1812–1815 O WAR OF 1812 BICENTENNIAL O 2012–2015 14

BY ALAN TAYLOR

Like the Revolution, the War of 1812 was a civil war between competing visions of America, waged by the British and the new Americans in the hearts and minds of both sides.

The USS Constitution captured the HMS Guerriere on August 19, 1812 in the first of several victories for the U.S. Navy in ship-to-ship combat. Many of the sailors fighting as American citizens had been born British subjects.

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n the fall of 1812, Ned a British subject in Quebec in Myers was a nineteen- 1793. Abandoned by his father, year-old sailor in a a German officer serving in group marching from the Royal Army, Myers grew New York City across up in Halifax, the capital of INew York State to Lake Nova Scotia: another British Ontario. They went to join colony. At age eleven, he ran the American fleet under away to New York City to construction for an invasion become a sailor. Rejecting his a British naval officer “pro- of British Canada. But Myers birth as a British subject, nounced us all Englishmen” When a British felt the enemy long before he Myers chose to become an obliged to serve in the Royal reached the Canadian border, American citizen: “America Navy or face trial and hanging warship captured that for the sailors marched into was, and ever has been, the as traitors. All eight refused an upstate village where the country of my choice, and to serve on a warship, but schooner, Myers inhabitants bitterly opposed while yet a child I may say I they agreed to work on an dreaded the discovery the war. On a trumped-up decided for myself to sail unarmed transport vessel. They charge, the villagers arrested under the American flag; and sailed for Bermuda, where of his secret: that he the officers in command of if my father had a right to naval officers again impressed Myers’s party, only to release make an Englishman of me them to serve on a warship, had been born a them when the sailors threat- by taking service under the which threatened, Myers British subject in ened to burn the village. English crown, I think I had a insisted, “to swallow us all in Moving on to Oswego Falls right to make myself what I the enormous maw of the Quebec in 1793. and caught in a downpour, pleased when he left me.” British navy.” When the the sailors sought refuge for But the British insisted that captives refused, they faced a the night in a large barn. That every “natural born subject” court-martial. Unable to prove night, as Myers recalled, they remained so for life. Before that the sailors were subjects, “caught the owner coming the war, Myers had repeatedly the British transferred them about with a lantern to set fire and narrowly dodged the Royal to a prison at Halifax, where to the barn, and we carried Navy press gangs, which Myers worried that the locals him down to a boat, and stopped and boarded American would remember and recog- lashed him there until morning, ships in search of any mariner nize him. letting the rain wash all the who seemed British. And once The War of 1812 pivoted combustible matter out of the war with America began, on the contentious boundary him.” In the War of 1812, British officers treated former between the king’s subjects Myers had to fight against subjects as traitors if captured and the republic’s citizens.

NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND Americans as well as Britons. while fighting in the enemy’s In the republic, an immigrant During the following service. As a British prisoner, chose citizenship—in stark summer of 1813, Myers served Myers feared for his life. contrast to a British subject, on an American armed In September at Quebec, a whose status remained defined This article is adapted from schooner on Lake Ontario. press gang boarded his prison by birth. That distinction the introduction to the When a British warship cap- ship to seize Myers and derived from the American author’s book, The Civil War tured that schooner, Myers seven other prisoners. Myers Revolution, when the rebelling of 1812: American Citizens, dreaded the discovery of his insisted that five of them colonists became republican British Subjects, Irish Rebels, secret: that he had been born were Americans by birth, but citizens by rejecting their past & Indian Allies (Knopf, 2010).

