Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812. Volume 1

While in New York, Chauncey's preparations had not been limited to what could be done there. By communication with Elliott and Woolsey, he had informed himself well as to conditions, and had initiated the purchase and equipment of lake craft, chiefly schooners of from forty to eighty tons, which were fitted to carry one or two heavy guns; the weight of battery being determined partly by their capacity to bear it, and partly by the guns on hand. Elliott's report concerning Lake Erie led to his being diverted, at his own suggestion, to the mouth of the Genesee and to Oswego, to equip four schooners lying there; for arming which cannon before destined to Buffalo were likewise turned aside to those points. When Chauncey reached Sackett's, he found there also five schooners belonging mainly to the St. Lawrence trade, which had been bought under his directions by Woolsey. There was thus already a very fair beginning of a naval force; the only remaining apprehension being that, "from the badness of the roads and the lowness of the water in the Mohawk, the guns and stores will not arrive in time for us to do anything decisive against the enemy this fall."⁴⁷¹ Should they arrive soon enough, he hoped to seek the British in their own waters by November. Besides these extemporized expedients, two ships of twenty-four guns were under construction at Sackett's, and two brigs of twenty, with three gunboats, were ordered on Lake Erie—all to be ready for service in the spring, their batteries to be sent on when the snow made it feasible.

After some disappointing detention, the waters of the inlet and outlet of Lake Oneida rose sufficiently to enable guns to reach Oswego, whence they were safely conveyed to Sackett's. On November 2 the report of a hostile cruiser in the neighborhood, and fears of her interfering with parts of the armaments still in transit, led Chauncey to go out with the "Oneida," the only vessel yet ready, to cut off the return of the stranger to Kingston. On this occasion he saw three of the enemy's squadron, which, though superior in force, took no notice of him. This slackness to improve an evident opportunity may reasonably be ascribed to the fact that as yet the British vessels on the lakes were not in charge of officers of the Royal Navy, but of a force purely provincial and irregular. Returning to Sackett's, Chauncey again sailed, on the evening of November 6, with the "Oneida" and six armed schooners. On the 8th he fell in with a single British vessel, the "Royal George," of twenty-one guns, which retreated that night into Kingston. The Americans followed some distance into the harbor on the 9th, and engaged both the ship and the works; but the breeze blowing straight in, and becoming heavy, made it imprudent longer to expose the squadron to the loss of spars, under the fire of shore guns, when retreat had to be effected against the wind. Beating out, a British armed schooner was sighted coming in from the westward; but after some exchange of shots, she also, though closely pressed, escaped by her better local knowledge, and gained the protection of the port. The squadron returned to Sackett's, taking with it two lake vessels as prizes, and having destroyed a third—all three possible resources for the enemy.⁴⁷²

Nothing decisive resulted from this outing, but it fairly opened the campaign for the control of the lakes, and served to temper officers and men for the kind of task before them. It gave also some experience as to the strength of the works at Kingston, which exceeded Chauncey's anticipations, and seems afterward to have exerted influence upon his views of the situation; but at present he announced his intention, if supported by a military force, to attack the enemy's vessels at their anchorage. Although several shot had been seen to strike, Chauncey himself entertained no doubt that all their damages could readily be repaired, and that they would put out again, if only to join their force to that already in Toronto. Still, on November 13, he reported his certainty that he controlled the water, an assurance renewed on the 17th; adding that he had taken on board military stores, with which he would sail on the first fair wind for Niagara River, and that he was prepared to effect transportation to any part of the lake, regardless of the enemy, but not of the weather. The last reservation was timely, for, sailing two days later, the vessels were driven back, one schooner being dismasted. As navigation on Erie opened usually much later than that upon Ontario, there was reasonable certainty that stores could reach the upper lake before they were needed in the spring, and the attempt was postponed till then. Meantime, however, four of the schooners were kept cruising off Kingston, to prevent intercourse between it and the other ports.⁴⁷³

