Much has been written of this campaign of Hull, and in the controversy, statistics differ as widely as opinions. He was tried by Court Martial, of which Martin Van Buren was Judge Advocate, acquitted of treason, but found guilty of cowardice and sentenced to be shot. Being pardoned by the President, his life was saved, but he went forth a blighted and ruined man.
On many points there is room for a diversity of judgment, but one thing is certain, General Hull was unfit for the station to which he was assigned. He had been a gallant subordinate officer in the revolution, but a man may be a good major, or even colonel, but a bad commander-in-chief. There are many officers who are fit only to act under orders, whom personal danger never agitates, but who are unnerved by responsibility. Let the latter rest on some other person and they will cheerfully encounter the peril. Hull may have been one of these, at least it seems more rational to attribute a portion of his conduct to some mental defect rather than to cowardice. It is hard to affix such a stain on a man who moved beside Washington in the perilous march on Trenton--stood firmly amid the hottest fire at Princeton--gallantly led his men to the charge at Bemis' Heights, and faced without flinching the fiery sleet that swept the column pressing up the rugged heights of Stony Point. Gray hairs do not make a coward of such a man, though they should render him imbecile.
It is not easy at this remote period to appreciate the difficulties of the position in which Hull eventually found himself. At first he refused to take command of the expedition, but being urged by the government, accepted, though with the express understanding that in case of hostilities, he was to be sustained both by a fleet on Lake Erie, and an army operating on the northern and western frontier of New York. He knew that the conquest of Canadian territory would be of slight importance, if the lake and river communication was controlled by the enemy, for they could pass their troops from one point to another with great rapidity, cut off his supplies and reinforcements, and hem him in till a force sufficient to overwhelm him was concentrated.
On arriving near Malden, he was astounded to hear that the enemy had received notice of the war before him, and hence had time to make more or less preparations. The second blow was the loss of hospital stores, intrenching tools, army baggage, private papers, &c. The third came in the fall of Mackinaw, thus removing the only barrier that kept back the northern hordes. He knew the enemy had possession of the water communication, and were therefore able to threaten his retreat. Dearborn, who ought to have been pressing the British on the Niagara frontier, and thus attracted their forces from Malden, had entered into an armistice with the Governor of Canada, leaving the latter at full liberty to reinforce the troops opposed to Hull, a privilege of which he was not slow to avail himself. There was not a gleam of sunshine in the whole gloomy prospect that spread out before the American commander. His own army diminishing, while that of his adversary was rapidly increasing--behind him a wilderness two hundred miles in extent, his situation was disheartening enough to make a strong man sad. The difficulties in which he found himself environed must always produce one of two effects on every man--either rouse him to tenfold diligence and effort and daring, or sink him in corresponding inactivity and despondency. There can be no middle state. That the latter was the effect produced on General Hull, there can be no doubt. He proved plainly that he was not one of those whom great emergencies develope into an extraordinary character worthy to command and worthy to be obeyed. The very first misfortune unmanned him, and from that hour to the sad close of the campaign, when he acted at all he did nothing but heap blunder on blunder. His mind having once got into a morbid state, his position and his prospects appeared to his diseased imagination ten times more desperate than they really were.