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as subjects. An immigrant where he went or what served as a haven for thou- The British and the reiterated that revolution by nation pretended to naturalize sands of American Loyalists seeking citizenship and for- him. Returning the favor, the expelled by the Patriot victory Americans waged the saking the status of the king’s republic’s officers sought to in the revolution. By building subject. But the British denied entice captive Britons to enter a Loyalist society, these War of 1812 in the that the Americans could the American service, thereby refugees hoped to set an hearts and minds of convert a subject into a citizen re-enacting the revolution on example of superior stability by naturalization. By seizing an individual scale. Because and prosperity meant to Ned Myers and his supposed subjects from the line between citizen and demonstrate the folly of the merchant ships, the Royal Navy subject was so contested, rival republican experiment in the fellow soldiers and threatened to reduce American commanders promoted the United States. (The revolution sailors on both sides. sailors and commerce to a desertion of enemy soldiers, generated a higher proportion quasi-colonial status, for every the defection of prisoners, of political refugees than did British impressment was an and the subversion of civilians the French Revolution: historian act of counter-revolution. By in occupied regions. As much Maya Jasanoff calculates that resisting impressment and as on any battlefield, the 1 in 40 colonists became a declaring war, the Americans British and the Americans refugee, compared to 1 in 200 defended their revolution. waged the War of 1812 in French during their revolution- War raised the stakes in the hearts and minds of Ned ary upheaval.) The Loyalists in Above: Columbia, the female the conflict over subjects Myers and his fellow soldiers Canada did not believe that personification of America, teaches and citizens. By converting and sailors on both sides. their empire had permanently England, represented by John Bull, prisoners or hanging a few as After the revolution, the lost the fight against the a lesson about freedom on the high seas. France, in the person of deserters, the British bolstered British Empire and the American republican revolution. Napoleon Bonaparte, is also warned their contention that any republic had remained uneasy Britons and Loyalists of American resistance to despotism natural-born subject owed neighbors in North America. predicted that the republic in all forms. allegiance for life, no matter Upper Canada (now Ontario) inevitably would collapse into

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anarchy and civil war. Surely the Federalists, who preferred repentant Americans would to smuggle with the British then beg for readmission rather than to fight them. into the empire. With equal As Myers found on his conviction, Americans insisted march to the front, the war that nature destined their divided Americans. Major Daniel

republic to dominate the McFarland insisted that the NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND continent. Eventually, they British were “engaged in the predicted, the Canadians hellish project of creating a civil would join the United States war” by promoting disaffection by rejecting the artificial rule within the United States. In the of a foreign empire. Created polarized politics of the repub- by the revolution, the border lic, Federalists denounced a between the republic and the war declared by the governing empire seemed tenuous and Republicans. A New Yorker temporary: destined to shift concluded, “Between the two either north or south as one parties, a hostility existed little The story of this borderland The boats of the USS Constitution or the other collapsed. short of civil war.” war illuminates the contrast tow her in a calm as she is pursued Partisan divisions within To win the war, the British and the contest between the by a squadron of British warships. the republic helped to provoke and the Americans had to republic and the empire in the war. After 1801, the win the hearts and minds of the wake of the revolution. dominant Republican Party civilians, both at home and Both American Republicans challenged the British maritime on the front lines. Hampered and Canadian Loyalists sus- policies as a threat to American by long supply lines, a short pected that the continent sovereignty. But the Federalist growing season, and sharp was not big enough for their minority party sympathized climactic swings, the rival rival systems: republic and with Britain’s global struggle armies could only sporadically mixed constitution. One or against the French empire come to grips in fixed battles. the other would have to led by the despot Napoleon Commanders spent most of prevail in the house divided. Bonaparte. The Federalists their time struggling to recruit, Like the revolution, the War also despised the Republicans train, feed, clothe, motivate, of 1812 was a civil war as demagogues who pandered and heal their soldiers or to between competing visions of to the common people by retake and punish those who America: one still loyal to the weakening the national ran away. To succeed, the empire, and the other defined government. By 1812, the commanders needed cooper- by its republican revolution Republicans believed that the ation from the civilians who against that empire. Federalists in New England raised the food, provided the But neither side would were conspiring with the recruits, wove the cloth, and reap what it expected from British to break up the union. gave haven to deserters. To the war. Frustrated in their And the Republicans accused woo Canadians, the American fantasies of smashing the the Loyalists in Canada of generals posed as liberators, other, the Loyalists and the covertly assisting Indian attacks but they failed to prevent republican Americans had to on frontier settlements. By their soldiers from plundering learn how to share the conti- invading Canada and defeating far and wide. And the British nent and to call coexistence the British, the Republicans had no better luck restraining victory. By ending in a standoff, hoped to save the republic from their own troops or their and concluding the revolu- a menacing convergence of Indian allies, who looted the tion, the War of 1812 had A fully annotated version internal and external enemies. Niagara Valley, alienating the the greatest of consequences of this article appears at Instead, the war alienated American civilians there. for North America. n www.nysarchivestrust.org

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