1 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:06,580 The United States had to fight not one, but two wars for its independence. 2 00:00:06,590 --> 00:00:09,430 The first, of course, was the Revolutionary War. 3 00:00:09,430 --> 00:00:11,610 Can you name the second? 4 00:00:11,610 --> 00:00:13,360 It was the War of 1812. 5 00:00:13,360 --> 00:00:15,980 Now, both wars were against the British. 6 00:00:15,980 --> 00:00:20,400 And in both cases, the Americans should have lost. 7 00:00:20,400 --> 00:00:23,950 The Revolutionary War is very much celebrated in American history. 8 00:00:23,950 --> 00:00:26,660 The second one has all but been forgotten. 9 00:00:26,660 --> 00:00:31,680 But had it been lost, America’s history would have been much, much different. 10 00:00:31,680 --> 00:00:35,880 The British precipitated the war by failing to recognize the United States as a 11 00:00:35,880 --> 00:00:37,580 sovereign nation. 12 00:00:37,580 --> 00:00:43,920 For five years between 1807 and 1812, they repeatedly disrupted American commerce, boarding 13 00:00:43,920 --> 00:00:49,700 American merchant ships, capturing their sailors—over 5,000 of them—and forcing them 14 00:00:49,700 --> 00:00:51,560 to work on British ships. 15 00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:57,680 Finally, President James Madison said, “Enough!” and on June 18, 1812, 16 00:00:57,680 --> 00:01:00,020 Congress declared war on Britain. 17 00:01:00,020 --> 00:01:02,060 The euphoria didn’t last long. 18 00:01:02,060 --> 00:01:03,560 And for good reason. 19 00:01:03,560 --> 00:01:10,360 The Americans had no viable strategy, no standing army to speak of, no generals worthy of the rank, 20 00:01:10,360 --> 00:01:14,480 a very small navy, a wholly inadequate supply of munitions. 21 00:01:14,480 --> 00:01:17,300 It was a different story on the British side. 22 00:01:17,300 --> 00:01:23,160 They had all the men, ships, generals and admirals they needed—and then some. 23 00:01:23,179 --> 00:01:29,649 If these upstart Yankees wanted war, the British were only too happy to accommodate them. 24 00:01:29,649 --> 00:01:35,480 Things went pretty much as expected: one American defeat after another, culminating in the 25 00:01:35,480 --> 00:01:37,920 burning of Washington, D.C. 26 00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:42,260 The great prize of the war was not the tiny American capital, or even the larger, 27 00:01:42,260 --> 00:01:43,880 nearby city of Baltimore. 28 00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:48,819 The prize the British wanted was the gateway to the American West, the city at the mouth 29 00:01:48,819 --> 00:01:51,719 of the Mississippi River—New Orleans. 30 00:01:51,719 --> 00:01:56,509 If Britain controlled this key southern port, it could check American expansion, confining 31 00:01:56,509 --> 00:02:00,389 it to the eastern half of the continent for the foreseeable future. 32 00:02:00,389 --> 00:02:07,480 To take New Orleans, the British amassed an enormous sea and land force—60 ships, 10,000 men. 33 00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:10,680 And what could the Americans offer by way of defense? 34 00:02:10,680 --> 00:02:16,620 Enter Andrew Jackson, one of the most remarkable figures in American history. 35 00:02:16,629 --> 00:02:21,910 Born in 1767 in the territories of the Carolinas, Jackson first encountered the British during 36 00:02:21,910 --> 00:02:23,320 the Revolutionary War. 37 00:02:23,320 --> 00:02:25,680 His memories were not happy ones. 38 00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:27,959 His mother and his two brothers died in the war. 39 00:02:27,959 --> 00:02:33,400 And Jackson himself was left with a permanent scar, the gift of a British officer who slashed 40 00:02:33,400 --> 00:02:37,400 him with his sword when the teenage boy refused to clean his boots. 41 00:02:37,400 --> 00:02:40,700 Self-educated, Jackson settled in Nashville, Tennessee. 42 00:02:40,700 --> 00:02:45,480 There he became a frontier lawyer and, after Tennessee was admitted to the Union, served 43 00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:50,480 briefly as its sole congressman, then as a senator representing the new state. 44 00:02:50,480 --> 00:02:55,010 Though he had no formal military training, Jackson was elected major general of the Tennessee 45 00:02:55,010 --> 00:02:59,120 militia and gained fighting experience leading several successful campaigns 46 00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:01,439 against the Indians of the region. 47 00:03:01,439 --> 00:03:06,430 He inspired both great loyalty and great fear in the men under his command: loyalty because 48 00:03:06,430 --> 00:03:11,930 he fought beside them, enduring every hardship they endured; and fear because he demanded 49 00:03:11,930 --> 00:03:14,460 strict military discipline. 50 00:03:14,460 --> 00:03:19,680 Given the inherently rebellious, don’t-tread-on-me nature of the frontiersmen under his command, 51 00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:21,379 this was no mean feat. 52 00:03:21,380 --> 00:03:27,080 But Jackson had never faced a foe like the British: a highly disciplined, battle-tested army. 53 00:03:27,080 --> 00:03:32,660 On his side of the ledger, the American general had a motley assortment of volunteers, militiamen, 54 00:03:32,660 --> 00:03:35,659 freemen of color, Indians, and regulars. 55 00:03:35,660 --> 00:03:40,080 Joined by legendary New Orleans pirate Jean Lafitte and his pirate band, 56 00:03:40,080 --> 00:03:43,580 the American force was still less than half of what the British had in numbers 57 00:03:43,580 --> 00:03:46,140 and far less in combat experience. 58 00:03:46,140 --> 00:03:51,560 But for all their deficiencies, Jackson’s men had three talents he fully exploited: 59 00:03:51,569 --> 00:03:56,590 they knew the terrain, they knew how to dig, and they knew how to shoot. 60 00:03:56,590 --> 00:04:01,860 The Battle of New Orleans began in earnest at dawn January 8, 1815. 61 00:04:01,860 --> 00:04:06,080 The overconfident British had no idea what they were in for. 62 00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:10,960 Wading through the mud of Louisiana swamps and thwarted by Jackson’s hastily constructed, 63 00:04:10,960 --> 00:04:16,920 but formidable, ramparts, one British charge after another was cut down by deadly accurate 64 00:04:16,920 --> 00:04:20,960 American artillery and rifle fire. 65 00:04:20,960 --> 00:04:26,540 When it was over, it amounted to the worst defeat in British military history. 66 00:04:26,540 --> 00:04:31,380 No two accounts of the battle would agree on the exact casualty count, but all agreed 67 00:04:31,389 --> 00:04:33,330 it was stunningly high. 68 00:04:33,330 --> 00:04:39,740 According to one British infantry captain, “three generals, seven colonels, seventy-five officers… 69 00:04:39,740 --> 00:04:44,490 a total of seventeen hundred and eighty-one officers and soldiers had fallen 70 00:04:44,490 --> 00:04:46,250 in a few minutes.” 71 00:04:46,250 --> 00:04:51,680 The American losses amounted to no more than a dozen dead. 72 00:04:51,680 --> 00:04:58,160 The War of 1812, America’s second war of independence, began badly and only got worse. 73 00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:03,220 But it ended with one of the greatest victories in American military history. 74 00:05:03,220 --> 00:05:08,600 It made Jackson a national hero and set up his successful run for the presidency 75 00:05:08,600 --> 00:05:10,120 thirteen years later. 76 00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:16,480 Even more, it guaranteed the western expansion of the United States would proceed without interruption. 77 00:05:16,480 --> 00:05:20,080 I’m Brian Kilmeade for Prager University.