The War With the United States : A Chronicle of 1812 Part 6

Macdonough, an officer of whom any navy in the world might well be proud, then concentrated on the stricken _Confiance_ with his own _Saratoga_, greatly aided by the _Eagle_, which swung round so as to rake the _Confiance_ with her fresh broadside. The _Linnet_ now drifted off a little and so could not help the _Confiance_, both because the American galleys at once engaged her and because her position was bad in any case. Presently both flagships slackened fire; whereupon Macdonough took the opportunity of winding ship. His ground tackle was in perfect order on the far, or landward, side; so the _Saratoga_ swung round quite easily. The _Confiance_ now had both the _Eagle's_ and the _Saratoga's_ fresh carronade broadsides deluging her battered, cannon-armed broadside with showers of deadly grape. Her one last chance of keeping up a little longer was to wind ship herself. Her tackle had all been cut; but her master got out his last spare cables and tried to bring her round, while some of his toiling men fell dead at every haul. She began to wind round very slowly; and, when exactly at right angles to Macdonough, was raked completely, fore and aft. At the same time an ominous list to port, where her side was torn in over a hundred places, showed that she would sink quickly if her guns could not be run across to starboard. But more than half her mixed scratch crew had been already killed or wounded. The most desperate efforts of her few surviving officers could not prevent the confusion that followed the fearful raking she now received from both her superior opponents; and before her fresh broadside could be brought to bear she was forced to strike her flag. Then every American carronade and gun was turned upon Pring's undaunted little _Linnet_, which kept up the hopeless fight for fifteen minutes longer; so that Prevost might yet have a chance to carry out his own operations without fear of molestation from a hostile bay.

But Prevost was in no danger of molestation. He was in perfect safety. He watched the destruction of his fleet from his secure headquarters, well inland, marched and countermarched his men about, to make a show of action; and then, as the _Linnet_ fired her last, despairing gun, he told all ranks to go to dinner.

That night he broke camp hurriedly, left all his badly wounded men behind him, and went back a great deal faster than he came. His shamed, disgusted veterans deserted in unprecedented numbers. And Macomb's astounded army found themselves the victors of an unfought field.

The American victory at Plattsburg gave the United States the absolute control of Lake Champlain; and this, reinforcing their similar control of Lake Erie, counterbalanced the British military advantages all along the Canadian frontier. The British command of the sea, the destruction of Washington, and the occupation of Maine told heavily on the other side. These three British advantages had been won while the mother country was fighting with her right hand tied behind her back; and in all the elements of warlike strength the British Empire was vastly superior to the United States. Thus there cannot be the slightest doubt that if the British had been free to continue the war they must have triumphed.

But they were not free. Europe was seething with the profound unrest that made her statesmen feel the volcano heaving under their every step during the portentous year between Napoleon's abdication and return. The mighty British Navy, the veteran British Army, could not now be sent across the sea in overwhelming force. So American diplomacy eagerly seized this chance of profiting by British needs, and took such good advantage of them that the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war on Christmas Eve, left the two opponents in much the same position towards each other as before. Neither of the main reasons for which the Americans had fought their three campaigns was even mentioned in the articles.

The war had been an unmitigated curse to the motherland herself; and it brought the usual curses in its train all over the scene of action. But some positive good came out of it as well, both in Canada and in the United States.

The benefits conferred on the United States could not be given in apter words than those used by Gallatin, who, as the finance minister during four presidential terms, saw quite enough of the seamy side to sober his opinions, and who, as a prominent member of the war party, shared the disappointed hopes of his colleagues about the conquest of Canada. His opinion is, of course, that of a partisan.

But it contains much truth, for all that:

The war has been productive of evil and of good; but I think the good preponderates. It has laid the foundations of permanent taxes and military establishments, which the Republicans [as the anti-Federalist Democrats were then called] had deemed unfavorable to the happiness and free inst.i.tutions of the country. Under our former system we were becoming too selfish, too much attached exclusively to the acquisition of wealth, above all, too much confined in our political feelings to local and state objects.

The war has renewed the national feelings and character which the Revolution had given, and which were daily lessening. The people are now more American. They feel and act more as a nation. And I hope that the permanency of the Union is thereby better secured.

Gallatin did not, of course, foresee that it would take a third conflict to finish what the Revolution had begun.

But this sequel only strengthens his argument. For that Union which was born in the throes of the Revolution had to pa.s.s through its tumultuous youth in '1812' before reaching full manhood by means of the Civil War.

The benefits conferred on Canada were equally permanent and even greater. How Gallatin would have rejoiced to see in the United States any approach to such a financial triumph as that which was won by the Army Bills in Canada!

