The War of 1812:Miracles and Great Uniforms

   The War of 1812, the cause of the War was simple, the British Navy was blockading Napoleonic France and needed sailors to man their Fleet, English speaking sailors preferably, so the Brits would stop American merchant ships and summarily impressed(drafted) American civilian sailors into the Navy.

The War involved American invasions of Canada, naval engagements on Lake Champlain, naval engagements on the high seas(in which the American Navy did VERY WELL), and fierce frontier engagements between British armed Native Americans and American frontiersmen.

It ended on an inconclusive note.

The American Uniforms were snazzy, and the Star Spangled Banner was written.

The United States has produced nine great Generals: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, William Tecumseh Sherman, Matthew Ridgway, George Patton, Douglas MacArthur, and Dwight Eisenhower( Readers, name another General in history that could have landed an army in the face of withering Nazi fire and gained a beachhead in one day-maybe Caesar or Alexander The Great ).

Two of the great American generals came out of the War of 1812, Winfield Scott and Andrew Jackson.

Arguably, the greatest American general ever was Winfield Scott(this Blogger is a William Tecumseh Sherman advocate)

The War of 1812, started Winfield Scott's career.

But not too well.

Scott was a brilliant tactician, a more brilliant Commanding General and an even more brilliant Strategist. He had it all. At the beginning of the War of 1812, he was a Commander in upstate New York, fighting British and Canadian troops. He led an American landing party in Canada, acquitted himself well, but the Anglo/Canadians brought up reinforcements and trapped him. He asked for reinforcements from the New York militia, but the New York militia decided that they would not support the invasion of Canada, so they mutinied,leaving Scott trapped. 

He surrendered his men.

The British sorted out his troops, found the Irish-Americans among them, deemed them traitors to the Crown and hung them.

Later Scott was exchanged back to America, and he promptly asked Congress to pass a bill to hang British prisoners of war in retaliation for what the Brits had done to the Irish-Americans who had surrendered in good faith. Congress did; but President Madison (the Father of The Bill of Rights)vetoed it.

Later Scott was wounded while forcing the Brits to abandon Fort George, "which is considered among the best planned and executed operations of the United States Army during the War of 1812."

His battlefield actions won the Battle of Chippawa and Lundy's Lane(where he was wounded again).

After the War of 1812, everyone in America considered Scott a military genius. He was.

"Scott served under every president from Jefferson to Lincoln, a total of fourteen administrations, and was an active-duty general for thirteen of them; a total of 63 years of service as an officer including 47 years of service as a general."

That, during a time when the life span for men was 38 years.

As a Commanding General in the Field, Scott's exploits in Mexico rival Caesar's invasion of Gaul. He landed an Army of 10,500 men, in an amphibious assault. He seized the major port of Vera Cruz, and then marched up  country into mountains,  fighting major battles and guerrilla action every step of the way , until six months later he had taken Mexico City by assault, ending the Mexican-American War.

In the process, he had hung Irish-American soldiers who had defected from the American Army to the Mexican Army as traitors(the St.Patricks Battalion, they had defected because they were Catholics, and the American Army was really prejudiced against Catholics).

After winning the Mexican American War, Scott ran for President and lost.

At 75, he was still on active command when the Civil War broke out. He was the one who informed Lincoln that it was going to be a long and bloody war. It was Scott, as a Strategic genius who conceived of Scott's Anaconda, the total blockade of the South.

Scott died May 29, 1866, living to see his precious Union saved.

The War of 1812 also saw the rise of two frontier Generals, William Henry Harrison and Andrew Jackson.

Harrison is arguably the most racist man ever to be elected President, but he died after only thirty days in office, (he spoke for hours on end at his Inauguration, in a spine chilling rain, without a topcoat, caught pneumonia). As a General, Harrison was basically a lucky Custer.

Andrew Jackson beat everyone he ever fought, from Creek Indians, the famous Redsticks, to the crack British troops who had defeated Napoleon at Waterloo(at the Battle of New Orleans). Jackson was an awesome general, a towering figure, and the MEANEST man ever to sit in the White House. 

If you ever wonder why the Native Americans and The British lost to Jackson, just recall this episode. On January 30, 1835: At the Capital Building a house painter named Richard Lawrence attempted to kill Jackson. "Jackson was chatting, Lawrence walked within 13 feet of him, and fired a flintlock pistol at him."

The pistol misfired.

Lawrence was one of our smarter would be Presidential assassins; he had brought with him another loaded pistol just in case the first one misfired(the first great example of American contingency planning). With his second pistol, Lawrence walked up to Jackson, and at point blank range,

fired.

The second pistol misfired.

Jackson then beat the hell out of Lawrence with his walking cane.

Jackson was 63 years old.

Contemporaries called it a Divine escape, which brings us to the Divinity and the War of 1812. 

However, since Vietnam, America seemingly has lost its Mandate from Heaven.

In the War of 1812, America still had that mandate.

One of the problems with interpreting American history is that for a long time, America benefited from Divine intervention, The Divine Fog in the Revolutionary War, Stonewall Jackson's death  by his own men, the whole Battle of Gettysburg, and the lucky battle  of Midway  in World War II.

"August of 1814 was one of the hottest in the memory of the approximately 8,000 residents of America's new capital. .... 

As the British army of approximately 4,000 approached, the majority of Washington residents fled the city. On August 24th American defenders, with President James Madison in attendance, were quickly routed by the invaders in a battle at Bladensburg a few miles from the city. A messenger was dispatched to the White House to warn First Lady Dolly Madison of the impeding arrival of the British. She and her staff fled by carriage across the Potomac - taking with her the full-length portrait of George Washington that had been torn from a White House wall.

That evening, the vanguard of the British army reached Capitol Hill and began its systematic destruction of all public buildings in the city. The British soldiers burned the president's house, and fuel was added to the fires that night to ensure they would continue burning into the next day.The smoke was reportedly visible as far away as Baltimore."

Then miracles started happening.

"while the British tried to destroy public buildings by dropping the barrels of gunpowder into a well, the powder ignited. As many as thirty men were killed in the explosion, and many others were maimed."

Then a miracle of Biblical proportion happened. A very sudden thunderstorm suddenly appeared,  a heavy thunderstorm. It rained as never before. It was the hardest and heaviest rain in the memory of everyone living. That rain put out the fires.

Then more miracles, " a tornado passed through the city, killing British troops and tossing cannons. The storm forced the British troops to return to their ships, many of which were badly damaged; the occupation of Washington lasted only about 26 hours.

President Madison and the rest of the government quickly returned to the city."

The Divine Fog, the Miracle Tornado, Stonewall Jackson being mistakenly killed by his own men, the failure of the Confederates to seize the unguarded Baltimore Pike at Gettysburg, the Swinging Gate of Josh Chamberlain at Gettysburg,  Wade McClusky at Midway. God was on America's side, until Bill Clinton's election ended the Homeric Age of Heroes;now we are lucky if God allows us to clean his boots.