The War of 1812: A Guide to Battlefields and Historic Sites (review)

This past year marked the two-hundredth anniversary of the War of 1812, the second war the United States fought against its mother country, Great Britain, and also the last. John Grant and Ray Jones have produced the companion volume to a recent PBS documentary on the war, to which the authors refer as "one of the most interesting—yet poorly understood—conflicts in human history" (27). Given the surge of interest in this material as the bicentennial has approached, including fresh perspectives from Alan Taylor and Jeremy Black, not to mention the venerable expertise of Donald Hickey, it is safe to say the War of 1812 is no longer as misunderstood or "forgotten" as it used to be, except perhaps among the general public. And that, for better or worse, is where guides to battlefields and historic sites—and also programs for television—can be of greater influence than the work of even the finest professional historians. Perhaps this is fair compensation for today's (not-so-lamentable) disinclination to address military history in American college and school history departments.

The structure of this volume is interesting, although it is most likely to prove useful for nonspecialists, particularly as a first exposure for those whose amateur interest might tend toward the military. Readers more informed by current trends in scholarship, however, will find no significant departures from the old-fashioned, now hackneyed narrative, stressing military and naval campaigns sandwiched between the causes of the war and the peace negotiations at Ghent, Belgium. Suffice it to say, there is not much digesting of the recent scholarship here. Grant and Jones feature a brief introductory section that very superficially treats political, diplomatic, and cultural topics along with highlights of the fighting on land and sea. Beyond that, practically all attention is devoted to the fortifications, strategies, and battles in seven major theaters of the war: the Northwest, Niagara, Lake Ontario, St. Lawrence and Champlain, Northeast, Chesapeake, and Southern.

The discussion of each battle and historic site is accompanied with a "What You'll See Today" section that serves as an enticing tour guide for readers who might wish to travel (or imagine traveling) to the actual places where the action took place. This is the most intriguing feature of the book. We learn, for example, that "the skyscrapers of downtown Chicago now tower above the original site of Fort Dearborn" and only a sculpture, an inscription on a bridge, and a small park recall the Indian massacre of whites that took place there on August 15, 1812 (46). And we are helpfully reminded to envision Washington, D.C., as little more than a small country town when the British attacked it in summer 1814 and burned all the major government buildings, including the White House and the Capitol. The authors state, rightly, that we must learn this history "at a basic human level" to "grasp its immense historical importance" (25-26).

Finally, one small suggestion for authors of books of this kind, where artwork (in this case, nice reproductions of a number of paintings) comprises much of the visual content: provide in the captions, wherever possible, the names of the artists and titles of the paintings. Here, Grant and Jones take care to list at the back all permission credits for the photographs and illustrations they use, but that is all the reader will find.