The USN heavy frigates were indeed extremely effective ships, but had Britain actually used the full might of the Royal Navy against the US following old Boney’s demise, they would have been entirely irrelevant. 1 on 1 they were unquestionably superior to RN frigates. They would have been completely impotent to lift the blockade of a port by a half dozen (or even 1 or 2) RN ships of the line, however. Sure, they might have successfully run the blockade themselves, but the point of such blockades was to stifle merchant shipping. The USN would have been incapable of preventing the RN from pretty much shutting down all Atlantic trade had Britain decided to do that.
Of course, by the end of the Napoleonic Wars the Royal Navy had critical manpower shortages and was very eager to stand down a good portion of its strength (exactly why they wouldn’t bend on the impressment issue in '12), so it’s rather unlikely that such a course would have been pursued had the Treaty of Ghent fallen through. The point remains, however, that winning a few frigate duels did nothing to change the fact that the Royal Navy was the most powerful naval force on the planet by a margin as great as the USN enjoys at the current time.
First I join the chorus of congrats on an informative well-written article!
If wondering what Canadians think about the War of 1812, may I suggest listening to “The White House Burned (War of 1812)” by the comedy music group “Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie”
Yeah, if we Americans can claim we won the War of 1812, I guess the Canadians can claim they burned down the White House.
I did some reading about the naval battles of the War of 1812 and the Battle of New Orleans. Apparantly the American frigates had all the technical advantages over their foes, being more rugged, more far more heavily armed, and even being faster in some cases, due to a combination of their new design and the time spent at sea by the Royal Navy’s ships before engaging the US Navy which simply had to run the blockade at Boston to find someone to fight with. Also, the US Navy had all-volunteer crews at the time, which may have given them an advantage in terms of morale against the British ships, which were using impressed sailors (not only impressed from American ships, but often concsripted from coastal towns in England). I’ve also read a couple of notes referencing the use of lead canisters for the powder for the cannons making loading in battle quicker, but I haven’t found anything concrete for that.
All that said, the USS Constitution and her cohorts did spend a sizable chunk of the war bottled up in port due to maintinance issues and/or the British blockade.
As for the Battle of New Orleans… the British were having a lousy day. The commanding general of the forces there had been killed a few days previously, and when they attacked at New Orleans, they found two factors working against them:
The American forces, including Army, Militia, Sailors and even pirates, were lined up on top of a wall, with waterways on both sides preventing their being outflanked.
The British Army did not bring any ladders.
The battle went poorly for the British, and we Americans eventually got a catchy song out of the whole affair. Incidentally, in the fighting leading up to the Battle of New Orleans, we saw one of the few victories of the “Gunboat Navy” against the British, when a pair of US Navy gunboats were able to get close to shore and fire grapeshot at the British lines during a skirmish before being chased off by a Royal Navy frigate. (The system of mutually supporting coastal forts intended to support the fleet of gunboats against attackers never quite got built, and the gunboats tended to find themselves outmatched by British ships in their few naval engagements)
Oh, and I guess I’ll jump on the “Great Article!” bandwagon.
For some reason, I can’t read the original article. I may have to wait until I get home.
Some comments, though:
1.)
The books I’ve read credit the name “Old Ironsides” to a comment made by an American sailor, who observed a British shot bouncing off the side and shouted “Hurrah! Her sides are made of iron!” I’d believe the nickname more likely to be of merican than British origin, in any case.
2.) According to Edwin Hoyt’s book on the U.S.S, Constitution, the British originally thought the Guerriere would take care of the Constitution in a half hour. After they were defeated, they complained that what the U.S. called a “frigate”" wasn’t really what the British called a frigate, but was “a razeed 74” – i.i., it was a much bigger boat with more guns. Part of the reason there were American victories at sea might have somethuing to do with the reality of the new American frigates exceeding British expectations.
3.) I was surprised, on visiting Ontario, about all the signs cklaiming Canadian victories in the War of 1812. We didn’t learn about these in U.S. schools, and it definitely biases your viewpoint not to know the facts.
4.) In recent years I’ve learned that there was a great deal more to the War of 1812 than I’d learned in school. Besides the issue of impressment (which was the only one we were taught) there were U.S. ambitions in Canada and relations with nations involved in the Napoleonic conflict (which was virtually ignored in my schooling).
