MEANWHILE THE WAR WENT ON.
All fall, while the diplomats played their game of thrust and parry, the fighting men dueled with real guns. In the Chesapeake, Admiral Malcolm resumed raiding the local creeks and inlets. Along the Maine coast, British frigates dipped in and out of the steeply wooded bays, cowing the inhabitants into submission. At Halifax, and later Jamaica, Admiral Cochrane planned his next expedition for the richest prize of all—New Orleans. From the Chesapeake, Malcolm sailed to join him with Ross’s old force; three batches of reinforcements went out from England; Sir Edward Pakenham sailed to take over the military command.
Nothing went quite right. As originally planned, the expedition was to rendezvous at Jamaica by November 20; then sail to the Louisiana coast, where light-draft boats would ferry the troops through the lakes and bayoux to some landing spot near New Orleans. But the reinforcements left Britain in such piecemeal style that only the first group reached Jamaica by the rendezvous date. The rest—including Sir Edward Pakenham—would have to catch up later.
Worse, there were far too few flatboats. When Admiral Cochrane reached Jamaica, he found only a handful collected. Others had been promised from England, but London let him down too.
Even more serious, security collapsed completely. As early as August, Albert Gallatin warned from Ghent that a big expedition was fitting out, Louisiana the objective. In September James Monroe sent a separate warning to the district military commander, Major General Andrew Jackson. That same month Jean Lafitte, leader of the free booters operating out of Barataria Bay, reported a visit from a Royal Navy captain seeking his cooperation. And if Lafitte was a bit of a chameleon, there was the proclamation issued by Major Edward Nicolls, the battle-scarred Royal Marine officer in charge of recruiting Indians, blacks and other dissidents. It appealed to the people of Louisiana for help in “liberating” their soil during the coming campaign.
Admiral Cochrane was blissfully unaware of all this, but he couldn’t escape the situation in Jamaica. Captain William Fathergill, responsible for collecting the flatboats, had said they were for an attack on New Orleans. Word quickly spread all over the island, and at least one trading schooner slipped off, carrying the news to the Gulf Coast.
Undaunted, the expedition left Jamaica pretty much as scheduled on November 26 and 27. Packed aboard the transports were the four regiments from the Chesapeake plus the new arrivals from England—mainly the 93rd Foot, sporting tartan trews, and the 95th Foot, in their distinctive green rifleman’s jackets. A day or so out more ships joined up, bringing the 5th West India, perhaps the best of the black colonial regiments. Altogether the army now totaled 5,700 men under Major General John Keane. He was young and untried but all they had, until someone more senior arrived. Meanwhile Admiral Cochrane would be pleased to give him guidance.
December 2, the leading ships were off the Apalachicola River, where Cochrane hoped to make contact with the thousands of Creek warriors promised by Major Nicolls. Only a handful appeared, dressed in red Guardsmen’s jackets, huge cocked hats and no trousers at all.
The Admiral had just as bad luck with Negro recruits. Despite the poor turnout in the Chesapeake—and despite misgivings in London—all fall he had banked on winning thousands of slaves to his colors. But once again the blacks wanted no part of either side. Few enlisted.
And so the disappointments piled up. By December 12, when Cochrane’s whole fleet had anchored off Lake Borgne, an admiral more respectful of his enemy—and less dazzled by the prize—might well have wondered whether he had any chance whatsoever.
At that, Sir Alexander almost pulled it off. For one thing, Andrew Jackson’s stubbornness largely made up for the failure in British security. The tough, shrewd defender of New Orleans just couldn’t believe that a “real military man” would attack through Lake Borgne, which meant a row of over 60 miles to some landing point near the city. As a result, he left the lake guarded by only a small flotilla of gunboats, which Cochrane quickly captured on December 14. This not only deprived Jackson of his “eyes,” but added five desperately needed shallow-draft vessels to the Admiral’s meager collection.
Even with these Cochrane had enough boats to carry only 2,200 men at one time. But, that was a start, and on December 16 he began the back-breaking job of ferrying the army from the ships to an advanced base established on Pea Island, roughly halfway across the lake.
