Historical Sketch of the Second War Between the United States of America and Great Britain; Declared by Act of Congress, the 18th of June, 1812, and Concluded by Peace, the 15th of February, 1815 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1849 Excerpt: ...how impossible it was to lose, how simple and easy to gain the day. To this hour, that national disgrace is still the subject there of angry and irreconcilable party and personal recrimination. The President, who survived to be a shrine of general reverence, was then a driveller beneath contempt, till victory elsewhere and peace crowned his administration with revived and enduring favor. The sarcastic Secretary of War, as soon as the conquerors withdrew to their ships, accused of treason, was driven away bv what he called a village mob, and not suffered even to resign at Washington, but advised by the President, and forced by popular indignation, to fly to Baltimore to do it. General Winder was reprobated as a federalist and a fool; brave men were stigmatized as cowards; each detachment of the army accused the other of misbehavior; and the blasting catastrophe has left till now, 1848, such incurable wounds of vanity and shame, that, when gleaning from survivors, from simultaneous recollections, official documents, public journals and all other sources of authentic belief, it is still difficult, if not impossible, to find an impartial person or proof, or settle on the truth. Even that eternal cause of American misintelligence, presidential aspirations, the other also sempiternal jealousy between north and south, conspire to aggravate a remembrance of homes destroyed and reputations disparaged; for Monroe was then the prominent candidate to succeed Madison, and Armstrong's northern adherents began to claim his better northern right to that overvalued succession; so that angry publications, even while I write, still emit contradictory statements, which it is impossible to reconcile and difficult to explain. Congress could not ascertain the truth. Within a week...