topic the three branches and you. c-spanneed to include programming, include various points of view, and be cemented by january 20. grab a camera, get started today. ago thisld have years summer, during the war of 1812, british soldiers invaded , and set fire to the white house and the u.s. capitol building. president james madison and first lady dolly madison fled the city. next on american history tv, the university of virginia history professor focuses on president madison, and the decisions he had to make during the war of 1812. spoke at atagg presentation at montpelier. this is about an hour. >> with that, lineage reduce with great pleasure, dr. john stagg, professor of history at the university of virginia and the editor of the james madison

papers where he's edited so far 20 of these critical volumes of madison's personal correspondence. we'd like another 20, john, if you think you can fit that in, in the next few years. >> doubled your breath. -- don't hold your breath. >> because of the work of john and his team, we have much more complete understanding of madison and the context of his life and really we cannot have done our work without this incredible research. today, he's going to illuminate for us the intricacies of madison's presidency and madison's later life reflections on his thoughts about the war. please join me in welcoming our colleague and our mentor, dr. john stagg. [ applause ]

>> thank you, katherine, for the wonderful welcome, and i would like to add my thanks to those of our previous speakers to the organizers of the conference today. as the bicentennial of the war approached, i found myself wondering, what is the federal government in washington going to do about the bicentennial war of 1812? [laughter] >> it was entirely predictable that the great state of maryland would have a party, particularly in 2014 because the great state of maryland thinks it has a franchise on the star-spangled banner. i'm glad to say we are doing something here today, and as i say, i'm grateful for it.

let me start with some very general remarks about the nature of james madison's historical reputation. now, for the first half of the 20th century, i think, madison's standing among the prisons was not high. the main reason for that, i think, was the war of 1812 which i don't think i need to belabor the point at the moment, but it was frustrating when it waged war with the united states. but we were also under the impression that madison was really just a floater with thomas jefferson. in other words, around world war i, his message didn't have a clear message. he stood too much in the shadow of jefferson. there was also another factor. madison had for a certain part

of his life had contributed more significantly to what drove the americans into war in 1875. that was held against madison by national historians a long time ago. so if you looked at these rankings of prisons and greatness that the american story looked to carry out, you would find that madison was always at the bottom half of the class. he wasn't right down there with people like ulysses s. grant or james buchanan, he was always viewed with a slight mediocrity. madison's reputation has been rising. if you look at current presidential rankings, you'll see now that madison would head 44 prisons to date.

-- presidents to date. madison is now at the top 20. he's not way down there like before. recently, i saw a poll that said madison is number 6. [laughter] >> i'm not quite sure how to explain this. i'm just going to ask you to take my word for it at the moment because such a poll does exist. i do want to say something about how we might explain this. and i say this without flattery, i think it does something to the appearance of films in the second half of the century. we have a much clearer idea than in previous generations what medicine contributed to the merp

american public and how it might be compared to its others. he was sometimes referred to as found chic when, in fact, madison generally had this image burnished along the wall of his contemporaries. i might even be temtdpted to suspect that we've become more satisfied with prisons since the 1960's, there is more competition among the bottom rankings, and this may have had the effect of pushing out the standing of presidents from the very distinct. however, it does remap ain a -- remain a problem with the war of 1812.

americans are embarrassed about this war. they are confused about what occurred and they are uncertain whether it should be celebrated or remembered in any way. i went to the british embassy two sundays ago with spark lers -- sparklers on in the british embassy. the campaigns of this war were by and large a fiasco and is by no means clear that the united states was the victor. the best of historians say the nation managed a withdrawal. so i think we're somewhat in a paradox. the historical reputation of the fourth president is rising. even the american appreciation and understanding of this presidency, which is the war of 1812, has not. that says more about that paradox than the next few moments. if you take any book on the war of 1812, and there are a great many books on the war of 1812, about after two centuries of the

event, it's easy to pull out half a dozen pieces about it. some of these historians have linked this directly to madison. it's a result of poor decisions. they can be described as problems that he needed to contend with but he didn't do a great job. what can we say about madison himself? the serious charge against madison is that he did not want this war and that he was pushed into it by a noisy faction of congressional warhawks who wrested control away from the french.

