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The War of 1812
The Beginning…
• The War of 1812, sometimes called "the Second War
of Independence," was fought between the United
States and Great Britain from 1812 to 1815.
• The greatest problems developed during the war
between England and France that broke out in
1793.
• To prevent American neutral shipping from helping
the French, the British instituted extensive maritime
blockades of European ports.
• The resulting seizures of American merchant
shipping quickly brought demands for retaliation in
the United States.
• From 1794 on, however, tensions eased as the
administrations of George Washington and John
Adams worked to avoid diplomatic difficulties with
the British.
• Beginning in 1805 the British imposed much
stricter maritime blockades, culminating in
the Orders in Council of 1807.
• The effect of these blockades was
compounded by the British practice of
impressment.
• The British navy claimed the right to
stop neutral vessels on the high seas to
look for "deserters."
• In the course of searching American ships,
mistakes were often made, and as a result
many American seamen were impressed into
the British navy
• From 1807 to 1811 the DemocraticRepublican administrations of Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison attempted to
change British policies by economic coercion,
restricting British imports as well as
American exports to Great Britain.
• The most severe of these measures was the
Embargo Act, passed in December 1807,
• This Act banned all exports and confined
American shipping to the coastal trade.
• When neither economic coercion nor
negotiation changed British policies, war
sentiment built in the United States.
War Hawks…
• Beginning in 1810 young Democratic-Republican
"War Hawks" from the West and the South argued
that the right to export American products without
losing ships and men had to be defended.
• They also objected to the British inciting the Indians
along the Great Lakes frontier and argued that the
British would be forced to change their policies if the
United States attacked Canada.
• Some believed that the future of republican
government was in danger if the United States could
not successfully defend its rights.
• Others hoped that if Canada was conquered it could
be retained after the war.
The War…
• In spite of bitter opposition from the Federalist
party, centered in New England, the United States
declared war against Great Britain on June 18,
1812.
• General American strategy called for an invasion of
Canada on three fronts: along Lake Champlain
toward Montreal, across the Niagara frontier, and
from Detroit into upper Canada.
• The campaigns of the summer and fall of 1812
were disasters.
• Detroit surrendered to the British on August 18, and
the Americans were defeated on the Niagara frontier
at the Battle of Queenston Heights in October.
• The year ended with American forces on the Lake
Champlain front withdrawing from an attempted
invasion of Canada without seriously engaging the
enemy.
The Navy
• The main consolation in the first year of the
war was the unexpected performance of the
small American navy.
• In a single-ship engagement the frigate Constitution
defeated the Guerriere in August 1812.
• Later in the year the United States captured the
British frigate Macedonian and brought it into port
as a prize of war.
• Later the Constitution defeated the Java in a battle
off the coast of Brazil.
• This run of successes came to an end in June 1813
when the Chesapeake lost to the Shannon in a
bitterly fought engagement.
• But in spite of the morale-boosting victories of
the frigates and successful forays by American
privateers, the British navy effectively
blockaded the American coast and laid it open
to hit-and-run raids.
Canada continued
• American attempts to invade Canada
failed again in 1813.
• Although Capt. Oliver Hazard Perry's
ships won the Battle of Lake Erie in
October and Gen. William Henry
Harrison defeated the British and the
Indians at the Battle of the Thames in
Canada in the same month, the
Americans were unable to make major
inroads into Canada.
Things are looking pretty bad
• In 1814, with France collapsing, the British were
able to launch major attacks against the United
States.
• In July, American forces resisted the British at the
Battles of Chippawa and Lundy's Lane on the
Niagara frontier, but in the next month the United
States suffered a severe blow.
• When Washington was occupied in August, President
Madison and Congress were forced to flee, and the
White House and other public buildings were
burned.
• American morale was at a low ebb: the country
faced bankruptcy as a result of the British blockade
and the Federalists of New England were in open
opposition to the war.
But things get better…
• But in the following months American
fortunes suddenly revived.
• The British force that had occupied
Washington failed in an attempt to
take Baltimore, and on September 11
Thomas Macdonough's naval force won
a decisive victory at the Battle of
Plattsburg Bay on Lake Champlain.
• This victory forced an invading British
army to retreat into Canada.
The Hartford Convention
December 15, 1814-January 5, 1815
• The Hartford Convention grew out of New England Federalists'
opposition to the War of 1812.
