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The War of 1812 was fought between the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and its colonies in British North America (later Canada) from 1812 to 1815 on land and sea. The war formally began on June 18 1812, with a U.S. declaration of war. The war took place against the global backdrop of the long struggle between Britain, with a shifting series of European allies, and the French and European empire of Napoleon. In the first decade of the 1800s each side forbade neutral nations to trade with the other side, but only the British (with its dominant Royal Navy) could impose these restrictions upon a burgeoning American merchant marine which had begun to trade worldwide. In addition to their search for contraband, the British stopped American ships to remove sailors whom they regarded as British subjects and, always desperate for trained manpower in the long wars with France, pressed them into service in the Royal Navy. Some British captains were not careful to ensure that these seamen were in fact British rather than American citizens. The United States and Britain came to the brink of war in 1807 when the British ship HMS Leopard stopped the American frigate USS Chesapeake just outside American territorial waters. When the American vessel refused to be inspected, the British fired into the frigate, boarded it and removed four seamen whom the British captain claimed to be deserters. Although the British apologized, they did not end their stop and search practices. The Americans had hoped for a quick win in the war, since Britain was at war with France under Napoleon. British forces responded to the declaration by the capture of Fort Mackinac on July 17, after the US force under U.S. General William Hull had invaded Canada July 12 at Sandwich (now known as Windsor, Ontario). The British later captured Detroit after turning back an American invasion of Upper Canada in the summer of 1812. The United States defeated combined British and Native Americans armies with victories at the Battle of the Thames, in October 1813, and at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, in March 1814, but by this time, Britain had successfully concluded the Napoleonic wars and the British were finally able to divert more resources to North America. Despite several notable successes by U.S. frigates and the menace of American privateers to British trade, the Royal Navy established a strict blockade of American trade causing economic hardship. On land, the U.S. invasion of Canada was swiftly repulsed, and British forces counterattacked across the border, burning Washington, D.C., and occupying the territories that would later become the state of Maine. But the British counteroffensive was turned back at Lake Champlain, Baltimore, and New Orleans. The Treaty of Ghent (ratified in 1815) restored the status quo ante bellum between the combatants. On the Great Lakes border, more than half of the British forces were made up of Canadian militia. Additionally, many North American Indian peoples had their own reasons for fighting alongside either the British or the Americans. In the Northwest Territory, the War was, in a sense, a continuation of Tecumseh's War after the Indian defeat at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 up to Battle of the Thames in 1813. Some histories refer to this war as the "War of 1812–14", using the date of the peace treaty as the ending date of the war.
Origins The main reasons for America declaring war on the British were: In 1795, the Jay Treaty with the United Kingdom and the Treaty of Greenville with the North American Indians temporarily resolved the conflict on the Northwestern frontier. The Monroe-Pinkney Treaty of 1806 dealt only with trade, not impressment, and was not ratified by the United States Congress. Continuing trade embargoes by the British and the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair of 1807 (which resulted in the deaths of three American seamen under attack by a British ship) further aggravated tensions between the two countries. However, in this incident, the British captain far exceeded his orders, and as a result, the Royal Navy was more careful about impressing Americans afterwards. In 1811, in the United States House of Representatives, a loose political faction called the War Hawks, under the leadership of speaker Henry Clay, began agitating for a declaration of war against the United Kingdom, both as a response to real grievances and as an opportunity to acquire the British colonies. After a speech by President James Madison to Congress on June 18, 1812, Congress voted to declare war. By that time, the United Kingdom had already revoked the restrictions on American commerce and stayed the impressment of American sailors, but the news of this arrived in the United States only after war was declared. * Historian Robin Reilly has argued that the declaration of war on the United Kingdom by the United States was a victory for French diplomacy, forcing the United Kingdom to divert its attention and some resources from continental matters. From a British perspective, there was certainly no reason to commence a war with the United States. The United Kingdom had been engaged in a desperate war with France since 1793 and depended on American supplies to maintain Wellington's Army in Spain. Any combat in North America would merely be a distraction from the main effort to contain and defeat the French in Europe. Historian Norman Risjord tends to place national honour as the major cause of the war. By 1812, the British still had not accepted the Americans as their equals. They continued to look upon the Americans as Colonials, not as a full sovereign nation. Risjord proposed the Americans reasoned that if they were equals the British would not take sailors off American ships. Course of the war
