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- Herausgeber: Musaicum Books
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
The Naval War of 1812 by Theodore Roosevelt is a meticulously researched and insightful account of the naval battles during the War of 1812. Written with a clear and engaging style, Roosevelt provides a detailed analysis of the strategic significance of naval warfare in this conflict, shedding light on its impact on American history. Drawing on archival sources and firsthand accounts, the book offers a comprehensive overview of the key events and figures of the war, making it a valuable resource for both scholars and history enthusiasts alike. Roosevelt's narrative skillfully weaves together military tactics, political context, and personal anecdotes, creating a compelling and informative read. As a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy and a renowned historian, Roosevelt brings a unique perspective to the subject matter, offering fresh insights and interpretations. Readers interested in naval history, military strategy, or American history will find The Naval War of 1812 to be a captivating and informative read that enriches their understanding of this pivotal moment in the nation's past. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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The Naval War of 1812
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Against a world-striding empire of oak and cannon, a new republic tested its will upon the sea. Theodore Roosevelt’s The Naval War of 1812 opens on that elemental contest, where weather, wood, iron, and human judgment collide. Without dwelling on outcomes, he presents the stakes with bracing clarity: the United States, young and unproven, faces the world’s foremost naval power across oceans, coasts, and inland waterways. The book invites readers into the disciplined rhythms of seamanship and the hard arithmetic of war, where courage must be matched by organization, and where national character is measured not in boasts but in performance under pressure.
Written by Theodore Roosevelt and first published in 1882, the book marks the debut of a future American president as a historian of uncommon energy. Composed in his early twenties, it shows an author already committed to precise evidence and unemotional judgment. Roosevelt set out to write a study that a critical reader could trust, avoiding ornament where facts would suffice. The result is neither antiquarian reverie nor patriotic pageant, but a sustained inquiry into how ships were built, crews were trained, and decisions were made in the fog and friction of a bitter maritime conflict.
The book’s premise is straightforward and compelling: to give a full, fair, and analytically rigorous account of the naval dimensions of the War of 1812. Roosevelt follows operations at sea and on the Great Lakes, considering strategy, logistics, technology, leadership, and the purposes that guided them. He explains why particular waters mattered, how blockades functioned, and what challenges commanders faced in provisioning, discipline, and intelligence. Rather than summarize the war, he builds it piece by piece, giving readers the tools to understand what happened, why it mattered, and how competing navies shaped the conflict’s character without reducing it to legend.
Roosevelt’s method is to test claims against records. He compares American and British official reports, ship logs, and contemporary accounts, weighing statistics on guns, tonnage, crews, and losses. Where numbers drive the story, he provides them; where judgment must carry weight, he states his reasoning plainly. The tone is exacting but accessible. By setting assertions from each side in conversation, he discloses errors born of pride, haste, or incomplete information. The result is history that prizes proportion: calm where memories were heated, firm where evidence was thin, and attentive to the technical realities that shaped naval combat.
The Naval War of 1812 is considered a classic because it marries narrative force to intellectual restraint. Its prose has vigor without bombast; its analysis has bite without rancor. The book’s lasting reputation derives from the author’s refusal to accept easy triumphalism or casual denigration. He shows that good history requires sympathy for participants and skepticism toward their claims. The work stands as an early American model of disciplined military history, balancing the demands of readable storytelling with the duty to get the particulars right. In doing so, it established a standard many later writers sought to match.
The book’s influence reaches beyond the maritime niche. By demonstrating how to synthesize technical detail and strategic context, Roosevelt offered later historians and biographers a template for writing about war without losing sight of politics, institutions, and human limits. Readers found in it not only episodes of daring, but also lessons in organization, training, and material preparation. The study helped shape public understanding of the war at sea and strengthened Roosevelt’s broader reputation as a serious student of national power, a reputation that would follow him into his subsequent historical works and, ultimately, his public life.
Its themes endure because they are larger than any single battle. Roosevelt examines how a small navy confronts a dominant adversary, what professionalism looks like under strain, and why preparation often trumps bravado. He tracks the interplay between technology and leadership, showing that design, drill, and doctrine translate into outcomes only when matched by nerve and judgment. He explores institutional learning, revealing how successes and failures can reshape practice in real time. These concerns—capacity building, accountability, and adaptation—continue to animate debates about defense and governance in every era.
Roosevelt’s craft is to treat ships as systems and battles as tests of competing systems. He takes seriously the details of hulls, spars, rigging, guns, and crews, not as trivia but as the means by which strategy becomes action. He explains blockade pressures, convoy routines, and the complex roles of privateering alongside regular naval operations. Because he is clear about terms and careful about comparisons, non-specialists can follow the analysis, while experienced readers appreciate its precision. The result is a study that rewards both a first encounter and repeated attention to its reasoning and evidence.
As narrative, the book moves with purpose. Roosevelt sets engagements within their operational and political contexts, mindful that no action is intelligible apart from constraints of time, weather, intelligence, and supply. He writes briskly, but not breathlessly, and he resists the temptation to turn analysis into spectacle. Where courage matters, he acknowledges it; where chance intrudes, he says so. The emphasis falls on cause and effect rather than ornament. Readers come away with a sense not of isolated episodes, but of a connected maritime campaign that both reflected and shaped national aims.
Fairness is a central virtue. Roosevelt credits the professionalism of the Royal Navy while noting its burdens and blind spots, and he records American strengths alongside American shortcomings. The point is not to diminish achievement, but to trace it to its sources and measure it by coherent standards. He invites readers to compare competing national narratives, testing memory against muster rolls and dispatches. In this, the book models a mature patriotism: confidence rooted in truth rather than hyperbole, and respect for adversaries that deepens, rather than dulls, the appreciation of one’s own country’s efforts.
For students of strategy and leadership, the book offers more than episodes—it offers a way of thinking. It shows how to align ends, ways, and means; how to reconcile daring with discipline; how to acknowledge constraints without surrendering initiative. Its case studies reward careful reading in classrooms, wardrooms, and study groups alike. Historians value its source criticism; sailors and soldiers value its operational clarity; general readers value its lucid storytelling. That breadth of usefulness, combined with stylistic economy and empirical care, helps explain why it continues to attract serious attention.
