The War of 1812

Invasion of Canada: Canada was where the British forces were weakest. A successful offensive might have quashed British influence among the Indians and garnered new land for settlers. However the American invasion was too spread out. Forces from Detroit, Niagara, and Lake Champlain were all beaten back. Great Lakes: Early on Fort Michilimackinac was captured by the British, giving command from the Americans of the upper Great Lakes and the Indian-inhabited area to the south and west. Oliver Hazard Perry built a fleet of green-timbered ships on the shores of Lake Erie. American craft had the edge by having better gunners, and vengeful sailors. British invasion of New York: In 1814, when Napoleon was sent into exile, the British were able to send 10,000 British troops to prepare for an invasion into New York. Thomas Macdonough with a weaker American fleet, challenged the British in the Lake Champlain waterway. Washington D.C.: Four thousand British troops landed in the Chesapeake Bay in August 1814. It easily dispersed six thousand militiamen at Bladensburg (The Bladensburg races). The invaders then entered the capital and set fire to most of the public buildings, including the Capitol and the White House. Fort McHenry: The Americans at Baltimore stood here as the British hammered the fort with cannon from DC. Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner as he watched the bombing from a British ship. Battle of New Orleans: A third British blow of 1814 menaced the entire Mississippi Valley. Andrew Jackson, fresh from crushing the southwest Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, was placed in command. His force consisted of seven thousand sailors, regulars, pirates and Frenchmen, as well as militiamen from Louisiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Among them were two Louisiana regiments of free black volunteers, numbering about four hundred men. On Jan 8, 1815, the British launched a frontal assault on the entrenched city and lost over two thousand as opposed to seventy Americans. Treaty of Ghent: Signed in Ghent, Belgium, Tsar Alexander I of Russia had been feeling hardpressed by Napoleons army and wanted the Anglo cousins to stop fighting early in 1812. John Quincy Adams led the Ghent negotiations in 1814 with colleague Henry Clay. Having at first been confident in military successes, Britain called for a neutralized Indian buffer state in the Great Lakes region, control of the Great Lakes, and part of conquered Maine. News of reverses in New York and Baltimore led the British to revoke their claims. Signed on Christmas Eve in 1814. New England Federalists: Defiant New England prospered during the conflict by continuing trade with Canada and the absence of a British blockade until 1814. Radical New England federalists talked of secession and were rumored to shine lights for British cruisers, warning of escaping ships. They hosted the Hartford Convention. Hartford Convention: A convention of New Englanders that demanded financial assistance from Washington to compensate for lost trade and proposed constitutional amendments requiring a twothirds vote in Congress before an embargo could be imposed, new states admitted, or war declared. These resolutions failed as the Battle of New Orleans and Treaty of Ghent honored the nation. Against the Virginian Dynasty.