On this 200th anniversary of the United States' declaration of war against Great Britain in 1812, it's worthwhile to consider some history likely to get lost in the commemorative events that will obviously put a positive spin on the whole thing. There will be ceremonies, reenactments, and commemorations over the next two and a half years. As a lifelong history buff, I will be attending some of these - especially here in the Baltimore-Washington area, where so much happened in the summer of 1814. And while it is important to contemplate bravery and dedication in the defense of one's nation, it is also important to consider nuances and caveats that will likely be submerged in the patriotic glow.
Promotional materials, political speeches, and media reports will almost certainly include some variation of the phrase "often referred to as 'America's Second War of Independence'" as they discuss 1812 Bicentennial activiities. In fact it was nothing of the sort - the British High Command never considered the re-conquest of the United States as a war aim (although they did discuss the possibility of favorable "border adjustments" in Maine and New York). It is far more accurate to say that it was America's 'First War of Choice,' as it was we who declared war on the British and not the other way around.
A lot of the ceremony to come will focus on the Battle of Baltimore in 1814, the defense of Fort McHenry, and how a young but prominent Washington lawyer named Francis Scott Key came to write a national anthem. But what did Key really think of the war - and how did he come to be a British prisoner witnessing the battle - and why were the British there in the first place? These questions highlight some less familiar aspects of one of the United States' less familiar wars.
Considering that the song he wrote contains stanzas like this:
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
it is, perhaps, surprising to learn that Key was a pacifist who opposed the war when it started (And what? All this time, you only knew the first verse of the national anthem?) The people of the U.S. were deeply divided over whether they should go to war with Britain (sound familiar)? The Southern and Western states were mainly represented in Congress by the Democrat-Republicans (yes, really;
look here), whose dominant members were a loose group referred to as the War Hawks - a faction that openly and repeatedly called for war with Great Britain. One of their pet projects was the invasion and annexation of Canada, and they openly called for this to be done. The War Hawks argued that Britain had to be expelled from North America to guarantee American territorial growth and security against Native Americans fighting to protect their land, er, excuse me, attacking settlers. It was necessary and inevitable, American destiny, that the U.S. should take all of Canada. They predicted that the conquest would be easy (sound familiar?). Henry Clay of Kentucky famously proclaimed that "the militia of Kentucky alone" were sufficient to conquer Upper Canada (now Ontario) and Montreal, while Henry Calhoun said that within a month of declaring war, "the whole of Canada will be in our possession." Their enthusiasm over the imagined ease of conquest proved infectious; just a few months after the declaration of war, former President Thomas Jefferson was writing to a friend that the seizure of Canada would be "a mere matter of marching."
The New England and Middle Atlantic states, in contrast, were primarily represented by members of the Federalist Party - who in general opposed the idea that war was necessary. Most of America's foreign trade was carried on through ports in these states and, despite everything done to interfere with American ships and trade, these states were likely to suffer the rgeatest economically in the case of war. Key, and most of his family, were staunch Federalists.
President Madison's war message to Congress stated several justifications for war. One was impressment; the British were seizing American sailors from American ships and forcing them into the Royal Navy (more than a few British sailors had indeed deserted, and joined the crews of American merchant and naval vessels; for their part the British claimed they were only trying to capture these men, although they basically kidnapped many American citizens as well). A second was interference with American trade. The British Orders in Council, passed after Napoleon introduced the "Continental System" to shut off separate trade with Britain, in turn banned American and other ships from entering French or continental ports unless they stopped in England first, and blockaded any harbors banning British vessels. Finally, it was claimed that the British were arming Native Americans and encouraging them to attack Americans moving onto tribal lands. Annexation of Canada was nowhere mentioned, but the administration never disavowed such a goal (and as we shall see, tried very hard to accomplish it). To be fair, attacking British forces in their colonies of Upper and Lower Canada was really the only way to strike at Britain on land; but gaining vast new territories might be a bonus of victory. The House voted 79-49 for war on June 4; the Senate, 19-13 on June 17. The closeness of the vote highlighted the national divisions. Representatives and Senators from Southern and then-Western states (such as Kentucky and Tenessee) voted overwhelmingly in favor of war; those from New England and New York, almost unanimously against it; those from states between the two regions (such as Pennsylvania and Maryland) tended to be split. President Madison signed the declaration of war on June 18, 1812, making it official.
Voices speaking out against the war were soon attacked - sometimes physically - by those in favor (sound familiar)? Baltimore featured a riot against the anti-war publisher of the
Federal Republican and Commercial Gazette, Alexander Hanson, who along with a number of friends and supporters was viciously beaten in the street and left for dead. Among them was Revolutonary War hero Light-Horse Harry Lee, whose credentials as a patriot and genuine military hero (and the man selected by Congress itself to deliver the funeral oration for George Washington) did not protect him from the mob. He never fully recovered from the injuries suffered at the hands of his own countrymen. Another Revolutionary War veteran, General James Lingan, did die - beaten to death by his fellow Americans after surviving a British prison ship decades before.
