Episode 18 The War of 1812
The War of 1812 shaped Canadian and American national memory in sharply different ways.
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EP18 - The War of 1812
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Alan Taylor explains the conflict’s causes, its Indigenous alliances, the burning of Washington, the Battle of New Orleans, and why the war’s outcomes were far more complex than a simple win or loss.
The War of 1812 remains one of the least understood conflicts in North American history, remembered differently in Canada, the United States, and among the Indigenous nations whose futures were deeply affected by it. Alan Taylor, Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia, explains how British interference with American shipping, Native resistance to U.S. expansion, and the wider Napoleonic Wars pushed the United States into conflict with Britain.
The conversation explores Isaac Brock and Tecumseh, the surrender of Detroit, enslaved people who sought freedom with British forces, the burning of Washington, the Battle of New Orleans, and the lasting myths that shaped Canadian and American identity. The episode also looks at why Indigenous nations were among the clearest losers of the war and why the conflict’s legacy still influences how both countries remember themselves.
Guest
Alan Taylor, Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia
Episode Show Notes
- Why the War of 1812 is remembered differently in Canada and the United States
- Britain’s conflict with Napoleon and its impact on American shipping
- Impressment and British interference with neutral commerce
- Native nations, British alliances, and resistance to American expansion
- Isaac Brock, Tecumseh, and the early British initiative around the Great Lakes
- The American surrender at Detroit and William Hull’s court-martial
- The role of Indigenous nations in the defense of British North America
- The Creek War and Andrew Jackson’s campaigns in the Southeast
- The burning of Washington and myths about Canadian involvement
- Enslaved people who liberated themselves by joining or supporting British forces
- British resettlement of formerly enslaved people in Nova Scotia, Bermuda, and Trinidad
- The Treaty of Ghent and why the Battle of New Orleans still mattered
- The New Brunswick Regiment’s winter march and the border dispute around Maine and New Brunswick
- Alan Taylor’s books on the War of 1812 and North American history
Episode Timestamps
00:00 Introduction to Curious Pundits and the episode topic
00:40 Kevin introduces the War of 1812 and guest Alan Taylor
01:38 Alan Taylor gives an overview of the war’s causes and major events
06:13 Isaac Brock, Tecumseh, Fort Detroit, and early British strategy
11:22 William Hull’s surrender and concerns over his family’s safety
12:13 Indigenous alliances, Michigan, and the war’s consequences for Native peoples
14:01 Emanuel reflects on learning about the War of 1812 from a Canadian perspective
15:04 National memory, myth, and identity in Canada and the United States
18:28 Enslaved people, British promises of freedom, and the American Revolution context
21:01 Self-emancipation during the War of 1812 and British evacuation after the war
24:22 The Battle of New Orleans and why it mattered before ratification of peace
27:19 Russia’s czar as mediator in postwar disputes
28:13 Military outcomes and the national memory of the war
29:40 Canadian claims about burning the White House
30:20 The New Brunswick Regiment’s winter march and the border dispute
33:18 Emanuel reflects on taking notes and wanting to learn more
33:29 Alan Taylor introduces his background and books
35:22 Alan Taylor discusses his broader work on colonial and North American history
36:18 How to connect with Alan Taylor
37:43 Final reflections on Canada, sovereignty, and North American neighbors
38:28 Closing remarks
Episode Links
Episode Website: https://curiouspundits.com/podcast/ep18-war-of-1812
Curious Pundits Website: https://curiouspundits.com/
Why the toy soldier Prime Minister Carney showed today matters more than you think.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/z-kDrQpJa5E
The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies:
The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832:
Contact page for Professor Emeritus Alan Taylor:
https://history.virginia.edu/people/alan-taylor
About the Podcast
Hosted by Kevin Carney and Emanuel Petrescu, two curious minds exploring ideas, culture, and everything in between. Curious Pundits is a conversational podcast where each episode starts with a topic that caught our attention and unfolds into thoughtful, unscripted discussion. We follow curiosity wherever it leads, across disciplines, opinions, and perspectives, without pretending to have all the answers. Their main ventures are https://1307.digital/ (Emanuel) and https://organicgrowth.biz/ (Kevin).