Then came the luckiest break of all. Searching for a place to land, Cochrane’s scouts ran across a village of Spanish fishermen, who turned out to be most cooperative. For $100, plus $2 a day as “head pilot,” their leader Gabriel Farerr showed the English visitors the Bayou Bienvenu—the only waterway leading toward New Orleans that hadn’t been blocked by Andrew Jackson. Disguised as fishermen, the scouts tried it out. Through a lacework of connecting branches and canals, they ultimately found themselves on the left bank of the Mississippi, less than eight miles below the city.
Actually, Andrew Jackson knew all about the Bayou Bienvenu and had specifically ordered it blocked. But Major Gabriel Villeré, to whom the job was entrusted, apparently felt there was little chance of the British coming this way. His family owned one of the plantations lying between the bayou and the river, and rather than obstruct such a useful means of communication, he decided a picket guard would be enough.
On the morning of December 23, a British advance force of 1,600 men under Colonel William Thornton of the 85th quietly entered the bayou … snapped up the pickets … and seized the Villeré plantation. The Major was enjoying a cigar on the gallery when he too was scooped into the net. Thus by a single stroke, all Admiral Cochrane’s porous plans had been redeemed. His Majesty’s troops were at the Mississippi, astride a good hard road, and just two hours’ march from a totally, unsuspecting New Orleans.
Colonel Thornton wanted to push on. That was the way they did it at Bladensburg. But General Keane said no. The men were tired; they were only 1,600 strong; they had but two small cannon; one of the captured pickets said Jackson had 15,000 men armed to the teeth. It was better to rest until more troops, guns and ammunition could be landed. So the campfires were lit, and the men relaxed on the firm ground beside the levee. There was only one serious interruption—a volley of musketry when Major Villeré suddenly bolted from his captors, leaped through a window, and vanished into the woods behind his house.
“By the Eternal, they shall not sleep on our soil!” stormed Andrew Jackson when he heard the news. Gabriel Villeré had made good his escape, borrowed a horse, and raced to town, bursting in on the General about 12:30 P.M. Other riders were coming in too, setting the stage for later arguments over who really reached Jackson first. At the moment nobody cared. Far more important was the overwhelming fact that the enemy was almost within sight of the city, and not a gun bad been fired.
“Gentlemen,” Jackson told his staff, “the British are below. We must fight them tonight.” At 1:55 P.M. the alarm gun sounded, and by 5:00 the, available troops were marching—Colonel Thomas Hinds’s Mississippi dragoons … the regulars in their tight blue jackets … the city battalion with their peacock finery … Brigadier General John Coffee’s hard, lean Tennessee volunteers … 200 free men of color … a handful of painted Choctaws … some 2,100 men altogether.
At the same time the schooner Carolina slipped her moorings and floated downstream. Her crew were idle sailors drafted from the waterfront; her gunners were Baratarian freebooters happy to be in any sort of action. The plan was simple: when the Carolina opened fire on, the British left, the troops would attack the enemy right.
It began at 7:30 P.M. with a withering broadside on Keane’s unsuspecting men, gathered by their campfires eating supper. As planned, Coffee’s troops then charged the British right, and a wild melee developed, which lasted till nearly midnight. Recovering from their surprise, Keane’s regulars fought hard and well, finally forcing a standoff. But their own momentum was gone. The spearhead had been blunted.
The morning of the 24th found the British Army still at the Villeré plantation, occupying a strip of firm ground that lay between the Mississippi on the left and the maze of swamps and bayoux on the right. This narrow plain ran all the way to New Orleans, but two miles ahead the American Army was waiting. Pulling back after the battle, Jackson was now digging in behind the Rodriguez Canal, where the plain was less than 900 yards wide. Keane was in no hurry to find him. Thoroughly jolted, he decided to wait for the rest of the troops before resuming his advance.
Christmas, and Sir Edward Pakenham at last arrived … catching up with his army after an eight-week voyage and a final 19½-hour row. As he appeared at the Villeré plantation, the British gunners fired such a vigorous salute the Americans thought a major attack was coming.
Not yet. But Pakenham injected new life in the force, bringing up men, guns and ammunition as fast as possible. December 27, his gunners tested their skills, blowing up the Carolina, which had been a thorn in the British flank ever since the first night. This seemed a good omen, and that night Admiral Malcolm, up with the troops, hastened to write Admiral Cochrane, who was back with the boats: “The General proposes to move tomorrow at daylight.… I think he will be in possession of New Orleans tomorrow night—he appears determined on a bold push.”
