Canada

This campaign includes all operations in the Canadian-American border region except 
the battle of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane. The invasion and conquest of western Canada 
was a major objective of the United States in the War of 1812. Among the significant 
causes of the war were the continuing clash of British and American interests in the 
Northwest Territory and the desire of frontier expansionists to seize Canada as a 
bargaining chip while Great Britain was preoccupied with the Napoleonic Wars. In the 
first phase of the war along the border in 1812, the United States suffered a series of 
reverses. Fort Mackinac fell (6 August), Fort Dearborn was evacuated (15 August), and 
Fort Detroit surrendered without a fight (16 August). American attempts to invade Canada 
across the Niagara Peninsula (October) and toward Montreal (November) failed completely. 
Brig. Gen. William Henry Harrison's move to recapture Detroit was repulsed (January 
1813), but he checked British efforts to penetrate deeper into the region at the west end 
of Lake Erie, during the summer of 1813. Meanwhile, in April 1813, Maj. Gen. Henry 
Dearborn's expedition captured Fort Toronto and partially burned York, capital of Upper 
Canada. On 27 May, Brig. Gen. Jacob Brown repelled a British assault on Sackett's 
Harbor, New York. An American force led by Col. Winfield Scott seized Fort George and 
the town of Queenston across the Niagara (May-June 1813), but the British regained 
control of this area in December 1813. A two-pronged American drive on Montreal from 
Sackett's Harbor and Plattsburg, New York in the fall of 1813 ended in a complete fiasco. 
Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British fleet on Lake Erie (10 September 
1813), opening the way for Harrison's victory at the Thames River (5 October), which 
reestablished American control over the Detroit Area.


Chippewa

An American advance from Plattsburg in March 1814, led by Maj. Gen. James Wilkinson, 
was checked just beyond the border, but on 3 July 3,500 men under General Brown seized 
Fort Erie across the Niagara in a coordinated attack with Commodore Isaac Chauncey's 
fleet designed to wrest control of Lake Ontario from the British. In subsequent troop 
maneuvers in the Niagara region, Brig. Gen. Winfield Scott's brigade (1,300 men) of Brown's 
command was unexpectedly confronted by a large British force while preparing for an
Independence Day parade (5 July 1814) near the Chippewa River. Scott's well-trained troops 
broke the enemy line with a skillfully executed charge, sending the survivors into a hasty 
retreat. British losses were 137 killed and 304 wounded; American, 48 killed and 227 
wounded.


Lundy's Lane

After Chippewa Brown's force advanced to Queenstown, but soon abandoned a proposed 
attack on Forts George and Niagara when Chauncey's fleet failed to cooperate in the 
operation. Instead, on 24-25 July 1814, Brown moved back to the Chippewa preparatory 
to a cross-country march along Lundy's Lane to the west end of Lake Ontario. Unknown 
to Brown, the British had concentrated about 2,200 troops in the vicinity of Lundy's Lane 
and 1,500 more in Forts George and Niagara. On 25 July, Scott's brigade, moving again
 towards Queenstown in an effort to draw off a British detachment threatening Brown's line 
of communications on the American side of the Niagara, ran into the enemy contingents 
at the junction of Queenstown Road and Lundy's Lane. The ensuing battle, which eventually 
involved all of Brown's force (2,900 men) and some 3,000 British, was fiercely fought and 
neither side gained a clear cut victory. The Americans retired to the Chippewa unmolested, 
but the battle terminated Brown's invasion of Canada. Casualties were heavy on both sides, 
the British losing 878 and the Americans 854 in killed and wounded; both Brown and Scott 
were wounded and the British commander was wounded and captured. British siege of Fort 
Erie (2 August - 21 September 1814) failed to drive the Americans from that outpost on 
Canadian soil, but on 5 November they withdrew voluntarily. Commodore Thomas 
Macdonough's victory over the British fleet on Lake Champlain (11 September 1814) 
compelled Sir George Prevost, Governor General of Canada, to call off his attack on 
Plattsburg with 11,000 troops.