“The Patriot War was a short-lived campaign in the eastern Michigan area of the United States and the Windsor, Ontario area of Canada. A group of men on both sides of the border, calling themselves “Patriots,” formed small militias in 1837 with the intention of seizing the Southern Ontario peninsula between the Detroit and Niagara rivers. They based groups in Michigan at Fort Gratiot (present Port Huron), Mount Clemens, Detroit, and Gibraltar. In the winter of 1837 they attempted to seize the arsenal at Fort Gratiot but were stopped by state militia.”
However your cite about the patriot War makes no mention of the very large impact Andrew Jackson, fresh from the Battle of NO, had during the Seminole wars (from Wiki)
“While Spain at first refused to rewrite any border in favor of the US, Spain had been forced to negotiate because it was losing its hold on its colonial empire, with its western colonies primed to revolt. Specifically, while fighting outlaws and Native Americans in US-controlled Georgia during the First Seminole War, Andrew Jackson had pursued them into Spanish Florida, but at the same time, he attacked and captured Spanish forts in Florida with absolutely no provocation, thus threatening war with Spain and causing national controversy. Some of Monroe’s cabinet demanded Jackson’s immediate dismissal, but Adams realized that it put the US in a favorable diplomatic position. Although Spanish power in the New World had long been in decline, Jackson’s attacks had exposed how weak Spain was in the New World to the US, Latin American revolutionaries, and Europe. Taking an aggressive stance, Adams was able to negotiate very favorable terms.”
Well, yeah, it was about a different conflict. It seems we now agree that there were other reasons besides the U.S.'s naval strength for Spain to take us seriously. Cusick says it was the conflict in East Florida during 1812-1814 (at least partially). Wiki says it was Jacskon’s attacks during the First Seminole War (1817-1818) (at least partially). Heck, I bet they are both right, and there are probably many other factors to consider. It’s pretty tough to find a but-for cause for just about any historical event. http://history-ontheweb.co.uk/concepts/concept71_causation.htm
In the article Did Canada win the War of 1812? Did Canada win the War of 1812?, the following text appears, “The British feared (correctly) that they would be blamed for Indian belligerence. Truth is, the last thing the British wanted was a war with America. They had their hands full with Napoleon.”
If the British were so sensitive (and apparently perceptive, given the Indian situation) about getting into a war with the U.S., why did they so severely provoke the U.S. by spying, blockading its harbors, violating its waters, stopping and searching its ships, and the impressment of naturalized U.S. Britons and even of men born in the U.S.? Most of those seem to be more inflammatory than trying to rile up the Native Americans, let alone all of them put together. However, I do not know how much damage the Native Americans supposedly caused at the direction of the British.
All of that stuff was part of the war effort against Napoleon; not losing to Napoleon was very important. Also:
They called off the Orders-in-Council (blockade) before the war started.
Impressment was pretty much the only way they could maintain their navy. They claimed that the impressment of U.S. nationals was not intentional.
Spying wasn’t a new idea, and everyone was doing it. We were engaged in all sorts of espionage in Florida during the same time-frame, for instance: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-7709.2006.00536.x. In fact, John Henry’s mission was probably identical to that of several of the patriots in Florida:
You see, that’s the problem. Almost none was caused at the direction (or with the assistance ) of the British. But they were blamed for instigating the Battle of Tippecanoe among others. According to Hickey, in Don’t Give up the Ship!:
He points out that Americans did not understand British Indian policy. They refused to recognize that it was their own bad conduct and land grabbing that set the Indians against them. “The British actually tried to restrain their native allies. What few Americans at the time realized was that the British did not actually control the Indians.” *Id. *
Basically, the British were willing to fight (if necessary) to maintain their maritime policies. But they didn’t want to get involved in a war defending their native American allies.
Pierre Berton, in The Invasion of Canada 1812-1813, notes that Sir James Craig insisted that Indian agent Matthew Elliot to “dissuade the Indians from their projected plan of hostility, giving them clearly to understand that they must expect assistance from us.” (66). He suggests that Elliot didn’t get the message in time for it to do much good though.
Interesting report, but I believe it is a mistake to conclude that the War of 1812 was “a bust” for the US.
It might have been a bust in the North, but in the South, we were fighting the Red Stick Creeks, armed by the British. Andrew Jackson resoundingly defeated the Creeks, and the ultimate result was that the Creeks ceded their lands in Southwest Georgia and Alabama, and the British efforts to use the Indians to weaken the US were thwarted. Significant gains for the US both geographically and geopolitically.
