War of 1812

The War of 1812, a war between the United States and Great Britain from 1812 to 1815, was primarily an offshoot of a larger ongoing conflict in Europe, the Napoleonic Wars (1799–1815). The United States went to war mainly to force Great Britain to repeal its unfair regulation of American trade with the European continent and to give up impressment , the practice of removing seamen from U.S. merchant vessels and forcing them to serve in the Royal Navy. Other hostilities with Great Britain that led to war dated back to the American Revolution (1775–83). Britain had long maintained outposts in U.S. lands in the Northwest Territory and enlisted the aid of American Indians to help fortify them. Many people who supported the war hoped to eliminate the British presence from North America altogether.

Napoleonic Wars

The war in Europe had begun in 1799, when French army general Napoléon Bonaparte (1769–1821) seized power in France. An extremely effective leader, Napoléon soon was named emperor, ruling with unlimited power. Not content with ruling France, he set his sights on the entire continent of Europe. To start, he wanted control of the English Channel, the body of water that runs between England and France. England's navy was much stronger than France's. Securing control of the channel, England was able to avoid invasion. Napoléon's mighty army, however, defeated the Austrians and Russians and then Prussia. By 1806 Napoléon dominated Europe from the Atlantic to the borders of Russia. Still unable to defeat England, he decided to employ economic measures. He established the Continental System, which forbade all European countries from trading with England. England, in turn, tried to choke off foreign trade with France.

Impressment

The United States became involved in this conflict through its trade with Europe. England had issued the Order in Council in 1807, which announced its intention to seize goods carried in neutral ships (ships that

were not linked to either side of the conflict) heading for French ports. France threatened to do the same to ships bound for England. This violated U.S. rights at sea as a neutral trader. In 1807 a British warship boarded the USS Chesapeake and removed four sailors who had allegedly deserted from the British navy. The American public felt its honor was insulted by the British impressments, which were becoming more frequent.

In response, President Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826; served 1801–09) stopped trade with Europe and ordered British ships out of American waters. The act hurt the United States far more than England. In 1809 Congress reopened trade with foreign nations other than Britain and France. Even this step did not help the faltering U.S. economy. A new bill opened trade with both countries, but the United States let it be known that if France agreed to drop its restrictions on U.S. trade, the United States would cut off trade with England, and Napoléon quickly took advantage of the opportunity to hurt the British. In 1811 President James Madison (1751–1836; served 1809–17) cut off trade with England.

The War Hawks

In 1810 a new Congress was elected, featuring a group of young Republicans who were impatient with the peaceful responses to humiliation abroad. The “War Hawks,” led by skillful politicians such as Henry Clay (1777–1852) and John C. Calhoun (1782–1850), were members of the Democratic-Republican Party . They were incensed by impressments and by news of secret British aid to the Indians in the Old Northwest (a governmental territory in the United States comprised of modern-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin , and part of Minnesota ). The War Hawks represented the West and the South, regions that strongly favored the war. The war was strongly opposed by members of the Federalist Party , which was strong in the northern states that relied heavily on trade with England. War opponents in both parties pointed out that the United States was ill-prepared for war, both militarily and economically. Nevertheless, when President Madison sought to declare war on June 1, 1812, a divided Congress approved.

Preparing for war

In 1812, the strength of the regular army was still under seven thousand, and its officers were either too old or too poorly trained to be effective leaders. The U.S. Navy had only sixteen vessels to face Britain, the world's strongest navy. Antiwar governors in Federalist New England states refused to detach their militias (groups of volunteer soldiers) for federal service, stating that militias were emergency armies to be called upon to repel invasion, not to act in offensive moves.

How to pay for the war was another question. When Congress declared war, it had neglected to vote in taxes or come up with funds. The National Bank had been eliminated, and the Treasury Department was forced to rely on a decentralized system (one without a central authority) of state banks. A group of very wealthy businessmen finally loaned the United States the money it needed to wage war, but by that time the conflict was already well underway.

A poor start

The War of 1812 was ineffectively led and poorly fought, especially in its first year. The U.S. strategy was to strike out at Great Britain in Canada, which the Americans viewed as vulnerable because British forces were concentrated against Napoléon's armies in Europe. But shortly after the war began, the United States was forced to surrender Detroit to the British in a battle complicated by the long-term conflict with the Indians from that region. After the Treaty of Greenville (1795) awarded most of what is now Ohio to the U.S. government, Shawnee leader Tecumseh (c. 1768–1813) put together an intertribal confederacy to resist further American incursions into Indian lands. After Tecumseh's confederacy had been smashed by U.S. forces at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, the Shawnee leader promptly joined the British forces in Canada. He played an important role in that seizure of Detroit from the United States in 1812.