Bladensburg

After the surrender of Napoleon, the British dispatched Maj. Gen. Robert Ross from France 
on 27 June 1814, with 4,000 veterans to raid key points on the American coast. Ross 
landed at the mouth of the Patuxent River in Maryland with Washington as his objective on 
19 August and marched as far as Upper Marlboro, Maryland (22 August) without meeting 
resistance. Meanwhile, Brig. Gen. William Winder, in command of the Potomac District, 
had assembled a mixed force of about 5,000 men near Bladensburg, including militia, 
regulars, and some 400 sailors from Commodore Joshua Barney's gunboat flotilla, which 
had been destroyed to avoid capture by the British fleet. In spite of a considerable advantage 
in numbers and position, the Americans were easily routed by Ross' force. British losses 
were about 249 killed and wounded; the Americans lost about 100 killed and wounded, and 
100 captured. British detachments entered the city and burned the Capitol and other public 
buildings (24-25 August) in what was later announced as retaliation for the American 
destruction at York.


Fort McHenry

While the British marched on Washington, Baltimore had time to hastily strengthen its 
defenses. Maj. Gen. Samuel Smith had about 9,000 militia, including 1,000 in Fort 
McHenry guarding the harbor. On 12 September, the British landed at North Point about 
14 miles below the city, where their advance was momentarily checked by 3,200 Maryland 
Militiamen. Thirty-nine British (including General Ross) were killed and 251 wounded at a 
cost of 24 Americans killed, 139 wounded, and 50 taken prisoner. After their fleet failed to 
reduce Fort McHenry by bombardment and boat attack (night of 13-14 September), the 
British decided that a land attack on the rather formidable fortifications defending the city 
would be too costly and, on 14 October, sailed for Jamaica. Francis Scott Key, after 
observing the unsuccessful British bombardment of Fort McHenry, was inspired to compose 
the verses of "The Star Spangled Banner."


New Orleans

On 20 December 1814, a force of about 10,000 British troops, assembled in Jamaica, landed 
unopposed at the west end of Lake Borgne, some 15 miles from New Orleans, preparatory 
to an attempt to seize the city and secure control of the lower Mississippi Valley. Advanced 
elements pushed quickly toward the river, reaching Villere's Plantation on the left bank, 
10 miles below New Orleans, on 23 December. In a swift counter-action, Maj. Gen. Andrew
Jackson, American commander in the South, who had only arrived in the city on 1 December, 
made a night attack on the British (23-24 December) with some 20,000 men supported by fire 
from the gunboat Carolina. The British advance was checked, giving Jackson time to fall back 
to a dry canal about five miles south of New Orleans, where he built a breastworks about a 
mile long, with the right flank on the river and the left in a cypress swamp. A composite force 
of about 3,500 militia, regulars, sailors, and others manned the American main line, with 
another 1,000 in reserve. A smaller force—perhaps 1,000 militia—under Brig. Gen. David 
Morgan defended the right bank of the river. Maj. Gen. Sir Edward Pakenham, brother-in-law 
of the Duke of Wellington, arrived on 25 December to command the British operation. He 
entrenched his troops and, on 1 January 1815, fought an artillery duel in which the Americans 
outgunned the British artillerists. Finally, at dawn on 8 January, Pakenham attempted a 
frontal assault on Jackson's breastworks with 5,300 men, simultaneously sending a smaller 
force across the river to attack Morgan's defenses. The massed fires of Jackson's troops, 
protected by earthworks reinforced with cotton bales, wrought havoc among Pakenham's 
regulars as they advanced across the open ground in front of the American lines. In less than 
a half hour, the attack was repulsed. The British lost 291 killed, including Pakenham, 1,262 
wounded, and 48 prisoners; American losses on both sides of the river were only 13 killed, 
39 wounded, and 19 prisoners. The surviving British troops withdrew to Lake Borgne and 
reembarked on 27 January for Mobile, where, on 14 February, they learned that the Treaty of 
Ghent, ending the war, had been signed on 24 December 1814.










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