The War of 1812

Recently I’ve had occasion to visit some sites relevant to this otherwise obscure war.   I’d been to Baltimore countless times but never actually stopped by Fort McHenry…although I have driven through the tunnel a few times, less often than the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel which runs parallel to it and shares the same function of allowing traffic on I-95 to bypass Baltimore.

By 1812, James Madison was the US President (#4).   Napoleon was Emperor of France and dominating Europe.  England was at war with France, and the US was trying to remain neutral.  By this time we’d added Vermont and Kentucky as states, so we were up to 15.   Amidst the European war, the Brits were preventing us from trading with the French, AND forcibly drafting US seamen into the Royal Navy.  So we declared war on England that summer.

Our own army and navy were microscopic, our Air Force grounded because aircraft didn’t yet exist.  Fortunately for us, Napoleon was keeping the Brits busy for the most part, until 1814.  We tried invading Canada, but that didn’t go very well.  For their part, the Brits managed to attack Alexandria, Washington, and Baltimore.

The British fleet coming up the Potomac towards Washington was supposed to be stopped by Fort Washington, but its commander, Dyson, decided discretion was the better part of valor and abandoned the fort without a fight (though they did blow it up), leaving Alexandria to be looted by the British.   East of Washington, our brave and mighty Capital defense force (mostly militia) was routed at Bladensburg, in Maryland, leaving the Brits free to occupy Washington, looting it, burning the White House and Capitol Building, and generally being rude and unpleasant.  (“Be seeing you…”)

Fortunately for the people of Baltimore, Armistead had better luck with Fort McHenry.   The British bombardment fleet had to remain out of range of the fort’s guns, which compromised its accuracy to the point of making it almost useless for the September 13 shelling – during the rain, no less.  So the morning of September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key, watching from a British warship with the main invasion fleet further south, could observe the 15 state US flag (actually, a deliberately huge one) still flying over the fort, meaning the battle was won and Baltimore would have to wait for a Civil War riot in 1861 for the true unpleasantness to occur.  

Meanwhile, he wrote a famous song about it – which remains the most substantial legacy of this war in 2019.  “The Star Spangled Banner” only became our national anthem in 1931, though, with other songs such as “Hail, Columbia”, “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” (same melody as “God Save The Queen”), and my favorite, “America the Beautiful” acting as de facto anthems until 1931.  If I were Supreme Leader, I’d make “America the Beautiful” our anthem, BUT grandfather in Baltimore for the “Star Spangled Banner” to be played at Orioles and Ravens games. 

We signed a peace treaty at Ghent in December 1814, but word didn’t get around to Andrew Jackson down at New Orleans fast enough, so we had a nice victory down there to cap off everything.  The treaty mostly brought everyone back to the status quo ante bellum (everyone just goes back to where we were before the war), though England backed off any claims west of our colonies and we left Canada alone. 

Strictly speaking, the war was a draw.  We beat the Brits in New Orleans, lost up in Canada, and the British managed to burn Washington, with our troops going nowhere near London.   But for taking on the battle-hardened British military, which had just defeated Napoleon, and coming this close, induces many on our side to declare it a de facto US victory, like a college football team playing the New England Patriots to a tie.  Given that we didn't come close to sacking and burning London, I'm not so sure I agree with considering this war a draw, except perhaps with regard to the peace terms as noted above.

    

“Those are regulars, by God!”  In the US Embassy in Paris there was a print showing US troops at the Battle of Chippewa, up in Canada, in 1814.  The British commander, Riall, believed he was up against militia (most of the blue uniforms went to units elsewhere, leaving grey material, usually associated with militia, for these regulars to wear), but when US forces held steady under fire and continued to attack in good order, he realized they were trained regulars, and uttered this expression.   The US commander was Winfield Scott, who later served in the US Civil War. 

Uniforms.   By 1812 we’d gone from tricorner hats to the truly awful and ugly shakos which prevailed in the Napoleonic wars.  Seriously, who was responsible for “military fashion” back then? (“Serge!” “Axel!”)  We were supposed to be wearing dark blue, but some troops only got grey.  The shakos were decorative but not expected to protect anyone – it wasn’t until WWI that steel helmets came around, though even in WWII some units still wore cloth hats (e.g. German Afrika Korps and mountain troops, and a US rescue mission on a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines).  

 I managed to get the Osprey Men-At-Arms book on the US Army in the War of 1812, which came in after I had originally written this.  In addition to this business of ugly hats, the uniforms are also remarkably fancy, with lace, stripes, facings, etc. which, when you think about it, are strange on what is a combat uniform.  However, back then tactics mandated attacks in formation, essentially a parade with live ammunition.  Even in the Civil War, Union forces - and both sides in the Franco-Prussian War - were wearing dark blue coats.  It wasn't until WWI that armies finally got the idea to clothe their troops in earth-colored uniforms.   Certainly the 1812-15 US Army was light years away from that - as were their redcoated British adversaries.

Military technology was pretty much the same as the Revolutionary War: muzzle loading muskets (smoothbore) or rifles (rifled barrels giving three times the range of muskets), breechloading not coming around for decades later.   Warships were decades away from steam or armor.  Nothing cool like poison gas or tanks, much less nuclear weapons. 

Bottom line:  Star Spangled Banner + no major victories + Washington BURN! + those damn shakos = War of 1812.