5 Results Of The War Of 1812
The War of 1812 had only mixed support on both sides of the Atlantic. The British weren’t eager for another conflict, having fought Napoleon for the better part of the previous 20 years, but weren’t fond of American commercial support of the French either.The divisions in American sentiment about the war similarly split, oftentimes along geographic lines: New Englanders, particularly. Though neither the British nor the Americans gained or lost territory during the War of 1812, the conflict had many results, including the establishment of the Canadian border, the end of British influence among the northwest Indians, and the demise of the Federalist Party due to its anti-war stance. The results of the war between Britain and the US involved no geographical or political changes, but the causes of the war had disappeared when the war reached its conclusion. 'War of 1812' is.
The War of 1812 was fought in North America. The battles of the War of 1812 were fought in four major theaters: the Atlantic coast, the Gulf Coast, the U.S./Canada border and the American West.
In addition, the naval battles of the war were primarily fought in the Atlantic Ocean with only a few minor engagements occurring in the Pacific Ocean.
The following is a list of the War of 1812 battles in chronological order:
1811 Battles:
November 7, 1811: Battle of Tippecanoe in Indiana, which is considered the first battle of the War of 1812.
Result: American victory.
Battle of Tippecanoe, illustration published in Military Heroes of the War of 1812, circa 1849
1812 Battles:
June 26, 1812: Occurrence at Carleton Island in upper Canada during which a few private American citizens captured a British sergeant and three British privates.
July 2, 1812: Capture of the American schooner Cuyahoga Packet on the Detroit River in Michigan by British forces.
July 17, 1812, Battles of Michilimackinac in Michigan.
Result: British victory.
July 17, 1812: Capture of an American brig, USS Nautilus, by a British brig, HMS Shannon, off the coast of New Jersey. It was the first U.S. warship captured by the British in the war.
War of 1812 battle sites, map published in NPS report to Congress on historic preservation of Revolutionary War and War of 1812 sites in the United States, circa 2007
July 19, 1812: First Battle of Sackets Harbor in New York.
Result: American victory.
July 31, 1812: Naval battle between a small American schooner, USS Julia, and two large British ships, HMS Earl of Moira and HMS Duke of Gloucester, on the St. Lawrence River in New York.
Result: Indecisive.
August 5, 1812: Battle of Brownstown in Michigan.
Result: British victory.
August 9, 1812: Battle of Maguaga in Michigan.
Result: Indecisive.
August 13, 1812: Capture of a British sloop, HMS Alert, by an American frigate, USS Essex, off the coast of Azores.
August 15, 1812: Massacre at Fort Dearborn in Illinois.
Result: Potawatomi victory.
August 16, 1812: Capture of Detroit, Michigan.
Result: British victory.
August 19, 1812: Capture of a British frigate, HMS Guerriere, by an American frigate, USS Constitution, off the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Guerriere was so badly damaged in the battle that it was set on fire and allowed to sink.
September 3, 1812: Pigeon Roost Massacre in Indiana.
Result: Shawnee victory.
September 3-16, 1812: Investment of Fort Harrison in Indiana.
Result: American victory.
September 5-12, 1812: Siege of Fort Wayne in Indiana.
Result: American victory.
September 16, 1812: Skirmish at Touissant’s Island in the St. Lawrence River in New York.
Result: British victory.
September 21, 1812: Raid on British depot at Gananoque in upper Canada.
Result: American victory.
October 1, 1812: First British raid at Charlotte, New York.
October 4, 1812: First attack on Ogdensburg, New York.
Result: American victory.
October 9, 1812: Capture of a British Brig, HMS Caledonia, in the Niagara River in Canada.
October 13, 1812: Battle of Queenstown Heights in upper Canada.
Result: British victory.
October 18, 1812: Capture of a British sloop, HMS Frolic, by an American sloop, USS Wasp, off the coast of Bermuda.
Capture of the Frolic by the Wasp, illustration published in Military Heroes of the War of 1812, circa 1849
October 18, 1812: Capture of American sloop, USS Wasp, and recapture of British sloop, HMS Frolic, by a British frigate, HMS Poictiers after it happened upon the scene of the battle between the Wasp and the Frolic.
October 23, 1812: Skirmish at St. Regis on the border of Canada.
October 25, 1812: Capture of a British sloop, HMS Macadionian, by an American frigate, USS United States, off the coast of the Canary Islands.
November 20, 1812: Battle of Lacolle Mills in Quebec.
Result: British-Mohawk victory.
