good evening my name's lenny brooks and i'm secretary of the historical society and we're very glad to have all of you here tonight for this topic on the war of the team twelve before i introduce our speaker i wanted to make a few announcements november twenty fifth sunday november twenty fifth is the annual tree lighting for thirty hours in front of the town hall there will be not only the tree lighting but an open house at the history barn and an open house at the library and i think the open house at the barn begins at four cream lighting at four thirty december first history barn open house the monthly open house from nine to newell also that day lindegaard who's our archivist is going to hold a work party here to begin some of the work that's necessary for our collections fault and she's in need of two volunteers and if any of you can help her out on december first please give her a call either at the congo church or at her home  no regular meeting of the society in december our next meeting will be the annual meeting in january on january seventeenth it's my pleasure to introduce somebody that i've known for a long time and despite that i invited him to be here tonight larry has been researching the war of the two hundred twelve for a couple of years couple of years couple of years and he has mr brooks thank you for the very kind introduction first of all just for my history my own personal history of how to run a teacher for a number of years i can't help but have quizzes and tests and so on so i will start out with a short  e if there's anyone here who thinks that they've come to hear a lecture about a child kosky overture that this is the wrong place but i sometimes when i show up that's what people are looking for that's what eighteen twelve is not very well known war of eighteen twelve some people have completely forgotten and actually shortly after the war the united states tried hard to forget it for some time and then of course the civil war curd and coincidentally about fifty years after the close of the war of eighteen twelve the civil war close so every anniversary of the war of eighteen twelve is also an anniversary of something in the civil war and since the civil war is a lot nearer to us and involves a lot more folks from and was a lot more dramatic and had photographers around so we can have t v shows about and so on the civil war has to a large extent made it very difficult to find out information about the war between twelve so research myself the work of eight hundred twelve is almost a gold mine because nobody else is looking at it and there's an awful lot there to be found and i hope at the end of this evening you'll appreciate some of the things that you may have here locally related to the war but also may encourage you if you're genial logical or family history types or local history types to do some research i hope i'll raise some questions that will cause you to want to find out more about this very interesting about second question a second set of quiz questions here the possible answers i'll give you the possible answers multiple choice the possible answers are the united states great britain somebody else or nobody and the question questions actually first question is and we'll just have a little show of hands and you know don't be shy how many who won the war of eight hundred twelve choices are united states great twelve any thoughts on whom canada i'll tell you right now that many historians over the years over the past two hundred years many historians have been unsure about that very basic question who won the war of eighteen twelve just a very quick timeline an overview for  us i got of just a general sense of how what the war was about and where it went for people in eighteen twelve it's called the war of eighteen twelve the started in eighteen to twelve and in eighteen fourteen or fifteen depending at the time of the war of eight hundred twelve people assembled in a room such as the town hall in new gloucester would have had this kind of a historical perspective within their lifetimes if you think about the life lifetimes of the folks in this room and you think about what was happening in the 's that would have been for the people in new gloucester what was happening in the seventeen forties in the seventeen forties here in who were actively fighting sed somebody either indians british french fighting that would have been there just think about it the french and indian wars within our lifetime and then if you move ahead another twenty or thirty so what was then the revolutionary war for us that would be about the war the vietnam war about the same time back and for many of us the vietnam war is very fresh in our memories we know people who were actively involved in it  you know it's very close to us so for people in eight hundred twelve those wars with the french with the british would be very fresh in their minds and the people in the room at the time would probably if they were adult  men older adult men in their fifty's or sixty's would have been soldiers in the revolution and their fathers would have been soldiers in the war of eighteen twelve of the soldiers in the french and indian wars and their sons would then be about to possibly go to war with this other country great britain we just had a war with them not that long ago and it looks like we're going to have another war with them so the enemy is that the adult males in the room would have i thought they had fought and beaten with now be looking at again to struggle against for some reason and we're not quite sure what they are at the moment  that's an interesting prospect and when you think about that if you are sitting out of roman a town like new gloucester in eight hundred twelve thinking about a battle with england you're thinking about this country you managed to beat them in the revolution they left they left primarily because it was such a huge expanse of territory they just didn't have enough soldiers to occupy every square inch but we knew in our heart of hearts that if they had had more soldiers here we might not have won that war so now britain's been distracted by napoleon who is marching all over your conquering countries left and right napoleon has a big navy he's got a huge army he's got some european allies and he and the british have been fighting for eight or ten or fifteen years depending the british one very much to defeat napoleon it's a world  war and suddenly they're distracted by something that's