1812: Why we Fought

Last week I promised to fill you in on some of the more bizarre details of this strange conflict. The most bizarre thing about the War of 1812, as near as I can determine, was that it was the American government who declared it.

Why start a war with the strongest naval power on the planet? Well, we were mad at them. Free Trade and Sailor's Rights was the rallying cry at the time, and that had to do with arrogant British sea power interfering with American commerce and impressing American seamen to serve on British warships. But there were other issues.

In the West (which is to say, places like Ohio and Kentucky) the American settlers were solidly behind any war that would get rid of the Indians, who allied themselves with the British. The Americans wanted the Indians' land. They moved onto it in droves. In response the Indians became the first anti-American terrorists. Mutilated corpses make for a lot of bad feeling; the Indians were hated and feared.

Population pressures drove a lot of pro-war sentiment. In that agrarian society the average American family needed enough fertile land to grow food. Not only Indian land looked good to them but Canadian land as well (and eventually, Mexican land, but that's another story). The conquest of Canada, as Thomas Jefferson once famously remarked, was a mere matter of marching. Resistance to Yankee forces was not expected.

After all, the British were busy fighting the French. How much trouble could a few Canadian farmers possibly be? So with a tiny standing army, a few inadequate forts, an ill-trained and skittish militia, and a navy consisting of six huge frigates and a number of lesser vessels, the United States of America went to war.

Not everyone liked the idea. The day after war was declared a Baltimore newspaperman published an issue of his paper denouncing the war. Outraged Baltimoreans converged on his newspaper office, broke up his presses, and pulled the building down. Then they attacked his supporters, killing some and wounding others.

Next: New England.