Aside from the result of the elections of the preceding November, which had given Federalists twenty out of thirty congressmen, it is difficult to understand upon what the party of Hamilton really based its confidence. Before the campaign was a month old, it must have been evident that the defeated candidate for President had as little influence as Van Rensselaer, who, as a major-general of militia in command at Fort Niagara, was a miserable failure. After shivering with fear for sixty days lest Hull"s fate overtake him, Van Rensselaer, apparently in sheer desperation, had suddenly ordered a small part of his force across the river to be shot and captured in the presence of a large reserve who refused to go to the a.s.sistance of their comrades.
The news of this defeat led Monroe to speak of him as "a weak and incompetent man with high pretensions." Jefferson thought Hull ought to be "shot for cowardice" and Van Rensselaer "broke for incapacity."[175]
[Footnote 175: Jefferson to Madison, Nov. 5, 1812; _Jefferson MSS.
Series V._, Vol. XV.]
But the Federalists, unmindful of the real seriousness of that disaster, contested the election with unusual vehemence, until the best informed men of both parties conceded their advantage. The Government"s incapacity was abundantly ill.u.s.trated in the failure of its armies and in the impoverished condition of its treasury, and if the home conditions had been disturbed by distress, the confidence of the Federalists must have been realised. The people of the State, however, had seen and felt nothing of actual warfare. In spite of embargoes and blockades, ample supplies of foreign goods had continued to arrive; and, except along the Niagara frontier, occupied by a few hundred scattered settlers, the farms produced their usual harvests and the industries of life were not impaired. Under these conditions, the voters of the country districts saw no reason for defeating a governor whom they liked, for a man whose military service added nothing to his credit or to the l.u.s.tre of the State. So, when the election storm subsided, it was found, to the bitter mortification of the Federalists, that while the chief towns, New York, Hudson and Albany, were strong in opposition, Tompkins and Taylor had triumphed by the moderate majority of 3606 in a total vote of over 83,000.[176]
The Senate stood three to one in favour of the Republicans. The a.s.sembly was lost by ten votes.
[Footnote 176: Daniel D. Tompkins, 43,324; Stephen Van Rensselaer, 39,718.--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1887), p. 166.]
Tompkins was now at the zenith of his political career. He was one of those men not infrequently observed in public life, who, without conspicuous ability, have a certain knack for the management of men, and are able to acquire influence and even a certain degree of fame by personal skill in manipulating patronage, smoothing away difficulties, and making things easy. Nature had not only endowed him with a genius for political diplomacy, but good fortune had favoured his march to popularity by disa.s.sociating him with any circ.u.mstances of birth or environment calculated to excite jealousy or to arouse the suspicion of the people. He was neither rich nor highly connected. The people knew him by the favourite t.i.tle of the "farmer"s boy," and he never appeared to forget his humble beginnings. "He had the faculty," says James Renwick, formerly of Columbia College, who knew him personally, "of never forgetting the name or face of any person with whom he had once conversed; of becoming acquainted and appearing to take an interest in the concerns of their families; and of securing, by his affability and amiable address, the good opinion of the female s.e.x, who, although possessed of no vote, often exercise a powerful indirect influence." Thus, while still in the early prime of life, he had risen to a position in the State which, even in the case of men with superior intellectual endowments, is commonly the reward of maturer years and longer experience.
From the moment Tompkins became governor in 1807 the strongest ambition of his mind was success in the great game of politics; and, although never a good hater, his capacity for friendship depended upon whether the success of his own career was endangered by the a.s.sociation. Having laid Clinton in the dust, his eye rested upon John Armstrong, who had recently won the appointment of secretary of war.
Armstrong had been recalled from Paris at the request of Napoleon, just in time to get in the way of both Clinton and Tompkins. At first he was a malcontent, grumbling at Madison, and condemning the conduct of public affairs generally; but, after the declaration of war, he supported the Administration, and, on July 6, 1812, to the surprise and indignation of Clinton, he accepted a brigadiership, with command of New York City and its defences. Then came the period of danger and urgency following the surrender of Detroit, and Armstrong, on the 6th of February, 1813, to the great embarra.s.sment of Tompkins, obtained quick promotion to the head of the war department.
