The War of 1812!!!

It all started out after the revolutionary war. The nation hadn't yet reestablished a good govt just yet and we were struggling a bit. The govt wasn't the biggest problem we were having though. France and England were at war with each other and they were trying to pull us into the conflict. George Washington had said to not go into any major foreign affairs before we had established a good nation but we didn't listen to him.

The war between France and England had been on for quite a while and they were trying to pull us into it with their "Impressment". At first we tried to ignore what Brittan was doing to us, but we just couldn't. It was hurting American trade in Europe and we couldn't stand it. We tried an "Embargo" against the English goods, but all that did was hurt us much more than it hurt them. To make matters worse the British even provided arms for the Native Americans so that they could effectively fight against us.

Eventually we just couldn't take it anymore, and congress declared war on England,but it didn't start off too well. The English quickly took New Orleans, thus completely taking away the advantage of the Ohio River valley that we had fought so hard for in earlier wars. Not only that, but our navy only had 3 ships that could effectively fight against the English, while the English had quite a few under their command. With their massive Navy, they easily blockaded our major ports.

As for ground forces, it was practically America vs Canada. American forces at one point went up to Canada and took York, burning some of the major constructs. In retaliation, the Brittish came down and burned Washington. Another major battle was when Jackson went to New Orleans after the treaty was signed and killed the Brittish soldiers.

When the treaty of Ghent was actually signed, they didn't really address the major problems, it was actually more like an Armistice. They did however come back later and negotiate the problems.

Impressment - when the Brittish and French would capture American ships and force them into their navies
Embargo - when the Americans stopped trading with the Brittish.