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Entities mentioned in the episode:
People
Emanuel Petrescu
Kevin Carney
Alan Taylor
Isaac Brock
Tecumseh
William Hull
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
Napoleon Bonaparte
Andrew Jackson
Francis Scott Key
Czar of Russia
William Cooper
Thomas Jefferson
Places
Canada
United States
North America
Upper Canada
Ontario
Quebec
Montreal
St. Lawrence River Valley
Great Lakes
Europe
Russia
France
Britain
British Empire
United States
Canada
Detroit
Fort Detroit
Michilimackinac
New Orleans
Baltimore
Washington, DC
White House
Capitol Building
Maryland
Virginia
Chesapeake Bay
Georgia
Charleston, South Carolina
Savannah, Georgia
Nova Scotia
Bermuda
Trinidad
Company Towns
West Indies
Ghent
Belgium
English Channel
New Brunswick
Fredericton
Kingston, Ontario
Maine
St. John River Valley
Maritimes
Calgary
Halifax
Plymouth
University of Virginia
Organizations and groups
Curious Pundits Podcast
Curious Pundits
University of Virginia
British Navy
Royal Navy
American Navy
USS Constitution
Native Nations
American Indian nations
Indigenous peoples
Shawnee
Anishinaabe
Potawatomi
Sac
Fox
Creeks
Muskogean speakers
Colonial Marines
British forces
American forces
British troops
New Brunswick Regiment
Canada’s History magazine
Curiosity Stream
History Department at the University of Virginia
Events, wars, and battles
War of 1812
Napoleonic Wars
Napoleon’s invasion of Russia
British attack on Baltimore
Battle of New Orleans
British invasion of American territory
Burning of Washington
Attack on Baltimore
American Revolution
War of Independence
Battle of Yorktown
Creek War
Treaty of Ghent
Border dispute between Maine and New Brunswick
Current trade war
Books and publications
The Civil War of 1812
The Internal Enemy
Tower Hill, A Plantation on the Edge of Rebellion
William Cooper’s Town
Liberty Men and Great Proprietors
Thomas Jefferson’s Education
American Colonies
American Revolutions
American Republics
American Civil Wars
American Empires
Media and platforms
curiouspundits.com
Spotify
Apple Music
YouTube
Stitcher
Curiosity Stream
LinkedIn
Concepts and topics
Impressment
Neutral commerce
American expansion
British occupation of Canada
Indigenous resistance
National anthem
Star-Spangled Banner
Old Ironsides
Canadian sovereignty
National memory
National identity
David versus Goliath narrative
Enslavement
Self-emancipation
Loyalists
Refugee families
Slave society
Free Black communities
Serfdom
International mediation
Ratification
Merchant Marine
Border control
Historical research
Colonial history
Revolutionary America
North American history
Frontier experience
Slavery in Virginia
Transcript
[00:00:00] Emanuel: Hi everyone and welcome to yet another episode of the Curious Pundits Podcast. My name is Emanuel and I co-host this podcast alongside Kevin.
[00:00:10] Kevin: I’m Kevin.
[00:00:11] Emanuel: If you like what you’re seeing or hearing, you can go to curiouspundits.com. Over there you’ll find links to all the episodes, upcoming episodes, past episodes, and links to listen to our podcast on your platform of choice, be it Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, or Stitcher. I’m pretty sure we’re on all of them.
That being said, today is a very special episode where we have another guest. I’m gonna let Kevin make the introduction to today’s episode and of course, to our guest.
[00:00:40] Kevin: I am personally very curious about the war of 1812. It’s one of the least known wars to both Americans and Canadians. Now, for what it’s worth, I’m a dual national. I’m Canadian citizen and an American citizen, and it’s been my observation that Canadians and Americans have very different memories about the war of 1812.
We have with us a scholar who’s written two books on the topic, the first of which is called The Civil War of 1812. Our special guest is Professor Alan Taylor.
[00:01:10] Alan: Thank you for having me on.
[00:01:12] Emanuel: Welcome.
[00:01:12] Kevin: Yeah. Thank you for being here. I’d like to open with a very broad question. Since the war of 1812 is little known, I know it’s unfair to say can you give us the Cliff’s Notes version of a war that lasted three years, but can you give us the Cliff’s Notes version of a war that lasted three years?
What was it all about? How did it happen?
[00:01:38] Alan: I can do that. I should also say it’s probably better known in Canada, than it is in the United States. It matters more to Canadians than it does to Americans. Although Americans remember certain isolated episodes such as the origins of their national anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner, which came out of a British attack on Baltimore in 1814.
