The War of 1812： From Ashes to Anthem ｜ The American Story ｜ Ep 12
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Misogyny
5
sentences flagged
Toxicity
1
sentences flagged
Hate speech
21
sentences flagged
Summary
It s August, 1814, and British troops are closing in on the young nation s capital. Amid the growing frenzy of activity, one unassuming hero emerges: Stephen Pleasanton, a senior clerk in the U.S. State Department. He s racing against time to save America s most precious possessions, the fragile papers that form the blueprints of our nation.
Transcript
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The air in Washington is heavy with humidity and dread.
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British troops are in Maryland, closing in a rapidly tightening noose around the young nation's capital.
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The city, it's a sitting dock, half-built, barely defended.
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Amid the growing frenzy of activity, one unassuming hero emerges.
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Stephen Pleasanton, a senior clerk in the State Department.
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He's just a guy with a desk job, racing against time to save America's indispensable, most
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priceless possessions, the fragile papers that form the blueprints of our nation.
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Back at the office, he and his fellow clerks grab scissors and just start cutting.
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They stitch the fabric into makeshift book bags.
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Then they open the drawers in the cabinets, delicately lifting out the contents.
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The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, treaties, letters in George Washington's
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These are the original copies, the document DNA of America.
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The bags are quickly loaded onto a makeshift convoy of wagons.
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Pleasanton leads the charge, escorting them across the Potomac at dusk.
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They rumble into a grist mill on the Virginia side of Chain Bridge, wheels grinding over rough roads.
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They unload the bags, and they're about to stash them when Pleasanton learns there is a cannon foundry nearby.
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He knows it could be a prime target for the British.
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too risky. He rallies locals and secures more wagons from nearby farms. They reload the precious
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cargo and push on. The wagons roll another 30 miles west through the darkness. Finally,
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they spot their new destination. A deserted mansion near Leesburg, Virginia. Inside,
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down in the basement, is an empty brick vault. As Pleasanton and others rush the documents
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into the vault. Every noise turns their head. Every rustle in the woods could be
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an enemy scout. The linen bags are stacked inside the brick chamber.
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Pleasanton finally closes the heavy door and locks it. He exhales with relief. The
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heart of America beats on, but now it's cloaked in linen and brick. You know,
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who just recognize the moment and what is worth saving.
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He steps back into the stuffy night air and pauses.
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In the distance, an eerie glow lights the horizon.
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It's the fire of burning buildings in the nation's capital.
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Adapted from the book of the same title by David Barton and Tim Barton.
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Episode 12, The War of 1812, From Ashes to Anthem.
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In 1808, James Madison, that quiet intellectual who had been Thomas Jefferson's right-hand man as Secretary of State,
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was easily elected as the nation's fourth president.
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But right from the start, Madison inherited a massive headache.
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Britain and France were locked in their latest war, and neither respected America's neutrality.
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They intercepted U.S. ships, seizing cargo and disrupting trade like it was no big deal.
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To push back, Madison tried a limited embargo, banning U.S. trade with Britain and France.
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It was supposed to hurt their economies without crippling ours, but it didn't work.
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Britain and France were America's biggest customers,
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and choking off that trade meant choking the young nation's economy.
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Britain had another motive for stopping U.S. ships.
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Their enormous navy and war with Napoleon demanded more sailors.
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American merchant ships, with their higher pay and better conditions,
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had become a kind of floating job fare for British sailors.
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In fact, about 30% of American sailors were actually British guys who had made the switch.
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So Britain turned to impressment, forcibly grabbing men and shoving them into service.
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They boarded U.S. ships, dragged off their own citizens, and also took 10,000 American citizens in the process.
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France did some of this too, but nowhere near the scale of Great Britain.
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To Americans, this wasn't just an insult, it was a ghost of the revolution.
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Impressment had been one of the grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence.
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And as if that weren't enough, Britain brushed aside U.S. protests,
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ignored claims of neutrality, and quietly armed Native American tribes,
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encouraging them to raid settlers along the western frontier.
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By June 1812, Madison had had it. He was fed up.