But the “bold push” did not work. As the army advanced in the early light of December 28, the American line erupted in gunfire. Then from the river the armed ship Louisiana—her guns also served by Baratarian volunteers—began raking the British left. The men wavered and stopped; and seeing the left in trouble, the right halted too. With his troops hopelessly pinned down, Pakenham finally called off the attack.
To the General, it was now clear he would never break the American line without some heavy guns of his own. So the next three days were spent bringing up ten 18-pounders and four 24-pound carronades, all courtesy of the Royal Navy. The seamen performed miracles, floating the guns in on canoes, then dragging them through the swamp to hard ground. Once again spirits soared, and on the night of the 29th Admiral Cochrane wrote his son Tom, “I hope to be in New Orleans in about eight days.”
New Year’s Day, 1815, Pakenham was ready to try again. During the previous night, under cover of darkness, his men had scooped out four batteries only 800 yards from Jackson’s line. With too little time to do the work properly, sugar casks were used to build up the parapets. By dawn the guns were planted, and the army waited only for an early morning fog to burn off.
Across the Rodriguez Canal, the unsuspecting Americans were preparing for a New Year’s Day review. Then at 9:00 the fog suddenly lifted, and the British guns crashed into action. Jackson’s men scattered wildly to their positions, and the General rushed from his headquarters at the McCarty plantation house. By the time he reached his embankment, flights of Congreve rockets added to the din. “Don’t mind those rockets,” he reassured the troops, “they are mere toys to amuse children.”
It was ten minutes before the American guns returned fire, but when they did, the effect was devastating. Sugar and splinters flew in all directions as Jackson’s big 24-and 32-pounders pulverized the British batteries. In contrast, Pakenham’s gunners did little damage. They were short on ammunition, their aim was bad, and most of their good shots plowed harmlessly into the American earthwork. By 3:00 P.M. the guns were silent; Jackson’s bands were playing “Yankee Doodle”; and for the second time Pakenham conceded failure.
Sir Edward now decided to wait for more men before trying again. The 7th and 43rd Foot—two of Wellington’s best—should come any day and give him the extra strength he needed to try new tactics. Next time would not be just another frontal assault. He would also send a force across the river to attack some American batteries on the other side. This would remove an annoyance, create a diversion, and outflank Jackson’s line.
But boats would be needed, and they would have to come from Cochrane’s collection. For the next five days the men shoveled away, deepening the bayou, extending the canal, and cutting a breach in the levee. January 6, the work was done, and the reinforcements arrived under Major General John Lambert. To ease the shortage of ammunition, each man carried a cannon ball in his haversack, and Sergeant Jack Cooper of the 7th had only one complaint: he really needed two for balance.
Behind the Rodriguez Canal Andrew Jackson was getting ready too. He built up his embankment. He started two more defense lines nearer New Orleans. He transferred guns from the Louisiana to a new position he was digging across the river. He strengthened his front by shifting men from other points that no longer seemed threatened. On January 3 he got some welcome reinforcements when the long-awaited Kentucky Militia arrived. But there was a hitch, someone reported: few of the newcomers had guns. “I don’t believe it,” snorted Old Hickory. “I have never seen a Kentuckian without a gun and a pack of cards and a bottle of whiskey in my life.”
As his preparations went on, from time to time Jackson studied the British camp with his telescope. He noticed the enemy working on the canal, and rightly guessed they were planning an attack across the river. He also noticed them making scaling ladders, and decided the main blow would fall on his own position. And on January 7, when he saw them start cutting the levee and repairing the batteries in front of his line, he felt sure the attack would be coming tomorrow.
He was right. During the afternoon of the 7th Pakenham called his commanders together and announced they would strike at dawn. As a preliminary, Colonel Thornton would cross the river during the night with 1,400 men, capture the American guns on the other side, and turn them on Jackson’s line. These would open fire when the general attack began, to be signaled by a rocket.
