HillsJonathan.htm

SHEAR Conference; Buffalo July 2000

Volunteers for the Republic

An analysis of Peter Buell Porter’s efforts to secure Volunteers in the War of 1812

Jonathan David Hills BA (Hons)

(University of Sunderland)

When the United States declared war upon Great Britain in 1812, it relied on a military establishment diverse in both composition and outlook for the prosecution of the war. At its core lay the regular army, yet an overwhelming majority of Americans considered service in the regular army ideologically intolerable and physically exacting, suitable only for the lowest members of society. Consequently the strength of the regular army was never sufficient for it to assume sole responsibility for the prosecution of the war. To make up this shortfall, the United States was forced to remain reliant upon the mainstay of its peacetime military establishment, the state militias. However, as the subject of this paper, Peter Buell Porter, was all too aware, the militias frequently proved a liability. Writing in 1814, the forty one year old Major General felt confident that every “man of observation” across Western New York, “must by this time be convinced, by repeated practical demonstrations, that little or no effective service is to be expected from the militia”. To Porter, the blame could be levelled against the short enlistment terms of the militiamen and the fact that many units were composed of men who were “complete strangers to each other”. This, as Porter recognised and modern writers on motivation and group cohesion in combat have confirmed, inculcated feelings of mistrust and disillusionment that permeated the whole of the militia’s organisation, having a significant effect on its martial abilities. What was at fault therefore, Porter concluded, were not the men of New York, but the “system”.1

The problems inherent in employing the militias were not unexpected, as the militias’ historical record had long since convinced the federal government to substitute them, wherever possible, with regular soldiers, or federally organized volunteers. At the forefront of this practise was Porter. He had consistently pressed for an enlarged regular army, and when this was not forthcoming, he had proposed in Congress that a force of twenty thousand volunteers be established.2 Porter’s motion was defeated, but a volunteer force that was not to exceed fifty thousand men was approved in June. Envisaged as an alternative to the ordinary militia, the volunteers were to serve as an auxiliary force to the regulars, until such time as the regular army could take full responsibility for the conduct of the war. These volunteer units relied on citizens to organise themselves into companies, recommend their officers to the President and enrol for three years, of which they would serve only one, as a federalised unit.3 However, as Porter was soon to discover, attempts to replace the state militias with volunteers proved fraught with difficulties, for the militia had come to represent for Americans a fundamental tenet of Republican ideology, namely that the safety of the nation must be entrusted to a virtuous citizenry rather than a military elite. Nevertheless, despite these difficulties Porter needed to raise the necessary number of volunteers, a number that rose significantly as that authorised by the 1812 Act soon proved inadequate, forcing both federal and state governments to issue further calls for additional manpower.

As an ardent proponent of the volunteer concept, Porter was obliged, for both personal and national imperatives, to raise the requisite number of men. The whole concept of the volunteers on which Porter had placed such reliance was voluntary formation. Patriotic citizens, encouraged by extra allowances as envisaged by the Volunteer Act of 1812, were expected to willingly associate and form companies, which could then be organised into Regiments and Brigades.4 Typically these units were formed from distinct or associated communities. They were likely to be homogeneous in relation to the men’s occupation, residence and ethnic background. Moreover, whole militia companies or amalgamations of several companies if they so wished, would be engaged as volunteers. These men also enjoyed close ties, for example, the sergeant and six men who volunteered from Captain Earl Fillmore’s company of New York militia, were all residents of Lee, in Oneida County.5 Porter’s involvement with these volunteer units was primarily one of organisation, as he assigned them a position within the army’s existing structure. Crucially, by undertaking such a role, Porter was trying to remove the danger of unregulated and unsanctioned “portions of the militia” being formed into “volunteer corps”.6 Thus when confronted by seventy mounted men who had associated near the head of Seneca Lake in the expectation of being received into the volunteers, Porter was reluctantly forced to dismiss them as he had already raised the authorised number of mounted men.7

This method successfully infused these units with the potential for group cohesion, the benefits of which were clearly needed on the nineteenth century battlefield. However, a disadvantage of this system was that by recruiting the manpower of specific communities into the volunteers, their local priorities would also be transferred. Thus although Porter received word of a “good number of signers” around Batavia, they would only serve immediately after they had got “their corn into the Ground”.8 While the designation under which they operated had changed, these units remained essentially militiamen, with all their attendant defects. This was amply demonstrated by the confusion Porter encountered over whether the volunteers could actually be ordered to cross into Canada.9

