Why did the United States go to War in 1812?  What compelled this nation, less than thirty years from its War of Independence with a vast wilderness awaiting development and hostile Indians beyond its frontiers, choose to take on its former colonial Mother Country? 

This was a war sought by the United States, not Great Britain.  Engaged in a series of Coalitions against existential threats posed by Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, Britain had no appetite for a third war in North America in sixty years.  In an age in which news traveled no more rapidly than the fastest ship or horse, British offers to placate American demands were insufficient to keep swords sheathed.  So, what were the issues that drove these eighteen loosely United States to prod the Imperial Lion while it was striking in another direction? 

The United States contained sections with diverse interests.  Several issues have been advanced as sufficient casus belli.  America was a trading nation whose economy had been rocked by a series of mercantile constraints in response to European wars during the Jeffersonn and Madison Administrations.  British imposition of a series of Orders-In-Council restricted neutral trade with ports deemed hostile to Britain.    From 1803 to 1812 approximately 1,700 were seized, roughly evenly divided between British and French embargo enforcers.  Though imposing hardship on American commercial interests, their importance in justifying war rather than adding to the expense of trading with belligerents is doubtful.  Opposition to war was high merchandising and seafaring New England, apparently on the theory that the costs of war exceeded those of peace. 

Impressment of American seamen is an oft-cited cause of the war.  Its role is complex.  Britain’s long involvement in Continental wars drove expansion of the Royal Navy.  Between 1793 and 1812, its ships increased from 135 to 584 and it personnel from 36,000 to 114,000.  Offering less advantageous terms than commercial shipping, impressment of British seamen from its own and foreign vessels was deemed a necessary recruitment tool.  Under British law, adoption of citizenship in another country did not relieve one of obligations as a British subject, a concept, surprising, compatible with American law.  To complicate matters further, few merchantmen bothered to obtain naturalized American citizenship.  Impressment was not as formalized as twentieth century Selective Service systems.  Royal Navy personnel inspecting ships had little to distinguish American citizens from British subjects, particularly in an era when variances in diction were less pronounced than they are today.  American newspapers reported 6,257 Americans impressed between 1803 and 1812. Other estimates range to 10,000. 

Top photo: An artist's rendering of the bombardment at Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore. Watching the bombardment from a truce ship, Francis Scott Key was inspired to write the four-stanza poem that later became "The Star-Spangled Banner." The caption reads "A VIEW of the BOMBARDMENT of Fort McHenry, near Baltimore, by the British fleet taken from the Observatory under the Command of Admirals Cochrane and Cockburn on the morning of the 13th of Sept 1814 which lasted 24 hours & thrown from 1500 to 1800 shells in the Night attempted to land by forcing a passage up the ferry branch but were repulsed with great loss." Source: Wikipedia. Click to enlarge.

Bottom photo: This Painting by E.C Watmough depicts the British storming the Northeast Bastion of Fort Erie, during their failed night assault on August 14, 1814. Date: 1840 - exact date not known. Source: Wikipedia. Click to enlarge.

American frontiers in the Old Northwest (now much of the Midwest) and South, where support for War was strongest, remained in a sporadic state of hostilities between settlers and Indians.  Extending back to the earliest days of settlement, warfare often involved mutually dependent alliances between Indian tribes and white powers, both colonial and the United States.  During and after the American Revolution, claims that British agents incentivized Indian attacks on American settlement remained an irritant between Britain and America.  Triangular contests between pan-Indian movements such as the one instigated by Tecumseh and his brother, Tenskwatawa, aka The Prophet, in the Old Northwest and Indians seeking support, in material and personnel, in an intra-Creek civil war in the South compelled association of those Indian Wars with the larger War of 1812. 

The Unites States was in an expansionist mode in the early nineteenth century.  In 1803 the nation’s size had been doubled by the Louisiana Purchase.  The desire to drive Britain from North America, frustrated during the Revolution, retained its allure.  The opportunity to draw Upper (Ontario) and Lower (Quebec) Canada into the Union provided, in the minds of many, on opportunity to be pursued when war drums sounded. 

To some, this collection of grievances amounted to an assault on National Honor for which satisfaction must be demanded.  What nation worthy of the name could tolerate restrictions on its trade, impressment of its sailors and incitement of savages on its frontiers without response? This was, after all, an age during which the Code Duello provided remedies for many personal insults, real or imagined. 

Was Britain’s behavior merely a prelude to reconquest of its wayward colonies?  Was the War of 1812 truly a Second War of Independence?  That is the way it was promoted by then Sen. John C. Calhoun and described by historians and in my history textbook, but the consensus among contemporary scholars, both American and Canadian, seems to be to the contrary.  In their view, British goals were defensive, to protect Canada from American aggression and be of some succor to their Indian allies.  The War of 1812 can be seen as a successful war of independence for Canada and an unsuccessful war for survival by Indians. 

The causes of the War of 1812 were several and were reflected in the theatres of the War.  “Free Trade and Saiilors’ Rights” was a rallying cry for war that was carried out in isolated naval battles on the high seas.  Americans’ fear of Indians and lust for their lands inspired militias at Tippecanoe in Indiana and Horseshoe Bend in Alabama.  The Lure of Canada ignited conflict out along the Niagara Front between New York and Ontario.  Every shot fired redeemed American Honor and, at the end, the Star Spangled Banner still waved. 

For more information see:

Hickey, Donald R., Don’t Give Up the Ship, University of Illinois Press, 2007. ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0252074947

The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict, University of Illinois Press, 2012. ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0252078373

Lord, Walter, The Dawn’s Early Light, Dell Publishing Company 1972