toward Marlboro over the lower road. Mr. Monroe, the Secretary of State, with a companion reconnoitered the British advance, and reported the result to everybody including General Winder. As the two scouts disagreed as to the number of the enemy and their intentions, the result was not especially illuminating, but helped to throw the American militia and the inhabitants of Washington into a panic. On the evening of the 23d, Winder, fearing a night attack, retreated across the East Branch and into Washington.

The next day, hearing that the English were making for Bladensburg, he moved his forces to that point and joined some of the Maryland militia which had assembled there the previous day. The total American force at Bladensburg was in the vicinity of seven thousand. We were about eighty-six thousand "shy" of patriotic citizens springing to arms in response to the July request for ninety-three thousand militia. Commodore Barney and his sailors were left behind in Washington to blow up the bridges that crossed the East Branch in case of a British advance in that direction. Barney's command, whose action was the only redeeming feature on the American side that day, would have been eliminated from the fight, had not the President on his way to Bladensburg met Barney and asked him what he was doing. Barney replied that he and his command

had been left behind to do the work which "any damned corporal" could accomplish. The President asked him why he did not leave it to a corporal and come on to Bladensburg. Barney took this suggestion as an order, and trailing along behind Winder's army arrived in time to take part in the battle. Winder described his army "as suddenly assembled, without organization or discipline, or officers of the least knowledge of service." Our army, in the presence of the President and . his Cabinet, was formed for battle in three lines. After formation and while waiting for the enemy, the Secretary of State took it upon himself to change the formation without consulting the commander. Some of the artillery was posted to command the crossing of the river and was especially effective against the first onrush of the British. The advance guard, without waiting for reconnoissance, attempted to rush the bridge with the usual English bull-headed determination. In this attempt they lost many men. After the battle began there was little team play or maneuvering on the part of the Americans. The various lines offered little support to one another and were successively attacked and turned. The mass of our army, struck by a panic, streamed west toward Georgetown and Rockville. They ceased to exist as an organization, and were scattered over twenty miles of territory to the north, west, and south of

Washington. The President and his Cabinet were scattered in the same rout. The difference in the morale of the troops engaged is illustrated by their losses. The American force of seven thousand men was annihilated, as an organization, after the loss of eight killed and eleven wounded.

The contrast between the behavior of our troops at Bladensburg, and at Chippewa is most refreshing. During the first half of the nineteenth century, General Scott looms large as the conspicuous professional soldier of America. He saw clearly that the problem of tactics was one of cohesion and team play, and that training for efficiency consists in developing and organizing the powers of each unit in a military establishment. He considered units to be, the individual man, the Company, the Regiment, the Brigade, and the Division. The work he emphasized was the training of each of these sub-divisions to its full capacity, as an entity, and as a unit in a larger team. The object of his work was to create a machine, standardized in all its parts, and capable of being maneuvered to deliver the maximum of fire and shock tactics against an enemy. The standardization of thinking and feeling was conspicuous in his scheme of instruction.

On March 24, 1814, General Scott joined General Brown's command at a camp some miles east of Buffalo. The force there assembled consisted

of seven regiments recently recruited in Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New York. They were organized into two brigades, commanded, respectively, by Scott and Ripley. The training of these troops was left to General Scott, the senior brigade commander. In his autobiography, he describes the work as follows:

"Service of outposts, night patrols, guards, and sentinels was organized; a system of sanitary police including kitchen, etc., laid down; rules of civility, etiquette, and courtesy,-the indispensable outworks of subordination,-prescribed and enforced, and the tactical instruction of each arm

menced. Nothing but night, or a heavy fall of snow or rain, was allowed to interrupt these exercises on the ground to the extent, in tolerable weather, of ten hours a day for three months. As relaxation, both officers and men were thus brought to sigh for orders to beat up the enemy's quarters, but the commander knew that such work could not be effectually done without the most laborious preparation."

General Scott had no textbooks except one copy of French Tactics and one translation of the same.

"He began by forming the officers of all grades, indiscriminately, into squads and personally instructed them in the school of the soldier and company. They were then allowed to instruct

squads and companies of their own men, a whole field of them under the eyes of the general at once, who, in passing, took successively many companies in hand each for a time. So, too, on the formation of battalions, he instructed each an hour or two a day for many days, and afterwards carefully superintended their instruction by the respective field officers.

"The Brigadier-General's labors were about the same in respect to lessons on subjects alluded to above, other than tactics, measures of safety for a camp near the enemy, police, etiquette, etc. The evolutions of the line, or the harmonious movement of many battalions in one or more lines with a reserve were next daily exhibited for the first time by an American army, and to the great delight of the troops themselves, who now began to perceive why they had been made to fag so long at the drill of the soldier, the company, and the battalion. Confidence, the dawn of victory, inspired the whole line.”

On July 3, Brown led his small force across the Niagara River and captured Fort Erie. On the 3d and 4th, Scott chased the retreating English, who met reinforcements at Chippewa Creek. Scott then retired behind Street's Creek. On the 5th of July, Scott's brigade enjoyed a dinner which had been scheduled as a celebration for the previous day. In the afternoon he paraded his troops