by Mark Zuehlke
President Madison returned to Washington on August 28, morosely picked through the ashes of the White House, and examined the shell of the Capitol. The pillars in Representatives Hall were badly cracked; the still-smoking great hand-painted dome had collapsed into the cellar. A delegation of Washingtonians and citizens of Georgetown demanded he send a deputation to Admiral Cochrane to capitulate. Madison urged citizens and troops alike not to despair. His rapid return to the city was soon credited with stiffening the nation’s backbone.18 Madison ordered the unharmed post and patent offices converted into halls that could respectively seat the Senate and House of Representatives. The presidential residence was established in the eccentric Octagon House, which had formerly housed the French minister to America. In this manner, the government quickly regained its feet.19
Armstrong slunk into the city forty-eight hours after Madison to face a virtual mutiny of regular officers. They bluntly warned Madison that they would tear off their epaulettes if Armstrong remained in charge. Madison charged Armstrong with doing nothing to prepare the city’s defence and actively impeding the efforts of others. He cited Armstrong’s long-standing insubordinate ways and ordered him to leave town.20 From Baltimore, Armstrong submitted his resignation and Monroe was formally appointed secretary of war, also retaining the State Department.
Elsewhere the British were on the offensive. Alexandria, Virginia, endured an August 28 raid by a British squadron. Occupying the town without a fight, Capt. James Gordon agreed to not burn the place if all public works, ordnance and naval stores, and shipping—whether private or public—were surrendered. Twenty-one small vessels were seized and large quantities of military stores destroyed or carried off.21
Meanwhile, the British fleet carrying Ross’s troops headed for Baltimore intending a demonstration that might turn into an attack if circumstances proved favourable. Cochrane was skeptical. Baltimore was no defenceless Washington. The nation’s third-largest city lay 12 miles up Patapsco River from Chesapeake Bay and its very narrow harbour entrance was guarded by Fort McHenry. Senator and militia major general Samuel Smith commanded its defence. Since early 1813 this veteran of the Revolution and renowned political intriguer had been preparing to defend the city. As the British approached Baltimore, Smith deployed almost 15,000 men in its defensive works. More than 1,000 were packed into the small confines of Fort McHenry. When Major General Winder arrived to assume command, Smith curtly refused.22
The British disembarked about 4,500 men on September 11 to march overland along the peninsula formed by the Patapsco and Back rivers while a squadron of frigates, bomb and rocket ships, and sloops commanded by Cochrane pushed up the Patapsco to bombard the fort. As during the Washington raid, Cockburn accompanied Ross’s troops.
Instead of waiting to be attacked, Smith sent 3,200 men with six small cannon to meet the British halfway along the peninsula. A sharp action followed the next morning in which Ross was struck in the chest by a musket ball and mortally wounded. Col. Arthur Brooke assumed command and broke the American line. The Americans lost 24 killed, 139 wounded, and 50 taken prisoner, while the British counted 46 dead and 295 wounded.
On September 13, Brooke closed to within a mile and a half of Baltimore and sent messengers to Cochrane proposing a joint night attack. After examining the American harbour defences, Cochrane deemed the idea impracticable. He had sixteen fighting ships, of which five were bomb or rocket vessels. The former mounted large mortars that could breach fortress walls, but the rocket ships were largely just for show.
In addition to the fort, the Americans had clogged the harbour entrance by sinking twenty-four vessels of various sizes. Standing behind these wrecks was a line of gunboats. Guarding the Patapsco main channel where the British might land troops behind Fort McHenry stood the smaller Fort Covington and a nearby artillery battery. The best Cochrane could hope for was to batter the two forts into submission, but he saw no utility in throwing Brooke’s redcoats against the American defences. Brooke was ordered to remain in place to keep the enemy guessing his intention and then withdraw in the early morning hours of September 14. By then the forts would have been either subdued or not.23
The bombardment lasted slightly more than twenty-four hours and 1,500 rounds were fired, of which 400 struck home. Aboard one ship was American lawyer Francis Scott Key, who was trying to arrange the release of a physician captured in Washington and pressed into treating British wounded. Key watched the shelling and scribbled out a little poem entitled “The Star Spangled Banner,” which vividly depicted the flag continuing to fly over Fort McHenry even as Congreve rockets whizzed overhead and mortar bombs exploded in airbursts that spewed shrapnel into the fort. In 1931, Congress would declare the poem America’s national anthem.24
Shortly after dawn, Cochrane ordered the bombardment ceased, and the fleet and troops withdrew. Lingering in the Chesapeake well into October, this force took no further major action. It finally sailed to Jamaica, while Cochrane returned to Halifax.
