Not after we gave them a stinging defeat[sup]1[/sup] in the Pig War…
[sup]1[/sup]By a score of 1 pig to none.
Pork: The Other Great White North Meat
Americans at the time certainly hailed it as a victory. The Battle of New Orleans enabled them to do so. They had, in this view of things, proven themselves a nation worthy of respect and secure in its independence, by defeating in the field a British expeditionary force comprising some of the finest professional soldiers in the world.
Here’s how Robert Remini described the response to Andrew Jackson’s victory in The Battle of New Orleans:
Recall, too, that this war gave us “The Star Spangled Banner,” hardly a paean to defeat.
It is hard for us to appreciate today just how tenuous and weak the experimental enterprise known as the “United States” had seemed prior to the war, or the importance to the American psyche of securing the western frontier against European interference and against the threat posed by Tecumseh and his followers.
And of course, we do still celebrate January 8. Just for different reasons.
TCB. (Taking Care of the British.) 
Curious that no one on this thread is visibly Canadian, nor has cited Pierre Berton’s two thick tomes on the War of 1812. The gist of it-- conventional wisdom up here in Chilly Beach country-- is that the war “created” Canada psychologically, preventing the U.S. from ever expanding north. As to the all-important win-lose, I may have to dig Up H. L. Mencken’s sneer that the U. S. would have been **thoroughly drubbed ** without Napoleon’s help (in a sharp satire on American military incompetence which mentions everything from French help in the Revolutionary War to America’s late jump on weakened enemies in both World Wars–I’m guessing the essay is “On Being an American”).
(Trivia note: HLM was born in Baltimore on Sept. 12, Defender’s Day, another War of 1812 leftover).
Anyhoo, I hope none of the above causes any purple faces, especially since Bush Baby is talking aloud about a New Berlin Wall along the 49th (Checkpoint Charlie at Windsor-Detroit?) Try to remember our countries are shoulder to shoulder in Afghanistan and this is mostly an academic question.
PS: My absolute first post, by the way. Please don’t kill me!
PPS: The intellectual level here does seem a little higher than at the Nights with Alice Cooper site. I might just pay the Straight Dope price at the end of my free month… hmm… you don’t suppose a stinking rich guy like Alice might subsidize this site, do you? The NwAC site seems to have GOBS of memory and few technical problems, not to mention he shares a possible overlap with his Freaky Factoids feature. Try to cadge something off him, why don’t you?
You mean other than me, right? And I talked about Berton in the report.
By the way: Welcome to the SDMB.
Welcome. Please do join. We have plenty of dudes from the Great White North, but more is always good.
So, Gfactor, can we agree that at least the War resulted in a nice and valuable increase in USA national pride and international respect? Wars are always won or lost by just territory, you know! 
Thus, the USA can claim a (mild) moral victory anyway. But certainly the Canadians have cause for pride, too.
By the way, I want to thank **Northern Piper ** for his help. He’s the one who told me about Berton’s work. He also read an early draft of the report and gave me his perspective as a Canadian. Thanks Northern Piper!
Well, not really on topic for this thread, but I’d just like to point out that waiting to join the two World Wars until we were more likely to win is hardly military incompetance. Also, IIRC the main thing was that at the time, the US didn’t want to get involved in European wars (a long standing foreign policy that more or less ended with WWII). Both times the US joined only when one of the Central/Axis powers threatened the US directly (WWI with the Zimmerman Note, Germany encouraging Mexico to invade the US, and WWII with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, and the German and Italian declarations of war on the US on December 11th).
In the case of WWI, we joined very near to the end and arguably secured an Allied victory (the Germans were in a sorry state in 1917, but I understand the Allies had all sorts of problems of their own by then), in WWII, we joined after the opening acts, but were in it for most of the rest, after having been supporting the allies with supplies and equipment for the first part of the war.
Back to the War of 1812, if it hadn’t been for Napolean tying up most of the Crown’s forces, yeah, we probably would have gotten our asses kicked (more). But then, if it weren’t for Napolean (or more accurately, the French Revolutionaries to begin with) stirring up trouble with England, we would have had that much less of a reason to go to war with them to begin with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PanderWee
Curious that no one on this thread is visibly Canadian, nor has cited Pierre Berton’s two thick tomes on the War of 1812.
Thank you, and thanks all. Might be more than I deserve for the quick skim of the thread followed by incendiaries (didn’t even read the lead article preceding the thread! :smack: ).
Moreover a second check locates two obvious Canucks entwined :smack: --although our correspondent in “Toontown” (=Saskatoon, I’m pretty sure) should consider that some folks at SDMB might locate him in the South Korean city where *The Simpsons * is put together.
Anyway, a hell of a refresher course on the subject and quite an eye-opener on the peripherals. Thanks all again. Love them books, love them citations! I won’t even get into how “The Star-Spangled Banner” rather slathers the poetry upon a massive defeat that left only a tattered flag standing. Really I won’t!
PS: Also very good to hear our local gang Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie quoted, albeit international relations were probably furthered by not quoting their line about how the Americans ran like girls. That would have started another w… oops! :smack:
First post here, and I have to say this is one of the most interesting boards I’ve come across. I actually have a bit of a history with this as I’m a member of the Canadian Armed Forces and studied military history in one of the forts on the invasion route into Canada. Specifically, I stayed in Fort St. Jean in Quebec, which was the last fort on the Richelieu*. This course taught a lot of interesting subject matter including the war of 1812 and the invasion of 1775. I would say one of the big problems with 1812 was that there was no absolute winner in the traditional sense.