Throughout 1812, the United States continued to encounter defeat. This was partly due to the unpopularity of the war. The Battle of Queenston Heights in Canada was lost when the New York militia refused to cross the Canadian border to support the army. In November the refusal of militia forces to leave the United States ended an attack on Montreal. U.S. naval victories in 1812 boosted morale but had no strategic importance. By 1813 the British navy's blockade of the American coast guaranteed Britain's dominance of the seas.

A stalemate

Gradually, the U.S. Army started to improve, with younger and more capable officers such as Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) and Winfield Scott (1786–1866) receiving combat commands. Still, military progress remained disappointing until the fall of 1813, when the United States destroyed the British fleet on Lake Erie. The victory was followed by the defeat of British-Indian forces at the Battle of the Thames in October, which restored American control of the Northwest. In July 1814 American troops crossed the Niagara River into Canada, defeating the British at the Battle of Chippewa. A standstill was reached in the Battle of Lundy's Lane, marking the last American attempt to conquer Canada.

Napoléon Bonaparte was defeated in Europe in April 1814, freeing up Britain to prepare for a final offensive in North America. The British army first attempted to secure Canada by cutting off New England from the rest of the United States, but this attempt failed with a British defeat on Lake Champlain in Plattsburgh, New York. Meanwhile, a British force occupied Washington, D.C. , in August, burning the White House and the Capitol. President Madison was forced to flee. British forces moved on to capture Baltimore, but a successful resistance forced the British to abandon their plans. The war had reached a stalemate.

Federalists speak out, too late

In December 1814, New England Federalists assembled in Hartford, Connecticut , to discuss ways of objecting to the war. The main objective of the Hartford Convention was to restore power to the North through constitutional amendments to limit the power of the federal government. The delegates upheld the doctrine of nullification, a theory that proposes that states have the right to overturn federal laws when the federal government has exceeded its constitutional powers. There was even a slight threat in the convention report that the New England states might consider secession from the Union if their concerns were not heeded. But on the same day the New England delegates announced their demands, news arrived that Andrew Jackson had defeated the British at New Orleans, and that the United States and Britain had signed a peace treaty. The delegates, fearing to be seen as fools or traitors, quickly let the matter drop. The Federalist Party lost its credibility. It never regained strength after the war and soon dissolved.

The Battle of New Orleans

Americans wanted a hero for the war and Andrew Jackson, a major-general by 1814, emerged to fulfill that yearning. Prior to the Battle of New Orleans, he had begun assembling a large military force and building entrenchments in preparation for a British assault. On January 1, 1815, American troops at New Orleans held off the British army with artillery (large guns and cannons). A week later a reinforced British army of six thousand men launched a frontal assault. American artillery and rifle fire inflicted more than two thousand British casualties (dead and wounded

in battle). The Americans suffered only twenty-one casualties. Neither Jackson nor the rest of the nation knew that a peace treaty had been signed two weeks earlier. In a war that was short of resounding victories, Americans celebrated the Battle of New Orleans as a glorious defense of American honor.

The Treaty of Ghent

Peace negotiations for the War of 1812 were concluded with the Treaty of Ghent, which was signed on December 25, 1814. (Some fighting continued until Congress ratified the treaty in 1815.) The treaty basically affirmed the state of affairs before the war. European peace had solved the problem of impressments and neutral trading with France. During negotiations, the American diplomats stood firm against British demands for territorial cessions and asserted the United States's status as an independent nation that would not accept the violation of its rights or the humiliation of impressment. The glory to be found in the war's aftermath was that a nation only three decades old had held its own against a world power.

Perhaps the most important gains from the War of 1812 were internal improvements. After the war, the United States reorganized its military to correct the defects the war had revealed. President Madison acknowledged the financial difficulties caused by the lack of a national bank and the supply problems caused by the poor conditions of American roads. He also acknowledged the value of American domestic manufacturing, which had been stimulated by the disruption of trade during the war. Congress approved a national bank, federal support for transportation and internal improvements, and protective tariffs (import duties to protect U.S. manufacturers from foreign competition) in the years immediately following the war.

American Indians fared very poorly in the War of 1812. Tecumseh was killed at the Battle of the Thames in 1813. His death marked the end of Indian resistance to U.S. settlement in the Old Northwest. In the Old Southwest, Tennessee border captain Andrew Jackson led a defeat of the Creeks in 1814, clearing the southern states and the Gulf Coast for U.S. dominance.