June 18, 1812–Feb.

17, 1815), conflict fought between the United States and Great Britain over
British violations of U.S. maritime rights. It ended with the exchange of ratifications of the Treaty of
Ghent.

Major causes of the war

The tensions that caused the War of 1812 arose from the French revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
(1792–1815). During this nearly constant conflict between France and Britain, American interests
were injured by each of the two countries' endeavours to block the United States from trading with
the other.

American shipping initially prospered from trade with the French and Spanish empires, although the
British countered the U.S. claim that “free ships make free goods” with the belated enforcement of
the so-called Rule of 1756 (trade not permitted in peacetime would not be allowed in wartime). The
Royal Navy did enforce the act from 1793 to 1794, especially in the Caribbean Sea, before the signing
of the Jay Treaty (Nov. 19, 1794). Under the primary terms of the treaty, American maritime
commerce was given trading privileges in England and the British East Indies, Britain agreed to
evacuate forts still held in the Northwest Territory by June 1, 1796, and the Mississippi River was
declared freely open to both countries. Although the treaty was ratified by both countries, it was
highly unpopular in the United States and was one of the rallying points used by the pro-French
Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, in wresting power from the pro-British
Federalists, led by George Washington and John Adams.

After Jefferson became president in 1801, relations with Britain slowly deteriorated, and systematic
enforcement of the Rule of 1756 resumed after 1805. Compounding this troubling development, the
decisive British naval victory at the Battle of Trafalgar (Oct. 21, 1805) and efforts by the British to
blockade French ports prompted the French emperor, Napoleon, to cut off Britain from European
and American trade. The Berlin Decree (Nov. 21, 1806) established Napoleon's Continental System,
which impinged on U.S. neutral rights by designating ships that visited British ports as enemy vessels.
The British responded with Orders in Council (Nov. 11, 1807) that required neutral ships to obtain
licenses at English ports before trading with France or French colonies. In turn, France announced
the Milan Decree (Dec. 17, 1807), which strengthened the Berlin Decree by authorizing the capture
of any neutral vessel that had submitted to search by the British. Consequently, American ships that
obeyed Britain faced capture by the French in European ports, and if they complied with Napoleon's
Continental System, they could fall prey to the Royal Navy.

The Royal Navy's use of impressment to keep its ships fully crewed also provoked Americans. The
British accosted American merchant ships to seize alleged Royal Navy deserters, carrying off
thousands of U.S. citizens into the British navy. In 1807 the frigate H.M.S. Leopard fired on the U.S.
Navy frigate Chesapeake and seized four sailors, three of them U.S. citizens. London eventually
apologized for this incident, but it came close to causing war at the time. Jefferson, however, chose
to exert economic pressure against Britain and France by pushing Congress in December 1807 to pass
the Embargo Act, which forbade all export shipping from U.S. ports and most imports from Britain.

The Embargo Act hurt Americans more than the British or French, however, causing many Americans
to defy it. Just before Jefferson left office in 1809, Congress replaced the Embargo Act with the Non-
Intercourse Act, which exclusively forbade trade with Great Britain and France. This measure also
proved ineffective, and it was replaced by Macon's Bill No. 2 (May 1, 1810) that resumed trade with
all nations but stipulated that if either Britain or France dropped commercial restrictions, the United
States would revive nonintercourse against the other. In August, Napoleon insinuated that he would
exempt American shipping from the Berlin and Milan decrees. Although the British demonstrated
that French restrictions continued, U.S. Pres. James Madison reinstated nonintercourse against
Britain in November 1810, thereby moving one step closer to war.

Britain's refusal to yield on neutral rights derived from more than the emergency of the European
war. British manufacturing and shipping interests demanded that the Royal Navy promote and
sustain British trade against Yankee competitors. The policy born of that attitude convinced many
Americans that they were being consigned to a de facto colonial status. Britons, on the other hand,
denounced American actions that effectively made the United States a participant in Napoleon's
Continental System.

