Episode 4.12 The Rest of the War

[Transcript]

Hello, and welcome to America’s First Ladies. I’m your host, Risa Weaver-Enion.

Episode 4.12 The Rest of the War

We left off last week with the dramatic torching of Washington by British Admiral Cockburn and his troops. There’s no question it was a dick move, but the Americans sort of had it coming, after torching the Canadian capital of York. Why was everyone in the 19th century such a firebug?

The fiery destruction of so many buildings in Washington was halted by a thunderstorm that broke out around midnight. It doused many of the flames and prevented the entire city from being engulfed. 

As I mentioned at the end of last week’s episode, James and Dolley kept missing each other at different rendezvous points. They each spent the night of August 24 with friends in Northern Virginia. The next morning, the 25th, James went to the various rendezvous points again, and finally was able to connect with Dolley later that evening. The next day, James rode out again to meet up with General Winder and Secretary of State Monroe, who were in Maryland. By the time he caught up to their last known position in Rockville, they were already on their way to Baltimore to help defend that city. James followed them there, along with Attorney General Rush. He spent the night at the home of a Quaker pacifist and then the next morning, he received the wonderful news that the British were not moving further into Maryland and had in fact withdrawn to their ships in the Chesapeake.

On August 27, James finally re-entered Washington. As a 63-year-old man who had never been of robust health, the previous five days of nonstop riding and worrying had taken quite a toll on him. He spent the night at Attorney General Rush’s house, but counseled Dolley to remain in safety in Virginia. The British had not fully withdrawn from the area, and there was rampant concern that they would march once more on Washington, or other surrounding cities. Alexandria, Virginia had surrendered to the British without a fight, and offered up all their stores of tobacco, flour, and merchandise. 

While he was surveying the damage to the Capitol Building the next day, James ran into William Thornton who informed him that the citizens of Washington were “violently irritated at the thought of our attempting to make any more futile resistance…[and] were preparing to send a deputation to the British commander for the purpose of capitulating.” As James Monroe recorded it, “The President forbade the measure.”

After riding through town and encouraging the citizens not to despair, James went to his and Dolley’s former residence on F Street, where her sister Anna was currently residing with her family. He was surprised, but happy, to find Dolley there. She had decided that her presence in the city and with James was more important than any lingering danger from the British. Because the Madisons were now technically homeless, they decided to live with Anna and Richard Cutts for the time being.

On August 29, James finally did what he should have done long before and fired Secretary of War Armstrong, whom the public largely blamed for the failure to defend Washington. Army officers refused to have anything to do with him, and one went so far as to refuse to shake Armstrong’s hand and denounced him when he showed up at a militia encampment. Secretary of State James Monroe was appointed to serve double-duty as Secretary of War.

There was really no shortage of blame for the debacle. In his book James Madison: A Biography, Ralph Ketcham quotes several sources who lay blame at the feet of various people. Historian Henry Adams wrote that General Winder was incapable “either to organize, fortify, fight or escape. When he might have prepared defences [sic], he acted as scout; when he might have fought, he still scouted; when he retreated, he retreated in the wrong direction; when he fought, he thought only of retreat.”

Historian Leonard White proclaimed that Madison was “irresolute, weak in his judgment of men, unaware of his proper function, and incapable of giving direction to the course of events….[He did not have] what Washington or Hamilton would have instantly supplied, a reasoned conception of function and duty that would have provided an intelligent means of coping with the emergency.”

I won’t go through the litany of blame, but Ralph Ketcham does reserve his highest praise for Dolley, writing, “Dolley Madison, privy to all the President’s anxieties, and as always the leader of the mood of the capital, acted with steady heroism from start to finish.”

The press had a field day with the burning of Washington. The Richmond Enquirer wrote, “The blush of shame, and of rage, tinges the cheek while we say that Washington has been in the hands of the enemy.” The Winchester Gazette wrote, “Poor, contemptible, pitiful, dastardly, wretches! Their heads would be but a poor price for the degradation into which they have plunged our bleeding country.” And the United States Gazette in Philadelphia wanted heads to roll, demanding the resignation of the entire U.S. leadership, and if they refused to resign, “they must be constitutionally impeached and driven with scorn and execration from the seats which they have dishonored and polluted.”

