by Mark Zuehlke
The nation, too, was strong and determined. Clay dismissed Clinton’s sweep of New England as resulting from the incompetence with which the war had been prosecuted in 1812. Given some successes, the north would rally to the war that the south and west unshakeably supported. “The justness of our cause … the spirit & patriotism of the Country … will at last I think bring us honourably out.”16
The House and the Senate were hardly as keen to support the war as Clay made out, a fact quickly made evident when Monroe and Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin tabled a series of urgent proposals. Gallatin’s dilemma was how to finance a war from a nearly empty treasury chest. Expenses in 1813 would total $32 million, of which $17 million would go to the army and $5 million to the navy. Yet he forecast only $12 million in revenues, meaning a shortfall of $20 million. Where was the money to come from? The nation’s banks had already loaned as much as could be expected, and an 1812 float of various war bonds had netted only $3.2 million from individual investors. Scouring the federal troves, Gallatin found what he thought was a perfect source of the needed funding. During the confusion that followed British cancellation of the orders-in-council, and as New England traders flagrantly carried on trade with the enemy, the government had collected about $23 million in bonds and duties levied on goods imported from Britain. Normally most of this money would be returned to the importers, but Gallatin proposed a bill allowing the government to retain half of it on the basis that the importers had realized huge profits from this questionable trade.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Langdon Cheves led the moral outcry against the proposal. “I would rather see the objects of the war fail,” declared this stalwart War Hawk. “I would rather see the seamen of the country impressed on the ocean and our commerce swept away from its bosom, than see the long arm of the Treasury indirectly thrust into the pocket of the citizen through the medium of a penal law.” Henry Clay stepped away from the Speaker’s chair to shout, “Let us not pollute our hands with this weltgild!”17 The motion was roundly defeated.
At the same time, Clay would brook no criticism of Madison and his administration that opposed the war. Josiah Quincy, the Boston Federalist, had, along with Virginian John Randolph, been a constant thorn in the side of Madison and Jefferson for five congressional terms. Although Randolph had lost a bid for re-election, Quincy had been handily returned and came to the House determined to defend the nation from a perceived secret agenda that threatened the very roots of its freedom. The president’s cabinet, he announced, was “little less than despotic, composed, to all efficient purposes of two Virginians and a foreigner.” This triad of Madison, Monroe, and Gallatin—always suspect because he was foreign born—Quincy alleged was bent on subjugating Americans with “a King or an Emperor, dukedoms, and earldoms and baronies.” James the First, of course, would be succeeded by James the Second, a pact already made between Madison and Monroe to bring this to effect.
When Quincy’s diatribe ended, Clay responded with a two-day-long harangue. Standing in the congressional hall, which was so cold and damp that his breath clouded around him like smoke, Clay reiterated all the causes of the war, detailed Madison’s peace overtures during its opening months, and scathingly pointed out the baseless nature of Quincy’s allegations of presidential conspiracies to corrupt the nation’s democratic foundations.
The “Speaker opened all his portholes upon poor Quincy,” New Hampshire’s John A. Harper commented. “He brought his artillery to play well—the fire on board Constitution, the Wasp or the United States could not have been better directed.”18
Although most Federalists agreed that Quincy had stepped across the line of decorum, they also saw enough truth in his allegations to cause a serious congressional split that resulted in the majority of the northern congressmen stoutly opposing almost every bill that the administration presented. Any attempt, whether real or not, to give the White House a free hand in prosecuting the war was suspect.
In this atmosphere Gallatin’s proposals for financing the war stood no chance of endorsement. Instead he was given authority only to issue more treasury notes and to borrow another $16 million on whatever terms could be negotiated so long as repayment was guaranteed to take place within twelve years. That the $11 million loan authorized by Congress the previous year was still unfulfilled because Gallatin had been unable to find a lender for $5 million of it made no impression on the legislators. There was also the fact that a stack of treasury notes remained from the 1812 issue, so a new issue was unlikely to succeed.
Yet it was clear that if the United States was to make a better showing on the field of battle than it had in 1812, the army must be greatly enlarged and a navy built that could master the Great Lakes. It was equally clear that the British were unlikely to retain the passive, defensive stance of the previous year in light of the failure to negotiate a lasting armistice. The most obvious threat was that the Royal Navy would blockade American ports and raid its coastal cities. They might also land an army in Florida to threaten the United States from the south and force a war on two fronts.
To meet the coastal threat Gallatin suggested that Monroe divide the country into military districts defended by a contingent of regular troops under command of a permanent commander who could also draw upon local state militias in the event of an attack. Ten thousand men would be required for this duty from a total authorization of 35,000. The immediacy of the threat to America’s coast was made apparent in January, when two Royal Navy ships of the line and several frigates out of Halifax sailed into Chesapeake Bay and established a blockade that the American navy dared not contest.19
Monroe fretted that the remaining 25,000 men available for offensive operations would be insufficient. He really wanted 35,000 men to carry out an ambitious campaign that included invading all of British North America before the end of the year and the seizure of East Florida, and another 10,000 in reserves—a total army of 55,000. Debates raged on the House and Senate floors, and when the voices stilled, authorization was granted to raise only 20,000 more men to bring the army up to 35,000. The term of service, however, was reduced from a mandatory five years to just twelve months.20 It was a desperate scheme, designed to achieve nothing more than to enable the army to take the field in the spring. If the war was not won by the end of the year, the government would have to cobble together sufficient forces to carry on the fight by returning to the next congressional sitting with cap in hand.
