>> join american history tv next saturday, june 16th, for an in depth look at the war of 1812. it's the bicentennial of this little known war and we'll learn how it bolstered america's international credibility and fostered a new sense of patriotism and gave us our national anthem. the war of 1812 saturday june 16th live from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. eastern here on american history tv on c-span3. >> up next, hift rstory profess alan taylor and nicole eustace. we recorded this interview at the organization of american historians meeting in milwaukee, wisconsin. it's just under 30 minutes.

>> american history tv is at the annual meeting of the organization of american historians in milwaukee. we're joined by professor alan taylor from the university of california-davis and nicole eustace who teaches history at new york university. thank you for being with us. you're here at the conference, the annual meeting, to talk about the war of 1812 and here with us to talk about the war of 1812. let's start, professor eustace, with a look at the country in 1812. what was the population size? >> the u.s. in 1812 was as they would have said at the time a young and rapidly expanding population. the population in 1812 was about 7.2 million people and it had nearly doubled in the 20 years since the first census in 1790.

a little bit less than doubled. it's a rapidly growing population, and it's a population that is really focused on that as a source of national strength and personal pride. people are focused on having children, raising families, and needing land to farm to support those families. that was kind of the overall situation in terms of the population. >> professor taylor, you have written a pulitzer prize winning book about the war of 1812. both of you. you have a book coming out. we'll get to the that in a minute. the title of your book and title of your book you refer to war of 1812 as a civil war. set the scene for us in 1812. what was the war about and why do you call it a civil war? >> well, i see it as a civil war because i see the american revolution as incomplete as of 1812. the british and american peoples had not been distinguished in a

way they have now two centuries later. americans migrated into canada by the thousands so that a majority of the population in upper canada were people born within the united states. and when american forces invade upper canada, their experience will be that of a civil war in that these people will divide and some of them will fight for the united states and some of them would fight against the united states and they would end up fighting against one another. >> why did u.s. forces invade canada? >> the united states was offended with the british empire for a couple of reasons. one is they were meddling with american shipping on the high seas and then they were also aligning with native peoples to the west. americans persuaded themselves that an invasion of canada would at the very least break up the british alliance with the indian people because canada served as

supply bases for native people living on the united states and the canadian side of the border. they also believed it would be the cheapest way to put pressure on the british, cheaper than building a proper navy and so for those two reasons they target canada for invasion in this war. >> the full title of your book is "civil war of 1812 american citizens, british suspects, irish rebels and indian allies." "british suspects." they were certainly not part of the revolutionary war. >> actually, native people were a part of the revolutionary war. the british had great number of native allies in the revolution. the united states had some native allies. in many ways this is a continuation of that struggle. >> professor eustace, is it fair to look at the war of 1812 as round two of the revolutionary war? >> i think in some important respects it was and in other

respects it wasn't but it was sort of spun that way. one of the first primary sources that i came across that got me really interested in looking at patriotism during the war, which is the focus of my research, was this fascinating book, the multipart title. the title was "the champions of freedom." it makes you think it's a war about freedom. next part of the title was "or the mysterious chief." the mysterious chief turns out to be an indian ghost and final part of the title is ""romance f the 19th century based on events of the war between united states and great britain that terminated in march of 1815." this title collects a lot of different ideas. it collects the idea it was a rematch and this was about a struggle for liberty between the united states and great britain which was one way of spinning the war. at the same time, it admits that

there is this ghost haunting the war that although the declared foe is great britain as professor taylor outlined nicely, the actual sort of shadow foe or ghost foe were native americans whose land rights were being challenged all the time by this expanding u.s. population in need of greater farms. >> the title of your fourrthcomg book, 1812 war of passion and passion of patriotism, was this war essential in establishing what would later be american patriotism. is that what you're referring to there? >> absolutely. one of the things that's fascinating about the war of 1812 is that it is the first time in the united states history that war was ever formally declared by a constitutional process. it's actually just about the first time that war was ever formally declared in a modern democracy. and so it provides an

opportunity to really look at what patriotism means in a democracy where you have elected officials making policy but answerable to an electorate and to the broader public at large. so what really motivated me to do this book was thinking about what does it mean to be a patriot in 1812 and what does it mean to try to stimulate patriotism? they need to do it in 1812 in a way that's quite different from the revolutionary period when everything can proceed on a much ad hoc basis and there won't be a election into the revolution where president james madison was up for re-election in 1812 just months after the commencement of the war. he is re-elected. his secretary of state, james monroe, was then elected in 1816. those elections were in a very real sense referendums on the war and to win the election meant winning public opinion

