on the Potomac, which caused Winder to seek the
safety of the capital city. 27

The night march of Winder's army into Washington became
a movement of great disorder. The most conservative description
of it was that It was "precipitate." It was, in fact, a virtual run to
the false security of the city. The committee of Congress which
later investigated the retirement was Informed that the captains
at the side of the column hurried along the men, "who were ex-
tremely fatigued and exhausted before they reached the camping
ground near the Eastern Branch Bridge." 28

At the time Winder was beginning his withdrawal, Colonel
Monroe was reaching Stansbury's camp In Bladensburg. He had
moved on the flank of the British army during its advance.
Monroe had no military authority but he did not want to see the
country lost by a delicacy about prerogatives. He took it on him-
self to make suggestions and only regretted that he could not
deliver them as orders. His first suggestion to Stansbury was to
advance toward Upper Marlboro and fall on Ross's rear while
Winder was in his front. 29

Stansbury was in poor condition to undertake any kind of a
movement. His men, unaccustomed to rapid marching, were still
suffering from their hike from Baltimore. The beef issued them
in rations on the twenty-third was tainted and the flour was
musty. In one regiment 250 were ill. To add to their difficulties,

Washington Threatened 529

one of the sentries fired a random shot into a thicket where he
heard a noise which would not respond to a challenge. The entire
command, like Winder's on the night before, had to be formed
for a night attack and kept under arms until daylight. Monroe
was with Stansbury at midnight, at which time, because of the
poor intelligence service, the Bladensburg forces had not received
information of Winder's withdrawal to southwest Washington.
This word came at 2 A.M. in the form of an order from Winder
directing Stansbury "to give battle to the enemy, should he ap-
pear at Bladensburg, in which case, if necessary, I will join you."

Stansbury immediately called a council of war. His officers
agreed that their small force could not fight unaided a British
Army estimated at from 9,000 to 12,000 men and believed to be
commanded by Lord Hill, one of the best tacticians of Europe.
Stansbury did maintain himself until daylight, but then judged
his position to be so exposed that he vacated Bladensburg and
moved down the east side of the East Branch. He hoped to cross
into Washington by Bennings Bridge, from which a road led into
Maryland Avenue at the city limits at H Street, Northeast. When
he arrived at this bridge he found that it had been destroyed.
There was no way into Washington except by Bladensburg,
where the East Branch of the Potomac narrowed to a ford-
able rivulet. Stansbury hesitated and called on Winder for
instructions.

Monroe, confused when he learned of Winder's hurried re-
treat, rode into Washington to learn what was occurring.

After his demoralizing withdrawal to Washington, General
Winder appeared to be thoroughly defeated by the rigors of the
four-day campaign. He was worn out physically and mentally.
He had fallen to the ground during the night and was still suffer-
ing from the shock of the accident.

When his army reached Combs, the general, who was on a
jaded, borrowed horse, rode in to the President's house and had
a talk with Madison, whom he cast into the depths of gloom. He
then went to Armstrong, roused him out of bed and conferred
at greater length. As he was starting back to the Navy Yard, hi>
horse collapsed and Winder had to walk all the way from the

53 o POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

west side of the Capitol. The distressed man was thoroughly
spent and fell Into the gutter en route, but managed to make the
rest of the distance unaided. The degree to which he was pros-
trated mentally was evidenced by a letter he wrote to Armstrong
just after he had seen that official He formally requested the guid-
ance of the Secretary and the government.

The result of this letter was a council of war convened soon
after dawn at the Navy Yard, in the house of the chaplain, Dr.
Hunter. It was attended by President Madison, Secretary Arm-
strong, Secretary of the Navy Jones, Attorney General Rush,
Secretary of the Treasury George Washington Campbell, some
subordinates and General Winder. The President was accom-
panied as usual by his devoted freedman retainer, Jim Smith. A
crowd of women, children and idlers collected as the meeting
progressed.

When news spread about Washington that a council was in
progress, various of the town's prominent civilians rode to the
Navy Yard and walked in and out of the meeting at their pleasure
to give their opinions about the defense of the city. Mr. Madison
was baffled. One glance was sufficient to tell him that the experi-
ment with the cousin of the Federalist governor of Maryland
had been a failure. Yet Winder could hardly be condemned; the
situation was just as the British newspapers explained to the home
public in order that they might understand the phenomenon of
the Battle of Bladensburg. Giving Winder command had been
like suddenly handing over to some distinguished British lawyer,
such as Lord Brougham, the job of Wellington.

Monroe reached the Navy Yard at just about the time Major
Laval's dragoons, who were watching the British Army, galloped
in with news that the enemy was moving directly on Bladens-
burg. It was ten o'clock in the morning.

Without waiting for more conversation, Monroe asked and
obtained the President's permission to go to Bladensburg. He
mounted and was gone. The council continued for a time, and
not until i r A.M., an hour later, did Winder direct his troops to
march through Washington to Bladensburg. The army had been
waiting at Combs, on the outskirts of Washington.

Washington Threatened 531

10.

There was tumult and disorder at the Navy Yard as the cabinet
council ended and the army hurried away to battle. Clusters of
Negroes stood in the streets to give rapt attention to the confused
activity.

Secretary of the Treasury Campbell (he was christened
George and personally had added the Washington) seems to have
considered this council the culminating indignity that could be
imposed on a cabinet member. He was disgusted with trying to
get money for the war from a nation that would not respond.
His bond with Madison was merely that they had both been
Princeton honor students. As he left the meeting, he handed to
the President his brace of big dueling pistols, much as though
he were turning in his commission. The guns seemed almost as
large as the little President, but Madison buckled them around his
waist. They had been to Bladensburg before, when Campbell, as
a member of the House, shot his colleague, Barent Gardenier, in
a duel over the latter's charges that the American Congress was
under French influence. After bestowing his pistols on Madison,
Campbell went by his lodging, packed a few belongings and rode
on to his home in Tennessee, whence he sent in his written resigna-
tion. Everything in Washington down to the title, which John
Randolph had fixed on him, of the "Prince of Prigs and Puppies"
displeased him. He was through.

Finally the atmosphere at the Navy Yard began to clear. The
army had gone and Armstrong had followed them, for he be-
lieved Winder's condition would make Madison want the Secre-
tary of War to command the army. Madison had mounted with
Secretary Jones and Attorney General Rush, and they were begin-
ning to move away. It was almost noon and only the gathering of
women and children and the clusters of Negroes bore testimony
of the late excitement.

Suddenly in front of the President loomed the only show of
force and character that had yet appeared in all the host assigned
to the protection of the American capital. It was the seamy-faced
commodore of the United States Navy, Joshua Barney, issuing

53 2 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

seaman oaths and buccaneer imprecations, storming and de-
nouncing, making the President think that the whole British
army had suddenly hit him a solar-plexus blow. The Negroes
hurriedly formed a wreath about the group at a respectful and
safe distance, while Barney got his story off his chest.

In hastening to Bladensburg, General Winder had forgotten
all about the 503 seamen of the Pig Point flotilla, who, according
to Barney, were "the precious few fighting men in the whole
damned army."

Smith had pulled out with the District of Columbia militia, but
he could give no directions to a detachment from another De-
partment. One by one the Army officers had left. Finally one of
them had offered the sailors the pinched-up little assignment of
minding the Navy Yard bridge while the soldiers were fighting
the British at Bladensburg. It was thimble-headed stupidity, non-
sense and tomfoolery "to give these 500 seamen a job that any
damned corporal in the army can better do with five! " the en-
raged sailor stormed. His men were not going to do that job, not
if he could throw a harpoon into some petty official's stomach.
The historian Henry Adams gently called it a "disrespectful

remonstrance."

The sensitive President, unaccustomed to this firsthand con-
tact with rough strength and embarrassed at having anyone and
everyone denounced in such bold waterman's language in front
of a gathering of slaves and colored freedmen, hastened to pacify
Barney by volunteering to the Secretary of the Navy that there
must have been a mistake somewhere. Mr. Jones hurriedly agreed
that something had gone awry and told Barney to get his big
guns and his seamen and hurry after the army to Bladensburg

To protect the Navy Yard entry into Washington, the simple
process was followed of blowing up the bridge.

Madison and Rush were joined by General John Mason, the
commissioner of prisoners, and Colonel Decius Wadsworth, both
close friends of the President. The four men started on horseback
to Bladensburg, seven miles from the Navy Yard. En route Madi-
son, still greatly perturbed over the army's leadership, discussed
the matter with the attorney general, who rode abreast him. 30 It

Washington Threatened 533

was a late season for Indecision, for as the President and his party
rode northward through the District of Columbia toward the
small Maryland village, a long, red column of Wellington's vet-
erans was executing the famous "Moore quickstep" (alternating
three steps at a trot and three at a walk) on the other side of
the town. 31 Madison finally decided that he would have to restrain
Armstrong and place his reliance on the Baltimore barrister.

Reaching the army, which was going into position, the Presi-
dent was just behind Armstrong. Accounts of their meeting have
been provided, but none is fully satisfactory. One quotes Madi-
son as saying bluntly: "It is too late to make any change. Come
with me and leave the decision of the defense to the military
authorities, where it belongs."

However the President may have worded his Instructions,
Armstrong was both enraged and disappointed. He soon de-
tached himself from the President's party and had little further
contact with Madison. He later explained that he "now became,
of course, a mere spectator of the combat." As the battle was
opening the President saw that the army needed one and not half
a dozen commanders, and announced, "Leave the military func-
tionaries the discharge of their own duties on their own re-
sponsibility."

n.

Ross, despite the heat, had ordered the most rapid movement
possible against Bladensburg. The troops responded. "Never did
I suffer more from heat and fatigue," one of his soldiers said. The
temperature was 98 in the morning of August 24 and continued
to go higher. Many fell from the ranks. Ross allowed one good
halt at a stream. Some Americans who saw the column said that
the tongues of the British soldiers were hanging from their
mouths. An account after the battle was that twelve were found
dead in the fields along the road, not one having a bullet wound.

At 12:45 PJVL t ' ie general, riding again with the advance party,
reached Lowndes Heights overlooking Bladensburg village and
cast about over the surrounding country with his glasses.

Lieutenant Gleig supplies a description of the American army

534 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

as it appeared to General Ross at that moment. The force in their
front might have been taken for anything "rather than an army
on whose valour the safety of a great capital depended." Some
of the Americans wore black coats, some blue, and others shoot-
ing jackets. Still others were garbed in what he termed "round
frocks." These were linen or cotton field tunics. The "three mot-
ley lines" of infantry were obviously poorly equipped, but their
order was "tolerably regular." Gleig thought "they might have
passed off very well for a crowd of spectators come out to view
the approach of the army." Two or three battalions wore the
blue jacket "which the Americans had borrowed from the
French," and maintained some of the aspects of regular troops;
but the remainder "seemed like country people who were much
more properly employed attending to their agricultural occupa-
tions." Some squadrons of horse were visible and the British offi-
cers counted twenty pieces of artillery.

Gleig's description continues with a hint of smugness. He gives
this picture of the advancing British army: "The dress, the per-
fect regularity of their step, the good order which they preserved
and, above all, the internal conviction that they were marching
to victory," characterized their movements.

Ross turned to Major Brown, commanding the advance party,
and directed him to carry the town in his front. The major
moved forward, expecting to find the houses filled with marks-
men. To his amazement he saw that they were altogether un-
occupied. As the remaining units of his army came forward
unchecked, General Ross formed his light division for attack.

Twenty -Eight

Defeat at Bladensburg

Of the American officers and cabinet members gathered at
the Navy Yard, Colonel Monroe reached Bladensburg the earli-
est. With customary aggressiveness, amounting here to an intru-
sion, he began to suggest defensive measures to Stansbury and
Stansbury's subordinates. The Secretary of State later was to
regret this liberty but at the moment his eagerness to become a
participant overcame him.

Already on the field was Francis Scott Key, late opponent of
warfare of any variety. Officially he was no more than a civilian
onlooker, one who, incidentally, had never seen a battle, but he
was as active as Stansbury's officers in drawing up the troops for
combat. 1 He could not have been so influential had he retained his
earlier status as a member of Peter's District of Columbia militia
battery; as an unattached attorney he had broader prerogatives on
the field. 2 Like Monroe, Key rode along the line Stansbury had
selected and accompanied detachments to positions which to his
fine legal eye looked favorable for defense. Present also on one
of his thoroughbreds was the wealthy Baltimore merchant and
Congressman, Alexander McKim, who asserted that he had voted
for the war and meant to, stand by the soldiers who had to fight it.

Other civilians were there to add to the confusion. It was not
until the arrival of Attorney General Richard Rush that stump
oratory was attempted. Rush, the son of the distinguished Phila-
delphia physician, the speaker who had carried the campaign
load for Mr. Madison in 1812 and the young man of the cabinet,
knew all the justifications for the war and judged it important
that the soldiers too should know them. But he had hardly got his
theme well launched before a disgusted officer with an aversion

535

53 6 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

to politics reprimanded him by saying the soldiers did not need to
be told their duty.

i.

Stansbury placed his artillery in the first line, one battery be-
hind the single trench which commanded the East Branch bridge
and others scattered without effort to obtain a converging fire.
He stationed his prize regiment, the 5th Baltimore, and two
Washington companies, as artillery supports. Stnll's riflemen, one
of the Washington companies, were still doubtfully examining
the muskets just issued to them. 3 The 5th faced the East Branch
bridge. Ahead of the guns, but removed from the river instead
of in the protective timber near the riverbank, Stansbury posted
Pinkney's rifle battalion. The regiments of Ragan and Schutz
formed his second line.

Half an hour ahead of the British came Colonel William D,
Beall with 800 militiamen from Annapolis who had inarched six-
teen miles that morning. 4 Almost simultaneously the commanding
general of the department, William Henry Winder, came dashing
to the field at a gallop, followed eventually by the army from the
Navy Yard that had rushed pell-mell into Washington on the
previous evening.

Leaving Stansbury's two lines in their advanced stations, Win-
der arranged a third line on the hill above them. The third line
was thus nearer Washington and too far removed for effective
co-operation. The ridge along which the third line stationed it-
self follows the District of Columbia line. It afforded Winder
an admirable position for defense provided his entire army should
there be united. Smith, with the District of Columbia troops, was
on the left; Colonel Beall, who, after arriving from the opposite
direction, had passed through Stansbury's ranks, was recessed on
the right. In the center were 300 regular soldiers, recently re-
cruited and almost as green as the militia, under Lieutenant Colo-
nel William Scott. With these was a company of United States
Marines under Captain Samuel Miller.

Thus ten minutes before the battle opened, Winder's and
Stansbury's armies were finally being joined, although nearly a

Defeat at Eladensburg 537

mile still intervened between the separate lines they presented to
the enemy. Apparently forgetful that in a defensive maneuver
fortune usually favors the larger army, Winder sent to Stans-
bury's artillery the extraordinary instructions: "When you re-
treat, take notice that you retreat by the Georgetown road." 5
Winder brought into line an army of almost 7,000 men.

These dispositions were being completed when a mounted de-
tachment halted in the rear of Winder's position and surveyed
the spectacle of an American army making ready for combat. It
was Mr. Madison, the President, wearing his dueling pistols and
accompanied by Rush, Wadsworth and others of his entourage.
Except for Lincoln's visit to Fort Stevens on the 7th Street pike
during Jubal Early's raid on Washington, when Mr. Lincoln was
within range of desultory firing, this appearance by Mr. Madison
at Bladensburg constitutes the only presence of the commander
in chief with an American army in battle. It is one of the whims
of history that such a distinction should go to the peaceful Madi-
son. The small, delicate, reticent and erudite "Father of the
Constitution," who was among the most learned of American
Presidents, was greatly out of his element on the battlefield. An
anonymous wag composed the doggerel "The Bladensburg
Races" to commemorate the occasion, and put into the Presi-
dent's mouth these words:

"Nor, Winder, do not fire your guns
Nor let your trumpets play,
Till we are out of sight forsooth,
My horse will run away."

President Madison nearly was guilty of wandering into the
center of the British Army. He left the rear and rode through
the heart of the American position until he reached the East
Branch bridge into Bladensburg, which he was about to cross
when an American scout told him he was already in no man's
land and that the enemy was just over Lowndes Hill. 6 He turned
back and met Monroe, who informed him of the American align-
ment and the approach of the British.

The moment when Monroe and the President conferred
chanced to be the one during which Stansbury and Smith, both

53 8 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

brigadier generals of militia, were arguing about their rank and
their respective claims to be second in command under Winder.
The dispute diverted Stansbury's attention and permitted Mon-
roe to assume additional supervision. Monroe rode rapidly to the
front line of the army, where he threw Stansbury's command
into fresh confusion by shifting the positions of some of the
units. 7

Possibly he weakened the first line and gave the second line
the position he did because he contemplated a pocketing of the
British after they had crossed the East Branch. He may have in-
tended to use Sterett, on the extreme left, to strike them in the
flank while they were attacking Schutz and Ragan. Monroe re-
quested Winder to inspect the new position. Stansbury also went
to Winder, but nothing was done, although there was still time
before the red flash of British infantry shone through the foliage
along the Bladensburg street.

When Stansbury saw what had occurred he flew into a fury and
threatened to leave the field. "The order is an outrage and can
only result in disaster," he stormed. After the battle his words
were more moderate but no less emphatic. In his report he said:
"Whose plan it was I know not; it was not mine, nor did it meet
my approbation."

Exactly what was in Monroe's mind is subject only to conjec-
ture; the Secretary never gave much testimony about this churn-
ing up of the forward elements of the army. The interference
earned for him Armstrong's denunciation of a "busy and blun-
dering tactician" 8 and the criticism of others. But Monroe's
intervention probably made little difference in the outcome. The
promptness with which Stansbury's army fled the field makes
unimpressive any contention that in slightly altered circum-
stances it would have displayed tenacity. Nonetheless, Monroe
may have been imprudent in making the changes, and certainly
he did not have the authority to do so.

Winder was near Stansbury's second line studying through his
glasses the appearance of the first British soldiers to reach the
crest of Lowndes Hill, when a messenger handed him a note an-
nouncing that General Izard had just won a great triumph over

Defeat at Bladensburg 539

British General Drummond on the border and captured 1,000
men. 9 The information was as bizarre and false as every other
note in the Bladensburg battle, yet Winder was elated and di-
rected that the intelligence be circulated among Stansbury's
soldiers.

Shortly thereafter the men let out a mysterious shout. Winder
thought it was their enthusiasm over the good tidings of Izard's
victory. British officers heard it, and Gleig judged it a shout
of defiance raised by the Americans on their first sight of the
enemy. Some thought it meant the arrival of more District of
Columbia troops in the rear. Whatever it wasand it has never
been explained the shout marked the beginning of the battle.

With his light brigade in the advance, Ross made straight for
the bridge over the East Potomac, which in any proper Ameri-
can preparation should have been the first thing destroyed.
About a third of his army, 1 200 men, formed his assaulting party. 10

As the attack approached the bridge a galling fire was begun
by Pinkney's riflemen. Taken with the grape from a two-gun
battery behind Stansbury's trench near the main roadway, the
fire indicated that the American army meant to contest the
crossing with vigor and caused the British to waver. But Ross
was not to be delayed by a flash of resistance unsupported by an
aggressive countermovement. As a brigade commander he had
plowed with the Iron Duke through Marshal Jourdan at Vit-
toria, where, as Robert Southey said, the French "were beaten
before the town, in the town, out of the town, behind the town,
and all around the town." Consequently he knew how to carry
an attack forward. One of his subordinates stood near him as he
watched through his glasses, and to allay any possible tendency
toward hesitation at this moment of first resistance, observed:
"What will they say of us In England, if we stop now?" Ross
turned and said sharply to those about him, "Even if it rains
militia we go on." n

Ross stationed some of the light companies of the 85th Regi-
ment behind the willows and larches on the riverbank and others
behind the houses and barns of the village. Because he had no
artillery with which to command a crossing, drawing with him

54 o POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

only the two 3 -pounders, he had to employ his infantry to cover
the assault. To the right and left of the bridge, on elevations
above the trees, he set up his rocket tubes. Then he ordered
Colonel Thornton to cross.

2.

With a rush from the trees and bushes on the opposite shore,
the British, though suffering from Pinkney's rifles and Stans-
bury's guns, swept across the bridge. They turned quickly to
right and left, threw their heavy knapsacks into squad piles along
the west bank of the stream and formed files of skirmishers ten
paces apart. Meanwhile the firing from the other side of the
stream had pressed back the American riflemen. Pinkney, re-
garded as the country's leading constitutional lawyer, well known
to the British from his ambassadorship at St. James's, held his
ground and came close to falling into enemy hands as the British
skirmishers started forward. A musket ball struck him in the
upper arm and broke the bone. He fell, but some of his soldiers
helped him back from the advancing British.

Before the files of British skirmishers could reach the first line
of the American position, Ross opened on the second line with
his rockets. These missiles were disgustingly effective. They
caused a mad rush of men and animals in a frenzy of panic. Ter-
rorized spectators merged with the mob. Turned in the other
direction, the mob might have cut wildly through Ross's army.
What it did was dash headlong back into Washington, then on
to Georgetown, Tennallytown and Montgomery Court House,
a day's journey distant, and then, its fear-driven vigor still un-
spent, on to the foothills overlooking the Potomac. 12

There were many reasons for this stampede, to be sure, but not
the sudden apprehension, as some of the men said, that their
homes were endangered by a slave insurrection. 13 Most factors
that make men run from danger irresolution, strange adversaries
of unknown power, lack of discipline, pusillanimous leadership-
were present. No element conducive to resistance existed in the
American ranks. Under the barrister's leadership, the army was
fairly certain to become a rabble before the engagement was far

Defeat at Bladensburg 541

advanced. Yet it was scarcely to be expected that Americans
defending their capital would break almost before they felt the
enemy's lead and would fly from the most Innocuous weapon
that has appeared in modern warfare the Congreve rocket
which the British Army soon abandoned because it ceased to
frighten even savage tribes,

The first few discharges of rockets passed over the heads of
Stansbury's soldiers, who gazed upward as the screeching, sput-
tering projectiles flew above them. Then the rockets' trajectories
were flattened to a more horizontal course. Suddenly men and
mules were seized by mad fright. Before Stansbury could make
a rallying gesture, the soldiers threw away their guns and dashed
frantically from the battlefield. "Never did men with arms in
their hands make better use of their legs," the observer Gleig
commented. Armstrong, who witnessed, described the flight as
"base and infamous." The only casualty was one captain who
ran himself to death. 14 Captain Henry Thompson, aide to Briga-
dier General Strieker in Baltimore, was watching the action for
that general from a position above Bladensburg 300 yards from
the British Army. He sat down and wrote immediately of the
flight, stating that he could distinguish the rockets and their
effect plainly "and did not see one strike the American lines." 15
Winder, who was near by, saw to his consternation a "universal"
departure of the center and left of Stansbury's command.

At the moment Stansbury's main line was breaking, to be
followed promptly by the retirement of the American artillery-
men in the first line, Ross was bringing a fresh regiment into
action. The 44th, which had just reached Bladensburg, was
thrown to the British right, where it forded the stream and
appeared suddenly on the left flank of the 5th Baltimore Regi-
ment. Winder, when he saw the greater portion of Stansbury's
command leave the field, had ordered the 5th to retire "for the
purpose of putting it out of the reach of the enemy." It was a
difficult movement, yet the 5th retreated up the hill, only to find
that Winder had countermanded the order, "from an aversion,"
as he explained, "to retire before the necessity became stronger."
Again the regiment responded and resumed its former position,

542 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

which it reached just as Winder observed the appearance of the
enemy on its left. He ordered another retirement, but that was
too much for the regiment. 16 It had not yet suffered from the
British fire, but its morale, already shaken by the flight of the
rest of the line, was shattered. The regiment retired in disorder.
u We were outflanked and defeated in as short a rime as such an
operation could be performed," Colonel Sterett remarked dryly.
Nevertheless, in early newspaper accounts of the battle the 5th
Baltimore was credited with performing a commendable role. 17

The battle had been in progress less than thirty minutes and
an important part of the American Army was gone. The disper-
sion of the forward lines caused wavering throughout the other
militia units stationed in the rear. After Stansbury's flight the
commanding general abandoned further pretense at battle and
ordered Smith to retreat. The army's backward movement
quickly became disordered, and then was a general rout.

Residents of Washington saw with some amusement, amid
their general fears, the veteran of Saratoga, who had proclaimed
that the British could want nothing "in this sheep walk," come
dashing back to the city he had done so little to defend. He
spurred his horse until he reached the Capitol, where he met
Winder, who likewise arrived ahead of the troops. The com-
manding general explained that he had left the men and ridden
ahead to look for a position. Armstrong at once reiterated an
earlier suggestion, made again at the council of war that morn-
ing, that the Capitol be garrisoned and defended. 18 Winder ob-
jected that the army could not be supplied with water and was
in no condition to withstand a siege. Monroe, arriving, concurred
with Winder, and Armstrong consented to a retreat to George-
town. It was merely succumbing to the inevitable, for the militia
showed no intention of tarrying.

The French officer, Major Laval, who commanded Winder's
cavalry, described the panic:

All of a sudden our men seemed routed. A confused retreat
appeared in almost every corner of the battleground. An artiUery
company drove through the gate near our ravine, crushing down
several of our men and horses, nearly taking off and breaking my

Defeat at Bladensburg 543

thigh by the blow of a wheel, hurrying away one of my troops
without my orders, leaving me alone with Captain Burd and
fifty-five dragoons.

John Law, an officer of Washington artillery, told of the lack
of damage from the British fire:

We had scarcely fired three rounds when the line of the
Baltimore militia began to break. Several of the 5th Baltimore
Regiment also fled. General Winder ordered us to retreat, in
consequence of the flight of the militia. The British column had
just then begun to advance. Not a man of our company had been
touched by the fire of the enemy; and I thought that the battle
was only then seriously commencing. After retreating about a
hundred yards, we were directed to continue to retreat, nor were
we at any time told where to rally.

In his report to General Strieker Captain Thompson credited
Winder's army with much less than half an hour's engagement.
Ten minutes after the British crossed the bridge, he said, the
Americans were out of sight. Miserable as was the behavior of
Stansbury's soldiers, General Smith insisted that Winder's orders
calling for his retirement were altogether unnecessary. Colonel
Beall declined to recognize the retreat order. He held a knoll at
the right of the third line, south of the Bladensburg- Washington
highway. He kept his men steady for a time, awaiting further
development of the British intentions. Captain Miller with his
marines likewise held to his position on the roadway in the center
of the last American line.

General Ross was somewhat astonished to see the American
army suddenly leave the field just as the engagement appeared
to be beginning. Passing the positions that had been held by the
first two American lines, he proceeded with his regiments at a
cautious pace up the turnpike toward Washington. It was not
yet two o'clock, but to all appearances the skirmish had already
been won.

There was another stir in the rear of the American position.
Breaking through the crowds of fleeing soldiers at the crest of
the hill at the District of Columbia line, rolling along like a boy
on a lark, came wind-wrinkled Joshua Barney with his 503 sea-

544 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

men. Mules toiled before carts laden with ammunition for which
the Navy Yard had been ransacked and some of the men, har-
nesses about their shoulders, helped draw the five great Navy
guns, two 12- and three i8-pounders.

For Barney the defense of the American capital had not yet
started.

3-

Reaching the field at the moment of the rout, Barney received
no orders from General Winder, who was being swept away. 19
He devoted the few minutes at his disposal to arranging emplace-
ments for the big guns and laying out a defensive line for his
seamen.

Captain Miller, along with his subordinate, Captain Alexander
Sevier, placed themselves and their 150 marines at Barney's com-
mand. Glancing over the wreckage of the field, the sea captain
noted with satisfaction the large body of troops on the knoll to
his right. This was BealTs regiment. The fact that it had not fled
the field with the remainder of Winder's army encouraged Bar-
ney and gave him some hope that he could expect energetic
assistance from this quarter.

Ahead of Barney and to his right was a glade, the bit of
ground just over the District line in Maryland that had been
selected for the duel between Campbell and Gardenier, That
precedent confirmed it for the next thirty years as the field of
honor for the capital city. There Barney's fellow commodore,
Stephen Decatur, later fell.

The enemy soon made their appearance in force. Flanked by
skirmishers in the fields and woods, the redcoats moved in column
on the main highway toward the center of Barney's position. It
was apparent that the British veterans expected no further oppo-
sition, but they did pay Barney the compliment of halting when
they saw that the hill ahead of them was manned by Americans.
Barney held his fire. Shortly, as he expected, the enemy formed
for a frontal attack in close order directly up the highway.

When the British neared the incline a hurried volley sounded

546 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

from BealTs militia on the right. Then, much to Barney's and
Beall's disgust, the entire regiment suddenly took to its heels and
headed in the direction of the distant dust clouds that marked
the course of Winder's other soldiers. Beall raged but could not
hold a man. 20 Barney thus was left to fight unaided, with not a
militia unit remaining on the field. He ordered one of his 18-
pounders to open. The aim of the Navy gun was so accurate that
the piece made a direct hit on the British in the road, killing ten
and wounding many more. It blew off the road, according to
British accounts, an entire company, and caused the column in
the rear to seek cover. This British advance consisted of the light
troops of the 85th Regiment. The regiment reformed quickly
and, being supported by the other units of the light brigade, be-
gan a more general movement, along a wider front, against
Barney's position. The old commodore, his eyes lighted with the
excitement of battle on a new element, answered by bringing
his other pieces into action. He used the seamen who were not
needed in the gun crews and the marines much as he would
marksmen in the rigging and along the deck rail as two hulks
came together.

These marines and seamen, instead of emitting volleys, sent a
continuous withering fire into the close British ranks, while the
Navy guns roared with a speed and regularity that astonished
the British soldiers quite as much as did their precision. A third
attempt was made by the light troops to carry the hill by frontal
assault, yet was no more successful than the first two. 21

General Ross was now at the front, assuming personal direc-
tion of the effort to dislodge this stubborn and unexpected oppo-
sition. During a lull in the battle an occasional roar from one of
Barney's guns caused Captain Thompson and General Strieker's
vedettes on the road beyond Bladensburg to wonder what kind
of action was still in progress. Meanwhile the road over the
undulating country between Barney and Bladensburg was filled
with a new column of soldiers in faded red, the celebrated King's
Own Regiment, which had yet taken no part in the engagement.
When the regiment was up Ross extended his lines through the
woods to his left and again placed the assault under the direction

Defeat at Bladensburg 547

of Colonel Thornton. That officer, with his customary energy,
began a movement against the right of Barney's position,

Barney was well prepared in that quarter. Two of his 12-
pounders were placed to sweep the dueling glade, while Captain
Miller's marines, together with all the seamen who could be
spared from the forward guns, were shifted to meet this threat
on the starboard. Barney again held his fire and again let loose
with cannister at close range. The King's Own was staggered.
First to fall, severely wounded, was Colonel Thornton. Before
the regiment could close the great gaps caused by Barney's guns
or before Colonel Brooke, who took over the command, could
reform it, a wave of wild, shouting sailors, armed with cutlasses
and muskets, and a line of marines with bayonets swarmed down
from the hill. The seamen charged with the cry of "Board 'em!
Board 'em!" It was over in a flash. The impact of this sudden
assault was too much for the startled British soldiers, already torn
by the well-served artillery. They recoiled, turned and quickly
regained the cover of the woods. This was the moment for a
counterattack all along the line, if an American army had been
present to deliver it.

Barney was finally on foot, his big bay shot through the head.
He took a position immediately behind one of the i8-pounders.
Two score of his men were lying about the hill, fifteen of them
dead, but considering the damage he had inflicted the loss was
not heavy. His greatest disaster had resulted from a brief entan-
glement with Beall's flying militia. Half a dozen of his mules,
frightened by the turmoil, broke away from their tenders and
dashed into the rout with the reserve ammunition carts. Captain
Miller of the marines was wounded and out of action.

General Ross, however, did not intend to continue wasting
men in futile small attacks against Barney. He was now fully
advised that he faced troops of different character from those
confronting him earlier in the afternoon. The force before him
obviously was small and its flanks were unprotected. He could
readily reach its rear. He dispatched the 4th Regiment on a
wider enveloping movement and at the same time pushed for-
ward the 85th and portions of the 44th Regiment on Barney's

54 g POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

front and left. The seamen were being assailed from three direc-
tions. At this critical moment Barney was dropped by a musket
ball The bullet entered his hip, where it remained embedded
and eventually caused his death. 22

It was approaching four o'clock, and there was no indication
that Winder had been able to rally any portion of his army.
Sweeping across the high ground in the rear of Barney's right,
which had been occupied by Beall when the battle opened, came
the reorganized line of the King's Own with fixed bayonets. The
regiment was not one to remain rebuffed, and a second sudden
charge was not likely to repel it. Even from Barney's prone posi-
tion it was clear that the fight was ending. He issued directions
for his remaining seamen and marines to withdraw. To those
who were fashioning a litter to carry him with them he gave an
emphatic order that he would remain where he had fallen. He,
for one, would not retreat. Some of his men wanted to stay with
him to the finish, but Barney denied them the privilege. He later
refuted with a great deal of firm language British statements that
some of his sailors, with fuses in their hands, were bayoneted at
their guns. He fought his men hard, but he pushed them into the
lifeboats when the riddled hulk of his battle line took a fatal list.
There were no unnecessary sacrifices.

When the firing ceased, General Ross walked up the hill with
Admiral Cockbum. The admiral, remembering the bruises in-
flicted on him in the coves of the Chesapeake, glanced about at
the dead and wounded in naval garb, and turned to Ross. "I told
you it was the flotilla men! " he exclaimed.

"They have given us our only real fighting," the general re-
sponded. 23

A British soldier found Barney behind one of the big guns.
Ross went to him, congratulated him warmly on his battle and
immediately paroled him. The general told Barney he would
convey him to Washington when the British army entered, back
to Bladensburg or anywhere else in reason the commodore might
name. Not anxious to see the capital in enemy hands, Barney said
he would prefer Bladensburg, where the British were using the
tavern for a hospital. General Ross had four soldiers make a

Defeat at IBladensburg 549

litter. After the old commodore had been moved a short distance,
he complained of the way they carried him and asked whether
the British had no sailors. Cockbum thereupon summoned four
seamen who had been drawing the British guns and the journey
to Bladensburg was completed to Barney's satisfaction. The
Army was not in good order with him that day. Barney was
appreciative of the consideration shown him by Ross and Cock-
burn, who, he said, "treated me as though I was a brother."

In the hospital with Barney was Colonel Thornton, who be-
came his friend. When Ross returned to his fleet after the occu-
pation of Washington, he left his wounded, including Thornton,
under Barney's supervision in the Bladensburg hospital. They
thereby became American prisoners. After Thornton recovered
and was exchanged, Barney, still carrying his Bladensburg bullet,
accompanied him to the British fleet in the James River, where
it was refitting after the repulse at Baltimore. Thornton com-
manded the left wing of Pakenham's army in the attack on New
Orleans.

Another wounded prisoner was one of Stansbury's young
soldiers, John P. Kennedy, nineteen years old, who was hit while
helping a wounded comrade from the field. It Is not always obvi-
ous after the ripples have widened where the pebble that origi-
nally started them fell, but it is probable that young Kennedy's
interest in the United States Navy, over which he was destined
to preside in the years of the world supremacy of the American
clipper ships, was awakened by the example of Barney's courage
at Bladensburg. Distinguished in later life as writer, legislator and
cabinet member, Kennedy left his mark on world history by
organizing the expedition which opened to commerce the ancient
hermit kingdom of Japan and by appointing Commodore Mat-
thew C. Perry to head it.

The day after the battle General Ross bestowed on Barney
admiring praise:

A brave officer, sir. He had only a handful of men with him,
and yet he gave us a very severe shock. I am sorry he was
wounded. However, I immediately gave him a parole and hope
he will do well. Had half your army been composed of such men

550 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

as your commodore commanded, with the advantage you had in
choosing your position, we should never have got to your city. 24

The scene of Barney's Battle on the main highway from Balti-
more to Washington is now crowded by the great city that has
overflowed the District of Columbia boundaries. Clusters of
houses, gasoline stations, road stands and overnight cottages
cover the ground where his seamen fought. Hundreds of thou-
sands pass the site each year as they go and come to the world's
most highly monumented city. Yet Barney's hill is unmarked
and forgotten. The gallantry of his 503 seamen and of Captain
Miller's marines is lost. American history refers to them rarely,
because the page of Bladensburg, on which their story falls, is
one that many Americans would rather have forgotten. Barney
has no monument. He won no battle. Monuments usually are for
men with better odds.

General Ross was altogether accurate in his statement that
Barney gave the invaders a severe shock. Accounts of the British
loss are conflicting but all show the extent of the pommeling
from the big guns. The National Intelligencer estimated the
British killed at 200 and the American loss at twenty-six killed
and fifty-four wounded. Virtually all the American casualties
occurred in Barney's Battle. The only other instance of British
loss was in crossing the Bladensburg Bridge. Ross reported sixty-
four killed and 185 wounded, a total of 249 casualties. He took
no notice, however, of his missing, many of whom were killed.
Gleig gave the casualties as 500.

It was much too hot at Bladensburg for General Ross to
undertake an aggressive pursuit of the fleeing Americans. Cock-
burn, amused, sent a report to London that the defeated army
could not be followed because "the victors were too weary and
the vanquished too swift."

General Ross halted his men for two hours on the field for
rest and refreshments from the intense heat. After the wounded
had been removed he laid out a camp for the larger portion of
his army at Bladensburg, thereby maintaining his communication
between Washington and the force at Upper Marlboro, which,
in turn, kept him in contact with Admiral Cochrane and the

Defeat at Bladensburg 551

fleet. He formed a new brigade, approximately 1,500 strong, of
those who had felt the shock of battle least chiefly men of the
Royal Scots Fusiliers and the 44th Regiment and sent it to the
front.

The August sun, blazing the length of its downward course,
finally dropped behind the hills and steaming marshlands of the
capital of the American Republic, and in the hot twilight the
little British army of 1,500 men from Essex and the Scotch low-
lands crossed the District of Columbia line.

Twenty-Nine

Redcoats on the Avenues

General Ross placed himself at the head of an advance
party of 200 soldiers and arrived at the outskirts of the city of
Washington at eight o'clock on the evening of August 24.

Here, where the presence of dwellings showed that he was
within the confines of the straggling capital, he halted his de-
tachment, sounded a drum roll and then moved forward a dis-
tance under a white flag. He was seeking a parley with any
authorities present in order that the public buildings might be
held for indemnity in accordance with his instructions from
Lord Bathurst. But the city ahead of him, lighted now by a pale
moon in the last glow of evening, bore a silence as grim and
ominous to his soldiers as the great pine forests through which
they had recently passed. Streets were empty, houses shuttered.
The drum roll was unanswered.

i.

Passing in by the old Baltimore turnpike, Ross marched down
Maryland Avenue, at the end of which the massive United States
Capitol stood starkly silhouetted against the southwestern twi-
light. Reaching 2nd Street, Northeast, he was suddenly greeted
by a volley from the large house on the northwest corner, owned
by Robert Sewall and rented by Albert Gallatin during his long
service as Secretary of the Treasury. Although the house had
been unoccupied since Gallatin's departure for Europe more
than a year earlier, it was still regarded as his home.

The volley killed a British soldier, wounded three others and
killed the general's horse beneath him. Ross clearly was the tar-
get. Few things in the course of the British occupation caused

552

Redcoats on the Avenues 553

greater concern to Washington, in retrospect at least, than this
effort to shoot the British leader. Ross's clemency, sharply con-
trasted with Cockburn's well-known grossness and buffoonery,
won for him the admiration of many of the residents with whom
he came into contact.

The firing on General Ross was variously attributed by news-
papers and others to some of Barney's seamen who were unwill-
ing to concede that the battle was over and to either of two local
barbers, one a French and the other an Irish immigrant. 1 Al-
though the identity of the men who fired on Ross has never been
discovered, it is clear that the British received more than a one-
man welcome.

Gleig reported, and insisted after other versions were called to
his attention more than half a century later, that Ross was still
displaying his white flag at the time of the volley. Gleig judged
that those who fired did not understand the significance of the
white flag and he tended to exonerate the seamen. Ross ordered
his men to surround the house. They found no one in it or near
by, except some unarmed Negroes who were hiding in the
bushes. The British burned the house to the ground. It was the
only private dwelling in the city destroyed by the invading
army. Most residents considered the destruction justified.

Ross then moved his 1,500 troops the smallest army that ever
seized the capital of a modern major power to an open field east
of the Capitol, the site now occupied by the Library of Congress
and Supreme Court buildings and two or three residential blocks
adjacent to the east. Here he waited again in further hope that
he could effect an accommodation that would mean a neat sum
of prize money for the expedition. But the town was stripped of
governmental authorities and of almost everyone else except
wide-eyed Negroes who hovered on the rim of the British camp
and curiously followed the activities of each small detachment.
They carried the information of the arrival of the British to
other sections of the city.

In his later writings on the capture of Washington, Secretary
Armstrong asserted that General Ross did establish contact on
Capitol Hill with Dr. William Thornton, the resourceful, Eng-

554 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

lish-born Virgin Islander who had become an active gov-
ernmental and social figure in the early life of the city. Dr.
Thornton was naturally interested in protecting the^ Capitol,
of which he was the principal architect. Armstrong indicated
that Thornton was able to reflect something of the President's
coldness in maintaining that the United States government would
not treat with an invading army. Dr. Thornton provided a de-
tailed account of his activities while the British were in the city,
and, because he was a Federalist, he took the precaution to have
a witness of Republican faith accompany him during the siege.
Armstrong's statement is unsupported by him or his observer.

Thornton's explanation was that on the evening of the twenty-
fourth he had joined in the general flight, vacating his F Street
home for the security of Georgetown. It was not until the
following morning that his sense of duty overcame his apprehen-
sions and caused him to establish contact with the British, and
not until the twenty-sixth that by virtue of his commission as
Justice of the Peace, malting him the only official present, he
assumed jurisdiction over the American capital and restored
order. In support of Thornton's assertion that he had not neg-
lected any responsibility assigned him it might be said that had
Mr. Madison covered the indemnity question before his own
departure, it is not likely that he would have selected a Federalist,
even one who chanced to be his racing partner, to convey his
message to the enemy. Madison was being assailed too generally
for reliance on Federalists, of whom General Winder was a last
cautioning example. 2

2.

When Ross arrived at the Capitol, a deserted, solitary pile
crowning the hill above the city, he found the doors barred and
forcible entry necessary. The troops were on the alert for sur-
prises and fired a volley through the Capitol windows. It awak-
ened no response. 3 Ross's deputy quartermaster, De Lacy Evans,
noted on the Peninsula for his intrepid leadership of storming
parties, stepped forward at this moment and led the detail of

Redcoats on the Avenues 555

British soldiers In the less daring charge against the locks of the
Capitol doors.

Ross's first intention was to blow up the Capitol with gun-
powder, of which he had such an ample supply that it was
becoming a problem. The American army had left a consider-
able quantity on the Bladensburg battlefield along with the ten
guns that fell into British hands; other large supplies were in
storage in Washington, where that night and the next day he
seized 540 barrels, together with 206 cannon and 100,000 rounds
of musket-ball cartridges. Gunpowder provided the quickest
means of obliterating this great symbol of American independ-
ence. But while the method was being discussed some residents
of the neighborhood pointed out to Ross that an explosion would
endanger the private properties to the north, west and south. He
agreed, and directed that the building should be burned.

It was obvious that the general obtained little pleasure from
the destruction of the Capitol by any method. Had he not con-
sidered himself bound, as he indicated repeatedly, to retaliate
for the destruction of the capitol of Upper Canada, he would
have contented himself with the destruction only of military and
naval stores, regarding which Bathurst's instructions allowed no
temporizing or indemnification. General Ross did not survive to
explain his work in Washington, which was not touched on in
his brief report listing the buildings laid waste by his soldiers. A
soldier of the Duke's school, he would not have questioned any-
thing he understood to be his orders. Sir Duncan McDougall,
who as a captain of the 8jth foot served as his aide-de-camp,
wrote many years later that it was not until Ross was "warmly
pressed," presumably by Cockburn, that he consented to the
burning. The purpose, as McDougall explained it, was to prevent
"a repetition of the uncivilized proceedings of the troops of the
United States." 4 Such also was the clear impression conveyed by
the general in his conversations on the following day. 5

But whatever his personal attitude may have been, Ross en-
tered into the demolition with a thorough efficiency, yet held
his soldiers under close supervision to prevent the kind of revels
they could engage in readily. The Capitol fire was started by a

556 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

discharge of gunpowder and rockets, of insufficient force to dis-
turb neighboring buildings, placed in the central, wooden bridge
of the Capitol which formed a temporary connection between
the two freestone wings. The explosion was heard about the city
just before the hour of ten.

A story frequently told about the destruction of the United
States Capitol, that of the mock Congress of British soldiers, is
supported, like many other traditions of the occupation, by scant
historical evidence. In this particular event the spotlight of tradi-
tion casts its beam on the haughty, domineering admiral whose
restless spirit and aggressive personality soon came to color, even
though it could not command, the events of the occupation.
Cockburn, the account runs, gathered a detail of His Majesty's
foot soldiers in the chamber of the representatives, took the
speaker's chair customarily occupied by "the furious orator
Clay," rapped for order and boisterously propounded the ques-
tion: "Shall this harbor of Yankee democracy be burned?" A
substantiating element of the story is the language, which is about
what the roving admiral would have employed. The "ayes" had
it unanimously. The Congress of redcoats having so decided, its
members piled up the chairs, mixed in some rockets and other
combustibles and soon had the "harbor of democracy" with its
library and records of democratic government going up in
flames.

The story had its first circulation among members of the
legitimate American Congress which met in extra session in
Washington in the month following the British occupation. One
of the members was Charles Jared Ingersoll, who included the
anecdote in his sketch of the second war with Great Britain. 6
It did not appear in current newspaper descriptions of the occu-
pation nor does it have a place in the British regimental histories
or accounts, despite Gleig's tendency toward details. The version
of the burning provided by the story is out of keeping with
Ross's ideas of discipline; the general frowned on levity between
officers and men such as is implied by Cockburn's riotous con-
duct. But Cockburn was something of a law to himself in Ameri-
can waters and probably would have considered himself under

Redcoats on the Avenues 557

no restraints when the commanding general was not in hearing
distance. Certainly the incident is of a type that he would like to
pass on to his good friend the Prince Regent.

In 1814 the United States Capitol did not possess the great
dome, the construction of which was not completed until late in
1863 when the figure of Freedom was placed in its commanding
position at the summit of the building. The present extensive
limestone wings were finished shortly before the War between
the States; the hall of representatives was occupied in 1857 and
the Senate wing in 1859. They were additions which more than
doubled the length and area of the building. In 1814 the grounds
were an upgrowth of weeds in summer and were unkept in
winter. Partridge could be flushed in the fields near by/ Land-
scaping had not yet been attempted. 8

The wings then used by the House and Senate now form
portions of the central structure of the present Capitol. They
immediately flank the great rotunda and may still be distin-
guished on the exterior of the building by their color. The earlier
wings are Virginia sandstone painted white, while the present
limestone House and Senate wings are unpainted. The interior
space used by the House in 1814 is now Statuary Hall. The old
Senate Chamber was long used by the Supreme Court. The
rotunda, which occupies the position of the early wooden bridge,
was begun in 1818. Much of the interior of the Capitol as it
stood in 1814 was unfinished; the south, the House, wing had
been completed only three years earlier. Nonetheless, the edifice
was as imposing to the early republic as the existing Capitol is in
our own day, and was looked on by the inhabitants of Washing-
ton as a fine achievement because it represented the almost con-
tinuous building eif ort of twenty-two years.

The Supreme Court, presided over by John Marshall, heard
its cases in the gloomy basement chamber beneath the Senate
floor. Three rooms above the Senate were occupied by the Li-
brary of Congress, then a meager storehouse of information com-
pared with the impressive personal library that Thomas Jefferson
had been collecting for fifty years, which was regarded as one of
the finest in the world. By purchasing it from Jefferson a little

55 8 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

later for the modest sum of $50,000, Congress acquired a library
of imposing proportions in place of the scanty shelves it lost to
the British.

The Library of Congress had been under the supervision for
many years of Samuel A. Otis, secretary to the Senate, who had
recently died, causing the direction to pass to Patrick McGruder,
clerk of the House. When the British appeared in the Patuxent
most of the members of the Capitol staff were called to duty
with Smith's brigade. In the hurried departure of the militia, and
the absence among those who remained of anyone with the fore-
sight of Pleasanton at the State Department, little attention was
given to the removal of the legislative records, and none was
given to the library. 9 Only one cartload of papers was taken
from the building.

That so little was saved led a few days later to the publication
of charges of neglect against McGruder by J. B. Colvin, another
Washington resident. Colvin had been directed by Secretary of
the Navy Jones to carry dispatches to Baltimore and had im-
pressed McGruder's horse, which he asserted was engaged in no
more important duty than transporting the clerk's personal chat-
tels from the city. An altercation followed which gave public
emphasis to what was already clear: no one had been particularly
diligent in safeguarding the books and records of the legislative
establishment. 10 These literary contents were of interest to the
British foot, like those of the government of Upper Canada to
the American sailors, only in so far as they helped in the ignition.
The fire did not reach the Supreme Court law library, which
was not damaged, but did leave many gaps, which are still en-
countered by research workers and the Library of Congress staff,
in the early records of Congress.

One of the British newspapers sought to anticipate the de-
nunciations that followed the burning of the documents by
commenting: "There will be great joy in the United States on
account of the destruction of all their public and national records,
as the people may now invent a fabulous origin. They will, how-
ever, find a sore obstacle in the Newgate Chronicle." The Chron-

Redcoats on the Avenues 559

icle was the calendar containing biographical information on the
most notorious murderers and thieves who had been confined in
Newgate prison.

The wooden bridge that joined the stone wings was highly
inflammable, as were the wooden floors throughout the building.
Only slightly less inflammable was the wooden roof, which was
covered by sheet iron. Fifteen minutes after the explosion great
flames were licking out the windows and wrapping themselves
about the Capitol roof. Gleig described the scene as "'striking and
sublime," comparable to the burning of San Sebastian. 11

Another conflagration along the Potomac water front was
lighting up the city. Secretary Jones had directed Commodore
Thomas Tingey, commandant at the Navy Yard, to destroy that
establishment when the British entered the city. Entreaties from
citizens living in the neighborhood, who feared that destruction
of the yard would mark the end of Washington as a naval and
shipbuilding center, did not deter the commander.

Tingey and Secretary Jones were severely condemned then
and subsequently for what some regarded a hasty and unneces-
sary action. 12 Those who criticized believed that if the American
naval authorities had not destroyed the yard the British would
have left it intact, because Ross had no trains with his army and
consequently could not carry the large amount of shipbuilding,
ordnance and other equipment with him. But it is difficult to
believe the British would have ignored such an active shipping
station. The British commander took credit in his report for the
demolition of this important naval center; he had dispatched a
detachment to the site on the following morning to make certain
that the destruction was complete. It would not have been
ignored.

Vessels of considerable importance, including a first-line frig-
ate and a sloop of war, were under construction at the yard. The
frigate was almost ready for launching. Both vessels, along with
smaller craft, docks, warehouses, machine shops, ammunition
stores and quantities of equipment were consumed. Explosions of
ammunition stores sounded through the night. In the end it did

560 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

not matter whether the flames were the agents of the invading
British or the retiring Americans. The loss was estimated at a
million dollars.

Wind from the southwest which suggested the oncoming of
an August electrical storm fanned the Capitol fire toward the
northern, Senate end. By a peculiar play, the flames ate around
but merely scorched the empty frames that had held the portraits
of the European sponsors of American independence, King Louis
XVI and Marie Antoinette, which hung in a room adjacent to
the Senate floor. British soldiers or marauders in the Capitol
before the British came had cut the canvases from the frames.
The portraits never have been recovered and the Capitol has
since that time been without this early recognition of the debt to
the Bourbons. 13

Within an hour after the kindling of the Capitol, the confla-
grations there and at the Navy Yard were visible for a distance
of thirty miles. The orange and black sky proclaimed that the
new seat of government in Washington had endured less than
two decades. President Madison, riding in his distress up the
Virginia side of the Potomac, saw the red glare; Armstrong
looked back on it on his journey to Fredericktown; William
Henry Winder viewed it at Tennallytown, where he was trying
ineffectually to lay out a camp for those among his fugitives he
could hold together. But the angry sky caused fresh tremors to
pass through the remnants of the American army and the retreat
was continued through the night. 14

3-

A few of the residents who had remained in Washington were
standing in front of Mackgowan's Hotel on lower Pennsylvania
Avenue when two small British detachments were seen approach-
ing through the yellow light. It was a silent march down the
dusty street, then the only serviceable link between the Capitol
and President's house. They were unattended by drums or music.
It was not a triumphal entry, but a cautious penetration to the
heart of an enemy capital by a few platoons of soldiers. Warfare
had presented few more singular conquests, and, indeed, to find

Redcoats on the Avenues 561

a parallel, as Henri Jomini pointed out, it was necessary for the
military classrooms of Europe to look back to the march of the
white gods of Cortez into the capital of Montezuma.

The first British detachment was headed by General Ross. In
spite of the attempt on his life a few hours earlier he rode according
to his custom in front of his troops. At a distance of three or four
city blocks came Admiral Cockburn with the second small group
of invaders. Ross halted at the hotel and there had his second
meeting of the night with a gathering of American civilians. One
of them, Colonel Isaacs, pointed to the blazing Capitol and asked
the general his intention about the property of private citizens.
Ross stated immediately that all private property would be re-
spected, a pledge which Cockburn, coming up during the con-
versation, felt it expedient to repeat. Present in the American
group was Chester Bailey, mail contractor of the Post Office
Department. He returned to Baltimore on the following evening
to give that city and the country the first eyewitness account of
the incidents to the seizure of the capital and the destruction of
the government buildings.

When his interview was published Bailey was startled to see
himself quoted as saying: "The troops were of all nations and
the most hellish looking fellows that ever trod God's earth." The
remark looked highly sensational in cold type and he hastened to
disavow the description, explaining that he was talking with the
postmaster of Baltimore and did not know that another gentle-
man present, Mr. Munroe, was editor of the Baltimore Patriot.
But the quotation had gone forth, blazoned by Mr. Munroe in
the special handbill issued by the Patriot. It was copied in Phila-
delphia, New York and other cities, and it quickly became the
stock description of Ross's army. 15 By its suggestion that the Brit-
ish were using foreign mercenaries in their effort to subjugate
America, it served to arouse and unite the country, not against
some academic issue of the Orders in Council, but against wan-
ton and barbaric invasion.

Some information about the British was being hesitantly sup-
plied to the country in advance of Bailey's statement by Post-
master Burrall of Baltimore. BurralPs dispatch to the postmaster

562 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

of Philadelphia said: "The enemy have taken Washington. They
entered it last evening without much opposition. . . . They
marched in solid column, and appeared to take no notice of the
fire of our militia." 16

Word that a battle was being fought for the defense of the
capital was at first given the country only by stage passengers
and letters. When the army was defeated and the city vacated, it
occurred to neither Winder nor Armstrong that people might be
interested in the outcome and no official bulletins were issued.
When stage transportation stopped, the country was fed on ru-
mors. The lack of information finally caused the New York Post
to ask:

Where are our commanders? Why have we nothing to satisfy
the public mind, in such a disastrous crisis? It is a fact, that to
this hour, we know not where our army is, or whether we have
any. Our President and his secretaries are also missing, and^no
one knows where to look for them! Was there ever such a thing
before in a civilized nation? A country invaded-battles fought
and yet no official account of the movements of either friend or
foe!

An early letter from Baltimore ventured that "Winder seems
to have done nothing, at least in a fighting way."

At the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and i5th Street, North-
west, where the avenue turns alongside the Treasury, the British
halted at the town pump, where they could drink with assurance
that the water was not poisoned. 17 While the men were slaking
their thirst, Ross entered the boardinghouse conducted by Mrs.
Suter. The low, brick building was popular as an eating place be-
cause of its proximity to the federal Departments, being situated
directly south of the Treasury on the site now occupied by Gen-
eral Sherman's statue. At Mrs. Suter's the provident general re-
quested that supper be prepared for his party of officers who
would return later in the evening. When Mrs. Suter explained
that there was little in the house, and suggested the McLeod Tav-
ern facing southward a few doors east on the avenue, Ross ex-
pressed a partiality to her fare. According to her account he
mentioned incidents that showed a familiarity with her tavern

Redcoats on the Avenues 5 6 3

which he had obviously obtained from some of his officers who
had been in the city.

Mrs. Suter's boardinghouse commanded a view of the Presi-
dent's house and the Treasury. That circumstance probably was
more controlling with Ross than the fame of Mrs. Suter's cuisine,
since it gave him opportunity to supervise his men while he was
eating. While Ross was negotiating dinner, Cocldburn waited
with the soldiers at the pump. In later years, on information from
a source she did not name, Mrs. Madison credited Cockburn with
thoughtfully sending a messenger to the President's house at this
moment with word that the admiral would be glad to escort her
to any place of safety she might choose. 18 She had, however, left
the city well in advance of the arrival of the British.

4*

Ross resumed the march around the Treasury, then a small
brick building on part of the site of the present structure, and
entered the deserted home of the President. To the surprise and
delight of the hungry British soldiers, the dining table was loaded
with viands choice enough to spread before a gourmet like the
Prince Regent. It was laid out for a banquet of forty persons
a sizable dinner company even for entertainers like the Madisons.
For the British home public the most amusing feature of the in-
vasion was that the American President had ordered an elaborate
dinner which he thought to enjoy at leisure with his friends and
Army officers in celebration of the deliverance of the capital city.
No doubt it was the merriment of the British which caused the
banquet story to be denied so emphatically by American sources,
including some of the members of Madison's staff, who refused
to concede that the President's meal, prepared for cabinet mem-
bers, dignitaries and generals, was eaten by privates of the wrong

army.

The first reference to the banquet was contained in a letter
from a British midshipman published in a London newspaper.
The historian of the 44th Regiment relates the story. Gleig ad-
hered to it sixty-odd years later, after the various reasons why it
was challenged were submitted to him. His description ran:

5 6 4 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Several kinds of wine, in handsome glass decanters, were cool-
ing on the sideboard. Plate holders stood by the fireplace, filled
with dishes and plates; knives, forks and spoons were arranged
for immediate use; in short, everything was ready for the enter-
tainment of a ceremonious party. In the kitchen, spits loaded
with joints of various sorts, turned before the fire. Pots, sauce-
pans and other culinary utensils stood upon the grate, and all the
other requisites for an elegant and substantial repast, were exactly
in a state which indicated that they had been lately and precipi-
tately abandoned.

Jean P. Sioussa, a refugee of the French Revolution known
around the President's house as "French John," formerly a re-
tainer of the British minister, Anthony Merry, served as Madi-
son's doorkeeper at the time of the invasion. He repudiated the
entire banquet story. 19 Nothing was in the kitchen when the
British came, he asserted, except a little meat.

One wonders that the matter has been considered of sufficient
importance for all the inquiries and denials, but controversies
lead to re-examinations and conclusions. The British did, in fact,
find a banquet awaiting them. One of the enlightening accounts
of what occurred at the President's house before the coming of
the British has been supplied by Madison's body slave, Paul Jen-
nings. In his pamphlet, A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James
Madison, Jennings tells how he had set the table on the afternoon
of August 24 and had "brought up the ale, cider and wine, and
placed them in coolers, as all the cabinet and several military
gentlemen and strangers were expected." Mrs. Madison had in-
formed him that dinner would be ready at the regular hour of
three, when the President, who ordinarily ate no supper, dined.
The slave's account leaves no doubt that a large meal was in
prospect, and that it was ordered by either the President or his
wife. The question of who ordered it might have been answered
had Admiral Cockburn preserved the trinkets and souvenirs he
took from the executive palace. They included the penciled notes
Madison had written to Mrs. Madison from the Bladensburg
battlefield. 20

General Ross dispatched a detail to bring fire, which was ob-
tained at Frenchy Nardin's saloon opposite the Treasury. 21 While

Redcoats on the Avenues

it was en route Cockburn amused himself by peering through the
President's household effects. His principal gleanings were notes,
one or two books, a picture and apparently some other small
articles which, according to the Intelligencer, he took delight in
exhibiting on the streets next day wherever he could gather a
crowd of spectators. The admiral never presented a full inven-
tory of these seizures, and as far as the official record is con-
cerned the only items he took were the notes which Mrs.
Madison had rolled into a bundle and put in a desk drawer. The
explanation for taking them offered by the British was that they
might have information of military value on the movements of
the American army.

From the Octagon-which held the French legation-at New
York Avenue and i8th Street, M. Semrier, the French ambassa-
dor and only foreign diplomat in Washington, had been looking
at the great fires blazing in the city. Fearful that the exodus of the
American government might lead to mob control unless the in-
vaders imposed their authority over the civilians remaining, he
determined to request an embassy guard. His report to Talley-
rand, who had visited Washington on his extensive American
travels, gives a colorful description of the situation.

I never saw a scene at once more terrible and more magnifi-
cent. Your Highness, knowing the picturesque nature and gran-
deur of the surroundings, can form an idea of it. A profound
darkness reigned in the part of the city that I occupy, and we
were left to conjectures and to the lying reports of Negroes as
to what was passing in the quarter illuminated by these frightful
flames. At eleven o'clock a colonel, preceded by torches, was
seen to take the direction of the White House, which is situated
quite near mine; the Negroes reported that it was to be burned,
as well as all those pertaining to government offices. I thought
best, on the moment, to send one of my people to the general
with a letter, in which I begged him to send a guard to the house
of the Ambassador of France to protect it.

My messenger found General Ross in the White House, where
he was collecting in the drawing room all the furniture to be
found, and was preparing to set fire to it. The general made
answer that the King's Hotel should be respected as much as
though his Majesty was there in person; that he would give or-

566 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

ders to that effect; and that if he was still in Washington the next
day, he would have the pleasure to call on me. 22

Soon after eleven o'clock the mansion was sending up great
flames, companions to those still illuminating the surrounding
country from Capitol Hill and the southeast water front. Ross
then gave directions for the firing of the Treasury building and
withdrew with ten of his officers to Mrs. Suter's, where they
were followed a little later by Admiral Cockburn. Due to the
spent condition of the small number of horses Ross had been able
to collect, and the necessity of using the better mounts for patrol-
ling the roads to prevent surprise by militia gatherings, Cockburn
made his trip from Capitol Hill to downtown Washington on
muleback. Now that the work of burning was being happily
consummated, he expressed his exhilaration by riding his mule
through the front doorway of Mrs. Suter's tavern, 23 calling to the
British officers already assembled within, "Make way for the
much-abused Admiral Cockburn! " Part of his exhilaration un-
doubtedly was due to the porter the British drank at the Presi-
dent's house. Ross showed no mirth over his associate's mode of
entry. Residents of the city checked notes after his departure
and agreed that the general maintained his serious demeanor the
entire period of his stay, without smiling once. His thoughts
must have been on the hazardous situation of his little army in the
capital of what had already become one of the wealthiest and
most populous nations of the world.

The dinner completed, Ross began the assembly of the troops
for the return to the camp on Capitol Hill. Cockburn renewed
contact with the American group at the Mackgowan Hotel,
where he asked to be directed to the printing establishment of
Joe Gales. "Gales," he said, "has been telling some tough stories
about me." Mail Contractor Bailey said he was a stranger in
Washington and did not know where the plant was located.
Cockburn then addressed two others, who likewise said they
were uninformed. At this the admiral flew into a rage and, ac-
cording to Bailey's version of the incident, threatened to throw
the men into jail if they didn't loosen their tongues a bit. They
decided to talk and Cockburn learned that the Intelligencer

Redcoats on the Avenues

office was on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue between 6th
and yth streets. He immediately ordered an officer to go to the
address to see what was inside the building; he followed shortly
with his detachment.

The Intelligencer ) Cockburn found, occupied an office in a
building row which contained residences. His officer reported on
his arrival that the interior contained nothing more than types
and printing materials. Cockburn considered setting fire to the
whole establishment. Without risking an opinion from Ross, he
judged it to be a quasi-governmental institution, and British-
owned at that, because Gales, according to his concept, was one
of His Majesty's wayward subjects. Cockburn desisted only be-
cause two women who lived in the house adjoining came to the
street and begged him not to burn the building, which would
mean the destruction of their property also.

"Never fear, ladies; be tranquil," the admiral said patroniz-
ingly. "You are much safer under my administration than you
were under Jimmie Madison's." 2 *

By this time Ross was moving the remaining troops up the
avenue. Rain was falling, quenching the fires. Cockburn con-
cluded that the matter of the Intelligencer offices could wait
until the morning.

Even had they known of Cockburn's reassurances, repeated on
the streets, that "all persons may consider themselves just as safe
tonight as they were last night/' the residents elsewhere about
the capital would have been too excited for slumber. "Few
thought of going to bed," said Mrs. Mary Hunter in a letter to
her sister. "They spent the night in gazing on the fires and la-
menting the disgrace of the city." 25

The army of occupation retired to its camp and ended activi-
ties for the evening. The single exception involved one of the
extraordinary incidents of the invasion. When Cockburn had
reached the Intelligencer office he had placed a sentry on the
street, a normal precaution when any detachment halted. When
he departed, Cockburn, apparently through neglect, failed to re-
lieve the sentinel. The British camp was on the other side of the
Capitol, near the outskirts of the town, almost a mile distant. Yet

568 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

throughout the night this sentinel paced his beat on Pennsylvania
Avenue alone and without molestation. In full charge of the situ-
ation, a single redcoat controlled the capital of America.

5-

James Madison had been the best reporter present at one of
the biggest news stories in American history the meeting of the
convention to draft the Constitution of the United States. The
running account he wrote for his own satisfaction was the only
presentable eyewitness story ever offered of the transactions of
that gathering and, although it remained buried in his personal
archives for half a century, it ultimately netted his widow
$30,000.

But Mr. Madison could scarcely have qualified for a reporter's
job on a modern metropolitan newspaper. The outstanding day
of his administration from a news standpoint was the twenty-
fourth of August, 1814, the events of which he duly recorded,
according to his custom, in his journal. The inadequate, noncom-
mittal summary discloses the suppression of drama in his make-
up and causes one to wonder how much sensational detail at the
Constitutional Convention may have been lost to posterity be-
cause of his restraints and cautions as a journalist. The journal
relates only:

When the battle was decidedly commenced, I observed to
the Secretary of War and the Secretary of State that it would
be proper to withdraw to a position in the rear, where we could
act according to circumstances; leaving military movements now
to the functionaries who were responsible for them. This we did,
Mr. Rush joining us. When it became manifest that the battle
was lost, Mr. Rush accompanying me, I fell down into the road
leading to the city and returned to it.

When the President finally reached the Virginia side of the
Potomac that evening his two dueling pistols were missing. A pos-
sible explanation for their disappearance is that someone stole
them from his holsters during the short stop he made at the Presi-
dent's house after the battle. He went there to make certain that
Mrs. Madison had fled to safety ahead of the oncoming British.

Redcoats on the Avenues 569

A more entertaining version of the President's flight from the
battlefield was offered the country by the anonymous author of
"The Bladensburg Races."

For saddle-tree scarce reached had he,
And seated to his mind.
When turning round his face, he saw
His cabinet behind.

Monroe was there, and Armstrong bold,
No bolder man mote be:
And Rush, th' Attorney-Ge-ne-ral
All on their horses three. 26

The ride that followed was, according to the poet's interpreta-
tion, ludicrous to the extreme. The account has the President
heralding the tidings of defeat along the highways, but it leans
heavily on poetic license.

Mr. Madison's first action after returning to the city, which
was already filled with the remnants of the army, was to refresh
himself at the Cutts house on F Street and then to exchange his
mount for the Cutts carriage. The transfer was understandable
because the strain of being in the saddle since dawn undoubtedly
was telling on a frail man sixty-three years old. The collapse that
overcame him after witnessing the flight of the army affected his
spirits even more than his body. He was depressed for weeks,
and does not appear to have emerged fully from the gloom of
failure until the news finally came of the signing of the Treaty
of Ghent. 27 Nevertheless, assisted by his more sprightly wife, he
managed to retain his composure and dignity.

Dolley Madison, 28 christened Dorothy, easily was the out-
standing woman of the capital city, a distinction she was destined
to enjoy until her death. She was genial and plump, but also, by
common agreement, beautiful. Aside from her brunette attrac-
tiveness, the salient point to her personality appears to have been
a disarming genuineness. This disposition to be utterly natural
was probably what made the country girl from North Carolina
break through the severity of her Quaker rearing and advance in
wordly interests even to wearing the latest fripperies from Paris,
dancing, gambling on the horses (which she later abandoned),

57 o POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

riding in a $1,500 coach behind four prancing, caparisoned
thoroughbreds and using rouge.

With all her elegance and amusements, Dolley Madison
wasted nothing. Both she and her husband, whose public-service
career was supported by his tobacco sales, made it a point to live
within their budget. Her indulgence in the new freedom of
American women extended to snuff dipping, a habit which any
other woman would have found it difficult to dignify. A glimpse
of her frankness is seen in her remark to Henry Clay when they
were attending a state function. She was holding a trim, lace-
fringed handkerchief, about which Clay must have commented,
for she promptly drew from the folds of her dress a large ban-
dana. 'This is for business," she said pointing to it, "and this"
she pointed to the patch of lace "is my polisher."

She had been a widow of twenty-six when Madison, who had
been jilted in youth by little Catherine Floyd, daughter of Wil-
liam Floyd, a New York girl he remembered wistfully into ad-
vancing middle age, was introduced to her by Aaron Burr at the
boardinghouse conducted by her mother in Philadelphia. Her
husband, John Todd, was a victim of the yellow-fever epidemic
in Philadelphia in 1793. Dolley Payne Todd married Madison be-
fore her late husband had been dead a year, which was suffi-
ciently unconventional for comment. A good many legislators at
the temporary capital wondered what she saw in the precise little
representative of forty-three, who lived so carefully. But she was
thoroughly devoted to him and the marriage was in all respects
successful. She began her "reign" in Washington under Jefferson
and continued, as a sort of "Queen Mother," to rule Washington
society to the closing days of James K. Polk.

When Madison became President in an age when it was
scarcely seemly for a lady to dip deeply into statecraft Dolley
Madison, with her intense energy, took a frank interest in federal
affairs. Her conversation was not laden with contentious opin-
ions on current questions, but her influence on them was such
that when in later times James G. Elaine looked into the phe-
nomenon of Madison's re-election in 1812, he attributed it all to
Dolley Madison. Washington Irving found her highly stimulat-

Redcoats on the Avenues 571

ing and called frequently. Ingersoll said she was "better fitted for
courts than many of those frequenting them/' Her parties of
ladies visited the Senate and House galleries and ignored prece-
dent by invading the forbidding Supreme Court chamber in the
basement. There was something of a sensation in the capital the
day Dolley Madison, Anna Cutts and their group of friends dis-
covered this stuffy little corner of the Capitol. William Pinkney
was giving the finishing touches to a long argument, but the
appearance of Mrs. Madison's party caused him to extend his
remarks through the balance of the afternoon. An associate jus-
tice commented testily after the session that "the Supreme Court
is no place for ladies/'

Mrs. Madison was such an extrovert that she could not sit
quietly in the President's house and await the outcome of the
battle on which the security of the city depended. She wrote
letter after letter to her sister. They shed little fresh light on the
situation in Washington but give an interesting insight into her
own reactions. She would pack records for a time, write another
letter and then rush to the upper story of the mansion and look
through her spyglass to the northeast, where the guns told of the
meeting at Bladensburg. "I have just pressed so many cabinet
papers into trunks as to fill one carriage," she wrote. "Our pri-
vate property must be sacrificed." There was no easy confidence
here that the Americans would win the battle. Mrs. Madison's
personal effects were worth about $n,ooo, 29 a sum which in-
cluded also the small amount of clothing owned by the President.
All were destroyed by the British.

"French John, with his usual activity and resolution," she
wrote, "offers to spike the cannon at the gate, and to lay a train
of powder which would blow up the British should they enter
the house. To this last proposition I positively objected, without,
however, being able to make him understand why all advantages
in war may not be taken." 30

Had Mrs. Madison permitted Sioussa to lay his mine, the
sufferers might have been members of the American militia and
nondescript residents of the city who overran the President's
grounds between the departure of the Madisons and the coming

572 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

of the British soldiers. This mob, which was described by the
President's slave Jennings as "a rabble that ran all over the White
House," did not tarry long enough to do much plundering.
Madison had stationed one hundred militiamen to protect Mrs.
Madison and the President's house, but these men became in-
volved with the first batch of fugitives to fly through the city and
hurried off for Georgetown without orders. Mrs. Madison re-
marked about it ironically in one of her letters. She examined the
country with her spyglass and again wrote: "I can descry only
groups of military wandering in all directions, as if there was
a lack of arms or spirit to fight for their own firesides."

Finally at three o'clock in the afternoon, an hour after Win-
der's militia had scattered from Bladensburg, Mrs. Madison
penned her last note:

Would you believe it, my sister, we have had a battle or
skirmish near Bladensburg, and I am still here within sound of
the cannon. Mr. Madison comes not. May God protect him!
Two messengers covered with dust come to bid me fly, but I
wait for him. At this late hour a wagon has been procured. I have
had it filled with plate and most of the valuable portable articles
belonging to the House.

While Mrs. Madison was writing this letter her Negro slave
Sukey, who was leaning from one of the upper windows, saw
Madison's freedman Jim Smith, who had accompanied the Presi-
dent from the Navy Yard to Bladensburg. He was galloping to-
ward the executive mansion, waving his hat and shouting, "Clear
out! Clear out! General Armstrong has ordered a retreat! " Of
the many accounts of what followed, the President's body slave
Jennings gives the most concise information:

All then was confusion. Mrs. Madison ordered her carriage,
and passing through the dining room, caught up what silver she
could crowd into her old-fashioned reticule, and then jumped
into the chariot with her servant girl Sukey, and Daniel Carroll,
who took charge of them; Jo BoKn (another slave) drove them
over to Georgetown Heights; the British were expected in a few
minutes. Mr. Cutts, her brother-in-law, sent me to a stable on
i4th Street for his carriage. People were running in every direc-
tion. John Freeman (the colored butler) drove off in a coachee

Redcoats on the Avenues 573

with his wife, child and servant; also a feather bed lashed on
behind the coachee, which was all the furniture saved except part
of the silver and portrait of Washington.