November 22, 1812: Capture of a British frigate, HMS Southampton, by an American brig, USS Vixen, off the coast of Florida. Both ships wrecked on a shoal near Concepcion island shortly after.
November 23, 1812: Battle of French Mills on the Salmon River in New York.
Result: British victory.
November 28, 1812: Skirmish at Frenchman’s Creek in upper Canada.
Result: British victory.
November 28-December 1, 1812: Failed American invasion of upper Canada.
December 17-18, 1812, Battle of the Mississinewa in Indiana.
Result: American victory.
December 29, 1812: Capture of a British frigate, HMS Java, by an American frigate, USS Constitution, off the coast of Brazil.
1813 Battles:
January 17, 1813: Capture of an American brig, USS Viper, by a British frigate, HMS Narcissus, off the coast of Belize.
January 18, 1813: First Battle of Frenchtown in Michigan.
Result: American victory.
January 22, 1813: Second Battle of Frenchtown in Michigan.
Result: British victory.
January 23, 1813: River Raisin Massacre in Michigan. About 30 to 60 American soldiers captured during the Second Battle of Frenchtown are executed.
February 7, 1813: American raid of Elizabethtown in upper Canada.
February 22, 1813: Battle of Ogdensburg in New York.
Result: British victory.
February 24, 1813: Naval battle between an American sloop, USS Hornet, and a British sloop, HMS Peacock, on the Demerara River in Guyana. The HMS Peacock was so badly damaged it sank shortly after.
Result: American victory.
April 3, 1813: Battle of Rappahannock River in Virginia.
Result: British victory.
April 27, 1813: Battle of York in Toronto, Canada.
Result: American victory.
April 28-May 9 of 1813: Siege of Fort Meigs in northwestern Ohio.
Result: American victory.
April 23, 1813: British raid at Frenchtown in Maryland.
May 3, 1813: British raid on Havre de grace and Principio Foundry in Maryland.
May 6, 1813: British raid at Georgetown and Fredericktown in Maryland.
May 27, 1813: Battle of Fort George in upper Canada.
Result: American victory.
May 29, 1813: Second attack on Sackets Harbor in New York.
Result: American victory.
June 1, 1813: Battle of Boston Harbor, otherwise known as the capture of an American frigate, USS Chesapeake, by a British frigate, HMS Shannon, off the coast of New England between Cape Cod and Cape Ann.
June 3, 1813: British capture of two American sloops, USS Eagle and USS Growler, on Lake Champlain on the border of Canada.
June 6, 1813: Battle of Stoney Creek in upper Canada.
Result: British victory.
June 15, 1813: Second British raid at Charlotte in New York.
June 19, 1813: British raid on Sodus in New York.
June 20, 1813: Attack on a British ship, HMS Junon, by a flotilla of American gunboats in the Elizabeth River in Virginia.
Result: Indecisive.
June 22, 1813: Battle of Craney Island in Virginia.
Result: American victory.
June 24, 1813: Battle of Beaver Dams in upper Canada.
Result: British victory.
June 25-16, 1813: Battle of Hampton in Virginia.
Result: British victory.
July 1, 1813: Skirmish at Cranberry Creek in New York.
July 1-October 9, 1813: Blockade of Fort George in upper Canada.
July 5, 1813: British raid at Fort Schlosser in New York.
July 8, 1813: Action at Butler’s farm near Niagara, Canada.
Result: British victory.
July 11, 1813: British raid at Black Rock in New York.
July 12, 1813: British raid at the Ocracoke Inlet in North Carolina.
July 14, 1813: British attack and brief capture of an American schooner, USS Asp, by a British naval party from a British sloop, HMS Contest, and a British brig HMS Mohawk (formerly the USS Viper). The Asp was set on fire but its American crew regained the ship, extinguished the flames and the ship continued to serve through the rest of the war.
July 14, 1813: Action off Charles Island in the Galapagos during which an American squadron of three vessels attacked and captured three British armed whalers. It was one of only a few naval engagements of the war to occur in the Pacific Ocean.
July 17, 1813: Skirmish at Ball’s Farm near Niagara, Canada.
July 19, 1813: Capture of a British convoy of 15 bateaux, a gun boat, Spitfire, as well as British military supplies by American privateers, Neptune and Fox, on the upper St. Lawrence River in New York.
July 20, 1813: Skirmish on Cranberry Creek between American privateers and British forces in an effort to reclaim supplies captured by the Neptune and Fox the previous day.
Result: American victory.
July 21-28, 1813: Second siege of Fort Meigs in northwestern Ohio during which British forces try to recapture the fort.
