by Roy Adkins
Wellington admitted privately that ‘if anyone wishes to know the history of this war, I will tell them that it is our maritime superiority [that] gives me the power of maintaining my army while the enemy are unable to do so’,2 but it was the triumph and tragedy of victory in battle that grabbed the headlines. As ever, Sir Sidney Smith managed to summarise the situation: ‘The navy has surely not the less merit for having worked itself out of employment by destroying all opposition on the coasts of the four quarters of the globe, & being the constant support of the army in all its operations, without which support it could not have accomplished any one of the objects for which its distinguished officers are so deservedly rewarded.’3
Through the spring of 1812 the ships of the navy carried on their routine duties of blockade, convoy protection and securing the supply lines for the soldiers in Spain, but a turning point was reached in June. War between France and Russia had seemed likely for some time and on the 24th Napoleon led his armies in an invasion of Russia. Almost a month later news arrived that America had declared war on Britain. The main point of dispute had been the British Orders-in-Council that restricted American trade, such as by requiring foreign vessels trading with an enemy country to call at a British port first and pay duties on their cargo. Ironically, these measures were repealed two days before America declared war, but The Times commented cynically: ‘We have only to add our opinion . . . that as the Orders in Council have given occasion to the war, their revocation must or ought to suspend it; that as the hostilities of America have been built upon a foundation which is now withdrawn, the hostilities must fall to the ground likewise. There will even then be much to dispute about, which, after a proper regimen of misunderstanding, perverseness, and delay, may lead a second time to the same result.’4 The only inaccuracy in this analysis was the supposition that news of the repeal would at least check, if not stop, the war, for the news was actually ignored in America, showing that the Orders-in-Council were the excuse, not the reason, for the hostilities.
The United States of America in 1812 was a large territory with a tiny population. There was no pressure on land, and indeed in some areas where the native Indians had been displaced, the settlers were too few in number to defend the land they had occupied. Despite this, some Americans felt it was their destiny, perhaps a God-given right, to own the whole continent, including a massive area to the west and Florida to the south, which were still in the hands of Britain’s ally Spain, and the largely unknown Oregon territory in the north-west, which was mainly frequented by fur trappers and traders from both Canada and America. Since the United States had only declared independence from Britain thirty-six years earlier, many Americans were also sensitive about anything that could possibly be construed as an infringement of their rights.
With the impressment of British sailors who had become American citizens and with interference in its trade, the United States felt increasingly provoked by Britain, and many politicians in Washington were urging that war was the only course, not just to win the battle of ‘Free trade and sailor’s rights’ but also to push Britain out of Canada. Territorial expansion was now the primary military objective of those politicians dubbed the War Hawks, in order to obtain more land for settlement, to prevent Canada becoming a competitor in trade (by using the Great Lakes and St Lawrence River as a main shipping route) and to allow America to annex Florida. There was, too, a desire to curb the influence that Britain had over the Indian tribes, who were being pushed further and further west as America settled more land, while some politicians were seeking to gain financially. A presidential election was also looming in late 1812, and James Madison was fearful of not obtaining the nomination of his Democratic-Republican Party59.
The European nations, particularly France and Britain, viewed the emerging nation on the other side of the Atlantic as young and correspondingly naive, and as regards some of the Democratic-Republican politicians this was a fair assessment. Various arguments put forward in favour of the war were ludicrous, such as the idea that commerce with France was more important than trade with Britain, and yet before trade embargoes were imposed, exports to Britain and its colonies were ten times as great as those to France. The Federalists, who opposed the war and supported better relations with Britain rather than France, pointed this out during the debate, but were ignored. Although America was totally unprepared for a war there was in the country a confident anticipation of a victory, which relied on the expectation that Napoleon would soon defeat Britain. In reality the war was to last three years and achieve almost nothing.