President Madison had asked Charles Carroll to escort his wife
to safety. A frequently repeated story is that as Dolley Madison
was hastening to her carriage she snatched up the celebrated
document composed by her husband's closest friend, the Decla-
ration of Independence, and thus saved it from the British, who
would have been pleased to annul that manifesto by burning it,
carrying it back to London or otherwise obliterating it. 31 What
Dolley Madison probably took with the cabinet records was a
facsimile copy of the Declaration which hung in the President's
house. The picture she guarded so carefully was not the full-
length portrait of Washington which Gilbert Stuart painted for
Lord Lansdowne, as has often been stated.

The portrait secured by Dolley Madison may still be seen in the
White House, where for many years it hung in the basement
corridor. 32 It is a doubtful Stuart. She emphasized to the house-
hold that the portrait was not to be left behind, and gave instruc-
tions that if it seemed likely to be captured it should be destroyed.
Because the frame in which it hung was screwed to the wall, it
was difficult to remove the canvas. Mrs. Madison called Sious-
sa, who in turn summoned the President's gardener, Magraw
The gardener mounted a short ladder and chopped away the
frame with an ax. Mrs. Madison, fearing the paint would crack,
cautioned Sioussa against rolling the canvas. Sioussa laid the pic-
ture on the floor.

Just then the President's friend Jacob Barker, a Quaker ship-
owner from New York, stopped by the mansion with a com-
panion, R. G. L. de Peyster, to inquire whether they could be of
assistance to Mrs. Madison. "Save the picture," she told them
hurriedly, adding further injunctions that it should not be cap-
tured. Anna Cutts was waiting in the carriage, and Dolley Madi-
son rushed out with her parcels. She would have been quite
willing to remain, she wrote later, if she had had some cannon
pointing from the windows. "But alas! " she exclaimed, "those
who should have placed them there fled before me." Barker took

574 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

charge of the picture, which was transported by the gardener
Magraw on the back of a wagon, along with some silver urns, to
a farmhouse. A short time later it was returned by Barker to Mrs.
Madison. 33

Two travelers who skirted Bladensburg while the battle was
being fought continued their southward journey to Richmond,
Virginia, and reported to the editor of the Enquirer there that
they had seen Madison riding in a carriage through the Washing-
ton streets. Someone from the groups of civilians on the streets
had shouted, 'There goes the President." It was a final evidence
that resistance was over. Madison's body slave walked to the
Georgetown Ferry about 6:30 P.M. and found the President
waiting for a boat. He was accompanied across the river by
Attorney General Rush, Tench Ringgold, local rope manufac-
turer, and Charles W. Goldsborough, chief clerk of the Navy
Department.

Madison had notified the cabinet that if the Americans lost the
city the executive branch of the government would reassemble
at Fredericktown, Maryland, about forty-five miles distant.
These directions had not been altered. It was to Fredericktown
that Secretary Armstrong retired, while Secretary of the Treas-
ury George Washington Campbell tarried there briefly en route
to his home in Tennessee. Monroe was with the army, which he
accompanied to Tennallytown and then on to the Montgomery
Court House. There is a possible explanation of the President's
passage of the Potomac in a report current in Washington during
the late afternoon. Because Winder's baggage had become sepa-
rated from his troops and had crossed the Long Bridge while the
general and his men were heading northward, word spread that
the army had retreated to Virginia. Madison traveled northwest
along the road that runs up the right bank of the Potomac until
he was ten miles from the city. There, midway between the
upper and lower falls, he slept, exhausted and humiliated by the
red glare in the southeastern sky. 34

Mrs. Madison journeyed about three miles above Georgetown
and remained that night at the home of Mrs. Love. She rose early
the next morning and went on to locate the President, who had

Redcoats on the Avenues 575

arranged a meeting place at an inn about sixteen miles up the
river. En route she stopped at what looked like a friendly farm-
house, and while her attendants were announcing her to the
housewife, she went upstairs. Her experience here proved un-
pleasant. As soon as the woman learned the identity of her guest
she set up a shout:

"Mrs. Madison, if that is you, come down and get out. Your
husband has got mine out fighting, and damn you, you shan't
stay in rny house. So get out."

Probably this was the only instance of the wife of a President
being roughly ejected from an American household. The rude
words and Dolley Madison's reaction were reported by the slave
Jennings. 35 Mrs. Madison left promptly, without so much as a
reply, and stopped a few miles farther on her journey at the
home of Mrs. Minor. Later in the morning she joined Mr. Madi-
son, who had continued to the inn. Secretary Monroe meanwhile
sent out a dragnet from Montgomery Court House, located the
President at the tavern and crossed the river. When the President
and Monroe came together on the afternoon of August 25, some-
thing of a government for the United States was restored. Yet it
was only for a brief period, because Monroe recrossed to Mary-
land and rejoined the army, where his presence seemed more ur-
gently required.

6.

General Ross established himself in the home of Dr. James
Ewell, in Carroll Row east of the Capitol. He imposed a curfew
and ordered a penalty of one hundred lashes for any soldier
found guilty of the theft of private property. Colonel Ragan,
Stansbury's regimental leader wounded at Bladensburg, later re-
ported that during the period of his captivity two soldiers appre-
hended in thefts were given fifty-nine lashes each.

Next morning the British were up early. Cockburn, anxious
to enjoy fully his day of triumph in the city he had been wanting
to reach for more than a year, began his activities at 5:30 A.M.
Accompanied by only three soldiers, he was bold enough to ride

57 6 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

down Pennsylvania Avenue the mile and a quarter to the Presi-
dent's house, where for all he knew an American army might
have been mobilized during the night. He rode a small gray horse
and apparently made the journey for no other purpose than to
inspect his handiwork of the night before and poke about in the
mansion ruins. The admiral stopped in front of Mackgowan's
Hotel and talked banteringly with an early-morning group in the
street. Throughout the remainder of the day he was much in the
public eye.

In conversations they held at different periods of the morning,
Dr. Ewell mentioned to Ross his regret that the Library of Con-
gress had been consumed in the Capitol fire.

"I lament it most sincerely that I was not told of the circum-
stance/' Ross replied. "Had I known of it in time the books most
certainly would have been saved."

"Neither do I suppose, General," Dr. Ewell continued, "you
would have burned the President's house had Mrs. Madison re-
mained at home?"

"No, sir," said the general. "I make war neither against letters
nor ladies, and I have heard so much in praise of Mrs. Madison
that I would rather protect than burn a house which sheltered
such an excellent lady." 36

Before the morning was far advanced General Ross organized
900 soldiers into three detachments, each being followed by
about thirty Negroes carrying gunpowder and rockets. The first
moved down Pennsylvania Avenue at eight o'clock and relighted
the Treasury, where the flames had not gained satisfactory head-
way before the thunder shower of the previous night. Then it
moved on to the War and State Department building immedi-
ately west of the President's house, in the block now occupied by
the State, War and Navy building. Using powder and rockets,
the soldiers quickly had the War Department fire consuming
what remained of Armstrong's papers. Gleig viewed these edi-
fices of the American government as little more than eyesores,
having "a plainness amounting to almost coarseness, and a general
air of republicanism, by no means imposing." The President's

Redcoats on the Avenues 577

house he found "small, incommodious and plain," built so as not
to excite jealousies.

After the War Department was blazing satisfactorily, the de-
tachment on duty there, headed by Major Waters, moved east
on F Street to Blodget's old hotel in the block bounded by 8th
and pth and E and F streets, Northwest, the later site of the
Patent Office. This building housed the only government De-
partments that had not yet been touched by the retaliatory
torches of the enemy: the Post Office Department and the Pat-
ents Bureau of the State Department. Samuel Blodget had erected
the structure, three stories high and 120 feet long, out of the pro-
ceeds of the lottery he conducted during the real-estate boom of
the capital. Its six Ionic pilasters were ornaments worthy of com-
ment in the infant years of the city, but the glory of the building
was short-lived. As early as 1804 the poet Thomas Moore de-
scribed it on his Washington visit: "The hotel is already a ruin;
a great part of its roof has fallen in and the rooms are left to be
occupied gratuitously by the miserable Scotch and Irish immi-
grants." The government purchased the hotel in 1810, after It
had run through a season as a makeshift theater, renovated it and
made it not only the postal headquarters of the nation, but also
the display room and storehouse of the several hundred models
of patents which represented the budding inventive genius of a
country that was to become the world's leading contributor to
technological progress.

Chief of Patents Dr. William Thornton had no more than a
clerkship in the State Department, yet in many respects he was
the most extraordinary individual in the federal service physi-
cian, inventor, artist, novelist, architect, breeder of race horses,
organizer of colonization schemes for Negroes, patron of South
American liberation and general man about the government. To
these achievements he was about to add that of talking a bull-
necked major of British foot out of burning a government build-
ing when Cockburn stood in the offing and the major had orders
to destroy it. Thornton's accomplishment was of no small signifi-
cance to the city and country. By saving Blodget's Hotel he pre-

5?8 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

served for Washington a building of proportions ample enough
to accommodate the American Congress, and the existence of
such a building, in turn, kept Congress in Washington for its
September meeting when there was pressure to have it go to
Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The temper of the period was such that
had the capital been moved from the Potomac, public opinion
probably would not have demanded that it be returned. The
nation probably would have had, as many expected, a new seat
of government.

Dr. Thornton was a Quaker, born at Jost van Dyke in the
Virgin Islands when they were governed by British cruisers. He
gained his Doctor of Medicine degree at the University of Aber-
deen and found his way to Delaware the year the United States
was born under the Constitution. He was working with the
inventor John Fitch on the first American steamboat, which
expressed some of his own abundant ideas, when he read in the
newspapers about the $500.00 prize and free lot in Washington
offered for the best design for the United States Capitol. Al-
though architecture was an unexplored field for him, he bor-
rowed some books, made his drawings and startled the experts by
winning the award. A like award was granted later to the more
. professional French architect, tienne Sulpice Hallet, for draft-
ing the plans from Thornton's designs. To this Virgin Islander
the country owes the conception of the rotunda and wings that
have remained the central theme of the United States Capitol and
the source of its magnificence, through the extensive alterations
and enlargements of more than 150 years. Thornton built also
the Octagon House, for Colonel John B. Tayloethe house of
the French legation. It was taken over for a residence by Mr.
Madison after the destruction of the President's house, and is
now preserved as the national headquarters of the American In-
stitute of Architects.

Dr. Thornton worried in Georgetown on the night of the
twenty-fourth about the fate of his treasured models, which at
that time had to be submitted before patents were issued, and
which remained the principal record of inventions. His own
tinkerings with firearms, boilers, musical instruments and numer-

Redcoats on the Avenues 579

cms other practical and visionary objects had made extensive
contributions to the collection. He concluded that his duty was
with this irreplaceable property that had been entrusted to him
by both Jefferson and Madison and by the numerous inventors
throughout the land. He picked up his model maker, Nicholson,
en route and galloped to Washington, where he was met by the
Reverend O. B. Brown and two other residents. He took the
precaution to see that one of them was a Republican. When he
reached the Patent Office, the British soldiers were at the door
with axes.

Thornton remonstrated with Major Waters. He said that the
soldiers were working overtime in their hunt for public prop-
erty; that patents granted by the United States were the property
of the inventors and not the government; and that to destroy
these records of inventive enterprise would be an act of savagery
and vandalism appalling to the world and equal in its barbarity
to the burning of the library at Alexandria. The situation, as this
earnest official explained it and as he finally illustrated it by play-
ing a freak musical instrument of his own invention, became a bit
intricate for the major of foot. He told his soldiers to stand away
with their axes and the Negro service men to hold off the pow-
der until he reflected. General Ross's orders about private prop-
etry were plain. It would not be well to take chances. So he
finally followed the easy course and agreed to let Thornton ob-
tain a ruling from his superior, Colonel Jones, who was then with
Cockburn at the Intelligencer office. The record fails to show
how Thornton presented the question, but he rode away and
came back with an opinion from the colonel that private prop-
erty was indeed exempt, and with a reassurance of his own that
the patent models were one hundred per cent private. The major
was apparently still unconvinced, but he was sufficiently harassed
to defer the entire question until later. He said he had another
assignment to burn the arsenal at Greenleaf 's Point and would
get that out of the way first. Possibly he would return to con-
sider the patents later. The events at Greenleaf 's Point were such
that the entire patent question was forgotten.

Dr. Thornton's own account of his diligence was much more

580 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

restrained than the stories of others. One version attributed to
him the melodramatic act of baring his chest at the office door,
describing the purpose of the building, and shouting: "Would
you destroy it? If so, fire away and let the charge pass through
my body." Entirely through his efforts, Blodget's Hotel, which
was an antique before it had rounded out a dozen years, and
which had so annoyed the Irish lyrist, was spared. Thornton's
storehouse of specifications and models, which were to perplex
a great many federal courts for quite a number of decades, was
about the only thing relating to the government saved in the
capital.

It did not occur to anyone during the dispute over the burning
of the buildings to bring up the status of the Post Office Depart-
ment. Had Thornton been required to defend it, he very likely
would have argued that the letters went from private citizen to
private citizen without the government's even examining them.

Yet, one never knows. Possibly eloquence and forceful argu-
ment had little to do with the saving of the hotel. Perhaps the
British soldiers were diverted and the major caused to abandon
his effort by the impediment in the persistent Thornton's speech,
rather than by any appreciation of patents or inventive genius,
concern about Ross's orders, or understanding of anything that
ever happened to a library in Alexandria.

7-

As the sun ascended Admiral Cockburn and a file of soldiers
became exhibit A on Pennsylvania Avenue. Cockburn sportively
showed the trinkets that formerly graced the home of the chief
executive, denounced Editor Gales and asserted with a bluff
humor (which approached the successful), "I'll punish Madi-
son's man Joe as I have the master, Jim." After more than a
year's perusal of the Intelligencer columns in his ship cabin on
the Chesapeake, he could finally break through the front office
door and call for the editor to come out and eat his words or
watch his rag go out of business. 37 Gales, to be sure, could not
be present and thus risk going back to England in irons to answer
for being born at Eckington. A studious editor, Gales had accu-

Redcoats on the Avenues 581

initiated several hundred volumes as a newspaper library. The
gleeful admiral, no doubt judging them textbooks on traitorous
intercourse, had the books moved to the center of the avenue
and burned before the eyes of the gathering crowd of citizens.
Here a hundred lectures about the library at Alexandria would
have done no good. Onlookers reported that Cockburn waxed so
enthusiastic that he broke the tradition of the service and entered
into the pillage with his own hands. The presses were pounded
into scrap iron. The admiral gave specific directions to the sol-
diers to pi the type: "Be sure that all the C's in the boxes are
destroyed so that the rascals can have no further means of abus-
ing my name." 38

Dr. Thornton, learning what was in progress when he called
to see Colonel Jones, hastened to Gales's house and protected it
by hanging out a sign reading, THIS HOUSE TO LET. The residence
was not molested.

The Intelligencer, with virtually all of its staff in the militia,
had suspended publication the night before the battle, when the
mails closed down, and it was a revelation of Gales's editorial
stature that its comments on the British were fair after they
departed and publication was resumed. Gales's editorial said:
"Greater respect was certainly paid to private property than has
usually been exhibited by the enemy in his marauding parties.
No houses were half as much plundered by the enemy as by the
knavish wretches of the town who profited by the general dis-
tress." 39 On August 27 a correspondent of the New York Post
summarized: "To give the devil his due, his conduct here was as
orderly as could be expected."

While Cockburn was in the street supervising the extinguish-
ment of the pro-Madison journal one of the citizens baited him
with the remark, "If General Washington had been still alive,
Admiral, you would never have got here so easily,"

"Sir," replied the admiral quickly and candidly, "if General
Washington had been President, we would never have thought
to come here."

There was another testimonial to the first President from the
British. Captain Gordon's squadron, which was inching its way

582 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

up the Potomac, reached Mount Vernon four days later, and by
firing a salute as it passed honored the man who more than any
other had broken the link between the two countries. Nile?
Register, mentioning this tribute, recalled that the last time a
British warship paused at Mount Vernon was during the Revolu-
tion. A frigate had stopped and demanded provisions, which
General Washington's estate manager supplied. When the gen-
eral learned of the visit he wrote one of his most severe letters,
reprimanding his manager and stating that it would have been
less painful had he heard the entire plantation was laid ruin.

The British detachment that went from the Patent Office to
Greenleaf 's Point, a promontory jutting into the Potomac south-
west of the Capitol, reached it at two o'clock and met disaster as
severe as might have resulted from a second major battle. The
object of the mission was to destroy the powder magazine, which
the American soldiers already had emptied. Much of the powder
had been hidden in a dry well on the grounds. This well had
been a dump for old explosives, guns and munitions, part of
which had been transferred to Washington from Philadelphia
when the seat of government was removed. Shortly after the
British reached the spot a tremendous explosion shook the city,
shattered neighboring houses, blew great masses of dirt, rock,
military equipment, debris and mutilated men into the air, and
caused a concussion sickening to everyone. Buildings were un-
roofed; brick walls collapsed. The mass of flying matter was seen
from the Patent Office more than a mile distant. Statements of
the British loss varied, but a conservative account made by a
British officer placed the dead at seventeen and the wounded
above thirty. Dr. Ewell, who helped attend the mangled men,
said thirty were killed and a larger numbered injured; 40 others
gave the total killed and injured at near one hundred.

The cause of the explosion could not be determined positively,
yet no effort was made to attribute it to American soldiers or
residents. All agreed that the powder was discharged by a British
torch. It was believed that the torch was carelessly tossed into
the well by a soldier who sought to extinguish it. Another ex-
planation was that when the Americans moved the powder to the

Redcoats on the Avenues 583

cache a bung fell out of the barrel and a trail of powder was left
along the ground, where next day a British soldier laid his torch.
This explanation appears improbable because the rain on the
night of the twenty-fourth would most likely have washed the
trail away.

The injured soldiers were carried to Capitol Hill, where the
Carroll Row houses adjoining Dr. EwelTs were turned into a
hospital. Ross personally supervised their transfer and the ar-
rangements for their care. "I never saw more endearing marks
of sympathy than were here exhibited on his countenance," Dr.
Eweil said. A cause of the general's distress was the necessity
of leaving the injured men behind because he had no ambulances.
He expressed hope that mattresses could be procured for them in
Georgetown. He was relieved when the doctor assured him that
the men would receive every possible medical attention. "He
gave me a look of gratitude which I shall never forget, and
then turning toward his men where they lay, burned, bruised
and mangled, on the floor, he silently gazed at their deplorable

state/' 41

The disaster dampened the ardor of the British army, de-
pressed Ross and Cockburn and caused both to lose interest in
any further contact with the American capital Gordon's fleet
had not yet appeared. Rumors had been reaching the city that
12,000 militia were coming from Virginia and 15,000 were con-
centrating in Maryland. As time went on Ross's position became
more uncertain. He had in his rear the entire garrison of Balti-
more, which under energetic leadership might march out and
intercept him if he tarried too long. His original plan had worked
ideally. The strength of the two cities had never been united
against him, but that eventually must happen if he turned his
coup de main into an occupation. He laid plans for evacuating
the city after sundown.

One other unusual experience was in store for the British in
the capital of America. In the late afternoon the sky darkened
and a typical American tornado struck the city. It tore the roofs
from houses, felled trees and blew with such ferocity on Capitol
Hill that it overturned Ross's two 3 -pounders planted to com-

584 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

mand the westward approaches. The soldiers flattened themselves
on the ground or hid behind the bleak walls of the Capitol, losing
all order. Although they had been indifferent to militia bullets,
their morale was deeply affected by the violent natural elements
of the strange continent. "It fairly lifted me out of the saddle,
and the horse I was riding I never saw again," said Lieutenant
Gleig. 42

As the August light began to fade General Ross had large fires
built along his Capitol Hill position, which might be seen from
the heights above Georgetown. It was a signal that he would
remain in Washington for another evening. But at eight o'clock
he suddenly broke camp, made a forced march to Bladensburg,
where the balance of his army already was in column, and moved
on without halting to Upper Marlboro. There, after four hours'
sleep for his men, he resumed the rapid movement via Notting-
ham to Benedict. In forty-eight hours he covered the more than
forty miles, by the indirect route through Bladensburg, from
Capitol Hill to the British fleet. 43

Governor-General Prevost might now be satisfied, for York
had been avenged. 44 In this respect the war was turning into
something of a success. The Congresses of the two North Amer-
ican governments met that autumn in the ballrooms of two rather
shoddy hotels.

With four regiments of foot, a battalion of marines and a few
artillerists and rocket men, the colonel of the old 20th Regiment
had marched into the heart of a nation of 10,000,000 people,
routed its army, ousted its government, seized its capital city,
destroyed its public buildings, and was back on board the trans-
ports again, all in seven days.

"Certain it is," the New York Evening Post said, when the
country was reflecting after the first startling news, "that when
General Ross' official account of the battle and the capture and
destruction of our CAPITOL is published in England, it will hardly
be credited by Englishmen. Even here it is still considered as
a dream."

Thirty

Birth of a Song

The British army's return to the fleet at Benedict was so
rapid that many soldiers straggled, and thus quite inadvertently
helped create the important by-product of the invasion, the
writing of the American national anthem.

Behind Ross's army as it moved across Maryland trailed a
scattering of exhausted redcoats who had fallen from the col-
umn. They passed along the Upper Marlboro road singly and in
small groups, moving leisurely, stopping at farmhouses for food
and proving an annoyance to a countryside that was already
thoroughly tired of the invasion.

Dr. William Beanes, whose house had been the British head-
quarters in Upper Marlboro during the march on Washington,
felt called on to relieve the community of this nuisance, now
that the main British army was gone. The best account of what
followed on August 26 and 27 appears to be also the first. It is
the version published as a minor item by the Baltimore Federal
Gazette in its August 28 issue and is therefore uncolored by the
furor which developed in Washington and lower Maryland
when Dr. Beanes was imprisoned and held unnecessarily long by
the British.

i.

After Ross's army had cleared Upper Marlboro, Robert Bowie,
the former governor of Maryland who owned farms in the
neighborhood, rode into town and suggested to a group of citi-
zens that they should intercept the stragglers and hold them as
prisoners of war. Dr. Beanes agreed.

Several others, according to the Baltimore newspaper account,

585

586 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

demurred and "urged the dangerous consequences that might
result while the enemy was so near." But under the direction of
Bowie, Beanes and another Upper Marlboro resident, John Rod-
gers, the plan to keep the roads clear of drifters was adopted. Six
British soldiers were captured and sent to jail at Queen Anne,
nine miles distant.

Everything was calm until one o'clock on the morning of
August 27, when Upper Marlboro was rudely aroused by the
arrival of a mounted detachment of British who halted in front
of the Beanes's house. Dr. Beanes had as his guests for the night
a fellow physician, Dr. William Hill, and another friend, Philip
Weems. As far as is known, they had taken no part in the seizure
of the prisoners. The British marines burst into the Beaneses'
house, snatched the doctor and his guests from their beds, hoisted
them bareback on some of the farm plugs that served as their
only mounts, and trotted them off to the British fleet. The ride
gave the sixty-five-year-old doctor a jostling. The British detach-
ment left word with other residents of Upper Marlboro who
came from their houses that unless the prisoners were released
by twelve o'clock noon that day British soldiers would return
and burn the town. The six British prisoners were liberated
promptly. Former Governor Bowie, whose counsel had been
responsible for the incident, went to the British camp at Benedict,
where he too was placed under arrest while 200 British soldiers
were sent to a farm he owned three miles away, which they
stripped of provisions.

Citizens of Upper Marlboro sent a hurried request to Ross for
release of the American prisoners. The general released Hill and
Weems when he understood how they became involved, but
remained adamant about the doctor. Bowie also obtained his
freedom without much difficulty, although he was the father of
the project, and Rodgers appears to have been passed over en-
tirely. But the prospects were that Dr. Beanes would be trans-
ported to Bermuda or Halifax both were mentioned to stand
trial on one charge or another. If the British command held to
the view expressed by Lieutenant Gleig, that Beanes had been
born in Scotland, the charge against him would have been trea-

Birth of a Song 587

son. His situation was serious, because in Halifax he could never
have established proof of his Maryland nativity.

Prince George County residents got up a petition for him, but
when it failed to move Ross and Cockburn and when the British
fleet made ready to sail from Benedict with the doctor on board,
his friends looked about for more weighty influence. Richard E-
West, owner of the Wood Yard estate, had married Francis
Scott Key's elder sister. Beanes was their family physician. It
occurred to West that Key was just the man to help the doctor
out of his difficulties, so he rode into Georgetown and laid the
case before the attorney, who, on his brother-in-law's urgent
solicitation, agreed to do his best.

Key called first on President Madison, who accredited him a
governmental emissary to the British commander and suggested
that he talk with the American commissioner of prisoners, Gen-
eral John Mason. Mason gave him a letter to John S. Skinner, a
young Baltimore attorney who was acting as his agent in effect-
ing exchanges. The letter instructed Skinner to accompany Key.
Skinner also wrote a letter to General Ross stating that the citi-
zens taken at Upper Marlboro were "unarmed and [of] entirely
noncombatant character" and that their arrest was a "departure
from the known usages of civilized warfare."

Officially the government was less concerned about Dr. Beanes
personally than about the possibility that indifference to him
might seem to condone a British policy of making civilians pris-
oners of war. Such a policy would permit the British, when-
ever the balance of exchanges might favor the Americans, to
cross the border and herd up as many noncombatants as were
needed, and contend that they were bona fide captives, subject
to exchange. It could readily be done in a war where the wearing
of uniforms was by no means general among militia soldiers.
Under such practices the recently executed exchange cartel
would be worthless. Mason's letter made an official demand on
Ross for the doctor's release. General Winder also wrote a letter
making a similar demand from Annapolis.

Before leaving Washington on the night of September 2, Key
stopped at the hospital on Capitol Hill, where Dr. Ewell, assisted

588 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

by Dr. William Baker of Georgetown, was caring for the British
who were injured in the Greenleaf 's Point explosion. At Bladens-
burg, on his way to Baltimore, he visited also the hospital that
had been placed under the supervision of the government, where
the battle wounded of both armies were convalescing. Dr. Ewell
had considered himself bound by his promise to Ross that the
injured soldiers should have every attention possible and had
arranged an efficient, sanitary hospital where he was providing
the best food obtainable in the city. Key, not without guile, let
it be known at both hospitals that he would visit the British fleet.
The wounded soldiers asked him to carry their letters. He col-
lected a large packet which fortunately for the purposes of his
mission included a letter from a Sergeant Hutchinson who recog-
nized that he and his fellow sufferers were obtaining better atten-
tion than invaders might normally expect after devastating their
adversary's capital. Hutchinson's message advised General Ross
in detail of the situation of the soldiers he had left behind.

Key picked up Skinner in Baltimore, where they boarded the
cartel boat Minden. They sailed into the Chesapeake and spent
two days looking over its waters for the British fleet, which was
finally located on September 7 concentrated near the mouth of
the Potomac.

On the Tonnant they were greeted cordially by Cochrane,
Ross and Cockburn until Key divulged his purpose. From the
changes in the countenances of the three officers as he spoke,
Key could tell that he had failed to arouse any sympathy over
the plight of Dr. Beanes. General Mason's letter also did not win
favor. Cochrane's manner became cold, while the more emo-
tional Cockburn fell into one of his petulant fits and denounced
the request for the release of Beanes as the most preposterous
suggestion he had ever heard in his many ports of call. He pro-
claimed that "the old man" was entitled to no compassion, would
be taken to Halifax for trial and ought to be hanged. Key had
brought along some fresh underwear and soap for the doctor but
Cockburn saw no reason why he should be pampered with such
luxuries in his confinement, nor why the American commission-
ers should have access to him at all. Ross himself was unmoved

Birth of a Song 589

by Key's plea and asserted that the prisoner had not been dealt
with unfairly. In view of Ross's general justness, this is impressive
judgment.

Fortunately Sergeant Hutchinson's letter, when Key delivered
it with the others from the British prisoners, put a different face
on the matter. Ross dropped into one of his detached moods,
gazed for a time into the distance and, to the surprise of the
commissioners and to the disgust of Cockburn, delivered his
opinion: "Dr. Beanes deserves more punishment than he has re-
ceived. But I feel myself bound to make a return for the kindness
which has been shown to my wounded officers and upon that
ground, and that only, I release him."

Ross followed this decision by inditing a reply much to the
same effect to General Mason, explaining that Beanes had been
apprehended capturing British soldiers, but would be released
"not from any opinion of his not being justifiably detained, nor
from any favorable sentiment of his merit, but purely in proof
of the obligation which I feel for the attention with which the
wounded have been treated."

Key and Skinner were permitted to deliver the toilet articles.
Ross then made known that neither they nor the doctor could
depart because the fleet intended to put into the Patapsco River
and he was unwilling to have the Americans apprised of its
approach. The three Americans witnessed the bombardment of
Fort McHenry from the deck of the cartel boat. The elderly
doctor could not see the flag well, although it was a huge piece
of bunting twenty-nine feet wide and thirty-six feet long. When
the day of September 14, 1814, began to break, after the long
bombardment of the fort, Beanes kept asking, "Is the flag still
there?" Key said it was, and the idea impressed itself on his mind.
He took out an envelope and jotted down phrases.

The British attack was abandoned after daylight, and the
Americans were released. Key went that evening to a Baltimore
tavern and wrote his song to the meter of a British drinking
song, "Anacreon in Heaven." John Stafford Smith had composed
this song years earlier for the Anacreonitic Society of London, a
group which formed after Thomas Moore, then a law student,

59 o POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

had published In 1800 the translations he had made in Trinity
College, Dublin, of the odes of the Greek bard, Anacreon.
Through the ages, rumor had said Anacreon wrote when he was
drunk.

Key took his poem next day to another brother-in-law, Judge
]. H. Nicholson, who liked it and suggested immediate printing.
A printer's devil, Samuel Sands, set it in type at the Baltimore
American office, and it was issued in a handbill entitled "Bom-
bardment of Fort McHenry." Its first newspaper publication was
in the Baltimore Patriot of September 20, 1814. It was sung in
the taverns and copied in other newspapers. 1 Congress adopted
it as the official national anthem by Act of March 3, 193 1.

2.

General Ross had meanwhile landed at North Point. He was
toying with the idea of making Baltimore his winter headquar-
ters. His situation there on the bay, with the fleet to support him
and strong forts in his possession, would have been vastly differ-
ent from what it had been in Washington, where a superior force
might cut him off from the fleet.

Ross went ashore with Cockburn at seven o'clock in the morn-
ing, September 14. While the army was landing he and the
admiral found a farmhouse removed a short distance from the
shore and had a breakfast of fresh eggs, milk and chicken such
as was not obtainable on shipboard. As he left the house Ross
stopped to thank the farmer. The latter, with natural curiosity
about the British movements, inquired whether he would be back
for supper.

"No," said the general, "I'll have supper tonight in Baltimore,"
and then, by afterthought: "... or in Hell."

The army was formed for a march, the light brigade forward,
followed by the heavy infantry and supported by a complement
of marines and seamen. Baltimore was fourteen miles away and a
battle would have to be fought with the American militia while
the fleet was trying to reduce Fort McHenry. Ross threw ahead
an advance party and put out his flank patrols. Accompanied by
his aide, Duncan McDougall, he took his position with the for-

Birth of a Song 591

ward point of the army. When the road inclined gently, he and
his aide rode ahead to a clump of oak trees. Ross began to scan
the country with his field glasses.

Strieker's brigade was moving from Baltimore to meet the Brit-
ish. Strieker pushed out Asquith's rifle corps, which was in posi-
tion beyond the low eminence where General Ross halted. Two
shots sounded from the bottom of the hill. One bullet hit Ross.
He lurched back into McDougall's arms. He had time merely to
call his wife's name.

McDougall laid the general's body under one of the oak trees.
Most of the soldiers saw it as they moved ahead to push back
Asquith and Strieker. "A groan came from the column," Gleig
said. Colonel Brooke took command. In the small engagement
that followed, the two militiamen who had fired on RossDaniel
Wells and Henry McComas were killed. But the spirit that
dominated the British expeditionary force was gone. In the words
of Gleig, "the army lost its mainspring." A single musket ball at
North Point was more decisive than the fire of the entire Ameri-
can army at Bladensburg.

The British force held back from a decisive engagement with
the American militia and waited for a success by the fleet at
Fort McHenry. When the fort held, the army retreated. 2 The
failure to capture Baltimore proved a severe blow to the British
peace delegation then negotiating with the American commis-
sioners at Ghent.

Less than a year later virtually all that survived of Ross's army
of retaliation was its record. The regiments fought at New Or-
leans and then went on to Waterloo. The general's body was
preserved in spirits and transported for burial in Halifax. He is
but one of the innumerable British soldiers who have remained
away from home. Great Britain has too many distinguished offi-
cers to devote much attention to the leader of one small expedi-
tion. But contrary to the frequent assertion that he was severely
condemned in England for his destruction of the American capi-
tal, Ross was mourned sincerely as an admirable soldier. Parlia-
ment voted him a monument in St. Paul's and the soldiers of the
zoth honored him similarly at his County Down home. When

592 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

the opposition in Commons attacked the ministry's order for
retaliation, Mr. Whitebread, the opposition speaker, added:

It was happy for humanity and the credit of the empire that the
extraordinary order upon that occasion had been entrusted to an
officer of so much moderation and justice.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House of Commons:

While he inflicted chastisement in a manner to convey in the
fullest sense the terror of British arms, the Americans themselves
could not withhold from him the meed of praise for the temper
and moderation with which he executed the task assigned him.

The Prince Regent raised him posthumously to the peerage
and made his family Ross of Bladensburg. Gleig, who had ob-
served Ross in battle, said "a braver man the British army never
produced." 3 In America, Niles commented in his Register, "A
brave and able commander. We admire him but cannot esteem
his memory."

3-

To many, Washington seemed an unfortunate site for the
Capitol. It was too unhealthy, remote and exposed. Of late Arm-
strong had promoted a transfer, and the North vociferously op-
posed the Potomac site. Philadelphia offered to welcome the
Capitol back to Chestnut Street and threw in the tender of nice
quarters for the Madisons. Other localities were advanced as ideal
for the national requirements. It appeared for some weeks that the
matter of locating the seat of the government, which had pre-
sented so many problems to the early Congress, would have to be
threshed out again.

Even in the beginning Washington had been selected only by
the thin majority of three in the House and two in the Senate.
It was little preferred over Germantown, Pennsylvania, which
also had been voted the capital by both Houses, but those votes
had been reconsidered. Fourteen years had added neither to the
popularity nor convenience of the Potomac River site. Everyone
poked jibes at Washington, a dust bowl in summer, a mudhole in
winter. Blodget's old hotel did not make an impressive meet-

Birth of a Song 593

ing place for the Congress already summoned to extraordinary
session.

But public opinion suddenly crystallized. The nation would
show the world that it could rebuild and then defend its capital.
It would not permit Great Britain to drive it out like a refugee.
The people decreed that the scars of the invasion should be
effaced. When Representative Jonathan Fiske introduced his bill
to move the capital he found that instead of the almost unani-
mous sentiment expected to favor it, opposition was so deep-
seated and widespread that the proposal had to be withdrawn.

The residents of the District of Columbia appointed a commit-
tee of seven to preserve the federal city. The Englishborn land-
owner, John Law, conducted an effective lobby with bricklayers
and carpenters. He had acquired wealth in India, removed to
Washington and allied himself so enthusiastically with the Re-
public that he was among the most outspoken in condemning the
lack of aggressive action during his service as a soldier in Win-
der's five-day campaign. He had bought 500 lots in Washington,
which placed him alongside Robert Morse and James Greenleaf
as large property holders in the capital. 4 When it was evident to
all that Congress must have a meeting place or the city would
lose the government, and that Blodget's Hotel would be the
merest sort of a makeshift, Law raised a public subscription and
produced a building with a speed worthy of the Presqu' Isle
shipwrights who built Perry's fleet on Lake Erie. In the matter
of a hundred days, the long, brick structure was erected on
Capitol Hill which became known as the "Little Capitol," some-
times as the "Old Capitol." Later it was the home where John C.
Calhoun lived and died. During the War between the States,
when it was used as a military prison, Mrs. Surratt was held
there. It was occupied for a time by the Woman's National
Party, and was finally razed to make way for the new Supreme
Court building.

By the time Blodget's Hotel had proved its inadequacy, ex-
Englishman Law was able to point to a Capitol to replace for a
time the one Englishmen had destroyed. The capital on the
Potomac was saved.

Thirty-one

"Don't Give Up the Soil'

I.

The character of the American nation never showed to
better advantage than upon receipt of the news that the capital
had been taken.

Incredulous at first, the people were in turn angered and then
inspired with a determination to repel the powerful British armies
collecting on the borders before there was further talk of peace
conditions. The burning of Washington had produced a cause
in which the nation might unite. The new note was caught in a
ringing proclamation by the governor of Vermont. Opposition
to the war had been highly vocal in the Green Mountain state, but
it was swept aside by the sudden wave of indignation. An an-
nouncement from Montpelier stated that "the war has assumed
an entirely different character." It had become "a common, not
a party concern" in which the people should forget the circum-
stances under which it was declared and stand solidly together
"for the protection of our common country and our liberty." *

Typical of the reaction was that of New York City, which for
two years had been torn with dissensions that threatened at rimes
to flame into open conflict between Madisonites and Federalists.
The first expressions were of anger rather than remorse anger
vented principally on the administration and the American mili-
tary authorities for allowing the nation to be dishonored. The
Spectator said:

Yes, Fellow-Citizens, we have to record the humiliating, dis-
graceful fact, that, in the third year of the war, the City of Wash-
ington, the SEAT OF OUR GOVERNMENT., situated 300 miles from the
ocean, and in the very heart of this great and extensive country,

594

"Don't Give Up the Soil" 595

has been captured and Its public buildings destroyed, by a paltry
force of 5,000 men. 2

The Evening Post dealt with the "startling and deplorable
information" In similar vein:

Six months ago no one would have thought such an event
could have possibly taken place. The City of Washington, con-
taining valuable public buildings, which have cost the nation
millions of money; a large naval arsenal, cannon foundry, etc., etc.,
this city, situated at such a distance from the ocean and only
approachable with shipping by long, crooked and narrow rivers,
on a spot selected above all others as the most secure from foreign
invasion; who could have supposed that it could so easily have
been destroyed by an enemy? Is it possible that after being two
years at war, our capital, the seat of our general government,
should have been left so defenseless? Can it be believed that a
small armament of a few ships, and from six to ten thousand
troops, which came into our waters on the iyth instant, could
demolish our capital on the 24th? But such is the fact.

In less than one month from the sailing of the expedition from
Bermuda, the British General has fixed his Head Quarters In the
heart of our nation, in the seat of our government. . . . Were
there no places on the Patuxent or Potomac which might have
been fortified? Were there no means of defending the property
of the nation? Can men who manage in this way be fit to govern
a great and free people?

But criticism of the administration quickly subsided. It was
much as after Pearl Harbor in a later day, when large elements of
the population deeply hostile to the administration in power
found unity in a national cause. Mr. Madison had been at fault,
no doubt, but that, they felt, had no bearing on the task at hand.
First among the reactions was a movement of the people to pro-
tect the other seacoast cities. The day following receipt of the
news in New York, large numbers of volunteers stepped forward
to complete the construction of Fort Green, overlooking New
York Harbor on Brooklyn Heights. The city societies contrib-
uted their labor. A large company of women marched with the
Tammany Society to Brooklyn Ferry and the Heights to work
on the fortifications. It was noticed by reporters that one woman
seventy-two years old took up a wheelbarrow and moved it as

596 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

agilely as anyone present. Again on the next day 1,500 Tammany
members labored. They were followed by 1,000 members of the
Free Masons. The work was speeded by the arrival of the full
moon. "Six hundred hardy fellows," a local story said, "contin-
ued to work during the night; and we are told that the directing
engineer declared they performed as much service as any fatigue
party of the same number which has yet been on the works."

Commodore Stephen Decatur commanded the New York de-
fenses and had the entire population at his disposal. The uni-
formed companies of city and county, numbering 6,000, were
reviewed under arms. "While we prefer to do our talking later,"
said the Evening Post, "it may be said that a better and more
martial looking corps of men was never before seen in our city."
When a loan of $1,000,000 at seven per cent was announced, the
Post explained: "It is now ascertained that the National Treasury
is empty the government is absolutely penniless we must,
therefore, provide our own means of defense or the country is
lost." The Federalist Rufus King followed with this statement:
"Let the loan be immediately opened. I will subscribe to the
amount of my entire fortune." To which the Post added, "This
is a man for these, or any times."

New Jersey, whose governor, William S. Pennington, issued
a spirited address sharply in contrast with the state's earlier de-
nunciation of the war, went to the assistance of New York City.
"This morning about 500 patriotic inhabitants of Bloomfield and
Springfield, N. J., proceeded on the Steam-Boat to work on the
forts at Harlaem. They were accompanied by the Rev. Messrs,
Gildersleeves and Williams, their respectable pastors."

At Newark more than 1,000 businessmen and citizens prepared
the city for attack. A parade was formed in the early morning
and with bands playing and flags waving, the citizens marched to
the defensive works at the water front. On his hat each man wore
a printed placard which borrowed from the words spoken by
Captain Lawrence when he fell on the deck of the Chesapeake.
The placards gave the country its new war cry: "DON'T GIVE TIP
THE SOIL!"

Samuel Woodworth, who is remembered for his authorship of

"Don't Give Up the Soil" 597

"The Old Oaken Bucket," was editor of a New York leaflet de-
voted to war news called The War. Woodworth observed the
New York military activities and dedicated a poem to the people
who were sacrificing their normal occupations:

To protect our rights

'Gainst your flints and triggers,

See on Brooklyn Heights
Our patriotic diggers;

Men of every age,
Color, rank, profession,

Ardently engage,
Labor in succession.

Pickaxe, shovel, spade,
Crowbar, hoe, and barrow.

Better not invade,
Yankees have the marrow.

Although the Evening Post had led in the opposition to the
war, it now threw itself with even greater vigor into the cause of
national defense. In a general communication addressed to its
readers, it called on the entire male population of the country to
begin practice with firearms to fit themselves for combat and to
enter into drill and all other requirements to make the United
States a formidable military power. In its appeal to arms it stated
the new issue:

Without adverting at present to the course of events which
have brought us to the disgraceful situation in which we find
ourselves; with our CAPITAL taken, our administration driven
from their strong hold, but one sentiment should animate us, but
one question should present itself to every true patriotic bosom,
Shall we basely surrender our country, or nobly and honorably
rise in our might and crush the foe that has polluted the sacred
soil of our birth or our adoption?

The paper then gave detailed suggestions for transforming the
United States into a military power. It republished as evidence
that the country had once possessed an efficient army the circular
issued from Washington's headquarters at Morristown, New

598 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Jersey, January 28, 1780, which consisted of general instructions
for the preservation of military discipline.

Public response to the war was translated into legislative action.
The New York legislature voted an increase of $2.00 a month in
the pay of militia soldiers and enrolled 2,000 for seaboard duty.
It followed this by an act for the enlistment of 12,000 additional
men as a quota from the state for the federal government. 3 While
recruiting was carried on, New York women formed an associa-
tion for supplying hoods, moccasins, socks and mittens to the
army on the Lakes. "The present will be a proud time in the
history of our state, 7 ' said Governor Tompkins. "The acrimony
of party has disappeared." He initiated the construction of a can-
non foundry on the Hudson above New York and announced
the offer of an unnamed private citizen to equip a corps of cadets
to be trained for officers. Proceedings of the legislature were de-
scribed by the newspapers as "extensively patriotic." 4

An incident which demonstrated the sudden turn in sentiment
occurred on the Hudson River steamboat, on which Washington
Irving, then a promising humorist who wrote for the Salmagundi
magazine, was a passenger. On its way to Albany, Irving learned
from passengers who boarded the vessel at Poughkeepsie that the
British Army had captured Washington and burned the public
buildings. A man was lolling in the dark on one of the settees of
the boat. Overhearing the news, he remarked rather rudely,
"Well, I wonder what Jimmie Madison will say now?" Irving,
suddenly enraged, took a quick swing at the scoffer, caught him
a glancing blow, and then gave him a lesson in the rudiments of
patriotism:

"Sir, do you seize on such a disaster only for a sneer? Let
me tell you, it is not now a question about Jimmie Madison or
Johnny Armstrong. The pride and honor of this nation are
wounded. The country is insulted and disgraced by this barba-
rous success, and every loyal citizen should feel the ignominy
and be eager to avenge it." 5 In Albany, Irving went to the state
capitol and offered his services in any capacity in which they
might be useful. Governor Tompkins made him his aide with the
rank of colonel.

"Dorft Give Up the SoiP' 599

Philadelphia was plunged into a sudden war frenzy. News-
papers were filled with military notices, volunteers who even yet
could not be summoned officially under the peculiar state militia
law poured in from the country, while women worked on equip-
ment. The city council borrowed $300,000 for defense. Private
corporations pledged $1,000,000 more. Camps were formed,
committees were appointed and in a few days the city felt it was
in a position to defeat any attempt against it and to provide
assistance in case the enemy began a movement against the Du
Pont powder mills at Wilmington. 6

In Baltimore, Niles addressed an inspiring appeal to all the
people:

The Spirit of the Nation is roused. If the^ barbarian warfare
of an inflated enemy would not have roused it, our liberties had
perished forever. War is a new business with us, but we must
"teach our fingers to fight" and Wellington's invincibles shall
be beaten by the sons of those who fought at Saratoga and York-
town. We can more easily become a military nation than any in
the world, and we must become one or be slaves. 7

Aroused by the invasion, Baltimore merchants and shipping
men prepared to give Great Britain a taste of the war. It was
recalled that when the American sloop Peacock sailed around
Great Britain and Ireland during the previous year taking prizes,
the British public was thrown into an apprehension that ap-
proached a panic. Baltimore began plans to equip from thirty to
fifty small vessels, armed with 6- and 12 -pound guns, to attack
the coastal trade around the British Isles.

The project was one of the most feasible suggested during the
war. American privateers already had destroyed so much British
merchant shipping that the home public was fretting about the
worthlessness of the conflict. For America it was such a good
business venture, despite the hazards involved, that more than
five hundred privateers went out from American ports to seize
and carry the war with impunity into the seas immediately
around the British Isles. Baltimore sent more privateers than any
other city, with New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Salem and
Charleston contributing good numbers. Many of them were

6oo POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

small craft and swift sailers able to draw away at ease from the
larger British warships. 8

At Charleston, South Carolina, work on the fortifications was
taken over by the Society of the Cincinnati, Revolutionary War
veterans, which organized volunteer workers. Two hundred
women presented a flag to the city and then marched out, as in
New York, to help in the trench digging. One of the newspaper
observers remarked that "the women labored manfully."

The eyes of the country were fastened on Boston to see what
contribution that city would make, and the people were finally
gratified when Governor Strong threw his active support into
the war by lending six 3 2 -pound guns to Commodore Bainbridge
for any possible use against the enemy. "We are happy to see,"
Niles commented, 9 "that Governor Strong and the people
at large seem now to feel the necessity of defending their
independence."

Boston, where American independence had been nurtured,
did not intend to skulk when the rest of the country was aroused.
Citizens began the erection of a new fort in east Boston and Gov-
ernor Strong was obliged to give the project his blessing and
support. The engineers issued an appeal for volunteers and tools
and the citizens of Boston came out en masse with their picks and
shovels. Any reading of the newspaper accounts makes it quite
clear that the great number of Massachusetts citizens were in-
tensely patriotic, not seditious. The Boston Gazette of October
3, 1814, said:

Fort Strong progresses rapidly. On Saturday the citizens of
Concord and Lincoln, to the number of two hundred, performed
labor on it; the punctuality of the patriotic husbandmen deserved
the highest praise of their fellow citizens of the metropolis. The
volunteers of Wards i, 3 and 4, together with others, amounted
yesterday to five hundred.

Just as was done at New York, in Boston special groups were
assigned particular days for work on the fortifications: diggers
and hammerers one day, mechanics another, dealers in dry goods
and hardware yet another, and thus through the businesses and
trades. The Boston Centinel which in the early stages had been

"Don't Give Up the Soil" 60 1

so vitriolic against Madison and the war accommodatingly pub-
lished the schedules each day for the different bodies of workers.
The tramp of the British soldiers down Pennsylvania Avenue
echoed through the far-off Ohio and Kentucky forests. When
the news reached Cincinnati General Harrison, superseded and
inactive, issued a call for dragoons who would ride over the
mountains to the Eastern seaboard. The frontier country re-
sponded readily and a detachment was formed and placed at the
disposal of the War Department. 10

2.

Washington residents who had been sleeping in the fields
straggled back to the city. Captain Gordon's fleet was approach-
ing up the Potomac and the townspeople hastily began the erec-
tion of fortifications along the Potomac River and at the juncture
with the East Branch. Gordon's force consisted of two frigates
and a number of smaller vessels. On Saturday August 27, three
days after Washington had been vacated by General Ross, the
squadron appeared off Fort Washington. The garrison retreated
and blew up the fort, leaving Alexandria open. Gordon con-
tented himself with levying a heavy indemnity against Alexan-
dria, which the helpless town paid. He ventured no nearer
Washington but rejoined Cochrane at the rendezvous at the
mouth of the Potomac. 11

The rebuilding of Fort Washington was started soon after his
retirement. Residents of Washington and Alexandria who went
out to work on the entrenchments noticed an old man in rough
garments digging with a spade. At first they did not recognize
him. He proved to be Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the engi-
neer George Washington had commissioned to lay out the
federal city. Continually involved in controversies, he was re-
membered by the city of 1814 chiefly because of his unwilling-
ness to modify his original designs and his insistence on the
destruction of a number of attractive houses that had been built
without conformity with his plans for avenues. He had passed
into obscurity and poverty, but arrived from the north a few
days after the departure of the British, and went out as a laborer

602 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

for the city he had conceived. His scheme of wide avenues,
suited for defense, had not saved Washington. The greater need
was for trained men.

Another reaction, which followed the first cries of condemna-
tion, was a wave of sympathy for President Madison. His posi-
tion had become too abject for further complaint. None could
doubt his sincerity of purpose. What he needed was assistance,
instead of more useless criticism. According to one of his callers,
the invasion left him "miserably shattered and woebegone . . .
heartbroken."

On August 26 Madison learned at his refuge up the Potomac
that the British had evacuated Washington. Monroe had returned
to the army at Montgomery Court House. The President de-
cided to cross the river and seek him there. Much as Jefferson
had needed Madison for mental guidance, Madison required
Monroe for emotional support. Winder, however, had marched
the army toward Baltimore, which was judged to be threatened,
and Monroe accompanied him as far as Ellicott City. 12 The Presi-
dent picked up an escort in Virginia and with it followed after
the army to Brookville, where he stopped for the night and sum-
moned the cabinet to meet in Washington on the following day.
A glimpse at the President's morale at this low point of his
administration was provided in a letter from a Maryland resident:

At nine o'clock last night Mr. Madison arrived here [Brook-
ville] escorted by General Mason and 50 Virginia dragoons.
Lodgings were asked for two doors below where I stay with
my wife's uncle. It was positively refused. He was taken at the
next door, Mason having asked for lodgings for himself, and
Mr. Bendy not knowing until the President was introduced that
he was there. My brother and Mr. Dorsey went down and
supped at the table with Madison. The defense of the city was
freely criticised and the situation of the country was freely
spoken of. Madison said little more than expressing his surprise
how they could discriminate between Gales' office and Foxall's
foundry, both being private property, and the latter being spared
by the enemy while the other was destroyed. A short time be-
fore the President arrived I had held a conversation with Mr.
Samuel Harrison Smith at the house where the President lodged.

In the course of my remarks, I spoke of the disgrace of the

"Don't Give Up the SoiP 9 603

President flying about from place to place, and said he might at
least make his head quarters at Fredericton and there call his
cabinet about him, and try to rouse the nation. I also gave it as
my opinion that the enemy would not march to Baltimore, but
would reembark: because they had left a guard at every place
they passed through, and all that. Smith repeated my conversa-
tion to the President. He said nothing, but anxiously inquired
after Colonel Monroe and Armstrong, saying he did not know
where either of them were. My brother has just come in and
stated that Madison has received a dispatch from Winder, inform-
ing him that the enemy has gone, upon receipt of which infor-
mation the dragoons were ordered in readiness to guard the
President to the city, where the blacks are reported to be plun-
dering, burning, etc. Everywhere I go the people are heaping
curses upon the government. An officer told me this morning
that the ground chosen by Winder and Armstrong admitted of
the enemy's coming up under cover of the apple orchards in the
neighborhood of Bladensburg, and that while passing through
the orchards in front of our harmless fire, the officers were pick-
ing apples from the trees. 13

3-

Madison re-entered Washington on the morning of the
twenty-seventh, to find Justice of the Peace William Thornton
in control and the plundering of houses which followed the de-
parture of the British checked. Mrs. Madison, arriving in the
disguise of a house servant, joined him there. Monroe and Arm-
strong came later in the day, and Madison finally was forced to
a decision as to his Secretary of War's serviceability. Feeling
against Armstrong was intense. The incident which applied the
required pressure on the President was initiated by Charles Car-
roll of Bellevue, owner of 80,000 acres and regarded the nation's
wealthiest man.

When Gordon's fleet became threatening in the Potomac,
Smith's militia brigade was hurried back to the city, where
it began defensive works on an eminence near the southeast
water front known as Windmill Hill. Secretary Armstrong soon
rode up.

"My first notice of his presence in camp," General Smith said,
"was from the loud voice of Mr. Charles Carroll, then one of our

604 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

most prominent citizens, which reached my quarters, refusing
his proffered hand and denouncing his conduct. I was soon noti-
fied of a general commotion in camp, and a pervading determina-
tion, too emphatically expressed to admit of doubt, not to serve
under his orders." Colonel Thomas L. McKenney, Smith's aide,
provided a fuller account of the reception of the Secretary of War.

What occurred, in fact, was that the District of Columbia mili-
tia mutinied against Armstrong. Some of the officers stepped
up to General Smith, and, speaking for the entire group, said:
"There, sir, are our swords. We will not employ them if General
Armstrong is to command us in his capacity as Secretary of War,
but we will obey the orders of any other member of the Cabinet."
Meanwhile someone had sketched on the charred walls of the
Capitol an effigy suspended from a gallows, under which was
written, "Armstrong the Traitor." Stories were circulated about
the city that Armstrong had been in treasonable correspondence
with a relative in the British Army, a man named Buchanan who
had been wounded in the battle. No evidence supported such a
charge, but it was clear that the capital city had fastened on
Armstrong blame for the late disaster and that the first require-
ment for the restoration of orderly government was Armstrong's
dismissal.

Charles Carroll's vehement language represented the view of
what seemed to be the large majority. Armstrong's indolence had
been too well publicized in advance of the invasion for anyone
to have confidence in his future conduct. General Smith sent his
two aides, Colonel McKenney and Major Williams, to report the
state of affairs to Mr. Madison, who was found riding on F
Street. The President said he would give immediate consideration
to the issue raised by the militia and promised that no orders
would be given by Armstrong conflicting with those the Presi-
dent had already issued. Madison was, however, still unwilling to
dismiss his cabinet officer peremptorily. He suggested to Arm-
strong that he retire from the city until the wave of indignation
subsided. Armstrong consequently went to Baltimore, but upon
his arrival there he forwarded his resignation to the President.
His public career was at an end. 14

"Don't Give Up the Sol?' 605

Although he had to bear the charge of exciting the militia
against Armstrong, Monroe appears to have scrupulously avoided
either direct or indirect pressure upon the President for the Sec-
retary of War's dismissal after Bladensburg. Yet when the Secre-
tary's retirement was an accomplished fact, Monroe began at
once an assumption of War Department duties. Madison, while
observing this, still hesitated to face the criticism involved in giv-
ing Monroe the two leading cabinet positions.

Eventually Monroe was forced to create a situation which
would compel the President either to repudiate him or to entrust
the armies to his full supervision. He apparently felt that had he
possessed the authority, he could have prevented the loss of the
city, and he did not want to take further chances. A colonel was
placing guns near Georgetown. Monroe ordered him to change
their positions. The colonel pointed out that Monroe had no mili-
tary authority, whereupon the Secretary of State told him either
to f ollow instructions or leave the field. The colonel promptly
departed. The case was carried to the President. Monroe's serv-
ices were indispensable and Mr. Madison had no choice but to
support him and give him the War portfolio, which he did for-
mally tender. Yet at the same time, in order to compensate for
New York's loss of cabinet representation, he invited Governor
Tompkins to become Secretary of State. When the latter de-
clined, Monroe held both positions. That the Department for the
remaining months of the war had an efficient administration
which encouraged the generals in the field to their best efforts,
was attested by the fact that the American armies did not lose
another engagement.

Thirty -two

Honor at Niagara

i.

In the summer of 1814 the cabinet approved a plan for a
new advance on the Niagara frontier. General Jacob Brown was
to capture Burlington Heights and invade Upper Canada along
the north shore of Lake Ontario to York. As a prelude to this
campaign he was directed to capture Fort Erie, opposite Buf-
falo, and move down the Niagara River to Chippewa and Fort
George.

Brown now commanded a solid army of 3,500 men, most of
whom were regulars familiar with his determined purpose and
strict enforcement of orders. His troops had been warned that
the death penalty would be imposed on any soldier found pillag-
ing private property.

Brown's first brigade was commanded by Brigadier General
Winfield Scott, now experienced in combat and possessed of
a quick comprehension of good tactics and a readiness of decision
to take advantage of any opportunities opened on the battlefield.
He had become, as he remained in later life, an advocate of the
principle that the greatest safety lies in the ofF ensive. His brigade
had a nucleus of the troops he had been drilling seven to ten
hours daily almost since the beginning of the war. 1

Brigadier General Eleazar Wheelock Ripley commanded the
second brigade and was next in rank to Brown. Ripley was an-
other New Englander who gave the lie to the prevalent notion
that all New England was estranged from the American govern-
ment. Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, he was graduated in
1800 from Dartmouth, where his father was professor of divinity.
His grandfather, Eleazar Wheelock, for whom he was christened,

606

Honor at Niagara 607

had founded Dartmouth as a college for Indians In 1770. Ripley
practiced law in Portland, Maine, then a part of Massachusetts,
and soon was representing the district in the Bay State legislature.
He succeeded the eminent Joseph Story as speaker of the Massa-
chusetts House when Madison in 1 8 1 1 appointed Story an asso-
ciate justice of the United States Supreme Court. When war was
declared Ripley volunteered in the 2ist Infantry and rose from
a lieutenant in 1812 to the regiment's colonel in 1813. A year
later, at the age of thirty, he was given command of a brigade.
Compared with Scott, he seemed to lack daring. Possibly his
excess of caution resulted from his being a lineal descendent of
the reticent although stanch Puritan captain, Myles Standish.

Brown's third brigade consisted of New York and Pennsyl-
vania militia and Indians of the Six Nations. It was commanded
by a fixture of the Niagara army, Peter B. Porter, the War
Hawk congressman who was quartermaster general of New
York militia. The full military strength of the Six Nations, so
powerful in the Revolution, consisted now of less than 600 war-
riors. But these were inspired to join their old enemies, the
Americans, by the rousing eloquence of the great but aging
Seneca orator, Chief Red Jacket, not yet sunk to the senility and
derangement in which he allowed himself to be exhibited for
money. 2

The British on the border numbered about 4,000. The troops,
scattered at the different posts, were commanded by a wealthy
Irish major general, Phineas Riall, of Tipperary, who was gallant
in action but comparatively inexperienced in handling large units.
Elements of Wellington's Peninsular Army had not yet reached
the Niagara, although the tension was relieved for the British and
Canadians by reassurances that they were coming.

General Brown gave occasion for added Fourth of July cele-
brating along the border by capturing Fort Erie on July 3, 1814.
General Scott crossed the Niagara from Black Rock before day-
light. His movement was conducted so efficiently that within
two hours after its departure from American soil his full brigade
was in battle formation below Fort Erie. Ripley was more dila-
tory in crossing from Buffalo and by the time he arrived Brown

608 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

had already thrown a ring around the fort with Scott's brigade.
Batteries were established and an i8-pounder was mounted on
the heights called Snake Hill But no bombardment was neces-
sary. The British garrison of less than 200 officers and men sur-
rendered. Meanwhile reinforcements, which were being rushed
forward by General Riall, learned at Chippewa that the fort had
capitulated. They halted on the north side of Chippewa Creek
and fortified a camp.

Brown next moved on the British regulars who were concen-
trated at Chippewa, Scott in the advance. The march Scott made
of sixteen miles on July 4 was a running skirmish with the looth
British Regiment commanded by the Marquis of Tweeddale. It
developed one of the interesting sidelights of the War of 1812
in that it caused the adoption by West Point of the traditional
blue-gray uniforms still worn by the cadets.

Before the campaign opened Scott's troops were threadbare,
and the general requisitioned blue woolens for uniforms. The
American textile industry was in its feeble beginnings and had
nothing serviceable. Imported material was unavailable to the
quartermaster because of the British blockade. Scott learned that
he could get gray fabric in Philadelphia. He ordered it promptly
and had it worked into the trim new garb which his men wore
when they crossed into Canada on July 3.

Both Riall and the Marquis of Tweeddale observed these un-
conventional uniforms. They judged that they were being op-
posed by Buffalo militia units instead of American regulars in the
customary service blue. The British officers attributed the smart-
ness of these troops to the circumstance that they were fighting
on the Fourth of July and believed they would resume the cus-
tomary indifference of the militia on July 5. But their sharpness
in pressing the British regulars across Street's Creek, which en-
tered the Niagara a mile above Chippewa Creek, was not greater
than the courage they displayed on the battlefield at Chippewa
on July 5. Their determination not only disconcerted the British,
but also won them applause at the recently established military
academy on the Hudson, where the cadets were hungry for news
of some resolute American fighting. The uniform worn in this

Honor at Niagara 609

engagement was adopted In honor of Scott and his soldiers as the
official uniform of the West Point cadets and is retained to the
present day. 3

The hotly contested Battle of Chippewa was fought on the
level ground between Street's and Chippewa creeks, with the
Niagara River to the east and a heavy wood on the west. Both
armies employed Indians, chiefly as flank guards and skirmishers.
Brown sent Porter across Street's Creek through the woods to
the left, where Indians on RialTs right were annoying the Ameri-
cans by firing from the dense timber. In the late afternoon Por-
ter's militia and 400 Indians under Red Jacket scattered their
adversaries and swept out of the wood into the plain along Chip-
pewa Creek. Suddenly they found themselves faced by the entire
British army moving forward to the attack. Riall had been re-
inforced during the night by an additional regiment of regulars.
He was intent on driving the Americans, whom he sti|l regarded
as impudent militia, across the Niagara River to the American
shore.

When they encountered the British regulars, Porter's Indians,
who had behaved well in the wood, broke and ran. 4 The British
advanced with fixed bayonets on Porter's militia. Porter ordered
his men to fall back and the movement quickly degenerated into
a rout.

Observing from the left of his line, Brown saw the flight of
Porter's brigade and noticed the cloud of dust rising toward
Chippewa, which indicated the advance of a large British force.
He hurried to Scott, whom he found preparing to lead his men
across Street's Creek and drill and parade them on the plain. Scott
doubted Brown's conclusion that the enemy was at hand. He
prepared his men for either drill or battle, but by the time he
crossed the creek at a bridge he was under heavy artillery fire.
His left flank, exposed by the flight of Porter, was covered by
the advance of Ripley.

The British general brought into the action three partial regi-
ments of British regulars, an artillery detachment and some regu-

6io POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

lar dragoons, in addition to militia and Indians. He advanced in
three columns and met Scott on the shore of the Niagara midway
between the two creeks. Riail's lack of skill in handling his army
was obvious to the observant Scott, who perceived that the Brit-
ish regiments were fighting independently and not in close battle
line and that their flanks were at times woefully exposed. At an
inviting opportunity, Scott suddenly drove the nth U.S. Infan-
try Regiment, whose colonel, John B. Campbell, was already
mortally wounded, into a gap in the British line. The American
regiment was led on this decisive movement by Major John Mc-
Neil, of New Hampshire.

Under the impact of McNeil's charge and some well-directed
artillery fire from the battery of a Maryland artillery officer,
Major Nathan Towson, the British line broke and fled across
Chippewa Creek to their fortified camp. Major Thomas Sidney
Jesup, commanding Scott's left regiment, the 25th Infantry, on
which much of the force of Riail's attack had fallen, poured a
heavy fire into Riail's left and then charged with McNeil. Riail's
right elements fell back in confusion. Major Henry Leaven-
worth, commanding Scott's right regiment, charging along the
surging waters of the Niagara River, kept pace with McNeil and
Jesup. His later Army career west of the Mississippi was long
and capable, and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, was named in his
honor.

Thus the long drills which Scott had enforced upon his men
finally allowed the American Army to vindicate itself on a torrid
July day that would have been oppressive to any army. Later
critics of American military campaigns questioned whether Scott
should have "tempted destruction" by abandoning his security
behind Street's Creek and crossing the bridge in the face of fire
from 24-pounders. But they could not censure severely a vigor-
ous attack by a leader so clearly able to inspire his men to ex-
traordinary effort. 5 Scott's later campaign against Mexico City
was marked by this same reliance on an audacious offensive.

The British tore up the planks of the Chippewa Creek bridge
and the Americans made no effort to cross. Scott went forward
to reconnoiter and upon his return recommended against an as-

Honor at Niagara 611

sank on the British camp. Rain fell to break the heat and Brown
ordered his army to return to their camp on the other side of
Street's Creek, leaving the muddy battleground unoccupied.

General RialTs actions at the moment of defeat were in
marked contrast with the flight of Proctor at the battle of the
Thames. When Riall saw his army breaking, he did not follow
it. At first he seemed to have in mind a suicide charge. He rode
straight toward the Americans as if seeking death in preference
to the humiliation of defeat. His aide rode with him and
was severely wounded. Then Riall apparently abandoned any
thought of suicide, but he was one of the last to leave the field. 6

Chippewa, an American victory, gave Brown's army and the
entire country a lift in morale at the moment when the American
public was becoming most apprehensive over the new turn in
the war caused by Napoleon's downfall. The battle demon-
strated that American troops could meet and drive back British
regulars. 7

The British loss in the battle was 236 killed, 322 wounded and
forty-six missing. The American loss was sixty-one killed, 255
wounded and nineteen missing. The troops actually participating
in the battle numbered 1,700 British and 1,300 Americans. Rip-
ley's brigade was not engaged. A reason for the heavier British
loss was believed to be the American practice of putting three
buckshot in front of each ball when the muskets were loaded.
The buckshot scattered and did much execution. 8

3-

Two days after the battle of Chippewa, Brown ordered Rip-
ley's brigade to cross Chippewa Creek.upstream from the British
camp and fall on Riall's flank. Before the movement could be
completed Riall broke his camp, retired down the Niagara River
to Queenston, and then retreated to Fort George as Brown ap-
proached. Riall was continuing to Burlington Heights when he
met reinforcements consisting of two partial regiments. This
caused him to return to Fifteen Mile Creek and keep Brown
under observation. Brown was anxious to invest Fort George and
move on to Burlington and Kingston but was unable to gain the

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

co-operation of Chauncey and the Lake Ontario fleet. On July
25 he retired to the battleground of Chippewa.

On July 25, 1814, the situation on the Niagara border sud-
denly changed. Lieutenant General Sir George Gordon Dram-
mond reached Queenston with 800 reinforcements including the
first trickle of Wellington's veterans. 9

Transported by Yeo's fleet up the Niagara River, they occu-
pied Lewiston, on the American side. Meanwhile Riall, apprised
of the arrival of these troops, marched back to the Niagara and
camped along Lundy's Lane, a small public road leading to Ham-
ilton, running at right angles with the main highway connecting
Chippewa with Queenston, and about two miles below Chip-
pewa Creek.

The appearance of British soldiers on the American shore of
the Niagara River, when the American army was on the Cana-
dian side, confused both Brown and Scott. Brown, unaware of
Drummond's arrival, thought Riall was trying to destroy the
American stores at Schlosser. Adopting the idea that the best
means of bringing the British back to their own territory would
be by moving against Fort George and cutting their communica-
tions, he ordered General Scott to march down the Niagara
River toward Queenston and Fort George. No unit could have
been more eager than Scott's brigade, given high confidence by
its victory at Chippewa. Brown issued his orders for its advance
after four o'clock on July 25, 1814, and within twenty-five min-
utes Scott was on the roadway. He did not expect serious oppo-
sition, for he believed Riall to be on the American side.

At Niagara Falls, at a house near Table Rock, he saw some
mounted British officers ride hastily away, and was told that
about 1,100 British soldiers were in the woods near by. Distrust-
ing such information, he moved ahead confidently through the
wooded country. Upon approaching Lundy's Lane, he suddenly
found himself facing the British army. Sending a request to
Brown to hurry forward, Scott deployed immediately to attack.

On the British side, Riall, aware of Scott's approach, had
ordered a retreat to Queenston when Drarnmond, marching with
800 men from that point, reached Lundy's Lane and took com-

Honor at Niagara 613

mand. Drnmmond countermanded the retreat, put a battery on
an eminence in his center, commanding the surrounding country,
and re-established a battle line. He had meanwhile recalled the
small detachment that was creating a diversion on the American
side of the river.

Scott came forward impetuously with his inferior force. It was
seven o'clock on the July evening when he struck the British
line like a tornado cast out from the near-by cataract. For two
hours the deep roar of Niagara Falls was no more than a dull
undercurrent to the fire of the muskets and booming of the can-
non in a battle that exceeded in fury and grimness any contest
that had ever been fought on North American soil. The two
armies stood in their ranks and fired at each other at point-blank
range, both refusing to give up a foot of soil.

After the battle was joined, Scott detected that the weakness
of the British position was a gap between RialTs left and the
Niagara River. He consequently detached Major Jesup with the
25th Regiment, which had shared in the decisive assault at Chip-
pewa, to move into a small wood and try to gain the British left
flank. The movement was not only strikingly successful, but also
resulted in the capture of General Rial! and his staff. One of
Jesup's companies had gained the British rear and in the gather-
ing darkness was mistaken by Riall's aide for British soldiers.
Riail was severely wounded. His aide, who was attempting to get
the general to the rear, called out, "Make room there, men, for
General Rial!" The Americans complied, then surrounded the
British party with fixed bayonets. The astonished general made
no effort to escape. Jesup could not maintain his isolated position.
He retired to the American lines, taking his prisoners with him.
Scott directed that Riall be given all possible attention in the
rear of the American army.

Both Scott and Drummond now being spent, a lull occurred
in the fighting. But the battle was not over. Brown, riding for-
ward with Ripley's brigade, arrived at nine o'clock, just as dark-
ness was settling over the field. Riall's remaining regiment, on
reserve down the Niagara, reached Lundy's Lane at approxi-
mately the same moment and the slaughter was resumed. Brown's

614 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

first action was to pass Ripley's brigade through that of Scott and
relieve the troops who had borne the brunt of the most severe
fighting of the war.

At Lundy's Lane, as at Chippewa, It was a New Hampshire
colonel who made the decisive movement against the British
army. Here, the role that had been taken by Colonel McNeil at
Chippewa was held by Colonel James Miller, of Ripley's brigade.
Brown saw that the key to the British position was the battery
on the eminence in the center. He asked Miller, who had com-
manded at the battle of Monguaga in Hull's Detroit campaign, and
served under Harrison in Indiana, whether he could capture
these works.

"I'll try, sir," responded the colonel coolly, and led his 2ist
Infantry Regiment forward.

A supporting regiment, the ist Infantry, broke under the Brit-
ish fire and retreated. Miller was not disconcerted. Under cover
of the darkness, a rail fence and heavy shrubbery, he took his
300 men up the hill in the British center. At ten yards he fired
a volley into the British artillerymen which dropped all of them.
He quickly captured the guns.

The British infantry was immediately behind the guns, and so
rapid was the firing at a range of twenty-five yards that the space
between the two infantry lines appeared to be an unbroken sheet
of flame. The British attacked with bayonets and a stubborn
hand-to-hand fight was waged in the darkness. Drummond's re-
inforcements tried in three assaults to recapture the eminence,
but Ripley came to Miller's help and the Americans remained in
possession of this key to the British position. The opposing forces
were so close to each other that the American marksmen could
aim at the gleam of the buttons on the chests of the British sol-
diers. Drummond's army was pressed back. Miller retained seven
brass pieces and the entire park of ammunition wagons. 10

British and Americans agreed that Miller's attack at the heart
of the British army was a most gallant assault. "You have im-
mortalized yourself," Brown told him after the battle.

Fighting continued at the ridge and along the entire line until
j i P.M., when, with the troops quite done in, the firing stopped.

Honor at Niagara 615

By that hour many of the leading officers of both armies were
out of action. Brown and Scott were severely wounded and the
more cautious RIpley was left in command. On the British side,
Riall was a prisoner and Drummond wounded, although able to
retain his command.

At this time Brown issued a peculiar order which went far
toward depriving his army of the fruits of a victory won by their
desperate fighting. The wounded American commander directed
his successor, Ripley, to leave the Lundy's Lane arena and retire to
the old Chippewa battlefield, three miles in the rear. There he
was to re-form his army and move forward again at daylight
to renew the attack. Scott was so severely wounded his recovery
seemed doubtful; he was unable to give any counsel. Undoubt-
edly he would have favored retaining possession of the newly
won field. But Brown was concerned about the number of
American stragglers he encountered. He appeared to have for-
gotten that, despite this straggling, he had ousted the British
from their position because his subordinate, Scott, had not hesi-
tated to grasp the offensive. Now, in a retirement, he would
needlessly surrender it.

Ripley was able to haul back his own artillery. Having few
ropes and an insufficient number of animals, he could not move
the captured British guns in the darkness. At daybreak on July
26 the British advanced into possession of the battlefield. They
recovered all except one of the guns the Americans had taken.
What was of greater importance, they recovered the initiative.

Brown blamed Ripley. He held that Ripley had not been suf-
ficiently enterprising in reorganizing his army and returning to
the engagement. Ripley had not moved at daybreak as directed.
Brown by-passed his successor and sent orders to the regimental
commanders urging them forward. The army advanced across
Chippewa Creek and approached within a mile of the Lundy's
Lane battleground, where Ripley learned that the British, who
had been modestly reinforced during the night, had repossessed
their old lines. Ripley again retreated to Chippewa.

Exasperated, Brown determined to replace Ripley. He sent a
messenger to Sackets Harbor ordering Brigadier General Ed-

616 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

mund P. Gaines to hasten to Niagara River and assume command.

Further experience probably would have persuaded Brown of
the imprudence of abandoning a hard-won battlefield to reor-
ganize regiments that were flushed with victory. The original
fault appears to have been his, not Ripley's.

Each side might well claim a victory at Lundy's Lane. For the
Americans it was a confirmation of Chippewa in demonstrating
to the world that a republican form of government could develop
armies of top fighting quality, able to compete with troops con-
sidered the best the monarchies of Europe could produce. 11 For
the British, it proved a check to Brown's advance toward Fort
George, Burlington Heights and Kingston. It broke up the
American invasion plans.

