WAR OF 1812
One Weird War: 1809-1815
And
The Second War for Independence and the Upsurge of Nationalism, 1812-1824
BACKGROUND:
James Madison was elected president in 1809…..mostly because he was
known as the father of the U.S. Constitution, was hand-picked by Thomas
Jefferson, and the opposing Federalist Party was disorganized. Madison was
extremely intelligent, conscientious, and focused on the task at hand. He
stood about 5’4”, weighted about 100 pounds, was shy in public, and could
be very stubborn. He was also a naïve and ineffective chief executive.
Madison had inherited a messy foreign situation. In 1803, France and
England were at war again. In an effort to limit each other’s supplies, each
country tried to prevent the other from trading with the United States.
American ships were stopped and robbed for their goods. England went
further and pressed thousands of American sailors into the service of the
British Navy. Jefferson’s efforts to stop this practice by cutting off all U.S.
trade with them had nearly sunk a buoyant economy. In 1809, Congress
passed a law that allowed U.S. ships to go wherever they wanted, but banned
French and British ships from U.S. ports. In 1810, Congress lifted all
restrictions, but gave the president the power to cut off trade with any
country that failed to recognize America’s neutrality.
Madison had announced that if either of the countries would renounce its
interference with American trade, he would cut off trade with the other one.
The French dictator Napoleon figured out a way to trick Madison. Napoleon
announced that the French would stop their raids if the British agreed to end
their blockades of European ports. The British said no. Madison then reimposed the U.S. ban on England. The British then stepped up its attack on
American ships.
This was cheered by the new Southern war hawks 34 year old Henry Clay
from KY and 29 year old John C. Calhoun from S.C. Many also thought that
a war with Britain would allow us to acquire more land in Canada. After all,
the population in Canada was only about 500,000 and many were former
Americans.
Enter the Indians. By 1811, an inspirational Shawnee chief named Tecumseh
had had enough of the land grabs by settlers in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.
Aided by his famous brother Tenskwatawa, also known as ‘The Prophet’,
they urged a holy war against the whites. They rallied tribe after tribe and
urged them to give up everything white –their clothes, their tools, and
especially alcohol. By late 1811, Tecumseh had put together a force of
several thousand Indians. An army of about 1,000 U.S. soldiers, led by Wm
Henry Harrison, marched to the edge of the territory claimed by Tecumseh,
at Tippecanoe Creek, Indiana. ‘The Prophet’ led an attack against Harrison.
It was a draw, but the Indian confederacy began to fall apart. The British
then began to arm Tecumseh and his followers.
In England, the long war with Napoleon and the trade fights with America
had caused hard times. Britain was experiencing food shortages and an
economic recession due to the lack of cotton for mills. So, on June 16, 1812,
the British decided to stop raiding American ships. However, news traveled
slowly, and two days later, Congress declared war on England under the
rallying cry of “Free Trade and Sailor’s Rights.” –a small problem of
communication. In doing so, the Jeffersonians were acting like Federalists in
this expansionist and militaristic venture, and it called into question the
classic Republican commitments to limited federal power and to peace.
War was a bold –and foolhardy- move for a country with such a shabby
military system. The U.S. had about 7,000 men and very few competent
officers. One army official, Major General Henry Dearborn, was so fat he
had to travel in a specially designed cart. The U.S. Navy consisted of 16
ships. A fair-sized segment of the population was against the war,
particularly in New England. Many of them supported England.
REASONS FOR WAR:
 British and French were attacking our ships and taking goods and
sailors. We were neutral.
 Americans thought that the British were encouraging Indians to attack
American settlements.
 Americans living in the Northwest Territory wanted to claim more
land in Canada that belonged to Britain.
 War Hawks in Congress.
THE WAR:
A U.S. command of about 1,500 troops marched to Detroit, as a staging
ground for an invasion of Canada. When a Canadian army showed up to
contest the idea, the American General Hull, surrendered without a shot!
After Hull’s defeat, another U.S. force tried to invade from Fort Niagara.
