Prelude to War

The seeds of war were sown in the years between the end of the Revolutionary war and 1812, involving England's insistance on searching for deserters from the Royal Navy, stopping ships at sea and boarding them, taking away the suspects and putting them back in service. The searchers weren't always fussy about the nationality of the presumed desserters, and in the time period mentioned above, impressment of American citizens is reported to have numbered 10,000 men.

England's need for manpower was enormous, and had been since Elizabethan times if not before. There was no way the required crew could be raised by recruiting volunteers, and it would seem that conscription was never considered as a solution to the problem. Hence the dreaded press gang -- an absolute necessity in order to keep the navy afloat. It was sanctioned by the British government.

More seeds were sown as a result of war between England and Napoleon, which began in 1803. At issue were the rights of neutral traders, long recognized internationally. But both England and France instituted blockades against one another, and insisted that if a neutral trader were carrying items that could be used against it, such as food and ammunition, those things could be taken off. Naturally, British naval officers who boarded American vessels bound for France kept their eyes open for "deserters" and took them along with the confiscated items. It was a situation ready-made for hostility. The merchant marine didn't fare much better at the hands of the French, but the issue of looking for deserters wasn't part of the equation.

So between the two of these, anti-British sentiment continued to rise. It boiled over in 1807, bringing the entire seaboard together in protest. See my next blog to find out what this was about.

I've looked a bit at sites that I'd hoped would yield information on the planning for the bicentennial of the War of 1812. Of course it's early yet. I expect that closer to the time (June 2012) there'll be more. Already I see that tall ships are due in Boston on July 4, which is always fun.

But in fact this war started long before June of 1812, and I'm interested to see if anyone is looking into the details. The war itself has received bad press, and with good reason -- yet the factors that contributed to it are fascinating when viewed as a snapshot of how the American Experiment was working out at the time. The nation was new -- still a collection of states with different perspectives and little cohesiveness. The War of 1812 is nothing if not a showcase of that! But it's where we started, and I think it deserves a little thinking about.

And so I will think about it.