The American loss at Lundy's Lanesometimes called the
Battle of Niagara, or Bridgewater Mills was 171 killed, 571
wounded and no missing, a casualty rate of thirty-two per cent
of the 2,600 men actively engaged. The British lost eighty-four
killed, 559 wounded and 235 prisoners or missing. The available
strength of each army was about 4,ooo. 12

On July 27, the second day after the battle, Ripley judged it
prudent to retire to Fort Erie, which Drummond, seizing the
offensive that Brown had sacrificed, soon invested. Gaines ar-
rived on August 5 and Ripley in a good spirit resumed his sub-
ordinate position as brigade commander.

In February 1807 Gaines had won national notice as the lieu-
tenant who had arrested Aaron Burr near Fort Stoddard in Ala-
bama. A North Carolina farm boy, he rose in the Regular Army
from ensign to major general and held important commands later
in the Seminole and Mexican wars. He is remembered by the
cities of Gainesville in Georgia, Florida and Texas, all named in
his honor.

Ripley had diligently strengthened Fort Erie with new bas-
tions, but Drummond after a reconnaissance determined to storm
the works. He opened on August 7 with a heavy bombardment

Honor at Niagara 617

from cannon and rocket tubes. The Americans replied and the
exchanges from the big guns continued for eight days without
much damage to either side.

At two o'clock on the morning of August 15 the British ad-
vanced in three columns. One was directed against Snake Hill,
at the south end of the redoubt, another at Battery Douglass at
the north, and a third against the fort itself. The attack on Snake
Hill was abandoned after five repulses. The second column was
rebuffed at Battery Douglass, but the men joined the third col-
umn, which Drummond sent against the main works. Drummond
in this assault appears to have first brought into prominent usage
the phrase, "Damned Yankee," merged into one word during
the War between the States. Of passing interest is the fact that
it was employed against troops commanded by Gaines, Virginia-
born and North Carolina-reared, who had numerous Southerners
in his ranks. Gaines wrote to the War Department that he and
others repeatedly heard orders issued to "give the damned Yan-
kees no quarter."

The assault on the fort was more successful than those against
Snake Hill and the battery. A detachment of one hundred mem-
bers of the Royal Artillery obtained a lodgment inside the main
northeast bastion. There, for two hours, they resisted the most
determined efforts of the Americans to drive them out. The
assaulting columns, rushing to the aid of the artillerymen, tried,
in turn, to win the remainder of the fort. The hand-to-hand
fighting continued with the same fury that had characterized the
clash of these resolute armies at Lundy's Lane.

Properly supported, the British probably could have ousted
the American garrison, which had to maintain a long defensive
line and could not concentrate so readily as the assailants. Drum-
mond, however, did not give sufficient help to his soldiers inside
the American bastion.

At a critical moment a tremendous explosion occurred imme-
diately beneath the bastion the British occupied. It hurled stones
and earth and splintered timbers, blew bodies into the air, burned
the men with a great sheet of flame, and utterly destroyed the

618 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

ardor of the attacking party. The surviving British soldiers evac-
uated the bastion on the double and gained their own entrench-
ments. The assault was costly to Drummond. He lost, in killed
and wounded, 905; the Americans lost eighty-four.

Just as the causes of the crucial explosion at York were dis-
puted, so here the causes of the eruption were argued by the
armies and by some historians of the war. Although the Fort Erie
devastation has been considered accidental by some, there is im-
pressive evidence that an American officer blew up a chest of
ammunition located under a platform in the center of the bastion.

The siege of Fort Erie dragged on. General Gaines was at his
desk inside the fort on August 28 when a shell came through the
roof and wounded him severely. After another brief command
by Ripley, Brown was recovered sufficiently to resume active
service. On September 17, in a driving rain, Brown made a sortie
and drove the British from their advance positions but did not
undertake to storm Drummond's camp. Brown's men captured
two British batteries but were repulsed at a third on the shore of
the lake.

Both sides claimed victory. Drummond had been "roughly
handled," which Brown said was the purpose of his sortie. Bad
weather was setting in. The British soldiers had insufficient shel-
ter for winter operations. Drummond finally lost his stomach
for the siege. On September 2 1 he retreated beyond Chippewa
Creek.

An energetic movement against the British could at this time
have easily given the American army a final and clear-cut vic-
tory on Canadian soil. Brown was now receiving more numerous
volunteers and would no doubt have developed such an attack.
Unfortunately Major General George Izard had been ordered
from Sackets Harbor to the Niagara after Gaines was wounded.
He ranked Brown and took command. His moves were abor-
tive, although the Niagara Army, combined with the troops he
brought from Sackets Harbor, gave him 8,000 men, the largest
army yet assembled on the frontier. Izard advanced on Chip-
pewa, destroyed 200 bushels of wheat at Cook's Mill, then de-
cided to withdraw from Canada. He mined Fort Erie, blew it up

Honor at Niagara 619

on November 5, 1814, and crossed the Niagara River. Drum-
mond meanwhile had withdrawn to Fort George.

A long era of peace, unlikely to be broken, came to the Niagara
border. There had been enough brutality, leavened with little
glory, to convince both sides in that quarter that war accomplishes
no worthy purpose, but only ravishes and defiles.

Thirty-three
Northern Invasion

i.

Stubbornness was a dominant quality of the British War
Office. In 1777, under the direction of Lord George Germain, an
indifferent strategist, it had prepared a plan for severance of
New England from the balance of the colonies by an expedition
down the eastern border of New York. Lake Champlain and the
Hudson River were to be used for communication and the trans-
port of supplies.

The campaign had collapsed, because, for one reason, Germain
failed to give explicit orders to Lord Howe in New York about
how he should co-operate. The orders were prepared, to be sure,
and put in a pigeonhole in Germain's desk when he left town for
the week end, only to be forgotten upon his return. Burgoyne
could not maintain a supply line from Canada. Howe sailed
blithely off against Philadelphia and permitted the Americans to
waste Burgoyne away.

Now, in 1814, after the passing of thirty-seven years, the War
Office went into its garret recesses and brought out this old plan.
That applying it must have unfortunate consequences might eas-
ily have been determined by a glance at the independent status
of the United States. 1 The new conditions made the plan less
practical than ever. In 1814 the campaign could not hinge on any
uniting of two British armies in the wilderness of upstate New
York, for the British no longer held a base in New York City.
The severance of New England would now have to be accom-
plished by a single veteran army moving down from Montreal
to Albany and thence southward or eastward as conditions might
dictate. The British, who erred in thinking the secessionist senti-

620

Northern Invasion 621

ment in New England was pro-British rather than anti- Virginian,
hoped to stimulate a popular uprising and reunite the New Eng-
land states with the crown by revolt as well as invasion. It was
a mistaken impression of the New England attitude, for however
strongly many New Englanders may have opposed the war and
sought separation from the Southern and Western states, their
aim was another independent republic, and most certainly not
incorporation into Canada or resumption of a colonial status with-
in the British Empire.

The British keenly wanted a better land outlet from Montreal
and other inland cities. During the winter months the St. Law-
rence was icebound and water communication came to a stand-
still. The only way to reach England was on a long overland
journey by horseback or sled through the wilderness of New
Brunswick and across Nova Scotia to Halifax. The hardships of
the journey created the desire of the home government for a
strip of the Maine coast and accounted for the tenacity with which
the British commissioners clung to that demand at the peace nego-
tiations. Massachusetts would serve even better than Maine for an
outlet, with Boston the harbor.

The War Office could scarcely have expected the generous
co-operation it received at the outset of the Champlain campaign
from Secretary of War Armstrong and General George Izard,
the Northern American commander. As the British invasion
forces gathered north of Plattsburg, Izard, responding to Arm-
strong's directions, marched his army 280 miles across northern
New York to Sackets Harbor and almost stripped the Lake
Champlain area of trained soldiers. Until the summer of 1814
there had been no conspicuous military activity in the Lake
Champlain district. This looked to Armstrong like a quiet sector.
Either he was a poor newspaper reader or he was indifferent to
the fact that by midsummer the British were beginning to build
up a veteran army whose first objective would undoubtedly be
the Lake Champlain invasion route. 2

Dispatch after dispatch told of the coming of fresh British
troops. An example is the reprint by the New York Post on June
2 3, 1 8 14, of this story from the London Times:

622 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

The number of men intended to be sent from Lord Welling-
ton's army direct to America is reported to be 10,000, of which
the Fusiliers, the 2pth Regiment and a strong corps of artillery
will form a part.

In the same issue a dispatch from Halifax said:

By accounts brought by the packet Mr. Madison may soon
expect a British Land Force not less than 15,000 on some part
of his coast, commanded by Sir Thomas Picton, whilst the army
in Canada will be reenf orced by a still stronger number. Whether
any foreign troops will be employed on this occasion is uncertain
as we do not see the necessity.

The amount of the British army in December last was 239,43 1
Regulars of which 31,082 were Cavalry. 12,000 Spaniards will
appear at nearly the same time in Florida and if this does not
sicken Madison and his accomplices, we shall have a better opin-
ion of Yankee prowess than any other of their former acts would
justify.

The conditions of Izard's march shed light on one of the main
canards of the War of 1812, the authorship of which was usually
attributed to Secretary of War Armstrong. The story does not
occur in his Notices of the War of 2812, or his Spectator, but it
is supposed to have been contained in a pamphlet he withdrew
from circulation. More likely the tale never got beyond the con-
versational stage. Supposedly Armstrong charged that the ad-
ministration did not truly want Canada and continually schemed
to prevent the capture of Canada. To that end, according to the
story, it kept slave-holding generals in command on the border
as a precaution. Possession of Canada would lead to admittance
of additional free states and would end Southern dominance in
the government. The historian Lossing, whose accounts have an
original source value because of his conversations with numerous
participants of the war, relates the story in detail as current both
during and after the war.

The generals from the slave states who commanded on the
Canadian border were Smyth of Virginia, Hampton of South
Carolina and Louisiana, Wilkinson and Winder of Maryland,
and Izard of South Carolina. The story in circulation was that
Madison, yielding to Calhoun's alleged pressure, failed to rein-

Northern Invasion 623

force Hull and thus made Hull's failure certain, then kept the
army under Southerners. One of Armstrong's suppressed pam-
phlets was reported to have been in the possession of Alvan
Stewart, who, in 1846 wrote a letter to the Liberty party in
which he said:

Four slave-holding generals [he omitted reference to Izard]
with their four armies, were stretched out on our northern fron-
tier, not to take Canada, but to prevent its being taken by the
men of New England and New York, in 1812, '13 and '14, lest
we should make some six or eight free states from Canada, if
conquered. This was treason against northern interests, north-
ern blood and northern honor. But the south furnished the Presi-
dent and the Cabinet. This revelation could have been proved
by General John Armstrong, then Secretary of War, after he and
Mr. Madison had quarreled. 3

Apart from the fact that Madison's integrity and Monroe's
high sense of honor were firmly enough established to make such
a charge ridiculous, the first opportunities to capture Canada
went to Dearborn of Massachusetts, Hull of Connecticut and
Van Rensselaer of New York. The best border fighting was
done by the Virginian, Winfield Scott.

The circumstances of Izard's march appear never to have been
cited to show that it was Armstrong, of New York, who opened
the border to the British advance, over the heated protest
of South Carolinian Izard. Izard detected the accumulation of
troops in his front. On August n he replied to Armstrong's
orders that he march to Sackets Harbor:

I will make the movement you direct, if possible, but I shall
do it with the apprehension of risking the force under my com-
mand, and with the certainty that everything in this vicinity
but the lately erected works at Plattsburg and Cumberland Head
will, in less than three days after my departure, be in the posses-
sion of the enemy. He is in force superior to mine in my front;
he daily threatens an attack on my position at Champlain; we
are all in hourly expectation of a serious conflict. 4

Izard wrote a similar protest again on August 20. He said he
would not be responsible for the consequences of abandoning his

624 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

strong position but would obey orders. Reluctantly he vacated
Champlain on August 29. True to his prediction, the British
moved in without delay. By September 3 they had 14,000 men
across the American line immediately north of Lake Champlain.
The Burlington, Vermont, Gazette on September 8 indicated
that Vermont possessed her old self-reliance. It said:

The President by withdrawing General Izard from this quar-
ter, it would seem, considers us as unworthy of his protection.
But we hope there is yet a redeeming spirit among us, and we
trust we shall be able to take care of ourselves.

Again, a Burlington correspondent to the New York Com-
mercial Advertiser said: "The invasion draws forth all parties and
the soil will be defended."

In London the success of the invasion was taken for granted.
The Times wrote: "American papers are replete with effusions
of vexation and rage against their government, that 20,000 Brit-
ish troops may march wherever they will through the United
States."

The British Army was composed principally of the Peninsular
brigades of Major General Robinson and Brigadier Generals
Brisbane and Power. The high command was held by Governor-
General Prevost. His quartermaster general was Sir Sidney Beck-
with, who captured Hampton, Virginia, in 1813; his adjutant was
Edward Baynes, who had negotiated the early armistice with
Dearborn and, later, the exchange of prisoners. 5

Never before in her long North American experience had
Great Britain concentrated such a fine army in the New World.
But the army was woefully deficient in the most necessary qual-
ity: leadership. The brigadiers were capable. Robinson, Power
and Brisbane were high-spirited fighters, but none had achieved
distinction in independent command in Spain. By 1814 everyone
in Canada knew that Prevost, while an organizer, was no general.
The invasion of the United States was of sufficient consequence
to the future of Great Britain for the cabinet to have dispatched
Wellington to command it. If Wellington could not be sent, a
selection could have been made among Hill, Beresf ord and Hope,
all of whom had demonstrated their leadership in independent

Northern Invasion 625

command. Beresford had served in Canada and was familiar with
the conditions of New World campaigning. 6

Remaining to oppose the 14,000 British veterans who had been
fighting Napoleon's best marshals in Spain were 1,200 effective
American troops under Brigadier General Alexander Macomb.

Macomb was one of the few trustworthy officers who ap-
peared in the early Niagara fighting. In promotions he had moved
along with Scott. His thorough reliability made him, after the
war, chief engineer of the Army, and, upon the death of Jacob
Brown in 1835, its commander in chief. He was the son of a Bel-
fast fur dealer who settled in Detroit, where Alexander Macomb
was born in 1782. His father acquired wealth and bought great
tracts of land in Georgia, North Carolina and Kentucky, and
3,670,000 acres along the St. Lawrence River in New York,
including the Thousand Islands. The son decided on an Army
career when war with France seemed likely in 1799. He became
a cornet of horse and served successively in the artillery and
engineer corps. As a captain he instructed and prepared texts at
the new academy at West Point. It was a stroke of good fortune
for the United States that after Izard's departure for Sackets Har-
bor the command of a handful of troops left at Plattsburg fell to
Macomb.

Minor naval action had taken place on Lake Champlain earlier
in the war. In June 1813, Lieutenant Sidney Smith, whose name
might have arrested British attention, took two sloops up the
Sorel River, which flows into Lake Champlain from the north.
He made a gallant fight with his sloops the Growler and Eagle
but one was sunk in shallow water and one run aground by
gunboats. 7 The British repaired them and named them the Finch
and the Chub, and with them raided Plattsburg and held control
of the Lake. Lieutenant Thomas Macdonough, commander on
the lake, who had a faculty common with Perry of not being
disheartened by past losses, hurriedly built new ships, but not in
time to prevent the plundering of Plattsburg.

Macdonough was born at Newcastle, Delaware, the son of a
physician and major in the Revolutionary Army. As a midship-
man he was with Decatur at the sinking of the Philadelphia in

626 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Tripoli Harbor, an act of courage which brought together three
of the outstanding naval officers of the War of 1812, the third
being Lawrence. As a young lieutenant Macdonough had made
clear his impatience with the American captains who, like Barron
of the Chesapeake, were permitting searches of their own or
other American vessels without a fight. When he was aboard the
Siren in Gibralter Harbor under the British guns, with an Ameri-
can merchant brig near by, Macdonough saw a boat from a
British man-of-war go to the merchant brig and take off a seaman
alleged to be a British subject. He manned his gig, which was
armed, went after the boat and overhauled her near the British
frigate. Then he seized the seaman and took him back to the
merchant brig.

The British captain soon stormed on board the Siren, threaten-
ing to lay his frigate alongside and sink her.

"While she swims, you shall not have the man," said Mac-
donough calmly. "He was under the protection of my country's
flag."

The British captain, his anger mounting, asked, "Would you
interfere if I were to impress men from that brig? "

"You have but to try," said Macdonough.

The captain made no further efforts at impressment.

Macdonough was known in the service for his calmness and
devoutness. Where Perry could easily fly into a rage, Macdon-
ough disciplined himself even more rigidly than he did his men.
But Macdonough was like the hero of Lake Erie in that, though
he was a handsome man of vigorous appearance, his health was
uncertain. Immediately after the war he was forced to begin a
ten-year, losing battle with tuberculosis, from which he died in
1825.

When Prevost invaded American territory at the towns of
Champlain and Chazy he followed the conventional practice of
issuing a proclamation. He invited the inhabitants to drop their
American allegiance and requested supplies. As Prevost advanced
toward Plattsburg Macomb, who had already called out the
militia, began to dispute his progress. Major General Benjamin
Mooers, commanding the New York militia district, brought in

Northern Invasion 627

700 men. These Macornb ordered to harass the enemy, in co-op-
eration with 200 men and two fieldpieces of the i3th Infantry.

On September 6, Prevost resumed his advance with 11,000
men. Macomb sent the spirited John E. Wool, now a major,
who had captured Queenston Heights early in the war, to help
bolster the militia. This capable officer took a position at Beek-
mantown and met the advancing British with a volley which
surprised and checked them, although he meantime was deserted
by the militia. Retiring before the overwhelming force, he found
militia elements returning and made another stand at Culver's
Hill, but was soon flanked and forced back to Halsey's Corners
little more than a mile north of the Plattsburg bridge over the
Saranac River.

Macomb had improved his situation every minute after the
departure of Izard. He strengthened the Plattsburg defenses, by
building two forts which he named Brown and Scott after his
two associates in the earlier border fighting. Izard had built
Fort Moreau, named after the French general. The forts com-
manded the Saranac River crossings and the flat land along the
lake. Macomb now ordered all of his delaying units to retire into
the town south of the river, where his force administered a
repulse to the British advance parties as they came to the bridge.
Planks were removed from the two bridges across the Saranac.
After desultory fighting along the river Prevost put the main
body of his army into camp about a mile north of Plattsburg.
Here he remained for the next five days, bringing up trains
of provisions and waiting for the British fleet. In the fighting
around Plattsburg the British suffered 200 casualties, the Ameri-
cans forty-five. 8

2.

The Battle of Lake Champlain was extraordinary among naval
engagements because it was fought by fleets at anchor. The most
celebrated parallel instance is Nelson's victory at the Nile, where
the French fleet was at anchor. For that reason Lake Champlain
lacked the drama of Perry's victory on Lake Erie, just as the
Nile did that of Trafalgar.

6i8 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Macdonough had built the main elements of his fleet in the
Otter River, at Vergennes, Vermont. One who looks at this
rivulet today must wonder how it ever supported a squadron
so consequential in American history. Macdonough's fleet, like
Perry's, was built of green timber and was rushed so urgently
that not all of the ships were finished when the battle was fought.
The Eagle was launched seventeen days after her keel was cut in
the forest. 9 Neither was the British fleet ready. It was built in the
Sorel River, and rushed along while the army waited.

September n, 1814, broke clear and bright across the Green
Mountains of Vermont and over the long gray ribbon of Lake
Champlain. It lighted up the little basin of Plattsburg Bay, where
the American fleet lay at anchor.

Macdonough's force consisted of four ships and ten gunboats.
His flagship was the Saratoga, of 734 tons, with an armament of
twenty-six guns. The brig Eagle, commanded by Captain Robert
Henley, was about the size of Perry's sister ships, the Lawrence
and Niagara. It was of 500 tons, with twenty guns. The schooner
Ticonderoga, Lieutenant Commander Stephen Cassin, of 350
tons and seventeen guns, narrowly missed the extraordinary dis-
tinction of being the first steamship to fight in a naval engage-
ment. She was built with steam propulsion, but her engines were
so unreliable that Macdonough had her rigged as a schooner.
The fourth ship was the Treble, Lieutenant Charles Budd, eighty
tons, seven guns. Six of the row galleys had two guns each while
four mounted one gun each.

The Saratoga, being much the largest vessel, had the largest
crew, of 240 men, while the Treble had but thirty.

At 8 A.M. the British fleet, composed of four ships and twelve
gunboats, appeared around Cumberland Head, the arm of land
which forms the eastern shore of Plattsburg Bay. The British
commander, Captain George Downie, had arrived only three
days earlier from Lake Ontario, where he had commanded the
Montreal, of 637 tons and seventeen guns, In Yeo's fleet.

His flagship, the Confiance, was larger than any other vessel
on the lake, being in the frigate class. Varying estimates have
been made of her tonnage. She was of 1,200 tons or more. She

Northern Invasion 629

was not so strong a frigate as the Constitution, which was of
1,567 tons. Before the battle Downie was certain that the Con-fi-
ance could successfully fight the entire American fleet. 10 She was
a splendid frigate, mounting thirty-seven guns. Her equipment
included a furnace for heating shot. Nevertheless, the weight of
her broadside was not decisively heavier than that of the Sara-
toga's. The Confiance could throw 480 pounds, compared with
414 pounds in the broadside of the Saratoga.

Downie's second ship was the Linnet, commanded by Captain
Daniel Pring, whom Downie had superseded as the fleet com-
mander. She was of 350 tons and mounted sixteen guns. The
other two British vessels, the Chub, 1 12 tons, and the Finch, no
tons, were the captured American sloops, the Growler and the
old Eagle. The Chub was commanded by Lieutenant William
Hicks. Each had eleven guns. Five of the gunboats, or galleys,
mounted two guns each, and seven of them had one gun each.

In all, fourteen American vessels, of 2,244 tons, opposed a
British squadron of sixteen vessels, of 2,400 tons, and 882 Ameri-
cans opposed 937 British. The American broadside weighed
1,194 pounds, the British 1,192 pounds. The British had a supe-
riority in long-range guns, the Americans in short guns; yet the
fleets were so evenly matched that the outcome of the engage-
ment rested with the leadership, the steadfastness of the crews,
and the element of chance that hovered so purblindly over all
naval fighting of the period.

Just before the battle began, Macdonough personally con-
ducted a religious service on the deck of the Saratoga. Kneeling
with his officers and men, he asked God's aid in the task before
him and committed his squadron to God's care.

The strategy of the battle was simple. Macdonough's fleet lay
in a line across the entrance, a mile and a half wide, of Plattsburg
Bay. 11 Downie brought his fleet to anchor alongside, and the two
fleets slugged it out at close range like two boxers fighting in the
clinches. And as is often the case in the prize ring, it was difficult
to tell which was administering the telling blows until the mo-
ment of the knockout. The story was related that Sir George
Prevost, watching on shore, took out his watch as the British

630

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

fleet went into action to see how many minutes would be re-
quired to sink the Americans. He predicted to other officers that
the Yankee flag would be struck in forty minutes. None of the
British officers doubted the result; they drew complete confi-
dence from the superior size of the Con-fiance. The troops made
ready to storm Plattsburg as promptly as the American fleet was

The Battle of Lake Champlain

Northern Invasion 631

out of action. 12 Crowds came to die high points and headlands on
both the New York and Vermont shores to witness the spectacle.

Macdonough had the advantage as the battle opened because
the British vessels approached bow on and the Americans could
deliver a broadside against them without being exposed to a
return broadside. The Finch came first, accompanied by the
gunboat flotilla, and made for the right of the American line
near Crab Island, where she engaged the Treble and Macdon-
ough's second ship, the Ticonderoga. The Chub, Downie's
next vessel to round Cumberland Head, made for the other end
of the American line and engaged the Eagle. The Linnet fol-
lowed, under orders to assist the Chub. Downie then came with
his big Con-fiance, took an American's broadside without reply-
ing and anchored close to the Saratoga. One of the first shots
that hit her as she came on was from a 24-pounder Macdonough
personally aimed, and the example of marksmanship he set for
the fleet was inspiring. The ball bounded along the deck of the
Confiance, destroyed the wheel, sent splinters flying in all direc-
tions and killed several of Downie's crew.

As the Linnet went into action against the Eagle she paid the
Saratoga the compliment of a passing broadside, which led to
perhaps the most frequently related incident of the Battle of
Lake Champlain. One shot struck a coop on the Saratoga's deck,
and released the spirited game cock which the seamen, who en-
joyed cock fighting, had either borrowed or pilfered from a cock
fancier on shore. 13 The excited cock could tell from the din that
something involving a challenge was in progress. He jumped
onto a gun slide, haughtily looked over the scene of battle and
let out a defiant crow. The bird's attitude appealed to the seamen.
They thought it presaged victory.

As the Confiance anchored, a sheet of flame burst from her
decks, a roar shook the lake and the broadside she emitted,
double-shotted for short range, shivered the Saratoga in every
timber. It killed or wounded one fifth of Macdonough's crew
and flattened most of the others on the deck. 14

The Saratoga's first lieutenant, Peter Gamble, was killed by
the blast. Within a few minutes after his death a ball from the

6 3 z POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Saratoga hit one of the Con-fiance's 24~pounders. The shot drove
the gun from its mounts and sent it flying across the deck. The
catapulting gun hit Captain Downie in the groin and killed him
almost instantly, although it did not break his skin. Modern
diagnosis would probably have been that shock contributed to
his death.

The Saratoga poured a steady re into the Confiance and the
engagement grew more intense between the other ships. The
first to weaken under the fearful fire was the Chub. Captain
Henley was handling the Eagle ably; one of his broadsides made
the Chub a virtual wreck which drifted helplessly in the midst
of the action. The Saratoga gave her a finishing shot and she
struck her colors. A midshipman boarded her and had her towed
as a prize to the mouth of the Saranac River.

Downie was dead and one of his vessels was gone, but the
fight between the Confiance and Saratoga was at its top fury.
Macdonough's losses were so heavy that he personally took a
position at one of the guns and sighted it until it was dismantled
by the British fire. Twice he was knocked senseless to the Sara-
toga's deck. The entire battle was an example of how spars and
flying splinters became among the most dangerous of missiles in
close-in fighting on wooden ships. A British shot hit the spanker
boom and broke it in two, One piece was hurled against Mac-
donough's head and knocked him unconscious. He was revived
and returned to the fighting, only to be thrown entirely across
the ship when another shot from the Confiance hit a gun he was
sighting and knocked him senseless into the scuppers. A report
that he was dead passed over the ship, but he was soon up again
and back in the fighting. Officers of both fleets had their uni-
forms torn off their backs by flying splinters, which often were
heavy, jagged pieces of oak that mangled and lacerated and
caused more dreaded wounds than bullets.

Red-hot shot from the Confiance twice set the Saratoga afire,
but each time Macdonough managed to get the flames extin-
giiished. Both ships suffered heavy losses in men; both had their
rigging and sails leveled to their decks. Finally the guns on the
engaged side of the Saratoga, and most of those of the Confiance,

Northern Invasion

were put out of action by direct hits and the firing gradually
slackened. The last of the Saratoga's starboard guns was hurled
down the hatch when a bolt broke and the weapon left its
carriage.

It was at this juncture that the foresight and seamanship of
Macdonough saved him. He had gone into the battle supplied
with kedges and hawsers so he would be able to manuever while

Preble
Saratoga
Uconderoga
g. Gunboats

A. Fort Moreaa

& fort Brown

C. Fort Scott

No.L Block House

No.2.

No.3. Excavation for 9 Block House

D* Stores

7he Cand Hfa broken outline and with
dotted tracks show the course and posi-
tions intended for the Con fiance and
Chub, which they were unable to effect

American^^^o
British^

British Batteries
No. f . 3 Guns and 1 Howitzer
No.?. Pocket Battery
ttoSMortar Battery
No.4. 3 Guns throwing $hrapn*t$ Shells
No.5.4Guns 18 Pounders *nd Rocket Btttety
No.6. 3 Heavy Guns $nd Rockets
No.7* Heavy Guns to keep off the Galley*

a. a. a. British temps-

BATTLE OF LAKE CHAMPLAW

634 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

anchored. With the aid of his sailing master he wound the ship
around by throwing out kedges from her bow, until her larboard
broadside batteries, not yet engaged in the conflict, were brought
to bear on the Confiance. The Saratoga had to take heavy fire
from the Linnet as she was brought around, but her larboard
guns were immediately riddling the Confiance, which had few
serviceable guns bearing on the Saratoga. The mighty Confiance
struck.

Meanwhile the British gunboats had battered the American
Treble and put her out of action. But the Ticonderoga had han-
dled the British Finch so severely that she drifted and grounded
on a shoal off Crab Island, which was being guarded by conva-
lescents. These opened on her with a two-gun battery and she
hauled down her flag. After the surrender of the Confiance, the
Saratoga opened on the Linnet and in a quarter of an hour the
last of the British ships struck her colors. To Macdonough's
great regret, the British gunboats, equipped with oars, escaped.
Not one ship in either squadron had a mast that could hold a
sail and enable him to pursue them. 15

3-

The Battle of Lake Champlain lasted two hours and twenty
minutes, instead of the forty minutes predicted by Prevost. Pre-
vost began an attack when the naval action was in progress and a
crossing of the Saranac River was effected at an upper ford. A
more timid American general would have withdrawn, but not
Macomb. At the two bridges farther down the stream, he held.
The victory of the American fleet, proclaimed by a shout that
went along the American line, brought orders that halted the
British infantry advance. The triumph of the Americans on the
water disconcerted the British commander in chief to the point
of panic. He explained later that he wanted to retire to the
border and observe what use the Americans made of their supe-
riority on the water. His numbers were such that he might readily
have captured Plattsburg and compensated in that small measure
for Downie's defeat. His subordinate, Brisbane, said he could have
forced the Americans out of their works in twenty minutes. 16

Northern Invasion 635

That night Prevost sent off his artillery and much of his bag-
gage. The next morning his withdrawal became precipitate. 17
His haste was due to his interception of a false message that
10,000 Vermont militia were marching north on the Vermont
shore to St. Albans. He was less apprehensive when he reached
Champlain, where he rested. His troops cleared American soil
on September 24, 1814, and retired to Montreal. 18

After the Linnet had struck, Macdonough sent the following
message ashore to be dispatched to the Secretary of the Navy:

SirThe Almighty has been pleased to grant us a signal vic-
tory on Lake Champlain in the capture of one frigate, one brig,
and two sloops of war of the enemy.

The American loss in the engagement was fifty-two killed and
fifty-eight wounded. The total British casualties, killed and
wounded, were above 200. The British fleet commander, Downie,
was buried at Plattsburg.

The British vessels and the Saratoga were so thoroughly
wrecked that they were scuttled at Whitehall, at the southern
end of the lake.

Another great wave of rejoicing passed over the country and
strengthened the new solidarity so noticeable after the burning
of the Capitol. 19 Macdonough and Macomb received tributes and
testimonials from all sections. The honors began with a public
dinner tendered by the citizens of Plattsburg, at which Macomb's
army band provided the music and the diners drank "seventeen
regular toasts." The phrase suggests there were many impromptu
expressions as the hour grew late.

A toast was drunk to "The pious and brave Macdonoughthe
professor of the religion of the Redeemer preparing for action,
he called on God, who forsook him not in the hour of danger:
may he not be forgotten by his country."

That the incendiarism and Indian barbarities of the war had
not smothered all gallantry was proved when the gathering ob-
served a moment of silence and gave a toast to the dead com-
mander of the British fleet: "[to] the memory of Commander
Downie, our brave enemy."

636 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Bonfires illuminated the towns, meetings passed resolutions,
cities extended their "freedom." New York State presented a
sword to Macomb, Madison made him a major general by brevet
and Congress ordered a gold medal struck in his honor. The
gifts to Macdonough were substantial. Not only did Congress
vote him the thanks of the nation and a gold medal, but New
York State presented him with 2,000 acres of land. Vermont
acquired 200 acres on Cumberland Head, with a farmhouse over-
looking Plattsburg Bay and the scene of the battle, and deeded
the tract to Macdonough. Albany and New York presented city
lots. With tears in his eyes he told a friend, "In one month, from
a poor lieutenant I became a rich man."

Because of the effort of the military to put on the best possible
front, news of the defeat reached London in trickles and caused
confusion. The official dispatch of Prevost's Adjutant General
Baynes, published October 22, said:

The Commander of the Forces has to thank the left division
for the steady discipline, unwearied exertions and gallantry,
which have conspicuously marked its short service in the terri-
tory of the enemy, so unfortunately arrested in its course by the
disastrous fate of the flotilla that had advanced to co-operate in
the^ ulterior object of the campaign. The intrepid valor with
which Capt. Downie led his flotilla into action, encouraged the
most sanguine hope of complete success, which was early blasted
by ^the fall of that gallant officer, combined with accidents, to
which naval warfare is peculiarly exposed. . . .

The ironical comment of the Times correspondent was:

You have herewith a copy of the General Order of the
inst., to understand which requires more than the being able to
read it. There never was perhaps such a composition: for with-
out^knowing the results, one might be led to think we had gained
a victory. Report says our hero [Prevost] on passing some of
the^ troops on the road was hissed by them; and further, and
which I believe to be true, that when the order was given for
retreating, General Power rode up to the Commander-in-chief,
and begged the order for retreat might be recalled, as General
Brisbane was about storming the fort and would have possession
of it in a few minutes. The reply, it is said, was "My orders must
be obeyed," and then the general retreat took place.

Northern Invasion 637

It was a fair battle between the fleets: the fort did not play on
the Con-fiance and Linnet as has been stated. Captain Pring in
the Linnet, though aground, is said to have fought his vessel for
a considerable time after the Confiance had struck.

A dispatch which followed from the same Quebec correspond-
ent to the Times said:

Stories become blacker and blacker, respecting our disgrace
and misfortunes at Plattsburg there were only 1,400 men in it
[the American fort] under Gen. M'Comb, who informed Capt.
Pring of the Linnet, that everything was prepared to surrender
on the advance of the British army. Report says that Gen. Rob-
inson is under arrest: that Gens. Brisbane and Power tendered
their swords to Sir G. Prevost: and that Col. Williams of the
1 3th had declared he would never draw his sword again while
under the command of Sir George. Sir George is gone to Kings-
ton.

Another comment came from Quebec: "The Wellington sol-
diers say that the hunters and the hounds are capital but that the
huntsman and the whipper are two fools: meaning, I consider,
Sir. G. Prevost and his Adj. Gen. Major E. Baynes." When the
report of Lieutenant Macdonough was published in London, the
Times quoted again the opening phrase, "Sir The Almighty has
been pleased to grant us . . ." and continued:

Much as we admire the laconic in letter-writing, we should
have been better pleased with Com. M'Donough had he informed
us by whose earthly means exclusive of his own he was allowed
to achieve a victory so contrary to expectation and all human
probability.

These comments of the Times show why Macdonough's vic-
tory had such a strong influence on the ministry and the peace
negotiations in progress at Ghent. Coupled with the repulse of
Ross at Baltimore, the defeat of Downie at Plattsburg persuaded
the cabinet for peace.

Prevost's greatest error was to retreat precipitously. He left
behind stores valued at a hundred thousand pounds. With his
fine army, and a weak foe in his front, he appeared to flee. Much
of Canada, and later England, charged him with cowardice and

6 3 8 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

the loss of the campaign. 20 Charges were preferred against him
by Sir James Lucas Yeo, who had, himself, contributed little to
the British cause during his extended command of the Lake On-
tario fleet. The Prince Regent ordered a court-martial

Winter had set in and Canada was snowbound. Yet Prevost
declined to await the opening of navigation on the St. Lawrence.
He set out for Halifax and made much of the journey across
New Brunswick on foot. When he reached London he was ill.
His health was weakened more by disappointment than the rigors
of the Canadian winter. Before the court-martial could be sum-
moned to try him, he died. Few good words have been spoken
for him, but by his untiring efforts, the British commonwealth
of nations includes Canada.

Macdonough's victory on Lake Champlain has often been
described as the most important naval battle of the war, and
Macdonough, in turn, the ablest of the naval officers produced
by the conflict. The battle lacked the high drama of Perry's
triumph. Macdonough had full co-operation from his American
associates and was not at any time so near defeat as was Perry
when he left the La e wrence. Nor did the outcome of the battle
rest so utterly with one man.

The results of the battle were far-reaching. The British inva-
sion was brought to an abrupt end. The question of how far
Prevost might have penetrated into heavily populated New York
and the timidity of his leadership did not offer his good army
much promise does not cast doubt on the decisive nature of
Macdonough's victory. It demonstrated that while the United
States could not invade Canada, neither could the British invade
the United States.

In the case of Perry's victory, the British, and not the attacking
Americans, held control of Lake Erie and the entire northwest.
A loss of the Battle of Lake Erie would have confirmed them in
these possessions. It is not likely that with the coming of the
Peninsular regulars, the Americans could have recovered the
offensive in the Northwest. The British unquestionably would
have been more insistent on the principle of uti possidetis at the
peace conference.

Northern Invasion 639

All factors considered, It appears that Perry's was, indeed, the
more decisive and important victory to the American cause, and
Perry the abler of the American fleet commanders. But in those
splendid triumphs, which were two of the best-fought battles in
the history of wooden vessels from Themistocles to Farragut,
there was ample glory for the officers and men of both American
fleets.

Thirty --four

Cleaning the Gulf Coast

All through the Creek War Jackson had looked toward
Pensacola as the objective of his campaign: the city was the open
sore of the Gulf Coast, from which the poison seeped into the
back country to infect the Indians. Pensacola, in West Florida,
was in Spanish territory, and the United States was not at war
with Spain.

That might have been an insurmountable obstacle to another
officer, but not to a man of Jackson's stubbornness. What angered
Jackson was that the Red Stick survivors found refuge behind
the banner of Spain where they dressed their wounds and pre-
pared for a return attack, and he -was restrained from going after
them by diplomatic niceties. On June 27, 1814, he had written to
Secretary of War Armstrong requesting orders to capture Pensa-
cola. Armstrong did not reply. That did not quiet Jackson; it
merely made him resolve on independent action.

Jackson, now a major general of the Regular Army and com-
mander of the Seventh Military District, completed his treaty
with the miserable survivors of the Creeks at Fort Jackson, and
passed down the river to Mobile in mid-August. It was certain
that he would attack Pensacola on one excuse or another.

At this moment a justification arose that would have satisfied
the most fastidious about international formalities in 1814 war-
fare. The British occupied Pensacola. In late July 1814 a British
expedition appeared off the Spanish city and, with a degree of
effrontery rare even with the junior officers of His Majesty's
service, landed a party and took the town from the docile Span-
ish governor.

640

deeming the Gulf Coast 641

The British force was commanded by Sir William H. Percy,
who had the sloops of war Hermes and Canon. The Army con-
tingent was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Edward
Nicholls, whose force consisted of little more than a hundred
soldiers and marines, and two howitzers. He brought along 1,000
stand of arms with the idea that he could capture the South
coast with the aid of its own inhabitants.

Whether these were Indians or whites was not material to the
lieutenant colonel After he had run up the British flag alongside
the banner of Spain over Forts Barrancas and St. Michael, guard-
ing the Pensacola harbor, he sent emissaries to the Indians in
Florida; issued a proclamation inviting the Louisianians and Ken-
tuckians to come into the British service; and dispatched a mis-
sion to visit the fraternity of the coast headed by the Lafitte
brothers, on the Barataria Bay Islands.

Indians crowded into town to receive any distributions that
might be offered by the British and found themselves possessed
of guns and red uniforms, with which they were required to drill
in the Pensacola summer in a manner incompatible with Indian
fighting customs. The proclamation to the Louisianians and Ken-
tuckians was an even greater piece of impudence than the procla-
mations of Hull and Smyth on the Canadian border. It told the
residents of New Orleans that they would have sure protection
by the display of a flag over their door, if the flag were English,
French or Spanish. "Inhabitants of Kentucky!" it continued,
"you have too long borne with grievous impositions. The whole
brunt of the war has fallen on your brave sons. Be imposed on
no longer. Range yourself under the standard of your forefathers
or be neutral."

2.

The third avenue of recruitment which Nicholls undertook
led to one of those romantic episodes in American history that
through the decades has been related in story, picture and poem,
and will always remain a part of the color and background of the
Mississippi delta region and old New Orleans.

Jean and Pierre Lafitte were brothers born in Bordeaux. They

642 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

were resourceful, enterprising, intelligent men, who mastered the
languages required for knocking about the world. Both were
fluent in French, English, Spanish and Italian. Pierre, the elder,
served in the French Navy, became proficient in navigation and
dexterous with the rapier. Handsome, possessed of a pleasant
manner and an abundance of native shrewdness, he saw unusual
opportunity in the teeming city that commanded the vast ex-
panses of the Mississippi basin. His younger brother, Jean, a
captain under Napoleon, was equally impressed with the New
World. Pierre set himself up as a fencing master in New Or-
leans. Jean became a master blacksmith at Bourbon and St. Philip
streets, where he supervised a gang of Negroes who worked at
the forge.

Money came to the Lafittes, but in insufficient amount. They
found their first opportunity to rise above the forge and fencing
academy in a provision of the American Constitution, which was,
that the importation of slaves into the United States should end
in 1808. That chanced to be the year of the embargo, which
Congress enacted in late December 1807. One of the extraordi-
nary smuggling opportunities of all times was therefore opened
to any sharp individual who wanted to deal in either merchandise
or flesh.

By business talents and better luck, Jean came to be the domi-
nant force in the Lafitte organization. He later insisted, as have
many since his time, that his only difficulties arose out of "certain
vices in the laws." In New Orleans he and Pierre boldly set up a
sales and distribution house for Negro slaves and British goods,
and were soon missing from the forge and fencing school. That
they looked on their business as an upright one, entitling them to
station and respect, is indicated by Jean's statement that "I may
have evaded the payment of duties at the custom house, but I have
never ceased to be a good citizen."

The bayou country below New Orleans was ideally suited for
smuggling and, in turn, piracy. A canal approached the Missis-
sippi opposite New Orleans, from which only a short haulage
was required to put merchandise afloat on the river and to trans-
port it to the docks of the city. This canal entered a bayou,

Cleaning the Gulf Coast 643

which meandered for forty miles through swampland and sub-
tropical jungle, connected with a series of lakes and eventually
provided an outlet into Barataria Bay, a body of water shielded
by Grand Terre Island.

Barataria was an excellent harbor rendezvous. It provided
shelter from the Gulf storms and isolation from prying customs
officers, yet possessed an easy route to the lucrative New Orleans
market. To it came the brotherhood of West Indian pirates,
buccaneers, freebooters and privateersmen, whose numbers had
multiplied rapidly after the outbreak of the European war. Many
of them had earlier obtained French letters of marque and made
Martinique their headquarters, from which they warred against
Spanish shipping. In 1 806 Great Britain captured that island.

Casting about for an inviting refuge, the freebooters found it
in the isolation of Grand Terre Island and Barataria Bay. Vene-
zuela had revolted from Spanish rule and the flag of Cartagena
became available as a protection behind which they might ply
the Caribbean secure from seizure as pirates. 1

Beginning as the sales representatives in New Orleans of the
Barataria fraternity, the Lafitte brothers progressed until Jean
was elected captain of the colony. Both were made immensely
wealthy by transporting Negroes and smuggling British goods
during the period of the embargo. Whether or not they were
pirates was never determined by an American court. They have
been dealt with so sympathetically by many of the writers of
the period that a great deal of sentimentality has been wasted
over the eventual loss of their fortune at sea in 1817; yet little if
any of their wealth appears to have been acquired by legal means
and the suggestion that they were pirates in every respect except
the flying of a black flag is strong.

Defenders of the Lafitte brothers have insisted that the charge
of piracy was never supported by direct evidence and that only
one bit of circumstantial evidence was brought out against them
jewelry found in their possession when their rendezvous was
raided was identified as property which had belonged to a Creole
lady who seven years previously had sailed away from New
Orleans and been heard of no more. 2 It was not customary for

644 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

jewelry of such nature to be washed up on the Barataria beach.
Jean probably did not force prisoners to walk the plank, but he
kept a heavy volume of other people's goods flowing into New
Orleans. 3

After abortive efforts had been made to reach the Lafittes
under the customs laws, a New Orleans grand jury on July 28,
1814, returned an indictment for piracy against some of the
Baratarians. Pierre Lafitte was named as abettor both before and
after the fact. He was arrested, denied bail and confined in the
city jail. Lodged with him in the calaboose was one of his best
captains, Dominique You.

Jean Lafitte, seeing that public opinion was turning against
him, was preparing to vacate Barataria for a more remote and
congenial locality when a series of events unfolded that opened
new opportunities. A gun sounded off Grand Terre Island and
he with some oarsmen went through the inlet and saw a British
warship at anchor. She put off a gig with three officers in Navy
blue and one in Army scarlet. They were the mission from
Lieutenant Colonel Nicholls in Pensacola, sent to bring the Bara-
tarians under the British flag.

Accompanying them toward the shore, Lafitte at first con-
cealed his identity, then conceded he was the individual sought.
The British naval officer, Captain Nicholas Lockyer, gave Lafitte
a bundle of documents, which consisted of the proclamation
issued by Nicholls, a notice to the Baratarians that if they did not
join Great Britain their headquarters would be destroyed, a cap-
tain's commission for Jean Lafitte if he should join the British,
and finally, instructions for the capture of Mobile should the
Baratarians respond to the British invitation.

While Lafitte was considering the documents after the party
reached the shore, the fierce Baratarians held the British officers
and were preparing to knife them when Lafitte returned. He
admonished his men and escorted the officers to their boat. He
told them he would give an answer in two weeks. Lockyer said
he would return to Barataria in fifteen days. 4

Lafitte now saw an opportunity in which he might turn to his
advantage the loyalty to America which motivated him when the

Cleaning the Gulf Coast 645

laws were convenient to his ends. He sent the British papers to
an acquaintance, Jean Blanque, a member of the Louisiana legis-
lature, and with them enclosed a letter of explanation in which
he said of his adopted country, "I will never miss an occasion of
serving her, or of proving that she has never ceased to be dear to
me." He pointed out that the British had employed persuasion
on him which few men would have resisted:

They represented to me a brother in irons, a brother who is
very dear, whose deliverer I might become, and I declined the
proposal, well persuaded of his innocence. I am free from appre-
hension as to the issue of the trial, but he is sick, and not in a
place where he can receive the assistance he requires.

He ventured that his service in turning over the British letters
might result in "some amelioration of the situation of an unhappy
brother." 5

There is no official record about what happened in Pierre's
case, but on the following day it was made known that he had
escaped from prison. A reward of $1,000 was offered for his
apprehension, but he was not taken. Jean Lafitte wrote Governor
Claiborne: "I am a lost sheep wishing to return to the sheepf old*"
He explained that the Baratarian position was important to the
protection of New Orleans, and offered his men for its defense.

Claiborne called a meeting of his council to get an opinion as
to whether the documents were genuine, and, if so, whether in-
tercourse should be established with Lafitte. The council con-
cluded that the letters attributed to the British were forgeries and
with little dissent decided not to deal with Lafitte. An expedition
already in preparation under Commodore Daniel T. Patterson of
the U. S. Navy and Colonel George T. Ross, commanding the
Regulaj: Army garrison at New Orleans, was given further
impetus by Lafitte's bargaining. With gunboats and regulars,
it dropped down the Mississippi and on September 16, 1814,
entered Barataria Bay, captured the rendezvous on Grand and
Grand Terre islands, and seized the fleet flying the flag of
Cartagena.

The fleet consisted of seven cruisers and three schooners
which had long been capturing merchant ships on the seas. Bara-

646 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

tarians at first considered resistance; they had their guns in posi-
tion on the beach and stood by with lighted matches. They have
been credited with deciding against resistance when they saw
the American flag. Undoubtedly the power of Patterson's squad-
ron when it was observed entering the inlet was even more per-
suasive. They held their fire and surrendered.

Rich stores of property were loaded on both the captured and
the naval vessels and taken to New Orleans, where the money,
merchandise and ships were claimed as prizes by the expedition.
The Lafitte settlement was burned and leveled. After Patterson's
departure only ruins remained. The captured Baratarians were
brought to New Orleans in irons and put in the city jail. Mean-
while the fifteen days passed and Captain Lockyer, by then oc-
cupied on the Florida coast, did not return.

Lafitte had supplied New Orleans with a warning against a
possible British attack by Captain Percy with his two or three
vessels. Lafitte knew nothing of any more extensive operations
against New Orleans. Because Nicholl's plan had been to use the
Baratarians first against Mobile, Lafitte's information was not of
particular value and did not give as clear a picture of the British
plans as what Monroe was able to piece together from the intelli-
gence he was receiving in Washington.

Governor Claiborne sent copies of the Lafitte letter to Jackson
at Mobile. Jackson at once issued his own proclamation denounc-
ing the "calumnies which that vain-glorious boaster, Colonel
Nichols [sic], had proclaimed in his insidious address" and con-
tinuing with reference to the Baratarians as "a hellish banditti." 6

3-

Jackson was not interested at the moment in New Orleans.
His eyes were turned in the opposite direction. In correspond-
ence with Manrique, the governor of Pensacola, he accused the
Spaniard of bad faith. Finally, concluding that he was not a note
writer, Jackson broke it off with the notice that he would talk
thereafter with weapons:

In future I beg you to withhold your insulting charges against
my government for one more inclined to listen to slander than I

Cleaning the Gulf Coast 647

am; nor consider me any more a diplomatic character unless so
proclaimed from the mouth of rny cannon. 7

Before he could begin operations Jackson had to wait until
Tennessee could send him an army. 8 Most of the men had gone
home after finishing the Creeks at the Horseshoe. Not only was
he too weak to take the offensive against the combination of
British, Spaniards and red-uniformed Indians in Pensacola, but
he was in grave danger of attack in Mobile. He could place only
130 men in Fort Bowyer, a small earthen fortification, situated
thirty miles below Mobile, on the sand point on the eastern side
of the entrance to Mobile Bay. Fortunately, one of the best offi-
cers in the Army, Major William Lawrence, was at hand to com-
mand the little garrison. Lawrence was one of the few whom
Winfield Scott excepted when before the war he appraised the
Regular Army and decided most of its officers were slothful or
intemperate.

Although disappointed that Captain Lockyer did not return to
Pensacola with the Baratarians, Nichols and Percy decided to
pick up Fort Bowyer as the first step toward the capture of
Mobile. Most of Fort Bowyer's twenty guns were small Spanish
pieces, but Lawrence gave them the best positions for a defense
against a combination land and water attack. On September 12,
1814, Percy appeared with five ships having a total of seventy-
eight guns and Nicholls landed with 1 30 marines and 600 Indians.
Major Lawrence took his war cry from another Lawrence and
urged his men: "Don't give up the fort!" With his officers, he
entered into a compact never to surrender. 9

The British observed the fort for three days before attacking,
then sailed in line to a position within musket range, the flagship
Hermes, twenty-four guns, in the lead. Lawrence had two 24-
pounders and began the battle by opening on the Hermes, which
promptly replied. It was 4: 30 P.M. when the British ships began
a full-scale bombardment. The land army, menacing chiefly in
appearance because Indians in red coats were no more serviceable
in frontal assaults than Indians in deerskins and feathers, ap-
proached to accept the surrender. A British shot had hit the flag-
pole and brought down the colors, causing Nicholls to believe

648 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

the garrison had struck. A discharge of grape drove back the
British marines and scattered the Indians.

On the water side, the flag of the Hermes was shot down and
Lawrence ceased firing until he could ascertain whether the ship
had struck. A broadside from, one of the other vessels, the Can on
showed him the battle was still in progress and he renewed his
fire. It was soon apparent that the American gunners were inflict-
ing the only punishment. The Hermes, her cable cut by a shot,
drifted toward the fort and was raked by almost the full arma-
ment of the Americans. Soon she ran into shoal water, where her
commander set her on fire and blew her to bits.

The loss of the Hermes virtually ended the attack. Few actions
in the war caused the British greater humiliation. Against 130
men in a mud fort they had employed five vessels and 1,300 men,
yet had been beaten off with ease. Lawrence won Jackson's
thanks and praise and, from Washington, a promotion. His men
inflicted casualties almost double their own number. The British
loss was 232, of whom 162 were killed. The American loss was
four killed and four wounded. The British fleet sailed and the
land force marched back to Pensacola.

All was now in order for Jackson to move on Pensacola. The
repulse of the British at Fort Bowyer had caused most of the Indi-
ans to return home. Troops had arrived from Tennessee and
were concentrated at Fort Montgomery, in Alabama. Coffee,
Jackson's greatest reliance, was at hand. Jackson, commanding
4,000 men, advanced. On November 6, 1814, he was two miles
from the city. He had no orders from Washington authorizing
his invasion of Spanish territory, 10 and took full responsibility.
He did salve the feelings of the Spanish governor by saying he
meant only to possess the forts until the Spanish were in sufficient
force to hold them against the British. That explanation the gov-
ernor peremptorily rejected.

Negotiations might have been continued, but Jackson was not
temperamentally suited for long parleys. At dawn on the follow-
ing morning he marched with 3,000 men down the beach to

Cleaning the Gulf Coast 649

Pensacola. 11 When the sand became so heavy the men could not
drag the guns, he ordered an Infantry charge into the city. A
Spanish battery on the main street opened with two guns. An
American company rushed it and captured it. The troops were
greeted with firing from the houses. Then the governor appeared
in front of his headquarters with a white flag. He capitulated
with the request that the Americans spare the town.

Fort St. Michael soon surrendered and as Jackson approached
Fort Barrancas, six miles distant on the other side of the bay, the
Spaniards blew it up. The British fleet sailed out of the harbor.
Jackson's only remaining problem was the scolding he might
get from Washington for invading Spanish territory, and he did
not worry about that. 12 He feared that the British might try to
capture Mobile during his absence and marched without delay.
He reached Mobile on the evening of November 1 1 .

By instructions from Monroe dated September 25, 1814, Jack-
son was notified that he commanded troops being raised in
Tennessee and Georgia for the defense of New Orleans. The
Secretary of War indicated that that city would be attacked.
Ten days later Monroe again cautioned Jackson that a British
force had left Ireland in early September for an attack on the
Gulf Coast. Now that he had cleared his rear of the British in
Pensacola, Jackson was in a better position to heed Monroe's
warnings.

James Monroe began his service of the United States as a lieu-
tenant fighting at Trenton and ended it with an administration
as President that has scarcely been rivaled for internal harmony
and progress and the maintenance of a firm and clearly defined
policy in international affairs. But it is doubtful that any other
achievement of this modest, intelligent, firm man quite ap-
proached in consequences to the country that of sending Andrew
Jackson as the American general to defend, New Orleans.

On reaching Mobile November 1 1, Jackson found letters from
Edward Livingston, chairman of a New Orleans citizens' com-
mittee, urging him to come to the defense of the city. 13

Livingston was a brother of Robert R. Livingston, the entre-
preneur, politician and diplomat, and a brother-in-law of the

6 50 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

recent Secretary of War, John Armstrong. He was a lawyer of
ability and speaking power. He had come to New Orleans to
carve out a new life after having difficulties with his accounts
when he was serving as United States attorney at the same time
he was mayor of New York City.

It has been offered in his behalf that the financial entangle-
ments were no more than a confusion in the accounts of the dis-
trict attorney's office and that the fault rested with a clerk. But
the responsibility was Livingston's. He had been one of the early
ardent Republicans whose public conduct was supposed to be
faultless. Yet he had held two offices that were almost certain, if
well conducted, to present a conflict of duties and interests, and
he was also a defaulter. He had to assign his property to a trustee
to satisfy the debts and claims against him, and leave for the
Southwest.

The new Louisiana was not so much interested in where a man
had been as where he was going. Livingston's legal ability was
soon apparent and his list of wealthy clients long. John Randolph
reputedly said of Livingston, when the latter was serving as Sec-
retary of State under Jackson: "He is a man of splendid abilities
but utterly corrupt. He shines and stinks like a rotten mackerel
by moonlight."

Among Livingston's clients was the freebooter Jean Lafitte. 14
When Lafitte sent in the British documents, Livingston trusted
his client; he judged at once that the papers were genuine and
that New Orleans was threatened. He addressed a meeting of
citizens held at the St. Louis Exchange on September 16, 1814,
and took the leadership of the local defense committee. He wrote
Jackson and worked with the civilians urging energetic meas-
ures. Governor Claiborne called a special session of the legisla-
ture, which produced no money or troops.

But troops were moving toward the Mississippi. Monroe had
stirred Tennessee and Kentucky into action. Jackson started
Coffee on the long overland march. Carroll departed down the
Cumberland River from Nashville. The Kentuckians were on
their flatboats. Finally, on November 22, Jackson, with a small
staff, mounted in Mobile and rode toward New Orleans.

Thirty-five

The Hartford Convention

In the midst of the recrudescent nationalism that followed
the burning of Washington, the ominous threats of secession
were heard loudly in New England.

More the rumble of discordant leadership than the swelling
voice of the people, the Hartford Convention signalized, not the
approach, but the dying gasp of disunion. If held in 1 8 1 2 or 1 8 1 3,
it might have taken some of the New England states temporarily
out of the Union. During those years the antiwar leadership was
in vigorous control. By 1814 most of the people had become
embittered against Great Britain and wanted to win, not evade,
the war. The leaders who still schemed for secession in late 1814
were like retired generals, grumbling over strategy and unaware
that their soldiers were no longer behind them but were march-
ing with new captains intent on a fresh campaign.

Even the old zealots, who were motivated principally by an
intemperate hatred of Jefferson and, in course, Madison, were
not present at Hartford. Those who took control were moderate
men who had watched the country unite in an hour of great peril.
They cannot be commended, for their secret meetings in time of
war had all the aspects of sedition. The balance of the country
never forgave them. The Federalist party died behind the closed
doors at Hartford. Yet what these men undertook was to evolve
a compromise between the war party and the irascible secession-
ists blinded by long prejudice.

The Hartford Convention had been in a formative process for
fourteen years. Among New England Federalists were some who
were not good losers politicians who had not yet come to under-
stand the niceties of majority rule. They distrusted in other hands
the power they would so gladly wield themselves. A rejection of

651

652 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

democratic processes runs through every line of the letter Timo-
thy Pickering wrote George Cabot in January 1804. Embittered
because the times were sweeping past him unheedingly, he hated
Republicanism more for its successes, than for any excesses of
which he complained:

Apostacy and original depravity are the qualifications for offi-
cial honors and emoluments while men of sterling worth are
displaced and held up to popular contempt and scorn. And shall
we sit still, until this system shall universally triumph; until even
in the Eastern States the principles of genuine Federalism shall be
overwhelmed? . . .

The principles of our Revolution point to a remedy a separa-
tion. This can be accomplished, and without spilling one drop of
blood, I have little doubt. One thing I know, that the rapid prog-
ress of innovation, of corruption, of oppression, forces the idea
upon many a reflecting mind.

The people of the East cannot reconcile their habits, views and
interests with those of the South and West. The latter are begin-
ning to rule with a rod of iron. ... I do not believe in the
practicability of a long-continued union. A Northern confeder-
acy would unite congenial characters and present a fairer pros-
pect of public happiness; while the Southern States, having a
similarity of habits, might be left "to manage their own affairs in
their own way." x

Pickering went on to say that Connecticut and New Hamp-
shire would welcome the proposition of separation, but New
York would have to be brought in. New Jersey, Vermont and
Rhode Island, he believed, would follow.

The plotting was definitely subversive. No one would have
thought of approaching John Adams with such a proposition.
But many New Englanders of standing and intelligence allowed
themselves to be persuaded that secession would be a wholesome
and meritorious course.

It was Pickering of whom it was said, when he was elevated in
the cabinet, that Washington had "spoiled a good Postmaster
General in order to make a bad Secretary of State." 2 By the time
of the war with Britain, Pickering, morose with disappointment
and debt, was occupying more of the House's time than any

The Hartford Convention 653

other member. And as has been the case with some of the most
talkative members at other periods in Congressional history, he
was contributing the least to the main task before the country,
the winning of the war. Charles Jared Ingersoll, who gave Pick-
ering the reputation of "a consistent, upright man who lived and
died by his convictions," quoted a high point of his oratory in
opposition to the 1814 loan bill. Pickering had declaimed: "I
stand on a rock from which . . . not all democracy, and hell to
boot, can move me the rock of Integrity and truth." 3

Senator William Plumer of New Hampshire, who was later to
turn Republican, favored Pickering's separatist notions in 1 804,
as did Fisher Ames, who jocularly referred to his own infirmities
by saying: "If Jacobinism makes haste, I may yet live to be
hanged." * Senator Uriah Tracy and Representative Roger Gris-
wold of Connecticut shared Pickering's views. George Cabot of
Massachusetts lacked the resolution to face the question of dis-
union and dispose of it one way or another. His cautious reply
to Pickering's letter said he preferred to await the time "when
our loyalty to the Union is generally perceived to be the instru-
ment of debasement and impoverishment."

This round-robin correspondence and whispered consultation
soon were known to Republican leaders, and then the whole peo-
ple. Those who conducted them came to be termed the "Essex
Junto." 5

Although the prevailing judgment was that talk of secession
was premature, Pickering and his principal associates decided that
the only thing lacking was a leader. Casting about, they hit upon
Aaron Burr. His brother-in-law, Judge Reeve, who conducted
the Litchfield, Connecticut, law school, was sympathetic to Pick-
ering's plotting. Burr was candidate for governor of New York.
A crafty campaigner, he made no commitments, but his ambition
and easy political morals were well understood. Pickering and
Griswold campaigned for him in New York and tried to line up
Federalist votes. The whole country saw the possibility that the
Republic would be split if Burr were elected. His defeat in 1804
brought an end to the Essex Junto plotting.

6 5 4 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

i.

Disunion lived and flourished in New England. Scarcely a
week passed but that it was thrown as a threat at the other sec-
tions, either by New Englanders in Congress or by the Federalist
press. The Connecticut Courant nourished it with article and
ditty. The much quoted ultimatum of Josiah Quincy in the
House at a time when the admittance of Louisiana into the Union
was being debated, was no more than a scintillating example of
a common assertion. Acceptance of Louisiana would void the
federal compact, he declared in menacing terms: With Louisiana
a state it would be "the right of all, as it would become the duty
of some, to prepare definitely for separation amicably if they
might, violently if they must." 6

Quincy and Pickering were the two pillars of New England
secession, although Quincy moved into the background after he
quit national politics in disgust in 1812. He was perhaps the only
individual who saw the British soldiers on Boston Common be-
for the Revolutionary War and survived to watch the Massachu-
setts volunteers march off for the War between the States to
oppose the disunion he had so earnestly threatened in his younger
days. 7

One wonders what emotions were aroused in any who, in
April, 1 86 1, might have read the letter Quincy wrote to his wife
just fifty years earlier, after this Louisiana debate:

You have no idea how these Southern demagogues tremble at
the word "separation" from a Northern man; and yet they are
riding the Atlantic States like a nightmare. I shall not fail to make
their ears tingle with it whenever they attempt, as in this in-
stance, grossly to violate the Constitution of my country. 8

The nature of the argument for separation is indicated by a
letter published in August 1812 by the Boston Centinel The let-
ter, described as "from a gentleman in a neighboring state to his
friend in Boston," said:

You ask my opinion on a subject which is so much talked of
a dissolution of the Union. On this subject I differ from my fel-
low-citizens generally, and therefore I ought to speak and write

The Hartford Convention 655

with diffidence, I have for many years considered the Union of
the southern and northern states, as not essential to the safety and
very much opposed to the interests of both sections. The extent
of territory is too large to be harmoniously governed by the same
representative body.

The writer went on to say a despotic prince could govern wide
areas having different interests, for "his will controls their jeal-
ousies and different interests," but where states decide for them-
selves "no harmony can be expected." 9

The National Intelligencer of July 25, 1812, reported the
town meeting "of some 4,000 Tories," held in Faneuil Hall in
Boston. Of the resolutions adopted at the meeting the Intelli-
gencer said:

They could not in plainer language have declared that the
states were separated. Their object in resorting to such violent
measures is apparent. They wish to dissolve the Union; they
want a pretence to attempt it; their policy is to goad the general
government by such outrageous acts to adoption of some specific
measures against them; they would rally under the cry of "perse-
cution," "domestic tyranny," etc., and persuade the people^that
their liberties were in danger . . . and that it would be as right-
eous to oppose our own government and separate the states as it
was in '76 to oppose England.

Information that went to the London Times after the 1812
balloting, and published by the Times February 16, 1813, was
described as abounding "in predictions of the sinister effects of
Mr. Madison's re-election." It continued:

Inhabitants of the eastern states say Mr. Madison is not their
president but a Ruler forced on them by the slaves of Virginia
and the Frenchmen of Louisiana. . . . The number of votes is
calculated on the whole population, thus Massachusetts which
contains many thousand more freemen than Virginia has fewer
votes for the election of President.

Enumeration of three fifths of the slave population for pur-
poses of representation in the House, as provided by the Con-
stitution, was a sore spot, indeed, for New England. Under the
1800 census, it gave the slave states a bonus of fifteen representa-
tives in the House, which was more than the size of the combined

656 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

delegates of Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire.
An effort by Massachusetts to repeal the slave representation by
means of a constitutional amendment failed in 1804 because it
was held to violate the compact which won acceptance of the
Constitution.

A timely curb to the spread of secessionist sentiment in New
England was the appearance in the Thirteenth Congress, at the
special session beginning in May 1813, of a young representative
from New Hampshire. The newcomer had a "dark complexion,
sunk and searching eye, prominent brow, voluminous head and
well-sized person." 10 Thus was Daniel Webster aptly described
by his fellow Congressman, Ingersoll, who entered the House at
the same time. Webster, who later removed to Massachusetts,
threw his great power into the cause of national soldarity, al-
though, in order to get the record straight, he did insist on an
investigation of the French assurances that the Berlin and Milan
decrees had been revoked.

In 1812, a year before his election to the House, Webster had
won acclaim although he was only thirty years old and still ob-
scure nationally. In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he had deliv-
ered a Fourth of July address so stirring that the New York
Evening Post commented that Webster was "distinguished in the
state of New Hampshire for the superiority of his talents," and
reprinted the text, part of which read:

With respect to the war in which we are now involved, the
course which our principles require us to pursue cannot be doubt-
ful. It is now the law of the land, and as such we are bound to
regard it. Resistance and insurrection form no parts of our creed
The disciples of Washington are neither tyrants in power nor
rebels out. If we are taxed to carry on this war, we shall disregard
certain distinguished examples, and shall pay. If our personal
services are required, we shall yield them to the precise extent of
our constitutional liability. 11

Webster declared that there was no abrogation of the duty of
opposition against any "pernicious measures," but asserted that
the best remedy available was exercise of the constitutional right
of suffrage. He was a leading factor in restraining New Hamp-

The Hartford Convention 657

shire from any official connection with the Hartford Convention.
The Thirteenth Congress, in which Webster first served, was
notable in that New York sent the largest number of House
members; whereas Virginia had led in earlier Congresses. Penn-
sylvania also passed Virginia. The respective delegations were
New York, twenty-seven; Pennsylvania, twenty-three; Virginia,
twenty-two. Madison and the cause of national solidarity greatly
benefited by the character of the minority Senate leadership,
which was held by the Federalist Rufus King, of New York, a
man of long and distinguished public service. His opposition
leadership was tempered by a respect for Madison. It was free of
the personal abuse employed by many other Congressmen and
by the press. 12 His standing made it clear that New York Federal-
ists would touch no secessionist projects.

Although the separatists talked of principles, it was a money
matter that brought the question of disunion to a head and pro-
voked the Hartford Convention.

The money problem was: which government state or na-
tionalshould pay for freeing the coast of Maine, then a part of
Massachusetts, from British invasion.

New England, spared in the early stages of the war, came un-
der more spirited British naval attack in 1814. On July 5, 1814,
Sir Thomas Hardy captured Eastport, Maine, established British
rule and went through the procedure of annexing the area of
Passamaquoddy Bay to the British crown. Seven days were al-
lowed for the residents to pledge allegiance and a majority of
them took the oath to Great Britain. 13 If they did not comply
they were to be transported as prisoners to Halifax. Hardy set
up a British customhouse, strengthened the fortifications and ex-
tended British jurisdiction, which continued until the treaty of
peace. The inhabitants were in no position to oppose the 800 men
he left to hold the region in subjugation.

Hardy went on to a whimsical bombardment of Stonington,
Connecticut, but on August 26, 1814, the British conquest of
Maine was resumed. Lieutenant General Sir John Coape Sher-

658 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

brooke, governor of Nova Scotia, and Major General Gerard
Gosselin came down with nearly 4,000 troops and a fleet of
twenty-four ships, entered Penobscot Bay, took possession of
Castine and sent troops against Belfast and Hampden. At Hamp-
den the sailors of the corvette John Adtms, a twenty-four which
was being repaired and had her guns on shore, set her on fire to
prevent her from falling to the British. Bangor and Machias were
captured. Thus the Maine coast from the Penobscot Bay to Passa-
maquoddy Bay passed under British rule and was formally an-
nexed by a proclamation issued by Sherbrooke. The pretext for
the original annexation, that the Passamaquoddy area had not been
ceded by Great Britain in 1783, could not have applied to the
region of the Penobscot.

What the British had in mind was made clear in the London
Times*-* in a summation of the results of the American blockade:

The coasting trade of the United States suffers exceedingly
from the activity of British cruisers; to copy the Boston marine
list of captures would exceed the limits of this paper. British
operations are not confined to the sea; our sailors and marines
now and then make dashes on shore, to the great annoyance of
the coast, and have lately made themselves masters of the impor-
tant military position of Eastport in the bay of Passamaquoddy.

This place can at small expense be fortified so as to bid defi-
ance to the enemy, if defended by 5 or 600 men, and may be
converted Into an extensive mercantile spot.

When a sufficient number of troops arrive on the coast it is
probable that a part of them will occupy that portion of the
district of Maine between Penobscot and St. John's Rivers; a
tract of country double the extent of the surveyed part of the
district of Three Rivers. This, too, like the western territory,
was shamefully ceded to the United States in 1783, as a present
that was never looked for; but which it is hoped will be attended
to in the next treaty of peace. The district we speak of Is the
most valuable in the United States for fishing establishments; and
has a coast of 60 leagues abounding in excellent harbors, from
whence much lumber is sent to Europe and the West Indies.

Some of the Cape Cod towns were placed under contribution
by British ships and chose to pay cash rather than face destruc-
tion. Governor Strong called the Massachusetts legislature to

The Hartford Convention 659

meet in extra session on October 5, 1814. In his address he
pointed out that under the Constitution the federal government
was supposed to provide defense; that they had resigned to that
Government the revenues of the state with the expectation that
this object would not be neglected; that the government had
declared war on the most powerful maritime nation in the world,
and that the state was not being defended. 15

Strong failed to remember that when Madison wanted militia
in 1812, he was the principal obstacle. Neither Massachusetts nor
Connecticut responded to the militia call. Strong, a veteran of the
Revolutionary War, had seen the militia of Virginia, Pennsylvania
and other states at Cambridge in 1775. He nevertheless referred
Madison's request to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. That
tribunal, although presided over by learned and respected judges,
held that the governor had the right to decide whether a call for
militia was constitutional and that the militia could not be com-
manded by other than its own officers, who were state appointees.

In Connecticut, Governor Roger Griswold, who had partici-
pated with Pickering in the Essex Junto, paid no attention to
Madison's militia request because he regarded it as unconstitu-
tional. His position was that under the Constitution there are but
three purposes for which the militia may be called: to repel inva-
sion, to put down insurrection, or to execute the laws of the
United States. He concluded there was no invasion, no insurrec-
tion, and no defiance of the laws of the United States. Griswold
called the council of state which supported his views, and then
the legislature, which concurred. The legislature added that the
obligations of the governor were as real as those of the President.
Rhode Island took the position of Massachusetts and Connecti-
cut.

Governor Strong now found the militia urgently needed. Brit-
ish soldiers were patrolling the Maine coast and threatening
Portland, Boston, Salem and all coastal points. The legislature
provided for 10,000 volunteers and authorized a loan of $1,000,-
ooo, yet the governor still had no intention of turning the troops
over to the federal government. He retained state officers, then
asked the War Department whether it would defray the costs.

660 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Monroe was now in control of the War Department and was
putting vigorous new policies into effect. He had no sympathy
with those who might quibble over helping the central govern-
ment in such a war, the outcome of which was still very doubtful.
His flaming republicanism and his memory of the ardor of the
soldiers of revolutionary France put him out of patience with an
Army system that produced insubordination and poltroonery
among the troops. He intended to give effective executive super-
vision and expected a responsive Army in return. His answer to
Governor Strong was "No."

Monroe's first need was to get soldiers. The volunteer militia
system was not producing them, so he proposed a draft. This
would force a showdown on the question of who was supporting
the war.

Madison had left many matters of local defense to the gover-
nors of the states involved, as, in Ohio, to Governor Meigs;
Virginia, to Governor Barbour; and in Tennessee to Governor
Blount In the southern New England states, however, all mili-
tary measures were retained under the direct authority of Wash-
ington. This was a reasonable course, for if the states would not
turn over the militia units to the federal government, it was not
to be expected that the federal government would turn over
regular soldiers or the militia units of other states to the unco-
operative governors.

Monroe wrote a letter to Governor Strong in which he clearly
expressed his unwillingness to allocate money to Massachusetts
for its defense by the militia it withheld. The action angered
Massachusetts authorities. A joint committee of the legislature
studied the question and delivered a report implying that if the
state were not to be protected by the federal government, it
ought in right to employ for its own purposes the money it was
paying in federal taxesmoney which, the joint committee held,
the federal government felt disposed to expend for the protec-
tion of other states.

Secessionist sentiment persisted in Massachusetts, Connecticut
and Rhode Island into 1814 but apparently was not embraced by
anything like a majority of the people. The enthusiastic manner

The Hartford Convention 66 1

in which the American naval victories were celebrated in Boston
manifested the existence of a strong war party.

When, in an effort to promote discord, claims were circulated
that Commodore Perry, the hero of the war, was a Federalist,
the partisan gossips met with a stern and justifiable rebuke. Said
the Albany Register: "America shares the glory of his exploit
and let no time-serving or bigoted politician attempt to limit the
area of his country's fame to the narrow boundaries of a party."

Nantucket, which was a part of the Boston district represented
in Congress by Artemas Ward, son of the first commander of
the American Army in the Revolution, had announced "neutral-
ity" between the United States and Great Britain. When the
blockade cut off her supplies with the mainland, her selectmen,
rendered desperate, bargained off her American allegiance to
Admiral Cochrane for a boatload of food and clothing. Some
wanted and many others expected this "neutrality" to be ex-
tended to all of Massachusetts.

