1812: The Rivers of War

DECEMBER 21, 1814

Ghent, the Low Countries

Glumly, sitting at his writing table in the lodgings he occupied in Ghent, John Quincy Adams studied a copy of the treaty which had finally been arrived at. Only the long and stern habit of a man raised in the puritanical environment of one of New England's premier families kept him from cursing aloud.

Months, he'd spent, slowly persuading the other members of the American delegation that this treaty he had before him was the best the United States could hope for. Months, while the other members of the delegation-Albert Gallatin, Henry Clay, James Bayard, and Jonathan Russell-kept stalling, hoping for some sort of miracle.

What miracle? Adams wondered. The only bright moment had been when news arrived that the British assault on Washington had been driven off, and the Capitol had been spared. Savagely, Adams almost found himself wishing the assault had succeeded-since, from his perspective, it had simply kept Gallatin and Clay and Bayard and Russell suspended in midair for perhaps a month, empty-headed with braggadocio.

Almost… but not quite. Adams was a patriot, and he couldn't deny the deep satisfaction he'd felt when the news had arrived. The same sort of satisfaction he'd felt at the news of the Guerriere 's capitulation, or the news of the battle at the Chippewa.

The problem had been that his fellow envoys simply couldn't understand that such satisfaction was all that the United States could realistically hope to achieve in this war. The conflict with Britain had always been a preposterous exercise, in purely military terms.

It was no doubt a very fine thing for the morale of a young republic to see a handful of plucky American frigates defeating a handful of British frigates. But the cold, hard, cruel strategic fact remained that the tiny U.S. Navy boasted no ships larger than a few 44-gun frigates-and the British Navy had over a hundred two-decker 74-gun ships of the line.

It was no doubt excellent from the standpoint of that same young republic to see-finally!-one of its armies defeat an equal force of British regulars on the open field of battle, as Brown and Scott had done at the Chippewa. But the moral splendor of the feat could not, to a sane man, disguise its triviality in cold military terms. The total forces engaged at the Chippewa had been less than five thousand-a clash which, for the past twenty years on the continent, would have been considered a skirmish rather than a battle.

In the campaign that had finally defeated Napoleon, culminating in the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig, more than half a million men had met on the field.

Splendid, yes-certainly!-the pluck of Captain Houston and Lieutenant Driscol and their men at the Capitol. But what did it really come down to, in the harsh, brutal, realistic terms of political geography? One thousand men armed with a few cannons kept a small invading force with no artillery to speak of from taking Washington, D.C.

Splendid, splendid. No doubt many fine poems and songs would be written to commemorate the event. The fact remained that Napoleon had brought seven hundred field guns to Leipzig-but the Allies had fielded twice that number. Just as the fact remained that no sane man gave even a moment's thought to the possibility that the United States might land an army on British soil to threaten London.

Adams sighed, left off his pointless study of the treaty-he had every clause in it memorized by now-and rose from his desk. Then he moved to a window that faced to the west, toward the Atlantic and his nation beyond.

He was forty-five years old, and had spent many of those years living in Europe. As a student, an assistant to American diplomats-his father among them, before John Adams became the second president of the United States-and then later as a diplomat himself. The son of the second American president had often, as a young man, sat at the dining table with its first, listening carefully to George Washington's shrewd assessments of foreign affairs.

Since then, John Quincy Adams had sat at many other tables with the world's most powerful men, in most of the major capitals of Europe. He'd been, at one time or another, America's ambassador to Britain, France, Holland, Portugal, Prussia, and Russia. He spoke and read French easily and fluently, and had once translated Wieland's Oberon from German into English. He was one of the most well-educated and well-read men in the United States-the world, in fact-and had the personal library to prove it.

All for nothing, quite possibly. Partly, because Gallatin and Clay and Bayard and Russell were fools. Partly-Adams was usually as harsh in his self-criticism as his criticism of others-because John Quincy Adams had never been good at suffering fools gladly. So, over the months, he'd increasingly alienated his fellow envoys, while their light-minded frivolity led their nation into a very possible trap.

Again, he restrained himself from cursing. They could have signed that same treaty months ago. And why not? To this day, the British still refused to concede anything concrete, when it came to the official casus belli the United States had proclaimed as the causes of the war. The issues of impressment, boundaries, fisheries, neutral rights-all ignored or swept under the table. For all practical purposes, the United States was agreeing in that treaty to the same conditions that had existed prior to the war.

And so what? The only possible victory America could have obtained in this conflict was simply the moral victory of going to war in the first place. And that had already been won, long since. The cold equations of national power hadn't been changed an iota, except in the one-often critical-variable of national respect. Whatever else, none of the great European powers would any longer regard the transatlantic republic as something of a bad joke.

Months, it had taken him to convince his fellow envoys. Precious, precious months-while Adams watched anxiously as Britain finally defeated the great French power which had kept it preoccupied for decades and could now send part of its true might across the Atlantic. Months, during which the territorial integrity of the U.S. could have been protected simply by signing the same blasted treaty they were going to sign now anyway.

Months… while the British were able to assemble the powerful task force which now lay somewhere near New Orleans and the critical outlet of the Mississippi. Might even, for all John Quincy Adams knew, already be enjoying a conqueror's feast in the Cabildo. It took weeks for news to cross the Atlantic, even from his native New England, much less the distant Gulf of Mexico.

It was all up to Andrew Jackson, now. Jackson and the same sort of rude, crude, uncouth southern frontiersmen who composed his army.

Sternly, John Quincy Adams reminded himself that he had chosen long ago, exercising his God-given free will, to devote his life to the service of his nation. Knowing from the very beginning-he'd hear no excuses, from himself least of all-that his nation was a republic. It wasn't as if dozens of monarchists hadn't told him for years he was a fool. Some of them had even read as many books as he had.

Not many, of course.

TheRiversofWar