In American eyes, Baltimore’s stand offset the Washington calamity. The British deemed it a modest setback. Far graver was the Lake Champlain failure, where the British suffered a defeat that frustrated London’s hopes for the 1814 campaign.
Fortune in war is fickle. The campaign that the British launched in the Lake Champlain region in early September logically should have yielded a success, enabling entrance into the Hudson Valley to cut New England off from the rest of the United States. Combined with the victories that Lt. Gen. Sir John Sherbrooke’s forces were racking up on its coast, New England might have capitulated.
On July 11, a small force out of Halifax had captured Eastport on Moose Island and gained control of Passamaquoddy Bay. Sherbrooke then moved to seize control of all of Maine from New Brunswick to Penobscot Bay, initiating a British strategy to declare the Penobscot River as the new boundary between America and their colonies.25
The British entered the bay on August 31. Quickly overcoming a garrison of about fifty men at Castine, they next captured Belfast on the opposite side of the bay and then pushed upriver to Hampden. On September 2, they drove off the defenders, pillaged the town and burned the disabled American corvette Adams, which had earlier run aground during a storm. Marching overland halfway back to Passamaquoddy Bay, the redcoats seized the village of Machias on September 10. By September 27, all of Maine between the two bays was subdued.26
Canadian governor Sir George Prevost’s operation on Lake Champlain could have achieved much the same result in southern New England. But the aggressiveness required to take an army into enemy territory did not come easily to Prevost—not even when the gates were left unguarded. On August 29, Maj. Gen. George Izard had, in accordance with instructions from Armstrong, reluctantly marched 4,000 men to reinforce the Americans on the Niagara Peninsula. Left behind were just 3,000 regulars and militia under Brig. Gen. Alexander Macomb. Only half of these were considered fit for duty. The rest were sick, raw recruits, or New York militia in whom the general had little faith.27
Five days after Izard’s departure, Prevost crossed into America with 10,000 men. Two-thirds were Peninsular War veterans. What Prevost lacked, however, was naval control of Lake Champlain. This lay in the hands of Capt. Thomas Macdonough and his 26-gun flagship Saratoga, the 20-gun Eagle, and supporting fleet of a schooner, two sloops, and twelve gunboats. The British, however, were ready to challenge his mastery with a new flagship, the 36-gun Confiance, a captured French ship. Still, the overwhelming force Prevost brought to the field seemed substantial enough regardless of who ultimately won the lake contest.
By September 5 the British were camped 8 miles from Plattsburgh, where Macomb’s men were throwing up redoubts to meet Prevost’s juggernaut. Plattsburgh was a complicated village cut into uneven chunks by the Saranac River, which emptied into Lake Champlain from its midst. The next day the British probed into the outskirts, but Prevost cautiously refrained from pressing the attack. He had no idea where the river crossings were a
nd could not locate the American fortifications. The American naval vessels lurked offshore. Several British gunboats had paralleled the army’s advance, but they were insufficient to tackle the U.S. boats. Prevost demanded that the British naval commander, Capt. George Downie, clear away the American vessels. At first, Downie resisted. Confiance was not ready for action; most of her crew were soldiers untrained in operating ship-borne guns. But Prevost insisted.
On September 11, Downie sailed directly into the bay in an attempt to bring Confiance alongside Saratoga before the Americans could react. With him was the 16-gun brig Linnet, which dropped anchor beside Eagle with 11-gun Chubb supporting. The 10-gun Finch and most of the British gunboats sawed off against the 17-gun Ticonderoga and 7-gun Preble. At first things looked good as Confiance slammed Saratoga with a heavy broadside. But return fire killed Downie, and Finch was disabled and forced to strike her colours after running aground. Chubb, too, was sent drifting out of control by devastating fire from Eagle and was soon captured.