Over sharp minority protests in both houses, the Massachusetts
legislature asked that a convention of New England states be
called to discuss "public grievances and concerns" and suggest
constitutional amendments, notably to obtain a "basis of fair rep-
resentation." While the vote in the House seemed sweeping 260
ayes to ninety nays only about half of the members was pres-
ent. 16 The minority of ninety, affronted when the House refused
to receive their report, walked out before the matter ended. This
report suggested that other states would detect and resent in the
legislature's motion an attitude that "Massachusetts shall govern
the administration or the government shall not be administered
in Massachusetts." 17 The legislature, brushing opposition aside,
went on to appoint twelve delegates to represent Massachusetts.
Governor Strong invited the other New England states. Con-
necticut accepted immediately and, by official legislative action,
named eight delegates. But it instructed them to do nothing in-
consistent with the state's obligations to the federal union. Rhode
Island also told her four delegates to remain consistent with the

662 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

state's obligations. Vermont by unanimous legislative vote de-
clined the invitation, and New Hampshire did not reply.

Madison was no dupe. As the date for the convention, Decem-
ber 15, 1814, approached, he had Monroe drop a regiment into
Hartford for recruiting duty. It happened to be Lieutenant
Colonel Thomas Sidney Jesup's 2jth Infantry, one of the best
regiments in the service, which had cut through the British at
Chippewa and flanked Drummond at Lundy's Lane. 18

The delegates, who included some of the most estimable men
in New England, devoted the first day to organizing. George
Cabot was elected president. He was sixty-five years old and a
man who would have dignified any cause other than a quarrel
with the central government in wartime. He had been to Har-
vard and he had been to sea. He had commanded a trading vessel
in foreign ports before attaining his majority. He had gone up
from common tar to be the first Secretary of the Navy when
John Adams established the Department. His eloquence had
made him an outstanding senator. No one had been more influen-
tial in winning ratification by Massachusetts of the Federal Con-
stitution. He was a student of political economy and current
affairs. But the Boston malcontents could have written off the
convention as a failure the moment he took the chair. He was
a delayer. He would never believe the time was ripe for drastic
action.

Theodore Dwight, the editor who had enlivened the columns
of the Connecticut Mirror with spicy jabs at the Republicans,
and later established the Daily Advertiser in New York, was a
well-qualified member of the club of young poets and authors
known as the "Hartford Wits." With his trenchant pen he could
dig under the skin of any Jeff ersonian. Nineteen years after the
event he wrote his History of the Hartford Convention. Along
with the revelations of Harrison Gray Otis, his was the principal
effort to set the record straight and show that secession was the
last thing anyone had thought of. 19

Otis was the ablest individual present. Had he not been there,
he might, on the basis of talents, have reached any office in the
land. John Quincy Adams wrote of him:

The Hartford Convention 663

In the course of 30 years that I have known him, It has not
fallen my lot to meet a man more skilled in the useful art of
entertaining friends. His graceful deportment, his sportive wit,
his quick intelligence, his eloquent fluency, always made a strong
impression upon my mind, while his warm domestic affection,
his active friendship and his generosity always commanded my

esteem. 20

Adams later engaged Otis in a heated pamphlet battle over the
Hartford Convention. Otis became the public defender of the
unpopular meeting, although his defense cost him his national
prestige. He had opposed such a meeting until late 1814. Then,
as he explained it, the meeting was needed for defense, for molli-
fication of an enraged section and for prevention of excesses dur-
ing a period of public excitement.

Another representative from Massachusetts was Nathan Dane,
"Father of the Northwest Territory," who had inserted the anti-
slavery clause into the Ordinance of 1787. William Prescott, son
of the Massachusetts colonel who commanded at Bunker Hill,
and father of the historian, also attended for the Bay State. In
addition, Massachusetts sent Congressman Stephen Longfellow,
Jr., father of the poet, of Portland, Maine; Joshua Thomas, dis-
tinguished judge, of Plymouth; Timothy Bigelow, lawyer and
former speaker of the Massachusetts House; and Hodijah Baylies,
veteran of the Revolutionary Army. Samuel Ward of Rhode
Island, who had marched with Arnold on Quebec In 1775,
Nathaniel Smith and Roger Minot Sherman of Connecticut, and
numerous others were respected in their states. As the meeting
opened, two men sent by Graf ton and Cheshire counties in New
Hampshire were at the door. They were lawyers Benjamin West
and Mills Olcott, who were seated but could not be regarded
official state delegates. Olcott was the son of the chief justice of
New Hampshire. Later, William Hall, Jr., of Vermont, was
seated. He had been selected by a convention in his home
county. 21

The moderates were in control and laid out agenda dealing
with broad public questions. They did not consider how ridicu-
lous it was to propose constitutional amendments during a war
in which Perry sloshed across bloody decks to keep the flag

664 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

flying and Andrew Jackson was filling his empty stomach with
acorns on the march. The public had to wait nine years to read
the journal of the meetings. Among the main agenda points were
discussion of the failure of the federal government to pay the
militia of certain states; the question of who should determine if
the militia could be properly called; the matter of the draft; the
advisability of spending money on offensive operations in near-
by enemy provinces; the failure of the central government to
provide for defense and the means by which the states might sup-
ply it. Otis drafted the report, which was the only official infor-
mation the public had about the meeting. It was adopted and the
convention adjourned January 5, 1815, subject to call at the dis-
cretion of its president.

The public did not approve the secrecy of the meeting, abun-
dant as were the precedents for it. The Continental Congress had
met in secret. That was understandable in a revolutionary move-
ment, in which punitive measures might be taken against the
leaders. The meetings of the Constitutional Convention were
held behind closed doors. Congress debated the War of 1812 in
executive session. Some members wanted the Congressional se-
crecy continued, but on executive sessions the National Intelli-
gencer commented: 'They are valueless, and experience has
convinced the nation that Congress has never kept a secret one
week." Not so with the Hartford Convention its members did
not talk. Perhaps because of their secrecy, what they did was
thought to be much more treasonable than was indicated by the
mild report.

The language of the report made a wide saddle that would
accommodate any rider. At first glance it is a declaration against
a disruption of the Constitution, or consideration of such a step
in wartime. Yet it justified a severance by any state in case of
"absolute necessity," and many in New England thought they
were up against just such necessity. This paragraph, the heart of
the declaration, said:

Finally, if the Union be destined to dissolution by reason of
the multiplied abuses of bad administration, it should if possible
be the work of peaceful times and deliberate consent. Some new

The Hartford Convention 665

form of confederacy should be substituted among those states
which shall intend to maintain a federal relation to each other;
but a ^everance from the Union by one or more states, against
the will of the rest, and especially in a time of war, can be justi-
fied only by absolute necessity. These are among the principal
objections [to] precipitate measures tending to dissolve the states,
and, when examined in connection with the farewell address of
the Father of his Country, they must, it is believed, be deemed
conclusive." 22

The seven amendments suggested for the Constitution were
for these changes:

1. Representation and direct taxes should be apportioned on
the basis of the number of free persons. Thus, three fifths of the
slaves would not be included in the enumeration by which repre-
sentation from the slave states was calculated. Therefore the
number of Southerners in the House would be reduced.

2. A two-thirds vote of both Houses would be required for
the admittance of new states.

3. No embargo by Congress would extend more than sixty
days.

4. Two thirds of both Houses must consent to any interdic-
tion of commerce with a foreign country.

5. Except in case of invasion, two thirds of both Houses
would be required to declare war.

6. Only native-born citizens excluding those already natural-
izedwould be permitted to serve in Congress, or to hold civil
office.

7. No President could be elected for more than one term and
no state could have two Presidents in succession.

There was nothing subversive in such ideas. An outstanding
grievance of New England was the train of Presidents from
Virginia. Virginia had held the Presidency twenty-two of the
twenty-six years of the republic and Madison had two years yet
to serve. Anyone in late 1814 could discern that Monroe was in
the best position to succeed Madison.

Among recommendations made to the states was one advising
that they ask Congress to allow the states to set up their own de-
fenses and use a portion of the federal taxes to cover the costs.
The convention favored state armies, even after the lessons
gained from the militia system during the war. It wanted a de-

666 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

centralized Army, such as never won a battle. Another provision
was that if matters of defense could not be worked out with the
federal government, another convention should be held in Boston
the following June.

A people busy celebrating victories by Brown, Scott and Mac-
donough and eagerly awaiting word from Jackson at New Or-
leans was not much concerned about academic suggestions ema-
nating from disgruntled Federalists at Hartford. Massachusetts
appointed three representatives and Connecticut two, for deliv-
ery of the complaints and recommendations to Washington.
These men called themselves "ambassadors." But before they
reached the Potomac the whole matter had become grotesque.
En route they were suddenly confronted by a merry nation on
an emotional frolic unparalleled in its twenty-six years of na-
tional life. Intelligence had come from Andrew Jackson at New
Orleans. When they arrived in Washington they learned that the
war was over.

Peace had been signed at Ghent. The capital was busy. Com-
merce was reviving. New England itself was driving ahead with
its great, new manufacturing opportunity, which soon enriched
it beyond its most fantastic dreams. The West was open and the
vast tide of migration was setting in. No one paid any attention
to the "ambassadors" from New England 23 none except cha-
grined Timothy Pickering, who went through the motion of
submitting the recommendations to the House, which referred
them to a committee, where they remain.

Thirty-six

Peace That Lasted

On December 24, 1814, representatives of the United States
and Great Britain signed at Ghent what Henry Clay, one of the
American commissioners, called "a damned bad treaty." Yet no
treaty in history ever led to a better peace.

One by one the sore spots in the controversy between the two
nations were passed over, and the stubborn and unyielding adher-
ence to positions, which diplomats call a sine qua non, was laid
aside. In the end, the nations simply agreed to stop fighting and to
resume their old situations. Apart from minor frictions and mis-
understandings and occasional insulting remarks usually ex-
changed to relieve home tensions, harmony, strengthened often
into deep friendship and sympathy, has since prevailed.

Negotiations at Ghent were protracted. An even longer period
was wasted by American commissioners waiting in Europe for
the British ministry to make up its mind about whether it was
ready to negotiate. The good judgment of Wellington broke the
deadlock and opened the way for an understanding.

Emperor Alexander of Russia had offered in early 1813 to
mediate between the United States and Great Britain. Madison
accepted and named Secretary of the Treasury Albert GaUatin
and James Asheton Bayard to go to St. Petersburg and join John
Quincy Adams, the American minister there, as American com-
missioners. Bayard was a prodigy who had been graduated from
Princeton at the age of seventeen, had become an eminent lawyer
in Wilmington, Delaware, and had already, at the age of forty-
five, served three terms in the House and one full and one partial
term in the Senate. A Federalist who had opposed the war before
it was declared, he supported it fully once hostilities began.

667

668 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Great Britain declined to enter the negotiations through the
agency of a third power, and the matter was shunted aside while
most of Europe was intensifying its efforts against Napoleon.
Meanwhile the Americans knocked about Europe, stopped at
Amsterdam and went on to London. In London, Gallatin wit-
nessed the great celebration attending Napoleon's downfall, saw
preparation being made to subjugate America and wrote Madi-
son warnings of what might be expected. The Prince Regent
had suggested that negotiations might be opened in London or
Gothenburg, yet it was manifest to Gallatin and Bayard that the
British wanted to make a more determined trial of arms in North
America before talking peace.

Meanwhile Madison, acting on the Prince Regent's word trans-
mitted through Russia, sent to the Senate nominations of a new
peace commission. He retained the three members of the first
commission and added Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell. 1

Russell had served as charge d'affaires at London and Paris.
Madison had just appointed him minister to Sweden. He and
Clay sailed on the sloop of war John Adams and landed at Goth-
enburg. 2 Castlereagh, the British foreign minister, continued to
dally while awaiting word about how the British campaign was
progressing in America. It was not until August 6 that the two
peace commissions met at Ghent, which the British had substi-
tuted for Gothenburg. The British commission was headed by
Lord Gambier, who had come to hold an unenviable place in the
current affairs of that day. He had been the commander of the
Baltic fleet which bombarded Copenhagen in 1807 and forced
the small nation of Denmark to surrender her fleet. Even those
who regarded it a wise precaution conceded it was a ruthless act. 3

The sessions began at the Hotel des Pays-Bas on August 8,
1814. Adams and Gallatin had declined peremptorily to go to the
British legation to negotiate. It soon appeared there was no basis
for negotiation whatever. The Americans came to talk about
impressments, blockades and the rights of neutrals the explicit
issues involved. The British laid down demands for the crea-
tion of an Indian buffer state, the southern border of which would
run from Sandusky, Ohio, to Kaskaskia, Illinois; for absolute

Peace That Lasted 669

British control of the Great Lakes; for the cession of much of
Maine; for the dismantling of the American border forts, and for
other exactions equally humiliating. The American commission-
ers made ready to depart. But Adams did request that the Brit-
ish demands be written down. After studying them he toiled
through the night to write, with the aid of the others, a masterly
answer.

The British appeared to believe that Adams had the better of
the note battle. Both Castlereagh and Lord Bathurst stepped in
with new instructions and saved the negotiations from collapse.
Finally a point was reached where the British were contending
for the status uti possidetisthe state of possession at the conclu-
sion of fighting and the Americans, who had received from
Monroe permission to drop the impressment issue, 4 stood for the
status ante helium or the condition existing before the war.

The London Times in mid-October thought it necessary to
stiffen the cabinet against magnanimity:

The fancied conquerors of Canada will be mighty glad to
come on their knees and cry, poenitet. Miserere nostrum! but we
hope their hypocritical lamentations will not be considered by
our Ministers as a reason for excusing them from one iota of the
amends they ought to pay. Low and humble, and penitent as the
scoundrels now appear for their offenses, they will shortly re-
venge themselves, by a double portion of audacity and insolence.

When news came from America, the ministry was confronted,
not with British triumphs, but with repulses at Plattsburg, Balti-
more and on the Niagara border. The British public was sick of
war. The universal demand was for a reduction of taxes. The
warehouses were glutted with the manufactured articles that had
ordinarily been sold to the United States, and the plants were
idle. The cabinet faced the decision of making peace or of send-
ing many more troops to Canada, at a cost of at least ten million
pounds. That would mean continued high taxes. England had
memories of the long-drawn Revolutionary War that bled her for
eight years. There would be hazard in sending a large army so
far from home when the state of Europe was still unsettled.

The cabinet at last turned to Wellington and asked him to take

670 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

command in Canada. His surprising answer was that, although
he would obey orders, he would not expect to succeed in Can-
ada. The need was control of the lakes, not more soldiers or an-
other general He gave the opinion that the state of war in North
America did not justify an insistence by the British commission-
ers on any cession of territory by the United States.

Wellington's opinion at the moment was the controlling factor
in British foreign affairs. The great man had spoken and the
cabinet promptly adopted his view. The British asked the Ameri-
cans to prepare the draft of a treaty. The one remaining loose
point was a clash of interests among the American commissioners
themselves. The Treaty of 1783 gave the British the right to free
navigation of the Mississippi. It was signed at a time when the
Mississippi River was supposed to rise in Canada and the Canadi-
ans were therefore allowed its free use. Clay was resolutely op-
posed to any recognition of that right.

On the other hand, Adams had no intention of sacrificing the
compensating right which the Americans gained to the fisheries
off Labrador and Newfoundland. This was important to New
England. His father, John Adams, had secured the right in the
Treaty of 1783 and he would not see it abandoned. Gallatin
acted as mediator and eventually persuaded Clay to consent to
the continuation of the debated provision. In the end, the com-
missioners of the two countries agreed there should be no mention
of either of these old privileges. If anything ever came up about
them, it would have to be handled later.

When news that the treaty had been signed reached the
United States the public appeared to be little concerned about its
contents. It brought peace and it involved no humility that was
sufficient. There was wild celebration. Madison finally smiled. It
was the first smile seen on his countenance since Ross and Cock-
bum had burned the Capitol. 5

The hairline question of who won the war has perplexed writ-
ers ever since the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, and over that
question historians of the two sides have battled lengthily and
almost as savagely as the armies. The treaty represented a draw,
and perhaps neither side could rejoice in victory. But beyond

Peace That Lasted 671

doubt, if the newspaper reaction may be used as a gauge, the
greater satisfaction with the peace was felt by the Americans.
Contrasted with the American rejoicing was the dour com-
ment in the London Times, 6 which published an "Advertise-
ment Extraordinary" sarcastically alleged to come from the Public
Printer, that said:

WANTED The spirit that animated the conduct of

Elizabeth, Oliver and William.
LOST All idea of national Dignity and Honour.
FOUND That any insignificant State may insult that which
used to call herself Mistress of the Waves.

Again the London Times found little cause for pride in the
achievement of British arms in North America. "The war to
speak tenderly of it has not been a very glorious one," it said.

In the discussion of the approach of peace, the British, who
had been extending financial aid to Continental governments
with a lavish hand, showed concern about the reaction of Europe
to the terms. The Times quoted the Prince Regent about a week
after the treaty had been signed:

If any of the powers who have received our subsidies or have
been rescued from destruction by our courage and example, have
had the baseness to turn against us, it is morally certain that the
Treaty of Ghent will confirm them in their resolution. They
will reflect that we have attempted to force our principles on
Americans and have failed. Nay, that we have retired from com-
bat with the stripes yet bleeding on pur backs. . . . To make
peace at such a moment, they will think, betrays a deadness to
the feelings of honour and shows a humility of disposition invit-
ing further insult. . . .

The inevitable consequences are ... the speedy growth of
an American navy and the recurrence of a new and much more
formidable American war. . . . Better is it that we should grap-
ple with a young lion when he is first fleshed with the taste of our
flock than await until in the maturity of his strength he bears
away at once both sheep and shepherd. 7

The stated causes of the war grew out of the conflict between
Great Britain and Napoleon. When that conflict ended the
causes no longer existed, and the treaty did not deal with them.
The Federalists, in their dying struggles as a party, scoffed at the

672 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

terms. Yet to the average citizen there was no point in negotiat-
ing a treaty providing guarantees against matters that had ceased
to exist^The things the treaty did not contain caused no deep
public concern. It was unnecessary to prohibit impressments
when there were no impressments. The Indians in the West and
South were subdued, and the areas that had agitated the war were
free from the menace of the tomahawk and therefore satisfied.
Madison shared the public's attitude, and when he finally trans-
mitted the text of the treaty to Congress he termed the pact
"highly honorable to the nation." He said:

The late war, although reluctantly declared by Congress, had
become a necessary resort to assert the rights and independence
of the nation. It has been waged with a success which is the
natural result of the wisdom of the legislative councils, of the
patriotism of the people, of the public spirit of the militia, and of
the valor of the military and naval forces of the country. Peace,
at all times a blessing, is peculiarly welcome, therefore, at a
period when the causes for the war have ceased to operate, when
the Government has demonstrated the efficiency of its powers of
defense, and when the nation can review its conduct without re-
gret and without reproach. 8

The Treaty of Ghent was successful, and the question of how
successful and enduring a peace can be is one that has entered
infrequently into more modern treaty making. The treaty after
the War of 1812 left no Alsace-Lorraine, no Danzig Corridor, no
divided Korea. It was essentially the same kind of termination of
a war as that between Grant and Lee, where the officers retained
their side arms and the men took their cavalry mounts home for
the spring plowing a settlement like that Lincoln sought, free
from a spirit of vengeance. The Treaty of Ghent demonstrated
that after a bitter, vengeful, brutal war, a just and abiding peace
is achievable. In that respect, the little, scoffed-at treaty was a
major document in the history of international aff airs. 9

But across the water, where no one yet knew the war was
over, on the same day the treaty was signed December 24, 1814
Andrew Jackson was just beginning the construction of his
trenches along the old Rodriquez Canal and Sir Edward Paken-
ham was hurrying to join his men for the attack on New Orleans.

Thirty -seven

The Battle of New Orleans

i.

Into the city of New Orleans, which had known ornately
garbed grandees of Castile and lace and silk-bedecked governors
and generals of the later French courts, rode, on the morning of
December 2, 1814, an individual whom almost everyone in the
city was awaiting.

He was a gaunt man in dusty, worn, almost shabby garments.
His appearance conveyed the impression of emaciation and ill
health. His clothing seemed almost threadbare to a cosmopoli-
tan city long acquainted with elegance. His short, blue, Spanish
coat was frayed. His high cavalry boots had rarely encountered
polish. His little leather cap, without plume or ornament, had
neither style nor military significance. At the house where he
stopped, in the outskirts of the city, a Creole woman who had
come in to assist with the meal, stormed at the host:

"You asked me to get your house in order to receive a great
general. Now I find all my labor is thrown away on an ugly, old
Kaintuck flatboatman." x

Yet, after the first glance, few New Orleans residents ever
noticed what kind of a garb Andrew Jackson happened to be
wearing.

His flashing gray eyes shone from beneath a great shock of gray-
ing hair. The intense vitality that radiated from his thin body and
hawklike face seemed to surcharge those around him with his
own energy and enthusiasm. Everything about him was alive and
dynamic.

For the next thirty-seven days he was to become the impelling
force in what had been a leisurely city, set on a patch of firm

673

674 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

ground amid the swamps and bayous of the mighty river that
swept by it majestically to the sea.

Never did a newcomer have a more cordial welcome than
Jackson, although New Orleans was then, as it ever since has
been, noted for its warmth and hospitality to strangers. Jackson
was sorely needed. Despite speeches by Livingston, meetings of
the legislature, sincere efforts of the governor, and calls for vol-
unteers that had gone from Washington to the other states, the
nature of the New Orleans defenses was an open invitation for a
descent by any active British force, whether it approached by
land, lake or river.

Alexander Walker, one of the early biographers of Jackson,
was acquainted with the New Orleans of a century ago; he knew
and talked with many of the participants of the campaign against
the British. Walker described the depressed state of the city
before Jackson's arrival:

Indeed, never was a city so defenseless, so exposed, so weak, so
prostrate, as New Orleans in the fall of 1814. There was not
sufficient time to obtain aid from the West. There was no naval
force in the port or adjacent waters; not a regiment of armed
men in the city. The resources of the whole state were scarcely
adequate to the production and organization of two militia regi-
ments. The population of the city was a new and mixed one,
composed of people of all nations and races, who had been too
recently admitted into the Union to feel that strong attachment
to the government and flag, which characterizes an old and ho-
mogeneous community. Besides, there was a vast amount of
valuable property, merchandise and produce accumulated in the
storehouses, which would be in danger of destruction in case of
an attempt to repel an invader. To save this property would be a
strong inducement to a surrender and capitulation of the city.
Few, indeed, were there who could look these perils and difficul-
ties in the face, and entertain the idea of a serious defense of the
city against any well-organized and well-conducted expedition. 2

So much calm assurance and firmness were reflected in Jack-
son's manner that his arrival with a small mounted escort lifted
the city as much as a trained division. Back and forth among the
people passed the words "J ac kson h as come! " 3 Where there had
been conversation and inertia, Jackson brought action. The mill-

The Battle of New Orleans 675

tia companies had been depleted. Quickly he had them drilling
with filled ranks: the Carabiniers d'Orleans, the Hulans, the Foot
Dragoons, the Francs, the Louisiana Blues, and the Chasseurs.
Together they formed a battalion of 385 men under the Creole
major, Jean B. Plauche.

Jackson summoned all of the engineers of the city and region
to bring together every scrap of information they possessed
about the topography of the territory. From this intelligence he
studied, in turn, each approach which might be exploited by an
invading army. Numerous bayous, originating near the Missis-
sippi, wound their ways into the surrounding lakes and provided
approaches by water. Jackson had Governor Claiborne assemble
details of citizens to fell timber and fill the mouths of some of the
more important bayous with trees and earth. He inspected the
forts. He strengthened Fort St. Philip, which guarded the city
from any approach up the river from the Gulf, and gave it the
men and equipment needed to repel any squadron that might
breast the current of the Mississippi.

The work of making New Orleans more secure was carried
on with some expectation, but no certainty, of an attack. Ail
rumors were vague. No one in either New Orleans or Washing-
ton knew yet the nature of the powerful army Great Britain
was assembling for her compelling blow against the soft under-
belly of America. 4

2.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the ministry had been occu-
pied in bringing together at Plymouth an expeditionary force
under Major General John Keane. Now, in the serenity of a mel-
low English autumn, the troops were coming in.

One of Keane's regiments, the 93rd Highlanders, was, with its
colorful tartans and kilts and high caps of yellow and scarlet, a
show piece of the British service. These men were from the coun-
ties of Sutherland and Ross at the north of Scotland, where Ben
More rises beyond Loch Shin and the sun sinks across the Minch
into the Hebrides. They were tall men, recruited for uniform
height. Eleven years had elapsed since they had set foot on Scottish

676 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

soil for two they were on garrison duty in England and for nine
at the new colony they had cut out with their bayonets for Great
Britain at the far end of Africa.

In 1814, after the frenzy of effort of the Peninsular War sub-
sided, the War Office remembered them in their distant post and
ordered them to Plymouth. They paraded with new tartans and
thought of the nearness of the Highlands. One thousand men,
drilled meticulously during their long garrison duty, passed in
review before the Prince of Orange and his staff. They com-
posed perhaps the finest-appearing regiment in the British serv-
ice. Yet there was no view of Scotland for the 93rd. The
transports came into Plymouth harbor and their Colonel Dale,
proud of the showing they made as they briefly touched the
home island, took them on board. 5

At Plymouth the 93rd Highlanders were joined by the 95th
Rifles, units of artillery, sappers and rocket men, and a squadron
of cavalry, all of whom had served in the Peninsular War. The
command of the expedition went to Major General John Keane,
a young Irish soldier who had begun his Army career alongside
Robert Ross under Sir Ralph Abercromby in Egypt. He rose
from a subaltern in Egypt to the command of a brigade under
Wellington.

Keane's brigade on the Peninsula included the zyth, or En-
niskillen regiment, which won an outstanding record fighting
against Marshal Suchet. A story told about Keane indicates a
disposition quite different from that of General Ross. When
some of Suchet's soldiers tried to lure the Enniskillens into turn-
ing against the British because they were Irish, Keane organized
a ruse, enticed the Frenchmen forward to fraternize, then sud-
denly ordered the regiment to charge and bayonet the unsuspect-
ing Frenchmen. 6

When the convoy left Plymouth its destination was a closely
guarded secret, but there was no one who doubted that he was
sailing for America, where Keane would serve as second-in-com-
mand to Ross. Out of the harbor that had watched the departure
of Howard, Drake and Nelson, the fleet sailed on September 18,
1 8 14, to bring Louisiana under the British crown.

The Battle of New Orleans 677

The expedition against New Orleans, regarded a natural de-
velopment of the war, became an active project of the War
Office when Cochrane sent a report to Bathurst that 3,000 British
soldiers, aided by Indians and Spaniards, could mop up the entire
Gulf Coast from Mobile to New Orleans. 7 Cochrane was misled.
He judged the conduct of the American militia by the brief view
of their heels the British had got at Biadensburg. Bathurst eagerly
accepted the advice of an admiral of Cochrane's standing and
experience and sent orders to General Ross to proceed to Jamaica
and fit out an expedition against the American Gulf Coast

Bathurst's instructions to Ross, issued in August, gave him two
duties. The first was to gain control of the mouth of the Missis-
sippi River and bottle up the states using the river as their outlet
for commerce. The second was to take territory that Great Brit-
ain might claim under the uti possidetis (keep what you have)
principle at the peace conference.

It has so often been asserted that the Battle of New Orleans
was indecisive in American history because it was fought after
the treaty of peace had been signed-that the true conditions of
the battle should be recalled. When it occurred, the treaty had not
been endorsed by the British Parliament or monarch measures
required to render it eff ective-nor by the President and United
States Senate. It had no binding effect. Technically it was not
peace, but a suggestion of conditions for peace. In consideration
of Bathurst's orders to Ross, it is no vague conjecture to say that
on the outcome of the battle depended the future ownership of
the lower Mississippi Valley and, in turn, of Texas and the South-
west. The Battle of New Orleans was, indeed, one of the most
significant of American history. Madison made clear in his message
to the Senate, February 15, 1815, that the war had not yet ended
on that date. In this message, submitting the treaty signed at Ghent,
he stated that "the termination of hostilities depends upon the time
of the ratification of the treaty by both parties.'* 8

Ross was dead before Bathurst's orders reached America.
Keane consequently was left as the ranking Army officer of the
expedition. When intelligence of the death of Ross reached Lon-
don, the ministry in late October sent Major General Sir Edward

678 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Pakenham to command the expedition. 9 The rendezvous was
Negril Bay, Jamaica, where Keane's force of 4,400 men out of
Plymouth joined the 3,100 troops of the army Ross had com-
manded in the Chesapeake.

Pakenham, thirty-eight years old, was Wellington's brother-
in-law. During the Peninsular War he had served under the
Duke's immediate direction. He was a soldier of the finest sensi-
bilities and most chivalric disposition, admired by his Peninsular
War associates and credited with keen military insight. It has
been accepted that he was one of Wellington's ablest lieutenants,
and any effort to probe into the origin of his high military repu-
tation might seem superfluous. Yet it was formed almost entirely
during the brief period in which he led Sir Thomas Picton's
famous 3rd Division at the Battle of Salamanca, when Picton was
too ill to keep the saddle.

That battle was one in which Wellington, sparring with Mar-
mont, suddenly found the French Marshal with his left flank
exposed and a great gap in his center. Pakenham commanded the
British column that pierced the French army. He led the charge
that "beat forty thousand Frenchmen in forty minutes." Most of
his other service was staff duty under Wellington. Although he
was personally as brave as any general that ever wore the red
uniform, he had never commanded his own army. It is true that
Wellington did not recommend him for command of the troops
in America, and no valid charge of nepotism can be advanced.
Yet in this instance as in that of the Lake Champlain campaign, a
pertinent question was why the assignment did not go to Hill,
Beresford, Hope or Picton. Perhaps it was because the experi-
ment with Ross, who had not commanded independently, had
proved so successful that the cabinet believed the top British
generals would not be required. 10

Pakenham had been wounded at different times and his case
was so singular that it has been cited in medical works on gun-
shot wounds. When a major with the 23rd Light Dragoons in
1796, he led an attacking column on St. Lucia, in the West
Indies. He was severely wounded by a musket ball through the
neck. When the wound healed it drew his head to the side, caus-

The Battle of New Orleans 679

ing him to carry it in a slanting position. Ten years later he
commanded the yth Fusiliers in the attack on Martinique, where
he was again wounded in the neck. The second injury restored his
head to the original, erect position.

On November 26, 1814, Cochrane's squadron sailed from
Negril Bay for the American shore. His majestic fleet with white
sails spread was a magnificent sight on the blue Caribbean. The
sixty ships included some of the best-known names in the British
Navy: the Tonnant, bearing Cochrane's flag; the Royal Oak,
Bedford, Norge, Ramillies and Asia, all seventy-fours; the Sea-
horse, Dictator, Diomede, Gorgon, Annide, Hydra and a host of
other powerful ships; frigates, sloops and gunboats. It was an
armada that could almost flatten the waters with the concussion
of a thousand guns.

There were numerous transports, some of which held individ-
uals other than soldiers. These civilians marked the expedition as
one for the permanent occupation of land, not merely a foray
like that Ross had conducted against Washington. They included
a contingent of Civil officers sufficient to govern the province.
Britain appears to have forgotten some tea and stamp-act inci-
dents in Boston harbor two generations earlier. One of the first
officials she was sending to New Orleans had already been des-
ignated the collector of revenue. Appreciating the increasing
power of the press, the ministry sent also an editor with complete
printing press and font of type for the newspaper the British
would set up in New Orleans. A number of merchant vessels in
ballast sailed with the fleet to transport the valuable merchandise
with which the city's warehouses were understood to be loaded. 11

In addition to the army, a force of 1,500 marines and sailors
brought the total military strength of the contingent to 9,000
men.

The first vessels were off the Chandeleur Islands in heavy
weather on December 8, and by the tenth the entire fleet was
between Ship and Cat islands, at the entrance of Lake Borgne.
There they were under observation by two small American
gunboats of the flotilla commanded by Lieutenant Thomas ap
Catesby Jones, a name now more reminiscent of the Confederate

680 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

ironclad Merrimac, and its battle with the Monitor ', than of New
Orleans. 12 Before sighting these gunboats, the British, ignorant
of the warnings that had been sounded of their intentions, be-
lieved their expedition still to be a profound secret in the West-
ern World. They hoped they might reach New Orleans before
the city was aware of their approach. The Jones squadron, of
five gunboats, was principally for observation but served as the
first line of defense set up by Jackson and Commodore Patterson
to intercept the British. It told the British that New Orleans was
aware of their coming.

Cochrane had sufficient force to crush them unmercifully. He
organized an attack party of sixty barges, launches and gigs,
mounting carronades and long guns. With them he sent 1,000
marines and sailors commanded by Captain Charles Lockyer.
The American boats mounted twenty-three guns and the crews
aggregated 182 men. Jones had a vain notion he might lure the
British within range of coastal guns, but his boats were becalmed
and soon overtaken by the British oarsmen. He put up a gallant
fight. It required an hour's time to sink his little fleet. At the end
Jones was wounded and a prisoner. The British suffered 300
casualties and lost a number of barges; the American loss was
six killed and thirty-five wounded. The small naval engagement
took place on the morning of December 14, i8i4. 13

Lake Borgne, the front door to New Orleans, was now open
to the British fleet, which moved in by Pass Christian. When the
larger vessels began to ground, the men were put into lighter
draft ships and conveyed to Pea Island at the mouth of Pearl
River. There, Keane, who still commanded, organized and pa-
raded them for an advance on the city. Some of the Spanish
residents of Louisiana, sympathetic to the British who had just
cleared their home country of the French, made their way to
Cochrane's fleet to tell how he might approach close to the city
by boats. 14 The route was across Lake Borgne to its extreme
northwest shore, thence by the Bayou Bienvenu, which extends
to within a short distance of the Mississippi. The meanderings
of the numerous bayous in the region were such that whole

The Battle o-f New Orleans 68 1

armies might lose themselves in subtropical fens, and guidance
was needed.

Cochrane ordered a thorough reconnaissance of the route by
two of his junior officers. They passed fifty miles west of Pea
Island to the mouth of the bayou, which in earlier days had been
called the St. Francis River, and had been used as a shipping
route. In 1814 it was a hunting and fishing wilderness.

They traveled up the bayou, past a fishing village where they
put on blue shirts and tarpaulins customarily worn by the fisher-
men, and on through Villere's Canal to its head. From there they
walked to the banks of the Mississippi and satisfied their fancies
by drinking water from the great stream, nine miles below the
city of New Orleans. They talked with some slaves, learned and
observed all they could of the country, then returned by means
of the bayou to Cochrane's fleet. The route they had explored
could be employed for the stealthy advance of the army to a
position by which the city might be taken by surprise, or by a
coup de main such as was so successfully employed against
Washington.

Cochrane assembled the small boats, barges, tenders, the gun-
boats captured from Jones, and all of the shallow-draft craft he
could find or rent from fishermen. But the complete collection
was insufficient for the transport of more than one third of the
British army. Haste was of the gravest importance. Keane de-
cided to move what he could. Colonel William Thornton, who
had led the attack at Bladensburg, had a high reputation as an
assault officer, and an advance party of 1,800 men was placed
under his command and loaded in the small boats. On the morn-
ing of December 22 the first element of the British army was off
for the Mississippi, guided by sympathizers who lived in the
fishermen's village and served as British spies.

Keane and his staff accompanied the advance on its cold, rainy,
voyage across the ruffled lake. Pakenham had not yet arrived.
The men were crowded so closely they could not stretch and
soon they were stiff and drenched. Late in the day the rain ceased
and a chill wind blew from the north. Orders had to be issued

682 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

for a pause in which the men lighted charcoal pans and warmed
their nnmb hands. All night they rowed and at daylight they saw
the hazy outline of the Louisiana shore.

Groping along the coast, the guides found the mouth of the
desired bayou, twelve miles from New Orleans. The fishermen's
village, a quarter of a mile up the bayou, had been virtually
deserted by its inhabitants, who were renting boats to the British.
It had been occupied in their absence by an American picket of
eight men. Taken by surprise, these scouts hid in a house. Most
of them were picked up by the British and the others fled to the
canebrakes without being able to give the alarm. One of the
prisoners from the picket, named Joseph Rodolphe Ducros, a
magnificent fabricator, was taken down the bayou to a boat con-
taining Admiral Cochrane and General Keane. The British com-
manders learned little from him, but listened with interest to his
imaginative tale that New Orleans was defended by an army of
from twelve to fifteen thousand. This caused them to doubt the
earlier information obtained from the residents of the fisher-
men's village, who had told of a city meagerly defended, the
approaches of which were like an open gate.

The boats pressed up the bayou until they could make prog-
ress only by punting. When the craft grounded the soldiers
found a solid pathway along the bayou, on which they marched
single file, Thornton at the head, until they emerged from the
gloom of the cypress swamp and came suddenly into the level,
open ground and orange groves of the Villere plantation. At the
plantation house they surprised and arrested the two Villere
brothers, Gabriel and Celestin, put them in a room under guard.
At 10:30 o'clock on the morning of December 23, the British
were still undetected and within nine miles of the city. 15 Yet
their movement had been slowed by the misinformation given to
them by the wily Creole Ducros. Now, when they might have
marched into New Orleans before Jackson could organize an
effective resistance, when a large part of his expected army was
coming down the Mississippi on flatboats, or was patrolling the
difficult roads and water routes leading to New Orleans, they
halted.

The Battle of Ne<w Orleans 683

Imprisoned in a room of his plantation house, Major Gabriel
Villere was like a magician in a strait jacket. A Creole, he did not
want to lend credence to the stories that his people were unsym-
pathetic to the Americans. He had been in charge of the picket
that had been surprised at the fishermen's village and was humili-
ated by their failure and his own to signal the British advance.
With British soldiers all about him, he suddenly leaped through
the window and was off like a swamp fox across the flatlands and
into the fens. Bullets cut the air above his head, groups shouted
behind him, Thornton called for the soldiers to catch him or loll
him but by no means to let him go.

Villere reached the stands of cypress and was soon in the bogs,
yet the British dared to follow. He hid in the limbs of a great
live oak, where his forsaken setter found and almost exposed him,
He left the tree for a moment to beat out the poor dog's brains. 16
When all was safe, he circled, reached the Mississippi, obtained
a boat and rowed to the opposite shore. There he borrowed
horses and rode up the opposite bank. Keane watched from the
east side of the river as Villere sped off with the news that the
city was endangered. Opposite New Orleans he got another
boat, recrossed the river and rushed to Jackson's headquarters.
Another Creole, young Augustin Rousseau, was already in Jack-
son's room with intelligence from the fishermen's village. Villere
told his story. Jackson jumped to his feet and struck his fist on
the table.

"By the Eternal/' he exclaimed, "they shall not sleep on our
soil!"

A crowd of officers and leading citizens was in the house,
Jackson gave them information and orders: "Gentlemen, the
British are below. We must fight them tonight."

Not "Tomorrow"; not "When better ready"; not "How will
we retreat?" But "fight them now!" Coffee was still five miles
upstream, after marching 800 miles through the wilderness. 17
Carroll had landed from the flatboats a day earlier. Nothing had
been heard from the Kentuckians. Plauche with his New Orleans
militia and Lacoste with his free Negro battalion were watching
the approaches outside the city, miles away. Only the 44th In-

684 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

f antry was at hand, stationed at the city barracks. A signal gun
was fired. The Tennessee boys beat the drums that had rolled at
Talladega and the Horseshoe. The city shook itself. Messengers
sped in all directions. One hour after Villere had rushed into
Jackson's headquarters an army was on the march. Jackson
would not await the coming of the British. He would find them
and fight.

Behind Jackson moved troops in leather jerkins and homespun;
New Orleans militia units in resplendent dress uniforms, some
already with traditions of service; drilled soldiers in the blue of
the United States regulars; United States marines; bands of men
in flashy silk sashes of the buccaneer, a first sprinkling of the
"hellish banditti" of the coast. Whites, Negroes, mulattoes, fron-
tiersmen, Creoles, Frenchmen, Dominicans marched in a com-
mon cause. Probably it was the most heterogeneous army that ever
battled under the Stars and Stripes. But it was one of the best
made so, if for no other reason, by the fire that burned in one man's
breast. The British were not merely fighting American militia.
They were fighting Jackson. 18

3-

Keane, with the knowledge that his approach had been de-
tected by the Americans, decided to await reinforcements and
then move on to New Orleans under cover of darkness. He sent
a Negro into the city to distribute a proclamation printed in
advance on shipboard. It was addressed to "Louisianians" and
told them to remain quietly in their homes, that their slaves
would be preserved and their property protected. "We make
war only on Americans." At the northern edge of Villere's plan-
tation, eight miles from the city, Keane laid out a line and threw
out scouts. Already precious hours had been lost while Major
Villere was making his circuitous journey into New Orleans. By
a prompt movement Keane might have arrived at approximately
the same time and found Jackson with his forces scattered. Instead
the afternoon was frittered away in scouting, foraging and re-
flecting.

More boats had been assembled and 400 men joined Keane

The Battle of New Orleans 685

from the fleet, giving him an army of 2,300 men. He mounted his
three cannon at the Villeres' sugar works and made ready for
resistance as well as advance. He overruled Thornton, who
urged an immediate attack on New Orleans. He deployed two
regiments facing the city the 85th and 95th British foot and
one, the 4th, or King's Own, along the Villere Canal which
connected with the Bayou Bienvenu and thus maintained com-
munications with the fleet on Lake Borgne.

As darkness gathered, the quietness was unbroken. The flat-
lands about him appeared to be deserted, and the great river
rolled on without a sign of hostile craft. At this point the solid
ground between river and cypress swamp was a mile in breadth.
It made a strong position. That Keane was irresolute might be
seen from the fact that as night fell he made no preparation for
breaking his bivouac and heading toward the city.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon when Major Villere
reached Jackson. By three o'clock the American army was on
the march. At 4: 30 P.M. darkness ended one of the shortest days
of the year. A cold moon shone intermittently between the rac-
ing clouds. Deep night had settled over the country when at
7:30 P.M. the American schooner Carolina came abreast the Brit-
ish and fired at Keane's soldiers the shot that was the signal for
Jackson's attack.

Jackson had an army of 2,050. His left, under Coffee, had
orders to try to get between the British and the cypress swamp.
The right, which he commanded in person near the river, was
composed of the regular infantry, a detachment of marines and
Plauche's and D'Aquin's New Orleans brigades. Carroll was in
reserve, with his own and Louisiana troops, 19 Major Villere and
Colonel Denis de La Ronde, whose plantation was near Vil-
lere's, marched with Jackson and served as guides. Great fires
signaled the position of the British camp. The Americans struck
the British outposts and drove them in.

As soon as Keane heard the musketry he sent reinforcements
to his front line and quickly a violent fight was raging in the dark-
ness. Jackson had two fieldpieces which he advanced along the
levee at the riverbank. When they opened, the British made a

686 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

determined charge to capture them. Jackson rushed up to the
fighting, shouting, "Save the guns, boys, at any sacrifice!"

The regulars and New Orleans militia promptly charged the
British who were attacking the American artillery, and drove
them back to their original position. They might have gone far-
ther but their commander, Colonel George T. Ross, restrained
them in the darkness.

Meanwhile the fire of the Carolina enfiladed the British and
caused havoc in the camp. As the schooner dropped down the
river, the British regiment occupying the levee heard distinctly
the orders on board: "Now then, give it to them for the honor
of America!" A broadside of grape cleaned the levee of British
troops. Keane brought two cannon and his rocket tubes into play
and fired at the flashes of the Carolina's guns, but in the deep
darkness it was random shooting. The Carolina's gunners were
more fortunate, for they could aim at the campfires, until these
were scattered into dead embers.

Now, at the other end of the British line, the heavy fire of the
Tennessee rifles sounded. Coffee dismounted and launched his
attack with a volley, then charged the British, and for the next
two hours one of the strangest battles of the war raged from the
cypress swamp to the river, without further reference to either
army's lines. The moon appeared at sufficient intervals to give
the officers some control, yet it was chiefly hand-to-hand fight-
ing between groups and mobs, and the weapon which in the end
proved most effective was the long Tennessee hunting knife
which the British had not encountered in their progress with
Wellington through Estremadura and Leon.

Desperate, shouting, cursing men grappled one another in in-
dividual combat. One of Coffee's units, Beale's riflemen, worked
its way with the bayonet, long knife and rifle butt to the Villere
plantation house, immediately in the center of the British position,
and slashed and slugged at double their numbers. Confused in the
pitch-black night, some of them found themselves in the middle
of a British regiment, where they were forced to surrender.

The grave danger of such fighting was that the American
regiments, being the assailants, were very likely to attack one

The Battle of New Orleans 687

another. Coffee managed to press the British toward the river
and, despite a resolute counterattack by Thornton with the 85th
Regiment, he finally made them take cover behind the levee.
Toward eleven o'clock a heavy fog spread out from the river.
The moon went Into final retirement. Jackson believed he had
won a victory but considered it too dangerous to prolong the
bludgeoning and cutting. The last shots were fired by Louisiana
militia under General David Morgan who had heard the battle
from a distance and marched to the sound of the cannon.

The Americans suffered 2 1 3 casualties, the British 277. Among
the British wounded was Lieutenant Colonel de Lacy Evans who
had commanded the detail that burned the United States Capitol.

The Americans, leaving mounted scouts between themselves
and the British, moved back three miles to a line Jackson was
preparing between swamp and river. By firelight Jackson's men
cleaned their rifle barrels, wiped the blood from their knives and
made ready for more fighting. All knew this was no more than a
beginning.

On December 24 the armies faced each other. Off at Ghent,
the disappointed Clay, the contented Gallatin and the other
delegates were signing the peace treaty. From the Mississippi the
Carolina tossed shot into the British camp* On a dreary Christmas
a shot hit into a British mess. A soldier "was fairly cut in two at
the lower portion of the belly," according to Lieutenant Gleig.
Jackson ordered the levee cut below him, yet it proved more
advantageous to the British, for it filled the canals and gave them
easier water communication with Lake Borgne. General Morgan
was commanded to take a position opposite Jackson on the west
bank of the Mississippi, to guard against a crossing by the British.

4-

Important new elements were about to appear in both armies.
Coming by way of Lake Borgne and Bayou Bienvenu, Sir Ed-
ward Pakenham arrived to take command of the British force.
He was like a warming Gulf breeze blowing up the cold river.

Young, handsome, confident, Irish-born, he lifted the army
out of the gloom that had surrounded it ever since its surprise

688 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

approach was detected and it had been slugged and butchered in
an impetuous night attack. Pakenham looked over the regimental
lists and saw with satisfaction that all of the regiments except the
93rd, the "Praying Highlanders," and a regiment of West Indian
Negroes, had served under Wellington in Spain. The balance of
his army was coming up the bayou. What he did not yet under-
stand was that the approach to New Orleans selected by Coch-
rane and Keane, while it brought the army near to the city by
water, left that army in a pinched position on what amounted to
little more than an isthmus between river and swamp. Unless
the army crossed the river and moved up the shore opposite New
Orleans, or went back to the fleet and made some new approach,
there was one way, and one way only, by which it could reach
the city. That was directly up the riverbank, on the breast of the
isthmus a neck of land sunk below the level of the river. And
immediately in its path was Jackson's army.

The new element for Jackson was the approach of the Ken-
tuckians. The call for soldiers had been heard again across the
dark and bloody ground. Kentucky troops had been discharged
after the Battle of the Thames. But this stanch state had never
yet shunned the fighting. The division of 2,200 men was con?
manded by Major General John Thomas, who loaded it on Ohio
River flatboats and started on the long journey.

Ahead of Thomas went Brigadier General John Adair, who had
been Harrison's aide at the Thames. Adair had resigned from the
Senate because he had been tainted with the friendship and confi-
dence of Aaron Burr, but he had later been elected to the House
and was now remaking a career that would both return him almost
at will to Congress and give him the governorship of his state.
Association with Burr was no dishonor in Jackson's eyes. Adair's
arrival heartened him because it showed that some of the country
beyond Tennessee and Louisiana was interested in the fate of
New Orleans. When General Thomas sickened from his jour-
ney, Adair took command of the Kentucky troops. The last of
them joined Jackson on January 4, 1815.

Some of the Kentuckians came without arms. They left hur-

The Battle of New Orleans 689

riedly and thought that after the country had been more than
two years at war, equipment would be furnished. Those who
bore their own guns, the majority, were armed with rifles. 20

5-

Pakenham, after his initial reconnaissance, decided to strike.
His first task was to dispose of the Carolina. It was worse than
a hostile regiment on his flank. For two nights his men worked
silently on a battery on the riverbank and mounted new guns
brought up from the fleet. Day began to break at seven o'clock
on the morning of December 27 and with it the British opened
their bombardment of the American schooner. They fired nine
fieldpieces, two howitzers and a mortar, and threw shells and
red-hot shot into her. She replied for a time, then burst into
flames, exploded and sank.

Pakenham was now in a position to feel out Jackson's position.
The Americans had labored day and night on their defensive
line. 21 It ran from the river to the cypress swamp, along the old
Rodriquez Canal, now a dry ditch four feet deep. Immediately
behind it Jackson dug breast-high trenches. The line was as
straight as a rifle barrel and strong as a maple stock. Jackson,
according to his December 28 returns, had 3,282 men.

After darkness on December 27 Pakenham moved his army to
within 600 yards of the Americans. In the morning, as the thin
fog lifted, he approached in two columns. Major General Gibbs
commanded the right. His flank regiment of light infantry was
under one of the most dashing, determined officers in the army,
Colonel Robert Rennie. Rennie's orders were to reach the rear
of the Americans in and near the swamp. Keane led the left
column of the British, moving along the river. Pakenham and a
guard of dragoons took a position in the center of the plain.

Before the British could approach, Jackson ordered the farm-
houses in the front of his position destroyed so his field of fire
would be clear. The artillery blew them up.

While the British were forming to attack in front, the ap-
proach of an unidentified body of men was seen in Jackson's
immediate rear. Some apprehension passed along the American

6 9 o POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

line. Then, as the strangers neared the position, they were easily
identifiable by their distinctive dress. They wore red shirts and
sashes and had fierce mustaches. Some carried cutlasses and near-
ly all had the desperate appearance of "hellish banditti," scourges
of the coast. They were the Baratarians, released from jail, sent
out by Lafitte. They were under their two leaders, Beluche and
Dominique You. 22

Jackson gave them a position in the center of his line, with a
24-pounder to handle, about the servicing of which they were
indeed very well informed. The mouths of twenty cannon
looked out from Jackson's earthworks, none better manned than
that of the fraternity that had never operated before in America
except under the Cartagenian flag.

As the British columns advanced, the corvette Louisiana, Jack-
son's only remaining ship, took the flank position formerly occu-
pied by the Carolina and scattered grape and explosives across the
moving ranks. The American infantry began a galling fire. The
cannon behind the entrenchments spoke with the rapidity of
Navy guns.

It was clear to Pakenham that Keane's assault in column would
not be successful. He ordered the regiments deployed and told
the men to hit the ditches. Two British fieldpieces were abandoned
on the river road. On the other end of the line, Gibbs, seeing
Keane tarry, held back Rennie as he was getting into action against
Carroll. One of Carroll's detachments undertook to get behind
Rennie but went too far and was worsted. Its colonel, Henderson,
was killed.

Pakenham was disappointed over the results of what he termed
a reconnaissance in force. He ordered his army back to nurse
wounds inflicted chiefly by the American artillery, but he did
not retreat to the Villeres'. For three days his men lay out of
range in the open, facing Jackson's entrenchments. They were
waiting for the great naval guns to come across Lake Borgne
from the British fleet. Pakenham intended to blast Jackson out,
for by now he knew he could not dislodge the Americans by
parading his army on the plain.

Lying in the open without tents in late December was a rigor-

The Battle of New Orleans 691

ous test for Pakenham's men. The commissary service was not
set up for such a campaign and the food supply was irregular.
The cattle had already been cleaned from the neighborhood.
Dysentery broke out among the troops, who had nothing but
improvised latrines. For protection some made frail shelters of
reeds and cane.

As the British army thus bivouacked in the cold, a few hun-
dred yards from Jackson's line, waiting as the Navy guns came
up, the old year of 1814 slipped into history.

6.

The National Intelligencer published a letter from an officer at
New Orleans. It, in contrast with the brash letters written by
officers and men from the Niagara frontier in the early stages of
the conflict, reveals the circumspection and discipline that existed
in the American Army. It said merely:

On the ist of the present month [January] was the greatest
cannonading that has been known in America. I dare not write
much in detail about the army. That alone properly belongs to
General Jackson. 23

The cannonading of January i was unquestionably what this
officer stated: the greatest, to that time, in the country's history.

On New Year's Eve the British Navy completed its transport
and handed over to Pakenham twenty long i8-pounders and ten
24-pounders and sufficient ammunition for a bombardment of
six hours. Then the British army was divided; half was to main-
tain the line and the other half was to advance in the darkness to
within 400 yards of Jackson's position. In the utmost silence, to
guard against another night attack, they dug emplacements and
redoubts for the heavy ordnance. The work was conducted by
Pakenham's chief engineering officer, who bore a name remi-
niscent of an earlier invasion of America, Sir John Burgoyne. 24
Hogsheads of sugar were placed upright for some of the para-
pets. 25 Before daylight the work was completed. As the fog lifted
late on New Year's Day, the American army looked out on
thirty great guns distributed along their front. Behind the guns
were Navy gunners. The British army had withdrawn to about

692 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

200 yards behind the guns and stood ready to charge into the
first breach.

Pakenham had placed his guns at point-blank range and
opened with them simultaneously. New Year's festivities were in
progress along the American line. Visitors had come out from
the city. A parade was being held in their honor. The first roar,
with its sickening concussion, sent the visitors flying, and caused
the soldiers to hurry to their positions. British observers gained
the impression the Americans were frenzied with fright.

Jackson was at Macarte's plantation house, his headquarters
behind the center of his line, where from either the spacious
porch or a third-story window he could command the entire
field with his telescope. Rockets screamed and shells fell about
him. One hundred missiles hit the house in ten minutes. He felt
the front lines would be more comfortable and with his staff
walked forward. Stopping to inspect each battery, he moved
along the entire length of the line. Everywhere the men cheered
him. Rockets fell nearby.

"Don't mind these rockets," said Jackson. "They are mere
toys to amuse children." 2Q

Then the Americans opened. Down the line the guns roared
in reply: those of Humphrey; Dominique You; Spotts, from the
Louisiana; Norris; and Garriques Flaugeac, the old French vet-
eran of Italy and Egypt. On toward the swamp Carroll's artillery
support spoke. The British had the early advantage in the artil-
lery duel. The American fortifications were more easily hit and
few British shots went astray. They scored direct hits on some
of the American guns, You's, Crawley's, Garriques Flaugeac's.
They exploded two caissons of powder and set fire to fifty cot-
ton bales that had been thrown off a boat to form an embrasure
for a Navy gun. The burning cotton flew in the breeze and
threatened the powder kegs, and Plauche's men had to go over
the parapet to extinguish the bales. Because of the casualties
suffered Jackson ceased using cotton in his defenses at New
Orleans. 27

The Americans waited anxiously after wind puffs to see the
effect of their guns on the British demilunes. The hogshead bas-

The 'Battle of New Orleans 693

tions were splintered. Sugar was little better than cotton. After
an hour and a quarter the British fire slackened.

The American fire held and soon the British redoubts were
level with the plain. The infantrymen who had awaited the
breaches in the American lines again went into the ditches. Three
fourths of the British gunners were killed or wounded. Finally,
all of the British cannon were silenced. At noon the firing died
away. Pakenham's plan to blast out Jackson had failed complete-
ly. A feeling of dejection ran through the British Army, com-
posed of men who under Wellington had known only victory
and who in their six years of Spanish campaigning had encoun-
tered nothing like this bottled-up fighting on a low, barren plain
between swamp and river.

7-

Pakenham had a final recourse-a direct frontal assault on the
American lines. Possibly he was goaded by Cochrane's assertion
that he could drive out the American rabble with a thousand
sailors from the fleet. 28 Who was he to pit his opinion against that
of the white-haired admiral? Yet the assault plan he developed
was his own.

First, he would extend his lines in order to advance on both
sides of the river. To get boats to the Mississippi it was necessary
to dig out the old Villere Canal to form a connection between
the Bayou Bienvenu and the Mississippi. Then a wing of his army
would be carried to the west bank of the river, from which it
could command Jackson's entrenchments by an enfilade fire
across the river. As the British advance went up the west bank,
the main army would attack the entrenchments in its front on
the east bank.

The British soldiers toiled at the connecting canal eagerly, al-
though some thought ships might be put on rollers, as the big
guns had been, and hauled across from bayou to river. The dig-
ging required six days. On January 7, 1815, as the work was
completed, Pakenham's spirits were buoyed up by the arrival of
reinforcements under Major General John Lambert, who had
sailed from England with 2,500 additional Peninsular War vet-

694 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

erans. The matter which most heartened Pakenham was that the
fresh contingent included his old regiment, the yth Fusiliers,
which he had commanded at Martinique. The reinforcements
brought his army to 1 1,000 effectives.

Pakenham's plan was keyed to the movement up the west side
of the Mississippi, to command which he assigned Colonel Wil-
liam Thornton. Thornton would advance in the darkness and
rush the more weakly held works opposite Jackson. The sound
of Thornton's guns would be notice for the main attack on the
east side of the river. The assault would move out in two
columns. Major General Sir Samuel Gibbs was on the British
right with the 44th, 2 ist and 4th Regiments, the main part of the
army that had captured Washington. He would move against
the American left, on the swamp, when Pakenham flashed a
rocket through the early morning sky.

The tall, graceful, black-mustached Irishman, General John
Keane, would command the left of the British army on the east
bank, and would attack along the levee and up the river road. He
would move on the second rocket. The force assigned him con-
sisted of the 95th, elements of the yth and 43rd, the West Indian
corps, and the 93rd Highlanders, who would move in the center.
Most of the division of General Lambert, newly arrived, would
remain a reserve for the entire army.

Meanwhile Jackson ascertained that the British were digging
the canal and judged the plan would be to attack on both banks.
Yet he was never confused about where the main attack would
fall. He, too, had devoted the first seven days of the year to
preparations.

His army occupied a straight line of entrenchments which
lacked uniformity in height, but averaged five feet. The irregu-
larity in height suggested they had been thrown up chiefly by
townsmen rather than Army engineers. The line extended a mile
and a half from river into swamp. 29 At the river was Colonel Ross
with the yth Infantry and a corps of New Orleans riflemen. Next
to Ross was the New Orleans militia under the Creole, Major
Jean B. Plauche, who was born in the city he was defending and
representative of its culture and wealth. Left of Plauche were La-

5

696 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

coste's battalion of 280 men and D'Aquin's battalion of 150, both
composed of free men of color, many Dominicans who had
fought well with L'Ouverture. Then came 800 Kentuckians
under John Adair. They bore long rifles, with richly inlaid
stocks, which at 150 yards were of deadly accuracy. Beyond
Adair was Carroll with 1,000 Tennessee veterans. At the far left
of the line, extending into the swamp, was Coffee with 500 dis-
mounted men. Coffee's Tennesseans stood in the water and at
night slept on floating logs lashed together into crude rafts and
tied to the cypress trees. Coffee had fought Indians; he made cer-
tain that no human could pass the left flank.

Jackson's batteries were much as they had been during the
artillery duel on January i. Two guns manned by the marine
corps had been transferred to Carroll's line, and a new battery
had been set up at the river by naval personnel to take the place
of the corvette Louisiana, which was stripped of her guns.

As a general reserve in the rear of his army, Jackson had
merely one small unit of Mississippi dragoons. As a precaution,
he had prepared two other lines of defense, one at the edge of
the city.

On the opposite shore, General David Morgan had a nine-gun
battery of the Lousiantfs ordnance and three fieldpieces. The
Navy guns were placed by Commodore Patterson to sweep
the plain in front of Jackson and the east bank, and the ship itself
served as a powder magazine. Morgan had 800 militia. If criticism
could be directed at Jackson, it is that he gave little attention to
the west, or right, bank of the river; he was confident that any
British activity there would be a feint. Morgan's soldiers 500
Louisianians, to whom 300 Kentuckians were added at the last
minute were poorly armed and stood behind a simple mud
breastwork easy to breach. The artillery they could employ
against a direct assault consisted of the three fieldpieces, two 6-
pounders and one iz-pounder, with Navy gunners.

The intelligence which finally confirmed for Jackson his be-
lief that the British would concentrate their attack on his own
side of the river was the report of their night work as they again

The Battle of Ne<w Orleans 697

dug emplacements for their guns and reared the demilunes the
Americans had flattened on New Year's Day.

Jackson had 5,500 men in his army. On the east bank were
4,698. He had twenty-eight guns, sixteen on the east bank and
twelve on the west bank under General Morgan, including Com-
modore Patterson's naval guns. Jackson's east bank forces were in
two wings, the right being under the command of the Regular
Army colonel, George T. Ross, and the left under General Wil-
liam Carroll.

At the Macarte house Jackson slept in his threadbare uniform
on the night of January 7. His aides were scattered about him on
the floor, his army in the trenches held to their guns and Coffee's
frontiersmen rested on their crude log pallets. All knew the deci-
sive moment of the British invasion was at hand. It was one
o'clock in the morning of January 8 when a messenger came
from Commodore Patterson with a plea that Morgan would need
more men.

Jackson got out of bed. "Hurry back and tell General Morgan
that he is mistaken," he said. "The main attack will be on this
side of the river, and I have no men to spare. He must maintain
his position at all hazards." 30

Jackson then called to those about him. "Gentlemen," he said,
"we have slept enough. The enemy will be upon us in a few min-
utes. I must go and see Coffee." The entire army was soon astir,
and the Kentuckians, who had come last, were fitted into the line.
At four o'clock in the morning Jackson's army was ready.

The British were having difficulty. Pakenham projected an
early attack and for that reason began to form his army in the
middle of the night. Thornton, through no fault of his own, was
not ready. He had 1,500 men, of the 85th Regiment, West Indi-
ans, and British marines, with artillery and rocket supports. He
moved to the Mississippi, but the boats that were to come
through the canal to transport him across the river had not ar-
rived. The banks of the new canal caved in and the dirt had to be
shoveled laboriously. 31 Finally the sailors were forced to drag the
boats slowly through the slime. It was three o'clock in the morn-

698 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

ing when Thornton, leaving his cannon behind, got 700 men on
the Mississippi. Ahead of him was still the most delaying factor
in his movement. The boatmen, inexperienced with the river, did
not allow sufficiently for the current flowing at five miles an
hour, and the boats were carried downstream two miles below
the landing Thornton designated. He had to march in the dark
along a difficult shore before he could attack.

Pakenham's officers were making ready. Gibbs was to head the
main attack, close to the swamp, on Jackson's left. A deserter
gave information it was the weak point. The information was
correct, except that an attack here pitted the British against the
Tennessee and Kentucky riflemen. The 44th Regiment had a cru-
cial role. It was ordered by Pakenham to bring up the fascines
and scaling ladders by which the other regiments could cross the
dry ditch in front of Jackson and mount the earthworks. Mul-
lens, colonel of the 44th, was displeased and grumbling.

"My regiment," he said, "has been ordered to execution. Their
dead bodies are to be used as a bridge for the rest of the army to
march over." 32

It would have been well for Pakenham if he could have heard
Mullens, and cashiered him on the spot. Brave Colonel Dale of
the 93rd was made of other stuff.

His regimental physician asked him, "What do you think of
it?"

Dale made no direct answer. He took from his pocket his
watch and a letter. "Give these to my wife," he said. "I shall die
at the head of my regiment." 33

The hour had come for action. Pakenham could wait no longer
on the signal from Thornton across the river. Soon it would be
daylight. He rode to Gibbs and told him to move forward. Gibbs
explained that the 44th did not have the fascines and ladders at
tie proper place at the head of the column. Pakenham sent a
major, Sir John Tylden, to learn what was the matter with the
44th. Tylden found it leaving a redoubt in "irregular and unsol-
dierlike" fashion. 34 Obviously the attitude of Colonel Mullens

The Battle of New Orleans 699

had been communicated to the men. Tylden after a time went
back to Pakenharn with the information, yet told him hopefully
that by then the regiment must have reached its proper station at
the head of the column.

At this point Pakenham made a critical decision. He gambled.
He did not make sure about the 44th. He ordered the rocket
fired that would signal the main attack of the British Army.

The first traces of dawn were breaking across the sky as Gibbs
led out his soldiers. Then came the second rocket, telling Keane
to deliver the supporting attack on the left.

The American pickets and outposts were pushed back to their
entrenchments. Across the wide plain, in the river haze, moved
the British regiments in solid front, their red and white uniforms
giving a bold touch of color to the somber lowlands. It was a
sight that only a few men in Jackson's army the old Frenchman,
Flaugeac, and others who had fought with Bonaparte had ever
before witnessed. A shout broke from Carroll's troops and was
taken up by the Kentuckians. No one could tell whether it was
a shout of confidence or one of delight over the spectacle pre-
sented by the advancing columns. They came silently, without
drumbeat, without firing, into artillery range. Jackson's left bat-
teries, numbered six, seven and eight, fired simultaneously. The
gaps that appeared in the British lines were filled at once and the
column did not waver. In their very front was their major gen-
eral, Gibbs.

At a range of 200 yards, Carroll gave his order to the riflemen.
A sheet of yellow flame spurted from the top of the parapet
along Jackson's left and mowed down the British soldiers unmer-
cifully. Now they were approaching the ditch, and in the in-
creasing daylight a ghastly fact was apparent to every soldier:
the 44th was not there with the fascines and ladders.

"Where is the Forty-fourth?" some of the officers shouted.

"Here comes the Forty-fourth! Here comes the Forty-
fourth," Gibbs answered them. Then he added in a lower tone
that if he survived he would hang Mullens on the morrow. 35

In front of the entrenchments, unable to fire on the Ameri-
cans, unable to cross the ditch and scale the wall, stood troops

7 oo POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

that had won scores of battles. Now they were helplessly trapped.
The American rifle fire wasted them away. By this time Gibbs
had lost half his command. Every regimental commander had
fallen. Pakenham rode to the front line. On his way he encoun-
tered straggling parties of the 44th, some with fascines, some firing
at the American lines, others running toward the rear.

"For shame!" he shouted. "Remember that you are British
soldiers. This is the road you ought to take."

He pointed toward the enemy. The soldiers of the 44th were
deaf to orders. The plain ahead was a raging furnace of flame.
More than a leaden hail, it was a leaden hell Pakenham was un-
comprehending, shocked. At the front he reached Gibbs, who
was as aghast as his commander. Gibbs said pitifully, "I am sorry
we have to report to you that the troops will not obey me. They
will not follow me."

No man in either army had more personal bravery than Pak-
enham. He took off his hat and placed himself at the front line
of his hapless troops. He cheered and waved to his men. A rifle
ball hit his right arm and it fell limply. He did not seem to mind.
His horse fell from beneath him, killed by a ball. He mounted
a black Creole pony that had been ridden by his aide, Captain
Duncan McDougall. His men were now falling back and he tried
by every means to rally them by word, by action, by entreaty.
They retired and halted 300 yards from the Americans. There
they took off their packs, reformed and again seemed in spirit.
With Gibbs and Pakenham at their head, they turned once more
toward the Americans.

Scarcely had Pakenham moved forward, not far from the
fringe of the cypress swamp, when a discharge of grape hit into
his small group. A ball shattered his thigh; another killed his sec-
ond horse. As he plunged backward he fell into the arms of Cap-
tain McDougall, the arms that had caught General Ross when
he fell at North Point. The captain supported the general and
was preparing to remove him to the rear when another ball hit
Pakenham in the groin. He was immediately unconscious. He
was carried to the shade of a live oak. An artery had been severed

The Battle of New Orleans 701

and he bled profusely. Within a few minutes, without recovering
consciousness he died under a canopy of Spanish moss,

Just after Pakenham was hit, Gibbs fell mortally wounded.
Cursing and embittered, he was carried back. On the following
night he died.

On this second advance a handful of soldiers under Major
Wilkinson and Lieutenant Lavack reached the American en-
trenchments. Wilkinson mounted to the top and turned to call
his men.

"The day is our own/' he shouted. "Why don't the troops
come on?" He had no troops. His brave men were lying dead in
the ditch. As he called to them he was riddled with bullets and
fell forward. The admiring Tennessee and Kentucky troops took
him to their major.

"Bear up, my dear fellow," said the American officer. "You
are too brave to die."

"I thank you from my heart," Wilkinson said. "It is all over
with me. You can render me a favor. Tell my commander that
I fell on your parapet, and died like a soldier and an Englishman."

Lavack called on the Americans to surrender, then was amazed
to find himself alone. It was he who was the prisoner. Gibbs's
other units tried no farther advance after their commander fell.

Above the cypress swamp, out of the waters of Lake Borgne,
a great red sun lighted up the carnage and desolation of the battle-
field. It pierced through the smoke that hung along the American
redoubts. It burned off the morning mist above the Mississippi. Its
beams, slanting across the flatland, unveiled for the waiting Ameri-
cans one of the extraordinary spectacles of the North American
wars. The Highlanders were advancing to attack the American re-
doubt in the center of Carroll's riflemen.

A thrill passed through both armies as the men of the 93rd Regi-
mentthe men who had brought South Africa into the British
Empke and now sought to add Louisianastepped into the sun-
light of the cold, new day. They marched in close rank, heads
erect, arms swinging jauntily, confident that if men could pene-
trate the American line, their regiment would have the honor.

7 02 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Their bagpipes told of the distant Scottish hills. They were
strong men, beautiful men, all six feet or more tall, and not one
hesitated as he moved over the plain.

The American rifle fire caught them. Their ranks were
thinned but still they came forward. Colonel Dale was at their
head. Now, at 100 yards, the Tennessee and Kentucky troops
concentrated their full fire. Quickly the regiment wilted down,
like wheat before the mower. The sound of the pibroch was
stilled. In five awful minutes 795 officers and men, of the 925
who marched forward with such high courage, were struck down
by the deadly fire. When there were scarcely more than a hun-
dred remaining, the men in utter abandonment broke and fled.

That night the thoughts of the regimental physician were back
in the Highlands. He took the watch and letter from his pocket
and arranged them in a package he would give to Mrs. Dale. 36

On the British left, Keane's assault column of 1,000 men, com-
manded by the intrepid Colonel Rennie, who had been pulled
back from his attack on the American left during Pakenharn's
reconnaissance in force on December 28, pushed directly to the
American lines. Rennie's thrust was bold and sudden. He drove
in an American advance party and followed it impetuously. He
mounted the ramparts immediately behind it before the Ameri-
cans could give him their fire. Two other officers followed him
to the top of the parapet. Like Wilkinson, he shouted back,
"Hurrah, boys, the day is ours!" The words were his last. His
companions fell with him, hit by numerous bullets.

With Rennie's fall, his attacking column, pounded by the
American's artillery, retired and reached the rear by taking cover
behind the levee. Keane was severely wounded and carried from
the field with a bullet in his neck. The repulse of the attack on
the American right occurred almost instantaneously with the de-
feat of Gibbs on the left. Only a small bugler remained in a tree,
still sounding the charge as Keane's soldiers finally retired.

The battle on the east side of the river had been in progress
only twenty-five minutes, yet nothing like it had happened to the
British Army in its modern history. Of the splendid regiments
that went into action, 2,036 men were dead or wounded on the

The Battle of New Orleans 703

field. Five hundred others were captured as the army withdrew.
The victorious Americans were appalled by the scene of death
and suffering in front of them. The men did not cheer they
watched silently as the battered, worsted enemy straggled back.

Jackson did not follow, for across the river the belated Thorn-
ton was coming into action. While his fellow officers had been
fighting Jackson, he had marched with all speed to attack the
American entrenchments on the west bank.

To delay and harass Thornton, General Morgan threw for-
ward two companies, aggregating 300 men. One was of the
Louisiana militia commanded by Major Tessier and the other,
some poorly armed Kentuckians under Colonel Davis. When
Thornton landed downstream, at 4:40 A.M., they took a position
in his path extending from the levee to a swamp. The British,
with their larger numbers, and assisted by three gunboats at-
tacked both companies in unison in the dawn and quickly dis-
lodged them. Tessier's men sought safety in the swamp, while
Davis retired to Morgan. Pushing after them, Thornton extended
his line to his left beyond that of Morgan, sent his sailors and
marines up the levee on his right and struck the American center
with the 85th Regiment. The Kentucky militia unit broke, fol-
lowed in better order by the Louisianians. 37 Morgan barely had
time to spike his guns. Three hundred yards behind his line,
Patterson's battery, which had been playing on the British ad-
vance across the river, was left exposed. The Navy gunners
hastily spiked their guns and reached their ship, the Louisiana,
which headed into the river.

From the left bank Jackson observed the flight of Morgan's
command and raged in anger. It was a moment he never forgot.
His first thought was to send reinforcements, and 400 were im-
mediately dispatched farther upstream. His own lines could be
swept by any long-range guns on the other shore. Properly
armed, Thornton could easily march up the west side of the
Mississippi and hold New Orleans at his mercy with cannon.
Fortunately, none of the cannon he seized were serviceable.
Through occasional breaks in the smoke clouds, it could be seen
that Thornton tarried. He had been wounded severely again, as

yo 4 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

at Bladensburg. His successor, Colonel Gubbins, sent a dispatch
addressed to Pakenham announcing the British victory on the
west bank. It was now ten o'clock in the morning, two hours
after the firing had ended on the east side of the river. 38

In view of the defeat of the other British columns, Thornton's
success was spectacular; yet it was valueless. The lack of artillery
prevented command of the other shore. Among the spiked guns,
one bore the inscription, "Taken at the Surrender of Yorktown,
1 78 1/' A commanding general of unusual tenacity might have
used Thornton's success to advantage. Conceivably, he could
have reinforced Thornton and given him artillery for a march
toward New Orleans that would have forced Jackson from his
entrenchments. With all their losses, the British still had an ad-
vantage in numbers. If Thornton were given guns, Jackson's line
might still be made untenable in an enfilade fire.

But John Lambert, the remaining British general, was be-
numbed by the terrible defeat. His ranks were swept almost
clean of leaders. Depressing and restraining above all else was the
loss of officers. The list showed three major generals, eight colo-
nels or lieutenant colonels, six majors, eighteen captains, and
fifty-four subalterns dead or wounded. As the National Intelli-
gencer later said, "The annals of history scarcely bear testimony
of such another reception of an enemy." 39

One could have walked a quarter of a mile forward from the
American line on the bodies of British soldiers. Some were in
close lines, indicating that squads had died together. All were
clean-shaven to make a neat appearance on their entry into the
city.