happening in a place that they thought they were free from just a short time ago over in the united states people are making lots of noise they're very upset very angry because the british they're at war with napoleon after all the polling has a big navy has got a huge army hundreds of thousands of troops the british are having to raise hundreds of thousands of troops they're having to two they've got a thousand ships at they've got a thousand ships in their navy and about eight hundred of them actually at sea if you multiply that number of ships by the hundred or one hundred fifty sailors it takes two to make the ships go that's a tremendous navy that they that they need  and as they're trying to control the ocean because they believe the british believe if they can control the ocean they can control trade they can they can strangle france if france has huge armies they have to somehow feed them and close them and move them and so on so a primary focus of the entire british strategy is to have a navy that can't be beaten but in order to do that they need to have sailors and obviously they're short of sailors how can there be as many sailors as they need to sail these ships so the british do what they what any country at war would do they want to defeat the enemy so they do a couple of things one is they say if we find any ships from any country whatsoever trying to get supplies to france we're going to take them over when i capture them going to sink them whatever but we won't allow any of that to happen no trade with france and at the same time  because we were going to stop a lot of ships on the high seas and we have a thousand ships to do it so don't argue with us when we stop one of your ships we're going to make sure that you don't have on you in your crew any sailors who have left any british sailors particularly british sailors who have left british ships you can if they're americans not a problem if they're something else not a problem but if we find any british sailors on your ships we're taking them back because they're our sailors and we need them well the british sailors themselves individual sailors there are a lot of them who are on american ships for two important reasons one is the british and the americans have a different definition of what american americans believe and we still believe that if you declare that you're an american you're an american the british however believe that if you're born in britain you're british till the day you die you can go to any country you want to you can say anything you want to say but if you're born in the british isles which include scotland and ireland and so on you're british so when they boarded in an american ship they would ask the sailors they'd ask the opera so go down and talk to all the sailors and if they detected an irish accent you're british and if they detected the scottish accent you're british and if they had any evidence whatsoever that you're actually british then you're really british this is a big problem for the americans they're very upset because we defined being american differently we had hundreds of thousands of citizens who had recently come from ireland scotland and england they were americans they own property they paid taxes they voted there was american as could be and it upset us very much that these people are being taken from our ships off to fight some enemy that we didn't really consider an enemy anyhow because after all hadn't the french helped us in the revolution weren't they and in fact are almost our best friends when lafayette came up to maine didn't we just fall over ourselves in admiration of this wonderful person so the french weren't necessarily our enemies and the british certainly weren't our friends and we became very upset at this circumstance we became particularly upset we were upset actually from the end of the revolution we were upset because the british never took the end of the revolution seriously yes we had a peace treaty yes we were independent but the british continued to treat us as if we were some kinds of subjects particularly on the ocean which was where america lived on the ocean at the time we were a maritime nation and all of our trade was back and forth to england that's where we made our money the only source astonishes many people these days but the only source of income for the american government were tariffs there were no tax there were no national taxes only tariffs so we were desperate that was our only source of income was very important for us to say the very least so in a number of things happened these  impressed months were very bothersome they were particularly bothersome to thomas jefferson and the so called democratic republican party who the other party the federalist party considered to be nothing really much more than french people anyhow after all everybody knew that thomas jefferson spoke french he'd spent some time in france he probably like french fries you know it was he was suspect the federalists where because the federalists for the most part were shipowners merchants so on lives lived in the communities the larger communities did trading they thought that the british were in fact our friends we traded with them we made money why did we why did we want to do anything other than support them in this war against france because we would sell much more to the british than we would sell to the french anyhow and that's where our our bread and butter was so we had two parties in the united states  federalists who wanted to trade with england thought things should just be left as they are then we had these democratic republicans thomas jefferson's party james madison's party that thought that we won the revolution the british continued to treat us like children they're taking our soldiers this is a tar ball thing in on june twenty second eighteen zero zero seven the u s s chesapeake and we had at the time a navy that included six frigates with names like constitution united states and so on and we had another maybe eighteen to twenty ships in the american navy we had an we had a navy of about twenty five ships the british remember the size of the navy i told you about a thousand ships our ship the chesapeake u s s chesapeake sail out of newport news virginia got just a few miles off sailors found for people that he thought were british citizens and took them off the american warship now up until now the all the impressment had happened from merchant ships they had taken merchant