Why 1812 war started

Great Britain was able to shift more resources to the North American theater. The tone of the war changed as Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin described, "We should have to fight hereafter not for 'free Trade and sailors rights,' not for the Conquest of the Canadas, but for our national existence. On August 19, , an expeditionary force of 4, hardened British veterans under the command of General Robert Ross landed at Benedict, Maryland and began a lightning campaign.

After routing Maryland militia at the Battle of Bladensburg , Ross's men captured and burned the public buildings in Washington, D. That month, peace negotiations began in the European city of Ghent. Maryland militia held off the land assault at the Battle of North Point, killing Ross. Fort McHenry repulsed the British ships in a hour battle that inspired the American national anthem.

The British abandoned their designs on Baltimore, but soon launched another invasion of the Gulf Coast. On December 24, , the Treaty of Ghent was signed and peace was agreed upon.

Word was again slow to travel, however, and on January 8, , Andrew Jackson engaged a British force outside of New Orleans , resulting in a stunning but ultimately pointless victory. On February 18, , the Treaty of Ghent was officially ratified by President Madison, and the nation ended the War of with "less a shout of triumph than a sigh of relief. The terms of the peace were status quo antebellum , "the way things were before the war.

British agents stopped supporting Native American raiders. The British trade restrictions and impressment policies had already been repealed. America had fought its old master to an honorable draw, and Britain had avoided disaster in North America while defeating the French in Europe.

Canada gained a proud military heritage. The War of is somewhat paradoxical in that relations between the warring factions generally improved after the war. The Native Americans, however, were the worst losers of the war.

Many of them had fought in the hopes that Great Britain would insist upon a recognized Native nation in North America as part of the peace, but the British quickly abandoned the claim during the peace negotiations. Additionally, without British money and weaponry, the Native Americans lost the ability to defend their lands and attack U.

In America, the war was followed by a half-decade now called the "Era of Good Feelings. However, this was only an era, not an eternity. Having won its "second independence," the United States would soon have to confront its first sin—slavery.

War of Article. Keep in mind, we were now an independent nation and England no longer had the power to control what the U. Another reason for the declaration of war was the British impressment of American seaman those in the navy into their military. They were struggling to keep their troop numbers up during their war with France and needed more people to fight for them. So, they began taking American men from their ships and forcing them to fight for Great Britain. On top of this, the United States was becoming more and more irritated with the British for encouraging Native American hostility toward settlers living in what was known as the Northwest Territory which formed the states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois after the Revolutionary War.

British officers inspect American sailors taken against their will, Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Before it was all over, the United States had invaded Canada which still belonged to Great Britain , the White House was set on fire, and Andrew Jackson became a household name.

After several years of fighting, a peace delegation met in Belgium on Christmas Eve in This officially ending the war. This treaty meant the removal of any remaining British troops from the United States, the return of all conquered lands to their own country, and strict boundaries set between Canada and the U. This war was important because we were able to establish ourselves as a true independent nation.

We showed that we were ready to represent ourselves on the world stage. It also finally helped us cut all ties with the British Empire and begin to truly form our own nation, our own way.

Independence - a nation or country has control over itself and how it does things. Revolutionary War - occurred in colonial America between , for independence from Great Britain. The British and their allies from indigenous nations in North America proved a formidable foe. American armies invaded Canada in at three points, but all three campaigns ended in failure. One army surrendered at Detroit at the western end of Lake Erie, a second army surrendered at Queenston Heights at the other end of the lake, and a third army withdrew after little more than a skirmish north of New York.

A similar multi-pronged invasion went better in , but only in the West, where an American victory on Lake Erie paved the way for a land victory at the Thames in Upper Canada, which restored U. But further east, American forces made little headway. In , the United States was thrown on the defensive because the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in Europe enabled the British to shift additional resources to the war in America. The U. Elsewhere the British took the offensive, although their forces encountered the same problems waging wilderness warfare across vast distances that had plagued the United States earlier in the war.

The British occupied Washington, DC, burning the public buildings there, and successfully occupied a hundred miles of the Maine coast. Elsewhere however, the British were rebuffed.

British forces withdrew from New York when they lost another inland naval battle, this time on Lake Champlain. They had to give up an assault on Baltimore when they were unable to compel Fort McHenry to submit, and they were decisively defeated at New Orleans.

If the war went worse than Americans expected on land, it went surprisingly well at sea, at least initially. Early in the war, the new nation won a series of single-ship duels between American and British warships. Especially noteworthy were the four successful cruises made by USS Constitution in the war. The frigate outran a large British squadron in and subsequently defeated four Royal Navy ships in combat.