As the firing died away in front of Jackson and the nature of
the victory was apparent, the army overcame its first sense of
awe and a wave of relief and gratification passed through the
ranks. Jackson walked the length of the line congratulating the
men. He stopped at each regiment or battery with affectionate
thanks and received cheers. The band that had played sporadic
airs in the center of Jackson's line during the engagement, struck
up "Hail, Columbia," the nearest approach to a national anthem.
Messengers rode forth with tidings of the battle that would

The Battle of New Orleans 705

cause the newspaper extras to proclaim in bold headlines, MOST

INCREDIBLE VICTORY. 40

At noon General Lambert sent a flag requesting an armistice
for the burial of the dead. Jackson granted it, restricted to Lam-
bert's own side of the river. 41 In the distance, down the plain, the
Americans could see the red coats of Lambert's reserve division,
the men prone on the ground, ready to fight should Jackson at-
tempt an offensive.

Jackson understood that while his troops could give the best
account of themselves in their lines, they were not suited for pur-
suit against a more numerous army of disciplined regulars.

"The nature of the troops under my command," he reported,
"mostly militia, rendered it too hazardous to attempt offensive
movements in an open country, against a numerous and well dis-
ciplined army."

Although Jackson had artillery, the Battle of New Orleans was
essentially a victory of small arms, the fire of which was "inces-
sant." "I cannot speak sufficiently in praise of the firmness and
deliberation with which my whole line received their approach-
more could not have been expected of veterans inured to war,"
Jackson said. He also paid a tribute to the bravery of Pakenham's
troops by saying their columns continued to advance with a
steadfastness that reflected on them the greatest credit. The col-
umn on his left, that of Gibbs, advanced three times, he com-
mented, after being repulsed by General Carroll, General Coffee
and the Kentucky militia. "At length, however, cut to pieces,
they fled in confusion from the field, leaving it covered with
their dead and wounded."

For ten days a sullen, broken British army lay at Villeres'
plantation, looking at the Americans. Thornton was withdrawn.
On January 18, prisoners were exchanged. That night the
thoughts of the troops turned to English downs and Scottish
hills. On the morning of January 19, 1815, the Americans looked
out from their entrenchments on an empty plain.

The last of the British invaders of America had gone home.

NOTES

Chapter Twenty -one "MIST-TAKING CANADA"

1 Boyd, who had appeared to be a competent officer at Tippecanoe, was
disappointing in command of the Chrysler's Farm action. Major General Mor-
gan Lewis, the former governor of New York, described him as "a compound
of ignorance, vanity, and petulance, with nothing to recommend him but
that species of bravery in the field which is vaporing, boisterous, stifling
reflection, blinding observation, and better adapted to the bully than the
soldier." Lewis to Armstrong, War Department Archives. Cited in Henry
Adams, A History of the United States of America, VII, 162.

Hampton's delay at Outard Creek in this campaign can be understood by
the orders sent by Armstrong, who instructed him to build huts sufficient to
house 10,000 men for the winter. This made it clear that Armstrong did not
expect Wilkinson to pass the winter in Montreal. Before Wilkinson left
Henderson Bay on his expedition down the St. Lawrence, Armstrong thought
the campaign would end "with the disgrace of doing nothing." John Bach
McMaster, A History of the People of the United States from the Revolution
to the Civil War, IV, 52. *

The failure of the campaign caused Hampton to resign. He wrote Armstrong
on November i, 1813: "Events have had no tendency to change my opinion
of the destiny intended for me, nor my determination to retire from a
service where I can neither feel security nor expect honor." The statement
makes it plain that he expected to be made a scapegoat in any Wilkinson-
Armstrong enterprise.

2 New York Gazette, January 9, 1814.

8 Because of the heavy loss the Americans looked on the capture of Fort
Niagara as a butchery, but a contrary view existed on the other side of the
border, which up to that time had been feeling the principal distress from a.
heartless war. The storming of Fort Niagara has been called "the most brilliant
exploit of the War of 1812." William Kirby, Annals of Niagara, p. 187.

McClure's burning of Newark, in turn, did not sit well with some of his
men. According to an item in the New York Post, a major carried out
McClure's orders and burned a woman's house, probably that of Mrs. Dickson.
The major then reported to the general: "Sir, you will please receive my
commission. The act I have just done is the most abhorrent one of my life
and I can serve with you no longer." New York Post, August 27, 1814. Kirby
says two churches, St. Mark's and St. Andrew's, were burned. Kirby, p. 182.

4 January 3, 1814.

5 Erie dispatch of May 19, published in the New York Spectator June i,
1814.

6 Orders of Vice Admiral Cochrane, July 18, 1814; Mss. Canadian Archives;
cited in Adams, History, VIII, 126.

T August 4, 1814.

709

7 ro POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

8 The refrain, "This is true terrapin war," went around the country. It aptly
described the creeping transportation. Oxen made the passage from Charleston,
South Carolina, to Philadelphia in a month and a half. Transportation charges
mounted so that for some products they were four times the cost of production.

9 Prevost's letter said: "In fact, my Lord, two thirds of the army in Canada
are at this moment eating beef provided by American contractors, drawn prin-
cipally from the states of Vermont and New York. This circumstance, as
well as the introduction of large sums in specie into this province, being noto-
rious in the United States, it is to be expected that Congress will take steps
to deprive us of these resources; and under that apprehension large droves are
daily crossing the lines coming into Lower Canada." Prevost to Bathurst,
August 27, 1814; cited in Adams, History, VIII, 94.

Less than a month earlier, on July 31, 1814, General Izard, commanding
at Plattsburg, wrote Armstrong about the cattle crossing the border: "Like
herds of buffaloes, they press through the forests, making paths for themselves.
Were it not for these supplies, the British force in Canada would soon be
suffering from famine, or their government be subjected to the enormous
expense for their maintenance." McMaster, IV, 66.

Smugglers had obtained experience in this Northern-border work during
the embargo. Seven hundred sleighs were counted on one roadway in January
1809 between Vermont and Montreal.

10 August n, 1814. %

n A review of the newspapers at this period shows that President Madison
had to contend with perhaps the most ill-tempered criticism ever meted out
to a President. Undoubtedly the press and platform were more caustic in
complaints about the first four Presidents than any chief executives of our
present day, who usually have had to confront criticism couched in only the
most gentle and seemly terms. While Lincoln was subjected to much conversa-
tional abuse, newspaper criticism was unquestionably less vicious.

A friend asked Madison, when one of the early sessions of Congress adjourned,
whether he would seek re-election. Madison replied, "Not 1. 1 would rather be
in an insane hospital." Charles Jared Ingersoll, Historical Sketch of the Second
War between the United States and Great Britain, I, 261. In the same vein
was the remark of John Adams: "If I were to go over my life again, I
would be a shoemaker rather than an American statesman." Mary Caroline
Crawford, Romantic Days in the early Republic, p. 167. The statements are
an indication of the strain Madison was under at the time when the Canadian
invasion was collapsing. This no doubt contributed to his severe illness in the
late spring of 1814, which kept him at Montpelier. Even during the illness,
the Federalist press could not bring itself to be respectful. From an unnamed
"Boston federal paper" the National Intelligencer, July 16, 1814, quoted the
following: "During the illness of the President a gentleman from Washington
observed to a member of Congress from Massachusetts 'that the President was
very ill that he had puked up something as black as a crow.' The gentleman
from Massachusetts suggested it might have been his conscience."

French cuisine did not enjoy its present reputation, as was shown by the
item in the Baltimore American, about which the" National Intelligencer, in
coming to the President's defense, scolded: "They have the vulgar and un-

Notes jn

blushing impudence to denounce the executive and Republican members of
'Congress as a set of Frenchmen and French cooks."

Ingersoll observed, "No one had been more abused than Madison. But not
only did it all die away, but died before he died."

u Republished by the New York Past, June 15, 1814.

18 Boston Advertiser, July 27, 1814.

14 One of John Randolph's complaints had been that when the Army was
not fighting it should be employed in constructive work. His speech, as quoted
by the Intelligencer, January 11, 1812, involved an anachronism. Randolph
said: "The boast of the Roman legions was that Roman soldiery was as well
versed in the use of the pickaxe and spade as the firelock." The mention of
firelocks was no doubt a slip, for Randolph was a well-informed man. He
declared he was surprised that the United States should be paying such immense
sums in all parts of the country "whilst the soldiery which annually draws mil-
lions from our treasury are kept in a state of perfect idleness leading to deprav-
ity and dissoluteness of manners." He wanted those not actually campaigning
to be used in the construction of roads, canals and other public utilities.

15 Published in the New York Gazette, January 9, 1814.

16 Monroe to Madison, December 27, 1813; Monroe Mss., State Department
Archives. Cited in Adams, History, VII, 412.

17 When at Montpelier, Madison had decided on the appointment of Jackson
and told Armstrong he would not make it until he could consult with the
Secretary on his return to Washington in a few days. When Armstrong re-
ceived this letter, and before Madison could return, he wrote Jackson notify-
ing him of the appointment: "Since the date of my letter of the 24th Major-
General Harrison has resigned his commission in the army, and thus is created
a vacancy in that grade, which I hasten to fill with your name." Cited in
Adams, History, VH, 41 of. Madison was indignant that Armstrong had not
waited.

Chapter Twenty-two A WAR ON CREDIT

*One of the arguments Representative Macon of North Carolina made in
the House during the war debates was that war would give the United States
two undesirable permanencies, or what he called "setfasts" an industry and
a navy. Cf. Chapter Four.

3 Most of the treasury, tax and customs figures are from Ingersoll, I, 2246.
He gives a table, I, 256, showing internal-revenue receipts and loans for the
war years.

8 Ingersoll, I, 6if.

A The Federalists said the Secretary's initials, G.W.C., really stood for
"Government Wants Cash."

5 The New York Spectator, June 29, 1812, printed a resume of manufacturing
in the United States. It stated that the country had 190 paper mills and 100,-
ooo spindles worked by 330 water or horse mills. Printing businesses had been
started. Connecticut was malting straw bonnets valued at $569,228 annually.
Copper was being worked in Tennessee and Vermont. A thriving business was

7 i2 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

conducted in maple sugar, of which the country produced nearly 7,000,000
pounds: Ohio produced 3,033,805 pounds; Kentucky, 2,471,647; Vermont,
1,200,000; East Tennessee, 162,000. Kentucky led the country in the production
of saltpeter, apparently from the bat droppings in Mammoth Cave. Other
works were in horn, ivory and shell. The Spectator was endeavoring to present
an impressive picture, but the account shows manufacturing had not made
much progress by 1812, even under the urgency of the embargo, to which it
owed its first growth.

Chapter Twenty-three THE CREEK WAR

I Alexander Walker, Life of Andrew Jackson, p. xxxv.

2 Blount to Secretary of War; cited in Marquis James, Andrew Jackson:
The Border Captain) p. 152.

8 Walker, p. xxxi.

*lbid., pp. xxxii f.

5 Probably the colloquial form of this letter (used in part by Marquis James,
p. 30, and taken from W. H. Sparks, The Memories of Fifty Years, p. 147) is
more nearly as Mrs. Jackson gave it, but the version here is one that has been
widely circulated, and is on my desk in the form of an ornamental scroll
prepared by the Dan River Mills of Danville, Virginia. It is taken from the
account by Thomas Butler, Jackson's godson. A. C. Buell, A History of
Andrew Jackson, p. 56; cf. Marquis James, p. 376 n. 23.

e Marquis James, pp. i38f.

7 Cited in James Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, I, 372.

8 Jackson in Richmond, Virginia, publicly called Wilkinson "a double traitor,"
and said "pity the sword that dangles from his felon's belt, for it is doubtless
of honest steel." Cited in Buell, I, 206; Marquis James, p. 138.

8 Cited in Benjamin Lossing, The Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812,
p. 744n.
10 Parton, Andrew Jackson, I, 380.

II Parton says the name was not a sudden inspiration but a growth. Andrew
Jackson, I, 382. Stimpson says the first known printed mention of the name
is in Samuel Putnam Waldo's Memoirs of Andrew Jackson, printed in Hart-
ford, Connecticut, in 1818. Waldo uses it as uncomplimentary rather than as
a name of affection. Stimpson also gives another version, attributed to Jackson's
neighbor, William Allen. It is that Jackson, tentless on the campaign, used
hickory bark to cover himself on a cold night, and a drunk the next morning
called to him, "Hello, Old Hickory! Come out of your bark. . . ." George
Stimpson, A Book about American Politics, pp. 81-84. The Parton version is
usually accepted.

"Jackson was prosecuted for amounts that would have ruined him but the
claims were deferred until he could hear from Washington. Lossing, p. 744.

18 Benton's service in the Natchez campaign, in which he saw no fighting,
and his later slight service in Alabama caused him to be suggested and to
suggest himself to President Polk for appointment as lieutenant general in

Notes 713

the Mexican War. For an account of Benton's efforts to win the appointment,
cf. Robert Selph Henry, The Story of the Mexican War, p. 169.

14 George Gary Eggleston, Red Eagle and the Wars with the Creek Indians
of Alabama, p. 89.

15 Parton said: "John Coffee, as one of his friends observed to me, was a
great soldier without knowing it. So the world never knew it. He was a giant
in stature and nobly proportioned; in demeanor taciturn and totally void of
pretense; a man to do his duty, and let anyone else have the glory of it who
wanted that airy commodity." Parton, Andrew Jackson, I, 435.

Jackson, a man of intense likes and hatreds, had no warmer friend than
Coffee. When President, Jackson wrote the epitaph for Coffee's gravestone
in the family plot near Florence, Alabama. It said: "Sacred to the memory of
Gen. John Coffee, who departed this life on the yth day of July, 1833, aged
6 1 years. As a husband, parent, and friend, he was affectionate, tender and
sincere. He was a brave, prompt and skillful general, a disinterested and saga-
cious patriot, an unpretending, just and honest man."

18 Parton, Andrew Jackson, I, 425.

17 Some historians have placed Tecumseh's visit with the Creeks in the
winter of 1811-1812 and others as in the winter of 1812-1813. It is clear that
he made journeys to the South during both winters. His departure down the
Wabash in August 1811 was witnessed and reported by residents of Vincennes.
The first visit kept him absent while the Prophet was fighting at Tippecanoe.
It was on this trip that he aroused the Seminole. Parton apparently erroneously
places Tecumseh's visit to the Seminole in the spring of 1811, rather than in
the autumn, as it must have been. Tecumseh visited also the Cherokee and
returned by way of Missouri, where he worked among the Des Moines tribe.

Pickett, Parton, Lossing all of whom talked with survivors of the war-
place Tecumseh among the Creeks again in the winter of 1812-1813. This
is confirmed also by his prediction of the earthquake that would signal to
the Creeks his return to Detroit* He would not have been returning to
Detroit in the winter of 1811-1812, for the city was then still in American
hands. In the winter of 1811-1812 he did return to the Wabash, and he called
on Harrison at Vincennes.

18 Adams, History, VII, 221.

19 Parton, Andrew Jackson, I, 409.

^Although Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins referred to the tribe as the
Alabama*, the spelling of the Bureau of American Ethnology is Alibamu.
Handbook of American Indians, Government Printing Office, 1907. The book
gives a long list of variations of the name of this tribe. McKenney and Hall
use Alibam.

n The story of the Creeks is taken largely from George Eggleston, pp. 28ff.

^George Eggleston, p. 60. Marquis James, p. 165, says a brother, John
Weatherford, chose to be Caucasian and nothing was ever heard of him
again.

23 Eggleston described McGillivray's empire and says the secretary of state
"lived like a prince." George Eggleston, p. tfL
p. 44.

7 i 4 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

m Adams, History, VII, 225.

86 Parton, Andrew Jackson, I, 411.

27 On the day Fort Mims was attacked at noon, Beasley at 10 A.M. finished
a letter to Claiborne stating that the fort was impregnable and the garrison
safe. Parton, Andrew Jackson, I, 413. Adams says the reason for the attack
was that Beasley and Captain Dixon Bailey, both half-breeds who had partici-
pated in the Battle of Burnt Corn, were in the fort. Adams, History, VII, 230.

^Although the dinner drum had sounded, there were still dancing and card
playing when the Indians attacked. Beasley had weakened his garrison by
sending guards to other forts. George Eggleston, p. 89.

20 The second Negro was tied for the whipping when the Indians rushed in.
Parton, Andrew Jackson, I, 413. While still tied to the post he was killed by
the Indians during the fighting.

^Lossing, p. 756; George Eggleston, pp. i46f.

81 George Eggleston, p. 79.

152 Ten days after the massacre Claiborne sent Major Kennedy with a detach-
ment to bury the white dead. In his report Kennedy said: "Indians, Negroes,
white men, women and children lay in one promiscuous ruin. All were
scalped; and the females of every age were butchered in a manner which
neither decency nor language will permit me to describe. The main building
was burned to ashes, which were filled with bones. The plains and the
woods around were covered with dead bodies. All the houses were consumed
by fire except the block-house and a part of the pickets. The soldiers and
officers, with one voice, called on Divine Providence to revenge the death
of our murdered friends." Cited in Albert James Pickett, History of Alabama,
II, 282. Kennedy said when he arrived the air was filled with buzzards, and
hundred of dogs were gnawing at the bodies.

88 John F. H. Claiborne, The Life and Times of General Sam Dale, the Mis-
sissippi Partisan, p. 128; cited in Lossing, p. 757.

84 The note was later found in Weatherford's house. Parton, Andrew Jack-
son, I, 41 9f.

85 Parton quotes from an eyewitness an account of the way the country
appeared after the massacre at Fort Mims. "Never in my life," said the un-
identified witness, "did I see a country given up before without a struggle.
Here are the finest crops my eyes ever beheld made and almost fit to be
housed, with immense herds of cattle, Negroes and property, abandoned by
their owners, almost on the first alarm." Parton pointed out that inside the
stockades disease raged and hundreds of families "unable to get within those
enclosures, lay around the walls, squalid, panic-stricken, sick and miserable."
Parton, Andrew Jackson, I, 419.

** Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, 1897-1898, I, 88.

87 Ibid., p. 97.

88 Parton, Andrew Jackson, I, 428.
80 Ibid., pp. 426-427.

* Adams, who viewed the Creek War with a critical eye, quoted Coffee's
report: "Not one of the warriors escaped to tell the news, a circumstance
unknown heretofore." Using Coffee's estimate that the village contained 284
Indians of both sexes and all ages, Adams deduces that if one third could

Notes

be calculated as bearing arms, there would be less than 100 warriors in
the town. Adams continued: "Coffee's men after the battle counted one hun-
dred and eighty-six dead Indians, and estimated the total loss at two hundred,
In every attack on an Indian village a certain number of women and children
were necessarily victims, but the proportion at Talishatchee [sic] seemed large."
Adams, History, VII, 237.

^Jackson found before the righting began that his principal difficulty
would be with supplies. An army entering a forest territory had to carry
its provisions. On October 19, at Thompson Creek, he wrote General Cocke,
Judge Hugh L. White of East Tennessee, the governors of Tennessee and
Georgia, Indian agents among the Cherokee and Choctaw, and friendly
Indian chiefs, begging for food. He said: "There is an enemy whom I dread
much more than I do the hostile Creeks." It was starvation. Parton, Andrew
Jackson, I, 43 if.

^Parton tells how a chief in Talladega put on the skin of a big hog and
rooted about the field until clear of the besieging Indian lines, then sped away
to notify Jackson and ask his help. Although his soldiers were famished,
Jackson did not hesitate an instant to give his orders. Parton, Andrew Jackson,
I, 441.

43 John Henry Eaton, Life of Andrew Jackson, p. 66; Marquis James, p. 171.

**In order to soften this incident the explanation has been made that Jack-
son's gun was an old, rusty flintlock that could not have been discharged.
Walker says: "The piece which General Jackson had seized was too much
out of order to be fired, and his arm was so weak he could not aim it with
any precision; but the men before him knew nothing of this. . . ." Walker,
p. Iv. Walker, a newspaper editor, was not easily misled, but the story
sounds apocryphal. There was no point to having an old, rusty piece so
handy when out fighting Indians. If there is one verity that moves through the
whole Creek War it is that Jackson was a partisan. He saw only one side. He
was intensely right. Such conviction makes great men and at times relentless
men. There is no doubt that Jackson was a fighter if need be, a killer. He
had deliberately put a bullet through Dickinson and no doubt he would have
shot down the first soldier to cross the line. The explanation of Jackson's ability
to rule the tough frontier militia is that he was the toughest of the lot.

Parton takes a somewhat different view. He says: "The manner, appearance
and language of General Jackson on occasions like this were literally terrific.
Few common men could stand before the ferocity of his aspect and the
violence of his words. His ability in swearing amounted to a talent. Volleys
of the most peculiar and original oaths, ejected with a violence that cannot be
imagined, scared and overwhelmed the object of his wrath. Aware of his
powers in this respect, he would feign a fury that he did not feel, and obtain
his ends through the groundless terror of his opponents. That was particularly
the case in his dealings with Spaniards." Parton, Andrew Jackson, I, 463.

The picture showing Jackson mounted on his horse quelling the mutiny
was published in Amos Kendall's Life of Jackson, with which Jackson was
familiar. It is unlikely that it is a serious distortion of the scene, although the
soldiers are garbed in much more attractive uniforms than the Tennessee militia
customarily wore. The picture shows Jackson aiming a rifle or musket from

7 i6 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

the shoulder, not resting it across his horse's neck. It also indicates he was suf-
ficiently recovered from the Benton affray to fire a piece. In most respects,
it seems that the story has not been exaggerated by the Jackson writers, but
rather moderated by friends to give his character a softer touch, possibly for
political campaign purposes.

45 Nominally Cocke was subordinate to Jackson, his commission as major
general of Tennessee militia bearing a later date. But he had tried to maintain
an independent status ostensibly because of the difficulty with supplies. The
result was one of the most ghastly misunderstandings of the war and of
American history the massacre of the Hillabees.

^Short-term enlistments compelled Jackson to make only short campaigns
against the Creeks. His original dispute with his men was over the term of
the enlistment and this brought on the first incipient mutiny. The men were
enlisted for the Natchez campaign for one year. They began their service
December 10, 1812, and calculated that they would be subject to discharge on
December 10, 1813. But Jackson, whose whole thought was to win the Creek
War, insisted the time they had spent at home between the return from
Natchez and the departure to Alabama should not be regarded a part of the
enlistment period. He demanded a year of active service, and not stand-by
time, from the men. The men had not been on duty between May and
October and therefore had served actively for only about seven months.
Although Jackson prevented their unauthorized departure he eventually had
to yield to their interpretation of thek enlistment, and most of them marched
back to Tennessee on December 12, 1813. Cocke's men held Fort Strother
until January 12, 1814, when their enlistments for a term of three months
expired. Two days later Jackson received some fresh recruits enlisted for a
term of three months and therefore was able to maintain his position.

Cocke meanwhile, January 17, 1814, was bringing down a new division from
Knoxville, enlisted for six months. When his men learned the West Tennes-
seans under Jackson had been accepted for only three months, the men
mutinied. Cocke addressed them but his speech of pacification apparently
was too friendly to suit Jackson, who ordered the arrest of every officer, of
whatever rank, found exciting the men to mutiny. This order resulted in the
arrest of Cocke, who was deprived of his sword and unnecessarily humiliated.
He was tried by court-martial in Nashville and acquitted.

Jackson dealt firmly with a company of Tennessee infantry that tried to
bargain with him to serve either three months or no time whatever. They
sent their commander ahead to obtain Jackson's agreement, and when he
declined they returned home. Jackson ordered the entire company arrested as
deserters. He then moderated his severity by sending a pardon to every man
who came to serve the three-month term. The company reassembled and
joined the remainder of the army at Fort Strother. Parton, Andrew Jackson,
I, 467-478; Adams, History, VII, 252-253.

* 7 Pickett, II, 301.

^Floyd's report. Lossing describes the affair at Auttose as a "massacre."
Lossing, p. 769.

49 Lossing, p. 769,

60 Cited in Pickett, II, 320.

Notes

51 The bodies of the three prophets were found on the field after the fighting.
^Pickett says the horse was purchased from Benjamin Baldwin of Macon
County, Alabama, a short time before hostilities began. Pickett, II, 324.
58 Ibid.

54 Adams says the Creeks lost their single opportunity in the war by allow-
ing Jackson to escape from Emuckfau. Adams, History, VII, 248.

55 Adams treats Calebee Creek as a defeat for Floyd. He says Floyd's loss
of twenty-two killed and 147 wounded was the largest that had been suffered
by the whites in the Creek War. Adams, History, VII, 250.

60 The 39th U. S. Infantry Regiment had been authorized by Congress on
January 29, 1813, and recruited largely in Tennessee. The Department com-
mander, Major General Pinckney, ordered the regiment on December 23,
1813, to join Jackson, which it did February 6, 1814. Jackson was delighted, for
he believed the regiment would "give strength to my arm and quell mutiny."
Adams, History, VII, 251-252.

m Pickett, II, 328; Lossing, pp. ySo-ySm.

58 Pickett says the Indians fought at great disadvantage because they were
fired on from the rear and the front after the breastworks were captured.
"None of them begged for quarter, but every one sold his life at the dearest
rate. . . . Being desirous not to destroy this brave race, Jackson sent a
messenger toward them, who assured them of the clemency of the general,
provided they would surrender. They answered by discharges from their
guns and shouts of defiance." Pickett, II, 589.

In his letter to Pinckney, Jackson said he was "determined to exterminate
them." Cited in Adams, History, VII, 255.

59 The Horseshoe Bend battlefield remains essentially as it was when the battle
was fought. No buildings have been erected on the site, which is removed from
main highways. When I visited the field in January 1954 the area of the horse-
shoe was in corn stalks. Gravel was being taken from a pit where the left wing
of Jackson's army rested along the river. The natural advantages of the posi-
tion which attracted the Creek warriors were apparent. Although it was the
custom in that period to entrench at the military crest of a hill, the Creeks
skillfully built their fortification at the base of the rising ground in their front
(a custom that was more generally adopted as a protection against artillery in
World War I). The intent obviously was to compel Jackson to bring his
artillery into close musketry range of the fortification before he could employ
it. The weakness of the position is also apparent in that the Tallapoosa River
in the rear, while formidable, would not be impassible for an enterprising army.
The Creeks imprudently neglected their rear.

Adams gives Jackson's complete loss, including the friendly Indians, as
fifty-one killed and 148 wounded. The principal loss to the whites was in
the 39th Regiment. Adams places the loss to the Cherokee fighting with
Jackson at eighteen killed and thkty-five wounded; the friendly Creeks, five
killed and eleven wounded. He quotes Coffee's statement that "the slaughter
was greater than all we had done before" and "we killed not less than eight
hundred and fifty or nine hundred of them, and took about five hundred
squaws and children prisoners." Jackson expressed regret that two or three
women and children were killed by accident. Adams, History, VII, 256.

718 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Adams adds: "Jackson's policy of extermination shocked many humane
Americans, and would perhaps have seemed less repulsive had the Creeks
shown more capacity for resistance. The proportion between two hundred
casualties on one side and seven or eight hundred killed on the other would
have been striking in any case, but was especially so where the advantages
of position were on the side of the defence." History, II, 257.

Something of the same thought must have been with Major General Thomas
Pinckney, the Department commander, when he forwarded a report of Jack-
son's victory. "While the sigh of humanity," he said, "will escape for this
profuse effusion of human blood, which results from the savage principle of
our enemy, neither to give nor accept quarter, [without it women would be]
exposed to indiscriminate havoc of the tomahawk and all the horrors of savage
warfare." Published in the New York Spectator, April 20, 1814.

The news of Jackson's victory was published under the head EXTRA by
the National Intelligencer in Washington, but received minor play in the
New York newspapers.

60 The New York Spectator, May 25, 1814, carried a statement by Jackson
dated April 12, from his camp at the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa.
Jackson reported: "The Talapoosee [sic] king has been arrested, and is here
in confinement. The Toatahatchee [sic] king of the Hickory Ground tribe has
delivered himself up. Weatherford has been with me and I did not confine
him. He will be with me again in a few days. Peter McQuin [sic] has been
taken, but escaped. He must be taken again. Hillinhagee, their great prophet, has
also absconded, but he will be found. They were the instigators of the war,
and such is their situation."

Pickett in later years met one of the chiefs who survived the Horseshoe
and described him: "Manowa, one of the bravest chiefs that ever lived, was
literally shot to pieces. He fought as long as he could. He saved himself by
jumping into the river where the water was four feet deep. He held to a
root and thus kept himself beneath the waves, breathing through the long
joint of a cane, one end of which he held in his mouth, while the other end
came above the surface of the water. When night set in, the brave Manowa
rose from his watery bed, and made his way to the forest, bleeding from
many wounds. Many years after the war we conversed with the chief and
learned from him the particulars of his remarkable escape. His face, limbs,
and body, at the time we conversed with him, were marked with scars of
many horrible wounds." Pickett, II, 343.

01 This account is from Pickett and is followed by George Eggleston. It was
given by Weatherford to Colonel Robert James of Clark and William Sisemore
of Little River, Alabama, and is contained in Pickett, II, 349-350. Other versions
of the meeting vary in some details, but are to the same general effect.

82 Weatherford could not live in his old Hickory Ground territory because,
he said, the hostile Creeks, his old comrades, ate his cattle from starvation,
the peace party ate them for revenge and the squatters because he was "a
damned Red-skin." Therefore, he said, "I have come to live among gentlemen."
Claiborne, p. 129; cited in Lossing, p. 7$2n.

03 George Eggleston, p. 337**.; Pickett says Weatherford "maintained an ex-

Notes 7 r 9

cellent character and was much respected by the American citizens for his
bravery, honor and strong native sense." Pickett, II, 351.

^Pickett, II, 351. Weatherford was survived by a number of children, whose
families were assimilated with the whites.

Chapter Twenty -four AN "ALLY" FALLS

I Semrier to De Bassano, October 25, 1813; cited in Adams, History, VII, 392.
3 Ibid.

8 New York Gazette, May 16, 1814. The editor of the New York Spectator
read avidly through the foreign newspapers, filled with the sensational French
news, and on May 18 commented: "We have not discovered in them any
notice of the affairs of America."

*The New York Spectator, June 4, headed the Charleston account GREAT
AND IMPORTANT NEWS IF TRUE. The story caused the proadministration Colum-
bian to put out a handbill on the night of June 3, but the Spectator, by ingen-
iously tracing the course of the ship that had entered Charleston, decided the
story could not be true.

* Commercial Advertiser, June 4, 1814.

"June 10, 1814. The Spectator republished the statement June n, 1814.

7 The quotations are from different newspapers whose comments were
republished by the New York press. During the late spring and early summer
of 1814 American newspapers dropped most of their domestic news and,
with the rest of the country, kept their eyes on Europe. The armies did not
fight battles.

8 The Charleston Courier, June 28, 1814, in an account republished by the
New York Spectator July 9, 1814, said "rough characters" of the city threatened
the Reverend Mr. Cloriviere, the Catholic priest, when he announced the
services. He paid no attention to these menacing sympathizers with Napoleon
and the result was a great attendance. "The citizens at large," said the Courier,
"deserve every credit for the promptness with which they attended to prevent
all outrage, and notwithstanding the threats held out to prevent people from
going to the church, we were happy to notice crowds of the most respectable
inhabitants, of all persuasions, flocking to the Catholic place of worship "

9 Portland, Maine, Gazette; Spectator, June 11, 1814.

10 The Spectator, June 18, 1814, said: "The title which Mr. Harper gave to
the Russian Emperor, 'ALEXANDER THE DELIVERER* will be handed down to re-
motest posterity.' 1 The paper quoted the title from the Federal Republican.
The Spectator might have looked back through its own files to the issue of
January 5, 1814, when in commenting on the Battle of Leipzig, it said: "The
repose and happiness of Europe will be associated in history with the name
of 'Alexander the Deliverer.' "

II Republished in the Spectator, June 18, 1814. That the Bourbon Restora-
tion revived the interest of New York is seen by publication in the Commer-
cial Advertiser, June 15, 1814, of the following: "Many citizens of New York
must have noticed a black man who traverses the streets of the city with

7 2o POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

a hat under his arm containing apparatus for shaving and hair cutting. What-
ever the weather his head is uncovered. We were informed he had 'in better
limes' been employed about the person of Louis XVI, and during the horrors
of the Revolution he became a voluntary exile. From respect to the memory
of the French king he has constantly gone with his head uncovered, declaring
his intention never to wear a hat until the restoration of the throne." Anyone
might have told him the restoration of the Bourbons had been known to
New York a full month.

"The Boston celebration was described by the Boston Gazette, June 16,
1814; the account was republished in the Spectator, June 22, 1814.

18 The Spectator, June 13, 1814, discussed Napoleon's abdication and said
Napoleon for three weeks had been almost continually on horseback. His
limbs were so swollen that he could not dismount and he had to be lifted to
fresh horses as they were required. "Had the contest been a few days longer
he would not have survived." In order to get him aboard the ship to Elba his
escort avoided the big towns "so the people would not tear him to pieces."

14 Republished in the Spectator, June 22, 1814.

15 Some cities had celebrated earlier, as did Albany on the liberation of
Holland from the Bonaparte yoke. The New York Spectator, February 26,
1814, told of the Albany celebration held February 20. It explained that the
Albany territory was settled by the Dutch and the language was not extinct,
and that Holland for nineteen years had suffered "a grinding depression."
Stephen Van Rensselaer presided at the magnificent dinner at the Eagle Inn.
Among the numerous toasts was one "To the land of our fathers a land of
republicans, whose invincible spirit and devotion of soul, overpowered the
mightiest monarchs of Europe."

16 Newburyport Herald, June 17, 1814; New York Spectator, June 22, 1814.

17 Letter dated June 8, 1814, published in the New York Spectator June 18,
1814.

18 The Spectator, July 2, 1814, commented similarly: "A number of demo-
cratic papers in different parts of the Union, mortified and exasperated at the
destiny of their idol, Bonaparte, are daily levelling their malignant spleen at
the men who think proper to celebrate the emancipation of Europe from
military despotism. Of these jacobin papers, the Columbian of this city stands
pre-eminently conspicuous 'the vilest of the vile. . . .' It has denounced
every American, who rejoices in the downfall of the French tyrant, as a
traitor to our country, rejoicing in the victories of our enemy. In spite how-
ever of this pitiful slander . . . the honest citizens of this country will rejoice
with the rescued and exulting Nations of Europe."

19 New York Spectator, July 2, 1814.
"Ibid., July 6, 1814.

21 Madison returned to Washington, after his severe illness and recuperation
at Montpelier, on October 25, 1813.

^National Intelligencer, June 17, 1814.

23 New York Spectator, June 22, 1814.

u lbid. } June 18, 1814.

25 The Spectator, June 18, 1814, copied from the Baltimore Federal Gazette
a story based on a letter by Lord Liverpool saying 15,000 troops were im-

Notes 721

mediately to embark at Bordeaux for Canada. This was but one of the numer-
ous stories warning against the oncoming of British reinforcements.
^Published also in the New York Spectator , June 8, 1814.

27 For a period after the abdication of Napoleon virtually every issue of an
American newspaper contained some rumor of the approach of peace.

28 The London Times, June 4, 1814, published the letter sent by the Princess
Caroline, wife of the Prince Regent, to the House of Commons. She protested
her exclusion from court and thereby focused attention again on the old
question of the paternity of her daughter, Princess Charlotte, whom the
Prince Regent disclaimed. She said if her own feelings were not to be con-
sidered, those of her daughter, the heir apparent, should be. Whitehead
expressed the wearied exasperation of Parliament: "If ever there was a period
when advisors of the Crown should wish to exhibit the Royal Family of Eng-
land in harmony and concord, in conjugal and domestic felicity, it is now
when so many august and Royal Personages are daily expected."

29 London Times, August 2, 1814. All quotations dealing with the London
peace celebration are from the Times of the summer of 1814.

30 For the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia most sumptuous quar-
ters had been provided, and London was awed by the guests' reactions. With
flourish and fanfare, the activities of the visiting royalty were spread over
the issues of the Times from June 7 to June 24. Acclamations rent the air. A
tide of dazzled admiration swept through accounts of levees, illuminations,
theatrical parties, the grand civic festival and the presentation of swords and
medals. The single note of austerity was that the monarchs of Russia and
Prussia asked that their sumptuous beds be moved out and that the Emperor
be brought a simple, straw paillasse. The King of Prussia substituted a leather
mattress from his camp equipment. It brought to the memory of older resi-
dents the rugged style in which Frederick the Great had campaigned.

31 The Corsair was played for the first time August i, 1814.

82 The London Times, July i, 1814, told of the rumor that "before many
months we may see Bonaparte at the head of the Austrian armies" but ex-
pressed its doubts.

83 The London Times, August 2, 1814, devoted two full pages of type to the
festivities.

84 London Times, August 2, 1814.
* Ibid.

86 Ibid.

**lbid., August 6, 1814.

58 Ibid., August 11, 1814. About Clay the Times continued: "If he can
exhibit some noses, eyes and ears as trophies of his courage and skill in the
art of biting and gouging ... he is sure of a seat in Congress."

Chapter Twenty-five HOSTAGES EXCHANGED

1 British court precedents covering matters of citizenship and expatriation
went back to the reign of the boy-king Edward VI during a chaos of religious

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

conflict. Edward Seymour was advancing the reformed church. Dr. John Story,
an ardent Catholic, regius professor of civil law at Oxford, member of Com-
mons from Hindon, objected to the bill establishing the new English liturgy.
He caused a sensation in the House when he shouted, "Woe to the land
whose king is a child!" He was committed to the Tower where he remained
three months. On his release he left England and moved to Louvain, When
Mary became Queen, Dr. Story returned as the Queen's agent and Bonner's
chancellor; he was also Queen's proctor at the trial of Archbishop of Canter-
bury Cranmer. He was obstreperous again against the dignity of Parliament
but was pardoned with a censure in consideration of his religious zeal.

Elizabeth became Queen and Dr. Story spoke in justification of the execu-
tions in Mary's reign and got into prison again. He escaped to Flanders, swore
allegiance to Philip II of Spain, became an intimate of the Duke of Alva and
was appointed to battle heresy by keeping English books out of Flemish ports,
which required that he search the ships. Young English merchants arranged
a trap. They appeared in a vessel at Bergen op Zoom and asked Dr. Story
to examine the cargo. When he was in the hold they clamped down the
hatches and sailed for England.

An English grand jury indicted Dr. Story for treason, charging that he
incited the Duke of Alva to project an invasion of England. Alva and the
Spanish ambassador spoke for King Philip in demanding his release. He ex-
plained to the justices that he could not plead to a charge of treason in Eng-
land because Spain was his country: he had moved to its territory, transferred
his allegiance, taken the oath, become a subject of His Catholic Majesty. He
was no longer affiliated with Elizabeth nor by any manner of reasoning was
he an Englishman. The court heard, and decided: "Once an Englishman, al-
ways an Englishman.* 5

With Dr. Story's execution, the Queen's law was written. Precedents accu-
mulated, British, Virginian, and others. Isaac Williams, a Yankee sailor, in 1799
was brought into circuit court before Oliver Ellsworth, chief justice of the
Supreme Court of the American Republic, charged with having accepted a
commission as a privateer from the French Republic, serving aboard the
Jupiter, a French seventy-four, and committing hostile acts against the friendly
power Great Britain, contrary to American law and treaties, Williams had
removed to France, been naturalized there, taken the oath of allegiance and
renounced affiliation with other powers with especial emphasis on America.
American warships had been fighting French frigates and the French service
was unpopular. The decision was that although Isaac Williams had turned his
back on America and undertaken to be naturalized in France, he remained an
American citizen. Citizens were bound to the nation by a tie which could not
be severed by one party alone, the compact being that the nation would de-
fend the individual and the individual in turn would be faithful to the nation.
It was not the nation's error, if the individual took on conflicting obligations.

By these precedents, restrictive on the individual's rights as they appear
today, the British government might disclaim the right of Irish-born subjects
to take on a conflicting allegiance. The fact that the precedents ran afoul of
British custom of granting British citizenship to aliens was not taken into
consideration any more than it was during the controversy over impressments.

Notes

The question was at the very heart of the War of 1812 dispute and no under-
standing on the conflicting viewpoints was reached during the war.

3 Undoubtedly the main fear of the British in American waters was the
torpedo, with which American amateurs were experimenting. Fulton's earlier
work was well known to the British Navy and caused the British to use dis-
cretion near the American shore. The work of an unidentified experimenter,
possibly Penny, was discussed by the National Intelligencer, July 15, 1813:

"We understand a gentleman at Norwich has invented a Diving Boat which
by means of paddles he can propel under the water at a rate of three miles
an hour and ascend and descend at pleasure. He has made a number of experi-
ments and has been three times under the bottom of the Ramillies off New
England. In the first attempt after remaining some time he came to the top
of the water like a porpoise, for air, and as luck would have it, came up but
a few feet from the stern of the Ramillies and was observed by sentries on

deck, who sang out 'Boat Ahoy ,' immediately on hearing which the boat

descended without making a reply. An alarm gun was fired on board the ship
and all hands called to quarters. The cable was cut and the ship got under
way, expecting every moment to be blown up by a torpedo.

"In the third attempt he came up directly under the Ramillies, fastened
himself and his boat to her keel, where he remained half an hour, and suc-
ceeded in perforating a hole through her copper, and while engaged in screw-
ing a torpedo to her bottom, the screw broke and defeated his object for that
time. So great was the alarm and fear on board the Ramillies of some such
stratagem being played on them that Commodore Hardy has withdrawn his
force from New London and keeps his ships under way all the time instead
of lying at anchor as formerly."

A letter from New England, dated "later," but published in the same issue of
the Intelligencer, July 15, 1813, said the dauntless experimenter went under the
Ramillies a fourth time and had not been heard of since. Either this letter was
in error or the experimenter was someone other than Penny, who was not
reported missing and was working later under Decatur.

The torpedo was a powerful potential weapon from which the Americans
obtained little advantage in the War of 1812. Great Britain had rejected it
after the Thames experiments mainly because she did not want to promote
a device that would tend to nullify her naval superiority. Fulton's invention
consisted of a charge of gunpowder that could be brought under a warship
by the tide and exploded with a time fuse. He had abandoned his earlier
experiments with a nautilus, or undersea craft, the type of submarine torpedo
used by Penny. Fulton apparently always believed the torpedo more important
than the steamboat because the torpedo would render warships valueless. On
August 22, 1807, after the famous and successful passage of the steamboat
Clermont up the Hudson, he wrote to Joel Barlow: "However, I do not admit
that it is half so important as the torpedo system of defense and attack, for
out of it will grow the liberty of the seas, an object of infinite importance to
the welfare of America and every civilized country. But thousands of witnesses
have now seen the steamboat in rapid movement, and believe; they have never
seen a ship of war destroyed by a torpedo, and they do not believe." Cited in
Lossing, p. 241.

724 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

'Monroe wrote the Governor of Pennsylvania asking authority to confine
military prisoners in the Pennsylvania penitentiary on Arch Street, Philadel-
phia. Both houses of the legislature acted quickly and the governor approved
the law granting the authority. Published in the New York Spectator, March
7, 1814. The Spectator of April 27, 1814, told that eighteen of the prisoners
had escaped. With a small file they cut a window bar and wiggled through
a hole nine inches by fifteen inches, then let themselves to the ground with
blankets and sheets. Seven of the prisoners were recaptured.

4 Monroe's statement to Congress, reported in the Spectator, April 27, 1814,
said he had no information to show whether the twenty-three original hostage
prisoners were native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. The
Federal Republican pointed out that this was not as Madison had stated the
facts, for he had announced that the prisoners sent to England had emigrated
and become citizens "long prior to the war."

5 Luther Martin was called "Lawyer Brandy Bottle" in a handbill issued
after his successful defense of Aaron Burr. McMaster, III, 87.

6 After obtaining Madison's views, Winder stopped in Baltimore for a final
visit with his family before returning to Quebec. His son, John Henry Winder,
was studying preparatory to entering the military academy at West Point.
There, after his graduation, he became the instructor in military tactics who
taught Jefferson Davis. As an elderly man, he went with the South in the War
between the States, being condemned in the North because of his services as
supervisor of Anderson ville and Libby prisons.

Before Winder's departure from Baltimore his friends gave him a testi-
monial dinner at Barney's Inn, held on the last day of February, 1814, with a
number of the city's leaders present. Niles' Register, March 5, 1814. The toast-
master, Judge J. H. Nicholson, proposed a toast to Winder: "May he soon
be restored to that career of glory from which he was untimely snatched by
one of those accidents which no human foresight can prevent." The judge did
not explain that it was really lack of sight instead of foresight that made
Winder prisoner at Stoney Creek when he wandered into the British lines,
and the gathering did not feel Winder was discredited by the conditions of
his capture. When the glasses were restored to the table, the Baltimore citizens
applauded enthusiastically. This brought Winder to his feet. He told of the
emotions aroused in him by the scene "and more particularly by the last
toast." They were too powerful, he said, to permit him to express the strong
sensibility with which he received the confidence of his fellow townsmen,
but he promised: "If the opportunity may again be afforded me (which I
ardently pray may be soon) I shall exert all my industry and such powers
as I have, to justify the expectations which have been indulgently entertained
by my friends."

Major George Armistead caught in his toast the spirit that was stirring the
country: "To our officers and soldiers in captivity an eye for an eye, a tooth
for a tooth!' 5 On that, General Winder spoke again, saying his country might
be called upon to carry into effect for him the principle contained in Major
Armistead's toast, and adding: "Such sentiments will assist me in supporting
myself, in the bitterest moments, as becomes a soldier." Winder departed to
spend the remainder of the evening at his home and Judge Nicholson con-

Notes 725

eluded the banquet with a final toast to Winder, "The American Regains
returning to the modern Carthage! "

7 On May i, 1814, a committee of businessmen from Washington, Alexan-
dria and Georgetown visited Madison and mentioned a number of points which
in their opinion should be fortified. Madison said he would discuss the ques-
tion with his cabinet, which he did on the day following. The cabinet took
no action, but in June he asked Secretary Armstrong to prepare a report on
the troops available for the defense of the district, which proved to be 2,154
men, scattered from Baltimore to Norfolk. The next cabinet meeting pro-
duced what became known as the July First defense plan, which Congress was
to discuss endlessly in later months. The plan was designed to give the city
of Washington an army of 93,500 militia. Although the bulk of this army was
to remain subject to call, a force of 16,600 would be under arms ready for
prompt mobilization, while a corps of from 2,000 to 3,000 would be concen-
trated midway between the Potomac and Baltimore and held actively in the
field for observation and training.

The main features of the plan were: (i) quotas for militia drafts would be
given the states for the 93,500 men; (2) portions of the quotas from three
neighboring states 6,000 from Maryland, 5,000 from Pennsylvania and 2,000
from Virginia should be held in reserve in the respective states ready to
march immediately on the call of the commanding general in Washington;
(3) between 2,000 and 3,000 of these drafts should move immediately to the
position between the Potomac and Baltimore, where, with the militia of the
District of Columbia and the companies of regular infantry and troops of
dragoons at the capital, they would constitute a corps disposable at all times
under the direction of the commanding general.

The plan left the capital dependent for security upon a citizen soldiery.
It entrusted the assembly of these soldiers to Secretary Armstrong, who did
nothing about it other than to pass the responsibility along to the Department
commander, with admonitions for him not to call more than were needed at
the immediate moment.

8 On July 2 the Washington area was organized into the Tenth Military
Department, a documentary transaction which appeared from press comments
to inspire confidence throughout the country, and Brigadier General William
Henry Winder was officially appointed to the command. Amid the patriotic
festivities of the Fourth of July, while most of the country was celebrating
the downfall of Bonaparte, requisitions were ordered on the states for the
93,500 soldiers. On July 5 Winder, fresh from a Fourth of July oration in
Baltimore, arrived in Washington and assumed his new duties. With its labors
completed and the defense of the city given over to the Baltimore barrister,
the cabinet breathed more freely and adjourned.

D A Maryland farmer saw Winder thus engaged. The farmer had read a
book about farming and had followed its instructions about the advantages of
deep plowing, with the result that he hit gravel, and his land would no longer
hold its fertilizer, making it worthless for tobacco.

"He'll be whipped," the farmer commented, when he saw Winder with his
papers.

"Why?" a neighbor asked.

726 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

"Because he's going to book-fight the British, just like we've been book
farming." Lossing, p.

Chapter Twenty-six BRITISH INVASION PLANS

*"The Capture of Washington by the English in 1814," in Genealogical
Magazine: A Journal of Family History, Heraldry, and Pedigrees, I (May
1 897 -April 1898), 132.

2 Benjamin Smyth emphasizes Ross's rigid discipline and unrelenting drill
schedules. At the end of 1799, Ross had the regiment at Minorca, in the
Balearics, under enlistment conditions restricting it to European service. Sir
Ralph Abercromby then was fitting out his expedition against the army Na-
poleon had left in Egypt. Ross prevailed upon the men to volunteer for
African duty and led the regiment at the capture of Alexandria, and when
the French had been driven from Egypt and Napoleon's vision of an empire
fashioned after that of Alexander the Great had been blasted by British mus-
kets, took it to garrison duty at the newly acquired island of Malta. Benjamin
Smyth, History of the Twentieth Regiment, 1688-188$, p. 114.

There the troops who had expected a life of loitering found that the colonel
had other intentions. It was blazing hot under the midsummer Mediterranean
sun, yet Ross turned the regiment out for eight hours of drill daily. According
to one of the officers, Ross "exercisfed] it indefatigably." He practiced not
only the customary close-order evolutions which might win parade-ground
prizes, but trained the companies also in the skirmishing informalities which
had entered warfare during the American Revolution and were being adopted
extensively by Napoleon; harassed phantom enemy columns; and simulated
attacks across the fields and over the Maltese stone fences. Smyth, p. 114.

8 Cited in Smyth, p. 342.

* As Ross prepared for his embarkation he described proudly, in a personal
letter that found its way into the 20th Regiment annals (cf. Smyth, p. 343),
the self-reliance his wife manifested when he was hit at Orthez, in southern
France. It was the day on which Wellington, too, was felled by a rifle ball.
The Duke's injury was superficial, the bullet striking his sword hilt and driving
it into his hip. Ross, wounded more severely, was evacuated to Army head-
quarters at St.-Jean-de-Luz, eighty or ninety miles across the Pyrenees from
Bilbao, where his wife was then stopping. It was late February and heavy snows
lay in the mountains, but immediately upon receipt of word of her husband's
injury "this brave lady . . . mounted her mule and in the midst of rain, hail
and mud and all other accomplishments of bad weather," journeyed "a distance
of eighty and ninety miles over snowy mountains and bad roads" to reach him.
"The Capture of Washington," p. 235.

5 The London Times, May 25, 1814, reported that Lord Hill "is said to
have accepted" command of the troops to act against the United States.

London Times, June 7, 1814. The Clinker reached Portsmouth on June 4
with information that the embarkations from Bordeaux consisted of these
regiments: 6th; 27th; 28th; 4oth; 44th (2nd Battalion); 57th Light Infantry;

Notes 727

<5oth (jth Battalion); Both; 8yth (znd Battalion); and 88th, under Brigadier
Generals Kempt, Ross and Robinson.

The London Times, June 2, 1814, said: "The proceedings at Ghent will not
for a moment delay those in the Potomac. Baltimore is already threatened
and we trust ere long the British flag will fly on the capitol at Washington."

7 Harry Smith, Autobiography, pp. 54^ The story has been made into a
novel, The Spanish Bride, by Georgette Heyer.

8 Harry Smith was one of Great Britain's main tools for empire building
during the Victorian expansion. Victoria kept Smith's sword as one of her
treasured mementos. He was active in the British Army in the campaigns
against Washington and New Orleans in the War of 1812.

6 After all preparations were completed, the expedition was thrown into
temporary confusion because the dispatches from the War Office giving final
authority for the disposition of the troops and naming the general officers to
command them had not arrived. General Gosselin, who had brought British
detachments from the Mediterranean, where they had been released from
garrison service by the peace with France, was senior to General Ross and
therefore would lead the Chesapeake expedition unless directed elsewhere; yet
Ross had been advised before sailing from Bordeaux that he would have an in-
dependent command. It was finally discovered that the orders had arrived, after
all, and were lying unnoticed on one of the transports. Gosselin was assigned
to co-operate with the fleet off New England and Ross to attack the middle
American seaboard.

10 The description of George III at this period is from J. Heneage Jesse,
Life and Reign of George III, III, 572-595. The girl of his vision was Lady
Elizabeth Spencer, Countess of Pembroke, whom Jesse describes as "a lady of
spotless virtue and stately loveliness" for whom "during some period of his
youth the King had conceived a passionate admiration." There were no means
of ascertaining "whether the King had ever permitted his passion to come to
her knowledge" but "the deep impression which her youthful loveliness had
formerly made upon him remained indelible in his memory." She was present
in the King's visions during his malady in 1789 and returned in 1811, and the
delusion of her nearness remained with him until his death. Lady Pembroke
was twenty-two at the time of accession of George III. Four years earlier she
had become the wife of Henry, Earl of Pembroke. Jesse, HI, 560-561.

Chapter Twenty -seven WASHINGTON THREATENED

1 The number of scribes grew and complaints were made that the press
could not follow the debates. The National Intelligencer, which had lost its ros-
trum place, said the correspondents had to guess at the sentiments "of every
member not blessed with the lungs of a Danton or the liquid tones of a
Randolph." Clay gave the correspondents a reserved space.

2 The New York Spectator, March 16, 1814, referred to Gales as "the Eng-
lishman who conducts that paper."

8 At the moment when everyone in Washington was incensed over Arm-

7 i8 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

strong's indifference, his Department came under sensational attack from
William Simmons, the War Department accountant whom Armstrong had dis-
missed. Simmons had been appointed by President Washington and had occu-
pied his post since almost the establishment of the government. He had
become a thorough bureaucrat and, according to some of the newspaper
writers, was habitually arrogant with those who had business with the Depart-
ment. The letter he addressed to the Senate and House charging profligacy
and corruption by Armstrong in the administration of the Department was
popular reading for the Secretary's large following of enemies. Madison or-
dered an investigation and Armstrong denied in toto the alleged irregularities.

On July 20, 1814, the New York Spectator republished a story from the
Salem, Massachusetts, Gazette. It said Simmons "is the same officer who de-
tected and exposed the prodigality and enormous waste of public money com-
mitted by Wilkinson when he demanded payment at the treasury for all his
'capers, sugar-plums, cigars,' etc., etc. It seems Gen. Armstrong, as well as
Wilkinson, has a great lurch to put in his ladle and help himself from the
treasury, as from a public cistern; for while he was commanding Gen. at
New York he purchased a large quantity of MAHOGANY furniture for his own
use, and then, brave as a hero! demanded that 'we the people' should pay the
bill! Now the disclosure of this fact excites no surprise in the minds of those
who are acquainted with the sordid and unprincipled characters of the cor-
morants who rest upon the treasury. Not withstanding all the enormous ex-
pense of Madison's Cabinet Furniture, your Ebony and Mahogany and wooden
men who fill the nitches of public office, the nation cares not and is quiet; it
is a fact that the people, like a cow with full and distended udders, loves to
be milked"

The National Intelligencer, July 18, 1814, gave little attention to the charges
and said Simmons' writing could be found conspicuously displayed in the
"Common Sewer," by which it meant Hanson's Federal Republican.

An indication of the state of War Department accounting could be seen
after a resolution inquiring about some Northwestern claims had been intro-
duced by Senator Worthington of Ohio. Armstrong replied on March 24, 1814,
saying: "The claims in question no doubt make part of a mass amounting to
many millions, which remain unsettled, and I .believe unlooked at in those
offices." The italics were those of the Spectator which published the letter on
May ir, 1814.

* August 8, 1814.

5 Wilkinson proved an engaging writer; it was commented that he seemed
to succeed better with the pen than in his invasion of Canada.

e The desultory war in the Chesapeake had been waged by Cockburn for
more than a year. It was estimated that during the spring and summer of 1814
he deprived Maryland farmers of tobacco worth $1,500,000. The stories that
reached Baltimore and Washington about the admiral's shore parties uniformly
carried the theme of wanton destructiveness, which was inflicted with greater
vindictiveness on former residents of Britain who had emigrated to America
or anything else smacking of British origin. In the Patuxent-Potomac region
one Marylander had a lane bordered on either side by English-walnut trees.
Although England could claim no native sovereignty over this variety of wal-

Notes

nut, which had been introduced to Britain from Persia by the Romans, the
English hewed down the entire lane. In one community everyone fled except
the little tailor, who probably thought himself too inconspicuous for the atten-
tion of the Army of England. But the British marines improvised an old-
fashioned ducking stool and doused him.

Winder's corps of observation was supposed to protect the southern Mary-
land country. One of the units was Major George Peter's battery, which
included young men from leading Georgetown families and workers in
Georgetown and Washington stores. Among them was a nineteen-year-old
dry-goods clerk, George Peabody, who in later years accumulated a vast for-
tune in England and became one of the world's leading philanthropists. An-
other member was Francis Scott Key, who had asserted to Randolph: "I will
not fight the poor, unoffending Canadians." Cockburn's freebooting in the
Chesapeake had made Key a lieutenant and quartermaster in Peter's battery.
The battery, in turn, became, in July 1814 the principal force in Winder's
corps of observation. It moved to the Wood Yard, twelve miles from Wash-
ington toward the Patuxent, and then to that river. Of this campaign Key
remarked that he was "hit in the face by no more than a piece of salt pork."
Winder reviewed the battery, together with other District of Columbia troops
under Colonel Magruder, on July 23, and released them from active duty with
a general order that the enemy appeared to be content with merely continuing
their "shameful depredations" in the remote sections of Maryland. Thus the
defending army which looked so formidable on paper in the July First plan
passed into history before the month ended. Some scatterings of regulars
remained in Washington under arms.

7 George Robert Gleig gives a description of the arrival in America in the
early sections of his two books, Narratives of the Campaigns of the British
Army at Washington and New Orleans and A Subaltern in America. Harry
Smith also describes the arrival and was charmed with the country. Smith said
the voyage up the Patuxent was through a beautiful forest. He complained,
however, about the bad maps. Autobiography, p. 197.

Gleig discusses the difficulty the ships had in getting up the shallow Patuxent
River toward Benedict, which he called St. Benedicts. The anchorage of the
fleet was finally made eight miles below the town and the troops were taken to
the landing in boats. Subaltern, pp. 6-7.

George Robert Gleig was one of Ross's subalterns, who amused the army by
composing songs and squibs on American campaigning. He turned to the
ministry after Waterloo and ultimately became chaplain-general of the British
armies. His pithy writings became more verbose and his historical publications
were voluminous. He lived to the age of ninety-six years, the last survivor
among the Peninsular soldiers of the 85th Regiment and probably the last of
the British invaders of America. He kept until his death, suspended over his
pulpit in the Chelsea Hospital chapel, the American flag he captured at the
Battle of Bladensburg.

8 General Wilkinson in Washington wrote a letter to former Governor
Bowie of Maryland, August 19, saying, "There can be no doubt Barney's
flotilla is the first object of attack, and will of course be destroyed as no ade-
quate defense can be made against such numbers. ... A considerable degree

730 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

of alarm prevails more we think than the occasion justifies." Published in the
New York Spectator, August 27, 1814. In his Memoirs Wilkinson was critical.
He wrote: "Cockburn, with his barges, pursued Barney's flotilla, which had, by
order of President Madison, been unfortunately abandoned, and was without
resistance blown up, when it will be apparent to every competent judge, that,
from the narrowness of the channel, the Commodore could have defended
himself, and repulsed any floating force the enemy could have brought against
him, and his flanks were well secured by the extent of the marshes on both
sides of the river. Thus the primary object of the enemy would have been

baffled " Wilkinson, I, 766.

The first reports in New York were not alarming. The British had not
begun their march. The Evening Post published on August 24 news of the
landing at Benedict and said: "The militia have collected in such numbers in
and near the capital as to ensure the safety of that place, should the British
make an attempt upon it."

10 The British lack of cavalry was critical. The only information Ross could
get was what his scouts gathered by walking, which told him nothing of
probable concentrations at a distance, or even beyond a radius of a few miles.
He gave orders that all horses found along the route should be seized. As the
troops entered the more populous district around Upper Marlboro, forty ani-
mals were brought into the British camp. Bridles were improvised and where
saddles were unobtainable, blankets were folded. The artillery drivers who
had been marching with the infantry were mounted in this fashion. Most of
the animals were of poor quality, but the general was able to improve his
reconnaissance and give the army much greater security against surprise. The
mounts were so miserable that the British soldiers jestingly called the scouts
"Cossacks," a term which was carried into Washington and adopted by the
residents there as descriptive of the entire invading force.

11 Judge E. W. Watson, who knew Monroe intimately, said Monroe did not
take off his clothing for ten days and nights and was in the saddle the greater
part of the time preceding and during the British occupation of Washington.
Daniel Gilman, James Monroe -, p. 186.

The New York Evening Post, August 25, printed a letter from one of the
cavalry officers with Monroe, written twelve miles from Benedict at 3 P.M.
August 21. "I am now with Mr. Monroe; we have this morning reconnoitered
the enemy in every direction, and collected every information which the
neighborhood affords. At ten o'clock A.M. this day, we had full view of all
their shipping which lay from Benedict to about 8 miles below. I counted 23
ships, several brigs and some few small craft. . . . The barges and a number
of schooners and three large vessels (say frigates) had proceeded up the river
toward Nottingham before we got our stand. They have also a heavy force
marching on this side of the river toward Nottingham, no doubt to cooperate
with the shipping against Barney. Some state the land force at 3,000 on the
march; others at less, and others again at much more. From the best informa-
tion I can get I believe the whole force landed at Benedict is about 6,000. . . .
The distress of the neighborhood is inconceivable."

12 Not having been a party to the selection of Winder, Armstrong apparently
considered himself under no obligation to assist in the campaign. His publica-

Notes 731

tions after the war gave a plausible explanation of his course through the
campaign. He did make recommendations from time to time. His chief sug-
gestion was that the Capitol be garrisoned and defended much as the Chew
mansion had been by the British at Germantown during the Revolutionary
War.

Armstrong might have contributed to Winder's strength by the exercise of
a bit of foresight. Colonel Duncan L. Clinch, a Regular Army officer who
served effectively against the British on the border and later against the
Seminole, was encamped in Washington in late June 1814 with 500 regulars
enlisted in North Carolina. These men looked like troops of good quality and
undoubtedly would have proved a valuable addition to the defense of the
capital. They had been getting drill from Clinch. But while the War Depart-
ment was presumed to be beating the bushes for an army for the capital, it
sent Clinch and his North Carolinians to the Canadian border.

13 New York Spectator, August 27, 1814. In his orders Winder said: "Let no
man allow his private opinions, his prejudices or caprices in favor of this or
that particular arm or weapon of annoyance be pretended excuse for deserting
his post, but seize on those which can be furnished him, or he can command
himself resolutely to encounter the enemy, and prove that the bravery of free-
men fighting for their families; their liberties; can render every weapon for-
midable."

" August 23, 1814.

15 A report reached Washington and New York that on this reconnaissance
Winder narrowly escaped capture, although he was mounted and did not get
close to the enemy. Letter to New York Spectator, published August 27, 1814.

10 Wilkinson stated that "not a single bridge was broken, not a causeway
destroyed, not an inundation attempted, not a tree fallen, not a rod of the
road obstructed, nor a gun fired at an enemy in a march of nearly forty miles."
Wilkinson, I, 759. He was slightly in error about the firing. Before leaving
Washington Winder sent Tilghman's volunteer dragoons and CaldwelTs District
of Columbia horse to molest the enemy and, although Ross had no cavalry, to
"destroy his forage." Some of these troops were in Upper Marlboro when the
British approached. They fired two ineffectual volleys and retired.

17 Harry Smith tells of two of these spies with whom he maintained contact.
One, "the most awful spectacle of a man," named Calder, was "covered with
leprosy" which was "probably why he turned traitor." Another was a young
man named Brown who acted as guide for the British. Brown carne under
suspicion from the Americans; as the British yi^ere departing for their ships,
Calder came to Smith and reported excitedly that Brown was going to be
hanged. "Now if I could hear General Ross say, If I catch that rascal Brown
I will hang, him like carrion' he may be saved." Ross reluctantly consented to
this mummery and Calder hurried back to Washington to tell the Americans
that Ross wanted to hang Brown. Smith judged Calder was successful in sav-
ing his fellow spy. Before the ships sailed he had a message from Calder
saying, "All's right you may reckon." Harry Smith, pp. 197-198.

Ingersoll said, "A young Scotchman of idle and vicious habits accompanied
the enemy's advance."

Washington was so filled with spy stories after the British invasion that it is

732 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

difficult to determine which were authentic. One of Ross's officers was recog-
nized at the boardinghouse as a person who had been in the city and talked
there with Postmaster General Meigs. Another was supposed to have visited
Mrs. Madison in the disguise of a woman. Dr. Albert K. Hadel, Maryland
Historical Society Magazine, 1903, said: "Their officers disguised easily made
their way into the city, mingled with the people, frequented the hotels and
taverns and passed in and out of the city at pleasure."

The Intelligencer had an article denouncing the spies after the invasion. The
Intelligencer, August 31, 1814, said, "The enemy was conducted through the
city by a former resident . . . who with other detected traitors is now in
confinement."

18 Statement to Congressional investigating committee; published in the Na-
tional Intelligencer, December 5, 1814. This was a difficult night for most of
the cabinet members, who slept little, and especially for Monroe, who was in
the saddle all night trying to maintain contact between divided American
forces and also to keep in touch with the advancing British. Monroe's percep-
tion showed him that if a battle were to be fought, it would be fought at
Bladensburg. On August 22 Monroe notified Serurier, the French ambassador,
that the hope of saving Washington depended on an engagement at Bladens-
burg. Serurier to Talleyrand, August 22, 1814-, cited in Adams, History, VIII,
134, Monroe had already cautioned Madison to remove the records, indicating
his doubt, which he also reflected to Serurier, that the capital could be saved
by the kind of campaign being conducted.

19 Gales and Seaton of the National Intelligencer were with Winder's army
on alternate days and sent back stories. The one who sent the dispatch for
the August 23 Intelligencer reported the army was "in high spirits and full of
confidence." I have not been able to learn of any previous instance in which
a newspaper reporter actively covered the campaign of an American army in
war and therefore judge that Joseph Gales and William Seaton must be con-
sidered the first two war correspondents of American journalism accompany-
ing an American army in the field.

20 Colonel McKenney wrote a pamphlet on his scouting activities and told of
the questioning of prisoners by the President.

21 New York Spectator, August 27, 1814.
32 1 bid.

28 Letter by Pleasanton, August 7, 1848; cited in Lossing, p. 923^

24 This fire, some of the Republicans contended, was kindled by departing
Federalists to cover their tracks, but few took the charge seriously.

25 At this juncture the American troops were without a commander. Winder
had ridden to Bladensburg to see Stansbury of the Baltimore militia. Smith
formed the District of Columbia militia for combat. Colonel McKenney, who
had been scouting with Monroe, arrived at this time and Smith told him he
did not want to take the responsibility for a battle with Winder absent.
McKenney rushed off and found Winder eight miles toward Bladensburg and
told him to hurry back. During Winder's absence the District of Columbia
militia began a movement to elect Smith commander in place of Winder.
Word that Smith was actually elected spread over south Maryland and reached
Monroe at Bladensburg, causing much confusion there.

Notes 733

26 Ross moved a brigade to his left down the road leading to Fort Washing-
ton. It was impossible for him to reach the capital in that direction without
crossing the East Branch of the Potomac, for which he had no pontoons. The
Americans could readily have defended the one bridge. But Winder thought
from the dust cloud that the entire British army was moving toward Fort
Washington or against his right. When he rejoined the army his first words
were, "The manifest object of the enemy is to attack us in the night. We
have not the material for a night fight." The memory of his surprise at
Stoney Creek was still heavy in his memory.

27 Smith made this comment: "Thus terminated the four days of service of
the troops of this District. They had been under arms, with but little inter-
mission, the whole of the time, both night and day; had traveled ... a con-
siderable tract of country, exposed to the burning heat of a sultry sun by
day, and many of them to the cold dews of the night, uncovered. They had
in this period drawn but two rations, the requisition therefor in the first
instance being only partially complied with, and it being afterward almost
impossible to procure the means of transportation." Published in the 'National
Intelligencer'^ cited in Lossing, p. 925.

28 The Congressional committee which investigated the campaign stated in
its report, "The march of the army was extremely rapid and precipitate;
and orders were occasionally given to the captains to hurry on the men,
who were extremely fatigued and exhausted, before they reached the camping
ground near the Eastern Branch bridge." Published in the National Intelli-
gencer, December 5, 1814. John Law, a large Washington property holder
who was in the campaign, said the retreat "literally became a run of eight
miles." State Papers, Military Affairs, I, 585; cited in Adams, History, VIII, 136.

28 The suggestion has been ridiculed, but it might have prevented a farther
march by Ross if any concerted action by the Americans could have been
obtained. With so small a force Ross could not have ventured far from his
fleet in the face of enterprising opposition. There was no officer of Monroe's
capacity in the American Army. Probably he, certainly Jackson, Brown or
Scott, could have stopped the British at or in front of Bladensburg.

80 It is impossible to tell what was in the President's mind about the com-
mand of the Army on the morning of August 24. Lossing quotes a letter
written in 1848 by Jacob Barker of New Orleans who was in Washington
during the battle. Barker wrote, "The President left Washington about 9 A.M.
in great haste, to recall General Armstrong, who had preceded him about
an hour with the President's order to supersede General Winder in the
defense of the capital." Rush said the President informed him the reason he
was going to Bladensburg was to see that Armstrong got the chief command.
Lossing, p. 926 and 92 6n.

* The British soldiers suffered excessively from the heat on this rapid march.
According to the Baltimore Patriot, August 29, 1814, twelve bodies, without
wound marks, were buried in a single field. The deaths apparently were from
sunstroke. Ross was trying to reach Bladensburg before Winder marched his
army from the Navy Yard to unite with Stansbury. The Baltimore Patriot,
August 29, said that as the British passed through Bladensburg to attack
"their mouths were open gasping for breath."

734 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Chapter Twenty -eight DEFEAT AT BLADENSBURG

Ingersoll says, "Several gentlemen, among the rest, Mr. Francis S. Key,
[were] not only recommending, but showing where they thought the troops
ought to be posted, riding to the spots designated and confounding the
outset." Ingersoll, II, 174.

2 Stansbury was on the alert for interference by officers of the District of
Columbia militia, believing his rank superior to that of Smith, but he was
either inattentive or indifferent to this early assistance by civilians.

s Captain J. I. Stull commanded a Georgetown rifle company, organized in
1811, and drilled with rifled "Indian squirrel guns" borrowed from the superin-
tendent of Indian affairs, but unserviceable for combat. In 1814 Stull made
numerous requisitions for new rifles, but could not get the order passed by
Armstrong. The company finally had to take muskets, but not until after they
had marched out with Winder and served one day armed only with toma-
hawks. The rifles Armstrong withheld from the company were destroyed when
the Washington arsenal was burned a few days later. Statement by Stull; cited
in Colonel McKenney's pamphlet, pp. 24-26.

*BealFs troops coming into Bladensburg were supposed at first to be
Ross's advance. Ingersoll, II, 174.

5 Ibid., p. 175.

6 Letter of William Simmons, State Papers, Military Affairs, I, 596. Cited in
Adams, History, VIII, 140.

7 The bearing of Monroe's action on the outcome of the battle has been a
point of dispute for many writers, some of whom have attributed the Ameri-
can defeat largely to his interference. Ingersoll says Monroe was "indefatigable
and anxious, resolved, as he said, to spill the last drop of blood to defend
every inch of ground." Monroe was one of the few present who had demon-
strated fully his personal courage in fighting the British. He could see then
that "although some seven thousand men were present, nothing deserving the
name of an army existed." Adams, History, VIII, 141.

Ingersoll describes Monroe's change of the line as follows: "Colonel Monroe
deranged the front rank, by an injudicious alteration, condemned by Stans-
bury, Sterrett and Pinkney, scarcely owned by Monroe himself, and which
General Armstrong stigmatized as the blunder of a busy tactician; for which,
however, indubitably brave and invariably kind, Monroe was not much
blamed, though that derangement of the front rank was a primary cause of
its exposure naked and consequent instantaneous flight. He removed Sterett's
regiment nearly a quarter of a mile from where it originally stood, placing it
behind an orchard which favored the enemy, out of supporting distance, to
cover the drafted militia, thus left almost alone in front, with two or three com-
panies of artillerists and a few of Pinkney's rifle battalion, one company of
whom Colonel Monroe also took away from their original station." Ingersoll,

n, 174-

There are additional points which should be considered. These officers
and Winder as well were on the field, presumably with their men, where

Notes

they should have been, and if they objected to Monroe's change they should
have done so on the spot, and not after it had been made or after the battle
had been lost. Again, had there been serious objection, there was time to
rectify it before the British struck. An even more important consideration is
that Winder moved the jth Baltimore twice after Monroe had placed it,
and therefore Monroe's temporary shift could have had no bearing on the
outcome. Finally, anyone who remembers this field before the modern roads
were constructed and Bladensburg grew into a larger community will recall
the flat bottom land of the East Branch which did not possess any natural
advantages of defense for raw troops. The 5th Baltimore was in an apple
orchard, on which the fruit had ripened. Monroe took them behind the
orchard, depriving them of the shelter of the trees, which was the principal
complaint. Yet they were not assailed from the front, where the British tarried
to eat apples, but on the flank, and they could have been flanked as easily
in the orchard as in the final position given them by Winder. Stansbury, a
fine citizen who lived to the age of ninety-three and served long in his state
legislature, had been at Bladensburg longer than any other officer, but ap-
peared to select the least attractive position for his line. He might have
defended Lowndes Heights to the southeast of Bladensburg, or he might have
destroyed the bridge and defended the line of the river. If he abandoned the
line of the river, then he or Winder after him should have selected one of the
ridges between the river and the District of Columbia line, such as Barney
did later for his defense.

During this campaign Monroe had been witnessing a series of blunders and
was censurable only because he did not have the authority, and not because
he did not possess the capacity to deploy the army. Steele makes no mention
of Monroe's part but attributes the loss of the battle to the British flanking
movement. Matthew Fornay Steele, American Campaigns (War Department
Document No. 325), pp. 73-80.

There is the final question of whether President Madison had any part in
this shift of positions, or consented to it at Monroe's request. Hadel, Mary-
land Historical Society Magazine, 1903, says Monroe rode forward, examined
the position carefully, retired to the side of the President, conversed in a low
voice and then rode away rapidly. This conversation, he said, resulted in
moving the 5th Maryland. It is probable that Monroe's conversation was on
another subject, for Madison only a few minutes earlier had issued his
orders to leave to the military functionaries "the discharge of their own
duties on their own responsibility."