The Naval War of 1812 remains timely because it treats power, responsibility, and truth with equal gravity. In an era of contested seas and saturated information, Roosevelt’s insistence on evidence and proportion is a tonic. His themes—preparedness, institutional learning, respect for adversaries, and the moral value of accuracy—speak directly to contemporary debates about strategy and civic discourse. The book endures not as a relic, but as a living example of how to write about war with rigor and restraint, and why such writing matters to a nation that must choose wisely how it acts upon the world.
Synopsis
The Naval War of 1812, first published in 1882 by Theodore Roosevelt, is a comprehensive study of the maritime dimension of the conflict between the United States and Great Britain from 1812 to 1815. Roosevelt sets out to produce a balanced, fact-driven account that traces operations on the Atlantic, the Great Lakes, and distant seas, while situating them within strategy, policy, and logistics. He addresses the organization of both navies, the composition of their fleets, and the war’s maritime aims. The narrative combines chronological campaigns with thematic analysis, using specific engagements to illuminate broader issues of preparedness, ship design, leadership, and national capacity.
Central to Roosevelt’s approach is a rigorous, document-based method. He mines ship logs, official returns, court-martial records, prize lists, and gunnery data from both American and British archives to establish verifiable details of tonnage, crews, armament, and damage. He evaluates earlier historians, challenging patriotic exaggerations and correcting numerical claims where they distort conclusions. Throughout, he emphasizes transparent comparisons—such as weight of broadside and quality of crews—so that tactical outcomes can be understood apart from legend. The book’s tone is explicit about uncertainties, and when the evidence is contested he favors quantitative tables and contemporaneous testimony over anecdote or retrospective justification.
Roosevelt opens by surveying the prewar naval balance. The United States maintained a small but well-built sea-going force, including heavy frigates notable for stout construction and powerful batteries. Britain, engaged in global commitments, fielded a vastly larger navy but dispersed across many stations. He examines American policy in the years before the war, noting the constraints that reductions and limited appropriations placed on readiness, training, and dockyard capacity. This baseline clarifies how each side entered the conflict with distinct strengths and vulnerabilities. In his framing, material characteristics, doctrine, and administration matter as much as valor, shaping opportunities once hostilities begin.
Early chapters on the Atlantic theater analyze the opening single-ship encounters that captured public attention. Using detailed comparisons, Roosevelt considers how hull strength, gun calibers, and crew practice influenced performance in close action. He explores why American frigates often fared well in initial engagements, while cautioning against ascribing outcomes to any single factor. Seamanship, discipline, tactical choices, and weather interplay in his assessments, and he repeatedly scrutinizes claims that mismatched rates or exceptional construction were the sole causes. The case studies serve to illustrate his theme that preparation and intelligent command frequently outweighed numerical ratings in determining results.
As the war develops, Roosevelt tracks British adaptation at sea, especially the tightening blockade that reshaped American operations. He details how convoy systems, concentrated squadrons, and improved vigilance constrained cruisers while protecting commerce. Episodes such as a celebrated frigate duel off the American coast are used to discuss the primacy of gunnery training and crew cohesion. He distinguishes privateering from national naval action, weighing the commercial pressure privateers could exert against their limited strategic effect. This section stresses that, beyond individual combats, the rhythm of patrol, blockade, and pursuit determined opportunities, compelling American commanders to balance audacity with preservation.
Roosevelt’s treatment of commerce raiding and distant cruising emphasizes logistics and international law. He follows extended deployments, including an American frigate’s long Pacific venture, to show how repair facilities, supplies, neutral port regulations, and prize adjudication governed what cruisers could achieve far from home. The analysis distinguishes between tactical success against individual merchantmen and the broader resilience of Britain’s trade network. He considers the morale and diplomatic effects of such cruises, but repeatedly returns to measurable constraints: endurance of hulls and rigging, ammunition expenditure, and the availability of skilled replacements after damage or disease thinned complements.
The inland naval campaigns receive sustained attention, particularly the construction race and squadron maneuvers on Lakes Ontario, Erie, and Champlain. Roosevelt explains how shipbuilding from raw materials in frontier yards, the rapid training of green crews, and the peculiarities of fresh-water sailing produced conditions different from the open ocean. He analyzes tactical arrangements tailored to short ranges and heavy carronades, as well as anchoring practices and the use of springs. The connection to land operations is made clear: control of the lakes shaped supply lines and the tempo of campaigns along the northern frontier, with outcomes influenced by logistics and leadership.
On the seaboard, Roosevelt reviews coastal defense, amphibious raids, and the interplay of fortifications with naval mobility. He assesses the utility of gunboat flotillas, harbor works, and militia support against concentrated naval expeditions, while charting the impact of the blockade on shipbuilding, trade, and morale. Administrative choices—how captains were assigned, how gunnery was practiced, how repairs were prioritized—receive close scrutiny as determinants of effectiveness. The narrative situates notable descents on the coast within this larger system, emphasizing that tactical episodes cannot be understood in isolation from institutional readiness, fiscal policy, and the steady pressure of blockade operations.
The book closes by distilling lessons about preparedness, professional standards, and honest accounting of success and loss. Roosevelt argues that careful training, sound materiel, and disciplined leadership can yield disproportionate tactical returns, yet strategic outcomes turn on endurance and organization. His insistence on verifiable data and cross-national sources gives the study an enduring character, challenging celebratory or dismissive narratives alike. Without romanticizing either side, he presents the naval war as a crucible for institutions and ideas that would shape later policy. The work’s lasting significance lies in its measured method and its demonstration of how evidence can clarify contested history.