Or they remember the Battle of New Orleans where Andrew Jackson was elevated into great fame and eventually will go on to be an American president, largely because of that victory at New Orleans. Or they’ll remember the the exploits of the warship, the USS Constitution known as old ironsides.
So Americans have this very selective memory of the war. Canadians have a bit broader memory of the war, and let me just say a bit about how the war comes about.
The United States when we get into the first decade of the 19th century under the presidency, first of Thomas Jefferson, and then after 1809 under the presidency of James Madison, his good friend.
They’re alienated from the British Empire, which is messing around with American merchant shipping on the high seas. And why is Britain doing this? Because there is a war Britain is waging for the survival of its empire against the French, who were then ruled by a military dictator who had made himself emperor of the French, Napoleon Bonaparte. And so for the British, they feel they’ve got the world’s greatest empire overseas, and they have the world’s greatest Navy. And they feel like they can set the rules of neutral commerce. And so they didn’t want the Americans trading with the French and they would board American ships and sometimes confiscate them and in many times help themselves to the sailors on those ships, a process known as Impressment, and put them into the Royal Navy. So this is unacceptable to American political leaders and they’re also very upset because the British who were then occupying Canada, had a positive diplomatic relationship with American Indian nations living on both sides of the border. And they were providing weaponry to those native peoples who were using those weapons then to defend their homelands against the expansion by the United States who were bent on settling those Indian homelands.
So there are two sets of concerns that the Americans have against the British. One is that they’re supplying Native Nations who are resisting American expansion, and the second is that they’re interfering with American shipping on the high seas. And this leads the United States to declare war on Britain in June of 1812. This is a war in which the circumstances, the start of the wars seem to favor the United States because Britain was preoccupied with fighting Napoleon in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Napoleon is at the peak of his powers. This is just as Napoleon is launching his invasion of Russia. Nobody knows how that’s gonna play out, but Napoleon had a habit of winning almost all of his battles. So the United States looks like it’s got a prime opportunity because the American Navy is so much smaller than the British Navy.
The American strategy is to invade Canada in which it starts to do in 1812. And we’ll continue to do in 1813 and 1814. But when we get to 1814 Napoleon’s power has collapsed and Britain is in a prime position to extend the war by invading American territory, which they will do, and they will end up in August of 1814, occupying Washington, DC briefly, during which time the Capitol Building and the White House were both burned by British forces. Along with a few other public buildings.
Then there will be the attack on Baltimore in September of 1814, which the British are repelled. It is watching that British defeat that leads Francis Scott Key to write the Star-Spangled Banner, which will later become the American National anthem, but the British are also attacking at New Orleans.
And this is an attack that will culminate in January of 1815 with the American Victory led by Andrew Jackson. So in a nutshell, that’s the overview of the War of 1812.
[00:06:13] Kevin: For what it’s worth, most of what I know about the War of 1812 is from a four or five part documentary I watched on Curiosity Stream. So I want you to confirm or correct some things that I may or may not have right, that I find interesting. General Isaac Brock had been in Upper Canada for about 10 years and he spent the entire 10 years pretty much complaining about his posting. Then when the invasion happened, my understanding is that the Governor General who was in Quebec, recognized the fact that the Americans had more men, more weapons, and better weapons, and he basically issued an order saying, let’s just not irritate them too much. Like it’s probably not gonna go good for us, but let’s like try and, get through this as best we can. And apparently Brock just blatantly disregarded that order, like pretended he never got it, went on the offensive, and then after making an alliance with Tecumseh, who was the head of the Shawnee or one of the heads of the Shawnee, apparently there were two, they attacked Fort Detroit in a massive bluff.
And General Hull, the American General Hull in Fort Detroit surrendered immediately and then was later court martialed for cowardice as a result. How much of that understanding is in fact what happened?
[00:07:41] Alan: There’s a lot there. So let me start. The Americans didn’t have a better military and they didn’t have better weapons. What they did have was much larger population. So there was the potential for them to raise a significant army to invade Canada. And the Governor General, who’s a man named Prevo was a very conventional military thinker who thought, okay, the best thing to do is to just hunker down and to defend Montreal and Quebec.
Now meanwhile Brock had become the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, which is now the province of Ontario. And so he’s responsible for areas that are upstream from the St. Lawrence River Valley around the Great Lakes. And Brock is an ambitious man. He’s a very able military commander and part of the reason why he’d been frustrated by being in Upper Canada is that the real action in the war is happening in Europe, and he’s been sidelined.
