War of 1812

War between the USA and Britain caused by British interference with US shipping trade as part of Britain's economic warfare against Napoleonic France. A treaty signed in Ghent, Belgium, in December 1814 ended the conflict, with neither side victorious.

The British policies of forcing neutral US ships to stop at British ports and pay duties and of impressing US sailors from American ships were growing sources of hostility against the British. In 1806 the USA passed the Non-Importation Act, barring British goods from US markets. The following year, Congress passed the Embargo Act, prohibiting exports and forbidding US ships from sailing into foreign ports. The act was not only disastrous for US trade but also failed to curb British and French trade restrictions. In 1809 the USA ended the embargo and passed the Non-Intercourse Act, allowing trade with any foreign country except the UK and France, but this act also failed.

President James Madison authorized the beginning of hostilities against the British on the high seas and in Canada; US forces failed twice in attempts to invade British-held Canada, and success was limited to the capture of Detroit and a few naval victories such as those at Lake Erie (1813) and Lake Champlain (1814). In 1814 British forces occupied Washington, DC, and burned the White House and the Capitol. After the peace treaty had been signed in Ghent, but before news of it reached the USA, American troops under Andrew Jackson defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815.

The successful defence of Baltimore from Fort McHenry in 1814 inspired Francis Scott Key to write the words of the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’, the US national anthem.