Needless to say, no one resigned. Except Secretary of War Armstrong, and he was pushed out by Madison.

Rebuilding the President’s House and the Capitol Building was obviously going to be a long-term project. In the meantime, room was made for Congress to meet inside the Patent Office, which William Thornton had skillfully saved from the British torch. There were even three votes held in Congress to move the capital back to New York or Philadelphia, but all of them failed, and a commitment was made to rebuilding Washington.

Although the British did not return to threaten Washington, they had by no means retreated from U.S. territory. Admiral Cockburn and his fleet sailed into Baltimore harbor in mid-September, aiming to destroy Fort McHenry. A force was sent to take the fort by land, but they were amazingly repelled by state militia. On September 13, Cockburn’s ships opened fire on the fort, firing all night. They fired 1800 shells at Fort McHenry over a period of 24 hours. A Washington lawyer named Francis Scott Key was on board a British ship in the harbor, negotiating a prisoner release. He watched and heard the bombardment of Fort McHenry, and later wrote a poem about bombs bursting in air, and the American flag still flying high over the fort, even after a night of bombardment. You know this poem as the American National Anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.

The bombardment failed, Fort McHenry stood, and the British withdrew. More good news came later in the month from New York: a British force sweeping down toward Albany from Montreal had been rebuffed. 

But the nation had a pressing problem on its hands: how to pay for the ongoing war. Secretary of the Treasury Campbell was in a little over his head, and neither Madison nor Monroe had the financial understanding to steer the Treasury Department. Without getting too bogged down in details, I’ll just say that the country did not have the money to pay for the war for the remainder of 1814, or going into 1815. Congress had failed to re-certify the national bank, and the country needed more than $50 million to meet its demands. That’s almost a billion dollars in today’s money.

With no ideas for how to fix this mess, Secretary Campbell resigned his post at Treasury, causing James to once again reshuffle his cabinet. He had tried to get Philadelphia lawyer Alexander J. Dallas to take over Treasury back when he was forced to let go of Gallatin, but Dallas had refused to serve in the Cabinet with Armstrong. Now that Armstrong was gone, Dallas was happy to accept the post. Monroe wanted to continue as Secretary of War, but James was unable to convince his top choice for State to take the job, so Monroe continued as acting Secretary of State as well. Secretary of the Navy Jones, who had performed admirably during the British threat to Washington, was desperate to retire, so James replaced him with a rare bird: a Republican from New England, Benjamin Crowinshield. Richard Rush remained in place as Attorney General.

James heard from Gallatin, still with the rest of the commission in Europe trying to negotiate peace. Gallatin wrote that the British were hell bent on persisting in war and that the U.S. was unlikely to achieve any of its goals with regard to impressment or other maritime grievances. Now that the Napoleonic Wars in Europe were over, impressment and neutral trade were no longer the problems they had been in the lead up to war between the U.S. and Britain. So on October 4, 1815 [note: I meant 1814], James instructed Gallatin that the maritime demands could be put by the wayside and the negotiators could accept the “status quo ante bellum,” meaning the state of matters and relations before the war.

A few days later though, one of the negotiators, George Dallas, arrived back in the U.S. from Ghent, bearing bad news. When the U.S. and British peace negotiators had first met in August, the British had made demands that effectively treated the U.S. as if it had lost the war. Ralph Ketcham summarizes, “the United States was to cede to Britain most of Maine north of Penobscot Bay, to remove all fortifications and armed vessels from the Saint Lawrence River and Great Lakes, to give up its Newfoundland fishing rights, to acquiesce in an Indian ‘buffer state’ including all the Northwest Territory except southern Ohio, and to yield to Britain a use of the Mississippi that would assure her domination of the Louisiana Territory as well of all lands to the west.”

These terms were unanimously rejected by the U.S. commissioners. James decided to let stand his October 4 orders to accept the status quo ante bellum, and he had both the unacceptable British proposals and his own instructions published, to show the American people what they were up against. Most citizens were as outraged at the unreasonable British demands as the peace commissioners were.

