The system for feeding the troops—based on private contract—was even worse. Although most government officials recognized that (in the words of John Armstrong) “all military operations . . . must begin with the belly,” this vital service was left in civilian hands in order to save money.57 It was “madness in the extreme,” said one officer, to rely on such a system in time of war.58 The daily ration was supposed to consist of 20 ounces of beef or 12 ounces of pork; 18 ounces of bread or flour; 4 ounces of rum, brandy, or whiskey; and small quantities of salt, vinegar, soap, and candles.59 Contractors and subcontractors, however, were so intent on making a profit that they often delivered bad provisions or chiseled on the quantity. “It would be endless to trace the petty villa[i]nies which contractors are daily tempted to commit,” said Brigadier General Winfield Scott in 1814.60 Although contractors had to sign a binding agreement and post a bond, they were not subject to military law, and it was almost impossible to bring them to heel. “If a contractor fails to make issues,” said Scott, “he can only be punished by civil actions.”61 In an emergency, commanding officers could buy provisions, but the cost was likely to be prohibitive, especially in remote areas on the frontier.
Problems with the system of supply were compounded by the strategic demands of the war. Unlike the American Revolution, which was fundamentally a defensive war, the United States had to target Canada in 1812 to force the British to give up their maritime practices. But supplying an army operating in the dense wilderness of the northern frontier was no easy task. The nation had two main supply routes. One ran from New York City up the Hudson River to Albany and from there either due north to the Canadian frontier or west along the Mohawk River and connecting waterways to Oswego on Lake Ontario. The other route ran from Philadelphia over the mountains to Pittsburgh. From there it ran north to Lake Erie, or down the Ohio River to Cincinnati and then north to the forts in the Old Northwest, or further down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to posts in the Old Southwest (including New Orleans). Since the roads were primitive, waterways offered the best means of transportation, but they could be unusable in winter and treacherous in any season. Although Pittsburgh and Cincinnati could produce some of war material needed in the West, they could not satisfy the voracious appetite of the armies operating there. Nor could these forces live off the land. There simply was not enough food being produced on the frontier to feed the troops on either side.62
Complaints over supply multiplied as the war progressed, and many illnesses and deaths were blamed on the system. One officer complained that the want of food and other supplies had “produced dysenteries and other diseases” that filled his hospital. Another said: “We are literally starving on this end of the line for bread.”63 A doctor at one camp found excrement in the bread, and a food inspector claimed that the flour was so bad that “it would kill the best horse at Sackett’s Harbour.”64 Doubtless many agreed with Major General Edmund P. Gaines that “the irregularity in the Supply and badness of the rations” had done more to retard American operations than anything else.65 In fact, one general claimed that contractors knocked more men out of combat than the enemy, and another insisted that the men were so badly provided for that the number killed in battle was “trifling” compared to losses from other causes.66
Doctors and Disease
Medical science was so primitive that army doctors were powerless to combat disease. Although some doctors understood the importance of cleanliness, imposing their views on a camp of careless young soldiers was no easy task.67 Diseases such as dysentery, typhoid fever, pneumonia, malaria, measles, typhus, and even smallpox were common and often fatal.68 Fevers were particularly dangerous because before the development of aconite (which is derived from the monkshood plant) there was no good way to treat them.
Most doctors were still committed to the “heroic” practice of medicine—which meant that they bled and blistered their patients and subjected them to assorted emetics, cathartics, and diuretics designed to purge the body of disease.69 Doctors also dispensed a large number of drugs, few of which worked. Although opium helped ease pain and intestinal distress, and cinchona (Jesuits’ bark) was effective against malaria, most of the drugs were worthless or even toxic. The most common was mercury—the “Samson of the Materia Medica”—which was usually dispensed in the form of calomel (mercury chloride). It had no therapeutic value, and it was frequently injurious and occasionally fatal. Those who survived a disease usually did so in spite of their treatment rather than because of it.70
Weapons of War
The United States had better luck with its ordnance. The nation already had well-established arsenals at Springfield, Massachusetts, and Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and additional facilities were built during the war at Rome and West Troy in New York and at Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania. Hence the government was able to manufacture and repair small arms, produce ammunition, and test powder and ammunition.71 The army also procured large guns and small arms from private sources, such as Eli Whitney’s firm in Connecticut. Although Whitney and others had embraced the concept of interchangeable parts, the only weapons made to this standard that were available during the war were pistols.72 In contrast to the American Revolution, there was no shortage of powder during the War of 1812. More than 200 powder mills were scattered around the country, although the government purchased most of its powder from several large firms, such as Dupont & Company in Delaware.73
At the beginning of the war, Congress created a department to supervise and test artillery for the army.74 Headed by Colonel Decius Wadsworth, this department functioned reasonably well. The main problem that Wadsworth had to contend with was the huge variety in the nation’s inventory of artillery and ammunition. The ordnance might be of American, British, French, or Spanish origin and was manufactured to many different specifications. Wadsworth labored mightily to bring order out of the chaos, but most of his reforms had to wait until after the war.
