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Ohio by Sharon Myers William Wetmore Chapter Click Here Lake Erie, Battle of Lake Erie. Also referred to as Put-In-Bay Here http://www.eighteentwelve.ca/?q=eng/Topic/35
Trying to LinkARTICLE WAR OF 1812New London linked to opening salvosBy John Ruddy CLICK HERE For a copy of the article with picture Published 06/17/2012 12:00 AM
Updated 06/18/2012 12:40 PM
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
William John Huggins, a 19th-century marine painter from England, portrayed the opening engagement of the War of 1812 in "Escape of HMS 'Belvidera,' 23 June 1812." The Belvidera, a 36-gun frigate, left, is attacked by the 44-gun American frigate USS President, center, commanded by Commodore John Rodgers, who fired the first shot of the war. Mystic man's research shows British targeted ship that brought future whaling titan to city
Commodore John Rodgers wasted no time upon the outbreak of the War of 1812. Within minutes of receiving orders once war had been declared on Great Britain - 200 years ago this week - he put his five-ship squadron to sea. A fleet of British merchant vessels had sailed from Jamaica, and Rodgers meant to intercept them. But sailing from New York, the U.S. Navy ships first sighted another vessel: the 36-gun frigate HMS Belvidera. Rodgers' flagship, the USS President, gave chase and closed the distance till it was in firing range. Rodgers was aware no blood had yet been shed in the five-day-old war. So, sensing history, he manned the first gun himself, aimed at the Belvidera, and fired. That's the standard account of how the war began on June 23, 1812, and it's in all the history books. What has been less well-known is that this notable moment is tied directly to New London. A Mystic man whose hobby is researching history has spread the word about that link and deepened it. He says he has learned that the first shot of the war was tied to a seminal moment in New London's whaling history. Joseph Greene has been on an odyssey of discovery since the day in 1975 when he heard a chance remark that one of his ancestors may have had a connection to the famous pirate Jean Lafitte. Intrigued, he started looking for information and soon found himself hooked on delving into the past. "It's just been a treasure trove of information," he said. The North Haven native, 59, moved to this region in 1991 when he got a job as a respiratory therapist at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital. The hospital's name meant nothing to him until one day, when he was on Ocean Avenue, he noticed in amazement that a wing of the building was called the Nanine Lawrence Pond House. It is named for his great-grandmother. Her grandfather, Joseph Lawrence, the man for whom the hospital was named, was the ancestor Greene had been trying to link to Jean Lafitte. Lawrence was also the founder of a New London whaling empire. Newly aware of the connection between his family and his employer, Greene continued his research. In a 1910 story in The Day he found an account of Lawrence's arrival in New London. An Italian whose name was originally Giuseppe Lorenzo, Lawrence was a shadowy figure in his early years, and little information was available on him. According to the story, written by local historian R.B. Wall, he came to New London aboard a French privateer, the Marengo. The Marengo visited New London in April 1812 and stayed for more than two months, during which time Lawrence, who was ill, recuperated in town. Greene speculates that the Marengo had recently tangled with the British navy and ducked into New London to avoid capture, but he said it's only a theory. "Why she came to New London is, to me, the big question," he said. The Marengo, "a long thievish looking schooner" in the eyes of an observer, was still in New London in June when the U.S. declared war on Britain. At the time, the British had intelligence that the Marengo was lying in wait to seize a British merchant vessel, so a navy frigate was posted to intercept it when it left New London. That frigate was the Belvidera, which was soon attacked by Commodore Rodgers, launching the war. "This just amazed me," Greene said of learning about New London's connection to the fateful first shot. Historian Edgar Maclay compared the situation to a cat (the Belvidera) stalking a mouse (the Marengo) that was in search of a crumb of cheese. Then a dog (Rodgers) came along and chased off the cat. Three