sailors off merchant ships they were not united states navy sailors wasn't military it was domestic so in june of eighteen zero seven when the leopard took actual american naval sailors off  american naval vessel with the pride of our dinky fleet you know the only thing we had to show for ourselves in the navy the country simply went crazy if you follow the trajectory from the from the so called chesapeake affair to the war of eighteen twelve it's just about a straight line after the chesapeake affair we got angrier the british got firmer the british thought they didn't have to live with the british  to this dinky little country with a navy of twenty you know so we continued to make demands of england and they continued to refuse our demands it escalated to the point that it looked like there was actually going to be a war ships against france we can't be distracted by what's going on over there so the british tried to calm us down they said ok we'll you know we'll stop taking we'll take any more sailors we'll make sure the papers are correct before we will just listen to accents will take papers and so on the four soldiers that were taken from the chesapeake it turned out the british eventually returned three of them the fourth one however that and this was probably you know probably a mistake in retrospect but you can't blame the british really i mean their military people it turned out that one of these sailors had actually been an actual british naval i mean it was actually and a seaman in the british navy and he had actually jumped ship and he had actually then joined the american navy so there's no getting around the fact he was a traitor they took him to halifax the ship that he had jumped from was in halifax at the time they hung him from the main mast of that ship to as a lesson to their sailors that you know this whole impressment thing is very serious to us but if you are a british sailor you better not leave the ship which  tough message for the british sailors particularly since the americans paid about twice as much and not only that the americans had an actual term of service about two or three years depending whereas in the british navy once you're in the navy you were in the navy and once you're in the army you were simply in the army there was no out there was no term and the pay was low so it was tough for the british sailors but it just excuse me the chesapeake affair was explosive in the american press  yet the federalists who adamantly opposed the war continued to oppose the war but because the jeffersonian zone madisonian were of so obsessed with the the fact that the british weren't treating  properly that they continued to make further and further demands people got more and more excited with each passing election the public sent more and more democratic republicans to the house and the senate and the presidents from adams  on were democratic republicans so the drumbeat for war a simply got too loud and in june of eight hundred twelve the united states declared war had they waited a couple of weeks across the ocean in the other direction where the british finally agreeing that they would stop impressment altogether too late the war had already begun so we went to war with great britain great britain was the largest military power at the day maybe five maybe larger maybe not as quite as large as france but very close had this huge navy united states had a very simple strategy it was going to work like a charm everybody knew it was going to be no problem because the us the british had a huge navy who cares the united states is only you know two or three hours from canada what we'll do this is the plan we will take canada tonight tomorrow you know next week the won't take long we will take canada will hold canada hostage we will use canada as a ploy as a as a weapon against the british they will capitulate to our demands and we don't care what happens on the ocean because we will be so easy for us to take keep and we knew that this strategy was simple will take canada holding hostage end of the war week or two maybe three the american army at the time the war broke out was about seven thousand  the british had in canada for their army at the time about three thousand looked really easy the americans said not only do we have a little army but we have the most and the militia every town has a militia we've got hundreds of thousands of militia didn't the militia when bunker hill didn't the militia when it saratoga our militia as this fellow you may have heard william widgery said way more injury who was a new gloucester person who went down to portland and then got elected to the house of representatives and became one of the loudest of the so called war hawks when richard wintery stood up in congress and said the main state moment the main district was in the state at the time the main district militia can take canada in a week all by itself don't need an army don't need any of the militia you know we can do it it was it was easy to talk unfortunately within the first couple of months of the war the british took detroit without firing a shot practically by taking detroit they controlled all of the indian territory in the west michigan minnesota all of the great lakes fell to the united states fell to the british within weeks of the opening of the war it was a true it was a phenomenal loss the the people and washington were stunned they simply couldn't believe that our strategy which was to take canada instantly was going to completely backfire and within a couple of months the british were going to take over the entire northwestern third of the united states  was closest to canada so we needed to have all of the new england militia to arms as soon as we possibly could president madison sent out that order to the governors we want we need your militias activated right away we need hundred thousand from th state we need one hundred thousand in that state and so on and so forth and what happened was the governor of massachusetts caleb strong said no he was a federalist he opposed the war he thought the war was crazy to start out with and along with four of the other new england governors they simply refuse to activate their state militias this is serious business when the declaration for war was made actually in congress three votes in the senate would have we would have not gone to war it was the closest vote in american history it was a very divisive thing the country was practically split in half