Complete Idiot’s Guide to American History

by Alan Axelrod

  The Louisiana Purchase was an overwhelmingly popular move, and it catapulted Jefferson to a second term. In contrast to the tie contest of 1800, Jefferson swept every state except two-Connecticut and Delaware-in the election of 1804.

  Pirates and Embargo

  Jefferson’s second term began with great promise as his administration negotiated a favorable peace in the Tripolitan War, putting an end to intimidation by the Barbary pirates of Tripoli, Algiers, Morocco, and Tunis, who had been extorting protection money in return for safe passage of U.S. merchant vessels through the Mediterranean. Alas, the rest of Jefferson’s second administration was marked by an economic crisis resulting from a. failure of foreign policy.

  In Europe, the Wars of the French Revolution had dissolved into the Napoleonic Wars. When neither the English nor the French could score a decisive victory, they turned to attacks on the commerce of noncombatant nations, including the United States. The English resumed the practice of impressing American sailors and also seized American vessels attempting to enter French ports. Jefferson retaliated with the Non-Importation Act, which prohibited the importation of many English goods.

  The simmering crisis came to a head on June 22, 1807, when the British man-of-war Leopard, off Norfolk Roads, Virginia, fired on the U.S. frigate Chesapeake. The British boarded the frigate and seized four men they claimed to be deserters from His Majesty’s navy. The incident fanned the flames of war fever throughout the nation, but President Jefferson resisted. Instead of resorting to war, he pushed through Congress the Embargo Act of December 22, 1807, prohibiting all exports to Europe and restricting imports from Great Britain.

  The embargo was a self-inflicted wound, severely crippling the American economy and provoking outrage from American farmers and merchants. Smuggling became rampant, national unity was threatened, and Jefferson’s popularity plummeted while that of the Federalists rose.

  Tecumseh Rises

  While Jefferson was dealing with England and France, the West that he had done so much to “open” with the Louisiana Purchase was erupting in violence. In 1794, the major tribes of the Old Northwest (the region from the Ohio River to the Great Lakes) were defeated by General “Mad Anthony” Wayne at the watershed Battle of Fallen Timbers (August 20). After almost a decade of relative peace on that frontier region, President Jefferson in. 1803 directed the territorial governor of Indiana, William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), to obtain “legal” title to as much Indian land as possible. Over the next three years, Harrison acquired 70 million acres by negotiating with whatever chiefs and tribal leaders were willing to sign deeds. The trouble was that for every Indian leader who claimed authority to sell land, another rose up to repudiate that authority and that sale.

  The most prominent, brilliant, and charismatic of those who resisted the transfer of Indian lands to the whites was the Shawnee Tecumseh (ca. 1768-1813), who organized a united resistance against white invasion while cultivating an alliance with British interests. Westerners were fearful of Tecumseh and other British-backed Indians, and they were also angry. Not only did the Indians need a good whipping, but so did the British, who became the focus of concentrated hatred in the new American West, not only for inciting Indians to war, but for disrupting American shipping and commerce. What was bad for the coastal economy was disastrous for the West, which, during this critical phase of its development, was being prevented from shipping out its abundant exports. The West was spoiling for a war, and William Henry Harrison and Tecumseh would give it one.

  The Least You Need to Know

  The liberal “Age of Jefferson” swept away the repressive Alien and Sedition Acts and expanded the United States with the Louisiana Purchase.

  Chief justice John Marshall defined the function and power of the Supreme Court through his decision in the case of Marbury v. Madison.

  Jefferson’s second term was marred by the Embargo Act and a breakdown in relations with Great Britain.

  Word for the Day

  Impressment was the practice—common, in England during the 18th and early 19th centuries—of compelling—even kidnapping—individuals to serve in the military, especially the navy.

  Word for the Day

  Nullification would become a major issue in the decade before the Civil War, when South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun echoed Jefferson and asserted that the states could override (“nullify”) any federal laws they judged unconstitutional. Nullification attacked the foundation of American nationhood.