shots fired in quick succession from Rodgers' ship all struck the Belvidera, whose captain knew war with the U.S. was imminent but was unaware it had been declared. Fleeing northeast, he soon returned fire, and the battle was on. Rodgers had the Belvidera within his grasp, but 15 minutes into the fight, one of his guns exploded, killing or wounding 16 of the crew and hurling Rodgers into the air. He landed with a broken leg. The chaos allowed the Belvidera to escape, and it reached Halifax, Nova Scotia, with two dozen casualties and much damage. The Belvidera's captain, Richard Byron, noted in his report that he had been awaiting the Marengo's exit from New London and gave the position of his ship when he encountered the Americans. That raised another question that Greene has looked into: Where exactly did the battle take place? The answer seems to depend on the source. Greene said he entered the longitude and latitude given by Byron into an online map, and they put the Belvidera due east of Atlantic City, N.J., which didn't seem to make sense. Greene said he is suspicious of position reports from the era because he has plotted others that place ships on dry land. Theodore Roosevelt, in his celebrated book "The Naval War of 1812," places the Belvidera 100 miles south and 48 miles west of the Nantucket Shoals, heading northeast by east, 4½ hours before Rodgers opened fire. This puts the action well out in the Atlantic Ocean, as do most other accounts of the incident. But Greene found a 1979 book called "The Frigates" that has Rodgers' squadron 35 miles due east of New York when the Belvidera was spotted to the northeast. This puts the action more or less in local waters, which jibes with the Belvidera's mission, he said. Glenn Gordinier, the historian at Mystic Seaport and primary author of the just-released book "The Rockets' Red Glare: The War of 1812 and Connecticut," said he has reviewed Greene's research on the Marengo and is impressed. "I'm convinced enough that I've included it in the book," he said. Gordinier, who thanks Greene in a footnote, writes that "Connecticut played an important role" in the firing of the first shot. He places the engagement southeast of Nantucket but writes that the Belvidera was in southern New England waters in search of the Marengo, which had put ashore the ill Lawrence in New London. He also notes Lawrence's later importance to the local whaling industry. "So it's a very direct link, in my view," he said. Greene said he wanted the event recognized and claimed, in a sense, for the region, so he talked to the organizers of OpSail, which is marking the war's bicentennial. Plans were discussed to fire a cannon from Fort Trumbull in commemoration of the first shot, but nothing came of it. In the aftermath of the attack on the Belvidera, the Marengo left New London, free to pursue the British merchant vessel Lady Sherlock, which it captured soon afterward. New London, unaware of the sea battle till it was reported in the press, later became embroiled in the war when Commodore Stephen Decatur and his three-ship squadron were trapped in the Thames River by a British blockade that lasted the better part of two years. Decatur had commanded one of the ships in Rodgers' squadron when it attacked the Belvidera but played no part in the fight. Joseph Lawrence was in and out of New London for the next seven years until he settled here for good around 1819. Greene has yet to link him to Jean Lafitte. After whaling died out, Lawrence's son, Sebastian, spent much of the family fortune on public gifts to New London, most notably the hospital where Greene now works. Greene said he has begun to focus his research on a subject that has received little attention from scholars: the surprising degree to which French privateers like the Marengo were tolerated in U.S. waters in the years before the War of 1812. The privateers were welcomed into American ports even as they were plundering American shipping, said Greene, who has written a draft of an article he would like to have published in an academic journal. He was recently consulted about the discovery last year of a 200-year-old shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico. The well-preserved, copper-sheathed hull has not been identified, but one candidate is the Diligent, a French privateer that associated with the Marengo and figures in Greene's research. "The more you learn, the more you realize what you don't know," he said.
