In Britain, the importance of the conflict was totally overshadowed by European triumphs since Napoleon returned from exile in March 1815, but he was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo a few months later.
Efforts to end the war began in 1812, when the main American diplomat in London proposed an armistice in return for a renunciation of impressments, but the British refused.
Later in 1812, when the British captured Fort Detroit and news of the repeal of the Orders-in-Council reached Washington, DC, George Prevost arranged an armistice with his counterpart, Henry Dearborn.
The United States wanted an end to all British maritime practices that it deemed to be objectionable and also demanded cessions of Canadian territory and guaranteed fishing rights off Newfoundland.
The British had been weakened by the collapse of Tecumseh's Confederacy after the Battle of the Thames in 1813 and no longer controlled adequate supply lines to support a barrier state.
After months of negotiations, against the background of changing military victories and defeats, both parties finally realized that their nations wanted peace and that there was no real reason to continue the war.
In addition, the frontiersmen wanted access to lands for which the British acknowledged belonged to the United States but blocked its expansion by inciting and arming the Native Americans.
[11] In the Southeastern United States, Andrew Jackson's destruction of Britain's allies, the Creek Indians, at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814, ended the threat of Native American hostilities in that region.
Thus, British North America had minimal troops to defend against the United States, whose much larger military force was, however, initially poorly trained.
The nationalistic sentiment caused suspicion of such American ideas as republicanism, which would frustrate political reform in both Upper and Lower Canada until the Rebellions of 1837.
The United States suffered from a similar "frontiersman myth" at the start of the war and falsely believed that individual initiative and marksmanship could be effective against a well-disciplined British battle line.
[15] Others reject that characterization and argue that the Canadian militia played important roles in several key engagements, including the Battle of Chateauguay, in which it was central to the defeat of the American advance on Montreal during the fall of 1813.
[18] In any case, more than 1,600 names of the dead, Canadian (both members of regular units and militia) as well as First Nations Crown allies, are in the Book of Remembrance in the Memorial Chamber in the Parliament of Canada.
British officers' dispatches after the war exhibited astonishment that the Americans never took such a simple step, but the British were not willing to count on their enemy repeating the mistake and so they commissioned the Rideau Canal, an expensive project that connects Kingston, on Lake Ontario, to the Ottawa River, to provide an alternative supply route to bypass the part of the St. Lawrence River along the border.
Because the population far from the St. Lawrence shores was negligible, the British, in the years following the war, took great lengths to ensure that back-country settlement was increased.
They settled soldiers, initiated assisted-immigration schemes, and offered free land to farmers, mostly tenants of estates in the south of Ireland.
The Royal Navy proceeded to build a 60-gun frigate to the exact lines of the captured ship, naming it President, despite some elements of the design (such as its countered stern) being obsolete.
The Battle of New Orleans could be conveniently attributed to either poor leadership or insuperable physical obstacles, deflecting instead to the Royal Navy's capture of the American flagship.
[23] Due largely to the success and the pre-eminence of the Duke of Wellington in Europe against Napoleon, the British Army made no changes to its systems of recruitment, discipline, and awards of commissions for more than half a century.
Its words are by Francis Scott Key, who, after the bombardment of Fort McHenry, set them to the music of a British drinking song, "To Anacreon in Heaven."
He congratulated the nation on the close of a war "waged with the success which is the natural result of the wisdom of the legislative councils, of the patriotism of the people, of the public spirit of the militia, and of the valor of the military and naval forces of the country."
[27][page needed] In a related development, the United States officially abandoned its reliance on the militia for its defense in favor of a standing army.
Moreover, the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which then controlled West Point, began building fortifications around New Orleans as a response to the British attack on the city during the war.
[29] Americans of every political stripe saw the need to uphold national honor and to reject the treatment of their country by Britain as a third-class nonentity.
[38] Americans widely celebrated the conclusion of the war as successful, especially after the spectacular defeat of the main British invasion army at New Orleans.
[39] For the next century, it was often called "the Second American War for Independence," and it propelled Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison to the White House.
In 1811, the Little Belt affair would anger the Admiralty, embarrass the United States, and lead to the British having a particular interest in capturing the American frigate President.
The war also spurred on the construction of the Erie Canal, and the project was built to promote commercial links and was perceived to have military uses if the need ever arose.
[42] As the charter of the First Bank of the United States had been allowed to expire in 1811, the federal government was ill-prepared to finance the war and so resorted to such expediencies as the suspension of specie payment and the issuance of Treasury Notes.
[44] Canadians, however, contrasted their postwar economic stagnation to the booming American economy, which Desmond Morton believed to have led to the Rebellions of 1837.