Porter soon found that the number of men coming forward of their own volition was inadequate and that unless he took some action the volunteer concept would fail. However, any action had, of necessity, to retain the principle of voluntary service. Porter’s second mechanism exploited the enthusiasm of prominent local individuals such as William R. Rochester, who upon being accepted by Porter and other senior figures as a suitable person, could begin recruiting a company in their own locality.10 Provided that these men attracted enough volunteers for a company, they could obtain a commission.11 This encouraged many prospective officers to seek to recruit a sufficient body of men. Set upon raising enough volunteers, these prospective officers tended to work independently of one another, thus introducing a lack of consistency in the recruiting methodology, for Porter could not adequately supervise this form of recruitment. The inevitable confusion that arose was illustrated when one officer informed Porter that he had had to dismiss thirty recruits, having mistakenly recruited them on the understanding that they would have received a bounty, which was not authorised by the government.12 This wastage of the available manpower was not an isolated case.

A second drawback was the volunteers’ attitude to military discipline. Volunteers shared the militia’s distaste for the army’s disciplinary methods, believing them to be unduly barbaric and degrading. They came to expect that their own officers, rather than requiring from them unquestioning obedience as in the regular army, should exhibit an awareness of their peculiar concerns and requirements. Solomon Mays, a private in the volunteers, thus wrote to Porter in the hope that the General could assist him in securing more adequate clothing.13 It was imperative therefore that Porter should assist the volunteers in obtaining officers that they could trust. Whilst companies that formed of their own volition could select their own officers, Porter exercised considerable influence over the appointment of officers for the volunteer units. In so doing his principal criterion was that they must be a “popular person”.14 This was a vital consideration, for even Porter himself had been appointed on this basis.15 Without this essential prerequisite, the officer’s ability to persuade men to volunteer in the first instance and then elicit an effective military response from them, was seriously jeopardised.

Porter had no trouble in attracting prospective officers, for not only did a commission in the volunteers convey social status, this means of obtaining a commission made it open to those who had not been able to obtain one through the state’s normal appointments procedure. Porter was thus swamped with petitions testifying to a candidate’s worth and abilities. So successful was Porter in attracting prospective officers that many were disappointed by their placement, protesting that they had been humiliated by being made “subservient to the commands of such inferiors”.16 One of Porter’s volunteers complained a “young man of vicious habits by the name of H__I” on failing to be elected to a company of volunteers, “could not brook the insult, as he termed it, but raved like a maniac, insomuch” that the company was “obliged to put him in irons”.17

Although the volunteers officially came under the auspices of military law as practised by the regular army, its enforcement was often dependent more upon persuasion and consensus than compulsion. The volunteers demanded that those in command respect and safeguard their distinctiveness from the regular army. Officers who owed their status to the approval of their men often felt that they had to comply, and any idea of becoming subservient to the regulars was deemed unacceptable. This was an attitude Porter shared. Upon finding that Winfield Scott, “a young officer of the regular army” was “to be promoted to take command” of Porter’s force “after the trouble of raising and organising it is completed”, Porter asked Governor Daniel D. Tompkins to relieve him “of the unpleasant consequences of such a measure”.18 Porter thus strove to ensure that during the volunteers’ service, their contribution was always regarded on the “same footing” as the regulars.19 This was crucial in securing volunteers, for Porter needed to maintain the men’s belief that they were the embodiment of the American ideal, superior to the regulars as ‘citizens in arms’. Porter achieved this by ensuring that the volunteers were directed towards meaningful and attainable gaols. Typically these would involve an active duty and one that carried an appropriate level of prestige.20 The most prominent amongst them was Porter’s sortie from Fort Erie in September 1814, where his volunteers succeeded in penetrating the British siege lines. However, these operations often invited inter-service resentment, with regular army officers observing that while their contributions were “merely noticed in general orders”, the “credit of it was given to Gen[eral] Porter in the official reports to the War Department”.21

Relying on individuals to recruit volunteers extended recruitment across the state and offered prospective recruits a mode of service in which they would be excused from the overbearing discipline of the regular army. However, it also led to a lack of cohesion within the recruiting system. This contributed to the inherent delays in forming the volunteers, delays that were exacerbated by the extra time it took many of these individuals to negotiate the enlistment of their men.

