1812: The Navy's War

by George Daughan

  The president did not agree. He was determined to invade Canada, and he believed supremacy on Lake Ontario was necessary to do it. He ordered Commodore Chauncey to build two 94-gun battleships and an additional 44-gun heavy frigate during the winter to compete with Yeo’s 104-gun ship of the line, which had seized control of Lake Ontario in the middle of October.

  Madison was more likely to get support from Congress for strengthening the navy than he was for the army. Federalists consistently supported a strong fleet. On November 16, Congress gave the president a small amount for the navy, appropriating $600,000 to build twenty 16-gun sloops of war to be added to the seventy-fours and frigates already under construction.

  The emphasis on the sloops was something Jones approved of. Even so, he unexpectedly resigned on December 1. He had submitted his resignation back in April but had stayed on at the president’s request. Although it was a critical time in the war, and the country needed experienced leaders at the helm, Jones maintained that his personal finances forced him to retire. Madison was not happy with the secretary’s decision. Despite Jones’s denials, their fundamental disagreement over whether to invade Canada played a part in his resignation. And so too did the monumental annoyance Jones felt at not having funds even to pay ordinary bills such as salaries and wages at the department. Dealing with Congress had worn him down.

  Madison found it difficult to replace Jones. His successor, Benjamin William Crowninshield, did not come aboard until January 16, 1815, and even he was not eager for the job. Crowninshield came from a prominent Salem merchant family. They were Republicans and had supported Jefferson’s embargo, which nearly killed their business, but they had prospered as privateers during the war. When Jones left in December, Benjamin Homans, the chief clerk of the navy, ran the department until Crowninshield arrived. Homans and the new secretary, both Massachusetts Republicans, hit it off well.

  Before leaving, Jones recommended an important naval reorganization. To help relieve the administrative burden on the secretary, he proposed the creation of a board of commissioners to consist of three post captains attached to the office of the secretary and under his supervision. The commissioners would superintend the procurement of naval stores and materials and the construction, armament, equipment, and employment of vessels of war, as well as all other matters connected with the naval establishment of the United States. The secretary of the navy would continue, as before, to direct and control the country’s naval forces. On February 7, 1815, President Madison signed the legislation approving creation of the board of commissioners.

  DISPATCHES FROM GHENT for the period August 19 to October 31, 1814, arrived in Washington in early December and were published. They indicated a softening of British demands when they proposed uti possidetis as the basis for an agreement . Federalists were eager to accept British terms. Many Republican congressmen thought peace was near, but Madison would never accept a treaty that conceded any American territory. So as far as the president was concerned, the dispatches offered no hope that the war would end soon.

  New England Federalists were particularly upset that Madison planned to continue the war indefinitely. Grievances they had felt all during the war came to a head in the fall of 1814, when the British occupied northern Maine, tightened their blockade along the coast, burned Washington, and raided coastal towns with impunity. The Federalists were furious that while Madison had concentrated on invading Canada, he had left the coasts exposed and vulnerable. Instead of squandering money on invading Canada, they thought Madison should have spent it defending the coast and strengthening the navy. And Madison’s embargoes, they contended, had annihilated the source of New England’s prosperity, her commerce. The Federalists felt they were paying for a war they despised and that was bringing unnecessary ruin on them without any support from Washington. Extreme Federalists like Timothy Pickering wanted to secede and make a separate peace. Governor Strong of Massachusetts had gone so far as to send a representative to Nova Scotia to explore the possibility with Sir John Sherbrooke.

  Pickering and Strong were in the minority, however. Most New England Federalists did not want to go so far as seceding from the Union, but they were unhappy enough to call, as they had in the past, for a convention of the New England states to articulate their grievances. Urged on by radicals all over the state, the Massachusetts legislature began the movement toward a convention in Hartford on October 1, 1814, to air their complaints and possibly to advocate a course of action. Some thought they might call for secession, others that they would simply talk and issue a meaningless statement. Speculation was rife. Madison and Secretary of War Monroe took the threat from the secessionists seriously, and they kept a close eye on developments.

  On October 5, Governor Strong of Massachusetts convened a special session of the legislature for the purpose of considering what the Commonwealth should do in the face of the dire circumstances the country faced and the demonstrated inadequacy of the Madison administration to deal with it. Harrison Gray Otis became chairman of a joint committee to consider what was to be done. Gray reported in three days. He called for a New England convention to address a number of constitutional issues, particularly those related to defense.

  To counteract the extreme Federalists, Massachusetts Republicans, led by former secretary of war William Eustis, met in Boston on October 19 to condemn British aggression and the Hartford Convention. Eustis called instead for unity. He pointed out that any move to separate states from the union would “inevitably” result in a civil war. He made it plain that there would be no separation of New England, or any part of it, from the United States that would not result in a bloody fight, in which the federal government would intervene on the side of Republicans. The calls for New England independence, thus, were calls for civil war. Eustis’s blunt warning was heard by more sober Federalists like Otis and Cabot and undoubtedly influenced their thinking, whether they admitted it or not. They were aware that a large number of New England citizens were Republicans; Eustis was not making an idle threat.

