John Archibald Woodside (1781–1852)
Oil on canvas, c. 1814
Henry Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, reflected on the War of 1812 in 1891: “Many nations have gone to war in pure gayety of heart, but perhaps the United States were the first to force themselves into a war they dreaded, in the hope that the war itself might create the spirit they lacked.”
Contemporaries also took note of the new sense of national character the war seemed to have created. “The war has renewed and reinstated the national feelings and character which the Revolution had given, and which were daily lessened,” wrote Albert Gallatin. “The people now have more general objects of attachment with which their pride and political opinions are connected. They are more Americans; they feel and act more as a nation.”
At the end of the War of 1812, the United States of America was for the first time truly a nation.