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WASHINGTON, Feb. 9, 2012 – The War of 1812 was a watershed moment
in the nation's development of a strong national defense system, a
military historian said this week, as it provided justification for
building up the Navy and changed the nation's attitude toward
strengthening the central government.
Michael Crawford, a
senior historian at the Naval History and Heritage Command, made
that observation Feb. 7 during a “DOD Live” bloggers roundtable.
Crawford said the United States declared war against the United
Kingdom because “It wanted to end impressments of its citizens into
the Royal Navy.”
“[The United States] wanted to obtain
recognition of the maritime rights of its merchantmen against
illegal blockades, searches and seizures, and it wanted to stop
British support of hostile Native Americans against the United
States,” he said.
At the time, President James Madison and
his war planners developed a strategy to achieve these goals. That
strategy largely focused on a land-troop invasion of British-owned
Canada, ignoring a naval strategy. It was expected to be a quick and
decisive victory for the Americans, Crawford said, as British
attention was focused on engagements with Napoleon.
But as
the Canadian campaign began, it became clear that it wouldn't go as
Madison and his war planners had hoped it would. By 1815, two and a
half years after the initial engagement, all attempts to invade and
occupy Canada had failed.
During that time, Crawford said,
the United States adopted a largely defensive posture against the
British. The U.S. military had repulsed major invasions at
Plattsburgh, N.Y, and in New Orleans.
But the United States
suffered a “ravaging of the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, a major
agricultural region, and the capture and burning of our capital,”
Crawford said.
“Furthermore,” he added, “a tight British
blockade of the American coast had brought the U.S. government to
the brink of financial collapse.”
The war eventually ended
with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, which restored America to
its prewar conditions with no loss or gain, Crawford said, and the
conversation turned toward the role The War of 1812 played in
strengthening the Navy.
At the onset of the war, he said, the
Navy had a small fleet and focused largely on harbor defense.
However, he added, it became increasingly apparent that the United
States needed to develop naval power to avoid defeat.
“Early
in the war, we lost an army,” Crawford said. “And so the people in
Washington -- the war planners -- quickly came to understand that
the conquest of Canada depended on control of the waterways,
especially Lake Ontario.”
The result was a build-up of Navy
vessels on the Great Lakes. By late 1814, the Navy had 400 men on
ships at sea and 10,000 men on ships on the Great Lakes.
This
buildup allowed for some important victories during the war,
Crawford said, but those victories also drew attention to losses
that that resulted from insufficient naval power. He cited conflicts
at Lake Champlain and along the Chesapeake Bay as examples.
The British had an army of 10,000 invading upstate New York. An
American naval victory in Lake Champlain threw that army back into
Canada, Crawford said, because without control of Lake Champlain,
British supply lines were vulnerable. But a lack of U.S. naval power
allowed the British to wreak destruction up and down the Chesapeake
Bay, he added.
“All of these events convinced the nation's
leaders, as well as the nation's people, that we needed both an
adequate navy and an adequate army if we wanted to be an adequate
nation,” he said.
But before the end of the war,
congressional Republicans didn't support building a strong Navy,
Crawford said, believing that an ocean-going Navy would draw the
United States into war unnecessarily and require high taxes that
would corrupt the political system, benefit mainly financiers, and
hurt the common people.
But by the end of the war, he said,
people of all political stripes witnessed the importance of having a
strong, centrally controlled military.
“Many Republicans and
all Federalists were committed to a strong Navy, an adequate,
professional Army, and the financial reforms necessary to support
them,” Crawford said.
“After the war, Congress ... approved an
ambitious naval expansion program and a regular Army of 10,000 men,”
he continued. “They raised taxes to pay for these, and they created
the Second National Bank as a tool for government financing.”
The War of 1812 also changed the U.S. position on the global
stage, Crawford said.
“Before the war,” he explained, “the
United Kingdom considered the United States to be a commercial rival
and potential enemy, to be thwarted through confrontation wherever
possible. After the war, the United Kingdom sought accommodation
with the United States, considering the friendship of the United
States as something to be curried as an asset.”
This change
in thinking, Crawford said, was a direct result of the British
recognizing that the United States had newfound political unity, a
strong Army and Navy, and sound fiscal underpinnings.
By Bradley Cantor
Emerging Media, Defense Media Activity
American Forces Press Service
Copyright 2012
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