Historical Context
The Naval War of 1812 unfolds within the Atlantic world of the early nineteenth century, when the British Empire wielded an enormous, professional navy and the young United States maintained a small but capable fleet. The time frame centers on 1812 to 1815, against the long shadow of the Napoleonic Wars. Dominant institutions included the British Admiralty and the U.S. Department of the Navy, each shaping doctrine, logistics, and strategy. Roosevelt’s narrative is framed by this institutional contest: a global sea power seeking to sustain blockade and commerce, and a continental republic using a handful of heavy frigates, lakes flotillas, and privateers to protect sovereignty and disrupt British trade.
The war’s maritime origins lay in the collision of neutral rights and European great-power conflict. British Orders in Council (from 1807) restricted neutral trade with Napoleonic Europe, while France’s decrees responded in kind. American ships, caught between blockades, faced searches and seizures. Impressment—Britain’s practice of taking alleged Royal Navy deserters from American vessels—stoked outrage, compounded by the 1807 Chesapeake–Leopard affair. Roosevelt’s work echoes these causes by carefully locating naval clashes in policy contexts, neither romanticizing duels nor ignoring the systemic pressures that produced them. He examines how legal regimes and wartime necessity on both sides fueled the disputes that ultimately pushed the United States toward war.
Domestic politics shaped the American approach to maritime crisis. Thomas Jefferson’s Embargo Act of 1807 sought to coerce Europe economically but devastated U.S. commerce. Subsequent measures—the Non-Intercourse Act (1809) and Macon’s Bill No. 2 (1810)—tried to recalibrate pressure. By 1812, “War Hawks” in Congress argued that only force would protect neutral rights and western interests. The Madison administration secured a declaration of war in June 1812, even as New England Federalists opposed hostilities on economic grounds. Roosevelt acknowledges these divisions, noting how partisan claims colored later memory. His narrative uses official reports to temper the heat of debate with attention to capability, policy constraints, and strategic intent.
Relative naval strength was starkly asymmetric. The Royal Navy fielded hundreds of warships worldwide, although many were committed to European and colonial stations. The United States possessed a handful of ocean-going vessels, notably heavy frigates like Constitution, United States, and President, built with live oak and designed to outmatch typical British frigates one-on-one. Roosevelt situates early U.S. successes within this asymmetry, emphasizing that British global obligations and dispersed forces created openings for American cruisers. Yet he also stresses the inevitability of blockade once Britain concentrated power, underscoring that tactical victories could not readily overturn strategic scarcity and the empire’s maritime infrastructure.
Technological and tactical factors deeply influenced outcomes. Wooden sailing ships relied on long guns for range and carronades for heavy short-range fire. Coppered hulls, skilled seamanship, and gunnery drills determined performance under battle stress. Roosevelt closely analyzes armament, crew sizes, and “broadside weight,” explaining how U.S. heavy frigates paired thick scantlings with powerful batteries. He is careful to weigh differences in rating systems and tonnage measurements, clarifying that nominal gun counts can mislead. These technical comparisons buttress his broader point: superior handling, training, and tactical choices often determined duels, while logistics, weather, and command structure shaped wider campaigns.
Commerce and coercion define much of the war at sea. American privateers sailed under letters of marque, attacking British merchant shipping and pressuring insurance markets. British blockades, increasingly stringent from 1813 onward, sought to strangle American trade, confine U.S. warships, and protect imperial commerce. Roosevelt assesses privateering’s impact with restraint: profitable and disruptive, it hurt British merchants but did not break the empire’s trade networks. He contrasts commerce raiding’s tactical appeal with the strategic necessity of controlling sea lanes, showing how the Royal Navy’s breadth of force gradually constrained American operations along the coast and across the Atlantic.
Inland waters formed a second maritime front. The Great Lakes and Lake Champlain demanded rapid shipbuilding in frontier environments, where timber, iron, and skilled labor were scarce. Control of these lakes enabled or denied army movements and supply. Roosevelt’s treatment highlights the shipbuilding race on Lake Ontario, the decisive American victory on Lake Erie in 1813, and the strategic significance of Lake Champlain in 1814. He places these contests within the logistical realities of shipyards hastily assembled in forests and the difficulty of moving heavy guns. The lakes campaigns, he argues, demonstrate how local naval superiority could reshape land operations and negotiations.
Early single-ship actions captured public imagination. Constitution’s defeat of Guerriere, United States’ capture of Macedonian, and similar duels showed the striking power of American heavy frigates and well-drilled crews. Roosevelt analyzes these engagements by correcting for differences in hull strength, gunnery, and crew size, resisting patriotic exaggeration while also challenging British assumptions. He contextualizes British setbacks as products of mismatched ships and initial underestimation rather than wholesale inferiority. This careful calibration helps explain why early morale soared in the United States, even though the broader balance would shift as Britain tightened blockade and concentrated experienced officers against American cruisers.
Blockade defined the later war years. British squadrons operating from Halifax, Bermuda, and other bases gradually sealed major American ports, curtailed exports, and choked coastal trade. Raids along the Chesapeake and elsewhere disrupted shipbuilding and drew off U.S. naval resources. Roosevelt situates famous combat episodes within this tightening vise, showing that while American warships occasionally evaded pursuit, the blockade’s economic and operational effects were cumulative. He argues that strategic denial—keeping opponents from sea—can be as decisive as winning set-piece battles. The coasts became contested spaces where small craft, gunboats, and shore defenses struggled against persistent British sea control.
Leadership cultures shaped performance on both sides. U.S. captains such as Isaac Hull, Stephen Decatur, William Bainbridge, Oliver Hazard Perry, and Thomas Macdonough demonstrated initiative and a willingness to exploit ship advantages. British officers like Philip Broke, James Yeo, and Robert Barclay brought deep professional experience from global wars. Roosevelt blends biographical sketches with tactical critique, noting how training, discipline, and command judgment interacted with luck and weather. He is mindful that individual gallantry did not negate strategic limitations, yet insists that leadership, especially in the lakes and cruiser operations, could sharply alter local balances and the morale of navies and nations.
