Several smaller American ships also distinguished themselves. On October 18, 1812, 500 miles off the Virginia coast, the American sloop Wasp (18 guns) defeated the British sloop Frolic (22 guns) by firing into the hull of the British ship and killing or wounding almost 80 percent of her crew. Another sloop, the Hornet (20 guns), defeated the British sloop Peacock (20 guns) in February 1813 off the coast of British Guiana. The small American frigate Essex (which was overloaded with 46 guns) defeated the British brig Alert (18 guns?) and also captured a troop transport carrying 160 soldiers from Barbados to Canada. Although the British captured three American warships—the Wasp, Nautilus (14 guns) and Vixen (14 guns)—the balance was clearly in America’s favor.180 In all, the U.S. Navy had defeated or captured three British frigates, two sloops, a brig, and a transport, while losing only three vessels of its own. American success was due not only to the superior size and firepower of the heavy frigates but also to the skillful seamanship and gunnery displayed on all the ships.
Privateering
The American navy captured fifty merchantmen, but the real damage to British commerce in 1812 was done by what one Republican called “our cheapest & best Navy”—American privateers.181 Congress laid down the rules for privateering a week after the declaration of war, and several days later the administration began issuing commissions.182 The first privateers were small pilot boats armed with one large center-pivot gun, called a “Long Tom,” and carrying fifty or sixty men armed with assorted small arms: muskets, sabers, boarding pikes, and the like. According to one privateer captain, this “was quite enough to capture almost any British merchantman, at this stage of the war.”183
Cruising mainly off the coast of Canada and in the West Indies, American privateers took 450 prizes in the first six months of the war.184 “Our Privateers,” said a Richmond merchant, “bring in Prizes to almost every Port & many of these, of great value.”185 The most successful cruises were made by large, heavily armed and well-manned ships that scoured the Atlantic. The Yankee (15 guns), sailing out of Bristol, Rhode Island, took eight British vessels valued at $300,000, and the Rossie (15 guns), commanded by Joshua Barney of Baltimore, captured 18 vessels worth close to $1.5 million.186
A Halifax paper reported in July 1812 that American privateers were “swarming round our coast and in the Bay of Fundy” and that it was “very imprudent for any vessel to sail from this port unless under convoy.” Several months later another report from Halifax claimed that “American privateers annoy this place to a degree astonishingly injurious; scarcely a day passes but crews are coming in that have had their vessels taken and sunk.”187 Similar reports came from the West Indies. A letter from Martinique said that American privateers “have destroyed a great number of our coasting vessels”; another from Guadeloupe claimed that “American privateers are swarming” and that “the navy force upon the station is not sufficient for the protection of the islands.” According to a third report, the British naval commander in the Leeward Islands was “mortified at the depredations of the American privateers, it not being in his power to prevent them.”188 “By every account received from the West Indies,” the Times concluded, “the American privateers are still enabled to range unmolested.”189
Although British warships in the New World captured more than 150 privateers in the first eight months of the war, the western Atlantic had nonetheless become dangerous for any British merchantman sailing without an escort.190 Sir John Borlase Warren, who assumed command of the Halifax station in the summer of 1812, conceded “the impossibility of our trade navigating these seas unless a very extensive squadron is employed to scour the vicinity.”191 Armed American vessels threatened British commerce in other seas, too. “Jonathan’s privateers,” complained a correspondent to the Naval Chronicle, “have roved with impunity and success to all corners of the earth.”192
British privateers could respond in kind, but they were slow to act, and their window of opportunity was much smaller. Any prizes taken before London officials authorized reprisals on October 13 technically belonged to the Crown, and by then most American merchant vessels had withdrawn from the sea. Some British privateers were already at sea when war was declared, and they took some prizes. Another six privateers were commissioned in Canada before the end of the year, and they took 24 prizes, mainly by cruising in nearby American waters. The Liverpool Packet (5 guns) was authorized to take French prizes when the War of 1812 began but in August started targeting American ships even though the British government had not yet authorized reprisals. As a result, she had to fight for some of her prizes twice, first at sea and then in the British courts.193 Although British and Canadian privateers took a toll on American shipping and gave a boost to the economy of the Maritime provinces, American privateers took a much bigger bite out of British commerce.