having lost that control of the national policy, madison then compounded his difficulties by not providing sufficient direction and energy as commander in chief. that problem is fundamental to any understanding of the war of 1812 and how we deal with it, i think, impacts how we assist any of the other factors governed of the war. so the question, whose war was it? it wasn't madison's, nor was it the warhawks. most historians still favors the warhawks, but i think this is a misplaced emphasis. the critical development that placed the american public on the final path to war occurred between march and july of 1811. in march of 1811, as alluded to by the speaker, madison learned that george the third had lashed

-- lapsed into what was going to be his final belt of certainty and they would have to take the duties of monarchy. since he despisded his father and his father's ministry, it was presumed that he would replace his father's ministers with new ministers that might highly characterize british policy towards the united states up to that point. to take advantage, he bought into james monroe, secretary of state. there are a number of reasons why he did this, but one of the reasons why he did it was that he had formed personal relationships with some of the british politicians who were expected to become ministers in the reconstruction of the british ministry. this was a window of opportunity that very soon closed.

the prince regent changed his father's ministers, despite what he felt about the man. for that reason, british policy toward the united states remained unchanged. now, he did make a sort of conciliatory gesture to the united states by sending madison to washington. madison knew that george iii's mip ministers were not likely to ease up. as this prediction had come to pass, madison concluded he needed to have a much stronger resistance than he had in the past. how do we know this? we know this because an

editorial in the administration newspaper -- oh, sorry. sorry about that. i wasn't looking behind me. [laughter] onwards and upwards. how do we know this? there was an editorial in the administration newspaper, the newspaper that could have been trashed when he burned washington in 1814, and we know from the diary of the paper, that madison dictated the contents of that editorial to the editor of the national intelligence. what that means is that as early as the spring of 1811, madison was considering very seriously

the need to go to war with great britain. and this is seven months before the 12th congress and its warhawks meet in washington. now, the negotiations between monroe and madison confirmed madison's suspicions. not only did the british have no intention of changing their policies, they also announced effectively that they would continue with these policies for as long as it took for them to end napoleons domination of europe. this is 1811, remember. and in 1811, nobody was predicting that napoleon bonaparte would be gone from the national scene by 1813. in 1811, no one was counting on napoleon going away any time soon.

in response to that situation, madison called the congress into a 12:30 session. his reason for doing so was that he had decided that he now had no other option to prepare for a war against great britain. again, he took this decision weeks and weeks before the 12th congress met in washington, before congressmen knew what policies they might have to pass judgment on. so how can we say that the faction of warhawks forced madison into a war that he did not want? quite simply, we cannot say that and we should not say it. it's one of these myths that's very hard to kill off, but it's simply not true. the role of the warhawks at times was very different. they were not the makers of american policy towards great britain, though an immediate spokesman worked its way through committees and votes in the house of representatives as congress prepared for war in the

first six months of november -- late after november 1811. but the prime mover of american policy here is not congress, it's a prison and madison. -- president madison himself. madison tried to shake policy in the war of 1812. the question is, how well did this work for him as commander in chief? the answer was a rather mixed one. in most cases, the policies of the administration sought past the house of representatives. they did not necessarily pass the senate. the reason for this is the senate is not controlled by a simple majority of republican votes. rather, the senate administration supports in the senate could often be

outmaneuvered by a combination of federalist and anti-administration republicans who didn't like james madison very much. the result was that the administration did not always get the legislation it wanted or it didn't give it an efficient timely manner. it did have an adverse effect on implementation of policy throughout the war. this can be demonstrated in any number of ways. i'll just give two quick examples. one is the decision to expand the size of the american army in the first six months of 1812. the other example is all the debates of how you finance the war in the second half of 1814 when the war is going extremely badly with the united states. to put it simply, the extended army never got full control. by the end of 1814, the united states is facing severe

financial difficulties, the congress cannot pass its legislation and solve those problems out, and the situation got so bad, as i think somebody has mentioned, by the end of 1814, the united states has defaulted on the national debt. i should add here that nobody in this room should tell congress that this has happened. [laughter] we do not want to encourage bad behavior on the part of lejs -- of the national legislatures any time in the near future. that's what happened at the end of that war. what could have madison done about this? clout overold or congressmen. he did not beg them for votes, he did not use patronage and

