Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 17 - War of 1812 Part II: Electric Boogaloo

Episode Date: September 17, 2018

On part II of the War of 1812, America bites off more than it can chew as it is kicked out of Canada and begins to burn down Canadian towns in anger. The American Militia is routed from the fields of Bladensburg, leading to the burning of the White House. Follow the podcast on twitter @lions_by Follow Joe @jkass99 Follow nick @nickcasm1 Donate to the Patreon for bonus content! https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

Welcome to the Hello and welcome to another episode of the Lions Led by Donkeys. We're doing it. We're doing it. So this is part two. Part two. Of the War of 1812. so if you're just tuning in uh go back an episode so you don't miss anything or if you don't want to whatever you do you know if you like to live dangerously you do that if you like living life on the edge yeah

how you doing doing pretty good you, could be better. Yeah. It is what it is. I don't really care most of the time. Yeah, I don't. You just don't care in general? Or just how you're doing you don't care about? No, not how I'm doing. How I'm doing, I was, eh. But most of the time, how work goes or anything like that, I don't care.

work goes or anything like that, I don't care. Well, you have a unique job in that whether you care or that you don't care, the same amount of work gets done. That can only be said for a lot of jobs. Mostly from the government sector

because there's very few real valuations. But obviously, also, when you're a mafia member shit gets done under you. You usually don't have to worry about it. You know I have a healthy amount of old crow pumping through my system. I'm wearing my wolf pants.

They're shitty looking wolves. That's why I bought them. They're the wolves that the privates get like I'm a wolf not a sheep. These are the wolves that you get if you have 50 bucks a wolf not a sheep now this is these are the wolves that you get if you have 50 bucks to spend on a tattoo and like i went that's funny because a lot of places don't even allow below 60 for tattoos yeah i i got these i got these pants which you can't see them but i can they're a i got these for five dollars at walmart when i did a liquor

run to walmart and i saw them hanging up and I thought they looked so terrible. I had to own a pair. So I bought them and they looked terrible. So we left off on our last episode with William Hall drinking himself into a surrender at Fort Detroit and the American army looking all around bad for the first two major actions of the war. So leads us to the question of why is that why did the army look so bad well because the american army in general was totally

unprepared and not ready for any war let alone for one against the british empire the regular army was around the same size of the u.s navy at the time which isn't a good sign uh army was around the same size of the U.S. Navy at the time, which isn't a good sign. It was around 7000 men, which isn't great. This tiny army is actually a symptom of a deep distrust in a large standing army that carried over from pre-revolutionary times. times um a large standing army uh was seen as a tool of oppression and tyranny in a lot of americans eyes which is why you see things in the constitution and the bill of rights that make literally no sense to us today sitting here in the year 2018 like right uh you know no free quarter for soldiers like of course there's fucking not like you know we were both soldiers that would literally never happen but you know that this large huge encompassing army of permeating into every layer of life is what

america was afraid of yeah and it's kind of cool i'm really big into uh army air force history and it kind of plays into the quarters of soldiers because uh soldiers in uh march air force base back in california a lot of houses in the area had add-ons for soldiers that couldn't live on post because there wasn't enough room and they forced those houses to have those add-ons for those soldiers so they like literally violated something that was written in the 1700s right so they had these add-ons and like you can tell it's an add-on because it had like it does not go with the flow of the house where you're just like here's a small fucking room right and you know this is um it's a large part of why that mythos from the revolution we talked about the

last episode a little bit uh lived on uh in modern day where they talk about the militia this militia that when it was absolutely the the continental army or the regular army who who won these battles and did all the major fighting um right but that continental army at the end of the revolution was largely disbanded for this exact fear of like we if we have this huge giant army you know the states are all afraid of their independence from from a government from from a federal government. They want to be small and weak effectively. And having a small and weak central government is not a good way to defend yourself.

As America is about to find out, it's about to find out very, very quickly and violently. But at the outbreak of the war, the army was actually authorized another 35,000 men. Uh, unfortunately the army was badly paid and the living conditions were terrible, making it hard to come by these soldiers. Um, the war was actually really unpopular from the outset as well with several States just out, like refusing to send militiamen to fight. Um, one of those, um, which we'll get into a little bit later as like a side story was the new England States. They did not want to fight at all. And they did not.

I can honestly see that. Yeah. So the, the force that the, the U S government is going to have to depend on was the militia, which was actually really big. Um, by war's end,

they would call up nearly half a million militia, holy shit, which was around of the same size of the entire population of British North America at the time. So this is not a small force, but unlike what Joseph Stalin likes to say, quantity is not quality of its own especially not here with the militia no especially if you heard our last part

yeah where the militia kind of dipped on their boy and that happens a lot um now that's one of the main keys we do not go into a lot of how militaries are trained here maybe we will sometime in the future but in this day and age with smoothbore muskets when the armies are forced to come very very very close to one another to fire in large formations as everybody's seen in pictures

and movies the only thing separating a effective army from a non-effective army is the discipline to stand there and get shot at. I mean, that's the long and the short of it. Accuracy is important. That's why they are all grouped together like that. Right.

For a large amount of fire to be put into one area. but into one area. But, um, the main thing that, that separates a militia from a unit of the regular army is the regular army is trained and disciplined to, I mean, mostly by fear and through physical violence at this point in time,

uh, to stay in line no matter what, unless they're completely broken and routed. Right. Um, the militia don't have that. They'll march in what looks like roughly the same thing but then when bullets start flying they're gonna run yeah that shit's terrifying i can't imagine

what it's like to stand in front of a full regiment i wouldn't want to of muskets point no i wouldn't want to hail at all no not at all um so you know they they'd be able to call up almost a half million men and unlike what your high school history class and the hollywood movies like to leave the the militias were just not going to war there's a reason why one of the first things that uh general george washington did during the revolution was like literally physically beat the militia into regular army soldiers the militia during the war of 1812 was no different from that militia, except they had the benefit of having a couple of

Revolutionary War veterans sprinkled throughout it. But at this point, they're very, very old. You know, they're not exactly, this is decades afterwards. They were poorly led, virtually untrained,

and badly armed, many of them still holding muskets that could have fought in the Revolution. To make matters worse. Fucking daddy's old musket from the war yeah it just passed down throughout the lines kind of like the jazails that we talked about in the in the kabul episode you know except these did not look nearly as cool agreed just some old shitty brown buses uh many government governors refused to allow their militias to fight outside of their state.

