Hello and welcome to another episode of Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast. We're doing that podcast again. I'm Joe. I'm Nick. And today we're getting ambitious. We are going to do our first ever series. Mostly out of necessity because Nick is going on leave and he's going to California. Fuck, I'm not going to California. You don't listen to me. I thought you were going to California. No, where are you going? I'm going to Texas. Oh, that's not even remotely close to the same thing. It's buddy related.
No, okay. I don't. Visiting family, I tend to drive and I think more or less on the first 30 minutes to an hour. I'm like, why am I driving? Why am I doing this? Do I need to see my family? I don't need to see my family. I hate them too. Fucking hate it. Like driving from Texas just to fucking Washington. The drive is awful. I wanted to kill myself at least on every road I saw. Yeah, because once, so driving through Texas like the Eastbar Texas takes like fucking eight hours.
And then you're rewarded by getting into New Mexico, which is nothing terrible. I mean, I hear there's nice touristy spots from New Mexico, but that's not the part that you drive through. No. And then you go through Utah, again, not the nice part. Nope. And if you want to get adventurous, you can drive through Northern California, which is a, which is a scorched Hellscape. Okay, here's what I did. I drove from Texas, went through from Central Texas to El Paso, New Mexico, Arizona, up California.
I did that way. Because it was my family. Yeah. And I was like, what I do this should have just flew that drive sucked. I did that on my way back from Oregon when I was on the firefighting course. I have attempted to sell my truck at California just to fly. So I guess if she'd get remotely in topic today, well, I know you're excited because you're leaving. And you get to go on vacation. Hey. You know, hey. I mean, vacation from the Army is like the sweetest vacation.
It is until I'm like probably 10 days in and I'm just like, there's nothing to do. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, we'll find out who knows. Yeah. Well, today we are actually going to cover something that we have meant to cover since we actually came up with the idea of this podcast. I think it was like on our first idea. It was. And that is the War of 1812. Because our two. And the reason we're going to cover this is because it doesn't seem like, well, it seems like most people know about it.
But they don't actually know about like they don't know shit about it. It's really glossed over in like textbooks during the school. It's really all they talk about really is that the burning down of the White House. Yeah. And the Nash first lady fucking saved George Washington's painting. And it wasn't actually. It wasn't heard. But we'll get into that part. Right. And we won. And the National Anthem. Oh, yeah. From that's right.
But you know, that's another we'll get into that argument on part two. The War of 1812. Part two, Electric Buglew. This will we'll actually talk about who actually won this war. But you know, I remember growing up, I took a lot, you know, history classes like the only class of pay attention to. I think we've talked about that one the thousand times now. And I still didn't know a whole lot about it. Because it's kind of glossed over.
It's that weird middle zone in between the Civil War and the Revolutionary War. Not a part of history that people seem to care a whole lot about. Which is really weird because that's technically our first big declaration of war as independent country. It is our first decision of war. I don't see why it should be glossed over. Right. But it also I can see why it is honestly. It doesn't make us look great. It doesn't. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how it can't be though.
I mean, think this involves Emperor Napoleon the first of France and involves multiple invasions of Canada, the creation of the US National Anthem, the routing of forces away from the nations capital, which you think is something that people want to fight to the death. And then, you know, if you're our current president, you only really remember the burning of the White House part and everything else is Candace Fult. You know, history isn't always that simple. It's kind of why we're here.
So let's begin this story. It begins after America's first war that whole one of independence. As you may imagine by wars end, England of the newly freed United States, we're not exactly the tight knit friendship that they are today. Yeah. Instead, the US depended a lot on France for trade while England began to get weary at this new independent nations and new geopolitical foe that ordered their rather important colony of Canada.
Yeah. Yeah. Generally, these disagreements between the two surfaced in what we now consider proxy wars, though not in the form that Americans are used to, in that we are the ones getting proxied. We're the victims. Yeah. But I mean, we had to learn it from somebody. Yeah. We took notes. Yeah. We studied. You see when the America broke free from England, England began to worry about what American designs and intentions were about Western expansion.
And more than that, England is worried about possible American ideas about Canada. If you remember in the Revolutionary War, or if you're not American, go back and read it. We probably won't cover it because it's not exactly donkey territory. Yeah. And Mike Duncan killed that shit and revolutions and I'm not going to step on it. So we already invaded Canada before, with the intention of taking it over. So I mean, there's, we have a history. The episode ended in hilarious defeat.
But the seeds were sown in the mind of England's leaders. One that England couldn't keep its, and keep a blind spot. And they decided that instead of deploying massive amounts of regular troops to Canada, they would keep their young adversaries in check through the local Indian population. Yeah. So in the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War and was signed in 1783, Britain ceded the US control the Northwest territory.
What they didn't do was abandon their forts in the area and stop arming the natives. And they also paid the natives to attack Americans. Nice. So you can see that there's kind of issues here. Also, I couldn't find the exact wording of the treaty in modern English. But the treaty is worded so that they were actually allowed to stay in their forts. And I don't know if that is America's desperation to end the war and could I'm starting a state. Or that fact, I didn't read it all that closely.
I go with the second one, honestly. I think it might be both like Francis, like, do just fucking sign it and let's get this over with. Is that mean, and the late 1700s, France has a lot of its own shit to deal with. Yeah. And we're kind of looking at them like dead. Yeah. Looking up. So they began to organize the natives and pay them to launch attacks on American settlements and civilians, like I said. So in effect, the Brits just didn't care about the treaty and the US knew it.
The issues would eventually lead to outright war between those two sides. That is, the natives and the Americans, not the British and the Americans. So the British were definitely involved. This war did not go well for the new United States. After numerous raids and settlements, President George Washington or the US Army to march into the area and settle the problem, the only problem that was handled though was that the Americans were in the native's land.
