let's see if we have another question. >> yes because the british stated at the very beginning that they told the native americans, look, you join us in this war and we are going to give you the whole west back. we just want the great lakes and the fur trade. you can have the entire thing. >> there is some merit in that. >> they did have territorial. >> let's see if we have another question from someone else. thank you very much. >> who else? >> yes, sir? . >> you mentioned that it was the troubles that were happening at sea and rightly so. the manifesting was a ways off and can you say there was the statement of people that would say there was conquering canada was a matter of merge something.

>> i would not man fast that from 1830. it seems to be manifest destiny, the founding of jamestown. the movement goes back to the beginning of the colonial era. they were a nation at this time and there were many, particularly in the west who hoped if we did conk every canada, we would keep it. among those was henry clay in 1813. even though he himself conceded at the same time that canada was the means rather than the end. sure, there were those who wanted to keep canada and this really increased i think in 1813 after the successful campaign in the old northwest. you even have easter newspapers saying and you can't give canada back once we conquer it. >> were there myths about john

paul jones in the battle of lake erie? >> he was a revolutionary war figure. not at lake erie. >> perry. any myths some. >> the images that show him and probably sitting. mostly i think the conventional account of perry's performance in the battle was pretty accurate. >> anything thaw mentioned at the beginning that the port henry flag and any myths surrounding that? it has been my understanding that that was the original flag made by mary pickers. >> yeah, more or less, he ordered it. there was a famous painting that

show movers and shakers. she made it and he probably had no immediate input except he gave her the dimensions and they agreed upon a price. a lot of them with that flag and the defense of fort renry. myth was in the family until 1907. there was about six or eight feet with one end of the flag missing. there was a missing star and the myth is that was given to abraham lincoln and we know that's not true because the family were southern sympathizers and wouldn't have given that star. there was other myths in

connection with the writing of the star spangled banner. keys to the poem who was quickly turned into a song and became a patriotic heir. big effects have a lot of mythology. probably the most myths surround the battle of new orleans. you can do a whole program on the top ten myths on the battle. >> when i was in school locally, the only thing that i retained about the war of 1812 was the battle of lake erie as though it had begun and ended right there. >> where did you go to school? >> highland park right here in this area. my canadian friend his a different version. the point is that i did not

realize until i read a book recently that the battle of lake erie was more than an exchange of gunfire and one side won and one side lost. it was a determining factor that led to prokor moving back to niagara and leaving this area in the hands of the americans because at that battle, it established control of shipping on the lakes and the british in this area were so dependent on shipments coming in that were then caught off. they had changed the out come of the occupation of detroit and the surrounding areas in canada. >> that's correct. whoever controlled the waterways controlled the surrounding land. the only way to move in efficiently is by water. interesting what you said about your education and high school. keep this in mind there were seven or 8 theaters of operation in this war.

four on the canadian frontier and the other along the river that embraced the whole northwest. a second on the niagara frontier and a third on the st. lawrence river and a fourth on the river of lake sham explain route. a fifth in the chesapeake and a sixth in the southwest where we fought the creek war and a seventh on the gulf coast and arguably there is a separate and eighth one around st. louis and you have a ninth on the high seas. eight depending on whether you count st. louis. each shaped the way the war was remembered in those areas. we really have many different wars of 1812 and many different ways depending on where you live in which it is remembered.

>> the way we remembered it is the way the war began and ended in 1812. >> next? yes? >> you mentioned wisconsin. could you say the significance of that? >> the british occupied it and the americans booted them out and the british retook it and held at the end of the war. this was one of the more remote that was contested by the british and the americans. this like the gulf coast was not even on the british radar. at one point, the british offered to make peace on the basis of that latin phrase that means you keep what you have. the british were not aware they held them at that point. they were thinking in terms of well, we hold the coast of maine or 100 miles and we have to the

island and fort nial ra and those were the only areas that were particularly interested in. this was too remote to be on the british radar or play any at all in the peace making process. the british did occupy it at the tail end of the war. yes, sir? >> was weather a factor? i heard about the tornado or hurricane. >> weather was not a particular factor. the british occupation of washington. there were two nasty storms that hit during the night. some contemporaries call them tornados that may be an overstatement. they were bad enough that one

collapse and killed a number of soldiers inside. now, during the british bombardment of fort henry, it was a stormy night, but that didn't have an impact on the out come of that bombardment. >> you can tell us about the pirate? . >> part of that mythology is he played a crucial role. he and his brother headed a band of pirates and preyed on commerce in and around the mouth of the mississippi river. as many as 1,000 people in the band of pirates and they prayed on everyone's commerce. they sold their merchandise in new orleans for a good price. new orleans merchants thought they were good guys. they were making money off of

