War of 1812 Remembered

Lets hear it for the War of 1812!  We are well into the 150th anniversary of the Civil War but the good old War of 1812 is almost ignored during its 200th anniversary. I've been whining about the anniversary for a while and finally my daughter told me about a symposium at the university on the war and its impact.  

I decided to go and was surprised to see a pretty good turnout. There were supposed to be three speakers but one, the MU professor, cancelled due to the flu or some other health problem.  That left a military man from the Canadian war college and an author of a book on the naval aspect of the war.  Since the symposium only lasted two hours, this was sufficient for the time allowed. It was an interesting afternoon.

The War of 1812 was a four way conflict...the British, the Canadians, the Americans and the Indians.  Seems like all parties think they won...except the Indians. The Indians believed the promises of the British agents and fought against the Americans, for the most part. This was the time of Tecumseh and the Prophet and their efforts to unite the different tribes to resist the western expansion of the Americans.

Long story short...the Americans recall the battle of New Orleans, a few naval battles and the Star Spangled Banner and forget the rest. Canadians recall that they repelled a couple American attempts to invade Canada and remained loyal to Britain. The British were preoccupied with Napoleon and vaguely remember that they captured and burned Washington DC. The Indians got screwed, mostly. The biggest winner was probably Andrew Jackson who became a national hero and eventually president.



The war is said to be the second war of American independence and that is
probably true to some extent --- we maintained our independence and fought off the might of the British navy and invaders. The war deserves a little more respect and study. The problem is that looking back in history we are always blinded by the Civil War. The War of 1812 was fought mostly in the east or around the great lakes. Here in the Midwest it was mostly a series of Indian attacks planned or sponsored by British agents. Frontier settlements were few and far between and were sitting ducks waiting for attacks. The Indians were opportunists and extremely mobile and could cover a lot of ground in a short time. Some Illinois tribes sent warriors as far east as the mountains of Virginia and the Carolinas. There was an Indian attack on a local pioneer settlement just across the river from present day Jefferson City at Cote san Dessein. The settlement survived the attack and was later designated as a geographic reference for siting the future state capital.

By 1812, the United States had already fought the Barbary pirates and purchased Louisiana from the French. The country was huge by European standards and largely unoccupied. Sectionalism influenced everything that went on in government and there were large parts of the country that didn't support the war. The New England states actually considered secession for a while. Each region had its own war goals...naval security, overseas commerce, expansion into Canada, exterminating or punishing Indians, and securing slavery along the border with Spanish Florida.  Shortly after the war the United States took over Florida from Spain  . The US navy had some successes and, largely due to events in Europe, some of the commercial issues were resolved. The United States was unable to capture Canada from the British, which was one of the main goals of the war.

The actual Stat Spangled Banner, the garrison flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the British bombardment, is preserved and on display in the Smithsonian. What's left of it, anyway. It was a huge flag, 30 feet by 42 feet (yes, feet), and it made a good target because it is probably only 2/3 of it's original length. It was repeatedly snipped away and given as souvenirs or keepsakes until it reached the current size. Even one of the stars was cut out and given away. It probably took a stiff breeze to get over 1,200 square feet of cloth to fully extend but it would have been impressive. A few years back the Smithsonian spent almost ten years preserving and stabilizing the flag and it is now displayed with a background that shows it's original size. As recently as 2011 a small piece of the flag was sold at auction in Dallas Texas. This was one of the old keepsake snippets from the 1900s -- nobody is chopping off pieces now.

USS Constitution
under sail in 1997

Among the relics of the War of 1812 we still have the USS Constitution, a frigate that served in the navy from 1797 until finally retired in 1881. The ship is still commissioned and has a crew but serves mostly as a museum ship in Boston Harbor. She has been reconstructed and repaired several times over the years and sails on a "turn-around" cruise in the harbour each year.

The ship saw many battles and sailed around the world in the 1840s. The most famous sea battle was the defeat of the HMS Guerriere during the War of 1812. The ship sailed under her own power into Boston Harbour on August 19, 2012 on the 200th anniversary of the battle.




USS Constitution vs HMS Guerriere