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. Welcome back to Key Battles of the War of 1812.

This is your host, James Early, as always.

And I've got my buddy Steve with me, as always.

Well, Steve, we finished the war.

If I remember correctly in our last episode, the British started harassing the Americans

around the Gulf Coast, and they did a full-fledged attack with 6,000 guys against New Orleans

and the Americans under the leadership of Old Hickory, General Jensen, drove them back with great losses.

And I seem to recall something about a treaty or something of it. So there's no more fighting.

So should we just stop? What else is there to talk about?

No, people better listen in for about two more hours because we got a lot to talk about.

Can you tell us a little bit about the early peace efforts? Yeah, let's do that. So we're going to go into detail. We're going to

ultimately finish with the Treaty of Ghent. But I touched upon this in a couple of previous

episodes that both sides really didn't want this war.

Well, you could argue the Republicans in America, Madison and members,

some members of the Republican Party really wanted the war,

but a lot of Americans didn't, and there were efforts very early on

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