But it turns out, he’s a very competent officer, a very aggressive officer, and he sees an opportunity, he sees that in fact the American forces around the Great Lakes are poorly organized, poorly disciplined, and poorly led. So he strikes first at a place called Michilimackinac.
In which he encourages a force under his overall command, he’s not in personal command there, to seize this fort. And this is actually very pivotal because this impresses the native peoples around the Great Lakes that the British are not gonna be on the defensive, that they’re gonna seize the initiative. And that’s what they were looking for. They were looking for that the British are not going to just withdraw within their own garrisons, but they’re gonna authorize forces to take the war to the Americans.
And so they rally in large numbers. Now, one of the leaders is Tecumseh, who happens to be Shawnee, but he’s actually representing a multinational native American force. Most of the people fighting who are Native Americans in this area are not themselves Shawnee, but they come from a variety of people, including Anishinaabe and the Potawatomi and the Sac and the Fox.
So there are a lot of Native peoples and Tecumseh is an inspirational, charismatic leader, and he develops a real partnership with Brock. And so target number two after Michilimackinac is Detroit. And Detroit has a more significant American garrison, but it’s under an elderly and cowardly commander, a guy named William Hull.
And basically, if Hull had just hung in there in a resourceful way, the American forces to the East would’ve been able to send support for him. But Hull quickly surrenders, and why does he quickly surrender? Because he’s terrified that native Americans will capture the fort and massacre is imminent.
And this is something that Tecumseh and Brock play up in a kind of very theatrical way that this is a real danger and Hull just folds. So this war in which the United States should have had the initiative because they’ve declared the war, in fact, they lose the initiative pretty quickly and they lose the initiative primarily because of the resourceful leadership of Brock and Tecumseh.
[00:11:16] Kevin: Would you mind if I occasionally interrupted with specific clarifications while you’re speaking?
[00:11:21] Alan: I don’t mind.
[00:11:22] Kevin: It’s my understanding that not only was General Hull concerned about his men, but his wife and daughter were in the fort at the time and he…
[00:11:32] Alan: So he is concerned about his family’s safety.
[00:11:34] Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. I can understand his motivation, but I can also understand him being court-martialed for cowardice.
Like both perspectives seem, I’m not… I was tempted to say reasonable, but like I get it on both sides.
[00:11:47] Alan: If you’re a military commander, you shouldn’t bring your wife and family into harm’s way. And then the second thing is, your primary responsibility is not to your family. If it’s your primary responsibility to your family you should go back to civilian life.
[00:12:06] Kevin: Oh, agreed. Yeah. I have no problem with that, but.
[00:12:08] Alan: Your responsibility is to the command that he’s been entrusted with.
[00:12:13] Kevin: Yes I totally get that. But by the same token, I’m sympathetic to his fears that his wife and daughter would die and him folding immediately. So I’m gathering that the British offensive was important to the indigenous people because it gave them hope of holding the Americans back in terms of their expansion.
And it’s also my understanding that the indigenous peoples were promised Michigan when the war was over. So even though from the perspective of the United States and Canada, people generally tend to describe it as a draw, it does look as if the people who lost are the aboriginals or the indigenous people.
Is that a fair assessment?
[00:13:01] Alan: Yes. And it’s not just around the Great Lakes because the war expands into the Southeast. Native peoples who are Muskogean speakers. Who known to the Americans as the Creeks became British allies, and they’re also hoping in the southeast of the United States to roll back the American settlements that had intruded into their homelands.
And Andrew Jackson in 1813 devastates and destroys the most significant of the Creek settlements. So Americans and Canadians can disagree over who won the war of 1812. But as you pointed out, what’s quite clear is that the native peoples, who were essential to the defense strategy of the British Empire in North America, those native peoples ended up losing.
And after the war of 1812, there’s nothing that can stop the expansion of the United States westward.
[00:14:01] Emanuel: I’m gonna come here and make an intervention. Usually I’m the oblivious European because I came to North America late and we weren’t taught that much close to at all about what was going on. We knew about Napoleon having… wars with the British overseas, including North America, but by no means… good thing is that I’m a Canadian citizen and I had to give a test, and this is covered by, this is covered and there’s a few, actually one or two or three questions, close to three questions, I suspect based on this war.