The war demanded ever more men, forcing Porter to employ a third mechanism, one that involved a more systematic approach to obtaining volunteers. This was to use recruiting officers. Typically these would be junior officers who would be instructed to search several districts for recruits.22 Prominent amongst these men was Joshua Hathaway. On being authorized as a recruiting officer in Rome in 1814, Hathaway reported back to Porter that he had contacted prominent Republicans to obtain their assistance and had then proceeded to recruit in the nearby settlements. The recruitment techniques he employed relied heavily upon his oratory, for he notes that his principal resource was all the “persuasion I am Master of”.23 However, appeals to patriotism proved insufficient to secure the services of those men unwilling to serve in the regular army with its long enlistment terms and harsh discipline, or those disenchanted by the state militia’s glaring inadequacies. Accordingly Porter accepted the need to broaden the recruitment of the volunteers to include those men for whom pay was a “central inducement to engage”.24 This brought Porter into competition with the regular army, as it too was heavily dependent upon the same group of men, usually poor farm labourers who typically enlisted or volunteered for reasons of financial security. The availability of this group in western New York was limited, for in a generally prosperous economic climate these labourers were often in demand and could earn as much as fifteen dollars a month as opposed to the eight dollars they could receive in the volunteers.25 Moreover, the volunteers received “no bounty, no pecuniary inducement, no aid to enable a man to leave home”.26 As Hathaway informed Porter, this inter-service competition induced those men who “have any idea of entering the service, [to] enlist with the regulars”.27 Porter responded to this by encouraging New Yorkers to raise money by subscription, which they could then offer as a bounty to the volunteers.28 The money raised however, was never adequate to significantly increase recruitment.

Recruiters such as Joshua Hathaway also played a major role in supplying the volunteers with arms, pay and provisions. Volunteers were to be armed, equipped and paid at the expense of the federal government, yet continual shortages and delays imposed severe restrictions upon recruitment. Porter wrote to the Secretary of War that if only he “had the means we could recruit more rapidly than heretofore”.29 Once recruited, volunteers expected that there would be some delays in the delivery of their supplies and were prepared to tolerate what they recognised as reasonable shortcomings. However, when these shortcomings exceeded what they were prepared to accept, they often resorted to desertion. Over the course of seven days for example, Colonel Philetus Swift’s regiment lost twenty-eight men to desertion, representing almost a tenth of those fit for duty.30 Confronted by this threat of desertion, Porter tried to instil into the men under his command a greater sense of attachment to their units. Along with fellow officers he emphasised the importance of maintaining unit cohesion, which he hoped to foster through training. Additionally, Porter emphasized the crucial importance of serving in these units. In addressing the militia of New York’s Western Counties in 1814, he declared, “Now is the time for us to act”.31 Unless they did so he warned; “your fruitful fields, your stately edifices, and your fair possessions are laid waste” while “your women and children will feel the weight of the tomahawk”.32 His efforts however, experienced only limited success for they could not address the fundamental difficulties of supplying his troops on the frontier. Although his brother Augustus Porter, and their local business interests assisted in supplying the volunteers, shortages were a frequent occurrence. To resolve this Porter made use of his appointment as Quartermaster General to the militia by trying to redirect the finite amount of supplies available to the volunteers rather than the militia. He also resorted to more desperate measures, attempting to recover “such arms and camp equipage as were issued to the Militia last year”.33

It is hardly surprising that Porter was prepared to go to these lengths to secure a steady flow of recruits in sufficient numbers. With the regular army concentrated where the British threat was at its greatest, New Yorkers had to act swiftly to raise additional volunteers before widespread depredations were visited upon the exposed western half of the state. Porter’s efforts in this regard were only partially successful. They elicited a willingness among many inhabitants to muster out, but only when a readily recognizable and immediate need arose. He was able to take advantage of this in 1813 when he repulsed a British raid on Black Rock with a hastily organised force of militiamen and aboriginals. However, Porter failed to translate this willingness to serve in emergencies into a regular flow of recruits, for men who feared “themselves completely exposed”, became ever more reluctant to serve.34

Using recruiting officers to expand his recruitment effort to the section of the population that provided potential manpower, both for the regular army and as substitutes in the state militia, brought new problems. Porter not only came into conflict with the regular army, but also aroused domestic discontent as the early optimism surrounding the conclusion of the war dissipated. Recruiting officers, whether from the volunteers or the regulars, came to be seen as a threat to a region’s livelihood by depleting its available manpower, and illegally enlisting minors and apprentices. Moreover, resistance came from militia officers, who, desirous of retaining the elevated status that was afforded them by their rank, sought to impede recruitment. Yet while Hathaway reported that the opposition were exerting “every Nerve to discourage and dissuade Volunteers”, their effect proved more a nuisance factor than a severe restriction on recruiting.35

