Talk:War of 1812/Archive 3

message: HAHA.  That stupid brit in that picture of the battle of new orleans is stupid.  He climbed over the mount and instantly gets shot.
With reference to the preceding paragraph, I think there should be a ban on 12 year olds editing Wikipedia
Canadians march down into the U.S. and burn their white house. Maybe they'll think twice about trying to invade Canada. ;)
Funny how most schools in the U.S. leave this part out.
-G
:No one marched down from Canada. They were British who came by ship. Good reason to leave it out and if your Canadian school taught you that, then they should have left it out too. A proud Canadian who believes in truth not lies. Dabbler 23:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: washington was raided by british marines and regulars from the napoleonic wars.  These were generally not drawn from militias IIRCZebulin 08:52, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Hard to imagine otherwise. Prove it.Tourskin 02:05, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Canadians played a very active and decisive role in the war and constituted the overwhelming majority of british troops in Canada.  They just weren't part of the amphibious campaigns.  Usually this is easy to see just by noting the particular histories of British units involved in such actions.Zebulin 00:41, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Bwahaha!

message: Several of the people here seem to be of the opinion that the United States invaded Canada solely to get more territory.  While that was partly the case, it should also be taken into account that the Americans wanted to remove the British presence in mainland North America (at least with the exception of Belize, detached from the United States).  Having a huge British colony where the British could send their armies at whim was an obvious threat to the integrity and survival of the young American nation.  If the British sensed weakness on the American part, they could simply ship British regiments to British North America and attack the United States by land, getting their logistics from British North America.  By taking over British North America, the United States would be removing a great threat to its survival. Chiss Boy 09:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Its difficult to assess the putcome ofteh war - it had many factors not just survival. Remember, during this time the United States was begining its Manifest Destiny view. Besides that, the British were also searching American ships to stop helping Napolean yet the Napoleanic war ended by 1814 so it was pointless to contiue in 1815.Tourskin 17:52, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Another motive for the Americans for invading Canada

message: This doesn't seem to be appropriate as it stands and rather contradicts the main thrust of the atrticle that the war should be considered a stalemate. 
===America's First Vietnam?===
The war of 1812 is sometimes seen as America's first Vietnam. The US major goal of invading Canada was repulsed, while the British main goal of defending Canada and repulsing the American forces was achieved. The British also took several harsh swipes at the American government; Detroit was surrendered and occupied by the British, the capital was invaded with numerous government buildings destroyed, the majority of battles were won by the British and the Americans lost more ships than the British. According to Historian John Eisenhower, depending on definition, the war of 1812 was the first war that the US army lost.
Please give reasons here if you want to replace it. Dabbler
:It's probably a bad comparison to make because of the way the effects on US public of the 2 wars were nearly completely opposite.  Vietnam ended with a nearly unaminous public acceptance that it represented a shameful defeat.  On the other hand the US public immediately following the end of the of war of 1812 (and for decades afterward) somehow managed to convince themselves that they had decisively won the war.  There were ridiculous statments tiresomely repeated that Andrew jackson had to be the greatest general in the world since he had beaten the military that had beaten Napolean.  Whereas vietnam largely ended with a US public feeling chastened about the war the war of 1812 ended with a public that became almost immediately dangerously cocky resulting from romanticized notions of having defeated the british empire.  This attitude would give Us presidents great difficulty in balancing the demands resulting from such perceptions with the needs to pursue realistic foreign policy goals.Zebulin 09:19, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed from main page

message: The war of 1812 is sometimes seen as America's first Vietnam. The US major goal of invading Canada was repulsed, while the British main goal of defending Canada and repulsing the American forces was achieved. The British also took several harsh swipes at the American government; Detroit was surrendered and occupied by the British, the capital was invaded with numerous government buildings destroyed, the majority of battles were won by the British and the Americans lost more ships than the British. According to Historian John Eisenhower, depending on definition, the war of 1812 was the first war that the US army lost.
Please give reasons here if you want to replace it. Dabbler
:It's probably a bad comparison to make because of the way the effects on US public of the 2 wars were nearly completely opposite.  Vietnam ended with a nearly unaminous public acceptance that it represented a shameful defeat.  On the other hand the US public immediately following the end of the of war of 1812 (and for decades afterward) somehow managed to convince themselves that they had decisively won the war.  There were ridiculous statments tiresomely repeated that Andrew jackson had to be the greatest general in the world since he had beaten the military that had beaten Napolean.  Whereas vietnam largely ended with a US public feeling chastened about the war the war of 1812 ended with a public that became almost immediately dangerously cocky resulting from romanticized notions of having defeated the british empire.  This attitude would give Us presidents great difficulty in balancing the demands resulting from such perceptions with the needs to pursue realistic foreign policy goals.Zebulin 09:19, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: America's First Vietnam?

