War of 1812 - Course of The War

Course of The War

Although the outbreak of the war had been preceded by years of angry diplomatic dispute, neither side was ready for war when it came. Britain was heavily engaged in the Napoleonic Wars, most of the British Army was deployed in the Peninsular War (in Portugal and Spain), and the Royal Navy was compelled to blockade most of the coast of Europe. The number of British regular troops present in Canada in July 1812 was officially stated to be 6,034, supported by Canadian militia. Throughout the war, the British Secretary of State for War and the Colonies was the Earl of Bathurst. For the first two years of the war, he could spare few troops to reinforce North America and urged the commander-in-chief in North America (Lieutenant General Sir George Prevost) to maintain a defensive strategy. The naturally cautious Prevost followed these instructions, concentrating on defending Lower Canada at the expense of Upper Canada (which was more vulnerable to American attacks) and allowing few offensive actions.

The United States was not prepared to prosecute a war, for Madison had assumed that the state militias would easily seize Canada and that negotiations would follow. In 1812, the regular army consisted of fewer than 12,000 men. Congress authorized the expansion of the army to 35,000 men, but the service was voluntary and unpopular; it offered poor pay, and there were few trained and experienced officers, at least initially. The militia objected to serving outside their home states, were not open to discipline, and performed poorly against British forces when outside their home states. American prosecution of the war suffered from its unpopularity, especially in New England, where anti-war speakers were vocal. "Two of the Massachusetts members, Seaver and Widgery, were publicly insulted and hissed on Change in Boston; while another, Charles Turner, member for the Plymouth district, and Chief-Justice of the Court of Sessions for that county, was seized by a crowd on the evening of August 3, and kicked through the town." The United States had great difficulty financing its war. It had disbanded its national bank, and private bankers in the Northeast were opposed to the war. The failure of New England to provide militia units or financial support was a serious blow. Threats of secession by New England states were loud, as evidenced by the Hartford Convention. Britain exploited these divisions, blockading only southern ports for much of the war and encouraging smuggling.

On July 12, 1812, General William Hull led an invading American force of about 1,000 untrained, poorly-equipped militia across the Detroit River and occupied the Canadian town of Sandwich (now a neighbourhood of Windsor, Ontario). By August, Hull and his troops (numbering 2,500 with the addition of 500 Canadians) retreated to Detroit, where they surrendered to a force of British regulars, Canadian militia and Native Americans, led by British Major General Isaac Brock and Shawnee leader Tecumseh. The surrender not only cost the United States the village of Detroit, but control over most of the Michigan Territory. Several months later, the U.S. launched a second invasion of Canada, this time at the Niagara peninsula. On October 13, United States forces were again defeated at the Battle of Queenston Heights, where General Brock was killed.

Military and civilian leadership remained a critical American weakness until 1814. The early disasters brought about chiefly by American unpreparedness and lack of leadership drove United States Secretary of War William Eustis from office. His successor, John Armstrong, Jr., attempted a coordinated strategy late in 1813 (with 10,000 men) aimed at the capture of Montreal, but he was thwarted by logistical difficulties, uncooperative and quarrelsome commanders and ill-trained troops. After losing several battles to inferior forces, the Americans retreated in disarray in October 1813.

A decisive use of naval power came on the Great Lakes and depended on a contest of building ships. The U.S. started a rapidly-expanded program of building warships at Sackets Harbor on Lake Ontario, where 3,000 men were recruited, many from New York City, to build 11 warships early in the war. In 1813, the Americans won control of Lake Erie in the Battle of Lake Erie and cut off British and Native American forces in the west from their supply base; they were decisively defeated by General William Henry Harrison's forces on their retreat towards Niagara at the Battle of the Thames in October 1813. Tecumseh, the leader of the tribal confederation, was killed and his Indian coalition disintegrated. While some Natives continued to fight alongside British troops, they subsequently did so only as individual tribes or groups of warriors, and where they were directly supplied and armed by British agents. The Americans controlled western Ontario, and permanently ended the threat of Indian raids based in Canada into the American Midwest, thus achieving a basic war goal. Control of Lake Ontario changed hands several times, with both sides unable and unwilling to take advantage of the temporary superiority.

At sea, the powerful Royal Navy blockaded much of the coastline, though it was allowing substantial exports from New England, which traded with Canada in defiance of American laws. The blockade devastated American agricultural exports, but it helped stimulate local factories that replaced goods previously imported. The American strategy of using small gunboats to defend ports was a fiasco, as the British raided the coast at will. The most famous episode was a series of British raids on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, including an attack on Washington that resulted in the British burning of the White House, the Capitol, the Navy Yard, and other public buildings, in the "Burning of Washington". The embarrassing Burning of Washington led to Armstrong's dismissal as US Secretary of War. The British power at sea was enough to allow the Royal Navy to levy "contributions" on bayside towns in return for not burning them to the ground. The Americans were more successful in ship-to-ship actions. They sent out several hundred privateers to attack British merchant ships; in the first four months of war they captured 219 British merchant ships. British commercial interests were damaged, especially in the West Indies.

After Napoleon abdicated on April 6, 1814, the British could send veteran armies to the United States, but by then the Americans had learned how to mobilize and fight. British General Prevost launched a major invasion of New York State with these veteran soldiers, but the American fleet under Thomas Macdonough gained control of Lake Champlain and the British lost the Battle of Plattsburgh in September 1814. Prevost, blamed for the defeat, sought a court-martial to clear his name, but he died in London awaiting it. A British invasion of Louisiana (unknowingly launched after the Treaty of Ghent was negotiated to end the war) was defeated with very heavy British losses by General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815. The victory made Jackson a national hero, restored the American sense of honor, and ruined the Federalist party efforts to condemn the war as a failure. With the ratification of the peace treaty in February 1815, the war ended before the U.S. new Secretary of War James Monroe could put his new offensive strategy into effect.

Once Britain and The Sixth Coalition defeated Napoleon in 1814, France and Britain became allies. Britain ended the trade restrictions and the impressment of American sailors, thus removing two more causes of the war. After two years of warfare, the major causes of the war had disappeared. Neither side had a reason to continue or a chance of gaining a decisive success that would compel their opponents to cede territory or advantageous peace terms. As a result of this stalemate, the two countries signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814. News of the peace treaty took two months to reach the U.S., during which fighting continued. The war fostered a spirit of national unity and an "Era of Good Feelings" in the U.S., as well as in Canada. It opened a long era of peaceful relations between the United States and the British Empire.