The first campaign in 1790 was led by a general Joe Harmer. It was so thoroughly routed it became known as Harmer's Defeat. The next in 1791 became known as St. Clair's Defeat in case you're wondering if it ended any better than the first. So when you say routed, it really brings me back to my empire total war days or the Poyonic Total War. Effectively the same. They're not marching away. I see a flag blinking and running. Yeah, that's all I see. Your troops have been routed.
Yeah, when St. Clair brought the mouse over his troops, they just said shattered. He knew he was in trouble. They probably won't be coming back. He just hit escape. General St. Clair's combined force of regular army in militia was so soundly beaten. Only 24 people escaped the campaign unharmed out of about a thousand. Fuck. Jesus Christ. It would actually become the most troops ever lost to natives ever in the history of the United. I could believe that.
Yeah. And this is like decades before we get into the Indian Wars with Custer, the one that everybody knows about or the French Indian War that happened before this. Which we do want to cover. Yeah, we do. St. Clair did such a bad job. The investigation into his campaign was actually the first one ever by the executive branch of the United States government. So he's blazing trails. Jesus Christ. Just in reverse.
Yeah. That was only then when revolutionary war hero Mad Anthony Wayne gathered an army. That was awesomely tight. Was a legend of the United States. Was mad his first name. Uh, it's in quotations. Okay. All right. Yeah. He gathered the legion of the United States in 1790. Sweet name, dude. Yes. And the Americans were able to get the upper hand. Anthony's legions crushed the natives at the ballot. The battle of fallen timbers.
Also, by the way, huge missed opportunity here by the Department of Defense. They only should have kept that name alive. Fuck the United States. No. The legion of the United States. Oh, that would be sweet. That would be way cooler. I mean, at least like, because a lot of the units that fought in the war of 1812, there's modern day army units that trace their lineage back to them. Not the leading is a lineage is kind of hazy and gray. They're just kind of grasping at straws.
But there's no fucking legion nowadays. Oh, he should have kept that alive. Yeah. That'd be sweet. That'd be a sweet name tape. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I imagine you get to have sweet cool white hats. Fuck, dude. Good. So this small war would eventually be known as the Northwest Indian War, the Ohio War or Little Turtles War, also showed something else that British wanted, an Indian buffer state between the United States and Canada.
Now, this isn't some like progressive idea of native sovereignty. They just wanted a check in place in case the United States have forgotten their shit together and decided they wanted Canada. They wanted some insurance before. Yeah. Right. They are effectively the same as like Poland was the Soviet. Yeah. They needed some space for people to roll through before they got to the real shit.
Yeah. And there was, you know, they had a leader into Kamsa who could put their military together and something resembling something they could check the United States. And I mean, the United States at this point is fractured. There's states that won't trade with other states. States that won't submit their militia to federal control for these wars. You know, the Brits definitely had a machete. Kind of a shitcho. Yo, god yeah.
So that plan was shelved for the time being with the natives the feet in 1795. The victory family got rid of the rest of the British forts in the area, though. So the Legion did accomplish something important. What really saved the US's ass here was that the British did not want to get involved in another front of what had become the French Revolutionary Wars that was spreading like wildfire through Europe at the time. Great Britain was currently ass deep in the war.
The first coalition against Revolutionary France. The last thing they needed was a distraction that could sap way the ground forces or worse have America join in and invade China. Granted, I mean, Revolutionary France is time a super unstable. This is pre-Napoleon as council and later emperor. Correct me if I'm wrong because I don't know French Revolution that much. Is this Le Miser Rob's time we're talking?
Well, this is I guess so because this isn't the middle of like the chaos of OK, so we'll just close there just cutting through swaths of governments in very short amount of times. It's probably one of the more confusing areas of history that you can study because in a span of like three years they go through a dozen governments. I have a hard time with that, which is why I stick to OK, they had a revolution. It's great musical. Thank you very much, Ellie, public schools.
So this fear of America joining their former Revolutionary War allies never actually took place or at least not directly. Interesting side note though, some Americans would join the French Revolution. One of those Americans was a guy named William Hayte and he would lead a French Revolutionary Army to invade the British mainland.
This unit was known as the Legion Norde or the Black Legion invaded Wales in 1797 and led to the Battle of Fishguard while his legion was defeated and meant an American led the last invasion of the British mainland by foreign forces in history. At least so far. Nice. Tate's motivation, ironically enough, was intense British hatred due to his family being killed by British arm natives in the Northwest territory. All comes full circle, right? What the fuck?
We probably sure have learned a lesson from that. Yeah. Like if you keep pissing off all these people eventually going to bite you in the ass. But you know, we didn't. We tend not to. Yeah. It seemed like things between the US and Great Britain had finally cooled down. Britain was still trapped in the Polionic Wars and by the time of the year 1807, Britain is locked in the war of the Third Coalition now and the pulling is the master of mainland
Europe. He was trying desperately to knock England out of the war and was even planning a land invasion of the British Isles until the Franco-Spanish navy was destroyed at the Battle of Trafalgar. After this setback, a ground invasion of the British mainland was impossible, so Britain resorted to economic warfare. He would attempt to fight Britain's massive worldwide commercial power, which is never a good idea. He is one of several people who thought
this is a good idea. To do this, he rolled out was known as the Continental System. This system was put in place to counter what was known as the Golden Cavalry of St. George, which is a really, really fancy name for a giant British wallet that funded the constant stream of alliances who always seemed ready to fight France since the beginning of the revolution,
meaning that Britain was funding everything. The constant wars had bankrupted most nations in Europe, except England and England made sure to give them a reason to keep fighting, and that was Dela Dela Bidell. That was what Napoleon was trying to fight. He was going to try to strangle them off from trade. This system laid out in the Berlin decree of 1807, meant that no nations allied or conquered by France could do business with England.
