WAR of 1812

[Joseph Sullivan]

My father is finishing a new histopry of Chicago, so I'll ask him. However, if memory serves, the statue is not really directly related to teh War of 1812. rather, it memorializes the Potawatomi Uprising of 1812. This was a very confused affair, with some indians defending their white friends (and relatives in many cases), and others trying to wipe them out. Ft. Dearborn was destroyed in the fighting.

Now, if I am right on that and again stretch the memory -- the controversial statue is of one indian defensively holding a white woman and fending off an attack by another. It is hirtorically correct, but the statue is both misinterpreted and disliked. Some, who don't kow the history of the uprising, think it indicates two warriors fighting over a white woman, which isn't true at all. Others, the professionally eternally offended crowd, dislike the portrayal of indian violence at all.

[Joseph Sullivan]

I did a little research -- the Potawatomi were allied in some sense with the British during the War of 1812, and werer also a part of Techumseh's alliance. The statue is of Black Partridge protecting a girl who later escaped by boat with his help. There are some good images of it on line. I remember it from my childhood.

Those who did not grow up in the Midwest may not know that there is a dense history of warfare there -- tribe vs tribe, tribes vs French and English -- the Americans, and even Revolutionary War actions on what was then the frontier. For the first sort of thing, there is Starved Rock State Park, Illinios, where a band of New York Iroquois calmly starved out a tribe that had taken refuge on a defensible rocky high point. The Iroquois did other depradations in the area. One case involved a war party settling in within striking range of a local village (illinois or Fox, I think), and waiting for the corn to ripen so they'd have food to carry them back to nNEw York after they wiped out the village. Probably your relatives, Pat. You should be ashamed. George Rogers Clark was a frontire Revolutionary hero, for example. One of his great successes was at Vincennes, Indiana. This was also the locus of quite a bit to do with Techumseh, and was the home of WIlliam Henry Harrison.

As a boy I often looked with horrified fascination at a big tree in front of the oldest house in Terre Haute, because a baby's brains had been bashed out against in in some fight in the early 19th century.

[Pat Holscher]

My father is finishing a new histopry of Chicago, so I'll ask him. However, if memory serves, the statue is not really directly related to teh War of 1812. rather, it memorializes the Potawatomi Uprising of 1812. This was a very confused affair, with some indians defending their white friends (and relatives in many cases), and others trying to wipe them out. Ft. Dearborn was destroyed in the fighting.

Now, if I am right on that and again stretch the memory -- the controversial statue is of one indian defensively holding a white woman and fending off an attack by another. It is hirtorically correct, but the statue is both misinterpreted and disliked. Some, who don't kow the history of the uprising, think it indicates two warriors fighting over a white woman, which isn't true at all. Others, the professionally eternally offended crowd, dislike the portrayal of indian violence at all.

That is indeed the event the book discussed (apparently it's been written by a fellow who otherwise practices law in Chicago). His discussion of the book was very interesting.

He framed that event as being in the context of the War of 1812, and the book's title represents it as being on Illinois in the War of 1812. He only discussed this event, however, as he indicated it was the most significant event that occurred in Illinois during the war. That doesn't mean, of course, that it really is a War of 1812 event. From the way he described it, some Indians were basically allied to the English during the war, and used the opportunity of the war to stage a pretty significant uprising.

As for the offended, as far as I'm concerned they can go lump it. History is full of ambiguity, so if they can't accept that, there's always the Lifetime television network.

[Pat Holscher]

I did a little research -- the Potawatomi were allied in some sense with the British during the War of 1812, and werer also a part of Techumseh's alliance. The statue is of Black Partridge protecting a girl who later escaped by boat with his help. There are some good images of it on line. I remember it from my childhood.

Those who did not grow up in the Midwest may not know that there is a dense history of warfare there -- tribe vs tribe, tribes vs French and English -- the Americans, and even Revolutionary War actions on what was then the frontier. For the first sort of thing, there is Starved Rock State Park, Illinios, where a band of New York Iroquois calmly starved out a tribe that had taken refuge on a defensible rocky high point. The Iroquois did other depradations in the area. One case involved a war party settling in within striking range of a local village (illinopic of Fox, I think), and waiting for the corn to ripen so they'd have food to carry them back to nNEw York after they wiped out the village. Probably your relatives, Pat. You should be ashamed. George Rogers Clark was a frontire Revolutionary hero, for example. One of his great successes was at Vincennes, Indiana. This was also the locus of quite a bit to do with Techumseh, and was the home of WIlliam Henry Harrison.

As a boy I often looked with horrified fascination at a big tree in front of the oldest house in Terre Haute, because a baby's brains had been bashed out against in in some fight in the early 19th century.

Oops, my reply overlapped your addition. Thanks for the added information.

[Joseph Sullivan]

Yes, that is about right. They were allied, and it was as good a time as any for an uprising. Actually, that's about all the British could have asked anyway. However there is no doubt that it had more to do with local circumstances than with the alliance.