The field guns that the army relied on were mainly long guns, ranging from 3- to 12-pounders. These guns could fire round or solid shot (an iron ball); grapeshot (a cloth sack of balls that were usually the size of modern golf balls); and case shot or canister (a tin can filled with musket balls or other small projectiles). Sometimes round shot was heated into hot shot in the hope of causing a fire. Grapeshot and canister had a limited range and were best used against massed troops; long guns had much greater range and were most effective against fortified positions. For even greater range, howitzers or mortars (both of which fired at a pronounced angle) were employed. These weapons fired explosive shells, then called “bombs” (hollowed-out iron balls filled with powder and fitted with a fuse that was lit before firing). In addition, howitzers could fire round shot and canister.75
The vast majority of American troops were infantry and thus were armed with muskets. Although there were still many British and French muskets in the American inventory, most soldiers were issued the domestically manufactured Springfield Model 1795. This was a .69-caliber muzzle-loaded smooth-bore that fired a soft lead ball weighing about an ounce. It was accurate only to 100 yards (although it could be lethal at much greater distances), and it misfired about 20 percent of the time, mainly because the flint wore down. Many Americans, particularly in the West, loaded their muskets with “buck and ball”—that is, with two or three large buckshot as well as the standard ball. Some westerners left the ball out altogether and loaded their muskets with 12 to 15 buckshot. The use of any buckshot increased the shooter’s chance of hitting a target but reduced the lethality of the projectiles. British soldiers considered buckshot little more than an annoyance, but it could cause serious facial wounds or deadly infections.76
Some American troops carried rifles during the war. These weapons had a grooved barrel that fired a smaller ball than the musket but had greater range. Although some soldiers were equipped with the Harper’s Ferry Model 1803, which fired a .54-caliber ball, most carried the privately made Pennsylvania rifle (later kno
wn as the Kentucky rifle), which had a longer barrel and typically fired a .40- to .50-caliber ball. The Pennsylvania rifle was accurate to 200 yards or more, but because of the grooves in its barrel, it fouled easily. Most rifles also worked best with a finer grade of powder that was not always available.77
The U.S. Navy relied mainly on artillery for its firepower. Warships carried long guns, ranging from 9- to 42-pounders, as well as howitzers and occasionally mortars. Warships also carried carronades, which were small short-range guns that fired round shot weighing up to 68 pounds. The bigger carronades were known as “smashers” because the large, slow-moving projectiles they fired could blow much larger holes in a warship’s hull and bulwarks than the faster-moving small round shot fired by long guns. Naval guns also fired grape shop and canister as well as some special kinds of ammunition—star shot, chain shot, and bar shot—designed to render an enemy ship immobile by bringing down its masts or destroying its spars and rigging.78
The rapid expansion of the military services during the war inevitably produced some shortages. Every service had to scramble to find enough men to fill new units or keep old ones up to strength. In addition, some riflemen had to carry muskets because of a shortage of rifles; there were not enough big guns to equip the new artillery units or to outfit the new warships; and some regulars were clothed in gray uniforms because of a shortage of blue cloth.79 But overall, the nation was much better able to supply its military needs during the War of 1812 than during the American Revolution.
Defense of Canada
Republicans greatly underestimated the many logistical, military, and administrative problems they faced in conquering Canada. They also underrated the enemy. British war policy in 1812 was shaped mainly by three men: Lord Liverpool, the prime minister; Lord Castlereagh, the foreign secretary; and the Duke of Wellington, who headed the British army in the Spanish Peninsula but provided civilian leaders in London with counsel on a broad range of topics. Also influential in shaping policy was Lord Bathurst, secretary of state for war and the colonies; and Lord Melville, the first lord of the Admiralty. But since all eyes in Great Britain were on Europe, the defense of Canada was left largely to local officials.
The man in charge in 1812 was forty-five-year-old Sir George Prevost (commonly pronounced Pray-vo), who served as governor-general of Canada. An experienced soldier and administrator, Prevost took office in 1811. Although he did a good job of conciliating the French population that his predecessor had alienated, he did so at the expense of support from his British followers. In developing a plan for the defense of Canada, Prevost focused on Quebec, known as “the Gibraltar of America.” “I have considered the preservation of Quebec,” he wrote to Lord Liverpool on the eve of war, “as the first object, and to which all others must be subordinate.”80
Although Prevost had only 8,000 regulars in Upper and Lower Canada and another 2,000 in the Maritime provinces, his subordinate officers were good and most of his men were combat tested. He also could count on the assistance of formidable native allies. In the Old Northwest the Shawnee leaders Tecumseh and the Prophet headed a large band of militants drawn from a number of tribes. Further east John Norton, the mixed-blood Mohawk leader known as “the Snipe,” led a small band of the Grand River Iroquois in battle, mainly on the Niagara frontier. The Indians were excellent scouts and skirmishers, and such was their known ferocity that their very presence could tip the balance in any battle.81
Because Canada was so sparsely populated and undeveloped, the British had to ship men and material for its defense from the mother country or from other provinces in the Empire. The supply lines were long and, at least in North America, vulnerable. It was almost 3,000 miles from London, England, to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and another 1,200 miles to Fort Amherstburg on the Detroit River. The British did a pretty good job of keeping their forces supplied but only because they could buy food from American sources.
