The Real Ichabod Crane

 I get really into Halloween each year. It's perhaps the one time of year when society in general celebrates the macabre and the otherworldly. In Ohio, the climate is usually most cooperative in creating a gloomy and evocative atmosphere. What's more, my interest in history dovetails neatly into my abiding fascination with the ghostly, the mysterious, and the supernatural.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is one of the most popular ghost stories since it was written as a short story for Washington Irving's The Sketchbook of Geoffry Crayon, Gent. The protagonist (as well as the other characters in the story) was originally meant to poke fun at certain early-19th Century American stereotypes. The willowy, conniving Yankee schoolmaster arrives, like a carpetbagger, into the rustic, sleepy Dutch community of Sleepy Hollow, New York and angles to get a cushy inheritance by marrying into the well-to-do Van Tassel family. He's foiled when some of the local bloods play a trick on him and scare the schoolmaster out of the county.

Since then, the Ichabod Crane character has been reworked into a New York City police Constable circa 1799 (played by Johnny Depp-- even though the NYPD wasn't established until 1845), and even a Revolutionary War hero himself. But there was a real Ichabod Crane. In 1814, Irving was serving as a staff officer in the New York State Militia. He didn't see any action, but was for a time the military secretary of Governor Daniel Tompkins. 

This in itself is really interesting. Tompkins was a Republican, and one of the most important war leaders (since most of the fighting occurred in or on the borders of his state). Regiments and brigades from the New York State militia fought in every major engagement along Niagara border, and the important harbor and navy yards at New York city were mostly garrisoned by volunteers and more militia. 

Most Irving scholars write off his involvement in the war, which is indeed strange since he was such an Anglophile. However, he was to write extensively on some aspects of the conflict, including a biography of Captain James Lawrence, an American war hero who had died in a frigate duel in 1813. During his brief service on Tompkins' staff, he was sent to Sackett's Harbor, New York. This small town (it's still a very small resort town on the eastern corner of Lake Ontario) was then one of the largest shipbuilding and naval bases in America. It was the American side of a fantastic naval arms race that had lasted all three years of the war, and whose winner would decide the fate of the Great Lakes. A string of earthen batteries and forts studded with heavy artillery protected the harbor, filled with warships of all shapes and sizes. The most recent of the naval construction projects were the massive 90-gun ships of the line USS Chippewa and USS New Orleans, due to be finished in time to challenge the Royal Navy's own 120-gun behemoth St. Lawrence sometime in 1815.

 Crane in later life.

There he met an artillery officer named Ichabod Crane. Crane was a former officer in the Marine Corps who had served from 1809 to 1811. When the Army was expanded in 1812 he accepted a commission in the newly-raised 3rd Regiment of Artillery as a captain. Part of the 2nd, and all of the 3rd Regiment (each composed of 20 companies of between 80-100 men) were never equipped with artillery. Since the three regiments of artillery were meant to be foot artillery, they were first drilled and equipped to fight as infantry of the line. As such, a battalion of the 2nd Artillery distinguished itself at Queenston Heights under its Colonel Winfield Scott. 

While more of the 2nd Regiment got their artillery field pieces, the 3rd continued to act as infantry and played an important role in constructing and manning the forts of the northern frontier. On March 30, 1814 the three regiments were disbanded and reformed into a Corps of Artillery (which did not, incidentally, include the Light Artillery that remained its own Regiment). Besides organizing battalions of the formerly independent field companies for service on the battlefield, the reorganization meant little for the scattered companies of artillerymen serving in forts and small detachments. 

Captain Crane's company served during the 1813 Battles of York and Fort George, probably as infantrymen, before spending the remainder of the war garrisoning Fort Pike--part of the Sackett's Harbor defenses. While many of his colleagues were brevetted for their role in the bloody battles along the Niagara, Crane was promoted to Major for "meritorious service and general good conduct." While he hadn't seen much action, it says a lot about his value as a soldier of this highly technical arm that he was retained as a field officer in the tiny post-war regular army. He was still in the service-- having risen to a full-bird Colonel-- when he died at age 70 in 1857. From the photograph which survives of him in later life, there's little hint of any weird characteristics that might have made him stand out in Irving's memory. 

I've perused some of Irving's notebooks from that era, and there's nothing that stands out as relevant to the later ghost story. He doesn't even mention Crane, focusing instead on the journey over muddy roads through what was then a wilderness between Albany and Sackett's Harbor. Perhaps it was just the name that stood out, in an era of ostentatious names (Simon Zelotes Watson, Eleazar Derby Wood, Shadrach Byfield just to name a few off the top of my head). You have to wonder, though, what the real Ichabod Crane must have thought of Irving's story-- let alone the TV and film alter egos that have perpetuated his name.

