War Comes to Mount Welby

Mary Welby De Butts feared in a letter to her brother on April 2, 1812, that a quarrel with England could bring civil discord, and two months later the dispute between the United States and Great Britain became the War of 1812. The conflict had personal consequences for Samuel and Mary De Butts at Mount Welby, where one of the war’s most important battles was fought within a few miles of their home, where they fled for part of the war, and where they saw the power of the British Navy on the Potomac. The war’s causes were complex and stretched from the American frontier across the Atlantic Ocean: some Americans hoped to invade British Canada and annex its provinces, settlers believed British agents were encouraging American Indians to attack forts and settlements, westerners saw a chance to drive British troops from the frontier and conquer Indian lands, Great Britain stopped American merchant ships and sometimes confiscated their cargoes while searching for deserters, and by 1810 the British were forcing about 1,000 seamen a year from U.S. ships onto British vessels. Southerners also believed that if Britain lost a war with the United States, the Spanish territories of Florida and Texas, held by Britain’s ally Spain, might be opened to expansion.

Forest Heights, Maryland · United States