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The Naval War of 1812

T >> Theodore Roosevelt >> The Naval War of 1812




Holding views on these maritime subjects so radically different
from each other, the two nations could not but be continually dealing
with causes of quarrel. Not only did British cruisers molest our
merchant-men, but at length one of them, the 50-gun ship _Leopard_,
attacked an American frigate, the _Chesapeake_, when the latter was
so lumbered up that she could not return a shot, killed or disabled
some twenty of her men and took away four others, one Briton and
three Americans, who were claimed as deserters. For this act an
apology was offered, but it failed to restore harmony between
the two nations. Soon afterward another action was fought. The
American frigate _President_, Commodore Rodgers, attacked the
British sloop _Little Belt_, Captain Bingham, and exchanged one
or two broadsides with her,--the frigate escaping scot-free
while the sloop was nearly knocked to pieces. Mutual recriminations
followed, each side insisting that the other was the assailant.

When Great Britain issued her Orders in Council forbidding our
trading with France, we retaliated by passing an embargo act, which
prevented us from trading at all. There could be but one result to
such a succession of incidents, and that was war. Accordingly, in
June, 1812, war was declared; and as a contest for the rights of
seamen, it was largely waged on the ocean. We also had not a little
fighting to do on land, in which, as a rule, we came out second-best.
Few or no preparations for the war had been made, and the result
was such as might have been anticipated. After dragging on through
three dreary and uneventful years it came to an end in 1815, by a
peace which left matters in almost precisely the state in which
the war had found them. On land and water the contest took the form
of a succession of petty actions, in which the glory acquired by
the victor seldom eclipsed the disgrace incurred by the vanquished.
Neither side succeeded in doing what it intended. Americans declared
that Canada must and should be conquered, but the conquering came
quite as near being the other way. British writers insisted that
the American navy should be swept from the sea; and, during the
sweeping process it increased fourfold.

When the United States declared war, Great Britain was straining
every nerve and muscle in a death struggle with the most formidable
military despotism of modern times, and was obliged to entrust the
defence of her Canadian colonies to a mere handful of regulars, aided
by the local fencibles. But Congress had provided even fewer trained
soldiers, and relied on militia. The latter chiefly exercised their
fighting abilities upon one another in duelling, and, as a rule,
were afflicted with conscientious scruples whenever it was
necessary to cross the frontier and attack the enemy. Accordingly,
the campaign opened with the bloodless surrender of an American
general to a much inferior British force, and the war continued
much as it had begun; we suffered disgrace after disgrace, while
the losses we inflicted, in turn, on Great Britain were so slight
as hardly to attract her attention. At last, having crushed her
greater foe, she turned to crush the lesser, and, in her turn,
suffered ignominious defeat. By this time events had gradually
developed a small number of soldiers on our northern frontier,
who, commanded by Scott and Brown, were able to contend on equal
terms with the veteran troops to whom they were opposed, though
these formed part of what was then undoubtedly the most formidable
fighting infantry any European nation possessed. The battles at
this period of the struggle were remarkable for the skill and
stubborn courage with which they were waged, as well as for the
heavy loss involved; but the number of combatants was so small
that in Europe they would have been regarded as mere outpost
skirmishes, and they wholly failed to attract any attention
abroad in that period of colossal armies.

When Great Britain seriously turned her attention to her
transatlantic foe, and assembled in Canada an army of 14,000 men
at the head of Lake Champlain, Congressional forethought enabled
it to be opposed by soldiers who, it is true, were as well
disciplined, as hardy, and as well commanded as any in the world,
but who were only a few hundred strong, backed by more or less
incompetent militia. Only Macdonough's skill and Sir George
Prevost's incapacity saved us from a serious disaster; the sea-fight
reflected high honor on our seamen, but the retreat of the British
land-forces was due to their commander and not their antagonists.
Meanwhile a large British fleet in the Chesapeake had not achieved
much glory by the destruction of local oyster-boats and the burning
of a few farmers' houses, so an army was landed to strike a decisive
blow. At Bladensburg [Footnote: See the "Capture of Washington,"
by Edward D. Ingraham (Philadelphia. 1849).] the five thousand
British regulars, utterly worn out by heat and fatigue, by their
mere appearance, frightened into a panic double their number of
American militia well posted. But the only success attained was
burning the public buildings of Washington, and that result was
of dubious value. Baltimore was attacked next, and the attack
repulsed, after the forts and ships had shelled one another with
the slight results that usually attend that spectacular and harmless
species of warfare.