[Pat Holscher]

The Iroquois did other depradations in the area. One case involved a war party settling in within striking range of a local village (illinois or Fox, I think), and waiting for the corn to ripen so they'd have food to carry them back to nNEw York after they wiped out the village. Probably your relatives, Pat. You should be ashamed.

Indeed. Almost certainly my relatives.

Well, again, so be it. I can no more take credit for the good things my ancestors did than be blamed for the bad ones. In the end, we all have saints and sinners in our family tree.

[Joseph Sullivan]

Hear, hear.

[Pat Holscher]

Hear, hear.

While straying off topic, this is something that always occurs to me when people start asking for reparations for distant misbehavior. At the end of the day, we're all descendants of the Romans and the Sabine women. If we're going to pay reparations, we're going to have to pay it to ourselves.

Probably the best we can do is take ourselves to lunch, apologize, and try not to be baddies ourselves.

[Joseph Sullivan]

Yes, quite true. Knowing as I do a great deal about hundreds of years of more of my family history on many lines, I have wryly noted that I spring from the warriors on both sides of most of the big fights in our culture. IN a way that is libreating. Knowing that mens that there is no misplaced duty of loyalty to a bad idea. If it is bad, regret that it existed and think sympathetically of your relatives who subscribed to it. Then consider yourself and your own flawed nature. None of us is all good or bad, all right or wrong. I descend from large slaveholders (and abo;otionists for that matter). Despite my deep horror of slavery and all that it entails, I realize that the individual slavehoilders were no more evil than anyone else.

[rayarthart]

The land grants were also issued for parts of Ohio after the War of 1812. My Great, Great, Great Grandfather was issued a land grant that was signed by President Jackson.

[Pat Holscher]

On the War of 1812, I note that today's history thread indicates that Zebulon Pike was killed today during the assault on Toronto.

That brings up a couple of interesting items. One is that even though the war broke out in 1812, it really took a long time for the big ground events to get rolling in North America in terms of the war.

Of course, in 1812-1813, the big action, from the British prospective, was Napoleon invading Russia. It's really odd to think that at the same time we were declaring war on England, the UK was at war with France, which was about to commit a titanic disaster in Russia.

Or, in other words, we a functioning somewhat radical democracy, were declaring war on the worlds oldest parliamentary democracy, which was fighting a revolutionary dictatorship claiming to act on behalf of liberal ideals, and which was about to commit a huge error in a true monarchy. So the democratic nations were at war with each other, and each allied to nations that were not democratic.

And, its also a little mind bending to realize how far some U.S. Army officers traveled in a day when transportation was very difficult. Pike's Peak is named after Zebulon Pike, who spotted it while checking out this region for the US. Only to have him ultimately go all the way to Toronto in later years and get killed.

[Trooper]

http://military-historians.org/company/ ... read/12891

[Pat Holscher]

http://military-historians.org/company/amtest/CMHForum/CMH.cgi/read/12891

That link isn't working for me, but it's to a CMH site, and the most recent issue of the Company of Military Historian's journal has several items that relate to the War of 1812.

[Trooper]

Strange... it works for me!

[Pat Holscher]

Strange... it works for me!

What happens with it is that it brings up a "Coookie" and requires you to log in with your CMH name and password.

So only the CMH members (and I am one) can get access to it.

[Pat Holscher]

Strange... it works for me!

What happens with it is that it brings up a "Coookie" and requires you to log in with your CMH name and password.

So only the CMH members (and I am one) can get access to it. Problem is, at least for me, the CMH site tends to be a bit glitchy on passwords (or I've done something to mess up mine) so even I can log on their forum, but I can't log in through the cookie.

[wkambic]

Ditto.

[Pat Holscher]

Also, fwiw, the US didn't declare war until June 18, 1812. It was the closest vote for such a declaration in US history, and the first time the US had declared war (which of course we haven't done since 1941). No engagements of any kind were fought until July, 1812. So, in terms of significant anniversaries, there haven't been any to record as of yet.

That might be the reason for lack of notice, but we just haven't run up on anything yet. And of course the 150th anniversary of a lot of Civil War events is likely to overshadow the War of 1812 nationally.

Plus it was a mess - the British had already revoked the Orders in Council, which precipitated the fighting, before it actually began. The news just took a very long time to get there.

And ambiguous.

Our beef with the British about their impressing sailors was a real complaint, but in some ways it was a bit of an excuse for those who wanted a war, and some of the sailors the British were impressing were actually British subject who were on American ships for cloudy reasons.

Some sections of the US proved to be more sympathetic to the British than we would have cared to admit at the time. The British didn't always have a hard time finding local support.

However, British troops proved to be willing to drop out of formation and immigrate by desertion, just as Hessians had during the Revolution, which was embarrassing for an Army that had proven it could give Napoleon a pounding.