And it also help with my subscription to Canada’s History. I’m not completely oblivious, but I would ask a question here and there that might sound like, basically… how we say it in Europe, that would make me sound like I’m the American here.
[00:15:04] Alan: Okay.
[00:15:04] Kevin: Just someone who knows a little bit, but not a lot. The reality is, Emanuel, I know a little more than you, but I don’t know a lot, which is why this topic is so interesting to me. This is an opportunity to learn. I am interested in what I’m gonna call the national myth of the memory of the war. That’s very different in the two countries.
And I’m curious in the ways that the subsequent… I’m looking for a better word than mythology, but I can’t find one. But the subsequent mythologies about the war have been serving, if you will, in the Canadian society and culture, in the American society and culture. I totally get… the national anthem coming from the Battle of Baltimore is a big deal to Americans.
I totally get that. But just on a broader scope, like how did the memories of the war shape subsequent national identities of the two countries?
[00:16:02] Alan: The war of 1812 is, I think, pivotal to both nations and how they have come to think about their national traditions. For the Americans and for the Canadians, they each tell a David versus Goliath story. The Americans believe that they’re David and that they’re fighting this powerful British empire and that it was just a war of the Americans against the British. Canadians think they’re David and they’re fighting against the mighty United States. Now that’s a story that of course is informed by hindsight because in the 20th century, the United States becomes the dominant superpower in the world and Canadians are trying to preserve their own sovereignty and so they live right next door to a very powerful country.
And that very much frames how they think about their own national heritage and that their survival back in 1812 was very much defeating a much more powerful adversary who was bent on invading and conquering them. And so there’s a great deal of pride that Canadians have expressed about defeating the American invasions of Canada, especially in 1812 and 1813. Now for Americans they have a selective memory of the war too, and they don’t think much about the invasion of Canada. That’s just outta sight, outta mind. And instead they focus on the British invasions of the United States. It happened in 1814 and early 1815 in which the Americans managed to hold their own.
[00:17:32] Kevin: But then they just leave out the fact that those invasions were a reaction, not an action.
[00:17:39] Alan: Yes, they do.
[00:17:40] Kevin: Yeah.
[00:17:41] Alan: Just as Canadians tend to leave out they, they wanna have this memory that the Canadians went and burned the White House in Capitol.
[00:17:49] Kevin: Yeah.
[00:17:51] Alan: In fact there we, we don’t know for certain there were any Canadians there, but we do know there were a lot of British troops who were freshly arrived from Europe or were there and there were also some escaped enslaved people from Maryland and Virginia had been organized as the Colonial Marines and they were very active in burning those buildings. So the war is a very complex one involving many different people of different races, different ethnicities, and each national tradition selectively remembers those things that best favor their preferred story.
[00:18:28] Kevin: I wanna ask about the enslaved people who fought. So I know that during the War of Independence, there were enslaved people who fought on the side of the British. The reward being that they were gonna get their freedom. And I know that after the Battle of Yorktown when they were negotiating the settlement there was this agreement that all prop… the British had occupied New York for a few years and there was this agreement that all property would be returned and the British just decided to pretend that enslaved people we’re not classified as property in the eyes of the American or just… it was like… there’s a term I’ve heard called malicious compliance. So they complied with the rule, but they put 3000 enslaved people on ships and sailed them to Nova Scotia and then said, oh, you meant them too. That kind of a deal.
So in the war of 1812…
[00:19:29] Alan: Can I just intervene and just let me deal with this preamble so that we are in agreement about what we’re saying. The 3000 people put on the ship from New York City were in the opinion British officers and of those formally enslaved people, they were not enslaved people. They were free people.
They’d been freed by running away to the British and assisting the British in the war, and the British had made promises to them. And this is not unprecedented. Various European empires had done this in their wars with one another in the West Indies that when enslaved people would run away from the other side, you’d free them and you’d provide for them after the war.
And that’s what the British are doing. So the disagreement is the Americans say they’re still property, and the British say they stopped being property the moment they ran away to us. They, and it’s not just the 3000 people in New York City because there were also formerly enslaved people who’d run away to the British at Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia.
And they also received their freedom. Now they had to have been formally in the possession of people who had been the revolutionaries. So the American Revolution – Civil War. And there were many loyalists who had enslaved people. And so enslaved people tried to run away from loyalists. They were returned to the loyalists.