Ingersoll thought Monroe's indiscretion led to that of others. "Aggravating
this cardinal error," he said, "numerous self -constituted contributors of advice,
suggesters of position, and intermeddlers with command; gentlemen of respec-
tability and good will; committees, a whole democracy of commanders, indus-
triously helped to mar all singleness of purpose and unity of action." Where
were Winder and Stansbury, indeed!

8 Cited in Ingersoll, II, 174.

9 Ibid., p. 175.

10 Cockburn said in his report: "The British troops, almost exhausted with
fatigue, and but a small proportion having got up, did not hesitate to attack

736 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

immediately the American position of great strength and commanding atti-
tude," Ross said: "On the opposite side of the river the enemy were posted on
very commanding heights. Artillery covered the bridge over which the British
army had to pass." Cited in Ingersoll, II, 175.

11 Ingersoll, II, 175, gives slightly different wording.

^Steele says: "General Winder and his army never stopped in their flight,
tmtil they had gone sixteen miles beyond Washington." Steele, I, 73.

18 Reports that Maryland slaves were plotting a revolt were published in
the Fredericktown Herald, August 20, 1814, and copied by the New York
Spectator, August 27. No revolt developed. On August 30, 1845, Alvan
Stewart wrote a letter relating a conversation he had with General Smith of
the District of Columbia militia when he and Smith were riding through
Bladensburg in 1818. Smith told him, he said, that "the secret of our disgrace-
ful flight was that a story had been circulated through the District and adjacent
counties in the two states, that on that day the slaves were to rise and assert
their liberty, and that each man more feared the enemy he had left behind,
in the shape of a slave in his own house or plantation, than he did anything
else. The officers and soldiers had their minds distracted with the possibility
of this insurrection and therefore fled to their homes before an inferior force,
and left Washington to the mercy of its captors." Cited in Lossing, p. 938. The
difficulties with this story are that the apprehensions about the revolt did not
creep over the militiamen until the exact moment the rockets began to fly,
and that they did not affect Barney's men from the water front, who may
not have had slaves, but did have homes.

14 Ingersoll, II, 176. Ingersoll describes the flight: "Brave freemen, many of
them gentlemen who would not hesitate to risk their lives in deadly combat,
without spectators or the excitement of combat, on a point of honor or trifle
of controversy; athletic and independent mechanics, artisans or yeomen, like
the stampede of a herd of buffaloes or wild horses in the prairie, snuffing or
dreading distant, imaginary danger, took to their heels with the swiftness of
delirium, and ran till overcome by the fatigue which exhausted and arrested
them."

13 Published in the New York Spectator, August 31, 1814.

16 This regiment, which had possessed a splendid record and reputation,
was humiliated by the experience. The story in the Baltimore Patriot on the
evening of August 27 showed the reticence of the Baltimore troops to discuss
the battle: "Many of those who were in the engagement at Bladensburg have
arrived in the city," the Patriot said. "No satisfactory account of the affair
is received, as each was too much engaged at the time, and too much exhausted
since, with fatigue and extraordinary privations, to give a distinct account."

17 The first account of the battle to reach New York, published on August
27 in an extra of the Commercial Advertiser, was ludicrously confused: "At
i o'clock P.M. on Wednesday last, the British troops, consisting of 9,000 infantry
under the command of Generals Ross and Picton, and 4,000 artillery under
Lord Hill, in person, entered Bladensburg and commenced a battle which
continued four hours, when our army fell back, and retreated to Washington.
Gen. Stansbury, it is said, was killed-, Major Sterett wounded; Major Pinkney
mortally wounded and taken prisoner; and the 5th Baltimore regiment, com-

Notes 737

posed of fine young men, almost entirely destroyed, The stage Passengers
add, that an Express from Baltimore arrived at Philadelphia, at eleven o'clock
last evening, announcing that the City of Washington was in the hands of the
enemy." The Spectator on the following day added: "The mail this morning
has too abundantly confirmed this news, with additional facts far more disas-
trous."

18 Armstrong had told Winder, "By no means risk a field fight, but . . ,
retire on the Capitol and defend that to the last." He added: "Your men will
do well under cover badly in the field. The enemy is not now prepared for
seige or investment, being without cannon, baggage or provision train. What
he does, must be done at once, and by storm. Resist his first attack and he
is beaten, and may be routed and captured." Armstrong's pamphlet reply to
John Quincy Adams, Notice of Mr. Adams' Eulogimi on the Life and Charac-
ter of James Monroe (printed from the manuscripts of General John Armstrong,
1832), p. 7.

On the Bladensburg field and in Washington the British possessed themselves
of ample cannon and all other equipment needed to blow up the Capitol. If
Armstrong's plan had any merit at the start of the campaign, it did not when
he again proposed it after the battle.

10 Winder naively recorded his own flight from the field he was supposed
to command when he stated in his report written in Baltimore August 27,
"It is not for me to report the conduct of Commodore Barney and his com-
mand, nor can I speak from observation, being too remote."

^Colonel Beall "could not prevent his men from deserting an eminence,
the possession of which was vital to the issue, and where they were posted far
above and out of reach of every danger, excessively fatigued, but not too
much so to run away at the gleam of a British musket, in spite of all their
brave old Colonel could say or do to prevail on them to stand fast." Ingersoll,
II, 174.

21 In his report Barney said: "I reserved our fire. In a few minutes the
enemy again advanced, when I ordered an eighteen-pounder to be fired, which
completely cleared the road; shortly after a second and third attempt was made
by the enemy to come forward, but all were destroyed." Barney's statement on
the destruction of his flotilla was printed in the National Intelligencer, Novem-
ber 3, 1814, and his letter on the conduct of the Battle of Bladensburg in the
issue of December 20, 1814.

22 Barney died in Pittsburgh on the journey to Kentucky after the war. He
intended to settle on land he owned there. The musket baE flattened next
to the bone in his thigh and caused lumbago which with an inflamed throat
brought on his death. He fought in seventeen battles in the Revolutionary
War and nine in the War of 1812, most of them being naval actions. The
biographical information about Barney I have taken principally from William
Frederick Adams and the biographical study by his daughter-in-law, Mary

Barney.

23 Gleig said some of Barney's men were bayoneted at their guns and Adams
quotes this version. History, VIII, 143. Barney published his denial in the
Intelligencer after his exchange. The United States Gazette, August 27, 1814,
said Barney fought his guns until the British were within five paces of the

738 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

muzzles. The Federal Republican joined in the applause of Barney and said,
August 30: "Great praise is due to Barney's men, who fought with desperation,
as did the marine corps.' 7

84 Ignatius Weller, Unwelcome Visitors to Early Washington, August 24th,
1814, p. 70*

Chapter Twenty -nine REDCOATS ON THE AVENUES

*New York Commercial Advertiser, August 29, 1914. The Baltimore Federal
Gazette, September 27, said a French barber fired on Ross.

2 Ingersoll says no such overture as Armstrong suggested was possible be-
cause of the absence of Madison. Ingersoll, II, 184.

3 Ingersoll, II, 185. Gleig, in late life, denied the volley when asked by
Horatio King. Articles and correspondence in Magazine of American History,
1885.

4 Letter written by McDougall to Lossing in 1861; cited in Lossing, p. 933.

5 Conversations with Dr. James Ewell, at whose home Ross made his
headquarters while in Washington. Ewell lived in Carroll Row, at First and
A streets, Southwest, facing directly across the fields toward the Capitol. He
must have talked incessantly with Ross and Cockburn, and his account is
the best source of information on the general's reactions while in Washington.
Dr. Ewell came to Washington as a protege of Jefferson, who was his father's
classmate at William and Mary College. He published a household medical
guide called Planters' and Mariners' Medical Companion, for which he wrote
an article on bilious fever as he observed it during the War of 1812. In this
paper, which appeared in the third edition of the Companion in 1817, Dr.
Ewell made an extensive digression to tell about Ross and Cockburn and to
answer criticisms of fraternizing with the enemy made against him. He said
he had "no fear of offending my virtuous countrymen by exhibiting even
in an enemy strokes of refinement and generosity." Dr. Swell's article
has been published with a discussion of the doctor in Weller, pp. 55-118.

6 II, 185.

7 "Copenhagen" Jackson wrote his wife October 7, 1809: "I put up a
covey of partridge about three hundred yards from the House of Congress,
yclept the Capitol." Cited in Adams, History, V, 118.

8 The most appropriate description of early Washington was that of Abigail
Adams: "It is a beautiful spot, capable of every improvement." Cited in Craw-
ford, p. 163. The physical aspects of the city had not changed greatly by
1814, except for the shade trees planted by Jefferson. The 1810 census showed
Washington, 8,208; Georgetown, 4,948; Alexandria, 7,227; all were then in
the District of Columbia.

Ingersoll says a Capitol clerk removed one cartload of papers. "But for
the most part the halls of legislation, with their appurtenances, were derelict,
without superintendent, occupant or care." Ingersoll, II, 185. Minor's Virginia
regiment bivouacked in the House chamber the night before the battle but
did not reach the field because of the length of time required by quarter-
master routine to issue equipment and flints for the muskets.

Notes 739

10 New York Spectator, September 23. McGruder resigned before the next
meeting of Congress.

11 San Sebastian fell to Wellington September 9, 1813, and was fired in the
course of the attack.

"Ingersoll, describing the scene at the Navy Yard before the departure of
Madison and cabinet members for Bladensburg before the battle, ironically
said: "The Secretary of the Navy (Mr. Jones) bent on departmental suicide,
remained to complete his darling project of destroying everything at the
navy yard, as Barney's flotilla, by his order, had, in like manner, been saved
from the enemy two days before," Ingersoll, II, 174.

13 Ingersoll, writing his history in 1848, said it had never been learned who
took the pictures. They have never been replaced. Ingersoll, II, 185.

14 The only loss of life in this advance of the British to the heart of the
capital was the death of John Lewis, grandnephew of George Washington on
Washington's mother's side. He had been impressed by the British and once
flogged. Condemned to receive 500 lashes, he was relieved of half the sentence.
Niles said he was discharged February 10, 1812. Ingersoll described Lewis as
an "assailant" of the British and as "perhaps inflamed by drink." Ingersoll, IE,
1 88. He approached British sentries armed with pistols. Shots were exchanged
and he fell. His body lay in the street all night.

15 Cf. the New York Spectator, August 31, 1814.

15 Published in the New York Commercial Advertiser, August 26, 1814.

17 Cockburn had received warnings against poisoned whisky when in lower
Maryland, but no eif orts at poisoning were made. The British in Washington
were afraid of poisoned water and food. Ingersoll, II, 185.

18 /Ml, p. 187.

19 Ibid.

20 Madison's impressions about the battle would have been of historical
interest had they been preserved, but they probably conveyed no information
to the British. Madison was one of the few Presidents who used shorthand.
He developed his own system and employed it for taking notes. Stimpson,
American Politics, p. 484- Usually he repressed the personal, and therefore much
of the dramatic, in his comments.

21 Ingersoll called Nardin a "drunken Frenchman" who kept a small beer
house. Ingersoll, II, 187.

^Serurier to Talleyrand, August 27, 1814; cited in Adams, History, VIII, 146.

^Ingersoll (II, 186) says his information came from Mrs. Suter, whose two
sons had been in the battle; one was wounded fighting with Barney. She had
but one helping woman with her when the British arrived. The McLeod
Tavern facing south on Pennsylvania Avenue just east of the turn at the
Treasury was highly regarded at this period. It was opened September 24,
1812, with a party, given much local publicity, at which the mayor presided.
These were the main boardinghouses in the neighborhood of the President's
house.

^New York Spectator, August 31, 1814.

25 New York Historical Society Quarterly, VIE (1924), 80-83.

26 The poem was issued as a small pamphlet, "Printed for the Purchaser" in
1816, with an introductory statement: "Probably it is not generally known,

740 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

that the flight of MAHOMET, the flight of JOHN GILPIN, and the flight of
Bladensburg, all occurred on the twenty --fourth of August"

The author may have obtained his idea for the poem from the New York
Post remark, August 30, 1814: "Should some Walter Scott in the next century
write a poem and call it ... the Battle of Bladensburg, we would suggest
the following lines for the conclusion

'Fly, Monroe, fly! run, Armstrong, run! !
Were the last words of Madison.' "

Second Assistant Postmaster General William H. Dundas, a wag in the
Department before the War between the States, is said to have teased a
clerk, John Smith, by asserting: "The British got the best of things at the
start but the Americans beat them in the long run"

27 William Wirt wrote to his wife on October 14, 1814: "I went to look at
the ruins of the President's house. The rooms which you saw, so richly
furnished, exhibited nothing but unroofed naked walls, cracked, defaced
and blackened with fire. ... I called on the President. He looks miserably
shattered and woebegone. In short, he looked heart broken. His mind is full
of New England sedition."

38 The spelling is that of Dr. Irving Brant, who uses Dolley as did Mrs.
Madison herself.

^Ingersoll, II, 187. This does not include the value of Madison's excellent
private library, which was lost.

* Dolley had written her cousin, Edward Coles, May 12, 1813, that she had
"always been an advocate for fighting when asailed, though a Quaker. I
therefore keep the old Tunisian sabre within reach." Memoirs and Letters of
Dolly Madison, edited by L. B. Cutts, p. 91. The letter about French John is
found in Cutts, p. 109.

a Cf. Lossing, p. 936, who says: "Snatching up the precious parchment on
which was written the Declaration of Independence and the autographs of
the signers, which she had resolved to save also, she hastened to the car-
riage. . . ." Stimpson points out that the original draft of the Declaration of
Independence was never preserved, possibly having been destroyed by the
printer after setting the type and having the proofs corrected. Jefferson's
draft, with changes in the hands of Franklin and Adams, as well as changes
apparently made by the Congress, was discovered among Jefferson's papers
after his death and consequently would not have been in the President's house
in Madison's administration. This copy, long kept at the Library of Congress,
was transferred to the Archives Building in 1952. It was not the copy from
which the printer set his type. The peculiar situation was that the voting
and signing were on different occasions and, as Stimpson points out, all who
voted for it did not sign it and some who signed did not vote for it. An
engrossed copy was ordered and signed August 2, 1776, and again later, the
last signature being affixed in 1781. This is regarded as the original copy of
the Declaration as distinguished from Jefferson's copy, or the original copy
which was adopted July 4, 1776, and from which the type was set by
the printer Dunlap. The engrossed copy, which before its transfer to the

Nates 741

Library of Congress in the 19305 was under State Department custodianship,
presumably was sent to Virginia by the State Department clerk Pleasanton.
There is, however, a possibility that this is the copy Dolley Madison saved.
George Stimpson, Popular Questions Answered, pp. 78-80,

^Lossing, writing in the i86os, said the portrait of Washington saved by
Dolley Madison then hung in the Blue Room of the Presidential mansion.
This writer remembers it in the basement corridor in the 19205.

^Lossing, p. 936, from an oral statement made to him by Baker.

84 Adams says Madison crossed the Potomac intending to join Mrs. Madison
at Montpelier. Adams, History, VIH, 150.

85 Some writers have tended to question the Jennings story. From the
nature of his writing he was obviously devoted to the Madisons. At the time
of the British invasion he was in his youth, and such an event as the British
occupation would have impressed itself lastingly on his memory. His report of
this incident was obtained from others of the Madison household. The story is
easily accepted because President Madison also encountered unpleasant per-
sonal affront on his flight.

36 Cited in Weller, p. 70.

87 Dr. Ewell tells that Mrs. Ewell, who had been frightened and fled
when the British appeared, returned home while Cockburn was there. Cock-
burn paid his respects and "in his apparently rough way" asker her: "Pray,
madam, what could have alarmed you so? Do you take us for savages?" Before
she could reply he continued, "Ay, madam, I can easily account for your
terror. I see from the files in your house that you are fond of reading those
papers which delight to make devils of us." Cited in Weller, pp. 69-70.

^IngersoU, II, 189.

* National Intelligencer, August 31, 1814.

40 Dr. Ewell says forty-seven were "most horribly mangled" by the explosion,
in addition to the dead. Cited in Weller, p. 77.

41 Cockburn gave Dr. Ewell six gold doubloons which the doctor used to
help the British wounded, "the greater part of whom would certainly have
perished," he said, "as the Government made no provision for them until after
the third day." He said the admiral's gold "by immediate transmutation into
sugar, coffee, tea, milk, rice, arrow-root, bread, meats, vegetables and fruits,
was early applied to sustain their exhausted frames." Weller, p. 23.

42 Some of the British ships were allegedly cast on beam end by the storm.
Harry Smith, p. 202.

48 Smith says the British captured so much flour in Washington they could
not transport it, so the barrelheads were knocked in and the soldiers were
told to help themselves. "Soldiers are greedy fellows and many filled their
haversacks. During a tedious night march through the woods as dark as chaos,
they found the flour far from agreeable to carry and threw it away by
degrees." If it had not been for the flour making a track, the rear elements of
the column would have lost the road, he said. According to Smith, half of
the soldiers were sick with dysentery. "However owing to want of knowl-
edge of war, the enemy on this occasion allowed us to get back to our boats
perfectly unmolested." Harry Smith, p. 202.

742 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

u On January 24, 1815, Prevost notified Canada "that as a just retribution,
the proud capital at Washington, has experienced a similar fate to that
inflicted by an American force on the seat of government in Upper Canada."

Chapter Thirty ETRTH OF A SONG

*Lossing, p. 958n., says the song was first sung by Charles Durang in a
Baltimore restaurant next to the Holiday Street Theater and nightly thereafter
in the theater. For many of the facts about the writing of the song, I am
indebted to Edward S. Delaplaine, Francis Scott Key.

2 The casualties in the fort were twenty-eight, of whom four were killed.
The British withdrew, according to Cochrane's report, because "the capture
of the town would not have been a sufficient equivalent to the loss which
might probably be sustained in storming the heights." William James, A Full
and Correct Account of the Military and Naval Occurrences of the Late War
between Great Britain and the United States, II, 514. The condition of Balti-
more's defenses shows the capture would have been difficult, if at all possible.

8 The opposition speaker, Mr. Whitebread, said of Ross: "It was happy
for humanity and the credit of the empire that the extraordinary order upon
that occasion had been entrusted to an officer of so much moderation and
justice." Ross's moderation was such that the ministry, in instructions that
never reached him, suggested he press less lightly on Baltimore, should he
capture that city.

4 Law in earlier life had been associated with Lord Cornwallis in India.
It was told of him that he had to carry a piece of dough to knead as he
talked or he would lose the thread of his story. Crawford, p. 165. He married
Mrs. Washington's granddaughter, Anne Custis, and was one of the best-known
figures in the early life of the capital.

Chapter Thirty-one "DON'T GIVE UP THE SOIL"

Register, October 15, 1814.

2 August 31, 1814.

s The House by a vote of eighty-eight to fifty-five offered one hundred
acres of land to any deserter from the British Army during the war. Niles*
Register, October i, 1814.

* Ibid., October 27, 1814.

5 Pierre M. Irving, Life and Letters of Washington Irving, I, 311.

6 Near the end of August a camp was established at Kennett Square, Penn-
sylvania. A brigade, under Brigadier General Thomas Cadwalader, kept a
watch around Wilmington until November 30, 1814. An army of nearly
10,000 men was collected at Marcus Hook, and in September General E. P.
Gaines, who had served with distinction on the border, took command. This
camp was continued until early December. Lossing, p. 967.

7 September 10, 1814.

8 The War of 1812 made significant contributions to the development of

Notes 743

American naval power, despite the reluctance with which the Navy was sup-
ported at the beginning of the war. One of the most important by-products,
Navywise, was the launching of the first steam warship, which was described
in the October 29 column of the New York Spectator, November 2, 1814:
"This morning [October 29] at 20 minutes before 9 o'clock, the Steam
Battery Fulton, was Launched from the ship yard of Adarn and Noah Brown.
She entered her destined element in the most majestic style, in the view of
perhaps twenty thousand spectators We congratulate our fellow citizens
on this formidable acquisition to our means of defence. From the well known
enterprise, activity and perseverance of Messrs. Browns [sic} there is no
doubt she will be fit for service in the course of a very short time: Wo, to
the ship of the line, that engages this bullet proof and bomb proof non-
descript."

The boat, known as Fulton the First) was not an ironside, but ironclads
were being discussed. Thomas Gregg of Pennsylvania obtained in March
1814 a patent on a proposed steam-propelled ironclad. Lossing, pp. 975-976.

One of the most famous episodes in our naval history, the voyage of the
Essex, resulted from the use of privateers. This was the most distant and
celebrated cruise made by any of the frigates built and sent out in the name
of the government by private citizens. This fleet ship of thirty-two guns,
which had been an offering to the federal government by the people of
Salem and the near-by country, was more representative of the spirit of Essex
County, Massachusetts, than the junto which sought disunion. When France
threatened war in 1798 and the government was hard-pressed, Salem citizens
decided to build a frigate for the United States. The master shipwrights sent
out appeals for all who had white-oak trees to bring them to the yards.
Axes rang and the big trees were felled, trimmed and dragged by oxen through
the streets. Everything that went into the ship was from Salem iron, sail-
cloth, cordage, hempen cables. At times it was brought to the shipyard ac-
companied by the fife piping "Yankee Doodle" and by rolling drums. The
war clouds with France lifted before the Essex struck the waves but she
served in the Tripolitan War and in 1812 became a rover of the seas. Her
exploits give her a place in history with such detached commerce raiders
as the Alabama of the Confederate States and the German Emden of World
War I.

She was commanded by David Porter. One of the most interesting and
articulate members of her crew was a thirteen-year-old midshipman, David
Farragut, who was to become the last great captain of the wooden^ ships.
Porter, who had served conspicuously in Tripolitan waters, missed his ren-
dezvous with Bainbridge and Lawrence in late 1812 and, because he was under
orders allowing him discretion, decided to make for the Pacific, where no
American warship had ever sailed. He passed Cape Horn and on March 14,
1813, reached Valparaiso, Chile, which had just thrown off Spanish ^ rule. He
took on supplies and sailed for the Galapagos Islands, a center of British whale
fishing.

Through 1813 and early 1814 Porter ruled the Pacific. He captured twelve
British whalers or merchant ships, some of which he sent back as prizes,^while
others were made a part of his fleet. One he strengthened with additional

744 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

guns and named the Essex Junior, commanded by Lieutenant John Downes.
After the Galapagos Islands and a visit along the mainland of South America
he headed for the Marquesas Islands to refit at leisure. His voyage had been
singularly successful at a time when most other American warcraft were
blockaded in Atlantic coast harbors. The South Pacific had been swept clean
of British ships.

The stay at the Marquesas Islands proved to be something like a sojourn
among the lotus-eaters, for the sailors became enamored with the native girls
and threatened to mutiny when Porter got them back on board and told
them it was time to go home. The South Sea sirens came to the water's edge
when the ship made ready, and dipped salt water to their eyes to show their
tears of grief. Porter mustered his crew and told the loyal sailors to step
to the starboard, which all did, although he felt it necessary to leave the
leader of the mutiny behind. On December 12, 1813, after almost a year in
the Pacific, he turned back toward Valparaiso.

But word about so notable a raid upon British shipping would be brought
back, even from such distant seas. At Rio de Janeiro it reached Captain James
Hillyar of the British frigate, Phoebe, thirty-six guns, and Captain Thomas
Tudor Tucker, of the British Cherub, eighteen guns. They sailed at once to
intercept the American at Valparaiso. The Essex reached there January 12,
1814, an d on February 8, 1814, the British ships appeared to end Porter's
Pacific supremacy. A battle in the harbor seemed likely but both sides re-
spected the neutrality of Chile and the British drew back to take posts outside
the harbor. When the Essex decided to run for it after being blockaded six
weeks, a squall blew away her main-topmast as she cleared the headland.
Keen-eyed midshipman Farragut thought she could still have run before the
wind and outsailed the British; Porter, unable to regain the harbor because of
the wind, ran along the coast in neutral waters. But her attempt to escape
had made her fair prey for the Phoebe and Cherub, which with their longer
guns stayed out of range and pounded the Essex into submission. Porter
finally struck his colors, but his cruise won him much applause in America.
The British recaptured the Essex Junior and the prizes which the Americans
had not sunk.

9 October 6, 1814.

10 The only jarring note at the time resulted from the appointment of an
able Secretary of the Treasury to succeed Campbell. Alexander J. Dallas, a
Jamaican-born Scotchman educated in Edinburgh, was the new Secretary.
Dallas had settled in Philadelphia after the close of the Revolutionary War.
As soon as he took office he began energetic measures to put the revenues in
sounder shape and proved again, as had Gallatin, that good Secretaries of the
Treasury are not popular. His plan involved some peculiar tax suggestions.
One was doubling the postal rate; another was taxing lawyers. The Ways and
Means Committee had as its chairman John W. Eppes, Jefferson's son-in-law,
who had moved to Randolph's district as a "colonizing" measure of Virginia
Republicans and had defeated Randolph for the term beginning in 1813, the
only term Randolph lost. Administration proposals were consequently ex-
pected to have a favorable reception in the House committee.

Something of the public reaction is seen from the New York Spectator

Notes 745

article of October 26, 1814: "The project of adding 100 per cent on the
existing rate of postage, instead of doubling the revenue derived from that
source, will probably lessen it, by putting a stop, except in urgent cases, on
the transmission of letters and packages by mail. The plan of levying a special
tax on Counsellors and Attornies at Law appears to us at least very extraordi-
nary. We know not on what principle this distinction among our citizens is
intended to be justified Perhaps no class of our citizens already surfer more
by the war, than the gentlemen of the Bar. They are stript of more than half
their practice; they must necessarily pay their full proportion of every other
kind of tax; and still it seems a distinct and extraordinary burden is to be
imposed upon them. Why the Hon. Secretary, who is himself a Lawyer, has
exhibited this marked hostility to the Bar, we are at a loss to conjecture."

11 The minor excursion of Sir Peter Parker with the British frigate Mene-
laus to the Maryland east shore ended in the sharp repulse of the British and
the death of Sir Peter. On the night of August 30 Sir Peter and his officers
danced and drank and began a quest for adventure. Told of a militia gather-
ing near Georgetown crossroads, Sir Peter marched 200 men inland and was
met by a Revolutionary War veteran, Colonel Read. Sir Peter fell at the first
volley, an artery in his leg severed. His men were repulsed and he bled td
death while being carried back to the ship in a litter. Lord Byron, his first
cousin, wrote in October 1814 a poetic eulogy in his memory.

12 An interesting summation of Winder's generalship is given by Adams:
"Neither William Hull, Alexander Smyth, Dearborn, Wilkinson, nor Win-
chester showed such incapacity as Winder either to organize, fortify, fight or
escape. When he might have prepared defenses, he acted as scout; when he
might have fought, he still scouted; when he retreated, he retreated in the
wrong direction; when he fought, he thought only of retreat; and whether
scouting, retreating, or fighting, he never betrayed an idea." Adams, History,
VIII, 153.

"^National Intelligencer ', August 31, 1814. The Federal Republican August
30, 1814, said Madison was taken in by a member of the Society of Friends,
having "rode [sic] thirty miles since breakfast, as he stated, over a dreadful
road without any dinner."

"New York Spectator, September 10, 1814. In this issue telling of Arm-
strong's resignation the Spectator printed in an editorial vein the following:
"In our present contest, it is our imperious duty, that all private political
sentiments should yield to a general and consolidated union for defense: so
assemblies for prayer should be held without regard to particular religious
denominations. And who can tell, but that the Lord will answer and assure
us as he did Jerusalem, 'I will defend this city to save it, for mine own sake.'
Kings XIX: 34."

Chapter Thirty-two HONOR AT NIAGARA

1 Major Jesup, when a general, gave Lossing a manuscript, "Memoir of the
Campaign on the Niagara." In it Jesup said that under Scott's direction he
kept the 25th Infantry under arms in instruction from seven to ten hours

746 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

daily, as did commanders of the other units. "The consequence was, that when
we took the field in July our corps maneuvered in action and under fire
of the enemy's artillery with the accuracy of parade." Lossing, p. Soin.

2 Lossing tells a story that a woman who ate with Red Jacket did not know
he had lost all his children and inquired about them. The old chief replied
sadly: "Red Jacket was once a great man and in favor with the Great Spirit.
He was a lofty pine among the smaller trees of the forest. But, after years of
glory, he degraded himself by drinking the fire-water of the white man. The
Great Spirit has looked down upon him in his anger, and his lightning has
stripped the pine of its branches." Lossing, p. 803 n.

8 The story of how the gray uniforms came to West Point was told to
Lossing by Scott. Lossing, p. 8o6n.

* Cited in Adams, History, VIII, 41.

5 Steele, I, 78. Steele adds: "Still the fault of attacking superior numbers,
and attacking vigorously, as Scott always did, is one seldom to be censured
in a leader. Scott, like all courageous, dashing leaders, had the quality of
inspiring his men with something of his own spirit."

6 The Spirit of Our Ti?nes, Montreal, March 16, 1861-, cited in Lossing, p.
Sum

7 An extra issued by the Buffalo Gazette July 8, 1814, shows that the new
conduct of the American troops was immediately appreciated: "The battle is
said to have raged with great fury and most unquestionably was the best
fought action since the declaration of war." A little later the New York
Spectator , July 27, published a July iz dispatch from Montreal showing the
Canadian reaction: "The gallantry of our officers and men in this unequal
contest was highly conspicuous but they were under the necessity of retreat-
ing from such an immense disparity of numbers to Chippewa, and we regret
to find with considerable loss." The story went on to say that reinforcements
were expected for the British troops in Canada.

Adams stresses the importance of the battle. "The Battle of Chippawa [sic}
was the only occasion during the war when equal bodies of regular troops
met face to face, in extended lines on an open plain in broad daylight, with-
out advantage of position; and never again after that combat was an army of
American regulars beaten by British troops. Small as the affair was, and un-
important in military results, it gave the United States army a character and
pride it never before possessed." Adams, History, VIII, 45.

The account of Adams is not inconsistent with the Canadian dispatch.
Brown had a larger army available for action, although the forces which met,
under Scott and Riall, were substantially equal.

8 The soldiers felt that defeat and victory were measured by the number
of casualties. The New York Spectator, July 20, 1814, published this extract
of a letter from a captain to his brother in Carlisle, Pennsylvania: "Adjutant
Poe told me this moment it is supposed we have nearly killed double the
number of the enemy which they have killed of our troops the total killed
on both sides is supposed to be about 130 to 150."

9 The New York Spectator, July 20, 1814, reported the arrival of veteran
British troops in Canada.

10 Under the heading ANOTHER GREAT BATTLE, the New York Spectator, August

Notes 747

3, 1814, described the engagement. It began about 5 P.M. "The two armies
fought desperately until 8 o'clock, during which time Gen. Brown captured
9 pieces of cannon and drove Riall from his strong position. About this hour
Lt. Gen. Drurnmond came up with a reenforcement of 2,500 men: the action
was then renewed with redoubled vigor, and continued until half past ten,
when both parties retired, leaving on the field twenty four hundred killed
and wounded.

"The action was fought, as you will perceive, by night: the moon shone
with resplendent brightness, and every object was visible.

"It is stated that only four hundred of Scott's brigade survived the engage-
ment."

An aide to General Brown, Captain Austin, wrote to Nathan Williams in
Utica: "A long, desperate and sanguinary engagement took place." He said
the Americans held possession of the ground for three hours and retired to
their camp in good order. Letter dated July 27, 1814, published in the New
York Spectator, August 3, 1814.

11 A "gentleman in Buffalo" who wrote the New York Spectator, August 3,
1814, saw the significance: "The action furnishes another evidence, that Amer-
icans have skill and valor to conquer upon land as well as upon the ocean."

13 Brown said the British had 5,000, the Americans 4,000. New York Spec-
tator, August 6, 1814. In consideration of the numbers engaged, the loss was
unusually heavy, marking the battle as one of the most sharply fought in
American history. All factors considered, it must be rated a draw.

Chapter Thirty -three- NORTHERN INVASION

1 That the British plan of 1814 was based on tradition may be seen from
the fact that the invasion moved down the New York side of Lake Cham-
plain, by way of Plattsburg, which the Americans had made a strong point
by their forts, rather than down the Vermont side. The Vermont route was
not strongly defended. It would have given British troops the shipbuilding
center of Vergennes and allowed them to cross to the Hudson River and take
Albany just as readily. In discussing Burgoyne's campaign in 1777, Steele
points out that the British ministry was influenced by the example of earlier
French invasions that went by way of the Richelieu River and Lake Cham-
plain. Steele, I, 38. The precedent of the New York side was even more
thoroughly established in 1814. An advance by St. Albans and Burlington,
Vermont, would have passed over the same kind of terrain and would have
forced the Americans to abandon Plattsburg and fight without forts. Adams
suggests that the British kept to the New York side out of contempt for the
American defenders; they thought the British veteran army was strong enough
to make success certain. Adams, History, VIII, 103.

a Adarns, who is usually generous in his comments about Armstrong, says
Armstrong's policy of removing defenses from the main line of British ad-
vance never received explanation, and suggests Armstrong invited the invasion
of New York to "renew the scene of Saratoga," the hope he had earlier
expressed to Wilkinson. Adams, History, VIII, 101.

74 8 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

8 Representative Cyrus King from the Maine district of Massachusetts said
in the House, "Sir, this administration never intended to conquer Canada."
The Annals of Congress of the United States, i-$th Cong., I Sess., p. 1073.

*Izard to Armstrong, August 11, 1814; Izard's Correspondence.

5 The total British force available for service at Lake Champlain, apart from
Canadian militia, was 15,770, according to the calculation of Adams, VIII, 102.
Every brigade was well equipped and the army had ample horses. William
James, II, 206, says not less than 11,000 and an excellent artillery train crossed
the border.

6 Undoubtedly the ministry had made no diligent study of the North
American war, involving those expeditions, such as the attack on Sackets
Harbor, which Prevost had commanded personally. Had it done so, amid
the more pressing European questions, it could not have left him in com-
mand of so large and important an operation. The ministry appeared unable
to distinguish between administrative and military ability, the one more fre-
quently calling for caution, the other audacity.

7 This was an unusual battle in that it was carried on between the American
ships and British infantry lining the banks of the river, with grape against
musketry. The Eagle was sunk, however, by a 24-pound shot fired by a
British galley, which ripped out a plank under the water. Theodore Roosevelt,
The Naval War of i8z2 } p. 282.

8 While much has been made of the skirmishing in front of the British
army, the British advance did not form a line of battle at any time. In his
report Macomb said of the militia: "The British troops did not deign to fire
on them except by their flankers and advanced patrols. So undaunted was the
enemy that he never deployed in his whole march, always pressing on in
column," Report of September 15, 1814; published in Niles, VII, 50. Cited
in Adams, History, VIII, 103.

9 The American public and those interested in Canada were kept well in-
formed of the progress of Macdonough's shipbuilding at Vergennes. The
New York Spectator, May 14, 1814, published a dispatch dated May 4 from
Rutland, Vermont, which said: "A letter from Vergennes of April 23rd in-
forms, that on that day four row galleys were launched, and two had been
previously launched at that place; and that the naval forces nearly ready for
sea, amounted to four sloops, carrying three to twelve guns each; six row
galleys and several gun boats. The new brig (as it is called) is in a state of
forwardness. It will carry 24 and 32 pounders, and is almost as large as the
General Tike on Lake Ontario. It is probable the fleet will be ready to sail
(if the guns and rigging arrive in season) in about four weeks. The sailors and
carpenters tell of being ready in ten days."

10 Robert Christie, Military and Naval Operations in the Canadas, II, 212.

31 The danger of sudden gales on Lake Champlain in the late season was one
reason Macdonough fought at anchor. He knew the British would have to
seek him in order to gain naval superiority. By deciding to fight at anchor he
was able to make preparations with kedges and hawsers for maneuvering the
ships when becalmed inside the bay, where he was fairly certain to have a
no more than light wind. Roosevelt, p. 387.

Notes 749

^Prevost had been in front of Plattsburg for five days before Downie's fleet
appeared.

18 Commodore Samuel L. Breese, who commanded the gunboat Netley, and
James Sloan, Macdonough's clerk, told the historian Lossing that the game
cock had been obtained "by hook or crook." Lossing, p. 867n.

u Although the havoc of the first broadside was appalling, the majority of
those felled were able to regain their feet shortly and continue fighting. This
blast was only indicative of the fury of the fighting. One of the British ma-
rines who had fought with Nelson said Trafalgar was "a mere flea bite"
compared with Plattsburg. Lossing, p. 87 in.

15 The delight on shore is shown by a letter from Joseph W. Moulton, of
Malone, dated Peru, September 11, published by the Troy Register: "This is
a memorable day Rejoice: The British Fleet is in our possession after a
battle of two hours and a half, in Cumberland Bay, opposite Plattsburg, which
I had the pleasure to witness The British force consisted of a 36-gun frigate,
one brig mounting 22 guns two sloops of 10 guns each, and three or four
galleys, surrendered to Commodore Macdonough and the force under his com-
mand

"The conflict was sanguinary and decisive. It is said the enemy had ten
guns more than McDonough commanded. The action has just closed, and
while I write there is a tremendous cannonading and discharge of musketry
heard in the direction of Plattsburg. The British troops are engaged with ours.
The issue is doubtful. The attack of the British on land commenced at the
time of that on water. Their force is much superior but our gallant little
band will give them a warm reception. We momentarily expect information
from the forts." Republished in the New York Spectator, September 17, 1814.

"Another eyewitness story came from the Vermont side of the lake. The
Boston Centinel, September 21, published an extract from a letter from Bur-
lington, Vermont, dated September 13: "I was an eye witness, at a distance,
of the glorious naval action of the i ith, and my feelings on the result can be
more readily conveyed than description. Much honor and praise are due our
great good Commodore! Notwithstanding the rage of exaggeration and ex-
tenuation, I am confident the British force was superior in cannon, and infi-
nitely so in numbers of men: But Macdonough was as infinitely so in disci-
pline, coolness, and precision.

"General Prevost was a spectator of the glorious battle, and frequently,
during it, predicted the capture of our whole fleet. He has proved as poor a
prophet as he is a General. He has been waiting with an army 12,000 strong,
for the capture of Macdonough's fleet to convey him into the country, with-
out doing anything toward effecting it: And as soon as he found the boot to
be on the other leg, he ordered his tents to be struck, and that army to run
away with a precipitance, which looked like panic. I have seen two or three
officers of the $3rd, who have been made prisoners. They are fine fellows and
speak most contemptuously of Sir George. One of them at dinner remarked,
that 'he had long been a candidate for a grannyship and now he ought to
have an unanimous vote.' "

17 Claims were immediately made for credit for the militia. The New York

750 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Spectator published, September 23, 1814, an extract from a letter dated Ver-
gennes, Vermont, September n, which said: "A British army will never ven-
ture again 50 miles into the northern part of the United States. No man has
heretofore entertained more contemptuous notions of the militia than myself,
but facts must demonstrate truths. The British forces under General Prevost
were driven back by Vermont and New York militia, with a heavy loss; they
have now retreated within their own territory. The northern part of the state
of New York, and the whole of Vermont have been in motion. The roads
thronged with Vermont Volunteers. Neither ancients or moderns ever broke
forth from their different domestic pursuits with a warmer or nobler spirit.
They moved on silently but rapidly to the battle, without that vanity and
noisiness that attended us in all our particular efforts."

18 The New York Co?nmercial Advertiser, September 16, 1814, put a qualify-
ing note in its enthusiasm. It called September 14 "a general day of good news
from all quarters following news of melancholy aspect, casting gloom over
every countenance. Let us rejoice 'with trembling"

18 Macdonough's home state gave its praise. The Delaware Gazette said of
him: "Without the patronage of friends, our young hero advanced by his
courage and conduct from the humble berth of a midshipman to a command
which covered the heart of the nation; a command by the experience of
former wars proved to be of vital importance where every thing was to be
created by his genius and protected by his vigilance. In a very gloomy mo-
ment he answered the hopes of his countrymen, and in a radiance of glory
dispelled the menacing storm." Republished in the New York Commercial
Advertiser, September 29, 1814.

20 At least one Canadian newspaper spoke out for Prevost. The Quebec
Gazette, September 29, said: "By a rare strength of mind, inconceivable to
those who think only of themselves, he sacrificed his personal advantage to
his ideas of the good of the service. He knew that he would have to en-
counter the irritated feelings and honest prejudices of the bravest soldiery in
the world; he knew that personally he would have to encounter all the
calumny which the malice of the factious and disappointed could invent, all
that ignorance and prejudice could be made to believe. He knew all this; and
despised it all for the service of Sovereign and Country. His example is lost
on his calumniators."

Chapter Thirty-four CLEANING THE GULF COAST

1 Much of the information about the Lafitte brothers comes from Walker,
pp. 31-61, and from a news story of the New York Spectator, October 26, 1814,
apparently the first item on the Lafittes in Eastern newspapers. The Spectator
spells the name La Fitte. Although LafHte is the preferred spelling today, I
have chosen to use Lafitte, the spelling used most frequently in contemporary
New Orleans and early histories.

2 Walker, p. 47.

8 The Spectator, October 26, 1814, gave the account of the sparring between
Jean Lafitte and Governor Claiborne. "The chief of this horde, like Charles
De Moor, had mixed with his many vices some transcendent virtues. In the

Notes 751

year 1813, this party had from its turpitude and boldness claimed the atten-
tion of the Governor of Louisiana; and, to break up the establishment, he
thought proper to strike at the head. He therefore offered a reward of 500
dollars for the head of Monsieur La Fitte, who was well known to the inhabi-
tants of New Orleans for his immediate connexion [sic] 9 and his once having
been a fencing master in that city of great reputation, which art he had
learned in Bonaparte's army, where he was a captain. The reward, which was
offered by the Governor for the head of La Fitte, was answered by the offer
of a reward from the latter of 5000 dollars for the head of the Governor."

* Reaching the Baratarians involved dangers, the main one being surprise.
The Spectator, October 26, 1814, tells of the officer sent out by Claiborne
with a company to bring the banditti to the city. "The company . . . ap-
proached very near to the fortified island before he [the leader] saw a man
or heard a sound, until he heard a whistle not unlike a boatswain's call. Then
it was he found himself surrounded .by armed men who had emerged from
the secret avenues which led into the bayou. Here it was that this modern
Charles De Moor developed his few noble traits; for to this man, who had
come to destroy his life and all that was dear to him, he not only spared his
life, but offered him that which would have made the honest soldier easy for
the remainder of his days, which was indignantly refused!"

5 Walker, pp. 43-44. Lafitte also wrote Governor Claiborne saying, "I am
the stray sheep wishing to return to the sheepfold," and offered to defend his
section of Louisiana in return for cessation of the prosecutions and "an act
of oblivion for all that has been done hitherto."

"Walker, pp. 52-53.

7 Cited in Lossing, p. 1019.

8 In calling for fresh volunteers, Governor Blount of Tennessee said: "It is
currently reported in Pensacola that the Emperor of Russia has offered his
Britannic Majesty fifty thousand of his best troops for the conquest of Louisi-
ana, and that this territory will fall a prey to the enemy before the expiration
of one month." Cited in Adams, History, VIII, 320.

Paine says, "This was Andrew Jackson's way." He makes the point that
the men feared Jackson more than they did the enemy. Ralph D. Paine, The
Fight for a Free Sea, p. 207.

10 Orders restraining Jackson from attacking Pensacola were en route, but
there is a strong impression that they were face-saving. Monroe never ap-
peared to send restraining orders by the fleetest messengers. Jackson wrote
the War Department for permission to take Pensacola in July. He moved
against it in November. An anxious War Department would have had plenty
of time to hold him back.

n Dispatches from New Orleans to the New York Spectator invalidate the
criticisms that Jackson allowed himself to be diverted to Pensacola when he
should have been in New Orleans and that he was urgently called by the
populace. Obviously New Orleans thought the capture of Pensacola necessary
for the protection of the Gulf coast. On October 26, 1814, the Spectator had
a New Orleans dispatch saying little was to be expected in the way of any
enemy because Jackson would soon have Pensacola. Later the paper printed
a letter from New Orleans to a New York commercial house: "There is
little or no doubt but Gen. Jackson will be in possession of Pensacola in two

752 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

or three days. He was transporting troops across the bay to Mobile for that
purpose, on the 26th inst.; his force is ample, having upward of 1000 Indians
attached to his army. With Pensacola in our possession and the point of Mobile
well fortified, we have little to fear from the enemy in this quarter."

13 How the capture of Pensacola was regarded in Washington is shown by
the announcement of the National Intelligencer, the administration organ, on
December 10, 1814. After the headline news the paper added this carefully
worded comment: "We have heard it said, and perhaps correctly, that orders
had been issued some days ago by government [sic] forbidding the expedition;
which, however, if so issued, will not reach the army, until long after it has
abandoned the place, if, as private accounts intimate, it be Gen. Jackson's
design immediately to return. Pensacola has been notoriously a harbor of the
enemy, British as well as Indians, for a long time past, and in so far, it appears
to us, had entirely forfeited its neutral character. It had become to all intents
and purposes, an enemy post, whatever it may have been nominally. Indeed,
the enemy was found and driven by our force on Spanish soil. We were
therefore not at all surprised to hear of the expedition against it, the result
of which we never doubted, though we could not have hoped it would have
been attended with so little loss."

This statement of justification, especially the earlier part, is so similar in
style to Madison's manner of expression, that one is entitled to wonder
whether the President himself did not dictate it to Editor Joe Gales.

18 Washington was becoming concerned about the projected attack against
New Orleans, but Jackson was not a general to deal with future enemies
when real ones were immediately at hand. He wrote Monroe from Mobile
October 10, 1814: "As soon as security is given to this section of my district,
which is first indispensably necessary, I shall hasten to New Orleans." Adams,
History ', VIII, 325, It appears from the news dispatches that Livingston was
more alarmed than the ordinary citizen of New Orleans and it was not to
be expected that Tennessee would provide the city with a defending army
until that state's soldiers had cleared the British from the nearer waters of
Mobile and Pensacola.

"Walker, p. 52.

Chapter Thirty -five THE HARTFORD CONVENTION

1 Cited in Simeon E. Baldwin, "The Hartford Convention," in Great Events
by Famous Historians, edited by Rossiter Johnson, XV, 327.

2 Ingersoll, I, 60.

* Ibid., p. 61.

* Baldwin, p. 330.

5 Essex Junto was the term first used for the group in Essex County, Massa-
chusetts, who opposed the royal governor before the Revolutionary War.
John Adams revived the term in 1797 for the George Cabot, Fisher Ames,
Timothy Pickering clique, which responded to Hamilton's rather than his own
leadership. Stimpson, American Politics, p. 29.

Baldwin, p. 332.

Notes

7 Lossing, p. 129. Lossing quotes in a footnote a speech by Quincy delivered
in his ninetieth year, on June 29, 1861, to the Coast Guard at Quincy, Massa-
chusetts: "With what pride and joy would the founders of this Republic have
hailed the events of our day a whole people rising as one man, with one
mind and one heart, in support of the Constitution and the Union."

8 Cited in Baldwin, p. 333.

& Republished by National Intelligencer, August 20, 1812.
10 Ingersoll, I, 64.

11 New York Evening Post, July 21, 1812.
18 Ingersoll, I, 67.

18 McMaster says a majority; Lossing, p. 890, says two thirds took the oath.
u September 21, 1814.

15 John S. Barry, "The Hartford Convention," in Great Events, XV, 335-336.
10 Barry, p. 338. Barry goes on to say that had the other half voted there is
no certainty the majority would have been lessened.

17 McMaster, IV, 248, quotes the minority protest signed by seventy-six
members. The House judged this report disrespectful.

18 Lossing, p. 1013.

18 Noah Webster said he was present at the first meeting, held in Northamp-
ton, Massachusetts, that suggested the Hartford Convention. The meeting was
on January 19, 1814. "The thought of dissolving the union never entered the
head of any of the projectors," he said. Noah Webster, "The Origin of the
Hartford Convention," in Collection of Papers on Political, Literary and Moral
Subjects, p. 315.

20 Cited in DAE.

21 Brief biographies of all of the delegates are given in a footnote by Lossing,
p. 1016. Barry, pp. 339-340, gives a similar summary.

23 Cited in Baldwin, p. 335.

28 The National Intelligencer had predicted the convention would end abor-
tively. On January 15, 1815, the paper said: "It has so terminated mentioned
but once on the floor of Congress that we recollect and then only jocosely."

Chapter Thirty-six PEACE THAT LASTED

1 Gallatin stood closest to Madison and could speak most clearly the admin-
istration viewpoint, but Adams headed the delegation. This was because Galla-
tin had failed of Senate confirmation when the original, three-man commission
was appointed. Only when he reached St. Petersburg did he learn he had been
rejected, yet the Senate acted not in distaste for Gallatin personally, but be-
cause he took the peace commission assignment and remained Secretary of the
Treasury in absentia. The Senate, with the punctiliousness about such matters
that then existed, doubted he could serve the public interest in two exacting
and time-consuming jobs. When Madison appointed the second commission
Gallatin resigned from the Treasury, yet at such a time that his name was
last on the list.

The intellectual stature of the commission was as great as any that ever
spoke for the United States in a foreign negotiation, which probably explains

754 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

the simplicity and lasting nature of its work. The Britons could not look down
their noses at the American delegation if they had desired, as at first seemed
their inclination. It was a working commission, Clay along with the others,
even though he was attracted by the social charm and night gaieties of the
old world quite as much as by the day labors at the peace commission. Russell
appeared to lean more toward Clay than Gallatin or Adams, perhaps in reali-
zation that the Kentuckian was one to whom a man might readily attach his
political prospects. There was a dignity in the manner in which this peace
commission conducted its business; it reflected a credit on the American na-
tion in its youth and displayed it even then as a world power that would
have to be reckoned with not only because of its mounting population and
vast geographical extent, but also because of the capacity of the men being
brought to the top by the republican form of government, as contrasted with
the hereditary or the more purely democratic or French communal processes.
*The Boston Gazette and New York Spectator, March 12, 1814, published
an extract from a letter, dated Washington, February 21, 1814, that gives an
interesting sidelight on the speculation of the day: "Before the nomination of
Clay, the President sent for him and observed, there is a proposal from the
British government to negotiate, and we must have peace. You have driven
me into this war, what can you do to help me out of it? And it was finally
concluded that with a view to conciliate the southern and western people to
peace, that Clay was to go to Gottenburgh and make a treaty, in which no
mention was to be made about the right of impressment, but enter into the
best arrangement they could about the practice. Clay was to stand and bluster
about it at first, but eventually agree to the treaty with the other commis-
sioners In the meantime the warlike attitude was to be kept up and prepara-
tions made as if for a vigorous campaign. Clay gave this information himself
gratuitously and I have it from a gentleman upon whom I can place the
greatest reliance, and have not the least doubt about the fact." This story,
published nine months in advance of the signing of the treaty, cannot be
brushed aside as idle capital gossip, because the part of it relating to the nego-
tiations is almost precisely what occurred. According to the present-day accu-
racy test of Washington correspondents, the story "stood up."

8 Alexander of Russia called the attack on Denmark an "outrage in which
history, so replete with acts of violence, has no equal." Edwin Emerson, A
History of the Nineteenth Century Year by Year, I, 224.

4 New York Spectator, October 29, 1814. Under the heading, THE OBJECT OF
THE WAR OBTAINED, the paper quoted the letter from Monroe: "The United
States, having resisted by war, the practice of impressment, and continued the
war until that practice had ceased, by a Peace in Europe, their object has
been essentially obtained for the present."

5 O. H. Smith gives the story John Quincy Adams told Robert C. Winthrop
of Boston. A grand musical entertainment was proposed at Ghent to celebrate
the peace and the chief musician called on the American delegation to ascer-
tain their national song. Some were for "Hail, Columbia," others for "Yankee
Doodle." The latter won the vote of the American commission, but no one
could give the air. Adams said he had never sung or whistled a tune in his
life. Clay, Bayard and the others did not know how the music went. Clay

Notes ' 755

then called John, his colored man. "Jn n >" he said, "whistle Yankee Doodle'
for this gentleman." As John whistled, the musician wrote down the air with
a pencil and the next day the band played "Yankee Doodle" "in splendid har-
mony, to the admiration and delight" of those present. "This," Smith said,
"establishes forever 'Yankee Doodle* as our national song and air." O. H.
Smith, Early Indiana Trials and Sketches, p. 282.

6 December 30, 1814.

7 December 30, 1814; cited in the New York Herald, February 15, 1815.

8 A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents of the United
States, 1789-1897, edited by James Richardson, I, 552.

& The New York stock and bond market, which in 1814 consisted of the
trading under the shade trees along Wall Street, and was referred to only
during unusual events, had been temperamental during the closing period of
the war. Stocks dropped three to four points when Clay was made a member
of the peace commission, but skyrocketed with the news of peace. The New
York Herald, February 12, 1815, said: "We give [a picture] of the effects of
the prospects of peace even before ratification. Our markets of every kind
experienced a sudden and to many a shocking change. Sugar fell from
twenty-six $ per cnt. to 12.50. Tea, which sold at 2 dol. 25 cts on Saturday
yesterday was purchasable at i dol. Specie, which had got up to the enor-
mous rate of 22 per cent premium, dropped down to two. The article in
particular of Tin fell from 80 dollars the box to 25. Six per cents rose from
76 to 86. 10 per cents and Treasury notes rose from 92 to 98 per cent.

^Sailors Eights beat time to the sound of the hammer at every wharf and
Free Trade looked briskly up; no longer did it live in toasts alone."

Chapter Thirty -sevenEATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS

1 Walker, p. 15.

* Ibid., p. 73.

*Ibid., p. 74.

*Good judgment suggested the British might march overland to capture
New Orleans. Mobile would then be a key position. It was necessary for
Jackson to divide his regular troops. He left more than half of them, the 2nd,
3rd and 29* regiments, in Mobile, which had been assigned to General James
Winchester, the commander who lost at the River Raisin. Jackson wrote
Monroe an opinion of how a resourceful enemy would approach New Or-
leans: "A real military man . . . would first possess himself of that point
[Mobile], draw to his standard the Indians, and march direct to the walnut
Hills [now Vicksburg, Mississippi] ... and being able to forage on the coun-
try support himself, cut off all supplies from above and make this country an
easy conquest." Marquis James, p. 207. Monroe did not believe the British
were interested in Mobile. Adams, History, VIE, 331.

5 For the story of the review and embarkation of the 93rd, cf. Walker, pp.

77 ff.

*Ibid., p. 82.
'Adams, History, VIE, 311.

756 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

8 The significance of the Battle of New Orleans has very recently been de-
fended by Robert Selph Henry in an address (Tennesseans and Territory)
presented before the Tennessee Society of St. Louis on January 10, 1953; pub-
lished in the Tennessee Historical Quarterly , XII (September 1953), 195-203.
Henry said: "The idea that New Orleans was an unnecessary battle fought
two weeks after the War of 1812 was over ... is as erroneous as it is com-
mon. . . . There is good ground to believe that, treaty or no treaty, a British
victory at New Orleans would have profoundly changed the actual outcome
of what is now justly regarded as a successful Second War of American
Independence."

Henry points out that the signing of the treaty did not formally conclude
the war and that, in fact, the British insisted the treaty should not take effect
until it had been ratified by both England and America. The ratification was
completed on February 17, 1815, over a month after New Orleans was fought.

Henry discusses the British insistence on delaying the cease-fire in this way:
"The most apparent purpose was to allow time for carrying out the British
design against New Orleans. This expedition the most formidable sent out
during the war was not set on foot until six weeks after British commis-
sioners to negotiate peace had been named. Detailed instructions were not
issued to the commander of the expedition until a month after the British and
American commissioners had had their first meeting and begun their pro-
tracted negotiations.

"At the very least, the New Orleans expedition was intended to affect the
peace negotiations by seizure of a vital point. But the instructions of Sep-
tember 6, 1814, went beyond mere strengthening of the hands of the British
commissioners. The commander of the expedition was instructed to 'rescue
the whole province of Louisiana from the United States' if he should find the
inhabitants favorable to such a move 'either with the view of establishing them-
selves as an independent people or of returning under the dominion of the
Spanish Crown.' "

There is evidence that Great Britain was not only planning to separate
Louisiana from the United States, but also to take over and rule it as a colony.

Henry states the signal importance of the Battle of New Orleans in decisive
terms: "It was Jackson's victory and not the treaty of Ghent which settled
the question for good and all.

"The Treaty of Ghent, in itself, settled nothing. It secured none of the ob-
jects for which the United States had professedly gone to war. . . .

"How decisive the victory was may be estimated from consideration of what
might have happened had the result been otherwise. To Thomas Jefferson, the
New Orleans threat was a matter of grave apprehension. He expected that the
place must fall and that if it did, the British would hold it indefinitely. On
the other hand, the extreme Federalists of New England felt, as one of them
wrote, that if the British should succeed at New Orleans, as he had no doubt
they would, the Union might be considered as severed and the way cleared
for a separate New England Confederation.

"Such questions were forever set at rest by Jackson's great victory. . . ."

Pakenham was accompanied by Harry Smith, who had carried Ross's dis-
patches from the Chesapeake to England. Smith explains the lateness of their

Notes

arrival: "Our Captain Swaine . . . was of the old school and made everything
snug for the night by shortening sail to the great amusement of the crew.
But for this we should have been off the mouth of the Mississippi for the
rendezvous." Harry Smith, p. 228.

10 As in the case of the Northern Army, there was discussion in Engknd that
Wellington should command the attack on New Orleans. One of Wellington's
letters says the troops he had seen embark at Bordeaux would have to be
badly managed if they could not win any contest in which they were engaged
in America. Cited in Walker, p. 209.

11 Walker, p. 93. Walker goes on to say: "It was indeed regarded an expe-
dition to occupy, rather than invade a defenseless country, as a pleasure party
and speculative adventure more than a serious warlike enterprise. . . . Music,
dancing, and even dramatic entertainments, aided by the wives of the officers,
who in considerable numbers accompanied the expedition, varied the monotony
of the voyage."

"Lieutenant Catesby ap R, Jones, nephew of the War of 1812 officer, com-
manded the Confederate ram Merrimac in the battle with the Monitor, after
the wounding of Commodore Franklin Buchanan early in the engagement.

18 The loss of the gunboats was the signal for feverish activity in New
Orleans. Jackson declared martial law when the legislature seemed to him
dilatory in following his recommendation that it suspend the writ of habeas
corpus. He rushed orders for CofTee, Carroll and the Kentuckians to hasten.

"Walker calls them "deserters, traitors and refugees from New Orleans,
who left the city in full confidence that it would not and could not be de-
fended. ... In justice to Louisiana, be it said that these individuals were
ex-officials of the old Spanish Government in Louisiana and Florida, who had
never acquiesced in the transfer of the country to the United States." Walker,
p. 118.

15 Adams is most critical of Jackson for permitting the British thus to ap-
proach undetected: "The record of American generalship offered many exam-
ples of misfortune, but none so complete as this. Neither Hull nor Harrison,
neither Winder nor Samuel Smith, had allowed a large British army, heralded
long in advance, to arrive within seven miles unseen and unsuspected, and
without so much as an earthwork, a man, or a gun between them and thek
object. The disaster was unprecedented, and could be repaired only by des-
perate measures." Again, Adams says: "J ac ^son was even slower than Winder
to see the point of danger or to concentrate his forces." Adams, History , VIH,

339-340.

But the country around New Orleans admitted more readily of a covert
approach. At Washington the British had to pass Bladensburg which they
could not turn without leaving a hostile army between them and their fleet.
At New Orleans they had a selection of six or more eligible avenues of ap-
proach, to guard which Jackson, with the troops available, could only post
pickets. He had to hold his main body in the city ready to defend any
avenue the British might select. On this point Walker says: "Let it not be
imagined that this success of the British was due to any want of vigilance or
care on the part of Jackson. The bayou Bienvenu had early attracted Jack-
son's attention, and Major Villere, whose father's plantation was situated at

758 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

the head of the bayou, had been ordered to send a picket to the Fisherman's
Village, to watch the entrance of this inlet." Walker, p. 122. Good judgment
would not have allowed Jackson to decide the British would advance by the
bayou Bienvenu and to station his army there. It was, as the campaign de-
veloped, a good approach for a coup de main, on which the British faltered,
but possibly the worst available for a battle.

16 Walker tells of interviewing Villere: "Thirty-seven years had passed, and
the gallant young Creole hero of this adventure, emaciated by long sickness,
and prematurely old, surrounded by a family of gallant sons and lovely daugh-
ters, sat in that very gallery, and on the very spot on which he was surprised
by the British, and related with graphic distinctness, with kindling eye and
voice, hoarse with emotion, the painful sensation, the agonizing remorse which
agitated his soul, when compelled to sacrifice his faithful dog to prevent the
surprise of his native city and save his own honor." Walker, p. 129.

"Coffee at this period "was a man of noble aspect, tall and herculean in
frame, yet not destitute of a certain natural dignity and ease of manner.
Though of great height and weight, his appearance on horseback, mounted
on a fine Tennessee thoroughbred, was striking and impressive." Walker, p.
154.

18 Of the soldiers Jackson commanded at New Orleans, Roosevelt said:
"Accustomed to the most lawless freedom, and to giving free rein to the full
violence of their passions, defiant of discipline and impatient of the slightest
restraint, caring little for God and nothing for man, they were soldiers who,
under an ordinary commander, would have been fully as dangerous to them-
selves and their leaders as to their foes. But Andrew Jackson was of all men
the one best fitted to manage such troops. Even their fierce natures quailed
before the ungovernable fury of a spirit greater than their own: and their
sullen, stubborn wills were bent at last before his unyielding temper and iron
hand." Roosevelt, p. 463.

Walker describes Coffee's troops: "Their appearance . . . was not very
military. In their woollen hunting-shirts, of dark or dingy color, and copperas-
dyed pantaloons, made, both cloth and garments, at home, by their wives,
mothers and sisters, with slouching wool hats, some composed of the skins of
racoons and foxes . . . with belts of untanned deer-skin, in which were stuck
hunting-knives and tomahawks with their long unkempt hair and unshorn
faces, Coffee's men were not calculated to please the eyes of the martinet, or
one accustomed to regard neatness and primness, as essential virtues of the
good soldier." Walker, p. 154.

19 William Carroll, on whom the brunt of the fighting at New Orleans was
about to fall, had moved to Nashville from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and
become the devoted follower of Jackson. Walker described him as being stout,
compact and muscular, and of upright and soldierly bearing. He was, says
James, "one of the best dressed sparks in Nashville." Marquis James, p. 160.

^Except to a limited degree on the Northern border, the Britisli Army
of 1814 had not contended seriously against the frontier rifle, made at small
foundries and hand forges. Morgan's Virginians were armed with rifles when
they marched north at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. The period

jrg

between Saratoga and New Orleans was one of transition. The musket was a
lighter weapon better suited at that time for infantry use. The rifle, with its
long barrel, was heavy to carry on long marches. Continental soldiers still pre-
ferred the musket. The art of spiraling the barrel, centuries old, was accepted
slowly. Following the American Revolution, rifles were introduced in the French
Army but Napoleon thought they were inefficient. The British made slight
use of them on the Peninsula. When the United States began the manufacture
of rifles at Harper's Ferry they were worked into the Army during the War
of 1812, the first conflict in which they were used extensively.

21 Jackson dug his trenches behind the old Rodriquez Canal on Christmas
Day, interrupted once by artillery fire in the British line, which proved to be
merely a salute greeting Pakenham. Jean Lafitte looked at Jackson's line. He
did not have the temerity to make suggestions direct, but with the trained eye
of one of Bonaparte's captains, did make an important contribution to the
defense. He told Livingston the line could be turned at the cypress swamp
and suggested it be extended. Livingston passed the word to Jackson and the
general carried it into effect. Marquis James, p. 247.

22 Jackson at first was adamant against any bargains with the banditti. Finally
Judge Dominick Hall of the United States district court, with the recom-
mendation of the legislature and the district attorney, released the Baratarians
from jail. Walker, p. 146. Jean Lafitte then called on Jackson, at 106 Royal
Street, at night, and pleaded that the Baratarians be permitted to serve in
Jackson's army. Marquis James, p. 229. Jackson accepted them and gave them
assignments.

28 Letter dated January 6, 1815; published February 4.

24 Colonel John Burgoyne was the son of General John Burgoyne who sur-
rendered to the Americans at Saratoga in 1777. In the Crimean War he di-
rected construction of the British works at Sevastopol.

25 Sugar casks were used because the troops in digging the emplacements hit
water at a depth of eight inches. Harry Smith, p. 231.

26 Walker, p. 257.

27 This minor employment of cotton bales accounted for the tradition, often
associated with the defense of New Orleans, that Jackson's troops used them
for constructing their entire defensive line. Those that had been used earlier
were removed before the main battle. Stimpson, Popular Questions, p. 297, says
there was probably not a bale in Jackson's line when the final battle was
fought.

^Walker, p. 212.

29 Ibid., p. 311.

80 James Parton, "The Battle of New Orleans," in Great Events, XV, 345.

81 Because he apprehended slides, Pakenham inspected the work frequently
and questioned the engineers about the banks. According to Harry Smith he
was assured the banks would hold. As he feared, they gave way at a critical
moment.

82 Parton, "New Orleans " p. 347*
98 Ibid., p. 348.

M Smith said, "It was all very well to victimize old Mullens; the facines,

760 POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

ladders, etc., could have been supplied by one word I will not name." Harry
Smith, p. 233. As a footnote Smith's cousin, G. C. Moore Smith who edited
the Autobiography, supplied, with a question mark, the word pluck.

^Parton, "New Orleans," p. 350.

80 Although the 93rd was under Keane, who attacked close to the river, this
regiment crossed to the support of Gibbs in front of Carroll and there met
the deadly fire of the Tennessee riflemen. The regiment made its advance
just as Pakenham fell. The standard-bearer of the 93rd felt something rub
against his epaulet and through the smoke saw it was Pakenham's small black
horse. "Hurrah, brave Highlanders!" shouted Pakenham, and then fell into
McDougall's arms. Walker, p. 330.

37 General Morgan commanded Davis to halt his men, but was told it was
impossible. "Sir," stormed the general, "I have not seen you try." Walker,

P- 353-

88 The British advance on the west bank of the river was halted not by
lack of artillery but by Lambert's orders. Thornton was assisted in dislodging
Morgan by British gunboats armed with carronades.

^February 6, 1815.

40 February 6, 1815.

41 The bodies of General Pakenham and some of the other officers were
disemboweled and placed in casks of rum to be transported to England. Others
were buried on the field. The viscera of Pakenham were buried beneath a
pecan tree, which, according to Creole tradition, never again bore fruit.
Walker, p. 361.

