The Civil War of 1812.

Cougar face 
  Alan Taylor refers the war of 1812  as a civil war in a history book called "The Civil war Of 1812", and this book covers this border war between what would become Canada and the United states. This amounted to pretty much a civil war in this region as people fought on both sides and it split communities and families. In addition this was a large Indian war as Indians fought patriots and the crown in their failed attempt to carve out an independent chiefdom when the British abandoned their grandeur plan. This book looks at the complicated peace that lasted after the American revolution and the numerical disadvantage the British subjects and Indians faced with growing American domination and population. The land pressures to push West of the Appalachian mountains untimely would drag the British into another war in support of their Indian allies which they needed as some sort of counter balance to protect their fledgling North American empire. People talk about the British Empire of this era being some big power but as Alan points out this empire only has a hundred thousand subjects in Canada and was threatened as much by American land expansion as the Native Americans. This book gives a credible account of life in this era and the dangers settlers faced in time of warfare to atrocious forms of terror masked as warfare. The daily struggles of both loyalists and patriots in leaving the family farm and forming militias was a constant problem and threats of war finally erupted as republican law makers finally decided to throw off British presence entirely in North America and conquer Canada. They did not achieve this dream but the war turned out to be a disaster for Indians as it proved the last time they could count of foreign intervention and help. This is a war that is often misunderstood and can in some ways instead of being called a civil war could be called an extension of the American revolution. Empires do not give up easily and British power was at its zenith and perhaps a weaker America would of fell and had to live under the king again. this was a war of many traitors and brave soldiers from both sides and the fighting among the most intense seen in world history as the outcome was crucial for all three parties. Armies would just pretty much help themselves to provisions from struggling farms and for a while this war threatened the very existence of these communities in the path just to financially survive all the plundering that was necessary to feed these armies. Taylor does a good job with this war and describing the constant state of  turbulent times and  that for a few decades brought cross border warfare and hatred  existed as it would a hundred years later in Europe.The only thing that prevented this magnitude of bloodshed in the War of 1812 in North American continent was less technology and population on the British and loyalist side.