No public measure was ever more successful at the time or more full of promise for the future. But mightier problems than even those of national finance were brought nearer to their desirable solution by this propitious war. It made Ontario what Quebec had long since been--historic ground; thus bringing the older and newer provinces together with one exalting touch. It was also the last, as well as the most convincing, defeat of the three American invasions of Canada. The first had been led by Sir William Phips in 1690. This was long before the Revolution. The American Colonies were then still British and Canada still French. But the invasion itself was distinctively American, in men, ships, money, and design. It was undertaken without the consent or knowledge of the home authorities; and its success would probably have destroyed all chance of there being any British Canada to-day. The second American invasion had been that of Montgomery and Arnold in 1775, during the Revolution, when the very diverse elements of a new Canadian life first began to defend their common heritage against a common foe. The third invasion--the War of 1812--united all these elements once more, just when Canada stood most in need of mutual confidence between them. So there could not have been a better bond of union than the blood then shed so willingly by her different races in a single righteous cause.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Enough books to fill a small library have been written about the 'sprawling and sporadic' War of 1812. Most of them deal with particular phases, localities, or events; and most of them are distinctly partisan. This is unfortunate, but not surprising. The war was waged over an immense area, by various forces, and with remarkably various results. The Americans were victorious on the Lakes and in all but one of the naval duels fought at sea. Yet their coast was completely sealed up by the Great Blockade in the last campaign. The balance of victory inclined towards the British side on land. Yet the annihilating American victories on the Lakes nullified most of the general military advantages gained by the British along the Canadian frontier. The fortunes of each campaign were followed with great interest on both sides of the line. But on the other side of the Atlantic the British home public had Napoleon to think of at their very doors; and so, for the most part, they regarded the war with the States as an untoward and regrettable annoyance, which diverted too much force and attention from the life-and-death affairs of Europe.

All these peculiar influences are reflected in the different patriotic annals. Americans are voluble about the Lakes and the naval duels out at sea. But the completely effective British blockade of their coast-line is a too depressingly scientific factor in the problem to be welcomed by a general public which would not understand how Yankee ships could win so many duels while the British Navy won the war. Canadians are equally voluble about the battles on Canadian soil, where Americans had decidedly the worst of it. As a rule, Canadian writers have been quite as controversial as Americans, and not any readier to study their special subjects as parts of a greater whole. The British Isles have never had an interested public anxious to read about this remote, distasteful, and subsidiary war; and books about it there have consequently been very few.

The two chief authors who have appealed directly to the readers of the mother country are William James and Sir Charles Lucas. James was an industrious naval historian; but he was quite as anti-American as the earlier American writers were anti-British. Owing to this perverting bias his two books, the _Naval_ and the _Military Occurrences of the late War between Great Britain and the United States_, are not to be relied upon. Their appendices, however, give a great many doc.u.ments which are of much a.s.sistance in studying the real history of the war. James wrote only a few years after the peace. Nearly a century later Sir Charles Lucas wrote _The Canadian War of 1812_, which is the work of a man whose life-long service in the Colonial Office and intimate acquaintance with Canadian history have both been turned to the best account. The two chief Canadian authors are Colonel Cruikshank and James Hannay. Colonel Cruikshank deserves the greatest credit for being a real pioneer with his _Doc.u.mentary History of the Campaigns upon the Niagara Frontier_.

Hannay's _History of the War of 1812_ shows careful study of the Canadian aspects of the operations; but its generally sound arguments are weakened by its controversial tone.

The four chief American authors to reckon with are, Lossing, Upton, Roosevelt, and Mahan. They complement rather than correspond with the four British authors.

The best known American work dealing with the military campaigns is Lossing's _Field-Book of the War of 1812_.

It is an industrious compilation; but quite uncritical and most misleading. General Upton's _Military Policy of the United States_ incidentally p.r.i.c.ks all the absurd American militia bubbles with an incontrovertible array of hard and pointed facts. _The Naval War of 1812_, by Theodore Roosevelt, is an excellent sketch which shows a genuine wish to be fair to both sides. But the best naval work, and the most thorough work of any kind on either side, is Admiral Mahan's _Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812_.

A good deal of original evidence on the American side is given in Brannan's _Official Letters of the Military and Naval Officers of the United States during the War with Great Britain in the Years 1812 to 1815_. The original British evidence about the campaigns in Canada is given in William Wood's _Select British Doc.u.ments of the Canadian War of 1812_. Students who wish to see the actual doc.u.ments must go to Washington, London, and Ottawa. The Dominion Archives are of exceptional interest to all concerned.

The present work is based entirely on original evidence, both American and British.

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