War of 1812 campaigns

Gen. William Henry Harrison's move to recapture Detroit was repulsed (January 1813), but he checked British efforts to penetrate deeper into the region at the west end of Lake Erie, during the summer of 1813.

An American force led by Col. Winfield Scott seized Fort George and the town of Queenston across the Niagara (May–June 1813), but the British regained control of this area in December 1813.

Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British fleet on Lake Erie (10 September 1813), opening the way for Harrison's victory at the Thames River (5 October), which reestablished American control over the Detroit Area.

An American advance from Plattsburgh in March 1814, led by Maj. Gen. James Wilkinson, was checked just beyond the border, but on 3 July 500 men under General Brown seized Fort Erie across the Niagara in a coordinated attack with Commodore Isaac Chauncey's fleet designed to wrest control of Lake Ontario from the British.

Gen. Winfield Scott's brigade (1,300 men) of Brown's command was unexpectedly confronted by a large British force while preparing for an Independence Day parade (5 July 1814) near the Chippewa River.

After Chippewa, Brown's force advanced to Queenstown, but soon abandoned a proposed attack on Forts George and Niagara when Chauncey's fleet failed to cooperate in the operation.

Commodore Thomas Macdonough's victory over the British fleet on Lake Champlain (11 September 1814) compelled Sir George Prevost, Governor General of Canada, to call off his attack on Plattsburgh with 11,000 troops.

Gen. William Winder, in command of the Potomac District, had assembled a mixed force of about 5,000 men near Bladensburg, including militia, regulars, and some 400 sailors from Commodore Joshua Barney's gunboat flotilla, which had been destroyed to avoid capture by the British fleet.

On 20 December 1814, a force of about 10,000 British troops, assembled in Jamaica, landed unopposed at the west end of Lake Borgne, some 15 miles from New Orleans, preparatory to an attempt to seize the city and secure control of the lower Mississippi Valley.

Finally, at dawn on 8 January, Pakenham attempted a frontal assault on Jackson's breastworks with 5,300 men, simultaneously sending a smaller force across the river to attack Morgan's defenses.

The massed fires of Jackson's troops, protected by earthworks reinforced with cotton bales, wrought havoc among Pakenham's regulars as they advanced across the open ground in front of the American lines.