government contracts. he did not go up to a congressman, the season by the lapels of his coat, and say sir, i need your vote. , andimagine that scenario see how impossible that is at this point in american history. but the problem is not that madison did not try to influence congress, he did try to influence congress by the means that were available to them at that time. the president didn't have much effective power to guarantee control of the outcomes that he sought. let's move to another question. how did madison manage his as an organization during the war? and again, i think it's rather a

mixed one. between 1809 and 1817, in the white house, madison had two secretary of state, two attorneys general, three secretaries of the lady, four secretaries of the treasury and four secretaries of war. you can see why already any number of historians who have just said, this man couldn't hold a cabinet to same himself -- save himself. this is the symptom of all things that weapon wrong in the, war. with his cabinet. i'll look at the two. obviously, there are serious problems in the war department. madison's first secretary of war, a man named eustis, it's pretty clear, had very few ideas about strategy or tactics.

he was a bureaucrat. and he was compelled more or less to act as this glorified postmaster general. he would think about larger problems on how to defeat the british. he was forced out in 1812 and monroe could have handled the details of the war problems, and as monroe comes back into the war department after the british had burned the public buildings in washington in august of 1814. but much of what monroe did when he was in the war department was designed to position himself to become president in 1817.

and in acting in that way, he fueled a very little bit of food with the second wofld war who -- who actually held office from 1813 to 1814. the problem was madison also -- armstrong also wanted to be president in 1817. as a consequence, neither armstrong norman rowe lost an opportunity to undercut each other throughout the war. this pattern of conduct, or misbehavior, culminated when the british attack washington. armstrong declined to participate 100%. monroe has been accused of meddling with the organization of troops. and i think all historians feel that madison somehow should have stopped this feud.

he should have clamped down firmly on them or sat one or -- sacked one or both of these people down. but madison did not fire armstrong nor monroe, and he seemed to be too willing to tolerate colleagues who were clearly self-serving and very disputatious. the question is why? only half of the problem, i think, lies in madison's personality. certainly as was mentioned, he was not with a confrontational style. he liked to avoid unpleasantness if he possibly could. but the real problem was madison had the most difficulty getting anyone to become a candidate at all. he went through a raft of candidates just to try to get somebody to serve on the job. he got far more refusals.

in the early 19th century, people thought the cabinet position was worth the sacrifices it entailed. and madison would have to settle for anything he could get, and he attempted to retain them for as long as he possibly could. that state of affairs imparted a reactive rather than a proactive quality to madison's decision making. he often appeared to deal with problems only when they had gotten out of hand and it was impossible to ignore them any further. now, in the matters of wartime policy, standard criticisms made that he spent too much time pursuing the strategies of war after 1812. what this means specifically is when the americans invaded canada, the united states attacked the wropgng places in -- the united states attacked the wrong places in canada.

british power in north america arrested on control of montréal, and maritime resources. but they frittered away their resources, which all of this is true enough. but i think that situation did not arise from effective understanding of the strategic victory. almost every year of the war, it was clearly understood that montreal was the first and most important topic for the americans to get control of, that they could then move on eastward to maritimes. the campaigns in regions west of montreal were made either in response to the need to devote more resources to local defense, particularly hostile indians of the united states, or they were undertaken as preliminaries to advances on places with much greater stra teenltegic significance.

the problem was these failed and created new difficulties that required different attention or resources. the result was that the united states became bogged down in a series of small conflict that did not adhere to any form of strategy in the larger war it had won. if that was the case, the problem with the american war was not so much an effective strategy as the inability to develop sufficient military peril to surmount the other's success. moving on, what were these other obstacles to success and how far can madison be held personally responsible for? most of them center around three factors.

