Conclusions
What conclusions are suggested from the preparation of the Left Division? Certainly it is a criticism of Republican military policy with its dependence upon mixed forces of regulars, volunteers, and militia. It took Scott ten weeks to train an army capable of defeating British regulars. Of what use, then, are ninety-day militia or even six-month volunteers? The 1814 campaign is a scathing indictment of the Madison Administration which, even after two years of wartime experience, could barely marshal the national resources sufficiently to feed, equip, arm, and supply a fairly small army operating less than twenty miles across the national border.
The laurel earned by the Left Division were made possible largely by the genius of Brown and Scott. Brown melded a heterogeneous group of militia, regulars, and natives, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, into a winning army. Scott, for his part, demonstrated unparalleled skill for a young brigadier. He knew what had to be done and how to do it. Moreover, he was determined, even ruthless, in doing it right.
Fortunately for the nation, both Brown and Scott were given positions of authority in the Army over the next several decades and they continued to professionalize the peacetime Army, a process begun in Buffalo in 1814.
Footnotes
[1] Jefferson to Duane, 4 August 1812, Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, reel 46.
To Prepare an Army Buffalo 1814
[2] There is no scholarly biography of Jacob Brown. A popular work is Frank B. Latham's Jacob Brown and the War of 1812, New York: Cowles Book Co., 1971. See also Fletcher Pratt, "Sword of the Border," Infantry Journal 44 (September-October 1937):387-93. Scott's first biographers were laudatory and uncritical. They perpetuated the myth Scott himself initiated in his autobiography. See Memoirs of Lieutenant General Scott, L.L.D., New York: Sheldon, 1864. I refer readers to the two most recent book-length biographies: Arthur D.H. Smith, Old Fuss and Feathers, New York: Greystone, 1937, and Charles Winslow Elliott, Winfield Scott: The Soldier and the Man, New York: MacMillan, 1937.
[3] Ripley was one of the few officers whose careers did not profit from their participation in the 1814 Campaign. Ripley's book length biography, written by his nephew, is uncritical; see Nicholas Baylies Eleazar Wheelock Ripley, Des Moines: Brewster and Company, 1890. A balanced and generally sympathetic essay is J. Michael Quill's entry in Roger Spiller, ed. Dictionary of American Military Biography, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 3:916-9.
[4] Recruiting records were submitted to the War Department late or not at all and the Secretary of the Army, John Armstrong, was not aware that discharges were exceeding enlistments in the spring of 1814. Armstrong's understanding of the recruiting effort and the strength of the Army is found in several documents. See Executive Department Document, "A Report of the Army, its Strength and Distribution," American State Papers: Military Affairs 1:535; Executive Department Document, Army Paymaster to the House, "Bounties and Premiums for Recruits," ASP:MA 1:511; and Executive Department Document, Secretary of War to the Senate, "Return of Enlistments," ASP:MA1:519-20.
[5] Tompkins to Armstrong, 2 January 1814, Madison Papers, Library of Congress, reel 15. See also Tompkins's General Order, 13 March 1814, Public Papers of Daniel D. Tompkins: 1807-1817 (military), 3 vols., New York: Wynkoop, Hollenbeck, Crawford, 1898, 2:478.
[6] A biographical sketch of Red Jacket is found in Benson Lossing, The Pictorial Fieldbook of the War of 1812, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1868; reprint ed., Somersworth, New Hampshire: New Hampshire Publishing Co., 1976, p.802. The evolving tale of the split within the Iroquois Nation is pieced together from several sources. I refer readers to The Journal of John Norton, 1816, ed., Carl F. Klinck and James J. Talman, Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1970. Norton was war chief and political leader of the Grand River Indians during the war. Accounts of Iroquois conferences, as reported by Indian agents, are found in Niles' Register on 17 and 26 September and 3 October 1812. An interesting overview touching upon diplomacy and the organization of Iroquois fighting units is Arthur C. Parker "The Senecas in the War of 1812," New York State Historical Association Proceedings 15 (1916):78-90. Parker, himself descended from a Seneca veteran of the war, provides insights of Seneca motivation in allying themselves with the Americans.
[7] The archival material on the Canadian Volunteers has been extensively searched and several scholarly articles have dealt comprehensively with the corps and its leaders. I recommend that the interested reader begin with Ernest A. Cruikshank "A Study of Disaffection in Upper Canada in 1812-15," from The defended Border, Morris Zaslow, ed., Toronto: the MacMillan Co. of Canada, 1964. Donald E. Graves reconstructs the operational history of the corps in "The Canadian Volunteers, 1813-1815," in Military Collector and Historian 31 (Fall 1979):113-7. Also useful is A.H.U. Colquhoun, "The Career of Joseph Willcocks," The Canadian Historical Review 7 (December 1926):287-93.
