Neither Victor Nor Vanquished: America in the War of 1812

NEITHER VICTOR NOR VANQUISHED Related Titles from Potomac Books Redcoats’ Revenge: An Alternate History of the War of 1812 —Col. David Fitz-Enz, USA (Ret.) The Revolutionary Years, 1775–1789: The Art of American Power During the Early Republic —William Nester The Hamiltonian Vision, 1789–1800: The Art of American Power During the Early Republic —William Nester The Jeffersonian Vision, 1801–1815: The Art of American Power During the Early Republic —William Nester A Call to the Sea: Captain Charles Stewart of the USS Constitution —Claude Berube and John Rodgaard NEITHER VICTOR NOR VANQUISHED America in the War of 1812 WILLIAM WEBER Copyright © 2013 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska All rights reserved Potomac Books is an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Weber, William, 1951– Neither victor nor vanquished : America in the War of 1812 / William Weber. — First edition. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61234-607-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-61234-608-3 (electronic) 1. United States—History—War of 1812. I. Title. E354.W44 2013 973.5’2—dc23 2013001472 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39-48 Standard. Potomac Books 22841 Quicksilver Drive Dulles, Virginia 20166 First Edition 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 CONTENTS List of Illustrations . .vii Acknowledgments . .xiii Introduction . .xv 1 The Need for New Narratives . .1 2 A Classical View of the Military Balance in the War of 1812 . .25 3 Invasions of 1814 and 1863 . .47 4 The Men Who Governed America during the War of 1812 . .73 5 Dueling Narratives: Henry Adams’s Alternative History of the War of 1812 . .99 6 The Battle of Bladensburg: Could Washington Have Been Saved? . .121 7 Victory or Defeat, and for Whom? Alternative Outcomes for the War of 1812 . .143 8 A Worst-Case Scenario for the War of 1812 . .167 9 What if the War of 1812 Had Never Occurred? . .185 Chronology . .205 Notes . .211 Bibliographic Note and Sources . .223 Index . .233 About the Author . .243 This page intentionally left blank ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURES 1. Key Factors: Comparative Advantages . .42 2. Alternative Outcomes . .151 MAPS 1. The Northern Frontier . .viii 2. The Southern Frontier . .ix 3. Niagara River Area . .x 4. Chesapeake Bay Area . .xi 5. Battle of Gettysburg . .xii vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I owe many people a debt of gratitude for their assistance in writing this book. My parents, Jack and Fran, began my lifelong interest in history. Not a Christmas passed without another history book from the Landmark Books series that my siblings and I shared and fought over. Many years later, they also sup- ported my undergraduate education at Canisus College, where I majored in history and benefited greatly from the honors program run by Dr. James Valone and Dr. Walter Sharrow. Both professors taught me about the craft of history and discipline of historiography. My particular interest in the War of 1812 stems from having lived the major- ity of my life in Buffalo, New York, and Washington, D.C. Long aware that the British Army had captured both “villages” during the war sparked my interest in the conflict. Pierre Berton’s The Invasion of Canada, 1812–1813 was the first of many volumes that now occupy my shelves. I have enjoyed learning about the war through the writings of many other authors, such as Donald Hickey, J. Mackay Hitsman, Donald Graves, and J. C. A. Stagg—just to name a few. Several people were instrumental in the production of this book. Dr. Roger George of National Defense University provided a useful critique on an earlier draft, making suggestions for which I am truly grateful. At Potomac Books, Dr. Elizabeth Demers, Amanda Irle, Laura Briggs, Vicki Chamlee, and Elizabeth Norris were instrumental in turning my manuscript into a book. Ms. Beth F. MacKenzie, U.S. Army Center for Military History, pointed me to American Military History, Volume 1, The United States Army and the Forging of a Nation, 1775–1971 for the maps that appear in this book. Most important, this book would not have been possible without the patience and love of my wife, Pam, to whom it is dedicated. With two careers xiii xiv Acknowledgments and two sons, Sam and Daniel, consuming most of our waking moments, she provided the time and encouragement needed to research and write this volume. Any errors of fact, interpretation, and omission in the pages that follow are, of course, mine. INTRODUCTION The bicentennial commemoration of the War of 1812 has raised popular aware- ness of this often forgotten and unappreciated conflict. Americans are already familiar with some basic facts. Francis Scott Key penned the lyrics of the “Star- Spangled Banner” as he stood on the deck of a British warship observing