A Regiment of Light Artillery-- The Stealth Bomber of the 1812 American Army

One of those things that has always fascinated me about the US Army in the War of 1812 is how they sought to replicate the modern, blitzkrieg armies of Napoleonic organizations and tactics. The new 1812 and 1813 drill manuals, for instance, emphasized quick columns of attack and rapid evolutions in the face of still British-style lines, in contrast to the linear tactics prescribed by the Prussian-influenced Von Stueben manual (ironically, the Stueben manual was a heavy influence on the French officers who wrote the 1792 regulations, which in turn were copied by American military enthusiasts Alexander Smyth and William Duane).

Napoleonic tactics, I should emphasize, did not rely on either lines or columns. They were linear tactics in motion. What made the French Army the toughest in the world back then was that its officers had mastered the art of moving quickly, concentrating a decisive amount of forces at the critical point and delivering a gut punch-- or sucker punch-- to the enemy before they knew they were even in a fight to the death.

To support the kind of rapid advances that the new, highly mobile infantry tactics required, the French Army created a light artillery arm whose soldiers were entirely mounted and armed like cavalrymen (as the Foot Artillery marched on foot and was armed as infantry with muskets). Interestingly, the Republic drew recruits for the new Light Artillery Regiments from the grenadier companies of the infantry: tall men with lots of swagger, but who hardly knew how to ride. As the Baron Marbot wrote:

The Horse-Artillery had been formed at the beginning of the Revolutionary Wars of volunteers from the grenadier companies, and the opportunity had been taken to get rid of some of the more disorderly soldiers from the regiments. 'The Gallopers' were therefore renowned for their courage and for their love of a quarrel no less.

The United States Congress, thrilled at the decisive effects of mobile firepower in Europe, and under the influence of French-American artillery experts like Louis de Tousard,  authorized its own Regiment of Light Artillery in 1808. The Regiment was to be composed of ten companies (the basic tactical artillery unit was a company--the term battery was not yet used nor were they designated in any way besides by the Captains' name). As a artillery unit, they enjoyed seniority second only to the Light Dragoons: being mounted, they were considered more senior to the older Regiment of Artillery.

One important difference between the French Horse Artillery and the American Light Artillery was the caliber of their weapons. Galloper guns during the period were typically lighter pieces, like 3- or 4-pounder guns. Tousard recommended equipping the American horse artillery with more powerful cannon: 8- or 12-pounders normally considered heavy field artillery. His ideas would eventually be put into action during the Mexican and American Civil Wars when heavy caliber gun-howitzers like the 12-pounder Napoleon became available.

Despite the creation of the regiment, only one company, Captain George Peter's, was mounted and that only equipped with one section of two 6-pounders. Artillery was the most expensive arm; cavalry was quite pricey too, and the combination of the two meant that Congress and the War Department were building something akin to the modern stealth bomber: a hugely expensive weapons system during a time of peace. So the other nine companies of horse artillery remained unmounted and unequipped as they were meant to be, and scattered around the US. Captain Peters and his men were sent off to New Orleans, to join General James Wilkinson's camp of misery (long story). Nor was the story over yet.

Despite not being fully equipped, the cost of feeding Peter's horses was still hurting the War Department. General Wilkinson wrote to the Secretary of War in 1809:

The charges for forage and other articles are such  if admitted must soon devour appropriations.Horses for the Artillery cannot be maintained at such an expense, they must either be sent to some part of the country where they can be maintained at one-fourth the present Expense, or they must be sold. . . . Imagine for a moment the whole regiment of Light Artillery on this scale of expense—Consider the prejudice against the Army in general which an inspection of such charges by members of the Government is calculated to impress on their minds.

So what mounts the regiment possessed were sold, and Peter and other company officers had to pay for their mounts' forage out of their own pockets. This was at New Orleans, where every year hundreds of flat boats were arriving from up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers laden with farm produce. It should have been a buyer's market for fodder! Captain Peter resigned. When the War of 1812 began, no single unit of the Light Artillery were mounted. The company at Fort Wayne, Indiana Territory, for example, was armed and fought as infantry until it's men were merged with the two 2nd (Foot) Artillery companies in Ohio.

During the war, there was an effort to get more of the Light Artillery companies mounted and properly equipped, but in the broken, unsettled terrain of Upper Canada there was little opportunity to employ this "stealth bomber" weapon as it was intended.

Rifle Tactics and the Myth of American Sharpshooters in the American Revolution

I was recently reading through Harold L. Peterson's 1968 Book of the Continental Soldier (a guide to the arms and equipment of Revolutionary War soldiers) and it had some interesting things to say about the use of rifles during the Revolution. Since the 19th century there was a myth that sprung up about American marksmanship and hunting rifles being the decisive factor that defeated rigid, close order British infantry regiments. The American Rifle Association, among other organizations, has made a cult out of this legend. However, among military historians the truth that belies the legend has been accepted for quite some time. As a reenactor portraying the American regular Army of the War of 1812, I often encounter confusion over the role of the rifle in early modern warfare.

