The bicentennial of the War of 1812 will be upon us before we know it. Are you planning to commemorate the event? Americans really need to remember what happened 200 years ago. For some of us, it’s personal. My 3rd great grandfather, Gold Canfield, died in the war.
The following teaser is from the November 24, 2011 edition of the New York Times:
SACKETS HARBOR, N.Y. — Clayton F. Nans, a 57-year-old retired Marine colonel, halted his Chevrolet pickup truck near Lake Ontario recently and pointed to a grassy embankment. It was the very spot, he said, where British troops first made landfall in this upstate village, before American soldiers fought off their invasion.
That engagement was two centuries ago, in the Second Battle of Sackets Harbor, a key New York moment in the War of 1812, whose bicentennial is fast approaching. And Mr. Nans, who periodically dons the blue woolen coat of an early 19th-century Marine as a War of 1812 re-enactor, is upset that New York State is not doing anything to commemorate it.
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The war, which was fought between the United States and Great Britain over maritime rights, led to the burning of Washington, the drafting of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the popularization of an American hero, Andrew Jackson, who later became president. During the war, the United States attacked Canada, which was British, and the Great Lakes region was a war theater, with battles in New York State from Buffalo to Plattsburgh. Sackets Harbor, about 60 miles north of Syracuse, was the American military’s Lake Ontario headquarters, home to several thousand soldiers, a 32-pound cannon and a fleet of shallow-draft warships.
Around North America, local and national governments are preparing to mark the anniversary…