And when the government forced them to do so anyway, they fought terribly. They might as well not been there. Most of them ran at the first set of combat. All of this mismanagement, this incompetence and confusion was bred into the federal government. This is because, um, the federal government, like we said, was supposed to be very, very,

very small and weak. Right. This left a lot in the hands of individual states. The year prior in 1811, the Republicans. Now I know, uh, this is 1811,

not 2011. Um, people are going to try to make, um, connections of the Republicans of old and current Republicans. I'm not doing that. I feel like I need to put that out there. This is not a knock against any current politician.

If, if, and when I do insult a current politician, I'll do so openly check his Twitter. Yeah. At J cast 99. Yeah. Um, current politician i'll do so openly check his twitter yeah at jcas 99 yeah um so the republicans allowed the charter for the first bank of america to expire now if you're saying the fuck is the first bank of america that's exactly my point it doesn't exist anymore it was a centralized bank

like most european nations have um currently, and they had then. So they allowed it to expire, meaning there was actually no way for banks to transfer money in between states. You can imagine how hard it was to fund a war like this. Each state would have to fund everything individually, and not all states are created equal meaning some states

militia was better funded than others and the federal government could not help some of them were wearing fucking socks for boots yeah probably I can honestly imagine that so with that in 1813 future president current general William Henry

Harrison was given the command of the United States Army of the Northwest, and his mission was to retake Detroit. He failed, and a contingent of his 60 men were captured by the Brits, native allies, who then slaughtered him, which became known as the River Raisin Massacre. which became known as the River Raisin Massacre. British Colonel Henry Proctor, with Tecumseh, pushed further into Ohio, laying siege to Fort Megas. And for the first time in the war, the Americans actually won. Nice. They inflicted enough casualties on the combined attackers that the natives decided to just go home.

Without his native allies, Proctor had to withdraw, and they would eventually pull all the way back to Canada. Uh, seeing an opening, the, uh, the awesomely named and titled master commandant,

William Oliver hazard, Perry, these names, this series, great decided to try to push the Brits from the whole of Lake Erie. Perry had a battle flag made for the occasion. And blazed on the flag was the dying words of his friend, Captain James Lawrence of the USS Chesapeake.

Remember them? The Chesapeake from the last episode? Yeah. Well, when they were attacked, Lawrence said, quote, don't give up the ship. It probably meant a lot cooler back then. Yeah, it probably was. And Hazard had that, I'll call him Hazard, not Perry because't give up the ship. It probably meant a lot cooler back then. Yeah, it probably was. And Hazard had that, I'll call him Hazard,

not Pericus, Hazard's really cool, but had that emblazoned on a flag. With that, he launched what was now known as the Battle of Lake Erie, or the Battle of Put-in-Bay. Sent around, you guessed it, Put-in-Bay Island off the coast of Ohio. Perry's forces scored an

important victory and captured six British ships, securing the entire lake. Not bad for a group of sailors Hazard himself had previously called wretched. After this victory, Perry wrote a now legendary letter

to President Madison that said simply, quote, We have met the enemy and they are ours. And, you know, this sounds really heroic and it is not taken away from that. But nowadays, Put-In-Bay is just like a drunken hole in the wall for college kids. No. Yeah. It's hard to imagine that a great lake had a naval battle in it. Well, there it was the battle in it. Well, there, it was the first of several. And you know,

a lot of people think of lakes. Now, um, I grew up around the great lakes. I grew up Michigan. Never me, never. So a lot of people think of lakes as what you see,

um, or in your, in your neighborhood, wherever you're doing local lake. It's, um, Echo Park. Yeah.

The local lakes or those local lakes do not compare to the size of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are seriously so huge, you kind of have to see it to believe it. You know, they're fucking massive. Ocean-sized freighters travel those lakes to trout like for trade and stuff. Okay that's kind of cool I didn't know that. They are massive. Which is why I see it as a it's hard to see a naval battle being fought

because I know they call it the Great Lakes Naval Battles where they've had a shit ton of battles during the 18 around the time of 1812. Right imagine a whole I mean these are frigates that would have fought on the high seas. So you have a shit mean these are frigates that would have fought on the high seas so you have a shit ton of chad frigates running around absolutely okay um and yeah i get it now yeah the great lakes are massive um i actually went fishing once with my stepdad

on lake superior you don't fish i don't but i was 12 and he made me go fishing oh okay and i went fishing on lake superior and uh there's a few people out there that said oh i can kind of see where this story is is going to end because lake superior is really well known for having waves bigger than the ocean oh okay like i was going way way left field lake superior's waves are so big they have taken on full-sized shipping freighters holy shit yeah there's actually a a story that we there's a story and a song that we have to learn in elementary school called the uh the ballad of the edmund fitzgerald that is about uh a freighter that went down in one of those giant storms took the whole ship down killed everybody fuck yeah i think it was in the 50s or we got told how to brace doors for school shootings or suspects around the school like

that's dark like it was a normal thing like well this is a pre-columbine for me so we didn't really have that um this is before i mean school shootings have happened but we were just la you know we were we had suspects all around. Well, I mean, I went to Detroit schools. OK, you're right. So this is pre Columbine. We all are sitting on little those little mats that you sit on and in music class and singing about a ship. Yeah. OK.

