Americans run to be pretty interested in the Civil War , World War IIand Vietnam . But inquire someone about the land ’s 2d big armed conflict , the one that occur just a quarter of a century after the Revolution , and you may get just a perplexed shrug in answer .
" I retrieve that what most masses know about it — if they know about it — they fuck just two or three things , " explainsWillard Sterne Randall , a Professor Emeritus and distinguished scholar of history at Champlain College in Vermont , in an electronic mail exchange . " They consider of ' The Star - Spangled Banner , ' Dolley Madison saving Washington ’s portrait from the British andAndrew Jacksonwinning the conflict of New Orleans . "
And that ’s a pity . As Randall details in his 2017 playscript " Unshackling America : How the War of 1812 Truly end the American Revolution , " the largely - forgotten conflict really was one of the pivotal mo in American account . It was a war in which the Americans brashly take on the British Empire in a rematch , partly to dissolve lingering grievance but also with the ambitious aim of seizing Canada , and instead arrive perilously nigh to a catastrophic defeat that would have endangered the very future of the United States . Fortunately , though , the Americans — despite suffering the indignity of having invader torch the capital city — managed to fight the British to a dead end . The conflict ended with a peace accord in which the U.S. did n’t have to give up any territory and retained the ability toexpand westward , and the British had to accept the U.S. as a unfeignedly freestanding land and trading power .
As Randall explains , the War of 1812 really was the culmination of one long conflict that had start with the Revolution . " They ’re link , becausethe Revolutiononly assure political independence , " he suppose . " It did not guarantee the economical survival of the United States . " As a result , " there was a long period of confrontation , before it broke out into real war again . "
Even after theTreaty of Pariswas sign up in September 1783 to end the Revolutionary War , relations between the U.S. and Great Britain remained tense , with the British reckon the Americans as commercial challenger . In the early 1800s , Americans ' grudge crystalized into several master tip . First was exemption to switch . The U.S. became get in the warfare between the British and Napoleon ’s French conglomerate , with both powers trying to restrict the Americans from trading with the other . Eventually , the French relented , but the British would n’t . " [ The U.S. ] desire to persist a achromatic rural area , so we could trade with anybody , " Randall says . " But the British did not believe in neutrality . "
secondly , the Americans also were anger by the Royal Navy ’s praxis ofimpressment — that is , board American merchandiser ships and clutch straw hat who it claimed were British deserter . Americans saw impressment as a signboard that the British did n’t respect the U.S. as an peer among nations , but instead as a former colony that it could browbeat . To add to the vilification , the British also did n’t honour the right of sailors togive up being British topic and choose U.S. citizenship . ultimately , the British also supported the American Indians who were baulk U.S. expansion along the western frontier , in part to protect themselves against Americans gaining ascendance of the pelt trade .
But in addition to settling those remainder with an armed difference , Americans also saw an opportunity to capture Canada from the British and make it part of the U.S. It was an American aim that had first surfaced during the Revolutionary War , whenBenedict Arnoldhelped to lead anunsuccessful 1775 - 76 invasion of Canada . Unfortunately , the lesson of that thrashing had n’t bury in . One vociferous advocate of a Canadian invasion was former PresidentThomas Jefferson , who proclaimed that take the lightly - defended British compound possession " will be a mere matter of marching . "
The U.S. Declares War on Great Britain
With these issues in mind , Congress passed adeclaration of war against Great Britainin June 1812 , which President James Madison promptly signal into law of nature . But while the U.S. had plenty ofchutzpahto take on the British , it was woefully underprepared from a military standpoint . " We had 3,000 soldiers , and they had 250,000 in Europe alone , " Randall explains . " We had 20 ship . They had 900 . "
Additionally , the timing of the U.S. announce war — it came about a workweek before British adversary Napoleon launched an invasion of Russia — further enraged the British . " The British feel we had stabbed them in the back , " Randall say .
On land , things go ill for the Americans jolly apace , when Gen. William Hull ’s initial foray into Canada in June 1812 fail , and he withdrew to Detroit , where he before long found himself under beleaguering by the British and Indian allies under the leaders ofTecumseh . The British and Indians fooled Hull into thinking that they had a much larger force , and in August 1812 he surrendered , give the Americans a humbling frustration , asthe Detroit Historical Society details . A second U.S. attack on Canada in October 1812 precede to another disastrous frustration in theBattle of Queenston Heights , in which 300 Americans were killed and almost 1,000 were taken prisoner .