Impact of the Victories at Sea
The war at sea gave a tremendous boost to American morale, a boost that was sorely needed because the nation was reeling from the disasters on the Canadian frontier. “Our brilliant naval victories,” said an army officer, “serve, in some measure, to wipe out the disgrace brought upon the Nation by the conduct of our generals.” “But for the gallantry of our noble Tar’s,” said another American, “we should be covered with shame and disgrace.”194 There was also considerable pride in humbling the Mistress of the Seas on her own element. “British arms cannot withstand American upon the sea,” exulted a Republican congressman. “The bully has been disgraced by an infant.”195
The British, on the other hand, were stunned by their losses. In more than 200 naval engagements with France and her allies over a twenty-year period they had lost only five battles.196 Some British subjects, like the editor of the Times, acknowledged the merits of American ships and seamen, but most shared the view of the London Evening Star, which described the American navy as “a few fir-built frigates, manned by a handful of bastards and outlaws.”197 Given this contempt, the American victories went down hard. “It is a cruel mortification,” said a cabinet official, “to be beat by these second-hand Englishmen upon our own element.”198
Learned essays appeared in the Naval Chronicle analyzing the reasons for American success, and the Times wondered “whether the Americans are possessed of any secret in the management of their guns, in the fabrication of their powder, or in the size and construction of their shot.”199 Most British subjects concluded that the Royal Navy had been victimized by Yankee trickery—that the “superfrigates” were really ships-of-the-line in disguise.200 But this overstated the power of the American ships, which fit the accepted definition of a frigate: a square-rigged warship “mounting [its] principal ordnance on a single covered gundeck.”201 It also implied that British naval personnel were easily duped and could not tell the difference between a battleship and a cruiser.
Some British commentators claimed that American warships won because they had picked crews or relied heavily on British tars, but these claims were also untrue.202 The U.S. Navy had to compete with privateers and the army for men and could not count on British seamen to fill out crews. Although there once were many British tars in the U.S. Navy, that number had declined after the Chesapeake affair, when Navy Department ordered American commanders to recruit only U.S. citizens. Most British subjects who were in the U.S. Navy when the war began asked for shore duty or left the service altogether rather than fight against their country and risk being captured and hanged for desertion or treason. It is thus unlikely that British tars constituted a significant portion of the crew on any U.S. warship in the summer of 1812.203
The losses to the American navy and privateers exposed the British government to growing criticism. Although normally a supporter of the government, the Times attacked the ministry’s passive war policy. In October 1812 the paper accused the government of adopting “so drivelling a line of conduct, as to think of waging a war of conciliation and forbearance.” “The paramount duty . . . of British Ministers,” the paper declared, “is to rende
r the English arms as formidable in the new world as they have become in the old.” Two months later, the Times renewed the attack. “Political cowardice alone,” the paper claimed, “prevented Ministers . . . from having a plan matured and ready, for falling upon the sea-coasts of America, blocking up her ports, hindering her privateers from sailing, and capturing or destroying every frigate she might dare to send to sea.” The British government, the Times concluded, had brought out “the impatient ‘dogs of war’ muzzled and clogged.”204
This kind of criticism mounted with each defeat. “We have suffered ourselves to be beaten in detail,” said the Times, “by a Power that we should not have allowed to send a vessel to sea.”205 “We are satisfied,” added the London Chronicle, “that every individual in the country must feel humiliated at this succession of disasters, which thus mock and render nugatory our boasted naval superiority.”206 A writer in the Naval Chronicle suggested that the best way to retrieve the situation was to maintain a large enough force in American waters to show “that the frontier of England is the high-water mark on every shore: that the British seas are wherever a 32-pounder can be floated.”207
British officials took this criticism to heart. Besides dispatching additional ships to the New World, they launched a crash program to build heavy frigates.208 A dozen were constructed during the war, but most were so badly designed and built of such poor materials that they were no match for the American 44s.209 In addition, the Admiralty secretly ordered British frigates not “to engage, single handed, the larger Class of American Ships; which though they may be called Frigates . . . [resemble] Line of Battle Ships.”210 The government also ordered all merchantmen in the Atlantic to sail in convoy.211 These orders were undoubtedly wise, but in truth the British had nothing to be ashamed of because in every naval engagement the stronger ship had prevailed.
Outcome of the Campaign
The outcome of the campaign of 1812 was a surprise to people in both countries. The conquest of Canada, which was supposed to be a “mere matter of marching,” had eluded the United States, while the war at sea, in which the British were supposed to have a decisive advantage, had gone surprisingly well for the young republic. The campaign, the Naval Chronicle concluded, “has been marked by events on land and at sea . . . diametrically opposite to the public expectation.”212 Both sides had been unprepared for the war, which had worked to Britain’s advantage in Canada but to America’s on the high seas.
Time, however, was on Great Britain’s side. In June 1812 Napoleon had taken the largest army ever assembled, some 600,000 men, into Russia. By the fall of 1812 stout resistance and a lack of supplies had forced him to retreat. The retreat soon turned into a rout, and by the end of the year the Grand Army had melted away. In December Niles’ Register claimed that “all Europe, the British islands excepted, . . . now are, or soon will be, at the feet of Bonaparte,” but the news pouring in from the Continent suggested just the opposite.213 If Napoleon were in fact defeated, Great Britain would be able to concentrate all of her military and naval might against the United States, and there would be little chance for the young republic to take Canada or to win any maritime concessions.
