During the 2012-2015 bicentennial activities relating to the War of 1812 I spent some time delving into the interesting question of who really won that war. It was a fascinating exercise as this is one of relatively few wars in history where both sides are absolutely certain that they won.

Roll forward to 2018 and I had an opportunity to deliver a series of lectures at Florida Gulf Coast University’s Renaissance Academy on this topic.

A copy of the slides and notes used are published in this website at the following link – War of 1812 Presentation.

The battle summaries I prepared which underpinned this work are included in a spreadsheet published at the following link – War of 1812 Battle Analysis. I used a huge variety of books and websites to assemble this list. Some of the more important sources are listed in the accompanying presentation slides. For those interested in visiting any of these sites, Gilbert Collins has written an excellent Guidebook to the Historic Sites of the War of 1812 (revised 2006 Second Edition).

My conclusion from all of this research was that none of the Americans, British or Canadians won, but the Native Americans clearly lost. Some have used the expression “Status quo ante bellum” to describe this war.