It is true that the American riflemen could hit targets with much more accuracy than their counterparts carrying smooth-bore muskets. 

I have many times asked the American backwoodsman what was the most their best marksmen could do; they have constantly told me that an expert rifleman, provided he can draw good and true sight... can hit the head of a man at 200 yards. I am certain that provided an American rifleman was to get a perfect aim at 300 yards at me standing still, he most undoubtedly would hit me, unless it was a very windy day...

--Captain George Hanger, Hessian Jagers. (In Peterson, pg. 42).

 However, once the side with muskets and bayonets closed the range, the rifleman was at a serious disadvantage:

The riflemen, however dexterous in the use of their arm, were by no means the most formidable of the rebel troops; their not being armed with bayonets, permitted their opponents to take liberties with them which otherwise would have been highly improper.

-- Lt. Col. John Graves Simcoe, Queen's Rangers

 ...About twilight is found the best season for hunting the rebels in the woods, at which time their rifles are of very little use; and they are not found so serviceable in a body as musketry, a rest being requisite at all times, and before they are able to make a second discharge, it frequently happens that they find themselves run through the body by the push of a bayonet, as a rifleman is not entitled to any quarter. (my italics)

 --Anon. British officer, Middlesex Journal (December 31, 1776).

Actually, the idea of rifle verses musket is a false dichotomy.  Both sides used both kinds of weapons. People who are not familiar with the complexities of 18th and 19th century warfare usually mix up open or light and close-order tactics. Again, both sides during the American Revolution used both types of fighting techniques. The side that kept the best order among its troops, and which came up with the right mix of light and close-order formations, usually won.

 Riflemen and American regulars at Saratoga, 1777.

A good example of the difference between the legend of the American marksman and the reality of the Revolutionary War is the Battle (really a running skirmish) of Lexington and Concord. In popular culture, this battle was between line of close-order British regulars and a cloud of American minutemen hiding behind trees and shooting the redcoats down with rifles.

The reality is quite different. Most of the minutemen were trained militia, armed with smooth-bore muskets like their British regular opponents. It is true that they swarmed the battlefield, and lined the road to Boston shooting from behind trees at the end of the engagement. However, the start of the battle took place with formed lines of New England militia engaging lines of British troops in open fields. Moreover, this British force was made up entirely of the flank companies of the Boston garrison.

To explain further, even as early as the Seven Years War, the need to protect close-order infantry lines from being flanked or shot at by small units was known. General Braddock's column that marched into disaster in 1755 actually had flankers to fan out into the woods and smoke out an ambush: they just didn't use them very well.

By the time of the American Revolution, each British battalion of foot had two elite companies: one of lights, or troops trained to work in open files to cover the main body; and one of grenadiers, who had originally been assault troops equipped with grenades. By this time they had dropped the grenades but were still the thugs of the battlefield, specializing in bayonet and close-combat work.

A typical organizational trick of this period (and quite common throughout the War of 1812) was to strip the elite companies out of the line regiments and create super-elite battalions made up entirely of grenadiers and light infantry. The detachment that marched out to Lexington and Concord was such a elite formation. They were well-screened by flankers, who knew their business by now.

During the long and bloody retreat back from the swarming minutemen (a "Zerg-rush" in PC gaming terms), small groups of militia used the cover of trees and houses to shoot at the passing British column. They were frequently surprised by sudden and lethal attacks from flanking light infantrymen who were keeping abreast of the main force.

But each little firefight or group of rebels they ran through with bayonets taxed the energy of the flankers, who had been marching all day, and trudging through shrubbery, woods, and over fences for most of it. Each house had to be taken by storm. The tired and angry British soldiers often torched the houses and cut down anyone they found within.

 Redcoats overwhelm the American battery on Breed's Hill with a bayonet charge. Most of the defenders lacked bayonets for their smooth bore muskets. Those that did not flee, died in their tracks.

The Battles of Lexington and Concord set the course for open rebellion against Great Britain, but there wasn't a lot of continuity between the famous minutemen companies and the Continental Army. The New England militia was able to concentrate perhaps the largest force of Americans in one place during the Revolution for the Siege of Boston, but the ensuing war was mostly fought by different units: regulars of the Continental Army, formed state militia brigades, and lots of different small units and combined arms Legions.

It's not well known, but the Continentals had more riflemen in the beginning of the war than at the end: many of the rifle regiments that showed up for the first campaigns had either been disbanded or re-armed with the more versatile muskets by the middle of the war. Americans continued to value rifles and marksmanship: but most of the armies of the Revolution as well as the War of 1812 were combined arms forces, with a backbone of close-order battalions armed with muskets and bayonets.

