Posted on 01/04/2025 6:13:25 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The Korean War is nicknamed “the Forgotten War,” but the War of 1812 — fought between the United States and Great Britain just a few decades after America won its independence — certainly rivals it in terms of its lack of place in the collective national memory. Maybe it’s because the war took place two centuries ago; maybe it’s the placement between two major American wars that largely overshadow it (the Revolutionary War and Civil War). Maybe it’s the relatively nondescript name. Whatever the reason, asking the average American for details about the War of 1812 is likely to be met with a shrug. Let’s make some sense of this obscure yet formative conflict.
The roots of the War of 1812 were in the Napoleonic Wars between Great Britain and France. The neutral U.S. ended up as a shipping supplier to both warring nations, an economically advantageous position that saw the total U.S. exports increase from $66.5 million in 1803 to $102.2 million by 1807. But later that year, both France and Great Britain enacted trade embargoes in an effort to strain each other’s economies. Since the U.S. was such a shipping hub for both nations, it was included in these embargoes, despite being neutral in the Napoleonic Wars.
The United States responded by placing its own embargo on foreign trade, in an attempt to apply pressure on France and Great Britain to honor its neutrality. The embargo was ineffective, as it weakened the American economy much more than it impacted the European countries. In just one year, U.S. exports fell to $22 million. Attempting to stem the tide in the final months of his presidency, Thomas Jefferson repealed the embargo and replaced it with the Non-Intercourse Act, which allowed trade with all foreign nations except France and Great Britain. The United States was essentially in a trade war.
Meanwhile, Great Britain was suffering from numbers shortages in its navy, and took to stopping American merchant ships in order to check for deserters. Britain also engaged in a practice known as impressment, a bizarre combination of military draft and kidnapping. Impressment was particularly infuriating to the United States, as British ships would capture American merchant ships and force its sailors to join the Royal Navy. U.S. President James Madison made it a core issue stateside and pushed for war, regardless of the fact that by this point in time, the British had already agreed to end the practice.
There was yet another factor in the start of the war, one that largely defined the 19th century for the United States: expansion. Despite its relative manpower shortages, Great Britain’s military strength was largely at sea, so the logical strategy to expand the United States was to invade British-occupied land to the northeast and southeast of the U.S. border at the time. To add further motivation, President Madison accused the British of promoting hostility toward the United States from Indigenous peoples in those territories. With all of these factors converging, Congress declared war against Great Britain on June 17, 1812.
Battles comprising the War of 1812 stretched into 1815, so if the war had a more literal moniker, it would be the War of 1812-15. Though the conflict is not as famous as other American wars, many battles from the war became U.S. military lore. The sight of cannonballs fired at the USS Constitution ricocheting off the ship’s hull during its battle with the HMS Guerriereon August 19, 1812, earned the ship its famous nickname “Old Ironsides.” The June 1, 1813, loss of the USS Chesapeake to the HMS Shannonincluded Captain James Lawrence’s memorable battle cry, “Don’t give up the ship!” And Naval Commander Oliver Hazard Perry’s report of the September 10, 1813, victory at the Battle of Lake Erie contained the classic line, “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.”
In 1812, the United States Navy had only 16 ships, while the Royal Navy had somewhere around 500, an insurmountable advantage. To remedy this, the U.S. moved forward with its strategy to capture British land in Canada, and use that land to negotiate maritime conflicts. Thomas Jefferson called a successful invasion of Canada “a mere matter of marching” in an August 1812 letter. That confidence was misplaced, as a three-pronged invasion in 1812 failed at all three points, ending in surrender at Detroit and Queenston Heights, and retreat from the Canadian border with New York. Another attempt on Lake Erie the next year was more successful (the battle with Oliver Hazard Perry’s famous quote) and led to victory in Upper Canada. But the following year, Great Britain’s victory over France enabled it to shift military resources to North America. Canada was not taken.
On August 20, 1814, the British sent a convoy of soldiers to the town of Benedict, Maryland, 50 miles outside Washington, D.C. Out on reconnaissance, Secretary of State James Monroe observed the troops' advancement northward and concluded that they were intending to invade the nation’s capital. Monroe sent a message to President Madison, warning, “The enemy are in full march for Washington. Have the materials prepared to destroy the bridges. You had better remove the records.”
Two bridges across the Anacostia River were destroyed in order to force a single rallying point at Bladensburg, 5 miles from Washington, but the British had already advanced too quickly. Though there was strength in numbers to defend the capital, the American troops were poorly organized, deployed too late, or in improper positions. The Battle of Bladensburg ended up a rout, and the British advanced on Washington. Once there, British Major-General Robert Ross ordered his troops to “complete the destruction of the public buildings.” That destruction included “the capitol, including the Senate-house and House of Representation, the Arsenal, the Dock-yard, Treasury, War-office, President's Palace, Ropewalk, and the great bridge across the Potomac.” The estimated damage totaled around $1 million, and it took nearly four years to rebuild the city. In one of the few points of common knowledge about the War of 1812, it was the only time the United States capital was ever captured.
After the British left Washington, they boarded their ships and sailed up Chesapeake Bay in an advance to Baltimore. They expected a similarly quick battle as at Bladensburg, but Baltimore had been fortifying its coast for more than a year, with Fort McHenry guarding the city at the south of the harbor entrance. On September 13, 1814, 16 Royal Navy ships approached the fort and began a bombardment that lasted 25 hours. Watching in detainment on a British ship during the attack was Francis Scott Key, an American attorney. On the morning of September 14, 1814, he saw that the American flag remained flying at Fort McHenry, indicating that the fort stood, and he was inspired to write the poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry.”The poem was later set to music as “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the national anthem of the United States.
