Wars That Shaped the Nation

Wars That Shaped the Nation. The War of 18 12. The United States declared war on Great Britain in June 1812 after several years of tension stemming primarily from disputes over the British blockade of France during its wars with Napoleon. At first, attention focused on American efforts to invade Canada but those attempts ended in failure by 1813. The British retaliated in 1814 by invading Chesapeake Bay and by attacking Baltimore and Washington, D.C. British and American forces again faced off at New Orleans on New Year’s Day, 1815, in what would result in a decisive victory for General Andrew Jackson. Jackson and the British had not heard that the peace treaty ending the war has been signed at Ghent, Belgium on 24 December 1814., Few West Pointers participated in the War of 18 12, coming so soon after the founding of the Military Academy in 1802. The outcome of the war did, however, remind the young United States of its vulnerability to attack and the need for a stronger military. Colonel Sylvanus Thayer (USMA 1808) was appointed Superintendant of West Point in 1817 and received the mission to make the school into the nation’s leading institution of military education. For his efforts, he is now known as the “Father of the Military Academy.”, Both trophies of the War of 18 12 strongly resemble those of the Revolutionary War and vary only slightly in detail. They show the continuing preference for muzzle-loading bronze or cast-iron cannon that continued well into the nineteenth century.