The historiography of the War of 1812 reflects the numerous interpretations of the conflict, especially in reference to the war's outcome, since it ended as a stalemate. The historical record has interpreted both the British and Americans as victors in the conflict, with substantial academic and popular literature published to support each claim.
The British, who were able to concurrently defeat Napoleon Bonaparte twice and end the Napoleonic Wars, viewed the War of 1812 as a minor theatre that was overshadowed by key victories at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, leading to the Pax Britannica. In the United States and Upper Canada, nationalistic mythology around the war took hold following its conclusion. Canadians affirmed their ability to remain separate from the United States.
With the failure of the invasion of British Canada advancing the concept of Canadian identity, and of Canada as a distinct region that would continue to evolve into a nation. Americans were able to end the impressment of their citizens and enforce their sovereignty. Both the restoration of honor and what has been called the Second War of Independence are important themes in American historiography, and are considered significant results by historians. Indigenous nations are generally held to have lost in the war.
Popular views
Both Americans and Canadians widely believed that their own countries had won the war. Each young country saw its self-perceived victory and settling of the border between them as an important foundation of its growing nationhood. The British, preoccupied with Napoleon's challenge in Europe, paid little attention to what was to them a peripheral and secondary dispute.
One interpretation, especially in Canada, is that of a British or Canadian win and an American defeat. Another leading interpretation, held mainly in the United States, is that of an American win. In a 2012 interview at The Christian Science Monitor, Donald R. Hickey said: "By my count, we lost the War of 1812 and we lost Vietnam. That's not a widely held opinion in the United States about the War of 1812. The common view is that the war ended in a draw." According to Claire Turenner Solander, "Canadians are unified (because we participated in our diversity in the war under the British Crown, which is our real heritage) and we are distinct from the United States (because we won, and because we are British)." According to Troy Bickham, the American victory at New Orleans "did not have an impact on the war's outcome", but it shaped "how the Americans received the end of the war by creating the illusion of military victory."
American views
While American popular memory includes the British capture and the August 1814 burning of Washington, which necessitated extensive renovation, it focused on the victories at Baltimore, Plattsburgh, and New Orleans to present the war as a successful effort to assert American national honor, or a Second War of Independence, in which the mighty British Empire was humbled and humiliated. In keeping with this sentiment, there is a popularly held view that Britain had planned to annex Louisiana in 1815. The amoral depravity of the British, in contrast with the wholesome behavior of the Americans, has the "beauty and booty" story at the center of any account of Jackson's victory at New Orleans. In a speech before the U.S. Congress on 18 February 1815, the then U.S. president James Madison proclaimed the war a complete American victory.
This interpretation of the war was and remains the dominant American view of the war. The American newspaper Niles' Register announced in an editorial on 14 September 1816 that the Americans had crushed the British, declaring "we did virtually dictate the treaty of Ghent to the British." A minority of Americans, mostly associated with the Federalist Party, considered the war a defeat and an act of folly on Madison's part, caustically asking why the British Crown did not cede British North America to the United States if the Americans were dictating the terms of the Treaty of Ghent. The Federalist view of the war is not the mainstream American memory of the war. Congressman George Troup, who said in a speech in 1815 that the Treaty of Ghent was "the glorious termination of the most glorious war ever waged by any people", expressed American popular opinion and memory of the war.