The War of 1812 was fought between the United
States and Great Britain from June 1812 to the spring of 1815,
although the peace treaty ending the war was signed [JMU editor's
note: but not yet ratified] in Europe in December 1814. The main
land fighting of the war occurred along the Canadian border, in
the Chesapeake Bay region, and along the Gulf of Mexico; extensive
action also took place at sea.
Background
From the end of the American Revolution in 1783, the
United States had been irritated by the failure of the British
to withdraw from American territory along the Great Lakes; their
backing of the Indians on America's frontiers; and their unwillingness
to sign commercial agreements favorable to the United States.
American resentment grew during the French Revolutionary Wars
(1792-1802) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803-15), in which Britain
and France were the main combatants. In time, France came to dominate
much of the continent of Europe, while Britain remained supreme
on the seas. The two powers also fought each other commercially:
Britain attempted to blockade the continent of Europe, and France
tried to prevent the sale of British goods in French possessions.
During the 1790s, French and British maritime policies produced
several crises with the United States, but after 1803 the difficulties
became much more serious. The British Orders in Council of 1807
tried to channel all neutral trade to continental Europe through
Great Britain, and France's Berlin and Milan decrees of 1806 and
1807 declared Britain in a state of blockade and condemned neutralshipping
that obeyed British regulations. The United States believed its
rights on the seas as a neutral were being violated by both nations,
but British maritime policies were resented more because Britain
dominated the seas. Also, the British claimed the right to take
from American merchant ships any British sailors who were serving
on them. Frequently, they also took Americans. This practice of
impressment became a major grievance.
The United States at first attempted to change
the policies of the European powers by economic means. In 1807,
after the British ship Leopard fired on the American frigate Chesapeake,
President Thomas Jefferson urged and Congress passed an Embargo
Act banning all American ships from foreign trade. The embargo
failed to change British and French policies but devastated New
England shipping. Later and weaker economic measures were also
unsuccessful.
Failing in peaceful efforts and facing an economic
depression, some Americans began to argue for a declaration of
war to redeem the national honor. The Congress that was elected
in 1810 and met in November 1811 included a group known as the
War Hawks who demanded war against Great Britain. These men were
all Democratic-Republicans and mostly from the West and South.
Among their leaders were John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, Henry
Clay of Kentucky, and Felix Grundy of Tennessee. They argued that
American honor could be saved and British policies changed by
an invasion of Canada. The Federalist Party, representing New
England shippers who foresaw the ruination of their trade, opposed
war. Napoleon's announcement in 1810 of the revocation of his
decrees was followed by British refusals to repeal their orders,
and pressures for war increased. On June 18, 1812, President James
Madison signed a declaration of war that Congress—with substantial
opposition—had passed at his request. Unknown to Americans, Britain
had finally, two days earlier, announced that it would revoke
its orders.
Campaigns of 1812-13
U.S. forces were not ready for war, and American hopes
of conquering Canada collapsed in the campaigns of 1812 and 1813.
The initial plan called for a three-pronged offensive: from Lake
Champlain to Montreal; across the Niagara frontier; and into Upper
Canada from Detroit. The attacks were uncoordinated, however,
and all failed. In the West, Gen. William Hull surrendered Detroit
to the British in August 1812; on the Niagara front, American
troops lost the Battle of Queenston Heights in October; and along
Lake Champlain the American forces withdrew in late November without
seriously engaging the enemy.
American frigates (see U.S.S.
Constitution) won a series of single-ship engagements
with British frigates, and American privateers continually harried
British shipping. The captains and crew of the frigates Constitution
and United States became renowned throughout America.