You know, so different times. That's like trying to think about, you know, it's kind of jarring to think about completely off topic but it's kind of totally jarring to think about how different a pre-columbine world was um in comparison like a pre-911 world it's it's almost the same thing yeah i mean it's not but it is um anyway back on topic um so uh madison got the letter you know we met the enemy and they're ours uh the victory uh actually scared the british garrison at detroit so bad um they i mean to be fair they actually needed lake erie to be open for resupply uh but the garrison withdrew all the way back to canada left for detroit without a fight i believe too yeah um like actually here's a fun fact. They fled from Detroit, much like the rest of the population of white people would a few generations later. All for bad reasons. Isn't it about cheap beer?

No, they mostly left because of racism. Oh, that too. Yeah. OK. Like most things in the inner city, it's mostly based on racism. Yeah. And I can tell you for sure yeah i could attest to that yeah i bet you can no my neighborhood was i don't know what that means

it was uh it was weird it the neighborhood i was in was considered little mexico right of the east area and me being the only really mexican kid there that didn't speak spanish oh yeah i can see being a little bit it's really weird so i can only imagine how the white people that weren't there anymore that were there during the times when they were building b24s and b25s out of boyle heights yeah yeah not anymore well that's kind of like what happened detroit i mean detroit started as you know well obviously starts for detroit but you know then it turned into an automotive superpower of the world um and it was just a wash with autoworker money and that autoworker money

was a lot of it was based on you know world war ii manufacturing of tanks and like especially the uh the sherman was manufactured there. Um, but then eventually segregation was taken away and, uh, you know, there's cheap housing in downtown. So black people moved in and there's, there's nothing keeping them from moving into their white neighbors.

So all the white people took off running, um, had nothing to do with the jobs leaving. They just ran cause they didn't like black people. I would imagine that is the same with LA, but LA is just so expensive to live in. Well, L.A. is a little different.

L.A. is also way bigger. It's fucking huge. Yeah. It's like, it might as well be its own state, almost. It's bigger than some states. It has a larger population

than some states. Some. Anyway, bringing it back around to the slightly less depressing part of history, even though it still involves people shooting at each other. So General Harrison didn't accept the withdrawal back to Canada as a victory and instead would only rest when he beat those bastards in combat. He launched another invasion of Canada backed by around 4,000 soldiers and militiamen.

Among his forces was the governor of Kentucky and revolutionary war hero, Isaac Shelby, who was pushing 70 years old at the time, which is, I don't know how you like age has inflation, but he's like 100 in modern day times because this is the 1700 or the 1800s and he's 70 years old yeah no he's dying tomorrow yeah he's on his last leg yeah he would be facing proctor and barely 800 of his own men with tecumseh and around 500 native

soldiers so on october 3rd proctor's men formed up with the natives protecting their flank. This is actually not a great idea in retrospect, because most of the time you want to secure your flanks with the best soldiers available. History and 18th century racism says the flanks would be secured by regular soldiers. Proctor actually instead secured it with native soldiers, which either means he's a bad commander or he knew the natives were better soldiers than him, but he just wouldn't admit it out loud. Um, for whatever reason, Proctor elected to not fortify his position against cavalry attacks.

Um, which is dumb in general. Um, which is exactly what Harrison saw and exactly what Harrison did. He ordered his cavalry on a frontal assault. The Brits actually in a frontal assault are never good. They're a surefire way to take massive casualties as you'll see throughout history.

But the Brits were so tired and haggard and sick of marching that they only managed managed one ragged uh fusillade on the enemy before retreating um and maybe i i i'm convinced they're actually just really demoralized from proctor's leadership maybe seeing that they weren't fortified for a cavalry attack when they saw cavalry attackings like really brought them down yeah you can't deal with this for like we're fucked here i i just can't even right now yeah yeah right now i can't even yeah yeah no and i keep bringing this up but it's totally true brings you back to my whole Empire Total War days. Your men get tired as fuck through marching or how fast they go. For sure.

And it'll let you know. So I think it kind of plays into this with them as well. Obviously, they're doing a shit ton of marching. And unlike my campaigns of Empire Total War, Proctor didn't actually have the options of turning off fatigue. Which I always do because I cheat. You do always cheat, you fuck. In Empire? You've never even played Empire with me.

No, you played. No. Yeah, we never played Empire together, but I know you cheat because you play NHL with no penalties on. You play. That's right. You fuck. Because nobody likes to think going to the penalty box

is the pinnacle of entertainment. I'm sorry. I take entertainment from playing. Yeah, I tried playing your rules, and you cheated the whole time. I was still trying to play. Oh, there's the blue line. All right, we passed it, and I'm getting fucked.

Well, sounds like you should have adapted and overcame there. So Tecumseh, actually, the guy who was securing the flanks and and supposedly the inferior force fought on he held the flank helped yeah um another cavalry charge actually killed tecumseh and set the natives running though um so the reason behind that is you know the middle completely collapsed and the only thing left was the flank. So they got completely enveloped, um, killing Tecumseh, who was apparently the best leader in all of Canada at the time.

Um, from what I'm, what I understand is he was a, a great political leader. He was, he was very good for uniting the tribes, right. Which is rare in,

in, in native politics. Yeah. Cause usually they're going at each other's necks, right. They're fighting over, they're fighting over, um,

material and guns and, and hunting grounds and stuff like that. But, you know, every once in a while, somebody will come around and be able to unite the tribes and to come. So, you know,

there's a reason why the entire tribal Confederacy of that buffer state revolved around him. Yeah. And, um, the British end up fucking themselves by leaving to come to high and dry here. Yeah. Um, because with the by leaving Tecumseh high and dry here. Yeah.

