When President Madison summoned Congress in 1811 war was the main topic of debate. Yet all he had to say about the Navy was contained in twenty-seven lukewarm words. Congress followed the presidential lead. The momentous naval vote of 1812 provided for an expenditure of six hundred thousand dollars, which was to be spread over three consecutive years and strictly limited to buying timber. Then, on the outbreak of war, the government, consistent to the last, decided to lay up the whole of their sea-going navy lest it should be captured by the British.
But this final indignity was more than the Navy could stand in silence. Some senior officers spoke their minds, and the party politicians gave way. The result was a series of victories which, of their own peculiar kind, have never been eclipsed. Not one American ship-of-the-line was ever afloat during the war; and only twenty-two frigates or smaller naval craft put out to sea. In addition, there were the three little flotillas on Lakes Erie, Ontario, and Champlain; and a few minor vessels elsewhere. All the crews together did not exceed ten thousand men, replacements included. Yet, even with these niggard means, the American Navy won the command of two lakes completely, held the command of the third in suspense, won every important duel out at sea, except the famous fight against the Shannon, inflicted serious loss on British sea-borne trade, and kept a greatly superior British naval force employed on constant and harassing duty.
The American Privateers. Besides the little Navy, there were 526 privately owned vessels which were officially authorized to prey on the enemy's trade. These were manned by forty thousand excellent seamen and had the chance of plundering the richest sea-borne commerce in the world. They certainly harassed British commerce, even in its own home waters; and during the course of the war they captured no less than 1344 prizes. But they did practically nothing towards reducing the British fighting force afloat; and even at their own work of commerce-destroying they did less than one-third as much as the Navy in proportion to their numbers.
The American Army. The Army had competed with the Navy for the lowest place in Jefferson's Inaugural of 1801. 'This is the only government where every man will meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern … A well-disciplined militia is our best reliance for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them.' The Army was then reduced to three thousand men. 'Such were the results of Mr. Jefferson's low estimate of, or rather contempt for, the military character,' said General Winfield Scott, the best officer the United States produced between '1812' and the Civil War. In 1808 'an additional military force' was authorized. In January 1812, after war had been virtually decided on, the establishment was raised to thirty-five thousand. But in June, when war had been declared, less than a quarter of this total could be called effectives, and more than half were still wanting to complete.' The grand total of all American regulars, including those present with the colours on the outbreak of hostilities as well as those raised during the war, amounted to fifty-six thousand. Yet no general had six thousand actually in the firing line of any one engagement.
The United States Volunteers. Ten thousand volunteers were raised, from first to last. They differed from the regulars in being enlisted for shorter terms of service and in being generally allowed to elect their own regimental officers. Theoretically they were furnished in fixed quotas by the different States, according to population. They resembled the regulars in other respects, especially in being directly under Federal, not State, authority.
The Rangers. Three thousand men with a real or supposed knowledge of backwoods life served in the war. They operated in groups and formed a very unequal force—good, bad, and indifferent. Some were under the Federal authority. Others belonged to the different States. As a distinct class they had no appreciable influence on the major results of the war.
The Militia. The vast bulk of the American forces, more than three-quarters of the grand total by land and sea, was made up of the militia belonging to the different States of the Union. These militiamen could not be moved outside of their respective States without State authority; and individual consent was also necessary to prolong a term of enlistment, even if the term should come to an end in the middle of a battle. Some enlisted for several months; others for no more than one. Very few had any military knowledge whatever; and most of the officers were no better trained than the men. The totals from all the different States amounted to 456,463. Not half of these ever got near the front; and not nearly half of those who did get there ever came into action at all. Except at New Orleans, where the conditions were quite abnormal, the militia never really helped to decide the issue of any battle, except, indeed, against their own army. 'The militia thereupon broke and fled' recurs with tiresome frequency in numberless dispatches. Yet the consequent charges of cowardice are nearly all unjust. The fellow-countrymen of those sailors who fought the American frigates so magnificently were no special kind of cowards. But, as a raw militia, they simply were to well-trained regulars what children are to men.
American Non-Combatant Services. There were more than fifty thousand deaths reported on the American side; yet not ten thousand men were killed or mortally wounded in all the battles put together. The medical department, like the commissariat and transport, was only organized at the very last minute, even among the regulars, and then in a most haphazard way. Among the militia these indispensable branches of the service were never really organized at all.
Such disastrous shortcomings were not caused by any lack of national resources. The population o the United States was about eight millions, as against eighteen millions in the British Isles. Prosperity was general; at all events, up to the time that it was checked by Jefferson's Embargo Act. The finances were also thought to be most satisfactory. On the very eve of war the Secretary of the Treasury reported that the national debt had been reduced by forty-six million dollars since his party had come into power. Had this 'war party' spent those millions on its Army and Navy, the war itself might have had an ending more satisfactory to the United States.
Let us now review the forces on the British side.
The eighteen million people in the British Isles were naturally anxious to avoid war with the eight millions in the United States. They had enough on their hands as it was. The British Navy was being kept at a greater strength than ever before; though it was none too strong for the vast amount of work it had to do. The British Army was waging its greatest Peninsular campaign. All the other naval and military services of what was already a world-wide empire had to be maintained. One of the most momentous crises in the world's history was fast approaching; for Napoleon, arch-enemy of England and mightiest of modern conquerors, was marching on Russia with five hundred thousand men. Nor was this all. There were troubles at home as well as dangers abroad. The king had gone mad the year before. The prime minister had recently been assassinated. The strain of nearly twenty years