over whether we should have a war or rather who should have a war a the fact that the that the anti war faction lost that vote didn't calm them at all when caleb strong said that he would not activate the the militia in massachusetts the federal government was pretty stunt so the strategy of taking canada instantly was all of a sudden impossible the second step which would be to activate our militia because our army was so small to get the job done was also not going to happen this is bad eighteen twelve was a disaster for the american army eighteen thirteen wasn't much better we did try we did raise more  regiments a couple of dozen regiments of soldiers a raise in the regular army only the militia turned out never to be a factor at all madison decided that if the governors were going to raise a militia that he would activate the special law that would allow him to commission volunteers to ignore the governors and commission volunteers on the militia so if you were all if you were a loyal government supporter and you thought the war was a good thing and you were a militia person and you wanted to fight you could simply raise your hand and we could take you into the regular well kind of into the regular army into this little special thing called the volunteer united states volunteers raised about one hundred thousand volunteers one of the companies came from poland here they generally came from the interior parts of the country because the coastal parts of the country were mostly federalists the the administration folks are mostly interior so in maine there were about eighteen volunteer companies that were raised and they came from towns like buckfield norway poland gray these these these back so called back towns  there were quite a number of new gloucester soldiers who volunteered for the militia they joined for the most part the company from poland some of them joined the norway company cause a lot of connections because up and down what's the twenty six corridor between new gloucester and norway at the time and they went off to fight in burlington they marched from here to portland where they did training for a very short time a couple of months and then they marched up to burlington walked on foot of course no trains no ships between here and burlington and when they got there the united states army generals looked at them and said these are soldiers that many of the main soldiers came down with measles on the march between portland and and burlington so when they arrived in vermont about half of the main troops had the measles  then the other regular army regiments there was a there were two that were raised and then the the thirty third infantry the thirty fourth infantry and about six months early the twenty first infantry which was a massachusetts regiment had three or four companies that were raised in maine and one of those was raised primarily in this area captain daniel libby was captain of them gray and he was and he was a captain on the twenty first century most of his company came right here from this area so probably a third of them were gloucester men they marched from portland beyond burlington and they marched to sackets harbor on lake ontario which is another three or four hundred miles beyond burlington walks on foot and these two sets of american military people one from burlington another one from sackets harbor in eight hundred thirteen came up with a strategy the administration came up with a strategy that went like this let's take our two best generals wait a second we don't have any good generals let's take our second best generals let's take let's take anybody let's take let's take some some old fellows who have who did something in the revolution and we'll put them in charge so that they in fact got two generals one to be in charge of the burlington army and want to be in charge of the sockets harvard armory unfortunately the two generals that they selected were arch enemies and refused to speak to each other so they would only communicate via the secretary of the war who was in washington so you can imagine that the general in burlington needs to coordinate activities with the general harbor but the only way that can happen is to send a message to washington d c and eight hundred twelve how long does that take and then get the message back up to seconds harbor this is crazy the secretary of war said this is crazy how my going to solve this problem i mean we think fired the generals right no he said i myself i will go to plattsburgh so i'll be closer to these guys and we'll solve the problem that way now the general in way to hampton who is the general in burlington was supposed to take his troops directly north to montreal that should only take a couple of days because burlington to montreal is you know practically sixty seventy miles and then the general in sackets harbor james wilkinson would take his army down the st lawrence to montreal and this way so one general go like this and one general go like that they would meet in front of montreal they would take montreal that would be it would have canada the simple unfortunately this whole thing didn't get going until about october late september and if you think about global warming and you just sort of roll it backwards to global freezing october heading to montreal  crossland or down the river in late october early november is not really a clever idea nevertheless that's what the two generals are going to do refusing to talk to each other all the way so they never quite knew where each other was and the fellows from enemy country and if you look up and the banks of the river guess what you see you see cannons you know you see guys riding along with rifles and it's it's not a good thing and it wasn't a good thing and the toes went over in the ice and the ones with the food got lost and so on it was pretty much of a disaster at a place called chryslers field there was finally a battle to the general welcome some got annoyed that they kept attacking from this side that side and he said well we're going to beat them we've got ten thousand soldiers we're going to get out of these bad toes we're going to get up there on land we're going to kick their butts and so they landed about toes they got up on land they had  disorganized marching here and there and so on and they got their butts kicked by the canadians that was the end of the montreal expedition from the river and from burlington wade hampton decided well no i can't go straight to