one is the defect in the u.s. army. second in reels to that is the overreliance on trained forces, and the other one is the inability of the united states to cope with the logistic problems of invading canada and the w wnnorth. now, it has been all been said and i want to mention today that they tried to take canada. it was only a little war of 30,000 man strong. however, a statistical analysis of the surviving suggest that there was probably something near about 48,000 men in the u.s. army end of the war. that's a fairly significant

difference. it's about 15,000 men. and on top of that, you've got to consider that in terms of manpower, the united states had the advantage over canada of about 15-1 in terms of its population. you put all that together, and you think surely the united states would have been able to defeat the sources in canada. but it was not. there is the possibility that we have to deal with british forces as they frequently do in 1813 and 1814. that left comparatively few troops available for operations against canada. even at the height of a war in the summer of 1814, they could take no more than 4,000 regular troops in canada. there simply wasn't anyone to dispose around the shores of lake anterro. now, what can we say about the

quality of these troops? how well were they trained? well, they were scarcely trained at all. now, i want to be careful about what i'm saying here. i'm not saying the army received no training. it did receive training of various sorts at a fairly rudimentary level. the real problem was that the army had no uniform system for training men, and, in fact, the united states army employed three quite incompatible people to try to train men throughout the war of 1812. this created difficulties for generals and higher officers who had to then try to meld men who trained in different ways into a unified force to contend with the enemy that was trained in a eununified and significant way. trained troops would always beat untrained troops, and so it was

proved in the war of 1812. in fact, it wasn't until january 2015 that they convened officers to address the problem of how to train the army and what was the uniform effort? by january 15, the war has one month to run. so is the president responsible for this? should madison sort out this problem and say, we need to train the army in a better way. you might say that he did, but then you might say, well, this is the sort of problem that the secretary of war should solve. they're supposed to have the expertise. but there was no evidence that anyone in the war department, either james monroe or john armstrong, had the slightest idea that this was a problem

during the war. it would take officers like winfield scott who learned the hard way about what it took to train men. how they managed to treat them about the enemy. because of that, it was always necessary to supplement its numbers with militia. the situation was far worse than few militias. the federal government could call militias under specific conditions, but it had no authorization to give them training. those matters were left to the states, and basically the states did nothing about it in the early 19th century.

despite the fact that the prisons said, we have our problems here. congress refused to address it. nevertheless, the fiascos that occurred in the war of 1812 are always associated with emotion. i'll give you two examples. one was the battle of queens heights in 1812 when they refused to cover over the niagara river to reinforce regular troops who had actually managed to gain a toehold on the canadian shore of the niagara river. the militia refused to the grounds that the constitution did not oblige to serve outside

the boundaries of new york state. of course, the battle of bladensburg in 1814 when a real motley crew simply had the british army of about two-thirds its size. there were logistic problems. that has always been seen as a very serious problem bothering the american warhead. and it's a problem by deciding to attack canada, because the united states had committed itself to an offensive war that was over 1,000 miles in length and required to supply it from towns that were well on the frontier. demographic and geographic realities come with the frontier. the population is far too sparse

to an army. you just couldn't throw an army up there and say, feed yourself and mamp on the british. it was much more complicated than that. the problem is the united states had very rudimentary such -- supplies in 1822. so it's not terribly surprising they could run problems in getting the. now, all these factors, you will find, have been discussed. >> i think we need to read the

war of 1812 satisfactorily. how does madison thipg about these problems, and did he ever. well, for the war years. beyond saying, of course, that we were disappointed, the war was not gk of the as he put what does, that he enkourpted during the war. i want to say something about those those. >> now, at this point i nowhere does mady sop take the blame that anything went wrong. in retrohett retrospect, he was

not happy about the war. he said, why did we have to go to war? well, it was the british. the british were not needed for war. in response to the child that the job was add. well, that was congress yes, sir. and the time i wanted them, i think we would see a very different picture.

on that is. of the it's a very difficult and pob enterprise of the what echt to share with you on the leader hetd. >> if, when two american faermz will. madison summed up this following way. he and him and i quote, the and difficulties by the plour of him -- by the forest sweep penetrated the we want all

to be passed and reach the distant theater and he was home amidst all his sources for defense, closed quote. madison also listed two other factors that he considered to be paramount points. one has already been alluded to in previous talks, and that was the failure of napoleon. this is a subject that caused enormous controversy at the time continued to cause some controversy sense. but in 1827, madison admitted that he expected napoleon to defeat the russians. and he said that had the colin -- had napoleon been successful, it would have been, in his words

, a fair copulation -- calculation that great britain would be virtually unable to defend canada. choicetish would have no but to give into the reasonable terms of reconciliation. the other factor that matters when we went to great length -- that we went to great length about was the poor quality of american generals during the war. if you reed any history. there are people who don't know what their job is and i've found countless excuse for not doing it yet. it ill becomes madison to complain about the generals.

