The War of 1812

1
The War of 1812
2
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.

3

• 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

4

• From 1807 to 1811 the Democratic-Republican
  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.

5
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.

6
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.

7
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.

8
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.

9
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.

10
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.

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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
  southern-dominated 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.

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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.

13
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.

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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.

15
The Star Spangled Banner

• 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.

                                  
                                  
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