Analysis Of The War Of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict

Among the bustling port cities of the early American eastern seaboard, Baltimore was the only one that was firmly in the Democratic-Republican camp at the onset of the War of 1812. The young and dynamic boomtown stood antithetical to the aged, ordered, and settled civilization of southern Maryland whose economy was founded in the eighteenth century on the backs of African slaves and tobacco production; a crop which remained during the grain transition of northern Maryland and southern Pennsylvania farmland at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Baltimore, since 1798, had been a Democratic-Republican bastion and, starting in 1801, the Maryland state government soon followed. Though the Federalists remained powerful in southern Maryland and on the Eastern Shore, there were less Federalist representatives in the state legislature as compared to the populous Democratic-Republican districts. A
Donald R. Hickey devotes a chapter in his book, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict, to the riot and came to the conclusion that the Democratic-Republican crowd was reluctant to tolerate Federalist opposition to the recently declared war on Britain on June 18, 1812. One overlooked and critical detail when analyzing the events through a political lens is illuminated by the depositions of Mayor Edward Johnson and Major William B. Barney. Major Barney’s deposition discusses, in detail, General Stricker’s actions on July 27 and 28, 1812. Since General Stricker was one of the individuals targeted by the investigation, his deposition was not taken. Both Mayor Johnson and General Stricker were Democratic-Republicans, but each approached and responded to the events disparately. The laudable and selfless actions of Mayor Johnson were already addressed, so the focus of analysis now shifts to General Stricker, the commander of the Maryland militia through the provided