you know in 1812 two big wars happened 

In the US the war of 1812 were relatively new nation the USA was almost re-conquered by Britain 

And the second was France Vs Russia two of the biggest empires at the time. and Napolean leading the french who had been pretty much undefeated invaded with the largest force ever assembled up to that point against the biggest country in the world where they steam rolled the nation then the largest battle to ever occur at the time atleast 70,000 dead being more bloody then Gettysburg with 40,000. and the defending of Moscow and even with that the French became the first and only foreign army to capture Moscow. However because of the stiff resistance and attempted military coup first Napoleon then his army began to retreat, and with over 500,000 french men and supporters of France and  200,000 horses and atleast 200,000 Russians and even more thousands of civilians dying of the war and starvation is unknown the total comes well above 1,000,000 human losses.

But which one do they teach in the US and Canada ?