9781422286012

Chapter 1 Long-Running

Disputes Lead to War I t was May of 1812, and American leaders waited eagerly for the USS Hornet to arrive with the latest dispatches from England. The Hornet had sailed for England in December, only one month after the pro-war faction known as the “War Hawks” had taken their seats in the Twelfth Congress. The ship had carried what one newspaper described as “paper bullets, bloody messages, war resolutions, and frightful speeches.” In the months since the Hornet sailed, the War Hawks had pushed Congress to the verge of war with Great Britain.

Detail from a political cartoon published around 1813, in which Columbia (an early symbol for the United States, left) chastises both Great Britain (right) and France (center) for their assaults on American rights and interests.