The social world of sailors underpins Roosevelt’s analysis. Crews endured cramped quarters, strict discipline, uncertain pay, and disease, but were motivated by prize money and reputation. Impressment forcibly filled Royal Navy ranks, while American recruiting relied on volunteers attracted by higher pay and prospects of prizes. U.S. crews included immigrant seamen and free Black sailors serving alongside white shipmates, a reality of maritime labor in Atlantic ports. Roosevelt touches these themes most where they affect combat efficiency, acknowledging that drill, diet, and medical care mattered in gunnery performance. He also recognizes that desertion, turnover, and the hazards of blockade duty complicated both navies’ readiness.
Institutions of maritime law and administration structured the war’s incentives. Admiralty courts condemned captured vessels and cargoes, distributing prizes and shaping privateering’s economics. Naval bureaus allocated scarce copper, canvas, and powder; Congress debated appropriations; the British Admiralty issued orders that tied distant squadrons to shifting priorities. Roosevelt mines official dispatches, ship logs, and published reports to reconstruct events and parse competing claims. By cross-checking British and American records, and weighing contemporaneous histories, he aims to separate patriotic myth from demonstrable fact. This documentary method serves as both narrative engine and implicit argument about how maritime power is organized and measured.
The home front bore the war’s costs. New England shipyards and merchants suffered under blockade and trade disruption, prompting smuggling and sharp political dissent. The Hartford Convention (1814–1815) crystallized Federalist grievances against the war and the national government’s policies, even as other regions rallied around naval victories. Roosevelt situates these tensions within economic realities: insurance rates, freight patterns, and the vulnerability of coastal communities to raids. He neither dismisses opposition as mere disloyalty nor frames enthusiasm as uncritical nationalism, instead showing how local interests, maritime livelihoods, and regional politics shaped support for or resistance to naval strategy.
Peace arrived through negotiation rather than clear maritime decision. The Treaty of Ghent, signed in late 1814 and ratified in early 1815, restored prewar boundaries without resolving impressment in formal terms; the issue receded as the Napoleonic conflict ended. Roosevelt underscores that sea power’s effects are often indirect: blockades, commerce raiding, and local control on the lakes influenced bargaining positions. Postwar, the United States drew lessons from experience, funding a stronger fleet through the 1816 naval expansion program that authorized ships of the line and additional heavy frigates. These choices reflected a sober reading of the war’s demands and the value of sustained naval preparedness.
Memory and historiography quickly shaped public understanding. In the United States, the war became a source of national pride—sometimes styled a “Second War of Independence”—with naval duels elevated as proof of American skill. British writers, addressing a global audience, often treated the conflict as a secondary theater within a larger war against Napoleon. Roosevelt engages these divergent narratives by confronting statistical claims, scrutinizing sources like official returns and earlier histories, and identifying bias. He seeks a tempered judgment: acknowledging American tactical brilliance and British strategic success, while rejecting inflated casualty counts, tonnage misstatements, and oversimplified attributions of victory or failure.
The book also belongs to the late nineteenth-century American debate about sea power. Published in 1882, it appeared as policymakers and officers pressed for modernization after decades of neglect. The early 1880s saw the first authorizations for steel-hulled cruisers and institutional reforms, including the establishment of the Office of Naval Intelligence (1882) and, soon after, the Naval War College (1884). Roosevelt’s rigorous, comparative approach offered timely lessons about training, materiel, and strategy in an era when the United States contemplated a transition from wooden sail to steam and steel. His arguments implicitly supported professionalization and a larger, technologically current fleet.
Roosevelt’s method is central to the work’s historical importance. Writing as a young scholar, he compared American and British official documents, ship plans, and after-action reports, and engaged critically with earlier historians such as William James. He insisted on consistent measures—broadside weight, crew complements, and construction details—to evaluate combat. At the same time, he tested patriotic narratives against opponents’ records, aiming for fairness even when conclusions challenged American pride. This approach mirrored the professionalizing trends in U.S. historical writing, which emphasized documentation and transnational perspective, and it aligned with contemporary naval officers’ desire for objective analysis over celebratory anecdote or partisan commemoration. The book’s context, evidence, and tone reinforce one another to illuminate the war’s maritime realities.
Author Biography
Introduction
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) was the 26th president of the United States and one of the nation’s most prolific public writers. A reform-minded executive, soldier, and naturalist, he also authored influential histories, biographies, and travel narratives that reached a wide audience. His signature books include The Naval War of 1812, the multivolume The Winning of the West, The Rough Riders, The Strenuous Life, The Wilderness Hunter, African Game Trails, Through the Brazilian Wilderness, Oliver Cromwell, and biographies of Thomas Hart Benton and Gouverneur Morris. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for mediating the Russo‑Japanese War, he helped define the modern presidency and linked scholarship to action in American public life.
Roosevelt’s public career spanned state legislator, New York City police reformer, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, commander of the Rough Riders, governor of New York, vice president, and president. He pressed for fair regulation of industry, conservation of public lands, and an energetic foreign policy. As an author, he treated military history, frontier settlement, political biography, and natural history with a blend of archival diligence and vigorous narrative. His books and magazine essays made him a household name long before radio or television, allowing him to shape debates on citizenship, national strength, and stewardship of America’s natural heritage.
Education and Literary Influences
Raised in New York City, Roosevelt studied at Harvard College in the late 1870s, where he pursued natural history and history with equal zeal, graduating in 1880. He briefly attended Columbia Law School before turning to writing and public service. As a young scholar he immersed himself in documentary research for The Naval War of 1812, establishing habits of close reading and citation that would mark his historical works. He read widely in British and American historians, and engaged with contemporary strategic thought, later forming an enduring exchange with naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, whose emphasis on sea power aligned with Roosevelt’s interests.
Personal loss in the mid‑1880s sent Roosevelt west to the Dakota Territory, where he ranched, rode, and wrote. The Badlands experience fortified his lifelong conservation ethic and furnished material for Ranch Life and the Hunting‑Trail and The Wilderness Hunter. He admired the frontier histories of Francis Parkman and brought a similar on‑the‑ground sensibility to his own narratives. Friendship with senator and historian Henry Cabot Lodge further encouraged his literary and historical pursuits. He also co‑founded the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887, linking scientific wildlife management to sporting ethics and shaping the intellectual milieu behind his conservation writing.