after all, he had signed the commissions for most of them and had a role in selecting them. but when we look at this closely, we see what matters, and there's not so much intent on blaming all the jenz as he was in 41 jenzgeneral in particular. -- all of the generals as he was in 1941, one general in particular. 41 jegeneral in particular. that general ffs was soesd to meet me back. then in august 1812. he withdrew to a smaller home. my. >> how am i using the dpens that

he had good for. he will sewell that they had of the buddy, would it be massacre of all women and court? >> yes ful. >> now madison was not. it was only 1827. and madison said, how is. and thep he wrote, and i quote, what would be so easy with the set until you experience the

county of rocks. lake erie has off and on fallen into us. . general at the kuchbt set forwa the intrigues to have been suspected in state, closed quote. in short, what madison was suggesting here was that the united states never recovered from the impact of war, and the impact of the setback was so serious that it hampered all other aspects of the prosecution of war. this is at least an arguable case.

all the arguments that had been used before to explain what went wrong in the war of 1812 can be offset by other effect of the words that need to be away from the balance before a judge can be made both about the war itself and also as commander in chief. in other words, we can carry this progress on if qualification after qualification. now, two verdicts can be reached from this point. one is to throw up our hands in despair and see, these problems are way too successful after the

war was so difficult. the nation was in a condition to wage the war. now, you might say this is true enou enough. but that answer would have left madison with no solution to the problems the nation is facing as he understood them in the year 1811. he was making critical decisions. this is what we really lack, presidential decisions at this point in american history. all the decisions fall heavily on the presidencies of abraham and franklin roosevelt.

americans in the 19th century popped relevant. george washington's job as a brigadier general is not appropriate for us to use here, and early 19th century americans were held deeply in theaters in time of war. the way they sought did think about the nature of executive power. they couldn't believe that the role of the president could rally the troops with the public at large. in other words, it wasn't the president's job to go out and campaign personally the war he was trying to wage. madison had seen john adams try to do something very similar at the end of the 1719s.

if you go on to read, john edwards absolutely far exceeded the priorities of what was legitimate executive expectation at that time. these concerns of madison took greater restraint during the war rather than the dangers of going to excess. >> now, that might be a. with all these failures the historians talk about, there were some. it deny lose the war, either. the british cannot and that did not achieve their. myles summer.

had snake belts and fairly large planes that they might advance toward the united states. l there was talk about altering the wouboundaries of the united iffulties might there skrechd. be? and it failed despite the fact they ush erd a. it was still out and told that they had lost something and she had won. . >> this is why many of the

historians have divided that the war of 1812. the draw to me in part is that the two fairly evenly matched forces failed to achieve success in a contest. but the united states and great britain couldn't even be matched. the war then ended not so much as a draw but as a stalemate that was born with the inability of confidence to find ways to continue conflict. having come to that point toward the end of 1814, both eventually settled for peace that restored the status quo and that peace was signed in 1814. we might even qualify that

verdict a little further. we might say we won, but there were no losers in the war. all historians agree that the real losers in the war of 1812 were the indian peoples, a good many whom fought on the side of the british but a good number also fought on the side of the united states. americans tend to forget that it was their fault. despite all the choices, they suffered disproportionately. a number of casualties occurred and they were forced to concede large areas of land to the united states. these land sections, especially the gulf coast and regions to

the south, ensured that the unite states was going to dominate the heartland in the future. i tell you that because this is an outcome that could not necessarily have been taken for granted. in hindsight, it looks sort of wrong. they have since talked about that, and in 1898, there was no question that the colonies were going to be for american goodwill and toleration for the british. madison presided over these developments and played a crucial role in shaping the development of the merp nation state in the 19th century.

the influence of those were felt well into the 19th century. he did this model at the same time, trying to preserve his vision of what sort of nation the united states would be, and he did not use the emergency of war to bring about changes. the war of 1812, i would like to remind us, was one of the few wars in the nation's history that was fought without any restrictions on the civil libertys of its critics. that was a decision that madison was determine. president john adams had resorted to it in 1900 during the quasi war with france. this is a rather tangled picture, admittedly, but in a

complicated nation of these developments, there were some successes. and i think madison probably should be give n credit for som of them. thank you very much. [applause] >> the floor is open. >> gien the faven the fact cong declare war, given the fact that madison did not like the campaign, why is it that mr.