 Guilford Courthouse, 1781. The Americans mastered a combined-arms defense which exhausted the British infantry.

Some Shooting at a Mark, and Some Uniform Notes

It's been a quiet few weeks, with my reenacting season over with the Battle of the Thames on the first weekend of October. The Garrison Ghost Walk hosted by Fort Meigs is on starting tonight, if you're in the Toledo area.

(Mississinewa, probably the largest 1812 event in the United States, was last weekend but I have yet to attend that one. Maybe next year. The idea of what was essentially a stripped-down mounted infantry expedition against Indians turning into a three-ring circus of British, artillery, sailors, and merchants is a bit offensive to the historian in me. Someone should stage a real Mississinewa Expedition reenactment and call the present event something else.)

Shooting:

I got around to cleaning my gun this week (a note for all you reenactors: it's fine to call a musket or rifle a "gun" because the original people you represent used that term for both-- just don't go calling a musket a rifle or vice versa!). I was down a sanding sponge, an essential piece of equipment for scouring rust off an "armory bright" (read: no bluing or metal treatment at all) finish on a musket, so I decided that I would have to strip the gun and clean it again shortly thereafter. There was nothing to do but take it out and get it dirty once more!

I believe many reenactors have never shot live bullets out of their weapons. There are some pieces I've seen in this hobby that I would never venture to fire live--although, as a rule if you can't trust something at the range you shouldn't trust it with a blank load either. Other people enjoy the hobby mostly as an opportunity to collect guns and hunt or target shoot, dressing up and going to living history events more as as side thing. I like to take my musket out to the shooting range to test military loads and get a feel for what live shooting actually involves, as well as to get another chance to burn gunpowder.

Walking onto a modern shooting range with a flintlock musket design more than 200 years old is a bit like bringing a pet dinosaur to a dog show. People used to the stubby, black plastic and stamped metal rifles of today don't know what to make of a five-foot long, bright steel and walnut firearm-that-can-double-as-a-spear. People who shoot or have shot percussion or in-line muzzleloaders are not uncommon, so a second culture shock is the flintlock ignition system. 

If you think about it, a percussion-lock muzzleloader (just beginning to come into being during the War of 1812 period, but not popular until the 1830s and later) is a deconstructed version of a modern firearm-- instead of having everything packed into a nice, metallic package of primer, cordite and bullet you have a separate primer cap, gunpowder propellant, and ball. The system still works pretty fast. The flintlock, by contrast, uses a bit of the same propellant as a priming, and sets this off in a brilliant smokey flash before burning the main propellant charge. 

It takes a lot of getting used to: by contrast, when I first shot a .22 calibre semi-automatic rifle, I didn't even realize I had made a few shots until I saw the little pin-prick holes appearing in the target sheet. The flash--and sometimes non-flash-- of the priming requires a flintlock shooter to resist the urge to flinch and thus disturb their aim. A hat with a brim actually helps, kind of like blinders for a horse.

At any rate, I took my musket and a cheap wire target holder to the public shooting range at Delaware Wildlife Area, managed by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. I had made up seven or eight paper cartridges--military style-- each holding a .649 calibre round ball and 120 grains of FFg powder (fairly course stuff for modern shooting but the original cartridges in 1812 would have been made with 160 or so grains of course, unglazed gunpowder). At fifty yards, I fired repeatedly at a white Williams-Sonoma bag without seeming to make a dent. I really need to pick up some field glasses before my next trip to the range! 

At the last shot, the target collapsed to the ground like a condemned man before a firing squad. At first I thought this was the first time I'd hit the mark in eight shots, but on closer inspection it turned out that the ball had struck the wire target holder itself, twisting and breaking it as it passed through. There were three other holes where balls had passed through, as neatly round as if by a ticket-punch. Each of these was about the diameter of my index finger. I have yet to recover any of my musket balls from the backstop out of consideration for my fellow shooters, but I imagine they look like pancakes once they hit dirt. 

Next time I'll try a political yard sign-sized target at 100 yards, and see if the smooth bore can touch it. If I can find some, I shall add 3 no. 4 or T gauge buckshot to the musket ball, and see how that does. This "buck and ball" cartridge was the standby of the American infantry until the end of the Civil War.

Notes on the 1813 Uniform

People on both sides of the political spectrum dismayed at the dysfunction exhibited by Congress lately shouldn't be-- the incompetence of the legislative process goes back to the Continental Congress of the 1770s and it's a wonder that we were able to sufficiently organize ourselves enough to break free of Great Britain. The War of 1812 was no exception. Our legislative branch picked another fight with one of the better (I shan't say best) run military powers of the world and haphazardly struggled to reorganize the tiny US Army; to clothe, feed and pay for it. 