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He sent Congress a grim list of British offenses.
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After weeks of debate, Congress did something they had never done before.
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Congress declared war. But this was no slam-dunk unified moment. The House vote was 79-49,
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the Senate 19-13. Barely 60% of Congress supported the decision, the slimmest margin for any declared
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war in all of U.S. history. The loudest opponents were the Federalists, mostly from New England.
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They were cozy with Britain, their biggest commercial partner. War to them looked like
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economic suicide. They sneered at the conflict as Mr. Madison's war, pinning it squarely on
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the soft-spoken president. This Congress was packed, however, with fiery newcomers called
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war hawks, young guns from the West pushing for action. Their leader was Henry Clay from Kentucky,
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a charismatic orator who got elected Speaker of the House and stacked key committees with
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all of his allies. These war hawks? They talked of national honor, of standing up to the British
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arrogance, but they also dreamt of expansion. Canada to the north, Spanish Florida to the south,
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a continent waiting, they believe, to be claimed by Americans.
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Declaring war sounded bold, but America's military was still a joke compared to Britain's.
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Both Jefferson and Madison had shrunk the forces during peacetime.
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The U.S. had a tiny army and navy scattered and underfunded.
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State militias, rusty from decades without real threats, were poorly trained and equipped.
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The one silver lining here was that Britain was bogged down in a massive war with France,
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so most of their elite troops were tied up in Europe.
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The war in North America to British leaders, that was just an annoying sideshow.
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On paper, the Americans even seemed to have an advantage.
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Counting regulars and militias, they outnumbered British forces in Canada by a wide margin.
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Canadian militias were much better drilled than their American counterparts.
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Plus, Britain had allies, Native American warriors who knew the terrain and were being paid to fight.
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Madison's Secretary of War, William Eustace, boasted,
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We have only to send officers into the province, and the people will rally round our standard.
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The militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet.
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General William Hull, a Revolutionary War veteran, led the first push into Canada.
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He split his forces, making them easy pickings, ambushed by Indians.
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His men panicked, and Hull yanked everybody back across the border.
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At Fort Detroit, with his superior force of 2,500, Hull surrendered without firing a shot.
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He said he was trying to spare his soldiers and nearby civilians from massacre.
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Hull ordered the evacuation of Fort Dearborn near present-day Chicago.
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General Hull was eventually court-martialed, convicted of cowardice, and sentenced to death.
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But President Madison, remembering Hull's service in the Revolution, intervened and commuted his sentence.
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Two more American invasions of Canada followed before the end of 1812.
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A Vermont newspaper summed up the war so far with brutal clarity,
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In April, U.S. forces struck at the Canadian capital of York, which is present-day Toronto.
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They captured the town, but as the British withdrew, they lit the fuse on the fort's powder magazine.
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Over the next several days, furious U.S. troops burned public buildings, the Legislative Hall, the Governor's House,
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acts that would prove consequential later in the war.
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Surprisingly, the greatest bright spot for the U.S. came on the water.
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In September of 1813, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry met the British fleet on Lake Erie.
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At the height of the battle, Perry's flagship was wrecked,
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but he rode to another ship under heavy fire, rallied, and smashed the British line.
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The victory kept Lake Erie in American hands for the rest of the war,
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blocking any British invasion of Ohio or Pennsylvania from Canada.
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Because far to the south, the war took on a darker, more savage cast.
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Britain relied on Indian allies to strike American settlements.
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In August of 1813, Red Stick Creek warriors stormed Fort Mims in the Alabama Territory.
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500 men, women, and children were slaughtered, many of them scalped, and the fort was a charred ruin.
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Into the chaos stepped a backwoods southerner named Andrew Jackson.
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He volunteered his services to President Madison, who gave him a military command in the southeast.
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Jackson planted himself right in front of you with a rifle
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and warned that he would shoot any man who deserted.
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In early 1814, Jackson hunted the Red Stick Warriors responsible for the Fort Mims Massacre.
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He cornered them in a section of the Talaposa River called Horseshoe Bend.