Result: American victory.
July 27, 1813: Battle of Burnt Corn Creek in Alabama. The battle is considered the first battle of the Creek War between the United States and a faction of the Muscogee nation known as the Red Sticks.
Result: Red Stick victory.
July 29, 1813: Attack on a British sloop, HMS Martin, by a flotilla of American gunboats and blockships near the mouth of the Delaware River.
Result: Indecisive.
July 29-August 4, 1813: Murray’s raid on New York and Vermont villages and towns on Lake Champlain.
July 31, 1813: Skirmish near Lower Sandusky in Ohio.
July 31-August 1, 1813: American raid at York in upper Canada.
August 2, 1813: Battle of Fort Stepehenson in Indiana.
Result: American victory.
August 10, 1813: British capture of two American schooners, USS Julia and USS Prowler, on Lake Ontario.
August 14, 1813: Capture of an American sloop, USS Argus, by a British brig, HMS Pelican, in St. George’s Channel off the coast of Wales and Ireland.
August 30, 1813: Battle at Fort Mims in Alabama.
Result: Red Stick victory.
September 5, 1813: Capture of a British sloop, HMS Boxer, by an American brig, USS Enterprise, off the coast of Maine.
September 10, 1813: Battle of Lake Erie in Ohio.
Result: American victory.
Battle of Lake Erie, illustration published in Military Heroes of the War of 1812, circa 1849
September 23, 1813: Capture of a British frigate, HMS Highflyer, by an American frigate, USS President, off the coast of New England.
September 30, 1813: First skirmish at Odelltown in Canada.
October 5, 1813: Battle of the Thames in Ontario, Canada.
Result: American victory.
The War Of 1812 Video
October 12, 1813: American raid at Missisquoi Bay in Canada.
October 26, 1813: Battle on the Chateauguay in Canada.
Result: British victory.
November 1-2, 1813: Skirmish at French Creek in New York.
Result: Indecisive.
November 3, 1813: Battle of Tallasseehatchee in Alabama.
Result: American victory.
November 9, 1813: Battle of Talladega in Alabama.
Result: American victory.
November 10, 1813: Skirmish at Hoople’s Creek in Canada.
Result: British victory.
November 11, 1813, Battle of Crysler’s Farm in Ontario, Canada.
Result: British victory.
November 12, 1813: The Canoe fight on the Alabama River.
Result: American victory.
November 13, 1813: Skirmishes at Nanticoke Creek in upper Canada.
November 18, 1813: Hillabee Massacre in Tennessee during which 60 Hillabee Indians were killed when American forces burned the Hillabee Indian villages of Little Oakfusky and Genalga.
November 29, 1813: Battle of Autossee in Alabama.
Result: American victory.
December 10-11, 1813: Burning of Niagra in upper Canada by American troops.
December 15, 1813: Skirmish at McCrea’s Farm in upper Canada.
Result: British victory.
December 17, 1813: Burning of the upper Creek village of Nuyaka by American troops.
December 18-19, 1813: American capture of Fort Niagra in upper Canada.
December 23, 1813: Battle of Holy Ground, aka Battle of Econochaca, in Alabama.
Result: Indecisive.
December 25, 1813: Capture of an American schooner, USS Vixen, by a British frigate, HMS Belvidera, near the coast of Delaware.
December 30, 1813: British raid at Black Rock and Buffalo in New York in retaliation for the burning of Niagara earlier in the month.
1814 Battles:
January 22, 1814: Battles of Emuckfaw and Enotachopo Creek in Alabama.
Result: Indecisive.
January 27, 1814: Battle of Calebee Creek, aka Battle for Camp Defiance, in Alabama.
Result: American victory.
January 28, 1814: Bombardment of Falmouth, Massachusetts by a British brig, HMS Nimrod.
February 14, 1814: Capture and destruction of a British schooner, HMS Pictou, by an American frigate, USS Constitution, between Barbados and Surinam.
February 14–24, 1814: British raids on the Salmon River in New York.
March 4, 1814: Battle of Longwoods in Ontario, Canada.
Result: American victory.
March 27, 1814: Battle of Horseshoe Bend in Alabama.
Result: American and allied Lower Creek, Chocktaw, Cherokee victory.
March 28, 1814: Capture of an American frigate, USS Essex, by a British frigate, HMS Phoebe, and a British sloop, HMS Cherub, as the Essex tried to escape from the neutral harbor of Valparaiso.
March 30, 1814: Battle of Lacolle Mills in lower Canada.