While this was unfolding, Dolley and James were getting used to their new temporary residence. They didn’t stay long at the F Street residence with Anna Cutts and her family. The owner of Octagon House, which was where the French minister had been living, offered the use of the house to the Madisons. There’s no mention of where the French minister relocated in the meantime. And you’ll be glad to know that Dolley was reunited with her pet macaw.

But the Madisons had few personal belongings left after the damage to the President’s House. Everything left behind would have either been burned in the fires or too smoke-damaged to be of use. No one mentions it, but presumably the Madisons had to have clothes and other personal items brought to them from Montpelier. Octagon House was fully furnished and decorated though, so Dolley was able to resume the drawing room receptions not long after the destruction of the President’ House.

Local Washingtonians spearheaded a fundraising drive to raise $500,000 to build new offices for Congress. Within six months, a new brick building went up to house Congress until the Capitol Building could be rebuilt.

On October 17, the secessionist New Englanders, led by Massachusetts, issued a call to what was called the Hartford Convention. Connecticut and Rhode Island accepted, but New Hampshire and Vermont declined. James wrote to a friend, “You are not mistaken in viewing the conduct of the Eastern States as the source of our great difficulties in carrying on the war; as it certainly is the greatest, if not the sole, inducement with the enemy to persevere in it.”

On November 23, Vice President Elbridge Gerry died of a lung hemorrhage while on his way to the Senate. Fun fact: James Madison is the only president (at least so far) to have two vice presidents die while serving with him. The Federalists did not mince words about what should happen next. One wrote, “If Mr. President Madison would resign, now that Mr. Gerry is no more, a president of the Senate might be chosen, who would…do honor to the nation. We however can hardly hope that Mr. Madison will have the magnanimity to give up his place.”

A Federalist newspaper outright hoped that Madison would also die, writing that many people wished he “was quietly asleep with the late vice president.” Yikes. Good thing the Sedition Act had been repealed.

Toward the end of the year, word came from Ghent, in present-day Belgium, where peace negotiations were taking place, that the British were still making unreasonable demands, but that they were showing some signs of conciliating. Remember, it usually takes a minimum of four weeks for news to cross the Atlantic Ocean, so everyone is always operating with out-of-date information. It’s not a great way to handle peace negotiations, or anything else.

Now we need to go back in time a little bit to catch up on something I’ve mostly been ignoring up until now, but can no longer put off discussing. And that’s what was going on in the Floridas. To refresh your memory, East Florida was essentially the peninsula portion of modern Florida, while West Florida included the panhandle of modern Florida and the Gulf Coast all the way across to New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana were not states yet, and the land area that would later become those states was controlled by some combination of the Spanish, Native American tribes, and American settlers.

In the late autumn of 1814, the destination of a large British fleet that had been massing in the Atlantic was finally known. They had gathered at Jamaica for an assault on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. I’m going to quote Ralph Ketcham extensively here, because he sums up pretty nicely what you need to know.

“Luckily, the war on the southern frontier had recently taken a turn for the better, under the forceful Tennessean Andrew Jackson. Though American forces in 1812 and 1813 had wrested Mobile in the west and Amelia Island in the east from the weak, almost nominal authority of Spain, by mid-1813 Federalist cries of aggression against a nation not at war with the United States, and fears that invasion of Florida would hinder Russian mediation efforts, caused the administration to back off. Amelia Island was abandoned, and Jackson’s forces, mobilized to take Pensacola, were halted. 

Jackson found full employment for his mixed army, including units led by Davy Crockett and Sam Houston, however, against the Creek Indians who had, at Tecumseh’s urging, raised the tomahawk against the United States. Jackson revenged an Indian massacre at Fort Mims with a bloody victory at Horseshoe Bend, and by the summer of 1814 was a major general in the regular army with full authority in the Southwest. He had conquered the Creeks and forced them to sign a treaty ceding most of the present state of Alabama to the United States. 

Respected, and thought by his troops to be invincible, Jackson ignored Spanish nonbelligerence and proceeded to reinforce Mobile and neutralize Pensacola, thus dooming the last hope of the Indians for foreign support and thwarting British attempts to install themselves along the Gulf Coast.

