THE ARMY OF THE NORTH.
General Wilkinson was so inefficient with the Army of the North that he was superseded by General Izard, who advanced with his force to the aid of General Brown at Fort Erie. This left Plattsburg uncovered, and the British decided to attack it by land, and to destroy at the same time the American flotilla on Lake Champlain.
Sir George Prevost, at the head of an army of 14,000 men, entered American territory on the 3d of September, and three days later reached Plattsburg. The garrison withdrew to the south side of the Saranac, and prepared to dispute the pa.s.sage of the stream. Commodore Downie appeared off the harbor of Plattsburg, with the British squadron, September 11th.
The American squadron, under Commodore Macdonough, was in the harbor, and consisted of two less barges than the enemy, 86 guns, and 820 men, while the English commander had 95 guns and more than a thousand men.
During the battle which followed the British land forces made repeated attempts to cross the Saranac, but were defeated in every instance. The battle on the water lasted less than three hours, during which Commodore Downie was killed, his vessel sunk, and the remainder sunk or captured.
The destruction of the British squadron was complete, and the land forces withdrew during the night. England was so dissatisfied with the action of Sir George Prevost that he was dismissed from command. No more serious fighting took place in that section during the war.
PUNISHMENT OF THE CREEK INDIANS.
Mention has been made of the ma.s.sacre at Fort Mimms in Alabama by the Creeks, August 30, 1813. Tennessee acted with prompt vigor. General Jackson at the head of 5,000 men marched into the Creek country and punished the Indians with merciless rigor. After repeated defeats, the Creeks made a stand at the Great Horseshoe Bend of the Tallapoosa River.
There a thousand warriors gathered, with their wives and children, prepared to fight to the last. The desperate battle was fought March 27, 1814, and at its close 600 Indians were killed and the remainder scattered. The spirit of the Creeks was crushed, and General Jackson"s exploit made him the most popular military leader in the Southwest.
Matters looked gloomy for the Americans at the beginning of 1814.
England sent a formidable force of veterans to Canada, and another to capture Washington, while the main body expected to take New Orleans, with the intention of retaining the city and province of Louisiana upon the conclusion of peace.
PREPARING FOR THE FINAL STRUGGLE.
The American government gathered up her loins for the great struggle.
The President was authorized to borrow $25,000,000, and to issue treasury notes to the amount of $5,000,000. Such sums are but bagatelles in these days, but in 1814 the credit of the government was so poor that the notes depreciated one-fifth of their face value. One hundred and twenty-four dollars were offered as a bounty for every recruit, while the pay, rations, and clothing were placed upon a generous scale. An order was issued increasing the regular army to 66,000 men, and an embargo laid with the aim of stopping trade under British licenses was repealed in April.
The British cruisers kept the Atlantic coast in continual alarm.
Entering Delaware Bay they burned every merchant vessel in sight. When the people of Lewiston refused to sell food to them, they bombarded their homes. In Chesapeake Bay Admiral c.o.c.kburn plundered private dwellings. Among the places sacked and burned were Lewes, Havre de Grace, Fredericktown, and Georgetown. More leniency was shown the New England coast because of her opposition to the war. Another inexcusable proceeding on the part of the invaders was that of persuading many slaves to leave their masters and join the enemy. This business compelled England, after the close of the war, to pay the United States one million and a quarter dollars, on the award of the Emperor of Russia to whom the question was submitted.
CAPTURE AND BURNING OF WASHINGTON.
But this year saw the crowning disgrace to the American arms. The mismanagement of affairs left our national capital defenseless. In August, 1814, Sir Alexander Cochrane carried a British army up the Chesapeake on board his squadron. Commodore Barney with his few ships had taken shelter in the Patuxent. Paying no attention to him, Ross landed his 5,000 veterans within 40 miles of Washington and advanced against the city. The government had awakened to the threatened peril a short time before, and placed 500 regulars and 2,000 undisciplined militia under the command of General William H. Winder.
Winder took a strong position at Bladensburg and awaited Ross and Cochrane. The British army met with no opposition, and, upon reaching Marlborough, found that Commodore Barney, acting under the orders of the secretary of war, had burned his fleet and hurried to Washington. The English commander arrived in sight of Washington on the 24th of August.
His approach to Bladensburg was over a bridge defended by artillery from Barney"s flotilla, which were handled by Barney and his sailors. They fought with the utmost heroism, repelling the British again and again; but the militia fled, and, when Barney was wounded and his command helpless, he surrendered. General Ross complimented him for his bravery and immediately paroled him.
This was the only check encountered by the British in their advance upon Washington. General Winder had learned enough of his militia to know that no dependence could be placed upon them, and he fled to Georgetown.