Napoleon later claimed that his diplomacy manoeuvred America into declaring war on Britain. He had certainly done his best to deceive theAmericans, but in truth the Americans were faced with a stark choice. Both Britain and France were imposing stringent restrictions on American trade, so it was a question of declaring war on one and becoming allied to the other. An objective view suggested that since Britain now controlled the oceans and France was powerless to do so, America could ally itself to Britain without fear of reprisal. That would leave no excuse to invade Canada or Florida, and to some Americans - certainly many of those in government - an alliance with the ‘republic’ of France was more palatable than closer ties with their old colonial masters. Favouring ideals and opportunities for gaining territory over practicalities, America made the wrong choice and declared war on Britain.
At first the American Navy comprised only fourteen serviceable vessels, of which three were superior frigates - Captain Rodgers’s President, Captain Hull’s Constitution and Captain Decatur’s United States. Five frigates were laid up, and of these the Constellation and Chesapeake were rapidly repaired. There were also 165 gunboats, though fewer than half were in commission. The navy had no battleships, but relied heavily on privateers, the privately owned armed vessels that were licensed to capture enemy ships. Both sides also had a small but growing force on the Great Lakes and on Lake Champlain. Even though the American Navy had only the eastern seaboard of North America to defend, this force was totally inadequate. Britain’s Royal Navy was far superior, with around one hundred battleships and six hundred smaller vessels, but with the war continuing in Europe the navy was stretched to the limit, so that there was always a reluctance to provide the army or navy in North America with sufficient resources. If Britain had been able and willing to deploy all the resources currently engaged against Napoleon, America would rapidly have become a colony once more, with the Mississippi as its western border.
The initial aim of America was to invade Canada, and it was anticipated that this would be done very quickly and successfully, particularly as the population of British North America was so small, and the few troops were mostly concentrated around Quebec and Montreal in order to keep open the St Lawrence River. Simultaneous invasions at various points were planned, but they were uncoordinated and marked by indecision and delay. The American Army, under Brigadier-General William Hull, crossed into Canada on 12 July 1812, but five days later the British managed to capture the strategic American fort on Mackinac Island, in the north of Lake Huron.
Fearful of an Indian uprising on the frontier, by early August Hull pulled back his troops to Detroit and ordered the garrison at Fort Dearborn (now Chicago), on the south side of Lake Michigan, to withdraw. Major-General Isaac Brock, commander of the British troops, reached the Detroit River and demanded Hull’s capitulation on the grounds that otherwise he would be unable to prevent a massacre by the Indians. Three days later Hull surrendered over two thousand men, a brig on Lake Erie, the Michigan territory between Lakes Huron and Michigan (including Detroit) and a great deal of weapons and supplies. This was a terrible blow to the Americans at the start of the war, and the fortunes of the Americans and Canadians would fluctuate throughout the following months without lasting gains on either side.
At sea the first action took place just five days after war was declared when a squadron left New York and spotted the British frigate Belvidera, which escaped
into Halifax in Nova Scotia, and around the same time the privateer Dash captured the Royal Navy schooner Whiting, whose crew was unaware that war had been declared and were delivering diplomatic dispatches. On 17 July a British squadron captured the USS Nautilus, but the smaller sloop HMS Alert was captured by the frigate USS Essex on 13 August off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. In Britain none of this was startling news, partly because America was so far away and information took so long to cross the Atlantic. People were still intent on the progress of Wellington in Spain and Napoleon in Russia - if the war with America was discussed at all, it was with the attitude that America was a naughty child throwing a tantrum:We have often had occasion to lament the mistaken policy of our transatlantic brethren. It might have been supposed that a nation emanating from us, using the same language, actuated by the same spirit of liberty, would have shrunk with abhorrence from any kind of assimilation with the tyrant in France; that she would have joined us heart and hand in a contest for religion, order, morality, property, civilization, and every thing that has been held valuable by the wisest men. But no, - We see her taking advantage of our distresses to effect our ruin; we see her destroying her own commerce, because we shall have no share of it.5
By October news of the growing conflict was beginning to compete for attention in the newspapers, with The Times noting that ‘the expedition of the Americans . . . has terminated not in the possession of Canada by General Hull, but in the possession of General Hull and his army’.6 But just three days later it had to report the first real setback in the conflict:The disaster . . . is one of that nature with which England is but little familiar: it is the capture of one of her frigates, by the frigate of an enemy, and that enemy the Americans . . .The loss of a single frigate by us, when we consider how all the other navies of the world have been dealt by [with], is, it is true, but a small one: when viewed as a portion of the British navy, it is almost nothing; yet under all the circumstances of the two countries to which the vessels who fought belonged, we know not any calamity of twenty times its amount, that might have been attended with more serious consequences to the [country that was] worsted.7