This failed when many U.S. troops from N.Y. declined to fight outside of
their own state. A third army set out from Plattsburg, N.Y., bound for
Montreal, marched 20 miles to the border, only to quit and march back
home.
In September, 1813, a U.S. Navy flotilla built and commanded by Captain
Oliver Hazard Perry destroyed a British fleet on Lake Erie. Perry’s victory
was notable not only for the famous saying that came from it –“We have met
the enemy and they are ours”- but because it forced the British out of Detroit
and gave Harrison a chance to beat them at the battle of the Thames River.
Tecumseh, the Indian leader who was now a brigadier general in the British
Army, was killed and the Indian-Britain alliance squelched.
The victories of Perry and Harrison kept the British from invading the U.S.
through Canada, but the efforts to conquer Canada were over.
Things were a little better at sea. With most of Britain’s navy tied up in
Europe, U.S. warships, called frigates, like the Constitution, United States,
and President won several one-on-one battles with British ships. The U.S.S.
Constitution destroyed two British ships and became known as ‘Old
Ironsides.” Congress decided to build more ships. However, when British
ships were freed up in Europe, they bottled up most of the U.S. Navy in
American ports from 1813 to 1814, and the American victories at sea
ceased.
By mid-1814, the English had finally defeated Napoleon and sent him into
exile on the island of Elba. They turned their full military attention to the
war in America –and unlike the first war with England, America wasn’t
getting any help. In August 1814, a force of about 4,000 veteran British
troops landed in the Chesapeake Bay area east of Washington, D.C. At the
village of Bladensburg, the Brits encountered a hastily organized force of
6,000 American militiamen. Almost as soon as the shooting started, the
militia ran and the British army strolled into America’s capital.
The government officials fled, and the British burned every public building
in the city including the Capitol and the president’s home –later painted
white and renamed the White House. The burnings were partially to avenge
the American torching of York (Toronto) and partially to take the heart out
of the Yanks. Instead, it enflamed U.S. anger and delayed the British
advance on Baltimore, which was the real military target.
By the time the British forces got to Baltimore, the city’s Fort McHenry had
been fortified; it was September 12, 1814. An all-night bombardment of the
fort accomplished nothing, except to inspire a Washington lawyer who
watched it from the deck of a British ship, where he was temporarily a
prisoner. Francis Scott Key jotted down his impressions in the form of a
poem, on the back of a letter. After the battle, he revised it a bit and showed
it to his brother-in-law, who set it to the tune of an old English drinking
song. It was published in a Baltimore newspaper as “Defense of Fort
McHenry,’ but was later renamed “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Soon
soldiers were singing it all over the country, but it was not adopted by
Congress to be our national anthem until 1931. The British efforts to invade
Baltimore ended. *Key’s son would be killed in the CW by Sickles.
A second, even larger, British force attempted an invasion of the U.S. via a
land-water route through New York. In September 1814, a British fleet
sailed against an American fleet on Lake Champlain, near Pittsburg. The
U.S. fleet, under the command of Lt. Thomas Macdonough, was anchored,
and Macdonough rigged his ships so they could be turned around to use the
guns on both sides. Thanks to this maneuver, the American fleet prevailed,
and the British fleet retired to Canada.
The third and last major British effort took place at New Orleans. A 20-ship
English fleet and 10,000 soldiers squared off against an army of about 5,000
American soldiers, backwoods riflemen, and local pirates. The American
force was under the command of a tall, gaunt Tennessee general named
Andrew Jackson. Jackson had already made a name for himself as a great
military leader by defeating the Creek Indians earlier in the war. They
engaged in battle on January 8, 1815. It was a slaughter. The British charged
directly at Jackson’s well-built fortifications, and U.S. cannon and rifles
mowed them down. In less than an hour, the British suffered more than
2,000 men killed, wounded, or missing, compared to American losses of 71.
The English retreated. Unfortunately, it came two weeks after the war had
formally ended! Jackson became a national hero. Less than 15 years later, he
was president. Ironically again, the slowness in communication was to be the
cause of unnecessary bloodshed.