about the war. >> relatively speaking, it's a short war? >> yes. a little over two years. >> what was the end result? >> well, we may have different takes on that. >> i would love to hear them. >> the end result certainly is native peoples are devastated on both sides of the border. they will be dispossessed at a faster rate than ever before. i also think that the united states comes out of the war feeling much more secure than it did going into the war. and this is ironic because the united states performance in the war was so poor. but at the very end of the war the performance is a whole lot better in particular this very dramatic victory at new orleans and they get a very favorable peace treaty. americans come out of the war feeling much better about themselves and much more secure having british canada as a next door neighbor than they did in 1812 when they started the war. >> the outcome of the war, what is your take on that?

>> it's actually very compatible i think. i agree that the most important result of the war was that the position of native americans was very much weakened and britain stopped functioning as an effective ally, imperial ally for native american groups and that was one of the profound results of the war. i also agree that the nation felt a lot of confidence after the war and that this is surprising given the poor performance during the war and fr frankly given they didn't accomplish that much. it is a favorable peace treaty because britain abandoned the idea of creating a buffer state for indians which they promised they were going to negotiate. they completely abandoned that idea. that was favorable for the united states. most of the other issues of the war were not addressed. they simply agreed to return to the status quo. so really not that much

happened. >> domestically? >> diplomatically with british directly and yet people wind up confident and feeling great about the war and that to me was really the fun and interesting puzzle that drove me to look at patriotism and how you shape emotion and therefore feelings about the war. there is a newspaper in boston in 1817 that says we're now enjoying an era of good feelings and that phrase was picked up and repeated immediately in newspapers all around the country. i think it's really true that the nation did enter a period of good feelings and to figure out exactly how that came about is something that i think is analytically very interesting. >> you are participating in one of a couple conversations here. the 200th anniversary of the war of 1812. do you think that the war is being properly commemorated or remembered across the country? >> it's not being much remembered or commemorated. states are not investing

significant money in this other than maryland. we have states in financial distress and a federal government in financial distress and it's just become more difficult for people to agree about what you do in a commemoration than was the case in the past. >> i think there's a lot of ambivalence exactly because no one has ever been sure exactly what the war was about, exactly what it accomplished, and therefore if there's something to celebrate or if there's something to critique and there is an unwillingness to spend time thinking about it. >> what do you tell your students when they ask why should we -- why is the war of 1812 relevant today? >> i think it's relevant for a number of important reasons. i think, first of all, the question of how you drum up p e patriotism and get people emotionally involved in war is something that changes very much over time but that's a process

worth analyzing and looking at. i think we can't really understand the history of the 19th century united states and of american expansionism over the entire continent without starting with the war of 1812 because of the fact that indians are so weakened by the end of the war. u.s. expansion really had already begun but it really starts to kind of snow ball after the war of 1812 so that for the next six years after the war, one by one you have six new states entering the union including states like alabama where the creek indians had been defeated during the war of 1812 but when we talk about the war of 1812 as something that was fought in naval battles against the british, we're not thinking about jackson fighting the creeks but in fact that's a really important element of this whole time period. >> this was a war in terms of territories spread over a large portion of the american -- what

was america at that time. >> all of the oceans of the world as well. >> exactly, yeah. what's interesting is that european powers had already recognized the united states legal right to this territory but it was very much disputed by native american nations that did not recognize this right and that is why it can look from the outside as if the war changed nothing because the u.s. neither gained nor lost territory in terms of claims and counterclaims with european empir empires, but it did gain effective control it would not have otherwise determined. >> the war clearly determines that the united states will be the dominant power in north america and the british accept that they will have to retreat within a confined border along the great lakes. whereas before they had been projecting influence into the united states through native peoples. so also there is a mutual acceptance that it is better to co-exist rather than to engage

in another war between the united states and british north america, what we now call canada and so something very positive does come out of the war in that sense. it's not another war between the british empire and the united states and there won't be another war waged in canada in which the united states is invading. >> we talked about the lack of commemoration here in the u.s. for the war of 1812. what about canada? >> in a very big way there. the canadian government is investing significant money in this and it goes to a sense of patriotism because they would like to have an american style patriotism, the current government of canada, one which celebrates military accomplishment and that's a new definition of canadian patriotism that the current government is advancing. their one great opportunity for that is to commemorate the war of 1812. >> how's that going? >> it's a mixed bag because the