As for seizing East Florida, Monroe argued that when the war on the Iberian Peninsula was settled Spain would be an appendage either of Great Britain or of France. In either case the United States would be threatened from the south if the territory was not annexed. The majority of its population were Americans anyway, he maintained, and would welcome annexation. A bill to enable the president to order occupation of both Floridas and to govern until the seizure of the country east of the Perdido River might be legitimized by “future negotiation” with Spain was presented to the Senate.
The division in the Senate between north and south was immediately made plain when Maryland senator Samuel Smith moved an amendment that effectively gutted the bill’s intent by having the second part—that which authorized the occupation of Florida east of the Perdido—struck. On February 2, the Senate voted on the amendment. Only two southern senators voted for the amendment while all northerners but four diehard Republicans supported it. The amendment carried nineteen to sixteen.21
While the Senate might have scuttled Monroe’s ambitions to annex East Florida, the president did not wholly abandon the project. Rather, he and Monroe decided that the transfer of this Spanish colony to the United States might well be made a condition of peace negotiations to end the war—assuming that Spain would soon be nothing more than a British puppet. In the meantime, they decided that the heavily fortified town of Mobile, the only Spanish presence remaining west of the Perdido, would be taken by force before the spring was out.22
Gallatin never shared hi
s colleague.’ enthusiasm for the Florida adventure, believing that it satisfied little but a southern ambition to open new territory for settlement and risked a war with Spain that could turn the European powers against America. He also believed that securing East Florida would necessitate commitment of a major military force—indeed, even as the Senate amended the bill, Gen. Andrew Jackson was marching from Tennessee to New Orleans with 2,000 volunteers to carry out the expected conquest—that would bleed money from the treasury badly needed to fund the war with Britain. Raising an army in the south to march against a Spanish colony made no sense to Gallatin when the shortage of manpower in the north was such that it was improbable that the British could be expelled from North America. So Gallatin breathed a sigh of relief when orders went out for Jackson to turn about and come home.23
For the forthcoming operations against Canada, Gallatin believed it improbable that more than 15,000 men would be available. This meant that the most America could do was occupy that part of the Canadas between Lake Erie and Montreal. Achieving even this modest ambition, he told Madison, would depend on gaining control of the Great Lakes.24
In January, the president appointed John Armstrong his new secretary of war. Armstrong was not the president’s first choice, but both William H. Crawford of Georgia and Henry Dearborn had refused the position. So he had turned to the fifty-four-year-old veteran of the Revolution and renowned New York political intriguer with powerful ties to the state’s leading Republicans. Armstrong was a controversial choice because he was the author of a series of papers known as the Newburgh letters that had incited the U.S. Continental army to mutiny in 1784. Having as secretary of war a man who had sought to turn the army against the administration seemed risky to many senators, who approved his appointment by a vote of only eighteen to fifteen.25
Madison, who often seemed perplexed that anyone would engage in political manoeuvring while the nation was at war, hoped Armstrong’s reputation for being the country’s most noted authority on the art of war would offset his less desirable traits. In August 1812, Armstrong had published a treatise entitled Hints to Young Generals from an Old Soldier that cemented his status as a military expert. But the “Old Soldier” was a certain wild card. He harboured presidential ambitions, held Monroe in low esteem, and was renowned for a bad temper exacerbated by regular attacks of rheumatism and gout. There were also rumours that Armstrong was notoriously lazy.
Arriving in Washington on February 4, Armstrong dispelled this last criticism by diving into his duties with apparent energy and enthusiasm. Armstrong actually had many reservations about the job he had undertaken, not the least of them being that he was to serve in an executive dominated by Virginians. Like many New Yorkers, he believed the time had come to end the Virginian dynasty in favour of one based on their own state. Assuming his duties after Congress and the administration had largely determined how the War Department was to operate through 1813 also meant he was tied to a course not of his choosing. Armstrong had also consulted with Dearborn in Albany, who had stated that the major thrust against Canada would be made from New York rather than New England, which would have been Armstrong’s preference. To his friend and fellow New York intriguer Ambrose Spencer, Armstrong confided that he was “to execute other men’s plans and fight with other men’s weapons.”26 Fearing political disaster if the army should fail, the New York Republicans launched two new journals—the National Advocate and the Albany Argus—to promote the administration’s war program in the state and boost recruitment. Not coincidentally, Spencer made sure that the editors of both publications routinely presented Armstrong as a military genius and offered with mock secrecy that before May 1 the “Old Soldier” would oversee a “brilliant campaign” in Canada.27
Madison would have settled for any semblance of military competency in the early months of 1813. February brought news of another disaster on the Detroit frontier, where Brigadier General Harrison had made assurances that despite the frigid winter conditions he could take the field to recover Detroit and capture Fort Malden. With 6,300 men, his army vastly outnumbered Lieutenant Colonel Procter’s meagre force. Harrison sent Brig. Gen. James Winchester with an advance guard of about 1,000 men to clear the approaches to Detroit. Eager to prove himself superior to Harrison, whom he considered merely a political appointee, Winchester determined to take Detroit on his own.28
On January 18, his leading elements swept down upon the outpost of Frenchtown at the mouth of the Raisin River and easily drove off the fifty Canadians from the Essex militia and about a hundred Indians after a protracted skirmish. Detroit lay just 26 miles away, but it took two days for Winchester to bring the rest of his troops up. Believing that he owned the field, the American commander issued no orders to erect defensive positions around the small settlement and sent no patrols out to scout the area.