The assaulting force would advance in two columns, with the main blow delivered by the column on the right under Major General Samuel Gibbs, who had come out with Pakenham as his second-in-command. The other column, under General Keane, would advance in two parts. On the far left a picked force under Lieutenant Colonel Robert Rennie would assault a redoubt that anchored the right end of the American line. The rest of the column would stick more to the center, ready to support either Rennie or Gibbs, depending on how things went. Waiting in reserve would be General Lambert and his two fresh regiments.
In advance of them all would go Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Mullins’s 44th Regiment, which had the job of picking up 16 ladders and 300 fascines needed to scale the American parapet. “The 44th will have the forlorn hope tomorrow,” Mullins grumbled to his officers. “I think they will catch it.”
Pakenham’s plan went badly from the start. It proved incredibly difficult getting the boats from the canal into the Mississippi. The levee wasn’t cut deep enough…. There was too little water in the canal…. The boats had to be dragged for 250 yards through mud and slime. Instead of getting off early in the evening, it was after 1:00 A.M. on the 8th before the first barge was finally afloat in the river.
Just about this time at the McCarty house, Andrew Jackson was awakened by a messenger from Commander Daniel Patterson across the river. Patterson reported “a very uncommon stir” in the British camp and asked for reinforcements. The main attack, Jackson answered, would be on his own side of the river and he had no men to spare. Then, turning to his aides: “Gentlemen, we have slept enough.…”
At 3:30 A.M. the first British troops began moving to the front. Colonel Mullins led his 44th Regiment forward to pick up the scaling equipment, but misunderstood his instructions. He went to the “advanced battery”—about 500 yards beyond the “advanced redoubt,” where everything was actually stored. When he finally realized his mistake, he sent 300 men back on the double, but by now it was almost dawn—time for the attack to begin.
Both Gibbs and Pakenham learned of the fiasco, fumed a bit about blundering lieutenant colonels, but were reassured by staff officers that the 44th could get the equipment and be back in position in time. Pakenham was more worried about the failure of his scheme for a night attack across the river. It was now after 5:00, and Thornton hadn’t started yet At last it was decided to send the boats that were ready with as many men as they could hold. The Colonel finally shoved off toward 5:30 with only a third of his force.
“Thornton’s people will be of no use whatever to the general attack,” Pakenham fretted to his aide Captain Harry Smith. There was still time before daylight to call off the assault, Smith gently suggested. “This may be,” Sir Edward replied, “but I have twice deferred the attack.” As they talked, streaks of daylight began to appear, and the Captain urged more strongly that the advance be postponed. Pakenham could not be moved: “Smith, order the rocket to be fired.…”
Up, up the rocket went, signaling the start of the attack. Beneath the flicker of its falling stars Thornton’s troops finally began to land across the river … Mullins’s men struggled to bring up the ladders arid fascines … and the rest of the army started for the American wall of earth. Behind the embankment crouched Jackson’s men. They too had seen the rocket and knew what it meant.
At 500 yards a long brass 12-pounder near the left end of Jackson’s line cracked into action. It was commanded by Garriques Flaugeac, a Napoleonic veteran who had witnessed scenes like this in Italy and Egypt. Then the rest of Jackson’s artillery exploded with a roar. At 200 yards General Billy Carroll’s Tennessee riflemen opened up, and the whole line soon blazed with fire. “Give it to them, boys,” Jackson shouted. “Let’s finish the business today!”
The British troops wavered on the right. The men of the 44th, returning with the ladders and fascines, failed to get back in time. Now they floundered about the rear of the column, confusing the other companies and feeling very jittery themselves. They began dropping their ladders and firing blindly at the American line. The leading troops—fired at from behind as well as in front—panicked and broke ranks.
General Gibbs rushed up shouting encouragement, but it was too late. The men streamed toward the rear and Gibbs himself was cut down, four bullets in his body. Now Pakenham rushed over, waving his hat and shouting, “For shame! Remember you are British soldiers! This is the road you ought to take!” A volley of gunfire shattered his knee and brought down his horse. Borrowing-Duncan MacDougall’s mount, he was just back in the saddle when another volley tore into his groin and spine. Collapsing into MacDougall’s arms, be mumbled, “Tell General …,” but he couldn’t finish and died a few minutes later.