LINK HERE https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/brief-overview-war-1812
The Maryland Historical Society on Sunday opened “In Full Glory Reflected,” a major exhibit on the war, and on June 17, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will premiere “Overture for 2012” by Baltimore native Philip Glass, who composed it as a companion piece to Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” which will also be performed. But in New York, site of some of war’s most important fighting, funding for a state War of 1812 commission was blocked for three years before a token amount of money for bicentennial programs was allotted in March. Its anonymity is certainly no fault of the war itself, which has a gripping plot: Upstart nation with a tiny army and even smaller navy declares war on former colonial master, one of the most powerful nations on earth, and nearly gets blown off the map, but rallies in the end to squeak out a moral victory. The war, which was declared on June 18, 1812, featured some of the most dramatic episodes in the nation’s history. These are familiar to most Americans, but as floating moments in time, ones they often can’t quite place in the War of 1812: The dastardly British burning of Washington. Quite a few folks think that must have been during the Revolutionary War; never mind that the White House and the Capitol, not to mention Washington, did not exist. The USS Constitution’s great victories at sea. Nope, “Old Ironsides” did not fight during the Revolutionary War. Yep, War of 1812. Oliver Hazard Perry’s message after his signal victory on Lake Erie — “We have met the enemy and they are ours.” No, that wasn’t from a “Pogo” cartoon strip. Most at least know the Battle of New Orleans happened in the War of 1812, though almost all knowledge comes from Johnny Horton’s 1959 hit “Battle of New Orleans,” a song that manages to get almost every fact wrong. (“Colonel Jackson” and his men did not make a little trip “down the mighty Mississipp’ ” — Major Gen. Andrew Jackson and his army were in Alabama. Need we go on?) A popular theory as to the war’s anonymity is that no one can figure out why it was fought. The Revolutionary War was fought for American independence. The Civil War was fought to preserve the union and/or end slavery. World War I was fought to save Europe. World War II was fought to save the world. Vietnam was fought to stop the spread of communism.But the War of 1812? Well, it was fought to end the British practice of impressment. And to end onerous trade restrictions. You know, Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights. Or actually, it was about Western expansion — the first major war of American imperialism, as a (British) scholar recently called it. The dilemma was captured perfectly in a War of 1812 video last year from College Humor, in which an American officer struggles to explain to his wife what the war is all about. “It might have something to do with taxes,” he muses. The hardest point for many Americans to accept — and one reason the war is overlooked — is that the United States declared war. A lot of Americans assume Britain, still sore about losing the Revolutionary War, launched the war to reclaim its colonies. Consumed with its titanic struggle against Napoleon’s France, Britain had no interest in launching a new conflict on an enormous continent across the ocean. The British had a with-us-or-against-us mentality — not unlike that of the United States after Sept. 11, 2001 — and regularly trampled on American sovereignty. They seized American sailors of suspected British origin to man Royal Navy ships, and they severelyrestricted American trade. Bowing to this British behavior would leave Americans “not an independent people, but colonists and vassals,” President James Madison believed. The War Hawks — an aptly named band of members of Congress from the South and West— were eager to see North America cleared of the British, allowing unimpeded expansion to the west, and, some hoped, to the north. On some levels, historian Alan Taylor argues, the conflict is best seen as a civil war, completing unfinished business from the American Revolution. The Americans and the loyalists who had moved across the border had competing visions for the future of the North American continent, neither involving the other. The only thing greater than the confusion over what the war was about is the disagreement over who won. Canada would have the best claim, except that technically it did not yet exist — it was then British North America. But multiple American invasions of the colonies of Upper Canada (today Ontario) and Lower Canada (today Quebec) ended in failure.The successful defense set the stage for Canada’s future independence and nationhood. Among the calamities Canadians believe they thus avoided, named by 6 percent in the Ipsos Reid poll: Sharing American citizenship with Snooki and the cast of “Jersey Shore. The British preserved their position in North America, but the war was hardly an unqualified success. Waging the war proved enormously expensive, the Royal Navy suffered shocking defeats at the hands of the fledgling U.S. Navy, and the British army met with disaster at New Orleans.As for Americans, they endured humiliating defeats on the Canadian frontier, the disgraceful loss of Washington and a government that was bankrupt by the war’s end (having refused to raise taxes to pay for it — another precedent!). Yet a string of victories at the end of the war — including at Baltimore and Plattsburgh — allowed the United States to emerge from peace negotiations in Ghent with decent terms. The Americans may have lost militarily, Hickey has observed, but they won the peace. The only point virtually all scholars agree on— as required by guild regulations governing the assessment of American wars — is that Native Americans were the big losers. British efforts to establish an Indian buffer state in the Old Northwest were abandoned at Ghent, and America’s westward expansion continued inexorably. Some argue that Americans want to remember only victories, and that therefore they have forgotten the War of 1812, which ended in failure. Or as a draw. Or with no clear-cut victory. But it was certainly more of a success than Vietnam, and no one has a problem remembering that war. A bigger factor may be the name. The War of 1812 is a singularly poor name for a war that lasted nearly three years. The Spanish-American war, everybody knows the contestants. The Barbary Wars are nothing if not atmospheric. But the War of 1812? It has a clerical feel, something to be filed after the Enabling Act of 1802 but before the Panic of 1819.Despite such challenges, there are signs of hope for the War of 1812 in the Ipsos Reid poll: 77 percent of Americans believe it had a significant impact on the nation’s identity. Certainly, Americans of the day believed that. “The war has renewed and reinstated the national feelings and character which the Revolution had given, and which were daily lessening,” said Albert Gallatin, the former treasury secretary who helped negotiate the treaty. The people, Gallatin added, “are moreAmerican; they feel and act more as a nation; and I hope that the permanency of the Union is thereby better secured.” The war left America with its national anthem, and its most enduring icon, the Star-Spangled Banner. It firmly established the sovereignty of the United States and cleared the path for Canada’s eventual independence. For those reasons and many others not involving Snooki, the War of 1812 deserves to be better remembered and better respected.