So it’s a complicated situation. So that’s the backstory of the revolution, right? So now you have a question about the war of 1812.
[00:21:01] Kevin: I was just wondering if it was a similar dynamic. People ran away, joined the British forces, and I’m gonna correct my prior comment… By virtue of doing so, became free. Then when the war ended, did they leave with the British?
[00:21:17] Alan: During the war of 1812, there are several thousand enslaved people who liberate themselves by running away to the British. They’re men, women, and children. And many of the men assist the British militarily. Some of the women are also important supports to the British in their operations around the Chesapeake, and then later on the shores of Georgia.
When the war ends, the British take the same position. That when enslaved people emancipate themselves by running away to the British at the encouragement of the British that they have become free. Now, the Americans again argue against that and say that this is property and should be restored to us.
Ultimately after the war there is an international mediation of this question in which the Czar of Russia serves as the mediator, and he actually rules for the Americans. Now the Czar of Russia is not a great believer in emancipating people. His population includes a lot of serfs. So this is a mediation which favors the Americans but the British are not about to return these former enslaved people.
Instead, they agree to pay a financial compensation to the Americans for the enslaved people… formerly enslaved people who had been liberated by the British.
[00:22:33] Kevin: So these people stayed in the United States, but they were now free.
[00:22:38] Alan: No, not in the United States. They are evacuated with British forces at the end of the war of 1812, they go to Nova Scotia, or they go some to Bermuda and a very large number go to Trinidad.
[00:22:51] Kevin: But the British empire hadn’t yet abolished slavery. These were just free people within a slave society. Is that correct?
[00:23:00] Alan: Trinidad could be described as a slave society. Nova Scotia could not be described as a slave society. Nova Scotia had emancipated slavery previously during the end of the 18th century. So the British Empire is a very complex, diverse place, and in Trinidad where they’re settled in a district called The Company Towns.
They’re are free people and now many of the West Indies would have a mixture of enslaved people and free people in which the enslaved people are the most numerous. And the free blacks in these societies are expected to help the British patrol the slave system. That’s what happens in the company towns.
The, former American slaves are expected to be military support for enforcing the slave system in Trinidad.
[00:23:55] Kevin: Wow … talk about a weird situation to find yourself in.
[00:24:01] Alan: Yes, indeed.
[00:24:02] Kevin: Yeah. I’ve actually exhausted… you’ve answered some of the questions that I put together even before I asked them, so I’ve actually run through the complete list of questions. Is there anything that people should know about the war of 1812 that people don’t generally ask about and that I didn’t ask about?
[00:24:22] Alan: One thing that you, had brought up before is just the significance of the battle in New Orleans
[00:24:28] Kevin: Oh Yeah. That’s…
[00:24:30] Alan: Which happens.
[00:24:31] Kevin: psyche and Canadians are like, what’s the big deal? The war was over, except as you pointed out to me, it wasn’t quite.
[00:24:38] Alan: It’s a very big deal. And let me just try to explain why. The kind of trivialization of it often will emphasize that it’s fought, allegedly after the war was over, which is just a myth. There had been a peace treaty that had been negotiated in December of 1814. But no peace treaty is binding until it’s ratified by both parties.
The British rather quickly ratified because the negotiations had happened just the other side of the English Channel in Gant, which is now in Belgium. And so Britain is eager to get out of this war and they ratify it. But the United States does not learn of this peace treaty because they have to wait till a ship brings them the news.
They don’t learn of it until early February. ’cause the winter is the worst time for a ship to cross the Atlantic. The battle in New Orleans is held in this limbo period where the war’s not over. And per the terms of the treaty, there’s an understanding and it’s an understanding that goes back to previous treaties of previous wars, that when there are forces that are far away and it’s impossible to alert them, there’s a rolling schedule of when the war ends. There is still a naval battle that has fought well after the Treaty of Ghent has provisionally agreed to but before it’s ratified. So when Andrew Jackson wins this battle, it’s very significant. The war still going on. Let’s imagine that Jackson had lost and the British had swept in and taken New Orleans.
There’s no obligation on the British to give it back to the United States if they decided that it was their interest to hang onto it. And if they’d hung onto it, that gives them control of the entire Mississippi River watershed. And that the United States wins this very one-sided victory in which there are enormous British casualties and very few casualties on the American side has an enduring impact on British policy toward the United States.
