In a message dated 12/14/2004 4:01:55 PM Eastern Standard Time, runrue@zoominternet.net writes: > I suppose I'll have to "weigh in" here. I don't want to make anyone upset > with me. I am an American and I do know the facts as well. > I imagine that in England, Canada and the U.S., there are those people who > love history and learn it and there are those people who do not. All of us > know really intellegent people who know nothing about a subject, be it > geography, math, photography, history or whatever. > I know there are MANY Americans who know very little about the War of 1812. > But, does that naturally follow that most everyone in England or Canada > DOES?? I don't think so. I recognize that there are many different > perspectives in any situation, and certainly, war would have more than most. > I learned in history that what gave the "War Hawks" in Congress the power to > push us into war was the impressment of American sailors into the British > navy. While there were those persons who wanted war with Great Britain > because they wanted to take Canada, it would not have moved forward without > the impressment. It is true that all bids for Canada were lost. It is true > that the battle of New Orleans was fought in January of 1815, and the peace > had been signed weeks before that. It is also true that when war was > declared, the Orders in Council in Parliment had already been repealed. > Both matters of slow communication. It is true that Great Britain had not > been sending their top of the line soldiers. It is true that the soldiers > who fought at the battle of New Orleans were top of the line, but tired > because of the fighting in Europe. Which is why they lost, maybe, to Andrew > Jackson. But.... > Whichever way you slice, Great Britain said UNCLE. We all know that if you > forfeit, for whatever reason, you lose. Impressment stopped. Free trade > began again. > This is the way I see it. Just another perspective. > > Rose Jobe Unrue > Let me add that I don't know if the British units involved in the battle for Washington were "mostly Canadian" or not, but I do know that the American forces they faced in their push across the Anacostia River to take Washington were preteen cadets from the local military academy and some sailors who were across the road at the Anacostia Harbormaster's house. The building that housed those young lads is now my local branch of the county library system. The spring where the British forces set up their triage and camped before moving back to Lower Marlboro to reboard their ships is about 4 blocks from my house. Two of my sons spent the summer of 1986 making the site of the spring head into a mini-park. Bob Robert Evans Page "... comes from a long line of dead men." Lawrence Block