This account cut right to the heart of the matter: the loss of a ship was of little importance, but the capture of a British ship by an American ship of the same size was unthinkable and likely to seriously undermine confidence in the British Navy. The frigate that had been lost was the Guerriere, which had encountered the American frigate Constitution. At the end of July the latter had narrowly missed being captured by a British squadron while on a voyage to New York. The fact that the commander of the Constitution, Isaac Hull (nephew of the now disgraced Brigadier-General William Hull), had displayed great skill and seamanship in escaping should have been a warning that the new enemy was of a different calibre from those the British Navy had fought in recent years, but it would take time for this information to be appreciated. Forced into the shelter of Boston harbour, Hull left again as soon as possible, rightly fearing that the widening British blockade might trap him there, and by mid-August he was cruising off the Canadian coast. On the 19th he spotted the Guerriere, the ship that had earlier caused so much friction over impressment of American seamen.
Neither ship was new, but the French-built Guerriere was of a lighter construction, and perhaps crucially the Constitution seems to have been better maintained and in better condition. The Guerriere was actually sailing to Halifax for a refit when the American frigate appeared. What surprised the British, however, was the high level of seamanship and gunnery of their opponents. Initially Captain James Dacres of the Guerriere tried to outmanoeuvre the American ship and wasted his opening broadsides, which fell short. Eventually he realised the enemy was too skilled to allow him an advantage, and decided on a straightforward gunnery duel, as Isaac Hull noted in his official report:She [the Guerriere] continued wearing and manoeuvring for about three quarters of an hour, to get a raking position, but finding she could not, she bore up . . . I immediately made sail to bring the ship up with her, and five minutes before six P.M. being alongside within half-pistol shot, we commenced a heavy fire from all our guns, double shotted with round and grape, and so well directed were they, and so warmly kept up, that in 15 minutes his mizen-mast went by the board, and his main-yard in the slings, and the hull, rigging, and sails, very much torn to pieces. The fire was kept up with equal warmth for 15 minutes longer, when his mainmast and foremast went, taking with them every spar, except the bowsprit.8
Apart from differences in construction, the ships were not very evenly matched, with the Guerriere carrying mainly 18-pounder guns against the Constitution’s 24-pounders. Seeing a cannonball bounce off the side of the latter ship, an American sailor exclaimed that it must have sides made of iron, after which the ship bore the nickname ‘Old Ironsides’. Even so, the Guerriere did damage some rigging of the Constitution, which pulled away from the helpless Guerriere for repairs. Captain Dacres had considered boarding as a last resort, but since the larger American vessel carried a much bigger crew, he thought better of it. His ship was too badly damaged for rapid repairs and an attempt at escape, so after consulting with his officers, he decided to surrender. The Americans were not sure whether the British had surrendered, though, and sent a lieutenant in a boat to enquire, who said, ‘Commodore Hull’s compliments, and wishes to know if you have struck your flag?’9 After surveying his ship, now without a mast from which to fly a flag, Dacres replied, ‘Well, I don’t know; our mizzen-mast is gone, our main-mast is gone, and upon the whole, you may say we have struck our flag.’10
The casualties of the Guerriere, fifteen dead and sixty-three wounded, showed just how severely the vessel had been mauled during the half-hour that the ships had come within close range and traded broadsides. By contrast there were only seven men killed and seven wounded in the Constitution, whose crew was jubilant at their success, and an American officer wryly recorded that Hull, a portly man, had been so energetic during the fighting that he had ‘split his tight breeches from waistband to knee’.11 By the next day the Guerriere was in danger of sinking. All the men were taken off and the vessel was set on fire, eventually blowing up. While the British tried to recover from the shock that for the first time in many years a British ship, when not outnumbered, had been defeated in a fair fight, the Americans celebrated the victory in much the same way as the British after Nelson’s success at the Battle of the Nile. Hull was rewarded with a ceremonial sword, pieces of plate and the freedom of the city of New York; medals were struck; songs and poems were composed; and Congress voted fifty thousand dollars to be distributed between the officers and crew of the Constitution. Beyond the immediate psychological impact on both sides of the Atlantic, the lesson provided by the incident - a lesson that the British Navy was reluctant to acknowledge - was that although the American Navy was tiny, its ships were manned by competent, determined and increasingly confident officers and crews.