The close of the contest was marked by the extraordinary battle of
New Orleans. It was a perfectly useless shedding of blood, since
peace had already been declared. There is hardly another contest of
modern times where the defeated side suffered such frightful carnage,
while the victors came off almost scatheless. It is quite in
accordance with the rest of the war that the militia, hitherto worse
than useless, should on this occasion win against great odds in point
of numbers; and, moreover, that their splendid victory should have
been of little consequence in its effects upon the result. On the
whole, the contest by land, where we certainly ought to have been
successful, reflected greater credit on our antagonists than upon
us, in spite of the services of Scott, Brown, and Jackson. Our small
force of regulars and volunteers did excellently; as for the militia,
New Orleans proved that they _could_ fight superbly, and the other
battles that they generally _would not_ fight at all.

At sea, as will appear, the circumstances were widely different.
Here we possessed a small but highly effective force, the ships
well built, manned by thoroughly trained men, and commanded by
able and experienced officers. The deeds of our navy form a part
of history over which any American can be pardoned for lingering.

* * * * *

Such was the origin, issue, and general character of the war. It
may now be well to proceed to a comparison of the authorities on
the subject. Allusion has already been made to them in the preface,
but a fuller reference seems to be necessary in this connection.

At the close of the contest, the large majority of historians who
wrote of it were so bitterly rancorous that their statements must
be received with caution. For the main facts, I have relied,
wherever it was practicable, upon the official letters of the
commanding officers, taking each as authority for his own force
and loss.[Footnote: As where Broke states his own force at 330,
his antagonists at 440, and the American court of inquiry makes
the numbers 396 and 379, I have taken them as being 330 and 379
respectively. This is the only just method; I take it for granted
that each commander meant to tell the truth, and of course knew
his own force, while he might very naturally and in perfect good
faith exaggerate his antagonist's.] For all the British victories
we have British official letters, which tally almost exactly, as
regards matters of _fact_ and not of _opinion_, with the corresponding
American accounts. For the first year the British also published
official accounts of their defeats, which in the cases of the
_Guerrière_, _Macedonian_ and _Frolic_, I have followed as closely
as the accounts of the American victors. The last British official
letter published announcing a defeat was that in the case of the
_Java_, and it is the only letter that I have not strictly accepted:
The fact that no more were published thereafter is of itself
unfortunate; and from the various contradictions it contains it
would appear to have been tampered with. The surgeon's report
accompanying it is certainly false. Subsequent to 1812 no letter
of a defeated British commander was published, [Footnote: Except
about the battles on the Lakes, where I have accordingly given the
same credit to the accounts both of the British and of the Americans.]
and I have to depend upon the various British historians, especially
James, of whom more anon.

The American and British historians from whom we are thus at
times forced to draw our material regard the war from very different
stand-points, and their accounts generally differ. Each writer
naturally so colored the affair as to have it appear favorable to
his own side. Sometimes this was done intentionally and sometimes
not. Not unfrequently errors are made against the historian's own
side; as when the British author, Brenton, says that the British
brig _Peacock_ mounted 32's instead of 24's, while Lossing in his
"Field-Book of the War of 1812" makes the same mistake about the
armament of the American brig _Argus_. Errors of this description
are, of course, as carefully to be guarded against as any others.
Mere hearsay reports, such as "it has been said," "a prisoner on
board the opposing fleet has observed," "an American (or British)
newspaper of such and such a date has remarked," are of course to
be rejected. There is a curious parallelism in the errors on both
sides. For example, the American, Mr. Low, writing in 1813, tells
how the _Constitution_, 44, captured the _Guerrière_ of 49 guns,
while the British Lieutenant Low, writing in 1880, tells how the
_Pelican_, 18, captured the _Argus_ of 20 guns. Each records the
truth but not the whole truth, for although rating 44 and 18 the
victors carried respectively 54 and 21 guns, of heavier metal than
those of their antagonists. Such errors are generally intentional.
Similarly, most American writers mention the actions in which the
privateers were victorious, but do not mention those in which they
were defeated; while the British, in turn, record every successful
"cutting-out" expedition, but ignore entirely those which terminated
unfavorably. Other errors arise from honest ignorance. Thus, James
in speaking of the repulse of the _Endymion's_ boats by the
_Neufchatel_ gives the latter a crew of 120 men; she had more than
this number originally, but only 40 were in her at the time of the
attack. So also when the captain of the _Pelican_ writes that the
officers of the _Argus_ report her loss at 40, when they really
reported it at 24 or when Captain Dacres thought the _Constitution_
had lost about 20 men instead of 14. The American gun-boat captains
in recounting their engagements with the British frigates invariably
greatly overestimated the loss of the latter. So that on both sides
there were some intentional misstatements or garblings, and a much
more numerous class of simple blunders, arising largely from an
incapacity for seeing more than one side of the question.