One of the few Federal services to stay up this past two weeks was the Library of Congress, for the simple fact that it might be needed for consultation by the legislators. Thus I was able to browse through the American State Papers, the collected documentation produced by Congress as it has deliberated on all sorts of legislation down through the years. The volumes on Military Affairs are a good source for reports on battles, clothing, regulations, and anything else related to the American field armies. Among the odd minutiae you find here are facts such as how much the West Point math professor made (40 dollars a month--pg. 435) or how many women were authorized (read: given rations--there may have been more women paying their own way) in proportion to men (one women was allowed for every seventeen men-- pg. 436). 

One of the more interesting items from 1813 were tables, presumably drawn up by the Commissary General of Purchases, Callendar Irvine in Philedelphia. These list the cost of each uniform item issued to US soldiers. They also compare the "old" Artillery uniform of 1812 with the cheaper ones devised for 1813. Within three years or so the Army went through three different uniforms, getting cheaper every time. They ended up with what Renee Chartrand has called "impressive sobriety... American soldiers have since favored a simple, practical, and comfortable uniform that has given them an air of respect and efficiency. (Chartrand, A Most Warlike Appearance, pg. 62).

Cleveland, Ohio in 1831 as Described by a French Traveler

I picked up a collection of Alexis de Tocqueville's notebooks from his travels in America in the 1830s recently. De Tocqueville is famous for his Democracy in America, published 1835. Part of his travels led him to board a steamer from Buffalo to Detroit, and it stopped at the town of Cleveland along the way:

21st July

Quarrel with the captain. Arrival at Cleveland at 6 o'clock in the evening. Up to there the aspect of the lake had been uniform. Generally to the right the lake, like a sea, stretched its transparent  waters to the horizon. We hugged close to the shore of Pennsylvania and and Ohio on the left. That side, generally quite flat and sometimes a few feet high, was almost everywhere covered in primeval forest whose immense trees were reflected in the waters that bathed their roots. The very uniformity of the sight is impressive. One is tempted to think that the ship that bears one is the only one to trace a furrow in the waters of the lake and that the land one sees has not yet fallen under man's dominion. But that is all nothing. After coasting along for hours beside a dark forest that only ends where the lake begins, one suddenly sees a church tower, elegant houses, fine villages, with an appearance of wealth and industry. Nothing but nature is savage here; man fights against her everywhere armed with all the resources of civilization. One goes without transition from the wilds into a city street, from the most savage scenes to the most smiling pictures of civilized life. If you are not caught by nightfall and forced to lodge at the foot of a tree, you are sure to come to a place where you will find everything, even French fashions and Palais Royal caricatures.

At 7 o'clock we left Cleveland. Lovely night. The moon lighting the forest and reflected in the waters of the lake.

De Tocqueville often dwelled on Ohio in his notebooks, because it was conveniently juxtaposed against the slave state of Kentucky.  He and many of the people from both states whom he interviewed stated that Ohio was characterized by industriousness and growth, whereas in Kentucky and many of the other slave states life had a more languid character. This was on account of the free labor provided by slaves, which many contemporary writers believed made the slave owners lazy.

There was a dark side to the land north of the Ohio River, though. De Tocqueville noted the strict anti-Black laws in Ohio, which required all free blacks to put up a bond as a guarantee against their legitimacy.  Apparently, many white people in Ohio feared an influx of poor, unskilled former slaves or runaways who would become a burden on the state.

Mr. Walker, a young lawyer from Ohio, explained the laws to de Tocqueville:

Q. In Ohio you have made very severe laws against the blacks.

A. Yes. We try and discourage them in every possible way. Not only have we made laws allowing them to be expelled at will, but we hamper them in a thousand ways. A Negro has no political rights; he cannot be a juror; he cannot give evidence against a white. That last law sometimes leads to revolting injustices. The other day I was consulted by a Negro who had supplied a lot of victuals to the master of a steamboat. The white denied the debt. As the creditor was black, and as all his assistants were the same and so could not give evidence on his behalf as they could not appear in court, there was no way of even starting a case.

There are many such interesting notes and conversations recorded in the volume. De Tocqueville, as an outsider, uses a lot of generalizations to describe the American society he encounters, but we also get a valuable glimpse of a vanished world to which we, too, are outsiders.

The book is Alexis de Tocqueville: Journey to America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960).

Eating Habits of the American Soldier, 1812

Civil War era rations and care package.

 19th-century travelers could expect to find some basic foods and eating utensils in roadside taverns, as could soldiers when they were quartered in the settlements.

Civil War-era mess tin and utensil.

