British-American War

British-American War

Battle of Queenston Heights, in which the Americans were crushed (1812)

date	June 18, 1812 - February 18, 1815
place	East and Central North America
output	Restoring the status quo
Peace treaty	Peace of Ghent 1814

Parties to the conflict
United States of America	United Kingdom British Canada
Commander
James Madison Henry Dearborn Jacob Brown Winfield Scott Andrew Jackson William Henry Harrison William Hull	John Harvey Joseph Wanton Morrison Charles-Michel de Salaberry
Troop strength
35,000 men and 16 combat ships	5000 men (at the beginning of the war) 48,160 men (at the end of the war) 34 frigates 52 auxiliary ships
losses
2,260 dead 4505 wounded 15,000 dead without direct enemy action or as a result of injuries	1,600 dead 3,679 wounded 3,321 dead from illness or as a result of wounding

The British-American War between the United States of America and the United Kingdom , also known as the War of 1812 , Second War of Independence, or Mr. Madison's War , began with the United States declaration of war on June 18, 1812 and was followed by the Peace of Ghent ended on December 24, 1814, but this was followed by further fighting that lasted until 1815. As a result of the war, the status quo ante bellum was essentially restored.

background

Years of tension between the United States and the United Kingdom culminated in the War of 1812. In a speech on June 1, 1812, the US President James Madison gave the following reasons which, in his opinion, justified a declaration of war:

• The forced recruitment (impressment) of American seamen into the British Royal Navy .
• Attacks by British warships against US ships.
• The British blockade of US ports to prevent trade with Napoleon- occupied Europe.
• The refusal of the British government to lift a ban that forbade the neutral US to trade with European states in the face of Napoleon's continental blockade.
• The alleged incitement of Indian peoples to acts of violence against the USA.

Even in current representations, these points are repeated uncritically to this day. In fact, these points had led to sometimes considerable tensions between the two countries, in particular the forced recruitment of American seafarers and the attacks on American merchant ships.

A significant number of Americans served on the ships of the Royal Navy, voluntarily or by force. For example, 22 of the 663 crew members on the HMS Victory were US citizens during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 . The actions of the British repeatedly sparked outrage in the USA. It is said that around 1,000 seafarers from US ships - British, but often also US citizens - were forcibly recruited every year. However, the question of who was a US citizen was not as easy to answer as is obvious from today's perspective. From a British perspective, the process of issuing a US citizenship certificate was so superficial that it practically challenged abuse. On the one hand, an affidavit in front of a notary that the person in question was born in the USA was sufficient to issue such a document; on the other hand, the personal descriptions were so vague that they could apply to many men. It was therefore easy for British seafarers to obtain formally authentic but incorrect content. Given this abuse, and given the chronic shortage of seafarers, it made sense for many British officers to generally distrust US ID cards, even if they were actually US citizens. It is said to have often happened that British officers took so many men from US merchant ships that they were barely able to head for a port. Another reason for crackdown was the fact that up to 2,500 British seafarers were hired on US ships each year. From the British point of view, these men were obliged to serve in the Royal Navy, which is why the right was claimed for them to serve this purpose.

Massive hindrances and damage to US maritime trade resulted from the fact that British warships de facto set up a blockade of US ports on the Atlantic coast after the start of the coalition wars with France . They searched all the merchant ships they could get hold of for contraband and seized hundreds of them, many of them within sight of the coast. What, from the British point of view, was a legitimate means of preventing trade with the war opponents, the Americans saw as an arbitrary and continued attack on their state sovereignty, especially since the British warships were in some cases directly in front of the US ports; in addition, the economic damage weighed heavily. For the United States, these restrictions were a violation of international law.

A particularly scandalous case from the American point of view occurred in 1807 when the British warship HMS Leopard forced the frigate USS Chesapeake at gunpoint to endure a search for deserters from the Royal Navy, killing, wounding or abducting 21 sailors. This act of violence generated a storm of indignation in the USA, but President Thomas Jefferson preferred an (ineffective) trade embargo to a declaration of war.

In fact, there had been considerable tension with the Indians in the run-up to the war, which culminated in the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe between US troops under William Henry Harrison and the Shawnee . Although the British had an interest in protecting Canada with a buffer zone made up of friendly Indian peoples, the hostilities were not - as the USA claimed - due to British influences. Rather, the triggers were attacks and breaches of treaty that made many Indian peoples enemies of the Americans.

