James Holmes
The War of 1812 is a mindbender among naval wars. Seldom does a society mistake defeat for victory and codify the loser strategy as the playbook for future conflicts. But so it was for the United States for most of the nineteenth century. Americans celebrated a stirring string of single-ship battles early in the war, confusing tactical triumphs with strategic and political results. Forgotten was the fact that the foe, Great Britain and its Royal Navy, had mounted an effective blockade as the conflict went on—confining those U.S. Navy frigates to port and consigning them to tactical and operational irrelevance. U.S. commerce wilted. This was no victory.
If anything the War of 1812 was a guide to how not to wage war at sea. Americans reared on the minuteman tradition believed that the best strategy was to improvise a fleet at the outset of war, take it out to sea, and thrash the preeminent navy of the day. It was safe and economical to neglect the navy in peacetime.
Such a non-strategy amounts to begging for defeat, but it was enshrined in popular lore nonetheless. You still hear echoes of the boosterism. To this day tour guides on board USS Constitution at Charlestown Navy Yard inform visitors that the sail frigate is Boston’s only undefeated sports team. That’s true—but it obscures the fact that a lot of sea battles remained unfought because Constitution and other ships of war couldn’t get out to sea and into action late in the war.
They were strategically inert however impressive their tactical feats of arms.
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