British North America certainly did well by holding off the Americans, and was able to secure the border as it stands now. It is also a bit of pride for we Canadians to point out that we were the only ones to successfully invade the USA and burn down the White House. OTOH, the US did show that it could defeat the British navy and was able to defend itself. My history prof also suggested that it lead to the British being more amicable towards the US in terms of diplomacy. One example was that it was an English panel member that awarded the panhandle to the US during the resolution of the Alaskan boundary dispute.
One thing I must say that is good to see here is that there is a familiarity with the war. Most of my American friends didn’t even know there was a war between our two countries, but assumed that they must have won. It is surprising, to say the least, in this day and age to find a lot of good intellectual discussion on subjects that most don’t even realize exists.
*For those interested in this time period you may be interested in checking up the route which started in Lake Champlain at Fort Ticonderoga and progressed up to Fort St. Jean, which allowed for the capture of Montreal.
Pardon my hijack, but…
Hello PanderWee! I knew I wasn’t the only Sick Doper! Get yourself over to SickthingsUk if you want a little intelligent conversation. See you there…
Ending hijack.
Heya blueyonder, welcome to the SDMB, enjoy your (hopefully long) stay!
See, the thing that annoys the heck out of me about talking to Canadians about the War of 1812 is how they insist that they invaded the US and burned down the White House. Every time I’ve looked this up, everywhere I’ve looked it up, British forces (transfered from Portugal, IIRC) were the ones who did this. The Canadians, as it turned out, were mostly up near Canada at the time. I’ve yet to see anyone provide a cite for the theory that the Canadians burned down the White House.
Of course, as I’ve said before, I don’t mind the Canadians claiming that they burned down the White House as long as they are willing to admit that the Americans won the War of 1812.
Heh. Well, of course, we have lyrics about the British running:
Yeah they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn’t go
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn’t catch 'em
On down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
–Johnny Horton, “Battle of New Orleans”
And welcome to the new posters. I hope y’all decide to become one of us. (“One of us. One of us.”)
Earlier threads that dealt with the topic include
Who won the War of 1812?
Why do Canadians think they won the War of 1812? (A good discussion despite the oddly worded title.)
And the somewhat fluff topic: Did Canadians burn down the White House?
The only two quibbles that I would offer regarding gfactor’s excellent report:
- While the British probably did not stir up the Indians for the purpose of creating a war, they very definitely did maintain a presence in areas that had supposedly been turned over the the U.S. by the Treaty of Paris (29 years earlier) and from those sites (including several armed forts) they reprovisioned Indians who were in conflict with settlers.
- It is rarely noted how much the War of 1812 was less of a national war and more of a regional conflict that included the potential to divide the country. Despite all the paper claims against the British regarding impressment, the war actions were pushed by the Virginians who had far less invested in the merchant marine than did the New Englanders who generally opposed “Mr. Madison’s War.” Several of the failures to invade Canada were the result of U.S. forces from New England, New York, and Pennsylvania refusing to cross the border as they had been called out to defend the country, not invade another one. (Most of the battles in the West were fought by volunteers from Virginia and Kentucky with very little support from even Ohio and Indiana.) And, eventually, the issue of secession was raised, culminating in the Hartford Convention (toward which the Southerners contemptuously (if with unintended irony) declared that any secession would be tantmount to treason).
Good points. Thanks!
Good, because you’d be flat wrong. Fort McHenry withstood the bombardment, the RN was baffled and had to retreat, and the British army, which was waiting for the RN to attack Baltimore from the sea, packed its bags and headed instead for New Orleans. The Battle of Baltimore was an unequivocal victory for the US, and ended the Chesapeake campaign. (Curiously, this is the second venue in which I’ve had to correct this error in under a month.)
Never underestimate the cupidity of the music industry. There was an alternate version of the record for the Canadian market.
By “West” I take it you mean the (then) Northwest. The battles in the Southwest (the Creek War and New Orleans) were fought largely by the Tennessee and Georgia militias, combined at New Orleans with Kentucky militia, Louisiana militia, Mississippi militia, a free black battalion and a battalion of New Orleans volunteers.
But I take your larger point, that the folks in the Northeast were reluctant in this cause.
Fascinating. Did they subtitute other lyrics, or just omit the offensive verse?
Thanks, I enjoy the topics I’ve seen so I may just have to say.
As for who invaded Washington and were the Canadians were depends on the definition of “Canadian”. The term Canadian at this time referred specifically to the French who adopted the name from the Indian word for village. They were not an expeditionary force and did not leave the northern borders. In fact, they were mostly in the region of Lower Canada (now Quebec). However, that being said the territory was under the control of the British (hence the term British North America), which was transferred to Canada after 1867. In other words, the government in charge sent the troops, no matter where they came from.
To draw a parallel, the US military’s drill is very close to that of the French because they were trained by them. In addition, the French, Spanish and Netherlands all aided the US with either troops, financing ,or both (although Spain wasn’t about to recognize the US as a separate country). Does this mean that the US didn’t win?
And I didn’t see any of this on Schoolhouse Rock