War of 1812 (Part 2): The Fire That Reforged a Nation
The Lawrence was dying. Her deck was all blood and splintered wood. Of her 103-man crew, only a handful could still stand. The British ships Detroit and Queen Charlotte poured broadside after broadside into her shattered hull. Gathering four uninjured sailors, Perry hauled down his battle flag, "Don't give up the ship", and made a decision that would be remembered throughout American naval history. "We're not finished yet, boys," he said. They then lowered the ship's last intact boat. Perry stepped in, holding the flag, and ordered them to row for the USS Niagara, his other major warship, still fresh and unengaged half a mile away.
Perry stood upright in the small boat as British gunners tried desperately to kill him. Cannonballs churned the water around them. Grapeshot whistled past. One sailor would later swear he saw Perry's coat torn by a passing shot. Yet somehow, by some miracle, they reached the Niagara unharmed. Perry's first lieutenant, Jesse Elliott, had kept Niagara out of close action, claiming he was following orders to maintain the line. He took command, raised his flag, and ordered full sail directly at the British line.
Then, Perry, pissed off and focused, gave an order that surprised his officers. He commanded his gun crews to man both sides of the ship rather than just one. A traditional broadside comes from a single side of the ship, either the left, the port side, or the right, the starboard side. This was done to ensure that several volleys could be fired at the enemy while the other ship floated by. To fire from both sides was extremely uncommon, stunning, and so discouraging that the British never would have expected it.
What happened next shocked the British. Perry sailed the Niagara straight through the British line. Musket fire began to erupt from both sides as she got closer. Once she started passing between the British ships, her cannons erupted, blazing on both sides simultaneously at near point-blank range. The utter fury of the attack threw the British ships, who were already damaged from their engagement with the Lawrence, into chaos, and momentum in the battle shifted immediately. Detroit's commander fell wounded. Queen Charlotte, trying to maneuver, collided with Detroit, tangling their rigging. Once Perry and his crew were through the two ships, the others on his line engaged. He ordered the Niagara to turn around and straight back into the fray, where both the English and Americans fought for the next hour. It is said that Perry seemed unstoppable in battle; his men, following the example of their commander, became juggernauts.
At 3:00 PM, the British flagship struck her colors. The others followed in quick succession. His message to General William Henry Harrison was characteristically modest: "We have met the enemy, and they are ours.”
Once the battle was finished, Perry and the rest of his men attended to the wounded on both sides. The British officers later remarked how gracious and kind Perry and his men were to them and their wounded, citing that his humane treatment was only outmatched by his bravery in battle.
As spectacular as the battle was, it was small in comparison to the other engagements in the war. However, the implications were impactful. For the first time in history, an entire group of British ships had surrendered. Lake Erie was now an American lake. The British position in the Northwest was beginning to collapse.
More Victories
After the loss on Lake Erie, the British began to immediately evacuate Detroit. General Henry Procter, knowing he couldn't hold the position without naval support, began his retreat into Canada. Tecumseh, who was still serving with him, was furious. At a council on September 18, 1813, he confronted Procter:
"You always told us you would never draw your foot off British ground. But now, father, we see you drawing back... We must compare our father's conduct to a fat dog that carries its tail upon its back, but when affrighted, drops it between its legs and runs off."
Despite his anger, Tecumseh had no choice but to retreat with the British. On October 5, 1813, Harrison's army caught them at the Thames River in Ontario. The Battle of the Thames was brief but decisive. The British line broke after a single cavalry charge. But Tecumseh and his warriors fought on. He was seen in the thickest fighting, leading from the front as his warriors followed him. It was said that only the fiercest men on the American side could match his fury and intent, and even then, it was rarely enough. In those moments, he lived out one of his most famous sayings:
“When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear,
who weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”
No one knows exactly how Tecumseh died. Some say he was shot leading a countercharge. Others claim he fell while trying to rally his scattered warriors. His body was never definitively identified as his followers pulled it from the battlefield and buried it in a secret burial place that remains unknown to this day. With Tecumseh dead, the dream of a Native confederation strong enough to stop American expansion also passed away. One of his warriors later said: "When Tecumseh fell, the sun went dark, and we knew our cause was lost."
Momentum was with the Americans, and the tide had seemingly turned. All of that was about to change.
The Empire Strikes Back
While Americans celebrated their victories in the Northwest, the situation in Europe was changing dramatically. In April 1814, Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to Elba. Suddenly, Britain's vast military resources, battle-hardened troops, and the world's most powerful navy were free to deal with the Americans.
