The Blame For Hull's Surrender

New York Evening Post, 5 September 1812

The government gazette has, at last, published the articles of capitulation by which General Hull surrendered himself and his army to the British. It will be seen by the editorial article which we copy from the same paper that the Administration intend to shift the disgrace of this shameful affair from their own shoulders to those of General Hull and his abused officers and men. The Intelligencer says the army was "abundantly strong for the contemplated objects of the expedition on which it set out; that it was also abundantly supplied with every requisite of ammunition, arms, stores, and provisions, to secure, under judicious and prompt movements, all the advantages that were looked to from its march." By letters from General Hull and his officers dated previous to the capture and inserted in the same Intelligencer, it appears that such was not the case: they all agree in stating that the army was without provisions-and was so weak that if reinforcements did not soon arrive, the most fatal consequences were to be expected. Now on which statement are we to depend: on the accounts of General Hull and his officers, written on the spot, or on the speculations of the government editor, written five hundred miles from the scene of action?

Washington National Intelligencer, 3 September 1812

The government is not as yet, that we are informed, in possession of any official advices relating to the disaster which seems to have befallen our Northwestern army. The rumor of it has struck everyone here, as it must everywhere, with astonishment. That at the moment the country was looking with the best-founded and most justified hope for the intelligence of the success of our arms in that quarter, we should hear of defeat-of the total surrender of an army of 2,500 men without a battle-probably without firing a gun-to a force not greater, perhaps much less, than its own, is equally extraordinary and mysterious. It might, perhaps, be premature, in us, at such a moment as this, to hazard any opinion on an event so vitally important to the character of the commanding general; but we share largely in the public astonishment which manifests itself upon the occasion. A very little time must unravel the cause of this utterly unexpected reverse. We think we do not misunderstand the character of that army when we say it was abundantly strong under every calculation of safety and prudence, and in the previous estimation of the general himself, for the contemplated objects of the expedition on which it set out; that it was also abundantly supplied with every requisite of ammunition, arms, stores, provisions, to secure, under judicious and prompt movements, all the advantages that were looked to from its march.