From James Madison to James Monroe, 21 August 1814
To James Monroe
Aug. 21. 80C. A. M. [1814]
Dear Sir
I recd. yours of yesterday between 5 & 6 OC and made known its contents to the Secy of W. & N. & to Genl. W. The information derived importance from the lateness of its date. You know that extensive & pressing calls have been made for militia, and we hope they will be prompt.1 Some of Laval’s horse, upwards of 100, arrived yesterday, & will be immediately where they ought to be. As our troops will in general be raw, tho’ numerous, the true course will be to pelt the Enemy from the start, with light troops, taking advantage of grounds & positions for artillery, and throwing in all sorts of obstructions in the routes. Gaines has given a fair blow to Drummond, & promises to follow it up.2 The newspaper inclosed will give you the British acct. of the preceding action.3 You will note their mistatement of our Prisoners, who are about 200, instead of 40 odd, and are now at Greenbush.
I have given the necessary directions for paper &ce which will be carried to you by the express. Affecy
J Madison
RC (DLC: Monroe Papers). Docketed by Monroe. Year supplied based on evidence in nn.
1. Brig. Gen. William H. Winder informed John Armstrong on 19 Aug. 1814 that he had called out en masse the militia of the District of Columbia, Baltimore, and Prince George’s County and Anne Arundel County in Maryland, and had ordered the Virginia militia already embodied in the Northern Neck under Brig. Gen. John P. Hungerford to march immediately for Washington. He also planned to issue “demands for five hundred men each, from all the brigades on the Western Shore of Maryland, and the counties which border the Potomac on the Virginia side.” He added his opinion that these efforts would probably not produce a very large force in a timely manner. Armstrong replied the same day, stating that he had shown Winder’s letter to JM, who had approved the calls on the militia (, Military Affairs, 1:547, 549).
2. JM referred to the first Battle of Fort Erie, in which U.S. forces repulsed a British attempt to storm the fort during the early morning hours of 15 Aug. 1814. Brig. Gen. Edmund Pendleton Gaines reported the victory to Armstrong the same day (DNA: RG 107, LRRS, G-43:8). The letter was published in the Daily National Intelligencer on 22 Aug. 1814.
3. 3. On 13 Aug. 1814 the New York Plattsburgh Republican published Lt. Gen. Gordon Drummond’s 26 July 1814 general order claiming victory in the Battle of Lundy’s Lane the previous day, with a list of British losses that included forty-two prisoners. The order and list also appeared in several New England and New York newspapers in the following week.