It was a fatal error and a demonstration of clear incompetence. Just before dawn on the morning of January 22, the Americans awoke to an attack by about 600 redcoats and militia and the same number of Indian warriors who had all crossed the ice on the lake from Fort Malden during the night. Procter bungled the attack, however, by pausing to deploy artillery carried across the ice on sleighs rather than taking advantage of the complete surprise won by charging the Americans, who were just awakening and rolling out of their bedding to take up position. A fierce firefight ensued, during which 185 of the attackers were killed, but when Prevost sent a message to Winchester that he feared being unable to constrain the Indians if the Americans were overwhelmed, the American commander ordered his entire force to surrender. By this time the Americans had suffered heavily, with almost 400 having been killed. Barely 100 Americans managed to escape, slipping off into the woods by one and twos. Among the captured was Henry Clay’s brother-in-law Capt. Nathaniel Hart and, of course, Winchester.
Lacking sufficient soldiers to guard all the prisoners, Procter left about thirty of the most seriously wounded at Frenchtown under the care of an Indian guard while he withdrew his force and the other prisoners to Brownstown. Many of the Indians were drunk on captured stores of liquor, but this failed to alarm the British officer. Soon after the redcoats and Canadian militia departed, a group of drunken Indians pushed the guards aside and scalped the American prisoners.29
It was a clear atrocity and one that rocked Washington when word of the murders reached it. “Remember the River Raisin” became a political slogan and battle cry. But the fact remained that Harrison’s winter offensive to regain Detroit had been defeated.30
Again it fell to the United States Navy to bolster the spirits of the American people, and a new secretary was at the helm. Paul Hamilton had shown less military acumen than had Eustis in the War Department. A drunk and spendthrift, he depended on the office for an income and clung tenaciously to the position even after repeated congressional delegations begged him to resign. The North Carolinian failed to grasp the significance of mastery of the Great Lakes and so had presented a naval bill seeking only a large increase in the ocean fleet that panicked the Republicans over its costs. The Senate slashed his designs down to an addition of only four 74-gun ships and six 44-gun ships and gave the department $2.5 million funding. That bill only barely passed Congress when a minority of Republicans voted alongside the Federalists (always keen to strengthen the navy that protected New England shipping) to carry it against the opposition of most Republicans, who thought the price tag too rich. Hamilton’s performance during the bill debates, where he was often clearly inebriated, proved the final straw for Madison, who pointedly advised the man to resign. He went noisily, publicly accusing Madison of personal betrayal.
His successor was easily decided—William Jones, a Pennsylvania Republican with some familiarity, via business connections, with maritime issues. Jones reported that Hamilton had left the department in chaos that could be rectified only by radical reform. He also thought that such reform would save the government about $1 million annually in wasteful administrative costs. But he al
so aspired to greatly increase the number of seventy-fours to ensure the navy’s ability to protect American merchant mariners, while Gallatin continued to argue that the costs of building even the ships approved by Congress would drain the treasury.31
Despite ineffectual leadership from the top, however, the naval officers taking ships out to sea continued to wreak havoc on the Royal Navy—much to the joy of the president and public. On February 22, a delighted Madison sent a message to Congress reporting that the 49-gun Java had been engaged and sunk by Constitution off Brazil.
But the navy could not alone bring Great Britain to its knees. America simply had too few ships to gain mastery of the seas or even to break any blockades. Madison recognized this and also realized that the conquest of Canada, which was to have provided a decisive bargaining chip to gain concessions from the British government necessary to enable the United States to negotiate its return in exchange for an honourable peace, was equally unlikely in 1813. A protracted war that the nation could ill afford loomed. So it was with great relief that Madison took hold of a possible lifeline cast his direction during a celebratory banquet hosted at the Russian minister to America’s house two days after he took the oath of office for his second term as president on March 4. During what Dolley Madison described as a “brilliant & pleasant” affair, André Daschkoff handed the president a note from Tsar Alexander I in which the Russian emperor offered to act as a peacemaker between Great Britain and the United States.
Madison quickly accepted this “humane and enlightened” offer. Russia, he said, was “the only power in Europe which can command respect from both France and England.”32 Peace, and more importantly an honourable peace by which America might achieve all its objects, seemed withingrasp.
