and necessarily led to conflict between the Secretary and military commanders. The latter, who alone should have been the medium of communication between their subordinate and the War Department, and the reverse, were not only ignored in the transmission of orders, but often found that important expeditions had been set on foot within their departments without the courtesy of an official notice. These irregularities, which had the ill-advised sanction of the President, led in 1814 to the enforced retirement of General Harrison, who up to that time had been one of the most successful and popular commanders in the Army. The controversy which led to this result is related by Ingersoll as follows: The military districts into which the United States were divided were necessarily very extensive. We have already seen that there was a project in the west, urged by Governor Shelby and favored by General Harrison, for establishing there a board of war. The President, however, thought that all the various channels of public communication centering at the seat of Government, much more accurate knowledge of affairs could always be had there than by any commander of a military district, at whatever station he might happen to be. It was deemed essential that the War Department should be able always to issue instantaneous commands, to every post, quarter, and officer, without delaying them to pass through the hands of the commander of that military district. The practice, therefore, was established of transmitting them wherever the Executive thought proper, accompanying them with mere duplicates to the commander of the district. In this way Colonel Croghan was charged with the unsuccessful expedition against Mackinaw, in the autumn of 1812, which I have not thought it necessary to dwell upon, as it produced no result to the hostilities on either side. Other such orders sent into General Harrison's district, he protested against so vehemently that it became the subject of correspondence and Executive consideration. The President finally made known to General Harrison his determination to persevere in a system which the general denounced as inconsistent with subordination, and, thereupon, tendered his resignation. As his reputation and influence at the time were imposing, he perhaps flattered himself that he would have been requested to keep his commission, and that some satisfactory arrangement would have ensued between him and the President. Mr. Madison not being at Washington when the tender of General Harrison's resignation arrived there, the Secretary of War, General Armstrong, who did not esteem General Harrison, and had the President's authority to persevere in the obnoxious system of orders, instantly accepted General Harrison's resignation, and suggested General Jackson to supply the vacancy. Thus closed the military career of William Henry Harrison. @ The unauthorized acceptance of the resignation of a general officer who was commissioned in the Army, not by the pleasure of the President alone, but by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, was simply in keeping with the assumption by the Secretary of the other military prerogatives of the President. Those who care to investigate the relations of the Secretary of War to the personnel of the Army will find by a reference to the American State Papers that from February, 1813, to August, 1814, he rarely referred to the authority of the President; that to Dearborn, Wilkinson, Harrison, and Hampton he issued orders in his own name governing the movements of their armies, and that in every respect he held them in the relation of strict military subordinates. This assumption of authority he continued till the battle of Bladensburg, where, after having taken an active part in disposing the troops, his usurpations were brought to a close in a manner best explained by himself: Arriving on the retreat at Capitol Hill, a meeting and consultation took place between the Commanding General, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of War, a Ingersoll's Second War, vol. 1, pp. 189, 190. in which the person last mentioned recommended a speedy occupation of the Capitol and adjacent houses as a position capable of a powerful defense, and even redoubtable against a force coming, as the British did, without artillery, baggage, or provision train, and, of course, meditating only a coup de main. The proposition was promptly and even peremptorily rejected by the general, on two grounds the great diminution of his force and the fatigued and exhausted condition of what remained. Mr. Monroe supported the opinion of the general, adding his belief (from having seen a column of the enemy moving on the western road to the capital) that they would drive us into a cul de sac unless we took the position recommended by the general, which left open the west for retreat. Finding the majority of the council two to one, and having that morning received the President's order "to leave to the military functionaries the discharge of their own duties, on their own responsibility,” the Secretary of War no longer opposed the retreat to Georgetown."a The above order, whereby, on the eve of a great national catastrophe, the President resumed the Constitutional powers, which Congress never intended he should delegate to a subordinate, was but a repetition of the written directions he had given as early as the 13th of August, "that the Secretary of War should give no order to any officer commanding a district, without previously receiving the Executive sanction." OPERATIONS OF THE NAVY. The operations of the Navy during the year 1814 entitled it to the continued applause and gratitude of the nation. In April the Peacock captured the Epervier; in July the Wasp captured the Reindeer, and shortly afterwards sank the Avon; in September McDonough destroyed the enemy's fleet on Lake Champlain. These victories were partially offset by the loss of the Esser and the President, the former being captured by the Phoebe and Cherub, and the latter compelled to surrender to a large English squadron. NUMBER OF TROOPS EMPLOYED IN 1814. The troops called out during this fruitless campaign numbered: 38, 186 197, 653 Total c 235, 839 Of the militia 46,469 from the State of New York were employed on the Canadian frontier, while more than 100,000 from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia were called out to repel the incursions of the 3,500 British along the shores of the Chesapeake. Notwithstanding these enormous drafts, such were the faults of our organization and recruitments, that the utmost strength we could put forth on the field of battle, was represented at Lundy's Lane by less than 3,000 men. Nor was this evidence of national weakness our only cause of reproach. Boasting at the outset of the contest that Canada could be "captured without soldiers, that a few volunteers and militia could do the business," our statesmen, after nearly three years of war, had the humiliation of seeing their plans of conquest vanish in