The battle turned on whether Confiance could prevail over Saratoga. Both vessels were badly damaged, Saratoga’s starboard guns reduced to a shambles. Using an anchor and hawsers, Macdonough quickly winched his ship around to bring the port guns to bear. This feat of seamanship carried the day. Battered by the fresh broadsides, Confiance’s colours were soon struck. Linnet, no match for Saratoga, followed suit. American control of the lake was indisputable. The Americans lost 52 killed and 58 wounded, the British 80 dead and 100 wounded.28
Prevost had organized an attack to begin in concert with the naval assault, but his troops had only just begun to move when the battle on the lake abruptly ended. Seeing the British vessels surrendered or wrecked, Prevost’s always tremulous nerve failed completely. He cancelled the attack. Demoralized, his army trailed back to Canada, crossing the border on September 14. They reported 35 killed, 47 wounded, and 72 lost as prisoners in the entire campaign, while the Americans suffered just 37 killed and 62 wounded.29
An incredulous Macdonough reported to Washington: “The Almighty has been pleased to grant us a signal victory on Lake Champlain.” To which Macomb added that Prevost’s great army was “now retreating precipitately.”30
As Prevost drew away, the last hopes of an overwhelming victory cowing the Americans into peace on British terms were dashed. The season of campaigning was through. Whether the war continued into 1815 now rested on discussions between eight men in Ghent.
TWENTY-FOUR
Breaking Points
AUGUST–SEPTEMBER 1814
How the North American battlefront influenced the faltering discussions at Ghent depended entirely on the vagaries of Atlantic winds, currents, and weather. For the Americans there was the added complication of deciding the best moment for releasing John Adams, which stood in port at Helder awaiting orders to bear their final dispatch to Washington. It was already late August. If they delayed longer there would be scarce chance of receiving a reply before winter storms prohibited cross-Atlantic travel. It was therefore decided after the August 19 debacle that secretary George Dallas would return to Washington with the expected British document and various public and private reports they had written either collectively or individually to James Monroe. Only if their response to the British proved quickly written would they delay his departure until it was finished.
Aware of the urgent need to submit the written position, during a marathon session that carried on far into the night, Henry Goulburn scribbled a precisely worded summary of Castlereagh’s instructions to the British commissioners. In the morning, the other commissioners and the foreign secretary studied the result. Although the tone was more confrontational than Castlereagh liked, he approved the document, while perhaps not reading it carefully. He and his retinue then boarded a caravan of coaches and continued their journey to Vienna.
Goulburn’s note reiterated Britain’s dismay that the Americans lacked instructions regarding including the Indians in the peace and setting boundaries for their territories. If they had a “sincere desire for the restoration of peace,” then surely they would enter into a provisional agreement subject to the United States government’s approval. Despite Castlereagh’s admonitions against prohibiting the right to acquire territory through conquest, Goulburn inserted the requirement that neither Britain nor the United States would “acquire by purchase, or otherwise, any territory.” The natural military frontier should run from Lake Ontario to Lake Superior, and the Americans must maintain no military presence along the shores of the lakes or on their waters. Finally, Goulburn warned that if the Americans decided they could not consent to provisional agreements, Britain could not “be precluded, by anything that has passed, from varying the terms now proposed, in such a manner, as the state of the war, at the time of resuming the conference, may, in their judgement, render advisable.”1 The ultimatum was clear. Treat now, or face tougher terms later.
While waiting for delivery of the British note, Albert Gallatin had drafted a joint communiqué detailing the concessions demanded and remarking upon “the forcible manner” of their delivery. “We need hardly say, that the demands … will receive from us an unanimous and decided negative. We do not deem it necessary to detain the John Adams, for the purpose of transiting to you the official notes which may pass on the subject, and close the negotiation; and we felt it our duty immediately to apprise you, by this hasty but correct sketch of our last conference that there is not, at present, any hope of peace.”2
The British note delivered later that morning contained nothing that dispelled this conclusion. That evening, Dallas left for Washington.