The Duke of Wellington, offered command of British forces in America, declined, saying: "That is a ship which has sailed." But he recommended his brother-in-law, Major General Robert Ross, a veteran who had fought from Egypt to Spain. Ross was given 4,000 of Wellington's best troops and told to "give Jonathan a good drubbing", British slang for punishing the Americans.
Ross's target was audacious: Washington, D.C., the American capital itself.
On August 19, 1814, British forces landed at Benedict, Maryland, on the Patuxent River. The American response was panic. The Americans knew more British were coming, but they didn’t know it would be that fast, nor so close to the capital. Secretary of War John Armstrong had insisted Washington was safe, saying, "What the devil will they do here? Baltimore is the place." Defense of the capital was contingent on the around 6,000 American militia, which would be no match for the battle-hardened British, fresh from fighting Napoleon.
President Madison himself rode out to Bladensburg, Maryland, on August 24 to observe the American defenses. What he saw horrified him. The American militia was arranged in three lines across the Bladensburg bridge. The British fired their new Congreve rockets, inaccurate but terrifying weapons that screamed and sparked as they flew. The American militia had never seen anything like them. One militiaman recalled: "They made a noise like all the devils in hell were let loose."
After several volleys of these rockets, the musket fire started, and the first line broke and ran. Then the second. The third barely fired a shot. In what became known as the "Bladensburg Races," American troops fled so fast that President Madison himself was nearly captured. His wife, Dolley, still at the White House, received a scribbled note: "Fly! The enemy is in full march on the capital!"
The first lady ordered the servants to pack what they could, but she insisted on saving Gilbert Stuart's full-length portrait of George Washington. "I will not leave this house," she declared, "until the portrait of General Washington is secured." They had to break the frame to get it out, but the portrait was saved and hangs in the White House to this day.
That evening, British troops marched unopposed into Washington. Ross and his officers went to the White House, found dinner still warm on the table (prepared for the Madisons' expected return), and sat down to eat it. They toasted the Prince Regent with Madison's own wine. Then…they set the White House on fire.
Before we go on, consider this scene in history. The United States Capitol is burning, utterly. Chaos in the dark night illuminated only by the screams of those fleeing. Orders are being yelled to troops, almost echoing in the night sky. Horse hoofs and the sound of wagons can be heard on every street. In the distance, the people can see the Senate and House Chambers on fire. They know the Library of Congress was destroyed. Other buildings are falling. There are many scenes of apocalypse in today’s movies and media, but in history, we see the reality played out. That night, America itself was on fire.
The Capitol, the Treasury, and the War Department all went up in flames. Only a thunderstorm that night, with torrential rain and tornado-force winds, prevented the fire from spreading to private homes. One British officer wrote: "I never saw thunder and lightning so terrific as last night. It seemed as if the Almighty was angry with us for what we had done."
The Star-Spangled Banner
What the British didn’t expect was that the burning of Washington would galvanize the American resistance. Baltimore, just forty miles away, prepared for siege. Major George Armistead, commanding Fort McHenry, had commissioned a massive flag, 30 feet by 42 feet, so large "the British would have no difficulty seeing it from a distance." The British did, in fact, see the flag when they arrived on September 12, 1814. General Ross, still fresh from the burning of Washington, confidentially led his troops toward the city, but was killed by an American sniper, picked off at 300 yards.
"I have General Ross!" the rifleman reportedly shouted. The death was a shock to the British, who at the sight of their fallen commander, pulled back to await naval support.
On September 13, British warships began bombarding Fort McHenry. For 25 hours, they fired over 1,500 shells and rockets. Watching from a truce ship eight miles away was Francis Scott Key, a 35-year-old lawyer trying to negotiate the release of an American prisoner. All through the night of September 13-14, Key watched the bombardment. At dawn, he saw the giant flag still flying. Fort McHenry had held.
Key pulled out a letter and began writing on the back:
"O say can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?"
Within weeks, "The Star-Spangled Banner" was being sung in taverns and theaters across America. It would officially become the national anthem in 1931.
The Peace Nobody Knew About
In Ghent, Belgium, American and British negotiators had been talking since August 1814. Initially, Britain demanded huge concessions: an Indian barrier state in the Northwest, demilitarization of the Great Lakes, and chunks of Maine and Minnesota. But as months passed, British enthusiasm waned. The war was expensive. The Duke of Wellington, asked if he could win decisively in America, replied: "I don't know that I could, and I don't think you should demand any territorial concessions."