Result: British victory.
April 3, 1814: An American frigate, USS Constitution, is chased into Marblehead harbor in Massachusetts by two British frigates, HM Junon and HM Tenedos. The Constitution then fled for Salem harbor where it spent a week waiting out the two ships before returning to Boston and rejoining the war effort.
April 7-8, 1814: British raid on Pettipaug, Connecticut.
April 20, 1814: Capture of an American sloop, USS Frolic, by two British ships, a British frigate, HMS Orpheus, and a British sloop, HMS Shelburne, off the coast of Cuba.
April 29, 1814: Capture of a British brig sloop, HMS Epervier, by an American sloop, USS Peacock, off Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Result: American victory.
May 6, 1814: Battle of Fort Oswego in New York.
Result: British victory.
May 14–15, 1814: American raid on Port Dover in Upper Canada.
May 14, 1814: Skirmish at Otter Creek in Vermont.
Result: American victory.
May 29-30, 1814: Battle of Big Sandy Creek in New York.
Result: American victory.
May 30, 1814: Skirmish at Pongoteague Creek in Virginia.
Result: British victory.
June 1, 1814: Skirmish off of Cedar Point in Maryland.
Result: Indecisive.
June 2, 1814: American occupation of Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin.
June 8-10, 1814: First Battle of Leonard’s Creek in Maryland.
Result: Indecisive.
June 11, 1814: Barges from two British ships entered Scituate Harbor in Massachusetts and burn several ships before stealing several others.
June 13, 1814: British troops from the HMS Nimrod bombard and invade Wareham, Massachusetts where they confiscated military supplies and burn a cotton factory, four American schooners, five sloops, a ship, a brig, and a brig-under-assembly at a local shipyard.
June 22, 1814: Capture of an American brig, USS Rattlesnake, by a British frigate, HMS Leander, near Sable Island off Nova Scotia.
June 26, 1814: Second Battle of Leonard’s Creek in Maryland.
Result: Indecisive.
June 28, 1814: Surrender of a British sloop, HMS Reindeer, by an American sloop, USS Wasp, in the mouth of the English Channel. The Reindeer was badly damaged in the battle and was destroyed.
June 28, 1814: Second Skirmish at Odelltown in Lower Canada.
Result: Indecisive.
July, 1814 – April, 1815: British invade Maine and use it as their base of operation for the rest of the war.
July 3, 1814: Capture of Fort Erie in upper Canada.
Result: American victory.
July 5, 1814: Battle of Chippawa in upper Canada.
Result: American victory.
July 12, 1814: Capture of an American brig-sloop, USS Siren, by a British frigate, HMS Medway, off the coast of South Africa.
July 17–20, 1814: Siege of Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin.
Result: British victory.
July 18, 1814: Burning of St. Davids in Upper Canada.
July 21, 1814: First skirmish at Rock Island Rapids in Missouri
July 23–26, 1814: American raid on St. Mary River on the border of Canada.
July 25, 1814: Battle of Lundy’s Lane at Niagra Falls in Ontario, Canada.
Result: Indecisive.
August 3, 1814: Skirmish at Conjocta Creek in New York.
Result: American victory.
August 5 – September 21, 1814: Siege of Fort Erie on Lake Erie in Canada.
Result: American victory.
August 4, 1814: American assault on Mackinac Island in Lake Huron in Michigan.
Result: British victory.
August 12, 1814: Capture of two American schooners, USS Ohio and USS Somers, on Lake Erie in Canada.
August 13, 1814: Destruction of British schooner HMS Nancy in the Nottawasaga River in Ontario, Canada.
August 15, 1814: Assault on Fort Erie in upper Canada.
Result: American victory.
August 24, 1814: Battle of Bladensburg in Maryland.
Result: British victory.
August 24-25, 1814: British troops burn Washington D.C., including the White House and the U.S. Capitol building, in retaliation for the burning of York.
August 27, 1814: Fort Warburton, aka Fort Washington, is abandoned by American troops and destroyed to prevent its capture by the British.
August 29-September 2, 1814: British raid on Alexandria in Virginia
September 1, 1814: Surrender of a British sloop, HMS Avon, to an American sloop, USS Wasp, off the coast of England. The Avon was so heavily damaged from the battle it sank before the Americans were able to take possession of it.
September 3 & 6, 1814: Capture of two American schooners, USS Tigress and USS Scorpion, on Lake Huron on the border of Canada.
September 5, 1814: Second skirmish at Rock Island Rapids in Missouri.