The idea was if you were in Ireland, Napoleon would strangle you off for trade. This meant effectively the entirety of mainland Europe could no longer trade with England. This didn't work out that great because it was impossible to enforce. A lot of the nations who actually were loyal to Napoleon, not necessarily terrified of being invaded, because he put family members in place of a lot of thrones. His brother was the,
I believe the emperor of the Netherlands. He put a cousin, I think, in charge of Spain, things like that. A lot of trust in that family. Well, even they kept trading with England, they had no fucking choice. If we start with trade with England, we're going to go broke. People are going to starve, man. So it was a bad system. England, though, immediately counted with the orders of council in the same year. The order forbade all trade with France,
period. It's allies and neutral nations cannot trade with France. You can kind of see how it's an issue. Well, France, France's order was constrictive to the people in its sphere of influence. England just had nobody can trade with France, period. That is going to be hard to enforce. One of France's largest neutral trade partners was, of course, America. And America got hits. They said Britain was in violation of international law by attempting to regulate who
they could and could not trade with, which was true. There was no law in placing a sovereign nation could tell another sovereign nation who they can't trade with, right? Unless it's an active
war. The British governmental opinion immediately turned on the US and according to historian Reginald Horseman, the probably the most British-league-name guy ever, he said, quote, a large section of influential British-Ipanian both in the government and the military, that then America presented a clear and present threat to British maritime supremacy, which is kind of hilarious because the Royal Navy absolutely controls the seas.
Yeah. And America's Navy is virtually nothing at the time. Right. They had a very large merchant marine, which is different. Very different. Yes. But apparently they decided that America was no threat. At the same time, all this is going on, the Royal Navy had exploded in growth during the years of war on mainland Europe. And why wouldn't it? Their powerful navy was the only thing keeping Napoleon at bay. It grew from 176 ships of the line to 600 and required a
staggering 140,000 people to fully man. Holy fuck. During peacetime, this actually would have been an issue. They would have had plenty of volunteers with pay and benefits in all the other life of, live on a ship. But the wars had bred all sorts of small side careers, such as privateers or joining the merchant marine, both of which paid significantly better, had better living conditions and were just all around a better deal. Right. So the Royal Navy began to write kidnapping people.
Well, and I know that as one of the issues they would look at America's naval ships or and take them, yes, forcefully. Yeah, that's where I'm getting to it. It's known as impressment. Yeah. Or press ganging. The Royal Navy could and would grab anybody who's a British citizen and force them to work aboard their ships without pay for effectively as long as
they needed you, which was a long time. If you caught that little thing and there's a British citizens, you're going to learn a written kind of stretch that definition pretty, pretty far. Yeah, it is. It was originally meant to force a British citizens into service, deserters, people who just try to get away from serving, things like that. As time moron, however, they began to care less and less about that whole British thing and began to press any
serviceable sailor in a service. To make matters worse, the British just outright refused to accept the idea of naturalized American citizenship, meaning anybody who had immigrated from England to America would be free for the taking, right, which was tens of thousands of people. The American government also believed any British deserter running from the coalition wars had the right to become an American if they wanted to. The British obviously had other thoughts on the issue.
This had become a major issue to the American merchant marine sailing towards France at the time because a full 11,000 of the merchant marine sailors were naturalized citizens of British birth. How what? 11,000. Yeah. This is where the British order against neutral nations trading with France came into play. Americans knew that the order was in place. Of course they did, they hated it, and we're going to do anything to get around it. It was not going to stop them.
So they tried various tricks to try to get around it. Some of them worked, some of them didn't, but when they didn't, their ships would be taken by the Royal Navy and the entire cruise pressed into service. It did not take long for this the ruptured war, right? Or not necessarily war, but outright combat. Once people learned that just surrendering to the British was going to
lead to the life of slavery, they're not going to go so quietly. An incident became known as the Leander affair, the HMS Leander, then under the command of captains William Leal and Henry Whitby, the HMS driver under a singles B Simpson, which again, so British. And the HMS Cambrian under John Narn were docked off of Sandy Hook Connecticut, supposedly to watch two French frigates who had taken
refuge in the harbor. However, in the summer of 1804, the warships began stopping and boarding all American ships going from New York to just outside the United States three mile territorial limit, searching for any goods bound for France. If they found anything suspicious, the ship was detained and taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, along with its crew who would not return. Does it say what is suspicious shipping? It doesn't, but I will assume it's any shipping.
Yeah, that's fair. On 25 April 1806, Leander was chasing a ship and the ship would not stop. Leander fired a warning shot over the bow of a merchant ship, singling it for it to stop or it opened fire for real. The Kennabal, you know, it's warning shot, sailed through the air, passed into the harbor and hit a guy named John Pierce in the face of the captain. He was the helmet of a of a slump known as the Richard.
And I was just going along his daily business. Jesus Christ. Just got fucking dome piece that I know where did he not do they. I don't think backdrop was a huge concern of them. I don't think they're they all they saw was ship nothing behind it. They had to have known. No, but they had to have known but they're no fucks given. No, they just didn't give a shit. Exactly. So they're just like, do it. Yeah. I mean, they have to think, well, really what are they going to do to us?
Yeah. Which I mean, is really going to do code of war with us? Which is effectively their entire name of their operation. Here's we don't give a shit. Our fuck bucket is dry. What is America going to do? They're not going to go to war with us. So in another incident off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, the American frigate, the US S Chesapeake was being stalked by the HMS leopard. The leopard's commander was an incredibly British man,
but a name of Salisbury Humphries. Dude, I love these things. These things are great. Was acting under the information that the Chesapeake had several British citizens on board and meant to take them. The leopard waved down the Chesapeake and ordered to stop. The Chesapeake being a warship just kept going. The leopard decided there was going to fire a warning shot to tell it meant business. And it did. And then immediately followed it with a full broadside of cannons. Jesus.
