My friend is in the War of 1812 and his name is Zachary John Alan

McMillan. He is a very brave and smart guy and he has become pretty famous because

of his smarts and his bravery. It was fought by the United States and Great Britain from

the June of 1812 to the spring of 1815. The U.S. declared war on Great Britain during

the war against France. Francis Scott Key wrote our national anthem, "The Star-Spangled

Banner" after an American Victory at Fort McHenry.

Zachary McMillan started out pretty low in the ranks when he went into the war

but came out of the war as a hero. My friend was the lookout guy on a warship at Lake

Erie when he spotted a suspicious ship off in the distance. He told the captain to get

the cannons out and tell everybody to get their guns ready to fire. The ship started to get

closer and it was a British ship and so everybody started firing and they hit the British

ship. The British didn't even get the chance to hit the American ship and so Zachary

McMillan saved everybody on the ship. Nobody got killed on the American ship

but they killed 75 British soldiers in this little burst of war. This was only one of the

many things that Zachary McMillan did to help him become famous in the war.

About 10 months after Zachary spotted the British ship and saved all of the

Americans that were on the ship, he was on the lookout again and he spotted something

very suspicious again. It was a big ship that looked different than the ship he saw 10

months ago. It seemed as if they were not trying to do anything because as they came

closer they were not getting any weapons ready. But Zachary McMillan told the captain

just like he did before to get everything ready for fighting. After he told them that, he

spotted a littler boat a little bit behind the big ship and saw about 12 guys in it. It looked

like they had something in that boat(like a weapon) and so he told everybody to get the

life boats out because it looked like they were trying to have a sneak attack. His plan was

to save most of the people by putting them on life boats because the British would go

after the American ship and not a life boat. By doing this he thought he could maybe have

a little sneak attack on the British too because they wouldn't be expecting them in life

boats. His plan sounded good to the captain and the American people on the boat, so they

put the life boats out and brought some weapons with them on the life boats to maybe

even put a sneak attack on the British. This plan worked really well because the British

attacked the American ship and not any of the life boats, so out of the 400 people on the

ship, only 25 Americans lost their lives. If Zachary McMillan didn't tell anybody about

the small boat or didn't see it, probably more than 150 Americans would have lost their

lives.