Literary Career
Roosevelt’s debut, The Naval War of 1812 (1882), was a meticulously argued study that won notice from professional sailors and historians for its analysis and command of sources. He followed with biographies in the American statesman tradition, notably Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and Gouverneur Morris (1888). Ranch Life and the Hunting‑Trail (1888) blended frontier reportage with natural history. Across 1889–1896 he published The Winning of the West, a multivolume chronicle of settlement, warfare, and political development beyond the Appalachians. Reviewers praised its energy and documentation, while later scholars debated its perspective on expansion and indigenous resistance.
The 1890s also yielded The Wilderness Hunter (1893), which combined fieldcraft, wildlife observation, and reflections on character. His battlefield fame in 1898 made The Rough Riders (1899) a widely read account of volunteer cavalry in Cuba, cementing his public identity as a man of action. He collected speeches in The Strenuous Life (1900), advancing themes he had already explored in prose: disciplined effort, civic duty, and national purpose. That same period saw Oliver Cromwell (1900), where he synthesized political and military biography in a compact, accessible study.
Even while serving as president, Roosevelt continued to write speeches and articles. After leaving office in 1909, he became a contributing editor at The Outlook, addressing domestic reform, conservation, and world affairs in lively weekly pieces. In 1912 he was elected president of the American Historical Association, where his address insisted that history be both exacting and readable. An Autobiography (1913) offered a retrospective of his public life and intellectual commitments, framing his reforms and adventures as parts of a coherent philosophy of citizenship.
Roosevelt’s travel and nature writing extended his reach. African Game Trails (1910) narrated the Smithsonian‑Roosevelt African Expedition of 1909–1910, pairing specimen collection with observation on habitats, hunting practices, and colonial settings. Through the Brazilian Wilderness (1914) recounted his hazardous 1913–1914 journey with Cândido Rondon along the then‑little‑charted River of Doubt. These volumes combined firsthand detail with a scientist’s curiosity. General readers embraced their momentum and color; specialists have since scrutinized the books for period assumptions while acknowledging their documentary value, breadth of observation, and enduring influence on American adventure and conservation literature.
Beliefs and Advocacy
Roosevelt’s public philosophy fused moral reform with pragmatic regulation. Early work in civil service and police reform informed his presidential Square Deal agenda, which sought fair competition and oversight of powerful corporations. He pressed for railroad regulation through the Hepburn Act and backed national food and drug safeguards in 1906. As a conservation leader, he championed the creation of the U.S. Forest Service in 1905 and used the Antiquities Act to protect landscapes and scientific sites as national monuments. Through the Boone and Crockett Club and official action, he argued that wildlife and public lands required scientific management for future generations.
In foreign affairs he favored preparedness and a blue‑water navy, dispatching the Great White Fleet to demonstrate maritime capability. He supported construction of the Panama Canal and mediated the Russo‑Japanese War, for which he received the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. His record on race was mixed: he invited Booker T. Washington to the White House early in his term, yet later ordered the discharge of Black soldiers after the Brownsville Affair. Across speeches and books he urged strenuous citizenship, national service, and civic cohesion, themes that linked his literary output to his reform and diplomatic programs.
Final Years & Legacy
After breaking with party leaders in 1912, Roosevelt ran for president on a Progressive ticket, survived an assassination attempt during the campaign, and continued speaking before seeking treatment. He soon turned to exploration, joining Cândido Rondon in South America to map and descend the River of Doubt; illness and injury nearly cost him his life. He documented the ordeal in Through the Brazilian Wilderness. Back home he wrote for magazines, pressed for military preparedness, and attempted to raise a volunteer division during World War I, which the government declined. The war touched his family deeply, and the loss of a son in 1918 weighed on him.
Roosevelt died in early 1919 at Sagamore Hill on Long Island. His legacy encompasses a transformed presidency, a durable conservation framework of forests, refuges, parks, and monuments, and a regulatory ethos that reshaped relations between government and large corporations. Abroad, he combined assertive naval policy with notable peacemaking. As an author, he left a shelf of works spanning history, biography, travel, and political thought that remain widely read. His standing as president of the American Historical Association marked his acceptance among historians. Memorials, including Theodore Roosevelt National Park, attest to the breadth of his public and literary impact.
The Naval War of 1812
Preface
The history of the naval events of the War of 1812 has been repeatedly presented both to the American and the English reader. Historical writers have treated it either in connection with a general account of the contest on land and sea, or as forming a part of the complete record of the navies of the two nations. A few monographs, which confine themselves strictly to the naval occurrences, have also appeared. But none of these works can be regarded as giving a satisfactorily full or impartial account of the war—some of them being of he "popular" and loosely-constructed order, while others treat it from a purely partisan standpoint. No single book can be quoted which would be accepted by the modern reader as doing justice to both sides, or, indeed, as telling the whole story. Any one specially interested in the subject must read all; and then it will seem almost a hopeless task to reconcile the many and widely contradictory statements he will meet with.
There appear to be three works which, taken in combination, give the best satisfaction on the subject. First, in James' "Naval History of Great Britain" (which supplies both the material and the opinions of almost every subsequent English or Canadian historian) can be found the British view of the case. It is an invaluable work, written with fulness and care; on the other hand it is also a piece of special pleading by a bitter and not over-scrupulous partisan. This, in the second place, can be partially supplemented by Fenimore Cooper's "Naval History of the United States." The latter gives the American view of the cruises and battles; but it is much less of an authority than James', both because it is written without great regard for exactness, and because all figures for the American side need to be supplied from Lieutenant (now Admiral) George E. Emmons' statistical "History of the United States Navy," which is the third of the works in question.
