Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/193

 COMMUNICATIONS QuoGUE, N. Y., July 25, 1906. The Editor of the American Historical Review: Dear Sir: — In the issue of the Review for July, in the review of my War of 1812, your reviewer, Mr. Gaillard Hunt, has fallen into an inadvertence of statement which I cannot afford to leave uncorrected. He writes : " The naval victories on Lake Champlain and the military victories at New Orleans are treated as events irrelevant to the objects and out- come of the war." As to New Orleans, this is exact as regards the outcome ; scarcely so, I think, as regards the objects. As to Lake Champlain, it is entirely contrary to what I explicitly stated. Thus, in concluding my account of Macdonough's victory, Vol. IL, p. 381, I say: " The battle of Lake Champlain, more nearly than any other incident of the War of 1812, merits the epithet decisive." This is certainly not saying that the battle was irrelevant to the out- come of the war ; and that this was not an accidental comment on my part, but in keeping with my steady point of view, appears both from the preface, which I refrain from quoting, and from the following other extracts : " As, on a wider field and in more tremendous issues, the fleets of Great Britain saved their country, and determined the fortunes of Europe, so Perry and Macdonough averted from the United States, without further fighting, a rectification of frontier," etc. (Vol. IL, p. lOI.) " In 1814 there stood between the Government and disastrous reverse, and loss of territory, in the north, only the resolution and professional skill of a yet unrecognized seaman on the neglected waters of Lake Champlain." (Vol. II., p. 267.) Whatever may be thought of these two estimates, in themselves, they show that I considered this battle far from irrelevant to "the objects, or the outcome, of the War." The statement of your reviewer affects too seriously my sanity, as an historical writer, to be passed over in the silence with which an author of many years' experience learns to accept differences of opinion. But for it, I should not have written at all ; but, as it has drawn me out, I will say further that, in my judgment, your reviewer has failed in another respect to reach the high standard which should be expected in the Review. The obiter dicta of the periodical press are one thing; the Review is specialist in aim and character. Mr. Hunt writes: ( 183)