current government in canada, the harper government, would very much like this to be an occasion to help to draw french speaking and english speaking canada together because they both fought to defend canada against the american invasion. but frank phones are not enthusiastic about commemorating the war of 1812. >> anything you want to add to the canadian comment? >> not a lot. the two of us have been corresponding with a similar set of colleagues. commemorations are active there and enthusiasm there particularly on the part of the government for staging reenactments and that sort of thing and it's being treated as a real bicentennial of the canadian nation in a way that it's not here. >> c-span is based in washington and perhaps people in washington have a perspective of the war of 1812 as the war that burned the

nation's capital and one of the dominant figures that comes out of the war is dolly madison. as a female historian looking at the war of 1812, what perspective do you bring on her and just in general the role of women in the war of 1812? >> well, my perspective really comes out of social history and cultural history which is history of ordinary people. not to say that dolly madison didn't create a heroic figure with legend of the saving of the portrait but i'm more interested in ordinary women's participation as patriots and what's really fascinating is that because there is all of this belief that population is the source of the strength of nations, there is a lot of wartime emphasis on women's roles as mothers. mothers and warriors go together serving the nation side by side. and there's a phenomenal amount of rhetoric both at the level of

popular culture and at the level of high politics talking about how women's roles as the bearers of children will add strength to the nation. literally in 1813 when the war isn't going very well, thomas jefferson writers a letter to the friend and says we'll prevail because we have breeders enough. we have men enough to carry on population. and so a lot of women's role in this war is being seen as advancing the united states' ability to claim land through settlement. you need families to go and live on the land in order to realize the abstract claims the u.s. is making to control that territory. >> how was the u.s. able to muster forces enough to fight this war? was it a popular call? >> the answer is they were not able to muster enough forces in this war. they struggled throughout the war. >> because the war wasn't popular? >> well, it's also that the

american people can make more money staying on their farms or running their own shops and so the military pay was pretty low. the bonuses were pretty low until the last year of the war and then they have more success recruiting more soldiers for the war. the news had just gotten out about what a miserable experience the soldiers were having at the front, that there was a great deal of disease and a great deal of suffering and hunger because the american war effort was so chaotic. and then there were a fair number of defeats so for all of those reasons, it was very difficult to recruit enough soldiers for this war and the united states is able to mobilize forces that are significantly smaller than what they did in the revolution. >> forces were smaller than the revolution. >> despite the fact that the population was significantly larger and it doubled. >> you mention about naval battles being fought all over the world. how far? >> indian ocean, pacific ocean.

>> we would have been fighting british forces? >> yes. yes. the united states had a small navy but it had a very well designed ships and good officer corps and had good sailors and they adopt a strategy of they're not going to directly confront the british navy where it's strongest. they'll spread through the world's oceans and raid the commerce of the british empire in order to inflict as much economic pain as possible. and that's why you see these ships all over the world's oceans. >> professor eustace, you mention the creeks in alabama. how else were the native groups, native tribes, used in the war of 1812? >> another major confrontation with indians during the war of 1812 was the battle of the tems which is a battle that william

henderson whose glory from that battle and another one proper pelled him to the white house in 1840. harris confederacy leader tecumseh at the battle of the thames. it's a decisive win for the united states. and it leads to the death of tecumseh and, therefore, to the shattering of the shawnee confederacy. that's a crucial turning moment in terms of indian relations during the war. >> you talked about the rapid expansion of the u.s., the seven states within several short years after the war. was that a specific program on the part of the federal government to expand or waits just the need for more land? >> well, it's both. and what's quite extraordinary is how very self-conscious people were about thinking about how the rights and needs and desires of the individual could

reinforce the needs of the nation. so there is the petition, for example, in illinois of people who want to move into the illinois territory and see illinois become a state, which it does become a state immediately after the war. and in the petition, people say, we want to go because we want to be able to raise families. and this will contribute to the strength of the nation. we will bring civilization and christianity and settled agriculture to these lands by moving on to them. and that's one of the fascinating things about the rhetoric of patriotism during the war. it becomes the most important obligation of a member of the nation, but also the most fundamental right enjoyed by people. >> how were veterans treated after the war of 1812? were there benefits, as in later years was there a veteran's administration that would have taken care of things?