Were the Americans could react nice warning shots. Yeah, it was like, oh, like that meme on Facebook, oh, when your warning shot hits the guy, I thought you were going to go, I don't know, Timmy got hit on the dock. No, no, no. The whole ship got fucked. The Chesapeake was completely unready for combat. As you can imagine, they weren't at war. Yeah. And none of her guns were on the deck ready to fire. And they quickly surrendered.
In total, three of her crew killed 18 wounded and then to add insult to injury, the British board of the ship and took the four British citizens into their custody, one of which a guy named Jenkins Ratford, the British born man, was actually really was a deserter from the Royal Navy. So he was promptly drugged out to the gallows and executed by making for deserts. The other guys were not returned. So how many people are on the ship at once?
It depends on the size. I know it goes by tonnage back then and there's loops and frigates. And I'm not exactly a naval history guy. It's not my thing. But I do know at the time, in comparison to comparable British ships, American frigates were huge. Like almost a double in size. So 50, 60 guys. Okay, I want to say about a part's care being amounted much. Yeah, it's at least one black pearl. Okay, I like that. It's a good size.
Yeah, it's a measurement company. This led to a storm of outrage in the American populace and its government. As you can imagine, they just got wrecked by a British warship out of nowhere. Yeah, they got blindsided. Yeah. And they, I mean, they really didn't get my chance to surrender. Yeah. As you can, and I know my American bias will come out this. I try not to, because America had done a lot of dumb shit during the war. But America will get them back
with an equally cheap shot. Yeah, I mean, shortly. I foresee a lot of salt. Yeah, because there is still a lot of salt with this whole 1812 thing. Only if you're dumb. Yeah. And guess what? There's a lot of dumb stuff. Yeah. So anti-British anger and sentiment began to build and they started. I mean, this, this whole thing wasn't new. It all started when they decapitated that poor random guy back April. President, how fucking unlucky. Yeah, I mean, if only he stopped to tie
his shoes. Yeah, or like been anywhere else or yeah, not there. It just sucks to do that guy. Yeah. I mean, at least he didn't feel anything. Just true. Gone. Imagine being like, I found him, though, just had this laying in a dock and nobody is in the ideal why. Because you know, that his head isn't left. The cannonball had to completely obliterate it. Maybe the cannonball takes over is the head. That'd be sweet. That would, I'd like to see that
painting. I'd like to see that. That meant villain. Cannonball face. So President Thomas Jefferson noted that, quote, ever since the Battle of Lexington, have I seen this country have such state of exasperation at the present that did not produce such hatred. After this, it was the Pritz turn to be outraged in something called the Little Belt of Fair in 1811. The what? The Little Belt of Fair. They were in Little Belt now. Isn't that in the ship?
Poor shit. There's an American frigate creatively known as the USS President. Attacked a British loop knows the HMS Little Belt. You get attacked for that name. That's a terrible name. Well, Little Belt was stolen from, I think, the Dutch. And the name meant something else in Dutch, but they were British and they just said it sound like Little Belt. I would change his name. Yeah, that's terrible name. If I saw that name, that's a beta name. Easy. Dog that ship. See, the ship was a beta.
Little Belt. Yeah. Fuck. Yeah. So the President is the, uh, fuck, where they called? There's the Cucks and the Ch... The President is a Chad. The USS President is a Chad ship. Clearly. God, I fucking. Yeah, I fucking, yeah, this ship has like frosted tips. He's got a flak. Fuck it or a front cap. God. I hate us right now. I don't blame anybody for turning us off after that. Little Belt was a, was a swoop. So as much smaller than a frigate.
Um, so the, the Little Belt displaced only 460 tons. Uh, in contrast, the President, uh, displaced 1500 fuck the slume out of 20 guns while the President cared 56. That's more. And like I've pointed out, we are not scholars of naval warfare. I will never claim no much about naval warfare unless I research in depth, which I did not. The most I know about it is my dad was in the Navy. That's all I know about. Yeah. So I mean, but everybody can see that this is
not gonna end well for the little belt. Yeah. So when Chad's on your six. Yeah. And he's coming for your six. Yeah. Real hard. Yeah. He's gonna, he's going, he's looking for some butt stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I hate you. Uh, so when, when Chad's looking to sue somebody, his dad don't know his dad is. Yeah. Uh, so when, when fighting commenced, uh, the President suffered only one man like we did splinters. Um, well, the little belt was just about sank.
11 minutes been where killed in 23 or wounded. Um, so then the British obviously made calls for revenge while the US are just happy. They finally managed to beat them on a Navy. No, they're not, they're not. They're just fucking you're away from work. Yeah. Um, but the America was just happy that they beat the Royal Navy. And then just to give the British the middle finger Chad thing. Yeah. And so then just to be extra Chad, the US Navy then impressed all the British sailors.
You're with us now. Yeah. They're like, well, come on, bro. We'll show you what happens with you. Press ass. Well, fucking connect you right back. Um, also remember that during all these incidents, um, the British back Indians are constantly rating settlements all around America's Western border. Um, while the native forces had lost the Northwest War, that did not mean the British intention to create the native buffer state between Canada and America had stopped. Um,
and if anything, it just ramped it up because of the Americans are shooting at us. Yeah. Um, as such, British weapons kept flowing right at the hands of the native fighters. Um, attacks in American settlers in the Northwest further aggravated tension between Britain and the United States. Rating became became much more common in 1810 and 1811. Westerners in Congress found the rains intolerable and wanted the government to find some way to end them permanently.