With grim resolve the Americans began responding to the British note. John Quincy Adams prepared a first draft. “I found, as usual,” Adams confided to his diary, “the draft was not satisfactory to my colleagues. On the general view … we are unanimous, but in my exposition of it, one objects to the form and another to the substance of almost every paragraph.” Ever moderate, Gallatin sought to strike anything that might offend. Henry Clay thought the language too figurative and unsuitable to a state paper. Jonathan Russell proposed amendments to virtually every sentence. While agreeing with Adams on what needed to be said, James Bayard chose “to say it only in his own language.” Everyone but Adams thought the draft overly long and argumentative regarding the Indian issues. He was to try again.
Two days later the document was still in contention. Gallatin had shredded Adams’s second draft, inserting dozens of corrections and alterations. Clay added a couple of paragraphs. Bayard started his own version but failed to complete it. Unable to agree, they finally threw “the shreds and patches” in secretary Christopher Hughes’s lap to fashion into something workable.3 That evening they ended sitting at a Ghent dignitary’s table with their British counterparts. Adams found Goulburn’s wife charming company, but could not say the same for her husband.
The next day, while the Americans continued labouring over their response, Goulburn wrote to Lord Bathurst. His discussions with various American commissioners had convinced him “that they do not mean to continue the negotiations.” Sitting next to him the night before, Clay had bluntly stated that they would seek instructions from Washington because the British demands were equivalent to asking “for the cession of Boston or New York.” After dinner, Bayard had taken him aside and warned at length that the negotiations “could not end in peace” because the British terms not only ruined such prospects “but were sacrificing the Party of which he was a member to their political adversaries.” He then plunged into a long lesson in American party politics intended to convince Goulburn that Britain’s hopes rested with the Federalists, and a peace treaty on less onerous terms would assure that party ascended to power. Goulburn could think of nothing to say to this, so barely offered Bayard the courtesy of a reply. In a postscript, Goulburn noted that “the question of acquiring Indian Territory by conquest can hardly come under discussion.”4
On August 24, four days after receipt of t
he British note, the Americans finalized a reply shortly before midnight. All were weary and irritable, displeased with the result. Two-thirds of what Adams had written was jettisoned. “The remnant left,” Adams grumbled, “is patched with scraps from Mr. Gallatin, and scraps from Mr. Bayard, and scraps from Mr. Clay, all of who are dissatisfied with the paper as finally constructed.” Next morning, the document was signed and Hughes delivered it. Expecting the result to be a rapid closure of the negotiations, Adams began to make plans to return to St. Petersburg, possibly by way of Vienna, where he might attempt a direct discussion with Viscount Castlereagh.5
Although only a fifth the length of Adams’s original draft, the document set in Hughes’s fluid script ran to fifteen pages. The war, it declared, was rooted entirely in maritime issues, so the demand that America surrender “one-third of the territorial dominions of the United States” to “perhaps 20,000 Indians” was both unforeseeable and certain to be rejected. As for unilaterally demilitarizing the Great Lakes and surrendering territory to enable a British road link from Quebec to Halifax, the commissioners said they had no authority “to cede any part of the United States.” The terms proposed by Britain “would inflict the most vital injury on the United States, by dismembering their territory, by arresting their natural growth and increase of population, by leaving their northern and western frontier equally exposed to British invasion, and to Indian aggression; they are, above all, DISHONORABLE to the United States, in demanding from them to abandon territory and a portion of their citizens, to admit a foreign interference in their domestic concerns, and to cease to exercise their natural rights on their own shores, and in their own waters.”
America no longer desired “to continue [the war] in defence of abstract principles, which have, for the present, ceased to have any practical effect.” The commissioners had been instructed “to agree to its termination, both parties restoring whatever territory they may have taken, and both reserving all their rights, in relation to their respective seamen.” To ensure lasting peace, they were empowered to discuss all issues over which either nation felt “differences or uncertainty had existed” and might “interrupt the harmony of the two countries.” But concluding the peace should not depend on these issues being settled. The demands made by Britain were “NEW and unexpected pretensions” that raised “an insuperable obstacle to a pacification.” In conclusion, the commissioners did not need to look to their government for instruction on these points because they would only be “a fit subject of deliberation, when it becomes necessary to decide upon the expediency of an absolute surrender of national independence.”6
