New Orleans is accepted as an American battlefield victory while its significance for the wider war is challenged. Clarke's argument is that Britain could call on more replacements, whereas the United States lacked the infrastructure and centralized government needed for the war it had started. He attributes American expectations to the hope that Napoleon would occupy Britain in Europe and leave opportunities in Canada. The associated expectation that Canadians would welcome American forces as liberators is presented as another failed assumption. The reasoning links the ability to replace losses with the limits of the strategy adopted at the start of the war.
Notable Point · 3:49:10-3:50:39
The young United States' institutional limits in 1812
America's infrastructure and central authority are examined alongside expectations that Napoleon would occupy Britain and that an invasion of Canada would be welcomed.