[8] Brown's General Order, 7 April 1814, Izard's Order Book, Manuscript Collection, Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society (hereafter BECHS).
[9] Scott to Brown, 17, 22 and 23 May 1814, Scott and Brown Papers, microfilm collection, BECHS.
[10] The Scott legend is skillfully examined by Donald E. Graves in his essay "'I Have a Handsome Little Army...' A Re-examination of Winfield Scott's Camp at Buffalo in 1814," from War Along the Niagara, R. Arthur Bowler, ed., Youngstown, New York: Old Fort Niagara Association, 1991.
[11] Scott's General Order of 22 April 1814, Izard's Order Book.
[12] Scott, Memoirs, p.119.
[13] There are two particularly illuminating essays on American tactical doctrine. The first is Theodore J. Crackel's chapter on the Battle of Queenston Heights in America's First Battles. Crackel concludes that the U.S. Army entered the war with no standard drill manual nor a consensus of opinion as to which of several drill manuals was best suited for America's needs. The second scholarly work is Donald E. Graves's "Dry Books of Tactics: U.S. Infantry Manuals of the War of 1812 and After," Military Collector and Historian 38 (Summer 1986):51-61 and (Fall 1986):173-7. Graves concludes that the U.S. Army began the war with two official drill manuals but by March 1813 these were replaced by a third manual as the sanctioned drill system.
[14] The characteristics and limitations of black powder weapons largely determined tactics of the day. The reader is referred to two worthwhile sources. The first is James E. Hicks "United States Military Shoulder Arms, 1795-1935, Part I. The smoothbore flintlock as a military arm." The Journal of the American Military History Foundation 1 (Spring 1937):22-33. The second is Peter Hofschroer's "Flintlocks in Battle," Military Illustrated: Past and Present 1 (June-July 1986):30-5.
[15] Scott's General Order, 22 April 1814, Izard's Order Book.
[16] Scott's General Orders of 1, 7, 25, and 29 May and his Brigade Orders of 17 and 23 June 1814, Izard's Order Book.
[17] Scott's General Orders, 31 May, and 3 and 4 June 1814, Izard's Order Book. An eye witness account of the executions at Buffalo is found in Howard to wife Sarah, 8 June 1814, George Howard Papers, BECHS. See also the diary of Jarvis Frary Hanks in Lester W. Smith ed., "A Drummer Boy in the War of 1812," Niagara Frontier 7 (Summer 1960):53-62.
[18] Scott to Brown, 23 May 1814, Brown and Scott Papers, BECHS.
[19] Porter to Brown, 25 May and two letters on 8 June 1814, Brown and Scott Papers, BECHS; Brown to Armstrong, 30 May 1814, Armstrong to Brown, 9 June 1814, and Brown to Porter, 11 June 1814, Brown's Orderly Book, manuscript collection, BECHS.
By mid-June, Porter's brigade consisted of a company of mounted riflemen and a single understrength regiment of infantry. This was far short of Tompkins' vision of a twenty-seven hundred man brigade. Largely for lack of equipment, even this reduced force came onto active duty too late to benefit by Scott's training program at Buffalo. The infantry regiment arrived at Buffalo after the two regular brigades of the Left Division had already crossed into Canada.
[20] Fenton to Scott, 3 May 1814, Brown and Scott Papers, BECHS; and Scott to Brown, 23 May 1814, Brown Collection of the Clements Library. The tale of the Pennsylvania Regiment is told in two memoirs. The first is by the commander himself. See James Fenton's Journal of the Military Tour by the Pennsylvania Troops and Militia Under the Command of Col. James Fenton, to the Frontiers of Pennsylvania and New York, Carlisle, Pennsylvania: George Kline, 1814. The other is by a captain in the regiment. See Samuel White, History of the American Troops, During the Late War, Under Command of Colonel's Fenton and Campbell, Baltimore, B. Edes, 1830.
[21] Porter to Tompkins, 3 May 1814, Ernest A. Cruikshank, ed., Documentary History of the Campaign on the Niagara Frontier in 1814, Welland, Ontario: Lundy's Lane Historical Society, 1896, pp.13-4; Scott to Brown, 23 May 1814, Brown Collection of the Clements Library; Brown to Armstrong, 3 June 1814, Brown's Orderly Book; Daniel J. Glenney, "An Ethnohistory of the Grand River Iroquois and the War of 1812," master's thesis, University of Guelph, 1973, pp.132-3; Parker, "Senecas in the War of 1812," pp.89-90; and Carl Benn, "Iroquois Warfare," War Along the Niagara, p.63.
[22] Graves, "I Have a Handsome Little Army...", p.49.
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