madison was given sole ownership of a war? >> i'm not quite sure i would agree with the premise. people said pretty uncharitable things about things like the war and i find it inconceivable that there would have been a war with mexico had james polk not insisted on it. i think, to come back to the premise of your question. ma madison seemed to be of what a prison, not accomplished at that point in nation's history, you can say, lincoln! . but i think no prison could have operated that way in the early 19th century.

they're just not taking place in american political development at that time. i think to have made that possible for a prison to do that. so the war of 1812 is a mess. how do we explain the mess? well, blame it on madison. that's what a lot of historians have done. that's what critics at the time did when they wished to criticize the war and all that seems to be going wrong with it. so we recycle stories through history like that. >> yes, thank you. if my memory -- >> sorry. >> if my memory serves me right, there is some provision in the treatmenty of, that talks about a promise to deal with the indian issue, native american issue and slavery. why was that put in there and whatever happened? >> in both cases, effectively

nothing, to give you the short answer first. the provision relating to the slave trade is the british were writing a treaty and they were trying to make the united states -- the united states undertook to take more active steps in the suppression of the atlantic slave trade which at this point was the only nation in the world that was seriously interested in doing, even though the united states also abolished the atlantic trade, i think, in 1808. the british put it in. the americans agreed to sign the treaty document, but the americans were very bad at enforcing that. they did not really cooperate with the british. one of the worst offenders was john quincy adams who signed the treaty, he was the principal

negotiator at gent, and do you think john quincy adams could force the trade when he was president a few years later? no z and one of the reasons is it required the naval vessels to have stopped american merchant men and slaves in the coast of africa ask snd say, let me see cargo. let me see your manifest. this was sdplz and john quincy adams, who was the last wuchb in his open right, so that became pretty much a dead letter. the other clause you're referring to is an agreement that the united states and the british would undertake to restore the indians to the safest place in 1811, the year before the war broke out.

now, the british insisted on this even though we know as they were doing this, they were in the process of throwing indian allies to the wind in 1782 and 1783. the british put there largely a fight-saying device. in the beginning of negotiations, the british had insisted on the establishment of the indian state earlier. that went nowhere. the british ministers told them, drop that. we're not prepared to rupture the torch over that. so the british came up with this as a face-saving formula for the purposes of ice declarations.

probably neither side in. it was certainly an extent to how bad it was. andrew jackson, as he ended the creek war, took 780 acres of land from the creek indians. the way his treaty was supposed to end it. and the merpz were not prepared to see a negotiation break up over a point like that at that stage. they wanted out of this war at that time, too. it was pretty much a dead letter. nobody took any notice of t least of all andrew jackson when he became president a few years

later. thank you. >> did it say there was a loss was because the new englanders wrote the history books? >> the theory is that new england wrote of the history, ask that is true, and the classic case in point was henry adams who, of course, was the son of presidents, great-grandson of presidents who wrote the classic history of the united states during this period. and he waxed he will kwept about the flaws of these virginian presidents, et cetera, et

cetera, et cetera. not that adams was particularly sympathetic of the new englanders, but you're right, that bias has entered the history and there wasn't so much they wrote it but that they believed the word of the new englanders. >> madison was onu1ñ the potoma but i can't find any writings about it. >> the call council in the city of philadelphia after th b burning of washington did make it known to the add manipulation that if the federal government wanted to move, they're welcome to move back to philadelphia, which, of course, he had been there before in 1800. this was debated at quite?wv so

length in congress. madison appeared to be largely inactive or passive behind the  cerebral pal scenes. why is it that every time i go through another reading that go. but i did find that madison let it be known that had that bill be passed, he would be killed. the source of that is not madison himself, but it can be documented on the period. >> where would you say are the most serious kargts of the war of 1812? >> what were the most serious casualties in the war of 1812?