The U.S. promptly launched not just one, but three efforts in 1812 to invade Upper Canada (what is today known as Ontario). Brigadier General William Hull led a force of not quite 2000 men, mostly militia, from Fort Detroit into Canada, where they faced some 800 or so British regulars, Canadian militia, and Native American fighters led by General Isaac Brock and Tecumseh. Hull sent out a few raiding parties, issued bombastic proclamations of liberation to the local populace, and then - spooked by the arrival of a few British reinforcements and news of the surrender of Fort Michilimackinac in upper Michigan - retreated back across the river to Detroit. Convinced he was surrounded and outnumbered, panicked by the thought that he and his men would be massacred by the Indians, Hull surrendered his entire army to the numerically inferior British. The second invasion fared no better. Major General Stephen van Rensselaer ferried some 1300 men across the Niagara River on October 13 at Queenston Heights. Fewer than half made it up the heights. Pinned down under enemy fire and a strong counterattack, the entire army was killed, wounded, or captured (although they did kill General Brock in the process, making him a future Canadian national hero). Meanwhile, Major General Henry Dearborn commanded an army of regulars and New York militia near Albany. In November, he finally led them north to the border - where the militia refused to cross, stating that they would fight to defend New York but not to invade their neighbors. Dearborn slunk back to Plattsburg without setting foot in Canada.
In 1813, Key (along with many of his Georgetown friends) joined a newly formed militia group, the Georgetown Artillery, as British raids along the Chesapeake Bay led to fear of a full-scale invasion. Key was contemptuous of his nation's efforts to conquer its neighbor. After the initial attacks on Canada he wrote to a friend that they were "a treacherous act of aggression" against "our Northern friends and neighbors." However, Key also believed that fighting to defend one's home and family was necessary, and an invasion focused on Washington would menace both. As it happened, no such threat materialized that year.
Meanwhile, American efforts to overrun Canada fared only slightly better than they had in 1812. There were four separate attacks into Canada in 1813. In Ohio, an invading British force and its Native American allies were driven back into Canada by Brigadier General William Henry Harrison, famous for defeating Tecumseh's followers at Tippecanoe in 1811. Commodore Perry's naval victory over a British squadron on Lake Erie enabled Harrison to move forward with confidence, and after retaking Detroit he advanced up the Thames River into Canada, defeating the British and Indians near London, Ontario, in October 1813. This victory ended major fighting in that part of the U.S. and Canada. In Niagara, the second U.S. invasion of that region got off to a successful start. General Dearborn was now in charge there, and crossed into Canada with over 4,000 men, quickly driving back the outnumbered defenders. But Dearborn then divided his forces, and sent about half his men under the command of General William Winder (whom we shall meet again) up the Niagara peninsula after the retreating British. In a daring night attack, some 700 men defeated the three-times-larger American force, capturing Winder himself, who was later released as part of a prisoner exchange. After another 500 men surrendered to a smaller British and Indian force a few weeks later, Dearborn gave up any further attacks and withdrew into Forts George and Erie on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. Meanwhile, the offensive against Montreal had two prongs, both launched from Plattsburg. Several thousand men under General Wade Hampton marched north along the Chateauguay river into Quebec; several thousand more under General Wilkinson crossed the St. Lawrence into Canada and began marching along the north bank toward Montreal. The two generals were barely on speaking terms and made no effort to coordinate their activities, and both armies turned back into New York after being defeated in separate engagements against smaller forces.
Following the failure of the 1813 invasion to capture Montreal, Key wrote to his friend John Randolph - a Virginia Congressman who had been one of the very few Southern representatives to vocally oppose the war - that he was
glad that the U.S. had failed. "The people of Montreal," he wrote, would enjoy their firesides in peace "for this, and I trust for many a winter. This I suppose is treason, but as your Patrick Henry said, 'if it be treason, I glory in the name of traitor.'" (Make sure not to tell any Congressional Republicans or Tea Partiers about this - their heads may explode due to cognitive dissonance).
Aside from the outright invasions, some hit-and-run raids occurred as well. In one of these, American forces sailed across Lake Ontario and captured the provincial capital of York (better known today as Ontario), where they burned major public buildings - an event that contributed to certain later repercussions.
So after two years of war, the predicted easy conquest had proven elusive. Of seven major invasions of Canadian territory, six had ended in disaster or farce. America's coastal and international trade had nearly collapsed as well, due to the ever-expanding British blockade along the east coast. A number of one-on-one American naval victories boosted morale tremendously, and American privateers - free-enterprise naval vessels (pirates) authorized by the government to seize British merchant ships - had severely disrupted British trade as well.
