September 11th, 1814

Today marks the eighth anniversary of an event that still makes me shake my head in bewilderment.

Oh... the audacity of a dedicated group of mean-spirited thugs was amazing enough, but the reaction of many of my countrymen is what I find most curious and perplexing.

We were like a collection of deer in the headlights: part stunned disbelief and part scared shitless.

True national panic.

National trauma.

All this paranoia from a handful of hijackers and four airliners.

Seriously now.

Despite the tragedy of September 11th, did anyone really doubt that America's future as a strong, independent, soverign nation was at stake? Did we really expect the America we all knew and loved would just suddenly tremble and fall like the Twin Towers?

Want a story about a real theat to America's very existence?

Well, there was a time -- a September 11th, quite literally, in fact -- where the future of the United States wasn't a sure thing.

It was September 11th, 1814:

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Not long after the French Revolution, Napoleon had catapulted to the top of the European stage and was making life difficult for his neighbors.

The most vexed were the Brits, of course. When Napoleon initiated a series of conquests, his first and most enduring enemy was Great Britain, an emnity that lasted throughout the entirety of the Napoleonic Wars.

Britain was also a thorn in America's side.

In addition to several grievances -- including the raiding of American ships trading with France and conscripting seized mariners into service to His Majesty -- America had a long-simmering resentment of its former colonial overlord. The Revolutionary War was history, but the legacy of bitterness and animosity was not.

France had become America's champion in Europe and we were happy to oblige Napoleon's insults -- and wars -- against the British. Thus, when "Sixth" (War of the Sixth Coalition) Napoleonic War began and Britain -- already strained and beleagured by nine-plus years of battle -- looked unable to mount much of a threat, America decided it was time to join the fray.

In June 1812, the United States declared war on Britain.

It proved disastrous.

Not only was our fledging navy no match for the mighty British Admiralty, but our best efforts at incursions into the British territory of Canada were often and repeatedly beaten back. The British, on the other hand, invaded Washington D.C. and managed to burn half of it down, including the still-under-construction White House.

Although the United States was an independent country, the war provided Britain with a chance to undo history.

If America couldn't be entirely subdued, the British calculated that at least she could be contained.

After a number of failures, on both sides, that consumed the winter of 1812 and all of 1813, a plan was hatched in Parliament to divide the United States in half.

Battles on the east coast, like in Baltimore and Washington, were diversions intended to keep those pesky Yanks busy while the British fleet and several armies headed up the Saint Lawrence to Montreal.

From Montreal, ground armies were advanced south towards New York and an array of ships sent up the Richelieu River into Lake Champlain, between New York and Vermont. The British forces numbered over 15,000 compared to a ragtag array of 1500 American irregulars stationed primarily at an outpost on the shores of Lake Champlain, at Plattsburgh, New York.

Outnumbered, outpowered and outgunned, the American defenses looked doomed when, just after 8:30 AM on the morning of September 11th the British navy rounded the peninsula marking the entrance to Plattsburgh.

The Yanks saw them coming.

The British ships so outmatched the American fleet that even the upper masts of the largest of the British armada, HMS Confiance, could be seen over Cumberland Head -- a rugged peninsula north of Plattsburgh.

Not only were the British ships, like the Chubb, Linnet, Confiance and Finch, generally larger, they were outfitted with long guns -- cannons with ranges of up to a mile-and-a-half -- whereas the American ships were rigged with carronades -- short-and-squat cannons with a maximum range of 500 meters.

The situation was dire.

The American ships fled to a safe distance while watching the fleet descend on Plattsburgh.

It was then that most amazing thing happened.

The wind changed.

The square-rigging of the Confiance worked perfectly while sailing south on Lake Champlain with a brisk northerly, but rounding the corner of Cumberland Head, the ship faced directly into a light northwest which it was powerless to tack against.

It lay stranded and helpless, unable to even right itself so that the long guns could face the now-advancing Americans. Almost too stunned to believe their good fortune, the American fleet was able to approach and let loose a barrage that left the ship's Captain, George Downie, hamstrung and barely able to defend his ship.

As Confiance suffered increasing damage from the American ships, he was forced to drop anchor between 300 and 500 yards from MacDonough's flagship, the USS Saratoga. He then proceeded deliberately, securing everything before firing a broadside which killed or wounded one fifth of Saratoga's crew. MacDonough was stunned but quickly recovered; and a few minutes later, Downie was killed. Wikipedia Article on the Battle of Plattsburgh.

The Americans had won a decisive victory in what turned out to be the last true military invasion of the United States, ever. Gone were any hopes by the British of eventually re-taking the American colonies.

Also dashed were British hopes of creating a new, western state of British loyalists and American Indians they had hoped to call "Columbia."

But, it was a close one.

Unlike our latter-day September 11th, this day posed a real threat to America's very existence.

Even a little change in the sequence of events and America's future as a free and independent state would be over.

Not just a momentary trauma... and cease of national existence.

Toast.

Game Over.

If the winds had been just slightly different, had the British advanced a day sooner, had a different commander been in charge.... the possibilities are endless, as author and retired Army Colonel David Fitz-Enz describes in his book "The Redcoats Revenge."

But for one slight change in the wind, America would have met its virtual Waterloo . . .

. . . on September 11th.

Now that would have been something to worry our pretty little heads over.

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