Can anyone just give me a quick summary of the War of 1812?

Question

I am reading a book about it for school and need a little help. I need the main facts and stuff like that on it. PLEASE HELP!!!

Answer 1

~The Brits were tied up with Napoleon in the Peninsular Campaign.
The Americans were trading with Napoleon (and the Brits) and sending war supplies to both sides while claiming neutrality.
The Brits were offended that the Americans were helping Brit enemies and started to seize Yankee ships and cargoes.
Brit sailors were deserting and going to work on American ships.
The Brits took offense that the Yanks were harboring Brit deserters and started to stop Yankee ships and they took their sailors back.
The American south and west were suffering a severe depression and wanted French and English markets re-opened and expanded and wanted to go to war with Britain, believing the Brits couldn't do much about it because of the squabble with Napoleon.
New England was opposed to war and threatened to secede from the Union, but the southern states convinced them that they had no right to do so, and that, even if they could, it would be a huge mistake.
Yankees were expanding their borders westward and stealing Indian lands and killing and displacing natives in doing so, in violation of any number of treaties.
The Indians took offense and turned to their friends and allies, the Brits, for help.
The Brits helped by sending advisers and arms to the Indians
The Americans were steamed that the Brits would do the same thing with the Indians that the Americans were doing with the French (That would be typical of US foreign policy then and now).
Mr. Madison got his war.
The Americans were out-gunned, out-manned and out-trained by the Brits, who only engaged in a holding action.
The Americans tried to invade Canada as a ploy to get Britain to the bargaining table.
The Canadians repelled all invasion attempts
Washington had a big weenie roast at the White House
Napoleon surrendered
The Brits were in a position to prosecute the war fully
The Americans sued for peace
The Treaty of Ghent was signed.
Jackson kicked butt at New Orleans
The Brits moved on Mobile
The troops got word the war was over
Mobile wasn't burned to the ground
The pre-war status quo was restored

Answer 2

The immediate causes of the War of 1812 were a series of economic sanctions taken by the British and French against the US as part of the Napoleonic Wars and American outrage at the British practice of impressment, especially after the Chesapeake incident of 1807. In response to the 1806 British Orders in Council, which crippled American trade, the US (under Jefferson) first tried various retaliatory embargoes. These embargoes hurt the US far more than they did Britain, angering American citizens and providing support to War Hawks in Congress like Henry Clay. In 1812, with President Madison in office, Congress declared war against the British.

Answer 3

The War of 1812 began June 18, 1812, and lasted until early 1815. President James Madison requested a declaration of war to protect American ships from being stopped and searched by the British. He also wanted to prevent Britain from forming alliances with Native Americans. His decision was influenced by Americans in the West and South, who hoped to expand the United States by seizing control of both Canada and Florida. American attempts to invade Canada during the war failed but U.S. forces won a number of important naval battles. British forces invaded parts of the United States and captured the American capital Washington, forcing President Madison to flee. Andrew Jackson decisively defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, after the Treaty of Ghent (1814) had already ended the war and returned captured territories. Americans saw the War of 1812 as a triumph that showed the new nation could fend off foreign threats.

Answer 4

It was Mr. Madison's War.

The War of 1812 (in Britain, the American War of 1812, to distinguish from the war with Napoleon) was fought between the United States of America, on one side, and on the other side the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and its colonies, especially Upper Canada (Ontario), Lower Canada (Quebec), Nova Scotia, and Bermuda. The war was fought from 1812 to 1815 and involved both land and naval engagements. Britain was at war with France and to impede American trade with France imposed a series of restrictions that the U.S. denounced as illegal under international law. The Americans declared war on Britain on June 18, 1812, for a combination of reasons— outrage at the impressment (seizure) of thousands of American sailors into the British navy, frustration at British restraints on neutral trade, and anger at British military support for hostile Indians blocking American settlement of the Old Northwest, which by treaty with Britain belonged to the U.S.[1]

The war started badly for the Americans as their attempts to invade Canada were repeatedly repulsed by General Isaac Brock commanding a small British force, composed largely of local militias and Native American allies. The American strategy depended on use of militias, but they either resisted service or were incompetently led. Military and civilian leadership was lacking and remained a critical American weakness until 1814. New England opposed the war and refused to provide troops or financing. Financial and logistical problems plagued the American war effort. Britain possessed excellent finance and logistics but the ongoing war with France had a higher priority, so in 1812-1813 they adopted a defensive strategy. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1814 they were able to send veteran armies to invade the U.S., but by then the Americans had learned how to mobilize and fight as well.

At sea the powerful Royal Navy instituted a blockade of the majority of the American coastline (allowing some exports from New England, which was trading with Britain and Canada in defiance of American laws.) The blockade devastated American agricultural exports, but helped stimulate local factories that replaced goods previously imported. The American strategy of using small gunboats to defend ports was a fiasco, as the British raided the coast at will. The most famous episode was a series of British raids on the shores of Chesapeake Bay which included an attack on Washington D.C. that resulted in the burning of the White House, the Capitol, and other public buildings, the "Burning of Washington". The War of 1812 and the Burning of Washington was the last time the United States was ever attacked by another country until the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 during World War II.

The American strategy of sending out several hundred privateers to attack British merchant ships was more successful, and hurt British commercial interests, especially in the West Indies. Although few in number compared to the Royal Navy, American Navy's heavy frigates prevailed in several one-on-one naval battles against British ships. The decisive use of naval power came on the Great Lakes and depended on a contest of building ships. Ultimately, Americans won control of Lake Erie and thus neutralized western Ontario and cut the native forces off from supplies. The British controlled Lake Ontario, preventing any major American invasion. The Americans controlled Lake Champlain, and a naval victory there forced a large British invasion army to turn back in 1814.

The Americans destroyed the power of the native people of the Northwest and Southeast, thus securing a major war goal. With the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, British trade restrictions and impressment ended, thus eliminating that root cause of the war. With stalemate on the battlefields, both nations agreed to a peace that left the prewar boundaries intact. Before Congress ratified the Treaty of Ghent, the Americans decisively defeated a veteran British Army at the Battle of New Orleans.

The war had the effects of both uniting Canadians and also uniting Americans far more closely than either population had been prior to the war. Canadians remember the war as a victory by avoiding conquest by the Americans, while the Americans celebrated victory in a "second war for independence" personified in the hero of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson.