Chapter 21

A GREAT WAR GOVERNOR

1812-1815

The assumption of extraordinary responsibilities during the War of 1812, justly conferred upon Daniel D. Tompkins the title of a great war governor. There is an essential difference between a war governor and a governor in time of war. One is enthusiastic, resourceful, with ability to organise victory by filling languishing patriotism with new and noble inspiration--the other simply performs his duty, sometimes respectably, sometimes only perfunctorily. George Clinton illustrated, in his own person, the difference between a great war governor and a governor in time of war. If he failed to win renown on the battlefield, his ability to inspire the people with confidence, and to bring glory out of threatened failure and success out of apparent defeat, made him the greatest war governor the country had yet known. Daniel D. Tompkins served his State no less acceptably. In the moment of greatest discouragement he displayed a patriotic courage in borrowing money without authority of law that made his Administration famous.

Yet Tompkins' patriotism scarcely rose to that sublime height which suffers its possessor unselfishly to advance a rival even for the public welfare. There is no doubt of DeWitt Clinton's conspicuous devotion to the interests of his country throughout the entire war. He exceeded his power as mayor in inducing the Common Council to borrow money on the credit of the city and loan it to the United States; at the supreme moment of a great crisis, when the national treasury was empty and a British fleet threatened destruction to the coast, an impressive address which he drafted, accompanied by a subscription paper which he headed, resulted in raising a fund of over one million dollars for the city's defence. The genius of Clinton had never been more nobly employed than in his efforts to sustain the war, winning him universal esteem throughout the municipality for his patriotic unselfishness and unlimited generosity. Tompkins must have known that such a man, already holding the rank of major-general in the militia, would be absolute master of any situation. He was not the one to throw up the cards because the chances of the game were going against him. His was a fighting spirit, and his impulse was ever, like that of Macbeth, to try to the last. But Tompkins could not fail to observe the party's growing dislike for Clinton, and, much as he wanted military success, he graciously declined Clinton's request, brought to him by Thomas Addis Emmet, to be assigned to active service in the field.

Tompkins had little to encourage him at the outset of the war. The election in April, 1812, had turned the Assembly over to the Federalists, who not only wasted the time of an extra session, called in November of that year, but carried their opposition through the regular session begun in January, 1813. The emergency was pressing. New England Federalists had declined to make the desired loans to the general government, and the governor of New York wished his State to relieve the situation by advancing the needed money. It was a patriotic measure. Whether right or wrong, the declaration of war had jeopardised the country. Soldiers, poorly equipped, scantily clothed, without organisation, and without pay, were scattered for hundreds of miles along a sparsely settled border, opened to the attacks of a powerful enemy; yet the Federalists refused to vote a dollar to equip a man. Why should we continue a war from the prosecution of which we have nothing to gain, they asked? The Orders in Council have been repealed, England has shrunk from facing the consequences of its own folly, and America has already won a complete triumph. What further need, then, for bleeding our exhausted treasury?

The Governor's embarrassment, however, did not emanate from the Federalists alone. The northern frontier of New York was to become the great battle-ground, and it was conceded that capable generals and a sufficient force were necessary to carry the war promptly into Canada. But the President furnished neither. He appointed Henry Dearborn, with the rank of major-general, to command the district from Niagara to the St. Lawrence, thus putting all military operations within the State under the control of a man in his sixty-second year, whose only military experience had been gained as a deputy quartermaster-general in 1781, and as colonel of a New Hampshire regiment after the end of the Revolutionary War. Dearborn was a politician--not a general. After serving several years in Jefferson's Cabinet, he graduated into the custom-house at Boston, where he concerned himself more to beat the Federalists than he ever exerted himself to defeat the British. In his opinion, campaigning ought to have its regular alternations of activity and repose, but he never knew when activity should begin. To make the condition more supremely ironic, Morgan Lewis, now in his fifty-ninth year, whose knowledge of war, like Dearborn's, had been learned as a deputy quartermaster-general thirty years before, was associated with him in command.

Dearborn submitted a plan of campaign, recommending that the main army advance by way of Lake Champlain upon Montreal, while three corps of militia should enter Canada from Detroit, Niagara and Sackett's Harbour. This was as near as Dearborn ever came to a successful invasion of Canada. War was declared on June 18, 1812, and July had been frittered away before he left Albany. Meantime General Hull, whose success depended largely upon Dearborn's vigorous support from Niagara, having been a fortnight on British soil, now recrossed the river and a few days later surrendered his army and Detroit to General Brock. This tragic event aroused Dearborn sufficiently to send Stephen Van Rensselaer to command the Niagara frontier, the feeble General assuring the secretary of war that, as soon as the force at Lewiston aggregated six thousand men, a forward movement should be made; but Dearborn himself, with the largest force then under arms, took good care to remain on Lake Champlain, clinging to its shores like a barnacle, as if afraid of the fate visited upon the unfortunate Hull. Finally, after two months of waiting, Van Rensselaer sent a thousand men across the Niagara to Queenstown to be killed and captured within sight of four thousand troops who refused to go to the help of their comrades. Disgusted and defeated, Van Rensselaer turned over his command to Brigadier-General Alexander Smith, a boastful Irish friend of Madison from Virginia, who issued burlesque proclamations about an invasion of Canada, and then declined to risk an engagement, although he had three Americans to one Englishman. This closed the campaign of 1812.