On December 24, 1814, Christmas Eve, both sides signed the Treaty of Ghent. It changed nothing. All boundaries returned to pre-war positions. Impressment wasn't mentioned, and the end of the Napoleonic Wars had made it moot. The treaty was, essentially, an agreement to stop fighting and return to the status quo.
But news traveled slowly in 1814. As diplomats shook hands in Belgium, Andrew Jackson was preparing to fight the battle that would define his life, and America's memory of the war.
Old Hickory's Finest Hour
Andrew Jackson was not what was considered a conventional general. Tall, gaunt, with flowing grey hair that seemed to always be standing up, Jackson suffered from chronic dysentery and wounds from old duels. His men called him "Old Hickory" because he was "tough as hickory wood." He was also known to be brilliant, ruthless, and absolutely determined to hold New Orleans.
Jackson had cobbled together the most unusual army in American history: Tennessee and Kentucky frontiersmen, Louisiana militia, free men of color, Choctaw warriors, and pirates. "I don't care where a man comes from or what he's done," Jackson said of his forces, "if he'll fight for America, he's welcome in my army."
The British force approaching New Orleans was commanded by Sir Edward Pakenham, Wellington's brother-in-law, a veteran of the Peninsula Campaign. He had 8,000 of what was considered some of Britain's finest troops. These men had defeated Napoleon's best, and as a result, Pakenham was confident. "I have never disobeyed an order," he told his staff, "and I'm ordered to take New Orleans."
But Jackson had chosen his ground carefully. Between the Mississippi River and an impassable swamp, there was only a narrow strip of solid ground. Here, Jackson built his line in the shape of a mud rampart reinforced with cotton bales. His men dug a canal in front for extra protection. It wasn't pretty, but it was formidable.
On the foggy morning of January 8, 1815, Pakenham attacked. The British executed a forward advance in perfect formation across open ground, directly into the mouths of Jackson's cannons and the rifles of his frontiersmen. The American artillery, commanded by one of the pirates, was devastating. "Load with grape and canister!" You shouted in his French accent. "Let them taste our iron breakfast!" The Tennessee and Kentucky riflemen, men who could "knock a squirrel's eye out at a hundred yards," had never had such easy targets.
The main British assault lasted around eight minutes. In that time, the fields before Jackson's line became a killing ground. General Pakenham, trying to rally his men, was hit in the knee, then the arm, then fatally in the spine. General Samuel Gibbs fell dead beside him. General John Keane was severely wounded. With their entire command structure gone, the British attack collapsed. When the smoke cleared, the statistics were staggering: British casualties exceeded 2,000, including 291 dead, 1,262 wounded, and 484 captured or missing. American losses: 13 dead, 39 wounded, 19 missing.
Jackson, surveying the carnage, removed his hat and bowed his head. "The Almighty has been pleased to shield us," he said quietly. Then, louder: "Boys, we've whipped the finest troops in the world!" News of the victory reached Washington in early February, followed days later by news of the peace treaty.
On February 17, 1815, Madison proclaimed the war over. Church bells rang from Maine to Georgia. In Boston, which had opposed the war, crowds sang "Yankee Doodle." In Baltimore, they sang Key's new anthem. The nation was seemingly reborn.
Afterward
The War of 1812 killed approximately 15,000 Americans, more from disease than battle. It cost millions of dollars. It settled no great principle, gained no territory, and established no new right. And yet, it changed everything.
Before 1812, Americans thought of themselves as Virginians or New Yorkers, or Kentuckians first. After 1812, they were Americans. The successful defense against British invasion, the survival of the burning of Washington, the victory at New Orleans, created a new national confidence. In Washington, the Capitol and White House were rebuilt, grander than before. The war also gave America its symbols. The Star-Spangled Banner, Old Ironsides, and Uncle Sam, who first appeared on recruiting posters during the war. These became the iconography of American identity.
For Britain, the war was a sideshow, barely remembered today. But it taught an important lesson. Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh wrote: "We must reconcile ourselves to the United States as an independent and rival state. The idea of conquest is futile."
Albert Gallatin, who had opposed the war, later admitted: "The war renewed and reinstated the national feelings which the Revolution had given. The people now have more general objects of attachment... They are more Americans; they feel and act more as a nation." Where British flames had scorched, American determination rebuilt. The United States entered the War of 1812 as a fragile experiment. It emerged as a nation.
