OPENING OF THE WAR 415 As to this declaration, two things are notable: first, there had been equal casus belli constantly for five years, and at certain times greater cause than at this moment; second, France during the same period had offended equally with England, or nearly so. Why declare war now? and why against England and not against France? The first question is answered by our account of the change in party leadership. As to the second, it would have been suicidal to fight both England and France. England was the mother country, and it was more irritating to receive from her such unrelenting harshness than from the free lance, Napoleon, who made little pretense of observing international custom. Another cause of this decision was that France presented no vulnerable point. She possessed no territory to invade on this side of the water, and her navies had been destroyed and her commerce swept from the seas. Yet the war might have been averted. The British ministry was slowly yielding. England did not want war, and would have yielded sooner had she seen that America was in earnest. Even now the yielding process was slow, owing to the obstinacy of Premier Spencer Perceval; but on May 11 Perceval was shot dead in the House of Commons by a lunatic, and the Orders in Council were repealed June 23. But five days before this, and weeks before the news of the repeal had reached America, Madison had set his hand to the declaration of The repeal came too late. war. HOSTILITIES ON THE GREAT LAKES The country was ill prepared for war in 1812. The ten old regiments, scarcely half filled, were scattered through the West in garrisons of scarcely a hundred in a place. Detroit, the scene of the desperate and vain efforts of the great Pontiac; Fort Dearborn, where was to rise in the next generation the city of Chicago; Fort Wayne, Fort Harrison on the Wabash, and other posts. each was held by a handful of men who could ill be spared, for the Indians were sure to cast their lot with the British. The seacoast was unguarded. The raising of armies was exceedingly slow work, and the eleven million loan was only a little more than half taken by the first of July. Henry Dearborn, a former member of Jefferson's Cabinet, was made senior major general and commander in chief. The other major general was Thomas Pinckney, who was to command the southern department. The brigadier generals appointed were, James 1 Wilkinson, formerly connected with Burr's conspiracy, Joseph Bloomfield, ten years governor of New Jersey, Wade Hampton of South Carolina, James Winchester of Tennessee, William Polk of North Carolina, and William Hull, governor of Michigan. These were all elderly men, all had seen service in the Revolution, none had ever commanded a regiment in battle, and most of them had "sunk into sloth, ignorance, or intemperance." But worst of all, the people were not united. The Federalists constituted an anti-war party, and did everything to hamper the administration. They were also gaining at this moment; they had won in the recent elections in New York and Massachusetts, and even in Congress the Democrats lost one fourth of their strength in the final vote on the declaration of war. Had the vote been deferred a month, as the Federalists urged, the news of the repeal of the Orders in Council would have reached America, and the war may have been averted. After the declaration had been passed, a number of the New England Federalists issued a protest, declaring that the war was a party and not a national war, and disclaiming all responsibility for it. When Madison called upon the states for militia, the governors of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island flatly refused to send their quota. Thus at the outset the administration was greatly handicapped by the want of unanimity among the states." Opposition to the war. Our navy consisted of six first-class frigates, built in old Federalist days, and twice as many smaller vessels, while England boasted nearly a thousand war ships. Such was the deplorable condition of the United States at the opening of war with the British Empire. But there were a few advantages: England was engaged in European wars; her navy was scattered over the seas of the world; our little navy was in the hands of young and able men; Canada was open to invasion. At the opening of this war occurred what is considered the most disgraceful event in American history, the surrender of Michigan Territory without a battle. The invasion of Canada was the first and chief aim of the administration. To this end Dearborn was to 1 Scott's" Autobiography." 2" Niles's Register," Vol. II, p. 309. 8 There was also some disaffection on the British side. There was armed resistance at Montreal, which was soon put down; 367 Canadians joined Hull, 9 were executed for treason in 1814. See "Cambridge Modern History," Vol. VII, p. 337. HULL SURRENDERS DETROIT 417 cooperate from the Niagara frontier with an army from Michigan. But Dearborn was incapable of grasping the situation. He spent the summer in Boston and Albany getting ready and doing nothing. William Hull was governor of Michigan. Detroit contained some eight hundred people and a fort, a square inclosure of two acres. Receiving orders to invade Canada from the west, Hull crossed the Detroit River and prepared to besiege Fort Malden, a few miles below. Meantime he wrote Mr. Eustis, the secretary of war, that coöperation from Niagara was absolutely necessary to success; but