[Dimnos]

You have to look at world events leading up to and during that time. Napoleon was rampaging France and its allies all over Europe. Britain couldnt match his army but he couldnt match their navy. Militarily speaking they really couldnt do much to eachother so they resorted to a more economic warfare. Napoleon cut Britain off from trade with continental Europe. Britain couldnt really cut France off from trade with anyone inside continental Europe because of Napoleons superior army so they had to use their superior navy to cut off as much of his shipping trade as they could. Most of which was done with America at the time. Now Europe has many major ports all over the place where America only had a few major ports namely Baltimore, New York and New Orleans. It would be easier for Britain to block America off from France so that is what they did. They set up a naval blockade and started kidnapping American sailors and were forcing them to join the Royal Navy. America looked at this as an infringement on their sovereignty and that is why they went to war. Due to Britains naval superiority they couldnt just sail out their and start blowing them out of the water. Their only other option was to attack the British in Canada. Their objective was not to take Canada per se, it was to end the blockade and to make sure their sailors would no longer be kidnapped.

The reason I bring up that we still fly Old Glory is because as AChimp said they did capture Washington DC and did burn and loot many government buildings. Alternately we did capture and burn York. The War of 1812 took place in North America not on the other side of the globe like Vietnam.

Yes the battle of New Orleans did take place after the peace treaty but it was Britain that attacked and America that defended the city. Yet despite being outnumbered 3 to 1 Andrew Jackson kicked their asses.