But even after comparing these three authors, many contradictions remain unexplained, and the truth can only be reached in such cases by a careful examination of the navy "Records," the London "Naval Chronicle," "Niles' Register," and other similar documentary publications. Almost the only good criticisms on the actions are those incidentally given in standard works on other subjects, such as Lord Howard Douglass' "Naval Gunnery," and Admiral Jurien de la Gravière's "Guerres Maritimes." Much of the material in our Navy Department has never been touched at all. In short, no full, accurate, and unprejudiced history of the war has ever been written.
The subject merits a closer scrutiny than it has received. At present people are beginning to realize that it is folly for the great English-speaking Republic to rely for defence upon a navy composed partly of antiquated hulks, and partly of new vessels rather more worthless than the old. It is worth while to study with some care that period of our history during which our navy stood at the highest pitch of its fame; and to learn any thing from the past it is necessary to know, as near as may be, the exact truth. Accordingly the work should be written impartially, if only from the narrowest motives. Without abating a jot from one's devotion to his country and flag, I think a history can be made just enough to warrant its being received as an authority equally among Americans and Englishmen. I have endeavored to supply such a work. It is impossible that errors, both of fact and opinion, should not have crept into it; and although I have sought to make it in character as non-partisan as possible, these errors will probably be in favor of the American side.
As my only object is to give an accurate narrative of events, I shall esteem it a particular favor if any one will furnish me with the means of rectifying such mistakes; and if I have done injustice to any commander, or officer of any grade, whether American or British, I shall consider myself under great obligations to those who will set me right.
I have been unable to get access to the original reports of the British commanders, the logs of the British ships, or their muster-rolls, and so have been obliged to take them at second hand from the "Gazette," or "Naval Chronicle," or some standard history. The American official letters, log-books, original contracts, muster-rolls, etc., however, being preserved in the Archives at Washington, I have been able, thanks to the courtesy of the Hon. Wm. H. Hunt, Secretary of the Navy, to look them over. The set of letters from the officers is very complete, in three series,—"Captains' Letters," "Masters' Commandant Letters," and "Officers' Letters," there being several volumes for each year. The books of contracts contain valuable information as to the size and build of some of the vessels. The log-books are rather exasperating, often being very incomplete. Thus when I turned from Decatur's extremely vague official letter describing the capture of the Macedonian to the log-book of the Frigate United States, not a fact about the fight could be gleaned. The last entry in the log on the day of the fight is "strange sail discovered to be a frigate under English colors," and the next entry (on the following day) relates to the removal of the prisoners. The log of the Enterprise is very full indeed, for most of the time, but is a perfect blank for the period during which she was commanded by Lieutenant Burrows, and in which she fought the Boxer. I have not been able to find the Peacock's log at all, though there is a very full set of letters from her commander. Probably the fire of 1837 destroyed a great deal of valuable material. When ever it was possible I have referred to printed matter in preference to manuscript, and my authorities can thus, in most cases, be easily consulted. In conclusion I desire to express my sincerest thanks to Captain James D. Bulloch, formerly of the United States Navy, and Commander Adolf Mensing, formerly of the German Navy, without whose advice and sympathy this work would probably never have been written or even begun.
Preface to Third Edition
I originally intended to write a companion volume to this, which should deal with the operations on land. But a short examination showed that these operations were hardly worth serious study. They teach nothing new; it is the old, old lesson, that a miserly economy in preparation may in the end involve a lavish outlay of men and money, which, after all, comes too late to more than partially offset the evils produced by the original short-sighted parsimony. This might 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,500 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[1q]. 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 the chapters devoted to the naval operations.
As before said, the other campaigns on land do not deserve very minute attention; but, for the sake of rendering the account of the battle of New Orleans more intelligible, I will give a hasty sketch of the principal engagements that took place elsewhere.
The war opened in mid-summer of 1812, by the campaign of General Hull on the Michigan frontier. With two or three thousand raw troops he invaded Canada. About the same time Fort Mackinaw was surrendered by its garrison of 60 Americans to a British and Indian force of 600. Hull's campaign was unfortunate from the beginning. Near Brownstown the American Colonel Van Horne, with some 200 men, was ambushed and routed by Tecumseh[1] and his Indians. In revenge Col. Miller, with 600 Americans, at Maguaga attacked 150 British and Canadians under Capt. Muir, and 250 Indians under Tecumseh, and whipped them,—Tecumseh's Indians standing their ground longest. The Americans lost 75, their foes 180 men. At Chicago the small force of 66 Americans was surprised and massacred by the Indians. Meanwhile, General Brock, the British commander, advanced against Hull with a rapidity and decision that seemed to paralyze his senile and irresolute opponent. The latter retreated to Detroit, where, without striking a blow, he surrendered 1,400 men to Brock's nearly equal force, which consisted nearly one half of Indians under Tecumseh. On the Niagara frontier, an estimable and honest old gentleman and worthy citizen, who knew nothing of military matters, Gen. Van Rensselaer, tried to cross over and attack the British at Queenstown; 1,100 Americans got across and were almost all killed or captured by a nearly equal number of British, Canadians, and Indians, while on the opposite side a large number of their countrymen looked on, and with abject cowardice refused to cross to their assistance. The command of the army was then handed over to a ridiculous personage named Smythe, who issued proclamations so bombastic that they really must have come from an unsound mind, and then made a ludicrously abortive effort at invasion, which failed almost of its own accord. A British and Canadian force of less than 400 men was foiled in an assault on Ogdensburg, after a slight skirmish, by about 1,000 Americans under Brown; and with this trifling success the military operations of the year came to an end.