British policy toward the Indians of the Northwest was torn between the desire to keep the Americans fighting and distracted and to preserve the region for, uh, provided rich profits for, uh, Canadian fur traders up north. Also versus the fear that too much of this shit would cause outright war at the United States. Yeah. They're, they're trying to balance like 18 things at once. Yeah. And it's not going well. Can we almost say proxy war here? This is definitely proxy war. This
is absolutely a proxie war. Um, this is, I guess this is where America learned it from, like I said, yeah, it's, it's the OG proxy war for America. This is where we took notes. Yeah. All this directly impact the American attempt at expansion in the lands. They were technically supposed to control since the Treaty of Paris. Uh, finally on June the 1st, 1812, President James Madison sent an issue of grievances to Congress, which included the impressive American sailors armed engagement
between the US and British frigates. Um, British supplied native Americans with weapons, the British politicians and parliament and Canada pushing for that buffer state. American trade and the Polianic France was limited and they wanted that to be stopped. The US Canadian border was never actually really drawn out at the conclusion of the American revolution. It was kind of just shelved for later. Okay. They wanted that to be resolved.
Um, then that kind of turned into a declaration of war. The House of Representatives voted 79 to 49 in favor of the US's first declaration of war. The Senate would concur by 19 to 13, making it actually the closest formal vote on war in American history to this day since we just don't vote on those anymore. Um, it became official on Madison signed the document in the law on the 18th of June. Now here comes one of history's little curveballs. Back on May 11th and
assassin had killed British Prime Minister Spencer Percival. You have these names leading to an obsession of a guy named Lord Liverpool. Yes. Who sounds like the British version of Captain America, but he just kicked soccer balls at people. Yes. I love that name. One of the first things Liverpool did is wanting to normalize things with the US. Uh, so he scrapped the orders of council and ended the impressment of soldiers. He also made this all official on June 23rd.
Because this is 1812, though, it would take three weeks for this new to travel across the ocean. I would imagine. By the time the HMS Colbury, the ship carrying the Good News United States got there, the US already declared war, but would find all the reasons to declare war gone. Um, as well, the British would find out there are some way or, uh, imagine that you're the captain of the Colbury, like walking off the ship holding all the Good News and then
I suddenly, everybody wants to shoot you. Fuck that was suck. I feel like the dude that got to capitated earlier. Yeah. Hey guys, I'm here. Yeah. Hey guys, how's it going? Get the fuck out. It would actually take it further three weeks for the British government to find out there actually at war. However, so in total six weeks. Yes. We're talking six weeks here. Uh, however, it only took eight days for this news to reach a different part of England that is Canada.
The first people to learn about the war that are not the United States government or the British and Canada. You're no set. There's a huge gap here. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, nobody decided to tell anybody about the shit in the American military. And I think this goes on even till later on. We'll get into it later. I'm sure in part two. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that's pretty awesome. I mean, it's just kind of nature. The beast at the time. Yeah. Like anybody can email anybody and, or
there's not even like a, this should be an email. Yeah, there's not even a telegram or anything. They couldn't exactly. They had to depend on the speed of a giant wind ship floating across the Atlantic Ocean. That's already a problem. Yeah. So the Canadians now know about the war.
It, like I said, it took eight days to reach British Canada. As soon as word reached Isaac Brock, the administrator of Upper Canada, he immediately ordered his militia to service and ordered the commander of the British post at Fort St. Joseph, a captain named Charles Robert Finnvade Northern Michigan, just immediately. Um, Roberts began to look around to put invading army together because they didn't have. Yeah. Um, and uh, well, he had was not impressive.
He found three guys from the Royal Art of the 47 soldiers from the 10th Royal Veterans battalion who Robert notes in his dispatches were debilitated and worn down by quote, unconquerable drunkenness is really what else are you going to do in colonial Canada? Yeah. Uh, uh, his words, not mine. Uh, and 150 Canadian fur traders and 300 natives to invade Michigan, Michigan. Yeah. Which really all you need to invade Michigan these days is some
cheap light beer and, you know, not a work as job, I guess. But, you know, he doesn't exactly have the grand army here with his own. He doesn't know. The make matters worse, Roberts actually kept getting orders from Brock to cancel and then restart the invasion at the same time. He was getting orders from the Edgident general of all British forces in Canada, Colonel Edward Baines to just focus on defending St. Joseph's Island. So he's getting like three different orders all at once.
So Robert said, say, fuck it and invade Canada's own anyway on the 15th of July. Yeah. So he, uh, uh, is a hodgepods of militia and fur traders and random drunken dudes just stormed into Michigan. I would imagine like even these days, Michigan's not hard to take over. They're not known for their defense anymore. Oh, fucking red wings. Get fucked. Is there a hockey joke at me? Yeah, I did. Yeah, fuck you. Cause it's coming 30 days. Yeah, yeah. I don't need hockey to be disappointed. I'm also
a Lions fan. I'm just honestly the worst thing my dad ever did to me was make me a sports fan before he died. Cause all my team just make me sad. Exactly. There's why I only hit you on one front. I don't decide to hit you on all of them. So hilariously enough, the soldiers, uh, the US soldiers were stationed at nearby Fort Maconaw in Ireland on the other side of the border, only numbered about 61 dudes and no idea they're at war. Yeah. Nobody knows anything. Yeah. Somehow the government
declares war and the first people to figure it out are dudes in Canada. Speaking volumes for the efficiency of early United States government here. Yeah. Um, the US government had thought ahead to debate vote and draft on a declaration of war. Never thought I was all that important to get word out to the guys in the forts near the place they're planning on fighting it. Well done, gentlemen. Well done. Jesus. Um, and honestly, even if they did know they were no shape to defend anything.
