James and Dolley Madison (36 page)

She also helped the president to aid Albert Gallatin, his highly trusted secretary of the treasury, whom many members of Congress never grew to like. Madison wanted to put Gallatin on a peace commission to end the war, but
Congress insisted that he could not be on the peace commission and continue as secretary of treasury at the same time. Dolley wrote Gallatin's wife, “Nothing has borne so hard as the conduct of the Senate in regard to Mr. Gallatin. Mr. Astor will tell you many particulars that I ought not to write, of the desertion of some whose support we had a right to expect and of the manoeuvring of others always hostile to superior merit. We console ourselves with the hope of its terminating both in public good and Mr. Gallatin's honorable triumph.”
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In the end, the Senate did approve Gallatin as a peace commissioner, but only after he resigned from the Madison cabinet.

Throughout 1813 and 1814, Dolley complained to friends that the reluctance of Congress to appropriate funds for enlarging the army and navy, which Madison begged for, was going to turn tragic. She felt even worse in the spring of 1814, that after the first defeat of Napoleon in Europe the British could now turn all of their sail and cannon firepower on America in one great lunge to win the War of 1812. From the spring of 1814 into the late summer, Mrs. Madison, and others, worried about an attack at either Baltimore or Washington. Dolley and her husband dismissed “official” predictions that the British would ignore Washington and assault Baltimore in a prodigious land-and-sea operation involving several dozen warships and ten thousand troops.

One thing Dolley refused to do was abandon her friends because of the war and politics. The premier example of this was the saucy Elizabeth “Betsy” Patterson Bonaparte, the young wife of Napoleon's twenty-year-old brother. Betsy, an American, had fallen for Jerome Bonaparte at a dance and married him shortly afterward. The two became a sensation on the Washington party circuit because Jerome was the brother of perhaps the most famous, and certainly the most feared, man in the world and Betsy showed much cleavage in her gowns when in public. Dolley had taken Betsy under her wing and befriended her when everybody else sneered at the girl.

In 1814, as the war raged, Betsy's fortunes collapsed. Napoleon refused to recognize the marriage of his brother to Betsy, would not meet her, and, in fact, refused to permit her to enter France. He ordered his brother to leave Betsy and return home to France, where the emperor promptly married him off to an acceptable French woman. Betsy was left alone with a hefty $50,000 per year alimony support.

Betsy fretted that the loss of all her social luster would mean an immediate ouster from the White House and Washington social circles that were run by Mrs. Madison. She had nothing to fear. Dolley, in fact, felt sorry for her. Betsy, like so many millions of others, was a victim of Napoleon's wrath. Dolley continued to invite her to all the White House dinners, receptions, and parties.
Because Dolley acknowledged her, so did everyone else. It made Betsy feel better. To keep Betsy in the White House social world without her husband must have angered Napoleon, so it made Dolley feel better, too.

Dolley kept up correspondence with old friends, too. She wrote Thomas Jefferson's daughter Martha for years after her father left the White House, and, when James Madison died, Martha was one of the first women to send condolences to Dolley.

The war caused Dolley to become even more personal to all than she had been during her husband's first few years as president. Sarah Gales Seaton said that at wartime parties Dolley would welcome guests and then, as an extra personal touch, sit down between two or three or four of them and talk for quite a while before returning to her general duties as hostess. She persuaded musically talented people at parties to sing or play the harp or piano in one of her drawing rooms to entertain the crowd. She also took to wearing the fashionable new flat caps at formal dinners, in addition to her turbans, shocking everyone.

A woman at a wartime dinner, without realizing it, captured Dolley's popularity in an instant. Dolley was a queen, she said, but never displayed the personality of one, always remaining a common woman.
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Later, when the war ended, the president asked his wife to throw one of her famous receptions to welcome the new British minister, the rather-illustrious Sir Charles Bagot, descended from Lord Henry Bolingbroke. His wife, said to be rather beautiful, was the niece of the duke of Wellington, the same duke who had just crushed Napoleon at Waterloo.

Their star power did not daunt Mrs. Madison. At her party, she not only invited every important politician in America but also added Chief Justice Marshall and all the members of the Supreme Court, as well as some of the peace commissioners, a bevy of senators and congressmen and several US Army generals. And, of course, on top of them all, like the voluptuous icing on the cake, there was Dolley. She dazzled everybody. Mrs. Madison wore a rose-colored satin and white felt gown whose train swept the floor behind her for several yards. She was adorned in a gold necklace and bracelets. Finally, the First Lady wore a huge turban of white velvet, trimmed with white ostrich tips and a gold, embroidered crown.

Sir Charles Bagethot was stunned. “She looked every inch a queen,” he said.
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The commander in chief hung maps of Canada, the Great Lakes, New England, and the Atlantic seaboard up on the walls of his office in the White House; wrote letters; signed orders; kept files; met with political figures; brought in newspaper editors; and held meetings. The War of 1812 was the very first conflict in United States history in which the civilian president donned the robes of the military leader, the commander in chief of all armed forces.

