War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's

founding right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased

its size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. your host, James Early. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Key Battles of the War of 1812.

This is your host, James Early, as always.

In our last episode, we followed Old Hickory, Andrew Jackson, down into

the south, and we looked at the events of what are known as the Creek, or certainly had a lot of

effect on the War of 1812 in general. Very bloody episode, very bloody campaign on both sides,

a lot of really fierce fighting and atrocities, we would say,

today committed by both sides. And then we also looked at the British attempt to take the war

to another part of the United States that had not seen much of the war before. And that was the

Chesapeake area. We saw how Admiral Coburn went and burned and took prisoners and set enslaved people free and

just did everything he could to cause trouble for the Americans living up and down the Chesapeake

area.

So the war in the South was our basic theme from last time.

This time what we're going to do is we're going to push pause on the narrative of the military campaigns. And we're going to look

at the experience of the common soldier. What was it like to be a soldier in the war of 1812?

How did you get recruited? What was your pay? What happened to people who deserted or defected

to the other side? What did they eat? What did they drink? What kind of supplies did

...