Moreover, Jackson’s victory at New Orleans secured that vital port and ended British ambitions there.
Sorry, I guess that I was unclear about one part. I got that the Native American attacks were not instigated by the British. I was just saying that I did not know how much damage the attacks did. If the damage was severe, then that would be a significant reason for the U.S. to go to war, even though the blockades, impressment and such seem like they would have been more inflammatory.
If I understand your answer correctly, the British were aware that their maritime policies may cause a war with the U.S., but they felt that they were vital to defeating the French. By discouraging the Native Americans from attacking, they were just trying to not make it even worse.
Calling off the blockade would have been a good step, but it seems like stopping and searching ships and impressing a significant portion of the crew, especially naturalized Britons and natives, would have been even more inflammatory than a blockade. I guess I have a hard time believing that the British were truly worried about a war with America based upon their flagrantly offensive behavior, especially not making sure (intentionally?) that the sailors they impressed were British citizens or at the very least naturalized Britons.
Please feel free to ignore any or all of the following questions, especially if they would be time consuming to answer. Anything that is answered does not have to be in order or in complete sentences and yes or no would suffice for some questions.
You said that impressment was the only way to maintain their navy. Do you mean the impressment of British citizens, naturalized Britons and those born in the U.S. or just the first one or two? Why did they need so many sailors if France had a crappy navy and if they were no longer blockading the U.S.? I know they were also blockading France, but still. With the end of the U.S. blockade, the likely small amount of deaths in battle (if France’s navy sucked) and the sailors already impressed, it seems like they would not have needed to continue the impressment of new sailors. Was the impressment of U.S. citizens intentional despite their claims to the contrary? How did they decide who was British? Did the blockade of the U.S. before it ended or the impressment of non-British citizens do the British any good? Did the British force all British sailors into service, whether they were on American ships, British ships or on land? If not, why? What about British citizens who were not sailors? Were Canadians, sailors or not, impressed as well? What percentage of British sailors on warships were non-British citizens being impressed? Were there any mutinies or sabotage by impressed sailors? Did they limit impressed sailors access to weapons? Thank you very much.
Yeah, we won the Creek War, which is one of the reasons Hickey says the Indians in the U.S. were the biggest losers of all. We definitely beat them.
Do you mean Britain’s war-related ambitions? Or did Britain have its eyes on the port anyway?
At any rate:
Yes. We won some battles in the war.
Yes there were other consequences that proved beneficial. Nationalism, need for standing army was underscored, navy was proven competent, are some examples.
But
We didn’t get what we came for. And we came very close to disaster.
Seems like every Indian-inflicted casualty was viewed as severe. They were “savages” after all.
That’s pretty much it. Although, you might say they were trying to avoid a different war. The British felt they had no choice but to continue their maritime policies. And indeed, the British (as opposed to Canadian colonists) viewed the war as a footnote to the War of 1812. Hickey quotes one British scholar as saying it was “the always peripheral American conflict,” and Roosevelt as saying in 1900, that Britain “knows little or nothing about the war.”
Indian policy was far less relevant to the Napoleonic Wars, and it wasn’t worth the cost of assisting the Indians against the U.S.
I don’t think they were “worried.” They just didn’t want to have to devote money, troops, and weapons to defend the Indians. It’s not as if they saw that war as a threat–more of a distraction to be avoided.
Berton points out that it was sort of hard to tell them apart. They looked alike, and spoke the same language and all.
Please feel free to ignore any or all of the following questions, especially if they would be time consuming to answer. Anything that is answered does not have to be in order or in complete sentences and yes or no would suffice for some questions.
Instead of answering these questions I’ll refer you to a couple of good resources:
I think there was a fair bit of ‘if you’re not with us you’re against us’ attitude floating around. France was trying to destroy England by strangling its trade - now the French navy couldn’t do much but French privateers could, and the French army could and did do a lot to prevent continental Europe from trading with England. So, if a third party is (A) trading with the enemy, and (B) sheltering Royal Navy deserters in their merchant marine, what do you think an appropriate course of action would be? Think like a superpower that doesn’t much care what others think of it, but only about its own interests. You know, like a modern American. I kid! (sorta)
There are two issues wrt to impressment. The first is that the RN claimed that there were RN deserters on US merchant vessels. Most likely there were some. The RN believed that in order to cut down on manpower losses through desertion, they needed to be able to drag these guys back into service and make examples of them. The second issue is that they were just chronically short on manpower, especially trained manpower. If you’ve read Forrester or O’Brian, you’ll know that captains of the day were responsible for obtaining the crew for their ship. The primary tool for doing this was the press gang, where the crew (those that could be trusted not to desert) would go ashore and abduct anyone they could find who looked like they might have some sailing ability (or even not, if they were desperate) and induct them into service. If a captain was ordered to put to sea before he had sufficient crew, it is unlikely that he would concern himself overmuch with the nationality of the crew of a ship he was stopping when he pressed some of them in order to fill out his crew. This is essentially what the RN meant when it said the pressing of Americans was “unintentional”. It wasn’t RN policy to do so, but it placed its captains under great stress to obtain crewmembers, and those captains had varying scruples about whether American citizens might be obliged to serve on board His Majesty’s ships.