INDEX

Index

Abercromby, Sir Ralph, 676, 726
Aberdeen, Scotland, 248
Adair, John, 336, 358, 688, 696
Adams, Abigail, 738
Adams, Henry, re Clinton, 384;
re Tecumseh, 442; re Barney,

53 2

Adams, John, 257, 475, 652, 662,
740; re declaration of war, 27-
28, 356-357; and John Ran-
dolph, 35; and "Hail Colum-
bia," 385; and Army leadership
(1798), 393; re life of states-
man, 710; and Essex Junto

A (i797); 75 2

Adams, John Qumcy, 40, 258,
362, 392; handclasp, 36; re
Clay, 36; Clay on, 62-63, 58;
and Chesapeake affair, 92;
minister to Russia, 283, 392;
on U. S. peace delegation, 483,
490, 667, 668, 669, 670, 753-
754; re H. G. Otis, 663; anec-
dote re national anthem, 754-

Adams, U. S. brig, 185, 378
Adams, U. S. frigate, 365
Alabama, 448, 454, 716; earth-
quake, 446

Alabama, Confederate vessel, 743
Alabama River, 442, 445, 449,

460, 467

Albany, N. Y., 303, 355, 375, 388,
598, 620, 747; Dearborn's head-
quarters, 26, 147, 179, 183, 202;
armistice negotiated at, 376,
377; honors Macdonough, 636;
and fall of Bonaparte, 720
Alexander I, of Russia, 28, 29,

471, 473, 481, 483, 484, 489-

490, 667, 719, 721,751,754
Alexandria, Va., 22, 296, 509,

516, 519, ^523, 601, 725, 738
Aubarnu Indians, 443-^4, 713
Alien and Sedition Laws, 278
Allen, Col. John, 229, 386
Allen, Maj. W., 246
Allen, William, 712
Allen, Lt. William Henry, 92,

270-271

Allen, Lt. William Howard, 272
Allen Co., Ky., 386

Alverd, Dr. , 420

Amelia Island, 131, 133
Ames, Fisher, 653, 752
Amherstburg, Can., 125, 154, 162,

338

Amiens, Treaty of, 42, 45
Anacreonitic Society, 589-590
Andersonville prison, 724
Andrea Doria, U. S. brig, 512
Annapolis, Md., 170, 171, 259,

301, 515, 526, 536, 587
Annide, British vessel, 679
Apalachicola River, 447
Argus, U. S. brig, 210, 270, 271,

272,365,379
Ariel, U. S. schooner, 312, 322,

323,324 327
Arkansas River, 243
Armistead, Maj. George, 396,

5 2 5> 7 2 4

Armistead, Lewis A., 396
Armistead, Capt. Walker Keith,

396
Armstrong, Maj. Gen. John

(father of Secretary of War),

276-277
Armstrong, Brig. Gen. John, 203,

763

764

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

393, 496, 603; minister to
France, 47, 279, 392; and Har-
rison, 223, 234, 349; Dear-
born's report to re York, Can.,
251, 253; appointed Secretary
or War (1813), 275, 279-280,
284, 285; sketch or, 276-281;
new aims, 280-281, 285; or-
dered to remain in Washing-
ton, 285-286; and Wilkinson,
286, 413-414, 417, 418, 511,
709, 747; J. Quincyje, 362;
and Jackson's promotion, 429,
711; and Gallatin, 482; not
consulted re head or Chesa-
peake Department, 499; tries
to escape Madison's super-
vision, 414-415; and burning of
Newark, Ont., 419, 428; and
burning of New York fron-
tier, 421; authority curbed,
428-429; Monroe re, 428, 429;
and Jackson (1813), 439, 440;
inactivity re Washington's de-
fenses, 510-511, 725, 727-728,
734; desire to move U. S. cap-
ital, 510-511, 592; refuses to
believe attack aimed at Wash-
ington, 518, 519, 520, 522, 527;
reviews troops, 523; confers
with Winder and President,
529, 530; wants command, 531,
53 2- 533i733; an( * Bladensburg,
541, 542, 568, 569, 572, 603,
734, 740; suggests defending
Capitol, 542, 730-731, 737; re
contact between Ross and
Thornton, 553-554, 738; dur-
ing British occupation of cap-
ital, 560, 562, 574; return to
Washington, 603; resignation
(1814), 604, 745; strips Lake
Champlain area of trained
troops (1814), 621, 623, ^24,
747; and canard re administra-
tion's attitude toward Canada,
622-623; Notices of the War
of 1812, and Spectator, 622;

ignores Jackson's letter re
Pensacola, 640; brother-in-law
of Robert R. Livingston, 650;
Izard to (1814), 710

Arnold, Benedict, 55, 145, 146,
380, 663

Arnold, Peggy Shippen, 145

Asidj British vessel, 679

Askew, John (John Askin, Jr.),
160, 376

Asquith's rifle corps, 591

Astor, John Jacob, 23-24, 108,

153. 355^ 375.432,433
Auglaize River, 226
Augusta, Ga., 134
Austerlitz, Battle of, 28, 45, 46

Austin, Capt. , 747

Austria, 29, 283

Auttose, 458, 716

Aux Canards River, 156, 157,

I5 8, 338

B

Badajoz, Spain, 80, 505

Bailey, Chester, 561, 566

Bailey, Capt. Dixon, 450, 451,
714

Bainbridge, Master Commandant
Joseph, 390

Bainbridge, Commodore Wil-
liam, 177-178, 260, 600, 743

Baker, , secretary of British

legation, 182

Baker, Jacob, 573, 574

Baker, Dr. William, 588

Baldwin, Benjamin, 717

Baltimore, McL, 26, 291, 300, 361,
368, 418, 473, 496, 498, 510,
5 n, 550, 588, 589, 725, 727;
not of July 1812 turns state
to Federalists, 136-144, 374;
collection for Havre de Grace,
295; defenses, 296, 396; militia,

39tf>. 53$ 541-542, 732, 73<5;
ovation for Winder, 497, 499,
724-725; and Joseph Barney,
513; importance as shipping
center, 515, 520; sends aid to

Index

Winder, 525-526; learns of
seizure of Washington, 561;
British attempt on (Aug.
1814), 549, 590-591, 669, 742;
threat to British in Washing-
ton, 583; plans fleet of priva-
teers to harry British Isles, 599
Baltimore, U. S. vessel, 89-90
Bancroft, George, 325, 328, 367,

494

Bangor, Me., 658
Barataria Bay, 643, 644, 645
Barataria Bay Islands, 641, 645
Baratarians, 641, 642-646, 647,

689, 690, 75 -75 1> 759
Barbour, Gov. James, 63, 298,

299, 362, 660

Barclay, Capt. Robert H., com-
mands British fleet on Lake
Erie, 314, 316, 317, 318, 321,
398; and Battle or Lake Erie,
322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327,

337

Bardstown, Ky., 232
Barker, Jacob, quoted, 733
Barlow, Joel, 77, 283, 366, 391,

723

Barney, Maj. B., 130
Barney, Commodore Joshua,

sketch of, 512-513; activities

on the Chesapeake, 511-512,

5I3-5H, 5*51 5i 6 -5i7; 5 s
Winder, 522, 525, 528; flotilla
destroyed, 522, 729-730, 737,
739; demands action, 53I-53 2 ;
at Battle of Bladensburg, 543-
548, 735, 736, 737, 737-738;
and Ross, 548-549,

seamen suspected of nring on

Ross, 553; death, 737
Barney, Mary Chase, c 1 3
Barney, William Bedford, 513
Barney's Inn, 724
Barren, Commodore James, 91,

92, 270, 368-369, 396, 626
Barron, Joseph, 109
Bartholomew, Col. Joseph, 115,

116, 119

765

Barton, Capt. Robert C, 115,
116, 117, 118

Bass, John W., 98

Bass Islands, 320

Bassano, de, French min-
ister of foreign affairs, 470

Bath, N.Y., 418

Bathurst, Lord, re America's debt
to British Navy, 81; Brock re-
ports to re capture of Detroit,
1 66; Provost reports to re
American reprisals in prisoner-
of-war controversy, 194; in-
structs Ross re slaves, 395, 515;
informed of American sale of
beef to Canadians, 425, 710;
wants Washington buildings
held for indemnity, 552; in-
structions re American mili-
tary and naval stores, 555; and
treaty negotiations, 669; orders
re control of Mississippi and
taking of territory, 677

Baton Rouge, La., 127, 128, 129,
131

Battery, the, 24-25, 471

Battery Douglass, 617

Bayard, James Asheton, 483, 490,
667, 668

Baylies, Hodijah, 663

Baynes, Col. Edward, 182, 496,
624, 637; quoted, 636

Bayonne Decree, 46

Bayou Bienvenu, 680, 68 1, 685,
^87, 693, 757

Bayou Sara, 129

Beale's riflemen, 686

Beall, CoL William D., 526, 536,
543, 544, 546, 547, 548, 734,

737

Bean, Capt. William C, 115
Beanes, Dr. William, 522, 585-

Beasley, Maj. Daniel, 449-450,

7*4
Beath, , Boston chemist,

295, 296
Beauharnais, Hortense de, 52

y66

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Beauport jail, 495
Beaver Dams, 413
Beckwith, Maj. Gen. Sir Sidney,

297, 298, 299, 300, 624
Bedford, British vessel, 679
Beekmantown, N. Y., 627
Belfast, Me., 658

Beluche, , Baratarian, 690

Belvidera, British frigate, 170,

379
Ben, camp follower at Tippe-

canoe, 118
Ben More, 675
Benedict, Md., 516, 519, 584,

585, 587, 589, 729, 730

Bennett, Capt. , 98

Bennett's Coffee House, 475
Bennings Bridge, 529
Bennington, Vt., 168, 382
Bentley, , Baltimore jailer,

140, 142

Benton, Jesse, 440-441, 451, 454
Benton, Thomas H., 365, 392,

438, 440, 441, 451, 454, 7 12 -

i
Beresford, Capt. John Poer, 177,

288-289
Beresford, Gen. William Carr,

361, 624, 625, 678

Berkeley, Adm. , 92

Berlin Decree, 46, 47, 49-50* 5"

51, 79, 279, 360, 392; revoca-
tion, 656
Bermuda, 177, 288, 289, 424, 503,

504, 586, 595 t
Bibb, George Mortimer, 221
Bibb, William Wyatt, 34
Biddle, Capt. James, 177, 390

Bienville, Gov. , 467

Bigelow, Timothy, 663

Big Warrior, 442, 446, 447,

467

Bill of Rights, 137, 138
Black Bird, 218, 219
Black Hawk, 217-218, 344, 345
Black Partridge, 217
Black Rock, N. Y., 21, 311, 317,

382, 419, 607

Black Swamp of Maumee River,
151, 387

Bladensburg, Md., Stansbury's
forces at, 529, 732; Americans
move to, 530, 531-533. 533-
534; Battle of, 512, 526, 530,
535-55 1 . 555. 57*. 57 2 , 603,
677, 704, 729, 734, 739-740,
757; British return through,
584

Elaine, James G., 570

Blair, Francis P., 508

Blanche, British vessel, 380

Blanque, Jean, 645

Sleeker, Maj. , 389

Blodget, Samuel, 577

Blodget's Hotel, Washington,

577-57 8 > 592-593

Bloody Run, 154

Bloomfield, Brig. Gen. Joseph,
22, 109, 203, 269

Bloomfield, N. J., 596

Blount, Gov, William, 436, 437,
438,461,660, 751

Blue Jacket, Jim, 338

Blue River, 347

Bliicher, Gen. Gebhard von, 471,
484

Blyth, Capt. Samuel, 272

Boerstler, Col. Charles G., 413

Bois Blanc Island, 337

Bolin, Jo, 572

Bonaparte, Jerome, 513

Bonaparte, Joseph, 30, 297

Bonaparte, Louis, 30, 52

Bonaparte, Napoleon, 33, 127,
297, 356, 502, 642, 668, 759;
position in 1812, 28-29, 30;
British Orders in Council di-
rected at, 42; institutes search
for sugar substitute, 45; issues
Berlin Decree, 46; and repeal
of Berlin Decree, 49-50, 50-
51, 52-53,^ 79, ^360-361, 392;
peace faction distrusts, 57-58;
re Armstrong, 279, 392; and
Cockburn, 289-290, 394-395;
overthrow, effect on war be-

Index

tween Great Britain and Amer-
ica, 357; re Madison and be-
ginning of War of 1812, 395;
defeat celebrated in London,
483-485, 721; and Elizabeth
Patterson, 513; U. S. learns of
fall and abdication, 470-483,
611, 719-720; in Egypt, 726

Bonner, Edmund, 722

Bordeaux, France, 481, 502, 504,
509, 641, 721, 726

Borodino, Battle of, 487

Boston, Mass., 19, 171, 175, 210,
262, 295, 362, 503, 621; re-
action to declaration of war,
23; Henry spy affair, 72, 73,
75; Dearborn collector of port,
146; and British goods, 426;
fears espionage, 427; becomes
financial capital, 433; food
prices, 433-434; and Napo-
leon's defeat, 470, 474-475;
privateers, 599; defense activi-
ties, 600; separatist meeting
( 1 8 1 2 ) , 65 5 ; and British block-
ade, 658; British threaten, 659;
and naval victories, 66 1

Boston harbor, 264, 265, 388, 390

Boston lighthouse, 266, 268

Botetourt Co., Va., 184

Bothwell Bridge, 504

Bowers, Dr. , 231

Bowie, Robert, 585-586, 586, 729

Boxer, British brig, 272

Boyd, Adam, 59

Boyd, Brig. Gen. John P., 113,
120, 150, 203, 307, 416, 709

Braddock's disaster, 277

Brandywine, Battle of, 276

Brant, John, 186, 189

Brant, Joseph, 186

Brantford, Can., 376

Breese, Commodore Samuel L.,

749

Brent, Richard, 366
Brent, Thomas, 366
Bridgewater Mills, Battle of, see

Lundy's Lane

767

Brisbane, Brig. Gen. , 624,

634, 636

Brock, Gov.-Gen. Isaac, dis-
avows urging on the Prophet,
126; learns war is declared, 153,
375-376; notifies frontier posts,
1 S3\ *59; and Hull's procla-
mation, 156, 161, 376; issues
own proclamation, 161; meas-
ures to meet Hull's invasion,
161-162, 376, 377; confers with
Tecumseh, 162, 377; ruse to
deceive Hull, 165, 167, 377;
forces at Detroit, 166, 167-
168; Hull surrenders Detroit
to, 166, 214; re Hull, 168; at
Fort George, 183, 185, 186;
killed at Queenston Heights,
1 88, 189, 204, 381; Tecumseh
and, 338

Brockville, Can., 198

Broke, Capt. Philip Bowes Vere,
171, 263, 264-265, 265-266,
267-268, 270, 380, 390

Brooke, Col. , 547-591

Brookline, U. S. brig, 98-99

Brooklyn Ferry, 595

Brooklyn Heights, 595

Brooks, Lt. John, 313, 326

Brookville, Md., 602-603

Broome, Lt. James, 268

Brougham, Lord, 79, 80, 366-
367, 530

Brown, , spy, 731

Brown, Maj. , 534

Brown, Adam, 743

Brown, Clarissa, 243

Brown, Gen. Jacob, 666, 733; and
New York militia, 183, 201,
202; sketch of, 256-257; de-
fense of Sackets Harbor, 256,
257, 258; on Montreal cam-
paign (1813), 416, 417; takes
over Niagara command, 423,
424; disciplinarian, 606; plan
for summer campaign (1814),
606, 6 1 6; forces under, 606-
607; takes Fort Erie (July 3,

768

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

1814), 607-608; victory at
Chippewa (July 5, 1814), 608,
609-6 1 1 ; wants Chauncey 's co-
operation, 611-612; and Battle
of Lundy's Lane (July 25,
1814), 612-615, 616, 747;
wounded, 615; and siege of
Fort Erie, 616, 618; death
(1835), 625; fort named for,
627

Brown, Noah, 303, 304, 397, 743

Brown, Rev. O. B., 579

Brownstown, 158

Brownsville, N. Y., 257

Brownsville, Pa., 359

Brunswick, House of, 483, 484,
485; see also Hanover, House
of

Brush, Capt. Henry, 158, 162,
165, 168

Bryant, William Cullen, 68

Buchanan, Commodore Franklin,

Bucks Co., Pa., 256

Budd, Lt. Charles, 628

Buenos Aires, 54, 361

Buffalo, N. Y., 148, 249, 305, 307,
383, 606, 607; encampment at,
183, 184, 1 89; American Regu-
lars at, 184; Harrison at, 348,
349; burned (1813), 419, 420;
rebuilding of, 498

Buller, Sir Redvers, 506

Bunch, Col. , 465

Bunker Hill, Battle of, 146, 246,
503, 663

Burcham, James, 385

Burgoyne, Sir John, 691, 759

Burgoyne, Gen. John, 147, 277,
348, 522, 620, 747, 759

Burlington, N. J., 259, 269

Burlington, Ont., 341

Burlington, Vt., 183, 199, 747,

Burlington Heights, Ont., 309,

415, 606, 61 1, 616
Burnet's Creek, Ind., 115, 118,

120, 126

Burnt Corn Creek, Battle of,

448,450,469,714
Burr, Aaron, 120, 243, 286, 393,

394, 396, 724; Jackson witness

for, 438; and Madison, 570,

616; and separatists, 653; and

John Adair, 688
Burrall, - , postmaster of Bal-

timore, Md., 561-562
Burrows, Lt. William, 272
Burwell, William Armisted, 55-

56, 361

Bush, Lt. William S., 173
Butler, Thomas, 712
Byron, Capt. Richard, 379, 380
Byron, Lord, 484, 506, 745

Cabot, George, 652, 653, 662, 752
Cadore, Due de, 50, 51, 97, 279,

39 2
Cadwalader, Brig. Gen. Thomas,

742

Calder, - , spy, 731

Caldwell, Billy, 338

CaldwelFs District of Columbia
forces, 731

Calebee Creek, 462, 717

Caledonia, brig, 185, 186, 311,
318, 322, 323, 327

Calhoun, John C., 365; hears of
declaration of war, 20-21; War
Hawk, 39, 53, 57; and Madi-
son, 64, 622; for strong Navy,
68; re Clay, 355; Secretary of
War, 378; Washington home,

Caller, Col. James, 448
Calvert Co., Md., 510
Cambridge, Mass., 659
Campbell, George Washington,

433> 53> 53i 9 544> 574. 7"

744
Campbell, Capt. Hugh G., 132,

I 33
Campbell, Col John B., 227, 421,

421-424, 610
Canada, hears war is declared,

Index

2 4> 153* 355> 375-376; imports
to, after declaration of war,
24, 425, 426, 710; annexation,
talk of, 26, 54, 55-56, 58, 60,
62, 131, 361; drained by Euro-
pean conflict, 30; Henry spy
affair, 72, 73; Americans want
for security, 122; Dearborn
plans four-point advance on,
146-147, 148, 393; Hull's in-
vasion repelled, 154-169; Amer-
ican forays along St. Lawrence,
183, 198; Van Rensselaer's in-
vasion of^ 1 86; Smyth's at-
tempted invasion, 194-196;
public opinion re invasion of,
203-204, 204-205, 384; Clay
and, 221-222, 223; militia, 239,
244, 245, 246, 247-248; raid
on York, 242-256; disowns
Chasseurs Britanniques, 297-
298; slaves sent to, 395; border
engagements ( 1813- 1814), 413-
423, 709; smuggling to U. S.,
433; British reinforcements for
(1814), 720-721; and prisoners
of war, 495; Upper Canada in-
vaded (summer of 1814), 606-
619; canard re attitude of
Madison's administration to-
ward, 622-623, 748
Canadians, 155-156, 159, 160, 161,

168, 182, 204-205
Canandaigua, N. Y., 26
Canning, William, 46, 80, 357
Cape Cod, 658
Carbiniers d'Orleans, 675
Garden, Capt. John Surman, 211,

212-213

Caribbean Sea, 643, 679
Carleton, Gen. Sir Guy, 391
Carlisle, Pa., 295, 511
Carnatick, British vessel, 89-90
Carolina, U. S. schooner, 685,

686, 687, 689, 690, 692
Caroline of Brunswick, 721
Carroll, Charles, 573, 603-604
Carroll, Daniel, 21

769

Carroll, William, appearance,
758; with Tennessee militia,
438; duel with Benton, 440-
441; in Creek War, 461; and
New Orleans expedition, 650,
683, 685, 690, 692, 696, 697,
699, 701, 705, 757, 760

Larron, British sloop, 641, 648

Carson, Col. , 460

Cartagena, 643, 645, 690

Cass, Lewis, on Tecumseh, 106;
colonel Ohio militia, 149-150,
152; skirmish, Aux Canards,
156, 157; summons Meigs re
Hull ouster, 165; not in De-
troit at time of surrender, 165,
1 66; writes story of Detroit,
167, 169, 377; prisoner of war,
1 68; at Sandusky, 320; at Bat-
tle of Thames, 339; military
governor of Michigan Terri-
tory, 348,402

Cassin, Lt. Commander Stephen,
628

Castine, Me., 658

Castlereagh, Lord, 28, 46, 80, 90,
98, 215, 381, 483, 489, 668,
669

Castle William, 24, 472

Catherine, U. S. vessel, 79

Cat Island, 679

Cayuga, N. Y., 420

Centipede, Warren's barge, 298,

397

Chambersburg, Pa., 418
Champlain, N. Y., 623-624, 626,

6 35

Champlin, Stephen, 324, 331
Chandeleur Islands, 679
Chandler, Brig. Gen. John, 199,

203, 309-311, 496
Charming, Rev. William Ellery,

474

Chapel Church, Boston, 474
Charles Co., Md., 143, 510
Charleston, S. C., 177, 202, 471,

473,599,600,710,719
Charlotte Augusta, Princess, 721

770

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Chase, Mary, 513

Chase, Samuel, 513

Chasseurs Britanniques, 297, 300

Chasseurs, the Louisiana, 675

Chateaugay, N. Y., 415

Chateaugay River, 415

Chattahoochee River, 447, 458,
461, 462

Chauncey, Commodore Isaac,
commands Lake Ontario fleet,
242, 243-244, 245, 249, 252-
253, 254, 255; asks for Perry s
services, 302-303; base at Sack-
ets Harbor, 306, 311; capture
of Fort George, 306, 307-309;
and Yeo, on Lake Ontario, 312-
313; and Perry, misunderstand-
ing re command on Lake Erie,
312, 313, 318-319; Perry ap-
peals to, for men, 313, 314-315,
315-316, 320, 326; warns Perry
to fight new fleet with great
caution, 329; and prize money,
334; calls court-martial, Perry-
Heath affair, 400; Brown wants
co-operation of, 611-612

Chazy, N. Y., 626

Cheeseekau, 104, 339

Chelsea, Mass., 358

Cherokee Co., Ala., 457

Cherokee Indians, 102, 452-453,
453, 461^462, 464, 715, 717

Cherub, British frigate, 744

Chesapeake, U. S. frigate, 365,
596, 626; and Leopard, 91-93,
97, 262, 270, 368-369; Law-
rence assigned to, 262; ord-
nance, 262-263; and Shannon,
264-269, 272, 312

Chesapeake Bay, 289-301, 368,

Cheshire Co., N. H., 663

Chester Co., Pa., 247

Cheves, Langdon, 20, 39, 68-69,

348, 431

Chewitt, Lt. Col. W., 246
Chicago, 111., 350
Chicago massacre, 216-219

Chicago River, 216

Chickasaw, 447

Chillicothe, Ohio, 103, 104, 149,

241, 370, 493
Chippewa, Ont., 309, 606, 608,

609-611, 611-612, 616, 618, 662,

746
Chippewa, British schooner, 322-

323, 324, 329-331
Chippewa Creek, 608, 609, 610,

615, 618

Chippewa Indians, 159, 160
Choctaw Indians, 102, 459, 462,

7*5
Chrysler, John, 416

Chrysler's Farm, Battle of, 416,

709

Chrystie, Lt. Col. John, 180, 186
Chub, British sloop, 625, 629,

630, 631, 632, 633
Cincinnati, Ohio, 20, 127, 148,

149, 150, 225, 236, 243, 375,

60 1

Cincinnati, Order of, 32, 600
City Hotel, Nashville, 441
Claiborne, Ferdinand L., 440,

449, 453, 458-461, 714
Claiborne, Wilharn C. C., 129,

645, 646, 650, 674, 675, 750-

75i
Clark, , 344

Clark, George Rogers, 103, 110,
241

Clark, James Freeman, History
of the Campaign of 1812, 378

Clark, Thomas, 375

Glaus, W., 1 60

Clay, Gen. Green, 236-239

Clay, Henry, hears or declaration
of war, 20, 21; expects cheap,
safe war, 29; elected speaker,
34, 556, 727; political back-
ground, 35-36, 37-38, 35 8 "~359;
appearance, 36, 38; J. Q.
Adams on, 36; re use of British
legal citations, 37, 359; intro-
duction of Hereford cattle into
U. S., 37; as public speaker,

Index

38; duel, 38; leader of War
Hawks, 39; champions free
trade and seamen's rights, 54-
55; re taking Canada, 56, 361;
and Madison, 61-62, 66-67, 754;
and J. Q. Adams, 62-63, 3^3;
for strong Navy, 68; and im-
pressment, 97-98; defense of
Burr, 120; re Kemper affair,
128; and Gen. Smyth, 107; de-
termination in face or early
defeats, 221-222, 386; brother-
in-law killed at Frenchtown,
232; Madison considers as
Army commander, 283, 393;
and Tecumseh razor-strop,
345, 490; Calhoun on, 355; re
Lowndes, 359; re speaker's
rulings, 359; and Niles, 361;
peace commissioner, 359, 483,
490, 667, 668, 670, 687, 754,
754-755; and John Tyler, 363;
re Perry's victory, 399; wants
Dearborn dismissed, 413; Lon-
don Times on, 490, 721; re
Joe Gales, 508; and Dolley
Madison, 570
Clermontj steamship, 69, 70,

7 2 3
Cleveland, Ohio, 148, 153, 154,

168, 266, 350

Clinch, Col. Duncan L., 731
Clinker j British vessel, 504, 726
Clinton, DeWitt, 205-206, 279,

384
Clinton, George, 205, 278-279,

509

Cloriviere, Rev. Mr. , 719

Cobbett, William, 90

Cochrane, Sir Alexander, suc-
ceeds Vice Adm. Warren, 301;
orders re retaliation for Amer-
ican raids, 423-424; transports
troops from Bermuda to Amer-
ican seaboard, 504-505, 507;
squadron reaches Yorktown,
514-515; and Washington-Bal-
timore campaign, 515-516, 550-

771

551, 60 1, 742; and Nantucket,
66 1 ; underestimates American
strength on Gulf Coast, 677,
693; fleet sails for New Or-
leans, 679; crushes American
gunboat squadron, 679, 680;
sends small boats toward New
Orleans, 680-682, 684-685, 688
Cockburn, Adm. Sir George, 499,
670; sketch of, 289-290, 300;
and Napoleon, 289-290, 394-
395; blockades Chesapeake
Bay (1813), 289-301; and
Havre de Grace, 291-295, 395-
396; use of rockets, 293, 295-
296, 396; and Fredericktown
and Georgetown, 296; con-
ceives project of attack on
Washington, 296; sack of
Hampton, 299-300; sent south
to Florida, 301; and Gales,
396, 508, 509; danger of raids
by underestimated, 508, 510;
activities in Chesapeake area
(1814), 511-512, 513-514, 515,
728-729, 729-730; with Coch-
rane plans Washington-Balti-
more campaign, 515-516; on
Patuxent, 517; spies in Wash-
ington, 522; at Bladensburg,

547. 54 8 > 55. 735-736; con -
trasted with Ross, 553, 555,
738; tradition re mock Con-
gress and, 556; in Washington,
561, 563, 566-567, 575-576,
577, 739, 741; and National
Intelligencer plant, 566-567,
79, 580-581; re Gen. Wash-
ington, 581; withdraws from
Washington, 583-584; and
Beanes affair, 587, 588, 589
Cocke, Maj. Gen. John, 453, 457,

458, 715, 716

Codrington, Capt. Edward, 505
Coffee, Gen. John, commands
Jackson's cavalry, 438; friend-
ship with Jackson, 440, 441,
713; in Creek War, 453, 454,

772

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

456, 461, 462, 463, 464, 465,
714-715, 717; on Pensacola ex-
peaition, 648; ordered to New
Orleans, 650; and New Or-
leans expedition, 683, 685, 686,
687, 696,^ 697, 705, 757,^ 758;
characterized, 713; epitaph,

713

Cold Creek, 219
Collins, Lewis, 345
Colored Man's^ Reminiscences of

James Madison, A, 564. See

also Jennings, Paul
Columbia, British frigate, 98-99
Combs, Md., 529, 530
Concord, Mass., 146, 503, 600
Conestoga, Pa., 371
Con-fiance , British frigate, 628,

630, 631, 632, 633, 634, 637
Congress, U. S. frigate, 210, 365
Congreve, Sir William, 295, 296
Connecticut, 179, 435, 652, 656,

659, 660-661, 662, 663, 666,

711
Constellation, U. S. frigate, 209,

297,298,365, 384
Constitution ("Old Ironsides"),

U. S. frigate, 170-176, 177-178,

259, 260, 264, 365, 379, 379-

380, 629
Constitutional Convention, 63,

664

Contee, Benjamin, 137
Continental Congress, 137, 276,

391, 664

Conway, Thomas, 276
Cook's Mill, 618
Cooper, James Fenimore, 266,

267,272,333 390,512
Cooper, Prof. Thomas, 295
Coosa River, 442, 444, 445, 454,

458, 462, 463,467,718
Coosawda, 442, 445
Copenhagen, Denmark, 295, 668
Cornells, Lucy, 450
Corni, Michael, 334
Cornwall, Ont., 416
Cornwallis, Lord, 742

Cortez, Hernando, 443, 561

Corunna, 501, 507

Corwin, Thomas, 115

Cozens, , 20

Crab Island, 631, 633, 634

Crab Orchard, Ky., 341

Craig, Sir James, 72, 73, 75, 76,
133, 204, 506

Craig, William, 133

Crane, Master Commandant Wil-
liam M., 390

Craney Island, 298, 300, 509

Cranmer, Archbishop , 722

Crawford, Maj. James, 123-124

Crawford, William H., 270, 274-
275 283

Crawley, , 692

Creek Indians, history, 102, no,
443-444; Tecumseh visits
(1811), 112; red clubs of war
party, 369; incited to war, 442-
443, 713; encroachment on ter-
ritory, 446; visit Maiden, 447;
war and peace factions, 447-
448; war party obtains arms
from British fleet, 447-448,
459. See also Creek War

Creek War, events leading to,
442-443, 444-448; Fort Mims
massacre, 448-451, 714; reac-
tion of other tribes, 452-453;
engagements at Litterutcnee
and Tallasehatche, 454, 714-
715; at Talladega, 454-455;
problem of supplies, 454, 456,
716; prolonged by Hillabee mis-
fortune, 457-458, 716; Ameri-
can successes under Floyd and
Claiborne, 458-461, 462, 716,
717; Battle of Emuckfau, 461,
717; engagement at Horseshoe
Bend, 463-466, 647, 717; chiefs
come to terms with Jackson,
467-468, 640, 718

Crillon, Count Edouard de, 72-

^ 73' 74, 77> 3 66
Cnttenden, John J., 336
Crockett, Davy, 453

Index

Croghan, George, 114, 239-241,

320, 372

Crosby, Ebenezer, 398
Crowninshield, Capt. George,

Jr., 269

Crutchfield, Maj. Stapelton, 299
Culver's Hill, N. Y., 627
Cumberland Bay, 749
Cumberland Head, 623, 628, 630,

631, 636

Cumberland River, 438, 650
Gushing, Adj. Gen. Thomas, 203
Custis, Anne, 742
Custis, George Washington

Parke, 144, 374
Cutts, Anna, 63, 571, 573
Cutts, Richard, 63, 572
Cutts house, 569
Cuyahoga, schooner, 152, 153,

'54

D

Dacres, Capt. James R., 170, 173,
174, 175, 380

Dale, Col. , 676, 698, 702

Dale, Capt. Sam, 448

Dallas, Alexander J., 433, 434,

744-745
Dane, Nathan, 663

Danville, Va., 712

D'Aquin's brigade, 685, 696

Dartmoor prison, 90

Dartmouth College, 476, 606, 607

Daviess, Col. Joseph H., 1 14, 115,
116, 119, 120, 372

Davis, Col. , 703, 760

Davis, Jefferson, 724

Dayton, Ohio, 103, 149, 152, 375

Dearborn, Gen. Henry, 383, 496,
623, 745; called "Granny," 26,
146, 356, 427; appointed maj.
gen. (1812), 146-147, 202; un-
certainty on Niagara frontier,
161,381; base at Albany, N. Y.,
179; unable to help Hull, 181;
armistice with Prevost, 181,
182-183, 376-377, 381, 624;
ordered to fight, 182; ignores

773

Niagara border, 183; Montreal
campaign a gesture, 198-199,
200, 417; and York raid, 242,
243, 246, 248, 249, 250, 251,
253, 254, 255, 256; assembles
troops at Four Mile Creek,
306; and attack on Fort
George, 307, 308; loses ad-
vantage, 309, 311; recalls men
lent to Perry, 311; recalled
(1813), 413; delay over pris-
oner-of-war situation, 495

Dearborn, Mich., 378

Decatur, Commodore Stephen,
400, 625, 723; captures Mace-
donian, 210-213, 385; and Phil-
adelphia) 259, 625; outstanding
ability, 263, 276; command
(1812), 365; at New York
harbor, 493, 596; death, 544

Decker, Lt. Col. Luke, 115, 116,
118

Declaration of Independence,

573 740-741 , . .

Decres, , French minister, 47

Delaware, 288-289, 435, 750
Delaware Bay, 287, 288-289
Delaware Indians, 103, 109, 219,

370, 37i .

Delaware River, 176, 259

Demerara River, 260

Denmark, 52, 283, 668, 754

De Peyster, R. G. L., 573

Desha, Joseph, 53, 77

Des Moines Indians, 713

Detroit, Mich., 320, 339, 350, 376,
396, 446, 625, 713; and inva-
sion or Canada, 147; supply
routes to, 147-148; Hull's sur-
render to Brock (Aug. 1812),
165-168, 185, 214, 221, 348,
378, 381, 386, 438, 442; Har-
rison ordered to recapture,
226, 227; attack on dependent
on lake control, 306; recap-
tured by Americans (1813),
338; Indians repair to after
Thames defeat, 348

774

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Detroit, British brig (formerly
American Adams), 185-186,
378

Detroit., new British brig, build-
ing of (1813), 314, 398;
launched, 316, 317; in battle of
Lake Erie, 322, 323-324, 325,
326,327,329,330,332
Detroit River, 125, 153, 154, 156,

320, 338

Dickinson, Charles, 451, 715
Dickinson College, Pa., 295
Dickson, William, 418-419
Dickson, Mrs. William, 418-419,

709

Dictator, British vessel, 679
Diomede, British vessel, 679
District of Columbia, 533; clam-
ors for defense, 510, 511; mili-
tia, 519, 520-521, 532, 534, 535,
536, 725, 729, 732, 733, 734,
736; committee to preserve
capital city, 593 ; militia mutiny
against Armstrong, 603-604
Dobbins, Capt. Daniel, 167-168,

304, 378, 397-3?8, 398
Dolphin, U. S. privateer, 291
Dominicans, 684, 696
Donaldson, Henry, 87
Dorchester, Lord, 125, 377
Dorchester, Mass., 379

Dorsey, , 602

Dover, Del., 176
Downes, Lt. John, 744
Downie, Capt. George, 628-632,

635, 636,^37, 749
Dragon, British man of war, 514
Drake, Sir Francis, 485, 676
Drumniond, Lt. Gen. George
Gordon, 421, 539, 612, 612-
615, 616-618, 619, 662, 747
Duane, Adj. Gen. William, 482
Ducros, Joseph Rpdolphe, 682
Dudley, Col. William, 236-237
Duke of Gloucester, British ves-
sel, 245

Dundas, William EL, quoted, 740
Dungeness House, 301

Dunlop, John, 740

Du Pont family, 288-289, 599,

743

Durang, Charles, 742
Dwight, Theodore, History of

the Hartford Convention, 662

Eagle, U. S. brig, 628, 630, 631,

632, 633

Eagle, U. S. sloop, 625, 629, 748
Eagle Inn, 720
Early, Jubal, 537
East Branch of Potomac River,

529, 601. See also Eastern

Branch bridge
East Florida, 130, 131-132, 132-

133, 134-135. 3^5
East Tennessee, 453, 457, 712, 715

Easter, Steve, 117
Eastern Branch bridge (Poto-
mac), 528, 536, 537, 539, 540,

733i 735, 73<$
Eastport, Me., 657, 658

Econachaca, 459-461

Edward VI, 721

Eggleston, Edward, quoted, 344-

345

Egypt, 676, 726
Eighth Line Regiment, British,

. 2 44

Eightieth Regiment, British, 727
Eighty-eighth Regiment, British,

727

Eighty-fifth Light Infantry Regi-
ment, British, with Ross, 503-
504, 506, 517, 539-540, 54 6 >
547, 555; at New Orleans, 685,
687, 697, 703; last survivor,
729
Eighty-seventh Regiment (2nd

Battalion), British, 727
Elba, 482, 483
Eleventh Infantry Regiment,

U. S., 610

Elizabeth of England, 722
Elizabeth River, 298, 384
Elizabethtown, Can., 198

Index

Elk River, 291
Elkton, Md., 291

Ellicott, Capt. , 232

Ellicott City, Md., 602

Ellicott Mills, 142

Elliott, Lt Jesse D., 185-186, 320,

324-325, 328-329, 334, 335, 399
Ellsworth, Oliver, 722
Embargo imposed Dec. 1813,

425-426

Embargo Act (1807), 642
Emden, German vessel, 743
Emuckfau, Battle of, 461, 463,

468, 717 ^
Encyclopedists, 62
Enghien, Due d', 58
Enniskillen Regiment, see

Twenty-seventh Regiment
Enotachopco, 461
Enterprise , U. S. brig, 259, 272,

365, 379, 400
Eppes, John W., 744
Erie, Pa., 148, 303-306, 307, 311,

314, 316, 318, 321, 421. See

also Presqu' Isle
Erskine, David Montague, 93
Essex, U. S. frigate, 28, 88, 357,

3<$5> 743"744

Essex Co., Mass., 743, 752

Essex Junior, 744

Essex Junto, 653, 659, 743, 752

Etowah, Ga., 452

Eustis, Dr. William, Secretary of
War, 21, sketch of, 1^45-146,
375; and expedition against the
Prophet (1811), 372; informs
Congress of British gifts to In-
dians, 125; and Hull, 148, 169,
337; dilatory methods^ 153,
381; and Canadian sentiment,
205; dissatisfaction with, 223,
226, 274-275; dropped as Sec-
retary of War (Dec. 31, 1812),
273-274; and Jackson's offer of
services, 437-438; parsimony,
526

Evans, Sir George De Lacy, 506,
554, 687

775

Ewell, Dr. James, 575, 576, 582,
583, 587, 588, 738, 741; Plant-
ers' and Mariners' Medical
Companion, 738

Ewell, Mrs. James, 741

Ewing, George W., 283

Fair American, U. S. vessel, 471
Fallen Timbers, Battle of, 104,

125

Faneuil Hall, Boston, 143, 655
Farragut, David, 743, 744
Fayetteville, Tenn., 452
Federal Hill, Baltimore, 5 1 3
Federalists, 176; in 1810 election,
31; criticize Madison, 50, 51,
222-223, 360-361; anti-French,
56-57, 61, 360; and Henry spy
affair, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77; oppose
move to take over East Flor-
ida, 1 30, 1 3 3 ; win Maryland af-
ter Baltimore riot (1812), 136;
have no candidate for Presi-
dent (1812), 205; and Arm-
strong, 284; and. bill re em-
ployment of foreign sailors,
369; rejoice in Bonaparte's fall,
472, 477; in Maryland, 499;
and Hartford Convention, 651;
scoff at peace treaty, 671-672
FeUs Point, Md., 138

Fentpn, Col. , 421

Ferdinand, King of Spain, 297
Fernandina, Amelia Island, 131,

132

Fifteen Mile Creek, Ont., 611
Fifth Baltimore Regiment, 536,
541-542, 54j,_735j 73 6 "737- See

also Fifth Maryland Infantry
Fifth Maryland Infantry, 526,
735. See also Fifth Baltimore
Regiment

Fifth Regiment Kentucky Vol-
unteers, 222, 228
Fifty-seventh Light Infantry,
British, 726

776

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Finch, British sloop, 625, 629,

630, 631, 633, 634
Findlay, Col. James, 149, 157,

165, 1 66, 167, 378
Findlay, Ohio, 152
Finnis, , captain of Queen

Charlotte, 325
First Infantry Regiment, U. S.,

614

First U. S. Volunteers, 168
Fisk, James, 66
Fiske, Jonathan, 593
Fitch, John, 578
Fitzgibbon, Lt. James, 413
Five Nations, 371
Flaugeac, Garriques, 692, 699
Florence, Ala., 713
Floridas, the, 54, 282, 370, 622.

See also East Florida, West

Florida
Flournoy, Brig. Gen. Thomas,

203, 449, 458
Floyd, Catherine, 570
Floyd, Maj. George R. C, 115,

117
Floyd, Gen. John, 453, 458, 462,

716, 717
Floyd, William, 570

Folch, Gov. , 129, 130

Fonerden, Adam, 143
Fontainebleau Decree, 46
Forbes, Gen. John, 503
Forestville, Md., 523
Forlorn Hope, 343
Forsyth, Maj. Benjamin, 183,
198, 244, 245, 247, 249, 251,

307, 417

Fortieth Regiment, British, 726
Forts, Armstrong, 458; Augus-

309, 311, 376, 41 3, 415, 418, 606,
611, 612, 616, 619; Green, 595;
Harrison, 114, 220, 227; Jack-
son, 467, 640; Leavenworth,
610; McArthur, 152; Mc-
Henry, 396, 525, 590, 742;
Mackinac, 159-160, 377, 378;
Madison, 219; Meigs, 234, 236-
239, 239, 315, 387; Miami, 237,

337; Mims, 448-45 1 ' 455i 457.
466, 467, 468, 714; Montgom-
ery, 648; Moreau, 627, 633;
Mulgrave, 289; Niagara, 188,
376, 419-420, 709; St. Joseph,
159; St. Michael, 641, 649; St.
Philip, 675; Scott, 627, 633;
Sewall, 493; Stephenson, 239-
241, 315, 320, 372; Stevens,
537; Stoddard, 616; Strong,
600; Strother, 454, 455, 456,
457, 458, 461, 462, 463, 716;
Toulouse, 467; Warburton,
296; Washington, 296, 509,

5*5> 5 l6 > 5 2 3> 5 28 > 733. <$oi-

602; Wayne, 109, 216, 217, 218,

219, 226
Forty-first Regiment, British,

157, 162, 164, 191, 240, 341,

376, 401
Forty-fourth Infantry, U. S.,

683-684
Forty-fourth Infantry Regiment,

British, 503, 504, 541, 547, 551,

563, 694, 698, 699, 700, 726,

759-760
Forty-ninth Regiment, British,

187, 413
Forty-third Regiment, British,

694

tine, 438; Barrancas, 641, 649; Foster, Augustus J., 28, 93, 182,

Bowyer, 647-648; Brown, 627, 355

633; Claiborne, 459, 460; Dear- Foster, Stephen C., 102

born, 216-219; Defiance, 226- Fourteenth Infantry, U. S.,

227, 236; Duquesne, 503; Erie, 413

Fourth (King's Own) Regiment,

1 86, 309, 311, 396, 606, 607-
608, 616-618, 618-619; Findlay,
152; George, 160, 161, 183, 185,

British, 503, 504, 546, 547, 548,
685, 694

186, 188, 189,242,244,306,307- Fourth Infantry, U. S., 113, 115,

Index

119, 120, 150, 162, 164, 166,
168, 372, 378, 388

Fox, , 384-385

France, aggressions, 23, 46-47,
5 1 * 5 6 > 79> 357> 3 6 9; appoint-
ment of French officers in
U. S. opposed, 25; invasion of
Russia, 29, 357; threat of war
with (1798), 39, 57, 71, 257,
359, 384, 393, 743; commercial
warfare with Great Britain, 42-
47; Armstrong minister to, 47,
279, 392; and Monroe, 52, 52-
53, 360; peace faction distrusts,
5-58, 61; Crawford succeeds
3arlow as minister to, 283; and
Spain, 357; and neutral ship-
ping (1854), 359-360; citizen-
ship, 367; early fort at site of
Toronto, 388
Francs, the, 675
Frankfort, Ky., 221, 493
Franklin, Benjamin, 274, 391,

512,^740

Franklin, Tenn., 441
Frederick the Great, 45, 360, 721
Frederick of Prussia, 471, 483
Fredericktown, Md., 91, 296,

368, 560, 574, 603
Free Masons, 596
Fremont, Ohio, 239
French and Indian War, 397
French John, see Sioussa, Jean P.
French Mills, N. Y., 416
French Revolution, 136
Frenchtown, Md., 291, 395
Frenchtown, River Raisin, 153,
158, 162, 165, 168, 228-234,
235, 348, 386
Friedland, Battle of, 28
Friends, Society of, 102
Frolic, British sloop, 176-177,
288

Fuller, Archbishop , 249

Fulton, Robert, 69-70, 492, 723
Fulton the First, steam warship,

743
Funk, Capt. Peter, 114

777

Fusiliers, 622. See also Royal
Scots Fusiliers, Seventh Fusi-
liers

Gage, Gen. Thomas, 503

Gaines, Gen. Edmund P., 130,
337, 615-616, 616-618,. 742

Galapagos Islands, 743, 744

Gales, Joseph, editor of National
Intelligencer, 201, 480, 481,
752; and Cockburn, 396, 508,
509; sketch of, 508-509; citi-
zenship, 509, 727; and defense
of Washington, 521, 732;
Intelligencer plant destroyed,
566-567, 580-581, 602

Gales, Sarah Juliana Lee, 509

Gallatin, Albert, Secretary of
Treasury, 21; loan policy, 25,
356, 432-433; and Whisky Re-
bellion, 25, 284, 393; re em-
bargo, 48; and Henry spy af-
fair, 74; budget message (Nov.
1811), 78-79, 366; advances
troop payments, 180; per-
suaded to remain in cabinet,
274; citizenship, 356; J. Quincy
re, 362; and Secretary Smith,
392; leaves Treasury Depart-
ment, 482, 753; on U. S. Peace
delegation, 482-483, 490, 667,
668, 687, 753-754; home in
Washington, 552

Gallatin, Mrs. Albert, 274

Galloway, James, 104

Galloway, Rebecca, 104-105

Gambier, Lord, 668

Gamble, Peter, 631

Gananoque, Can., 198

Ganges^ U. S. vessel, 259

Gardenier, Barent, 531, 544

Gardner, William, 420

Garland, Lt. , 327

Garonne River, France, 481, 502,
504

Gates, Gen. Horatio, 276, 277,
278, 286

77 8

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Geiger, Col. Frederick, 114, 118
Genalga, 457

General Monk, British sloop, 512
General Pike, U. S. vessel, 257,

748
Genet, Edmond Charles Edouard

(Citizen), 478
George III, 484, 506-507, 512,

727
George Augustus Frederick, see

Prince Regent

Georgetown, S. C, 138, 143, 144,
296, 521, 554, 572, 574, 578,
583, 587, 588, 725, 729; asks
protection, 511; confusion in,
526-527; rifle company, 536,
734; Americans retreat to, 540,
542; population (1810), 738
Georgetown Ferry, 574
Georgetown Heights, 572
Georgia, 445, 446, 451,^ 452, 453,
625, 649; fears British attack
through Florida, 131; volun-
teers move into East Florida,
131-133; and East Florida, 134-
135, 385; honors Perry, 334;
and blockade, 395; militia, 458,
462

Gerard, Frangois, 33
Germain, Lord George, 620
Germantown, Pa., 592, 731
Gerry, Gov. Elbridge, 33, 73,

205

Gerrymander bill, 33, 358
Gettysburg, Pa., 396
Ghent, Treaty of, 569, 727;
American commissioners ap-
pointed (1813), 482-483, 489-
490; 667, 668; Alexander I
offers to mediate (1813), 483,
667; England disinterested, 497,
489-490, 668; repulse of Ross
at Baltimore affects negotia-
tions, 591, 637; England wants
strip of East coast, 621, 658;
Macdonough's victory influ-
ences negotiations, 637; Gam-
bier heads British commission,

668; and impressment issue,
668, 669, 754; signing of (Dec.
24, 1814), 666, 667, 670, 687;
negotiations, 667, 668-670, 754;
Madison names new commis-
sion (1814), 668, 753-754;
American reception of, 670,
672, 755; British reception of,
671; and Battle of New Or-
leans, 677, 756; submitted to
U. S. Senate (Feb. 15, 1815),
677; ratification completed
(Feb. 17, 1815), 756
Gibbs, Maj. Gen. Sir Samuel,
689, 690, 694, 698, 699, 700,
701, 702, 705, 760
Gibson, John, 219

Gildersleeves, Rev. , 596

Giles, William B., 363
Girard, Stephen, 432, 433
Gironde River, 504
Gleaner, British ketch, 182
Gleig, Lt. George Robert, re
Washington campaign, 5 1 6,
5 I 7>533~534, 539, 54i;reRoss
and white flag, 553; re burning
of Capitol, 559; re banquet in
Madison's home, 563-564; re
Washington buildings, 576;
re Washington tornado, 584; re
Beanes, 586; re Ross, 591, 592;
Narratives of the Campaigns
. . . at Washington and New
Orleans and A Subaltern in
America, 729; sketch of, 729
Glengary fencibles, 244
Gloucester, U. S. vessel, 257
Goldsborough, Charles W., 574
Goldsborough, Mrs. Charles W.,

395-39 6
Golightly, Thomas, 87

Gordon, Capt Charles, 390
Gordon, Capt. James A., 516,

581, 583, 601, 603
Gorgon, British vessel, 679
Gosport Navy Yard, Va., 297
Gosselin, Maj. Gen. Gerard, 658,

727

Index

Gothenburg, Sweden, 668, 754
Gough, Sir Hugh, 506
Gourlay, Robert Fleming, Sta-
tistical Account of Upper Can-
ada, 253- 2 54. 2 54- 2 55
Gouverneur, Maria (nee Mon-
roe), 392

Gouverneur, Samuel L., 392
Governor's Island, 71, 471

Graf ton, Capt. , 254, 255

Grafton, Co., N. H., 663
Graison, Robert, 457
Grand Island, 307
Grand Isle, 645

Grand Terre Island, 643, 644,
645

Grandpre, Gov. , 129

Granger, Gideon, 273-274
Grant, Ulysses S., 672

Graves, Maj. , 231-232

Great Britain, U. S. declares war
on, 19; drained by war with
France, 29; Orders in Council,
discussed, 42-53 passim; com-
mercial warfare with France,
42-47; doctrine of "inner sea,"
43; Rule of 1756, 44-55, 360;
public clamor against Orders,
47; refuses to repeal Orders,
50-53; seizure of 389 U. S.
vessels, 52; and Spain, 54, 130;
fleet strength, 61, 365; plots
alienation of New England and
New York, 70-77; bewildered
at American antagonism, 77-
79; Orders in Council repealed
too late, 80-8 1, 97, 182, 366-
367, 379, 381; underestimates
war pressures in U. S., 82; and
fur trade, 108; relations be-
tween agents and Northwest
Indians as war cause, 122-126;
holds forts after 1783 treaty,
125; blow at U. S. through
Florida feared, 130-131; fore-
see American plans, 148, 375;
public interest in North Amer-
ican war, 151-152; seizure of

779

Irish-born prisoners of war,
192-193; controls territory
north and west of Wabash and
Maumee, 219; parsimonious
about Navy powder, 265; and
Broke's victory over Law-
rence, 270; channel shipping
harried by Argus., 271; cabinet
under criticism, 287; blockade
of Chesapeake and Delaware
bays (1813), 287-301, 39<; and
the Northwest, 350; and neu-
tral shipping in Crimean War,
359-360; blockades American
coast, Maine to Louisiana, 424,
425-426, 432, 608, 658, 661, 710;
celebrates Bonaparte's defeat,
483-485; turns to chastisement
of U. S., 485-490, 501, 502-
503; designs on Louisiana, 489,
75 1 ? 756; merchant shipping
destroyed by U. S. privateers,
599-600; attempts to detach
New England, 620-639, 747-
750; annexes part of Maine
coast (1814), 658; and peace
treaty, 667-672, 677. See also
Impressment
Great Lakes, 100, 122, 489, 669,

670

Great Smoky Mountains, 452
Greenbush, N. Y. 179, 199, 200
Greene, Gen. Nathanael, 301
Greenleaf, James, 593
Greenleafs Point, 579, 582-583,

588

Green Mountains, Vt, 628
Greensburg, Pa., 422
Greenville, Ohio, 106, no
Gregg, Andrew, 363
Gregg, Thomas, 743
Grey, "Cold Steel," 247
Griffin, Thomas, 299
Griswold, Roger, 653, 659
Growler y U. S. sloop, 625, 629
Grundy, Felix, 20, 40, 53, 56, 68,

134, 359, 465
Gubbms, Col. , 704

780

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Guerriere, British frigate, 93,
170-176, 210, 212, 379-380

Guerrillas, Harry New York-
Canadian border, 197-198

H

Hagerstown, Md., 520
Haldimand, Gov. Frederick, 123-

124

Halifax, Nov. Sc., 171, 379, 622,
638; Chesapeake taken as
prize to, 268; funerals of Law-
rence and Ludlow, 269; prison-
ers sent to, 492, 586, 587, 588,
657; Ross buried at, 591; only
land outlet from Montreal to
England, 621

Hall, Judge Dominick, 759
Hall, James, 369
Hall, Dr. John E., 142
Hall, Col. William, 438
Hall, William, Jr., 663
Hallet, Etienne Sulpice, 578
Halsey's Corners, N. Y., 627

Hamilton, Lt. , 210, 384

Hamilton, Alexander, 257, 278,

283, 288, 39i-39 2 > 393> 75 2
Hamilton, Ont., 612
Hamilton, Paul, 132, 210, 273,

274, 275, 384, 302
Hamilton, U. S. brig, 309
Hamilton societies, 479
Hampden, Me., 658
Hampton, Brig. Gen. Wade, 203,
225; and Eustis, 274; commands
Norfolk District, 298, 396; and
Wilkinson, 414-415, 416; and
Montreal campaign, 414-415,
415-416, 622, 709; discredited,
427; resignation, 709
Hampton, Lt. Gen. Wade, 298
Hampton, Va., 298-300, 624
Hampton Roads, 298, 299; naval
station, 365

Hanchett, Capt. , 397

Hancock, Gov. John, 474
Hanks, Lt. Porter, 159-160, 377
Hanover, House of, 483, 484,

721. See also Brunswick, House

of

Hanover, N. H., 476, 606
Hanson, Alexander Contee, 22,

136-144, 426-427,477
Hanson, John, 136-137
Hardy, Sir Thomas, 492, 657,

7 2 3
Harmar, Gen. Josiah, 104

Harper, John A., 40, 53; quoted,

5<5
Harper, Robert Goodloe, 473,

719

Harper's Ferry, 71, 759

Harrisburg, Pa., 27

Harrison, Lt. , 378

Harrison, Benjamin, 224

Harrison, William Henry, 33,
156, 185, 614, 688; aide to
Wayne, 104; Vincennes meet-
ing with Tecurnseh (1810),
105, 109-111, 371; (1811), 112,
713; first fears of Indian con-
federation, 1 08; Fort Wayne
Treaty (1809) fought by Te-
cumseh, 108-111; attitude to-
ward Indians, 111-112, 371;
expedition against Prophet's
town authorized, 113-114, 372;
builds blockhouses, 114; and
Tippecanoe, 115-121, 372-373;
re British gifts to Indians, 125;
uses militia effectively, 151;
medical student, 202; and
Western volunteers, 223, 386;
and Madison administration,
223,^225, 226, 349-350; com-
missioned major general Ken-
tucky volunteers, 224; sketch
of, 224-225; Indian treaty nego-
tiator, 225; and Winchester,
225, 226; given command of
Western Army, 226-227; Proc-
tor fears pursuit by, 231; moves
to Maumee Rapids, 234, 387;
and siege of Fort Meigs, 234,
236-239, 387; and Croghan,
239-240; awaits aid from Perry,

Index

306, 313, 314, 315, 318; confers
with Perry, 320; hears of Per-
ry's victory, 331; offers Shelby
command, 336; advance on
Maiden, 33 6 "337^ 3 3 7-3 3 8, 4o-
401; restraining order re fallen
enemies, 337; pursues Proctor
to Thames, 338, 339, 347; vic-
tory at Thames (Oct. 1813),

339-343. 344i 347-348, 34 8 "349
415, 425; and slavery, 371-372;
and Tecumseh's death, 402; to
Vincent, re use of Indians, 349;
assigned to Cincinnati area,
349 35; resigns, 349-350, 711;
praise from McArthur and
Perry, 349; and Dolley Madi-
son, 350; Wilkinson distrusts,
414; jingle re, 427; raises de-
tachment of dragoons, 60 1;
compared with Jackson, 757
Hart, Capt. Nathaniel G. T.,

232

Hartford, Conn., 23, 475
Hartford Convention, discussed,
651-666, 752-753; dying gasp
or disunion, 651; background,
651-656, 753; money question,
provokes, 657-660; states in-
vited, 661-662; delegates and
proceedings, 662-664; report,
664-666

"Hartford Wits," 662
Hartley's Point, 337
Harvard College, 35, 294, 662
Harvey, Henry, 102, no, 347

Hatch, Col. , 370

Havana, Cuba, 130, 357, 448
Havre de Grace, Md., 291-295,

Hawki

5-391 P3,
kins, Col.

. .
Benjamin, 442,

443, 447, 713
Hay, Mrs. George, 392
Hazard, Oliver, 397
Heald, Capt. Nathan, 216, 217,

218, 219

Heath, Capt. John, 335, 400
Henderson, Col. - , 690

7 8i

Henderson, Judge , 469

Henderson Bay, 709

Henley, Capt. Robert, 628, 632

Henry, John, 496

Henry, John, 70-77, 133, 365-366

Henry, Patrick, 138, 199

Henry Co., Ohio, 151

Herkiiner, N. .,419

Hermes y British sloop, 641, 647,

648

Hickory Ground, 445, 447, 467
Hicks, Lt. William, 629
High Head Jim, 446, 448
Hill, Lord Rowland, 502, 520,

526, 529, 624, 678, 726, 736
Hill, Dr. William, 586
Hillabee Creeks, 456-458, 716
Hillinhagee, 718
Hillyar, Capt. James, 744
Hoffman, David, 139

Hog Island, 154

Hohenlinden, Battle of, 356

Holland, 30, 283, 317, 720

Holmes, Dr. Thomas G., 451

Holmes Hole, 261

Holy Ground, Battle of the, 459-
460

Hope, Gen. John, 624-678

Hopkins, Gen. Samuel, 227, 275,
386

Hopkinson, Joseph, 384

Hornet, U. S. brig, 259, 260, 263,
365, 389-390

Horseshoe Bend, Battle of, 453,
462, 463-466, 684, 717

House, Col. James, 472

House of Commons, 721

Houston, Sam, 465-466

Howard, Adm. Sir John, 485,
676

Howe, Lord, 90, 503, 620

Hudson River, 598, 72 3

Hulans, the, 675

Hull, Capt. A. F., 153, 164, 167

Hull, Isaac, 379

Hull, Capt. Isaac, 170, 171, 172*
173, 174, 175, 209, 264, 379-
380, 385

7 82

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Hull, Lt. Joseph, 379
Hull, Richard, 379
Hull, William, governor Michi-
gan Territory, includes Shaw-
nee in treaty, no, 371;
characterized, 147, 375, 378-
379, 401, 745, 757; confers
with Madison, 147, 148; briga-
dier general in Regular Army,
148, 203, 2 23; joins Ohio troops
and moves toward Detroit,
150-154; unable to handle mi-
litia effectively, 151; builds
forts, 152; loses equipment and
records, 152, 153, 154, 275; re-
ceives word (July 2, 1812) of
beginning of war, 153-154,
375; authorized to attack
Maiden, 154; futile expedition
into Canada, 154-159, 376-377;
proclamation to Canadians,
155-156, 159, 160, 161, 1 68,
376, 641; returns to Detroit,
159; orders Miller to meet
supply convoy, 162; officers
consider means of ousting, 164-
165, 377-378; vacillation and
surrender of Detroit (1812),
165-168, 181, 214, 216, 221,
348, 376-377, 378, 438; court-
martial (1814), 153, 169, 276,
378, 427; attempts at vindica-
tion, 169, 378-379; instructions
to Heald at Fort Dearborn,
216; Memoirs, 378; adopted
son, 379; failure charged to
Madison, 622-623

Humphrey, , 692

Humphreys, Capt. , 92

Hunter , British vessel, 153, 322,
323

Hunter, Dr. , 530

Hunter, Mrs. Mary, 567
Huntsville, Ala., 454, 462
Huron River, 158
Hutchinson, Sgt., 588, 589
Hyder-Ally, U. S. vessel, 512
Hydra, British vessel, 679

I

Ida, brig, 470, 471
Illinois, 121, 214, 219, 227
Impressments, 668, 669; one of
main causes of war, 42, 82-83,
97-98; British press gangs, 84,
97, 99; British and American
citizenship laws, 85-86, 367;
careless use of American iden-
tification or protection papers,
86-88, 90, 367; numbers of
Americans and British in-
volved, 88, 90, 90-91, 95, 96;
early instances, 89-90, 91-93;
British attitude, 90, 94, 97,
368; American attitude, 91,
182, 368, 369, 381; Congres-
sional bills re, 94-95; Massa-
chusetts investigates, 95-96;
London pamphlet re, 96; U. S.
seizes American deserter in
Canada, 98; war fails to end,
98-99; Madison's inaugural
(1813) re, 207; and Siren, 626;
and Treaty of Ghent, 669, 754
Indiana, anti-British feeling, 37;
militia, in, 114, 115, 118, 119,
226, 385; fears Indian raid, 113,
214, 371, 372, 385; legislature
lauds Harrison, 121; and course
of war, 219; war spirit, 222;
Shawnee and, 370; and slavery,
371-372

Indiana Supreme Court, 225
Indians, conspiracies in West, 33;
threat to frontiers a war cause,
54, 55, 122-126, 362; British
agents provoke agitations
among, 82; need of justice for,
1 1 1- 1 1 2, 371; relationship be-
tween British and Northwest
Indians as cause of war, 122-
126; incitement by Spaniards
in Florida feared, 131; Niagara
district wants them controlled,
147; Michigan settlers want
protection from, 148; follow

Index

Hull's army, 152; in Maiden
area, 156, 158, 376; at Queens-
ton, 186, 189, 1 92; employment
by British denounced by Madi-
son, 206, 208; take heart at
Hull's defeat, 214; population
east of Mississippi River, 215;
reason for British alliance with,
215; as soldiers, 215-216, 385;
massacre at Chicago, 216-219;
frontier raids, 219-220; Harri-
son's treaties with, 108-111,
225; expedition against, in
West, 227; at River Raisin,
228-233; " are excellent doc-
tors," 231; at Fort Meigs,
234, 2 36-2 39; at York, 244;
Harrison tries to wean from
British, 320; learn of Perry's
victory, 337; desert to Harri-
son, 339; at Maiden and
Thames, 339, 341, 343, 347,
348, 400, 402; cause for repub-
lic dies with Tecumseh, 347;
sue for peace after Thames,
348; at St. David's, 413; at
Chrysler's Farm, 416; ravage
Niagara frontier (1813), 419,
420; and founding of Dart-
mouth, 607; serve with Porter,
607; at Battle of Chippewa
(1814), 609; Pensacola's in-
fluence on, 640, 641; at Fort
Bowyer, 647, 648; Great Brit-
ain wants Indian buffer state,
668; and outcome of war, 672;
on Gulf Coast, 677. See also
names of tribes

Ingersoll, Charles Jared, 273-274,
413, 431, 556, 571, 653, 656,
711

Inglis, Lt. George, 327, 329

Ipswich, Mass., 493

Ireland, 184, 193, 649

Irvin, John, 28, 88, 357

Irving, Washington, on Madison,
64; and Perry, 333, re Wash-
ington, 518; and Dolley Madi-

783

son, 570-571; on patriotism,

598

Isaacs, 447

Isaacs, Col. , 561

Izard, Gen. George, 538, 539,

618-619, 621, 622, 623-624,

625, 627, 710

J

Jackson, Andrew, 62, 243, 666,
733; recruits militia, 20; hand-
clasp, 36; and militia, 151, 201,
202, 203, 758; nicknames
Dearborn, 356; major general,
429, 711; and Sevier, 436-437;
sketch of, 436-438, 452; offers
services (1812), 436, 437-438;
letter from his mother, 437,
712; futile expedition to
Natchez, 438-440, 452, 716;
offers to take army to Mai-
den, 439; Armstrong dismisses,
439; "Old Hickory," 440, 712;
difficulty re troop payments,
440, 712; injured in brawl with
Bentons, 440-442 , ^ 45 1 , 454,
716; friendship with Coffee,
440, 713; duel with Dickinson,
45 1 ; leads Tennesseans against
Creeks, 452; and discipline,

453-454. 45 6 i J^-J 1 ^ 7 l6 5 at
Huntsville, Ala., 454; and Lin-
coyer, 454; need of supplies,
454, 715; builds Fort Strother,
454; victory at Talladega, 454-
455, 456, 458; prevents mutiny,
456, 715-716; and acorns, 456,
664; and Hillabees, 456-457,
458; Cocke's forces join, 458;
Claiborne warns re British aid
to Creeks, 459; campaign from
Fort Strother to Emuckfau
(1814), 461-462, 717; new
forces arrive (Feb. 1814), 462,
717; victory at Horseshoe
Bend, 463-466, 717-718; and
Sam Houston, 466; builds Fort
Jackson, 467; generous terms

7 8 4

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

to Indians, 467-468; and Joe
Gales, 508; Pensacola his ob-
jective in Creek War, 640;
treaty with Creeks, 640; at
Mobile, 640, 646-647; and
Baratarians, 646, 690, 759; ac-
cuses Manrique of bad faith,
646; waits for new army, 647,
751; and Maj. Lawrence, 648;
moves on Pensacola (Nov. 7,
1814), 648-649, 751-752; re-
turns to Mobile, 649; starts for
New Orleans, 650, 752; and
Battle of New Orleans, 672,
673-705; arrival in New Or-
leans, 673-675; studies possible
approaches or British, 675, 755,
757-758; loses first line of de-
fense, 680, 757; warned of
British approach, 683, 757;
moves with forces available,
683-684, 685; engagement at
Villere's plantation, 685-687;
reinforced, 687-689; holds
against British reconnaissance
in force, 689-691; holds his
own in artillery duel (Jan. i,
1815), 691-693; disposes
forces, 694-697; victory (Jan.
8, 1815), 697-705; godson,
712; re Wilkinson, 712; char-
acterized, 715-716
Jackson, Elizabeth Hutchinson,

T 437, 7i ^
Jackson, Francis James, 93
Jackson, Rachel, 454
Jamaica, Island of, 677, 678
James, Col. Robert, 718
James, William, 252, 345
James River, 55, 299, 515, 549
Java, British frigate, 177-178
Jay's treaty (1796), 159, 278
Jefferson, Thomas, 220, 303, 356,

358, 393 V 473> 475. 579, 73;
and Madison administration,
32, 55; re House of Represent-
atives, 34; and term "War
Hawk," 39, 359; adopts Non-

importation, embargo, and
Nonintercourse acts, 48; Loui-
siana Purchase, 57-58, 127, 489;
and Madison, 61, 62, 65, 67,
133, 281, 602; plants poplars,
Washington, 66, 518, 738; sees
war as last extremity, 67, 363;
"Jefferson's Rock," 71; Notes
on Virginia, 71; re common
interest with Great Britain, 78;
and Chesapeake affair, 92; and
Monroe-Pinkney commercial
treaty, 97; re Indian problem,
1 01, 347; re the Prophet, 107;
and Dearborn, 146; and Pike,
243; letter from Dr. Strachan,
250, 255; and Du Fonts, 288;
Wilkinson re, 360; re taking
Canada, 384; re cabinet fric-
tion, 391-392; dislike of Jack-
son, 437-438, 441; British view
of relation to war, 488; re
choice of generals, 498-499;
library of, 557-558; and impor-
tance of New Orleans, 756;
and Declaration of Independ-
ence, 740

Jefferson Co., N. Y., 257

Jena, Battle of, 46

Jennings, Paul, 66, 363, 375; A
Colored Man's Reminiscences
of James Madison, 564, 572,

575,741

Jereaume, Jean B., 231

Jesup, Maj. Thomas Sidney, 610,
613, 662; "Memoir of the Cam-
paign on the Niagara," 745-746

Jewit, Charles, no, 370

John Adams, U. S. vessel, 365,
658, 668

Johnson, Edward, 136, 138, 139,
140, 142, 143

Johnson, Lt. Col. James, 340-341

Johnson, Lt. Littleton, 440

Johnson, Richard M., War
Hawk, 39; re Canada, 56; not
interested in Navy, 68; speaker
at Clay dinner, 241; commands

Index

mounted infantry, 336; enters
Detroit, 338; at Thames, 340-

34 1 * 34 I "343i 34 8 > 4 01 ; and
death of Tecumseh, 343-344,

345

Johnston, John, 370, 402

Jomini, Henri, 561

Jones, Col. , 579

Jones, Lt. Catesby ap R., 757

Jones, Capt. Jacob, 176, 177, 209,
390

Jones, John Paul, 259, 512

Jones, Lt. Thomas ap Catesby,
679, 680, 68 1, 757

Jones, William, 303, 319; Chaun-
cey's report to, 253; becomes
Secretary of Navy, 275; Perry
reports victory to, 331-332;
orders Barney's flotilla de-
stroyed, 522, 739; and invasion
of Washington, 530, 531, 532,

559~5 6o > 739

Josiah Francis, 446, 448, 459
Jourdan, Marshal Jean Baptiste,

539

Julian, U. S. vessel, 79
Junaluska, 453
Junon, British vessel, 298
Junot, Marshal Andoche, 30
Jupiter , French vessel, 722

K

Kaskaskia, 111., 668

Keane, Ma). Gen. John, heads
British expeditionary force,
675, 676, 677-678, 680, 68 1,
682, 683, 684-685; proclama-
tion to Louisianians, 684; en-
gagement at Villere's planta-
tion, 685-687; superseded by
Pakenham, 689; repulsed (Dec.
28), 689, 690; and battle of
Jan. 8, 694, 699, 702, 760

Kemper, Nathan, 127-128, 373

Kemper, Reuben, 127-128, 129-

^S * 373
Kemper, Samuel, 127, 128, 129,

130, 373

785

Kempt, Brig. Gen. , 727

Kennebec River, 146

Kennedy, Maj. , quoted,

714

Kennedy, John P., 549

Kennett Square, Pa., 742

Kent on, Ohio, 152

Kentucky, 625; welcomes war,
19-20, 62; anti-British flare-up
(1808), 37; sends troops to
Tippecanoe, 114, 118, 120; leg-
islature lauds Harrison, 121;
and course of war, 219; war
spirit, 222, 223, 357, 386; mili-
tia, 223, 224, 226-227, 228, 229,
233, 234, 236, 237, ^320-321,
326, 361, 386; enthusiasm for
Harrison, 224; gathers men for
advance on Canada, 336; wants
revenge for River Raisin, 337;
troops at Thames, 339-343,
348; inhabitants invited into
British service, 641; men at
New Orleans, 650, 688-689,
696, 698, 699, 701, 702, 757;
maple sugar and saltpeter, 712

Kentucky Live Stock Improve-
ment Association, 359

Key, Francis Scott, 199, 296, 535,
587, 588-590, 729, 734

Kickapoo Indians, 109, 227

Kilgore, Charles, 140

King, Cyrus, quoted, 748

King, David, 345

King, Horatio, 738

King, Rufus, 47 8 ~479> 59 6 6 57

King, Maj. William, 246, 247

King, William Rufus, 39

Kings Mountain, N. G, 221

King's Own Regiment, see
Fourth Regiment, British

Kingston, Can., 124, 242, 244,
245, 381, 414, 611, 616, 637

Kinzie, John, 217

Kirby, , 299

Knox Co., Ind., 1 1 3

Knoxville, Tenn., 716

Kumskaukau, 370

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Labbadie, Medard, 386

La Colle Mill, 417

La Colle River, 199, 417

Lacoste's battalion, 683, 694-
696

Lady of the Lake, U. S. pilot
ship, 307

Lady Prevost, British schooner,
322, 323, 327, 329, 332

Lafayette, Ind., 120

Lafayette, Marquis de, 396

Lafitte, Jean, career of, 641-642,
642-644, 750-751; offered cap-
taincy by British, 644; seized
by Americans, 645-646; warn-
ing of British attack finally
believed, 650; Battle of New
Orleans, 684, 689-690, 759; and
Jackson, 759

Lafitte, Pierre, 641-644; 645

Lake Borgne, 679, 680, 685, 687,
690, 701

Lake Champlain, 147, 380, 414,
498, 620; and "neutral" ship-
ping, 426; naval action on
(1813), 625; area stripped of
American troops, 621, 623-
624; Battle of (Sept. n, 1814),
627-634, 635, 74 8 ~749; and
British invasion plan, 747

Lake Erie, 113, 125, 153, 183,
338; question of naval control
of, 147-148, 157, 169, 239, 242,
313; building of fleet for, 303-
306, 397-398; British fleet on,
314-315, 316, 317; Battle of
(Sept. 10, 1813), 321-335, 425,
451, 493, 627; Campbell's ex-
pedition to Long Point Bay
(1814), 421-424

Lake Michigan, 113, 159, 219

Lake Ontario, 147, 242, 303, 306-
311, 312-313, 415, 612

Lake St. Clair, 338, 376

Lake St. Francis, 183

Lambert, Capt. Henry, 178

Lambert, Maj. Gen. John, 693,
694, 704, 705, 760

Lancaster, Pa., 425, 578

Lancaster Fusiliers, see Twenti-
eth Regiment

Lang, Jack, 177

La Ronde, Col. Denis de, 685

Lauderdale, Earl of, 80

Laulewasikaw, see Prophet, the

Lavack, Lt. , 701

Laval, Maj. , 530, 542-543

Lavie, Sir Thomas, 380

Law, Anne, nee Custis, 742

Law, John, 543, 593, 733, 742

Lawrence, Capt, James, 596, 626,
743; sketch of, 259-260, 263;
sinks Peacock, 260-262, 389-
390; made captain, 261, 390;
commands Chesapeake , 92,
. 262-263, 264-265, 266-267, 390;
death and burial, 267, 269, 270,
312; "Don't give up the ship!"
267, 269, 321, 390; Perry
names ship for, 312

Lawrence, John, 269

Lawrence, Maj, William, 647-648

Lawrence, U. S. brig, 320, 628;
Perry's ship, 312; dedication
of, 316; first salute, 317; lifted
over bar into lake, 317; in
Battle of Lake Erie, 321, 322,
323, 324, 325-327, 328, 329,
331, 332-333, 398, 638

Lear, Col. Tobias, 498

Leavenworth, Maj. Henry, 610

Lee, Gen. Henry ("Light-Horse
Harry"), 136-144, 374, 509

Lee, Robert Edward, 137-138,
509, 672

Lee, Sarah Juliana, 509

Leesburg, Va., 527

Leib, Michael, 363

Leipzig, 295, 470, 487

L'Enfant, Pierre Charles, 601-602

Leopard, British vessel, 91-93, 97,
262, 270, 368

Lewes, Del, attack on, 288-289

Lewis, John, 739

Index

Lewis, Maj. Gen. Morgan, 203,

362, 709
Lewis, Col. William, 222, 228,

229-230
Lewiston, N. Y., 183, 186, 194,

249, 419, 420, 612
Lexington, Ky., 19, 20, 221, 223,

T 2?2 ' 359 1U

Lexington, Mass., 146, 503

Libby prison, 724

Library of Congress, 72-75, 557-

T 55 8 > 57 6 > 74. 74 1
Light Brigade, British, 517

Lincoln, Abraham, 243, 537
Lincoln, Mass., 600
Lincoyer, 454
Lingan, Gen. James, 136, 138,

^141, 143^ 144, 374
Linnet j British vessel, 629, 630,

631,633,634,635,637
Litchneld, Conn., 21, 653
Littefutchee, Ala., 454
Little Belt, British sloop, 93-94,

T . ,^
Littlejohn, Rev.