Steve Vogel is the author of “Through The Perilous Fight,” an account of the British invasion of the Chesapeake in 1814, to be published next spring by Random House. COMMENTARY- BLOGS here is a good argument that the "dastardly British burning of Washington" was due to bad karma. Early in the war when American troops captured York (now Toronto), they put part of the town to the torch (possibly in revenge for the death of commander Zebulon Pike of Pike's Peak fame). Later in the war, US forces captured Newark (now called Niagara-On-The-Lake) on the Canadian side. Unable to maintain the foothold it was decided to withdraw back to the American side of the river in December 1813, but not before burning the town while leaving the British fort intact. British/Canadian troops then raided the New York side of the river and burnt American homes in retaliation. As in modern times, war always seems to degenerate into dumb pointless acts.
  The biggest take-away of the War of 1812 is this. If you want to learn how not to wage a war properly, study this one carefully. The leadership on both sides was, with a few brilliant exceptions, for the most part catastrophic. Old, sick politically appointed men who could not or would not lead their men. Many militias marched proudly up to the Canadian border...and stopped. They did not have the mandate to fight on foreign soil.
This is the war that established the real independence of the United States and set the country on the road to becoming a genuine world power. Arguably one the most important of our conflicts, certainly more so than Viet Nam and a number of others. War of 1812 Remembrance Day WHEREAS, the Bicentennial of the War of 1812 sometimes referred to as “The Whereas the sacrifices by those soldiers, citizens and their families that fought in the War of 1812, further defended the liberties previously won in the American Revolution; and Whereas those sacrifices would include heroic efforts by Dolly Madison to save some of our National treasures from destruction during the burning of the White House by the British in 1814; and Whereas the conflict and bravery shown would inspire Francis Scott Key to write a poem describing the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor and the said writings would become our country’s National Anthem, known as the Star Spangled Banner; and Whereas General Andrew Jackson helped win a stunning victory over the British in the Battle of New Orleans on 08 January 1815; and Whereas the War of 1812 further solidified the United States independence from WHEREAS, descendents of some of the veterans of the war of 1812 in the state of ______are members of the U,S, Daughters of the War of 1812 and the General Society of the War of 1812; whose primary purpose is to promote a more general awareness of the history of said war throughout this state and among the citizens this nation: Now, Therefore I , Mayor of , I_______ do herby proclaim June 18th as “The War of 1812 Remembrance Day” and urge all citizens to become more knowledgeable of the role the War of 1812 played in the history of our great nation and citizens of the state of ________. by Sharon Myers Published: December 29, 2013
As we enter 2014, let us remember that this year marks yet another Bicentennial -- that being "The Star-Spangled Banner," our national anthem, which was written during the Battle of Fort McHenry in Baltimore by Francis Scott Key during the last year of the War of 1812. British troops had attacked Washington, D.C., setting fire to many important government buildings, including the White House and the U.S. Capital in late August 1814 and marched toward Baltimore, the third largest city in the U.S. and the center for shipping and boat building. If the British took Baltimore, they could destroy American ships and without ships, the U.S. would have little hope of winning the war. The British raided American farms and houses and broke into the home of Dr. William Beanes looking for food and drink and valuables. Beane and his friends were able to round up the thieves and place them under arrest. One soldier escaped and reached British General Robert Ross and told him what had happened. Ross sent the troops