  Real Life

  Born in Newark, New Jersey, Aaron Burr distinguished himself in the Revolution, made a prosperous marriage (1782) to the widow of a former British officer, and set up a successful law practice in New York City. He entered the U.S. Senate in 1791 and served as U.S. vice president from 1801 to 1805.

  Jefferson distrusted Burr and dropped him from the Democratic-Republican ticket in the 1804 race. Thus rejected, Buff ran for New York governor, garnering support (in part) by suggesting that he would aid certain Federalist radicals in their effort to break New York free of the Union. Burr was attacked in print by Alexander Hamilton, and when Burr lost the election, he challenged his enemy to a duel on July 11, 1804. Hamilton was mortally wounded, and Buff received the dubious distinction of becoming the first (and thus far only) U.S. vice president charged with murder.

  Burr ultimately was acquitted, completed his vice presidential term with dignity, but then entered into a conspiracy of bewildering proportions. Even now, it is impossible to determine just what Burr intended to do, but he seems to have envisioned creating an empire stretching from the Ohio River to Mexico—an empire over which he would rule. Burr conspired with U.S. army general James Wilkinson to incite the West to a rebellion supported by Mexico. Before Burr could take significant action, however, Wilkinson betrayed him to President Jefferson. Chief justice John Marshall presided over Burr’s trial for treason, pointing out to the jury that Burr had not committed any acts of treason, but had been shown only to have intended to commit such acts. Marshall declared that one could not be found guilty on account of one’s intentions. After 25 minutes of deliberation, the jury acquitted Burr, who fled to Europe and did not return to the United States until May 1812. He lived out the remainder of his life in retirement.

  Stats

  The Louisiana Purchase added 90,000 square miles 61 trans-Mississippi territory to the United States. Purchased at a cost of 60 million francs (about $ 15 million), it was a great I estate bargain at four cents an acre.

  Main Event

  Jefferson, fascinated like so many others with the idea of finding a Northwest Passage connecting the Mississippi with the Pacific, planned an expedition to Louisiana Territory long before the purchase, choosing his trusted secretary Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) to lead the expedition. Lewis asked his close friend William Clark (1770-1838) to serve as co-captain.

  The expedition left Saint Louis on May 14, 1804, and reached central North Dakota in November. Accompanied by a remarkable Shoshoni woman Sacajawea (ca. 1784-1812). who served as translator and guide, the group explored the Rockies and reached the Continental Divide on August 12, 1805. Lewis and Clark were now convinced that the Northwest Passage did not exist. However, they pressed on, reaching the Columbia River and the Pacific in November 1805. They returned to Saint Louis on September 23, 1806.

  If the expedition failed to find the nonexistent Northwest Passage, it did supply a wealth of information about what had been a great blank space on the map of North America.

  Washington Burns, a Nation Is Reborn

  (1812-1814)

  In this Chapter

  Early disasters and the near-collapse of the West

  Naval triumphs and Western victories

  The burning of Washington and the defense of Baltimore

  The Battle of Lake Champlain and the Treaty of Ghent

  Jackson as the “Hero of New Orleans”

  Late in the summer of 1811, Tecumseh left the Ohio country for the South to expand his alli
ances to the Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks. Except for a militant Creek faction known as the Red Sticks, these groups wanted no part of Tecumseh’s enterprise. Worse, William Henry Harrison used Tecumseh’s absence to move against Tecumseh’s headquarters at Tippecanoe. Having assembled a ragtag army of 1,000 men—including 350 U.S. regulars, raw Kentucky and Indiana militiamen, and a handful of Delaware and Miami Indian scouts—Harrison attacked outside of Tippecanoe on November 7, 1811. Losses were equally heavy on both sides—about 50 whites and 50 Indians slain, but the battle cost Tecumseh’s followers their headquarters and prompted many of them to desert Tecumseh. Thus the settlers of the West had their first taste of a major fight and a significant victory. Of fighting, they were about to get more than their fill during the next three years. Victories, however, would be very few.

