Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren
Speaker 1: Vogelbaum here. The War of eighteen twelve doesn't loom as
Speaker 1: large in the United States consciousness as some other conflicts,
Speaker 1: but it was an important one in that it basically
Speaker 1: settled the matter of the American Revolution once and for all.
Speaker 1: Just a quarter century after the Revolutionary War, Americans brashly
Speaker 1: took on the British Empire in a rematch, partly to
Speaker 1: resolve lingering grievances, but also with the ambitious aim of
Speaker 1: seizing Canada, and instead came perilously close to a catastrophic
Speaker 1: defeat that would have endangered the very future of the
Speaker 1: United States. But the Americans, despite suffering the indignity of
Speaker 1: having invaders torched their capital city, managed to fight the
Speaker 1: British to a stalemate. The conflict ended with a peace
Speaker 1: treaty in which the US didn't have to give up
Speaker 1: any territory and retained the ability to expand westward, and
Speaker 1: the British had to accept the US as a truly
Speaker 1: separate nation and trading power. For the article, this episode
Speaker 1: is based on How Stuff Works, spoke by email with
Speaker 1: Willard Stern Randall a Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Scholar and
Speaker 1: History at Champlain College. Randall said the Revolution only assured
Speaker 1: political independence, it did not guarantee the economic survival of
Speaker 1: the United States. After the Treaty of Paris was signed
Speaker 1: in September of seventeen eighty three to end the Revolutionary War,
Speaker 1: relations between the US and the British Empire remained tense,
Speaker 1: with the British viewing Americans as commercial rivals. In the
Speaker 1: early eighteen hundreds, the United States grievances crystallized into several
Speaker 1: main points. A first was freedom to trade. The US
Speaker 1: became caught up in the war between the British and
Speaker 1: Napoleon's French Empire, with each power trying to restrict the
Speaker 1: US from trading with the other. Eventually, the French relented,
Speaker 1: but the British wouldn't. Randall said. The US wanted to
Speaker 1: stay in neutral country so we could trade with anybody,
Speaker 1: but the British did not believe in neutrality. Second, the
Speaker 1: US was angered by the Royal Navy's practice of impressment,
Speaker 1: that is, boarding American merchant ships and seizing sailors who
Speaker 1: claimed were British deserters. The fledgling nations saw impressment as
Speaker 1: assigned that the British didn't respect the US as an equal,
Speaker 1: but instead as a former colony that it could bully.
Speaker 1: To add to the insult, the British also didn't respect
Speaker 1: the right of sailors to give up being British subjects
Speaker 1: and choose US citizenship. And third, the British supported the
Speaker 1: Native Americans who were resisting US expansion along the western frontier,
Speaker 1: in part to protect British interests in the fur trade
Speaker 1: from American intervention. In addition to settling those differences with
Speaker 1: an armed conflict, the United States also saw an opportunity
Speaker 1: to seize Canada from the British. This was not a
Speaker 1: new concept. It had first surfaced during the Revolutionary War,
Speaker 1: when Benedict Arnold helped lead an unsuccessful invasion of Canada
Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy five to seventeen seventy six. Unfortunately, the
Speaker 1: lesson of that debacle hadn't sunk in. One vociferous advocate
Speaker 1: of a Canadian invasion was then former President Thomas Jefferson,
Speaker 1: who proclaimed that taking the lightly defended British colonial possession
Speaker 1: quote will be a mere matter of marching with all
Speaker 1: of these issues in mind, Congress passed a declaration of
Speaker 1: war against the British in June of eighteen twelve, which
Speaker 1: President James Madison quickly signed into law. But while the
Speaker 1: US had plenty of kutzpah to take on the British,
Speaker 1: it was woefully underprepared from a military standpoint. Randall said,
Speaker 1: we had three thousand soldiers and they had two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand. In Europe alone, we had twenty ships,
Speaker 1: they had nine hundred. On top of all that, the
Speaker 1: timing of the US declaring war, which came about a
Speaker 1: week before Napoleon launched an invasion of Russia, enraged the British.
Speaker 1: Randall said, the British felt we had stabbed them in
Speaker 1: the back. On land, things went badly for the US
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. General William Hull's initial foray into Canada in
Speaker 1: June of eighteen twelve failed and he withdrew to Detroit,
Speaker 1: where he soon found himself under siege by the British
Speaker 1: and their Native American allies under the leadership of Dacumsa.
Speaker 1: Together they fooled Hull into thinking that they had a
Speaker 1: much larger force, and in August of eighteen twelve, Hull surrendered,
Speaker 1: a humiliating defeat. A second US attack on Canada in
Speaker 1: October of eighteen twelve led to another disastrous defeat in
Speaker 1: the Battle of Queenston Heights, in which three hundred Americans
Speaker 1: were killed and almost a thousand were taken prisoner. The
Speaker 1: US did better on the water. The USS Constitution, later
Speaker 1: nicknamed Old Ironsides, pursued and defeated the British HMS Guerriere
Speaker 1: off the coast of Nova Scotia in August of eighteen twelve,
Speaker 1: damaging the British ship so badly that, after its captain surrendered,
Speaker 1: it had to be sunk. The British, who had been
Speaker 1: confident of their naval superiority, were stunned. But even greater
Speaker 1: losses were inflicted by the large US force of privateers,
Speaker 1: ships owned by American businessmen, to whom Congress gave the
Speaker 1: authority to wage a for profit war on the British navy.