canada because well we've run into a couple of skirmishers it looks a little dangerous we'll go through the woods and will sneak around this way and as he says as they sneak through the woods they were basically cut down by british and canadian indians and so on and that army other army of ten thousand came to know good both armies went into winter quarters and for from the main perspective most of the men who were involved in both of those activities from maine were one year soldiers and that was the end of the year they had been recruited in the summertime they had drilled through maybe into august they had marched up to canada they had gone on these expeditions expeditions had come to nothing the out they came back so they came back with stories of disaster and the story is if you read the local histories of almost all the towns that have local histories in maine the recollections of the soldiers of the of the war where was this battle of so awful in their mind that several god for second place in the state of maine are called shot again if you look on the floor map you'll find a shattered here and a shot of you there and they were those are places that were almost that were they were all settled by war of eighteen twelve veterans who said oh my god this is the end of the world this is like saturday so it was not also the volunteers who came from this area were also involved in they were in the burlington army  hampton's army and they also came to know good in the woods of shattuck so was not good for mainers almost all miners who were involved in the us army during the war got bogged down in one of those two actions  twelve was a terrible disaster for the american army eighteen thirteen was even a worse disaster for the american army in eight hundred fourteen things got a little better for one thing the united states navy this dinky little navy that wasn't supposed to do anything well while the bold american army which was going to take canada and heartbeat failed this little dinky american navy actually managed to defeat british ships three or four five six times in a row the u s s united states in in early eight hundred twelve was sailing along the european continent and ran into a british squadron actually defeated a british frigate captured it and brought it back to the united states was the first time in history that any nation that ever captured a british ship on the ocean we we just went bananas we thought that was fantastic and what happened in washington d c when detroit f within two or three weeks the same thing happened in london when the british lost to the u s s united states when they lost their ship to the macedonia to the united to the u s s united states so we were stunned that our army was a failure the british were stunned that their navy had lost the battle and then not only did they lose one naval battle but they lost several others right in a row so this was cataclysmic for the british they didn't know what was going on just as the americans didn't know what was going on and in eighteen fourteen when the united states finally got soldiers who wouldn't who were signed up for more than one year and who were adequately trained and had some battlefield expertise we actually want to couple of battles in the niagara area how one at  terry one of the place called chippewa and the twenty first infantry which was had this company that had a lot of great new gloucester folks and it was actually involved in those successes and some of them are pretty spectacular one on the in the battle of lund lane the twenty first infantry was charged with taking a british battery from the top of this hill which had contracts had come out of the battlefield so as the sun set on the first day of battle the general said to the commander of the twenty first name was james miller colonel james miller i need you to take that gun emplacement tonight can you do it and james miller said i'll try sir which then became a phrase which was in all of the newspapers all of the country because he actually james miller actually did it the twenty first infantry that night took the hill not only took the hill itself and took cannons on top of withstood three british counterattacks and that was the first time in the entire war that an american field army had defeated the british field army in what's basically a head to head clash for the first time really look like americans could actually stand up to the british and it was it was good for us that it was  twenty first infantry that did it because many of the soldiers from maine who managed to get to the second year of the war could come back with actually some stories of success so those things are happening all the time during the war it's a kind of a back and forth the navy's doing things they shouldn't do the army is doing things they shouldn't do both sides are being surprised that what they thought was going to happen was not going to happen and the negotiators in ghent who have been charged with settling this thing out finally get orders from their headquarters that say to both sides just stop it just sign anything to stop this war it's we've had enough of it we need to get on the british said we need to get on fighting the poem and the americans said you know we need to try to get out of this with our skins because it looks like we're in really big trouble so the thing was finally settled the treaty of down the the main border which was left on determined after the revolutionary war were not guess what half the world eight twelve still undetermined the indian problem out west which is one of the reasons we went to war we thought the british were feeding guns and money to the indians so they would fight us what happened there nothing when the british were supposed to stop taking sailors off the ships they'd already agreed before the war to stop taking sailors off ships that were anything that was at issue was was a drop of anything that had been in several things that had been an issue before the war weren't even an issue by the time the war turned out so when the treaty of ghent was finally signed on christmas eve an eight hundred fourteen kind of one and a half cheer went up and by the time the news got back to the united states we all know what happened i think the the one huge event that almost everybody remembers about the war of eighteen twelve which is a general jackson beat the british at new orleans in a stunning defeat the british lost two thousand soldiers in an afternoon