Chapter 8 - The War of 1812

The War of 1812 began in the summer of 1812, when the Americans launched a series of unsuccessful attacks on Canada and ended in the spring of 1814. In July of 1812, General William Hull led an American army from Detroit into Canada, but quickly returned when Tecumseh cut his supply line. He surrendered Detroit and 2,000 men to 1,300 British and Indian troops.

         At the fall of 1812, the Battle of Queenston, the 2^nd battle by Americans turned out to be unsuccessful. The 3^rd attack fell apart when the Americans again refused to enter into Canada, at Montreal. Americans realized they could not retake Detroit while the British still had control of Lake Erie.

On September 10th, 1813, a homemade American fleet destroyed British aircrafts near Lake Erie. The British then pulled out of Detroit, but American forces under General William Henry Harrison overtook and defeated a combined British-Indian force at the Battle of the Thames on October 5^th. 

British received reinforcements from Europe in the summer of 1814. 10,000 British soldiers were led by General Sir George Prevost in an attempt to split New England from the rest of the country. The British met American forces at Plattsburgh on September 11th and were defeated.

On August 24th, 1814, the British army met a larger American force at Bladensburg, Maryland. American troops fled and the British went into Washington. British troops burned the presidential mansion and other public buildings in the capital. A few weeks later, the British tried to attack Baltimore, but failed to get through its defenses and gave up as a result.

The Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve in 1814, ended the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States. It restored the status quo, the existing state of affairs, so the United States neither gained nor lost territory. 2 weeks after the Treaty of Ghent was signed, Andrew Jackson’s troops defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans, not knowing that a peace treaty had already been signed. The Federalists wanted to secede from the Union, but not all of them agreed on this. The Hartford Convention was seen as unpatriotic and led to an end to Federalists.