The author gathered much of his material at first hand and had the knack of telling a story; but he is not very trustworthy.
As a solemn warning, the disasters of the American armies have been employed by several military experts.

The ablest of these was Bvt.

Major General Emory Upton, whose invaluable treatise, _The Military Policy of the United States_ (1904), was pigeonholed in manuscript by the War Department and allowed to gather dust for many years.

He discusses in detail the misfortunes of 1812 as conclusive proof that the national defense cannot be entrusted to raw militia and untrained officers.

Of a similar trend but much more recent are Frederic L.Huidekoper's _The Military Unpreparedness of the United States_ (1915) and Major General Leonard Wood's _Our Military History; Its Facts and Fallacies_ (1916).
Of the British historians, William James undertook the most diligent account of them all, calling it _A Full and Correct Account of the Military Occurrences of the Late War between Great Britain and the United States of America_, 2 vols.