and the americans lost twenty five this not only were these british soldiers but these were british soldiers who because napoleon's army had recently lost that waterloo there were now british real british soldiers available to fight this battle so that was actual real british soldiers that came on dozens of ships over to new orleans and were going to go up the mississippi and and basically take care of us they got their clocks cleaned  general jackson that was huge news that happened after the war was over but it it lodged so firmly in the american mind that from from that time forward generations of americans were convinced that we had won the war of eighteen twelve because we had beat the british at new orleans and the fact of the matter was the word of eight hundred twelve was if anything a draw and the battle in new orleans occurred after the war anyhow so i think i'm going to go on now to tell you something about the actual some of the actual individuals from this area who were involved in some of the interesting things they did but i think the answer to the question that i ask at the beginning who won the war the people who thought canada i think most historians now that the canadians won the war the canadian militia actually did quite well the canadian mission militia independent of the british army was at the beginning of the war was essentially the force that kept the united states  and many british many canadians today consider the war of eighteen twelve to zero been essentially their war of independence it was it made them a nation in a way and if you go if you cross the border and ask questions about the war of eighteen twelve they know it inside and out unlike over here where it's sort of forgotten and if you go to england and ask about the war of eighteen twelve they think you're talking about the poem who who lost the war most historians now agree that the huge losers in the war with the indians they thought they had an ally in the british at the beginning of the war by the end of the war they had no allies they had no place to go and that was really the although the end had already begun for the american indians after the war of eighteen twelve particularly successes of general jackson who was wildly opposed to indians being anywhere on the planet he would have soon annihilated them all if he could in an afternoon  the indians i think knew pretty much it was it was up and it was up all of the promises that we made for all the lands that they could have and that the british were going to allow this and the treaty of ghent actually allows vast portions of michigan minnesota and so on to indians but we just ignore that part of the treaty so who won the war i think the canadians who lost the war probably the indians how did the americans the british fare that best it was a draw  some americans say it was necessary this is mon some modern current american say it was necessary because without that warts for us to draw a line and even though it was a draw at least it was a line so that the the gains that we had made in the revolutionary war at least now were understood by both sides that we were a country and that they were at separate country and that we had some rights and so on so but but many of these issues are still debated by historians today  there's an awful lot yet to be discovered about the war so maybe some of the answers will change now as far as what was going on here in town all kinds of interesting things because your town is a has spoken here of couple of times before and other issues  and then the political things here in new gloucester were similar new gloucester wasn't really a coastal town so it wasn't it wasn't entirely federal but it also wasn't was one of these new towns being  in the wilderness kind of thing it was a it was in a stablished not too far from the coast town and the people in new gloucester were pretty much evenly divided between the federalist camp the democratic the democratic republican camp and from new gloucester came some pretty vocal spokespeople from both sides i mentioned william widgery already although he had left new gloucester by the time the war of eighteen twelve began there probably wasn't anybody in the country who was as vocal about the war as he was on the administration side but from new gloucester there were there were also federalists the votes in new gloucester and eighteen eleven and eight hundred twelve i looked them up  eighteen eleven about two hundred people adult males of course voted for governor in new gloucester and the vote was one zero one for the federalists and ninety nine for the democrats that's pretty close and then the next election eight hundred twelve so eighteen eleven there wasn't a war there was news of war but by eight hundred twelve the election was in september so it was a couple of months after the war had begun so people knew the issues more clearly i think and in eight twelve the vote here was there were now excuse me two hundred seventy four people who voted and of all was one hundred forty seven for the federalist one hundred twenty seven for the democrats so the democrats lost a little bit of ground but it's still forty six forty six fifty four percent so that's still fairly close the interesting thing to me is that between eighteen eleven and eight hundred twelve the population didn't change that much as a matter of fact you may be interested to know that between eight that's a whole decade and that covers the whole period of the war the population in new gloucester changed by nine so we know that the population between eighteen eleven eighteen twelve didn't change very much at  all less than nine and yet seventy four more people went to the polls which meant i think people are more or more actively interested and engaged in what's going on so an eighteen eleven you had two hundred people voting and then seventy five more people show up the next year people are getting more excited i think that's because the same number of people in town  r i already mentioned excuse me captain libby from nearby captain snell from poland these are united states army officers  lieutenant thomas johnson he was from capel as a both he was with the thirty fourth infantry so he would have been with the group that got bogged down in the swamps that shot again lieutenant john downer who was also a new gloucester man was with the twenty first so he would have been one of the fellows who would have found some sick some measure of glory later