Seizure of Florida Balked by Congress, 1813. In the autumn of 1812 Madison called out 2070 west Tennessee militia under Andrew Jackson, to march to Natchez, expecting to use them against Florida. This was merely an executive act, and when congress refused to sanction the proposed expedition Jackson was recalled to Nashville. The west Tennessee militia were eager for war, and had confidence in their leader. Their opportunity came late in 1813, when it was decided to send them as one of three expeditions against the Creek Indians, who were on the warpath in sympathy with the Indians of the Northwest. The Tennesseans were to march into the Creek country from the north, the Georgia militia from the east, and an expedition from New Orleans was to approach through Mobile Bay and the Alabama river. Subdued. The most difficult task was Jackson's, but it alone was successful. When the winter closed in he had reached the upper Coosa, after winning two victories over his adversaries. Four days The Creeks of marching and one good victory would have given him complete success, but he could not get supplies, and his men mutinied and were sent home. With only a handful of followers he held what he had gained until new troops were raised, and March 27 completed the subjugation of the Creeks in the victory of Horse Shoe Bend, or Tohopeka. His campaign showed that he had remarkable power of command as well as resourcefulness and energy. In consequence he was made a major general and assigned to the command of the seventh military district. Besides Louisiana, the district included Mobile, which had been annexed without resistance in April, 1813. Now, as in regard to Baton Rouge, Madison acted under his interpretation of the Louisiana treaty. Mobile The Treaty of Fort Jackson. Jackson's first act in his new capacity was to make the treaty of Fort Jackson, August 9, by which the Creeks gave up their lands in southern and western Alabama. He thus opened a vast region to white settlement, and made safe the CoosaAlabama line of communication. Next he turned to Mobile. The advance guard of the great expedition against New Orleans had arrived at Pensacola; Jackson seized the town regardless of neutrality obligations, and the British sailed away. He was hardly back in Mobile when he learned that Pensacola New Orleans was threatened by a body of more than 10,000 troops. He hastened to the city, which was nearly undefended, calling the militia from Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia as he went. Had Winder, in the preceding summer, shown half Jackson's energy, Ross would not have reached Washington. Occupied. December 10, the British fleet anchored in Lake Borgne, and early on the 23d a division of the army was landed eight miles below THE EIGHTH OF JANUARY, 1815 333 the British at New New the city on a strip of land less than a mile wide, between the river and the swamp. Instantly Jackson was in motion, delivering in the evening and early night a sharp battle which drove the enemy to take refuge under the levee until reënforce- Arrival of ments came up from the ships. Then Jackson fell back and began to construct breast works. Pakenham, the Orleans. British commander, was cautious, and would not move until all his forces were landed, including the artillery. He thus allowed Jackson time to construct formidable defenses, which the royal artillery could not destroy. On January 8, 1815, he threw away his caution and attempted to carry these works. He and his whole army held American militia in contempt, and thought they would break when charged vigorously by British Battle of regulars. In the early dawn two red-coated columns Orleans. rushed on Jackson's lines, one near the river and one near the swamp. They met a withering rifle-fire from which the bravest soldiers must have recoiled. Twice they were rallied and led forward by their best officers, and each time repulsed with great slaughter. Pakenham and General Gibbs were killed, and General Keene severely wounded. The loss in this part of the army was 1971 killed and wounded, and on Jackson's side 13. Meanwhile, Colonel Thornton, with 600 regulars, crossed to the west bank of the river to carry some batteries there, which bore on the ground over which the British must attack on the east side. He met an insufficient force of Louisiana and Kentucky militia, swept it aside, took the batteries, and held the west bank at discretion. Fortunately for the Americans, this movement was delayed until after the attack on their intrenchments on the east bank was repulsed, and by that severe blow the British were so crippled that they relinquished the campaign and withdrew to their fleet. of the Victory. The victory at New Orleans was one of the great events in American history. It not only saved the mouth of the Mississippi from conquest and restored to the people confidence in their ability to win battles, but it gave the Western people, who had Significance won it without much help from the seaboard, the confidence to assert a greater influence in national affairs. To these people, and to many others in all parts of the country, Jackson became the greatest living American. He had, besides his military qualities, political courage and integrity, which sustained him in a long and important career. He was unschooled in the arts of war and statesmanship, but in each field his remarkable natural sense made him essentially efficient. No American has left a stronger mark on our political history. Before Jackson's victory was won, peace was made between England and the United States. The Russian Czar, from 1812 an ally of England, sought to end the war, and believed it might be done since Peace Negotiations Begun. the Orders in Council were repealed. He offered each party his services as mediator. Madison accepted, and in the spring of 1813, Bayard, of Delaware, and Gallatin, set out for St. Petersburg to join John Quincy Adams, our minister there, in a peace commission. The action was hasty; for England had not accepted the mediation. She told the Czar that the question between her and the United States did not admit of mediation. But she did not wish to offend her powerful ally, and expressed a willingness to treat directly with the American commissioners. Such a course would give her a freer hand in the negotiation. After some delay the British ministry repeated the offer to Madison, and congress, accepting it for what it was worth, sent Clay and Jonathan Russell as additional commissioners of peace. England appointed three men of little prominence, Lord Gambier, Henry Goulburn, and Dr. Adams. The Americans took it as a slight that more capable men were not named, but the ministry expected to keep the negotiations well in hand. The commissioners began their labors at Ghent early in August, 1814. Progress at The Americans asked that impressments and the right of search be relinquished. The British replied with such demands that it seemed they did not desire peace. We were asked, for one thing, to accept an Indian buffer state on our northwest as an offset to our attack on Canada. The war against Napoleon was then