Chapter 5
Raising Men and Money
The Campaign of 1812 was both disappointing and embarrassing to Republicans. The string of defeats on the Canadian frontier had dashed all hopes for a quick and an easy victory and had exposed the administration to criticism. The war had never lost its political character, and Republican leaders had hoped that triumphs on the battlefield would disarm their critics and enhance their chances at the polls. “A little success,” said one Republican, “would silence many who are clamerous.” “If our government does not look sharp,” said another, “the Federalists will come in again.”1 But except for the naval victories, there was little to cheer about, and the result was growing disillusionment with the management of the war. “Our aff[a] irs,” Senator Thomas Worthington of Ohio scrawled in his diary on December 1, “is [in] a misreable way[,] defeated and disgraced[,] the revenue extravagantly expended[,] the war not man[a]ged at all.”2
Election of 1812: The Candidates
Although voters usually rally around a wartime president, Madison fared worse in 1812 than he had in 1808.3 A split in the Republican party and charges of mismanagement very nearly cost him his office. In addition, the Federalists made significant gains in the congressional and state elections. Although the Republicans retained control over the national government and a majority of the state governments, the election results showed that many questioned not only the administration’s handling of the war but the wisdom of the war itself.
The presidential campaign opened in February 1812 when Republicans in the Virginia legislature nominated electors committed to Madison.4 In the ensuing months Republican caucuses in seven other states followed suit.5 The regular Republicans in Congress added their endorsement in May 1812. At a widely publicized meeting (which most people considered the official Republican caucus), eighty-three members of Congress promised to support Madison for the presidency and seventy-one-year-old John Langdon of New Hampshire for the vice presidency. (Langdon declined because of age, which necessitated substituting Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts.) Nine other members of Congress later added their endorsements, so Madison ended up with the avowed support of about two-thirds of the Republican membership. Most Republican congressmen from New York and other northern states, however, withheld their support because they preferred a northern candidate.6
Shortly after the Washington caucus, Republicans in the New York state legislature met to nominate their own candidate. The favorite was De Witt Clinton, the mayor of New York City. Known as the “Magnus Apollo,” Clinton was a handsome, popular, and talented statesman from a family long active in politics. Although some New Yorkers were fearful of splitting the party, Clinton won the legislature’s endorsement when congressmen returning from Washington brought stories of growing disillusionment with Madison and letters from Postmaster General Gideon Granger urging support for a northern candidate.7
Clinton’s friends put his case before the people in an address published in the summer of 1812. The address attacked the congressional nominating system and the Virginia Dynasty and charged the administration with mismanaging the war. Virginia’s domination of the presidency, the address said, had given rise to charges of “Virginia influence,” pitting the agricultural states against the commercial ones. To put an end to this divisiveness, the address recommended Clinton as a man who would provide “vigor in war, and a determined character in the relations of peace.”8
De Witt Clinton (1769–1828) was a gifted New York leader who challenged President Madison and the Virginia Dynasty in the election of 1812. Although Clinton appealed to Republicans who had grown weary of Virginia rule and to Federalists who opposed the war, he was narrowly defeated. After the war he became the driving force behind the development of the Erie Canal. (Library of Congress)
The Federalist Dilemma
Clinton’s nomination posed a dilemma for Federalists. Should they maintain their purity by supporting a Federal candidate—a course sure to lead to defeat—or should they vote for Clinton, a man long associated with the Republican party but considered friendly to commerce and anxious for peace? In New York and Virginia, the prevailing sentiment was for a Federal candidate, the favorites being Rufus King, John Marshall, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney.9 Elsewhere there was considerable support for Clinton because, as one Federalist put it, he “wd. engage, if chosen President, to make immediate Peace with England.”10 The sentiment for Clinton was particularly strong among Federalists in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. In midsummer a Philadelphia committee of correspondence sent out a circular recommending Clinton because of “his residence and attachments, his asserted freedom from foreign influence, his avowed hostility to the anti-commercial system, . . . combined with the positive declarations which have been made that he is desirous of the restoration of peace.”
11
To fix their election strategy, Federalists held a convention in New York City in September 1812. Seventy delegates from eleven states attended, though most were from New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.12 Rufus King spearheaded the opposition to Clinton, believing that he was nothing more than the “Leader of a Faction.” King thought “it was of less importance that the Federalists should acquire a temporary ascendency by the aid of a portion of the Repubs. than that their reputation and integrity shd. be preserved unblemished.”13 Many of the delegates disagreed, not because they had any great confidence in Clinton but because they saw him as the lesser of two evils. As Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts put it, “I am far enough from desiring Clinton for President . . . but I would vote for any man in preference to Madison.”14
Harrison Gray Otis delivered an impassioned appeal on behalf of Clinton. According to one observer, “Mr. Otis arose, apparently much embarrassed, holding his hat in his hand, and seeming as if he were almost sorry he had arisen. Soon he warmed with his subject, his hat fell from his hand, and he poured forth a strain of eloquence that chained all present to their seats.”15 Otis’s appeal carried the day, but the convention stopped short of formally endorsing Clinton, fearing that this would undermine his Republican support. Instead, the delegates simply urged Federalists to support presidential electors “most likely by their votes to effect a change in the present course of measures.”16 The convention made no provision for the vice presidency, but Jared Ingersoll became the accepted candidate when he was nominated by Federalists in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.17
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