Because with the death of Tecumseh, their idea that Buffer State died with them because the tribe stopped fighting with them. They didn't have anybody to unite around. And they certainly weren't going to unite around a whole bunch of white dudes. Yeah. No, I totally agree. He was a great military leader as well. Yeah, he was. as well yeah he was i mean he could he could keep who were effectively untrained native soldiers um static fighting in a line when the entire middle of the formation collapsed right any

european formation would have fled but they kept fighting i mean obviously end up biting him in the ass but you know that happens but you know they they fought better than the British Canadians did. Right. So. High on their victory, the American soldiers burned down the town of Moravian Town for revenge because, you know, normally militias levy militiamen from nearby towns. So they're like, oh, well, we'll show you well about that. by town so they're like oh we'll show you well about that moravian town was a community of pacifist christians who had absolutely nothing to do with the fighting yeah that'll show them it almost seems like a petty act it is they do that they do this type of stuff because i'm glad you tell me about this because the only thing i knew about of americans doing

shit like this was in york which we're going to get into later well this uh this whole um because we we invade canada several times during the war yeah pretty much every time if we take it how we burn it um this is because it's well demoralizing it's terrorism effectively yeah no it is you're scaring people away from wanting to fight you yeah um which is common for the for martial tactics at the time but i i personally think completely uneducated opinion here uh so a little asterisk above this one um i guess our entire podcast is uneducated opinion but uh there's a little asterisk above this one that says like i just think that americans are really really happy to beat the british no yeah no they were going to sell it yeah if they took if they took something they were going

to burn that shit just to show just to give the brits a middle finger the same reason why they impressed the british sailors when they won the one native battle uh naval battle when they never did that before no yeah it's it's almost, it's almost like, it's like, yeah, I'm a little brother. More than they can chew. Right. And a good example here is I'm a little brother.

I have a big brother. Me too. Um, and my big brother beat the shit out of me my entire life. Uh, when I was 17, I enlisted in the army. I went off to basic training,

uh, advanced training, everything like that. I, I got in shape, became very strong. I learned how to fight because even though I got punched in the face a lot, I got jumped a lot when I was a kid,

never really learned how to fight. I learned how to get be scrappy. Oh yeah. Same. Um, so then when I had the physical capability of winning that fist fight, I didn't just beat my brother's ass. I beat him unconscious.

It's always a good story. Yeah. I mean like like but that is effectively what America's doing yeah like oh we can win a fight now guys they put on their big boy pants yeah and they essentially said look we're big dick now we're our

own country America's coming on to the international stage right and they're going to do it with a whole lot of firebombing apparently so the problem was though And they're going to do it with a whole lot of firebombing, apparently. So the problem was, though, obviously, they had nothing to do with the fighting in Moravian Town. So they burned down Innocent Town eventually. Another issue was Harrison obviously had one hell of a foothold in Canada.

So he didn't be able to press this, maybe even take more territory. Yeah. But he couldn't. Harrison's militiamen were getting ready their enlistments were getting ready to expire. So he's unable to capitalize on this victory and had to pull back instead. Militiamen have enlistments? Yes.

So how it worked back then from what I could gather if I'm wrong, someone please tell me. So militiamen can be called up only for a certain amount of time. So that's where that whole Minutemen thing kind of comes into play or what is that? Well, the Minutemen were, well, that's kind of the idea that the National Guard is based on. The National Guard is based on the militia.

So you have to rewind back a couple of generations. Okay. Um, militia could be called up by their state governor who could then kind of like receipt them over to the federal government in a time of war like this, which is like Harrison is a commissioned officer in the federal army. Therefore he has tons of federal troops and tons of militiamen under his command.

The militia will have their own officers who will be commissioned as militia officers. There are two distinctly different things, um, which is why, um, Doosmond, the guy who was under Lieutenant Hanks command in the last episode,

right? He was only commissioned as a militia. Right. But the main difference being they can only be called up for a certain amount of time. These are truly citizen soldiers. These are farmers who need to go back and tend their land. They can't be away for that long and you can't extend them. That's why, you know, back in the winding all the way back to the Revolutionary War,

That's why, you know, back in the winding all the way back to the Revolutionary War, where General Washington had to give a like stirring speech to get people to reenlist. Otherwise, his entire army was going to fall out. They couldn't just like keep them. That'd probably be a lot easier if they could just stop, lost their ass like they did to us. So, you know, I don't know. Anyway. This is the American Army of the War of 1812 so that meant this victory was about to be followed by a hilariously

bad defeat and even worse planning because they'd finally somewhat had a successful invasion of Canada after about four tries now the US decided to do it again this time they decided to take the city of Montreal so a successful invasion involves The U.S. decided to do it again. This time they decided to take the city of Montreal.

So a successful invasion involves burning basically a city or a village? It was a village. Oh, a village. Okay. A successful invasion to the extent that they won the battle and they didn't get forced from the field. They left because, well, they had to. But they left in their own volition. So it's basically based off the battle.

Yeah. I mean, at this point. Not the invasion. At this point, you have to think that American invasions of Canada, they have a really low bar for success. Yeah, they do. They don't have a good track record. So they plan to take Montreal. Why take Montreal, of all places?

Well, no one seemed to think it was a good idea. Go figure. I mean, poutine seemed to think it was a good idea. Go figure. I mean, poutine. Poutine's delicious. It is. Everyone argued how to accomplish this. Montreal was like the communication center for all of British Canada. Which, as we know now, communication back then sucked.

It was terrible. So everybody argued how to exactly take this city, but nobody actually thought it was a good idea because they didn't think they could pull it off. Finally, in late 1813,

General Wade Hampton and General James Wilkinson made their move. The plan was immediately beset by problems by bad roads, logistical issues,

and the small fact that the two generals fucking hated one another this will become an issue um they hated each other so much they actually did not want to support one another yeah like we're talking about like physically support one another in combat they didn't want to do it. That's where I was going. Yeah. In combat, not with each other. I mean, but still,

they shouldn't have really had to. Between them, they had about 10,000 men. That's why I see this whole 1812, it's all petty. It's super petty, and I think... Everybody's super petty. I think this whole war, and this is probably an unpopular opinion. I don't really care.

