I hope I asked that right. I mean the stereotypical "stand in giant formation, march up to the enemy, stand and fire in a line" routine that you see on tv and in history books. Did we use that in 1812 or had we adopted a more modern "take cover" approach to battle? Forgive my ignorance, I don't know much about the terminology.
Not an expert of the War of 1812, but I believe this was still more or less the way things were done. At least, that's how the Napoleonic Wars were fought (with some exceptions, like the Peninsular War), a contemporaneous yet far larger conflict involving most of Europe.
Is it true there was an effort to introduce pikemen into the US army? I've seen it portrayed, but can't find much about it.
Paintings by contemporary artists sure make it look like they did. To see some of those paintings, and generally read about the war from a super-interesting non-U.S. perspective, see: http://www.warmuseum.ca/war-of-1812/explore-history/the-canadian-war/