On December 1 Chauncey wrote that it was no longer safe to navigate the lake, and that he would soon lay up the vessels. He ascertained subsequently that the recent action of the squadron had compelled troops for Toronto to march by land, from Kingston, and had prevented the transport of needed supplies to Fort George, thus justifying his conviction of control established over the water communications. A few days before he had had the satisfaction of announcing the launch, on November 26, of the "Madison," a new ship of the corvette type, of 590 tons, one third larger than the ocean cruisers "Wasp" and "Hornet," of the same class, and with proportionately heavy armament; she carrying twenty-four 32-pounder carronades, and they sixteen to eighteen of the like weight. "She was built," added Chauncey, "in the short time of forty-five days; and nine weeks ago the timber that she is composed of was growing in the forest."⁴⁷⁴ It seems scarcely necessary to point the moral, which he naturally did not draw for the edification of his superiors in the Administration, that a like energy displayed on Lake Erie, when war was contemplated, would have placed Hull's enterprise on the same level of security that was obtained for his successor by Perry's victory a year later, and at much less cost.

With the laying up of the fleet on the lakes operations on the northern frontier closed, except in the far West, where General Harrison succeeded to the command after Hull's capitulation. The loss of Detroit had thrown the American front of operations back upon the Maumee; nor would that, perhaps, have been tenable, had conditions in Upper Canada permitted Brock to remain with the most of his force through August and September. As it was, just apprehension for the Niagara line compelled his return thither; and the same considerations that decided the place of the Commander-in-Chief, dictated also that of the mass of his troops. The command at Detroit and Malden was left to Colonel Procter, whose position was defensively secured by naval means; the ship "Queen Charlotte" and brig "Hunter" maintaining local control of the water. He was, however, forbidden to attempt operations distinctively offensive. "It must be explicitly understood," wrote Brock to him, "that you are not to resort to offensive warfare for the purposes of conquest. Your operations are to be confined to measures of defence and security."⁴⁷⁵ Among these, however, Brock included, by direct mention, undertakings intended to destroy betimes threatening gatherings of men or of stores; but such action was merely to secure the British positions, on the principle, already noted, that offence is the best defence. How far these restrictions represent Brock's own wishes, or reflect simply the known views of Sir George Prevost, the Governor General, is difficult to say. Brock's last letter to Procter, written within a week of his death, directed that the enemy should be kept in a state of constant ferment. It seems probable, however, that Procter's force was not such as to warrant movement with a view to permanent occupation beyond Detroit, the more so as the roads were usually very bad; but any effort on the part of the Americans to establish posts on the Maumee, or along the lake, must be promptly checked, if possible, lest these should form bases whence to march in force upon Detroit or Malden, when winter had hardened the face of the ground.⁴⁷⁶

The purpose of the Americans being to recover Detroit, and then to renew Hull's invasion, their immediate aim was to establish their line as far to the front as it could for the moment be successfully maintained. The Maumee was such a line, and the one naturally indicated as the advanced base of supplies upon which any forward movement by land must rest. The obstacle to its tenure, when summer was past and autumn rains had begun, was a great swamp, known locally as the Black Swamp, some forty miles wide, stretching from the Sandusky River on the east to the Indiana line on the west, and therefore impeding the direct approach from the south to the Maumee. Through this Hull had forced his way in June, building a road as he went; but by the time troops had assembled in the autumn progress here proved wholly impossible.