This whole war is, is, um, uh, in a direct results of having, um, that really, really strong push after revolutionary war of having absolute state rights and

having a really weak central government. Yeah. If, okay. If there was a strong central government with subservient States, I fully believe Canada would actually be a province of the United States. I mean, there probably would have been some kind of historical event that would still

have separated the two currently, but there was the, the force that was defending Canada from an entire country was pitiful and that's not to take anything away from the canadians the canadians definitely showed themselves worthy on the battlefield of being their own state but the fact remains that like having a couple plucky units should not have mattered when you're facing with this combined force of 10,000 men. Yeah. That 10,000 men that these two generals fielded was more than the entirety of the martial force of Canada at the time.

And I'll about to tell you why that didn't end up so well. So it turns out, however, that the numbers would not matter hampton led 4 000 of his men into action at the battle of chantagri lined up against him was a paltry force of 300 french canadian forces led by a lieutenant colonel charles de Salaberry, consisting of mostly French-speaking volunteers and Mohawk Indians. Oh, fuck. Hampton's forces were immediately checked by the Duggan Canadians and forced to withdraw.

Not to be outdone, though. Wilkinson's 8,000 men were defeated at the Battle of Chrysler's Farm by a British force of only 900. Chrysler's Farm by a british force of only 900 chrysler's farm yes yeah okay um 900 to 4 000 sorry 8 000 8 000 yeah holy fuck that's a lot um with those two embarrassments the campaign to capture capture Montreal was called off. Do you know how many casualties were? Not that many.

So the Battle of Champs-Élysées was like maybe like two dozen. Two dozen? And they just pulled back. It's not like these guys. It's almost like they were taking pop shots and they said, all right. It was like they just assumed to walk into Montreal. And when they weren't able to like, Oh,

this is too hard time to go home. Like they were expecting nothing. I think no type of defense. So military thinking at the time says when you're facing a force this large, you just surrender. I think that's what they're assuming that the Canadians were do or would just surrender. Yeah.

Which is kind of stupid because the, the people in charge of these armies were alive during the revolution and, and effectively live through something like this. And they know Americans didn't surrender when forced with overwhelming odds. There's, there's nothing showing what, I mean, now the battle of Chantagri,

like those dudes are pretty well dug in, but I mean, a bayonet charge would have dislodged them. Yeah. Like for sure it would have worked, but they didn't even try. It was more like a probing attack where they like, well,

we're going to try it this entrance way. Oh, there's people there trying to brute withdrawal. Yeah. Let's step out. Even though they had overwhelming supremacy here. Oh, for sure.

And these are. even though they had overwhelming supremacy. And these are, I wonder if they even knew of the defense that the, uh, the French Canadians had or how many men they had at the time. You know, they, there's no,

there's no evidence in the dispatches that they knew they were only fighting a couple hundred people. Right. So they had scouts. So they knew that the force was definitely smaller than theirs. And most of the time, battles at this point are decided by numerical superiority, which the British are actually pretty rigid about, and we'll find out a little bit later at a much better-known battle in America.

But the United States did not fight all that much here. No, I kind of want to bring up this funny story. So as you know, you've been to NTC before. It's the National Training Center in California at Fort Irwin. And that's when we do our, what, 30-day field training. It's pre-training. I know. So I was a tank crewman. pre-training I know so I was a tank crewman and when I went

through NTC training they taught us effectively cold war tactics for a large scale armor on armor battles and I know that they have whole towns firing ranges it's like hundreds of miles of training oh yeah so

I can see this small force defeating a bigger force right because i went with third cr right down in texas yeah and uh it's the third cavalry regiment yeah okay you you cover that uh i was in third acr at the time so you were old, so get fucked. The time is now, old man. Brave rifles! Oh, fuck. What is it? Oh, fuck. AIA. There we go. Blood and steel AIA.

So we were going through this village. We took 80% casualties going through a village. It's pretty common for NTC, honestly. 80-90% casualties. The unit that runs NTC is 11th ACR which is known as Black Horse yeah uh their whole job is to fuck up everybody who comes there and they're very good at it they are really good at it but they're also a very highly trained opposition

force these are a whole bunch of Canadian fur trappers, which is even better. And the vast majority of Wilkinson's, uh, force were regular army. Didn't matter though. Uh, so these failures though, did not mean the Americans would stop trying to invade Canada,

though. They still need to do something to cut British supplies and communication. If they were ever going to have a hope to get a leg up on their much stronger opponents. Since Montreal and Kingston were clearly out of the question, they invaded through the Niagara frontier in 1814. It also coincided with the end of war in Europe. However, at least for now, meaning the British would have thousands of regulators suddenly freed up and ready to redeploy to America as the stomp down those upper the Americans. Oh yeah.

This is the end of the peninsular war for you. European war kind of sores at home. Also the end of the invasion, Napoleonic invasion of Russia, which began in 1812 which we will be covering at a later date um so american leaders were anxious to finish the capture of upper canada and forced the british to cede it to them um as they recaptured mackinac the americans knew they had zero hope of facing the full wrath of the british royal army and hope to capture as much as possible so they could negotiate from a position of strength at this point they're it's kind of hard to find a comparison to this it's kind of like um vietnam

where when we were negotiating with the north vietnam, we knew we weren't going to win. Yeah. But we were trying to be as strong as possible coming to the table. And that's kind of what we try to do here. Also, after several years of pretty much every American war ever since before 1812 and the Civil War when Phil Scott these guys managed to take the American army which was only a few thousand people before the war

and make it into something that actually could win this war in North America assuming Britain didn't turn its full attention to it there was no American army that was going to beat the British army. No, fuck no. So their work was actually evident from the beginning of the Niagara campaign.

Their forces quickly took Fort Erie on July 3rd and routed the British army from the field on the 5th of July at the Battle of Chippewa. Both occasions, Americans outnumbered the British counterparts by thousands, though. So we were actually still doing the whole, we outish counterparts by thousands though so we were actually still doing the whole we outnumber you by thousands thing like we did in canada

except we're actually winning now um this would change however at the battle of lundy's lane at the end of the month on the 25th of july in what turned into be one of the bloodiest battles of the entire war which with the worst name ever, honestly. And it was actually the bloodiest battle ever on Canadian soil. The two sides fought to a bloody standstill that saw Winfield Scott and Jacob Brown wounded in action, both of them. So not a good look for the Americans.