Dearborn was still loitering at Boston and undecided what to do. The British began to strengthen their fort, and in quick succession news reached Hull of the fall of Michilimackinac, and that a large body of Indians were moving toward Detroit, that his supply train from Ohio had been cut off by Tecumseh, and that a force of British had passed Niagara en route to Detroit. Hull was disheartened. He gave up the siege of Malden and returned to Detroit. The British forces in Upper Canada had the good fortune at this time to be commanded by a man of remarkable energy and military ability, General Isaac Brock. When Hull recrossed the river, Brock, with a few hundred men, was hastening with all Isaac Brock. speed toward Detroit. Reaching Malden, he moved up the river and sent to Hull a summons to surrender the fort with a threat of Indian massacre in case of refusal. The demand was refused, and next morning Brock crossed the river with about seven hundred regulars and militia and six hundred Indians, and moved upon the fort for an attack. Hull was vacillating and utterly discouraged. As the enemy approached, he was greatly agitated; he sat on an old tent with his back against the rampart, moody and uncommunicative. Yet he might have made an immortal name that day. He had two 24-pounders planted so as to cover the road on which the enemy was advancing, and his army almost equaled that of Brock. But Hull imagined the forest swarming with savages, and he thought of the women and children in the fort, Surrender of among whom was his daughter. His supplies would Michigan, last but a month, and then at the inevitable surrender, August 16, woe to those who remained alive! Hull's former bravery now forsook him utterly, and to the astonishment of friend and foe he surrendered the fort and his army without a 1812. 1 Rossiter Johnson gives Hull's force at one thousand, "War of 1812," p. 35. struggle and all Michigan Territory. On the same day Fort Dearborn (Chicago) was burned to the ground by a horde of savages, the garrison having been massacred, the day before, to the last man. Hull was afterward tried by court-martial and sentenced to death, but was pardoned by the President in consideration of his services in the Revolution. Hull did not play the man on that day at Detroit, and cowardice in a soldier is a crime. But Hull was not alone at fault. He was not properly supported, and part of the blame should have been borne by General Dearborn, by Secretary Eustis, and by President Madison.1 But one week elapsed after the capture of Detroit when the energetic Brock reached Fort George, at the mouth of the Niagara, with his prisoners. The British government, on repealing the Orders in Council, had requested an armistice between the two countries in the hope of settling the other differences without war. The news of this had not reached Brock when he captured Detroit. But now on his return both sides hesitated for some days -until it was seen that the armistice would come to naught. American troops were meanwhile hastening to the lake region from Pennsylvania, New York, and New England. Commodore Chauncey was building a fleet on Lake Ontario. General Stephen Van Rensselaer commanded the New York militia, and was stationed at Lewiston. General Alexander Smyth was at Buffalo with sixteen hundred men. But these two commanders were each independent of the other, and a rivalry prevented their coöperation. Van Rensselaer then determined to act alone. He would cross the river and attack the enemy on the heights above Queenstown. Long before the dawn of October 13 several hundred men, under Colonel Christie, embarked in thirteen boats upon the rushing Niagara, and silently rowed for the Canadian shore. Three of the boats lost their way and returned. In one of these was Christie, and the command fell on Captain John E. Wool, who landed safely with the other ten. Up an unguarded path Wool led his men, and at daybreak he attacked an English battery near which stood General Brock, who barely escaped capture by flight. Brock then made an attack on Wool; but an American bullet penetrated his breast, 1 Henry Adams goes back still farther and holds Jefferson chiefly responsible for this disaster, as he was the author of the system by which the country was left unprepared for war. See Vol. VII, Chap. XVI. COWARDICE OF THE MILITIA 419 and he fell dead. The British loss in the death of this young and gallant leader was irreparable. Wool was painfully wounded, but for some hours he held the ground he had won, when Colonel Winfield Scott came and took command. Six hundred American troops now occupied Battle of the heights, when early in the afternoon they saw in Queenstown the distance a large force of the British advancing from heights. Fort George, under General Sheaffe, who had succeeded Brock. Van Rensselaer, who had also crossed the river, now hastened back to Lewiston to bring over the militia, but they refused to cross. The general rode among them and urged them to go to the rescue of their brethren on the hill, but all his efforts were fruitless. The men gave as their reason for not crossing the fact, as they understood it, that they were engaged in a defensive war, and were not obliged to leave the soil of the United States. The true reason was cowardice. The noble six hundred on the heights beyond the river were attacked by more than twice their number, driven back, down the hill, over the precipice to the brink of the river. Here they |