Everything that Madison did as commander in chief set precedent. As military leader in wartime, he had to raise a large army, recruit militia units, expand the navy, get ammunition, name generals, and create a battle plan for the war. He had to assemble a war council in the White House, deal with a belligerent Federalist Party and equally disdainful Federalist newspaper editors, maintain the support of his Republican Party, gain support from the nation's clergymen, and, at the same time, pass bills, collect taxes, and run the nonmilitary side of the country. It was a daunting task.

At the start of the war, Napoleon Bonaparte did not let up in his own campaign to search American merchant vessels and impress sailors, as he had been doing for months. Madison could not fight one war with the British and another with the French. He also could not give in and join forces with the French against the British. He wrote a fiery letter, aimed at Napoleon, and had it printed in the
National Intelligencer
. In it, he said that “our government will not, under any circumstances that may occur, form a political connection with France…. It is not desirable to enter the lists with the two great belligerents at once, but if England acts with wisdom, and France perseveres in her career of injustice and folly, we should not be surprised to see the attitude of the United States change toward those powers.” He sent copies of the letter to his minister in France, Joel Barlow, and told him to be ready for an American war with France if England ended its war and the French continued their hostilities toward the United States.
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The president quickly found himself the well of all responsibility for the war. It was not a good place to be in, but Madison did not flinch. He plunged into the work of the conflict each morning and kept at it all day. Attorney General Richard Rush was surprised and impressed that Madison worked so hard. He was also pleased that Madison never gave in to British demands. He was, Rush said, “obstinate” against the British. Rush also wrote that “we have great good in him.”
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The president also had to deal with the leaders of the Native American tribes in the Northwest Territories. They all complained bitterly about mistreatment by the American government and the local settlers in the Ohio region. Madison knew that they were right, and he also knew that if he did not resolve their problems they would side with the British in the war. He could not have the armed resistance of a half dozen tribes, with hundreds of warriors, allied against him. He also had to work with the War Hawk congressmen, led by Henry Clay, who saw the war as an opportunity to annex all of Canada in a sweeping victory. Americans had thirsted after the vast terrain of Canada for decades. They had invaded the country with the British in the French and Indian War and, on their own in the American Revolution, each time without success, but they might achieve victory in the War of 1812. It was an unintended consequence that might bring huge rewards in the future. Jefferson had doubled the size of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase, and the annexation of Canada would double it again. For years, Madison had believed that Canada would become part of the United States simply because it was next door. “When the pear is ripe, it will fall of itself,” he said. Newspapers thirsted after Canada. When the war was just a year old, the editor of the
Boston Chronicle
wrote that “the Canadas ought in no event be surrendered…much valuable blood has already been shed and too much treasure been expended, to permit us to indulge for a moment the idea of resigning this country.” Madison also believed, as did most Americans, that the Canadians would rather be Americans than remain British. Even British commander Isaac Brock thought that might be true. “[They] were either indifferent to what was passing or so completely American as to rejoice in the prospects of change of governments,” he said. Yet President Madison could not publicly say he wanted to grab all of Canada. After all, this was supposed to be a defensive war against England, not a glaring attack on Canada.
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The president did not want to dampen the enthusiasm for the war anywhere, but he soon found that he had to do exactly that in the most unlikely of places: the White House. There, his energetic, highly ambitious secretary of state, James Monroe, caught war fever and asked for a battlefield command as a general. Monroe not only was the secretary of state and former governor
of Virginia but also had been an officer in the American Revolution. He had enough military experience and administrative experience to act as a general. Madison did not want that, though. Monroe might make a decent general, but he was an even better secretary of state. The president did not want to lose his diplomatic skills in the crucial months ahead just so that Monroe could race off and win some battles. He also needed Monroe because the Virginian was part of his White House brain trust for economic and political matters, as well as for the war. Besides, the departure of Monroe, some in the cabinet said, would open the door to bring Thomas Jefferson back to Washington to replace him as secretary of state. What a splendid idea, his aides said. Jefferson had not only been a great president but was, they reminded Madison, a secretary of state once before, for President Washington. Much as Madison loved Jefferson, he did not believe that the third president, knee deep in his farming at Monticello, would come back. Although he would never say it, he also did not need a former president around, offering advice. The country had one president already; it did not need two. Monroe would stay in Washington and Jefferson would remain at Monticello.

Madison had wars to fight wherever he turned, even in his own cabinet. Dr. William Eustis had been a weak secretary of war who elicited no confidence in Congress, and Madison wanted to replace him. To do so, he had to plunge into a nightmare world of intrigue and political infighting. Everybody in Washington was loathe to take the secretary of war job. It involved an enormous amount of work and the secretary seemed to be criticized from all corners of Washington. And what if America lost the conflict? What would happen to the secretary of war, who lost the war?