September 9, 1814: Capture of Old Stone Fort at Bearskin Neck in Rockport, Massachusetts by troops from the British frigate HM Nymphe. One of the two barges from the ship sank and the nine crewmen aboard were captured by the townspeople and secretly exchanged for American prisoners.
September 11, 1814: Battle of Plattsburgh, aka Battle of Lake Champlain, in New York.
Result: American victory.
September 12-15, 1814: Battle of Baltimore in Maryland.
Result: American victory.
September 13–14, 1814: Bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland.
Result: American victory.
September 15, 1814: British attack on Fort Bowyer in Spanish West Florida.
Result: American victory.
September 17, 1814: Sortie from Fort Erie in upper Canada.
October 19, 1814: Skirmish at Cook’s Mills in upper Canada.
November 6, 1814: Battle of Malcolm’s Millsin Ontario, Canada.
Result: American victory.
November 7-9, 1814: Battle of Pensacola in Spanish Florida.
Result: American victory.
December 14, 1814: Battle of Lake Borgne in Louisiana.
Result: British victory.
December 19, 1814: Bombardment and attempted invasion of Orleans, Massachusetts by a British ship, HMS Newcastle.
Result: American victory.
December 23, 1814: Battle at the Villeré Plantation in Louisiana.
Result: American victory.
December 28, 1814: Reconnaissance in force by the British at New Orleans, Louisiana.
1815 Battles:
January 1, 1815: Artillery duel at New Orleans, Louisiana.
Result: Indecisive.
January 8, 1815: Final assault at New Orleans in Louisiana.
Result: American victory.
January 9-18, 1815: Bombardment of Fort St. Philip in Louisiana.
Result: American victory.
January 15, 1815: Capture of an American frigate, USS President, by a British frigate, HMS Endymion, after the President attempted to break out of the British blockade in New York City.
February 12, 1815: British capture of Fort Bowyer in Spanish West Florida.
Result: British withdrew after receiving news of the Treaty of Ghent.
February 20, 1815: Capture of two British frigates, HMS Cyane and HMS Levant, by an American frigate, USS Constitution, about two hundred miles northeast of Madeira.
March 11, 1815: Pursuit and recapture of a British frigate, HMS Levant, near Porto Playa in the Cape Verde Islands, after it had been captured, along with HMS Cyane, by the USS Constitution a few weeks earlier.
Result: British victory.
March 23, 1815: Capture of a British sloop, HMS Penguin, by an American sloop, USS Hornet, near Tristan de Cunha. The ship was badly damaged in the battle and was scuttled the following day.
April 6, 1815: Seven American imprisoned sailors are killed and 32 wounded in the “Dartmoor Massacre” at Dartmoor Prison in Devon, England.
May 24, 1815: Battle of the Sink Hole in Missouri.
Result: Sauk tactical victory.
June 30, 1815: Capture of a British brig, HMS Nautilus, by an American sloop, USS Peacock, in the Straits of Sunda off Java.
To learn more about the War of 1812, check out this article on the best books about the War of 1812.
Sources:
“War of 1812 Timeline: July 1813 – September 1813.” Canada’s Historic Places, Parks Canada, www.historicplaces.ca/en/pages/49_1812_7.aspx
United States, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, American Battlefield Protection Program. “Report to Congress on the Historic Preservation of Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Sites in the United States.” NPS.gov, September 2007, www.nps.gov/abpp/Rev1812_Final_Report.pdf
“Chronology of the War.” 1812 US Marine Guard, www.1812marines.org/the-war-of-1812/chronology-of-the-war/
Smolinksi, Diane and Henry Smolinski. Battles of the War of 1812. Reed Educational and Professional Publishing, 2003.
The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History. Edited by William S. Dudley, vol. II, Naval Historical Center, 1992.
Malcolmson, Robert. Historical Dictionary of the War of 1812. The Scarecrow Press, Inc, 2006.
Here is the final post in our series on the War of 1812, dealing with the situation of Britain, the United States, Canada, and Native Americans of the western frontier in the aftermath of the war.
5 Results Of The War Of 1812 Casualties
After the Treaty of Ghent took effect in February 1815, the U.S. and Britain were officially at peace. But so had they been in 1812, when the war started; was anything different?
On the surface, the answer was clearly “no.” Neither the U.S. nor Great Britain gave up any territory during the war or as a result of the peace. That meant Britain was still sitting on the western frontier (at that time, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, etc.). The British were free to continue to harrass U.S. settlement of its territories, and to ally with Native Americans to do so.