The fact that there were also other nationalist and imperialist reasons for war was evident from the fact that the war was relatively unpopular in the coastal states hardest hit by British attacks (until the first US successes), because Great Britain and Canada were important trading partners. The declaration of war of June 18 was carried through in the House of Representatives by 79 to 49 votes and in the Senate by only 19 to 13 votes. The main advocates of the declaration of war were the representatives of the inland states (the frontier states ), the so-called war hawks . For them, the British encroachments were a welcome pretext for conquering Canada, which was not expected to offer much resistance, as most of the British army was tied up in the fighting in Spain . These expansion plans are often in the context of later formulated Manifest Destiny - ideology asked (the belief in a God-given right to conquer the entire continent). Other historians reject this and see it as an attempt to eliminate the danger of attacks on the USA by eliminating the British colonies in North America, i.e. a more defensive motivation. Another aspect was the hope of the Warhawks that in the future emerging states on Canadian soil would take on the political coloring of the frontier states and thus counteract the perceived political preponderance of the southern states. Here the internal division of the USA was already becoming apparent, which finally culminated in the civil war in 1861 . In any case, aggressive nationalism and strong anti-British resentment are characteristic of the war party's omissions . Viscount Robert Stuart Castlereagh , the British Foreign Secretary at the time of the war, wanted to avoid war. A sizable section of the population, especially in New England , was against the war.

Military starting position

Map of the course of the war

Despite the previous years of diplomatic tensions, neither side was prepared for war. The United States Navy consisted of only 16 combat-ready ships (other units were either laid up or simply unseaworthy at the time), which were seven frigates , a corvette and a number of smaller warships. Amazingly, the same congressmen who advocated the war had rejected a naval building program for twelve ships of the line and 20 frigates. The later US President Theodore Roosevelt , author of a history of the naval war of 1812–1815 (The Naval War of 1812) , has described this inconsistent behavior as criminal stupidity and national shame. With a fleet of this size, the USA could only hope for symbolic successes against the Royal Navy without affecting the course of the war.

The ratio was the opposite for the troops on land. The USA had an army with a nominal strength of 35,000 men, to which additional militias could be deployed. At the start of the war, however, the regular troops were actually only a third of their supposed strength and suffered from a lack of competent officers. Some of them also owed their ranks to merits from the War of Independence , others had obtained their positions through political protection. The (additional) militias also often proved to be undisciplined and only reliable to a certain extent, and some of them refused to serve outside their home state (as was the case during the war of independence). The British, on the other hand, had only 5,000 soldiers in Canada, some of whom were regular troops, but otherwise were territorial units (units deployed in the country) and militias. A certain compensation for the numerical inferiority of the British were the good training and discipline of their line troops and professional, war-experienced officers, of whom John Harvey , Joseph Wanton Morrison and Charles-Michel de Salaberry are outstanding examples.

A number of advantages favored the British defense efforts. On the one hand, lakes and inaccessible forests in the border area between Canada and the USA formed natural barriers, the land routes were poor or nonexistent, so that in some cases rivers and especially the Great Lakes had to be used as transport routes. On the other hand, the British had the support of most of the Indian peoples in the border area, from which the Shawnee war chief Tecumseh stood out as one of the most important leaders of the North American Indians. Furthermore, in Major General Sir Isaac Brock , the Governor of Upper Canada , the British had an energetic and competent commander who his US opponents were not up to. After all, some of the Canadian militia units - especially those that were set up in Lower Canada - in contrast to many US American units , showed a high morale . This was because the Anglo-Canadians were in many cases the descendants of loyalists expelled from the USA and therefore deeply detested them, while the French-Canadians, although not particularly fond of the British crown, appreciated the far-reaching religious tolerance they were granted and the USA because of its strongly Protestant and distrusted anti-Catholic influences. The readiness of the French-Canadian militia to fight, for example in the battle of the Chateauguay River, was a nasty surprise for the US troops, as their support, or at least passivity, was expected. It was different in Upper Canada, where many of the residents came from the United States. The militia troops they formed turned out to be unreliable, but the attacks by US troops during their attempted invasions resulted in increasing solidarity among these sections of the population with the defenders.