Thereafter the British policy is we are never again gonna be involved in a land invasion of the United States. Now, there are later tensions between the British Empire and the United States, but British strategic thinking, as always… we may attack particular coastal places, we’ll try to use our naval domination to destroy the American Merchant Marine, but we’re never again gonna try to get involved in a major way in a land war in North America.
And that’s of enduring importance.
[00:27:19] Kevin: How did the Russian Czar become the mediator? It seems like such an arbitrary choice.
[00:27:27] Alan: It’s not arbitrary. The United States and the British had to agree on who the international arbitrator should be. They thought that the Czar of Russia would be reasonably neutral, and that’s why they chose it.
[00:27:44] Kevin: Just check my questions and see if there’s anything that we didn’t cover. This was covered, but it’s a, broad question and I’m actually interested in what you have to say. Was the real outcome of the war, less about who won militarily and more about which national memory lasted. I get the impression the answer is yes, but there’s more to it than just a simply yes.
[00:28:13] Alan: It matters that the Americans failed in their invasions of Canada. And it matters especially to Canadians. And so the military results of that theater of the war are highly relevant to the national memory that Canadians have of the war. And I have done a lot of research as a historian in Canadian archives, and so I made a lot of trips into Canada when I was writing these, those two books that I ended up writing about the war of 1812.
Each time that I would come through passport control and I would be asked by a Canadian officer why I was in Canada, I would say historical research, then this officer would wanna know what I was researching. And it would always be my mistake that I would say the war of 1812, because then I would have to hear from the border officer that he wanted me to know that Canadians had won the war and that they’d burn the White House.
It’s never polite to contradict a border control person, so I would always have to say yes, I have heard that before, very much. And so I would never get these questions when I came back into the United States. There’s just less of an interest in the war of 1812.
[00:29:40] Kevin: For what it’s worth, the belief amongst Canadians that Canada burned down the White House is incredibly widespread and back when the current trade war started and Canada and the United States are like trading barbs on social media, I was shocked how many Canadians claimed that we’ve done it once and we can do it again, when in fact, as you pointed out, there were probably zero Canadians involved.
The guys who burned down the White House sailed over from Plymouth.
[00:30:07] Alan: Somebody could come up with the fact that some Canadians had enlisted in a regular British regiment and they were there, but there were no specifically Canadian units in the burning of the White House and the capital.
[00:30:20] Kevin: There is actually one incident in the war of 1812 that impressed me like no other, and I’m surprised that I forgot to mention it up till now, but it was the march of what was informally called the New Brunswick Regiment. Their name was really something else, and they marched from, I wanna say Fredericton, New Brunswick to Kingston, Ontario.
I could have those like start and end points wrong, but New Brunswick to Ontario, starting in mid-February, average temperatures of minus 20, marching in snowshoes, dragging their supplies behind them by toboggan and it was like 1100 kilometers, which is, I don’t know, 700 miles. I’m just like staggered by the effort required.
I do not know if they arrived in time to take part in the fighting, if their mere presence was… not their mere presence, but the fact that they were on their way raised fear in the minds of anybody, but just the sheer fortitude of making that march. It just… wow… it blows my mind just thinking about it right now.
[00:31:32] Alan: The most significant sector of that particular march is across what is… was a border zone between Maine and New Brunswick.
[00:31:43] Kevin: Oh, so they actually marched across Maine? You would want to ’cause it would save time.
[00:31:50] Alan: Let me just explain here. Nobody knew where the border really was at that time. And so the United States said, that’s actually belongs to us because they thought the border went quite close to the St. Lawrence River. The British thought that the border was much further south than that, than the entire St. John River Valley Watershed belonged to the British Empire. That’s in dispute. Now what this march does is it shows that it is possible to shift troops from the Maritimes over to Quebec. And that the British are persuaded that this is a very important thing that they need to retain. So in this border dispute that continues long after the war of 1812, the British will insist that they need to have this route via the St. John Valley. Ultimately there is a compromise in the 1830s, which will define the border and enable the British to retain just enough of that watershed that they do have this corridor for shifting troops in the future.
[00:32:53] Kevin: They still have to go quite a ways North. I once drove from Halifax to Calgary, so I know that little bit around Maine you take a bit of a northerly detour to avoid going into Maine.
[00:33:05] Alan: They’re splitting the difference there.
[00:33:07] Kevin: Oh.