Atlantic theatre The United Kingdom had long been the world's pre-eminent naval power, confirmed by its victory over the French and the Spanish at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. In 1812, the Royal Navy had ninety-seven vessels in American waters. Of these, eleven were ships of the line and thirty-four were frigates. By contrast, the United States Navy, which was not yet twenty years old, had only twenty-two commissioned vessels, the largest of which were frigates, though a number of the American ships were 44-gun frigates and very heavily built compared to the usual British 38-gun frigates. The strategy of the British was to protect their own merchant shipping to and from Canada, and to enforce a blockade of major American ports to restrict American trade. Because of their numerical inferiority, the Americans aimed to cause disruption through hit-and-run tactics, such as the capture of prizes and only engaging Royal Navy vessels under favourable circumstances. The Americans experienced much early success. On June 21 1812, three days after the formal declaration of war, two small squadrons left New York. The ships included the frigate USS ''President'' and the sloop USS ''Hornet'' under Commodore John Rodgers (who had general command), and the frigates USS ''United States'' and USS ''Congress'', with the brig USS ''Argus'' under Captain Stephen Decatur. Two days later, President and Hornet gave chase to the British frigate HMS ''Belvidera''. Belvidera eventually escaped to Halifax after discarding all unnecessary cargo overboard. President and Hornet returned to Boston, Massachusetts by August 31. Meanwhile, USS ''Constitution'', commanded by Captain Isaac Hull, sailed from Chesapeake Bay on July 12. On July 17, a British squadron gave chase. Constitution evaded her pursuers after two days. After briefly calling at Boston to replenish water, on August 19 Constitution engaged the British frigate HMS ''Guerriere''. After a thirty five-minute battle, Guerriere had been dismasted and captured and was later burned. Hull returned to Boston with news of this significant victory. On October 25, the USS United States, commanded by Captain Decatur, captured the British frigate HMS ''Macedonian'', which he carried back to port. At the close of the month, Constitution sailed south under the command of Captain William Bainbridge. On December 29, off Bahia, Brazil, she met the British frigate HMS ''Java'', which was carrying General Hislop, the governor of Bombay, to India. After a battle lasting three hours, Java struck her colours and was burned after being judged unsalvageable. In January 1813, the American frigate USS ''Essex'', under the command of Captain David Porter, sailed into the Pacific in an attempt to harass British shipping. Many British whaling ships carried letters of marque allowing them to prey on American whalers, nearly destroying the industry. Essex challenged this practice. She inflicted an estimated $3,000,000 damage on British interests before she was captured off Valparaiso, Chile, by the British frigate HMS ''Phoebe'' and the sloop HMS ''Cherub'' on March 28 1814. In all of these actions—except the one in which Essex was taken—the Americans had the advantage of greater size and heavier guns. However, the United States Navy's sloops and brigs also won several decisive victories over Royal Navy vessels of approximately equal strength. In most of these their gunnery and ship-handling was inferior to that of the Americans. This was the case because while the American ships had experienced and well-drilled crews, the over-stretched Royal Navy had the cream of its force serving elsewere, and constant sea duties of those serving in North America interfered with their training and exercises. The capture of three British frigates was a blow to the British and stimulated them to greater exertions. More vessels were deployed on the American seaboard and the blockade tightened. On June 1 1813, off Boston Harbor, the frigate USS ''Chesapeake'', commanded by Captain James Lawrence, was captured by the British frigate HMS ''Shannon'' under Captain Sir Philip Broke. During the action, Lawrence was mortally wounded and as he was carried below, he famously cried, "Don't give up the ship!". This action somewhat offset the blows to the Royal Navy's morale caused by earlier disasters. The blockade of American ports