On account of the difficulties of transportation, Harrison divided his force into three columns, the supplies of each of which in a new country could be more readily sustained than those of the whole body, if united; in fact, the exigencies of supply in the case of large armies, even in well-settled countries, enforce "dissemination in order to live," as Napoleon expressed it. It is of the essence of such dissemination that the several divisions shall be near enough to support each other if there be danger of attack; but in the case of Harrison, although his dispositions have been severely censured on this score, south of the Maumee no such danger existed to a degree which could not be safely disregarded. The centre column, therefore, was to advance over the road opened by Hull; the right by the east of the Sandusky River to its mouth on Lake Erie, east of the swamp, whence it could move to the Maumee; while the left, and the one most exposed, from its nearness to the Indian country, was to proceed by the Auglaize River, a tributary of the Maumee navigable for boats of light draught, to Fort Defiance, at the junction of the two streams. Had this plan been carried out, the army would have held a line from Fort Defiance to the Rapids of the Maumee, a distance of about forty miles, on which fortified depots could be established prior to further operations; and there would have been to it three chains of supply, corresponding to the roads used by the divisions in their march. Fort Defiance, with a work at the Rapids, afterward built and called Fort Meigs, would sustain the line proper; while a subsidiary post, subsequently known as Fort Stephenson, on the Lower Sandusky, was essential to the defence of that road as it approached the lake, and thence westward, where it skirted the lake shore, and was in measure open to raids from the water. The western line of supplies, being liable to attack from the neighboring Indians, was further strengthened by works adequate to repel savages.

Fort Defiance on the left was occupied by October 22, and toward the middle of December some fifteen hundred men had assembled on the right, on the Sandusky, Upper and Lower; but the centre column could not get through, and the attempt to push on supplies by that route seems to have been persisted in beyond the limits of reasonable perseverance. Under these conditions, Harrison established his headquarters at Upper Sandusky about December 20, sending word to General Winchester, commanding at Defiance, to descend the Maumee to the Rapids, and there to prepare sleds for a dash against Malden across the lake, when frozen. This was the substitution, under the constraint of circumstances, of a sudden blow in place of regulated advance; for it abandoned, momentarily at least, the plan of establishing a permanent line. Winchester moved as directed, reaching the Rapids January 10, 1813, and fixing himself in position with thirteen hundred men on the north bank, opposite Hull's road. Early in the month the swamp froze over, and quantities of supplies were hurried forward. The total disposable force now under Harrison's command is given as sixty-three hundred.

Preparations and concentration had progressed thus far, when an impulsive outburst of sympathy evoked a singularly inconsiderate and rash movement on the part of the division on the Maumee, the commander of which seems to have been rather under the influence of his troops than in control of them. Word was brought to the camp that the American settlement of Frenchtown, beyond the River Raisin, thirty miles away toward Detroit, and now within British control, was threatened with burning by Indians. A council of war decided that relief should be attempted, and six hundred and sixty men started on the morning of January 17. They dispossessed the enemy and established themselves in the town, though with severe losses. Learning their success, Winchester himself went to the place on the 19th, followed closely by a re-enforcement of two-hundred and fifty. More than half his command was now thirty miles away from the position assigned it, without other base of retreat or support than the remnant left at the Rapids. In this situation a superior force of British and Indians under Procter crossed the lake on the ice and attacked the party thus rashly advanced to Frenchtown, which was compelled to surrender by 8 A.M. of January 22.

MAP OF LAKE FRONTIER TO ILLUSTRATE CAMPAIGNS OF 1812-1814

Winchester had notified Harrison of his proposed action, but not in such time as to permit it to be countermanded. Receiving the news on the morning of January 19, Harrison at once recognized the hazardous nature of the step, and ordered forward troops from Upper and Lower Sandusky; proceeding himself to the latter place, and thence to the Rapids, which he reached early on the 20th, ahead of the re-enforcements. There was nothing to do but await developments until the men from Sandusky arrived. At noon of the 22d he received intelligence of the surrender, and saw that, through the imprudence of his subordinate, his project of crossing the ice to attack the enemy had been crushed by Procter, who had practically annihilated one of his principal divisions, beating it in detail.

The loss of so large a part of the force upon which he had counted, and the spread of sickness among the remainder, arrested Harrison's projects of offensive action. The Maumee even was abandoned for a few days, the army falling back to Portage River, toward the Sandusky. It soon, however, returned to the Rapids, and there Fort Meigs was built, which in the sequel proved sufficient to hold the position against Procter's attack. The army of the Northwest from that time remained purely on the defensive until the following September, when Perry's victory, assuring the control of the lake, enabled it to march secure of its communications.

