Fifth president of the United States, Monroe had been a heroic officer during the Revolutionary War, suffering a serious wound at the Battle of Trenton and surviving the bitter winter at Valley Forge. He won election to the Presidency two years after the War of 1812, which President James Madison had provoked by invading Canada. Before it ended, a British invasion left the public buildings in Washington gutted by fire.

With British troops still poised to attack the nation from the north, Spanish troops threatening from the South, and Indian tribes slaughtering farmers in the West, Monroe abandoned Madison’s warlike policies in favor of strong defensive measures to make the nation impregnable to attack by foreign enemies. He reinforced existing defenses, then expanded our national boundaries to the na