Course of war

Land war on the Canadian border

Fort Mackinac, Michigan

Main locations in the US-UK War of 1812

When the Americans invaded Canada, no significant resistance was expected. But the US troops could not achieve any successes worth mentioning, despite a sometimes overwhelming numerical superiority. With Henry Dearborn , Madison had appointed a completely unsuitable commander in chief of the US troops. The British General Isaac Brock did not wait for enemy attacks, but was the first to strike and, in a single coup on July 17, 1812, captured the strategically important border fortress Fort Mackinac at the confluence of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron . An attempt by an army under the command of General William Hull to invade Canada from Detroit resulted in one of the most embarrassing military debacles in US history. Despite their overwhelming strength, the attackers were pushed back to their starting point by British-Indian troops under Brock and Tecumseh and so demoralized with skillful psychological warfare that they surrendered on August 16, 1812 without significant resistance .

Battle of Queenston Heights, October 13, 1812. Painting by James B. Dennis

In a second attempt at invasion at the eastern end of Lake Erie, the US Army of the Center , led by Major General Stephen Van Rensselaer , a militia inexperienced militia officer, suffered another heavy defeat while crossing the Niagara River on October 13 in the Battle of Queenston Heights . The British, however, had to pay for this success with the death of Brock, their most capable general. Historians call this first major battle of the war crucial as it prevented US success quickly and convinced British and Canadians that a successful defense was possible despite the US superiority.

However, Colonel Henry Procter , who had succeeded General Brock, did not have the same military capabilities and did not feel equally bound by the promise Brock had made to Tecumseh.

A third attempt at invasion by Van Rensselaer's successor, Alexander Smyth, ended with the battle of Frenchman's Creek on November 28, also with an embarrassing fiasco, which was followed by further British successes against outnumbered US units. An advance on Montreal failed in the First Battle of Lacolle Mills on November 27, as did a first attempt by William Henry Harrison to retake Detroit, which led to the surrender of a US detachment of about 1,000 men after the Battle of Frenchtown on January 22 1813 led.

The US Navy, acting much more professionally, was able to build a strong fleet on Lake Ontario , which, although not able to turn off the cleverly tacting British ships, was able to provide effective support for operations on land. With the help of the Navy, an army under General Henry Dearborn crossed the Niagara River on May 27 and drove the British out of the Fort George border fortress with overwhelming odds . The British then gave up the border on the Niagara River and withdrew inland, which allowed Captain Oliver Hazard Perry to advance with five ships into Lake Erie and threaten the British supply lines to Detroit. On land, however, the invaders were defeated during a first advance in the Battle of Stoney Creek (June 6) and forced to flee from Lake Ontario by shelling British warships. Another push resulted in another defeat at Beaver Dams (June 24). In December, US forces evacuated and burned Fort George as well as the Canadian city of Newark , sparking a chain of acts of revenge that culminated in the destruction of Washington in 1814 . These setbacks were complemented by a British surprise attack on Fort Niagara on the night of December 18-19 , which brought this strategically important US border fortress into British hands until the end of the war. From this base, the British devastated the US settlements in the border area undisturbed.

Battle of Lake Erie, September 10, 1813

On September 10, 1813, a squadron of the US Navy under Oliver Hazard Perry succeeded in the battle on Lake Erie in destroying the British squadron on the lake. The British then had to evacuate the disconnected Detroit and most of the other 1812 conquests. A US army under William Henry Harrison succeeded in rubbing up the retreating British Indian troops under Henry Procter and Tecumseh on October 5 in the battle of the Thames River on Canadian soil, with Tecumseh, the most important leader of the Indians, falling in battle . With this, the Americans achieved their first clear victory over the British on land and the extensive elimination of the British presence west of Lake Ontario. There was no longer any major fighting in this area, but a subsequent double invasion by two US armies along the Saint Lawrence River and from Lake Champlain on Montréal had to follow after defeats at Chateauguay and Chrysler's Farm on October 26 and November 10 canceled. British troops were able to achieve these important victories in spite of the seven or ten-fold superiority of the US troops.