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Among Jackson's troops was a young soldier named Sam Houston.
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At Horseshoe Bend, he was nearly killed, pierced by an arrow in the thigh,
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then struck by two musket balls in the arm and the shoulder.
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Instead, he went on to become the legendary governor of Texas.
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But when the smoke cleared, more than 800 red-stick warriors were dead.
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Their power in the region had finally been broken.
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The British lost their most effective allies in the southeast,
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and Jackson had crushed the resistance, exactly as his gritty motto promised.
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Greater trials were in store, but in these early years, the pattern was already clear.
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A young republic, overconfident, underprepared,
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preparewithglenn.com. Back when James Madison was a congressman during George Washington's
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presidency, Madison was introduced to a Quaker widow named Dolly. The introduction was made by
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their mutual friend, Aaron Burr, who was then a senator. You might recall that Burr is the guy
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who actually went on to shoot and kill Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
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Dolly's life had been upended just a year earlier in 1793
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when her first husband and their youngest son both died
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in that brutal yellow fever epidemic that struck Philadelphia.
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Well, after a whirlwind courtship, Madison and Dolly tied the knot.
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Over the next 41 years, they were rarely apart,
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She loved conversation, laughter, and above all, gathering people together.
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Well, as his career rose, she became the indispensable bridge between power and personality.
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She hosted receptions and dinners that drew in the most influential figures of the young
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Thomas Jefferson was the first president to spend his full term living in the White House,
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but as a widower, there was no official first lady.
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Sometimes his daughter stepped in as hostess for events, but often Jefferson leaned on
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his buddy Madison, who was Secretary of State, and that meant Dolly frequently took the reins
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She shaped the first official Washington scene, charming the diplomats and the lawmakers alike,
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and in doing so, she basically invented what we think of as the First Lady's role today.
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By the end of her husband's presidency, combined with Jefferson's eight years in office,
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Dolly had effectively served as First Lady for 16 years.
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The public adored her as much as the power players did.
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She became the toast of Washington, D.C. and remains the only First Lady ever granted an honorary seat on the floor of Congress.
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But what could have been a charmed White House existence for the Madisons was upended by war.
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When Britain finally crushed Napoleon in 1814, the world's greatest navy and battle-hardened army
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were suddenly available to focus on America. They expanded their assault on multiple fronts
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across the U.S. Part of their new strategy targeted Chesapeake Bay. British ships fanned
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out across Maryland's eastern shore, attacking the small towns, burning some to the ground,
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and raiding farms for livestock and crops. Despite this escalating grip on the region,
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Madison's new Secretary of War, John Armstrong, insisted the real British threat was in Baltimore.
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In a message to the D.C. militia's commander, he scoffed,
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By God, they would not come here with such a fleet without meaning to strike somewhere.
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but they certainly will not come here. What the devil will they do here? No, no, Baltimore is the
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place, sir. That is of so much more consequence. Because of that hubris, defenses around the
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Capitol stayed pathetically weak. No serious preparations, no real urgency. And the reckoning
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began August 24th, 1814 at Bladensburg, Maryland. That's less than 10 miles away from Washington,
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D.C. American forces outnumbered the British two to one, holding the high ground with artillery
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overlooking the bridge that the Brits needed to cross. Yet numbers and position meant little
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against experience. British artillery thundered. Congreve rockets screamed through the air with a
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terrifying high-pitched shriek. Unlike anything most American troops had ever heard,
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Panic spread. Many dropped their muskets and bolted in terror. A lone British regiment forded
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the Anacostia River north of the bridge, outflanking the Americans left side. More rockets
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rained down and the U.S. force shattered, men fleeing in droves and leaving the path
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wide open. One British officer smirked that they'd captured some prisoners, but not too many
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A newspaper article later described the hasty American retreat
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President Madison himself was there at Bladensburg
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In his official report to the Secretary of War,
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General William Winder wrote one of the most understated assessments
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The contest was not as obstinately maintained as could have been desired.
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As soon as the defeat became apparent, President Madison dispatched his servant, James Smith, back to the White House with urgent orders.