There seems to have been no reason why Tompkins should have harboured the feeling of rivalry toward Armstrong that he cherished for Clinton.
The former was simply a pretentious occupier of high places, without real ability for great accomplishment. His little knowledge of the theory and practice of war was learned on the staff of General Gates, who, Bancroft says, "had no fitness for command and wanted personal courage." It was while Armstrong was dwelling in the tent of this political, intriguing adventurer, that he wrote the celebrated "Newburgh Letters," stigmatised by Washington. These events, coupled with his want of scruples and known capacity for intrigue and indolence, made him an object of such distrust that the Senate, in spite of his social and political connections, barely confirmed him.
Could Tompkins, looking two years into the future, have foreseen Armstrong pa.s.sing into disgraceful retirement after the capture of the city of Washington, he might easily have dismissed all rivalry from his mind; but just now the two men who seemed to stand most in his way were Armstrong and Spencer. He thought Spencer in too close and friendly alliance with Armstrong, and that Armstrong, whose strength in the State greatly depended upon Spencer"s influence, was the only obstacle in his path to the White House. Thus there arose in his mind a sentiment of rivalry for Armstrong, and a strong feeling of distrust and dislike for Spencer. The latter, who now possessed little more real liking for Tompkins than Clinton did, soon understood the Governor"s feeling toward him; and he also learned that Van Buren, with an intellect for organisation and control far superior to anything the Republicans of the State had heretofore known, had come into the political game to stay.
By phenomenal luck, DeWitt Clinton"s good fortune still continued to attend him. In April, 1813, the Federalists had again carried the a.s.sembly, and, although without senators in the middle and western districts to serve upon the Council of Appointment, Clinton found a friend in Henry A. Townsend, who answered the purpose of a Federalist.
Townsend would support Jonas Platt for a judgeship if Clinton was retained as mayor.
Townsend had come into the Senate in 1810 as a Clinton Republican, but his brief legislative career had not been as serene as a summer"s day.
He fell out with Tompkins and Spencer when he fell in with Thomas and Southwick, and whether or not the favours distributed by the Bank of America actually became a part of his a.s.sets, the bank"s opponents took such violent exception to his vote that poor Townsend had little to hope for from that faction of his party. It was commonly believed at the time, therefore, that a desire to please Clinton and possibly to gain the favour of Federalists in the event of their future success, influenced him to support Platt, conditional on the retention of Clinton. It is quite within the range of probability that some such motive quickened his instinct for revenge and self-preservation, although it led to an incident that must have caused Clinton keen regret and mental anguish.
Townsend"s Republican colleague in the Council was none other than Morgan Lewis, who saw an opportunity of creating trouble by nominating Richard Riker as an opposing candidate to Platt. Tompkins had probably something to do with making this nomination--or, at all events, with giving his friend Lewis the idea of bringing it forward just then. Surely, they thought, Clinton would reverence Riker, who acted as second in the Swartout duel and recently headed the committee to promote his election to the Presidency. Clinton felt the sting of his enemies. There was a time when Clinton had supported Tompkins against Lewis; now Lewis, in supporting Tompkins against Clinton, was thrusting the latter through with a two-edged knife; for if Townsend voted for Riker, the Federalists would drop Clinton; if he voted for Platt, Riker would drop him. In vain did Clinton wait for Riker to suggest some avenue of escape. The plucky second wanted a judgeship which meant years of good living, as much as Clinton wanted the mayoralty that might be lost in another year. Clinton had not yet drunk the dregs of the bitter cup. False friends and their unpaid security debts were still to bankrupt him; but he had already seen enough to know that the setting sun is not worshipped. Under these circ.u.mstances his friendship for Riker was not strong enough to induce him to throw away his last chance of holding the mayoralty and its fat fees; and so when Townsend voted for Platt, Riker"s affection for Clinton turned to hate.