Battle of Chippewa, July 5, 1814

While a half-hearted advance on Montréal hardly crossed the border in the following year and led to another fiasco ( Second Battle of Lacolle Mills on March 30, 1814), the US troops on the Niagara Peninsula proved to have much more capable commanders and better trained teams than equal opponents of the British. The entry of an army under Maj. General Jacob Brown and Brigadier General Winfield Scott in July 1814 led to the bloodiest fighting of the war in the area. The Americans were able to force the border fortress of Fort Erie to surrender and defeat the British in the Battle of Chippewa on July 5th, but suffered such heavy losses in the extremely bloody Battle of Lundy's Lane on July 25th that they had to abandon their invasion. As a result, there were extremely costly battles for Fort Erie, which the Americans finally vacated after an unsuccessful British siege.

The British, reinforced with troops from Europe after the end of the fighting in Spain, now counterattacked, captured part of Maine and advanced along Lake Champlain into New York State . Since the British Governor General Sir George Prevost hastily sent the squadron of the Royal Navy, which consisted of partly unfinished ships, into battle on Lake Champlain and then abandoned it (a promised relief attack on land was presented too late and only half-heartedly), the Americans were able to repel the British invasion at the Battle of Plattsburgh on September 11th . Prevost was then recalled and would have had to stand trial before a court-martial had he not died beforehand. Together with the setback at Baltimore , this defeat removed the basis for British considerations of forcing territorial concessions from the Americans in the Great Lakes area and was therefore decisive for the conclusion of peace on the basis of the status quo ante . There was no further major fighting in this theater of war.

Naval warfare and amphibious operations

Skirmish between USS Constitution and HMS Guerrière , August 19, 1812

Given the British maritime superiority, the US Navy could not hope to break the naval supremacy of the Royal Navy. The US ships therefore did not seek combat with the British naval associations, but tried to intercept merchant ships and individual warships. Since the US ships were usually larger and heavier armed than their opponents and also had excellently trained crews and officers (while the Royal Navy had to overstretch its capacities in this regard due to the ongoing war with France), they succeeded A series of successes, especially at the beginning of the war. These were of little military importance, but had a significant impact on public opinion in the United States and Great Britain, as they shook the political myth of the invincibility of British warships, which had arisen from the successes against the French, Spaniards and Dutch . That is why special attention was paid to these successes and losses.

It started with the USS Constitution ("44-gun frigate", 54 guns), which forced the British frigate HMS Guerriere ("38-gun frigate", 46 guns) to surrender on August 19, 1812 and then sank it. On October 25th, the HMS Macedonian ("38-gun frigate", 46 guns) was captured by the USS United States ("44-gun frigate", 54 guns), and on December 20th, the HMS Java (" 38-gun frigate “, 46 guns), which after a tough battle in front of Bahia in front of the USS Constitution painted the flag and was burned. The frigate USS Essex ("32-gun frigate", 46 guns) achieved further successes , which under the command of Captain David Porter advanced into the Pacific, where they captured numerous British whaling ships until they themselves on March 28, 1814 at Valparaíso ( Chile ) had to surrender to the British frigate HMS Phoebe ("36-gun frigate", 44 guns).

Skirmish between USS Chesapeake and HMS Shannon , June 1, 1813

After their defeats, the British reinforced their fleet squadrons in US waters and tightened the blockade against US ports. They were directed not only against the US warships, but also against US privateers, which seized hundreds of British merchant ships and caused serious damage to the sea trade. These privateers extended their activities to the English coast and were even able to assert themselves against warships in individual cases. With the increasingly strict blockades and patrols, the departure for US ships became more and more dangerous, especially since the British not only hunted US warships and privateers, but also seized numerous merchant ships and thus massively damaged US sea trade. One result of this British vigilance was the capture of the US frigate USS Chesapeake ("38-gun frigate", 48 guns) on June 1, 1813 by the roughly equally powerful British ship HMS Shannon ("38-gun frigate", 48 guns) ). This British success, in turn, had a significant psychological impact; the seriously wounded captain of the Shannon, Philip Broke, was knighted for his victory. Although the Americans achieved a number of other successes, they had to pay for them with the loss of the frigate USS President ("44-gun frigate", 55 guns) , captured by the British on January 15, 1815 .

However, the USS Constitution still managed to capture the British ships HMS Cyane ("24-gun light frigate", 30 guns) and HMS Levant ("sloop-of-war", 20 guns) on February 20.

