War of (1812)

War of 1812, conflict between the United States and Great Britain (1812–15). Due to the maritime policies of Britain and France during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, U.S. trade slumped. At the same time, the British were confiscating U.S. ships and impressing U.S. crewmen (as in the Chesapeake incident, when the British impressed 4 crew members from a U.S. frigate), to which the United States responded with the Embargo Act (1807) and the Noninterference Act (1809), banning trade with the belligerents. Anti-British feeling, fed by war hawks and by the conviction that British support of the Native Americans in the West was hindering U.S. expansion, led to declaration of war on June 18, 1812. However, the United States was unprepared for such a conflict, and its attempted invasion (1812) of Canada (Britain's main North American possession) was a failure. Early U.S. naval successes, which led to a retaliatory British blockade, include Capt. Oliver Perry's victory in 1813 at the battle on Lake Erie. In 1814 U.S. troops held their own at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane, and the victory of the Battle of the Thames at Plattsburgh halted a British advance on the Hudson Valley. In Chesapeake Bay a British force that had captured and sacked Washington, D.C., was repelled in its attempt to take Baltimore. There was a military stalemate, and peace negotiations were begun in June 1814. The Peace of Ghent, signed on Dec. 22, 1814, was essentially a return to the situation before the war. Two weeks later, Andrew Jackson defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans, which took place before word of the treaty reached the United States. The war had several far-reaching effects on the United States: The military victories promoted national confidence and encouraged expansionism, while the trade embargo encouraged home manufactures.