Don't Give Up the Ship!: Myths of the War of 1812 (review)

Donald Hickey's latest book on the War of 1812 is an interesting experiment. Discarding the conventional approach of writing campaign narratives as a way of highlighting the problems of this war, Hickey has chosen, instead, to combine elements of a reference encyclopedia with a series of short essays on such subjects as "soldiers, sailors, and civilians" and the "mechanics of waging war" in an effort to expand the frontiers of scholarly inquiry into a conflict that was unsatisfying as a military exercise but profoundly significant, nevertheless, in shaping the future of the American republic.

Hickey deals with a wide range of "myths" and questions about the War of 1812 by providing encyclopedia-type entries as answers to such questions as did the British "incite" the Indians, was the war a "second declaration of independence," why did William Hull surrender Detroit, who killed Tecumseh, did Capt. James Lawrence really say "don't give up the ship," and what was the last battle of the war—to mention only a few. His answers are short and to the point, though some, most notably his question whether the American declaration of war itself was a "bluff," beg for more discussion. On that last issue, Hickey rightly points out that the Madison administration had its reasons for believing that the mere fact of an American declaration of war might be sufficient to bring about a change in British maritime policy, but the decision was not so much a bluff as it was a tactic to maneuver Great Britain into accepting treaty definitions of belligerent and neutral rights that could then be regarded as part of a binding law of nations which would permit the United States to resume its position as a neutral. As Secretary of State James Monroe told British minister Augustus John Foster in June 1812, Great Britain had done as much for Russia in the 1801 Anglo-Russian convention, so why could it not do the same for the United States?

The short essays, most usefully, direct attention to the institutional aspects of the conflict by synthesizing data about the composition and the nature of the American and British armed forces as well as explaining how these forces actually went about the business of waging war with the tools at hand—matters that are all too often taken for granted in most accounts. The broader social dimensions of the war are also illuminated by essays on the role of blacks, Indians, and women. Again, the results are effective and informative, though in his treatment of American military organizations—such as marines, militia, and volunteers—Hickey has, inexplicably, omitted to provide a separate entry, or essay, on the regulars of the U.S. Army.

All in all, the results of the experiment might be seen as somewhat mixed, but on balance the virtues of the attempt predominate in any assessment of the work's overall effectiveness. Hickey's book deserves a wide popular readership. It also succeeds in broadening the scope of what academic historians should be looking at in the War of 1812, and it is to be hoped that he and others will be inspired to pursue his questions and his insights further.