No. Both of the British commanders, Phineas Ryle and Gordon Drummond were also wounded with Ryle being captured. Great names. Yeah, I really like the name Phineas. Phineas. I like the whole Phineas Ryle and Gordon Drummond were also wounded with Ryle being captured great names yeah I really like the name Phineas Phineas I like the whole Phineas thing yeah uh so at the Phineas Ryle Phineas Ryle Ryle yeah I might be pronouncing that wrong I'm not the best of British names how is it spelled uh it's r-i-a-l-l might be Ryle I'm not gonna attempt that yeah you got that so at the end of the battle 258 were killed and a further 1,500 were wounded.

There had actually been a lot of fighting at close quarters. At this point, British veterans who had fought the Napoleonic Army in the Peninsular War had been pulled to North America. Oh, so they got fucked. They got stop-lossed. Well, not really. At the time, the British Army had some pretty severe enlistment contracts. So you just get bounced around from one war to another at the time.

So to them, it's normal. It's a normal enlistment. Yeah, for sure. So this battle and the American Army showed themselves so well in the field of battle. One veteran, Drummond, reported, quote,

of so determined of character were the American attacks directed against our guns that our artillerymen were bayoneted by the enemy in the act of loading. And the muzzles of the enemy's guns were advancing

within a few yards of ours. The battle confirmed that the American regular forces had evolved into a fully, highly professional army in the fact that they fought British veterans of the Napoleonic peninsular war to a standstill and only withdrew because they lost the initiative. It was kind of a fear of victory on the end of the British.

That's really interesting. Yeah. It, it, it shows that Americans kind of are good at war with given time. We're kind of born into the whole thing of war. We are now. Yeah.

I mean, people born next year will next year. People who were born after 9-11 will get to enlist in the army and we're still at war. No, it's true. It was Orson Welles that. I love Orson Welles that. I love Orson Welles. I believe he said in a book that this war isn't meant to be won. It's meant to go on forever. Yeah, no.

Irony. So. I do like when the Simpsons make fun of Orson Welles. The further professionalism of the American army was shown at the siege of Fort Erie. The British army, reinforced by 15,000 veterans of the Napoleonic Wars, was beaten back in a protracted battle

that lasted from August 4th to September 21st and cost the British 1,500 casualties. The Americans, lacking provisions, burned the fort to the ground and retreated back across Niagara shortly afterwards. And that's where things start to go south for America. At the same time, Americans were holding strong at Fort Erie, the newly reinforced British army began to move elsewhere. The incredibly powerful Royal Navy had controlled the Chesapeake Bay since early 1813, which the American Navy was

completely unable to pull them from. During this time, the constraint of resources, the force's commander, Real Admiral George Cockburn, was only able to land around 2,000 soldiers into the area, unable to push too far inland from the bay itself the army actually a little more than right around the area and become a giant thorn in the side of Americans this changed with Napoleon's abdication in 1814

Cockburn was able to reinforce with a brigade of veterans from the Duke of Wellington's own army now that I know that sounds really really impressive and it is they're still veterans this is like still before the Battle of Waterloo so he's not like that Duke of Wellington quite yet but he's getting there

he's not Napoleon's not taking a nap at this point no so at this point he Napoleon's at Elba Island he he hasn't been he's only been kicked out to the curb once Elba Island fuck he got sent to He's only been kicked out to the curb once. Elba Island.

Fuck. He got sent to Elba Island for. Well, he abdicated the throne. That was his punishment. Right, yeah. Now, a complete side note. I'm a huge Napoleonic era nerd. But when he was at Elba Island, he actually was allowed to keep all of his titles and everything. was still emperor napoleon but his dominion was elba island um he like formed his own army and and yeah and uh you

know which is like 20 people and was nice and and set government policy and all this other shit but you know this is prior to um waterloo, so, which I personally, Waterloo is one of my favorite battles to look, look up, which is, I hope we cover. It would be hard not to cover it. Um, but that's at a much later time.

Oh yeah, it is. So, uh, with these reinforcements, major general Robert Ross was able to, uh, to put all of them in an army and push towards Washington, D.C. itself.

From Nottingham, Ross continued across the Poxton River to Upper Marlborough, from where he could threaten an advance on either Washington or Baltimore. He kind of had both cities in the palm of his hand. he kind of had both cities in the palm of his hand to confuse the Americans. He actually acted like he was going to go to Baltimore and quickly changed courses and went to DC. Yeah. And actually he may have actually just taken the capital completely unopposed if he would advance on the 23rd of August, but instead he rested his men and reorganized everything because they've been marching pretty hard

from the coastline. Oh, yeah. So on the night of the 23rd through the 24th of August, at the urging of Real Admiral Cockburn and some British Army officers under his own command, Ross decided to risk an attack on Washington. He had four infantry battalions, a battalion

of Royal Marines, a rocket detachment from the Royal Marines Battalion and 50 Royal Marine sappers and miners along with 100 gunners from the Navy and 275 guns and 60 rocket

launchers, each being attached to a Congreve rocket which are one of the better known first massively fielded uh strategic rocket units to be used in the military they were actually more of a morale weapon than a physical weapon they were super inaccurate yeah they were but they screamed and made loud noises and shit they're pretty terrifying to see no yeah i would imagine that yeah and the noise alone yeah uh rear admiral cockburn accompanied this force interesting enough there's also 200 man