CHAPTER XX
A GREAT WAR GOVERNOR
1812-1815
The a.s.sumption of extraordinary responsibilities during the War of 1812, justly conferred upon Daniel D. Tompkins the t.i.tle of a great war governor. There is an essential difference between a war governor and a governor in time of war. One is enthusiastic, resourceful, with ability to organise victory by filling languishing patriotism with new and n.o.ble inspiration--the other simply performs his duty, sometimes respectably, sometimes only perfunctorily. George Clinton ill.u.s.trated, in his own person, the difference between a great war governor and a governor in time of war. If he failed to win renown on the battlefield, his ability to inspire the people with confidence, and to bring glory out of threatened failure and success out of apparent defeat, made him the greatest war governor the country had yet known.
Daniel D. Tompkins served his State no less acceptably. In the moment of greatest discouragement he displayed a patriotic courage in borrowing money without authority of law that made his Administration famous.
Yet Tompkins" patriotism scarcely rose to that sublime height which suffers its possessor unselfishly to advance a rival even for the public welfare. There is no doubt of DeWitt Clinton"s conspicuous devotion to the interests of his country throughout the entire war. He exceeded his power as mayor in inducing the Common Council to borrow money on the credit of the city and loan it to the United States; at the supreme moment of a great crisis, when the national treasury was empty and a British fleet threatened destruction to the coast, an impressive address which he drafted, accompanied by a subscription paper which he headed, resulted in raising a fund of over one million dollars for the city"s defence. The genius of Clinton had never been more n.o.bly employed than in his efforts to sustain the war, winning him universal esteem throughout the munic.i.p.ality for his patriotic unselfishness and unlimited generosity. Tompkins must have known that such a man, already holding the rank of major-general in the militia, would be absolute master of any situation. He was not the one to throw up the cards because the chances of the game were going against him.
His was a fighting spirit, and his impulse was ever, like that of Macbeth, to try to the last. But Tompkins could not fail to observe the party"s growing dislike for Clinton, and, much as he wanted military success, he graciously declined Clinton"s request, brought to him by Thomas Addis Emmet, to be a.s.signed to active service in the field.
Tompkins had little to encourage him at the outset of the war. The election in April, 1812, had turned the a.s.sembly over to the Federalists, who not only wasted the time of an extra session, called in November of that year, but carried their opposition through the regular session begun in January, 1813. The emergency was pressing.
New England Federalists had declined to make the desired loans to the general government, and the governor of New York wished his State to relieve the situation by advancing the needed money. It was a patriotic measure. Whether right or wrong, the declaration of war had jeopardised the country. Soldiers, poorly equipped, scantily clothed, without organisation, and without pay, were scattered for hundreds of miles along a spa.r.s.ely settled border, opened to the attacks of a powerful enemy; yet the Federalists refused to vote a dollar to equip a man. Why should we continue a war from the prosecution of which we have nothing to gain, they asked? The Orders in Council have been repealed, England has shrunk from facing the consequences of its own folly, and America has already won a complete triumph. What further need, then, for bleeding our exhausted treasury?
The Governor"s embarra.s.sment, however, did not emanate from the Federalists alone. The northern frontier of New York was to become the great battle-ground, and it was conceded that capable generals and a sufficient force were necessary to carry the war promptly into Canada.
But the President furnished neither. He appointed Henry Dearborn, with the rank of major-general, to command the district from Niagara to the St. Lawrence, thus putting all military operations within the State under the control of a man in his sixty-second year, whose only military experience had been gained as a deputy quartermaster-general in 1781, and as colonel of a New Hampshire regiment after the end of the Revolutionary War. Dearborn was a politician--not a general. After serving several years in Jefferson"s Cabinet, he graduated into the custom-house at Boston, where he concerned himself more to beat the Federalists than he ever exerted himself to defeat the British. In his opinion, campaigning ought to have its regular alternations of activity and repose, but he never knew when activity should begin. To make the condition more supremely ironic, Morgan Lewis, now in his fifty-ninth year, whose knowledge of war, like Dearborn"s, had been learned as a deputy quartermaster-general thirty years before, was a.s.sociated with him in command.