During the blockade of the US coast, the British initially deliberately excluded the New England states, which were dissatisfied with the war, from the blockade. Despite the state of war, there seems to have been a flourishing trade between the British and Americans, which the US government was only able to stop gradually. The British blocked the Delaware and Chesapeake Bay from December 26, 1812, and extended this to the entire coast south of Narragansett a year later, and finally on May 31, 1814 to the entire Atlantic coast of the USA. The blockade had a ruinous effect on the US economy and made a significant contribution to growing willingness for peace. Due to their undisputed supremacy of the sea, the British were able to carry out a number of, in some cases extremely destructive, landing operations against ports, cities and settlements, which the United States usually had little to counter. The local militia could do little against the attackers, and since the British viewed the militia forces as enemy soldiers, their private property was often also affected by the devastation.

After their victory at Bladensburg on August 19, 1814, the British burned down Washington’s public buildings

The greatest military humiliation in US history was achieved by the British naval and land forces under Sir George Cockburn and Major General Robert Ross , who landed at Chesapeake Bay on August 19, 1814 , and an American in the Battle of Bladensburg on August 23 Militia army and then for three days freely looted and burned the public buildings of the capital Washington . President Madison had to flee to Virginia . The Americans were able to repel a subsequent attempt to conquer Baltimore as well. The British bombardment of Fort McHenry in the port of the city inspired Francis Scott Key to a poem entitled The Star-Spangled Banner for the national anthem was and the US, used in the bombardment of missiles mentioned (... the rockets' red glare) . These weapons, which are more psychologically effective due to their inaccuracy, failed - in contrast to Bladensburg, where they caused panic - in the attack on Baltimore, however.

Peace treaty and battle of New Orleans

Neither side saw themselves in a position to win the war militarily. The British and the Americans were therefore ready to negotiate. Russia acted as mediator in the negotiations that began in Ghent, Belgium, in August 1814 . The US delegation tried in vain to make the forced recruitment of alleged deserters part of the peace agreement. The British demanded cession of territory and the creation of an Indian state between Canada and the United States. The British also called for the demilitarization of the Great Lakes. Not least because of the growing opposition to the war from their own country and to war taxes, the British delegation was finally prepared to forego such demands.

The Peace of Ghent was signed in Ghent on December 24, 1814. The Senate unanimously recommended its adoption on February 16. After ratification by President Madison, it came into effect on February 18. The US willingness to make peace was promoted by the decline in morale, which even threatened the cohesion of the US, since a convention of envoys from the New England states, the Hartford Convention , even considered secession in the fall of 1814 to force an end to the war .

Although the peace treaty had already been signed, heavy fighting broke out again in the southeastern United States because the news of the peace treaty did not arrive there in time. The American militia under General Andrew Jackson , who had defeated the Muskogee Indians on March 27, 1814 at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , opposed a British landing near New Orleans and, under Major General Sir Edward Pakenham , killed the attackers on March 8 January 1815 suffered a heavy defeat in the Battle of New Orleans , in which Pakenham was killed.

In total, the number of victims during the entire war is said to have been 12,000 on the US side and 5,000 on the British side.

consequences

The treaty merely restored the status quo ante bellum and provided for a peaceful settlement of disputed border issues by arbitration commissions. All other points of conflict such as the forced recruitment of American seamen were not mentioned in it. The maritime disputes resolved themselves, however, since the Royal Navy was able to dispense with forced recruitment with the end of the war against Napoleon and the reasons for the trade barriers with Europe also disappeared. There was also no longer any need for alliances with the Indians, as the border disputes were now settled in a peaceful manner and the tribes were considerably weakened by the war, not least by the death of Tecumseh , and now only offer hesitant resistance to US expansion could. The war of 1812 was the last military conflict in which the Indians played a significant military and political role. Following the Swiss historian Aram Mattioli , the British-American War “broke the neck of the Native Americans east of the Mississippi ”. It was also the last war between Great Britain and the USA. Despite occasional crises, relations remained peaceful throughout the 19th century.