well, i suppose we should say off the bat, the most serious casualty is the loss of life. so how many americans were killed in the war of 1812? this is rather difficult to calculate. nobody kept precise figures on this sort of thing. the list was given with about , 2,500 americans, in other words, they died as a direct result of combat and the war. i did some calculations and i found that, in fact, about 10% more of the army died of disease, sickness and other causes that are not directly related to battle, that was simply a product of the very unhealthy nature of military

camps, the inability of army commanders to provide decent sanitation and these sorts of things, which the diseases, if they got in an very, very toll on life an substantially more men on the american side died as a result of disease, sickness, than they ever did with the british. and then of course there's a bit of collateral damage that occurs when militia die as a result of what is portrayed to the sort of what we'll be talking about. we might estimate perhaps 15,000 or 16,000 americans died one way or another as a result of the war of 1812. the indians suffered i think proportionately rather a high percentage of losses. we don't know precisely because we don't have very good figures for indian population.

best guesses. but of course the numbers that the indians had operated from a far smaller demographic base so, the impact of heavy losses is going to be much greater proportionately with indians. so the indians lost a great many warriors particularly but also women and children in starvation as a result of the war. and that made it all easier for americans after 1815 to remove some of these people, ship them further west so they ultimately end up on reservations in indian territory. this did facilitate american expansion across the continent. then on top of that i suppose you can throw in property dam e damages a result of british raids, captures of sea merchants, men, things like that. it's probably impossible to put a precise figure on that. the british captured a few

american merchants in the period, but actually americans also captured a good many british merchants. i think it's impossible to put a figure on that. but if we say that human damage is necessary, the greatest  any war inflicts, eatest that's what it looks like, i think, on the american side. and i don't think we can do much better than that given our current state of knowledge. yes. >> sort of a counterfactual speculation. if the british prevail at challmet, does the treaty of gent get rewritten? >> the answer to that is no, emphatically. this is a myth that is perpetuated by books, particularly books about andrew jackson. want to say jackson saved the nation at the battle of new

orleans. the answer is no. the chronology is quite straightforward. the treaty of ghent was signed on the 24th of december 1814. it was ratified -- according to the war of nations, a treaty cannot come into effect until both governments, the principals of those doing negotiation have ratified it. the british government ratified the treaty of ghent on the 28th before it was sent off to washington. the bat-of new orleans was fought on the 8th of january 1815. the news of the battle and the treaty don't get to washington until the war comes to an end. but the british, by ratifying the treaty, have said to the americans we want this war to be

over. so under international law for thewgñ to have continued after the british ratification the americans would have had to -- that would have had to have been an american decision. and nobody in washington in february said we should throw out this treaty in order to carry on the war. no, that was a great myth that andrew jackson -- this is not to say that jackson's victory did not have consequences for american politics, you know, would jackson have become president without that battle? but no, the british had signaled quietly that the war was over. the americansed a ha a choice, we agree with them, we don't agree with them, they chose to agree. yes. >> in more recent years the war has been referred to as america's second war for independence. could you comment on that?

well, this is -- the word literary critics use is this is a troep. it's not a word i greatly like. but it e americans about the time of the war itself. it emerges sort of -- you know, the first books, american books on the war of 1812 start appearing as early as 1816. and if you read those books particularly from 1816 tru to the civil war they all take this line that america -- and the classic thing is this is a thousand-page book, a thousand pages written by a new york journalist called benson j. lawson. it's probably one of the most widely known 19th century sources on history. and this is exactly the line that lawson takes. he says in 1783 we became free from great britain. we did not become independent because the british did not

respect our independence. the proof that they did not respect our independence was the way they treated us during the napoleonic wars. and benson actually said it's a plot to reduce americans. so when he gets to the treaty of ghent afterwards, he says the british have given up. america finally becomes not only free but independent. and that's sort of the assumption behind the notion that the war of 1812 was necessary to complete the independence that was supposedly won between 1776 and 1783. it's going to take another war to vindicate and consolidate that independence. and this's the dominant myth that runs through american histories of the war for much of the 19th century. it's still there in 20th century histories with 20th century accounts have added additional layers of correlation and

complication as professional historians got more into the records. [ applause ] >> you are watching american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span three. to join the conversation, like us on facebook at c-span history. >> all weekend long, american joining our time warner cable partners to learn about the history of green bay, wisconsin. atcontinue now with our look the history of green bay. this is american history tv on c-span three.