The main reason we went to war was because Western Congressmen wanted to invade and conquer Canada.
The whole Sailor impressment thing was a pretext - the New England states that had the sailors being impressed DESPERATELY did NOT want to go to war with Britain, and they actually came close to seceding because the hated the war so much.
We failed to conquer Canada. Hence, we lost.
This is actually a weird case where what you learned in school was both wrong and incomplete, but the truth SOUNDS like some sort of invented Left-wing revisionist America-hating clap-trap, but it isn’t.
As a matter of curiosity why would western congressmen want to invade and conquer a British colony to their north?
Not to mention the fact that the British had already conceded to the US on the point about impressement, news of which arrived a few days after the declaration of war. Despite this, the US decided to pursue the war anyway, to their profound disappointment...