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Tell the First Lady to flee. A British march on the Capitol was imminent.
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Word of the retreating soldiers hit Washington, D.C. like a shockwave, turning concern into outright chaos.
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Citizens and officials grabbed what they could carry and poured across the Potomac toward Virginia.
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90% of the residents evacuated, leaving a virtual ghost town.
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Now, inside the president's house, Dolly Madison remained composed.
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She issued orders to save the valuables and state papers,
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and in the nail-biting final minutes before fleeing,
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she focused on Gilbert Stewart's iconic 1797 portrait of George Washington.
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She ordered the heavy frame broken, canvas cut free, rolled, and carried out.
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It was later hidden in a farmer's barn outside of the city.
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Well, an exhausted Madison staggered back to the White House around 4 p.m.,
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Shaken by the Bladensburg debacle, he waved off food,
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downing just a glass of wine before fleeing to evade capture himself.
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Paul Jennings, Madison's enslaved White House worker, later reported,
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A rival, taking advantage of the confusion, ran all over the White House and stole lots of silver
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and whatever they could lay their hands on. Looting had begun before the British even arrived.
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And as they crested Capitol Hill, they traded the docks with stray U.S. soldiers,
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but it was far too little too late. They reached the Capitol building,
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The first phase of which had only been completed three years earlier, the Capitol didn't have yet the iconic rotunda, just two large wings of the building connected by a covered wooden walkway in the central section where the rotunda would eventually rise.
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Margaret Bayard Smith, founder of the local newspaper, described the horror that ensued.
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Fifty men, sailors and Marines, were marched by an officer silently through the avenue.
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When arrived at the building, each man was stationed at a window.
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The windows were broken, and this wildfire was thrown in,
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so that an instantaneous conflagration took place,
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and the whole building was wrapped in flames and smoke.
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This initial effort did not achieve the desired destruction.
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Since ceilings in the capital were covered in sheet iron,
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Frustrated, the British piled furniture and curtains inside the House and Senate chambers,
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doused them with gunpowder, and fired rockets into the heaps.
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A plume of embers rose so high it ignited a nearby building.
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At 11 p.m., General Robert Ross and Admiral George Cockburn rode down Pennsylvania Avenue with 150 men.
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They rifled through what was left of the Madison's food and possessions,
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and then they stacked the furniture, bedding and curtains,
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and they ordered 50 soldiers to encircle the mansion
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and throw oil-soaked rags on poles through the windows like flaming javelins.
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The roaring furnace collapsed the White House interior into a smoldering shell.
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Today, scorched marks from the fire are still visible on the exterior of the White House
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in two small sections that have been left unpainted as reminders of the national tragedy.
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The British next burned the treasury, war, executive office buildings.
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The Library of Congress and its 3,000 books all went up in flames.
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It was revenge for the American destruction of public buildings in York, Canada just the
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In the aftermath of the destruction, D.C. residents inscribed their anger on the walls
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One message read, quote, the Capitol and the Union was lost by cowardice.
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Another said, quote, George Washington founded this city after a seven-years war with England.
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Senator Robert Henry Goldsboro of Maryland wrote this to his wife.
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The city of Washington, once very beautiful to my eye, is now an odious, miserable object.
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It is the dreadful monument of an unfortunate and illy-timed war,
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and the unerring evidence of a weak, incompetent, and disgraced administration.
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The capital was now in ruins, the army disgraced, and the nation stood stunned.
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Ten days after the burning of D.C., Madison accepted the resignation of War Secretary John Armstrong.
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Three and a half weeks on, Congress slowly crept back to survey the wreckage.
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They set up a temporary Capitol in the unscathed Patent and Post Office building.
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Debates raged about relocating the Capitol, maybe to Philadelphia or New York,
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but in late October they voted to stay put in Washington, D.C.
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In a rare practical move for Congress, they determined it would be cheaper to restore the Capitol and White House than to build entirely new ones.
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Six months after the fire, Madison approved a $500,000 loan to rebuild.
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In the meantime, James and Dolly Madison moved to a house known as the Octagon, second in size only to the White House.