The President, heads of departments, and most of the citizens joined in the stampede, and the advance guard of General Ross entered the city that evening.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BURNING OF WASHINGTON.]
The British commander offered to spare the city for a large sum of money, but no one was within reach with authority to comply with his demand. Ross claimed that his flag of truce had been fired on, and he ordered the city to be burned. In the conflagration that followed, the President"s house, the department offices, numerous private dwellings, the libraries and public archives, many works of art in the public buildings, the navy yard and its contents, a frigate on the stocks, and several small vessels were destroyed. The patent office and jail were the only public property spared. The burning of Washington was an outrage which was generally condemned in England.
After a rest and the reception of reinforcements, Ross marched against Baltimore, which he declared should be his winter quarters. While on the road he was mortally wounded by an American sharpshooter in a tree. Such a brave defense was made by Forts McHenry and Covington, guarding the narrow pa.s.sage from the Patapsco into the harbor of Baltimore, that the British fleet and the land forces were repelled. The success of this defense inspired Francis S. Key to write our famous national song, _The Star-Spangled Banner_.
THE HARTFORD CONVENTION.
The war became intensely unpopular in New England. Its shipping suffered severely, and the demands for peace grew more clamorous. On the 15th of December, 1814, a convention of delegates, appointed by the Legislatures of Ma.s.sachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont, met in Hartford and held secret sessions for three weeks. An address was agreed upon charging the national government with carrying on a policy injurious to New England. Amendments were proposed to the Const.i.tution, and a committee was selected to confer with the government at Washington and to propose that the revenues of New England should be applied to her own defense. An agreement was made that if their proposed action failed, and peace was not soon made, the convention should meet again in the following June. There was open talk of a withdrawal from the Union, and doubtless grave results would have followed had the war gone on. The Hartford Convention and the "Blue Lights" of Connecticut gave the final death-blow to the Federal party.
A TREATY OF PEACE SIGNED.
Despite the progress of the war, peace negotiations had been going on for a long time. Russia, whose system of government has always been the exact opposite of ours, has shown us marked friendship in many instances. As early as 1813 she offered to mediate between Great Britain and the United States. The President appointed five commissioners, John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, Jonathan Russell, and Albert Gallatin, who were sent to Ghent, Belgium, where they were met by Lord Gambier, Henry Goulburn, and William Adams, the commissioners for Great Britain. After long negotiations, the commissioners reached an agreement on the 24th of December, 1814. The treaty did not contain a word about the search of American vessels for alleged deserters, which was the real cause of the war, nor was any reference made to the wrongs done our commerce, and the rights of neutral nations were not defined. The Orders of Council, however, died of themselves, Great Britain never again attempting to enforce them. It was agreed that all places captured by either side during the progress of the war or afterward should be surrendered, and provisions were made for fixing the boundary between the United States and Canada.
In those days, when the ocean telegraph was not thought of and there were no swift-going steamers, news traveled slowly, and it did not reach Washington until February 4, 1815. Meanwhile, the most important battle of the war had taken place and several captures were made on the ocean.
The Creek Indians had been so crushed by General Jackson that they ceded a large part of their lands to the Americans. They were sullen, and when a British squadron entered the Gulf of Mexico they eagerly did all they could to help the enemy. The squadron, by permission of the Spanish authorities took possession of the forts of Pensacola, and fitted out an expedition against Fort Bower at the entrance to Mobile Bay. They attacked the fort, September 15th, by sea and land, but were repulsed.
Among the land a.s.sailants were several hundred Creek warriors, who thus received another lesson of the bravery of American soldiers.
General Jackson, in command of the southern military district, was enraged by the course of the Spanish authorities. He marched from Mobile at the head of 2,000 Tennessee militia and a number of Choctaws, stormed Pensacola, November 7th, drove the British from the harbor, and compelled the Spanish governor to surrender the town.
GENERAL JACKSON"S GREAT VICTORY AT NEW ORLEANS.
Having completed his work in this summary fashion, he returned to Mobile, where he found an urgent call for him to go to the defense of New Orleans, which was threatened by a powerful force of the enemy. The invasion, to which we have referred in another place, was a formidable one and had been arranged a long time before. General Jackson reached New Orleans, December 2d, and began vigorous preparations. He enlisted almost everybody capable of bearing arms, including negroes and convicts. One of the most famous freebooters that ever ravaged the Gulf of Mexico was Lafitte, to whom the British made an extravagant offer for his help, but he refused, and gave his services to Jackson.
