ROSSITER JOHNSON AUTHOR OF A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH WAR ENDING IN THE CONQUEST OF CANADA," 99 64 WAR OF 1812-15 BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN." PREFACE. I HAD been for some years collecting books, articles, and memoranda concerning the great insurrection and its causes, intending to write its history in full, when I received in 1885 an invitation to tell the story in thirty articles for the pages of the New York "Examiner." The reception given to those articles made it plain that there was a demand for a history of the war not so extended as to bewilder the reader with multiplicity of details, and not so concise as to preclude all color. Current literature abounds in minute studies of the separate campaigns and engagements, most of them purely military, and many of them exceedingly valuable; but the reader finds no ready answer to his question, How did it happen that the war took place at all, what was its general course, and what were the motive forces that brought it on, prolonged it, and finished it? To meet this demand with a single compact volume, is the purpose of the present effort. The "Examiner" articles have been thoroughly revised and extended, and several new chapters are added; so |