Oh, whatever. Imagine they wouldn't even have enough time. Uh, well, I mean, they're in a, they call it Fort Maconaw. I've been to Macon Island. Um, I've been to the city of Maconaw. Not exactly the, the most defensible place on earth. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, I could see that because there's this, and we've talked about it in our old another episode we had. I think it was 10. I believe I can't remember. It was on Fort MacArthur. That was involved with the
early area. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, that's not a fort. No, it, uh, and that's, this wasn't a fort as much as it was like a logging camp. Um, if the fort wasn't a highly strategic area, but it was about as poorly prepared for actual defenses that could have been Fort Maconaw was a log fort on a limestone ridge, which overlooked the harbor at the southeastern part of the island, which is obviously the important part of the trying to defend the 61 artillery men were under the
command of Lieutenant Porter Hanks. They had seven guns, but only one of those could actually reach the harbor there. They're there to defend. So if anybody rolled up there with anything, he only had one gun to shoot at it. They had another what five. They couldn't reach the harbor. So they, so it's cool looking there to hit them at that point. Troops are already on the shore. And, uh, yeah. Uh, there are other weaknesses, however, where the garrison relied on fresh water on a spring outside
the fort, which meant any siege was all but guaranteed to work if you just waited them out. Yeah. Um, the position was also overlooked by a higher ridge less than a mile away well within Canter誠, just somebody got one up there, which is something the United States military would take the run into a pattern. They seem to run into a pattern here. Yeah. It turns out the army actually never learns from this. Yeah. It's only been, you know, a hundred years or whatever, but, uh, so
he was completely aware of events elsewhere. Hanks wasn't stupid. He heard rumors of unusual activity at St. Joseph's Island. So he sent a fur trader again, a Michael Doosman who also was held the commission as an officer in his militia to investigate. Uh, Doosman set out by boat, which was quickly captured by the advancing British. And then Doosman apparently very quickly changed sides. Nice. Uh, so he learned from Doosman that the Americans at Mac and all were completely and
totally unaware of the outbreak of war and not prepared to fight. Robert's force landed at a settlement now named British landing for obvious reasons at the north end of the island two miles away from the fort on their early morning of 17 July. They hit the shore. They quickly removed all the villages and heavens from their home. Greg, a six pounder came in through the woods to the ridge right above the fort that I just talked about and fart a single round at the fort. Then they sent
a message under a flag of truth demanding a surrender to the fort. I mean, how quickly do you think these guys capitulated here? I would imagine after the first shot. Yeah, it's exactly what happened. Hanks force was surprised and already an attack called this advantage. The flag of truth had been accompanied by three of the villagers who this is something that's actually going to
become kind of one of the British, British Canadian armies main tactics here. Lie in the rass off and hoping nobody notices two of the villagers came up to the fort and told Hanks that he had thousands of native soldiers. Ooh, and Hanks was started, you know, he had fought natives. He was immediately aware of being massacred by the natives, so he capitulated about a fight. Because this was the 1800s, however, Hanks and his men were completely paroled from British
custody and sent marching south towards Fort Detroit. Get away, scaffer, there's no POW cams here, this isn't quite that age. Yeah. And so he just kind of turned around and went home. There was nobody got killed, nothing. He just kind of walked away. Like, yep, here's your fort by. Little later. Yeah. But the US government wasn't that nice and immediately began carte marshal proceedings against Hanks. Ooh, because clearly none of this was their fault. Like they didn't take anything. Yeah.
That, I mean, that's a reoccurring thing. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's, this is actually at this point in history. It's pretty normal if a general runs, they're going to have some issues. And which is kind of insane when you think about it. Like, oh, you better fight and die or you're going to go to court. Yeah. So at the same time, a general William Hall, a revolutionary war
veteran and the sitting governor of Michigan, led an invasion into Canada. So, Hall was backed by three regiments of militia and one regimen of regular army troops. The regulars were reliable and well trained while the militia were pretty much worthless. Um, on more than one occasion, Hall would actually have to order his regular soldiers to intimidate and sometimes beat the militia into marching. Yeah. That's actually going to become
a pretty common theme here in this war. Militia movement gone wrong. Well, it's like, it's part of the large mythos of the American militia during the Revolutionary War. And then nobody really talks about during the war of 1812 because they failed miserably. Yeah. But there's a reason why people like a standing army and have a whole bunch of farmers with guns. Yeah. I
feel like people get that whole militia thing from a movie. Well, I mean, it's part of the nobody wants to be the plucky underdog who has lines of regular infantry and blue jackets who engage the British. That that isn't fun. That isn't popular. Yeah. It's going to be the plucky underdog story of a whole bunch of farmers with muskets. And that's not true. Yeah. So while this probably sounds really bad, it shouldn't have been an issue. You see, the American
government said the invasion of Canada was a simple matter of course. And it wouldn't be much fighting at all. With former president Jefferson optimistically referring to the conquest of Canada as quote, little matter of little matter more than marching. That's it. Yeah. Just walking there and taking it. Yeah. Yeah. And that may have actually been the case if Hall had given it a real try. But as soon as you heard about the fall of Macna, you turned around a hauled aspect
the board without doing much of anything. All in his fleeing army found refuge behind the walls of Fort Detroit, where they were joined by Lieutenant Hanks soldiers fresh from their feet. Yeah. Macna. Unfortunately, hiding at Fort Detroit may have actually been an even worse idea than invading Canada in the first place. Hall's army like every other American army during the war
would be a victim of the government's terrible mismanagement. Not only have they not been resupplied on their abandoned march north, they also had no forward supply set out for them. And they burned through the vast majority of their supplies quickly on the march north. They just assumed that their stores would be refilled by raiding Canadian towns. Townsend never got to raid. Yeah. Well, Putin did around that this time. That'd be sweet.
