War Of 1812 Essay Research Paper War

War Of 1812 Essay, Research Paper

War of 1812, struggle between the United States and Great Britain from 1812 to 1815. Fought over the nautical rights of neutrals, it ended inconclusively.Background Over the class of the Gallic revolutionist and the Napoleonic wars between France and Great Britain ( 1793-1815 ) , both combatants violated the maritime rights of impersonal powers. The United States, endeavouring to market its ain green goods, was particularly affected. To continue Britain & # 8217 ; s naval strength, Royal Navy officers impressed 1000s of mariners from U.S. vass, including established Americans of British beginning, claiming that they were either apostates or British topics. The United States defended its right to naturalise aliens and challenged the British pattern of impressment on the high seas. Relationss between the two states reached a breakage point in 1807 when the British frigate Leopard fired on the USS Chesapeake in American territorial Waterss and removed, and subsequently executed, four crewmen.In add-on, Britain issued executive orders in council to obstruct the coastlines of the Napoleonic imperium and so seized vass bound for Europe that did non first call at a British port. Napoleon retaliated with a similar system of encirclements under the Berlin and Milan edicts, impounding vass and ladings in European ports if they had first stopped in Britain. Jointly, the combatants seized about 1500 American vass between 1803 and 1812, therefore presenting the job of whether the United States should travel to war to support its impersonal rights.Americans at foremost prepared to react with economic coercion instead than war. At the goad of President Thomas Jefferson, Congress passed the Embargo Act of 1807, forbiding virtually all U.S. ships from seting to sea. Subsequent enforcement steps in 1808-1809 besides banned overland trade with British and Spanish ownerships in Canada and Florida. Because the statute law earnestly harmed the U.S. economic system and failed to change aggressive policies, it was replaced in 1809 by the Non-Intercourse Act, which forbade trade with France and Britain. In 1810 Macon & # 8217 ; s Bill No. 2 reopened American trade with all states, but stipulated that if one combatant repealed its antineutral steps, the United States would so enforce an trade stoppage against the other.In August Napoleon announced the abrogation of the Berlin and Milan decrees on the apprehension that the United States would besides coerce Britain to esteem its impersonal rights. Although Napoleon continued to prehend American vass in Gallic ports, President James Madison accepted his statements as cogent evidence that Gallic antineutral edicts had been lifted. He reimposed the prohibition on trade with Britain in November 1810 and demanded that the British ministry revoke the orders in council as a status for recommencement of Anglo-American trade. Britain refused to follow, and Madison summoned Congress into session in November 1811 to fix for war. After months of argument, Congress declared war on Great Britain on June 18, 1812.Armed Conflict U.S. forces were ordered to occupy Canada at points between Detroit and Montr? Al, but hapless planning, organisation, and leading undermined this scheme. British general Isaac Brock, together with the northwesterly Native Americans led by the Shawne

e chief Tecumseh, captured Detroit, while on the Niagara peninsula two American armies were defeated. In 1813 American forces reoccupied Detroit after Oliver Hazard Perry captured the British fleet on Lake Erie, thus enabling William Henry Harrison to defeat the combined British and Native American forces at the battle of the Thames in October. In the east, an American army had taken York (now Toronto) in May, but the failure of subsequent campaigns against Kingston and Montr?al prevented the United States from further extending its power into Canada. In the fall of 1813 the war spread to the southwestern frontier in a conflict with the Creek people, who were eventually defeated by forces under Andrew Jackson at the battle of Horseshoe Bend (March 1814). Furthermore, despite victories of single American warships in the Atlantic, such as that of the Constitution over the Guerri?re in 1812, the Royal Navy by 1813 had blockaded much of the eastern coast and thus ruined U.S. trade with foreign nations.By 1814 American forces had improved in quality and leadership. In July armies under Jacob Brown and Winfield Scott fought British troops on even terms at Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane, near Niagara. Napoleon’s defeat in Europe, however, freed Britain to send more troops to North America. By late summer the United States had to face invasions from combined army and naval forces at Lake Champlain and in Chesapeake Bay. A U.S. naval victory on Lake Champlain in September 1814 compelled one invading army to retreat to Canada, but not before other British troops had burned Washington, D.C., in August and also occupied northeastern Maine. British forces, however, failed to take Baltimore, Maryland. During the bombardment of the city (September 13-14), American poet Francis Scott Key wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner;” his verses later became the U.S. national anthem.Conclusion Great Britain and the United States agreed to commence peace negotiations in January 1814, but the talks were delayed until July. Both nations began negotiations with unrealistic demands. The United States wanted an end to all objectionable British maritime practices and also demanded cessions of Canadian territory. Britain sought a neutral Native American buffer state in the American Northwest and wanted to revise both the American-Canadian boundary and the 1783 Treaty of Paris that had established U.S. independence. They finally agreed to return to the antebellum status quo in a treaty signed at Ghent, Belgium, on December 24, 1814. This treaty was ratified by Britain four days later and by the U.S. Senate on February 16, 1815. Between these dates a final battle was fought on January 8, when a British army landed at the mouth of the Mississippi River and was defeated near New Orleans by forces under Andrew Jackson.The Treaty of Ghent failed to secure U.S. maritime rights, but in the century of peace in Europe from 1815 until World War I they were not seriously threatened. Britain never again pursued its disputes with the United States to the point of risking another war. The United States did not conquer Canada, but Native American opposition to American expansion in the Northwest and Southwest was broken. Both the United States and Canada emerged from the war with an increased sense of national purpose and awareness.