  War Hawks Triumphant

  The War of 1812 is one of those historical events nobody thinks much about nowadays. But earlier generations of American schoolchildren were taught that it was nothing less than the “second War of Independence,” righteous conflict fought because the British, at war with Napoleon and in need of sailors for the Royal Navy, insisted on boarding U.S. vessels to impress American sailors into His Majesty’s service. Actually, the U.S. declared war on Britain on June 1.9, 1812, three days after the British had agreed to stop impressing seamen. The real cause of the war was not to be found on the ocean, but in the trans-Appalachian West. In Congress, the region was represented by a group of land-hungry “War Hawks,” spearheaded by Representative Henry Clay of Kentucky.

  The War Hawks saw war with Britain as an opportunity to gain relief from British-backed hostile Indians and as a chance to gain what was then called Spanish Florida—a “parcel” of land extending from Florida west to the Mississippi River. Spain, which held this land, was allied with Britain against Napoleon. War with Britain, therefore, would mean war with Spain, and victory would mean the acquisition of Spanish Florida, which would complete an unbroken territorial link from the Atlantic, through the recently purchased Louisiana Territory, clear to the Pacific.

  The trouble was that President James Madison, elected to his first term in 1808, did not want war. He renewed the diplomatic and economic initiatives Jefferson had introduced, but, facing a tough reelection battle in 181.2, he at last yielded to Clay and the other leading War Hawks, John Calhoun of South Carolina and Kentucky’s Richard Mentor Johnson, President Madison asked a willing Congress for a declaration of war.

  Three-Pronged Flop

  Since colonial times, Americans shunned large standing armies. Now, having declared war, the country had to fight it—with an army of only 12,000 regular troops scattered over a vast territory. The troops were led by generals, most of whom had achieved their rank not through military prowess but through political connections. As to the nation’s navy, its officers were generally of a higher caliber, but it was a very puny force, especially in comparison with the magnificent fleets of the British. Despite these terrible handicaps, U.S. planners developed a three-pronged invasion of Canada: a penetration from Lake Champlain to Montreal; another across the Niagara frontier; and a third into Upper Canada from Detroit.

  The sad fact was that the attacks, thoroughly uncoordinated, all failed.

  The Fall of Detroit

  The governor of Michigan Territory, William Hull (1753-1825) was nominated to command the American forces north of the Ohio River. A minor hero of the Revolution, Hull was almost 60 years old when he led his forces across the Detroit River into Canada on July 12, 1812. His objective was to take Fort Malden, which guarded the entrance to Lake Erie, but Hull believed himself outnumbered and delayed his assault, thereby providing enough time for the highly capable British commander, Major General Isaac Brock, to bring his regulars into position. While this maneuvering was going on, the American garrison at Fort Michilimackinac, guarding the Mackinac Straits between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, was overrun and surrendered without a fight on July 17. On August 2, Tecumseh chased Hull out of Canada and back to Fort Detroit. Now Brock united his men with Tecumseh’s warriors, and Hull surrendered Fort Detroit and some 1,500 men, without firing a shot, on August 16.

  Farther south, just the day before Hull surrendered Detroit, Fort Dearborn (at the site of present-day Chicago) surrendered. As troops and settlers evacuated the fort, Potawatomi Indians attacked, killing 35 men, women, and children, mainly by torture.

  Defeat on the Niagara Frontier

  New York militia general Stephen Van Rensselaer led 2,270 militiamen and 900 regulars in. an assault on Queenston Heights, Canada, just across the Niagara River. Part of the force, mostly the regulars, got across the river before General Brock, having rushed to Queenston from Detroit, and pinned them down on October 13. The balance of the militia contingent refused to cross the international boundary and stood by as 600 British regulars and 400 Canadian militiamen overwhelmed their comrades.