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The Octagon's owner granted the government a six-month lease for $800.
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Madison set up his office in a circular study on the second floor.
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From there, in a scarred city still reeking of smoke,
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the quiet president and the indomitable first lady
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began the work of holding together a shaken nation.
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Appropriately enough, shared a birthplace and a birthday with America, Philadelphia, 1776.
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She was widowed at age 29, leaving her with a young daughter to support.
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It was a trade she learned from her mother, so she moved to Baltimore, one of America's
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biggest port cities where ships were in constant need of flags and banners.
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In 1807, Mary rented a modest house on Pratt Street, right there in the heart of it all.
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She dove into her flag-making business, and in a little over a decade,
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she scrapped together enough cash to buy that house outright.
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For a woman in that era, that was almost unheard of.
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The summer of 1813 brought Mary the biggest commission of her life,
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Major George Armistead, the no-nonsense commander of Baltimore's Fort McHenry, needed two new American flags.
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He wanted one so large the British would have no difficulty seeing it from a distance.
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Well, Mary got to work on this massive new flag, 30 feet by 42 feet, plus a smaller storm flag 17 by 25 feet.
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She had help from her mother, her 13-year-old daughter, two nieces, and an indentured black servant.
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For the large flag the red and white stripes were two feet wide. The stars
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were 24 inches point to point. Now at the time the U.S. added a star and a stripe
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for every new state that had been added to the Union. So Mary's flag had 15
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stars and 15 stripes. To work they had to spread this giant flag out on the
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expansive floor of a nearby brewery. They finished the project in seven weeks
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having no clue that they had just stitched together what would become the most famous flag in their nation's history.
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The glow of the burning of Washington, D.C. could be seen from Baltimore, and residents knew, we're next.
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Baltimore was the third largest city in the nation.
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Its port was a hub of privateers who specialized in raiding British ships.
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It was only a matter of time before the British paid them a visit.
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Well, under army supervision, Baltimore was divided into four zones, each zone working on
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the city's defenses on alternating days. Every citizen had to pitch in, regardless of age,
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sex, or race. In just three weeks, they threw up over a mile and a half of entrenchments.
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Baltimore would not be going down without a fight.
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On September 12, 1814, the British landed 5,000 troops and eight cannons at North Point,
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that's about 10 miles southeast of Fort McHenry. The U.S. countered with 3,200 troops, most of them
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Baltimore natives. Early in the battle, two young sharpshooters from the 5th Maryland militia shot
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and killed the British commander as he rode near the front of his line. Now, amid the chaos, heavy
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casualties piled up. The Americans were ultimately forced to retreat, but they delayed the British
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push forward into Baltimore buying precious time. At 6.30 a.m. on September 13th the British fleet
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of 55 ships opened fired on Fort McHenry with mortar shells. These bombs weighed about 200
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pounds each. They were hollow shells stuffed with 10 to 15 pounds of gunpowder with wooden fuses
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screwed in. When the shells were fired from ships, the explosion of powder in the cannon
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lit the fuse, which was time for a 27-second flight. When the fuse burned down to the powder
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inside the shell, the gunpowder was set off and the bomb exploded in the air, raining down jagged
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shrapnels on the target. Well, inside Fort McHenry, 1,200 troops worked out in the open.
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There were no bunkers for cover. The men fired back at the British, nailing some of the frigates
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and smaller ships, but the British mostly stayed out of range, so by 11 a.m. Major Armistead
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dialed it back to conserve ammunition. Suddenly, a British bomb struck the fort's powder magazine.
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It glanced off the arched roof and caved in part of the ceiling of a room that held
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200 barrels of gunpowder. Had the bomb punched through the barrels, Fort McHenry and all of
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its soldiers would have vanished in a single catastrophic explosion. But Major Armistead
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quickly ordered the powder barrels moved and spread out along the fort's outer walls.
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Through his spyglass, Admiral Cochrane saw the activity and mistook it for panic. He ordered
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his ships closer. Then they dropped anchors at the bow and the stern just to steady themselves.
