It expressed at once their desire to punish the hereditary foe and to rid themselves of an unfriendly power to the north.
The United States was poorly prepared and equipped for military and naval campaigns when, in June, 1812, Congress declared war on Great Britain.

Nothing had been learned from the costly blunders of the Revolution, and the delusion that readiness for war was a menace to democracy had influenced the Government to absurd extremes.

The regular army comprised only sixty-seven hundred men, scattered over an enormous country and on garrison service from which they could not be safely withdrawn.

They were without traditions and without experience in actual warfare.

Winfield Scott, at that time a young officer in the regular army, wrote: The old officers had very generally sunk into either sloth, ignorance, or habits of intemperate drinking....