them. the navy destroyed their base in september of 1814. shortly there after the british approached them and offered a deal if they were offering a commission in i think it was the navy and also a land after the british success at new orleans. i need time to think it over and instead he negotiated with the americans and threw his lot in with them. he was willing to decide with the united states. the myth is he played a in the battle of new orleans. his men did help some of the artillery batteries in jackson's line. they really knew the terrain around there so they provided some intelligence to them and

did not provide him with cannons. the myth of the role is the result of a memoire that he allegedly wrote and it was published in the 1950s. very good historians have used that memoire because whoever fabricated it was smart enough to do it on paper from the early 19th century. you do the carbon dating and it looks authentic, but it isn't. it is surely a feek and the contribution was fairly modest. he was not at the battle of new orleans on the day of the battle, january 8th. he was probably running some message somewhere for jack to someone else. he was not in the battle of new orleans. his reputation was inflate and that of his brother probably underrat underrated.

yes? >> i was wondering if you can comment on mr. taylor's book about talking about the war of 1812 being more like a civil war given that loyalives were from the states and largely in upper canada and lower canada because of the french and others that were there longer. it was more or less brother against brother and sometimes literal literally he got sent to the peninsula. the other thing to extend the henry clayism a little bit and project it into beyond the war of 1812, in 1867, during the civil war, the american athd bass dor in upper and lower canada, by saying which side are you on meaning the north or the

south. he said we are neutral. he said then you are against us. that was an urge to get the rail line across canada. they keep it as a separate country. >> alan taylor is a historian and a scholar. they wrote a book published two years ago and the civil war of 1812. a fine study of what happened between detroit and montreal. particularly on the niagara frontier. they brought the new concerns and considerations that historians have about how to write history. race, genter, borders and approached his matter from this new perspective. i think it's a good book. taylor parachuted in.

he is not someone who studied the war. of all the scholars who wrote a book on the war, his and my view is undoubtedly the lest. they are more critical than i am. if i had to name one of the best published, i would include his as one of the best. worth reading. bruce? we have threats of dissolution. was this after the war that new england might disassociate and join the maritimes? >> during the war of 1812, there was talk of is you session, but no serious is you sessionist movement. those who were chosen to attend

the hardford convention were virtually all moderates and they adopted a report and in the end what the new england federalists reported was a serious of amendments to protect the union in the future and a series of steps that would enable them to better finance the local defense measures. they did call for the nullification of the federal laws and that never became law. a minor enlistment that did become law. both massachusetts and connecticut nullified that law, but connecticut did it at the tail end and massachusetts waited until after the war was over. enlistments had been suspended. in later years, many chose to remember the hardfort convention as part of a larger is you sessionist plot or intrigue. i think that overstates the

danger. there was a cessationist sentiment and you can see it in the newspapers, but no serious movement. yes, ma'am? >> fascinating information, thank you. i told my friend who is an eighth grade teacher she needs to take the myths and use it as a true-false test for her class. i am pretty sure that we don't have anything in detroit anything commemorative or statues for william hull. could you speak for a minute about whether there myths about what he did or did not do when detroit was captured and just sort of his place in history? i'm interested in more information about that.

he was not up to the job of managing the campaign in old northwest. in march his army went up to ft. detroit and invaded canada across the river. he was unwilling to assault and try to storm without carriages for his cannons and he learned that he feared and withdrew into detroit and surrendered when brock played what i called the indian card. if we have to attack in fort of the indian allies. the subtext being they will massacre everyone. he had civilians in the ft. including members of his tamly and exclaimed to a fellow officer, my god, what will i do with the civilians?

rather than risk their lives, he surrendered. conventional wisdom is that hall was the goat. he was taken quebec as a prisoner of war and kept bad mouthing the government and said this guy can do us more good. they released him and he was subsequently tried and convicted by a court marshall of courtess and neglect of duty and the court recommended that he be shot. but it also recommended that the president commute the sentence because of his experience and president madison did. as a result hall was around for another 15 or 20 years and he and descendents tried without much success in my view to defend what he had done. if you look at each of hall's decisions, they don't look bad. each one is defensible, but the result of all the decisions was

a disaster. i cannot imagine andrew jackson and william henry harrison and winfield scott or jacob brown. any of the other great manders and he felt he had to surrender. they would have made a different decision and taken a different path earlier. >> one other question. i read a back or part of a book, i think the author's name was walker? it's about the war of 1812 that came out last year. his point largely in the book was and it may be a retor cal question, but until 1812, there was question about what parts of canada may be part of the united states or vice-versa. his argument was that the war of 1812 definitively ended that discussion. >> not entirely.