the smoke of a burning capital. @ Armstrong's Notices of the War 1812, vol. 2, p. 231, 232, Appendix. € Adjutant-General's Office. CHAPTER XII. CAMPAIGN OF 1815. This campaign opened and closed with the only brilliant victory of the war, won at the battle of New Orleans on the 8th of January, two weeks after the conclusion of the treaty of peace. The British loss was about 2,000 killed and wounded; our own, 7 killed and 6 wounded." In this remarkable battle the forces of General Jackson occupied both banks of the Mississippi immediately below the city of New Orleans. The main body was posted on the east bank behind a line of intrenchments from 5 to 8 feet high, and extending from the river on the right to an impenetrable cypress swamp on the left. Those works were little more than 1,000 yards long, and were thrown up on the edge of a canal, which served as a wet ditch, the water of which varied in depth from 1 to 5 feet. Along the front of this short line fifteen guns were posted in nine different batteries containing from one to three guns each. Of these batteries four were served by the regular artillery and infantry, two by the former marines and sailors of the U. S. S. Carolina, and one by trained privateersmen. In support of these batteries there were two regiments of regular infantry and detachment of marines, numbering about 700 men. In The extreme right and left of the line, on which the burden of the attack fell, were occupied, respectively, by regulars and militia. front of the works, still adding strength to their position, the ground was nearly level and smooth as a glacis. @In British Campaigns, by Captain Gleig, a British officer, the following exhibit is given (p. 419) of the British forces that landed below New Orleans in December, 1814, and January, 1815, viz: Fourth Regiment, King's Own . Seventh Regiment, Royal Fusileers. Fourteenth Regiment, Duchess of York's Own Twenty-first Regiment, Royal N. British Fusileers. Fortieth Regiment, Somersetshire. Forty-third Regiment, Monmouth Light Infantry Forty-fourth Regiment, East Essex.. Eighty-fifth Regiment, Bucks Volunteers, Light Infantry Rocket Brigade, artillery, drivers, engineers, sappers, and miners Roval Marines Sailors taken from fleet.. Total... 750 850 350 900 1,000 850 750 650 1, 100 500 700 700 350 1,500 1,500 2,000 14, 250 On the west bank of the river the works, with the exception of a battery, manned by sailors, commanded by a commodore of the Navy, were defended exclusively by militia. To meet the crisis that was approaching and on which the fate of the city depended, the Government, as at Bladensburg, could do nothing for the commander except to send him raw troops. In the Kentucky brigade which arrived but four days before the battle, such was the destitution that "not one man in ten was well armed, and only one man in three had any arms at all.”« Despite all of his difficulties, such was the indomitable energy and perseverance of the commander that on the morning of the battle the force he had collected, consisting of Regulars, volunteers, militia, marines, sailors, and privateers, numbered 5,698 men." With these posted behind works so formidable that no one but a reckless or infatuated commander would have hazarded an assault, he awaited the onset of 8,000 veterans, the flower of the British army. The struggle was soon over. In the brief space of twenty-five minutes the enemy lost 2,100 killed and wounded, followed after the cessation of the firing by the surrender of 500 prisoners. The survivors of the assaulting columns, bereft of their general and nearly all of their commanding officers, fled in the wildest confusion and disorder. This terrible. slaughter was attended on our side by the loss of but 7 killed and 6 wounded. While the nation had reason to exult over so signal a victory, the battle in no sense vindicated a dependence on raw troops. It only proved, as at Bunker Hill, that with trained officers to command them, with an effective artillery and regular troops to support and encourage a Parton's Life of Andrew Jackson, vol. 2, p. 168. Of this number only 884 were regular troops. The following organization of Jackson's army is believed to be as nearly correct as is possible from existing data.-EDITORS. them above all, when protected by works so formidable that nothing but a regular siege should have dislodged them-advantages of position may compensate for an utter lack of instruction and discipline. Agreeable as it might be to give the entire credit of this battle to raw troops, their heroic commander knew so well the uncertainty of their conduct in the open field that he was obliged to accept the advantages of a mere passive defense. In fact, at the very moment when the men from their breastworks were cheering over a victory still unparalleled in our history, at a time, too, when the advance of a skirmish line might possibly have compelled the surrender of the British army, the commander had the mortification of seeing the division on the west bank of the river "abandon their position and run in headlong flight toward the city."a In a firm address to the fugitives, whose conduct might have been fatal to the city but for the decisive repulse on the other side, he told them that "the want of discipline, the want of order, the total disregard to obedience, and a spirit of insubordination, not less destructive than cowardice itself, are the causes which led to the disaster, and they must be eradicated, or I must cease to command." The number of troops employed in the year 1815 was: Regulars... Total € 33, 424 €33, 641 67,065 OPERATIONS OF THE NAVY. The victory of New Orleans, which terminated the battles on land, was followed on the 20th of February by the double victory of the Constitution over the frigate Cyane and sloop of war Levant. March 23 the last success of the Navy was achieved in the capture of the Penguin by the Hornet. Throughout this second conflict with Great Britain, while our military operations with but few exceptions were defensive, the Navy on the contrary carried on from the beginning a bold and successful warfare. Its victories over the enemy's armed vessels were not the only claims it had to the praise of the nation. In support of a large and gallant fleet of privateers it turned its guns so successfully against the enemy's commerce that "in less than three years of our war the captures by sea from England, besides 56 vessels of war, mounting 886 cannons, were 2,369 merchant vessels, with 800 cannons, 354 ships, 610 brigs, 520 schooners, and 135 sloops, besides 750 vessels of various sizes recaptured, altogether 2,425 vessels, with incalculable amount of cargoes, stores, provisions, and equipments, and many thousand prisoners of war." On the land, too, it prepared the victory of the Thames, and saved the army from defeat at Plattsburg, while its marines and sailors at Norfolk, Bladensburg, Baltimore, and New Orleans afforded evidence that to their subordination and courage was due the luster they had won for our name on the sea. |