Speaker 1: Over the course of the war, the privateers captured some
Speaker 1: one thousand, five hundred British ships. Blockade runners daringly did
Speaker 1: their best to keep the US economy going, slipping through
Speaker 1: the British naval vessels in fog storms and the dark
Speaker 1: of night to transport flower, tobacco, and cotton. After Napoleon
Speaker 1: was defeated and forced into exile in the spring of
Speaker 1: eighteen fourteen, the British could afford to send more troops
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic, and the ruation got scary for the US.
Speaker 1: In August of that year, a British force invaded Maryland
Speaker 1: and then marched on Washington, d c. The invaders ate
Speaker 1: food and drank wine from the table of President Madison
Speaker 1: before setting fire to the White House and numerous other
Speaker 1: public buildings. The arson was in retaliation for a similarly
Speaker 1: brutal American sacking of York now Toronto in Ontario, but
Speaker 1: British Rear Admiral George Cockburn, who orchestrated it, later had
Speaker 1: his official portrait painted with Washington burning in the background.
Speaker 1: Randall said, nobody imagined the British would try to destroy
Speaker 1: our capital. Most Americans didn't know what we had done
Speaker 1: in Canada, and Madison and his cabinet were clueless about war.
Speaker 1: They didn't even try to defend Washington. However, another British target, Baltimore,
Speaker 1: a home port to many privateer vessels, was much better prepared.
Speaker 1: A Fort McHenry, which protected the harbor, was stood an
Speaker 1: intense twenty five hour long attack in mid September by
Speaker 1: British warships, which eventually had to withdraw. That victory inspired
Speaker 1: Francis Scott Key, who was on a ship several miles away,
Speaker 1: to compose a song, the Star Spangled Banner, to celebrate
Speaker 1: the American resistance. Meanwhile, an attempt to invade New York
Speaker 1: that September was thwarted in the Battle of Lake Champlain,
Speaker 1: where US naval forces defeated British ships that put an
Speaker 1: end to a British strategy of driving a wedge into
Speaker 1: the middle of the US, an attempt to take back
Speaker 1: northern New England as a British possession. That defeat was
Speaker 1: so decisive that the British commander who had defeated Napoleon,
Speaker 1: Arthur Willisley, the Duke of Wellington, concluded that the war
Speaker 1: was unwinnable and declined to take over command of British
Speaker 1: forces in the US. Randall said it was Wellington who said,
Speaker 1: get out of there. You can't win it unless you
Speaker 1: control the lakes, and they couldn't. The bottom line was
Speaker 1: that England was broke. The ministry didn't want to go
Speaker 1: to Parliament again and say we need more money to
Speaker 1: continue fighting in America. The taxpayers wouldn't go for it.
Speaker 1: In the peace talks that were already underway, British negotiators
Speaker 1: abandoned their hardball territorial demands and started looking for a
Speaker 1: quick way out. They even abandoned a key demand for
Speaker 1: creation of a sanctuary for their Native American allies in
Speaker 1: the American Midwest, which would have made it difficult for
Speaker 1: the US to expand westward. If the US had been
Speaker 1: forced to grant that concession, it might have remained a
Speaker 1: small country along North America's eastern seaboard. In December of
Speaker 1: eighteen fourteen, the signing of the Treaty of Ghent ended
Speaker 1: the war, but being that it was signed in Ghent, Belgium,
Speaker 1: and instantaneous electronic communication didn't exist in those days, word
Speaker 1: didn't get back to North America soon enough to stop
Speaker 1: British troops from attacking New Orleans in January of eighteen fifteen.
Speaker 1: They were by General Andrew Jackson's forces in a short
Speaker 1: but brutal battle. They killed two thousand British soldiers in
Speaker 1: less than thirty minutes. A. Randall said, Jackson had hundreds
Speaker 1: of trained frontier marksmen. They killed off the British officers
Speaker 1: from the commanding general all the way down. The British
Speaker 1: soldiers who weren't killed were trying to hide under the bodies.
Speaker 1: The bloody victory had no effect on the war's outcome,
Speaker 1: but it made Jackson into a legend and eventually helped
Speaker 1: him get elected as president. The war, in which some
Speaker 1: twenty two hundred and sixty American service members lost their lives,
Speaker 1: ended in a stalemate, but surviving it was a larger
Speaker 1: victory for the United States, which was then able to
Speaker 1: grow into a world power. Today's episode is based on
Speaker 1: the article The War of eighteen twelve. The White House
Speaker 1: Burns and the Star Spangled Banner is born on houstuffworks
Speaker 1: dot Com. Written by Patrick J. Higer. Brain Stuff is
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and
Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler Klain. But four more podcasts my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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