With the hope of improving the military situation John Armstrong was made secretary of war in place of William Eustis. Armstrong was never a favourite. His association with Gates and his subsequent career in France, made him an object of distrust. But, once in office, he picked up the Eustis ravellings and announced a plan of campaign which included an attack on Montreal from Lake Champlain; the destruction of Kingston and York (Toronto) by the troops from Sackett's Harbour; and the expulsion of the British from the Niagara frontier. The Kingston part of the programme possessed genuine merit. Kingston commanded the traffic of the St. Lawrence, between Upper and Lower Canada, and no British force could maintain itself in Upper Canada without ready communication with the lower province; but Dearborn decided to reverse Armstrong's plan by taking York, afterward the Niagara frontier, and then unite a victorious army against Kingston. Dearborn, to do him justice, offered to resign, and Armstrong would gladly have gotten rid of him, with Morgan Lewis and other incompetents. The President, however, clung to the old men, making the spring and early summer campaign of 1813, like its predecessor, a record of dismal failures. York had, indeed, capitulated after the bloodiest battle of the war, the American loss amounting to one-fifth the entire force, including Pike, the best brigadier then in the service. But the British still held Niagara; two brigade commanders had been sorely defeated; a third had surrendered five hundred and forty men to a British lieutenant with two hundred and sixty; and Sackett's Harbour, with its barracks burned and navy-yard destroyed, had barely escaped capture, while Kingston was unmolested and Dearborn totally incapacitated "with fever and mortification."

It was now midsummer. Tompkins and a Republican Senate had been re-elected, but the Federalists, whose policy was to obtain peace on any terms, still held the Assembly. Just at this time, therefore, success in the field would have been of immense value politically, and as sickness had put Dearborn out of commission, it gave Armstrong an opportunity of promoting Winfield Scott and Jacob Brown, both of whom had shown unusual ability in spite of the shameless incapacity of their seniors. The splendid fighting qualities of Jacob Brown had saved Sackett's Harbour; and the brilliant pluck of Winfield Scott had withstood a force three times his own until British bayonets pushed him over the crest of Queenstown Heights. Armstrong, however, had a liking for James Wilkinson. They had been companions in arms with Gates at Saratoga, and, although no one knew better than Armstrong the feebleness of Wilkinson's character, he assigned him to New York after the President had forced his removal from New Orleans.

Wilkinson's military life might fairly be described as infamous. Winfield Scott spoke of him as an "unprincipled imbecile."[177] He had recently been several times court-martialled, once for being engaged in a treasonable conspiracy with Spain, again as an accomplice of Aaron Burr, and finally for corruption; and, although each time he had been acquitted, his brother officers regarded him with suspicion and contempt. Nevertheless, this man, fifty-six years of age, and broken in health as well as character, was substituted for Dearborn and ordered to take Kingston; and Wade Hampton, one year his senior, without a war record, and not on speaking terms with Wilkinson, was ordered to Plattsburg to take Montreal. Folly such as this could only end in disaster. Whatever Armstrong suggested Wilkinson opposed, and whatever Wilkinson advised Hampton resented; but Wilkinson so far prevailed, that, before either expedition started, it was agreed to abandon Kingston; and before either general had passed far beyond the limits of the State, it was agreed to abandon Montreal, leaving the generals and the secretary of war ample time to quarrel over their responsibility for the failure. Wilkinson charged Hampton with blasting the honour of the army, and both generals accused Armstrong of purposely deserting them to shift the blame from himself. On the other hand, Armstrong accepted Hampton's resignation, sneered at Wilkinson for abandoning the campaign, and, after Hampton's death, saddled him with the responsibility of the whole failure.

[Footnote 177: Winfield Scott, _Autobiography_, p. 94, _note_.]

Meantime, while the generals and secretary quarrelled, and their twelve thousand troops rested in winter quarters at French Mills and Plattsburg--leaving the country between Detroit and Sackett's Harbour with less than a regiment--the British were vigorously at work. They pounced upon the Niagara frontier; reoccupied Fort George; carried Fort Niagara with great slaughter; and burned Black Rock and Buffalo in revenge for the destruction of Newark and Queenstown and the public buildings at York. This ended the campaign of 1813.

