Reference collection
War messages, statutes, newspapers, dispatches, proclamations, treaties, and lyrics: the words through which the war became policy and memory.
8 records
Documents · 1 June 1812 · Presidential message
Formal statement of grievances to Congress
Madison presented impressment, interference with commerce, violations of American waters, and British connections to frontier violence as evidence of a state of war.
Open record →Documents · 18 June 1812 · Federal statute
Legal beginning of war between the United States and Britain
Congress authorized war after votes of 79–49 in the House and 19–13 in the Senate; Madison signed the measure on June 18.
Open record →Documents · Baltimore · Newspaper
Federalist antiwar press
Alexander Contee Hanson’s newspaper attacked the war and Democratic-Republican leadership, provoking the destruction of its press and later armed confrontation.
Open record →Documents · 10 September 1813 · Naval dispatch
Report of victory to William Henry Harrison
Perry’s famously concise report announced that the enemy squadron had become American property.
Open record →Documents · 2 April 1814 · British proclamation
Offer of reception to people leaving the United States
Cochrane announced that people willing to emigrate from the United States would be received, with choices of military service or resettlement in British possessions.
Open record →Documents · 9 August 1814 · Imposed land cession
Agreement ending the Creek War campaign
The treaty compelled the Muscogee Confederacy to cede roughly 23 million acres, including territory belonging to communities allied with the United States.
Open record →Documents · September 1814 · Broadside and lyric
Francis Scott Key’s poem
Key’s verses circulated as a broadside and song before their first stanza became the United States national anthem more than a century later.
Open record →Documents · 24 December 1814 · Peace treaty
Agreement ending the Anglo-American war
The treaty restored conquered territory and established mechanisms for outstanding boundary questions while leaving maritime grievances largely unmentioned.
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