At first glance, Rodgers’s cruise paled in comparison to Hull’s. Rodgers failed to capture the Belvidera when she was within his grasp, and he could not find the Jamaica convoy. The nine vessels he did capture were insignificant compared to the Guerriere. Nonetheless, Rodgers did perform a signal service, which the general public may not have appreciated, but President Madison and secretaries Hamilton and Gallatin certainly did.
Rodgers explained to Hamilton, “Even if I did not succeed in destroying the convoy, . . . leaving the coast in the manner we did would tend to distract the enemy, oblige him to concentrate a considerable portion of his most active force and at the same time prevent his single cruisers from laying before any of our principal ports from their not knowing to which port or what moment we might return; and it is now acknowledged even by the enemies of the administration that this disposition has been attended with infinite benefit to our returning commerce.”
Indeed it was. By diverting Broke’s squadron, Rodgers allowed hundreds of American merchant vessels to reach their home ports safely. A remarkable 250 got into Boston, and 266 more put into New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. It was plain to Madison and Gallatin that Rodgers had prevented a disaster. In his annual message to Congress the president noted with satisfaction that the merchant fleet had reached home safely “having been much favored in it by a squadron of our frigates under the command of Commodore Rodgers.” The fact that Rodgers did it by disobeying orders wasn’t mentioned.
The British paid scant attention to Rodgers’s achievement, but when news of the Constitution’s victory reached London during the first week of October, it caused at first disbelief and then widespread alarm. The Times wrote that the loss “spread a degree of gloom through the town, which it was painful to observe.” The paper declared that far more than a single ship was lost. The invaluable reputation of the Royal Navy was undermined with incalculable consequences. In fact, the Times said that it knew “not any calamity of twenty times its amount that might have been attended with more serious consequences to the worsted party.” George Canning told Parliament the defeat of the Guerriere threatened “the sacred spell of the invincibility” of the Royal Navy.
When the British had more time to think about it, they rationalized the defeat by pointing out that the Constitution was more of a line-of-battle ship than a frigate. They maintained that the Guerriere would have been justified in refusing combat with an obviously superior foe. Captain Dacres had a different excuse. At his court-martial he testified that the Guerriere’s weak condition before going into battle caused the defeat. Her mizzen mast went by the board early in the battle, he claimed, because it was in need of repair, and her mainmast fell from decay, not enemy fire. The court completely exonerated him.
Reaction in the United States was one of surprise and then widespread acclaim. Even disgruntled Federalists in New England applauded. For years they had supported a strong navy against determined opposition from Republicans, who took it as an article of faith that American warships could never succeed under any circumstances against the Royal Navy. Captain Hull’s triumph proved they were wrong, and Federalists delighted in saying, “We told you so.” And Madison, who over many years—going back to Washington’s presidency—had consistently fought against building a respectable navy, grappled on to Hull’s victory like a lifeline, basking in the public acclaim, using it to offset his sagging popularity and to give his reelection campaign a much needed boost. He never imagined that the navy would be an important political asset.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ripe Apples and Bitter Fruit: The Canadian Invasion
WHILE THE BLUE-WATER fleet was performing brilliantly, Madison’s Canadian campaign was experiencing one difficulty after another. The president’s notion that America could prepare quickly for war after it had been declared turned out to be a pipe dream. A new army did not instantly materialize, nor did volunteers sign up in significant numbers, nor did the untrained militiamen, who were called suddenly to arms, perform as seasoned veterans. Jefferson’s ripe apple began looking more like a prickly pear.
Key players in Madison’s invasion appeared unacquainted with his strategy and their roles. On July 16, nearly a month after the president signed the declaration of war, Army Lieutenant Porter Hanks, commander of strategically important Fort Michilimackinac on Mackinac Island, had not been favored with any new orders from the War Department. He had not even received notice that war had been declared.
