James McHenry Writes Benjamin Tallmadge about Origin and Conduct of War of 1812

JAMES McHENRY, Autograph Letter Draft, to Benjamin Tallmadge, January 23, 1813, Cherry Tree Meadows, [Maryland]. 2 pp., 7.625" x 12.375". Expected folds; some soiling on verso; very good.

Complete Transcript
Cherry Tree Meadows
Saturday 23d Jany. 1813
My Dear Sir
The snow, and distance of the post office, (16 miles) from this place, shut me out from all news for a fort-night. Last Saturday however, my messinger surmounted all difficulties, and brought me next day the accumulation of weeks. What I did during that time you will be told by and by. 1stly, I have to acknowledge your letters under date of the 19, 28, 30, & 31st ulto and two of the 5th and 9th inst. 2dly. To beg you to thank Mr Davenport for the aid he has so kindly lent to furnish amusement to a man confined to his room, by gout, or something very like it, and unable to walk across it without assistance. 3dly. To request you to send me half a dozen copies of Mr Quincy's speech on the army bill, should it appear in a pamphlet form. The short sketch I have seen of it in the Baltimore Federal Gazette, and your account of its pungency & brilliancy makes me anxious to see it entire, and to give it circulation. Mr Quincy adds the graces of the elegant schollar to the talents of the statesman. 4thly. You have furnished me one copy of the Presidents message &c. and Mr Russel's supplementary evidence. Another will oblige me that I may have one set to leave with my son, and a second to take home. I shall also be grateful, if you can spare me copies of the printed reports made by the heads of Departments in the course of the session. These furnish facts, the knowledge of which is necessary to a correct understanding of our public affairs and the manner in which they are conducted. And now you shall know how the interval I spoke of has been employed.
I vouchsafe you to accept of the enclosed dream, not by way of a return for your many favours, for it is no equivalent, but because I have nothing better to send the result of idle hours, and because I thought it was better to send something than nothing at all. Having thus committed myself let me intreat you, as the dream is intended to be ???ed by you and your friends only, who occasionally confer together how best to promote the public good, that it may not pass this limit. There it will be understood, elsewhere it might not.
I am &c
Honble Ben Tallmadge

Historical Background
As stalwarts in the Federalist Party, both former Secretary of War James McHenry of Maryland and Congressman Benjamin Tallmadge of Connecticut opposed the Democratic-Republican Party that had been in power nationally since the "Revolution of 1800" put Thomas Jefferson in the Presidency and gave that party majority in both houses of Congress. Democratic-Republicans continued to control Congress and the Presidency in 1813.

Federalists generally opposed the War of 1812 as an unnecessary conflict, manufactured by President James Madison and the Democratic-Republican Party for their own political interests. With this interpretation of the conflict, Federalists consistently voted against war-related measures. With this letter, McHenry asks Tallmadge to send him another copy of President James Madison's annual message to Congress, delivered on November 4, 1813, along with the "supplementary evidence" provided by Jonathan Russell, the Chargé d'Affaires and acting Minister to the Court of St. James (United Kingdom) from July 1811 to June 1812.

In this letter, McHenry also refers to a speech delivered by Congressman Josiah Quincy (1772-1864) of Massachusetts on January 5, 1813, on a "Bill in Addition to the Act Entitled ‘An Act to Raise an Additional Military Force,' and for Other Purposes." Quincy went on to serve as the mayor of Boston (1823-1828) and president of Harvard University (1829-1845). As McHenry hoped, Quincy's speech was published as a 36-page pamphlet. Quincy particularly opposed a provision of the bill that permitted the enlistment of minors (18- to 20-year-olds) without the consent of their parents, masters, or guardians. The Senate later struck out the provision before approving the bill.

James McHenry (1753-1816) was born in Ireland and sent by his family to North America in 1771 to regain his health. He settled in Philadelphia, where he completed an apprenticeship under Benjamin Rush and became a physician. During the Revolutionary War, he served as a surgeon. He became a secretary to General George Washington from May 1779 and to the Marquis de Lafayette from August 1780. He retired from the army in the autumn of 1781. He was immediately elected to the Maryland Senate in 1781 and as a delegate to Congress in December 1784. In 1787, he was a delegate from Maryland to the Constitutional Convention, and he signed the U.S. Constitution. He served in the Maryland House of Delegates from 1788 to 1790 and in the Maryland Senate from 1791 to 1796. In the latter year, President George Washington appointed him as Secretary of War, a position he held through most of the administration of John Adams. Opposed to many of Adams's policies, McHenry resigned in May 1800 at the president's request. He spent the remainder of his life at an estate in Baltimore, Maryland, which he had purchased in 1792. He maintained extensive correspondence with fellow Federalists Timothy Pickering and Benjamin Tallmadge.

Benjamin Tallmadge (1754-1835) was born on Long Island and in 1773 graduated from Yale College, where he was a classmate of Nathan Hale. He served as superintendent of a school in Wethersfield, Connecticut, from 1773 to 1776 before joining the Continental Army. He received a commission as a major in the 2nd Continental Light Dragoons in June 1776 and soon became George Washington's director of military intelligence. Tallmadge assembled the Culper Spy Ring, which operated in British-occupied New York City from 1778 to 1783. After the war, Tallmadge held several offices in the Society of the Cincinnati in the state of Connecticut. He served as postmaster of Litchfield from 1792 to 1801, when he resigned to take a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, in which he represented Connecticut as a Federalist until 1817. He also established a successful mercantile and importing business and served as the first president of the Phoenix Branch Bank from 1814 to 1826.

Provenance: Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, ca. 1930s.

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