For Honour's Sake: The War of 1812 and the Brokering of an Uneasy Peace

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Knopf Canada, Jul 23, 2010 - History - 464 pages
In the tradition of Margaret MacMillan’s Paris 1919 comes a new consideration of Canada’s most famous war and the Treaty of Ghent that unsatisfactorily concluded it, from one of this country’s premier military historians.

In the Canadian imagination, the War of 1812 looms large. It was a war in which British and Indian troops prevailed in almost all of the battles, in which the Americans were unable to hold any of the land they fought for, in which a young woman named Laura Secord raced over the Niagara peninsula to warn of American plans for attack (though how she knew has never been discovered), and in which Canadian troops burned down the White House. Competing American claims insist to this day that, in fact, it was they who were triumphant.

But where does the truth lie? Somewhere in the middle, as is revealed in this major new reconsideration from one of Canada’s master historians. Drawing on never-before-seen archival material, Zuehlke paints a vibrant picture of the war’s major battles, vividly re-creating life in the trenches, the horrifying day-to-day manoeuvring on land and sea, and the dramatic negotiations in the Flemish city of Ghent that brought the war to an unsatisfactory end for both sides. By focusing on the fraught dispute in which British and American diplomats quarrelled as much amongst themselves as with their adversaries, Zuehlke conjures the compromises and backroom deals that yielded conventions resonating in relations between the United States and Canada to this very day.
 

Contents

To Meet with Frankness and Conciliation
1
A Republican of the First Fire II
11
The Search for Satisfaction
34
While Disunion Prevails
83
Failures of Communication
101
The Demons of War Unchained III
111
The Valiant Have Bled
125
Opportunities for Usefulness
137
Under Great Danger
242
Destitute of Military Fire
257
Great Obstacles to Accommodation
272
A Capital Burned a Campaign Lost
313
The Blessing of Peace
370
Honour Preserved
382
The Text of the Treaty of Ghent
391
Notes
401

Failures of Command
149
Peace Sincerely Desired
169
Fields of Victory Fields of Shame
228
Bibliography
425
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About the author (2010)

Mark Zuehlke is the author of many books about military history and the influence of the nation’s war experiences on Canadian society including Juno Beach, Holding Juno and The Gothic Line, a much-lauded trilogy tracing Canada’s role in the World War II Italian campaign; and The Canadian Military Atlas. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

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