In the United States, they viewed themselves as victorious in a war in which they successfully defended American rights and finally achieved a brilliant victory at New Orleans. The conflict fueled nationalism, stoked aversions to the British and led to a fascination for military glory among the population. This fueled the political careers of popular veterans from that war, who made five US presidents over the next few decades: James Monroe , Jackson, William Henry Harrison , John Tyler, and Zachary Taylor . The war had major consequences for the US Army, in which there were profound reforms, particularly in the training of officers, which significantly improved the troops' effectiveness. With its successes, the US Navy had passed its first acid test, gained considerable reputation and began a development that has made it the largest navy in the world today. The United States had also gained overall reputation because it had managed to assert itself militarily against the British Empire. The open contempt with which Americans had been treated by the British and other powers was now a thing of the past. The defeats of British frigates against their US counterparts also had an impact on the British Navy for a long time and led to even more intensive training of British sailors.

Nevertheless, on closer inspection it is obvious that in this war neither the USA nor Great Britain were able to achieve their war goals on essential points. The Americans neither succeeded in conquering Canada nor forced concessions on the other points of contention. Great Britain, on the other hand, could not achieve the hoped-for partial recapture of its former colony.

In Canada to this day, the war is viewed as a successful defense against American invasion attempts. The war was of enormous importance to Canada as it strengthened the sense of community in the British and French populations by fighting a common enemy - the basis for the developing Canadian national consciousness. He also strengthened loyalty to the British crown. Heroes of this war like Sir Isaac Brock and Laura Secord are popular in Canada to this day. The Canadian author Pierre Berton put forward the thesis that without the war of 1812 Canada would ultimately have become part of the USA, as a further influx of settlers from the south would not have developed a specifically Canadian national consciousness.

literature

• Robert S. Allen: His Majesty's Indian Allies: Native Peoples, the British Crown, and the War of 1812. In: The Michigan Historical Review. 14: 2, Fall 1988, pp. 1-24.
• Carl Benn: The Iroquois in the War of 1812. University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1998, ISBN 0-8020-8145-2 .
• Pierre Berton : The Invasion of Canada. McClelland and Stewart, Toronto 1980, ISBN 0-316-09216-9 .
• Pierre Berton: Flames Across the Border: 1813-1814. McClelland and Stewart, Toronto 1981, ISBN 0-316-09217-7 .
• Jeremy Black : The War of 1812 in the Age of Napoleon. Continuum, London / New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-8264-3612-2 .
• Dennis Carter-Edwards: The War of 1812 Along the Detroit Frontier: A Canadian Perspective. In: The Michigan Historical Review. 13: 2, Fall 1987, pp. 25-50.
• John R. Elting: Amateurs, To Arms! A Military History of the War of 1812. Algonquin, Chapel Hill, NC 1991, ISBN 0-945575-08-4 .
• Donald Hickey: The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict. University of Chicago Press, Urbana 1989, ISBN 0-252-01613-0 .
• Reginald Horsman: The Causes of the War of 1812. AS Barnes, New York 1962, ISBN 0-374-93960-8 .
• Reginald Horsman: On to Canada: Manifest Destiny and United States Strategy in the War of 1812. In: The Michigan Historical Review. 13: 2, Fall 1987, pp. 1-24.
• Theodore Roosevelt : The Naval War of 1812. Da Capo Press, 1999, ISBN 0-306-80910-9 . ( eText at Project Gutenberg )
• Theodore Roosevelt: The War with the United States. In: William Laird Clowes: The Royal Navy. A History from the earliest times to 1900. Volume 6, Chatham Publishing 1997, ISBN 1-86176-015-9 , pp. 1-180. (Reprinted from London 1901 edition) (This shorter account of Roosevelt for publication in Great Britain is preferable to the one above, as it is far more concerned with fairness and neutrality and is less pervaded by nationalistic tones)
• John Sugden: Tecumseh: A Life. Holt, New York 1997, ISBN 0-8050-4138-9 .
• Charles Jared Ingersoll: Historical Sketch of the Second War Between the United States of America, and Great Britain: Declared by Act of Congress, the 18th of June, 1812, and Concluded by Peace, the 15th of February, 1815, In Three Volumes. Volume 1. Publisher: Lea and Blanchard, 1845

Web links

Commons : British-American War  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: British-American War  - Sources and Full Texts