had tightened to the extent that the United States ships found it increasingly difficult to sail without meeting forces of superior strength. In addition to the blockade, the British Admiralty had instituted a new policy in which Royal Navy ships could only engage their American counterparts if in squadron strength or by ship-of-the-line. An example of this was the engagement between USS President and a heavy British squadron in January 1815. The British engaged with four ships versus one: HMS Endymion, HMS Majestic, HMS Pomone, and HMS Tenedos. After a desperate battle, the President was captured. Because of the utilization of heavy squadrons and the blockade, the Royal Navy was able to transport British Army troops to American shores, paving the way for their attack on Washington D.C., which became known as the burning of Washington, D.C., in 1814. The operations of American privateers, some of which belonged to the United States Navy but most of which were private ventures, were extensive. They continued until the close of the war and were only partially affected by the strict enforcement of convoy by the Royal Navy. An example of the audacity of the American cruisers was the depredations in British home waters carried out by the American sloop USS ''Argus'', which was eventually captured off St David's Head in Wales by the more heavily armed British brig HMS ''Pelican'', on August 14 1813. The war was likely the last time the British allowed privateering since the practice was coming to be seen as politically inexpedient and of diminishing value in maintaining its naval supremacy. By the middle of the century, the legality of the practice under international law was being rapidly dismantled (Britain would not authorise privateers during the Crimean War, and it signed the Declaration of Paris in April, 1856). Before the war, the United States had successfully pressed claims for damages in British courts against British citizens who had been involved in privateering against American vessels. Despite this, British privateers were also very active against American shipping during the war, although the Royal Navy's successful blockade of American harbours limited their opportunities by keeping much of the U.S. merchant fleet in port. Invasions of Upper and Lower Canada, 1812
American northwest, 1813 After Hull's surrender, General William Henry Harrison was given command of the American Army of the Northwest. He set out to retake Detroit, which was now defended by Colonel Henry Procter in conjunction with Tecumseh. A detachment of Harrison's army was defeated at Frenchtown along the River Raisin on January 22, 1813. Procter left the prisoners in custody of a few North American Indians, who then proceeded to execute perhaps as many as sixty American prisoners, an event which became known as the "River Raisin Massacre." The defeat ended Harrison's campaign against Detroit, and the phrase "Remember the River Raisin!" became a rallying cry for the Americans. In May 1813, Procter and Tecumseh set siege to Fort Meigs in northern Ohio. American reinforcements arriving during the siege were defeated by the Indians, but the fort held out. The Indians eventually began to disperse, forcing Procter and Tecumseh to return to Canada. A second offensive against Fort Meigs also failed in July. In an attempt to improve Indian morale, Procter and Tecumseh attempted to storm Fort Stephenson, a small American post on the Sandusky River, only to be repulsed with serious losses, marking the end of the Ohio campaign. On Lake Erie, the American commander Captain Oliver Hazard Perry fought the Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813. His decisive victory ensured American control of the lake, improved American morale after a series of defeats, and compelled the British to fall back from Detroit. This paved the way for General Harrison to launch another invasion of Upper Canada, which culminated in the U.S. victory at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813, in which Tecumseh was killed. Tecumseh's death effectively ended the North American Indian alliance with the British in the Detroit region. The Americans controlled Detroit and Amherstburg for the duration of the war. Niagara frontier, 1813 Because of the difficulties of land communications, control of the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River corridor was crucial, and so both sides spent the winter of 1812-13 building ships. The Americans, who had far greater shipbuilding facilities than the British, nevertheless had not taken advantage of this before the war and had fallen behind. By September 1814, the British launched the largest ship built during the war—the HMS St. Lawrence. On April 27, 1813, American forces attacked and burned York (now called Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada, including the Parliament Buildings. However, Kingston was strategically more valuable to British supply and communications along the St Lawrence. Without control of Kingston, the American navy could not effectively control Lake Ontario or sever the British supply line from Lower Canada. On