on in the war except lieutenant downer unfortunately got sick and sackets harbor never made it on the large expedition and x fact came home early and had to resign from the service because of illness and later on his wife got a pension apparently he i don't have his actual record you might want to send for his pension record and see what all the details are but apparently he got sick enough in the war so that he was disabled and the rules at that time were quite severe so if his wife got a pension as a result of his disability is probably pretty disabled i would suspect daniel libby himself something happened in sackets h i don't know what it was they got himself court martialed for dereliction of duty and the day before the sentence was going to be announced he resigned and came back home so he also didn't get to go on the big expedition but but  you did have a couple of people who we know were involved in some of the big battles for example that's a private jeremiah l well who was from new gloucester twenty first infantry so this is the group that went down the river he he managed to serve out his entire term in the army and was involved in the battle of lundy's lane he was probably in the group that ascended the mountain the hill lane and because the entire regiment did it the twenty the type entire twenty first regiment did it he was wounded in action in that battle and came home and also got himself a pension because of his disability that might be another  i can't afford to send for all these pension records but there's all kinds of fascinating things in them and some of the folks in the society might want to usually thirty five forty dollars buy some sixty dollars to get a pension record sometimes they're empty sometimes they're full but it's usually very interesting and you might want to some for some of those another interesting thing about the war was toward the very end when the british had burned washington d c and had taken eastern maine took about a week to take all of eastern maine and the british then had a reverse strategy they were going to take eastern maine and use it as they want to hold it hostage until we would give into their demands but the interesting thing was remember general strong who didn't want to go to war at all when the british took eastern man he said that's good we like that who cares really that all the british will then you know we like them that will make bring the trading partners a little a little closer and what's more eastern maine is full of these terrible terrible democrats anyhow who wants and let him go because that happened and because of the attitude of the state of massachusetts about the district of maine during the war the war also had another fundamental effect on maine and that is that led to man's decision to separate from massachusetts it was that it was the straw really that broke the camel's back in terms of do the people in boston really care about us or not governor strong basically said no i do not care about you people in maine so so it wasn't long after the war in just five years that maine declared its independence from massachusetts primarily because of the way it was treated by caleb strong but toward the end of the war when the british had taken half of maine and marched into washington and so on we were really terrified that they were also on the take portland and bath and so on so the main militia was activated and about twenty thousand militia men including all of the remaining militia men from this area went down the portland to defend portland it turned out the british did not come so all the soldiers all group down there there was nothing for them to do after a month or so they all came back and it took until eight hundred seventy one a long time after the war that the united states government finally agreed that the soldiers who had been activated to defend the coast even though they had been an actual battle were entitled to some kind of compensation for that so that the these men if you were lucky enough to have survived until eight hundred seventy one think about eighteen twelve and have to live until eight hundred seventy one you could have actually gotten a pension for your service down in portland but down in portland as far as i can tell there's only one militia person who died down in that action in portland that in action in portland and that was actually was a young man from new gloucester his name was ebenezer haskell of the twenty thousand militia that was sent down to portland he's the only one who died as far as i can tell i'll read you quickly his  fourteenth and buried in new gloucester on the fifteenth mr ebenezer haskell age forty two years he was serving on a detachment of militia stationed in that town when he was suddenly seized with a stubborn fever which terminated in his death on the seventh day he was timely removed into a private family where it is believed every medical aid was administered in kind offices of friendship be stowed this by the way is not is not only unusual because it's an actual record of the death of this fellow and pour on it there ie unusual at the time to see any a bitch where in the paper at all usually there just a line that says died in such a town such a person so an obituary is unusual anyhow but to have one related to the war is very interesting as a husband and father he was  and an ornament to the religion he professed a portion of his time was devoted to render the evening the evening of a widowed mother's life serene and tranquil and an invalid sister comfortable and happy the losses irreparable to an affectionate wife and their tender offspring and will long be lamented by his neighbors and acquaintances so i submit to wary unfortunately he didn't make it although he was buried somewhere here and he's buried somewhere here in new gloucester and the defense department will if it if it already doesn't have a something that says war of eighteen twelve the defense department will send you for free a marker you know a military market to put on the grave if you want to do that as a local project might be interesting now here's another guy  i'm kind of running out of time here so sorry but i can't not mention the spell this is robert taylor and if anybody wants to find out any additional information about robert taylor i would very much like to hear it this guy was quite interesting  he applied for a pension in eight hundred fifty four or so you could get pensions at that time if you had been