The War of 1812 began on June 18, when President James Madison officially proclaimed the U.S. to be at war with Great Britain. Congress had voted for war on June 4 and June 8. The war, which caused great harm to the U.S. economy, came after a long period of troubled relations between the two countries, caused mainly by Britain's conflict with Napoleonic France. The British seized American ships, impressed seamen from them, some of whom were U.S. citizens, and attempted to keep U.S. ships from reaching French ports. The war was also the result of the influence of the so called War Hawks in Congress, Henry Clay and other westerners who wanted to acquire moreland by conquering Canada. Inronically, on June 23 Great Britain, not aware of the declaration of war, suspended the orders that had hampered U.S. shipping.

1812- The U.S. frigate Old Ironsides (Constitution) defeated the British ship Guerriere off Nova Scotia. The Constitution was commanded by Commodore Isaac Hull.

1812- In a naval engagement on Lake Erie, American forces under the commandof Lt. Jesse Duncan Elliott captured two British brigs, Detroit and Caledonia. Elliott was later forced to set fire to the Detroit.

1812- General Stephen Van Rensselaer was defeated in the battle of Queenstown Heights, Canada, on the Niagara frontier by the British and Indians. About 1000 U.S. troops were killed or wounded. British General Isaac Brock, captor of Detroit, was killed during the engagement.

1812- The U.S. frigate Constitution destroyed the British frigate Java in the fight off the coast of Brazil. Old Ironsides was under the commandof Commodore William Brainbridge.

1813- In the War of 1812 (1812-1814), Captain James Lawrence, commanding the U.S. frigate Hornet, captured the British ship Peacock.

1813- British forces surrendered York, Canada, now Toronto, to Americans commanded by Brig. Gen. Zebulon M. Pike, who was killed in the battle.

1813- Captain James Lawrence cried "Don't give up the ship" to his crew as he lay mortally wounded aboard the Chesapeake, which was subsequently defeated and captured by the British frigate Shannon in an engagement off the Massachusetts coast.

1813- A British naval victory off the coast of England was scored by the Pelican when it captured the American ship Argus, which had previously captured 27 British merchant vessels.

1813- The Battle of Lake Erie was a significant American naval victory. An improvised American fleet commanded by Oliver Hazard Perry decisively defeated the British after a bloody engagement. During the battle Perry's flagship Lawrence was crippled and he had to continue the fight from another ship. He returned to the Lawrence to accept the British surrender, then sent to General William Henry Harrison, commander in the west, the victory dispatch containing the words "We have met the enemy, and they are ours." The Americans gained control of Lake Erie, and the British were obliged to withdraw from Detroit, further strengthening the U.S. positioning in the Great Lakes.

1813- General Harrison defeated the British under General Henry A. Proctor at the Battle of the Thames, Ontario, Canada. Tecumseh, Shawnee Indian chief and ally of the British, was killed during the engagement. His death broke the Indian confederacy.

1814- Washington, D.C. was captured by British troops under General Robert Ross. The Capitol, White House, and other government buildings were set afire in retaliation for earlier burning of Canadian government buildings in York, Toronto, by U.S. troops.

1814- At the Battle of Lake Champlain a newly built U.S. fleet under Master-Commandant Thomas Macdonough annihilated a British squadron. This forced British General Sir George Prevost and his army to abandon their siege of the U.S. fort at Plattsburgh and to retreat to Canada on foot.

1814- The treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812, was signed on December 24 by representatives of the U.S. and Great Britain. The Senate ratified the treaty in February 1815. The American negotiators were John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, Jonathan Russell, and ALbert Gallatin. By terms of the treaty, all conquered territory was to be returned by both sides, and a commission was to settle the boundary between the U.S. and Canada from the St. Croix River west to Lake of the Woods. The British did not achieve their aim to set up an Indian buffer state in the Northwest. The emotional issues that helped cause the war -- impressment of American seamen and the rights of neutral commerce -- were not mentioned.

1815- The greatest battle of the War of 1812 and its finest American victory came on January 8, 1815, two weeks after the war had been ended officially by the Treaty of Ghent. The Battle of New Orleans was fought on the British side by 7500 veterans under the command of General Andrew Jackson, comprised about 4500 troops, many of them expert marksmen from Kentucky and Tennessee armed with exceedingly accurate long rifles. The U.S. troops were strongly entrenched when on the mroning of January 8 the British, in close ranks, made two assaults on their lines. In half an hour the British were driven back, Pakenham was killed, and 2036 of his men were killed or wounded. U.S. forces suffered 8 killed and 13 wounded. Although the battle had no bearing on the outcome of the war, it was a stimulus to U.S. pride, which had suffered from several embarrassing defeats during the conflict. The battle made a military hero of General Jackson, whose political career was advanced.