May 27, 1813, an American amphibious force from Lake Ontario assaulted Fort George on the northern end of the Niagara River and captured it without serious losses. The retreating British forces were not pursued, however, until they had largely escaped and organized a counter-offensive against the advancing Americans at the Battle of Stoney Creek on June 5. On June 24, with the help of advance warning by Loyalist Laura Secord, another American force was forced to surrender by a much smaller British and Indian force at the Battle of Beaver Dams, marking the end of the American offensive into Upper Canada. The burning of Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) by American General McClure on December 10 1813, incensed the British and Canadians since civilian houses had mainly been destroyed. Many were left without shelter, consequently freezing to death in the snow. This led to British retaliation and similar destruction at Buffalo on December 30, 1813. On Lake Ontario, Sir James Lucas Yeo took command on May 15, 1813, and created a more mobile though less powerful force than the Americans under Isaac Chauncey. An early attack on Sackett's Harbour by Yeo and Governor General Sir George Prevost was repulsed. Three naval engagements in August and September led to no decisive result. By 1814, Yeo had constructed HMS St Lawrence, a first-rate ship of the line of 112 guns which gave him superiority, and the British became masters of Lake Ontario. St. Lawrence and Lower Canada The Americans made little attempt to bar the Saint Lawrence to British traffic at the point where it was also the frontier between the United States and Canada. British supplies and reinforcements were able to move to Upper Canada with little difficulty. Early in 1813, there was a series of raids and counter-raids between Prescott in Upper Canada and Ogdensburg on the American side of the river. On February 21, Sir George Prevost passed through Prescott with reinforcements for Upper Canada. When he left the next day, the reinforcements attacked and looted Ogdensburg. For the rest of the year, Ogdensburg had no American garrison, and the British freely obtained goods there while many residents of Ogdensburg commenced visits and trade with Prescott. The British victory removed the last American regular troops from the Upper St Lawrence frontier and helped secure British communications with Montreal. Late in 1813, after much argument, the Americans made two thrusts against Montreal. The plan eventually agreed upon was for Major-General Wade Hampton to march north from Lake Champlain and join with a force under General James Wilkinson which would sail from Sacket's Harbour on Lake Ontario and descend the Saint Lawrence. Hampton was delayed by bad roads and supply problems and an intense dislike of Wilkinson, which limited his desire to support his plan. On October 25, his 4,000-strong force was defeated at the Chateauguay River by Charles de Salaberry's force of less than 500 French-Canadian Voltigeurs and Mohawks. Wilkinson's force of 8,000 sailed on October 17 but was also held up by bad weather. After learning that Hampton had been checked, Wilkinson heard that a British force under Captain William Mulcaster and Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Morrison was pursuing him, and by November 10, he was forced to land near Morrisburg, about 150 kilometers (90 mi) from Montreal. On November 11, Wilkinson's rearguard, numbering 2,500, attacked Morrison's force of 800 at Crysler's Farm and was repulsed with heavy losses. After learning that Hampton was unable to renew his advance, Wilkinson retreated to the U.S. and settled into winter quarters. He resigned his command after a failed attack on a British outpost at Lacolle Mills. Niagara Campaign, 1814 By the middle of 1814, American generals, including Major Generals Jacob Brown and Winfield Scott, had drastically improved the fighting abilities and discipline of the army. Their renewed attack on the Niagara peninsula quickly captured Fort Erie. Winfield Scott then gained a decisive victory over an equal British force at the Battle of Chippewa on July 5. An attempt to advance further ended with a hard-fought drawn battle at Lundy's Lane on July 25. The Americans withdrew but withstood a prolonged Siege of Fort Erie. The British raised the siege, but lack of provisions eventually forced the Americans to retreat across the Niagara. Meanwhile, following the abdication of Napoleon, British troops began arriving in North America. Less than half were veterans of the Peninsula and the remainder came from garrisons. Along with the troops came instructions for offensives against the United States. British strategy was changing, and like the Americans, the British were seeking advantages for the peace negotiations in Ghent. Governor-General Sir George Prevost was instructed to launch an offensive into the United States. However, his invasion was repulsed by the naval Battle of Plattsburgh in Plattsburgh Bay on September 11, 1814, which gave the Americans control of Lake Champlain. Theodore Roosevelt later termed it the greatest naval battle of