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- The Battle of New Orleans, Jan. 8, 1815. (Painting by Herbert Morton Stoops, courtesy of the U.S. Army Center of Military History)
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- The Battle of New Orleans, Jan. 8, 1815. (Painting by Herbert Morton Stoops, courtesy of the U.S. Army Center of Military History)
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- On the morning of September 12, 1814, a British force of 9,000 men landed at North Point, Md., with the intention of marching inland and capturing Baltimore. Brig. Gen. John Stricker, commander of the 3d Brigade of the Maryland militia, was ordered to delay the British advance so that the defense entrenchments around the city could be completed. The 5th Regiment was assigned the task of holding the American right flank. Despite two hours of artillery and rocket fire, the 5th Maryland stood their ground. After inflicting some 300 casualties, the 5th was order to fall back to a new position in front of the Baltimore trenches. The British army, exhausted by the fighting and surprised by the stubborn defense of the Maryland militia, withdrew, while the British navy failed to silence the guns of Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor. Thwarted on land and sea the British force sailed away. This image is part of the National Guard’s Heritage Series. Use of this print by entities other than the U.S. government is reserved by the artist. (Painting by Don Troiani)
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- Following Commodore Oliver Perry’s victory at Lake Erie in September 1813, a U.S. force, commanded by then-Gen. and future President William Henry Harrison, engaged British troops 75 miles east of Detroit in October. His command included a regiment of Kentucky Mounted Riflemen led by Col. Richard M. Johnson, composed of picked militia volunteers armed with long Kentucky rifles and tomahawks. The Kentucky troops scattered the enemy army â British regulars, and Indians under the famed Tecumseh. The Battle of the Thames helped restore U.S. dominance in the northwest region. This image is part of the National Guard’s Heritage Series. (Painting by Ken Riley)
Two hundred years ago today, June 18, President James Madison signed the United States’ first declaration of war, catapulting the fledgling country into its second War of Independence, better known as the War of 1812. Sandwiched between the Revolution and the Civil War, the War of 1812 has been largely forgotten, and when it is remembered, it’s often thought of as a naval war.
But Soldiers and students of Army history shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it or forget it, said Glenn Williams, an Army veteran and a senior historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History. He explained that the Army, which barely 20 years earlier had been down to a single regiment, had several significant achievements during the war, more “than we give ourselves credit for.”
Specifically, he said, the Army defeated several British invasions: two at Fort Meigs in Perrysburg, Ohio, in May and July 1813; at the Battle of Plattsburgh, N.Y., in September 1814 and in New Orleans in January 1815. And while the British were able to attack Washington and burn the White House and the Capitol in August 1814, the Army and the militia stopped them in Baltimore the following month.
“Let’s not forget a couple of really important things,” Williams said. “The ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ was the garrison flag of an Army post. The original name of the song, as Francis Scott Key wrote it, was ‘The Defense of Fort McHenry.’ It became ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ a little bit later and then it became the national anthem in 1931. But we’re talking about the defense of an Army post.
“I know the other services like to claim some credit for the Battle of Baltimore, but Fort McHenry had a garrison of about 1,100 (servicemen) when it was attacked. Of those, about 60 were Sailors. The rest were Soldiers. … We often forget that Fort McHenry was an Army post and the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ was its garrison flag.”
The Army continued to improve and “became relatively confident by the end of the war,” he continued, and in fact, by the end of the war, the Army had occupied much of western Ontario.
“Some of the enduring legacies of the War of 1812,” Williams said, “that we do remember – Yes, we do call it the second War of Independence. I think that’s when we finally get rid of the shadow of Britain. The Revolutionary War … made us independent. The War of 1812 made sure we would stay independent. It gave us something to be proud of.”