AFTER THE WAR:
Early in 1814, both sides agreed to a settlement. A few months later,
America sent a team of negotiators to Ghent, Belgium, led by its minister to
Russia, John Quincy Adams, and House Speaker Henry Clay. At first, the
British negotiators dragged things out while waiting to see how their
country’s offensive efforts worked out on the battlefield. England then
demanded America turn over lots of land in the Northwest Territory and
refused to stop kidnapping American soldiers from U.S. ships. But when
news of the defeats of Plattsburg and Baltimore reached Ghent, the British
changed their tune.
They dropped their demands for territory, agreed to set up four commissions
to settle boundary disputes, and agreed to stop the habit of “impressing”
American seamen. On December 24, 1814, both sides signed a treaty that
basically just declared the war over. “I hope,” said John Quincy Adams in
toasting the treaty, “it will be the last treaty of peace between Great Britain
and the United States.” It was!
 Though neither side could claim a victory, America did benefit
from the increased manufacturing that developed to support the
war. New England became America’s manufacturing center during
the war, and after the war, the U.S. was less dependent on imports
which led to a stronger national economy.
 The Oregon Territory in the Pacific Northwest was put under joint
British and American control.
In the end:
 Fewer than 6,000 U.S. soldiers and sailors were killed.
 No great changes came immediately from it; the land boundaries
were returned to what they had been before the war. It was more
like an armistice.
 America’s great system of lakes, bays, and rivers had become vital
transportation arteries for both people and goods. New settlements
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and manufacturing centers sprang up along the country’s major
waterways. The need to improve the transportation system
combined with the growing confidence in the country’s industrial
strength led to an ambitious construction project –the 363-mile long
Erie Canal. The canal was officially opened in October 1825 with a
procession all along the way from Buffalo to New York. This was
part of Henry Clay’s “American System” which would include new
roads into Ohio and beyond that would tie the country together
economically and politically. *The National Road is still there.
Madison thought that it was unconstitutional for the Federal
Government to pay for them, so the state governments paid for
them –including the Erie Canal. New England was also against the
new road system; they feared it would drain away their population.
They re-chartered the National Bank. Credit was established.
Americans passed the first tariff to institute protection and not
revenue. Britain was attempting to dump cheap goods on our
market.
The Federalists, opposed to the war and not aware that its end was
coming, met in the Hartford Convention to consider a massive
overhaul of the Constitution or, failing that, secession. When the
war ended soon after, most people considered the Federalists to be
traitors, and their national party dissolved –although the party
continued to exert influence in some states through the next decade.
For awhile, we had a one-part system.
But the War of 1812 did serve to establish the U.S. firmly in the
world’s eyes as a country not to be taken lightly. Other nations
would develop a new respect for the U.S.
It was this ‘Second Revolutionary War’ that finally severed ties
with Great Britain. Knowing that they had held their own against
powerful Great Britain, not once but twice, gave Americans respect
and national pride. They turned their back on the Old World and
looked west.
VIP: The aftermath of the War of 1812 produced a strong surge of
American nationalism that was reflected in economics, law, and
foreign policy. The rising nationalistic spirit and sense of political
unity was, however, threatened by the first severe sectional dispute
over slavery.
THINGS OF INTEREST:
 Sam Wilson, who owned a meatpacking business in NY, landed a
contract to supply meat to the American Army. He had a habit of
stamping U.S on the crates. Because the term “United States” was not
often used, a meat inspector asked an employee of the Wilson
Company what it meant –he joked and said “Uncle Sam.” By 1820,
illustrations of “Uncle Sam” as a national symbol were appearing in
newspapers. Wilson died in 1854, at the age of 88. His claim to be the
original Uncle Sam was recognized by Congress in 1961.
 On March 16, 1810, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a state law
as unconstitutional for the first time.
 On Nov. 20, 1811, construction begins on a federally financed road
linking Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, West Virginia. It would
eventually stretch to Illinois and form the main route to the west.
 On Dec. 2, 1812, Madison wins a second term as president.
 In 1814, a Boston textile manufacturer named Francis Cabot Lowell
established a factory that both spins and weaves cotton, using power
machinery.