He knew something was up, however. For the past two weeks an unusual number of warriors—Sioux, Chippewa, Winnebago, Menominee, Ottawa, and others—had paddled canoes passed his fort. He naturally wondered why. He assumed they were traveling to St. Joseph Island, forty miles away on the Canadian side of the border, where a tiny force of British regulars occupied decrepit Fort St. Joseph. The warriors’ dress and weaponry indicated they were not traveling for a peaceful powwow. Clearly something was going on, but he didn’t know what it was.
Hanks was naturally concerned about the defense of Mackinac Island, located at the western end of Lake Huron. It guarded the entrance to the Straits of Mackinac, connecting Lake Huron with Lake Michigan, a key point in the fur trade and in communications with the western Indian nations. The British prized the fur trade, as did the Native Americans, but of much greater importance now was whose side the tribes of the Northwest would fight on. The defense of Upper Canada, and indeed all of Canada, depended on whether the Indians would stand with the British or remain neutral.
What Hanks needed more than anything else was a pair of armed schooners to protect his island from a seaborne attack. He did not have the soldiers or weapons to defend Mackinac against an amphibious assault. A warship or two patrolling the surrounding waters would have secured Fort Michilimackinac. Hank’s superior, Brigadier General William Hull, had requested naval support from Washington long ago but was ignored. An administration that did not even think to tell Hanks a war was on could not be expected to provide naval support, nor could it furnish the soldiers and armament he required.
Hanks could not count on any friendly Indians to support him, as the British could. After the recent Battle of Tippecanoe (November 7, 1811) and the cruel treatment the tribes received generally from Americans, the Indians were not going to side with the United States. The most Madison could hope for was their neutrality. To be sure, the British had treated the Indians badly as well, and the memory of their double dealing created a good deal of caution on the part of the tribes, but Britain’s treatment was not to be compared with America’s. In fact, the angry relations Native Americans had with the United States did not have any parallel in Canada. Thanks to the wise policies of colonial administrators like General Frederick Haldimand, relations with the tribes were relatively peaceful in Canada compared with the constant turmoil in the United States. The British needed the Indians to defend Canada, and they were careful in their treatment of them. They were not trying to change their way of life, nor were they gobbling up their lands, as the Americans were.
As war approached, Madison’s policy was to placate the tribes. He did not want to be fighting them and the British at the same time. Some of the larger, more powerful nations like the Miami and the Delaware were open to an accommodation, but there was unrest among younger warriors in all the tribes, and they looked to Tecumseh and his brother the Prophet for leadership.
Brigadier General William Hull, the governor and Indian agent for the vast Michigan Territory, was aware of Tecumseh’s importance and attempted to entice him into remaining neutral, but the zealous chief would have none of it. The British, as much as Tecumseh distrusted them, were his only hope. He saw clearly what would happen to the Miami, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Delaware, Wyandot (the remnants of the mighty Huron, destroyed in the French and Indian War), and the other tribes should America prevail. Only by uniting and allying themselves with the British, Tecumseh believed, could the tribes hope to protect themselves against the tidal wave of American se
ttlers sure to push them off their ancient lands and destroy their way of life should the United States prevail.
But Tecumseh did not want to start a fight with the Americans prematurely; he waited for war to be declared. This accorded perfectly with British policy, which was to make an alliance with the Indian nations but restrain them from attacking the United States, initiating a war London did not want. The British needed the Indians only if America attacked Canada. Tecumseh had no illusions about Britain; he understood the limits of her support. The British were primarily interested in keeping Canada, not in advancing Indian goals. If they had to sacrifice their Indian allies in order to secure Canada, they would. The British were all Tecumseh had, however, and he intended to use them to the extent he could.
