America's second war against England was the strangest war she ever fought. Two days before it started, the British had agreed to one of America's chief demands, but America did not know it. Two weeks after the peace treaty was signed, Americans defeated the British in a great battle. They did not know the war had ended.

This was the only war against a foreign nation America ever fought when her own people were divided. It have aid and comfort to a country as guilty of offense as England. It ended in a lasting friendship between the two continents.

The War of 1812 gave America her national anthem. It also gave her heroes such as Captain Lawrence who, wounded and dying, urged his men not to give up the ship; the youthful Captain Perry who transferred his flag to the Niagara when his own ship was shot to pieces; Andrew Jackson and his Kentucky Riflemen.

Leonard Everett Fisher's drawings vividly dramatize the story of a strange but heroic war.

From the dust jacket