Therumancer said:
I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm going to seem like a dick saying this. But with the exception of Stonington, which I can't find much information on, every single assertion you've made in your post is wrong. Again, I don't want to be a dick about it, but I can't let this amount of misinformation stand without replying to it. I'll try to make this as quick and painless as possible and include Wikipedia links.
the Brits pretty much decided to "put America in it's place" and engaged in epic military fail.
It was actually the United States that invaded, not Britain. War hawks in Congress wanted to make the British pay for a number of measures they were taking as part of the Napoleonic Wars, including blocking American trade with France and forcing American sailors to join the British navy. Britain at the time was fighting the entirety of Europe and had no interest in starting another war in the colonies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_War_of_1812
They moved in largely from Canada and did indeed burn down The White House, and then pretty much wound up being forced into a full scale retreat.
Although I'm sure there were some land invasions from Canada, most likely in the form of raids and such, the majority of British aggression in the war came from naval landings, Lake Erie. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bladensburg] There was no major gain or loss for either of the two combatants, and the war ended in a stalemate.
There is some powerful symbolism in that "victory", especially for the Anti-American crowd, but for the most part it had the Brits coming in and trying to seize territory and then getting spanked and running like bunnies.
I don't know the American side of the war well enough to pull up a list of British victories and defeats, but all I can say is that this really isn't true. Certainly you've left out the American incursions over the Canadian border and their defeats there.
You don't hear a lot about it because a lot of the records are spotty, taking a lot to piece together,
There's no shortage whatsoever of records on the War of 1812. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_about_the_War_of_1812]
but it involves things like the "Battle Of Stonington" which you've probably never heard of that more or less summarize the entire war. The enemy came rolling in to take over, ran into resistance, something like 3,000 rounds of ammo were fired, 11 people were killed, and the invaders pretty much decided "F@ck this" and left. All throughout New England (where I live) you'll find little things here and there about it, stories about why cannons are preserved on town greens, and everything else.
As I said, it's hard to find information on this, but a cursory Google search <a href="http://www.theday.com/article/20120628/NWS01/307019996>seems to support your story. It hardly summarizes the entire war, though...
Simply put The White House was burned but after a point a foothold was pretty much impossible to obtain or maintain,
I suppose so, but you're missing out that the United States was similarly unable to make any kind of noticeable progress in Canada.
the US was at that point simply too heavily armed and too well trained (as far as such things went).
I don't know the history of the U.S. army very well, but I doubt this. The source on Wikipedia [http://books.google.ca/books?id=390r2-ayPY0C&pg=PR11&lpg=PP1&dq=The+War+of+1812:+A+Forgotten+Conflict] (page 126) notes that most of the army was still inexperienced, and I find it very hard to imagine the United States managing to "heavily arm" itself in the middle of a British blockade.
It's been argued that the reality of this failure was one of the major nails in the coffin of the so called "British Colonial Army" due to it's inabillity to put down the rebellion about much propaganda about how easy it was going to be to re-capture the US.
I don't know what rebellion you're talking about, and I have serious doubts about British propaganda about the recapture of the United States, mostly because that was never the British government's goal. There may have been Canadian Loyalists that wanted it, but the United Kingdom was just barely managing to keep Napoleon down, let alone take over large parts of North America. By "British Colonial Army" I assume you mean the British military presence in North America, which was only reduced after Confederation in 1867.
The War of 1812 isn't my field, and I'm sure I've missed out on a number of things, but I think I've hit the gist of your points. I'm sorry. I'm not sure where you learned about the War of 1812, but one or more of your teachers needs to be smacked.