>> there was nothing of that sort. but they do get land grants. and so you're quite right, that does help to accelerate western settlement. now, these veterans don't always settle on the land themselves, but they have the right to these lands and they can sell them to other people who will then go and settle in places like michigan and indiana and illinois. >> i want to go back to your book for a second, professor eustace, the forthcoming book about war and the passion of patriotism. in reading about some of your work, you talk about the prominence of emotion in 18th century european religion and philosophy, 18th century america. >> yes. >> expand that and explore that for us a little bit. what do you mean by that? >> well, at the beginning of this project, i looked at the proclamation that madison issues to the nation the day after he signs the congressional declaration of war into law.

and he says all the good people of the united states, as they love their country, should exert themselves. and i wanted to know, what does it really mean to love your country? what does this feel like? and it was at that early point in my research that i came across the novel that i already mentioned, the champions of freedom or the mysterious romance founded in the events of the war 20s the united states and great britain that terminated in march of 1815. and that book is -- to a modern reader, hilarious because alternating chapters of a very straightforward, pretty faithful and accurate history of the war with a lot of details about troop maneuvers, casualty figures, this kind of factual information. alternating every chapter with a sent mental sa discussion narrative in which the hero of the tale, who manages to fight in just about every battle while

being haunted by this indian ghost, you know, goes back and forth between fighting on the battlefield and then wrestling with his passion. and he is bethrowed by his true love, catherine, but he is sa seducted by sofia. and ultimately, with the guidance of the indian ghost who tells him that he has to curtail his passions if he wants military victory, he eventually gets control of himself and then he eventually marries catherine on what the author calls the altar of heiman on the day that the peace treaty is ratified, which is why that title is so significant, the war ending in march of 1815. and so there is this -- to our eyes, ridiculous mixture of genres, this sexy sedukz tail

interwoven with academic military history of the war. yet this is the way cultural history was at the time, talking about patriotism that you feel because you feel love of -- you feel romantic love. you feel this desire to get married, to settle down, to have children .that love and that desire is what's going to, then, motivate you to bear children or bear arms for your country. >> with a couple of minutes left, i'll ask you both about how difficult it is to find original sources and material for your reseven for the works that you do, both on the war of 1812 and specifically on 1812. >> i don't think it's difficult at all. i mean, one thing that wars do is they generate an enormous amount of documentation. and often it's been used by historians just to tell a military history story. and the great thing that nicki is doing is that she is using this as a window into social and

cultural history. so i don't think there's a shortage of sources. >> how difficult did you find it? >> what's amazing is that, as allan has just said, it's very easy. in the nationalist moment of 1812, people started very self-consciously collecting documents because they wanted there to be a history of this war. there is a huge repository in worch, massachusetts, and it was founded in 1812 specifically because he wanted to collect and save all of the popular culture surrounding the war. so in a sense, i felt that the book i was writing was something i had been commissioned to do by isaiah thomas 00 years ago. he collected all these songs and posters because he thought this culture of the war should be preserved for history.. and he started an archive that

endure toes this day to collect all that. >> historians from new york university, nicole eustace and alan taylor, thank you for joining us on american history tv. >> thank you. >> thank you for having me spp. >> join c-span next week for more information about the war of 1812. fostered a new sense of patriotism and gave us our national anthem. the war of 1812, saturday june 16th, live from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. eastern here on american history tv on c-span3. >> they're often referred to as the conscious of the congress. after having now lived there almost two years, i can't think of a better name. it is really the heartbeat of the people. >> executive director and general council of the executive

black caucus, angela rye. >> it is designed to ensure that members of congress who are african-americans can come together on issues plaguing them at large, issues plaguing their district, to come together to discuss legislative solutions to advance the causes of people that don't have a voice. >> more with angela rye, tonight at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span. >> the b-52, everyone think back to vietnam. they think linebacker operations, they think of the history of the b-52. cold war. so there's a different kind of power associated with the b-52 as opposed to other long range bombers. >> these are two friends, union and confederates, who knew each other prior to the civil war and fought against each other at the battle of pea ridge in 1862. here they are at age 100,

sitting on the porch talking about the old days. >> we had one to the east is marked 901. the gate to the west is marked 903. and they really reflect or reference the moment of the bomb, which was at 9:02. >> watch for the travels of c-span's local content vehicles every month on book tv and american history tv. and look for the history and literary culture of our next stop in jefferson city, missouri, the weekend of july 7th and 8th on c-span2 and 3. this week on the civil war, two historians discuss the generalship of ulysses s. grant. they focus on grant's efforts in leading the union army of the potomac against robert e. lee's army in federal virginia. they talk about how other officials admired and praised grant's abilities. this is the third in a series of sessions we are airing from a c