527

Little Ackfuske, 457
Little River, Ala., 718
Little Turtle, 100, 104, 216,

35

Little Warrior, 446-447, 458

Lively, Robert, 299

Liverpool, Lord, 72, 73, 74, 75,
8p, 488-489, 502, 720

Livingstone, Alida, 278

Livingston, Edward, 278, 649-
650, 674, 752, 759

Livingston, Robert R., 278, 279,
649

Lloyd, Sen. - , 68

Lockyer, Capt. Charles, 644, 646,
647, 680

Logan, George, 359

London, Eng., 638, 668; receives
news of Macedonian's capture,
212-213; and Bonaparte's fall,
483-485, 721; celebrates anni-
versary of House of Bruns-
wick, 483-487; learns of Battle

787

of Lake Champlain, 636-637.
See also Newspapers
London, Conference of (1908),

359
Long Old Fields, 523, 524-525,

526
Long Point Bay, 162, 165, 316,

318, 377; Campbell's raid on

(1814), 421-422, 423
Longfellow, Stephen, Jr., 663
Lookout Mountain, Tenn., 462
Lopez, Don Justo, 132
Lord Dunmore's War, 103, 134,

Lorient, France, 270, 472

Louis XVI, 281, 282, 560

Louis XVIII, 472, 481, 482

Louisiana, 446, 451; purchase of,
57-58, 127, 129, 489; admitted
as state, 131, 654; Great Brit-
ain hopes to acquire, 489, 641,
751, 756; militia, 685, 687, 696,
703

Louisiana, U. S. corvette, 690,
696, 703

Louisiana Blues, 675

Louisville, Ky., 150, 386

L'Ouverture, Toussaint, 696

Love, Mrs. - , 574

Low, John E., 420

Lowell, John, 23

Lower Sandusky, 239

Lowndes, William, 39-40, 68,

359i 43i

Lowndes Hill, 533, 537, 538, 735
Ludlow, Lt. Augustus, 267, 269
Lundy's Lane, Ont., Battle of

(July 25, 1814), 612-616, 617,

662, 74<5-747
Lynnhaven Bay, 91, 290, 296

M

Macarte's plantation house, 692,

697
McArthur, Brig. Gen. Duncan,

with Hull's expedition, 149,

151, 156, 157-158, 165, 379;

raid into Canada (1814), 156,

788

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

376; prisoner of war, 168; at
Sandusky with Harrison, 320;
with Harrison in Canada, 336;
recaptures Detroit (1813), 338;
brigade detached to serve un-
der Wilkinson, 348; praise of
Harrison, 349; re Tecumseh's
birthplace, 370

McCall, Lt. Edward R., 272

McClure, Brig. Gen. George,
415,418,419,421,709

McComas, Henry, 591

McDonnell, , Brock's adju-
tant, 1 88

Macdonough, Lt. Thomas, 666;
outstanding ability, 263; sketch
of, 625-626; victory on Lake
Champlain (Sept. n, 1814),
628-634, 635, 637, 748-750;
honored, 635, 636, 750; com-
pared with Perry, 625, 626,
638-639; shipbuilding (1814),
628, 748

McDougall, Sir Duncan, 555,
590, 591, 700, 760 ^

Macedonian, British frigate, 210-
213, 270-271, 384

McGilKvray, Alexander, 444,

445. 4<*7 7 J 3
McGirth's plantation, 449

McGruder, Patrick, 558, 739
Machias, Me., 658
Mclntosh, William, 225
Mclntosh, William, Creek chief,

447, 458

McKee, Samuel, 59
McKenney, Col. Thomas L.,

369, 525, 604, 732
McKerrell, Robert, 366
Mackgowan's Hotel, 34, 560, 566,

576

McKim, Alexander, 499, 535
McLeod Tavern, 562, 739
McNeil, Maj. John, 610, 614
Macomb, Brig. Gen. Alexander,

202, 416, 625, 626-627, 634,

<%> 6 3 6 ? 6 37> 748
Macon, Nathaniel, 33-34, 59, 209,

358, 362, 383-3 8 4> 43*> 435
Macon Co., Ala., 717
McQueen, Peter, 448, 718
Mad River, 103, 149, 370, 445
Madison, Dolley, and Washing-
ton Irving, 64; receives Mace-
donian's flag, 209-2 10; and Mrs.
Gallatin, 274; and Harrison,
350; dress, 363, 384; re Cock-
burn, 563; notes from Madison
at Bladensburg, 564, 565; and
Washington crisis, 568, 571-

574, 740-74 1 ; sketch of > 5 6 9"
571; and Ross, 576; return to
Washington, 603; and spy,
732; spelling of name, 740
Madison, Maj. George, 230, 232
Madison, James, 25, 55, 384, 665;
war message (June i, 1812),
19, 53, 82-84, 126, 355, 367,
488; signs declaration of war
(June 1 8), 19, 20, 152; strict
constructionist, 19, 62-63, 67;
visits department heads, 21,
355; physical characteristics,
21, 64-65, 66, 355, 362; "Mr.
Madison's War," 23, 222; ex-
pects cheap, safe war, 29, 357;
convenes Twelfth Congress
( 1 8 1 1 ) , 31; distrust of Federal-
ists, 32; and John Randolph,
35, 64; scholarship, 36; and
Lowndes, 40; negotiations with
Great Britain and France re
orders and decrees, 49-5 1 ; and
repeal of Berlin and Milan
decrees, 50-51, 79, 96-97, 360-
361, 392; and Clay, 61-62;
sketch of, 61-67, 36 2 ~3$3i 57-
571; and slaves, 66, 146, 564,
572; nomination for second
term and war issue, 66-67;
gradual move toward war, 67-
68, 363-364, 395; and Henry
spy letters, 70, 73, 74-75, 76,
365-366; and Chesapeake-
Leopard affair, 92-93; and
President-Little Belt affair,

Index

93-94; Tecumseh and, 112,
12 1 ; sends troops to Vin-
cennes, 113, 372; procras-
tination on West Florida
Issue, 129; appoints com-
missioners to treat with East
Florida, 130; criticized for
Florida moves, 133; and Balti-
more riot (1812), 136; and Bill
of Rights, 138; confers with
Dearborn and Hull, 146-147;
spares Hull's life, 169; con-
cerned by Army inaction, 180,
393; and Dearborn's armistice,
182-183, 381; reprisals for
British seizure of Irish prison-
ers of war, 194; Quincy ridi-
cules, 203-204; re-election
(1812), 205-206, 655; second
inaugural address, 206-207; at
Navy function (1812), 209-
2 10; re Decatur, 212; and nepo-
tism, 220, 385; and early de-
feats, 221; and Harrison, 223,
225, 226, 349-350; re Law-
rence, 261-262; reorganizes
cabinet, 273-275; appoints Wil-
liam Jones Secretary of Navy,
275; appoints Armstrong Sec-
retary of War (1813), 275,
279-280, 284, 285; Ingersoll
re, 273; and Monroe, 281, 282,
392, 602; need for generals,
283; inspects military rocket,
295; and "Rule of 1756," 360;
"Prince of the Potomack," 361;
J. Quincy re, 362; and cabinet
friction, 391; asked to dismiss
Dearborn, 413; and burning of
New York frontier, 421; criti-
cism of (1814), 426-427, 710-
711; promotion of Jackson,
429, 711; curbs Armstrong,
428-429, 728; vetoes early
moves for national ^bank, 434;
and Tennessee militia pay, 440;
and Bonaparte, 470-47 1 ; "Dear
James" letters, 473; Rufus

7 8 9

King's toast to, 479; and Bona-
parte's fall, 479-480, 481; illness
atMontpelier (1814), 480, 710,
720; as viewed by British pub-
lic, 487, 488; and prisoner-of-
war question, 492, 493, 497-
498, 724; puts Winder in
charge of Chesapeake Depart-
ment, 498-499, 725; criticism
of, re Chesapeake's unprepar-
edness, 509, 511; Monroe re-
ports to re British Army, 519;
and Wilkinson, 520; reviews
troops before Washington,
523-524; interviews British
prisoners, 525; and preserva-
tion of records, 527, 732; holds
council of war, 529, 530, 531;
and Barney, 531-532, 730; puts
Winder in command, 532-533,
733; at Bladensburg, 537, 735;
and Federalists, 554; during
British occupation of capital,
560, 568, 573, 574, 575, 741,
745; notes to Dolley from
Bladensburg, 564; flight from
Bladensburg, 568-569, 574,
574-575, 739-740; and Patent
Office, 579; and Beanes affair,
587; public attitude toward
after seizure of Washington,
595, 598, 602, 651; affected by
seizure of capital, 602, 740; re-
turns to Washington, 603; ap-
points Monroe Secretary of
War (Sept. 1814), 605; ap-
points Story to Supreme Court
(1811), 607; and canard re
administration attitude toward
Canada, 622-623; honors Ma-
comb, 636; and Hartford Con-
vention (1814), 662; appoints
peace commissioners, 667, 753,
754; Gallatin warns that Eng-
land will continue war, 688;
and peace treaty, 670, 671;
submits treaty to Senate (Feb.
15, 1815), 677; re Presidency,

79

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

710; shorthand system, 739;
private library destroyed, 740;
and Jackson's capture of Pen-
sacola, 752

Madison, U. S. vessel, 244

Madison Co., Ind., 112, 371

Magraw, , Madison's gar-
dener, 573, 574

Magrader, Col. , 729

Maidstone, British frigate, 395

Maine, 621, 657-658, 669, 752

Maine District, 146

MainPoe, 217

Maiden, Can., 414, 439, 442; Brit-
ish agents at, incite Indians
against U. S., 122, 124; likely
point of U. S. attack, 148;
notified re war, 153; Hull fails
to attack, 1 54-1 59; British force
at, 157; prisoners of war taken
to, 220, 231; winter campaign
against given up, 227; Proctor
retreats to, 239; shipyards, 314,
316, 338; British fleet base, 320,
321, 332; Proctor's army
leaves, 337-338, 400-401; Creek
Indians visit, 447

Malone, N. Y., 749

Mammoth Cave, Ky., 426, 712

Manchester, N. Y., 419

Manowa, 718

Manrique, Gov. , 646, 648,

649

Mansfield, Ohio, 219

Mantua, 289

Marblehead, Mass., 264, 358, 493

Marcus Hook, Pa., 742

Marengo, Battle of, 28

Marie Antoinette, 512, 560

Marietta, Ohio, 158

Marion, Francis, 298

Marion, Ind., 227

Marlborough, Duke of, 483

Marquesas Islands, 744

Mars, Stephen, 117

Marshall, Humphrey, 38, 372-373

Marshall, John, 120, 137, 205,

39 6 > 557

Martin, Luther, 496, 724

Martinique, 289, 643, 679, 694

Maryland, 496, 499; Baltimore

riot, 1812, turns state to Fed-

eralists, 136, 374; militia, 290-

291, 292, 500, 525-526, 546,

583, 590, 591, 725, 737; peti-

tions for Madison's abdication,

426; clamors for defense, 510;

harassed by Cockburn, 728-

7 2 9
Mason, Elizabeth Champlain, 331

Mason, Gen. John, 532, 587, 588,

589, 602-603
Massachusetts, 379; opposed to

war, 23, 27; legislature investi-

fates impressment, 95-96; anti-
rench, 95-96; recruiting slow,
179, 659; bank deposits, 434;
manufactures, 435; British
want a strip of coast, 621; rep-
resentation, 655, 656; secession-
ist sentiment (1814), 660-661;
and Hartford Convention
(1814), 661, 662-663, 666, 753

Mathews, Brig. Gen. George,
131-134, 373

Maumee, Ohio, 152

Maumee Bay, 153

Maumee Rapids, 152, 226-228;
234

Maumee River, 151, 219, 226,
234, 236, 239

Mead, Maj. Gen. David, 316

Meigs, Return Jonathan, gover-
nor of Ohio, 149; calls Ohio
militia, 149-150; sends Hull
supplies, 158; summoned by
Hull's officers, 165, 181; efforts
in recruiting, 223; and local
defense, 660; postmaster gen-
eral, 732

Melampus, British vessel, 91

Menelaus, British frigate, 506,

^

Mercer,

139

Mercer, Gen. Hugh, 277
Menimac, 680, 757

Index

Merritt, William Hamilton,

quoted, 375
Merry, Anthony, 564
Methoatske, 103
Mexican War, 186, 616, 713
Mexico, 394
Mexico, Gulf of, 100
Mexico City, 394, 610
Miami Indians, 109, 125
Miami River, 103, no, 149
Miani, Battle of, 299
Michigan, no, 166, 168, 219,

34 8 ^ 37 l
Michilimackinac Island, 159, 165,

216, 348, 397

Middle Sister Island, 336-337
Milan Decree, 46, 52, 79, 279,

360, 392; revocation or, 656
Milfort, Le Clerc, 443, 445
Militia, record of first year, 199-

203; cost of substitutes, 428;

pay, 440, 452, 659-660, 664;

dress, 534, 587, 758; character

of, 151, 179-180, 383, 705, 758;

Jackson re, 705; terms of en-
listment, 716. See also names

of states, militia
Milleageville, Ga., 385
Miller, Col. James, 150, 156-157,

162, 164, 165, 167, 375, 377-

378, 614
Miller, Capt. Samuel, 536, 543,

544, 547, 550
Milwaukee, Wis., 350
Mims, , builder of Fort

Mims, 449
Minnesota, 219
Minor, Mrs.

575

Minorca, 507, 726

Minor's Virginia regiment, 738

Minute Men, 503

Miranda, Francisco, 30

Mississinewa towns, Ind., 227

Mississinewa River, 421, 438

Mississippi, 127, 221

Mississippi River, 70, 100, 128,
243, 6 10, 642, 645, 650; British
right of free navigation of,

791

670; and New Orleans cam-
paign, 675, 677, 680, 68 1, 682,
683, 686, 687, 693, 694, 697,
698, 701, 703, 757
Mississippi Territory, 448, 453,

459, 460

Mississippi Valley, 677
Missouri River, 113, 444
Mitchell, David B., 134
Mitchell, Maj. G. S., 246
Mobile, Ala., 438, 445, 449, 458;
passes from Spanish to U. S.
control, 129-130; Spaniards
hope to recapture, 451; Jack-
son at, 640, 646-647, 649, 752;
British hope to capture, 644,
646, 677; Jackson leaves troops
at, 650, 755
Mobile Bay, 647
Monguaga, 163, 164, 614
Monroe, James, Secretary of
State, 63, 258; and Lowndes,
40; Washington re, 52, 360;
supports War Hawks, 52-53,
363; re Canada, 60; and Henry
spy Affair, 71, 72, 74, 75, 366;
minister to St. James's (1803-
1807), 78; and Pinkney, nego-
tiate commercial treaty ( 1 806),
97; correspondence with Folch,
130; instructs commissioners to
East Florida, 131-132, 134; and
the Constitution, 138; and Har-
rison, 223, 226; disapproves of
Secretaries Eustis and Hamil-
ton, 273; supervises War De-
partment, 275, 283; Revolu-
tionary War veteran, 277; and
Armstrong, 278, 428, 429;
sketch of, 281-284, 392; and
nepotism, 281, 392; and State
Department, 282-283; con-
siders Army command, 283-
284, 285, 393, 733; attacks
Washington's policies in View
of the Conduct of the Ex-
ecutive in . . . Foreign Af-
fairs . . . , 284, 39 2 -393; J-

792

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Quincy re, 362; and impress-
ment, 381; Clay to (Aug.,
1812) re Kentucky reaction
to defeat at Detroit, 386;
daughters, 392; and Perry
slapping inciaent, 400; "be-
nign administration," 434; ab-
sent from Serurier dinner, 48 1 ;
report on prisoners of war,
493-494, 724; scouts British
position, 518-519, 730, 732; and
preservation of records, 527,
732; advises Stansbury re de-
fense of Washington, 528, 529;
at Bladensburg, 530, 535, 537,
538, 568, 569, 734-735. 74? * e
defense of Capitol, 542; retires
to Tennallytown, 574; rejoins
Madison, 575; with army at
Montgomery Court House,
602; returns to Washington,
603; given War Department
(Sept. 1814), 605; sense of
honor, 623; and Gulf situation,
646, 751; sends Jackson to de-
fend New Orleans, 649, 755;
and payment of militia, 659-
660; proposes draft, 660; and
Hartford Convention, 662;
likely to succeed Madison, 665;
and peace commissioners, 669;
and impressment issue, 754

Monroe, Mich., 153, 228

Monroe Co., Ala., 459, 469

Montagu, British vessel, 260

Montezuma, Ind., 114

Montgomery, Ala., 465

Montgomery, John, 374

Montgomery, Lemuel Purnell,
465

Montgomery, Gen. Richard, 55,
465

Montgomery Co., Ala., 465

Montgomery Court House
(Rockville, Md.), 22, 519, 540,
574, 575, 602

Monticello, Va., 499

Montpelier, Madison's Home,

64, 222, 480, 710, 711, 720, 741
Montpelier, Vt., 594
Montreal, British vessel, 628
Montreal, Can., 72, 76; attack on
planned, 147, 148, 361, 376,
393; difficulties in way of ex-
pedition to, 1 80, 242; prisoners
taken to> 192; Dearborn cam-
paign against (1812), 198-199;
campaign against (1813), 414,
415-418, 709; and trade with
U. S., 426, 710; base for in-
vasion of New York, 620, 635;
land outlet needed, 62 1
Mooers, Maj. Gen. Benjamin, 626
Moore, Sir John, 501
Moore, Thomas, 577, 589-590
Moore, Dr. William A., 345
Moravian towns, 156, 339, 347,

376
Morgan, Gen. David, 687, 696,

697, 703, 760
Morgan's Virginians, 758
Morris, Capt. Charles, 390
Morris, Gouverneur, 281, 477-

478

Morristown, Can., 198
Morristown, N. J., 597
Morristown, N. Y., 475
Morro Castle, 130
Morse, Robert, 593
Moulton, Joseph W., quoted, 749
Mount Vernon, Va., 581-582

Muir, Maj. , 164

Mullens, Col. , 698, 699, 759-

760

Mumma, , Baltimore butch-
er, 141

Munroe, , editor Baltimore

Patriot, 561
Murray, Daniel, 139, 141

Musgrove, Maj. , 141

Muskingum River, 339
Muskogee Indians, 443-444

N

Nannahubba Island, 449
Nantucket, Mass., 66 1

Index

Napier, Lt. Col. Charles, 299, 506

Napier, Sir William Francis
Patrick, 299

Naples, Italy, 52, 79

Nardin, Frenchy, 564, 739

Narrows, the, 471

Nashville, Tenn., 20, 454, 456,
650, 758; hears of declaration
of war (June 26, 1812), 436;
Tennessee army assembles at
(1812), 438; Tennessee army
returns to (1813), 439, 440;
demands expedition against
Creeks, 451-452

Nashville Inn, 441, 451

Natchez, Miss., 438, 439, 452,
716

Nautilus, U. S. brig, 365

Navarino Bay, 505

Negril Bay, Jamaica, 678, 679

Negroes, 57, 118; Madison's
slaves, 66, 146, 564, 572; serv-
ant's comment on birth of
Lawrence, 269; slave, re Mon-
roe, 282; slaves and Cockburn,
290, 395; at Hampton, 299;
slaves plan uprising, 301; slav-
ery question in Indiana, 371-
372; Ross's instructions re, 395,
515; false rumors of slave in-
surrection near Washington,
540, 736; warn Fort Mims,
449, 450, 451, 714; armed and
drilled, with Cockburn, 515,
579; in Washington, 531, 532,
553, 565; and Lafitte, 642, 643;
slaves at New Orleans, 68 1;
free Negro battalion at New
Orleans, 683, 696; West Indian
Negroes with British, 688

Nehaaseemoo, 370

Nelson, Lord, 44, 45, 86, 289,
295, 321, 483, 485, 504, 627,
676, 749

Netley, U. S. gunboat, 749

Netta Chaptoa, 457

New Brunswick, Can., 621, 638

New England, reaction to decla-

793

ration of war, 23, 27; grows
rich on commerce, 45; effect of
embargo on, 48, 425-426; and
Henry spy affair, 70-71, 72,
75, 76; Shay's Rebellion, 145;
recruiting slow, 179; in 1812
election, 205, 206; exempted
from early British blockade,
287, 433-434; opposes war
loans, 432; manufactures, 433,
434-435, 666; Great Britain
hopes to reclaim, 489; attitude
toward government, 606; Brit-
ish plan of 1777 to isolate, 620;
secessionist sentiment, 620-
621, 740, 756; and Hartford
Convention, 651-666; griev-
ance over many Virginia Presi-
dents, 665

New Hampshire, 652, 656, 656-
657, 662, 663

New Haven, Conn., 379

New Jersey, 22, 206, 359, 596,
652

New London, Conn., 25, 723

New Market, Va., 396

New Orleans, La., news of war
reaches, 20; and trade, 55; Wil-
kinson at, 277, 286, 438; naval
station, 365; Liverpool's plans
for, 489; and the Lafittes, 641,
642, 643, 644, 645, 646; gar-
rison commanded by Col.
G. T. Ross, 645; and Jackson's
move on Pensacola, 646, 751-
752; plans for defense of, 649,
650; welcomes Jackson, 673-
674, 674-675; defense problem,
674, 675, 680, 682, 687, 689,
692, 694, 696, 755, 757, 759;
militia, 674, 674-675, 683, 684,
685, 686, 694; British forces
(1814-1815), 591, 675-676, 678,
679; British campaign plan,
677; British plans for govern-
ing of, 679, 757; Battle of, sig-
nificance, 677, 756; British ap-
proach, 679-683, 684-685, 688,

794

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

757; defense at Villere's plan-
tation, 685-687; British recon-
naissance repulsed, 689-691;
artillery attack on fails, 691-
693; Jackson's victory (Jan. 8,
1815), 549, 693-705
New Orleans Foot Dragoons,

*75

New York, N. Y., 19, 55, 256,

270, 279, 304, 357, 392, 427,
482, 492, 561, 728; reaction to
declaration of war, 24-25, 26-
27; celebrates Constitution's
victory, 176; dinner for Hor-
net's crew, 261; funeral of
James Lawrence, 270; exemp-
tion from early British block-
ade, 287; celebrates Perry's vic-
tory, 333-334; welcomes Har-
rison after Thames, 349; and
trade with enemy, 426; cele-
brates Bonaparte's fall, 472,
477-479, 71^9-720; defenses,
595-596; militia, 596; Wood-
worth poem re defenses, 597;
privateers, 599; hears of Bla-
densburg, 736-737; reaction to
burning of Washington, 594-
596; honors Macdonough, 636;
Livingston mayor of, 650
New York, state of, reaction to
embargo, 48; and Henry spy
aifair, 70-71, 72, 76; militia,
179-180, 183-185, 186, 191, 192,
194, 195, 197, 199, 257, 279,
349, 381, 415, 418, 438, 598,
607, 608, 609, 626-627, 748,
750; slow assembly of forces
in, 179, 181-182, 376; guer-
rilla groups in, 197-198;
Clinton carries (1812) 206;
manufactures, 435; Brit-
ish invasion by Lake Cham-
plain, 620-639; sword for
Macomb, 636; land grant to
Macdonough, 636; and early
New England separatist move-
ments, 652, 653; Burr's candi-

dacy for governor, 653; and
Hartford Convention, 657;
representation, 657; trade with
Canada, 710
New York harbor, 93, 369, 493,

595

New York Navy Yard, 262

Newark, N. J., 596

Newark, Ont., 418-419, 424, 709

Newburgh, N. Y., 27, 186, 268,

475
Newburgh letters, 276, 277, 280,

284, 285, 391

Newburyport, Mass., 1 13, 475

Newcastle, Del, 625

Newfoundland, 670

Newfoundland fencibles, 157

Newport, Ky., 336, 493

Newport, R. I., 302, 398

Newport, Va., 211-212

Newport harbor, 211

Newspapers, for annexation of
Canada, 55; strong Northern
papers Federalist, 201; indis-
creet coverage of war news,
387; oppose purchase of gov-
ernment bonds, 432; British
plan for, New Orleans, 679;
peace rumors (1814), 721; Al-
bany Argus, 420; Albany Reg-
ister, 66 1 ; Alexandria (Va.)
Gazette, 22, 356; Baltimore
American, 590, 710-711; Balti-
more' Federal Gazette, 473,
585; Baltimore Patriot, 561,
590, 736; Baltimore Whig, 136,
137; Boston Advertiser, 426;
Boston American Statesman,
378; Boston Centinel, 201, 358,
600-601, 654-655, 749; Boston
Gazette, 133, 600; Boston
Patriot, 60, 475; Buffalo Ga-
zette, 746; Burlington (Vt.)
Gazette, 624; Canandaigua Re-
pository, 383; Charleston Cour-
ier, 719; Connecticut Courant,
23, 25, 223, 654; Connecticut
Herald, 180; Connecticut Mir-

Index

TOT, 201, 204, 622; Cumber-
land (Md.) Register, 295;
Delaware Gazette, 473, 750;
Federal Republican, 22, 136-
144, 374, 426-427, 477; Fred-
ericktown (Md.) Herald, 91,
368; Greensburg (Pa.) Ga-
zette, 421-422; Herldmer (N.
Y.) American, 427; Kentucky
Gazette, 222; Lexington Re-
porter, 124; London Commer-
cial Appeal, 94; London Ga-
zette, 80; London Statesman,
365; London Times, 47, 77-
78, 79; 80, 8 1, 94, 142, 148,
152, 154-155, 156, 168, 174-
175, 188, 192, 200, 212, 213,
275-276, 287, 361, 374, 377,
380, 382, 425-426, 486, 490,
624, 636, 637, 655, 658, 669,
671, 721, 727; National Advo-
cate, 300; National Intelli-
gencer, 27-28, 123, 124, 143,
192, 197, 222-223, 223, 269,
306,310-311,332-333,348,361,
434*435. 435; 4^o, 508, 509,
521, 550, 566-567, 579, 580-581,
655, 691, 704, 723 752, 753;
New York Columbian, 479,
720; New York Commercial
Advertiser, 22, 25, 88, 206,
355, 361, 4.20, 479, 480-481,
482, 624, 719-720, 736-737;
New York Daily Advertiser,
662; New York Evening Post,
25, 26, 133, 201, 355>'35 6 > 357-
358, 361, 363, 383, 424-425,
511, 562, 581, 595, 596, 597,
621-622, 656, 709; New York
Gazette, 472; New York Her-
ald, 1 80; New York Spectator,
22, 26-27, 55, 96, 256, 355,
378, 383, 419-420, 421, 422,

594-595. ?ii, 719. 720, 743.
745, 748, 750; New York The
War, 193; New York World,
399; Nile? Weekly Register,
57, 70, 98, 124-125, 193, 361,

795

426, 434, 492, 582, 592; On-
tario Repository, 250; Phila-
delphia Daily Advertiser, 133;
Philadelphia Democratic Press,
357; Pittsburgh Mercury, 229,
230, 232, 233-234, 422-423;
Quebec Gazette, 750; Raleigh
Register, 508; Rhode Island
American, 428, 477; Richmond
Patriot ', 514; St. Louis Missouri
Gazette, 218; St. Paul Pioneer
Express, 399; Salem Gazette,
475, 728; the Shamrock, 193;
Trenton Federalist, 474; Troy
Post, 382; Troy Register, 749;
United States Gazette, 22-23,
378; Washington City Gazette,
521; Washington Globe, 508

Newton, Mass., 378

Ney, Marshal Michel, 77, 327

Niagara, Battle of, see Lundy's
Lane

Niagara, U. S. brig, 312,317,318,
320, 321, 322, 323, 324-325,
327, 328, 329, 331, 332, 628

Niagara Falls, 187, 612, 613

Niagara Falls, Canadian town,
375

Niagara frontier, status in July
1812, 161, 381; defense left to
New York, 183, 415; Dear-
born's plan re, 242; activity
along, summer of 1813, 413,
414, 415, 418-421; U. S. re-
deems itself in summer of 1814,
606-619; British repulsed on,
669

Niagara River, 147, 148, 183,
303, 307, 309, 311, 378, 418,
424, 606, 607, 608, 609, 610,
611, 612, 616, 619

Nicholls, Lt. Col. Edward, 641,
644, 646, 647

Nicholson, , model maker,

579
Nicholson, , Pike's aide, 245

Nicholson, J. H., 396, 590, 724,
724-725

796

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Niemen River, 28, 29, 488
Niles, Hezekiah, 361
Ninety-fifth Regiment, British

foot, 685, 694

Ninety-fifth Rifles, British, 676
Ninety-third Highlanders, 675-

676, 688, 694, 698, 701-702,

755, 760

Noble, James, 112
Nonintercourse Act, 48, 49, 50-

5*

Norfolk, Va., 297-298, 384, 396-

397,499,725
Norge, British vessel, 679

Norris, , 692

North American Review, 294
Northampton, Mass., 753
North Carolina, 33, 336, 362, 452,

508,625,731
North Point, 590, 591
Northwest Territory, 149
Northwest Trading Company,

159, 1 60

Nottingham, Md., 519, 584, 730
Norwich, Conn., 25
Nova Scotia, 621, 658
Nye, Capt. Ansel, 23

O

Octagon House, 565, 578
Ogdensburg, N. Y., 24, 198, 255,

257, 415 ^

Ohio, militia, 148-151, 154, 157,

1 66, 1 68, 226; and course of

war, 219-220; war spirit, 222-

223; Proctor invades, 234-241;

Indian treaties, 370, 371; local

defense, 660; maple sugar, 712

Ohio, U. S. schooner, 311, 321

Ohio River, 100, 148, 149, 222,

444> 447

Olcott, Mills, 663
"Old Ironsides," see Constitu-
tion

Oldenburgh, Duchess of, 471
Olive Branch., French brig, 472
One hundred second Infantry
Regiment, British, 297

One hundredth Regiment, Brit-
ish, 608

O'Neil, John, 292, 293, 395
Orange, Prince of, 676
Orange Co., Va., 220
Ordinance of 1787, 371, 372, 663
Ore, Maj. James, 452
Ornelda, U. S. brig, 365
Osage River, 347
Oswego, N. Y., 183, 249
Ottawa Indians, 159, 160, 370,

37 1

Otis, Harrison Gray, 663, 664
Otis, Samuel A., 558
Otter River, 628
Ouisconsin River, 2 1 9
Outard Creek, 415, 709
Owen, Col. Abraham, 114, 117-

118

Pakenharn, Maj, Gen. Sir Ed-
ward, 549, 672; sketch of, 678;
commands New Orleans expe-
dition, 677-678, 68 1, 687-688,
689-691, 756-757, 759; recon-
naissance in force, 689-691;
cannonading of American
works, 691-693; plans frontal
assault, 693, 694; reinforced,
693-694; last battle, 697-701,
759, 760

Paoli massacre, 247

Paris, France, 391, 470, 471, 484,
668

Parish, David, 432, 433

Parker, Gen. Moses, 499

Parker, Adrn. Sir Peter, 211, 506

Parker, Sir Peter, 506, 516, 745

Parliament, 591, 592

Parton, James, 37, 39, 441-442,
442-443, 460, 715

Passamaquoddy Bay, 657, 658

Pass Christian, Miss., 680

Patapsco River, 396, 515, 589

Patterson, Commodore Daniel T.,
645, 646, 680, 696, 697, 703

Patterson, Edgar, 527

Index

Patterson, Elizabeth, 513
Patuxent River, 500, 515, 516,

5*9, 558, W, 728, 729

Paulus Hook, 141

Payne, John Howard, 138

Peabody, George, 729

Peace negotiations, see Ghent,
Treaty of

Peacock, British brig, 260-262,
389-390

Peacock, U. S. sloop, 599

Pea Island, 680, 68 1

Pearce, Col. Cromwell, 246, 247

Pearl River, 130, 680

Peel, Robert, 74, 75

Pelican, British brig, 271-272

Pembroke, Earl of, 727

Peninsular War, 425, 501, 502,
676, 678, 693, 759, passim

Penn, William, 371

Pennington, William S., 596

Pennsylvania, 276, 278, 359; vote
(1812) decides election, 206;
militia, 226, 304, 316, 326, 421,
422, coo, 599, 607, 659, 725;
medals for Perry and fleet,
334; legislative resolution re
prisoners of war, 493; repre-
sentation, 657; housing of pris-
oners of war, 724; camps at
Kennett Square and Marcus
Hook, 742

Penny, Joshua, 492-493,, 723

Penobscot Bay, 658

Penobscot River, 658

Pensacola, Fla., 463; Spanish in,
129, 445, 451; Jackson offers to
move against, 438; British fleet
base at, and Creeks, 447-448;
Claiborne re, 459; objective of
Jackson in Creek War, 640;
British occupy, 640; Spanish
governor accused of bad faith,
646; Jackson marches on
(Nov. 7, 1814), 648-649

PeoriaLake, 227

Perceval, Prime Minister Spen-
cer, 73, 79-80, 8 1

797

Percy, Lord, 244, 503

Percy, Sir William H., 641, 646,
647

Per dido River, 129

Perry, Alexander, 303, 326, 327

Perry, Elizabeth C. Mason, 331

Perry, Matthew C., 549

Perry, Oliver Hazard, 186, 242,
390, 663; sketch of, 263, 302,
305, 398; builds Lake Erie
fleet, 303-306, 311-312, 628;
lack of men, 304, 311, 312, 313,
3*4-3*5i3 I 5-3i6, 319-320, 320-
321, 332; and capture of Fort
George, 306-309, 311, 398;
takes five ships back to Erie,
311; health, 311-312, 315, 320,
321; names ships, 312; and
command of Erie fleet, 312-
313, 318-319; lifting of ships
over bar, 312, 316-317, 398;
ordered to aid Harrison, 313,
313-314, 315; request for re-
assignment denied, 319; takes
fleet to meet Harrison, 320;
prepares for battle, 321-322,
398; Don't Give up the Ship
flag, 321, 323, 328; victory
(Sept. 10, 1813), 322-324, 325-

335, 399. 425. 45i. 493. 627;
painting of, in U. S. Capitol,
328; remembers wife in battle,
331; prize money, 334; Elliott
challenges, 335; slapping in-
cident, 335, 400; transports
Harrison's army to Detroit,

336, 338; takes fleet to Thames,
338; volunteer aide to Harri-
son's staff, 338, 339; praise of
Harrison, 349; re Barron, 368;
name, 397; compared with
Macdonough, 625, 626, 638-
639; attempt to capitalize on
politics of, 66 1

Peru, Maine, 749

Peter, Maj. George, 528, 535,

729
Petersburg, Va., 202

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Philadelphia, Pa., 71, 224, 275,
277, 304, 305, 361, 561, 570,
608, 620, 710; celebrates Con-
stitution^ victory, 176; gives
silver urn to Biddle, 177; sword
for O'Neil, 293, 395; ovation
for Harrison, 349; and Bona-
parte's fall, 477; proposed as
U. S. capital, 592; affect on, of
seizure of Washington, 599;
privateers, 599; housing of
military prisoners, 724

Philip II, of Spain, 722

Phillips, Billy, 20 ^

Phoebe, British frigate, 744

Pickering, Timothy, 90-91, 651-
652, 653, 654, 659, 666, 752

Pickett, Gen. George Edward,
396

Picton, Sir Thomas, 520, 622,
678, 736

Pig Point, 516, 532

Pigeon Roost massacre, 219

Pike, U. S. flagship, 318

Pike, Zebulon, 388

Pike, Brig. Gen. Zebulon M., 180,
199, 243, 243-244, 245, 251,
256, 307, 387-388

"Pike's Pikes," 387

Pinckney, Maj. Gen. Thomas,

202, 383-384, 717, 718

Pinkney, William, 74, 97, 274,

5 2<5 > 53 6 > 539. 540, 57*1 734.

736

Pinkney, Mrs. William, 395
Pinxit, Chapin, 387
Piqua, Ohio, 103, 225, 226
Pitt, William, 46, 492
Pittsburgh, Pa., 69, 113, 149, 229,

305. 393. 53. 737. 75 8

Pittsneld, Mass., 435

Plattsburg, N. Y., 384, 417, 493,
498; Dearborn at, 183, 198;
British concentrate north of,
621; new works at, 623, 627.,
747; Macomb in command,
625; raids on, 625; British ad-
vance on (1814), 626-627, 629-

630, 634, 749; British withdraw
from, 635, 637, 669, 749, 750;
honors Macdonough and Ma-
comb, 635, 636; trade with
British, 710

Plattsburg Bay, 628, 629, 636

Plauche, Jean B., 675, 683, 685,
692, 694

Pleasonton, S., 527, 558, 741

Plumer, William, 653

Plymouth, Eng., 674, 676, 678

Plymouth, Mass,, 663

Po letters, British vessel, 177, 288-
289

Poindexter, George, 221

Point Lookout, Md., 518

Poker, 6 1, 362

Polk, James K., 570, 712

Popham, Adm. Sir Home, 361

Poplar Island, 509

Porcupine, U. S. schooner, 312,

^ 322 ' 3y.

Portage River, 336

Port Dover, Can., 316, 398, 422,
423

Porter, Capt. David, 357, 400,
743-744

Porter, Peter B., hears of declara-
tion of war, 21; War Hawk,
40; chairman House foreign
relations committee, 53, 147;
report re Orders in Council,

53. , 68 . 77. 7 8 . 9 8 . 3 6 4"3^5; re-
cruits New York forces, 195;
quarrel with Smyth, 195, 196;
forces raid St. David's, Ont.,
424-425; quartermaster gen-
eral, New York militia, 607;
at Battle of Chippewa, 609

Portland, Me., 272, 607, 659, 663

Port Tobacco, Md., 510

Portsmouth, N. H., 146, 656

Portugal, 30, 80, 283

Potawatomi Indians, 109, 216,
217, 218, 370, 371

Potomac River, 71, 509, 515, 516,
518, 519, 528, 592, 595, 725,
727, 728

Index

Poughkeepsie, N. Y., 598

Powell, Mrs. Grant, 389

Power, Brig. Gen. , 624,

636

Prairie du Chien, 219

Preble, Commodore Edward,
259, 260, 379

Preble, U. S. vessel, 628, 630, 631,
633, 634

Prescott, William, 663

President., U. S. frigate, 93-94,
210, 262, 294, 365, 379

President Adams, U. S. vessel,
209, 259

Presqu' Isle, 303, 304, 397

Prevost, Gov.-Gen. Sir George,
26, 153, 161, 166, 384, 502;
armistice with Dearborn, 181,
376-377; and prisoner-of-war
quarrel, 194; importance of,
204, 205, 638, 750; Proctor calls
on for troops, 234; criticized
for dividing forces, 242-243;
fails to capture Sackets Har-
bor, 256, 257, 748; and Irish,
309; re devastation of New
York frontier, 421; and Long
Point Bay expedition, 423; re
Canadian army and American
beef, 425, 710; expeditionary
force for, 489; and prisoners of
war, 491-492, 494-495; two
British regiments join, 504; and
vengeance for York, 584, 742;
forces in Champlain invasion,
624-625, 748; advance onPlatts-
burg, 626-627, 629-630, 634,
749; withdrawal from Platts-
burg, 635, 636, 637, 637-638,
749, 750; death, 638

Prince George Co., Md., 143,
? 8 7

Prince Regent, 166, 341, 346,
481, 491, 494, 557, 563, 592,
638, 668, 671, 721

Princeton College, 63, 64, 232,

2 77' 1 6 3> 53L 667
Pring, Capt. Daniel, 629, 637

799

Pringle house, 396

Prisoners of war, American sail-
ors, 91; at Detroit, 166, 168,
169; at Queenston, 192; British
hold Irish-born for trial, 192-

*93> *94> 49 1 , 49 2 > 497> 497-
498, 722; citizenship question,

192-194, 382, 491-492, 494,
721-723; hostage problem ends
exchanges of, 192, 194, 491-
492 ; American, threatened with
massacre, 208; at River Raisin,
229, 230, 231-233, 386; at Fort
Meigs, 237; Lawrence and,
261; Broke and, 268; Havre de
Grace, 293, 395; Chasseurs
Britanniques, 297-298; Battle
of Thames, 493; special hos-
tages, 492-493; accommoda-
tions for, 493, 495; U. S. mili-
tary prisons, 493; treatment of
hostages, 493-494, 495, 7 2 4;
Americans sent to England,
495; Winder's activities re,
496-497, 724; conventions for
exchange, 497, 498, 587; Bla-
densburg, 548-549, 588; Wash-
ington arsenal explosion, 583,
587-588, 741; Beanes affair,
585-589; civilians, 587; Lundy's
Lane, 613; New Orleans, 680,
682, 686, 701, 703, 705

Proctor, Gen. Henry A., 442;
Tecumseh and, 105, 237-238,
337, 33 8 > 339; Proctor, sent to
Maiden, 161-162; ruse against
Hull, 165; victory at River
Raisin, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233;
attacks Fort Meigs, 234, 236-
239; second invasion of Ohio,
239-241, 313, 321; retreat from
Maiden to Thames, 337, 338,
339, 400-40 1 ; defeat at Thames,
339-341, 401, 415, 425, 611

Prophet, the (Laulewasikaw,
Tenskwautawaw), 105-108,
113-114, 117, 118, 120, 126, 370,

37i, 37 2

8oo

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Prophet's Town, 108, 112, 113-
115, 120, 216

Providence, R, I., 425

Prussia, 29, 45, 46, 283

Prussia, King of (Frederick Wil-
liam III), 484, 721

Puckeshinowan, 103

Pulitzer, Joseph, 399

Pultowa, Battle of, 43

Purdy, Col. Robert, 415

Put-in-Bay, 320, 321, 322, 399

Q

Quebec, Can., 72, 146, 160-161,
192, 199, 221, 309, 377, 495,
496, 497, 510, 663, 724

Queen Anne, Md., 586

Queen Charlotte, British vessel,
322, 323, 325, 326, 327, 329,

33 2
Queenston, Can., 186, 187, 189,

192, 244, 381, 424, 6n, 612
Queenston Heights, Can., 186,

187, 1 88, 189, 191-192, 309, 627
Quids, 57, 61, 281, 361-362
Quincy, Josiah, 21, 35, 41, 203-

204, 284, 285, 362, 393, 654,

753

Quincy, Mass., 753

R

Radnor, Pa., 397

Ragan, Col. , 536, 538, 575

Raglan, Lord, 506

Rambouillet Decree, 46

Ramillies, British vessel, 492, 493,
679, 723

Randolph, John, and "Tonson"
letters, 22, 355; denounces Na-
poleon, 28; minority House
leader, 35; and Madison, 35,
64; Indian blood, 35, 358; and
Ways and Means Committee,
39; and Quids, 57, 361-362;
heads peace faction, 57-60, 61;
re right of seizure, 96; and
Kernper affair, 128; coiner of
phrases, 137; supports Monroe

(1808), 281; re new territory,
351; and antislavery provision
in Ordinance of 1787, 372; and
Aaron Burr, 396; re Bonaparte,
473; re Secretary of Treasury
Campbell, 531; re R. R. Liv-
ingston, 650; "liquid tones,"
727; re use of soldiers on pub-
lic works, 711; defeated by
Eppes, 744

Rappahannock River, 291

Raymond, Ethel T, 106

Read, Col. , 745

Read, Lt. George C, 173-174

Recourse, British vessel, 289

Red Eagle, see William Weather-
ford

Red Hook, N. Y., 278

Red Jacket, 607, 609, 746

Red River, 243

"Red Stick" confederacy, 369.
See also Tecumseh

Reeve, Judge , 653

Reid, Col John, 397

Rennie, Col. Robert, 689, 690,
702

Republican party, 31-32, 56-57,
136, 205-206, 285, 361-362, 374.
See also War Hawks

Revolutionary War, 40, 131, 141,

145, 146, 147, 202, 221, 222,

227, 298, 336, 363, 375, 379,
436, 452, 473, 496, 499, 503,
525, 607, 625, 654, 659, 66 1,
663, 669, 731, 752, 758-759;
influence of veterans declines,
32, 33, 41; and Canada, 55;
British bounties for scalps, 126;
heroes attacked in Baltimore
riot, 136-144; and Creek In-
dians, 444; flag incidents, 512,
513; war songs and verses, 512,
513; records saved, 527. See
also Newburgh letters

Rhea, John, 56, 124

Rhode Island, 302, 303, 319, 334,
365, 397, 652, 656, 659, 660,
661, 663

Index

Riall, Sir Phineas, 424, 607, 608,

609-611,612-613,615,746,747

Richardson, Maj. , 233

Richelieu River, 747
Richmond, Va., 55, 434, 438,

574, 712

Ringgold, Tench, 574
Ripley, Eleazar Wheelock, 606-

608, 609, 611, 613-618
River Raisin, 153, 158, 228-234,

337, 442

Roane, Gov. , 436

Robb, , 119

Roberts, Capt. Charles, 159, 160,

165
Robespierre, 282, 288

Robinson, Capt. , 512

Robinson, Maj. Gen. , 624,

637, 727
Rodgers, Commodore John, 93,

210, 294, 312, 365, 379
Rodgers, John, 586
Rodgers, Mrs. John, 294, 395
Rodney, Adm. Sir George, 485
Rodriquez Canal, 672, 689, 759
Rome, King of, 33
Rome, N. Y., 427
Roosevelt, Theodore, 62, 263,

2 7 2 > 373. 379-380
Ross, Col. George T., 645, 686,

694, 697

Ross, Gen. Robert, 670, 676, 700,
756; instructions re Negroes,
395, 515; sketch of, 501-502,
726; harasses Atlantic Coast,
502-504, 505, 727; and Harry
Smith, 505-506; leaves Ber-
muda for America, 507; pro-
ceeds toward Washington, 516,

5*7. ?i9> 5 22 > 5 26 > 7 2 9>.73'
731; forbids pillage of private
nouses, 516; advances to Bla-
densburg, 533~534> 7335 vic-
tory at Bladensburg, 539-54'

54 1 ' 543. 54 6 > 547. 54 8 . 73<5;
and Joshua Barney, ^548; es-
tablishes communication with
fleet, 550-551; fired on in

80 1

Washington, 552-553, 738;
seeks parley, 552, 553; and
burning of Capitol, 554, 555-
556, 738; protects private
property, 561, 575, 579, 581;
at Mrs. Suter ? s boardinghouse,
562-563, 566; and French min-
ister, 565-566; destroys Treas-
ury and War buildings, 576-
577; and arsenal destruction,
^83; withdraws from Wash-
ington, 583-585, 741; and
Beanes affair, 586, 587, 588-
589; death in move on Balti-
more, 590-591, <92, 637, 742;
orders re Gulf Coast, 677;
army at New Orleans, 678,
694

Ross, Mrs. Robert, 502, 726

Rossie, U. S. schooner, 513

Rouge River, 164

Round Head, 230

Rousseau, Augustin, 683

Royal Marines, 297

Royal Newfoundland Regiment,
244

Royal Oak y British vessel, 679

Royal Scots Fusiliers, 504, 551.
See also Fusiliers

"Rule, Britannia," 324

Rush, Benjamin, 224, 355, 535

Rush, Richard, re Madison, 355;
re death of Lawrence, 390;
Attorney General, 481, 482;
reviews troops, 523; confers
re Washington's defense, 530,
531, 532, 733; at Bladensburg,
535-53 6 > 537; fli ght from Bla-
densburg, 568, 569, 574

Russell, , editor Boston Cen-

tinel, 358

Russell, Col. Gilbert C, 459

Russell, Jonathan, 283, 483, 490,
668, 754

Russell, Gen. William, 227

Russia, 28-29, 283, 357, 367

Ryason, , 398

Ryland, Henry W., 72, 73

802

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Sabine River, 394

Sackets Harbor, N. Y., 183, 249,
277, 349; and invasion of Can-
ada, 147; Dearborn concen-
trates forces at, 242; Brown's
defense of, 256, 257, 258, 389,
748; Lake Ontario fleet at, 303,
311; Wilkinson's headquarters,
414, 415, 417; Gaines and Izard
leave, 615, 618; Izard ordered
to, 621, 623

St. Albans, Vt., 635, 747

St. Augustine, Fla., 132-133

St. Clair, Gen. Arthur, 104, 118,
125

St. Clair Co., Ill, 113

St. David's Ont., 413, 424-425

St. Eustatius, W. L, 512

St. Francis River, see Bayou
Bienvenu

St. Francisville, Miss., 129

St. George, Col. , 153, 157,

161, 233

St. George's Channel, 271

St. Helena, 289, 290

St. John, E., 420

St. John's River, 658

St. Lawrence, British schooner,

5*4

St. Lawrence, Gulf of, 171
St. Lawrence River, 147, 183,
198, 248, 393, 414, 415, 416,
417, 621, 625, 638, 709
St. Louis, Mo., 219
St. Lucia, W. L, 678
St. Marys River, 131, 132
St. Mary's Co., Md., 510
St. Petersburg, Russia, 392, 667
Salamanca, Battle of, 678
Salem, Mass., 79, 269-270, 599,

6 59> 743

Salisbury, Mass., 358
Salmagundi, 598
Salmon River, 416
San Antonio, Tex, 130
Sands, Joshua, 87

Sands, Samuel, 590

Sandusky, Ohio, 148, 151, 320,

668

Sandusky River, 239
Sandwich, Can., 154, 156, 338
Sandy Hook, 379, 471
San Sebastian, 559, 739
Saranac River, 627, 632, 634
Saratoga, N. Y., 146, 168, 277,

284, 286, 382
Saratoga, U. S. flagship, 628, 629,

630, 631, 632, 633, 634, 635
Sargeant, L. M., 474
Sassafras River, 296
Savannah, Ga., 134, 425

Sawyer, Adm. , 379

Schlosser, N. Y., 307, 419, 612

Schutz, , 536, 538

Schuylldll River, 277
Scioto River, 100, 152
Scorpion, U. S. cutter, 5 1 3
Scorpion, U. S. schooner, 312,

322, 323, 324, 327, 331
Scott, Gov. Charles, 224
Scott, Lt. Col. William, 536
Scott, Brig. Gen. Winficld, 647,
666, 733; and Chesapeake af-
fair, 92; on Niagara front, 184-
18^, 187, 189, 191, 192, 201;
prisoners of war, 192-193; and
British seizure of Irish prison-
ers, 192-193, 194, 491; law
background, 202; re Regular
Army, 224; re Wilkinson, 286,
394; and capture of Fort
George, 307, 308-309; and
Montreal expedition (1813),
415, 418; at Campbell court-
martial, 423; and hostages, 491;
re Winder, 496; commands
brigade under Brown, 606,
745; at capture of Fort Erie,
607-608; at Battle of Chip-
pewa, 608, 609-611, 746; lead-
ership, 610, 623, 625, 746; at
Lundy's Lane, 612-615, 747;
fort named for, 627
Scott Co., Ind,, 219

Index

Seahorse, British frigate, 516,

o

Seaton, William W., 508, 732
Second Infantry Regiment, U. S.,

191, 307

Second U. S. Volunteers, 168
Sehoy, 445

Seminole Indians, 468, 713
Seminole War, 186, 616, 731
Seneca Indians, 123, 124
Serurier, M. - , 73, 240, 282,

283, 481, 565-566, 732
Seventeen Fires, 100-126, 214,

37> 37 1

Seventeenth Infantry, U, S., 239
Seventh Fusiliers, 679, 694
Seventh Infantry, U. S., 694
Sevier, Capt. Alexander, 544
Sevier, John, 40, 436-437
Sewall, Robert, 552
Seymour, Edward, 722
Shane, Anthony, 344
Shannon, British frigate, 170,

263-270, 312, 390
Sharp's Island, 509
Shaubena, 344
Shawnee Indians, 102-103, 109,

no, 247, 370, 371, 402
Shay's Rebellion, 145
Sheaffe, Maj. Gen. Roger H.,

186, 188, 189, 191, 192, 244,

245, 250, 251
Sheffield, Lord, 360, 367
Shelby, Gov. Isaac, 40, 221, 234,

236, 336, 338, 340, 341, 343,

348

Shelby ville, Ky., 386
Shelton, Conn., 379
Shenandoah River, 7 1
Sherbrooke, Sir John Coape,

657-658

Sherman, Roger Minot, 663
Ship, Lt. Edmund, 240
Ship Island, 679
Sholes, Capt. Stanton, quoted,

401

Short, Lt. Col. - , 240
Shubrick, J. T., 260

803

Shutberg, Dr. Richard, 388

Silver Creek Massacre, 386

Simcol, Gov. , 388

Simmons, William, 728

Sinquista, 446, 459

Sioussa, Jean P. (French John),
5H 57i; 573,740

Sioux Indians, 160

Siren, U. S. vessel, 365, 626

Sisemore, William, 718

Six Nations, 382, 607, 609

Sixth Infantry, U. S., 98

Sixth Regiment, British, 726

Sixtieth Regiment (5th Battal-
ion), British, 727

Sixty-fourth Infantry Regiment,
British, 269

Sixty-second Regiment, British,
504

Skinner, John S., 587, 588, 589

Sloan, James, 749

Smith, Lt. Col , in Georgia

-, British, in

troops, 38^
Smith, Lt. Col.

Revolution, 503
Smith, Buckingham, 388
Smith, Harry, 505-506, 727, 729,

731; quoted, 741, 756-757, 759-

760

Smith, Jim, 530, 572
Smith, John, 740
Smith, John Stafford, 589
Smith, Nathaniel, 663
Smith, Oliver H., 112
Smith, Robert, Secretary of State,

52, 391
Smith, Gen. Samuel, 396, 525-

526, 757

Smith, Samuel Harrison, 602, 603
Smith, Lt. Sidney, on Lake

Champlain, 625, 748
Smith, Brig. Gen. Walter, 521,

5 2 3> 5 2 5> 53 2 > 53 6 > 5S7-53 8 *
542, 558, 603-604, 732, 734,

736

Smyrna, Del., 176
Smyth, Brig. Gen. Alexander,

184-185, 189, 194, 195-196,

804

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

196-197, 203, 275, 382, 383,

622, 641, 745
Snake Hill, 608, 617
Snelling, Josiah, 119, 157, 378
Snyder, Gov. Simon, 341
Somers, U. S. schooner, 311, 322,

323, 329

Somerset Co., Md., 496
Sorbonnet, see Crillon, de
Sorel River, 625, 628
Souk, Marshal Nicolas Jean de

Dieu, 33, 502

South America, 44, 259, 260, 744
Southampton, British frigate,

South Carolina, 272, 452; naval
station, 363

Spain, and Bonaparte, 29; threat
to frontiers through Floridas,
54; and Great Britain, 54, 80,
357, 361, 622, 677; and West
Florida, 127-129, 130, 131; and
Indians, 131, 446, 447, 451, 640;
American ministry to vacant,
283; Wilkinson and, 286, 393-
394; and East Florida, 131-135;
British sympathizers re New
Orleans, 680, 682, 757

Spanish America, 30, 357

Spanish Peninsula, see Peninsular
War

Sparks, Jared, 293-294, 393

Spencer, Judge Ambrose, 275

Spencer, Lady Elizabeth, 727

Spencer, Capt. Spier, 117, 119

Spesutie Island, 291

Spotts, , 692

Springfield, N. J., 596

Springfield, Ohio, 103

Standish, Myles, 607

Stansbury, A. J., 64

Stansbury, Gen. Tobias E., 526,
528-529, 535, 536, 537-538,
540, 541, 543, 732, 733, 734-

735> 73 6
"Star-Spangled Banner," 589-590,

742
Stephen, Sir James, 80

Sterett, Col. Samuel, 526, 538,

542, 734, 736

Stevens, , 24

Stewart, Alvan, quoted, 623

Stokes, Lt. , 325

Stone, Lt. Col. Isaac W., 424-

425
Stoney Creek, Can., 310, 311,

398, 496, 499, 523, 724, 733
Stomngton, Conn., 657
Stony Creek, 231
Story, Dr. John, 722
Story, Joseph, 269-270, 607
Strachan, Dr. John, 246, 247,

247-248, 248-249, 249-250, 251,

2 55

Street's Creek, 608, 609, 610, 611
Strieker, Gen. John, 136, 139,

140, 142, 143, 374, 526, 541,

543. 54<S> 59i t

Strong, Gov. Caleb, 95, 600, 658-

659, 660, 66 1
Stuart, Gilbert, 358, 573
Stall, Capt. J. L, 536, 734
Suchet, Marshal Louis Gabriel,

676
Sukey, Dolley Madison's slave,

57 2

Sumter, Thomas, 298
Surratt, Mrs. Mary E., 593
Susquehanna River, 291
Suter, Mrs. , 562-563, 566,

739
Suwanee River, 102

Swaine, Capt. , 757

Swannanoa River, 102

Sweden, 283, 668

Symmes, Judge John Cleves, 224

Table Rock, 612
Tagus River, 29, 426
Talladega, 454-455, 456, 458, 461,

468, 684, 715
Tallahassee River, 448
Tallapoosa Co., Ala., 463
Tallapoosa River, 442, 445, 458,

463, 466, 467, 717, 718

Index

Tallasehatche, 454, 468, 714-715
Talleyrand, Charles Maurice, 483,

^5

Tammany Society, 479, 595, 596

Tarbell, Capt. Joseph, 298

Tattnall, Josiah, 397

Tayloe, Col. John B., 578

Taylor, , 323

Taylor, Brig. Gen. Robert B.,
298, 396

Taylor, Zachary, 220-221, 385

Tecumapease, 103, 346

Tecumseh (Teoimtha), 227, 350;
and "Red Stick" confederacy,
100-101, 106-107, 107-108, 109-
110, 121, 122, 225, 446; against
"firewater," 101, 107, 377;
Shawnee heritage, 102; birth
and youth, 103-104, 105-106,
370, 445; against torture, 104,

105, 237, 238, 370, 387; and
Rebecca Galloway, 104-105;
rejects whites' methods, 105,

106, 215, 377, 443, 444; ap-
pearance, 105-106, 370, 377;
visits Vincennes (1810), 105,
109-111, 371; (1811), 112;
(1812), 121, 713; confederacy
spurred by embargoes and
treaties, 108-109; Harrison re,
113; disgusted with Prophet,
12 1 ; turns to British, 121-122;
handles Indians at Maiden, 158;
confers with Brock, 162, 377;
defeated at Monguaga, 164;
and fall of Detroit, 166, 377;
prestige restored, 214; not at
River Raisin, 233; at Fort
Meigs, 234, 236-239; name,
369; portrait and painting of,
377, 387; challenges Harrison,
387; and Proctor^ 237-238, 337,
338, 339, 340; tries to ambus-
cade Fort Meigs, 239; nostalgia
for the Wabash, 338, 346; pre-
monition of death, 338-339;
sword, 338-339; son, 338-339,
346, 401; re Brock, 377; name

805

proposed for Indiana's capital
city, 346; brigadier general in
British Army, 377; size of
army, 385; death, 105, 343;
mystery surrounding, 343-345,
401, 401-402; effect of, 347,
401; tributes to, 346, 401, 402;
incites Creeks to war, 442-443,

444-445* 447. 7*3; and Cher-
okee, 452, 713; razor strop,

49
Tennallytown, Md., 540, 560,

574
Tennessee, 359, 446, 451,^496,

531; welcomes war, 2 1 ; militia,
436, 437-438, 439, 440, 452,

453-454. 454-455^ 45 6 > 68 4> 686 i
696, 698, 701, 702, 715, 716;
angered at treatment of Jack-
son, 440; authorizes expedition
against Creeks, 451-452; re-
cruits second army for Jack-
son, 462, 717; supplies new
forces for Jackson, 647, 648,
650, 758; and local defense,
660; copper, 711

Tennessee River, 452

Tensaw Lake, 448

Tenth Military Department, 725

Tenth Royal Veteran Battalion,
1 60

Terrapin War, 68, 710

Tessier, Maj. , 703

Texas, 677

Thames River, Can., 156; Battle
f > 339-340, 348, 350-351, 401

Theobald, Dr. Samuel, 344

Third Infantry, U. S., 459,^ 755

Third Regiment York militia,
246

Thirteen Fires, 106

Thirteenth Infantry, U. S., 627

Thirteenth Regiment, British,
637

Thirty-ninth Infantry, U. S., 462,
717

Thirty-third Regiment, British,

749

8o6

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Thomas, Joshua, 663
Thomas, Maj. Gen. John, 688
Thompson, Capt. Henry, 541,

Tu 543 ' 546 T u
Ihompson, John, 141, 142

Thompson, Richard W., 64
Thompson Creek, 715

Thornton, Capt. , 519

Thornton, Col. William, 506;
Chesapeake campaign, 517; at
Bkdensburg, 547, 549; and
New Orleans expedition, 549,
68 1, 682, 683, 684, 687, 694,
697-698, 703, 704, 705, 760
Thornton, Dr. William, 65, 553-

554^ 577~57 8 > 57^5^ 5 8l > 6 3
Ticonderoga, U. S. schooner,

628, 630, 631, 633
Tiffin, Ohio, 336
Tigress, U. S. schooner, 311, 322,

323

Tilghman's dragoons, 731
Tingey, Commodore Thomas,

259,559 ^ , f
Tippecanoe, Battle of, 59, 115-

121, 122, 150, 378, 448, 709
Tippecanoe Battleground, 372
Tippecanoe River, 126
Tipton, John, 118, 119, 372

Todd, Dr. , 231, 232

Todd, John, 570
Tohopeka, see Horseshoe Bend
Tombigbee River, 130, 444, 449
Tompkins, Gov. Daniel D., 179,

183-184, 257, 275, 381, 598,

605
Tonnant, British flagship, 504,

507, 514 679
Tonson letters, 22, 355
Tookabatcha, 442
Toronto, 242, 388. See also York
Towson, Maj. Nathan, 610
Tracy, Uriah, 653
Trafalgar, Battle of, 44, 45, 86,

270, 314, 505, 627, 749
Treaty of 1783, 670
Trenton, N, J., 277, 283
Tripoli, 259, 260, 263, 624, 743

Trippe, U. S. sloop, 311, 322,

3*3, 3> 33i
Troup, George M., 59

Troy, N. Y., 183, 187, 426
Tucker, Capt. Thomas Tudor,

744
Turkey Creek, 156

Turkeytown, Ala., 454
Tuscarora Village, N. Y., 419
Tuskegee, 447
Tuskegee Warrior, 447
Tustin, A. G., 232-233
Tweeddale, Marquis of, 608
Twentieth Regiment (Lancaster

Fusiliers), 501, 507, 584, 726
Twenty-eighth Regiment, Brit-
ish, 726
Twenty-fifth Infantry Regiment,

U. S., 610, 613, 662
Twenty-first Infantry Regiment,

U. S., 607, 614
Twenty-first Regiment, British,

504, 694. See also Royal Scots

Fusiliers
Twenty-ninth Regiment, British,

504, 622
Twenty-ninth Regiment, U. S.,

Twenty-seventh Infantry, U. S.,

34
Twenty-seventh (Enniskillen)

Regiment, 676, 726
Twenty-third Light Dragoons,

678

Tylden, Maj. Sir John, 698, 699
Tyler, John, 363

U

Underbill, Isaac, 98

United States, threat of war with
France (1798), 39, 57, 71; man-
ufactures, 44, 288-289, 435'
711-712, 743; position re neu-
tral shipping, 45, 48, 360; ves-
sels seized under Orders and
Decrees, 52; and annexation of
Floridas, 127, 129, 130

Index

United States, U. S. frigate, 210-
213, 262, 272, 365

U. S. Army, and French officers,
25, 356; increase authorized,
68, 364; two major generals
authorized, 146; demarcation
between regular and volunteer
troops, 151; leadership, 202,
283, 393; list of high officers
(Oct. i, 1812), 202-203; first
snow brigade, 243, 387; im-
portance to, of Battle of Chip-
pewa, 746; Secretaries of War,
see Armstrong, John; Eustis,
William; Monroe, James. See
also Militia

U. S. Bank, 391, 434

U. S. Congress, and declaration
of war, 19, 22-23, 80-8 1, 355;
criticism of, 27, 357-358; and
Nonintercourse Act ( 1 8 1 o-
1 8 1 1 ), 49; special session on in-
ternational affairs, 53; prepar-
edness measures, 68; and Henry
spy letters, 70, 74-75; bills re
impressment, 88, 94-95, 369;
authorizes loan, 366; informed
of British gifts to Indians, 125;
bill re Mississippi border, 128;
authorizes President to take
over East Florida, 130, 134;
authorizes major generals, 146;
and awards to naval and mili-
tary heroes, 176, 177, 241, 334,
335, 636; Smyth's petition to,
196-197; grants Navy more
funds, 209; action re Irish
prisoners of war, 194; special
session ( 1 8 1 3 ), 43 1-43 2 ; act es-
tablishing U. S. Bank, 434; and
location of U. S. capital, 511,
592, 593; investigates Winder,
528, 733; temporary quarters,
578, 592-593; and national an-
them (1931), 590; Embargo
Act (1807), 642; Webster's
influence, 656; secret debates,
664; proposed amendment re

807

slave representation ( 1 804) ,
656; and Hartford Conven-
tion, 753

U. S. Constitution, 356, 659,
665

U. S. Department of State, 282-
283. See also Monroe, James;
Smith, Robert

U. S. House of Representatives,

3i-34> 35> 53. 77> 7 8 * 9 8 > 22 *~

TT 2 * 2 ' 358,4*3, 655-<$56

U. S. Marine Corps, 268

U. S. Merchant Marine, develop-
ment, 44, 45, 360; and British
and French interference, 45,
46-47, 47-48, 49, 50, 51-52, 369;
and embargo, 48; pay, 85, 367;
and British deserters, 85, 88,
91, 368; bill re foreign sailors
in, 94-95, 369; act for protec-
tion of seamen, 367

U. S. Military Academy, 202,
396, 608-609, 625, 724, 746

U. S. Naval Academy, 263

U. S. Navy, weaknesses, 68-70,
365; coast-defense plan, 60;
successful engagements (1812),
170-178; new victories, 209-
213; Naval Ball (1812), 209-
210; Lawrence and, 259, 269;
promotions (Mar. 1813), 261,
390; strength compared with
British (1812), 365; advance in
power, 742-744; Secretaries of
Navy, see Hamilton, Paul;
Jones, William

U. S. Senate, 34, 356, 365, 493-
494, 509, 657, 677, 724, 727

U. S. Treasury, 25, 356, 432-433,
434, 596; Secretaries of, see
Campbell, George W.; Dallas,
Alexander J.; Gallatin, Albert

Upham, Col. Timothy, 416

Upper Marlboro, Md., 522, 525,
526, 550, 584, 585, 586, 587,

73> 73 1
Upper Sandusky, Ohio, 228, 336,

387

8o8

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Urbana, Ohio, 150, 151, 152, 158,

162, 336
Ustanili, 452
Utica, N. Y., 1 80,

415

V

Van Buren, 36, 206, 280, 359,

401

Vanderlyn, John, 282
Van Home, Maj. Thomas B.,

158, 162

Van Ness, John P., 520-521
Van Rensselaer, Col. Solomon,

184, 186, 187-188, 189
Van Rensselaer, Maj. Gen. Ste-

phen, 183-184, 185, 186, 187,

189, 191, 192, 194, 195, 244,

2 75i 3 8l > 3 82 > 62 3> 7 20
Varnum, Joseph B., 33
Vergennes, Vt., 628, 747, 748
Vermillion River, 114
Vermont, 23, 72, 183, 199, 594,

636, 652, 662, 711-712, 747,

75

Vicksburg, Miss., 755
Victoria, Queen, 727
Vienna, Congress of, 483
Villere, Celestin, 682
Villere, Gabriel, 682, 683, 684,

<%, 757-758

Villere Canal, 681, 685, 693
Villere plantation, 682, 684, 685-

687, 705
Vincennes, Ind., 105, 108, 109-

III, 112, 121, 219, 22y, 372,

7*3

Vincent, Col. - , 233
Vincent, Gen. John, 309, 310-

3". 349. 4 I 94 20
Viper, U. S. brig, 365

Virginia, 138, 226, 298, 299-300,
366, 395, 583, 655, 657, 659,
660, 725

Vixen, U. S. brig, 365

W

Wabash River, 33, 103, no, 113,

219, 338, 370, 448, 713

Wabash Valley, 2 1 5
Wadsworth, Col Decius, 532,

Wadsworth, Brig. Gen. William,
189, 191-192

Wagner, Jacob, 137, 138, 139

Walker, Alexander, quoted, 674

Wallace, Capt. Robert, 153, 155,
164, 378-379

War between the States, 186,
593, 654

Ward, Artemas, 66 1

Ward, Samuel, 663

War Hawks, 31-34, 39-41, 49,
53-55, 67-68, 137, 359, 363

War of 1812, declaration signed
(June 18, 1812), 19; U. S. re-
action to declaration, 26-28;
finances, 25, 78-79, 356, 366,
430-433; first hostile act, 27;
world background, 28-30

Causes: impressments, 42,
82-99, 668; Orders in Coun-
cil, 42, 45-47, 80-8 1, 364-365,
668; frontier insecurity, 54-55,
122-126, 373; Randolph re, 58-
59; Henry spy affair, 70-77,
365-366; citizenship question,
192-194, 382, 721-723; French
pressure, 357.

"Set fasts," 59, 209, 711;
Madison's reluctance to enter,
6 1 -8 1, passim; "Terrapin War/*
68, 710; naval engagements
(1812), 170-178; record of first
year, 199-203; first war of
U. S. as a nation, 201; extent
of British control (late 1812),
219; public sentiment, 222,

357"35 8 > 49, 2 ? 5 6 *> 594"6 OI >
635, 651; military rockets in-
troduced, 293, 295-296, 396,
493, 540, 541, 686, 692; and
phrase "Uncle Sam," 382; close
relationships between Cana-
dians and Americans near
border, 389; course of, to
spring of 1814, 425; cost,

Index

433; stimulates manufactures
in U. S., 434-435. 7*i-7 12 ;
use of torpedo, 492-493, 723;
and West Point uniforms,
608-609; American method
of loading muskets, 611;
and phrase "Damned Yankee,"
617; and steam vessels, 628,
743; draft, 660, 664; date
of close, 677, 756; contri-
butions to American naval
power, 742-743; frontier rifle,
696, 758-759; diving boat, 723.

Flag incidents: flag of Mace-
donian presented to Dolley
Madison, 210; banner of the
cross on Perry's ship, 316;
Porter's Free Trade and Sail-
ors Rights flag, 357; Perry's
Don't Give up the Ship flag,
321, 323, 328; Ross's white
flag at Washington, 552; Fort
McHenry, 589; American flag
at Bladensburg, 729.

War doggerel: re invasion
of Canada, 168, 204; re United
States and Macedonian, 211;
re Tecumseh's death, 343; re
Wilkinson, 418; re trade with
enemy, 426; re disgraced gen-
erals, 427; re Madison on bat-
tlefield, 537; re Bladensburg,
569, 739-740.

War songs: "Hail Colum-
bia," 210, 384-385, 704, 754;
"Yankee Doodle," 246, 338,
384, 388, 754-755; "Star-
Spangled Banner, 296, 589-
590, 742; Rule, Britannia" 324.

Slogans: Free Trade and
Sailors Rights, 357. See also
Creek War.

Warren, John Borlase, British
vice-admiral, 499; supervises
blockade, 288, 290, 293, 296,
395; vice-president of Halifax
Bible Society, 290, 297, 300-
301; attack on Norfolk, 297,

809

298; returns to Bermuda and
England 301; "Spoiler of the
Chesapeake," 301; at Halifax,
381 ,

Wasegoboah, 346

Washington, D. C., 146, 147, 280,
413, 414, 470, 497, 498, 675,
68 1 ; and declaration of war,
20-22, 26; Jefferson's poplars,
66; defenses, 296, 297, 301;
receives news of Lawrence's
death, 390; fears espionage and
sedition, 427, 73 1-732; and new
manufactures, 435; and Bona-
parte's fall, 479-481; possibility
of attack on considered, 482;
defense of, 499-450, 725-726,
729, 730; threatened, 508-534;
apathy re defenses, 508, 509;
Cochrane and Cockburn place
advance on, 515-516; warned
of British approach, 518, 520;
exodus of citizens, 519-520,
526; removal of government
records, 523, 526, 527; militia,
520-521, 536, 543, 572, 725;
spies in, 522; confusion in, 528,
529-530; Stansbury's forces run
for, 540-541; Winder's army
retreats to, 542; Armstrong
suggests garrisoning Capitol,
542; British occupation, 552-
584, 738-742; Sewall house
burned, 553; Ross seizes am-
munition and cannon, 555;
Capitol destroyed by fire,

554-5.59' 5 6o > 6 35> 68 7; Con-
gressional records destroyed,
558, 738; President's house and
the British invasion, 563-566,

57i-57 2 > 57 6 ~577> 57 8 > 74;
Octagon House spared, 565;
Treasury burned, 566, 576;
cabinet records saved by Dol-
ley Madison, 571, 573; War
Department burned, 576;
Blodget's Hotel saved, 577-
578, 578-579; Patent Office

8io

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

records saved, 577, 578-580;
capital remains at, 578, 592-
593; arsenal destroyed, 582-
583, 734, 741; tornado, 583-
584; British withdrawn,
583-584, 741 ; burning of unites
country, 594-601, 651, 745;
Abigail Adams re, 738; popu-
lation (1810), 738
Washington, George, 21, 35, 63,
91, 137, 138, 141, 143, 146,
257, 270, 277, 280, 282, 498,
503, 601, 652, 665, 728, 739;
re Monroe's attitude toward
France, 52, 360; and Newburgh
letters, 276, 391; policies at-
tacked in Monroe's View of
the Conduct of the Executive
in . . . Foreign Affairs . . . ,
284, 392-393; and Madison,
Monroe, and Gallatin, 362;
portrait of saved by Dolley
Madison, 573-574, 741; British
respect for, ^58 1-582; circular
re Army discipline, 597-598
Washington, Martha, 742
Washington, U. S. sloop, 2 3
Washington Guards, 479
Washington Hall, New York, 478
Washington Navy Yard, 209,
390, 526, 529, 530, 531, 532,
539, 544, 572, 733; destroyed,
559-560, 739
7 asp, U. S. vessel, 176-177, 288,

Waters, Maj. , 577, 579

Watertown, N. Y., 257

Watson, Lt. , 271

Watson, Elkanah, 27, 435
Watson, James E., 383

Watts, Lt. , 268

Waxhaw settlement, 437
Wayne, Gen. Anthony, 104, 1 10,
125, 184, 224, 234, 247, 397,

449
Weatherford, Charles, 445, 467

Weatherford, John, 713
Weatherford, William (Red Ea-

gle), 444-446, 467; leads Creek
war faction, 444-445, 448; Fort
Mims, massacre, 450-451, 451,
467-468; leaves coastal com-
munities untouched, 451, 714;
at Battle of the Holy Ground,
459-460; and gray horse, 460,
717; at Calebee Creek, 462; not
at Horseshoe Bend, 463; sur-
renders, 467-468, ji 8; later
years, 469, 718-719

Weatherford's Leap, 460

Webster, , 396

Webster, Daniel, 38, 225, 363,
656-657

Webster, Noah, 753

Weems, Philip, 586

Wellesley, Lord, 50, 90

Wellington, Duke of, 30, 43, 80,
83,333,425,481,483,501,505,
539, 686, 726, 739; re Harry
Smith, 506; veterans sent to
America, 502, 504, 510, 607,
622, 676, 688, 693-694, 757;
and Treaty of Ghent, 667, 669-
670; brother-in-law of Paken-
ham, 678

Wells, Daniel, 591

Wells, Gen. Samuel, 114, 115,
116, 117, 119, 228

Wells, Capt. William, 216, 218,
385

West, Benjamin, 663

West, Richard E., 587

Westchester Co., N. Y. 435

Westcott, , 257

West Farms, N. Y., 435

West Florida, status after Louisi-
ana Purchase, 127; Kempers
take Baton Rouge, 129; Madi-
son claims to Perdido River,
129; final incorporation, 130-
131; Wilkinson and, 394. See
also East Florida

West Indian Corps, 688, 694, 697

West Indian pirates, 643

West Indies, 44, 45, 55, 357

Westphall, Lt. G. A., 293, 396

Index

West Point Military Academy,

See U. S. Military Academy
Westport, Ky., 219
Wheelock, Eleazar, 606-607
Whinyates, Capt. Thomas, 177
Whisky Rebellion, 25, 137, 284,

393

White, Judge Hugh L., 715
White, Brig. Gen. James, 453,

, 454. 457-4S 8
Wmtebread, , 592, 742

Whitehall, N. Y., 635

White Loon, 117

White River, 370

Whitley, Col. William, 341, 343,
345, 402

Wildcat Creek, 120

Wilkinson, Maj. , 701

Wilkinson, James, 298, 745; oc-
cupies Mobile (1812), 130;
brigadier general, 203; in Rev-
olution, 277, 286; involved with
Burr and Spain, 286, 393-394;
and Armstrong, 286, 414, 417,
418, 511, 747; McArthur's
brigade to serve under, 348;
re Jefferson's policies, 360;
made commander of Northern
armies (1813), 413-414, 622;
and Hampton, 414-415, 416;
Montreal Campaign, 415-418,
709; discredited, 427; com-
mander, Southwestern Depart-
ment (1812), 438, 449; and
Jackson, 438-439, 712; trip to
Washington, 498; offers serv-
ices in defense of Washington,
520; waste of public money,
728; re Burney's flotilla, 729-
730; re defense of Washington,
731

William III, 503

William and Mary College, 114,
241, 441, 738

Williams, Col. , 637

Williams, Maj. , 604

Williams, Rev. , 596

Williams, Isaac, 722

811

Williams, Col. John, 465
Williams, Nathan, 747
Williams, Roger, 305
Williams, Samuel L., 398-399
Williamsburg, Ont, 416
Wilmington, Del., 288-289, 599
667, 742

Wilson, Lt. , 128

Wilson, John, 92
Wilson, Woodrow, 62
Winamac (Catfish), 216
Winchester, James, 314, 401, 745;
brig. gen. 203; Revolutionary-
War veteran, 222; and Harri-
son, 225-226; moves to Maumee
Rapids, 226-227, 227-228; de-
feat at River Raisin, 228, 229,
230, 233, 234, 386, 387, 442;
prisoner of war, 230, 233;
commands at Mobile (1814),

Winder, John Henry, 724
Winder, Gov. Levin, 374, 499,

500

Winder, William Henry, 554,
572, 593, 622, 757; on Niagara
front, 195, 383; brig. gen. 203;
at Fort George, 308; pursuit of
Vincent and capture at Stoney
Creek, 309-310, 311; heads
Chesapeake Department, 374,
498-500, 725; sketch of, 496;
and prisoner-exchange prob-
lem, 496-497, 724; inactivity,
510; attempts at defensive
measures, 500, 518, 519, 520-
521, 725-726,^ 729, 731; moves
to meet British, 522-526, 731,
732, 734; forces retire to capi-
tal, 528, 529, 733; confers with
Madison, 529-530; orders
troops to Bladensburg, 530;
retains command, 533; routed
at Battle of Bladensburg, 536,
537 53 8 > 539> 54 1 * 54 2 > 54 2 ~
543> 544; 574^ 6 3> 735> 73 6 >
737; during British occupation
or capital, 560, 562; and

8l2

POLTROONS AND PATRIOTS

Beanes affair, 587; takes army
toward Baltimore, 602 ; charac-
terized, 745

Winnebago Indians, 160, 216

Winnemac, 117

Winthrop, Robert C, 359, 754

Wirt, William, 396, 740

Wisconsin, 219

Wolfe, Maj. Gen. James, 243,
501, 510

Wood, Capt. E. D., quoted, 387

Wood, Norman B., 238, 345

Woodbury, N. J., 259

Wood Co., Ohio, 151

Wood Yard, 510, 522, 587, 729

Woodworth, Samuel, 596-597

Wool, Maj. John E., 186-187,
189, 627

Worthington, Sen. , 728

Wyandot Indians, 108, 120, 370

Wyoming Valley, 103

Wythe, Judge George W., 36-37

X

Xenia, Ohio, 103
Y
Yale College, 21, 149

"Yankee Doodle," 246, 247
Yarnell, Lt. John J., 326, 327,

328, 398
Yeo, Sir James Lucas, 242, 312-

3*3, 357> 6 7 2 > 6 3 8 ^
York (now Toronto), Can., 161,
375; Dearborn's raid on, 242,
243-246, 389; surrender terms,
246-250; burning of Parliament
buildings, 250-255, 419, 424,
555, 584, 592, 742, 618; mace
from Parliament hall, 252, 253,
254, 389; St. James Church
plundered, 255; victory gives
Americans lo-gun brig, 256;
early history of, 388
York, Pa., 142

York River, 514, 515

Va., 146,
704

Yorktown,

246, 514,

You, Dominique, 644, 690, 692
Youngstown, N. Y., burned

(1813), 419
Yrujo, , Spanish minister,

quoted, 349

Zanesville, Ohio, 149

120065