Dearborn submitted a plan of campaign, recommending that the main army advance by way of Lake Champlain upon Montreal, while three corps of militia should enter Canada from Detroit, Niagara and Sackett"s Harbour. This was as near as Dearborn ever came to a successful invasion of Canada. War was declared on June 18, 1812, and July had been frittered away before he left Albany. Meantime General Hull, whose success depended largely upon Dearborn"s vigorous support from Niagara, having been a fortnight on British soil, now recrossed the river and a few days later surrendered his army and Detroit to General Brock. This tragic event aroused Dearborn sufficiently to send Stephen Van Rensselaer to command the Niagara frontier, the feeble General a.s.suring the secretary of war that, as soon as the force at Lewiston aggregated six thousand men, a forward movement should be made; but Dearborn himself, with the largest force then under arms, took good care to remain on Lake Champlain, clinging to its sh.o.r.es like a barnacle, as if afraid of the fate visited upon the unfortunate Hull.
Finally, after two months of waiting, Van Rensselaer sent a thousand men across the Niagara to Queenstown to be killed and captured within sight of four thousand troops who refused to go to the help of their comrades. Disgusted and defeated, Van Rensselaer turned over his command to Brigadier-General Alexander Smith, a boastful Irish friend of Madison from Virginia, who issued burlesque proclamations about an invasion of Canada, and then declined to risk an engagement, although he had three Americans to one Englishman. This closed the campaign of 1812.
With the hope of improving the military situation John Armstrong was made secretary of war in place of William Eustis. Armstrong was never a favourite. His a.s.sociation with Gates and his subsequent career in France, made him an object of distrust. But, once in office, he picked up the Eustis ravellings and announced a plan of campaign which included an attack on Montreal from Lake Champlain; the destruction of Kingston and York (Toronto) by the troops from Sackett"s Harbour; and the expulsion of the British from the Niagara frontier. The Kingston part of the programme possessed genuine merit. Kingston commanded the traffic of the St. Lawrence, between Upper and Lower Canada, and no British force could maintain itself in Upper Canada without ready communication with the lower province; but Dearborn decided to reverse Armstrong"s plan by taking York, afterward the Niagara frontier, and then unite a victorious army against Kingston. Dearborn, to do him justice, offered to resign, and Armstrong would gladly have gotten rid of him, with Morgan Lewis and other incompetents. The President, however, clung to the old men, making the spring and early summer campaign of 1813, like its predecessor, a record of dismal failures.
York had, indeed, capitulated after the bloodiest battle of the war, the American loss amounting to one-fifth the entire force, including Pike, the best brigadier then in the service. But the British still held Niagara; two brigade commanders had been sorely defeated; a third had surrendered five hundred and forty men to a British lieutenant with two hundred and sixty; and Sackett"s Harbour, with its barracks burned and navy-yard destroyed, had barely escaped capture, while Kingston was unmolested and Dearborn totally incapacitated "with fever and mortification."
It was now midsummer. Tompkins and a Republican Senate had been re-elected, but the Federalists, whose policy was to obtain peace on any terms, still held the a.s.sembly. Just at this time, therefore, success in the field would have been of immense value politically, and as sickness had put Dearborn out of commission, it gave Armstrong an opportunity of promoting Winfield Scott and Jacob Brown, both of whom had shown unusual ability in spite of the shameless incapacity of their seniors. The splendid fighting qualities of Jacob Brown had saved Sackett"s Harbour; and the brilliant pluck of Winfield Scott had withstood a force three times his own until British bayonets pushed him over the crest of Queenstown Heights. Armstrong, however, had a liking for James Wilkinson. They had been companions in arms with Gates at Saratoga, and, although no one knew better than Armstrong the feebleness of Wilkinson"s character, he a.s.signed him to New York after the President had forced his removal from New Orleans.
