Main article: Creek War

In March 1814, Jackson led a force of Tennessee militia, Choctaw^[50] and Cherokee warriors, and U.S. regulars southward to attack the Creek tribes, led by Chief Menawa. On March 26, Jackson and General John Coffee decisively defeated the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend, killing 800 of 1,000 Creeks at a cost of 49 killed and 154 wounded out of approximately 2,000 American and Cherokee forces. Jackson pursued the surviving Creeks until they surrendered. Most historians consider the Creek War as part of the War of 1812, because the British supported them.

Factors leading to the peace negotiations

By 1814 both sides were weary of a costly war that seemingly offered nothing but stalemate, and were ready to grope their way to a settlement. It is difficult to measure accurately the costs of the American War to Britain, because they are bound up in general expenditure on the Great War in Europe. But an estimate may be made based on the increased borrowing undertaken during the period, with the American war as a whole adding some £25 million to the national debt.^[51] In America the cost was proportionally greater at some $105 million; national debt rose from $45 million in 1812 to $127 million by the end of 1815, although through discounts and paper money the government received only $34 million worth of specie.^[52] By this time, the American economy was grinding to a halt thanks to the Royal Navy's blockade and US government incompetence and America faced ruin. Licensed flour exports, that had been close to a million barrels in 1812 and 1813, fell to 5,000 in 1814. By this time insurance rates on Boston shipping had reached 75 per cent, coastal shipping was at a complete standstill and New England was considering secession.^[53] Exports and imports fell dramatically as American shipping engaged in foreign trade dropped from 948,000 tons in 1811 to just 60,000 tons by 1814, and the internal economy ground to a halt. But although American privateers found chances of success much reduced, with most British merchantmen now sailing in convoy, privateering continued to prove troublesome to the British; with insurance rates between Liverpool, England, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, rising to 30 per cent, the Morning Chronicle complained that with American privateers operating around the British Isles ‘we have been insulted with impunity’.^[54] The British could not celebrate a great victory in Europe fully until there was peace in North America, and more pertinently, taxes could not come down until there was peace in North America. Landowners particularly baulked at continued high taxation; both they and the shipping interest urged the government to secure peace.^[55]

The Treaty of Ghent

On December 24, 1814, diplomats from the two countries, meeting in Ghent, United Kingdom of the Netherlands (present Belgium), signed the Treaty of Ghent. This was ratified by the Americans on February 16, 1815.

The UK, which held approximately 10,000,000 acres (40,000 km²) of new territory near Lakes Superior and Michigan, in Maine, and on the Pacific coast,^[56] pressed for territorial concessions from the US, almost causing cessation of the talks. This position at first was reinforced by the Burning of Washington; however the news of the defeat at the Battle of Plattsburgh and the repulse at the Battle of Baltimore weakened the demands.^[57] The Duke of Wellington was approached about leading the British army in North America and sent the following letter:

I confess that I think you have no right, from the state of war, to demand any concession of territory from America... You have not been able to carry it into the enemy's territory, notwithstanding your military success and now undoubted military superiority, and have not even cleared your own territory on the point of attack. you can not on any principle of equality in negotiation claim a cessation of territory except in exchange for other advantages which you have in your power... Then if this reasoning be true, why stipulate for the uti possidetis? You can get no territory: indeed, the state of your military operations, however creditable, does not entitle you to demand any.^[58]

With a rift opening between Britain and Russia at the Congress of Vienna and little chance of improving the military situation in North America, Britain was prepared to forego territorial gain. In concluding the war on these terms, the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, was taking into account domestic opposition to continued taxation, especially among Liverpool and Bristol merchants keen to get back to doing business with America. But more important was concern with foreign policy considerations of far greater significance than North America, the wisdom of which course was amply justified with Napoleon’s escape from Elba the following spring.^[59]

Aftermath

The Battle of New Orleans

Unaware of the peace, Jackson's forces moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, in late 1814 to defend against a large-scale British invasion. Jackson defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans on January 8,1815 with over 2,000 British casualties and fewer than 100 American losses. It was hailed as a great victory, making Andrew Jackson a national hero, eventually propelling him to the presidency.^[60][61]

The British gave up on New Orleans but moved to attack the town of Mobile. In the last military action of the war, 1,000 British troops won the battle of Fort Bowyer on February 12, 1815. When news of peace arrived the next day, they abandoned the fort and sailed home. The terms of the treaty stated that fighting between the United States and Britain would cease, all conquered territory was returned to the prewar claimant, the Americans received fishing rights in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and that both the United States and Britain agreed to recognize the prewar boundary between Canada and the United States.