Events on the U.S. northwestern frontier fostered additional friction. Indian fears over American
encroachment coincidentally became conspicuous as Anglo-American tensions grew. Shawnee
brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa (The Prophet) attracted followers arising from this discontent
and attempted to form an Indian confederation to counteract American expansion. Although Maj.
Gen. Isaac Brock, the British commander of Upper Canada (modern Ontario), had orders to avoid
worsening American frontier problems, American settlers blamed British intrigue for heightened
tensions with Indians in the Northwest Territory. As war loomed, Brock sought to augment his
meagre regular and Canadian militia forces with Indian allies, which was enough to confirm the worst
fears of American settlers. Brock's efforts were aided in the fall of 1811, when Indiana territorial
governor William Henry Harrison fought the Battle of Tippecanoe and destroyed the Indian
settlement at Prophet's Town (near modern Battle Ground, Ind.). Harrison's foray convinced most
Indians in the Northwest Territory that their only hope of stemming further encroachments by
American settlers lay with the British. American settlers, in turn, believed that Britain's removal from
Canada would end their Indian problems. Meanwhile, Canadians suspected that American
expansionists were using Indian unrest as an excuse for a war of conquest.

Under increasing pressure, Madison summoned the U.S. Congress into session in November 1811.
Pro-war western and southern Republicans (War Hawks) assumed a vocal role, especially after
Kentucky War Hawk Henry Clay was elected speaker of the House of Representatives. Madison sent a
war message to the U.S. Congress on June 1, 1812, and signed the declaration of war on June 18,
1812. The vote seriously divided the House (79–49) and was gravely close in the Senate (19–13).
Because seafaring New Englanders opposed the war, while westerners and southerners supported it,
Federalists accused war advocates of expansionism under the ruse of protecting American maritime
rights. Expansionism, however, was not as much a motive as was the desire to defend American
honour. The United States attacked Canada because it was British, but no widespread aspiration
existed to incorporate the region. The prospect of taking East and West Florida from Spain
encouraged southern support for the war, but southerners, like westerners, were sensitive about the
United States's reputation in the world. Furthermore, British commercial restrictions hurt American
farmers by barring their produce from Europe. Regions seemingly removed from maritime concerns
held a material interest in protecting neutral shipping. “Free trade and sailors' rights” was not an
empty phrase for those Americans.

The onset of war both surprised and chagrined the British government, especially because it was
preoccupied with the fight against France. In addition, political changes in Britain had already moved
the government to assume a conciliatory posture toward the United States. Prime Minister Spencer
Perceval's assassination on May 11, 1812, brought to power a more moderate Tory government
under Lord Liverpool. British West Indies planters had been complaining for years about the
interdiction of U.S. trade, and their growing influence, along with a deepening recession in Great
Britain, convinced the Liverpool ministry that the Orders in Council were averse to British interests.
On June 16, two days before the United States declared war, the Orders were suspended.

Some have viewed the timing of this concession as a lost opportunity for peace because slow
transatlantic communication meant a month's delay in delivering the news to Washington. Yet,
because Britain's impressment policy remained in place and frontier Indian wars continued, in all
likelihood the repeal of the Orders alone would not have prevented war.

War

Neither the British in Canada nor the United States were prepared for war. Americans were
inordinately optimistic in 1812. William Eustis, the U.S. secretary of war, stated, “We can take the
Canadas without soldiers, we have only to send officers into the province and the people…will rally
round our standard.” Henry Clay said that “the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place
Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet.” And Thomas Jefferson famously wrote

The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of
marching, and will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, and the final expulsion of
England from the American continent.

The British government, preoccupied with the European conflict, saw American hostilities as a
bothersome distraction, resulting in a paucity of resources in men, supplies, and naval presence until
late in the event. As the British in Canada conducted operations under the shadow of scarcity, their
only consolation was an American military malaise. Michigan territorial governor William Hull led
U.S. forces into Canada from Detroit, but Isaac Brock and Tecumseh's warriors chased Hull back
across the border and frightened him into surrendering Detroit on Aug. 16, 1812, without firing a
shot—behaviour that Americans and even Brock's officers found disgraceful. The Northwest
subsequently fell prey to Indian raids and British incursions led by Maj. Gen. Henry Procter. Hull's
replacement, William Henry Harrison, could barely defend a few scattered outposts. On the
northeastern border, U.S. Brig. Gen. Henry Dearborn could not attack Montreal because of
uncooperative New England militias. U.S. forces under Stephen van Rensselaer crossed the Niagara
River to attack Queenston on Oct. 13, 1812, but ultimately were defeated by a stiff British defense
organized by Brock, who was killed during the fight. U.S. Gen. Alexander Smyth's subsequent invasion
attempts on the Niagara were abortive fiascoes.