  Madison was concerned about how far the disgruntled Federalists might go and how many people would support them. The Federalists had done well in recent elections. He had no intention of letting New England secede without a fight, and despite the recent elections, he knew that New England had a strong contingent of Republicans who would support him. All of this meant that if the Federalists pressed the issue, they were inviting disaster. Governor Strong’s notion of a separate peace was a pipe dream. Any move in that direction would ignite a tragic civil war.

  Secretary of War Monroe prepared for the worst, as he had to. He was also preparing, as Madison wished, a plan to expel the British from Maine. Monroe ordered units of the army to Greenbush outside Albany and sent Colonel Thomas Jessup to Hartford to assess what was happening.

  The Hartford Convention convened on December 15. Twenty-six delegates attended. They had been chosen by the legislatures of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island; by the New Hampshire counties of Grafton and Cheshire; and by the county of Windham in Vermont. George Cabot of Massachusetts was chosen president and Theodore Dwight of Connecticut secretary. Leaders like Otis and Cabot excluded Federalist firebrands from the meeting. Otis and Cabot did not want to secede from the Union, nor did any other delegate. They wanted to express grievances and threaten future, more radical conventions, but they also wanted to preserve the Union.

  The convention lasted three weeks, from December 15 to January 5. As befitted a group who fancied that because of their wealth, education, and virtue, they were wiser than other citizens, their meetings were held in secret. On January 6 the convention issued a report for the public. It announced that the delegates were commissioned to devise means for defense against “dangers” and to obtain relief from “oppressions proceeding from acts of their own government, without violating constitutional principles or disappointing the hopes of a suffering and injured people.”

  Theodore Dwight wrote many years late
r that “the expectation of those who apprehended the report would contain sentiments of a seditious, if not a treasonable character, were entirely disappointed.... Equally free was it from advancing doctrines which had a tendency to destroy the union of the states. On the contrary, it breathed an ardent attachment to the integrity of the republic. Its temper was mild, its tone moderate, and its sentiments were liberal and patriotic.”

  Looking at the report, it was hard to disagree with Dwight. Defense matters had occupied most of the convention’s time. The report stressed that state militias could only be called into national service to execute laws, suppress insurrection, or repel foreign invasion, not to invade another country. In fact, the report contended that the whole notion of offensive war was unconstitutional. It went on to insist that states must control their militias and appoint their officers, not the federal government. It maintained that a forcible draft, or conscription, was unconstitutional, as was the impressment of seamen. And the enlistment of minors and apprentices without consent of parents or guardians (as Monroe had proposed) was likewise unconstitutional. The report maintained that a state must interpose its authority to protect its citizens. It must also defend itself if the federal government cannot or will not do so. If the states were forced to provide for their defense, Congress should agree to refund a portion of their taxes paid to the federal government to defray the costs.

  The report then proposed seven amendments to the Constitution. The first would eliminate the provision that counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of determining the number of members of Congress from each state, direct taxes, and presidential electors. The second would require a two-thirds vote of Congress for the admittance of a new state into the Union. Third, embargoes would be limited to sixty days. Fourth, a two-thirds vote would be required to pass a non-intercourse law. Fifth, a two-thirds vote would be required to declare war. Sixth, a naturalized citizen would not be eligible for federal office, either elected or appointed. And seventh, the president would be limited to one term, and his successor could not be from the same state.

  Before adjourning, the delegates empowered Cabot and two others to call the convention back into session. It was obvious that, for the moment, moderation had triumphed. If the hated war continued, however, more radical measures would undoubtedly be called for and another convention held.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  New Orleans

  IN THE WINTER and spring of 1814, when Liverpool and his colleagues were planning to invade New Orleans, they viewed it as a first step to acquiring the entire Louisiana Territory, including West Florida, and eventually linking up with Canada and the newly acquired base at Astoria on the Pacific coast. Admiral Cochrane and Major General Ross were to direct the invasion, using the same dual-command structure they employed in Chesapeake Bay. Operational details were left to them. As time passed and the exuberance in London following Napoleon’s abdication faded, the planned invasion of New Orleans remained, but what Liverpool intended to do afterward, assuming his army was successful, became nebulous.

  From the moment Admiral Cochrane arrived on the North American Station in March 1814, he worked on the plan for New Orleans. On June 20, he sent a proposal for the invasion to the Admiralty. He thought he would need a relatively small number of regulars to take the city, given the help he expected from Indians, escaped slaves, and perhaps John Lafitte’s Baratarian pirates. Liverpool supported Cochrane’s approach, although the prime minister planned to send far more troops than the 3,000 Cochrane requested.

  Liverpool and Bathurst expected Cochrane’s amphibious forces to assemble at Negril Bay on the west coast of Jamaica no later than November 20. Cochrane and Ross were to depart for the island as soon as operations in Chesapeake Bay were completed. Bathurst sent Ross orders on July 30 and August 10, and the Admiralty dispatched Cochrane’s orders on August 10.