The Americans did advantageously on the piddle . The U.S.S. Constitution , a frigate , pursued and defeated the British HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia in August 1812 , damaging the British ship so badly that after its chieftain surrendered , it had to be slump . The British , who had been confident of their naval superiority , were stunned . " Never before in the account of the world did an English frigate smash to an American , " the London Timeslamented .
But even more penalization was inflicted by the large U.S. strength of privateers — ship owned by U.S. businessmen , to whom Congress gave the agency to engage a for - profit warfare on British ships . In the course of the war , the privateers captured 1,500 British ships . encirclement runner daringly did their best to keep the U.S. thriftiness going , slipping through the British naval vessel in fog , storms and night darkness to carry flour , baccy and cotton plant .
The British Set Fire to the White House
After Napoleon was vote down and forced into exile in the spring of 1814 , the British could give to transmit more scout troop across the Atlantic , and the situation convey scarey for the Americans . In August , a British effect invaded Maryland and then marched on Washington , D.C. As detailed in thisarticleby British journalist and historiographer Peter Snow , the invader ate intellectual nourishment and drink wine from the table of President Madison , before setting flack to the White House and numerous other public buildings . The arson wasin retaliationfor a similarly bestial American sacking of York ( now Toronto ) in Ontario . But even so , British Rear Adm. George Cockburn , who orchestrated the arson , accept such superbia in the brutality that hisofficial portraitlater picture him with Washington burn in the background .
" Nobody envisage the British would seek to destroy our capital , " Randall explains . " Most Americans did n’t know what we had done in Canada . And Madison and his cabinet were clueless about warfare . They did n’t even attempt to defend Washington . " as luck would have it , the president ’s married woman , Dolley Madison , had a routine more on the ball . As she prepared to take flight the White House just before the British reaching , she had an enslave teen , Paul Jennings , break dance the systema skeletale of Gilbert Stuart ’s full - length portrayal of Washington , so the painting could beremoved and carried aside to safety .
‘The Star-Spangled Banner’
But another British target area , Baltimore — base port to many privateer watercraft — was much better prepared . Fort McHenry , which protected the harbor , withstood an acute 25 - hour - long blast in mid - September by British warships , who eventually had to recall . That victory inspiredFrancis Scott Key , who was on a ship several mil away , to compose a song , " The Star - Spangled Banner,“to lionise the American underground .
Meanwhile , a British attempt to overrun New York that September was frustrate in thebattle of Lake Champlain , where U.S. naval forces defeated British ships . That put an terminal to a British scheme of driving a wedge into centre of the U.S. and maybe taking back northern New England as a British monomania . Randall send for it " the most critical conflict of the state of war . "
That ledArthur Wellesley , the Duke of Wellington and the British commander who had defeat Napoleon , to conclude that the war was unwinnable , and decline to take over command of British strength in the U.S. " It was Wellington who said , get out of there , you ca n’t win it unless you control the lakes , and they could n’t , " Randall says .
And by that head , " the bottom air was that England was break up , " Randall says . " The ministry did n’t want to go to Parliament against and say we require more money to go on campaign in America . The taxpayers would n’t go for it . "
The Treaty of Ghent Ends the War
In the peace of mind talks that already were underway , British treater abandoned their hardball territorial demands and started take care for a speedy manner out . They even abandoned a fundamental British need for macrocosm of a chancel for their Amerindic allies in the U.S. Midwest , which would have made it difficult for the U.S. to thrive westwards . ( If the U.S. had been forced to award that concession , " we would have been a small state , " Randall say .
In December , the signing of theTreaty of Ghentended the war . But because instantaneous electronic communicating did n’t exist in those day , word did n’t get back to America before long enough to preclude British troop from attacking New Orleans in January 2015 . They were repulsed by Gen. Andrew Jackson ’s forces in ashort but brutal battlethat saw 2,000 British soldiers become casualties in less than 30 minutes . Jackson " had hundreds of trained frontier crack shot , " Randall excuse . " They killed off the British officers , from the commanding general all the means down . The British soldiers who were n’t kill were trying to shroud under the bodies . " The bloody victory had no effect on the war ’s issue , but it made Jackson into a legend , and eventually helped elect him president .
The war , in which2,260 American service memberslost their life history , cease in a stalemate , but go it was a larger triumph for the U.S. , and was able to grow into a universe power . " I opine what we come off with is that we now feel free to go or do anything , without consent control condition by any other country on Earth , " Randall read . " … from that time on , nobody is going to be able to hector us . "