Researching a living history impression requires that you follow a lot of leads down a lot of different aspects of everyday life. Figuring out how soldiers ate during the War of 1812 is one of them. We know a lot about how troops during the American Civil War ate, not only because of period sources and photography, but because a lot of mess items survived. The War of 1812 presents more problems, because the soldiers were issued their rations in the form of raw food by the mess or 6 or 7 men. Each mess was equipped with a tin or sheet iron pot and two tin pans. As for individual eating equipment, the men were on their own.

A postwar report to Congress about the poor variety in soldiers diets suggests how improvised food was in the 1812 Army:

When a recruit receives his ration, if the meat be fresh, he broils it to a cinder on the coals, on the end of his ramrod; if salk port, he eats it raw; and if salt beef, he boils it; and with his bread, will make a pretty good meal for some time, but in the morning he feels the want of his usual infusion of tea, and at noon his customary supply of vegetables. As a substitute for the former, he warms his stomach with a gill of undiluted, corroding whiskey, and, after living a few weeks in this way, is sent to the surgeon, worn down with dysentery, diarrhea, and other complaints of the stomach and bowels... (American State Papers, Military Affairs, vol. I pg. 805).

The surgeon who wrote the report claimed that the amount of meat, bread and whiskey allotted each soldier was generous; but there was no allowance of vegetables-- supposedly, the soldiers were able to forage or buy these items from sutlers out of their pay-- and the army sick lists were enormous as a consequence.

He compared contemporary allotements per day per soldier by the two Napoleonic powers, France and England:

  "Pulse" in the French army was a kind of dried mixture of beans and legumes. They weren't getting lots of vegetables by our standards (1 gill= about 4 fluid ounces), but it was commonly believed that cooking meat, bread, and vegetable rations into a soup would improve digestion.

We know a lot about what kinds of food were being delivered to the Northwest Army because of a Congressional investigation into the wartime expenses incurred by William Henry Harrison. Inventories of food and other ration items delivered by civilian contractors reveal what was actually reaching the troops (from the American State Papers pp. 644-661):

The Northwest Army in 1813 was having a hard time shipping enough barrels of salt pork and flour up to the Lake Erie region, let alone issuing vegetables. Another problem was the lack of mess kits:

Our company is divided into messes of six men each. Our rations are delivered together to each mess when we encamp at night. This consists of flour, fat bacon, and salt. The flour is kneaded in a broad iron camp-kettle, and drawn out in long  rolls the size of a man's wrist, and coiled around a smooth pole some three inches in diameter and five or six feet long, on which the dough is flattened so as to be half an inch or more in thickness. The pole, thus covered with dough, except a few inches at each end, is placed on two wooden forks driven into the ground in front of the camp-fire, and turned frequently, till it is baked, when it is cut off in pieces, and the pole covered again in the same manner and baked. Our meat is cooked thus: a branch of a tree having several twigs on it is cut, and the ends of the twigs sharpened; the fat bacon is cut in slices, and stuck on the twigs, leaving a little space between each, and then held in the blaze and smoked till cooked. Each man takes a piece of the pole-bread, and lays thereon a slice of bacon and with his knife cuts therefrom, and eats his meal with a good appetite. Enough is cooked each night to serve for the next day; each man stowing in his knapsack his own day's provisions. (Samuel Williams, "Expedition of Captain Henry Brush..." Ohio Valley Historical Series, Misc. No. 2, quoted in James Brenner, "On Campaign: In Camp and Field..." pg. 10).

A Camp Kettle.

In some of the new 12-months regular infantry regiments  raised that year, the situation for recruits was even more dire:

We drew our pork and flour, but we had no camp equipage, not having yet reached our regiment. We kindled fires of drift-wood found on the beach. We took the flour, some on pieces of bark, and some in dirty pocket handkerchiefs. If we had cups, we ladled the water from the bay into the flour, and those who had no cups lifted the water with their two hands so arranged as to form a cup. The flour thus wet, without salt, yeast, or shortening, was baked, some on pieces of bark before the fire, hoe-cake or johnny-cake fashion; and some removed the fire and put the dough into the hot sand, wrapped in leaves or paper. Our pork we cooked in the blaze of the fire, on the points of sticks.    (Alfred Brunson, A Western Pioneer, [Cincinnati: Walden and Stowe, 1880], 110, quoted in Brenner, 10.).

The Petersburg, VA volunteer company had a similar experience when marching to Fort Meigs in February:

The same night we encamped on very wet ground... It was with difficulty we could raise fires; we had no tents, our clothes were wet, no axes, nothing to cook in, and very little to eat. A brigade of pack-horses being near us, we procured from them some flour, killed a hog, (there being plenty of them along the road;) our bread was baked in the ashes, and the pork we broiled on the coals-- a sweeter meal I never partook of. (Nile's Weekly Register, "Picture of a Soldier's Life" dated 28 March 1813.)