to arrest Dr. Beanes, who was then jailed in Ross's warship the Tonnant. Although Beanes was an American, his captors thought he was British, charged him with treason and threatened to hang him. Francis Scott Key, a well-respected lawyer, heard about his friend's capture and got permission from President Madison to negotiate with the British on Beane's behalf. Key arranged to have an American agent for prisoner exchange accompany him. They found and boarded the Tonnant. Key and Skinner pleaded their case to General Ross showing him letters from British soldiers who had been wounded and Dr. Beanes had treated the men with kindness. After conferring with the British, they relented but would not release the doctor or Key immediately because they had seen and heard too much of the preparations for the attack on Baltimore. They were placed under guard and were forced to wait out the battle behind the British fleet. On Sept. 13, 1814, the British attacked Baltimore's Fort McHenry. British warships continuously bombarded the fort for 25 hours. 1,500 shells were used. They ceased fire due to a lack of ammunition. Prior to this, Maj. George Armistead, Commander of Fort McHenry, asked seamstress Mary Pickersgill to create a flag to fly over Fort McHenry prior to the battle. This flag was to be so large that the British troops would easily identify Armistead's position from afar. Pickersgill spent six weeks making the 30- foot by 42-foot flag. Key watched the bombs bursting in air as the British attacked the fort throughout the night. Unknown to Key, the battle was actually going badly for the British. They had underestimated the American forces. American officers had sunk more than 20 ships in Baltimore Harbor before the battle which created an underwater wall that kept the British ships too far away to seriously damage the fort. The next morning by the dawn's early light Key saw the broad stripes and bright stars of the U.S. flag still waving in the distance over Fort McHenry, sending a big message: the United States had not surrendered. Key wrote a patriotic poem called "The Defense of Fort McHenry." True to their word, the British freed Key, Skinner and Beanes after the battle. Copies of Key's poem were given to soldiers and in November it was set to music by publisher Thomas Carr. The United States has used it as the national song since the 1880s. It was made the official national anthem by Congress in 1931 under President Herbert Hoover, replacing Hail Columbia. The flag remained in the possession of Major Armistead for some time. Pieces of it were given to the fort's soldiers or their wives. It is now 8 feet shorter than it was originally. It has been permanently housed at the Smithsonian since 1912 and has undergone multiple restoration efforts. The flag had 15 stripes, not 13. The stars are 2 feet by 2 feet tip to tip. The flag will not unfurl in winds less than 5 mph. At least 3 to 5 people are required to raise and lower the flag as it weighs 45 pounds. The Bicentennial of the War of 1812 has brought much enthusiasm and interest in this forgotten war and many researchers have delved deeper to discover answers to some of the controversies that have lived on through the past 200 years. One of these controversies that occurred right here in Summit County has been solved! I am speaking of the controversy of the three gunboats that were built here on the Cuyahoga River. We have discovered that they were, indeed, built here and ordered by the Army and not the Navy. They were used in the Battle of the Thames which was just a few weeks after the Battle of Lake Erie. They were indeed gunboats and not Schenectady boats as some have speculated. There is evidence that the Schenectady boats (flat boats similar to barges) were built in Cleveland and not Summit County. And yes, the Cuyahoga River was a navigable river and deemed so by the Federal Government during the early 1800s. Contact Sharon Myers, President, William Wetmore Chapter Daughters of 1812 Editor's note: Myers will present a program entitled "O Say Can You See? The National Anthem Bicentennial 2014" to the Tallmadge Historical Society Jan. 14 at 7 p.m. at the Olde Town Hall on Tallmadge Circle.
