Given that in 1812 we was fighting the then world superpower I do not think we did badly at all. If we had some good generals at the start in the Canada campaign we would had likely even won Canada from the British Empire!
http://www.jmu.edu/madison/gpos225-madison2/war1812.htm
In 1814, the British defeated the U.S. forces at the Battle of Bladensburg and burned the White House. But the British victory was more important for its impact on morale than for its strategic value. The same British force was turned back both on land and sea at Baltimore. The American defense of Fort McHenry was to inspire Francis Scott Key to write the words to the Star Spangled Banner.
In response to the embarrassment at Washington, Madison forced the resignation of the Secretary of War, John Armstrong. After a delay, Madison appointed Monroe to the post. Monroe thus served simultaneously as Secretary of State and Secretary of War.
That same year, disaster loomed as 10,000 experienced British troops under command of Sir George Prevost marched from Montreal along Lake Champlain and down the Hudson Valley toward New York City with the intention of cutting the country in two. The British had attempted the same strategy in the Revolutionary War with an army of 9,500 marching south under General John Burgoyne: the Hudson Valley invited this strategy. However, on September 11, 1814, an American fleet commanded by Captain Thomas Macdonough destroyed the British fleet on Lake Champlain. The British army, with its lines of communication and supply jeopardized, fought poorly and retreated into Canada. (Perhaps Prevost remembered that Burgoyne had been forced to surrender the 5,000 man remnant of his army at Saratoga.)
Ten thousand British regulars had accomplished nothing except to galvanize the Americans to seize control of Lake Champlain. In addition, the British had lost control of Lake Erie and suffered defeat at the Battle of the Thames the year before. Tecumseh, the great Native-American leader died at the Battle of the Thames and with him died the last hopes for an alliance of the Nations of the U.S. territories. When the Duke of Wellington, hero of the European wars. proved reluctant to take command of British forces in North America, the British decided to end the war without making territorial claims. The U.S. was happy to emerge from the war without losses, and the peace treaty, the Treaty of Ghent (December 24, 1814), provided for essentially the status quo ante bellum (the situation before the war).
By the end of the War of 1812, it was regarded as a great success and set off an outburst of national patriotism. Three of our great icons -- the Star Spangled Banner, "Old Ironsides," and Uncle Sam -- date from this war. The two victorious generals of the west, Andrew Jackson (New Orleans) and William Henry Harrison (Tippecanoe and the Thames), would go on to be the seventh and ninth Presidents of the United States respectively.
Left: Uncle Sam by James Montgomery Flagg.