Early in 1813, Ogdensburg was again attacked, this time by between 500 and 600 British, who took it after a brisk resistance from some 300 militia; the British lost 60 and the Americans 20, in killed and wounded. General Harrison, meanwhile, had begun the campaign in the Northwest. At Frenchtown, on the river Raisin, Winchester's command of about 900 Western troops was surprised by a force of 1,100 men, half of them Indians, under the British Colonel Proctor. The right division, taken by surprise, gave up at once; the left division, mainly Kentucky riflemen, and strongly posted in houses and stockaded enclosures, made a stout resistance, and only surrendered after a bloody fight, in which 180 British and about half as many Indians were killed or wounded. Over 300 Americans were slain, some in battle, but most in the bloody massacre that followed. After this, General Harrison went into camp at Fort Meigs, where, with about 1,100 men, he was besieged by 1,000 British and Canadians under Proctor and 1,200 Indians under Tecumseh. A force of 1,200 Kentucky militia advanced to his relief and tried to cut its way into the fort while the garrison made a sortie. The sortie was fairly successful, but the Kentuckians were scattered like chaff by the British regulars in the open, and when broken were cut to pieces by the Indians in the woods. Nearly two thirds of the relieving troops were killed or captured; about 400 got into the fort. Soon afterward Proctor abandoned the siege. Fort Stephenson, garrisoned by Major Croghan and 160 men, was attacked by a force of 391 British regulars, who tried to carry it by assault, and were repulsed with the loss of a fourth of their number. Some four thousand Indians joined Proctor, but most of them left him after Perry's victory on Lake Erie. Then Harrison, having received large reinforcements, invaded Canada. At the River Thames his army of 3,500 men encountered and routed between 600 and 700 British under Proctor, and about 1,000 Indians under Tecumseh. The battle was decided at once by a charge of the Kentucky mounted riflemen, who broke through the regulars, took them in rear, and captured them, and then dismounting attacked the flank of the Indians, who were also assailed by the infantry. Proctor escaped by the skin of his teeth and Tecumseh died fighting, like the hero that he was. This battle ended the campaign in the Northwest. In this quarter it must be remembered that the war was, on the part of the Americans, mainly one against Indians; the latter always forming over half of the British forces. Many of the remainder were French Canadians, and the others were regulars. The American armies, on the contrary, were composed of the armed settlers of Kentucky and Ohio, native Americans, of English speech and blood, who were battling for lands that were to form the heritage of their children. In the West the war was only the closing act of the struggle that for many years had been waged by the hardy and restless pioneers of our race, as with rifle and axe they carved out the mighty empire that we their children inherit; it was but the final effort with which they wrested from the Indian lords of the soil the wide and fair domain that now forms the heart of our great Republic. It was the breaking down of the last barrier that stayed the flood of our civilization; it settled, once and for ever, that henceforth the law, the tongue, and the blood of the land should be neither Indian, nor yet French, but English. The few French of the West were fighting against a race that was to leave as little trace of them as of the doomed Indian peoples with whom they made common cause. The presence of the British mercenaries did not alter the character of the contest; it merely served to show the bitter and narrow hatred with which the Mother-Island regarded her greater daughter, predestined as the latter was to be queen of the lands that lay beyond the Atlantic.
Meanwhile, on Lake Ontario, the Americans made successful descents on York and Fort George, scattering or capturing their comparatively small garrisons; while a counter descent by the British on Sackett's Harbor failed, the attacking force being too small. After the capture of Fort George, the Americans invaded Canada; but their advance guard, 1,400 strong, under Generals Chandler and Winder, was surprised in the night by 800 British, who, advancing with the bayonet, broke up the camp, capturing both the generals and half the artillery. Though the assailants, who lost 220 of their small number, suffered much more than the Americans, yet the latter were completely demoralized, and at once retreated to Fort George. Soon afterward, Col. Boerstler with about 600 men surrendered with shamefully brief resistance to a somewhat smaller force of British and Indians. Then about 300 British crossed the Niagara to attack Black Rock, which they took, but were afterward driven off by a large body of militia with the loss of 40 men. Later in the season the American General McClure wantonly burned the village of Newark, and then retreated in panic flight across the Niagara. In retaliation the British in turn crossed the river; 600 regulars surprised and captured in the night Fort Niagara, with its garrison of 400 men; two thousand troops attacked Black Rock, and after losing over a hundred men in a smart engagement with somewhat over 1,500 militia whom they easily dispersed, captured and burned both it and Buffalo. Before these last events took place another invasion of Canada had been attempted, this time under General Wilkinson, "an unprincipled imbecile," as Scott very properly styled him. It was mismanaged in every possible way, and was a total failure; it was attended with but one battle, that of Chrystler's Farm, in which 1,000 British, with the loss of less than 200 men, beat back double their number of Americans, who lost nearly 500 men and also one piece of artillery. The American army near Lake Champlain had done nothing, its commander, General Wade Hampton, being, if possible, even more incompetent than Wilkinson. He remained stationary while a small force of British plundered Plattsburg and Burlington; then, with 5,000 men he crossed into Canada, but returned almost immediately, after a small skirmish at Chauteaugay between his advance guard and some 500 Canadians, in which the former lost 41 and the latter 22 men. This affair, in which hardly a tenth of the American force was engaged, has been, absurdly enough, designated a "battle" by most British and Canadian historians. In reality it was the incompetency of their general and not the valor of their foes that caused the retreat of the Americans. The same comment, by the way, applies to the so-called "Battle" of Plattsburg, in the following year, which may have been lost by Sir George Prevost, but was certainly not won by the Americans. And, again, a similar criticism should be passed on General Wilkinson's attack on La Colle Mill, near the head of the same lake. Neither one of the three affairs was a stand-up fight; in each a greatly superior force, led by an utterly incapable general, retreated after a slight skirmish with an enemy whose rout would have been a matter of certainty had the engagement been permitted to grow serious.