“Bayonet the rascals!” cried General Keane as the fleeing troops cut across his column to the left. Then he went down too, hit in the body and the thigh.
Leaderless, the remaining troops struggled on to the slaughter. Blinded by grape, Lieutenant Duncan Campbell of the 43rd was carried dying from the field, still clutching the hilt of his shattered sword. Colonel Rennie, a few others, reached the American lines before falling. Captain Thomas Wilkinson of Gibbs’s staff died at the foot of the parapet, gasping, “Now why don’t the troops come on? The day is our own!”
Back with the reserves General Lambert learned that he had inherited the command. Clearly there was only one thing to do. Around 8:00 he canceled the assault and pulled back what was left of Pakenham’s army. Ironically, Thornton’s attack across the river was a big success. But the day was lost by then, and Lambert decided to pull him back too. Admiral Codrington protested—they had to keep on or the army would starve. “Kill plenty more, Admiral,” said Harry Smith bitterly. “Fewer rations will be required.”
Candles gleamed from nearly every window along Pennsylvania Avenue in the early evening of February 4. Washington had just learned of Andrew Jackson’s triumph, and a grand illumination seemed a fitting way to celebrate. As the word traveled northward to Baltimore, the guns of Fort McHenry—silent since the turbulent days of autumn—boomed out a national salute.
There was even more thrilling news in store. On the evening of the 11th the British sloop of war Favourite, still flying her flag of truce, slipped into New York Harbor bringing Anthony St. John Baker and Henry Carroll with their copies of the peace treaty. Baker was held up by passport formalities, but at 8:00 P.M. Carroll landed at the Battery. He made no effort to hide his news, and within 20 minutes lamps blazed along lower Broadway, and cheering men were parading through the streets with candles.
The crowds ignored the fact that the treaty hadn’t been ratified. A war-weary public assumed this would be automatic, and the celebration rolled on. By 9:00 P.M. the Commercial Advertiser had a special broadside on the streets. Bells were ringing, guns going off, and commercial messengers galloping in every direction to alert the country’s network of enterprising speculators. Sunday was a holiday, but on Monday morning government 6% bonds shot up from 76 to 88, while the price of imports like tea and tin plummeted more than 50%.
By that time Carroll was well on his way to Washington, leaving Baker still tied up in red tape. As his post chaise lumbered south, the news continued to spread, further jarring prices and the nerves of the speculators.
At 4:00 P.M., February 14, Carroll’s coach finally reached Washington … swung past the burnt shell of the Capitol … and rolled up Pennsylvania Avenue to James Monroe’s residence at I Street. Carroll dashed inside as an excited crowd swarmed around the coach and its four steaming horses. A few moments later both Carroll and Monroe emerged and hurried down 18th Street to the President’s temporary home at Octagon House. Here they joined Madison and retired upstairs to the circular room above the front hall. Other cabinet members soon joined them, and the little group huddled together, quietly dissecting the treaty paragraph by paragraph.
Downstairs all was excitement. Congressmen, officials, good friends streamed through the front door and milled around the drawing room embracing each other. For once party differences were forgotten, feuds buried, stilettos sheathed. Here again, nobody had seen the treaty but everyone was sure it would be all right—none more so than Dolley Madison, as she stood in the center of the room happily receiving congratulations. “No one could doubt,” a guest recalled, “who beheld the radiance of joy that lighted up her countenance and diffused its beams all around, that all uncertainty was at an end….”
And so it proved. Shortly after 8:00 the President appeared, pronouncing the terms as satisfactory. “Peace!” Mrs. Madison cried, and others took it up. “Peace! Peace!” the First Lady’s cousin Sally Coles called from the top of the servants’ stairs. Then the Madisons butler John Freeman began pouring wine, while the pantry boy Paul Jennings got his fiddle and scraped away at the “President’s March.”
On the 17th the Senate unanimously ratified the treaty—just in time to have it ready for Anthony Baker, who arrived rather casually during the evening. At Monroe’s suggestion the ratifications were exchanged at 11:00 P.M. that very night, and on the following morning the President formally promulgated peace.
Once again church bells rang and cannon boomed throughout the land. In Washington skyrockets were fired, and only three visitors from Massachusetts stood apart from the general rejoicing. In town to present the threatening demands of the recent Hartford Convention, Harrison Gray Otis and his colleagues knew that dissidence was finished.