one of the arguments that alan taylor makes in his book and it's a good one, there were two conflicting visions about what was going to happen in north america. were in north america. were we going to nex canada or was our republican experiment was going to collapse? and who knows what would happen in its place. now where i think taylor is wrong is he argues that a number of british and canadians actually believed the u.s. collapsed, and they were eager to reestablish the british empire before the 49th parallel. i don't think any british leaders or subjects that real really -- to conquer canada, in no way diminished our interest in canada. and even though looking from today's perspective, we see the westward movement as a westward movement. it was also a movement that looked north and south.

and i would say we didn't give canada until about the end of the century. as late as 1886 the detroit newspaper ran an editorial, and i request quote this directly from the editorial. they were talking about a problem with great britain. and the editorial says, when the next war ends there should be but one flag flying from the rio grande to the north pole. it didn't matter that canada had been independent for 30 years. this editor still thought in terms of waging war against great britain by seizing canada. and i don't think until about 1900 americans finally realized that canada was here to stay as an independent nation. i tell my students if quebec ever pulls out of the canadian union, which i do not believe will happen, we may get canadian provinces, particularly from the west coast.

i don't think any of that is going to happen. i think secession is sentiment. that movement in quebec really peaked in the 1990s. thank you. other questions? >> this might be a bit outside your province. but i heard on canadian television, of which detroit is one of three u.s. cities that receive canadian television, by the way, that canada almost went to war with the united states in the 1840s. do you know anything about that? >> i think the better argument is the 1830s. there were a number of problems on the northern border. you had irish nationalists periodically agitating -- now

that's really in the 1860s. and i don't know quite how it happened. but it sounds to me like you have a bunch of irishmen sitting around a tavern and after ten rounds they decide, let's conquer canada and we'll use it as ransom for the independence of ireland. that's not to be taken seriously. but let me just say that there was periodic tension along the northern border. there was a problem in 1830s and then again in the 1860s. but i'm not aware of a problem in the 1840s. but there was persistent tension between the united states, a recurrent tension, and great britain, and persistent tension between the united states and canada. really a lot of these problems were resolved in the treaty of washington in 1871. and i think that's what really lowered more or less permanently the level of tension between the

united states and great britain as well as canada. and resolved the remaining outstanding problems, most of them, between great britain and the united natiostates and cana. >> professor, we have a couple of counties named after a person named anthony wayne and alexander mccomb. could you comment on their roles, if any, in the war of 1812. >> well, anthony wayne was a revolutionary war hero who died in 1795 or '6 i believe. '6? i live in wayne county, nebraska. i teach at wayne state college in nebraska. we're one of a number of wanes named after the great man. mccomb county was named after the general at plantsburg, who

held the position against the invading force in 1814, although that campaign that turned out a successful naval battle, like the battle of lake erie. this is battle of lake champlain. you say mccomb county. he got quite a bet of credit. that concludes our time. i want to thank you all. you've been a great audience. great questions. [ applause ] >> i do need to tell you that we hope dr. hickey will be able to join us again on july 17th when it is once again surrendered to the british. we were with bill porter this afternoon.

the director of the state historic part. when professor hickey and his wife are there they can drink coffee with official michigan war of 1812 by centennial coffee mugs. there's one for he and his wife. and in answer to a shameless plug. we have them available for purchase for only $7. we'll be at the table in the back. more importantly, please buy the forgotten conflict: the war of 1812. by centennial edition. wonderful book. also, i absolutely love don't give up the ship. it's a fascinating read with more than he could tell us here

this evening. >> on the myths. >> on the myths. >> i'll have four or five books up for sale if you're interested. i'll be happy to sign and inscribe. the single largest and most impressive civil war monument in washington to a military officer is the statute of general grant. ian though he was president of the united states, it's really his service as the commanding yen of the union army that made him famous it's right at the the

base of the capitol. it's actually several statues together, and it was constructed over time. it was constructed and designed by a man named henry shrady. he was not a professional artist. he was a well than man that went into art and gave his life into making this statue, which took decades to do. and it was built in stages. then in 1912, a depiction of a artillery was added. in 1916 a depiction of the calvary was added and in 1920 this enormous statue of general grant. the statue is 17-feet tall. it weighs something like 10,000 pounds.

people have said that the horse looks more alert than general grant does. but grant had a pose. seemed to be unfazed. he was sort of waiting in the distance for the report of what was going on. the artillery is in the mud. it's raining. everybody looks wet and uncomfortable. one of the reigns has broken loose. it looks like a miserable day. the calvary, one of the horses is falling and the rider is being thrown to the ground. shrady used his own face for the fallen rider, which was somewhat