Despite their preference for Britain, the Indians did not want to be caught on the losing side. They hoped the British, as devious and unreliable as they were, would win, but they would not fight alongside them if they thought they were going to lose. The principal British leaders in Canada, General Isaac Brock in Upper Canada and his superior at Quebec, Governor-General Sir George Prevost, appreciated the importance of an Indian alliance and the need to win the confidence of the tribes by projecting a powerful image. If the Indians were confident of a British victory, they could more than make up for the lack of regulars. Capturing Fort Michilimackinac would demonstrate the relative strength of the British and American forces in the Northwest and be of enormous value in defending Canada.
In the spring of 1812 Madison told the Indian agents and territorial governors to conciliate the tribes and keep them neutral but, at the same time, to warn them of severe consequences if they sided with the British. He even had William Henry Harrison invite the Prophet and Tecumseh to Washington for a talk. Tecumseh was open to the idea, but the meeting never took place.
Madison’s threats were hard to take seriously when only a few tiny forts defended the entire frontier. Little defense existed west of the Maumee River that flowed northeast 175 miles from Fort Wayne, to Toledo at the western end of Lake Erie, or west of the Wabash River, which flowed southwest 475 miles from Fort Recovery, Ohio, through Indiana to the Ohio River. Only small contingents of soldiers—from fifty to one hundred and twenty—were stationed at Detroit, Fort Wayne, Fort Harrison (Terra Haute), Fort Dearborn (Chicago), and Fort Michilimackinac. Lieutenant Hanks had only sixty-one men.
Unaware war had broken out, and unacquainted with the president’s war plans, Hanks was on his own. In fact, he had not received any messages from the War Department since the fall of 1811. It was not that the president and secretary of war did not understand the importance of Native American warriors to the British, or of Fort Michilimackinac; they certainly did, but with everything else needing attention and the War Department thinly staffed, many essential details were overlooked.
Unfortunately for Hanks, the British commander at Fort St. Joseph, Captain Charles Roberts, was an experienced fighter, and he did know a war was on. Furthermore, he had orders from the energetic General Brock to conduct a surprise attack on Fort Michilimackinac. Roberts’s force of forty-four regulars was pathetically weak, but with reinforcements from the Indians—perhaps three hundred—and from French-Canadian voyageurs (fur trappers), he had an excellent chance of overpowering Hanks.
The attack Hanks feared came suddenly on July 17. Roberts struck with a mixed force of regulars, fur trappers, and Indians, numbering in the hundreds. The enterprising Roberts had command of the water and landed on Mackinac with no opposition. Earlier, he had seized John Jacob Astor’s eighty-six-ton brig Caledonia that Astor used in the fur trading he conducted on both sides of the border. Roberts simply appropriated it; Astor, a staunch supporter of Madison, had no choice in the matter. With the Caledonia Roberts was able to transport two brass six-pounders, as well as all the ordinance he needed for the assault.
Continuing to meet no resistance after he landed, Roberts quickly surrounded Fort Michilimackinac and warned Hanks that if he fired a single gun, the tribesmen would massacre everyone at the fort and the adjacent village. It was a believable threat.
Surprised, greatly outnumbered, and fearing what the Native Americans would do to his men and the civilians in the fort and on the island, Hanks surrendered.
Along with Hanks and his men, Roberts captured four small, privately owned schooners. He put Hanks and his soldiers on parole and used two of the schooners, Salina and Mary, to transport them to Fort Detroit. Hanks was grateful to be keeping his scalp, but he was not looking forward to landing at Detroit, where General Hull was sure to initiate court-martial proceedings. Since Hanks had surrendered without a fight, he would face charges of cowardice.
Captain Roberts’s seizure of Fort Michilimackinac meant that hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of warriors, energized by the American defeat, would be added to British ranks in Canada. General Hull at Fort Detroit would now have to worry about warriors from the western tribes descending on him, coordinating an attack with their British ally, taking Detroit, and not only destroying Madison’s plans for a quick thrust into Upper Canada but seizing the whole of Michigan Territory as well. Instead of America annexing Upper Canada, the British would be acquiring the huge, sparsely populated northwestern part of the United States.