The president of Russia. No, he was not. Oh, nice. Me and Poutine. I call it Putin. It's you can't just call wherever you want. It's how it's called. Works out fine for me. Wrong though. And it's a delicious drunk dish that you should not just smurch in such a way. I'm just wondering if it's around at the time. I don't know, probably, because if it is, then they never got that far. They couldn't do anything. Well, if things couldn't get much worse for Hall's army, they did. Because when they
pulled back into Fort Detroit, they found it completely empty. There was no supplies in there. And the few depots had anything in it. Consisted of just soap and whiskey. Nice. Which I mean, I guess if I was going to be stationed out in the middle of the frontier, I would want a healthy supply of whiskey too. Yeah. We're honestly, whenever I go back to Detroit, to visit my family, I also like a lot of whiskey to get through it. I would imagine it's probably
some old crow made by Dr. James Crow. No, I don't think it was because if it was old crow, this tragedy wouldn't have occurred. They would have succeeded in what they were about to do. I doubt that. But what the power of old crow, Panzerus, you could sort. You could sort. You could sort. Hype of the battlefield. That's right. So I assume at this point, Hall's army has probably shit faced and smelling magnificent from all
the soap. But things still got worse. Brock's forces managed to capture all of his letters and dispatches that he's trying to send out. No, it's looking good. At this point, it's like the whiskey's the cool part and the soap is just an add-on. Yeah. I don't know if they had enough whiskey to make this worthwhile. I'm pretty sure they didn't even touch the soap. And the worst part was, Hall was not conservative in his dispatches. He just let his heart bleed out on the paper.
Yeah. His dispatches showed that one that morale was terrible. And they feared the numbers at the Indians that were coming and they had no supplies. There's too much soap, not enough whiskey. Yeah. Let me get some bread or something. Also, the idea of the inflated Indian numbers were made worse by Lieutenant Hanks, who was all just told the same thing. And it's like, do there's
thousands of them? Yeah. Holy fuck. He's really believing in this shit. Yeah. And Hall is apparently the most gullible person on earth because he didn't even so much his question as much he just like just falled into a pit of depression and... From Michigan. Yeah. Well, he was the governor of Michigan. We don't have a good track record. Tracker. Tracker. No, been good. Yeah. We were not sure of the quality of the drinking water though. Or the whiskey. Yeah.
Yeah. So, Hanks made this worse by telling him all the horror stories of the supposed legions of heavily arm natives that flanked Brock's army of soldiers. Here's something that I'm unsure of. If Hanks actually believed this, after seeing the reality of Brock's army after surrender, he never saw all of Brock's army leading him to assume that he really did have a huge army in the way. Yeah. Or that he was lying has asked off to protect himself from his future court
martial. None of these things are really for sure. Yeah. And Brock would... And Hanks would never get a chance to defend himself for reasons we were about to find out. But either way, Hanks stuck. Trying true to his story that there was a ton of Indians out in the forest ready to go, but now back to Brock. He now knew that the American defenders were terrified of fighting his force. So, he began to dabble in a little psychological warfare. He wrote a fake dispatch. And I made
sure it fell into the hands of Hall's men. The dispatch was then taken to him, which read that he had somewhere north of 5,000 native soldiers. And his dispatch was supposed to be addressed to the commander for Mackinac, telling him to stop sending native soldiers to him because they could not supply them all. So this guy is basically fukking with him to the point where they're going to run out of whiskey. Yeah, there's enough whiskey to fix all this.
After ensuring that Hall had received the dispatch, he sent Hall a real message that read, that for some, I disposal, authorizes me to require full of you the immediate surrender for Detroit. This far from my intention to join a war of extermination, but you must be aware, the numerous body of Indians have attached themselves to my troops will be on the control the moment the contest commences. He then pleaded for his surrender.
I thought he would send a message like, hey, did you see my last one? Yeah, was it good? Was it good enough for you? Brock then had all of his militia. Remind you, he only has about 50 regular soldiers in this army. He had all of his militia changing to regular army uniforms. Why he had hundreds of extra uniforms laying around isn't really noted. But the troops were then told to light individual
cooking fires at night. Instead of one per unit, thereby creating the illusion, there's a much much larger army out there rather than a small forceful of drunken mishand for trappers. Do you see how many fires we got? It worked. But what it did show is that there was a fukking full British regular army out there. So then he played another trick. They marched up to take positions in plain sight of the Americans. Then they would quickly duck
behind entrenchments and march back out of sight. They then repeated this mover over and over and over again. Now, if you can't picture this because it's kind of weird to think about it, how these British and the Indians try to make themselves seem like infinite. But the Americans didn't see the British leaving their entrenchments. So all they saw was an endless stream of British regulars marching towards the woodline to attack them. Then they would duck behind
those entrenchments. I guess kind of like a low crawl back to the main camp out of eyesight from the defenders. It seems like really weird to try to picture it. But like all of they saw as people coming into. I see like a cartoonish endless line. Yeah. It's like an acchemy cartoon, but it's a military tactic that worked. Yeah. On a bunch of fukking Michigan. This is not just Michigan, militia. This is Michigan, Ohio, and several regular army units.