After three years of back-and-forth battles and overall inconclusive results that threatened to render the conflict a war of attrition, the U.S. and Great Britain looked for peace. The two countries signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814, marking the end of the war. The terms of the treaty were status quo ante bellum, literally “the state before war.” Any conquered territory was to be returned, and prewar borders restored. In a strange quirk that could only happen in an era of slower communication, one more major battle was fought two weeks after the signing of the treaty: the Battle of New Orleans. Though it was considered a rousing victory for the United States, it didn’t matter due to the treaty and its terms. The War of 1812 was essentially a tie.
Ended in a draw. But showed America was not to be f@“ked with..
Two items: What if the Brits had won at New Orleans? Would they have been so eager to end the war or return captured land? 2, As the British were buring DC, a massive thunderstorm began and the heavy rain helped put out the fires and save the outer walls of the White House and other structures. An act of God to save a country he would need later and had great pans for?
But it was the inspiration for a great song:
It also is the war that gave the ‘nucks “The Maple Leaf Forever.”
14 years ago I was on the Canadian side of the Falls, driving down Lundy’s Lane through Queenstown Heights, when I had my Epiphany, that this was in that song:
At Queenstown Heights and Lundy’s Lane,
Our brave fathers, side by side,
For freedom, homes, and loved ones dear,
Firmly stood and nobly died;
And those dear rights which they maintained,
We swear to yield them never!
Our watchword ever more shall be,
The Maple Leaf for ever!
It was about the War of 1812, and here in what used to be the Canadian national anthem, WE were the bad guys! But then, in our anthem the Brits, and by extension their Canadian colonists, were our bad guys.
We did have relative sovereignty thru the Civil War, however various events further cemented the British (Bankers) win, with the Civil War bankruptcy of the nation, the Act of 1871, the creation of the private corporation we know as the FED and the slow but sure conversion from PM-backed currency to pure fiat.
“We stood beside our cotton bales and didn’t say a thing.”
LOL!
(the Battle of New Orleans)
In 1814, we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip’
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans
We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’
There wasn’t as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
We looked down a river
And we see’d the British come
And there must have been a hundred of ‘em
Beatin’ on the drums
They stepped so high and they made their bugles ring
We stood beside our cotton bales and didn’t say a thing
We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’
There wasn’t as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
Old Hickory said we could take ‘em by surprise
If we didn’t fire our muskets
‘Til we looked ‘em in the eye
We held our fire
‘Til we see’d their faces well
Then we opened up our squirrel guns
And really gave ‘em, well
We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’
There wasn’t as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they begin to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
Yeah, they ran through the briars
And they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes
Where a rabbit couldn’t go
They ran so fast
That the hounds couldn’t catch ‘em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
We fired our cannon ‘til the barrel melted down
So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round
We filled his head with cannon balls, and powdered his behind
And when we touched the powder off the gator lost his mind
We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin’
There wasn’t as many as there was a while ago
We fired once more and they began to runnin’
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
Yeah, they ran through the briars
And they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes
Where a rabbit couldn’t go
They ran so fast
That the hounds couldn’t catch ‘em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
Hut-two-three-four
Sound off, three-four
Hut-two-three-four
Sound off, three-four
Left out some relevant details:
1. The U.S. won some important one-on-battles at sea (our frigates were bigger and made with very strong Live Oak) but soon what little navy we had was bottled up in port by the Brit blockade.
2. Our army depended on militias and they performed poorly in battle (see: Bladensburg Races).
3. The real war-winner were the swarm of privateers who roamed as far as the Pacific chasing and capturing Brit cargoes. It got so serious that the Brits had to escort convoys all over (and still lost ships) and the insurance rates skyrocketed.
In my opinion, privateers won the war and preserved the American nation from the power of Britain.
” What if the Brits had won at New Orleans? Would they have been so eager to end the war or return captured land?”
Occupying it wouldn’t have been all that easy. New Orleans was like the wild west plus French cuisine, and the locals wouldn’t have been pleased with their new English overlords. I had two ancestors at the battle of New Orleans. One was with Lafitte and family history thinks he was a pirate.
Bkmk
There was tornadoes too! How often is DC hit with that?
1) At Ft. McHenry, the flag actually used was what was called a “storm flag,” much smaller and difficult to see from the bay. When the shelling ended, the commander hoisted a normal-sized US flag, which is what Francis Scott Key saw.
2) Paul Johnson in “Birth of the Modern” has a GREAT section on the implications of the “draw.”
3) The Brits had slowly re-learned the lessons of 1777-83, which was that while they could control PARTS of the seas, they couldn’t control every port, all the time, and interior invasions were doomed because they could never bring the entire US military-—especially one still heavily represented by local militias-—to battle.
4) The US completely destroyed the Brits’ Indian alliance, depriving it of a major threat in the west.
5) On some occasions already (Chippewa, for example), American regulars went toe-to-toe with Redcoats in open field and shocked the Brits.
6) Harkening back to Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill, the Battle of New Orleans showed the Brits how suicidal it was to try to storm entrenched U.S. positions. At NO, Jackson’s cannons took out the bulk of the British guns before the advance actually occurred.
7) A great book on the naval side is “Six Frigates” by Ian Toll.
Thank you.
“War is a racket’’.- Major General Smedley D. Butler,USMC, two-time MOH recipient.
Well the Canuks are all up in arms now about the tariffs.
General Butler was a pistol, and his bravery is beyond question but his wars were Haiti and Nicaragua and WWII was way beyond him. Wish you folks would leave him alone.
Not defending the General per se. But the man was right.
So, what is your experience with war?
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