The Fight for a Free Sea | Page 3

to arms in defense of their liberties, as voiced by
Jefferson and echoed more than a century later by another spokesman
of democracy. There was the stuff for splendid soldiers in these farmers
and woodsmen, but in many lamentable instances their regiments were
no more than irresponsible armed mobs. Until as recently as the War
with Spain, the perilous fallacy persisted that the States should retain
control of their several militia forces in time of war and deny final
authority to the Federal Government. It was this doctrine which so
nearly wrecked the cause of the Revolution. George Washington had
learned the lesson through painful experience, but his counsel was
wholly disregarded; and, because it serves as a text and an
interpretation for much of the humiliating history which we are about
to follow, that counsel is here quoted in part. Washington wrote in
retrospect:
Had we formed a permanent army in the beginning, which by the
continuance of the same men in service had been capable of discipline,
we never should have had to retreat with a handful of men across the
Delaware in 1776, trembling for the fate of America, which nothing but
the infatuation of the enemy could have saved; we should not have
remained all the succeeding winter at their mercy, with sometimes

scarcely a sufficient body of men to mount the ordinary guards, liable
at every moment to be dissipated if they had only thought proper to
march against us; we should not have been under the necessity of
fighting Brandywine with an unequal number of raw troops, and
afterwards of seeing Philadelphia fall a prey to a victorious army; we
should not have been at Valley Forge with less than half the force of
the enemy, destitute of everything, in a situation neither to resist or to
retire; we should not have seen New York left with a handful of men,
yet an overmatch for the main army of these States, while the principal
part of their force was detached for the reduction of two of them; we
should not have found ourselves this spring so weak as to be insulted
by 5000 men, unable to protect our baggage and magazines, their
security depending on a good countenance and a want of enterprise in
the enemy; we should not have been, the greatest part of the war,
inferior to the enemy, indebted for our safety to their inactivity,
enduring frequently the mortification of seeing inviting opportunities to
ruin them pass unimproved for want of a force which the country was
completely able to afford, and of seeing the country ravaged, our towns
burnt, the inhabitants plundered, abused, murdered, with impunity from
the same cause.
The War of 1812, besides being hampered by short enlistments,
confused authority, and incompetent officers, was fought by a country
and an army divided against itself. When Congress authorized the
enrollment of one hundred thousand militia, the governors of
Massachusetts and Connecticut refused to furnish their quotas,
objecting to the command of United States officers and to the sending
of men beyond the borders of their own States. This attitude fairly
indicated the feeling of New England, which was opposed to the war
and openly spoke of secession. Moreover, the wealthy merchants and
bankers of New England declined to subscribe to the national loans
when the Treasury at Washington was bankrupt, and vast quantities of
supplies were shipped from New England seaports to the enemy in
Canada. It was an extraordinary paradox that those States which had
seen their sailors impressed by thousands and which had suffered most
heavily from England's attacks on neutral commerce should have
arrayed themselves in bitter opposition to the cause and the

Government. It was "Mr. Madison's War," they said, and he could win
or lose it--and pay the bills, for that matter.
The American navy was in little better plight than the army. England
flew the royal ensign over six hundred ships of war and was the
undisputed sovereign of the seas. Opposed to this mighty armada were
five frigates, three ships, and seven brigs, which Monroe recommended
should be "kept in a body in a safe port." Not worth mention were the
two hundred ridiculous little gunboats which had to stow the one
cannon below to prevent capsizing when they ventured out of harbor.
These craft were a pet notion of Jefferson. "Believing, myself," he said
of them, "that gunboats are the only water defense which can be useful
to us and protect us from the ruinous folly of a navy, I am pleased with
everything which promises to improve them."
A nation of eight million people, unready, blundering, rent by internal
dissension, had resolved to challenge an England hardened by war and
tremendously superior in military resources. It was not all madness,
however, for