The War of 1812
ISBN: 0-313-31687-2
LC Card Number: 2001050102
LCC Class: E354
Dewey Class: 973
Entangled in the Napoleonic conflicts on the European continent, the reasons for fighting the War of 1812 are far from clear. Once the conflict got underway, both the United States and Great Britain waged it in great confusion and finally concluded it inconclusively. Meanwhile, the war deeply divided American sentiment, possibly more than did any other war, including Vietnam. With an overview essay providing historical background, seven essays on specific topics related to the war, biographies of the major players, ten important primary documents, and a timeline, this book will serve as an introduction to these events, both to provide a clear understanding of them and to supply the student with major historical interpretations of the war's causes, progress, and consequences. Renowned historians David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler put the War of 1812 in historical and social context. In addition to a general overview, other essays examine Jefferson's ineffective use of sanctions as a diplomatic tool, the difficulties a young nation had in fighting and paying for a war against a major power, U.S.-Indian relations, and the Treaty of Ghent which ended the conflict but left many issues unresolved. Detailed biographies of key players enrich the reader's understanding of the time period, and promary source documents, ranging from Madison's recommendation for war to a British soldier's description of the burning of Washington DC, and to General Andrew Jackson's account of his great victory at New Orleans bring to life the controversial and destructive nature of the War, and a selection of portraits and cartoons add a valuable visual component to this all-in-one resource guide to this forgotten war.
[a]welcome and highly recommended addition to school and community library American History reference collections.
—The Midwest Book Review
This book is a complete and careful description of the causes, battles, and personalities that surrounded the war....The excellent and extensive bibliography might make this resource valuable for reports.
—School Library Journal
...useful for researchers who need more information than they can find in an encyclopedia but don't know where else to turn. The blend of reference material and essays that provide background and context is particularly helpful when applied to topics that may be unfamiliar or are not heavily covered elsewhere....should be useful in high-school, college, and large public libraries.
—Booklist/Reference Books Bulletin
For those looking for something beyond the usual short history of the war, this is an attractive alternative... teachers interested in developing a unit on the War of 1812 might want to consider adopting it.
—The Journal of Military History
The War of 1812 is a meticulous and detailed history of America's "second war of independence" that places the battles, events, personalities, and ramifications into a social and historical context. Timelines, biographies of major figures, excerpts of primary accounts, and a great deal more round out this informed and informative account that is a welcome and highly recommended addition to school and community library American History reference collections.
—The Bookwatch
...a welcome and highly recommended addition to school and community library American History reference collections.
—KNLS Bookwatch
Excerpts
The Tragedy of the Chesapeake
In 1813, James Lawrence took command of the Chesapeake, the same ship that had been involved in the impressment controversy with the Leopard six years earlier. By any estimation, the Chesapeake was an unhappy and unlucky ship whose career was marked by controversy and contention. When Lawrence took command of her, she was in Boston unable to fill out her crew because many of her disenchanted veterans had refused to reenlist. Lawrence scraped together a crew, but its members and the ship’s officers had little time to train together before the Chesapeake went into her last fight.
In the spring of 1813, the British frigate Shannon was cruising off the Massachusetts coast. Captain Philip Broke had commanded the Shannon for seven years and had molded the ship into his own image. The ship was meticulously maintained, and her crew was incessantly drilled to meet every event with automatic precision. Broke, unique in the Royal Navy for his insistence on constant gunnery exercises, had shaped the Shannon into a particularly lethal machine of destruction.
Broke knew that the Chesapeake was in Boston Harbor, and with the audacity customary to naval captains of the time, he issued a provocative challenge to Lawrence. The Chesapeake was already underway, and Lawrence did not receive the invitation, but he needed no summons to fight. The Shannon and the Chesapeake were evenly matched in rate and size, but the contrasting readiness of their crews should have been sobering for the American captain. As the commander of the Hornet, however, Lawrence had won several engagements against the Royal Navy, and his previous success amplified a tendency to impulsiveness.
On 1 June 1813, the Chesapeake came out of Boston Harbor and found the Shannon about eighteen miles off the coast. Lawrence stood on his quarterdeck in a dress uniform. Perhaps his inexperienced crew was the reason he did not exploit an opportunity to rake the Shannon as he approached her, but the two ships eventually lined up to blast one another with broadsides. The Shannon took a beating, but Broke‘s gun crews did a better job of handing out punishment. In only fifteen minutes, both the Chesapeake and her crew were thoroughly shattered into submission. Lawrence did not see her boarded: fatally wounded, he had been taken below to die, but he had mustered enough strength to tell his crew: “Don’t give up the ship.” They were distressingly hopeless words under the circumstances.
The words would not die with Lawrence. The country took them up as a rallying cry. The navy adopted them as a motto. In only months, Lawrence‘s navy would avenge his words “Don’t give up the ship” on an inland sea hundreds of miles from where they were uttered. On a banner fluttering over a U.S. Navy ship bearing his name, they would not be hopeless at all. They would be fighting words.
From
The War of 1812