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As they closed in with a mile and a half, Armistead gave the order. All of Fort McHenry's guns opened
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fired. For an hour, U.S. cannons hammered the British fleet. Rigging shattered, hulls splintered,
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Admiral Cochran finally pulled his ships back out of range, but the British fleet was wounded.
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However, far from done, all night their bombs and rockets peppered Fort McHenry.
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Across the harbor, the citizens of Baltimore watched from the rooftops and windows,
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feeling the ground tremble with every explosion. Among the sleepless observers was a prominent
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lawyer named Francis Scott Key, but he had a much different vantage point because he was on a ship
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that was under guard of the very British fleet reigning destruction on Fort McHenry.
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Francis Scott Key was a family man and a slave owner. He and his wife had 11 children. He was a
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respected attorney, he had defended two men accused of treason in a shadowy conspiracy
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tied to Aaron Burr. Several days before the British bombardment began, Key was on a small
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American ship sailing towards the British fleet under a flag of truce. After the burning of
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Washington, D.C., the British arrested a Maryland physician. His name was William Beans. They
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accused him of helping round up some British soldiers as they left Washington. Francis Scott
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Key knew Dr. Beans, so Key went to President Madison. He received permission to intervene
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and traveled to Baltimore to meet up with John Skinner, who was the U.S. prisoner exchange agent.
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Together, they sailed out to Admiral Cochran's flagship. They negotiated Dr. Beans' release,
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and then they were told they couldn't leave. They had heard too much while on board the flagship.
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The British had been discussing the impending bombardment around the Americans, so they
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They wouldn't let Key, Skinner, or Dr. Beans return to shore until the attack was officially
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The Americans were allowed to return to their own ship, but they were guarded by a group
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There they waited, helpless, two miles from the fort.
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They watched from the deck of the truce ship as the 25-hour bombardment dragged on through
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1,500 shells and cannonballs pummeled Fort McHenry.
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When the firing finally stopped in the early hours of September 15th, Key and Skinner scanned
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Then in the first light of the morning, they saw it.
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Mary Pickersgill's flag, unfurling above the ramparts.
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It was unmistakably the American flag, identifiable from this great distance, just as Major Armistead
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Key, as a lawyer, always was prepared with paper.
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He labored over the verses while they were still under British guard, shaping the experience
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The following evening, after the British finally released them, he reached Baltimore and took
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Skinner and Dr. Beans read it and urged him to print it.
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Later that day, 1,000 copies rolled off the press under the title, The Defense of Fort
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Set to the tune of Anacreon in Heaven, by afternoon the handbills were in the streets
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within six weeks, newspapers all across every state had reprinted it. Key's song would eventually
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become known as the Star-Spangled Banner. The song grew in popularity over the next century,
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but it didn't become our official national anthem until an act of Congress in 1931.
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Today, the same flag that Francis Scott Key saw by the dawn's early light is preserved
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on display in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, completely restored
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Unbeknownst to those in Baltimore, at almost the same moment, far to the north, another
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Another drama was unfolding on Lake Champlain in Upper New York.
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There U.S. Captain Thomas McDonough faced a superior British fleet.
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During the brutal, brutal engagement, the 30-year-old commander was knocked unconscious twice.
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The first time by falling rigging and later by the flying decapitated head of one of his
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gun captains after a British cannonball struck the ship.
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The British Navy captured 1,400 American merchant vessels.
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America was not going to be able to hold out much longer.
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President Madison replaced his Secretary of War with James Monroe,
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who immediately called up the militia to strengthen the defenses of Washington and Baltimore.
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He then ordered Andrew Jackson to march his troops south towards New Orleans,
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I think about Providence often these days, the idea that we're stewards of our families, our communities, our own safety.
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The founders understood this. It's woven into the fabric of who we are as Americans.
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And I want to share something with you. It's called BURNA, B-Y-R-N-A, and it's changed how I think about personal protection.
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Here's the thing. Most people assume self-defense is complicated, that you need training, licensing, you know, government approval.
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That's not pepper spray distance, that's real distance.