 Artist's re-creation of the death of Shawnee Chief Tecumseh at the Battle of the Thames, Oct.
5, …

In 1813, Madison replaced Dearborn with Maj. Gens. James Wilkinson and Wade Hampton, an
awkward arrangement made worse by a complicated invasion plan against Montreal. The generals
refused to coordinate their efforts, and neither came close to Montreal. To the west, however,
American Oliver Hazard Perry's Lake Erie squadron won a great victory off Put-in-Bay on Sept. 10,
1813, against Capt. Robert Barclay. The battle opened the way for Harrison to retake Detroit and
defeat Procter's British and Indian forces at the Battle of the Thames (Oct. 5). Tecumseh was killed
during the battle, shattering his confederation and the Anglo-Indian alliance. Indian anger continued
elsewhere, however, especially in the southeast where the Creek War erupted in 1813 between
Creek Indian nativists (known as Red Sticks) and U.S. forces. The war also took an ugly turn late in the
year, when U.S. forces evacuating the Niagara Peninsula razed the Canadian village of Newark,
prompting the British commander, Gordon Drummond, to retaliate along the New York frontier,
leaving communities such as Buffalo in smoldering ruins.

Early in the war, the small U.S. navy boosted sagging American morale as officers such as Isaac Hull,
Stephen Decatur, and William Bainbridge commanded heavy frigates in impressive single-ship
actions. The British Admiralty responded by instructing captains to avoid individual contests with
Americans, and within a year the Royal Navy had blockaded important American ports, bottling up
U.S. frigates. British Adm. George Cockburn also conducted raids on the shores of Chesapeake Bay. In
1814, Britain extended its blockade from New England to Georgia, and forces under John Sherbrooke
occupied parts of Maine.

By 1814, capable American officers, such as Jacob Brown, Winfield Scott, and Andrew Jackson, had
replaced ineffective veterans from the American Revolution. On March 27, 1814, Jackson defeated
the Red Stick Creeks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in Alabama, ending the Creek War. That spring,
after Brown crossed the Niagara River and took Fort Erie, Brig. Gen. Phineas Riall advanced to
challenge the American invasion, but American regulars commanded by Scott repulsed him at the
Battle of Chippewa (July 5, 1814). In turn, Brown retreated when Commodore Isaac Chauncey's Lake
Ontario squadron failed to rendezvous with the army, and during this retrograde the war's costliest
engagement occurred at the Battle of Lundy's Lane (July 25). Riall, reinforced by Drummond, fought
the Americans to a bloody stalemate in which each side suffered more than 800 casualties before
Brown's army withdrew to Fort Erie.

 Battle of Plattsburgh Bay, Sept. 11, 1814, in which a British squadron under George Downie
was …

 G. Thompson's wood engraving of “The Burning of the City of Washington” during the War …
In 1814, Napoleon's defeat allowed sizable British forces to come to America. That summer, veterans
under Canadian governor-general George Prevost marched south along the shores of Lake Champlain
into New York, but they returned to Canada after Thomas Macdonough defeated a British squadron
under Capt. George Downie at the Battle of Plattsburgh Bay (see Plattsburgh), N.Y. (Sept. 11, 1814).
British raids in Chesapeake Bay directed by Adm. Alexander Cochrane were more successful. British
Gen. Robert Ross captured Washington (August 24) and burned government buildings, including the
United States Capitol and the Executive Mansion (now known as the White House). The British
justified this action as retaliation for the American destruction of York (modern Toronto), the capital
of Upper Canada, the previous year. The British assault on Baltimore (September 12–14) foundered
when Americans fended off an attack at Northpoint and withstood the naval bombardment of Fort
McHenry, an action that inspired Francis Scott Key's "Star-Spangled Banner." Ross was killed at
Baltimore, and the British left Chesapeake Bay to plan an offensive against New Orleans.