the war. American West, 1814 Little of note took place on Lake Huron in 1813, but the American victory on Lake Erie isolated the British there. During the winter, a Canadian party under Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDouall established a new supply line from York to Nottawasaga Bay on Georgian Bay. When he arrived at Fort Mackinac with supplies and reinforcements, he sent an expedition to recapture the trading post of Prairie du Chien in the far West. The Battle of Prairie du Chien ended in a British victory on July 20, 1814. In 1814, the Americans sent a force of five vessels from Detroit to recapture Mackinac. A mixed force of regulars and volunteers from the militia landed on the island on July 4. They did not attempt to achieve surprise, and at the brief Battle of Mackinac Island, they were ambushed by Indians and forced to re-embark. The Americans discovered the new base at Nottawasaga Bay and on August 13, destroyed its fortifications and a schooner found there. They then returned to Detroit, leaving two gunboats to blockade Michilimackinac. On September 4, these gunboats were taken unawares and captured by enemy boarding parties from canoes and small boats. This Engagement on Lake Huron left Mackinac under British control. The British garrison at Prairie du Chien also fought off an attack by Major Zachary Taylor. In this distant theatre, the British retained the upper hand till the end of the war because of their allegiance with several Indian tribes that they supplied with arms and gifts. Atlantic coast When the war began, the British naval forces had some difficulty in blockading the entire U.S. coast, and they were also preoccupied in their pursuit of American privateers. The British government, having need of American foodstuffs for its army in Spain, benefitted from the willingness of the New Englanders to trade with them, so no blockade of New England was at first attempted. The Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay were declared in a state of blockade on December 26 1812. This was extended to the coast south of Narragansett by November 1813 and to all the American coast on May 31 1814. In the meantime, much illicit trade was carried on by collusive captures arranged between American traders and British officers. American ships were fraudulently transferred to neutral flags. Eventually the U.S. Government was driven to issue orders to stop illicit trading. This only put a further strain on the commerce of the country. The overpowering strength of the British fleet enabled it to occupy the Chesapeake and to attack and destroy numerous docks and harbors. From the probing of the British Colony of New Brunswick, Maine was an important conquest by the British. The border between New Brunswick and the District of Maine had never been adequately settled after the American Revolution. A military victory in Maine by the British could represent a large gain in territory for New Brunswick, but more immediately it assured communication with Lower Canada via the St John River and the Halifax Road. The war did not settle the border dispute, and when Maine became a state in 1820, it led to a border crisis called the Aroostook War. The border between Maine and New Brunswick was not be settled until 1842 and the "Webster-Ashburton Treaty". In September 1814, Sir John Coape Sherbrooke led a British Army into eastern Maine and was successful in capturing Castine, Hampden, Bangor, and Machias. The Americans were given the option of swearing allegiance to the king or quitting the country. The vast majority swore allegiance and were even permitted to keep their firearms. This is the only large tract of territory held by either side at the conclusion of the war and was given back to the United States by the Treaty of Ghent. The British did not leave Maine until April 1815, at which time they took large sums of money retained from duties in occupied Maine. This money, called the "Castine Fund", was used in the establishment of Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Chesapeake campaign and "The Star-Spangled Banner" The strategic location of the Chesapeake Bay near the nation's capital made it a prime target for the British. Starting in March 1813, a squadron under Rear Admiral George Cockburn started a blockade of the bay and raided towns along the bay from Norfolk to Havre de Grace. On July 4 1813, Joshua Barney, a Revolutionary War naval hero, convinced the Navy Department to build the Chesapeake Bay Flotilla, a squadron of twenty barges to defend the Chesapeake Bay. Launched in April 1814, the squadron was quickly cornered in the Patuxent River, and while successful in harassing the Royal Navy, they were powerless to stop the British campaign that ultimately led to the "Burning of Washington". The expedition, led by Admiral Sir George Cockburn and General Robert Ross, was carried out between August 19 and August 29 1814. On August 24, the inexperienced American militia, which had congregated at Bladensburg, Maryland, to protect the capital, were thrashed, opening the route to Washington. While Dolley Madison saved valuables from