An 1815 British illustration depicts the “Capture of the City of Washington.” [Smithsonian]

War of 1812: The general who set fire to the White House sets the record straight

STORY BY RICHARD FOOT​​​​​​​

On a recent visit to Halifax’s Old Burying Ground, the city’s oldest cemetery, Legion Magazine was surprised but delighted to encounter the ghost of Major-General Robert Ross, the British army commander who famously captured Washington, D.C., during the War of 1812. He appeared distraught. Even so, we asked him for an interview, and the general’s spirit kindly agreed.

Legion Magazine: General Ross, why are you wandering among the gravestones? Shouldn’t you be inside your tomb?

Ross: I’ve been cooped up in there more than 200 years. Even a spectre needs to stretch his legs once in a while. Plus, these are disturbing times. Walking around calms my nerves.

LM: Disturbing? How so?

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An artist depicts the British attack at Fort Oswego on the New York shoreline of Lake Ontario in May 1814. The War of 1812 was part of the larger Napoleonic Wars. [U.K. National Army Museum/NAM.1971-02-33-289-1]

Historian Tanya Grodzinski on Canada and the Napoleonic Wars, Part 1

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

They called it the Great War, an industrial-scale conflict that spanned four years and more than 30 countries across the globe. When the Armistice was at last declared on Nov. 11, 1918, millions had died in its calamitous wake.

Over time, the so-called “war to end all wars” would instead be known as the First World War. The new name, however, was something of a misnomer.

“Great” it was, devastatingly so, but perhaps not the first. That title, assert countless chroniclers, goes to the 1756-1763 Seven Years’ War, which involved dozens of belligerents in theatres extending from Europe to the Americas to Asia and Africa. It would be followed by the Napoleonic Wars, a conflict in which numerous countries were again embroiled in desperate fighting that reached five oceans and at least four continents—the Canadian colonies of British North America among them.

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