I'm going with Michigan because they are in Michigan. Well, it is coming in by the governor of Michigan. And honestly, at this point in history, Michigan does not have, and that shit that goes to current day. Michigan is really good at picking really terrible people to be governor. A little bit later in the future, Michigan's governor would invade Ohio. Not the same guy. He was like 28. What? It's a story for a different episode. Yeah. It's actually the reason why Ohio
Michigan hate each other. And now covers like college football. I didn't even know they hated each other to be honest. Yeah. It's a regional thing. So the same trick that they carried out for the entrenchments was carried out during meals. They would march up and then dump all their beans into a hidden pot, disappear from view, and then rejoin at the end of the line. It was around this time that the 500 or so members of the Michigan militia who I should remind you, the company of the
other governor in the battle, deserted the fort in the middle of the night. Fuck this amount. I am not vote for that guy again. They were not the back door. I guess they weren't surrounded. They said nowhere to go. Also, I mean, I don't think Brock would have stopped troops from leaving. Because it's in his best interest that there's nobody in there. He just wants the fort. That
is costly. I mean, at this point, I'm willing to bet that Brock knew that while his techniques are working, he was still going to take tons of casual assaulting and secure like a fortified position. So it's in his best interest that people desert. He lets them leave. Yeah, I can see that shoots at him while he's leaving. They're going to turn on and run back in the fort. True. Yeah. So these mind games went on until August 15th when Brock's guns finally began their
bombardment of the fort. Brock moved his disguised militia, who remind you, their disguised as regular army troops, to the fort's rear, while the leader of the native warriors Tekumsa had his force parade several times past a gap in the forest where the Americans could see them all while making loud war cries. Now, just like the British had done, he ensured his forces looped back around when they were out of sight, making it look like there was an endless human wave of
screaming native fighters. So everybody's involved? Yo, yeah. The combined effect absolutely scared this shit out of the remaining people in the fort. Like any good commander with the odd stacked against him, certainly Hall was planning his defense for days and weeks now, right? Not quite. Hall had spent this entire time locked the way in his quarters, getting hammered
rather than preparing any count of defense. Going through all their whiskey rations. Yeah. He instead left that little detail to Hanks do all the work, which going off of a lieutenant Hanks
previous fort defense experience. This is not a good choice to make. Yeah. Eventually with little hope that they did have had slipped away morale shattered amongst them in trap behind the choice walls, Hall began openly talking about the impossibility of holding out against the forest, which seemingly consistent of thousands of British regulars and thousands of native soldiers. And this is like in front of his other officers in front of soldiers, just like wandering around,
drunk as shit talking about. They're all gonna die. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, with, you know, this isn't something you want to hear from a commander. No. Officers are kind of there to lie to you. I mean, I don't know how many listeners we have who are not military or don't know that much about the military. I would like to assume we have at least one. So officers and NCOs are not, they're not as non-commissioned officers. They're not supposed to tell
soldiers in hopeless situations that it's in fact hopeless. Yeah. They're not supposed to go down the same mental rabbit hole as as enlisted dudes are supposed to be rallying the cause, rallying the defense, stuff like that. Hall apparently didn't agree with that hole. No. Why not thought he was in the hole with all the other enlisted. Right. Um, you know, so Hall began to fear of a slaughter when he heard all those Indian war cries.
Um, women and children actually were all in the fort as well, um, because when the British uh, advanced on Fort Detroit, it was pretty common for the settlements in the surrounding areas to pull their citizens back into the fort. They had actually done that when natives had attacked in the past. Yeah. So now they're all trapped in there together. Um, along with all of those civilians were also holds on daughter and grandchild. Oh, he's got family there too. Yeah.
Yeah. Nice. So you can see why he's a little worried, I guess if we're gonna humanize him a little bit, I think just calling him an idiot. Um, so there's, there's a fair amount of legitimate fear that he had. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't want to fight this army that he thinks he's going to fight. Yeah, this endless army. Yeah. I wouldn't want to fight that either. And he's army of hardened British regulars and and people who they think of as like savages who take no prisoners, which
not the savages part, but native forces generally did not take prisoners. Yeah. Add things happen to people who fell into native warriors hands. Not a controversial statement to say. No, no, no. Um, so his subordinates though kept up the fight. His subordinates urged him to fight on, partly from some kind of sold early honor and possibly because they may have seen through
Brock's fake army. Uh, it's not really noted which is which, but against their advice, you hold a whole host at the white flag of surrender after a siege that lasted a grand total of one day of actual guns fire one day. One day. He sent messages to Brock asking for three full days to grand terms of surrender. Brock replied that he would only allow him three hours. If you're guessing that hall bent over backwards and immediately agreed to those terms,
you would be right. Fuck. And then he's turned it without further argument. In the end, only seven Americans were killed in our one day of fighting to include our dear friend Lieutenant Porter from the last battle. Fuck that sucks. They do this bad luck. Um, which, I mean, I guess the good news is because he was hit squarely in the face of the cannonball,
but he wouldn't have to stay in trial for one. Yes. Yes. A cannonball actually, a whole broadside like him and the guy staying directly next to him at the same time, who also happened to be the only sober dude's left committing the defense book. Bad luck. So the pitiful answering fire from the guns afford to try only lightly wounded two British
gunners. That is it. Splinters. Yeah. After a whole surrender, the 1600 Ohio militiamen from his army were paroled and escorted south until they're out of danger from attack out of the natives. The 582 American regulars were sent to Quebec City as prisoners of war because they were regular soldiers. Right. Um, whole himself was brought up on charges of cowardice and neglect of duty, uh, of which he was convicted almost immediately with a kangaroo court and was sentenced
to death. Oh, this is probably the same fate that would have awaited a porter if he hadn't been killed. So I guess a little bit of mercy on him. Um, before the sentence could be carried out, however, President Madison intervened and instead dismissed him from the army, respecting his prior revolutionary war service, though he would never serve another day in uniform and would lose all his pensions and everything. Um, but that is or one of the war of 1812. Uh, so tune in next week
for our conclusion of the war of 1812. Um, until then you can follow us on Twitter, uh, the podcast at lions underscore by follow me on Twitter at jcast 99 follow Nick on Twitter at knitcast and one. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Finally learned it. Yeah. Um, it only took you what 15 episodes. Oh, yes. I'm like that. Um, and thank you to everybody who's done in their Patreon. You guys are awesome. Um, you're helping fund all of my research books, which turns out they get
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