Losses in battle weren’t particularly relevant. The vast majority of losses were to illness and accidents, followed by desertions. Blockading France was no trivial task when added to the everyday demands of supporting the Empire, especially when it was necessary to maintain sufficient concentrations of force to respond should the French fleet put to sea and elude the blockade squadrons (as happened prior to Trafalgar). The French navy was poorly led and trained compared to the Royal Navy, but its ships were as good or better, and couldn’t be taken lightly. Moreover, the threat wasn’t just from the French navy but from French privateers, who generally weren’t poorly led and trained, and who were sufficient threat to British shipping to cause considerable concern. During the Napoleonic War, the RN vastly increased not only its numbers of commissioned ships of the line and frigates, but also smaller vessels (sloops, mostly) to act as escorts and pirate/privateer chasers. All those ships required a lot of manpower, especially trained manpower, and there just weren’t enough experienced sailors to go around.
I’m not sure about most of this. Precisely who would have been impressed would have depended greatly on how desperate a particular captain was for more crew. I believe there were a few mutinies during the time period, including one large scale mutiny in the Channel Fleet (?) if my memory isn’t playing tricks on me. Sailors in general didn’t have access to weapons, unless you count the main guns. Pikes and cutlesses would be handed out if boarding actions were in the offing, but the Marines onboard were usually the only ones armed.
It’s been a while since I read up on this subject, so some of this might be misremembered and such. Hopefully Gfactor can correct anything needing it.
Hey, random question, what did the Marines do when they weren’t fighting or guarding stuff? Did they have their own duties in sailing the ship, or did they mostly just sit in the corner and play cards?
They drilled, polished their gear, and helped out the sailors (they were regarded by the crew as ignorant of nautical knowledge but useful as extra muscle for simple stuff like pulling on a line).
With regards to impressment of US citizens, note that the British had different ideas about who was subject to impressment (which was a form of the draft). From their point of view, naturalization by some other country of a British-born sailor did not change his birth status as a British subject who could be impressed. There were also numerous real British seamen who obtained false papers of American citizenship, either forgeries or by bribing American consuls in foreign ports. The Royal Navy was well aware of the traffic in false papers and were frequently less than scrupulous in attempting to separate the real from the false. Matters were not helped by the US frequently claiming that even holders of false papers were under US protection. It was as much about the perceived humiliation of being forced to stop and allow the British to inspect their cargoes and crews as anything.
The ambitions were war-related inasmuch as the war gave the British all the excuse they needed to try to seize the city. But if the British had won the Battle of New Orleans I don’t believe they would have readily ceded such a valuable asset back to the US.
In other words, I suspect the British very much coveted a port on the Mississippi, both to control commerce and to facilitate communications (and military alliance) with Indian nations in the American interior. But I don’t think the British would have moved against New Orleans except for the outbreak of the war.
A discussion of the War of 1812 without mention of the Battle of Lake Erie?
For shame. :smack:
But a very nice report, Gfactor!!
I’ve never heard it called a “victory” for the U.S. Indeed, usually the way our effort at “war” is phrased is that, prior to Viet Nam, we had never “lost” a war; it’s the War of 1812 that forces that phraseology for the most part.
It seems we now agree that there were other reasons besides the U.S.'s naval strength for Spain to take us seriously. Cusick says it was the conflict in East Florida during 1812-1814 (at least partially). Wiki says it was Jacskon’s attacks during the First Seminole War (1817-1818) (at least partially). Heck, I bet they are both right, and there are probably many other factors to consider. It’s pretty tough to find a but-for cause for just about any historical event. 
I kid! (sorta)