How Canada Won the War of 1812 (But Not Until 1867)

Having lived in a number of countries, I believe all nations seem to have a distorted view of their history. Americans are convinced they won the Korean War; so are the Chinese. Koreans are convinced they were the worst victims of the Japanese; Filipinos remember them as the most brutal of the Japanese soldiers. Canadians in particular tend to laugh at the bizarre distortions they hear from the US. But frankly, we are missing the beam in our own eye.

Take the War of 1812. Canadians are commonly utterly convinced that we defeated the US in that war. Most are even of the odd opinion that we put the White House to the torch.

We did not, of course. The war was a draw, and Canada was not a party to it. The two combatants were the US and Britain. Canada was no more than a geographical designation for one of the areas where the war was fought. Probably no Canadians were involved in the raid on Washington.

Never mind, at least Canadians fought hard to defend their own lands from the Americans, right? We won in our own particular theatre of war, and decisively proved we were not, and did not want to be, Americans?

Well... maybe. Consider the Battle of York (aka Toronto). According the the official muster rolls, aside from the British regulars, York was defended by a 300-man local militia.

They lost that battle, and the Americans burned the town before they withdrew. In those days, by common consent, nobody kept prisoners of war. Instead, those who surrendered were paroled with a signed contract never to bear arms again. Their governments were honour-bound to respect this.

Interestingly, of the 300-man local militia, a full 1,400 surrendered to the Americans and emerged bearing these contracts. In other words, Canadians from miles around flooded into Muddy York to get the American paroles, so they could no longer be drafted by the British for the war.

Did they really care who gave them their marching orders? It doesn't look like it.