The War of 1812

Overview

America's second war with Great Britain is today an oft-forgotten affair, but was at the time a hotly contested conflict - especially in the New England states. It could be said that the newly-minted United States were fighting for their independence all over again while still trying to establish their identity as a unified nation.

It is one of the only wars in which attacks were made on American soil. Most notably, the British Navy attacked the new capital at Washington, D.C., and burned the president's mansion to the ground. When it was rebuilt, copious amounts of whitewash were used to cover scorch marks, and it received its modern name - the White House.

Prewar tension was mostly economic; British ships were seizing American merchants and "impressing" (drafting into service) skilled sailors instead of training their own men from the ground up. As a result, most engagements were naval, from skirmishes on the high seas to port battles. It was the war that necessitated the establishment of a navy, and for which the modern Navy's flagship, the USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides") was built. She remains today the oldest commissioned warship afloat.

Most land fighting was waged in the north and the west on the borders of America's growing frontier expansion. Its most famous battle was fought two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent was signed, Colonel Andrew Jackson's rousing victory at New Orleans.

 

Jacob Lansing '11
Letters home to his grandfather

Bela Edgerton '09
Obituary and service information

Justus Post '05
Graduate of West Point and pioneer of early St. Louis

Walter Sheldon
Paymaster for the Northern Army

Middlebury College Administration
Trustee records: financial difficulties and student life

Vermont in the War
Smuggling, insurrection, and the birth of the modern Navy

Outside Links
More information about the War of 1812

Bibliography
Annotated bibliography and relevant source indications