James Madison, Part 3

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VOICE ONE:

THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special
English.

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As we reported last week, the United States
declared war on Britain in Eighteen-Twelve. It did so because
Britain refused to stop seizing American ships that traded with
France -- Britain's enemy in Europe. At last, after a change in
government, Britain suspended the orders against such neutral trade.
But it acted too late. The United States had declared war. The
United States navy was not ready for war. It had only a few real
warships and a small number of gunboats. It could not hope to defeat
the British navy, the most powerful in the world. What the United
States planned to do was seize Canada, the British territory to the
north. Twenty-five-hundred British soldiers guarded the border. And
American generals believed they could win an easy victory. They were
wrong.

VOICE TWO:

An American general named William Hull led
two-thousand men across the Canadian border. British soldiers were
prepared, and they forced the Americans back. The British fought so
well that General Hull surrendered all his men and the city of
Detroit. The next American attack was made from Fort Niagara, a
military center in New York on the shore of Lake Ontario. A small
group of American soldiers crossed the Niagara River and attacked
the British. Other Americans -- state soldiers of New York --
refused to cross the border to help against the British. They calmly
watched as British soldiers shot down the attacking Americans. The
third campaign was made by General Henry Dearborn. He led an army of
state soldiers from Plattsburgh, New York, to the Canadian border.
He was to cross the border and attack Montreal. But the state
soldiers again refused to cross the border. Dearborn could do
nothing but march them back to Plattsburgh.

VOICE ONE:

British
forces at this time were winning victories. They captured an
American fort in northern Michigan. And Indians -- fighting for the
British -- captured a fort at the place now known as Chicago.
Instead of marching through Canada without difficulty, the Americans
found themselves trying hard to keep the British out of the state of
Ohio.

VOICE TWO:

For a while, the weak little American navy was
doing better than the army. Just two months after the war started,
the United States warship "Constitution" forced a British ship to
surrender. Several months later another American ship, the "Wasp",
captured the British ship, "Frolic". Then the frigate, the "United
States" defeated one of Britain's most famous fighting ships, the
"Macedonian". The British ship was captured and brought to the
United States. There were other victories at sea. At the end of six
months, the United States navy had captured six British ships and
lost only one of its own vessels. Private American trade ships had
been armed with guns when the war started. They, too, were
successful against the British. They captured more than
three-hundred British trade ships. The American successes forced
Britain to bring more of its fighting ships into the war with the
United States. By the middle of Eighteen-Thirteen, a year after the
war started, British ships controlled the United States coast. Not
an American ship could enter or leave any port south of New England.

VOICE ONE:

The military situation was improving in the West. William
Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana territory, formed a large
force to try to capture Detroit from the British. At the same time,
Captain Oliver Perry built five warships on Lake Erie. With these
and four he already had, Perry met and completely defeated an
English naval force. Perry reported his victory to Harrison: "We
have met the enemy, and they are ours." Perry's victory and
Harrison's large force caused the British to withdraw from Detroit,
and from a British fort at Malden, in Canada. Harrison's men
continued to chase the enemy. They caught them and defeated them in
the battle of the Thames. Killed in this battle was the great Indian
chief, Tecumseh, who had been fighting for the British. United
States forces made new attempts to win control of Lake Ontario and
invade Canada across the Niagara River. But none of these succeeded.
Late in Eighteen-Thirteen, British soldiers crossed the river and
captured Fort Niagara. They also burned the town of Buffalo.

VOICE
TWO:

By April, Eighteen-Fourteen, Napoleon was forced from power in
Europe. And the war between France and Britain was over. This
permitted Britain to send many of its soldiers in Europe to fight
against the United States. Fourteen-thousand troops were sent to
Canada. A smaller force was put on ships that sailed along the
American coast. Another group of British soldiers was sent to
Jamaica to prepare for an attack on New Orleans. The British planned
to send an army of eleven-thousand men down from Canada into New
York. But before this, the soldiers aboard ships along the American
coast were to attack the Chesapeake Bay area and threaten Washington
and Baltimore. About four-thousand British soldiers landed on the
Chesapeake coast, southeast of Washington. They marched quickly
toward the capital. An American general, William Winder, commanded a
force two times the size of the British group. Winder was not a good
general, and his troops did not defend well.

VOICE ONE:

The two
sides met at Bladensburg, a town ten kilometers from Washington. The
British attacked and at first the American defenders held their
ground. But then, British soldiers broke through the American lines,
and the Americans began to run away. General Winder ordered his men
back to Washington. A group of sailors refused to retreat with their
artillery. Commanded by Joshua Barney, the four-hundred sailors
chose to stand and fight. The struggle did not last long against the
four-thousand British soldiers. Barney held his position for a half
hour before enemy soldiers got behind his men and silenced the guns.
Barney was wounded seriously. The British thought so much of his
courage that they carried him to a hospital for their own soldiers
at Bladensburg. Barney himself said the British officers treated him
as a brother. Once the British force had smashed through Barney's
navy men, nothing stood between it and Washington.

VOICE TWO:

The
enemy spent the night about half a kilometer from the Capitol
building. The commanders of the British force, General Robert Ross
and Admiral Sir George Cockburn, took a group of men to the Capitol
and set fire to it. Then the two commanders went to the White House
to burn it. Before setting fire to the president's home, Cockburn
took one of President Madison's hats and the seat from one of Dolley
Madison's chairs. The admiral found the president's table ready for
dinner. As a joke, he took a glass of wine and toasted the health of
"President Jemmy". President Madison had fled the White House
earlier. He crossed the Potomac River and started toward his home in
Virginia. He joined his wife on the road the second day. And they
decided to wait with others about twenty-five kilometers from
Washington. The president returned to the capital three days after
he left it. The British, after burning most public buildings, had
withdrawn.

VOICE ONE:

The British coastal force next attacked the
city of Baltimore. But this time, the defenses were strong, and the
attack failed. Baltimore port was guarded by Fort McHenry. British
warships sailed close to the fort and tried to destroy it with their
guns. But the attack did little real damage to the fort. A young
American civilian, Francis Scott Key, was aboard one of the British
warships during the twenty-five-hour shelling of Fort McHenry. He
and a group of others had gone to the ship with a message from
President Madison. The message asked the British to release an
American doctor they were holding. All through the night, the young
man watched the shells bursting and the rockets exploding over the
fort. In the first light of morning, he saw that the American flag
still flew. On the back of an old letter from his pocket, Francis
Scott Key wrote the words of "The Star-Spangled Banner", the
national anthem of the United States. That will be our story next on
THE MAKING OF A NATION.

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VOICE TWO:

You have been listening
to the Special English program, THE MAKING OF A NATION. Your
narrators were Larry West and Frank Oliver. Our program was written
by Frank Beardsley. THE MAKING OF A NATION can be heard Thursdays.