Meanwhile, the British gradually tightened a
blockade around America's coasts, ruining American trade, threatening
American finances, and exposing the entire coastline to British
attack
American attempts to invade Canada in 1813 were
again mostly unsuccessful. There was a standoff at Niagara, and
an elaborate attempt to attack Montreal by a combined operation
involving one force advancing along Lake Champlain and another
sailing down the Saint Lawrence River from Lake Ontario failed
at the end of the year. The only success was in the West. The
Americans won control of the Detroit frontier region when Oliver
Hazard Perry's ships destroyed the British fleet on Lake Erie
(Sept. 10, 1813). This victory forced the British to retreat eastward
from the Detroit region, and on Oct. 5, 1813, they were overtaken
and defeated at the battle of the Thames (Moraviantown) by an
American army under the command of Gen. William Henry Harrison.
In this battle the great Shawnee chief Tecumseh (see Tecumseh
Biography), who had harassed the northwestern frontier
since 1811, was killed while fighting on the British side.
Campaigns of 1814
In 1814 the United States faced complete defeat, because
the British, having defeated Napoleon, began to transfer large
numbers of ships and experienced troops to America. The British
planned to attack the United States in three main areas: in New
York along Lake Champlain and the Hudson River in order to sever
New England from the union; at New Orleans to block the Mississippi;
and in Chesapeake Bay as a diversionary maneuver. The British
then hoped to obtain major territorial concessions in a peace
treaty. The situation was particularly serious for the United
States because the country was insolvent by the fall of 1814,
and in New England opponents of the war were discussing separation
from the Union. The Hartford Convention that met in Connecticut
in December 1814 and January 1815 stopped short of such an extreme
step but suggested a number of constitutional amendments to restrict
federal power.
The British appeared near success in the late
summer of 1814. American resistance to the diversionary attack
in Chesapeake Bay was so weak that the British, after winning
the Battle of Bladensburg (August 24), marched into Washington,
D.C., and burned most of the public buildings. President Madison
had to flee into the countryside (see Paul
Jennings). The British then turned to attack Baltimore
but met stiffer resistance and were forced to retire after the
American defense of Fort McHenry, which inspired Francis Scott
Key to write the words of the "Star-Spangled
Banner."
In the north, about 10,000 British veterans advanced
into the United States from Montreal. Only a weak American force
stood between them and New York City, but on Sept. 11, 1814, American
Capt. Thomas MacDough won the naval battle of Lake Champlain (Plattsburg
Bay), destroying the British fleet. Fearing the possibility of
a severed line of communications, the British army retreated into
Canada.
Peace Treaty and the Battle of New Orleans
When news of the failure of the attack along Lake Champlain
reached British peace negotiators at Ghent, in the Low Countries,
they decided to forego territorial demands. The United States,
although originally hoping that Britain would recognize American
neutral rights, was happy to end the war without major losses.
The Treaty of Ghent, signed by both powers on Dec. 24, 1814, supported,
in essence, the conditions in existence at the war's onset. The
U.S. Senate ratified the treaty unanimously on Feb. 17, 1815.
Because it was impossible to communicate quickly
across the Atlantic, the British attack on New Orleans went ahead
as planned, even though the war had officially ended, and isolated
naval actions continued for a few months.
In January 1815, Gen. Andrew Jackson won a decisive
victory at New Orleans over the attacking British forces: the
British suffered more than 2,000 casualties; the Americans, fewer
than 100 (see Battle
of New Orleans). The accidental linking of the peace
treaty with Jackson's victory at New Orleans convinced many Americans
that the war had ended in triumph. The Hartford Convention was
discredited, and a surging nationalism swept the country in the
postwar years.
Bibliography: Berton, Pierre, Flames across
the Border (1981; repr. 1988) and The Invasion of Canada (1980;
repr. 1988); Caffrey, Kate, The Twilight's Last Gleaming: The British
against America 1812-1815 (1977); Coles, Harry L., The War of 1812
(1965); Horsman, Reginald, The War of 1812 (1969); Mahon, John K.,
The War of 1812 (1972); Tucker, Glenn, Poltroons and Patriots: A
Popular Account of the War of 1812, 2 vols. (1954).
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