But they did not. The British no longer needed to keep the U.S. off-balance and in check. Now that there was no war between Britain and France for the Americans to join with France in fighting, Britain stopped doing all the things that had led the Americans to declare war: impressing U.S. sailors, capturing U.S. ships, harassing U.S. settlement. Britain concentrated its defensive efforts on maintaining Canada, and left the U.S. alone. Indeed, Britain was now anxious to engage in its profitable trade with the U.S. once again, and had no desire to weaken the new nation.
The U.S., for its part, was glad to go back to the status quo land-wise, no longer certain of its ability or desire to conquer Canada. With British pressure off the western frontier, the U.S. could focus on re-establishing its strength and reputation after the disastrous and embarrassing losses of the war. Washington DC was rebuilt and a modern navy was constructed—no more relying on gunboats to defend the U.S. coast or forts.
The areas of the U.S. that suffered after the war were New England and the Deep South. New England had opposed the war vigorously throughout and had been seen to ally itself with Britain; after the war, which most Americans saw as a massive victory (mostly because of the Battle of New Orleans), there was hostility toward the traitorous region. New England states had held a conference from December 1814-January 1815 at which they asked the federal government to give them back full control over their militia and their finances (they didn’t want to participate in the blockade or war taxation). Word spread that the New England conference was actually a secession conference, that New England wanted to leave the Union, and popular anger at the region was inflamed. It would take a few decades for New England to regain its standing in the eyes of the nation. New York took over as the most important city in the northeast, and Boston and New England took a backseat to that thriving metropolis.
In the Deep South, slaveholders had seen their fantasy that enslaved black Americans loved slavery exploded before their eyes by the numbers of enslaved people who ran away to join the British war effort. Promised their freedom if they did so, black Americans put themselves at great risk to aid the British. (They would be cruelly disappointed by their ally, for Britain launched a few very feeble efforts to resettle black Americans in howling wildernesses in Canada and overseas.) Slaveholders tried to convince themselves and the nation that this was an anomaly, but Denmark Vesey’s and Nat Turner’s slave uprisings in 1822 and 1831 showed it was not, and the South clamped down on enslaved Americans even harder.
Native Americans were losers in the war on a par with enslaved black Americans. The British withdrew their financial and military aid from Native Americans on the western frontier, who were left to face increasing white settlement with no leader to unify them and no money or ammo to fight. Native Americans either moved west or lived in segregation with white settlers. Their plight would worsen when the hero of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson, became president; an inveterate “Indian” hater, Jackson would set out to destroy all Native American groups within the U.S., most famously when he overturned a Supreme Court order protecting the Cherokees and sent them on their death march from Georgia to Oklahoma in 1838-9.
So at the end of the war we see the U.S. in a position to grow stronger and richer thanks to the constant threat of French or British harrassment being removed. Britain is the undisputed superpower of the world, and has no need to hassle the U.S. Slavery is threatened but viciously preserved in the southern U.S., the northeastern U.S. loses its pre-eminence over New York, and Native Americans are miminalized in the western U.S.
The War of 1812 did not have to happen. If the U.S. could have held off from entering into a trade agreement with France that was bound to provoke Great Britain to war, if the U.S. could have made itself as invisible as possible, suffering insults at sea and at home, from 1794 to 1814, the Napoleonic Wars would have ended on cue and suddenly the pressure would have been off and the nation could have gone straight to being Britain’s good trading partner and skipped the mostly disastrous war.
But 20 years is a long time to be insulted and invisible, and really, if the U.S. had allowed Britain to push it around entirely for 20 years, would the U.S. have seemed so desirable a partner by 1815? Perhaps not. The war itself strengthened the U.S. in important ways. The war taught the states that they needed to shake off their chronic unwillingness give the federal government any money and put out the cash needed to build an Army and Navy to defend itself. It taught the U.S. that it was not yet a major player in world affairs. It taught the U.S. that diplomacy was as important as an army and navy. Last, the War of 1812, despite the complaints and isolation of New England during the war, taught the U.S. that it was one unit, not just a group of unaffiliated states. It lived or died as a cooperative unit. The “Era of Good Feelings” that followed the war was the result of feeling that the states had been more closely welded together into a nation. The continuing fight over slavery would take over 40 years to rip that nation apart again.
The War of 1812 is not well-remembered today. It is a blip between the Revolution and the Mexican or even the Civil War. But the U.S. had a very great deal to lose in the War of 1812, and came very close to losing it all. This near-miss is worth a closer look.
but what were
the principal consequences???
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