Wilkinson"s military life might fairly be described as infamous.
Winfield Scott spoke of him as an "unprincipled imbecile."[177] He had recently been several times court-martialled, once for being engaged in a treasonable conspiracy with Spain, again as an accomplice of Aaron Burr, and finally for corruption; and, although each time he had been acquitted, his brother officers regarded him with suspicion and contempt. Nevertheless, this man, fifty-six years of age, and broken in health as well as character, was subst.i.tuted for Dearborn and ordered to take Kingston; and Wade Hampton, one year his senior, without a war record, and not on speaking terms with Wilkinson, was ordered to Plattsburg to take Montreal. Folly such as this could only end in disaster. Whatever Armstrong suggested Wilkinson opposed, and whatever Wilkinson advised Hampton resented; but Wilkinson so far prevailed, that, before either expedition started, it was agreed to abandon Kingston; and before either general had pa.s.sed far beyond the limits of the State, it was agreed to abandon Montreal, leaving the generals and the secretary of war ample time to quarrel over their responsibility for the failure. Wilkinson charged Hampton with blasting the honour of the army, and both generals accused Armstrong of purposely deserting them to shift the blame from himself. On the other hand, Armstrong accepted Hampton"s resignation, sneered at Wilkinson for abandoning the campaign, and, after Hampton"s death, saddled him with the responsibility of the whole failure.
[Footnote 177: Winfield Scott, _Autobiography_, p. 94, _note_.]
Meantime, while the generals and secretary quarrelled, and their twelve thousand troops rested in winter quarters at French Mills and Plattsburg--leaving the country between Detroit and Sackett"s Harbour with less than a regiment--the British were vigorously at work. They pounced upon the Niagara frontier; reoccupied Fort George; carried Fort Niagara with great slaughter; and burned Black Rock and Buffalo in revenge for the destruction of Newark and Queenstown and the public buildings at York. This ended the campaign of 1813.
On the high seas, however, the American navy, so small that England had scarcely known of its existence, was redeeming the country from the disgrace its generals had brought upon it. There are some battles of that time, fought out in storm and darkness, which taught Americans the real pleasures of war, and turned the names of vessels and their brave commanders into household words; but not until Oliver H. Perry, an energetic young officer, was ordered from Newport to the Niagara frontier, in the spring of 1813, did conditions change from sacrifice and disgrace to real success. Six vessels were at that time building at Erie; and three smaller craft rested quietly in the navy-yard at Black Rock. Perry"s orders included the union of these fleets, carrying fifty-four guns and five hundred men, and the destruction of six British vessels, carrying sixty-three guns and four hundred and fifty men. Six months of patient labour on both sides were required to put the squadrons into fighting condition; but when, on the afternoon of September 10, Perry had fought the fight to a finish, the British squadron belonged to him. The War of 1812 would be memorable for this, if it were for nothing else; and the indomitable Perry, whose stubborn courage had wrested victory from what seemed inevitable defeat, is enthroned among the proudest names of the great sea fighters of history.
After Wilkinson, Morgan Lewis, and other incompetent generals had retired in disgrace, Armstrong recognised the genius of Jacob Brown and Winfield Scott. Brown was of Quaker parentage, a school teacher by profession, and a farmer by occupation. After founding the town of Brownsville, he had owned and lived on a large tract of land near Sackett"s Harbour, and for recreation he had commanded a militia regiment. In 1811, Tompkins made him a brigadier, and when the contest opened, he found his true mission. He knew nothing of the technique of war. Laying out fortifications, policing camps, arranging with calculating foresight for the far future, did not fall within his knowledge; but for a fighter he must always rank in history with John Paul Jones; and as a leader of men he had hardly a rival in those days. Soldiers only wanted his word of command to undertake any enterprise, no matter how hopeless. Winfield Scott, who understood Brown"s limitations, said there was nothing he could not do if he only got a fair opportunity. Armstrong commissioned him a major-general in place of Wilkinson, and a.s.signed Scott to a brigade in his command.