 
 From these sources, it appears that a good impression of 1812 camp life would include broiled meat, bacon or salt pork, hard-baked biscuit or some sort of ash cake or fried dough cooked in or over the fire. Eating utensils were very few and far between: a private soldier probably carried some sort of cup, a spoon and knife, and perhaps even a fork. He may have shared a mess tin, but if he carried one himself it was small and lightweight-- no pewter or hardwood. The private soldier traveled light, with whatever he could bear to carry for miles in his pack or haversack, and not much else.

A Mysterious Roadside Cannon

I was driving through the Northwest Ohio town of Whitehouse yesterday, in the Oak Openings region west of Toledo, and decided to stop and investigate this big cannon mounted in front of a Civil War monument in a small park.

Unlike the two cannon in nearby Perrysburg, the artillery here seems to be an original casting, dating at least to the first part of the 19th century. I measured the bore at the muzzle, which came out to 6 inches. This indicates that the piece is a  24-pounder. The trunnions mounted on the bottom of the tube rather on the centerline, as well as the lack of dolphins on the top, suggest a naval gun-- but there is no loop above the cascabel, the knob at the back of the cannon.

There is no plaque or notation to identify what kind of cannon it is or where it came from-- not even any makers marking on the breech or trunnions. This isn't nessecarily unusual in a gun as corroded as this one was. It could be a trophy of some long forgotten battle, or simply a cast for one of the many coastal forts of the second or third systems of fortification in the early 1800s and never fired in anger. In the late 19th and early 20th century the War Department gave cannon away to various communities who wanted them for parks and monuments like this one. The true story of Whitehouses gun is probably hidden in an unassuming inventory in the National Archives.

Sewing 1812 Trousers

 Painting of a quilting frolic by John Lewis Krimmel. Note the very high waist-ed trousers worn by the young man in the foreground. His stockings or socks are exposed because he's wearing very low dancing shoes (which look just like modern ladies flats) in combination with high water pants. Military pants were supposed to come down to the tops of the brogans, but still have the vent on the sides.

As a historical reenactor, one thing that is constantly on my mind is clothing. Finding accurate costume for the War of 1812 period can be a challenge, since the period isn't as widely popular to recreate as is the Revolutionary or American Civil War eras. This is changing-- the War of 1812 has become more popular lately as a result of the bicentennial, and more merchants are starting to manufacture accurate costume for the period. 

I remember when my mom bought my first suit of clothing for 1812 reenacting for Christmas when I was in high school. The sutler sold her an 18th century pair of knee breeches and a waistcoat. We traded them in for smallcloths that were more accurate, and that I wore for years afterward. But even these clothes were 18th century patterns; a low rise, baggy seat pair of linen trousers and an 1803 pattern vest. Even now, more accurate clothing is so expensive compared with Rev War era stuff-- and off-the-rack clothing is usually far too baggy and ill-fitting for the well-tailored 1810s-- that it is far more cost effective to make your own.

I made my trousers off of a Past Patterns' pattern for 1820s-1840s men's trousers. I'm happy with the way they fit-- high waist and no baggy seat like many 18th-century pattern trousers-- but would shorten up the fall and fall welts a bit. For those of you who've never seen a pair of small-fall trousers up close, the intricacies of the drop fall and dog-ear pockets may be interesting. The small welt pocket on the left center of the waistband is for a pocket watch-- these were universally worn in the trousers and attached to hanging watch fob chains-- not hooked into vest chains like later 19th-century pocket watches. (This latter way of wearing watches has not fully percolated through the 1812 reenacting community.) I'm not an expert tailor by any means, so there is a lot of rough machine sewing here.

Visiting the Detroit Historical Society

 Fort Detroit. A scale diorama depicting Detroit in the 1790s before it was turned over to Americans; the Fort and pickets around the town are identical to the defenses as they existed in 1812. The British burned the fort when they retreated from the area in 1813, but the Americans rebuilt it and renamed it Fort Shelby, pretty much on the original plan.

Last weekend, we had planned to stage a big, reenactors-only wargame version of the Battle of the Thames, but rain intervened. So I found myself getting on the road home mid morning on Sunday. Unlike Benson Lossing, the 1860s historian and travel writer who toured the battlefield before writing his epic War of 1812 narrative, I wanted to visit the nearby village of Moraviantown. For some reason, the local police had closed the road from Thamesville and I was forced to turn back. (The Moravians were Christian Indians who had originally settled in eastern Ohio: following a massacre which I've detailed elswhere in this blog, they moved to Upper Canada. General Harrison had their village burned down, because it supposedly harbored supplies and weapons for the British.) 

I had been wanting to visit the Detroit Historical Society--near the campus of Wayne State University in urban Detroit-- for a while, and I jumped at the opportunity this time.

Abandoned automobile plant. Albert Duce via wikipedia.

