![]() ![]() When a deal was finally struck, it arrived too late to prevent the war’s culminating Battle of New Orleans, in which Andrew Jackson defeated a crack British army. James Madison, vastly unpopular in New England (which seriously considered seceding from the Union), sent his best diplomats to attempt to negotiate a truce England was willing, but saw no urgency to give in on the issue of impressment. Wellington was one of several English generals who declined the command of the armies sent to America, which by 1814 included veterans of the Napoleonic wars. Borneman does a good job of showing how the American war was, in English eyes, a sideshow to the struggles taking place in Europe. When invading US troops burned the Canadian city of York (later renamed Toronto), the English-temporarily free from the threat of Napoleon-retaliated by burning Washington and bombarding Baltimore’s Fort McHenry before retiring. Much of the war was fought on the Canadian front, including several key naval battles on the Great Lakes. ![]() Equally important was the outspoken desire of many Westerners, including Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison, to annex more territory, including as much of Canada as the US could grab. The English practice of impressing seamen from American vessels was the most widely cited casus belli at the time (and the one most of us read about in high-school history class). He begins by examining the conflict’s origins. Western historian Borneman ( Alaska, 2003, etc.) argues that the war of 1812, often dismissed as a sideshow to European events, had a profound impact on US history.
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