Recruiting officers, though able to secure a significant number of men, failed to shift the focus of volunteer recruitment from its primary target of the state militia. This had important consequences. Porter could obtain sizeable numbers of volunteers by applying the first two methods even as the war entered its final years, but to do so he had to face a fundamental problem. Irrespective of whether they served in the volunteers or state militia, these men forced Porter to accept their conception of military service. Although they had consented to serve, their consent was conditional. In effect the majority of volunteers Porter recruited believed that their service was a contract between the individual and the government. Accordingly, like other contracts, a failure by one party to honour its responsibilities automatically released the other party from its obligations. Porter attempted to counter this conception by emphasising the need to serve on the Niagara frontier, providing persuasive officers, instilling a group identity through their training, and resorting to shorter enlistment terms of one, two, three or six months.36 He had some success in this respect, as was demonstrated in the 1814 campaign, where he was able to field a volunteer force capable of engaging the British regulars. However, the militia’s central deficiencies persisted. Volunteers were able to avoid total compliance with military discipline, and despite the stipulations of the Volunteer Act of 1812, practical difficulties ensured that most volunteers did not serve the prescribed term of active service. Upon volunteering, the time required to equip, organize and train the men was often prohibitive and thus when they were actually ready, the time available in which they could be used was heavily circumscribed.

The effect this had upon the deployment of the volunteers was significant. Crucially, it severely curtailed the planning of military operations by causing innumerable delays. Major General Jacob Jennings Brown thus wrote to the then Secretary of War John Armstrong on the eve of his 1814 campaign into Upper Canada, that he hoped that it would not “be found necessary to wait for Militia Volunteers”.37 Although Porter was confident that he could secure enough volunteers to support the campaign as planned, his hopes proved misplaced, as it took an additional two months. Porter’s New York Volunteers were thus left to follow on behind. Strategically this had important repercussions. The presence of the volunteers failed, even as the war drew to a close, to wholly free commanders from the necessity of planning operations around specific regional objectives, rather than elements of a national strategy. Porter was especially conscious of this failure, for before the war he had been an advocate of an invasion launched from northern New York, directed principally at the capture of Montreal. This, as most senior officers recognised, was the most rational strategy to employ. However, faced by the inadequacies of the regular army and the volunteers, Porter accepted that military operations should “begin with the reduction of a country that would present but few difficulties; and where easy conquest would form soldiers for a more hazardous enterprise”.38

In analysing Porter’s contribution to the United States’ war effort he must be given great credit for his perception in realising the deficiencies of the state militias. It is also wholly proper to give him credit for determined, resourceful and energetic efforts to secure volunteers who could obviate the deficiencies of the militia. He used every means available to him and did not hesitate to adapt his recruitment methodology to the exigencies of the situation. Yet, in the final analysis, no matter what steps were taken, he could not overcome one fundamental problem. The concept of the ‘virtuous citizen soldier’ was so ingrained into the psyche of the men he recruited that he had to face the fact that their consent to serve was conditional. In this respect while his volunteers might be better trained and better led than the state militiamen; their limitations in terms of short service enlistments and emphasis on regional priorities continued to handicap American strategy, impede effective military operations and inhibit the achievement of the government’s war aims.

Footnotes:

1. ‘To the Inhabitants of the Western District’ Peter B. Porter Papers (Microfilm, Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society), Reel 2, A293-1

2. C. Edward Skeen, Citizen Soldiers in the War of 1812 (The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, 1999), p.19

3. James Monroe to George W. Campbell, Washington, 23rd December 1812, Stanislaus M. Hamilton, ed, The Writings of James Monroe (AMS Press, New York, 1969), vol 5, p.233

4. ‘Governor Daniel D. Tompkins Message’, 18th March 1813, Independent American, 6th April 1813

5. Earl Fillmore to Joshua Hathaway, 21st April 1812, Joshua Hathaway Papers (Mss, Oneida Historical Society)

6. Minutes of the Institution and Proceedings of the Committee of Safety and Relief at Canandaigua (Mss, Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society), Box 1, Folder 9

7. Peter B. Porter to Daniel D. Tompkins, Canandaigua, 26th May 1814, Ernest A. Cruickshank, ed, The Documentary History of the Campaign on the Niagara Frontier in 1814. (Tribune Office, Welland, 1897), p.399

8. Abraham Masterson to Peter B. Porter, Batavia, 22nd May 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 3, A343

9. Copy of a Resolution to the Secretary of State, 6th February 1812, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 2, A3

