Question

How was expansion post-war of 1812 different from expansion prior? Be as specific as you can. 150-200 words

Answer 1

Though many American grievances were resolved during the course of the war, the Treaty of Ghent, which formally ended the War of 1812, involved no significant change in pre-war borders or boundaries. For Native Americans who had allied with the British, the war devastated their physical land and political autonomy.Britain blocked all French seaports and insisted that U.S. ships first stop at a British port and pay a fee before continuing to France. Britian was also interfering in the affairs of Canada, America's neighbor. The War of 1812 came to be known as thesecond American war of independence.The United States suffered many costly defeats at the hands of British, Canadian and Native American troops over the course of the War of 1812, including the capture and burning of the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., in August 1814.

During the war, a total of 2,260 American soldiers and sailors were killed. The war cost the United States about $200 million. Neither the United States nor Great Britain gained any military advantage. Indirectly the United States made some gains.A significant military development was the increased emphasis by General Winfield Scott on professionalism in the U.S. Army officer corps and in particular, the training of officers at the United States Military Academy ("West Point"). This new professionalism would become apparent during the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). After the Texas Annexation by the U.S., the term Manifest Destiny became a widely used political term for those who propagated American expansionism and military pride.In a related development, the United States officially abandoned its reliance on the militia for its defense. Moreover, the Army Corps of Engineers (which at that time controlled West Point), began building fortifications around New Orleans as a response to the British attack on the city during the war. This effort then grew into numerous civil river works, especially in the 1840s and 1850s under General Pierre Beauregard. The Corps remains the authority over Mississippi (and other) river works.The embarrassing defeat of Fort Madison in what is now Iowa and Fort McKay in Prairie du Chien led to the fortification of the Mississippi, with the expansion of Fort Belle Fontainenear St. Louis, and the construction of Fort Armstrong (1816) and Fort Edwards (1816) in Illinois, Fort Crawford (1816) in Prairie du Chien, and Fort Snelling (1819) in Minnesota. Removal of all Indians from the Mississippi Valley became a top priority for the U.S. governmentThus indirectly the War of 1812 brought about the acquisition of Florida.... To both the Northwest and the South, therefore, the War of 1812 brought substantial benefits. It broke the power of the Creek Confederacy and opened to settlement a great province of the future Cotton Kingdom