A History of the American People

flatly refused to send their militias at all. New England did not exactly sit on its hands: it
invested its money in London securities and did a good business selling supplies to the British
forces. In return, the British declined to impose a blockade on New England, or even on New
York until the end of the war. By that stage two-thirds of the beef consumed by the British Army
was supplied from south of the border, chiefly Vermont and New York State.
The forces Madison dispatched on his march' turned out to be a rabble. The militiamen had done well, in the Revolutionary War, defending their own homes, but outside their native districts their amateurishness became evident. They had no discipline. Every man selected his own ground to pitch a tent. No pickets were posted, no patrols sent out at night. Both the militiamen and the volunteers, who had somewhat stricter terms of service, believed they had no legal duty to fight outside United States territory and at first refused to cross the border. A rumor spread among the Volunteers that, if they did so, they automatically became liable for five years' service. Many had never met Indian fighters before and were terrified of them, believing they tortured and massacred their prisoners. News of Indians in the vicinity led to wholesale desertions and even mutinies. The senior officers were hopeless. Major-General Stephen van Rensselaer of the New York Militia came from one of the oldest Dutch families, had inherited 150,000 acres, let to 900 tenant farmers each with 150 acres under crops, and was known asThe
Patroon,' being Eighth in succession.' Grandee he may have been but his men refused to follow him into danger, and his attack from Niagara ended in ignominy. At Frenchdown, General James Winchester contrived to get himself defeated and surrounded, and surrendered his whole army, such as it was. Casualties from Indian attacks, disease, and exposure due to inadequate clothing and tents were high. The generals blamed each other. General Peter B. Porter accused General Alexander Smyth, in the pages of the Buffalo Gazette, of arrant cowardice. They fought a comic-opera duel on Grand Island: no one was hurt but their buffoonery disgusted their men. Smyth was mobbed and his shortcomings posted on handbills. The militias often fought each other with more enthusiasm than they tackled the British. In the camp at Black Rock, Irish Greens from New York waged a pitched battle with the Southern Volunteers, and both turned on the regular troops sent to separate them. The civilian public jeered. The US Light Dragoons, raised in 1808 with the initials USLD on their caps, were brandedUncle Sam's Lady Dogs.' By the end of 1813 the
invasion of Canada had been effectively abandoned and the British were occupying a large part
of Maine.
Madison's forces did better at sea. On the Great Lakes, Oliver Hazard Perry (1785-1819) of
Rhode Island built up an efficient little fleet and fought a battle with the British on Lake Erie on
September 10, 1813. The Lawrence, his flagship, was so badly damaged that he had himself
rowed to the Niagara, from which he continued the fight until the British squadron surrendered.
Afterwards he sent a famous victory dispatch, celebrated for its brevity: We have met the enemy and they are ours.' On the high seas, American warships, both regulars and privateers, benefited enormously from the fact that their officers were appointed and promoted entirely on merit-one genuine advantage of republicanism-rather than oninterest,' as in the Royal Navy. The US ships
had all-volunteer crews, too, as opposed to press-ganged British ships. In 1813 and still more in
1814 American privateers did immense damage to British shipping in the western approaches to
the British Isles. In an address to the crown, Glasgow merchants, who handled the bulk of the
American tobacco trade, complained: `In the short space of two years, above 800 vessels have
been taken by that power whose maritime strength we have hitherto held in contempt.' It is true
that the British could play the same game with American coastal shipping. Captain Marryat, later