Among the early British writers upon this war, the ablest was
James. He devoted one work, his "Naval Occurrences," entirely to
it; and it occupies the largest part of the sixth volume of his more
extensive "History of the British Navy." [Footnote: A new edition,
London, 1826.] Two other British writers, Lieutenant Marshall
[Footnote: "Royal Naval Biography," by John Marshall (London,
1823-1835).] and Captain Brenton, [Footnote: "Naval History of
Great Britain," by Edward Pelham Brenton (new edition, London,
1837).] wrote histories of the same events, about the same time;
but neither of these naval officers produced half as valuable a
work as did the civilian James. Marshall wrote a dozen volumes,
each filled with several scores of dreary panegyrics, or memoirs
of as many different officers. There is no attempt at order, hardly
any thing about the ships, guns, or composition of the crews; and
not even the pretence of giving both sides, the object being to
make every Englishman appear in his best light. The work is
analogous to the numerous lives of Decatur, Bainbridge, Porter,
etc., that appeared in the United States about the same time, and
is quite as untrustworthy. Brenton made a far better and very
interesting book, written on a good and well-connected plan, and
apparently with a sincere desire to tell the truth. He accepts the
British official accounts as needing nothing whatever to supplement
them, precisely as Cooper accepts the American officials'. A more
serious fault is his inability to be accurate. That this inaccuracy
is not intentional is proved by the fact that it tells as often
against his own side as against his opponents. He says, for example,
that the guns of Perry's and Barclay's squadrons "were about equal
in number and weight," that the _Peacock_ (British) was armed with
32's instead of 24's, and underestimates the force of the second
_Wasp_. But the blunders are quite as bad when distributed as when
confined to one side; in addition, Brenton's disregard of all
details makes him of but little use.

James, as already said, is by far the most valuable authority on
the war, as regards _purely British_ affairs. He enters minutely
into details, and has evidently laboriously hunted up his authorities.
He has examined the ships' logs, the Admiralty reports, various
treatises, all the _Gazette_ reports, gives very well-chosen
extracts, has arranged his work in chronological order, discriminates
between the officers that deserve praise and those that deserve
blame, and in fact writes a work which ought to be consulted by
every student of naval affairs. But he is unfortunately afflicted
with a hatred toward the Americans that amounts to a monomania. He
wishes to make out as strong a case as possible against them. The
_animus_ of his work may be gathered from the not over complimentary
account of the education of the youthful seafaring American, which
can be found in vol. vi, p. 113, of his "History." On page 153 he
asserts that he is an "impartial historian"; and about three lines
before mentions that "it may suit the Americans to invent any
falsehood, no matter how barefaced, to foist a valiant character
on themselves." On page 419 he says that Captain Porter is to be
believed, "so far as is borne out by proof (the only safe way where
an American is concerned),"--which somewhat sweeping denunciation
of the veracity of all of Captain Porter's compatriots would seem
to indicate that James was not, perhaps, in that dispassionate
frame of mind best suited for writing history. That he should be
biassed against individual captains can be understood, but when he
makes rabid onslaughts upon the American people as a whole, he
renders it difficult for an American, at any rate, to put implicit
credence in him. His statements are all the harder to confute
when they are erroneous, because they are intentionally so. It is
not, as with Brenton and Marshall, because he really thinks a
British captain _cannot_ be beaten, except by some kind of distorted
special providence, for no man says worse things than he does about
certain officers and crews. A writer of James' undoubted ability
must have known perfectly well that his statements were untrue in
many instances, as where he garbles Hilyar's account of Porter's
loss, or misstates the comparative force of the fleets on Lake
Champlain.