On the high seas, however, the American navy, so small that England had scarcely known of its existence, was redeeming the country from the disgrace its generals had brought upon it. There are some battles of that time, fought out in storm and darkness, which taught Americans the real pleasures of war, and turned the names of vessels and their brave commanders into household words; but not until Oliver H. Perry, an energetic young officer, was ordered from Newport to the Niagara frontier, in the spring of 1813, did conditions change from sacrifice and disgrace to real success. Six vessels were at that time building at Erie; and three smaller craft rested quietly in the navy-yard at Black Rock. Perry's orders included the union of these fleets, carrying fifty-four guns and five hundred men, and the destruction of six British vessels, carrying sixty-three guns and four hundred and fifty men. Six months of patient labour on both sides were required to put the squadrons into fighting condition; but when, on the afternoon of September 10, Perry had fought the fight to a finish, the British squadron belonged to him. The War of 1812 would be memorable for this, if it were for nothing else; and the indomitable Perry, whose stubborn courage had wrested victory from what seemed inevitable defeat, is enthroned among the proudest names of the great sea fighters of history.

After Wilkinson, Morgan Lewis, and other incompetent generals had retired in disgrace, Armstrong recognised the genius of Jacob Brown and Winfield Scott. Brown was of Quaker parentage, a school teacher by profession, and a farmer by occupation. After founding the town of Brownsville, he had owned and lived on a large tract of land near Sackett's Harbour, and for recreation he had commanded a militia regiment. In 1811, Tompkins made him a brigadier, and when the contest opened, he found his true mission. He knew nothing of the technique of war. Laying out fortifications, policing camps, arranging with calculating foresight for the far future, did not fall within his knowledge; but for a fighter he must always rank in history with John Paul Jones; and as a leader of men he had hardly a rival in those days. Soldiers only wanted his word of command to undertake any enterprise, no matter how hopeless. Winfield Scott, who understood Brown's limitations, said there was nothing he could not do if he only got a fair opportunity. Armstrong commissioned him a major-general in place of Wilkinson, and assigned Scott to a brigade in his command. These officers, full of zeal and vigor, infused new life into an army that had been beaten and battered for two years. In twelve weeks, during July, August, and September, the British met stubborn resistance at Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, Fort Erie, and Black Rock, and a repulse as disgraceful as it was complete at Plattsburg. But before Brown could establish the new order of things along the whole Canadian border, the British took Oswego, with its abundant commissary supplies, and their navy inflicted a wound, in the destruction of the _Chesapeake_ and the _Argus_, that turned the Perry huzzas into suppressed lamentations.

Following this calamity, occurred the April elections of 1814. The uncertain temper of the people gave Tompkins little to expect and much to fear. He believed it had only needed a bold and spirited forward movement to demonstrate that the United States was in a position to dictate terms to England; but existing conditions indicated that England would soon dictate terms to the United States. Tompkins may be fairly excused, therefore, if he failed to discern in the struggle for political supremacy the slightest indication of that victory so long prayed for. Events, however, had been working silently--differently than either Federalist or Republican guessed; and, to the utter amazement of all, the war party swept the State, electing assemblymen even in New York City, twenty out of thirty congressmen, and every senator, save one. Under these circumstances Tompkins lost no time in summoning, in September, an extra session of the newly elected Legislature, which began turning out war measures like cloth from a loom. It raised the pay of the militia above that of the regular army; it encouraged privateering; it authorised the enlistment of twelve thousand men for two years and two thousand slaves for three years; it provided for a corps of twenty companies for coast defence; it assumed the State's quota of direct tax, and it reimbursed Governor Tompkins for personal expenditures incurred without authority of law. Some of these measures were drastic, especially the conscription bill; but the act showing the determination of the Republican party to fight the war to a finish, was that allowing slaves to enlist with the consent of their masters, and awarding them freedom when honourably mustered out of service.

There was certainly much need for an active and vigorous Legislature in the fall of 1814. Washington had been captured and burned; Armstrong, threatened with removal, had resigned in disgrace; the national treasury was empty; and every bank between New Orleans and Albany had suspended specie payment, with their notes from twenty to thirty per cent. below par. Although, in ten weeks, from July 3 to September 11, the British had met a bloody and unparalleled check from an inferior force, under the brilliant leadership of Brown and Scott, and a most disgraceful repulse by Macdonough and Macomb at Plattsburg, victorious English veterans, fresh from the battlefields of Spain, continued to arrive, until Canada contained twenty-seven thousand regular troops. On the other hand, Macomb had only fifteen hundred men at Plattsburg, Brown less than two thousand at Fort Erie, and Izard about four thousand at Buffalo.