Madison personally hated to see Dr. Eustis go, but he was pressured by many in the government to fire him, especially Gallatin, whom he trusted. Gallatin did not like Eustis and told the president that Eustis simply did not have the skills for the job. Madison needed a secretary of war whose “knowledge and talents would save millions and the necessary business would be better done,” said Gallatin.
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Eustis had no military experience and scant administrative skills. He spent most of his time reading maps and corresponding with arms merchants and ignored the war. He supported his older generals and refused to acknowledge criticism of them by younger generals, such as Winfield Scott. He corresponded with generals in the field but never passed along their letters to Madison; he often instructed generals to write him and not the commander in chief. One congressman called Eustis “a dead weight,” and Paul Jennings, Madison's slave, said he was a “rather rough, blustering man.”
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Madison wanted to replace Eustis with Senator William Crawford of Georgia, whom he admired, or General Henry Dearborn, but they both turned him down. Then he wanted to move Monroe from State to War but feared a congressional uprising if he did so. Then he thought about his friend Gallatin but knew that Congress despised Gallatin and would never approve him. Finally, Madison settled on John Armstrong, a former minister to France, whom nobody liked. Monroe told the president that Armstrong not only could not do the job but also was personally offensive to all who met him. Gallatin said he did not have the disposition for the job, did not have any loyalty to the administration, and might undermine the president. Madison, with no one else to turn to, went with Armstrong anyway. It would turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes he ever made.

The president then turned to the Navy Department, where Paul Hamilton had run things inefficiently for several years. Hamilton was a friendly and loyal secretary, but he did a terrible job running the navy in peacetime and now was doing a worse job in wartime. He had been a drunk for years and, it was rumored, never stayed at the office past noon. The president and others had tried to help Hamilton but failed. “Mr. Madison and his friends tried by every means to cure him, but it was useless,” said French Minister Serrurier. Madison talked Hamilton into resigning and replaced him with William Jones, a staunch Republican whom he had tried to get to take the navy job for eleven years. Jones, a Philadelphia merchant, was not only a good administrator but, as a former sea captain, also understood the needs of the sailors in the navy. The hardworking Jones turned out to be one of Madison's best wartime appointments. The president said of him later that he was “the fittest minister who had ever been charged with the Navy Department.” Rush was relieved as much as he was pleased by the appointments. He said that is was “delightful…to all those who for months past have been agonized at the imbecility of the two departments, to think that now probably the two most able men the nation has in it…are the two men appointed.”
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Madison's shuffling of the cabinet pleased Congress. So did an extraordinarily tough annual message, delivered in the winter of 1812. Rush told Madison that he was no longer a peace president but a war president. He needed to send Congress a hard, strident message from a wartime chief that told each member, and the nation and the world, that the United States would never back down and would win its war. He told the president what was needed in the message was “a blast of war against England” and a message that would “thwack…these gentlemen patriots among us who are perpetually aiding and abetting the enemy.” Madison put together a furious message, one from the heart, one so
full of Armageddon language, though, that it startled Rush. He helped Madison tone down the message, against the president's better instincts.
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The message called for more recruitment, a larger navy, and higher pay for soldiers. It also included a note that the country could do this because a recent $6 million loan had balanced the budget, knowing full well, from Gallatin, that the coming year would probably show a substantial deficit, not a balance.

The president solved the problem of getting men to volunteer for the general army or militia by increasing the pay of privates from $5 a month to $8 and added substantial bounty fees to make the army a satisfying occupation.

The very first War Hawk Congress promptly approved President Madison's wide-ranging budget requests. Soldier pay was increased by 60 percent, “imprisonment for debt” army recruits released from confinement and signed up, recruiting budgets increased, and funds provided for a doubling of the size of the navy, something that had never been done before in American history. Later, Congress gave Madison the power to appoint officers for twenty new regiments, created twelve new generalships, and gave the president the right to name them (some of his choices were poor, but others, such as Zebulon Pike, Lewis Cass, George Izard and Duncan MacArthur, were quite good), and completely overhauled the quartermaster corps.

Back in Washington, Madison took it upon himself to make regular calls on the different men who worked in the War Department, just to show his interest. He listened to their complaints that they were overworked and needed help and asked Congress for two more assistant secretaries of war to handle the work (he was at first turned down).

Then the United States received a totally unexpected victory in the war. The frigate
Constitution
had defeated the much larger and faster British warship
Guerriere
, burned it, and sunk it to the bottom of the Atlantic. The Americans had ravaged one of the star warships of the huge British Navy and its nearly one thousand ships and made it look easy. Militarily, it was a small victory, just one single ship, but from a public-relations standpoint, it was a mammoth accomplishment. The triumph was reported enthusiastically in most of America's newspapers and started a firestorm of pride in the people. It was one of several public-relations victories in the war that, in the end, meant more than military success itself.

There was other joy in the White House, too; Payne Todd moved back in. The gadfly, the irresponsible son, still spending far more money than he had and traveling the world as if he was a roving ambassador of goodwill, returned to his family in the spring of 1812, just as the war was starting, and remained for six months. Dolley was thrilled. She was glad to have him home where she
could keep an eye on him and where, she thought, he would be so pleased with the White House social world that he would stay. She suggested that he help her work as the president's private secretary and he agreed. She invited him to all the parties and he went. She introduced him to all of her friends and many young, unattached women and he was pleasant to them all. She crossed her fingers and hoped that he would marry one of them and she would help him settle down. She felt a new chapter in his life, in her life, had started.