message: *Rather than stick with stalemate and have people keep inserting comments about which side really lost, perhaps we can find and include statments supporting claims that each side (and the Indians) lost --JimWae 01:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Who lost most?

message: How can something be plagiarism when you credit the original author?--Kev62nesl 05:30, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Even if taking somebody else's introduction wholesale and rewording bits of it is legal (and IANAL so I'm not touching it), it's pretty lousy practice. There only seems to be one person here trying to hoist this new introduction, and it's a pretty crummy, POV-ridden introduction at that. I'm reverting back to a version which has survived I don't know how long. You don't like the one sentence which addresses how the war went, change the sentence. Lord Bob 12:13, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As an addendum to that, I've tidied up the introduction a bit. You are right in that one sentence was pretty bad, and I think this one points out the situation in a more balanced manner. Lord Bob 12:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I'd disagree with that. Certainly, things like the burning of Washington were just getting the Americans back, but some of the campaigns (the Battle of Plattsburg in particular comes to mind) seemed to be real grabs. Lord Bob 22:58, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

text: There has been dispute over the numbers in the war in the past. In this case, as the source is not a peer-reviewed journal article or a published book (despite the fact that Mr. Graves has done some excellent scholarly work on the war), I'd consider it secondary. Troop strength estimates are always a bit of a guessing game, although Graves's assertion of British regular strength at this point is five times ours for the course of the war. If memory serves, our numbers originally come from Donald Hickey's The War of 1812 and have been augmented by looking at another source or two. Any chance you could track down some more scholarly information to support the most drastic change, that of 52,000 British regulars during 1814? I'd be happy to look myself, but as I'm well away from my university for the summer I don't have access to the library. Lord Bob 19:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not near a suitable library either, unfortunately.  The article I mention above cites army pay records for 48,163 of the reported troops.  Quoting from it, "...these monthly returns will be found in the War Office 17 Record Group of the Public Record Office. Although care must taken with the figures in these records as they will often vary from the more detailed and reliable regimental returns found in War Office 25, the monthly returns provide a fairly broad overview of the general dispositions of the army."  I don't have access to "War Office 17 Record Group of the Public Record Office", but nothing in here strikes me as being less than credible.  Could someone please elaborate further on what the sources were for the existing 99,000 and 10,000 figures? --Noren 15:52, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I was not involved in getting the numbers, I have no more information than I already relayed. Hopefully somebody else will be able to chime in. Lord Bob 23:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

text: At the outbreak of war Prevost commanded approximately 10,000 regular troops, British and Canadian.  The latter were "fencible" units, raised for service only in North America, but equal to British Regiments in training and equipment.16 A more powerful regular force than the United States possessed at that time and far more ready for combat, it was scattered from Nova Scotia to the Great Lakes, and would require months to concentrate.
It is clear that the version as it currently exists is not a comparison taken at the same time, but of numbers from two different sources referring  to different times.  The Elting source for the 10,000 number specifies that at that time this was more regulars than the US possessed, not a factor of ten fewer as the current summary panel misleadingly suggests.  I'm inclined to edit to replace the current numbers with those from here, adding a comment to specify December 1814 for BOTH numbers as the time of comparison.--Noren 05:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Copy of lead from another online encyclopedia

message: The listed numbers for the sizes of the respective armies appear incorrect, or possibly from different times during the conflict.  This paper lists The December 1814 British army in North America at 52,163 men and the U.S. regular army at 38,186(in September 1814).  The page's troop total listings of 99,000 and 10,000+ do not reflect this.  Perhaps the 10,000 number comes from the troops under Prevost marching along Lake Champlain?  I don't know where the 99,000 number comes from either, though the other U.S. numbers seem to be of persons who served at any time during the war rather than at any single moment.  I propose a change the army strength estimates to specify December 1814 and to use 52,000 British and 36,000 US regular army as estimates. --Noren 23:27, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There has been dispute over the numbers in the war in the past. In this case, as the source is not a peer-reviewed journal article or a published book (despite the fact that Mr. Graves has done some excellent scholarly work on the war), I'd consider it secondary. Troop strength estimates are always a bit of a guessing game, although Graves's assertion of British regular strength at this point is five times ours for the course of the war. If memory serves, our numbers originally come from Donald Hickey's The War of 1812 and have been augmented by looking at another source or two. Any chance you could track down some more scholarly information to support the most drastic change, that of 52,000 British regulars during 1814? I'd be happy to look myself, but as I'm well away from my university for the summer I don't have access to the library. Lord Bob 19:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not near a suitable library either, unfortunately.  The article I mention above cites army pay records for 48,163 of the reported troops.  Quoting from it, "...these monthly returns will be found in the War Office 17 Record Group of the Public Record Office. Although care must taken with the figures in these records as they will often vary from the more detailed and reliable regimental returns found in War Office 25, the monthly returns provide a fairly broad overview of the general dispositions of the army."  I don't have access to "War Office 17 Record Group of the Public Record Office", but nothing in here strikes me as being less than credible.  Could someone please elaborate further on what the sources were for the existing 99,000 and 10,000 figures? --Noren 15:52, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I was not involved in getting the numbers, I have no more information than I already relayed. Hopefully somebody else will be able to chime in. Lord Bob 23:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