Whatever chance of success may attend such a dash as that against Malden, planned by Harrison in December, or open to Hull in August, the undertaking is essentially outside the ordinary rules of warfare, and to be justified only by the special circumstances of the case, together with the possibility of securing the results obtained. Frenchtown, as a particular enterprise, illustrates in some measure the case of Malden. It was victoriously possessed, but under conditions which made its tenure more than doubtful, and the loss of the expeditionary corps more than probable. Furthermore, if held, it conferred no advantage. The position was less defensible than the Maumee, more exposed because nearer the enemy, more difficult to maintain because the communications were thirty miles longer, and, finally, it controlled nothing. The name of occupation, applied to it, was a mere misnomer, disguising a sham. Malden, on the contrary, if effectually held, would confer a great benefit; for in the hands of an enemy it menaced the communications of Detroit, and if coupled with command of the water, as was the case, it controlled them, as Hull found to his ruin. To gain it, therefore, justified a good deal of risk; yet if seized, unless control of the water were also soon established, it would, as compared with Detroit, entail upon the Americans the additional disadvantage that Frenchtown incurred over the Maumee,—an increase of exposure, because of longer and more exposed lines of communication. Though Malden was valuable to the British as a local base, with all the benefits of nearness, it was not the only one they possessed on the lakes. The loss of it, therefore, so long as they possessed decided superiority in armed shipping, though a great inconvenience, would not be a positive disability. With the small tonnage they had on the lake, however, it would have become extremely difficult, if not impossible, to transport and maintain a force sufficient seriously to interrupt the road from the Maumee, upon which Detroit depended.

In short, in all ordinary warfare, and in most that is extraordinary and seems outside the rules, one principle is sure to enforce itself with startling emphasis, if momentarily lost to sight or forgotten, and that is the need of secured communications. A military body, land or sea, may abandon its communications for a brief period, strictly limited, expecting soon to restore them at the same or some other point, just as a caravan can start across the desert with food and water which will last until another base is reached. There is no surrender of certainty in such a case; but a body of troops thrown into a position where it has no security of receiving supplies, incurs a risk that needs justification, and can receive it only from special circumstances. No position within striking distance of the lake shore was permanently secure unless supported by naval power; because all that is implied by the term "communications"—facility for transporting troops, supplies, and ammunition, rapidity of movement from point to point, central position and interior lines—all depended upon the control of the water, from Mackinac to the rapids of the St. Lawrence.

This truth, announced before the war by Hull and Armstrong, as well as by Harrison somewhat later, and sufficiently obvious to any thoughtful man, was recognized in act by Harrison and the Government after the Frenchtown disaster. The general was not responsible for the blunder of his subordinate, nor am I able to see that his general plans for a land campaign, considered independent of the water, lacked either insight, judgment, or energy. He unquestionably made very rash calculations, and indulged in wildly sanguine assurances of success; but this was probably inevitable in the atmosphere in which he had to work. The obstacles to be overcome were so enormous, the people and the Government, militarily, so ignorant and incapable, that it was scarcely possible to move efficiently without adopting, or seeming to adopt, the popular spirit and conviction. Facts had now asserted themselves through the unpleasant medium of experience, and henceforth it was tacitly accepted that nothing could be done except to stand on the defensive, until the navy of Lake Erie, as yet unbuilt, could exert its power. Until that day came, even the defensive positions taken were rudely shaken by Procter, a far from efficient officer, but possessed still of the power of the lakes, and following, though over-feebly, the spirit of Brock's instructions, to attack the enemy's posts and keep things in a ferment.