We invaded Canada again, only to find that they still hadn't changed their minds about signing up with us.

The net result of the war was basically an agreement to stop it, which isn't emotionally satisfying.

About the only ones who really remember the war are the Canadians, who figure they won it, with some justification. Canadian militias saw a lot of action, and by and large were pretty successful.

All in all, the War of 1812 is one which not all that many Americans were that keen on getting into in the first place, and was fought over a cause which might not have really been all that clear. Being that type of war, it may have suffered from a very early Vietnam War Syndrome in which Americans basically would have rather forgotten about most of it, save for the Battle of New Orleans, which we do remember, except to the extent that the war was already over at the time it was fought and we just hadn't gotten the news. It was a real mess compared to the successful Revolution, many of whose veterans were still alive, and therefore suffered, like Vietnam, from being deep in the shadows of a monolithic earlier war. It wouldn't surprise me if War of 1812 veterans suffered for years when they went down to the Bull and Tankard, or whatever, and ordered a beer only to be confronted with "why back in our day we pasted the Brits. . . .and we didn't have no fancy issue musket either, . . . why I had to fight at Lexington with a fouling piece. . . " Only the Canadians, who can claim to have successfully defeated a second major US attempt to invade, really recall the war, probably because they have the most to recall.

Not that it isn't worth recalling.

And, fwiw, the Pritzer Military Library has recently featured two brand new books on War of 1812 subjects. One on a big battle fought within what is now the boundaries of the City of Chicago (a real defeat for the US).

Even on that item, however, I'd note that apparently the City of Chicago once had a monument to an event in that battle, in which an Indian chief, allied with the British, saved the life of a female member of a soldiers family by holding her head under water, but the city now has it warehoused somewhere as being too controversial.

I've come back to this post as yesterday, while traveling around for work, I heard an interview of a British naval historian who repeated almost exactly my views. Obviously, British naval historians are reading our website, there's no other explanation.

Anyhow, it was a bit of a surreal experience, as the interview was supposed to be presenting the British view, but with some commentary on what it is supposed that the American view is. As noted, the British historian expressed almost exactly the view that I did above, which I don't think is that novel of a view. To the extent that his comments departed much, what he stated was that the issue of impressment was simply an excuse for the real war aim of annexing Canada. I think that undervalues that issue, and overvalues the goal of annexing Canada. What I do think is the case, however, is that Canada was thought of a nice desirable bonus that the war hawks very much hoped to pick up, which was tied, in part, to how some Americans conceived of ourselves (Continental radical democratic nation) and the British (those nasty imperialist).

What I did think was interesting about his analysis that I didn't previously know was that the New England states kept trading with the UK for most of the war and that the British occupied northern Maine, without any real complaint from the residents up there.

What I also thought interesting was his view that the British won the war, which isn't really far from what I stated. The British basically dictated terms to us, and we accepted them, with their terms being pretty generous really (the war would stop before we were really in trouble). But he added almost as a footnote that the war had the effect of confirming that the US would be a continental power, rather than an Atlantic maritime nation, which is a good point I had not previously considered.

Anyhow, I think all of this goes to why nobody is going to be celebrating any significant events of this war. The British weren't really being that nasty to us when we declared war, and it's sort of embarrassing to look back at it now. To the extent that a hope of the war is that we'd grab Canada and they'd like it, it's embarrassing as it doesn't really fit in with how we conceive of our national history. And we were a practical ally of one of history's big Megalomaniacs. For the British, the war was a sideshow to the main event, putting Napoleon in a bottle. The only ones who might be tempted to remember much would be the Canadians, who pretty much defended Canada alone, with militia, for four years until the British weren't taking on the French.

[Trooper]

http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/ind ... 446c155cd5

[JV Puleo]

A few points abut the War of 1812 from a New England perspective...
The war was extremely unpopular in the very place that the sailors who were being pressed came from. There is reasonable evidence to suggest that "free trade and sailor's rights" was the slogan of western expansionists. It never resonated in New England.
This extended to the point that it was commonplace along the northern NE coase, especially in what is now Maine, to deal directly with the British in selling provisions for their fleet... and they paid in gold. In august of 1813 Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy spent 3 days "bombarding" the town of Stonington, Connecticut. It was such a half hearted effort that all he was able to "hit" was a cow shed. I've been there. Stonington is where my NE ancestors lived for near 200 years. It would take careful effort to miss the town with heavy artillery. They must have really been working on it.

Near the end of the war the Hartford Convention was held... a meeting of the NE governors essentially to coordinate efforts to resist the war. It was even suggested by some that NE withdraw from the Union and re-join the empire. The was was also extremely unpopular in B'ham... a large number of B'ham merchants petitioned Parliament to withdraw the Orders in Council. I'd guess that they may actually have been withdrawn more because British merchants opposed them than because the Americans protested.