10. Peter B. Porter to William R. Rochester, Canandaigua, 10th April 1814, Ernest A. Cruickshank, ed, The Documentary History of the Campaign on the Niagara Frontier in 1814, p. 388

11. Abraham Matteson to Peter B. Porter, Batavia, 22nd May 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 3, A342

12. Adjutant General Gumner to Peter B. Porter, Albany, 16th May 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 3, A335

13. Solomon Mays to Peter B. Porter, Ft Erie, 15th September 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 3, A457

14. H. McDonald to Peter B. Porter, 10th May 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 3, A324

15. C. Edward Skeen, Citizen Soldiers in the War of 1812, p111

16. J. C. Spencer to Peter B. Porter, 26th December 1812, Peter B. Porter Papers, Roll 2, A178

17. Reminiscences of Jason Smith of Tyre, 7th October 1878, printed in the, Geneva Gazette, 29th November 1878

18. Peter B. Porter to Daniel D. Tompkins, 14th March 1812, Ernest A. Cruikshank, ed, Documentary History of the Campaigns on the Niagara Frontier 1812-1814 (Tribune Press, Welland, 1896-1908, 9 vols), vol 1, p.380; Charles Winslow Elliot, Winfield Scott: The Soldier and the Man (Macmillan, New York, 1937), p.152

19. Philetus Swift to Peter B. Porter, 13th June 1813, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 2, A214

20. Peter B. Porter to Daniel D. Tompkins, Ft Erie, 29th July 1814, Ernest A. Cruickshank, ed, The Documentary History of the Campaign on the Niagara Frontier in 1814, p.101

21. Samuel D. Harris, “Service of Capt. Samuel D. Harris; a sketch of his military career as captain in the Second Regiment of Light Dragoons during the War of 1812”, Buffalo Historical Society Publications (vol 24, 1920), pp.327-342; p.338

22. William Carpenter to Peter B. Porter, 13th June 1814, Ernest A. Cruickshank, ed, The Documentary History of the Campaign on the Niagara Frontier in 1814, p.404-405

23. Joshua Hathaway to Peter B. Porter, Rome, 20th April 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 2, A312

24. John Campbell to Peter B. Porter, Sparta, 18th April 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 2, A310

25. Peter B. Porter to Daniel D. Tompkins, Canandaigua, 26th June 1814, Ernest A. Cruickshank, ed, The Documentary History of the Campaign on the Niagara Frontier in 1814, p.399

26. James Monroe to George W. Campbell, Washington, 23rd December 1812, Stanislaus M. Hamilton, ed, The Writings of James Monroe, vol 5, p.233

27. Joshua Hathaway to Peter B. Porter, Rome, 20th April 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 2, A312

28. William Campbell to Peter B. Porter, 5th June 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 3, A363; Peter B. Porter to J. C. Spencer, Queenston Heights, 9th July 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 3, A399

29. Peter B. Porter to John Armstrong, Canadaigua, 3rd May 1814, Ernest A. Cruickshank, ed, The Documentary History of the Campaign on the Niagara Frontier in 1814, p.391

30. Morning Reports for Colonel Philetus Swift’s regiment of New York Volunteers, 12th July 1812, 14th July 1814, 16th July 1814, 19th July 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 3, A385, A392, A397, A398

31. ‘Porter to the Militia of the Western Counties’, 21st August 1814, Canandaigua, The New York Spectator, 3rd September 1814

32. The New York Spectator, 3rd September 1814

33. Elisha Jenkins to Peter B. Porter, Albany, 24th May 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 3, A348

34. Joshua Hathaway to Daniel D. Tompkins, 6th July 1812, Joshua Hathaway Papers

35. Joshua Hathaway to Peter B. Porter, Rome, 4th April 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 2, A298

36. Edward P. Gaines to Peter B. Porter, Ft Erie, 18th August 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 3, A427; Daniel D. Tompkins to William Pratt, 1st July 1814, Peter B. Porter Papers, Reel 3, A377

37. Jacob J. Brown to John Armstrong, 3rd January 1814, Canandaigua, Orderly Book April to August 1814, A. Conger Goodyear Collection (Mss, Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society), Box 2, vol 4

38. J. C. A. Stagg, “Between a Black Rock and a Hard Place: Peter B. Porter’s Plan for an Invasion of Canada in 1812”, Journal of the Early Republic (vol 19, 1999, Part 3), pp.385-422, p.422