detachment from of black refugees had ran from their slave masters and joined the british they would go on to be known as the core of colonial marines so interesting footnote here to take a take a left in the story during the war over 4 000 slaves would escape and run to the british for safe harbor um at the time even though a lot of modern day uh self-described historians will tell you um that slavery was normal in the world it was absolutely not in western europe slavery is all but outlawed way before now to include the british empire america was pretty much one of the only uh nation states still standing that had uh widespread impressment slavery yeah uh meaning the british invited this i mean granted they're obviously free soldiers,

uh, who kind of wanted revenge, kind of want to fight for the freedom. Um, and the Brits did not cave on this. Um, at the end of the war in, in some of the arguments for the treaty of Ghent,

which would end the war, um, the Americans demanded that the British give all these slaves back and the British outright refused. And we're actually ready to continue fighting because of it. Um, the Americans demanded that the British give all these slaves back and the British outright refused and were actually ready to continue fighting because of it. Um, but the Americans terrified of continuing fighting withdrew that. Uh, so at the end of the war, the British would, would actually resettle about half of those free slaves in Canada and the other half in the Caribbean. Uh, they never give any of them back. This would go on to be the largest

population of emancipated slaves from the Americas until the end of the Civil War. Good on them. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There's nothing real fuck shit. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing but and I could

go on about this fucking shit forever, but there's a lot of people that still argue that, well, it was just a part of the time with slavery, and that would have been true a hundred years before. But in 1814, this started beginning in

the emancipation. But the vast majority of civilized society moved on from slavery, but the United States stayed firmly rooted into it. So, arranged against them, the Americans put together a force led by Brigadier General Winder, who, in theory,

could call up a local militia force of around 15,000. And despite the questionable quality of the militia, this would have actually been a pretty solid defense against the approaching british unfortunately for winder he didn't actually have 15 000 men what he did have was about 400 regulars and could only muster about 1500 militiamen nice hardly a fraction what he thought he had um winder realized that Bladensburg was the key to Washington's defense. Uh,

Bladensburg was commanded, uh, the roads of both Baltimore and Annapolis, along which reinforcements would be moved in to join him. The town also lay on one of the only two routes available for the British advance to go into Washington. In fact, the preferred route,

uh, because the Eastern branch was really easy to afford here. Uh, so on 20 August, Winder had ordered brigadier general Tobias Stansbury to move from Baltimore to Blansburg, uh, quote,

take the best position in advance of Blansburg. And should he be attacked to resist as long as possible on August 22nd, Stainsbury deployed his force around Loudon's Hill, where he hastily dug earthworks for artillery replacements. The road from Annapolis crossed the hill and the road from upper Molsboro ran it's from South to West. Furthermore, the road from Washington, Georgetown, and Baltimore

all intersected behind it in Blansburg. From this position, Stansbury dominated all approaches available to the British and controlled all lines of communication. So, this dude was set. He was absolutely dug into the best possible place he could be dug into. Um, unfortunately for him, it wouldn't end that way.

Um, on two at two 30 AM on the 23rd of August, Stansbury received a message from Winder informing him that he had withdrawn across the Eastern branch and intended to fire the load, the lower bridge by fire. He means set on fire. Yeah, no. Therefore trapping in Stansbury.

Surprised, of course, because this was never planned before. Stansbury was seized by an irrational fear that his right flank could be turned instead of strengthening in like his right flank because he already had a total commanding position. Yeah. Instead of strengthening this, he immediately decamped and marched his exhausted troops who had just finished digging in

across the Blansburg Bridge, which he did not burn to a brickyard 1.5 miles away. He had thus thrown away every tactical advantage available to him and fucked everybody by not burning the bridge down. My soldiers would be so pissed on Empire Total War they'd be so mad I know I'd be mad at this position

eventually militias from the surrounding areas would trickle in and join the defense they'd eventually number on 6500 militiamen and 18 guns of various sizes it's a pretty impressive force, Kevin. It is. And I know we're... Would you say that it's based off the...

Artillery that we used is mainly French artillery, so it was the... I think it's a mixture. It's a mixture... I want to say it's more French. I don't know why. It's probably a mixture of French artillery so it was the I think it's a mixture I want to say it's more French I don't know why it's probably a mixture of French artillery that we have left over from the Revolutionary War and captured British artillery

but either way I mean it's still a sizable force so on noon at August at August 24th Ross's army reached Blensburg Stansbury tactical errors quickly became apparent. He had Lowndes Hill.

Stansbury could have made the British approach a costly one, although this would have actually involved him fighting with each east branch of the river at his back, which means he really wouldn't be able to retreat, especially if that bridge had actually been burned down, none of which happened. He had held the brick structures of Blansburg, which were a ready-made mini fortress. He may have actually embroiled Ross's troops

in a bloody street-by-street fight, but because the bridge had not been burned, it had also not been defended. Stansbury's infantry and artillery were posted too far from the river's edge to contest the crossing effectively. Yeah. Meaning the British kind of strolled across it. As the British began to press the attack, the Americans started to withdraw, initially in good order. That part's important it's actually like one of the things that people give george washington a lot of credit for yeah is like the master of retreat

during the revolution his his force never routed uh so the fight could be continued uh if you could keep your army together then winder began to issue out all sorts of confusing orders on one occasion he issued three different orders to the same cavalry commander. Not a good start. What? His order for a general retreat was also not spread through most of the ranks, leading some units to withdraw and others

trying to stay and fight. Which would leave the forces who were staying and fighting, it would leave their flanks completely open to British attack. This made it look like some units were not in fighting, it would leave their flanks completely open to British attack. This made it look like some units were not withdrawing, but instead were routing in fear.

Obviously, when you see one unit running from battle, that's kind of contagious. It's demoralizing to see another unit go down out of either sheer force or sheer fear. Yeah. And this kind of panic spread through the other ranks.

This turned the, the general well-ordered retreat into an outright sprint for their lives to make matters worse. Winder had not given any instructions before the battle in the case of a retreat. Normally have rallying points, secondary orders. worse winder had not given any instructions before the battle in the case of a retreat normally have rallying points secondary orders things like that um but he had none of that uh so that meant in the case of retreat of the american militias um there was nothing so they just kind of scattered to the wind, ran back home, um,

scatter everybody. Yeah. To make matters worse, he had actually ordered contradictory orders, um, to order a halt and a reform to fall back on the Capitol where secretary of war, John Armstrong jr.

