Yet much of that work was counteracted by Bladensburg, the prime disgrace of American History. Little anxiety had been felt in Washington, over three thousand British troops who had been hovering about in the Chesapeake for a year. The Secretary of War, the President and General Winder fell into a lengthy argument about how many troops should be called out to oppose this force. Meanwhile, the enemy was marching uninterruptedly toward our Capital. Finally sixty-four hundred Americans were collected just before the battle to oppose the invaders. The camp of men was wild with disorder and drink, while our so-called leaders were stupid with perplexity. Just before actual contact the three gentlemen mentioned above, fell to discussing the situation as if it were something quite new. The troops were posted on the heights--badly. At the firing of some harmless rockets, our force which outnumbered the enemy two to one, fled right through the nation’s Capitol, leaving it open to plunder and rapine. Why the British chose to burn only the public buildings, was probably due to their sportsmanship. Of course, General Jackson did excellent defensive work at New Orleans, but that was after the war was over--after the whistle had blown. Of course the Navy, too, did perfect work. The government had seen to it that they had been well-trained for a long time before the war. There were no novices in that organization. All these actions on land were really more disgraceful than I have described them. Throughout the War of 1812, as you see, most any unqualified man could be put in the saddle and every kind of unprepared man could be put in the field to fight. We were helpless, hopeless, impatient, disgraceful, because we had discarded training and foresight in the years beforehand. In this war, over two decades after we had become a nation, we committed all the errors of the Revolution to a greater degree--and one more. We had no management or leadership--no commander-in-chief or the commonest business organization. Fine manhood, for want of previous training was held up to ridicule, suffering, casualties, and disgrace. Now for the figures. We called out over half a million men and could not drive a maximum of sixteen thousand from our shores for over two years. We spent nearly two hundred million dollars, not counting pensions, when two per cent of that sum with a small well-trained force would have sufficed. And above all we sacrificed six thousand lives in camp and on the battlefield, when that figure should not have been over two hundred. As far as might, efficiency, planning and management were concerned, we muddled this war on land to the tune of death and shame. Again we couldn’t defend our country against our enemies and had to thank God for European weariness from Napoleon, which called off the British. That’s the reason why, when our raw material is finer and greater than anywhere else in the world, the soldier is so wrought up over