The Naval War of 1812 | Page 3

be a lesson worth

dwelling on did it have any practical bearing on the issues of the
present day; but it has none, as far as the army is concerned. It was
criminal folly for Jefferson, and his follower Madison, to neglect to
give us a force either of regulars or of well-trained volunteers during
the twelve years they had in which to prepare for the struggle that any
one might see was inevitable; but there is now far less need of an army
than there was then. Circumstances have altered widely since 1812.
Instead of the decaying might of Spain on our southern frontier, we
have the still weaker power of Mexico. Instead of the great Indian
nations of the interior, able to keep civilization at bay, to hold in check
strong armies, to ravage large stretches of territory, and needing
formidable military expeditions to overcome them, there are now only
left broken and scattered bands, which are sources of annoyance merely.
To the north we are still hemmed in by the Canadian possessions of
Great Britain; but since 1812 our strength has increased so prodigiously,
both absolutely and relatively, while England's military power has
remained almost stationary, that we need now be under no
apprehensions from her land-forces; for, even if checked in the
beginning, we could not help conquering in the end by sheer weight of
numbers, if by nothing else. So that there is now no cause for our
keeping up a large army; while, on the contrary, the necessity for an
efficient navy is so evident that only our almost incredible
short-sightedness prevents our at once preparing one.
Not only do the events of the war on land teach very little to the
statesman who studies history in order to avoid in the present the
mistakes of the past, but besides this, the battles and campaigns are of
little interest to the student of military matters. The British regulars,
trained in many wars, thrashed the raw troops opposed to them
whenever they had any thing like a fair chance; but this is not to be
wondered at, for the same thing has always happened the world over
under similar conditions. Our defeats were exactly such as any man
might have foreseen, and there is nothing to be learned from the follies
committed by incompetent commanders and untrained troops when in
the presence of skilled officers having under them disciplined soldiers.
The humiliating surrenders, abortive attacks, and panic routs of our
armies can all be paralleled in the campaigns waged by Napoleon's
marshals against the Spaniards and Portuguese in the years

immediately preceding the outbreak of our own war. The Peninsular
troops were as little able to withstand the French veterans as were our
militia to hold their own against the British regulars. But it must always
be remembered, to our credit, that while seven years of fighting failed
to make the Spaniards able to face the French,[Footnote: At the closing
battle of Toulouse, fought between the allies and the French, the flight
of the Spaniards was so rapid and universal as to draw from the Duke
of Wellington the bitter observation, that "though he had seen a good
many remarkable things in the course of his life, yet this was the first
time he had ever seen ten thousand men running a race."] two years of
warfare gave us soldiers who could stand against the best men of
Britain. On the northern frontier we never developed a great
general,--Brown's claim to the title rests only on his not having
committed the phenomenal follies of his predecessors,--but by 1814 our
soldiers had become seasoned, and we had acquired some good brigade
commanders, notably Scott, so that in that year we played on even
terms with the British. But the battles, though marked by as bloody and
obstinate fighting as ever took place, were waged between small bodies
of men, and were not distinguished by any feats of generalship, so that
they are not of any special interest to the historian. In fact, the only
really noteworthy feat of arms of the war took place at New Orleans,
and the only military genius that the struggle developed was Andrew
Jackson. His deeds are worthy of all praise, and the battle he won was
in many ways so peculiar as to make it well worth a much closer study
than it has yet received. It was by far the most prominent event of the
war; it was a victory which reflected high honor on the general and
soldiers who won it, and it was in its way as remarkable as any of the
great battles that took place about the same time in Europe. Such being
the case, I have devoted a chapter to its consideration at the conclusion
of