The President who Doomed America
The President who Doomed America
General Hull and the Death of American Accountability
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Who was the worst president in US history?
Many would argue Biden's driving America to ruin, some might point to Trump's continued employment of Dr. Fauci as the ultimate cause of lockdowns and Vax Mandates... Other's might say Obama, or Bush started the real death spiral to decline...
Wilson and FDR set the stage for countless wars that might have been avoided, Truman let the secret of the Atomic Bomb slip and the risk of total thermonuclear war enter the world...
Lincoln! Killed more Americans than any other president in history.
But I have another candidate:
James Madison. The man who permanently made US government employees unaccountable.
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I've written about this event before from the British/Canadian perspective one of those crazy legends that defined my childhood and no one’s heard of, but I want to revisit and look at just how insane it was from the American perspective.
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2 months into The War of 1812 the Americans had a commanding position. They had multiple forts on the Canadian Frontier, pressuring Upper Canada (Ontario) both across the Niagara river from upstate New York, a presence along the St Lawrence river across the from Kingston, A fort at Detroit, and a commanding naval presence on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie... And almost all the positions enjoyed superior numbers.
Then they immediately lost Fort Detroit, its 2500 men, and a brig... all while inflicting paltry casualties on the enemy of...........
Two. Not two hundred. No typo. Two.
Wounded.
The British commander Isaac Brock had achieved the most incredible military victory in the history of North America, and almost no one has heard of it because it is still so embarrassing.
Outnumbered nearly two to one, outflanked, and set to lose Upper Canada and all of British North America west of it, Brock went on the attack.
Marching on Fort Detroit with 1300 men to its 2500, Brock timed his arrival for dusk and through a series of circular marches, excess redcoat uniforms, and shuffling of soldiers and uniforms created the illusion that he was not commanding a desperate tiny rag tag force of mostly militia and natives, but a thousands strong army of British Regular regiments and countless Native Warbands.
He then wrote to Detroit's commander General Hull pleading with him (the stronger) to surrender, that Brock's natives were restless and vengeful against the Americans who had fought with them in Ohio, and Brock was terrified what they would do upon taking the fort. That even now Brock could just barely hold their wrath in check and it was only in surrendering before battle that Brock could guarantee the safety of the American garrison and the civilians amongst them.
If there has ever been a more shameless bluff in all of Military History... I've not heard of it.
But Detroit's commander, the supposedly steadfast Revolutionary War Veteran General Hull, fearing for his family... Agreed to surrender, a vital and superior strategic position, to a force half his size, before even mild skirmishing had begun.
I don't think I've EVER read of a more open and shut case of cowardice, by a General, in charge of thousands, at any point in history.
About 60 years earlier the British had shot the shamed Admiral Byng for "Failing to do his upmost" in PURSUIT of a RETREATING enemy who he had engaged with and fled before him.
Compared to Hull, Byng was the very avatar of Mars.
Just across the Atlantic a mere 15 years earlier the 73 year old Austrian General Wurmser had held the Iron Walls of Mantua against Napoleon for 6 months losing more than half of his 32,000 men to fire, wounds, or disease as they were reduced to eating their horses, dogs, and rats.
Hull didn't last 24 hours.
How could the American Military ever execute or punish a Private for Cowardice or Desertion in the face of enemy rifle fire, if they did not now execute this General who'd proved the coward and surrendered his post without seeing any action whatsoever?
In 1814, after the prisoners were exchanged, that was the American court martial's logic.
Convicting him of treason, cowardice, neglect of duty and bad conduct, they sentenced General Hull to die for his failure....
Then President Madison stayed the order.
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In light of his earlier service to the country in the Revolutionary War, Madison reduced the sentence to mere dismissal from the army.
Hull would even later write books defending his conduct and trying to clear his name. Famously even meeting with the Marquis De Lafayette on his 1825 American Tour, where they reminisced on their glory in the American Revolution and their misfortune in later wars.
General Brock however, would not get to drink in old age and laugh at past antics. Brock died 2 months later leading a charge against a superior position to repel the American Invaders from Queenston Heights in Niagara, where his monument stands today. Though he lost his life, he won that battle as well. In spite of being outnumbered nearly 3 to 1 the Anglo-Canadian force repelled the Americans and captured nearly 1000 more prisoners, against their Anglo-Canadian total fighting strength of 1300.
Glory rarely allows for reunion tours.
To this day if you cross the bridge at Queenston-Lewiston, Brock stares down at you in unaging concrete atop his high tower… In sneering judgement of any American who might enter his territory.
These examples point to what I think is the major difference between the British and American empires.
The British could demand, and enforce, EXCELLENCE. Truly superhuman feats of leadership and sacrifice even at the highest level marked the tales of the empire, from Wolfe, to Nelson, to Brock, to Charles Gordon in the Mahdi revolt, or the dozens of generals who died in action.
And this culture continued on down through the colonial Administration and the british bureaucracy. Every aspect of Victorian and early 20th century British imperial bureaucracy is marked by a level of competence, efficiency, and responsibility utterly unthinkable to any modern person living in the post-WW2 west...
And America, but especially modern America has NOTHING comparable.
It is unthinkable that even the most craven, corrupt, and downright evil betrayal of duty will be punished once the station of the complicit party rises above any significant rank in the military, bureaucracy, or indeed even corporate life (Banks have laundered money for the cartels, been caught, and then had fines and punishments specifically structured to avoid all criminal liability)
The accountability and price of honor expected from even postal clerks in the British empire is utterly unthinkable even at the highest levels of the American empire....
And President James Madison is entirely to blame.
America's military and people were set to make a Second Byng out of General Hull, the sentence had been given, the public had agreed, and then unlike King George II, Madison lost his nerve.
In life Hull was worth negative 2500 men in a battle, but in death Hull could have been a legend, a symbol, a terror worth millions! The example of his shame an execution could have been the spurs in the side of every officer and administrator ever to work for the US government again.
That like British Admirals, American Generals might be shot for their failure, and you better believe you can be too.
However, Madison did not allow this to happen.
And so instead, for the next 200 years, whenever a poor private or seaman grumbled on their way to the brig or the noose that no Officer would be similarly punished... That they were not being punished because they were supposed to be responcible and more was expected of them, but specifically because they're not, and therefore they don't have friends and norms of invulnerability to protect them.... They were right.
Hull could not be executed for cowardice, but many Privates and corporals have been executed for cowardice and desertion between the Civil War and the World Wars.
The only senior ranking American leaders to answer with their lives for their perceived failures of leadership have been US presidents who were assassinated. Everyone else Generals, bureaucrats, agents, department heads, admirals, CDC heads... They're all widely perceived as impervious.
Because they are. And there's no way to reverse it...
American government has been doomed over 200 years. When Madison destroyed the possibility of standards.
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