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It gives you time to think, to move, to get your family safe.
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It's simple enough that anyone can use it, anyone.
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And it's built in Fort Wayne, Indiana, right here in America,
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And that matters to me, and I think it matters to you.
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I'm here to tell you being prepared isn't paranoia.
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It's what we do for the people that you'd do anything for.
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For more of the history that inspired this podcast series, be sure to read The American Story, The Beginnings, by David Barton and Tim Barton.
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It was a very personal hatred that reached back to 1781
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when the Revolutionary War still smoldered across the southern colonies.
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and he was riding through Carolina backcountry as a courier for the patriot cause.
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He was scrawny, fiery, stubborn, already displaying the gritty traits that would later earn him the nickname of Old Hickory.
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Jackson joined his 16-year-old brother Robert in fighting with the local militia in their latest guerrilla attack on the British.
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It was a raid on an enemy outpost at Hanging Rock that inflicted 200 British casualties.
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A rare win for the scrappy frontier patriots, but Jackson and Robert wasn't a win for them.
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They were hungry, sick, and herded into a makeshift prison camp.
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One day, a British officer ordered Jackson to clean his boots.
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The officer swung his saber, slashing Jackson across the face and cutting his left hand
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Smallpox hit the prison camp, and both brothers caught it.
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Their mother pulled strings for a prisoner exchange to free their sons,
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but Robert died of smallpox a few days after the release.
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The older brother had been killed in a battle two years earlier.
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his mother left for Charleston to help care for the sick and wounded troops,
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Jackson's immediate family was now entirely gone.
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as his father had died just a few weeks before he was born.
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By war's end, 14-year-old Andrew was an orphan,
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Years later, with the heat of that teenage trauma still burning in his chest,
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I owe to Britain a debt of retaliatory vengeance.
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Should our forces meet, I trust I shall pay the debt.
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In December 1814, in the Belgian city of Ghent, American negotiators led by John Quincy Adams,
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son of the second president and the war hawk Henry Clay, were holed up with their British
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counterparts trying to end the messy War of 1812. As the days dragged on, Adams scribbled in his
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diary about how Clay kept him up all night, boozing, gambling with the enemy. Finally,
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both sides threw in the towel. The U.S. had no real military edge, and the British
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were just tired of the hassle. On Christmas Eve, they signed the Treaty of Ghent,
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officially calling it quits. Nothing much changed. Any conquered land was returned,
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and borders snapped back to pre-war lines between the U.S. and Canada.
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Oh, and the British promised to stop stirring up Indian tribes against the American settlers.
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The treaty also contained a provision that was long overdue, yet still a bit ahead of its time.
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There was an anti-slavery clause in which both nations agreed to work together toward abolishing the African slave trade.
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Whereas the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of humanity and justice,
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And whereas both His Majesty and the United States are desirous of continuing their efforts to promote its entire abolition,
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it is hereby agreed that both the contracting parties shall use their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object.
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After Britain's embarrassing flop at Baltimore, they pivoted south, eyeing New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
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They knew if they could control that, they would have a highway into America's heartland.
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Andrew Jackson was already racing ahead, forces in tow, that old vengeance debt fueling his urgency.
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He declared martial law in New Orleans and rallied every able-bodied man to fortify the outskirts.
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Jackson scraped together an unlikely patchwork army of 4,500 men,
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including army regulars, frontier militiamen, free black fighters,
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wealthy Creole aristocrats, and Choctaw warriors.
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Jean Le Fitt, the suave smuggler, king of Barataria Bay, had been courted by the British.
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He'd fight for the Americans, and his cannons and gunners would come with him if his captured men were pardoned.
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Jackson, who valued results over respectability, agreed.
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Wading offshore in the swamps south of the city were 8,000 British troops, many of them veterans of wars against Napoleon,
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commanded by Lieutenant General Edward Pakenham.
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They fully expected to crush the American rabble that they referred to as the Dirty Shirts.
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Jackson struck first, launching a gutsy nighttime raid on the British camp nine miles south of New Orleans.