With poor communications and the vast distances involved, it would take time for news of the capture of the Guerriere to reach all the ships of the British Navy. Before that, on 25 October, the American frigate United States under Captain Stephen Decatur in the mid-Atlantic sighted the British frigate Macedonian under Captain John Carden. As the ships approached each other, there was speculation among the crew of the Macedonian, which the fourteen-year-old powder monkey Samuel Leech recalled:Our men were all in good spirits; though they did not scruple to express the wish that the coming foe was a Frenchman rather than a Yankee. We had been told, by the Americans on board, that frigates in the American service carried more and heavier metal than ours. This, together with our consciousness of superiority over the French at sea, led us to a preference for a French antagonist. The Americans among our number felt quite disconcerted, at the necessity which compelled them to fight against their own countrymen. One of them, named John Card, as brave a seaman as ever trod a plank, ventured to present himself to the captain, as a prisoner, frankly declaring his objections to figh
t. That officer, very ungenerously, ordered him to his quarters, threatening to shoot him if he made the request again. Poor fellow! He obeyed the unjust command, and was killed by a shot from his own countrymen.12
The Macedonian was cleared for action, and as it was Leech’s first battle he noted every detail:A lieutenant then passed through the ship, directing the marines and boarders, who were furnished with pikes, cutlasses and pistols, how to proceed if it should be necessary to board the enemy. He was followed by the captain [Carden], who exhorted the men to fidelity and courage, urging upon their consideration the well-known motto of the brave Nelson, ‘England expects every man to do his duty’ . . . My station was at the fifth gun on the main deck. It was my duty to supply my gun with powder, a boy being appointed to each gun in the ship on the side we engaged, for this purpose. A woollen screen was placed before the entrance to the magazine, with a hole in it, through which the cartridges were passed to the boys; we received them there, and covering them with our jackets, hurried to our respective guns. These precautions are observed to prevent the powder taking fire before it reaches the gun.13
From where he was stationed Leech could see nothing of the enemy ship and had to rely on his ears to work out what was going on: ‘I heard a firing from some other quarter, which I at first supposed to be a discharge from our quarter deck guns; though it proved to be the roar of the enemy’s cannon. A strange noise, such as I had never heard before, next arrested my attention; it sounded like the tearing of sails, just over our heads. This I soon ascertained to be the wind of the enemy’s shot.’14 It was not long before the two ships were trading broadsides, and the noise became almost unbearable:The roaring of cannon could now be heard from all parts of our trembling ship, and, mingling as it did with that of our foes, it made a most hideous noise. By-and-by I heard the shot strike the sides of our ship; the whole scene grew indescribably confused and horrible; it was like some awfully tremendous thunder-storm, whose deafening roar is attended by incessant streaks of lightning, carrying death in every flash, and strewing the ground with the victims of its wrath: only, in our case, the scene was rendered more horrible than that, by the presence of torrents of blood which dyed our decks.15