Jackson"s vigor filled the city with confidence, but he was so strict that dissatisfaction was expressed, whereupon he declared martial law; in other words, he took the city government into his own hands and ruled as he thought best. He neglected no precaution. Fort St. Philip, guarding the pa.s.sage of the Mississippi at Detour la Plaquemine, was made stronger by new works, and a line of fortifications was built four miles below the city, on the left of the river, and extended eastward to an impa.s.sable cypress swamp. It was a disputed question for a time whether Jackson used cotton bales in the defenses of New Orleans, but it is established that he placed them on the tops of the intrenchments.
Cannon were also mounted at different points. The militia under General Morgan, and the crews and guns of a part of the squadron of Commodore Patterson, held the west bank of the river. These precautions enabled the defenders to enfilade the approaching enemy. A detachment guarded the pa.s.s of Bayou St. John, above the city, and a number of gunboats awaited to dispute the pa.s.sage of the river between Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne.
The British fleet appeared at the entrance to this channel, December 14th, and was immediately a.s.sailed by the American flotilla, which was destroyed before it could inflict serious damage. Left free to select the point of attack, the British sent a force in flat-bottomed boats to the extremity of the lake, where they landed in a swamp. They repelled an attack by Jackson, who fell back toward the city. On the 28th of December the British were within half a mile of the American lines. They began a fire of sh.e.l.ls, but were repulsed by Jackson"s artillery.
The defenders numbered some 3,000 militia, who were stationed in a line of intrenchments a mile long and four miles from the town. This line was protected by a ditch in front, flanked by batteries on the other side of the river, and, in addition, eight other batteries were in position.
The British worked slowly forward until on the first day of the year they were within less than a quarter of a mile of New Orleans. As the best material at hand from which to erect breastworks they used hogsheads of sugar and mola.s.ses, which were sent flying in fragments by the American cannon. Several attacks upon the defenders were repulsed and the final a.s.sault delayed for a number of days.
Sir Edward Pakenham, a veteran of the Peninsular wars, and a brother-in-law of Wellington, the conqueror of Napoleon, was in command of the reinforcements. While the advance went on slowly, 3,000 militia joined Jackson. They were composed mainly of Kentucky and Tennessee riflemen, the finest marksmen in the world. They were men, too, who did not lose their heads in battle, but, kneeling behind their intrenchments, coolly took aim and rarely threw away a shot.
On the morning of Jan. 8, 1815, the English army advanced against the American intrenchments. They numbered nearly 8,000 veterans, and England never placed a finer body of men in the field. The American riflemen, with shotted cannon and leveled rifles, calmly awaited the command to open on the advancing host. They were formed in two lines, those at the rear loading for those in front, who were thus enabled to keep up an almost continuous fire.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WEATHERSFORD AND GENERAL JACKSON.]
Before the outburst of flame the British dissolved like snow in the sun, but the survivors with unsurpa.s.sable heroism persisted until it was apparent that not a man would be left alive if they maintained their ground. Then they fell back to decide upon some other method of attack.
Angered by his repulse, Pakenham ran to the head of a regiment bearing scaling ladders and called upon his men to follow him. Only a few succeeded in piercing the American lines. Pakenham fell, mortally wounded; his successor was killed, and the third in command was so badly injured that he could give no orders. "All that were left of them"
retreated. From the opening to the close of the battle was less than half an hour, during which the British lost 2,500 in killed, wounded, and prisoners, one-third being killed. On the American side eight were killed and thirteen wounded. A few days later the British withdrew to their ships and sailed for the West Indies, where they learned of the signing of the treaty of peace.
WORK OF THE AMERICAN NAVY.
It will be noticed that as the war progressed the princ.i.p.al fighting changed from the ocean to the land. Several encounters took place on the sea, but they were mostly unimportant, and did not always result favorably for us. In September, 1814, Captain Samuel C. Reid, in command of the privateer _Armstrong_, while lying in the harbor of Fayal, one of the Azores, was attacked by a fleet of boats from three British frigates. He fought all through the night, and, although outnumbered twenty to one, made one of the most remarkable defenses in naval annals.
On the 16th of January following, the _President_ was captured by the British ship _Endymion_. On the 20th of February, while Captain Charles Stewart was cruising off Cape St. Vincent, in the _Const.i.tution_, with no thought that peace had been declared, he fell in with two British brigs, the _Cyane_ and the _Levant_. It was a bright moonlight night, and, after a brief engagement, in which Stewart displayed consummate seamanship, he captured both vessels.
But peace had come and was joyfully welcomed everywhere. The war had cost us heavily in men, ships, and property; the New England factories were idle, commerce at a standstill, and the whole country in a deplorable state. But everything now seemed to spring into life under the glad tidings. The shipping in New England was decked with bunting, and, within twenty-four hours after the news arrived, the dockyards rang with the sound of saw and hammer.
WAR WITH ALGIERS.