Fun facts from the War of 1812

Patrick Hruby:

The Revolutionary War has its own national holiday. World War II has spawned countless books and movies. The Civil War boasts costumed re-enactors and a signature chess set.

And the War of 1812? It has re-enactors, too. The country can’t get enough of them. The country of Canada, that is. “The demand for them right now is so great that it’s actually driving up the price,” said John Stagg, a University of Virginia history professor and author of “The War of 1812: Conflict for a Continent.” “They may even have to resort to the desperate tactic of importing a few from the United States.

“The situation is different in Canada. They take the war very seriously in a way that Americans don’t.”

Currently enjoying its bicentennial — What, you haven’t pre-ordered thePostal Service’s forthcoming commemorative stamp? — the War of 1812 occupies a musty, forgotten junk drawer in America’s collective cultural consciousness, stuffed somewhere between the liberation of Grenadaand the time Will Smith punched that extraterrestrial fighter pilot in the face.

... A three-year, continent-spanning conflict against the British Empire that gave us Dolley Madison (the heroic first lady, not the snack cakes), the Capitol rotunda (built after a humiliating defeat, but still), the Kentucky Rifle (overrated, according to historians), the 1959 song “The Battle of New Orleans” (less accurate than a Kentucky Rifle, according to historians) and the “Star-Spangled Banner” (ironically sung to the tune of an old English drinking song — whatever), and yet is lucky to receive more than a few throwaway paragraphs in the average American history textbook. 

“I think it’s more like two sentences,” said Stephen Budiansky, author of “Perilous Fight: America’s Intrepid War with Britain on the High Seas, 1812-1815.” 

“The War of 1812 has gotten no respect over the years.”...

There is much more in this long piece, but I will offer some interesting facts from my on reading on the war.

The war started because the British were  hard up for crews on their ships that were fighting a war with France.  They were seizing American crewmen off merchant ships and in effect enslaving them.  While the US navy was undersized, it did have some capable ships and commanders.  The most famous was the USS Constitution which was nick named "Old Ironsides" because the British cannon balls tended to bounce off her hull that was made from southern live oak trees.  The trees are a pretty tough wood to begin with, but their limbs are bent at an angle that makes them ideal for the bow and stern of a ship.  This makes the structure much stronger too.  You can still see Old Ironsides which has been preserved in Boston Harbor.

Both the US and the British had trouble developing an effective strategy for the land war.  The US made a futile effort to capture Canada.  It was pretty much a fiasco.  The British sacked an burned the US capitol in Washington DC along with the White House.  From a strategic stand point it also was a futile gesture since they left rather than attempting to occupy it.  As they were on their boats leaving they were surprised to be greeted by a delegation from Alexandria Virginia who offered to surrender the city to them for looting.  It is not a day celebrated in that city today obviously.

While many know that the battle of New Orleans took place after the peace agreement, but before the word got to any of the combatants there,  Andrew Jackson did have a very good battle plan and he defeated a British unit that had been on the winning side in defeating Napoleon at Waterloo.  He had bales of cotton arranged in the area where he chose to intercept the British advance which gave cover to the Americans while the British were caught in the open after slogging their way up over some swampy ground.  The British saw the port of New Orleans as a "key to the continent" which was one of the strategic catch phrases of the era.

Jackson was reinforced by several volunteers from the city including some blacks who were also slave owners.

I found it a much more interesting war than many of the current batch of stories imply.