When Major Daniel McFarland left his farm in Washington County, Pennsylvania to join the U.S. Army in 1812, the country was unsure about another war. His surviving letters, published by historian John Newell Crombie in “The Papers of Major Daniel McFarland: A Hawk of 1812” offer a rare, unfiltered window into the moral and emotional landscape of an early-nineteenth-century officer.
Together, these letters show a man committed to his country, guided by his faith, and shaped by the hard work and endurance of frontier life.
Patriotism vs. Disillusionment
McFarland’s first preserved letter, written in March 1812 just after his commission as Captain, 22nd U.S. Infantry, captures his sense of duty and inner conflict. He told his cousin Dr. Daniel Millikin of Hamilton, Ohio:
Maj. Daniel McFarland writing from camp, 1812. “I am about exchanging the peaceful occupation of the farmer and mechanic for the noisy and sanguine employment of the soldier.” (Crombie, p. 103.)
At the start, he believed the war was a just defense of American liberty. But after serving at Fort Niagara and Fort George, his letters show growing frustration. In late 1813 he spoke of “neglect in the Commissary Department” and “an army suffering less from the enemy than from its own administration.” (pp. 110–111.)
Even with his growing frustration, he chose not to resign. He told Millikin he would “not abandon the cause while the cause remains righteous.” (p. 111.)
McFarland’s letters show that he stayed committed to serving, even as he grew frustrated with the army’s administration. Historians describe similar problems across the American forces in the War of 1812, including supply shortages, poor organization, and low morale. Donald Hickey points out that these issues were common in the northern campaigns, especially in 1813 and 1814.
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| McFarland in quiet prayer before dawn near Fort George, 1813. |
McFarland’s letters show how much his faith shaped the way he viewed the war. On April 3, 1813, after seeing wounded men near Fort George, he wrote:
“War is a fearful school for virtue. The sword may be righteous when the cause is just, yet it remains a dreadful instrument in the hand of man.” (Crombie, p. 108.)
His reflections fit the Presbyterian values (personal responsibility & moral discipline to name a few) he grew up with. His father, Senator Abel McFarland, is recorded in the Pennsylvania Senate Library as a long-serving legislator known locally for integrity and steady leadership from 1811 to 1818. Daniel carried those same beliefs with him into the army, often referring to God’s guidance and protection in his letters.
In one 1814 letter from Sackett’s Harbor, he wrote, “If it please Heaven to preserve me, I shall again see my native hills; if not, I trust my country will remember that I fell in her service.” (p. 113.)
Frontier Perspective
McFarland grew up in the rolling farmland of Amwell Township, and that frontier background shaped how he understood the world. His descriptions of army life show the same kind of rugged self-reliance found in western Pennsylvania communities. As he marched east through Pittsburgh and Bellefonte, he wrote that the soldiers “sleep beneath the open sky and call the wilderness our barracks.” (p. 112.)
He also noted “the lights of the North dancing over our bivouac,” a vivid reference to the aurora borealis during his movement toward Oswego in 1814.
This connection between nature, hardship, and persistence linked his home life with his military experience. Crombie explains that McFarland’s writings “join the rural character of western Pennsylvania with the soldier’s frontier ordeal,” showing how the same endurance that built farms out of forest carried into the long marches and shortages of the northern campaigns.
Legacy of Sacrifice
On July 25, 1814, at the Battle of Lundy’s Lane near Niagara Falls, McFarland was killed in action while commanding elements of the 23rd U.S. Infantry.
The U.S. Army Center of Military History lists him among the officers who fell during that night-long struggle, one of the war’s costliest engagements. His body was likely interred near the battlefield.
Back home, his father Abel McFarland executed a Power of Attorney on October 15, 1814, authorizing his son Demis Lindley McFarland to settle Daniel’s estate and retrieve his effects from New York. This was another example of the family’s sense of duty. (Crombie, pp. 124–125.)
Thirteen years later, in 1827, Treasury correspondence confirmed back pay due to his estate. Nearly a century afterward, the U.S. Army honored his name once more by dedicating Battery McFarland at Fort Armistead, Maryland, in memory of “Major Daniel McFarland, 23rd U.S. Infantry, killed in action in Canada in 1814.” (FortWiki entry; U.S. Army Coast Artillery records.)
His death marked the third generation of public service in the McFarland family, from Colonel Daniel McFarland, a Revolutionary-era landholder, to Senator Abel McFarland, and finally Major Daniel McFarland, who gave his life for the same ideals his family had long carried forward.
References
All illustrations generated by ChatGPT (OpenAI), based on historical descriptions from John Newell Crombie, “The Papers of Major Daniel McFarland: A Hawk of 1812,” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine (April 1968).
Crombie, John Newell. “The Papers of Major Daniel McFarland: A Hawk of 1812.” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine 51, no. 2 (April 1968): 102–125.
FortWiki. “Battery McFarland (Fort Armistead, Maryland).”
Hickey, Donald R. The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict. University of Illinois Press.
Pennsylvania Senate Library. “Member Biography: Abel McFarland Sr., Sessions 1811–1818.”
U.S. Army Center of Military History. The Canadian Theater, 1814 (War of 1812 campaign summaries).
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