Regular Army (United States) - War of 1812

War of 1812

In January 1812, with the threat of war with Britain looming larger, Congress authorized the army to add ten more regiments of infantry, which were to be larger than the existing regiments and authorized the President to call 50,000 militiamen into service, but in June 1812 Congress authorized a total of 25 infantry regiments of equal strength for the Regular Army. All the while the States competed with the Federal government for soldiers with shorter terms of enlistment for their regiments. Congress then directed the creation, in January 1813, of twenty new infantry regiments enlisted for just one year. Nineteen of them were raised. Early in 1814 four more infantry regiments and three more regiments of riflemen were constituted. These 48 regiments of infantry and 4 rifle regiments were the greatest number of infantry units included in the Regular Army until the First World War. Despite this increase in Regular Army units, nine out of ten infantrymen in the War of 1812 were militiamen.

At the end of the war, by an act of March 1815, Congress set the peace establishment of the Regular Army at 10,000 men, divided among 8 infantry regiments, 1 rifle regiment; and artillery regiments, but no cavalry regiments. In effect, most of the new regiments raised for the War of 1812 were treated as if they were volunteer regiments raised for the duration of the war and disbanded at its end.