III.

The Opposing Forces

A.

American Strengths

The United States government had few military resources with which to fight a major war. Its British opponent ranked as the world’s greatest maritime power, but the U.S. Navy did not possess a single ship of the line, as battleships of the day were called. In fact, the Americans had only eight frigates and eight smaller seagoing warships. In addition, the government had made no naval preparations along the most strategically important of the waterways bordering Canada—Lakes Champlain, Ontario, and Erie.

The U.S. Navy did have the advantage of a competent officer corps, experienced in command at sea. Its best leaders were veterans of the successful wars of 1801 to 1805 against the Barbary Coast pirates, North African raiders who had preyed on U.S. merchant ships in the Mediterranean. American seamen were of high caliber, and the thorough training they received in handling guns was far ahead of contemporary British standards.

As hostilities loomed, Congress authorized a regular army of 35,000 men, but when the United States officially declared war in June 1812, the actual land force was less than 10,000 and nearly half of these soldiers were raw recruits. The existing troops were also widely scattered in small garrisons. The government planned to supplement this regular force with 50,000 volunteers and 100,000 militiamen, the latter to be provided by the states. However, opposition to the war was so strong in New England that the governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut refused to call up their militia in response to President Madison's request for troops.

A number of competent officers served in the army, including 71 graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, established just ten years earlier. However, the majority of the officers on duty were newly commissioned and lacked experience. Early in 1812, in anticipation of hostilities, President Madison hastily appointed two major generals and three brigadier generals to lead the preparations for war. All were veterans of the American Revolution (1775-1783), but most had compiled only mediocre combat records and had long since left military service. The senior brigadier general on the staff, James Wilkinson, had faced accusations of treason along with former vice president Aaron Burr in 1807, but was later acquitted. Wade Hampton of South Carolina, the most competent of the new generals, had developed a contempt for Wilkinson that eventually overshadowed his own military abilities. The three generals who most distinguished themselves in high command during the war, Andrew Jackson, Jacob Brown, and William Henry Harrison, all held state militia commissions in 1812.

B.

British Strength

In June 1812 British naval forces were considerably superior to the forces of the U.S. Navy, but the British were focused on a variety of missions elsewhere, most notably the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. As a result, American warships enjoyed comparative freedom of action during the rest of that year. On Lakes Erie and Ontario the British quickly outfitted available merchant vessels with guns and gained initial command of the waters. The British land force in Canada numbered about 7000 men, with about 1500 of these soldiers stationed in Upper Canada in the region of the Great Lakes. The remainder of the British forces patrolled the Maritime Provinces and the St. Lawrence Valley.