( White House Historical Association ) - Tom Freeman's painting of the August 24, 1814 burning of the White House by British troops during the War of 1812.
You will be forgiven for not noticing that the bicentennial of the War of 1812 is nearing full swing.
No such dispensation could be granted for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, of course, as it is impossible to miss the armies of reenactors, the newspaper special sections, the magazine covers, the Civil War travel packages — all this, even though sesquicentennial has none of the zing of bicentennial.
Learn about wars in America’s history, including the War of 1812 and the Civil War.
Other anniversaries are much in the news. On Memorial Day, President Obama kicked off the 13-year commemoration planned for the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War. The 100th anniversary of the sinking of a ship (admittedly, the Titanic) and the 60th anniversary of a queen (British, no less!) have drawn mountains of publicity in comparison to the War of 1812.
It gets no respect, this Rodney Dangerfield of American wars.
Some 36 percent of Americans say there were no significant outcomes to the War of 1812, or if there were any, they could not name them, according to a recent poll by the Canadian research firm Ipsos Reid for the Historica-Dominion Institute.
While 17 percent of Canadians consider the War of 1812 the most important war in the formation of their nation’s identity, only 3 percent of Americans feel the same way. (True, Americans have a lot more wars to choose from than Canadians.)
Historians duel over which deserves the title of most obscure major American war, Korea or 1812. Clay Blair titled his fine 1987 history of Korea “The Forgotten War”; Donald Hickey, one of 1812’s foremost scholars, countered two years later with “The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict.” (J. MacKay Hitsman named his book “The Incredible War of 1812,” but he was Canadian.)
There are pockets of enthusiasm, to be sure, nowhere more so than in Maryland, which kicks off three years of commemorations with the “Star-Spangled Sailabration” beginning Wednesday in Baltimore, and where the cars sport War of 1812 license plates and the governor (Martin O’Malley) shows up at 1812 reenactments on horseback, dressed as a Maryland militia officer.
The Maryland Historical Society on Sunday opened “In Full Glory Reflected,” a major exhibit on the war, and on June 17, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will premiere “Overture for 2012” by Baltimore native Philip Glass, who composed it as a companion piece to Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” which will also be performed.
But in New York, site of some of war’s most important fighting, funding for a state War of 1812 commission was blocked for three years before a token amount of money for bicentennial programs was allotted in March.
Its anonymity is certainly no fault of the war itself, which has a gripping plot: Upstart nation with a tiny army and even smaller navy declares war on former colonial master, one of the most powerful nations on earth, and nearly gets blown off the map, but rallies in the end to squeak out a moral victory.
The war, which was declared on June 18, 1812, featured some of the most dramatic episodes in the nation’s history. These are familiar to most Americans, but as floating moments in time, ones they often can’t quite place in the War of 1812:
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