Sir George Prevost (1767–1816) was the civilian and military head of Canada during the War of 1812. Although he did a superb job of marshalling his limited resources to safeguard Canada during the first two years of the conflict, his enemies used his retreat from Plattsburgh in 1814 to secure his recall to Great Britain. Prevost demanded a court martial to clear his name, but he died before the court convened. (Portrait by S. W. Reynolds. William Wood, Select British Documents of the Canadian War of 1812)
American Strategy: A Three-Pronged Attack
Canada in this era was often compared to a tree. The taproots were the sea lanes that stretched across the Atlantic; the trunk was the St. Lawrence, dominated by Quebec and Montreal; and the outlying settlements on the Great Lakes formed the branches. Because the surrounding wilderness was so dense, most of western Canada could best be supplied by utilizing the St. Lawrence-Lake Ontario-Lake Erie route. There was an alternative route from York that followed the Holland River and Lake Simcoe into Lake Huron, but this required more overland travel.82
The United States lacked the naval power to blockade the Gulf of St. Lawrence and thus sever the roots of the Canadian tree, and striking at the branches in the West was unlikely to produce any meaningful British concessions. The best way to strike at Canada was by targeting the St. Lawrence. “It has always been my opinion,” said Commodore Isaac Chauncey, “that among the best means to conquer the Canadas was . . . by taking and maintaining a Position on the St. Lawrence—this would be killing the tree by ‘girdling’—the branches deprived of their ordinary Supplies from the root, die of necessity.”83
The War in the North
There was little enthusiasm for an immediate attack on Quebec. It was heavily fortified, and the Royal Navy could provide close-in support for upwards of six months a year. In addition, it lay north of Federalist New England, which was unlikely to provide the necessary men and material to make the campaign a success. This left Montreal. Madison conceded the importance of this city, but concentrating on Montreal would not allow the administration to take advantage of the war enthusiasm in the West or to protect that region from Indian depredations. Hence, the president adopted a plan developed by Major General Henry Dearborn that called for a three-pronged attack on Montreal and British positions on the Niagara and Detroit frontiers. Montreal was still supposed to be the main target, but because of mismanagement at every level, the other operations assumed greater importance.84
Campaign in the West
To manage the campaign in the West, the administration chose William Hull, the fifty-nine-year-old governor of Michigan Territory who had a record of distinguished service during the Revolutionary War. Hull initially sought a military appointment, although later he claimed that he accepted command of the western army only “with great reluctance.”85 Age had taken a heavy toll on him, and a stroke and other health problems had further eroded his strength. Behind his back, Hull’s men called him “the Old Lady.” The administration was aware of Hull’s liabilities, but the only other suitable candidate, Colonel Jacob Kingsbury, was too ill for the job.86
In the late spring of 1812, Hull assembled in Ohio an army of regulars and militia, some of whom wore signs on their caps that read “CONQUER OR DIE.”87 Hull’s marching orders, issued before the declaration of war, called for him to proceed to Fort Detroit, located on the river of that name that linked the northern lakes to Lake Erie. Although Hull had earlier insisted that naval control of Lake Erie was vital to the success of the campaign, he now believed that the presence of a large American army at Detroit might force the British to evacuate the entire region.88
To facilitate communication, Hull began the laborious task of carving a road through the Black Swamp that would link Urbana, Ohio, to Detroit. Arriving at the Maumee River (then known as the Miami of the Lake) at the end of June, he hired the schooner Cuyahoga to take his baggage, papers, and supplies to Detroit. Although Hull did not yet know of the declaration of war, the British learned of it in time to seize the ship as it passed by Fort Amherstburg. This enabled them to learn about
Hull’s plans as well as the size and condition of his army. “Till I received these letters,” said Major General Isaac Brock, “I had no idea General Hull was advancing with so large a force.”89
Hull reached Detroit on July 5 without further incident with an army of about 2,000 men. A week later he crossed the Detroit River into British territory with the intention of attacking Fort Amherstburg to the south. Some 200 Ohio militiamen refused to accompany him, claiming that they could not serve beyond American territory. Hull also had to stop to build carriages for his cannons. But otherwise his prospects looked bright. His army was still larger than the force defending the British fort, and a proclamation he issued to the inhabitants induced many Canadian militia to go home or to defect to the United States. According to Brock, Hull’s invasion “was productive of very unfavorable sensations among a large portion of the population.”90
Hull’s prospects, however, soon dimmed. The American commander became increasingly worried about his supply lines to Ohio, which were threatened by the British and their Indian allies. Although a detachment of 200 militia had left Ohio loaded with supplies for Hull, the men stopped at the Raisin River, some thirty-five miles south of Detroit, to await reinforcements from Hull’s camp. Hull dispatched 150 men under Major Thomas Van Horne to meet these troops, but the detachment was attacked at Brownstown by a band of Indians led by Tecumseh and returned to Detroit. Hull next sent a force of 600 men under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Miller to break through to Ohio. After being briefly pinned down by a small group of British and Indians at Maguaga, this force also retreated to Detroit.91
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