Had hoped vainly to make a last stand using the federal buildings as strong points or to retreat to georgetown or tenley town most of the militia just ran home i mean i would too to be honest with you yeah why not um the battle was such an embarrassment that had become known as quote the greatest disgrace ever to american arms and and i'd run home and act like i wasn't even a part of it yeah well you probably wouldn't be able to list anyway because you're not white it's very true yeah different times uh president madison himself and several other members of the government were actually at the battle and the army ran from the field so quickly uh that he was actually nearly captured and left behind

holy fuck yeah immediately after the battle the american government packed what they could and so quickly that he was actually nearly captured and left behind. Holy fuck. Yeah. Immediately after the battle, the American government packed what they could and abandoned the capital as soon as they could. This is where we talked about Madison's wife. Yes. This is great. So, you know, there's a huge story that Madison's wife packed

up all these pieces of art. It's George Washington's original mural. Yeah, the one that's like torn in half or whatever because it's all they could fit. It wasn't Madison's wife. It was Madison's wife's slave. It was basically the servant, basically the slave.

No, it was the house slave. Yes. So it's a little less heroic when you realize all she did was just tell a slave what to do. Yeah. And it's not like how my textbooks have said it, where she barely had enough time and she slid it into her dress. She was already gone. She had plenty of time.

It was her servant. Yeah. Who did all the work. Which if honestly, if he would have just waited like 30 minutes and been liberated by the British, he'd be a free man. He would be. Yeah. And that's where I talk about, I think in the first episode where I say this is where a free man. He would be. Yeah. And that's where I talk about, I think in the first episode where I say,

this is where a lot of people get salt from. Yeah. Where they think, oh, no, no, no, no, no. America wouldn't do that. Well, there's a lot of salt involved in slavery in America in general. Do you remember back,

fuck, two years? Michelle Obama, when she was first lady, made a speech. Well, it was definitely not two years ago because she was a first lady two years ago, when she was first lady, made a speech. Well, it was definitely not two years ago because she was a first lady two years ago. Whenever she was first lady, made a speech saying, I wake up every morning in a house built by slaves. And people got really butthurt by that. Why?

But the White House was built by slaves. It's true. There's no amount of historical revisionism that will change that. It's true. There's no amount of historical revisionism that will change that. Just like saying that there's a lot of heroic things chalked up to people in American history that were done by slaves who weren't allowed their own choices. This happens to be one of them. Yeah.

No. And that's why I always tell you, I always hold that unpopular opinion within my co-workers or within the people that i know where it's like uh whose side are you on you don't agree with america all this other stuff it's just like no i just see the truth it's yeah and the truth is is not is is untwistable to people who will fight for it i mean there's a lot of historical revisionism and there's a lot of shit out there about what is truly American, what's not. And, you know,

history is history. And while history might be written by the vectors, there's still plenty of paperwork and paper trails and all this other shit that still exists that tells us the truth. Yeah. And, uh, we definitely go,

go into that in our Q and a. Oh yeah. If you want to go back to that episode. Yeah. So the chasing British soldiers were actually so close at the heels of the withdrawing American government that several British soldiers sat down to enjoy President Madison's dinner that was still hot. Nice. Yeah.

I know I would. Yeah, I would have too. As the soldiers made their way unopposed into the capital, Cockburn decided to burn the place to the ground. This was not a spur-of-the-moment type thing, as a lot of things would lead you to believe that is the case, or it's some kind of vengeful thing from our former colonial overlords. While the vengeful thing may actually be true,

that is because the Americans had burned several towns and villages to the ground during their attacks into Canada, and it made the British pissed. Before the fires were set, soldiers did what soldiers do and looted the hell out of everything. Cockburn actually personally

looted, quote, an account of the receipts and expenditures of the United States for the year 1810. Because I assume he was a petty asshole to steal their accounting information. There was a receipt for that? Yeah. Afterwards, the White House and the Capitol building were set on fire, as most people are aware of. Cockburn actually also meant to burn down the headquarters of the National Intelligence,

or a local newspaper that had actually been badmouthing him since the outbreak of war. A journalist who was in the office begged him not to set the office on fire because it might spread to nearby houses. Cockburn saw he had a point and was a bit of an agreeable man and he did not set the building on fire. Instead, he ordered his men to demolish it by hand and take all the C's off their typesets. So, quote, the rascals can have no further means of abusing my name. Get fucked, dude. Which might be both the best and most petty thing ever done it from the war. Yes.

But also, like, I totally would do it, too. No, it's the first Twitter beef. Um, but also like I totally would do it too. No, it's the first Twitter beef. Yeah. It's like if Twitter beefs melted into real life in the 1800s. No. Yeah. And, uh,

take away all the C's. They can't talk shit after that. So I know in the beginning I said this was the conclusion of the war of 1812. Um, but we're actually going to stop there cause we already at plus an hour. Um, and hours generally are a limit. So that is the war of 1812. Part 2. Tune in next week.

For the conclusion of the war of 1812. Where we will talk further. About. All the horrible things that happened. After the White House was burned to the ground. As always. The shit that people didn't know know about because of what we've gone into. First episode, the second episode of the communication during the time. Right.

So as always, follow the podcast on Twitter at lines underscore by follow me on Twitter at J.Cas 99. Follow me at Nick Cass M1. And please rate review, share us amongst your friends. Thank you. Patreon. Yeah. Thank you to the Legion of the old crow for keeping us afloat and paying all

of our server costs and the cost of future research. Our podcast will always be free, but if you think what we do is worth a buck, you can throw it to us on Patreon. So I know everybody thought you're going gonna hear at the end this week but tune in next week for our conclusion of the war of 1812 yep later bye