When he says (p. 194) that Captain Bainbridge wished to run
away from the _Java_, and would have done so if he had not been
withheld by the advice of his first lieutenant, who was a renegade
Englishman, [Footnote: Who, by the way, was Mr. Parker, born in
Virginia, and never in England in his life.] it is not of much
consequence whether his making the statement was due to excessive
credulity or petty meanness, for, in either case, whether the
defect was in his mind or his morals, it is enough to greatly
impair the value of his other "facts." Again, when James (p. 165)
states that Decatur ran away from the _Macedonian_ until, by some
marvellous optical delusion, he mistook her for a 32, he merely
detracts a good deal from the worth of his own account. When the
Americans adopt boarding helmets, he considers it as proving
conclusively that they are suffering from an acute attack of
cowardice. On p. 122 he says that "had the _President_, when she
fell in with the _Belvidera_, been cruising alone * * * Commodore
Rodgers would have magnified the British frigate into a line-of-battle
ship, and have done his utmost to avoid her," which gives an excellent
idea of the weight to be attached to the various other anecdotes he
relates of the much-abused Commodore Rodgers.

But it must always be remembered that untrustworthy as James is in
any thing referring purely to the Americans, he is no worse than
his compeers of both nationalities. The misstatements of Niles in
his "Weekly Register" about the British are quite as flagrant, and
his information about his own side even more valuable. [Footnote:
In Niles, by the way, can be found excellent examples of the
traditional American "spread-eagle" style. In one place I remember
his describing "The Immortal Rodgers," baulked of his natural prey,
the British, as "soaring about like the bold bald eagle of his
native land," seeking whom he might devour. The accounts he gives of
British line-of-battle ships fleeing from American 44's quite match
James' anecdotes of the latter's avoidance of British 38's and 36's
for fear they might mount twenty-four-pounders. The two works taken
together give a very good idea of the war; separately, either is
utterly unreliable, especially in matters of opinion.] Every little
American author crowed over Perry's "Nelsonic victory over a greatly
superior force." The _Constitution_ was declared to have been at a
disadvantage when she fought the _Guerrière_, and so on _ad
infinitum_. But these writers have all faded into oblivion, and
their writings are not even referred to, much less believed. James,
on the contrary, has passed through edition after edition, is
considered as unquestionable authority in his own country, and
largely throughout Europe, and has furnished the basis for every
subsequent account by British authors. From Alison to Lieutenant
Low, almost every English work, whether of a popular character or
not, is, in so far as it touches on the war, simply a "rehash" of
the works written by James. The consequence is that the British
and American accounts have astonishingly little resemblance. One
ascribes the capture of the British frigates simply to the fact
that their opponents were "cut down line-of-battle ships"; the
other gives all the glory to the "undaunted heroism," etc., of
the Yankee sailors.