The celebrations rolled on. At Schenectady James Freeman stood directly in front of a saluting cannon and paid for his carelessness with his life. At New York the citizens vied with each other in producing, complicated illuminations. Most agreed that a Dr. MacNoon took the honors with an “elegant transparency” depicting a Tennessee rifleman shooting two redcoats labeled respectively “Booty” and “Beauty”—reputed to have been Admiral Cochrane’s watchwords at New Orleans.
Off the New England coast the British sailors—weary of long months of blockade duty—staged their own celebrations. Rear Admiral Sir Henry Hotham gave his squadron double rations of rum, and the sailors of the Superb threw their caps into the sea.
It was different with the high command. Admiral Cockburn was operating off Georgia when the news reached him, and writing his friend Captain Palmer of the Hebrus, he couldn’t conceal his disappointment: “That Jonathan should have been so easily let out of the cloven stick in which I thought we so securely had him, I sincerely lament.”
Admiral Cochrane was deeply depressed. He had withdrawn his shattered force from Louisiana, seized Fort Bowyer at Mobile as a sort of consolation, and was just getting ready for new adventures in the Chesapeake—then suddenly, this peace. To Admiral Codrington, he seemed “most amazingly cast down,” and Codrington decided it “must be at the thought of missing so much prize money. It was perhaps a harsh judgment, for the two admirals—so congenial in the days of victory—were now barely on speaking terms.
Curiously enough, Cochrane’s son Sir Thomas had a very different reaction to peace. Despite all his father’s protection—all that parental pampering—the young man had a set of values that were quite his own. He would take his prize money with the rest of them, but the wanton destruction of farms and villages appalled him. He confided his thoughts to a private journal, and now, as word of the treaty arrived, he again picked up his pen:
I confess this intelligence gives me the most immense joy both on my own, and my country’s account, and I devoutly hope the President will not hesitate as to whether he will approve the treaty.
Already the war between Great Britain and some power or other has lasted longer than I can recollect…. Our country groans under the weight of its expense—and the dreadful annual expense necessary to maintain the war scarcely leaves wherewithal to support life to the middling class of society. Relatives are torn asunder to supply men for our Army and Navy, and there’s scarcely a family in England that does not mourn the loss of a father, husband or brother.
Concern over the economic waste of war … “the middling class of society” … high casualties—it was the voice of a new century speaking. And it was the voice of a new and different England too, where manufacturers, shippers and shopkeepers were beginning to push aside the fixed, closed world of the eighteenth-century admirals and generals and landed gentlemen.
Britain already reflected this new mood (it was what eased Lord Liverpool’s path in the face of demands for “chastisement”), but at the moment there was no time to ponder such matters. On March 10—three days before the American ratification reached London—devastating news arrived from the Continent: Napoleon was loose again. Escaping from Elba, he had landed on the southern coast of France and headed north. The nation swarmed to his standards as the whole rickety structure of Bourbon restoration collapsed. By March 20 he was back in Paris, and Wellington was rushing to reassemble his army.
A hundred days, and it was all over at Waterloo. Britain once again relaxed in peace, but after the traumatic experience of the Emperor’s return, the American war seemed ancient history and now lay quite forgotten.
Only a few unpleasant loose ends remained. There was, for instance, the problem of jettisoning the Indians, wooed so ardently in the name of their “Great Father King George.” Sailing away from the Gulf, Sir Alexander Cochrane entrusted this unpleasant task to Admiral Malcolm. He was instructed to urge the Creeks to accept the peace, to assure them that “they will grow rich, and being free from war, will be prosperous so as to be able to defend themselves from all future encroachments of the United States.”
It turned out that wasn’t enough. In August a Creek delegation appeared in London, shepherded by the indefatigable Major Nicolls, begging a “treaty of offensive and defensive alliance.” For months they waited in vain for an audience with Lord Bathurst, while Nicolls was reduced to buying them socks and handkerchiefs out of his own pocket. Ultimately the government got rid of the visitors by a gift of 12 axes, 12 hammers and 24,520 nails.