[00:33:07] Alan: The British get about 50% of the disputed area and the United States gets 50% of it.
[00:33:13] Kevin: That’s interesting. I had never heard that detail of that story before.
[00:33:18] Emanuel: I certainly took a lot of notes. You see me writing here, so I’m gonna come back to this episode and I’m gonna research more because now it sparked interest in me as well.
[00:33:29] Alan: Good.
[00:33:29] Emanuel: Perhaps we should have started with this, but hey, it’s never late. Professor Taylor, who you are and what do you do? We… actually didn’t give some.
[00:33:40] Kevin: My bad. I’m sorry.. Yes.
[00:33:41] Alan: I am a professor emeritus, meaning I’ve retired from the University of Virginia, and I continue to write books about the history of the United States and Canada.
I’ve published about 11 books. Not all of them are relevant. The two books that are most relevant have been mentioned before. One is the Civil War of 1812 which I published early in the 2010s, and then I subsequently published a few years later The Internal Enemy.
The Civil War of 1812 is about the border between the United States and Canada that runs through the Great Lakes and the mixed allegiances of people, native, immigrant, and settler.
In that zone and what happens to them when war comes into their world. So that’s the Civil War of 1812. The other book’s the Internal Enemy… and this is what happens when war comes into Chesapeake Bay. And there are British warships and enslaved people who wanna be free. And they will escape and force themselves onto the British and forced British policy to shift this again, war of 1812, not the revolution.
And the British policy then becomes to welcome refugee families who are fleeing from slavery. And to do this to strike a blow at the economy of that region of the United States, and also to assert their own moral superiority as the British saw it, as land of true freedom over the United States where people made a great profession of freedom, but in fact, we’re also preserving slavery for people of African descent.
[00:35:22] Kevin: I was just scanning the various books you wrote on my other monitor, and you’ve written a lot about colonial and Revolutionary America.
[00:35:30] Emanuel: That was my next question. What were the other books, other topics?
[00:35:34] Alan: I’ve written books about the frontier experience of Americans and the William Cooper’s Town. And then also in Liberty Men and the Great Proprietors. Then I have written a set of books which look at slavery in Virginia in greater detail, so Thomas Jefferson’s education. And a new book that I’ll have coming out in the fall called Tower Hill, A Plantation on the Edge of Rebellion.
I’ve also written books which are about North American history. So American colonies, American revolutions, American Republics, American Civil Wars, and then I hope someday to write a book that’s about the end of the 19th century, start of the 20th century called American Empires.
[00:36:18] Emanuel: Looking forward to them. If anyone wants to connect with you, reach out to you. Do you have a website or LinkedIn or what’s the best way for people to.
[00:36:28] Alan: I don’t have LinkedIn and I don’t have a website. They can always reach out to me through email at the history department at the University of Virginia.
[00:36:37] Emanuel: We’ll make sure we drop a link there and if everybody has any comments, usually I like it when history… Canada’s History magazine, there’s always people writing back and addressing certain issues, some details.
So if anybody has any comments, we’ll point them. They can also reach out to us at curiouspundits.com and we’ll make sure we’ll pass along the message and hope we have a chance to discuss this topic and other North American history topics as well. Because I’m still learning. I’m fairly new to… fairly new… I’m not new or young anymore, but my foundation was built on something else, so I’m consolidating my knowledge that lacks in North America.
[00:37:32] Alan: That being said, I don’t have any more comments.
Kevin, if you have any.
[00:37:37] Kevin: No, I’m good. This was a very interesting episode and I really appreciate you taking the time to join us.
[00:37:43] Emanuel: I like to ask our professor for the final word, and if there’s anything else that you’d like our audience, the people who are listening to remember about today’s topic.
[00:37:56] Alan: I would just say that the great majority of Americans that I know very much respect the sovereignty of Canada and welcome them as our neighbors.
[00:38:05] Emanuel: Thank you for that. We appreciate it. And we’re recording this late April, 2026. Just to give some context for posterity. A hundred years from now, people will listen to our podcast episode and they’ll say, when was this recorded? April 2026.
Thank you so much for being here. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to do this some other time.
[00:38:26] Alan: Thank you very much.
[00:38:28] Emanuel: And until the next episode, my name is Emanuel.
[00:38:32] Kevin: My name is Kevin.
[00:38:33] Emanuel: Thank you for listening.