The Treaty of Ghent, which was promptly ratified by the Senate in 1815, said nothing at all about the grievances that led to war. Britain made no concessions concerning impressment, blockades, or other maritime differences. The treaty proved to be merely an expedient to end the fighting. Mobile and parts of western Florida remained permanently in American possession, despite objections by Spain, and Great Britain was unwilling to enforce treaty provisions regarding their claim to the territories.^[62] Thus, the war ended in a stalemate with no gain for either side.^[63]

Consequences

Main article: Results of the War of 1812

Neither side lost any territory, nor were the original points of contention addressed by the treaty that ended it, and yet it changed much between the United States of America and the United Kingdom.

The Treaty of Ghent established the status quo ante bellum; that is, there were no territorial changes made by either side. The issue of impressment was made moot when the Royal Navy stopped impressment after the defeat of Napoleon. Excepting occasional border disputes and the circumstances of the American Civil War, relations between the United States and Britain remained generally peaceful for the rest of the nineteenth century, and the two countries became close allies in the twentieth century. Border adjustments between the United States and British North America were made in the Treaty of 1818. A border dispute along the Maine-New Brunswick border was settled by the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty after the bloodless Aroostook War, and the border in the Oregon Territory was settled by the 1846 Oregon Treaty. Yet, according to Winston Churchill, "the lessons of the war were taken to heart. Anti-American sentiment in Britain ran high for several years, but the United States was never again refused proper treatment as an independent power."^[64]

United States

The U.S. ended the Indian threat on its western and southern borders. The nation also gained a psychological sense of complete independence as people celebrated their "second war of independence."^[20]. Nationalism soared after the victory at the Battle of New Orleans. The opposition Federalist Party collapsed and an Era of Good Feelings ensued. The U.S. did make one minor territorial gain during the war, though not at the U.K.'s expense, when it captured Mobile, Alabama from Spain.^[65]

The United States no longer questioned the need for a strong Navy and indeed completed three new 74-gun ships of the line and two new 44-gun frigates shortly after the end of the war.^[66] (Another frigate had been destroyed to prevent it being captured on the stocks).^[67] In 1816 the U.S. Congress passed into law an "Act for the gradual increase of the Navy" at a cost of one million dollars a year for eight years authorizing nine ships of the line and 12 heavy frigates.^[68] The Captains and Commodores of the U.S. Navy became the heroes of their generation in the United States. Decorated plates and pitchers of Decatur, Hull, Bainbridge, Lawrence, Perry and Macdonough were made in Staffordshire, England, and found a ready market in the United States. Three of the war heroes used their celebrity to win national office: Andrew Jackson (elected president in 1828 and 1832), Richard Mentor Johnson (elected vice president in 1836), and William Henry Harrison (elected president in 1840).

The New England states became increasingly frustrated over how the war was being conducted, and how the conflict was affecting their states. They complained that the United States government was not investing enough in the states' defenses both militarily and financially, and that the states should have more control over their militia. The increased taxes, the British blockade, and the occupation of some of New England by enemy forces also agitated public opinion in the states.^{[citation needed]} As a result, at the Hartford Convention (December-January 1814/15) held in Connecticut, New England representatives asked for New England to have its states' powers fully restored. Nevertheless, a common misconception which had been propagated by newspapers of the time was that the New England representatives wanted to secede from the Union and make a separate peace with the British. This view is not supported by what actually happened at the Convention. ^[69]

Slaveholders primarily in the South suffered considerable loss of property as tens of thousands of slaves escaped to British lines or ships for freedom, despite the difficulties. The planters' complacency about slave contentment was shocked by seeing slaves would risk so much to be free.^[70] Afterward, when some freed slaves had been settled at Bermuda, slaveholders such as Major Pierce Butler of South Carolina tried to persuade them to return to the United States, to no avail.

British North America

The War of 1812 was seen by the people in British North America, and later Canada, as a victory, as they had successfully defended their borders from an American takeover. The outcome gave Empire-oriented Canadians confidence and, together with the postwar "militia myth" that the civilian militia had been primarily responsible rather than the British regulars, was used to stimulate a new sense of Canadian nationalism^[71].

A long-term implication of the militia myth that remained popular in the Canadian public at least until World War I was that Canada did not need a regular professional army.^[72] The U.S. Army had done poorly, on the whole, in several attempts to invade Canada, and the Canadians had shown that they would fight bravely to defend their country. But the British did not doubt that the thinly populated territory would be vulnerable in a third war. "We cannot keep Canada if the Americans declare war against us again," Admiral Sir David Milne wrote to a correspondent in 1817.^[73]

The Battle of York demonstrated the vulnerability of Upper and Lower Canada. In the 1820s, work began on La Citadelle at Quebec City as a defence against the United States. The fort remains an operational base of the Canadian Forces. Additionally, work began on the Halifax citadel to defend the port against American attacks. This fort remained in operation through World War II.