With the Frenchtown affair hostilities on the Canada frontier ceased until the following April; but the winter months were not therefore passed in inactivity. Chauncey, after laying up his ships at Sackett's Harbor, and representing to the Government the danger to them and to the navy yard, now that frost had extended over the waters the solidity of the ground, enabling the enemy to cross at will, departed to visit his hitherto neglected command on Lake Erie. He had already seen cause to be dissatisfied with Elliott's choice of a navy yard, known usually by the name Black Rock, a quarter of a mile above Squaw Island. The hostile shores were here so close together that even musketry could be exchanged; and Elliott, when reporting his decision, said "the river is so narrow that the soldiers are shooting at each other across." There was the further difficulty that, to reach the open lake, the vessels would have to go three miles against a current that ran four knots an hour, and much of the way within point-blank range of the enemy. Nevertheless, after examining all situations on Lake Erie, Elliott had reported that none other would answer the purpose; "those that have shelters have not sufficient water, and those with water cannot be defended from the enemy and the violence of the weather."⁴⁷⁷ Here he had collected materials and gathered six tiny vessels; the largest a brig of ninety tons, the others schooners of from forty to eighty. These he began to equip and alter about the middle of October, upon the arrival of the carpenters sent by Chauncey; but the British kept up such a fire of shot and shell that the carpenters quitted their work and returned to New York, leaving the vessels with their decks and sides torn up.⁴⁷⁸

They were still in this condition when Chauncey came, toward the end of December; and although then hauled into a creek behind Squaw Island, out of range, there were no workmen to complete them. He passed on to Presqu'Isle, now Erie, on the Pennsylvania shore, and found it in every way eligible as a port, except that there were but four or five feet of water on the bar. Vessels of war within could reach the lake only by being lightened of their guns and stores, a condition impracticable in the presence of a hostile squadron; but the local advantages were much superior to those at Black Rock, and while it could be hoped that a lucky opportunity might insure the absence of the enemy's vessels, the enemy's guns on the Niagara shore were fixtures, unless the American army took possession of them. Between these various considerations Chauncey decided to shift the naval base from Black Rock to Erie; and he there assembled the materials for the two brigs, of three hundred tons each, which formed the backbone of Perry's squadron nine months later.⁴⁷⁹ For supplies Erie depended upon Philadelphia and Pittsburg, there being from the latter place water communication by the Alleghany River, and its tributary the French River, to within fifteen miles, whence the transportation was by good road. Except timber, which grew upon the spot, the materials—iron, cordage, provisions, and guns—came mainly by this route from Pennsylvania; a number of guns, however, being sent from Washington. By these arrangements the resources of New York, relieved of Lake Erie, were concentrated upon Lakes Ontario and Champlain.

Chauncey further provided for the defence of Black Rock by its own resources against sudden attack; the army, except a local force of three hundred men, having gone into winter quarters ten miles back from the Niagara. He then returned to Sackett's Harbor January 19, where he found preparations for protection even less satisfactory than upon Lake Erie,⁴⁸⁰ although the stake was far greater; for it may safely be said that the fall of either Kingston or Sackett's would have decided the fate of Lake Ontario and of Upper Canada, at once and definitively. It had now become evident that, in order to decide superiority on the water, there was to be between these neighboring and hostile stations the race of ship-building, which became and continued the most marked feature of the war on this lake. Chauncey felt the increasing necessity thus entailed for his presence on the scene. He was proportionately relieved by receiving at this time an application from Commander Oliver H. Perry to serve under him on the lakes, and immediately, on January 21, applied for his orders, stating that he could "be employed to great advantage, particularly on Lake Erie, where I shall not be able to go so early as I expected, owing to the increasing force of the enemy on this lake." This marks the official beginning of Perry's entrance upon the duty in which he won a distinction that his less fortunate superior failed to achieve. At this time, however, Chauncey hoped to attain such superiority by the opening of spring, and to receive such support from the army, as to capture Kingston by a joint operation, the plan for which he submitted to the Department. That accomplished, he would be able to transfer to Lake Erie the force of men needed to destroy the enemy's fleet there.⁴⁸¹ This expectation was not fulfilled, and Perry remained in practically independent command upon the upper lakes.