believed to be ended, the English people were elated, they had not heard of the better fighting of the Americans on the northern frontier in the third year of the war, and the result was stout demands on their part. The American commissioners reported the demands to Madison, who made them public. An outburst of indignation ensued in nearly every part of the United States. Lord Castlereagh, the prime minister, seeing that the war would go on with more energy than before, concluded to modify his terms. England was exhausted by the long war on the continent and needed peace more than she needed to triumph over America. Castlereagh had begun to see that the continental nations would be secretly against England in adjusting the affairs of Europe, and he did not wish at that time to be embarrassed by a transatlantic war. So it happened that as the American commissioners were about to go home the British abandoned the worst of their conditions. From day to day they gave up still more, with the result that finally a treaty was signed, December 24, in which neither side gained or lost. It provided A Treaty Signed Dec. 24, 1814. for the cessation of arms, the restoration of conquests, and a commission to settle the long-disputed Canadian boundary. The matters for which we went to war were not mentioned; but as England was to reduce her navy with the coming of peace, the question of impressment was no longer important. February 15, 1815, the treaty was unanimously approved NEW ENGLAND IGNORED 335 by the senate. For the first time since the constitution was adopted the United States faced the future without anxiety about their foreign relations. NEW ENGLAND DISCONTENT the Com New England generally chafed under Southern control. Nonimportation, embargo, and non-intercourse affected her business prosperity more than the South's. Moreover, it seemed likely that she, a trading community, would continue to be Isolation of outclassed by the agricultural section. Every new mercial state admitted to the union added to the strength of States. the rural classes. New York itself, once fair fighting ground for the commercial class, was becoming a farmer's state through the settlement of her rich western lands. What hope was there that commercial New England should get justice from this powerful aggregation directed by the authors of the existing policies? Probably the majority of New Englanders were not concerned with this question, but it rankled in the breasts of the federalists. Their only hope of return to power was in the defeat of the republicans, which seemed impossible, or in separation from the union. In 18031804 Pickering and his friends planned for separation with the support of New York, but they failed through the opposition of Hamilton (see page 300). When war against England threatened, they took up the plan again, this time hoping to join Plans of New England with Canada under British protection, thus making a great state in which the New England states Federalists. would have good opportunity for commercial and political expansion. Not all New Englanders favored this plan, but the radical federalists cherished it and hoped to utilize the popular discontent to carry it through. the Ex treme Turn Dis Their attitude was known in England. Did not Pickering keep his friend Rose, minister for the early months of 1808, well informed? And did not Jackson revel in federalist flattery from Baltimore to Boston? In 1809 came John Henry to Efforts to Boston, an agent of the governor of Canada, seeking to learn just what could be expected in that quarter. Disunion. His letters were discreet, but they reveal great dissatisfaction on the part of the leading federalists there. In 1812 Foster, the English minister in Washington, was in close coöperation with the federalists, they urging that England should not yield to the administration. If war came, said they, it would be short and disastrous to America, and the administration would be overthrown. And when war was declared, 34 federalists in the house, 19 of them from New England, issued an address declaring the war unjustifiable and defending England's attitude. All this was well considered in London, and as a token of appreciation the ministry in establishing the com mercial blockade exempted the New England ports north of New London. When Madison called on the states for quotas of militia in 1812, Massachusetts and Connecticut refused to raise troops to serve out of the state, but took steps to equip their forces for state defense. There was much unemployed money in the New England banks; probably half the specie in the country was in New England. Yet the war bonds of the government could hardly be sold there, less than $3,000,000 being disposed of, while the Middle states took nearly $35,000,000. With this opposition the president could not deal. He was forced to conduct the war without much aid from the states east of the Hudson. Early in the war the federalists in Essex county, Massachusetts, issued an address written by Senator Pickering for a convention Hartford to consider the situation within the state. There was much animated discussion in other parts of the state, but a number of conservative federalists in Boston, led by Dexter, secretary of war under Adams, checked the movement in that city, and the other towns hesitated also. The movement was revived in the autumn of 1814, when Washington was in ashes and part of Maine, then under Massachusetts authority, was occupied by the British. Governor Strong, much opposed to the war, now called out the militia to repel the invader. He placed it under state officers and asked the secretary of war if the expenses would be paid by the national government. He was told that the secretary had no authority to pay troops not in national service. Then the extremists declared that the state was abandoned in time of need, that the taxes she paid generously were not used for her defense, and that she must look out for her own interests. The governor called a meeting of the legislature, in which the program of the extremists was adopted by 250 to 76 votes in both houses. The majority chose twelve delegates to a convention at Hartford, December 15, to consider the condition of the country. Connecticut approved the movement and appointed seven delegates, while Rhode Island appointed four. The lower house in New Hampshire's legislature approved, but the council was republican and no delegates were named. Nor were any sent from Vermont. It was a rural state and had no sea-going commerce, and it was not so badly alienated. While these things occurred, came the congressional elections of 1814. In New England the federalists gained nine seats, and of the whole forty-one the republicans had only two. But in the entire country the federalist representation shrank from 68 to 65. Thus while the war party gained 12 places outside of New England, it lost within that region. The explanation is that the calamities of 1814 were uniting the people of the Middle and Southern states, and it seems that but for the efforts of the extremists the same results would have occurred in the Northeast. |