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{ 354 } ​Conclusions ​ “Coffins of the Brave”—Two Hundred Years Later ​ Kevin J. Crisman Two hundred years have passed since the War of 1812 roiled the landscape of North America and the oceans of the world (fig. 14.1). As wars go, this one was brief and did not change the boundary maps. This is hardly surprising: neither the United States nor Great Britain ever committed the forces necessary to conquer and hold large swaths of territory. After two and a half years of fighting, both readily signed a peace treaty that called for a return to prewar borders and trade: status quo ante bellum. Despite its limited scope and seemingly “neutral” outcome, the war’s events, particularly the naval battles on the oceans and lakes, have fascinated the public and inspired generations of historians to produce thousands of books and articles. There is no shortage of popular and scholarly reading on the subject. The bounty of historical publications on the War of 1812 has also served to highlight the gaps in traditional scholarly sources. Significant elements of the story are missing, many of which never made it to the documentary record in the first place. This is particularly true of the shipwrights and sailors who served in the lake campaigns ; we know the broad outlines of their travails and accomplishments, but so many details of their work, of the ships they built and sailed, and of their material world and daily experiences have remained tantalizingly out of our reach. Fortunately, as we have seen in the preceding chapters of this book, evidence of the past survives in more places than archives and libraries. A parallel record is available for us to study, a record embedded in shipwrecks and artifacts. In recent decades the field of archaeology has guided a new approach to understanding the events of 1812–15, one that blends the evidence in contemporary documents and images with a wealth of details derived from objects lost, discarded, and otherwise left behind. The synergism to be found in this kind of research is exciting , for material remains often raise questions that 14 Two Hundred Years Later { 355 } we never thought to ask of the historical record and the written sources in turn are crucial for interpreting artifacts and structures. The combination provides a powerful tool for our attempts to understand the past since it generates a narrative whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. What have we learned? For one thing, it is clear that the War of 1812 was an odd sort of war from start to finish . Historical evidence tells us that there was nothing inevitable about it: with more astute leadership, diplomatic finesse, and faster communications, the two belligerents might have avoided going to the brink and beyond. Like most conflicts, once the shooting started, events moved in directions that were unintended and largely unwelcomed by the war’s proponents. “Free trade and sailors’ rights” were the maritime casus belli that led the US Congress to declare war in June of 1812, but the fight for control of the oceans—however brilliant and newsworthy—yielded results that were more symbolic than decisive. The disparity of forces was just too great. Naval construction and naval battles on North America’s freshwater lakes ultimately had a greater influence on the outcome of the war. The shift of focus to the continent’s interior was entirely predictable, given the miniscule size of the US Navy’s seagoing fleet, the longstanding American designs on its northern neighbor, and the fact that the US-­ Canadian border was the only place where the two protagonists were in continuous contact throughout thewar.The intense naval activityon inland waters also owed much to the challenges of mobility and logistics in a wilderness region; in such a remote location the success of armies hinged on command of the waterways . Three self-­ contained border arenas, the Upper Lakes, Lake Ontario, and Lake Champlain, together offered the best opportunities for changing the map of North America. Throughout the War of 1812, from its muddled beginning to its sudden end, the lakes would Figure 14.1. The Brown’s Bay Vessel at Fort Wellington, Ontario, in 2012. Scholarly and popular interest in the people, places, events, and archaeological heritage of the War of 1812 remains strong in Canada and the United States two centuries after the conflict. The Brown’s Bay Vessel was the centerpiece of this new exhibit on the War of 1812 in the...

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