Meanwhile, New England Federalists, angry about the war's effect on commerce, gathered at
Hartford, Conn., to propose ways of redressing their grievances. Convening from Dec. 15, 1814 to
Jan. 5, 1815, the Hartford Convention adopted moderate resolutions, but its mere existence
prompted other parts of the country to question New England's patriotism and Federalist loyalty,
spelling eventual doom to the party.

Final stages of the war and the aftermath

Immediately after the war started, the tsar of Russia offered to mediate. London refused, but early
British efforts for an armistice revealed a willingness to negotiate so that Britain could turn its full
attention to Napoleon. Talks began at Ghent (in modern Belgium) in August 1814, but, with France
defeated, the British stalled while waiting for news of a decisive victory in America. Most Britons
were angry that the United States had become an unwitting ally of Napoleon, but even that
sentiment was half-hearted among a people who had been at war in Europe for more than 20 years.
Consequently, after learning of Plattsburgh and Baltimore and upon the advice of the Duke of
Wellington, commander of the British army at the Battle of Waterloo, the British government moved
to make peace. Americans abandoned demands about ending impressment (the end of the
European war meant its cessation anyway), and the British dropped attempts to change the
Canadian boundary and establish an Indian barrier state in the Northwest. The commissioners signed
a treaty on Dec. 24, 1814. Based on the status quo antebellum (the situation before the war), the
Treaty of Ghent did not resolve the issues that had caused the war, but at that point Britain was too
weary to win it, and the U.S. government deemed not losing it a tolerable substitute for victory.
Nevertheless, many Americans became convinced that they had won the contest.

Unaware of the treaty, British forces under Edward Pakenham assaulted New Orleans on Jan. 8,
1815, and were soundly defeated by Andrew Jackson's ragtag army, an event that contributed to the
notion of a U.S. triumph. The unanimous ratification by the U.S. Senate of the Treaty of Ghent and
the celebrations that followed cloaked the fact that the United States had achieved none of its
objectives.

Contention in the United States had hobbled the war effort, and domestic disaffection had menaced
the Union, but after the war a surge of patriotism inspired Americans to pursue national goals.
Contrary to American expectations, Canada remained British and eventually developed its own
national identity, partly from pride over repulsing U.S. invasions. Meanwhile, Britain's influence
among the northwestern Indians was forever ended, and American expansion in that region
proceeded unchecked. In the South, the Creek War opened a large part of that region for settlement
and led to the events that persuaded Spain to cede Florida to the United States in 1821.

The most enduring international consequence of the war was in the arbitration clauses of Ghent,
perhaps the treaty's most important feature. Its arrangements to settle outstanding disagreements
established methods that could adapt to changing U.S. administrations, British ministries, and world
events. There lay the seeds of an Anglo-American comity that would weather future disagreements
to sustain the longest unfortified border in the world.

David S. HeidlerJeanne T. Heidler

Additional Reading

David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler, The War of 1812 (2002), contains essays that examine the
causes of the war, the diplomatic ramifications, and the military conduct of the conflict. David S.
Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler (eds.), Encyclopedia of the War of 1812 (1997, reissued 2004), is the
only all-inclusive reference work on the war that examines its causes as well as the social, military,
political, and diplomatic facets of the war.

Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (1989, reissued 1995), is a good one-volume
narrative of the war that emphasizes the politics of the clash. J.C.A. Stagg, Mr. Madison's War:
Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1783–1830 (1983), is an exemplary
examination of the civil-military relations in the United States during the war.

Richard V. Barbuto, Niagara 1814: America Invades Canada (2000), offers an excellent analysis of this
pivotal theatre of the war. J. Mackay Hitsman, The Incredible War of 1812: A Military History, rev. ed.
updated by Donald E. Graves (1999), examines the war on the border from the Canadian viewpoint.
Pierre Berton, Flames Across the Border: The Canadian-American Tragedy, 1813–1814 (1981,
reissued 2001), views the beginning of Canadian national identity as originating in the war on the
border.

Robert Gardner (ed.), The Naval War of 1812 (1998), provides some of the latest scholarship on the
naval war. C. Edward Skeen, Citizen Soldiers in the War of 1812 (1999), examines the role of militia in
the war.

Sandy Antal, A Wampum Denied: Procter's War of 1812 (1997), is an interesting revisionist
examination of Britain's war in the Northwest that sees British efforts there as largely successful.

David S. HeidlerJeanne T. Heidler

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