  When General Ross was killed during the fighting at Baltimore in September, Bathurst—after rejecting the idea of replacing him with Lieutenant General Lord Hill, Wellington’s second in command—ordered Sir Edward Pakenham, Wellington’s adjutant general and his brother-in-law, to lead the land army at New Orleans. Until Pakenham arrived, however, Cochrane was in command of the entire operation, and he had high expectations for its success. The potential fortune he would derive from the city’s overstuffed warehouses heightened his interest.

  The first thing Cochrane attended to was organizing more Indian resistance in the south. On March 14, 1814, he ordered Captain Hugh Pigot to load the frigate Orpheus with arms for the Creeks and other tribes. Bathurst wrote to General Ross that by “supporting the Indian tribes situated on the confines of Florida, and in the back parts of Georgia, it would be easy to reduce New Orleans, and to distress the enemy very seriously in the neighboring provinces.”

  Pigot sailed south in company with the schooner Shelburne, a former American privateer. His first stop was Nassau on New Providence Island in the Bahamas, where he conferred with Governor Cameron about the Creeks. Pigot then sailed to the mouth of the Apalachicola River in Florida to consult with Creek and other Indian chiefs, arriving on May 10. He reported to Cochrane that the Indians gave him a warm reception.

  Pigot thought that as many as 2,800 Creeks could be enlisted for an attack on New Orleans and an equal number of Choctaw, along with perhaps 1,000 other tribesmen. He suggested training them and then using them alongside regular troops. He recommended landing on the Florida coast at Mobile and from there pushing two hundred miles west to Baton Rouge on the Mississippi River, eighty miles from New Orleans. With Cochrane’s fleet offshore and the British army at Baton Rouge, New Orleans would fall easily. Once the city was in British hands, a determined movement north along the Mississippi and eventually to the Canadian border could follow. Pigot left behind George Woodbine, a brevet captain of marines, with some aides to coordinate with the Indians.

  Pigot’s assessment was wildly optimistic. Major General Andrew Jackson, commander of Military District 7, had already crushed the Creeks in March 1814. Their destruction as a military force began months before, in August 1813, when some of their younger members, inspired by Tecumseh and by their experiences with white settlers, became embroiled in a war with the United States.

  Armed conflict became inevitable when, following Tecumseh’s vision, the younger Creeks refused to abandon their traditional way of life and become farmers. The American Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins had worked hard, and successfully, to convince many older Creeks to change their ways, but the younger warriors decided to fight for their land and their traditions. They became known as Red Sticks. Their leader was Red Eagle, also known as William Weatherford, a man at home with either whites or Indians.

  At the time, there were perhaps 18,000 Creeks. Of these, only 4,000 or so were warriors. They relied principally on the bow and arrow, although reportedly they had 1,000 muskets. Their territory was around three hundred square miles in the southeastern part of the United States, extending from the middle of Georgia to the Mississippi Territory and from the Gulf of Mexico to Tennessee.

  The war engendered by the Red Sticks began in earnest on August 30, 1813, when Red Eagle led an attack on Fort Mims, the fortified residence of merchant Samuel Mims, on the east bank of the Alabama River, forty miles north of Mobile. Red Eagle’s 1,000 Red Sticks massacred 400 of the 500 people at the fort, including women and children. The stories of his atrocities were gruesome. The attack was in retaliation for the ambush of Creek leader Peter McQueen at Burnt Corn Creek in Alabama, sixty-five miles north of Pensacola on July 27, 1813.

  The episode at Fort Mims signaled not a triumph for the Creeks, but the beginning of the end of their power. Shortly after the massacre, Oliver Hazard Perry won his great victory on faraway Lake Erie, which led to the collapse of British influence in the Northwest and the death of Tecumseh. The great Indian leader had hoped to unite all Indians north and south in a war against the United States, but with his passing, any hope for the Choc
taws, Chickasaw, Creeks, and other tribes to resist American expansion died as well.

  The massacre at Fort Mims outraged and frightened people in western Tennessee—indeed in the whole Southeast. Their anger would fuel reprisals that would eventually be fatal for the Red Sticks and all the Creeks. Combining forces against the Red Sticks in the various states and territories, however, proved impossible for many months. Small units from Georgia, the Mississippi Territory, and Tennessee fought a few inconclusive battles. Ultimately, the task of crushing the Red Sticks fell by default to an obscure, backwoods militia general from western Tennessee, Andrew Jackson. He took the field with a relatively small number of militiamen with limited terms of enlistment, and by the end of 1813, his force had reached a low ebb. It looked as if his entire army would desert him. The few men Jackson had left were in danger of being wiped out by Red Eagle.

  For a brief time Jackson was almost alone, but on January 14, 1814, he acquired eight hundred raw militiamen, and he reconnoitered Red Eagle’s stronghold at Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River in what was then the Mississippi Territory and is now Alabama. Red Eagle attacked him at Emuckfaw Creek with a much larger force, and Jackson prudently withdrew. As he retreated, he was attacked again at Enotachopco Creek but managed to fight and then withdraw without having to surrender.