the ferocious bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814. The Battle of New Orleans, the Americans’ most decided victory, took place shortly after the British and the Americans signed the Treaty of Ghent, an agreement to end the conflict, on Christmas Eve 1814. The War of 1812 is also the source of two of the most famous quotes in American naval history: “Don’t give up the ship” (or words to that effect), which a dying Capt. James Lawrence uttered aboard the frigate USS Chesapeake; and “We have met the enemy and they are ours,” which began Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s report of his victory on Lake Erie. His flagship, the brig USS Lawrence, also flew a banner honoring its namesake’s last words. Government and private organizations have undertaken much of this public education effort. Fort McHenry, for example, distributes a brochure listing thirty historic locations in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia along a Star-Spangled Banner Driving Tour, as well as nineteen related organi- zational websites. At many of these and similar locations in other states, reenact- ments of battles draw participants and onlookers alike. Frigates such as the USS Chesapeake in Baltimore and USS Constitution in Boston also provide compa- rable educational experiences. Despite these well-conceived and executed efforts, the War of 1812 will likely slip back into the recesses of national memory after the anniversary. For one, public attention will be diverted to a plethora of other historic anniversaries. The bicentennial of the War of 1812 coincides with the sesquicentennial of the xv xvi Introduction American Civil War. In the national imagination, Gettysburg receives more attention than Baltimore, Vicksburg more than New Orleans, and Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant far more than Andrew Jackson and Jacob Brown. The centennial anniversary of World War I, the Great War, begins in 2014. The sinking of RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915, is a particularly somber mark, and the deaths of 128 (out of 139) American passengers tipped American sen- timents toward Britain. In 2015, attention (particularly that of grognards, or war game aficionados) will shift from the Battle of New Orleans to the 200th commemoration of the Battle of Waterloo, where the Duke of Wellington’s victory sent Napoleon Bonaparte into exile, and to the 50th anniversary of the introduction of major U.S. ground forces into Vietnam. Attention to the War of 1812 struggles against the larger and continually growing literature devoted to other American conflicts. Despite a steady stream of books and articles that cover the war’s major campaigns, battles, and per- sonalities, far more has been written on World War II, the American Civil War, the Gulf War, and the American Revolutionary War as a visit to any online or brick-and-mortar bookstore will attest. The Oxford Companion to American Military History provides summary articles on all U.S. conflicts among its more than one thousand entries, but the volume has only one entry on a spe- cific battle from the War of 1812, the Battle of New Orleans. Similarly, John Keegan’s Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America focuses on James Wolfe’s capture of Quebec, the Battle of Yorktown, the Peninsular Campaign of 1862, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The War of 1812 receives only a passing glance from this eminent historian. Finally, Kevin Phillips’s The Cousins’ Wars: Religion, Politics, and the Triumph of Anglo-America provides modest coverage of 1812 in its detailed and compelling analysis of the linkage between three major civil wars: the English Civil War, the American Revolutionary War, and the American Civil War.1 This relative neglect seems odd given Gordon S. Wood’s succinct assess- ment of the war in his history of the early American republic, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815: “The War of 1812 is the strangest war in American history . it was nonetheless one of the most important wars in American history.”2 Wood argues that the War of 1812 was more important to the development of the United States than its reputation for “strangeness” suggests. Far from being a footnote to the Napoleonic wars in Europe, the War of 1812 played a vital role in setting the stage for the Civil War by securing the Louisiana Purchase, crippling the Federalist Party, bringing to power Andrew Introduction xvii Jackson and his like-minded protégés, accelerating the spread of Jeffersonian democracy, and opening the fertile lands of the Southeast to plantations and slavery. Moreover, the United States would have been a decidedly different country had the war not occurred, had it been fought differently, or had it resulted in something other than a strategic draw.

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