In the early spring of 1814 a small force of 160 American regulars, under Captain Holmes, fighting from behind felled logs, routed 200 British with a loss of 65 men, they themselves losing but 8. On Lake Ontario the British made a descent on Oswego and took it by fair assault; and afterward lost 180 men who tried to cut out some American transports, and were killed or captured to a man. All through the spring and early summer the army on the Niagara frontier was carefully drilled by Brown, and more especially by Scott, and the results of this drilling were seen in the immensely improved effectiveness of the soldiers in the campaign that opened in July. Fort Erie was captured with little resistance, and on the 4th of July, at the river Chippeway, Brown, with two brigades of regulars, each about 1,200 strong, under Scott and Ripley, and a brigade of 800 militia and Indians under Porter, making a total of about 3,200 men, won a stand-up fight against the British General Riall, who had nearly 2,500 men, 1,800 of them regulars. Porter's brigade opened by driving in the Canadian militia and the Indians; but was itself checked by the British light-troops. Ripley's brigade took very little part in the battle, three of the regiments not being engaged at all, and the fourth so slightly as to lose but five men. The entire brunt of the action was borne by Scott's brigade, which was fiercely attacked by the bulk of the British regulars under Riall. The latter advanced with great bravery, but were terribly cut up by the fire of Scott's regulars; and when they had come nearly up to him, Scott charged with the bayonet and drove them clean off the field. The American loss was 322, including 23 Indians; the British loss was 515, excluding that of the Indians. The number of Americans actually engaged did not exceed that of the British; and Scott's brigade, in fair fight, closed by a bayonet charge, defeated an equal force of British regulars.
On July 25th occurred the Battle of Niagara,501 or Lundy's Lane, fought between General Brown with 3,100 502 Americans and General Drummond with 3,500 503 British. It was brought on by accident in the evening, and was waged with obstinate courage and savage slaughter till midnight. On both sides the forces straggled into action by detachments. The Americans formed the attacking party. As before, Scott's brigade bore the brunt of the fight, and over half of his men were killed or wounded; he himself was disabled and borne from the field. The struggle was of the most desperate character, the combatants showing a stubborn courage that could not be surpassed. 504 Charge after charge was made with the bayonet, and the artillery was taken and retaken once and again. The loss was nearly equal; on the side of the Americans, 854 men (including Generals Brown and Scott, wounded) and two guns; on that of the British, 878 men (including General Riall captured) and one gun. Each side claimed it as a victory over superior numbers. The truth is beyond question that the British had the advantage in numbers, and a still greater advantage in position; while it is equally beyond question that it was a defeat and not a victory for the Americans. They left the field and retired in perfect order to Fort Erie, while the British held the field and the next day pursued their foes.
Having received some reinforcements General Drummond, now with about 3,600 men, pushed forward to besiege Fort Erie, in which was the American army, some 2,400 strong, under General Gaines. Col. Tucker with 500 British regulars was sent across the Niagara to destroy the batteries at Black Rock, but was defeated by 300 American regulars under Major Morgan, fighting from behind a strong breastwork of felled trees, with a creek in front. On the night of the 15th of August, the British in three columns advanced to storm the American works, but after making a most determined assault were beaten off. The assailants lost 900 men, the assailed about 80. After this nothing was done till Sept. 17th, when General Brown, who had resumed command of the American forces, determined upon and executed a sortie. Each side had received reinforcements; the Americans numbered over 3,000, the British nearly 4,000. The fighting was severe, the Americans losing 500 men; but their opponents lost 600 men, and most of their batteries were destroyed. Each side, as usual, claimed the victory; but, exactly as Lundy's Lane must be accounted an American defeat, as our forces retreated from the ground, so this must be considered an American victory, for after it the British broke up camp and drew off to Chippeway. Nothing more was done, and on November 5th the American army recrossed the Niagara. Though marked by some brilliant feats of arms this four months' invasion of Canada, like those that had preceded it, thus came to nothing. But at the same time a British invasion of the United States was repulsed far more disgracefully. Sir George Prevost, with an army of 13,000 veteran troops, marched south along the shores of Lake Champlain to Plattsburg, which was held by General Macomb with 2,000 regulars, and perhaps double that number of nearly worthless militia;—a force that the British could have scattered to the winds, though, as they were strongly posted, not without severe loss. But the British fleet was captured by Commodore MacDonough in the fight on the lake; and then Sir George, after some heavy skirmishing between the outposts of the armies, in which the Americans had the advantage, fled precipitately back to Canada.
All through the war the sea-coasts of the United States had been harried by small predatory excursions; a part of what is now the State of Maine was conquered with little resistance, and kept until the close of hostilities; and some of the towns on the shores of Chesapeake Bay had been plundered or burnt. In August, 1814, a more serious invasion was planned, and some 5,000 troops—regulars, sailors, and marines—were landed, under the command of General Ross. So utterly helpless was the Democratic Administration at Washington, that during the two years of warfare hardly any steps had been taken to protect the Capitol, or the country round about; what little was done, was done entirely too late, and bungled badly in addition. History has not yet done justice to the ludicrous and painful folly and stupidity of which the government founded by Jefferson, and carried on by Madison, was guilty, both in its preparations for, and in its way of carrying on, this war; nor is it yet realized that the men just mentioned, and their associates, are primarily responsible for the loss we suffered in it, and the bitter humiliation some of its incidents caused us. The small British army marched at will through Virginia and Maryland, burned Washington[2], and finally retreated from before Baltimore and reembarked to take part in the expedition against New Orleans. Twice, at Bladensburg and North Point, it came in contact with superior numbers of militia in fairly good position. In each case the result was the same. After some preliminary skirmishing, manoeuvring, and volley firing, the British charged with the bayonet. The rawest regiments among the American militia then broke at once; the others kept pretty steady, pouring in quite a destructive fire, until the regulars had come up close to them, when they also fled. The British regulars were too heavily loaded to pursue, and, owing to their mode of attack, and the rapidity with which their opponents ran away, the loss of the latter was in each case very slight. At North Point, however, the militia, being more experienced, behaved better than at Bladensburg. In neither case were the British put to any trouble to win their victory.
The above is a brief sketch of the campaigns of the war. It is not cheerful reading for an American, nor yet of interest to a military student; and its lessons have been taught so often by similar occurrences in other lands under like circumstances, and, moreover, teach such self-evident truths, that they scarcely need to be brought to the notice of an historian. But the crowning event of the war was the Battle of New Orleans; remarkable in its military aspect, and a source of pride to every American. It is well worth a more careful study, and to it I have devoted the last chapter of this work.
PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO
(See also in alphabetical place in index.)
American State Papers.