In the 1830s, the Rideau Canal was built to provide a secure waterway from Montreal to Lake Ontario avoiding the narrows of the St. Lawrence River where ships could be vulnerable to American cannon-fire. The British also built Fort Henry at Kingston to defend the canal and remained operational until 1891.

Bermuda

Bermuda had been largely left to the defenses of its own militia and privateers prior to American independence, but the Royal Navy had begun buying up land and operating from there in 1795 as its location was a useful substitute for the lost American ports. It originally was intended to be the winter headquarters of the North American Squadron, but the war saw it rise to a new prominence. As construction work progressed through the first half of the century, Bermuda became the permanent naval headquarters in Western waters, housing the Admiralty, and serving as a base and dockyard. The military garrison was built up to protect the naval establishment, heavily fortifying the archipelago that came to be described as the Gibraltar of the West. Defence infrastructure would remain the central leg of Bermuda's economy until after World War II.

United Kingdom

The war is scarcely remembered in Britain ^[74] because it was overshadowed by the far larger conflict against Napoleon Bonaparte. Britain's goals of impressing seamen and blocking trade with France had been achieved and were no longer needed. In the early years of the nineteenth century, the Royal Navy was the dominant nautical power in the world.^[75] It used its overwhelming strength to cripple American maritime trade and launch raids on the American coast. However, the Royal Navy was acutely conscious that the United States Navy had won most of the single-ship duels during the war.^[67] The causes of the losses were many, but among those were the heavier broadside of the American 44-gun frigates, and the fact that the large American crews were hand-picked from among 55,000 (rounded) unemployed merchant seamen in American harbors. The United States Navy had 14 frigates and smaller ships to crew at the start of the war, while the United Kingdom maintained 85 ships in North American waters alone. The crews of the British fleet, which numbered some 140,000 men, were rounded out with impressed ordinary seamen and landsmen.^[76] In an order to his ships, Admiral Warren ordered that less attention be paid to spit and polish and more to gunnery practice.^[77] It is notable that the well-trained gunnery of HMS Shannon allowed her victory over the untrained crew of the USS Chesapeake.^[35]

See also

• Chronology of the War of 1812
• War of 1812 Campaigns
• Battle of New Orleans

Footnotes

References

• Caffrey, Kate (1977). The Twilight's Last Gleaming: Britain vs. America 1812-1815. New York: Stein and Day. ISBN 0812819209. 
• Latimer, Jon (2007). 1812: War with America. Cambridge: Belknap Press. ISBN 9780674025844. 
• Toll, Ian W. (2006). Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 9780393058475. 
• (1996) The Naval War of 1812: Claxon pictorial history. ISBN 1840673605. 

Further reading

See List of books about the War of 1812

External links

The external links in this article may not follow Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links.

• Library of Congress Guide to the War of 1812
• POTSI: American War of 1812.
• William C. Cook War of 1812 in the South Collection
• Partial list of Bermudian-built Royal Naval vessels. From The Andrew and the Onions, by Lt. Cmdr. I. Strannack.
• American Military History - The War of 1812
• The War of 1812 Website
• President Madison's 1812 War Message, with lesson plans and numerous primary documents from US and Britain regarding the causes of the war
• Treaty of Ghent and related resources on the War of 1812 at the Library of Congress
• Galafilm's War of 1812 website
• Key Events of the War of 1812
• War of 1812 from the James Madison Center of the James Madison University
• militaryheritage.com Large collection of articles
• Historycentral.com War of 1812
• Origins of the Militia Myth
• War of 1812 — online exhibit at the Archives of Ontario
• The journal of Major John Norton (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1970)
• The War of 1812 Niagara Region
• New York State Military Museum:Black Americans in the US Military from the American Revolution to the Korean War: The War of 1812
• Battle of Plattsburgh & War of 1812
• American Privateers in The War Of 1812
• "Did Canada win the War of 1812?" (The Straight Dope, 10-Oct-2006)
• Websites & Resources Niagara Heritage Portal
• War of 1812 Art Collection Niagara Falls Public Library (Ont.)
• War of 1812 Collection - War of 1812 Indiana Territory Volunteers
• ”The Battle of Horseshoe Bend: Collision of Cultures”, a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan

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