ABSTRACT
While the Naval War of 1812 is a familiar subject, it has suffered from a fractured historiography. The basic American treatment, created by wartime and early postwar Democratic-Republican politicians and publicists, claimed the United States won the war, with the Navy playing a significant part in that victory. This literature focused on surface detail: combat, heroism, and ocean voyages. It addressed the pressing need of the governing party to win the upcoming presidential election, rather than the outcome of the conflict. Yet it was so successful that within two decades President Andrew Jackson brandished his “victorious” navy as a weapon in diplomatic relations with Britain and France, whose navies could have demolished the American fleet and imposed a crippling economic blockade.
