War Of 1812 Dbq

The War of 1812 waged on for almost 3 years. This was the war that proved that America can stand on its own as an independent country. The two sides of this war were the United States of America and Great Britain. The reason for this war was for maritime rights of neutrals. “The belligerents seized nearly 1500 American vessels between 1803 and 1812, thus posing the problem of whether the U.S. should go to war to defend its neutral rights” (War of 1812). Due to this, the United States had stood up for themselves. Great Britain felt that as most of the people of the U.S. originally came from there and because of this, they belong in the Royal Navy in their time of need during the battle in the French revolutionary and Napoleonic war against France

“During the Chesapeake affair on June 22, 1807, the HMS Leopard boarded the United States 38-gun frigate Chesapeake and took four men as deserters” (Badertscher). The United States at this time was still a very new country. They could not do anything about this except to protest that Britain cannot do this to their people. President Jefferson at the time did not want to go to war. He eventually convinced the Congress to pass the embargo act. This did not end well for the United States and damaged the economy. Eventually, James Madison became the president of the United States. “The president called a special session of Congress in November 1811; after about seven months of debate, Congress declared war on Britain on June 18, 1812” (Badertscher). The war was very unpopular with most places. In England, the war was termed as Mr. Madison’s War. This war is not often discussed in today’s current history due to no sides really winning or losing. Yet the war of 1812 had done many things for America that still defines us even to this day. This war gave way to many events that eventually helped construct our current

With most of their soldiers in Europe, The British took a defensive strategy meanwhile the United States took an offensive one. Their plan was not to attack Britain directly but to attack Canada. The Americans eventually crossed into Canada during 1812-1814. Most of the battles did not go well at all for them. Only in one of their invasions did they at least fulfill their objective of occupying British land (Benn 28). In their journey in Canada, William Hull had suffered a drastic loss. “Instead of marching on the fort at Amherstburg to knock the British out of the Detroit region and intimidate the natives and settlers into submission, a nervous Hull dithered, engaged in some minor skirmishing, and worried that his army might be too weak to achieve its objectives” (Benn 31). Since Hull was afraid that his army was too weak, British Major-General Isaac Brock was able to capture the American fort in Mackinac without a fight. This inspired the natives of the upper lakes to take arms against the Americans. Afraid that the natives might rise against him, Hull decides to take his troops out of Canada to get reinforcements in Detroit. On August 13th, Brock arrived at the Detroit River and demanded that Hull surrender. After standing his ground for a few days, Hull had no choice but to surrender. “To a mixed force of 1,300 regulars, militia, and natives, Hull surrendered 2,200 men, large quantities of weapons and supplies, the USN