Free Trade and Sailors' Rights focuses on the War of 1812 in thirteen different sections and three appendixes. The first section covers American, British, and Canadian texts and the historiography of the war. Seven more sections concern the war in the West, along the Atlantic seaboard, and in the Southwest. The ninth section concentrates on the war at sea. The last four sections are titled tactical, politics and peace, miscellaneous (the subjects include prisons, ethnics, blacks, finance, and archaeology), and manuscripts. The subjects of the three appendixes are newspapers, regimental service, and a chronology of the war. A nine-page index to the more than 5,000 entries completes the compilation.

Includes index.