These officers, full of zeal and vigor, infused new life into an army that had been beaten and battered for two years. In twelve weeks, during July, August, and September, the British met stubborn resistance at Chippewa, Lundy"s Lane, Fort Erie, and Black Rock, and a repulse as disgraceful as it was complete at Plattsburg. But before Brown could establish the new order of things along the whole Canadian border, the British took Oswego, with its abundant commissary supplies, and their navy inflicted a wound, in the destruction of the _Chesapeake_ and the _Argus_, that turned the Perry huzzas into suppressed lamentations.
Following this calamity, occurred the April elections of 1814. The uncertain temper of the people gave Tompkins little to expect and much to fear. He believed it had only needed a bold and spirited forward movement to demonstrate that the United States was in a position to dictate terms to England; but existing conditions indicated that England would soon dictate terms to the United States. Tompkins may be fairly excused, therefore, if he failed to discern in the struggle for political supremacy the slightest indication of that victory so long prayed for. Events, however, had been working silently--differently than either Federalist or Republican guessed; and, to the utter amazement of all, the war party swept the State, electing a.s.semblymen even in New York City, twenty out of thirty congressmen, and every senator, save one. Under these circ.u.mstances Tompkins lost no time in summoning, in September, an extra session of the newly elected Legislature, which began turning out war measures like cloth from a loom. It raised the pay of the militia above that of the regular army; it encouraged privateering; it authorised the enlistment of twelve thousand men for two years and two thousand slaves for three years; it provided for a corps of twenty companies for coast defence; it a.s.sumed the State"s quota of direct tax, and it reimbursed Governor Tompkins for personal expenditures incurred without authority of law. Some of these measures were drastic, especially the conscription bill; but the act showing the determination of the Republican party to fight the war to a finish, was that allowing slaves to enlist with the consent of their masters, and awarding them freedom when honourably mustered out of service.
There was certainly much need for an active and vigorous Legislature in the fall of 1814. Washington had been captured and burned; Armstrong, threatened with removal, had resigned in disgrace; the national treasury was empty; and every bank between New Orleans and Albany had suspended specie payment, with their notes from twenty to thirty per cent. below par. Although, in ten weeks, from July 3 to September 11, the British had met a b.l.o.o.d.y and unparalleled check from an inferior force, under the brilliant leadership of Brown and Scott, and a most disgraceful repulse by Macdonough and Macomb at Plattsburg, victorious English veterans, fresh from the battlefields of Spain, continued to arrive, until Canada contained twenty-seven thousand regular troops. On the other hand, Macomb had only fifteen hundred men at Plattsburg, Brown less than two thousand at Fort Erie, and Izard about four thousand at Buffalo.
To make bad matters worse, the New England Federalists were renewing their talk of a dissolution of the Union. "We have been led by the terms of the Const.i.tution," said Governor Strong of Ma.s.sachusetts, addressing the Legislature on October 5, 1814, "to rely on the government of the Union to provide for our defence. We have resigned to that government the revenues of the State with the expectation that this object would not be neglected. Let us, then, unite in such measures for our safety as the times demand and the principles of justice and the law of self-preservation will justify."[178] Answering for the Legislature, which understood the Governor"s words to be an invitation to resume powers the State had given up when adopting the Const.i.tution, Harrison Gray Otis reported that "this people, being ready and determined to defend themselves, have the greatest need of those resources derivable from themselves which the national government has. .h.i.therto thought proper to employ elsewhere. When this deficiency becomes apparent, no reason can preclude the right of the whole people who were parties to it, to adopt another."[179] The report closed by recommending the appointment of delegates "to meet and confer with delegates from the States of New England or any of them," out of which grew the celebrated Hartford Convention that met on the 15th of December. The report of this convention, made on the 24th of the same month, declared that a severance of the Union can be justified only by absolute necessity; but, following the Virginia resolution of 1798, it confirmed the right of a State to "interpose its authority" for the protection of its citizens against conscriptions and drafts, and for an arrangement with the general government to retain "a reasonable portion" of the revenues to be used in its own defence and in the defence of neighbouring States. In other words, it favoured the establishment of a New England confederacy.