wounded in action not it took until eight hundred seventy one to get pensions from simply serving but in order to get pen in the year that the war was declared with great britain that would have been eight hundred twelve the next year eight hundred thirteen he volunteered on board the frigate constitution then lying at newport rhode island under the command of commodore decatur and went out of newport on a challenge from the british frigate macedonia number i mentioned that one earlier that was the first british ship ever captured by an american and captured her and brought her into newport now that the fantastic that this guy from your town was on that ship the did that unfortunately it what he said he was on the constitution it wasn't the constitution a several things in it that are iffy and questionable now could be i mean that this is eight hundred fifty or so so you know maybe he's kind of forgot but to track down who this fellow actually was and what he actually did would be very interesting close to what he says he did which may or may not be the same thing that he actually did and then finally i want to just as a an indication of how things were here in new gloucester at the time during th day this is the eight early eight hundred actually up until after the civil war the fourth of july was celebrated in many towns in maine but it was always celebrated in a political way the part that particular party would put on a fourth of july event and the party would announce you know the federalists or the democrats would announce that they were going to have a fourth of july celebration in a town and it would involve this and this and these people would come in the have a dance and a meal and so on a nd sometimes the other party would announce that they were going to do the same thing on the other side of town and it would be a different a different picnic area and so on and so forth they would never they would seldom ever have the the the celebration together and they usually use the fourth of july as a punching bag for the opposition they would have a big event they would have a speech they would then do these long list of toasts you know here's to this and here's to that and here's to the king federalist and republicans in the town of foul mouth have agreed to unite and celebrating our national birthday on the approaching fourth of july it was proposed to me that mr thaddeus broad's and as the times are such that party spirit ought to be done away with and true americans tonight it is agreed that no toasts shall be given on that day that tend to irritate either party ok that's very unusual because almost all the others go like this here's a fourth of july celebration from new gloucester and eighteen twelve eighteen eleven excuse me this is the year before the war so this is july fourth eighteen eleven when it looks like there's going to be a war and party tensions are quite high the music is going to be formed and directed by captain moses woodman and lieutenant ebeneezer white as marshals now these are militia officers who are basically saying we are democrats we favor the war we're going to put on this party we're going to provide music so if you are with us you can march with us can you imagine that today a united states army company saying you know where republican we're voting republican you want to march with us you can march with us one of my for the other people good luck to you that sort of thing colonel joseph the foxcroft captain thomas johnson which who i read about a little oil captain james got in and richard tobie jr here a few of the toasts that were delivered to the president of the united states the worthy successor to the alicia has cut the mantle of allies to our national union we will indignantly frown upon the first drawing of every attempt to airlie in a tiny portion of this country from the rest that is massachusetts which doesn't want to be part of what's going on we don't go for that the militia bunker hill bennington and saratoga herat our infant navy we have plenty of men and timber our political opponents their plans are conceived in iniquity and brought forth in folly may defeat teach them moderation and experience teach them wisdom this is a military thing happening this is the this is so we think our media is biased and all these things that always end with a toast always the final toast in these things was always to here comes the fair daughters of columbia may their charms inspire us with love pure as light sacred as a temple and lasting as the world and the final one from new gloucester was the end to the inhabitants of new gloucester enterprising industrious and hospitable their thriving town exhibits in its highly cultivated in luxury and fields a pleasing evidence of the practical patriotism of its citizens and then try to get this in here this is north yarmouth the next year or north yarmouth not too far away july sixth eight hundred twelve but a little closer to the ocean so here is a toast to governor strong remember him may his administration continue to be firm decisive and impartial and may he ever keep the coming and of his own troops troops are underlined this is the this is the the governor who said we're not activating our militia and the people in north america saying and don't ever do it where and we'd like you governor strong to our representative in congress who is william  representative in congress can widgery stand where montgomery fell montgomery fell that quebec you remember widgery said we can take quebec the good ship massachusetts while her helm is strong capital s t r o n g who's the name of the governor let her sis let her steer a federal track and whether the key of democracy that's the other party where the watch is called and bonaparte is on deck rights watch out for those democrats the next thing the frenchman the majority in congress or democrats may they go the way whence they shall not return and the places which know them now know them not again forever quack's war quacks may they swallow that lead in pills which they would give us in powder the french emperor here's to the french emperor and the american executive who are really the same medicine in the polling on his ass and as he said am i not you know it doesn't not friendly stuff happening here but we are running out of time i hope i've answered the questions i have but one final thing to say here and that is to the citizens of new gloucester enterprising industrious and very hospitable thank you