War of 1812, Part 31: British Set Their Sights on Washington

The New Nation
Written By Tom Hand

In August 1814, the British sent an expedition under Admiral Alexander Cochrane to the Chesapeake to resume its campaign in the bay. The British arrived with vengeance on their minds, hoping to retaliate for the burning by American forces of several Canadian towns including York, the capital of Upper Canada. Cochrane’s instructions to his commanders were to “act with the utmost hostility against the shores of the United States.” Meanwhile, Secretary of War John Armstrong had taken no measures to fortify the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. Although pressed by President James Madison to do so, Armstrong insisted that the British would never attack the city. Feeling desperate, Madison took matters into his own hands and called a cabinet meeting to address the problem. The result was the creation of the 10th Military District and a standby militia force of 15,000 men from neighboring states.

Tom Hand, creator and publisher of Americana Corner, discusses the actions leading up to the British advance on Washington and why it still matters today.

Images courtesy of New York Public Library, Naval History and Heritage Command, Internet Archive, National Gallery of Art, National Portrait Gallery - Smithsonian Institution, Library of Congress, U.S. Army, Wikimedia. 

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War of 1812, Part 11: Americans Seize the Offensive

On March 31, 1814, the allied armies marched into Paris and with that came the collapse of Napoleon's empire. That was good news for Europe who had been fighting French armies for more than two decades, but it was bad news for the United States as with Napoleon's demise, Wellington’s veteran British regiments would now be freed up to fight in North America, and by mid-summer, four brigades of Wellington's best troops sailed from Bordeaux for Canada.

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War of 1812, Part 10: The Battle of Sackett’s Harbor

While General Henry Dearborn was trying to make headway along the Niagara front, the British were busy launching an offensive of their own against Sackett’s Harbor. This was not the first British attack on the American outpost, as the previous summer, on July 19, a British fleet had attempted to destroy Sackett’s Harbor’s critical navy yard, but the British were repulsed in that attack which marked the first armed engagement in the War of 1812.

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War of 1812, Part 9: An Opportunity Lost for the Americans

In early May 1813, Commodore Isaac Chauncey loaded General Henry Dearborn’s army onto his waiting ships and sailed back across Lake Ontario for the second phase of Dearborn’s campaign, the capture of Fort George. Between the men stationed at Fort Niagara and Dearborn’s contingent, the American force consisted of roughly 4,000 men, with command of the army falling to 26-year-old Colonel Winfield Scott, destined to be one of the great military commanders in American history.

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War of 1812, Part 8: Americans Burn a Capital

The man to whom President James Madison and Secretary of War William Eustis gave command of the overall war effort for the War of 1812 was Henry Dearborn from New Hampshire. In addition to the overall command, Dearborn was assigned the right wing of the three-pronged American attack into Canada, up the Lake Champlain corridor to the St. Lawrence River and then onward to Montreal. Arguably, this invasion sector was the most critical, as the St. Lawrence represented the only means of communication between Lower Canada and Upper Canada.

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War of 1812, Part 7: Disaster at Queenston Heights

The center thrust of the three-prong American advance into Canada was along the Niagara River frontier. This thirty-five-mile stretch was the most contested piece of real estate during the War of 1812 and would change hands several times over the course of the war. Secretary of War William Eustis entrusted the command of this sector to Stephen van Rensselaer.

War of 1812, Part 6: The Battle of the Thames
War of 1812, Part 6: The Battle of the Thames

On September 12, 1813, General William Henry Harrison received word of Captain Oliver Hazard Perry's great victory on Lake Erie two days before. Recognizing that the Navy had done their part and cleared the lake of British warships, Harrison knew the time had finally come for the invasion of Upper Canada, and the General immediately put the wheels in motion to strike the British while he held the advantage.

War of 1812, Part 5: We Have Met the Enemy
War of 1812, Part 5: We Have Met the Enemy

The key to controlling Upper Canada in the War of 1812 was gaining naval mastery of the Great Lakes, especially Lakes Erie and Ontario. Given the lack of adequate roads in that area, neither side could hope to sustain an army of any size in the field without the ability to deliver supplies and reinforcements via these lakes. As 1813 opened, the British were in firm control of both and, despite the clamor of the Madison administration and Americans living west of the Appalachians to invade Canada, General William Henry Harrison, commander of the western army, was painfully aware that he must wait for a situational change on Lake Erie before beginning his advance.

War of 1812, Part 4: British Invade Ohio
War of 1812, Part 4: British Invade Ohio

Following the American disaster at Frenchtown, General William Henry Harrison gathered another force to turn the tide in the West. On February 1, 1813, Harrison returned to the rapids of the Maumee with 1,800 Pennsylvania and Virginia militiamen and tasked Major Eleazer D. Wood of the Engineers, an early graduate of West Point, to construct Fort Meigs. Wood finished the fort by the end of the month, but unfortunately the enlistments of most of the men expired at the same time and Harrison was left with a formidable fort but a garrison of less than 500 soldiers.

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War of 1812, Part 3: Debacle on the River Raisin

Following General William Hull’s ignominious surrender of Fort Detroit, the outlook for the United States in Upper Canada was bleak. The western army essentially had been eliminated with Hull’s surrender, and a new army had to be raised. But perhaps more importantly, a new commander had to be found, and that man would be William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory and acclaimed in the West as the hero of Tippecanoe.

War of 1812, Part 2: The Surrender of Detroit
War of 1812, Part 2: The Surrender of Detroit

Early in 1812, when war with Great Britain seemed imminent, President James Madison named William Hull, the Governor of the Michigan Territory and a veteran of the American Revolution, to command the western war effort. Hull was a reluctant warrior who initially declined the post recognizing his best years were behind him, but when President Madison could not find a suitable replacement, Hull agreed to take the command.

Tom Hand
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War of 1812, Part 30: The Battle of Craney Island