Thus, after ten years, the crisis had come which Pickering, the storm petrel, desired to precipitate in the days when Hamilton declined to listen and Aaron Burr consented to lead.
[Footnote 178: Message; _Niles_, Vol. 7, p. 113.]
[Footnote 179: Report of Oct. 8, 1814; _Niles_, Vol. 7, p. 149.]
It is doubtful if the great body of Federalists in New York really sympathised with their eastern brethren. Those who did, like Gouverneur Morris, proclaimed their views in private and confidential letters. "I care nothing more for your actings and doings," Morris wrote Pickering, then in Congress. "Your decree of conscription and your levy of contributions are alike indifferent to one whose eyes are fixed on a star in the east, which he believes to be the dayspring of freedom and glory. The traitors and madmen a.s.sembled at Hartford will, I believe, if not too tame and timid, be hailed hereafter as the patriots and sages of their day and generation."[180] Looking back on the history of that portentous event, one is shocked to learn that men like Morris could have sympathy with the principle sought to be established; but if any leading New York Federalist disapproved the convention"s report he made no public record of it at the time.[181]
[Footnote 180: Gouverneur Morris to Timothy Pickering, Dec. 22, 1814, _Morris"s Works_, Vol. 3, p. 324.]
[Footnote 181: "Among the least violent of Federalists was James Lloyd, recently United States senator from Ma.s.sachusetts. To John Randolph"s letter, remonstrating against the Hartford Convention, Lloyd advised the Virginians to coerce Madison into retirement, and to place Rufus King in the Presidency as the alternative to a fatal issue. The a.s.sertion of such an alternative showed how desperate the situation was believed by the moderate Federalists to be."--Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, Vol. 8, p. 306.]
The violent methods of New England governors in withdrawing their militia from the service of the United States, coupled with the action of the New York Federalists in calling a state convention to determine what course their party should pursue, were well calculated to arouse Governor Tompkins, who welcomed the privilege of upholding the general government. He did not minimise the gravity of the situation. Perhaps he did not feel the alarm expressed in Jefferson"s letter to Gallatin, a year after the crisis had pa.s.sed; for he now had behind him a patriotic Legislature and the nucleus of an invincible army under trained leadership. But if the war had continued, and, as the Washington authorities antic.i.p.ated, the British had prevailed at New Orleans, he would have found a New England confederacy to the east of him as well as an army of English veterans on the north.
The conditions that faced Madison made peace his last hope. American commissioners were already in Europe; but as month after month pa.s.sed without agreement, the darkest hour of the war seemed to have settled upon the country. Suddenly, on the 4th of February, 1815, the startling and glorious news of General Jackson"s decisive victory at New Orleans electrified the nation. A week later, a British sloop of war sailed into New York harbour, announcing that the treaty of Ghent had been signed on the 24th of the preceding December. Instantly Madison"s troubles disappeared. The war was over, the Hartford commissioners were out of employment, and the happy phrase of Charles J. Ingersoll of Pennsylvania became the popular summing up of the treaty--"not an inch ceded or lost." Jackson"s victory had not entered into the peace negotiations; but intelligent men knew that the superb fighting along the Canadian frontier during the campaign of 1814, had had much to do in bringing about the result. Beginning with the battle of Chippewa, where equal bodies of troops met face to face, in broad daylight, on an open field, without advantage of position, the American army faced British troops with the skill and desperate courage that characterised the struggle between the North and the South forty years later.
Among civilians most admired for their part in the struggle, Daniel D.
Tompkins stood first. The genius of an American governor had never been more n.o.bly employed, and, although he was sometimes swayed by prejudice and the impulses of his personal ambition, he did enough to show that he was devotedly attached to his country.
CHAPTER XXI