The season of 1812 may be said, therefore, to have closed with the American squadron upon Lake Ontario concentrated in Sackett's Harbor, where also two new and relatively powerful ships were building. Upon Lake Erie the force was divided between Black Rock, where Elliott's flotilla lay, and Erie, where the two brigs were laid down, and four other gunboats building. The concentration of these two bodies could be effected only by first taking possession of the British side of the Niagara River. This done, and the Black Rock vessels thus released, there still remained the bar at Erie to pass. The British force on Ontario was likewise divided, between Toronto and Kingston, the vessels afloat being at the latter. Neither place, however, was under such fetters as Black Rock, and the two divisions might very possibly be assembled despite the hostile fleet. On the upper lake their navy was at Amherstburg, where also was building a ship, inferior in force, despite her rig, to either of the brigs ordered by Chauncey at Erie. The difficulties of obtaining supplies, mechanics, and seamen, in that then remote region, imposed great hindrances upon the general British preparations. There nevertheless remained in their hands, at the opening of the campaign, the great advantages over the Americans—first, of the separation of the latter's divisions, enforced by the British holding the bank of the Niagara; and secondly, of the almost insuperable difficulty of crossing the Erie bar unarmed, if the enemy's fleet kept in position near it. That the British failed to sustain these original advantages condemns their management, and is far more a matter of military criticism than the relative power of the two squadrons in the battle of September 10. The principal business of each commander was to be stronger than the enemy when they met. That the American accomplished this, despite serious obstacles, first by concentrating his force, and second by crossing the bar unimpeded, so that when he encountered his opponent he was in decisively superior force, is as distinctly to his credit as it would have been distinctly to his discredit had the odds been reversed by any fault of his. Perry by diligent efficiency overcame his difficulties, combined his divisions, gained the lake, and, by commanding it, so cut off his enemy's supplies that he compelled him to come out, and fight, and be destroyed. To compare the force of the two may be a matter of curious interest; but for the purpose of making comparisons of desert between them it is a mere waste of ink, important only to those who conceive the chief end of war to be fighting, and not victory.

The disaster at Frenchtown, with the consequent abandonment of all project of forward movement by the Army of the Northwest, may be regarded as the definite termination of the land campaign of 1812. Before resuming the account of the ocean operations of the same period, it is expedient here to give a summary of European conditions at the same time, for these markedly affected the policy of the British Government towards the United States, even after war had been formally declared.

The British Orders in Council of 1807, modified in 1809 in scope, though not in principle, had been for a long while the grievance chiefly insisted upon by the United States. Against them mainly was directed, by Jefferson and Madison, the system of commercial restrictions which it was believed would compel their repeal. Consequently, when the British Government had abolished the obnoxious Orders, on June 23, 1812, with reservations probably admissible by the United States, it was unwilling to believe that war could still not be avoided; nor that, even if begun in ignorance of the repeal, it could not be stopped without further concession. Till near the end of the year 1812 its measures were governed by this expectation, powerfully re-enforced by momentous considerations of European events, the effect of which upon the United States requires that they be stated.

In June, 1812, European politics were reaching a crisis, the issue of which could not then be forecast. War had begun between Napoleon and Russia; and on June 24 the Emperor, crossing the Niemen, invaded the dominion of the Czar. Great Britain, already nine years at war with France, had just succeeded in detaching Russia from her enemy, and ranging her on her own side. The accession of Sweden to this alliance conferred complete control of the Baltic, thus releasing a huge British fleet hitherto maintained there, and opening an important trade, debarred to Great Britain in great measure for four years past. But on the other hand, Napoleon still, as during all this recent period, controlled the Continent from the Pyrenees to the Vistula, carrying its hosts forward against Russia, and closing its ports to British commerce to the depressing injury of British finance. A young Canadian, then in England, in close contact with London business life, wrote to his home at this period: "There is a general stagnation of commerce, all entrance to Europe being completely shut up. There was never a time known to compare with the present, nearly all foreign traders becoming bankrupt, or reduced to one tenth of their former trade. Merchants, who once kept ten or fifteen clerks, have now but two or three; thousands of half-starved discharged clerks are skulking about the streets. Customhouse duties are reduced upwards of one half. Of such dread power are Bonaparte's decrees, which have of late been enforced in the strictest manner all over the Continent, that it has almost ruined the commerce of England."⁴⁸²