Historians’ Assessments
What the scholarship concludes
The following quotations are drawn from leading historians of the War of 1812 — American, British, and Canadian. They are presented because the scholarly consensus, when examined independently of national mythology, is notably consistent.
“The United States achieved none of its stated war aims. The treaty said nothing about impressment, nothing about neutral rights, nothing about the Orders in Council. Canada remained British.”
Leading American historian of the war
“America went to war for land. The ultimate aim was continental exclusivity, free from foreign powers, native peoples, and for many in the South, barriers to the expansion of plantation slavery.”
Laughton Professor of Naval History, King's College London
“History is neither fixed, nor agreed, and can sometimes be subject to the creation of a magical reality to obscure unpalatable facts.”
On the American mythologisation of the war
“By any rational assessment, the British had won and the Americans had lost.”
Professor of History, Exeter
“To call the War of 1812 a draw is to adopt the American perspective uncritically. The Americans went to war to conquer Canada and enforce maritime rights. They failed at both.”
British military historian
“For the Native peoples, the war was an unmitigated catastrophe. They lost their most charismatic leader, their confederacy, and ultimately their lands.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian
“The real winners were the Canadians, who forged a national identity in the fires of a defensive struggle they had not sought but refused to lose.”
Canada's celebrated popular historian
“Republican ideologues assumed that privateering could do serious damage to British shipping. They were wrong.”
On American commerce warfare strategy
“Broke's victory secured British control of the Atlantic, and within a year Washington had been taken and burnt.”
On Shannon vs Chesapeake
Further Reading
The Challenge
Definitive British naval perspective. Awarded the Anderson Medal.
The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict
Standard modern American history. Notably candid about American failures.
1812: War with America
Comprehensive British military history.
The Civil War of 1812
Pulitzer Prize-winning study of the cross-border conflict.
The War of 1812 in the Age of Napoleon
Places the war within the global Napoleonic context.
The Invasion of Canada
Classic Canadian two-volume popular history.
The War of 1812: Conflict for a Continent
Concise scholarly overview by the editor of the Madison Papers.
The Naval History of Great Britain (Vols. 5-6)
The original contemporary British account, with Lambert's introduction.
STATUS QUO ANTE BELLUM