essentially
akin to the world-wide struggle of a century later, when sons of the old
foemen of 1812--sons of the painted Indians and of the Kentucky pioneers
in fringed buckskins, sons of the New Hampshire ploughboys clad in
homespun, sons of the Canadian militia and the red-coated regulars of
the British line, sons of the tarry seamen of the _Constitution_ and the
_Guerriere_--stood side by side as brothers in arms to save from brutal
obliteration the same spirit of freedom. And so it is that in Flanders
fields today the poppies blow above the graves of the sons of the men
who fought each other a century ago in the Michigan wilderness and at
Lundy's Lane.

The causes and the background of the War of 1812 are presented elsewhere
in this series of Chronicles.[1] Great Britain, at death grips with
Napoleon, paid small heed to the rights and dignities of neutral
nations. The harsh and selfish maritime policy of the age, expressed in
the British Navigation Acts and intensified by the struggle with
Napoleon, led the Mistress of the Seas to perpetrate indignity after
indignity on the ships and sailors which were carrying American commerce
around the world. The United States demanded a free sea, which Great
Britain would not grant. Of necessity, then, such futile weapons as
embargoes and non-intercourse acts had to give place to the musket, the
bayonet, and the carronade. There could be no compromise between the
clash of doctrines. It was for the United States to assert herself,
regardless of the odds, or sink into a position of supine dependency
upon the will of Great Britain and the wooden walls of her invincible
navy.

[Footnote 1: See _Jefferson and His Colleagues_, by Allen Johnson (in
_The Chronicles of America_).]

"Free Trade and Sailors' Rights!" was the American war cry. It expressed
the two grievances which outweighed all others--the interference with
American shipping and the ruthless impressment of seamen from beneath
the Stars and Stripes. No less high-handed than Great Britain's were
Napoleon's offenses against American commerce, and there was just cause
for war with France. Yet Americans felt the greater enmity toward
England, partly as an inheritance from the Revolution, but chiefly
because of the greater injury which England had wrought, owing to her
superior strength on the sea.

There were, to be sure, other motives in the conflict. It is not to be
supposed that the frontiersmen of the Northwest and So