To make bad matters worse, the New England Federalists were renewing their talk of a dissolution of the Union. "We have been led by the terms of the Constitution," said Governor Strong of Massachusetts, addressing the Legislature on October 5, 1814, "to rely on the government of the Union to provide for our defence. We have resigned to that government the revenues of the State with the expectation that this object would not be neglected. Let us, then, unite in such measures for our safety as the times demand and the principles of justice and the law of self-preservation will justify."[178] Answering for the Legislature, which understood the Governor's words to be an invitation to resume powers the State had given up when adopting the Constitution, Harrison Gray Otis reported that "this people, being ready and determined to defend themselves, have the greatest need of those resources derivable from themselves which the national government has hitherto thought proper to employ elsewhere. When this deficiency becomes apparent, no reason can preclude the right of the whole people who were parties to it, to adopt another."[179] The report closed by recommending the appointment of delegates "to meet and confer with delegates from the States of New England or any of them," out of which grew the celebrated Hartford Convention that met on the 15th of December. The report of this convention, made on the 24th of the same month, declared that a severance of the Union can be justified only by absolute necessity; but, following the Virginia resolution of 1798, it confirmed the right of a State to "interpose its authority" for the protection of its citizens against conscriptions and drafts, and for an arrangement with the general government to retain "a reasonable portion" of the revenues to be used in its own defence and in the defence of neighbouring States. In other words, it favoured the establishment of a New England confederacy. Thus, after ten years, the crisis had come which Pickering, the storm petrel, desired to precipitate in the days when Hamilton declined to listen and Aaron Burr consented to lead.

[Footnote 178: Message; _Niles_, Vol. 7, p. 113.]

[Footnote 179: Report of Oct. 8, 1814; _Niles_, Vol. 7, p. 149.]

It is doubtful if the great body of Federalists in New York really sympathised with their eastern brethren. Those who did, like Gouverneur Morris, proclaimed their views in private and confidential letters. "I care nothing more for your actings and doings," Morris wrote Pickering, then in Congress. "Your decree of conscription and your levy of contributions are alike indifferent to one whose eyes are fixed on a star in the east, which he believes to be the dayspring of freedom and glory. The traitors and madmen assembled at Hartford will, I believe, if not too tame and timid, be hailed hereafter as the patriots and sages of their day and generation."[180] Looking back on the history of that portentous event, one is shocked to learn that men like Morris could have sympathy with the principle sought to be established; but if any leading New York Federalist disapproved the convention's report he made no public record of it at the time.[181]

[Footnote 180: Gouverneur Morris to Timothy Pickering, Dec. 22, 1814, _Morris's Works_, Vol. 3, p. 324.]

[Footnote 181: "Among the least violent of Federalists was James Lloyd, recently United States senator from Massachusetts. To John Randolph's letter, remonstrating against the Hartford Convention, Lloyd advised the Virginians to coerce Madison into retirement, and to place Rufus King in the Presidency as the alternative to a fatal issue. The assertion of such an alternative showed how desperate the situation was believed by the moderate Federalists to be."--Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, Vol. 8, p. 306.]

The violent methods of New England governors in withdrawing their militia from the service of the United States, coupled with the action of the New York Federalists in calling a state convention to determine what course their party should pursue, were well calculated to arouse Governor Tompkins, who welcomed the privilege of upholding the general government. He did not minimise the gravity of the situation. Perhaps he did not feel the alarm expressed in Jefferson's letter to Gallatin, a year after the crisis had passed; for he now had behind him a patriotic Legislature and the nucleus of an invincible army under trained leadership. But if the war had continued, and, as the Washington authorities anticipated, the British had prevailed at New Orleans, he would have found a New England confederacy to the east of him as well as an army of English veterans on the north.

The conditions that faced Madison made peace his last hope. American commissioners were already in Europe; but as month after month passed without agreement, the darkest hour of the war seemed to have settled upon the country. Suddenly, on the 4th of February, 1815, the startling and glorious news of General Jackson's decisive victory at New Orleans electrified the nation. A week later, a British sloop of war sailed into New York harbour, announcing that the treaty of Ghent had been signed on the 24th of the preceding December. Instantly Madison's troubles disappeared. The war was over, the Hartford commissioners were out of employment, and the happy phrase of Charles J. Ingersoll of Pennsylvania became the popular summing up of the treaty--"not an inch ceded or lost." Jackson's victory had not entered into the peace negotiations; but intelligent men knew that the superb fighting along the Canadian frontier during the campaign of 1814, had had much to do in bringing about the result. Beginning with the battle of Chippewa, where equal bodies of troops met face to face, in broad daylight, on an open field, without advantage of position, the American army faced British troops with the skill and desperate courage that characterised the struggle between the North and the South forty years later.

Among civilians most admired for their part in the struggle, Daniel D. Tompkins stood first. The genius of an American governor had never been more nobly employed, and, although he was sometimes swayed by prejudice and the impulses of his personal ambition, he did enough to show that he was devotedly attached to his country.