One not very creditable trait of the early American naval historians
gave their rivals a great advantage. The object of the former was
to make out that the _Constitution_, for example, won her victories
against an equal foe, and an exact statement of the forces showed
the contrary; so they always avoided figures, and thus left the
ground clear for James' careful misstatements. Even when they
criticised him they never went into details, confining themselves
to some remark about "hurling" his figures in his face with
"loathing." Even Cooper, interesting though his work is, has gone
far less into figures than he should, and seems to have paid little
if any attention to the British official statements, which of
course should be received as of equal weight with the American.
His comments on the actions are generally very fair, the book never
being disfigured by bitterness toward the British; but he is
certainly wrong, for example, in ascribing the loss of the
_Chesapeake_ solely to accident, that of the _Argus_ solely to her
inferiority in force, and so on. His disposition to praise _all_
the American commanders may be generous, but is nevertheless unjust.
If Decatur's surrender of the _President_ is at least impliedly
praised, then Porter's defence of the _Essex_ can hardly receive
its just award. There is no weight in the commendation bestowed
upon Hull, if commendation, the same in kind though less in degree,
is bestowed upon Rodgers. It is a great pity that Cooper did not
write a criticism on James, for no one could have done it more
thoroughly. But he never mentions him, except once in speaking of
Barclay's fleet. In all probability this silence arose from sheer
contempt, and the certainty that most of James' remarks were false;
but the effect was that very many foreigners believe him to have
shirked the subject. He rarely gives any data by which the statements
of James can be disproved, and it is for this reason that I have
been obliged to criticise the latter's work very fully. Many of
James' remarks, however, defy criticism from their random nature,
as when he states that American midshipmen were chiefly masters and
mates of merchantmen, and does not give a single proof to support
the assertion. It would be nearly as true to assert that the
British midshipmen were for the most part ex-members of the
prize-ring, and as much labor would be needed to disprove it. In
other instances it is quite enough to let his words speak for
themselves, as where he says (p. 155) that of the American sailors
one third in number and one half in point of effectiveness were in
reality British. That is, of the 450 men the _Constitution_ had when
she fought the _Java_ 150 were British, and the remaining 300 could
have been as effectively replaced by 150 more British. So a very
little logic works out a result that James certainly did not intend
to arrive at; namely, that 300 British led by American officers
could beat, with ease and comparative impunity, 400 British led by
their own officers. He also forgets that the whole consists of the
sum of the parts. He accounts for the victories of the Americans
by stating (p. 280) that they were lucky enough to meet with frigates
and brigs who had unskilful gunners or worthless crews; he also
carefully shows that the _Macedonian_ was incompetently handled,
the _Peacock_ commanded by a mere martinet, the _Avon's_ crew
unpractised weak and unskilful, the _Java's_ exceedingly poor, and
more to the same effect. Now the Americans took in single fight
three frigates and seven sloops, and when as many as ten vessels
are met it is exceedingly probable that they represent the fair
average; so that James' strictures, so far as true, simply show
that the average British ship was very apt to possess, comparatively
speaking, an incompetent captain or unskilful crew. These
disadvantages were not felt when opposed to navies in which they
existed to an even greater extent, but became very apparent when
brought into contact with a power whose few officers knew how to
play their own parts very nearly to perfection, and, something
equally important, knew how to make first-rate crews out of what
was already good raw material. Finally, a large proportion of
James' abuse of the Americans sufficiently refutes itself, and
perhaps Cooper's method of contemptuously disregarding him was the
best; but no harm can follow from devoting a little space to
commenting upon him.

Much the best American work is Lieutenant George E. Emmons'
statistical "History of the United States Navy." Unfortunately it
is merely a mass of excellently arranged and classified statistics,
and while of invaluable importance to the student, is not interesting
to the average reader. Almost all the statements I have made of
the force, tonnage, and armament of the American vessels, though
I have whenever practicable taken them from the Navy Records, etc.,
yet could be just as well quoted from Emmons. Copies of most of
the American official letters which I have quoted can be found in
"Niles' Register," volumes 1 to 10, and all of the British ones in
the "London Naval Chronicle" for the same years. It is to these two
authorities that I am most indebted, and nearly as much so to the
"American State Papers," vol. xiv. Next in order come Emmons,
Cooper, and the invaluable, albeit somewhat scurrilous, James; and
a great many others whose names I have quoted in their proper
places. In commenting upon the actions, I have, whenever possible,
drawn from some standard work, such as Jurien de la Gravière's
"Guerres Maritimes," Lord Howard Douglass' "Naval Gunnery,"
or, better still, from the lives and memoirs of Admirals Farragut,
Codrington, Broke, or Durham. The titles of the various works will
be found given in full as they are referred to. [Footnote: To get
an idea of the American seamen of that time Cooper's novels,
"Miles Wallingford," "Home as Found," and the "Pilot," are far
better than any history; in the "Two Admirals" the description of
the fleet manoeuvring is unrivalled. His view of Jack's life is
rather rose-colored however. "Tom Cringle's log" ought to be read
for the information it gives. Marryatt's novels will show some of
the darker aspects of sailor life.] In a few cases, where extreme
accuracy was necessary, or where, as in the case of the _President's_
capture, it was desirable that there should be no room for dispute
as to the facts, I have given the authority for each sentence; but
in general this would be too cumbersome, and so I have confined
myself to referring, at or near the beginning of the account of
each action, to the authorities from whom I have taken it. For the
less important facts on which every one is agreed I have often given
no references.

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