  A No-show in Canada

  The principal U.S. force had yet to attack. Major General Henry Dearborn led 5,000 troops, mostly militia, down Lake Champlain and on November 19, was about to cross into Canada. At that point, the militia contingent, asserting its “constitutional rights,” refused. to fight in a foreign country. Dearborn had no choice but to withdraw without seriously engaging the enemy.

  The West in Flames

  The collapse of Detroit, Fort Dearborn, and the Canadian campaign laid the West open to Indian assault and British invasion. Suffering along the frontier was acute, yet neither the British nor their Indian allies were able to capitalize decisively on their advantages. Although most of the Old Northwest soon fell under Indian control, a coordinated British assault on the region, which might have brought the war to a quick and crashing end, never materialized. Tecumseh was eager to push the fight, but Colonel Henry Proctor, the British commander who had taken over from the slain Brock, was as dull and hesitant as Brock had been brilliant and aggressive. Proctor failed to support Tecumseh.

  Proctor’s hesitation bought U.S. general William Henry Harrison time to mount counterattacks. As 1812 drew to a close, Harrison destroyed villages of the Miami Indians near Fort Wayne (despite the fact that Miamis were noncombatants), and he raided what amounted to Indian refugee camps near present-day Peru, Indiana. In January, Harrison moved against Fort Malden, advancing across a frozen Lake Erie. But he suffered a stunning defeat on January 21 at the hands of Procter and a contingent of Red Stick Creeks. Yet, Procter was unable to score a final, decisive victory.

  British Blockade

  In frankly miraculous contrast to the dismal American performance on land was the activity of the U.S. Navy. The British brought to bear 1,048 vessels to blockade U.S. naval and commercial shipping in an effort to choke off the nation’s war effort. Opposed to this vast armada were the 14 seaworthy vessels of the United States Navy and a ragtag fleet of privateers. The U.S. frigates emerged victorious in a series of single-ship engagements, the most famous of which were the battles between the U.S.S. Constitution (“Old Ironsides”) and the British frigates Guerriere, off the coast of Massachusetts on August 19, 1812, and the Java, off the Brazilian coast on December 29, 1812. Despite such American triumphs, the British were able to tighten their blockade into a veritable stranglehold that wiped out American trade, bringing the U.S. economy to the verge of collapse.

  We Have Met the Enemy and They Are Ours

  During 1813, renewed American attempts to invade Canada were again unsuccessful. In the West, however, the situation brightened. William Henry Harrison managed to rebuild—and even enlarge—his army, so that by late summer of 1813, he fielded 8,000 men. In the meantime, a dashing young naval officer named Oliver Hazard Perry (1785-1819) cobbled together an inland navy. Beginning in March 1813, he directed construction of an armed flotilla at Presque Isle (present-day Erie), Pennsylvania, while drilling his sailors in artillery technique. By August, he was ready to move his vessels onto Lake Erie. On September 10, Perry engaged the British fleet in a battle so
fierce that he had to transfer his flag from the severely damaged brig Lawrence to the Niagara, from which he commanded nothing less than the destruction of the entire British squadron. He sent to General Harrison a message that instantly entered into American history: “We have met the enemy and they are ours.”

  Perry’s triumph cut off British supply lines and forced the abandonment of Fort Maiden, as well as a general retreat eastward from the Detroit region. On October 5, 1813, Harrison overtook the retreating British and their Indian allies at the Battle of the Thames. The great Indian leader Tecumseh fell in this battle. Although no one knows who killed him, it is certain that, with the death of Tecumseh, the Indians’ last real hope of halting the northwestward rush of white settlement likewise died.

  O Say Can You See

  The American victories in the West, so long in coming, might have turned the tide of the war had it not been for the defeat of Napoleon in Europe and his first exile to St. Elbe. With Napoleon out of the way, the British could now turn their attention to what had become (from their point of view) a very nasty little war in North America. Soon, more ships and more troops—including experienced veterans of the campaigns against Napoleon—sailed across the Atlantic.