Though still nervous that Jackson’s forays in Spanish territory would impede peace negotiations in Europe, Madison and Monroe nonetheless admired his boldness and began sending men and supplies down the Mississippi to arm Jackson for the British attack known in November 1814 to be aimed at New Orleans. By the end of the year the splendid British army was ashore a few miles from New Orleans, and Jackson gathered his forces and fortified the city to meet it. The fate of the entire Mississippi valley was at stake.”

The end of year holidays as 1814 became 1815 were hardly celebratory in the Madison household. Dolley wrote the day after Christmas that “the prospect of Peace, appears to get darker and darker. …[Britain] will not make Peace unless they are obliged to, and it is their policy to protract [the negotiations] as long as they can.” Three days later Congress rejected proposals to increase federal control over the state militia, and Dolley wrote, “I will yet hope we may have no more war—[but] if we do alass alass we are not making ready as we ought to do—Congress trifle away the most precious of their days—days that ought to be devoted to the defence [sic] of their divided country.”

Furthermore, a fever was raging through Washington and surrounding areas, and Dolley was worried, as always, about James’s health. Dolley wrote that James “has not been well since we came to this house and our servants are constantly sick, owing to the damp cellar to which they are confined.”

And on top of that, the Madisons had heard from Gallatin that Payne Todd was living extravagantly in Europe, gambling and frittering away money—Madison’s money, I might add—left and right.

But in happy news, the Madisons acquired a new niece and nephew when Dolley’s sister Anna Cutts gave birth to a girl, and her sister Lucy Todd gave birth to a boy.

More good-ish news followed on January 9, 1815, when word came that the Hartford Convention had not voted to secede from the Union after all. They had merely issued angry denunciations of the war, resolved on some proposed amendments, and decided to call another convention in June if the war hadn’t ended by then.

Speaking of the war, we get ourselves into a bit of chronological difficulty here because some momentous things have already taken place and are about to take place, but Madison and everyone else in Washington find out about them well after the fact, thanks to the slowness of travel in the 1800s.

On December 24, 1814, the peace commissioners in Ghent signed a treaty with the British. Three days later, it was signed by the Prince Regent on behalf of the British government and sent off to the U.S.

On January 8, 1815, Andrew Jackson and his troops fought the British in a decisive battle, known to history as the Battle of New Orleans. The British had no choice but to make a frontal assault, and Jackson’s army rained down artillery and rifle fire on them. By the end of the battle, at only 8:30 in the morning, the British had 700 dead, 1400 wounded, and 500 captured. In comparison, the U.S. had only seven dead and six wounded. One observer wrote that “the dead and wounded [British] were many of them perforated by from two to four Rifle Balls.” As Ralph Ketcham writes, “Jackson’s careful preparation, plus the British troops’ brave disdain for death, learned in nearly ten years fighting Napoleon, had resulted in a carnage never before known on an American battlefield.”

Ralph Ketcham also describes the Battle of New Orleans as “the most important triumph of American arms since Yorktown….For Madison, the result not only rescued his administration from despond [sic] and disgrace but also achieved a goal he had sought for thirty-five years. Since he had written to John Jay during the dark days of the revolution that ‘the clear indications of nature and providence, and the general good of mankind’ dictated that American settlers should have free use of the Mississippi, Madison had worked for American possession of New Orleans and the great valley it controlled. Now, with Spain prostrate, France conquered, and Britain utterly defeated at the very gates of New Orleans itself, 150 years of strife and changing control had ended: the red sea of British dead created by the fire of Jackson’s men dramatically and finally underscored American possession of the Western empire.”

News of Jackson’s victory did not reach Washington until February 4, almost a month after the battle took place. And then hot on its heels, a copy of the peace treaty arrived in Washington on February 14. James was at home at Octagon House when the messenger arrived with the treaty. He and his Cabinet members pored over the treaty in detail, as a crowd gathered outside. They had followed the messenger, assuming he must have news from Europe. Dolley invited everyone who would fit into Octagon House and began serving drinks while they waited. When word finally came that the peace treaty was acceptable, the house burst into celebration.

One man who was there later wrote, “The most conspicuous person in the room…was Mrs. Madison herself, then in the meridian of life and queenly beauty. No one could doubt who beheld the radiance of joy which lighted up her countenance and diffused its beam all around that all uncertainty was at an end and the government of the country had in very truth passed from gloom to glory. With a grace all her own, to her visitors she reciprocated heartfelt congratulations upon the glorious and happy change in the aspects of public affairs.”