text: At the outbreak of war Prevost commanded approximately 10,000 regular troops, British and Canadian.  The latter were "fencible" units, raised for service only in North America, but equal to British Regiments in training and equipment.16 A more powerful regular force than the United States possessed at that time and far more ready for combat, it was scattered from Nova Scotia to the Great Lakes, and would require months to concentrate.
It is clear that the version as it currently exists is not a comparison taken at the same time, but of numbers from two different sources referring  to different times.  The Elting source for the 10,000 number specifies that at that time this was more regulars than the US possessed, not a factor of ten fewer as the current summary panel misleadingly suggests.  I'm inclined to edit to replace the current numbers with those from here, adding a comment to specify December 1814 for BOTH numbers as the time of comparison.--Noren 05:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Troop Strengths

message: while were on the subject of the info box, where does the "17,000 other deaths" in the US casualties come from, what does it account for? Is anyone abel to insert a footnote similar to the ones for volunteer strength and militia strength? is ther a better approach to explaining this?
Yeah... That does seem like an awful lot for "other"...
What were they doing back then...
By the power of custard! 20:31, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Casualties

message: How can people say that America won, or that it was a tie? If one country invades another country and is defeated, didn't they lose? I understand that the war stoped British harrasment of US shipping, but does that meen they won? The primary objective of any invasion is the capture and occupation of enemy territory, if the Americans didn't acheve this and were turned back, how was the war a tie?
(I'm not anti-american or anything, this just gets me alittle confused)-ConfusedCanuck
:Quite simple, Confused. You Canadians don't look at the war from the U.S. perspective. The war aims of the U.S. were not solely to conquer Canada. The chief war aims of the U.S. was for Britain to leave the U.S. alone. Canada was a partial goal of the war, but not the whole goal. We wanted Britain to stop impressing American sailors into the Royal Navy; we wanted the right to trade with France and the Continent; and we wanted Britain to stop supporting the Indians in the Northwest and Southwest, which they were doing. Of these aims: 1) No conquering Canada, but we stablized the Northwest Frontier by the (mostly) victorious Niagara campaign and by defeating Tecumseh and his alliance. It wasn't just American aggression into Canada; British forces occupied part of our Northwest for years after independence.  2) Impression of American sailors became a moot point with the ending of the Napoleonic wars, as did interference with American trade. 3) We were fighting British-backed Indians in the Southwest (then Alabama and Florida) and defeated them.  Furthermore, in combat with Britain we held our own; for every Detroit, there was a Chippawa; for every Bladensburg, there was a Baltimore; and our Navy excelled in ship-to-ship fighting. In doing so, American arms made it possible to get a status quo ante bellum treaty, which officially makes it a tie; but it was really a war all both sides won, because both sides accomplished their war aims! --GABaker 3 June 2006 20:04 UTC
I am neither American nor Canadian, but Canuck you are completely correct. The two main aims of the US were to annex Canadian land and, as GAbaker says, to stop the impressment of US citizens into the British Navy. The US achieved neither of these objectives with the war (the Brits stopped impressing US seamen before the war started), and they were defeated in their attempt to invade Canada. 
Not only were the US repelled, but the British army crossed the border, burnt Washington, continued to wander the US, including an unsuccessful attacks on New Orlean, and only left when the peace treaty was signed.
The primary objective of Britain was to drive the invaders out, which they did. And they burnt the invaders capital, as well. 
It is a loss for the US.
In addition, the British Army was never driven from the soil. I am not anti American either, and hae a great deal of respect for the US, but IMHO to call a situation where an invasion of a country fails as a stalemate is just pro US propaganda. Deathlibrarian 08:08, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: I'm confused