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The British absorbed the blow, but it did not break.
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Jackson withdrew and fell back to a 10-foot-wide canal near a large plantation off the Mississippi River.
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There, using enslaved labor, his men widened the canal into a defensive trench
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and piled the excavated earth into a 7-foot-high rampart reinforced with timber.
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The line stretched nearly a mile from the river's edge to almost an impassable swamp.
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When the work was done, Jackson rallied his motley crew.
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Here we shall plant our stakes and not abandon them
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until we drive these redcoat rascals into the river or the swamp.
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A probing skirmish by the British on December 28th fizzled indecisively.
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But on New Year's Day, British artillery roared for hours,
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January 8th, 1815, at dawn, the final British assault began.
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a concrete rocket screams overhead that was the signal redcoats cheered surge
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forward the British guns roar but Jackson's 24 artillery pieces some man
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Pakenham banks on burning fog for cover but it lifts with the Sun exposing his
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lines in bright red uniforms. American cannons rip holes into the British ranks, flinging
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men and deer skyward. As the British push on, musket fire shreds them further. Frontiersmen,
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who had spent their lives hunting deer in dense forests, now take aim at the masked ranks in
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open ground. Their rifle fire is devastatingly precise. General Pakenham rides forward to rally
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his men, and he's struck down by grape shot. Within 30 minutes, the attack collapses. The
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British fall back in chaos, leaving over 2,000 wounded or killed. The American lose 71 men,
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13 killed, 39 wounded, and 19 missing or captured. One Kentucky soldier stared across the carnage
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and later wrote, when the smoke had cleared away and we could obtain a fair view of the field,
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It looked at the first glance like a sea of blood.
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It was not blood itself which gave this appearance,
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but the red coats in which the British soldiers were dressed.
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The field was entirely covered with prostrate bodies.
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Almost a month passed before the battle result even reached Washington, D.C.
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It was February 4th that messengers finally arrived
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with word that Jackson had annihilated the British at New Orleans.
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the Treaty of Ghent had been signed. Because Americans learned of the battle first,
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many assumed the victory had forced Britain to make peace. In reality, the war had already ended,
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but perception mattered more than chronology. The nation had been battered and humiliated by
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so many earlier defeats. They chose to remember the war as ending in triumph.
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The Senate rushed to ratify the treaty, and Congress asked President Madison to proclaim
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a national day of prayer. In his address, Madison said,
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No people ought to feel greater obligations to celebrate the goodness of the great disposer of
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events and of the destiny of nations than the people of the United States. And to the same
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divine author of every good and perfect gift, we are indebted for all those privileges and
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advantages, religious as well as civil, which are so richly enjoyed in this favored land.
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The War of 1812, it didn't produce territorial gains or formal surrender.
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Britain and Europe learned the United States could not be casually bullied anymore.
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That's why Americans soon began calling the War of 1812 the Second War for Independence.
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and towering over that memory stood old hickory.
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The Battle of New Orleans transformed Andrew Jackson into a national hero.
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The scarred boy who had once defied a British officer's command
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had finally, in his own mind at least, paid his debt of retaliatory vengeance.
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Jackson's fame would mutate into a consequential presidency
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U.S. politics, and an untold tragedy for Native Americans that would echo on through generations.
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Coming up on The American Story, The Beginnings.
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jackson playing it cool or maybe strategic lets dickinson fire first the shot cracks the air
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slamming into jackson's chest lodging near his heart blood begins to soak his shirt running
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down into his boot but jackson steadies himself levels his pistol click the hammer catches
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halfway. Re-cocks, aims again, and fires. Dickinson is struck in the abdomen and crumples to the
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ground. By sundown, he's dead. Jackson walks away. That bullet remained buried in his chest
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a safer Ontario means more police and prosecutors making sure my car doesn't get stolen
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it means building new jails to keep criminals behind bars and it means there's no need to
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worry when I play at the park we're making every corner of Ontario safer to make all of Ontario
00:50:36.340
safer that's how we protect Ontario for all of us learn how at ontario.ca slash safer Ontario