Then there were the blacks who had heeded Admiral Cochrane’s call to freedom. Here Sir Alexander’s instructions to Malcolm were quite explicit: “You will endeavor to persuade them to go back to their former masters.” Those who declined should be urged to join a West India regiment, and if they refused that too, they should be sent to Trinidad. Whatever fate awaited them there, they were probably better off than the blacks of the Chesapeake, who ended up shivering and destitute at Halifax.
And finally there was the prize money—none of the millions expected from New Orleans, but still a few thousand from here and there. Long after the Indians, the blacks and all the other issues were forgotten, the commanders continued their wrangling over the spoils of war. As late as 1817 Admiral Cochrane was still arguing that a minor raid in the Chesapeake was really a naval affair, thus cutting out any share for the army. It was April 1818 before the last of the claims, counterclaims and appeals were settled.
In America there were loose ends too. Washington had gone to war for free trade and sailors’ rights, but London did not give an inch. Nor did land-hungry westerners have any better luck with their unannounced goal, the acquisition of Canada. The return of peace found Canada more firmly British than ever.
In the end, of course, these issues took care of themselves. Peace in Europe meant freedom to sail the seas, and the opening of the west gave expansionists all the land they could swallow. But these were fortuitous developments, not the achievements of warriors or diplomats. As far as war aims went, everything was left hanging.
Yet there were intangible results that went far beyond anything that could be written into a treaty. For one thing, America gained new respect abroad. For 20 years she had been regarded as a sort of semi-nation—almost a freak—by the great powers of Europe. Considered too weak to stand on her own, she had seen her rights ignored by both sides during the Napoleonic Wars.
Now all that was over. America had fought, and this fact alone gave her prestige. There had been some fiascoes, but there were skillful performances too, and these were occurring with ever-increasing frequency. “The war has raised our reputation in Europe,” James Bayard wrote his son on Christmas day, 1814, right after signing the treaty, “and it excites astonishment that we should have been able for one campaign to have fought Great Britain single handed.… I think it will be a long time before we are disturbed again by any of the powers of Europe.”
Paralleling this new respect abroad went new confidence at home. Americans themselves had often wondered whether their flimsy federation could survive a real crisis. Many felt with Gouverneur Morris that “it was almost as vain to expect permanency from democracy as to construct a palace on the surface of the sea.” Now they knew it could be done. True, there had been strains—economic chaos, poor military leadership, weak administration in Washington, dangerous dissension in New England—but this very catalogue of weaknesses made the ultimate survival all the more impressive.
And with this new self-confidence went a new freedom from dependence on Europe. Feeling they could now take care of themselves, Americans turned to developing their own vast resources. Soon, absorbed in internal development, they went to the opposite extreme and forgot about Europe completely. It was a state of mind that would last a hundred years.
But the most important result of all was a new feeling of national pride. “Who would not be an American?” rhapsodized Niles’ Register, announcing the peace. “Long live the republic! All hail! Last asylum of oppressed humanity!” Such ecstasy would have seemed odd indeed in the years before the war, when Americans were united in their desire for independence but not much else. What was needed was a common experience, something to bring them together and drain the factions and dissensions that were tearing the country apart.
This the war had supplied, and none saw it more clearly than the French Minister Louis Serurier, who bad witnessed so much from his perch in Washington. Drawing up for Talleyrand a sort of balance sheet on the results of the conflict, Serurier concluded: “Finally, the war has given the Americans what they so essentially lacked, a national character founded on a glory common to all.” This glory had many ingredients. There was Jackson’s victory at New Orleans, so emphatic that it gave birth to a legend of American military invincibility that would live on and on. There were Perry’s triumph on Lake Erie and Macdonough’s on Lake Champlain—strategic turning points that were lasting tributes to courage and leadership. There were the single-ship engagements that offered the extra fillip of tweaking John Bull’s nose. But of them all, nothing did as much to pull the country together as that searing experience of losing Washington—the people’s own capital—followed by the thrill of national redemption when the same enemy force was repulsed at Baltimore.
In this swift turnabout new hopes were born, spirits raised, a nation uplifted. More than a banner of shining stars and stripes, a whole new sense of national identity shone forth in the smoky haze of what Francis Scott Key so lyrically called “the dawn’s early light.”