UNAWARE OF THE disaster at Fort Michilimackinac, General Hull was busy preparing to carry out his twin directives of defending Detroit and invading Upper Canada. Of course, the invasion would have to wait until war was declared. He did not receive word of it until July 2; the British, who were just across the Detroit River at Fort Malden in Amherstburg, Canada, knew on June 30.
General Hull (Captain Isaac Hull’s uncle) was a distinguished veteran of the Revolutionary War, whom Jefferson had appointed governor and Indian agent for the Michigan Territory in 1805. Madison made him a brigadier general on April 8, 1812. Hull preferred appointment as secretary of war, but Madison had no intention of offering him that post and prevailed upon him to take the army command, promising he could continue as governor of Michigan.
Discussions about invading Upper Canada from Detroit had been going on in Washington since the spring of 1812, and Hull participated in them. On March 6, he wrote to Secretary of War Eustis, explaining the need to reinforce the small fort at Detroit and gain control of Lake Erie, then in possession of the small Canadian Provincial Marine. Hull was in favor of attacking Upper Canada from Detroit, but he pointed out that success depended on mounting a simultaneous attack in the Niagara area, creating a diversion that would force the British to divide their forces. Hull did not think Madison should concentrate his army and attack Montreal alone, leaving the Northwest to fend for itself.
Hull needed all the help he could get. He faced a formidable foe in forty-two-year-old Brigadier General Isaac Brock, the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada. A fearless professional soldier with a keen desire to distinguish himself on the battlefield, Brock was charismatic, aggressive to the point of recklessness, always at the head of his troops, willing to bear any hardship, beloved by his men—a soldier’s soldier. He was also an imperialist with a marked devotion to the British Empire and a disdain for republican government.
Brock’s superior was Governor-General Sir George Prevost, who was well acquainted with Canadian-American affairs, having served as lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia from 1808 to 1811. His headquarters were at Quebec, where he kept most of his sparse army of 7,000 to protect the fortress and the city against an American attack. He had been appointed as much for his diplomatic skills as for his fighting ability. Nationalism had begun to stir among French-Canadians in the 1790s, creating a headache for London, which Prevost was expected to handle. He spoke French and was particularly effective in enlisting French Canadians to defend Canada against the United States. Far more cautious than Brock, Prevost was focused exclusively on defending Canada. He gave no thought to invading the United States and kept the forceful, often rash Brock on a short leash. As long as Britain was tied down fighting Napoleon, Prevos
t expected to be on the defensive and vulnerable.
Brock’s headquarters were at the tiny capital of Upper Canada at York (now Toronto) on Lake Ontario—a long way from Amherstburg and the surrounding settlements on the Detroit River. Brock was determined to defend the province, but he had only 1,200 regular British troops, which was a formidable small force but miniscule compared to what the United States could potentially put in the field. The size of the United States would have intimidated a lesser man, but adverse odds never fazed the romantic Brock. He did have to face certain realities, however. If the Americans attacked Amherstburg and the Niagara River towns simultaneously, which is what General Hull proposed and Madison promised, Brock would not know whether to commit his few troops to Detroit or to the Niagara area, or to divide them. No matter what he did, he had little prospect of success, unless he had the support of a large number of Native Americans. Relying on the Indians made Brock uncomfortable; he knew he needed them, but he had little respect for their military capacity.
General Hull insisted that without Indian support, “the British cannot hold Upper Canada.” He foolishly suggested to Madison in the spring of 1812 that if enough reinforcements were sent to Detroit, the Indians would be intimidated, which in turn might cause the British to abandon weakly defended Upper Canada altogether. Their small lake fleet might then fall into American hands, giving the United States control of Lake Erie without having to build a fleet. The idea that Brock would just give up or that the United States did not have to build a fleet on Lake Erie was pure fantasy, although pleasing to the president, who did not want to spend time constructing warships when his grand strategy demanded action now.
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