Detroit has fallen on hard times, in fact it has been in a constant state of decay since before I was born. However, the Big Three automakers are still headquartered in the general vicinity, and seem to be doing all right, considering the recession. Detroit deserves better. For all of us who grew up in rustbelt cities around the Great Lakes region, it has always stood as a figurehead of a vanished industrial, blue collar civilization. In Michigan, or so I hear, economic development has migrated towards Grand Rapids, and non-union employers like Amway. Detroit is therefore a kind of avatar for American labor and heavy industry in general.

My interest, though, is mainly in the old Detroit, before the Industrial Revolution(s) had really swept across the American Midwest. Detroit was built on the fur trade: it was really the gateway to the upper Great Lakes, a place where the government and powerful trading companies like Jacob Astor's firm could set up warehouses (called factories) to exchange manufactured goods for furs. The War of 1812 transformed Detroit, as it did many frontier towns, by eliminating British influence from the American northwestern territories, clearing the road for Astor and other American firms to dominate the fur trade. 

Lewis Cass in the 1850s.

For many years after the war, a former Ohio general named Lewis Cass presided over the territory. Cass was a big deal-- he served as Territorial Governor until 1831, as US Secretary of War, and as Senator once Michigan became a state. He was only one of several Northwestern Army officers to play important roles in the development of the frontier. In the wake of the Thames Campaign both he and fellow Ohioan (and future Ohio governor) Duncan McArthur were placed in charge of occupying former British-held territories. Cass graduated directly from command of a brigade of 12-months regular infantrymen to being the Governor of Michigan in 1813.

Duncan McArthur.

McArthur, after a brief stint at Sackett's Harbor and testifying at the William Hull court martial returned to take up command of the 8th Military District, with headquarters at Detroit. Both men ended the war where they had started it: Cass and McArthur had led Ohio Volunteer Militia regiments as colonels during the debacle of the first Northwestern Army's campaign.

But I digress. When I travel, I take pictures as a reference as well as a souvenir. Since I'm interested in recreating the past as well as educating the public about it, I spend a great deal of time getting pictures of museum exhibits and historical sites wherever I go. This blog constitutes a virtual museum, as well as a commentary on how museum exhbits are constructed and how well they convey whatever information they are meant to communicate.

 

A young Lewis Cass.  Below: the town in fur trading days.

The museum was arranged on three floors, and was free for the public (parking in the rear lot was $5). The basement featured a "streets of yesteryear" walkthough--something I've encountered at Columbus COSI, Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, Cincinatti's history museum, and many others. This one was fairly elaborate but not well interpreted. Some of the storefronts were simply repositories for old collections the curators didn't have anyplace else to display. Static collections behind glass are inert and can never be wholly successful in engaging the visitor.

The 1840s:

(What's the story here? It looks like a widow is visiting the banker. Is she selling off her dead husbands military land bounty, or getting a loan?)

(The pavement is one of the fun things about "streets of yesterday" type exhibits. It transitions from asphalt, to bricks, then cobblestone, and mud--or in this case, pitch and wood. Chicago had this type of pavement before the Great Fire!)

The 1870s:

The 1900s:

The first floor or main level featured a number of exhibits, including the early history of Detroit, the automobile industry, and a Kid Rock "Rock lab."

 The early history section was a broad survey of developments leading up to the city's industrialization in the late 19th century. It featured a handful of artifacts, and more dioramas. Unfortunately, most of the static displays were almost deliberately badly lit with can lights, making photography difficult.

 African Americans played an important role in the early years of Detroit. Since the Michigan Territory was free and the neighboring Upper Canada a slave province, in the years before the War of 1812 several slaves escaped from Canada into the United States. A few years later, the traffic would run in the other direction.

The famous steamship Walk-in-the-Water, named after a Huron chief who defected from Tecumseh on the eve of the Battle of the Thames and offered his services to General Harrison. The ship was launched in 1818, a year after her namesake died, and ran from Buffalo to Detroit, until she sank some years later.

There was a two-story exhibit on the auto plants, featuring  a 50-foot or so long section of assembly line from the 1970s. Once again, its a static display, so a bit hard to tell what's going on.

On the next floor, there was a large exhibit on railroads. This is a model of a monorail design proposed for Detroit in 1918...

A second model train display had been installed in the basement, near the streets of yesteryear. The lights and model trains (and a train-themed playlist) activate once someone enters the room. One of the trains had a small video camera mounted on it, which displayed in real time on a couple of tv sets mounted above. It was reminiscent of the scene in the Addams Family movie when Gomez Addams takes out his frustrations on his model train set.

All things considered, the Detroit Historical Society is well worth a visit if you're passing through the city, for the perspective it provides on the growth and subsequent decline of the Queen of the Rust Belt.