In early 1814 Napoleon abdicated and surrendered in Europe, and the British were able to turn more of their military might toward the U.S. Resurgent (and this time justified) fears of a renewed British invasion led Key and his Georgetown associates to once again organize their militia. When the British actually did come, landing in Benedict, Maryland, on August 19 and then marching toward Washington, Key served as the Georgetown Artillery liaision to General William Winder - who, despite his defeat in Canada the previous year, had emerged as commander of the defense of Washington. This may have had something to do with the fact that his uncle was the governor of Maryland and a staunch Federalist, and Madison's administration sorely needed his full cooperation. Key accompanied Winder onto the battlefield at Bladensburg, Maryland. When defeat turned into a rout, he headed back into Georgetown (then still a separate town from Washington), where he and his wife watched the burning of the Capitol, White House, and other major buildings from a distance. The British would later justify the burning as retaliation for the American burning of York the year before.
After the British had withdrawn, Key learned that a family friend from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, Dr. William Beanes, had been taken as a prisoner to the British fleet after he and friends captured and jailed some British stragglers that had started looting. Key went to visit President Madison (Presidents didn't live in "the bubble" in those days, and so were far more accessible) and obtained his approval to help negotiate Beanes' release. Joining the American officer in charge of prisoner exchanges, John Skinner, the two sailed down the Chesapeake from Baltimore in a small boat to encounter the British fleet - which as it turned out was headed up the Chesapeake on its way to Baltimore. A collection of letters from wounded British POWs testifying to their good treatment by the Americans convinced the commanders of the British expedition, Admiral Cochrane and General Ross, to release Beanes. But, they said, Key and his friends had likely seen too much of his preparations to attack Baltimore. They would be held by the British themsleves until after the attack was done.
And so, on September 13, 1814, Francis Scott key found himself a prisoner in the British fleet, observing the bombardment of Fort McHenry just outside of Baltimore. In an effort to break through past the fort and into the city's harbor, and to support the British land troops that had gone ashore and were now marching on Baltimore after driving off an American force in the Battle of North Point, British mortar and rocket ships bombarded the fort for over 24 hours. Well into the morning of September 14, Key and his friends heard the thunder of the assault. Then, as firing ceased close to dawn, Key's friend asked if he could still see the flag. Within a few moments, he could - and was moved to compose the words of the anthem on the spot. Unable to force Fort McHenry's surrender, and with the land forces unwilling to assault the earthworks protecting the city without naval support, the British withdrew.
So Key - pacifist and war opponent, a dissenter in that time and place - found himself in uniform at the battle where Washington was lost, and (at least temporarily) a POW at the battle where Baltimore was saved. And the song he wrote - with rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in air - is nothing if not filled with military imagery and a fierce resentment of the British.
Just prior to the burning of Washington and the defense of Baltimore, an eighth American invasion of Canada - once again in the Niagara peninsulas - had failed, as a large force under General Winfield Scott had headed north along the Canadian side of the Niagara river and won a battle at Chippewa, only to fight to a draw at Lundy's Lane and then retreat back to Fort Erie. No attack was launched toweard Montreal because over 10,000 British veterans crossed into New York to launch their own invasion - only to be stopped outside Plattsburg as the Battle of Lake Champlain ended with American naval control of the lake, which convinced the British not to advance further. A peace treaty was soon signed at Ghent, Belgium in December 1814. Literally none of the causes of war cited by President Madison and Congress were resolved in the treaty - both sides, sick of the pointless fight, returned to the status quo ante bellum. Andrew Jackson's famous victory at New Orleans in January 1815 came after the peace was signed but before news could reach America, and had literally no effect on the terms ending the war. Considering that the war might never have been fought if communications had allowed Madison and Congress to learn that the Orders in Council had been revoked, literally weeks before the declaration of war, there is no small irony in the fact that its most famous battle was also fought due to a failure of communications.
Despite the fact that the treaty ending the war resolved none of the issues that the U.S. claomed as reasons for starting it, the victories at Baltimore and New Orleans brought a huge boost to national morale. For a while, at least, partisan politics were dialed back during the "Era of Good Feelings" (so much so, that the Federalist Party quietly went out of business, and as the Democrat-Republicans evolved into the Democratic party, the Whig party emerged as its chief rival). Both Americans and Canadians gained a strengthened sense of national identity from their experiences in beating off invasions of their territory. The real losers were the Native Americans (surprise), who never again formed a united front against the white settlers as they had under Tecumseh. But the U.S. and Britain, at least, never went to war again, despite a few ugly incidents in the ensuing decades. Key is lauded as the author of the Star-Spangled Banner, but public memory of his pacifism and war opposition has faded. If I had to bet, I would not expect it to be mentioned very prominently over the next few years.