THE WAR OF 1812, A VERY COMPLICATED WAR. Dr.Linda Lee Williams Shabo…. Linda Shabo as the Public Relations Chairman National of the U.S. Daughters of 1812 maintains three web sites devoted to the War of 1812: www.alabamatrailswarof1812.com, http://www.daughterswar1812trails.com/ and www.war1812trails.com. Linda’s first became interested in the War of 1812 as a consequence her serving as Dr. Frank L. Owlsley’s research assistant. Owlsley’s Struggle for the Gulf Borderlands was published in 1981. This comprehensive history makes use of Spanish documents which were translated by Dr. Shabo-, Linda, and includes much material not considered by earlier historians. Text We are now celebrating the Bicentennial of the War of 1812. Exploring the War of 1812 is a complicated process full of contradictions. It was fought by Americans who war. Those who voted to declare war, the War Hawks, came from areas in the old Northwest (then Illinois ,Indiana, Ohio) and the old Southwest. It has to be concluded that land, more land was a major motivation for many of those who voted in favor of war, Indian lands and those of Canada. A critic who opposed declaring war on Great Britain questioned why his colleagues refused to declare war on France when France had seized twice as many American ships as the British had.
Jefferson reflected the majority opinion of the time when he pronounced that it would be easy to take Canada. All the American would have to do is “ march in.” Jefferson was quickly proven wrong. The only thing we accomplished by our attempts to invade Canada was we succeeded in uniting all of Canada including French Canadians, against us..
The real losers were the Indians. Most of the Creeks in Alabama turned a deaf ear to Tecumseh and listened, instead to Benjamin Hawkins who had encouraged them to be successful farmers.. Their becoming successful farmers, however, did not save the Indian villages or their land from the land hungry Americans who swarmed upon them and would remove them all from their land within two decades after the War of 1812 ended. The Battle of Horseshoe Bend was won by Cherokees who swam the Tallapoosa river and attacked the fortified Village of Tohepeka (Horseshoe Bend) from behind and the villagers of Lewiston, New York were saved by the “valiant” Tuscarora. And yes, seamen from New England and New York turned privateers would save American honor and that of their much maligned region by destroying British shipping on the high seas in much the same way Andrew Jackson would prove his own merit when he destroyed the British at New Orleans. Jackson’s many critics, among them two Tennessee governors and President Madison himself, had opposed Jackson’s being given any military command because he had no military experience and was known to be violent and extraordinarily hot tempered, something which had been demonstrated by his having fought many duels, many of these in defense of his wife Rachel’s honor. Rachel Jackson’s contemporaries appear to have sympathized with her husband Lewis Robards who was granted a divorce from Rachel on the grounds of adultery in 1793. Rachel, who had returned to Nashville from Natchez in 1790 with Jackson, was to live for more than four more decades in Nashville as a social outcast while her former husband went on to remarry and father ten children with a second wife. Rachel may have been pushed into loveless marriage by family members who clearly wanted her to marry Lewis Robards. Robards was wealthy and well able to help Rachel’s family. Rachel’s family at the time of her marriage to Robards consisted of a widowed mother who moved to Nashville to run a boarding house and sixteen Donelson siblings of varying ages. She and Jackson, having no children of their own, later adopted a nephew who was named for Andrew Jackson.
I, however, have chosen not to speculate about Rachel Jackson’s motives for marrying Robards. I have, instead, chosen here to tell you something about an American privateer, Captain David Porter, commander of the Essex who successfully attacked the British in South Pacific and a little more about Jackson the military commander and later president. Both of these men, Porter and Jackson, won out over opponents by refusing to conform with what was expected of them. The Massachusetts born Porter as commander of USS Essex (1799) achieved fame by capturing the first British warship of the conflict,HMS Alert August 13, 1812 as well as several merchantmen. Notably, Porter disobeyed orders when he took he crew around the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of South America to attack and capture British Jackson, however, disobeyed more orders. Jackson also defied the Governor Blount of Tennessee when he insisted upon executing six men who expected to return home to Tennessee from Mobile with their units after their three month terms of enlistment had expired. This action became part of a congressional investigation in 1828, which was later abandoned after Jackson was elected president later the same year. Jackson’s action with regard to the executed six men served as a example to the rest of the militia units who had expected to return home at the end of their three month enlistments. Jackson’s decision to execute the six was clearly dictated by expediency. Jackson realized that three month enlistments would prove fatal for a commander who needed to have an army in the field. The length of enlistments was later extended to six months and in actual practice Jackson prevented many militia under his command from returning home by insisting their service did not begin when they were conscripted at home. Jackson’s removal of the Cherokees several decades later exists as yet
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