Two hundred years ago today, on November 5, 1814, United States troops evacuated Fort Erie, in Ontario, and withdrew across the Niagara River to Buffalo, N.Y. (or what was left of it after the British had burned the place down less than a year earlier). Although the War of 1812 was not quite over, the withdrawal inaugurated 200 years of uninterrupted peace along the U.S.-Canada border — except for the occasional border skirmish, rambunctious pig, or high-spirited band of Irishmen.