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Bushrod I continued to pursue the “special relationship” with France that his late uncle had nurtured during the Revolutionary War. This pro-French policy came to full fruition when Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul of the French Republic, sold the vast Louisiana territory to America in 1803. When Napoleon declared himself “Emperor of the French” in 1805, the stage was set for a similar play in America. On the second of June, 1806 the officers of the army and the notables of America assembled under a magnificently ornate pavilion in Washington City, to witness the coronation of Bushrod I as, “Bushrod, by the Grace of God and the laws of the state, King of the United Kingdom of America, Emperor of the Trans-Mississippi, Destroyer of Tyranny, Regenerator and Benefactor of the nation.” The Emperor, like his idol Napoleon, crowned himself and then the Empress Anne. The coronation presaged Bushrod’s observation, “Let us rejoice. We await the boundless future.”
The very name “The Trans-Mississippi Empire” worried many European powers, particularly England and Spain. Did America intend to march to the Pacific and perhaps beyond? There was no reckoning with the boundless ambitions of Bonaparte in Europe and Washington in the Americas. Although not formally allied, it was generally reckoned that America and France had an entente cordiale. Was it a coincidence that America declared war on the British Empire on June 18, 1812 and Napoleon invaded Russia on June 24, 1812? Certainly it did not seem so to the British. The Americans intended to conquer Canada. The French intended to smash Russia and then to destroy the British economy by enforcing a continental blockade on all British goods. The actions of both countries were aimed at crippling and destroying the British Empire.
Things did not go as planned. The American invasion of Canada was decisively defeated in the summer of 1812. By the late autumn of 1812 Napoleon was in full retreat from Moscow, his million man “Grand Armee” swallowed up by the Russian winter. On April 11, 1814, as the victorious Allied armies marched into Paris, the Emperor Napoleon abdicated. Thousands of battle hardened British troops were now available for service against America.
As Minister of War, Brigadier General John Armstrong Jr. was responsible for the defense of the realm. Armstrong had not been a general long, having only been commissioned a brigadier in 1812 at the outbreak of war with England, based on his service as a junior officer during the Revolution. What Armstrong lacked in military experience he made up for in political muscle, being a powerful figure in New York. Despite his relative inexperience, Armstrong fancied himself something of a military genius. In 1814 he penned a book entitled, Hints to Young Generals that became widely popular and solidified his reputation as the country’s foremost military expert. Some of his New York associates perhaps knew better, describing his chief attributes as, “obstinacy and self-conceit.”
James Madison, the Prime Minister, told Armstrong that he wanted three thousand militiamen deployed between Washington and the Chesapeake Bay, with another twelve thousand on alert in the nearby area (the regular army, some twenty seven thousand regulars was spread thinly from Canada to Louisiana). John Armstrong had no need to argue. He simply ignored the Prime Minister. He also ignored the request of his ground commander, General William Winder, to mobilize the local militia so that they could train. Armstrong, the self-styled military genius, had a theory that militia fought best at the spur of the moment. Early deployment would only cause militiamen to brood over the horrors of battle. In addition to his theory on the use of troops, Armstrong’s strategic sense told him that the British would never attack Washington City an insignificant rural town of 8,000 when richer prizes awaited, “By God,” he proclaimed, “they would not come with such a fleet without meaning to strike somewhere. But they certainly will not come here. What the devil will they do here? No! No! Baltimore is the place, Sir. That is of so much more consequence.” Armstrong had a few lonely critics, but few dared question the Minister of War, who obviously had access to military intelligence which gave him greater insight into matters.
Armstrong steadfastly refused to do anything to defend the capital. When residents of St. Mary’s County, Maryland, pleaded for help in the face of several British raids, Armstrong replied, “It cannot be expected that I can defend every man’s turnip patch.” When the Prime Minister finally reprimanded him for not doing enough to defend the capital just days before the invasion, the obstinate Armstrong did even less.
The British landed at Benedict, Maryland on August 19, 1814, achieving complete tactical surprise. The British marched rapidly north. The American army, such as it was, wasted time marching and counter marching, achieving nothing but the exhaustion of the militia. When battle was finally joined on August 24, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Some 4,500 British veterans faced 429 American regulars and 1,500 poorly trained and poorly equipped militia in a set piece battle in the open. Armstrong’s theories about the use of militia did not prove sound against the British.
The British regulars came on steadily, driving the Americans like sheep. After losing ten dead and forty wounded, the Americans fled the field, leaving ten cannons behind. The route was complete, and was derided at the time as the “Bladensburg Races”. The battle has come down to history as, “the greatest disgrace ever dealt American arms” and “the most humiliating episode in American history.”
The remnants of the American army fled towards Washington, with the British in hot pursuit. When asked what he intended to do, Armstrong shifted blame to the ground commander General Winder for the disaster, commenting, “...it was to be presumed he (Winder) had formed such plans for defending the city.” General Winder took his remaining troops to the high ground around Georgetown, leaving Washington City to the British.
The British commander reported to London, “I reached [Washington] at 8 o’clock that night. Judging it of consequences to complete the destruction of the public buildings with the least possible delay, so that the army might retire without loss of time, the following buildings were set fire to and consumed: the Parliament House, the Arsenal, the Dock-Yard, Treasury, War office, Royal Palace, Rope-Walk, and the great bridge across the Potomac: In the dock-yard a frigate nearly ready to be launched, and a sloop of war, were consumed.” The glow from the burning city could be seen forty miles away in Baltimore.
It was after the burning of the capital that the word “secession” first began to poison the air. In December 1814 members of the provincial assemblies from five provinces of the deep North with strong trade relations with the British (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhodes Island, Vermont, and New Hampshire) began drafting an ultimatum to the Royal government demanding that the war be ended. Delegates gathered in the Old State House in Hartford, Connecticut. Wild republican talk was uttered and rumors spread that the Convention would call for New England’s secession from the Kingdom. Before the convention could do any real mischief, news of both peace and Major General Andrew Jackson’s overwhelming victory in New Orleans swept the Northeast, discrediting and disgracing the secessionists.
The capstone of the reign of Bushrod I was the peaceful annexation of Florida by purchase from Spain in 1819.
The nation continued to prosper for the remaining ten years of Bushrod’s reign, but many wondered who would come to the throne after the death of the childless monarch. Slandering republicans in the deep North put about stories that Bushrod I would name his illegitimate slave son West Ford as his heir. Rumors circulated for years that a slave named Venus had given Bushrod a son, and, in truth, the King did go out of his way to show preferment to the slave West Ford.
In the event, with the death of Bushrod I in 1829, the son of his deceased brother Corbin came to the throne as John Augustine I.
Bushrod I (1799 -1829)