The Senate ratified the treaty unanimously, and on February 17, 1815, James declared that the war was over. The War of 1812. Which lasted for more than two and a half years.

Technically, the United States gained nothing from the peace treaty. It really did return the parties to the status quo as it existed before the war. The British did not cede any Canadian territory to the U.S.; they did not pay any restitution for the burning of Washington; all American territory occupied by British forces was to be restored to the U.S.; Britain recognized American rights on the Mississippi River, the Great Lakes and the Newfoundland fishing banks; and the British policy of impressment, the thing that Madison and his administration claimed was the main reason to go to war in the first place, was unaddressed. Sure, it was a moot point at the moment, because the Napoleonic Wars had ended. But honestly, war between Britain and France could have broken out again at almost any moment, given their history.

But the main thing the treaty accomplished was to show Britain that the U.S. wasn’t going to be bullied or pushed around. There’s a reason some people refer to the War of 1812 as the Second War of American Independence. Britain hadn’t taken the U.S. seriously as a country since the treaty ending the Revolution in 1783. No one had taken them seriously. But now, after facing down multiple secession threats, having three successful transfers of executive power, and defeating the biggest military in the world—twice—the rest of the world was finally ready to admit that the United States was a player. And that’s what the War of 1812 accomplished.

Speaking of Britain and France at war, they were back at it before the ink on the Treaty of Ghent was even dry. Napoleon, who had been exiled to the island of Elba, escaped, raised an army, and marched on Paris in March 1815. The British and their allies rallied once again, defeated Napoleon again at the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, and Napoleon was exiled again, this time to St. Helena, and put under guard. This is what’s known to history as the 100 Days. After the Second Treaty of Paris was signed on November 20, the Napoleonic Wars were over. Again. For real this time.

With a signed peace treaty out of the way, the Madisons could finally make an extended getaway to Montpelier. But first, James reshuffled his Cabinet yet again. James Monroe stepped down as Secretary of War and went back to just being Secretary of State. But the War department was turned over to Treasury Secretary Dallas, so there was still one Cabinet member pulling double-duty. John Quincy Adams was named minister to Great Britain. Albert Gallatin was named minister to France. Andrew Jackson was permanently commissioned as a major general, and James named a commission to reorganize the army.

With these moves out of the way, the Madisons left Washington on March 21. In April, James traveled from Montpelier to see Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. Jefferson was donating books from his library to replace the Library of Congress, which had been lost when the British burned the Capitol. The two bookworms presumably had a grand old time reviewing books to be included in the new library.

Apart from a six-week visit to Washington in June and July that summer, the Madisons spent the bulk of their time from March to September in the countryside. They were much chagrined in September when they learned that Payne Todd had racked up debts of $6500 in Europe—that’s almost $137,000 in today’s money. He also had borrowed $1500 from his uncle, Richard Cutts. James was forced to cover Payne’s expenses, a slow drain that would continue for the rest of his life.

Back in Washington in October 1815, Dolley and other high profile women of the city founded what was then known as the City Orphan Asylum. It was a charitable organization designed to house, clothe, and educate needy children. Dolley was the first president’s wife to take on a charitable endeavor like this, and it set a precedent that many First Ladies would follow over the next two centuries. The name was changed to Hillcrest Children’s Village in 1935, and it’s still in operation in Washington, D.C. today.

In his annual message to Congress at the end of 1815, James urged Congress to address military concerns, completing works of defense, developing naval armaments, enlarging the military academy at West Point, and ensuring the proper staffing of the army. He also hinted that he would support a plan that hadn’t yet been presented to Congress to reinstate the national bank, which could have been so useful during the war. 

One visitor to the Madisons’ residence in late 1815 found them enjoying a family dinner complete with Champagne. No doubt every day was cause for celebration after surviving the trials and tribulations of the past few years.

Next week, we’ll pick up in 1816 to cover the final year of James’s presidency, and their retirement to Montpelier, this time, for good.

Thanks for listening to this episode. It was produced by me, and the music is by Matt Dull. Don’t forget to leave a rating or review in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Thanks!