The little American navy earned
distinction, but it was so small that its successes did not prevent it
from being shut off eventually from the high seas. The military
operations were a succession of blunders both in strategy and in
performance. On the northern frontier a series of incompetent generals
led little armies of half-hearted soldiers to unnecessary defeats or at
best to ineffectual victories; and the most conspicuous military success
was won at New Orleans by the Western pioneers, who had no
constitutional scruples about fighting outside of their own states, and
who were animated by lively patriotic feelings. On the whole, however,
the story makes humiliating reading, not because the national Capital
was captured almost without resistance, or because we were so frequently
beaten, but because our disorganization, the incompetence of the
national government, and the disloyalty of so many Americans made us
deserve both a less successful war and a more humiliating peace.
The chief interest of the second English war for the purpose of this
book is, however, its clear indication of the abiding-place at that time
of the American national spirit.
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