the White House, President James Madison was forced to flee to Virginia; American morale was reduced to an all-time low. The British viewed their actions as retaliation for the Americans' burning of York in 1813, although there are suggestions that the burning was in retaliation of destructive American raids into other parts of Upper Canada. Having destroyed Washington's public buildings, including the White House and the Treasury, the British army next moved to capture Baltimore, a busy port and a key base for American privateers. The subsequent Battle of Baltimore began with a British landing at North Point, but the attack was repulsed, and General Ross was killed. The British also attempted to attack Baltimore by sea on September 13 but were unable to reduce Fort McHenry, at the entrance to Baltimore Harbor. The defense of the fort inspired the American lawyer Francis Scott Key to write a poem that would eventually supply the lyrics to "The Star-Spangled Banner", the national anthem of the United States. Creek War In March 1814, General Andrew Jackson led a force of Tennessee militia, Cherokee warriors, and U.S. regulars southward to attack the Creek tribes, led by Chief Menawa. While some of the Creeks had been British allies in the past, the fighting was related to control of Creek land in Alabama rather than the British-American conflict. On March 26, Jackson and General John Coffee fought the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend, killing 800 of 1,000 Creeks at a cost of 49 killed and 154 wounded of approximately 2,000 American and Cherokee forces. Jackson pursued the surviving Creeks to Wetumpka, near present-day Montgomery, Alabama, where they surrendered. As one historian wrote: We speak of the War of 1812, but in truth there were two wars. The war between the Americans and the British ended with the treaty of Ghent. The war between the Big Knives American frontiersmen and the Indians began at Tippecanoe, and arguably did not run its course until the last Red Sticks were defeated in the Florida swamps in 1818 (Sugden 401). Treaty of Ghent and Battle of New Orleans
Consequences The Treaty of Ghent established the status quo ante bellum; there were no territorial concessions made by either side. Relations between the United States and the United Kingdom remained peaceful, if not entirely tranquil, throughout the nineteenth century, and the two countries became close allies in the twentieth century. Border adjustments between the United States and British North America were made in the Treaty of 1818. (A border dispute between the state of Maine and the province of New Brunswick was settled in the bloodless Aroostook War in the 1830s.) The issue of impressing American seamen (who had been born British subjects) was made moot when the Royal Navy stopped impressment after the defeat of Napoleon. United States The United States did gain a measure of international respect for managing to battle the British Empire to a standstill. The morale of the citizens was high because they had fought one of the great military powers of the world and managed to survive, which increased feelings of nationalism; the war has often been called the "Second War of Independence." The war also contributed to the demise of the Federalist Party, which had opposed the war. British North America U.S. officials had expected the largely American population of Upper Canada to side with the United States as soon as its army crossed the border. This did not happen. Lured northwards by free land and low taxes, the settlers wanted to be left alone. Nor was it wise after such a bitter war to advocate American political ideals, such as democracy and republicanism. Thus the British and loyalist elite were able to set Canadians on a different course from that of their former enemy. And the growing belief that they, the civilian soldiers, and not the Indians and British regulars, had won the war helped to germinate the seeds of nationalism in Canada. United Kingdom Unlike in Canada, the war is scarcely remembered in the United Kingdom. Chiefly, this is because it was overshadowed by the dramatic events of the contemporary Napoleonic Wars — 1815, the year of the Treaty of Ghent, was also the year of the Battle of Waterloo — and because Britain neither gained nor lost by the peace settlement. The Royal Navy, however, was acutely conscious that the United States Navy had won a majority of the single-ship duels during the War. Also, American privateers and commerce raiders had captured numerous British merchant ships, sending insurance rates up and embarrassing the Admiralty. On the other hand, the Royal Navy had been able to deploy overwhelming strength to American waters, annihilating American maritime trade. The Royal Navy made some changes to its practices in construction and gunnery. The British Army also made no change to its systems of recruitment, discipline and awards of commissions. See also Overviews Causes and diplomacy Military and naval Canadian-US-Indian Primary sources | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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