• Because of their close mercantile ties to Great Britain, the New
England states had tried to prevent the declaration of war in June
1812, and that summer, both Massachusetts and Connecticut refused
to contribute militia to the federal government.
• In spite of an embargo enacted by Congress in December 1813, New
Englanders continued to sell supplies to British troops in Canada and
to British vessels offshore.
• This lively demand for wartime provisions benefited New England, as
did the enhanced market for domestic manufactures, but the overall
loss of trade offset these benefits and came to symbolize for the local
Federalists their loss of national power in relation to the southerndominated Republican party.
• Early in 1814, several Massachusetts towns urged that a regional
convention be held to formulate their grievances.
• That December, at the suggestion of the Massachusetts legislature,
twenty-six Federalists representing Connecticut, Rhode Island,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont met in Hartford,
Connecticut.
Hartford Convention Continued…
• Although a number of Federalists had urged that the convention
threaten secession, that proposal was defeated by the delegates.
• The final resolutions reflected the moderates' view.
• The convention proposed a number of changes (including several
constitutional amendments) that they hoped would increase states'
autonomy and restore the national power of New England Federalists.
• A committee of three was appointed to negotiate with the national
government, but New England's effort to trade support of the war for
greater influence in national councils was made irrelevant by news of
the treaty ending the war (ratified by the Senate in February 1815).
• Many critics poked fun at the convention, whereas others interpreted
it as a forum for treasonous plotting; both views helped speed the
demise of the convention's already weakened sponsors, the
Federalists.
• The fact that the delegates had discussed secession, though they
ended by rejecting it, set an early precedent for the idea that
secession was an available choice for states dissatisfied with national
policies.
Treaty of Ghent
• Since August 1814 the two sides had been
negotiating a settlement at Ghent in Belgium.
• When the British heard of the retreat of their army
in the Battle of Plattsburg Bay, they lost interest in
continuing the war.
• On December 24 the Treaty of Ghent was signed.
• It provided for the mutual restoration of territory captured
by both sides.
• England agreed to surrender its forts in the Northwest
Territory and to allow the United States fishing rights in
Canadian waters.
• Neither side obtained any significant advantage as a result
of the treaty
• With the ending of the European war, the problem of
American neutral rights was no longer an issue.
One Last Battle
• One battle was still to be fought, however, for the British force
proceeding against the Gulf coast could not be informed of the
peace in time.
• On January 8, 1815, the American forces commanded by
Andrew Jackson inflicted a crushing defeat on the British at
New Orleans.
• American victory resulted in the loss of over thousand British
soldiers and fewer than twenty American casualties in a battle
that lasted about an hour.
• This victory made Jackson a national hero and enhanced his
political future.
• Once again the British had been successfully resisted, and a
surge of national self-confidence swept the United States.
• A war that had begun with the object of defending American
commerce and vindicating republican independence was
viewed in the end as a victory only because British attacks on
the United States had failed.
The Star Spangled Banner
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As one phase of a series of attacks on the United States in 1814, the British
landed troops in the Chesapeake Bay area. In August, after defeating the
Americans at the Battle of Bladensburg, they temporarily occupied
Washington, D.C., burned the public buildings, withdrew, and sailed up the
Chesapeake to attack Baltimore. In the course of their withdrawal, the British
arrested and took with them a local physician, Dr. William Beanes.
Beanes's friends asked Key to intervene with the British to secure his release.
Accompanied by an American agent for prisoners of war, Key sailed out to the
British fleet in Chesapeake Bay and arranged for Beanes to be freed.
The British, however, were about to launch their attack on Baltimore, and they
detained the Americans until after the attack.
On the night of September 13-14 the British bombarded Fort McHenry, one of
the American forts guarding Baltimore. In the morning, when "by dawn's early
light" Key saw the American flag still flying over the fort, he was inspired to
write the poem that became known as "The Star-Spangled Banner."
He quickly jotted down the lines and that night on shore wrote out a fair copy.
It was printed immediately and issued in Baltimore as a handbill with the title
"Defence of Fort M'Henry" and was quickly reprinted in Baltimore and
elsewhere.
Set to the music of the English drinking song "To Anacreon in Heaven," Key's
composition soon achieved national popularity, although Congress did not
adopt it as the official national anthem until 1931.