• Digital copies of the compilation of historical materials published in 3 volumes from 1985–2002 under the name The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History (English)
• A Guide to the War of 1812 (Library of Congress )
• British-American War of 1812 (English)
• Journal of the Senate from 1 June 1812 Madison's message to the reasons for war (English)
• The War of 1812 from Canadian point of view with description of all the battles and skirmishes (English)
• Documentation by the film company Galafilm for a series about the war (English)
• A chronicle of the war of 1812
• 1812 History , 22,000 digital copies of Canadian museums (English)
• Treaty of Ghent in full British-American Diplomacy - Treaty of Ghent; 1814 The Yale Law School - Lillian Goldberg Law Library (English)
• The second American War of Independence. 200 years ago the US officially declared war on Britain. By Monika Köpcke, Deutschlandradio Kultur, contribution from June 19, 2012

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Donald R. Hickey: Don't Give Up the Ship! Myths of The War of 1812. University of Illinois Press, Urbana 2006, ISBN 0-252-03179-2 .
2. ^ Special Message to Congress on the Foreign Policy Crisis - War Message. Full text of the speech. In: millercenter.org. University of Virginia , accessed June 11, 2020 . 
3. ↑ see below a. Hugh Brogan: The Penguin History of the USA. 2nd edition, London 2002, pp. 251 ff.
4. ^ Dudley Pope: Life in Nelson's Navy. 5th edition. London 2005, p. 109.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Theodore Roosevelt: The War with the United States, 1812-1815. In: William Laird Clowes: The Royal Navy. A History from the Earliest Times to 1900. Volume 6, London 1997, p. 16.
6. ^ Dudley Pope: Life in Nelson's Navy. 5th edition. London 2005, p. 109 ff. An example of this is the case of Irish Thomas Nash, who was involved in the mutiny on board the HMS Hermione in 1797 , whose formally genuine American identity card in the name of Nathan Robbins was issued in New York City in 1795 , when he was known to have been on board a ship in the Caribbean . Investigations into the alleged place of birth revealed, unsurprisingly, that a Nathan Robbins was not known there. Nash was arrested in the United States in 1799, extradited to the Royal Navy despite public protests, and executed after a trial in Port Royal for his role in the murder of the Hermione officers . See Dudley Pope: The Black Ship. Barnsley 2003, pp. 277 ff.
7. ^ Theodore Roosevelt: The War with the United States, 1812-1815. In: William Laird Clowes: The Royal Navy. A History from the Earliest Times to 1900. Volume 6, London 1997, p. 12.
8. ^ Theodore Roosevelt: The War with the United States, 1812-1815. In: William Laird Clowes: The Royal Navy. A History from the Earliest Times to 1900. Volume 6, London 1997, pp. 14-17, pp. 14-16 offer a frank account of a Royal Navy officer involved in this blockade who fully understood that the name of his Schiffs (the HMS Leander ) still triggered violent aversions in New York 20 years later.
9. ^ Maria Fanis: Secular Morality and International Security: American and British Decisions about War . University of Michigan Press, 2011, pp. 49 .
10. ↑ See the Wikipedia article Manifest Destiny
11. ^ Johannes Reiling: Germany, safe for democracy? Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-515-07213-6 , p. 25.
12. ↑ Steve Wiegand: The History of the United States for Dummies. John Wiley & Sons, 2010, ISBN 978-3-527-70605-1 , p. 138.
13. ^ ^{A b} Aram Mattioli : British-American War: "We shot them like dogs". In: Die Zeit No. 51/2014. Zeitverlag Gerd Bucerius GmbH & Co. KG, December 25, 2014, accessed on June 11, 2020 . 
14. ^ The War Between Britain And The USA (War of 1812 Documentary) | Timeline. (Video 59:51 min) In: dokus4free. March 30, 2019, accessed March 31, 2019 . 
15. ↑ Michael Wala: The USA in the 19th century. In: Philipp Gassert ao: Brief history of the USA. Stuttgart 2007, p. 220.
16. ↑ Garry Wills : James Madison (= The American Presidents Series. Ed. By Arthur M. Schlesinger , Sean Wilentz . The 4th President). Times Books, New York City 2002, ISBN 0-8050-6905-4 , pp. 151 f.
17. ^ The History Channel: First Invasion. The War of 1812. USA 2004.

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on August 24, 2005 .