Through the Perilous Fight Read online

  Forces were converging on Bladensburg from all points on the map. Militia and regular army troops, cavalry regiments, and artillery wagons clogged the turnpike from Washington. The poorly conditioned citizen soldiers of the District militia were falling out of formation and lagging behind in the stifling heat, terrible even by the wretched standards of August in the Chesapeake.

  Behind the District militia, Commodore Barney led a procession of flotillamen and marines up the road. Horses and mules hauled big guns and wagons loaded with powder and ammunition. “The day was hot, and my men very much crippled from the severe marches we had experienced the preceding days,” Barney reported. The commodore had managed to procure shoes that morning to replace those lost when the flotilla was abandoned, but the new footwear was torturous on the men’s feet.

  Last of all came Colonel Minor’s Virginia militia regiment, delayed by their hunt for guns and ammunition. After being brushed off by Armstrong the previous evening, Minor searched all morning in vain for the officer in charge of the armory. Finally, Winder gave orders for their arms, but at the armory, the men endured an excruciating wait while a young clerk painstakingly double-counted the flints needed to fire the guns. When his men finally marched off with their weapons, Minor had to wait to sign receipts.

  ADDISON CHAPEL, LATE MORNING, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24

  Ross wanted to get to Bladensburg before the Americans did. The Light Brigade led the way, scouring fields, thickets, and ravines. The men marched in quickstep, three paces at a trot, followed by three walking. By 9 a.m. the invading army emerged from the woods and marched through open country. “The sun … now beat upon us in full force; and the dust rising in thick masses from under our feet, without a breath of air to disperse it,” wrote Lieutenant Gleig. Many men fell behind and some collapsed altogether. Captain Thomas Falls, Ross’s aide, slumped off his horse, a victim of sunstroke.

  But they kept marching. By 10 a.m., after nine debilitating miles, Ross halted at Addison Chapel, a gable-roofed brick sanctuary, allowing the men to rest and stragglers to catch up. Soldiers threw themselves on the shady grass by a nearby stream and instantly fell asleep. Ross let them recover for more than an hour before resuming the march to Bladensburg, just four miles away.

  BLADENSBURG, LATE MORNING, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24

  Francis Scott Key, riding on horseback and dressed in civilian clothes, arrived at Bladensburg ahead of the troops from Washington, accompanying his neighbor, Brigadier General Walter Smith, commander of the District militia. Key was acting as a civilian aide to Smith, a lay leader at their Georgetown church. Key helped Smith scout for positions to place his troops. Key had no skills as a military tactician, but he at least knew the terrain around Bladensburg well from many visits over the years.

  They selected high ground overlooking a gentle ravine about a half mile to the rear of Stansbury’s Maryland militia. Smith rode off to iron out command details with Stansbury, leaving Key to direct the arriving District troops into position. The troops were not yet in sight, but shortly before noon, Key intercepted Winder as he arrived from Washington.

  Key “informed me that he had thought that the troops coming from the city could be most advantageously posted on the right and left of the road near that point,” Winder wrote. Key was acting at the behest of Smith, but Winder, well acquainted with Key from Maryland legal circles, was annoyed by the presumption of his fellow attorney in telling him how to array his army. As Key dashed about on his horse to show Winder the positions, Smith rode up. Winder, impatient with the delay, quickly approved the plan and left Smith and Key to oversee the positioning of the District militia.

  Up front, another cloud of dust could be seen rising across the river. The Maryland troops manning the line spotted bayonets glittering in the midday sun, and distant glimpses of troops in red tunics approaching Bladensburg from the south. This time, there was no doubt it was the British.

  Major Pinkney moved among the companies at the front, giving last-minute instructions. But he was distressed to see the blue-uniformed 5th Maryland Regiment troops in the orchard behind the men were gone. The regiment “had now, to the great discouragement of my companies and of the artillery, been made to retire to a hill several hundred yards in our rear … where it could do little more than display its gallantry,” he wrote.

  Likewise, Brigadier General Stansbury, giving direction to the artillery, watched in astonishment as his 1st and 2nd regiments marched out of the orchard and up the hill, and formed a battle line about 250 yards above the orchard, more than five hundred yards behind the front line. The displaced troops were no longer covered by orchard, and worse, were too far back now to support the front line. “Whose plan this was, I know not; it was not mine; nor did it meet with my approbation,” Stansbury reported.

  The plan belonged to Colonel Monroe, who had arrived at the scene and did not like Stansbury’s arrangement. The secretary of state concluded that the left side of the American line was exposed and could be easily flanked by the enemy. Though he had no authority, Monroe decided to rearrange the troops. The regimental commanders did not question the order from the secretary of state. Even as he did it, Monroe disavowed responsibility. “Although you see that I am active, you will please … bear in mind that this is not my plan,” he told Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Sterett, the 5th Maryland commander. Monroe also sent the Annapolis militia to a hill in the rear and directed Lieutenant Colonel Jacint Laval’s cavalry squadron to a ravine so deep that the commander was unable to see anything.

  Monroe would later say he acted “with reluctance and in haste.” To a friend, he defended his actions, saying he had filled a vacuum. “I advanced myself on the lines … because I not only thought I might be useful, but that there appeared to me to be a necessity for it,” Monroe wrote.

  Stansbury rode back in a fury to find out who had moved his men and found the secretary of state. Before Stansbury could learn what had happened, Winder joined them, and Stansbury promptly dropped the matter. Monroe adroitly informed Winder that he had been “aiding” Stansbury in posting his troops and suggested Winder take a moment to examine the positions.

  Winder appeared to recognize that the troops were not in support of one another, but he did nothing to correct it, perhaps unwilling to countermand the orders of Monroe. In any event, with the appearance of the British across the river, there was little time left.

  Winder made a few adjustments, moving more firepower up front. Two guns from the Washington Artillery were rushed up and placed in the road within range of the bridge. But the general would go to battle with his troops in positions that he had almost nothing to do with selecting.

  BLADENSBURG, NOON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24

  A cheer rose from the American troops as President Madison arrived on the scene. The president, accompanied by Attorney General Rush and James Smith, his servant, rode doggedly ahead, searching for General Winder, who he assumed was in Bladensburg. In his haste Madison failed to notice that he had ridden past the American lines into a no-man’s-land between two opposing armies.

  Madison’s party was about to cross the bridge into Bladensburg when they encountered an American scout riding in the opposite direction. It was William Simmons, a former War Department accountant well known to Madison. The president had fired him in July for “rudeness to his superiors.” Hard feelings notwithstanding, Simmons had volunteered his services to scout Bladensburg. From atop Lowndes Hill, he had watched the British advance until they reached the town. Simmons dashed back across the bridge toward American lines, where he ran almost headfirst into the president. “Mr. Madison, the enemy are now in Bladensburg,” Simmons called.

  Madison was shocked. “The enemy in Bladensburg!” the president repeated. The president and his companions reined back their horses and dashed back toward American lines—so fast, by Simmons account, that Rush’s hat blew off. Not only was Madison the first American president to arrive on a battlefield—and the only one, save Abraham Lincoln
during the Civil War—he had nearly become the first American president to be captured or killed in battle.

  Madison found Winder conferring behind the lines with Armstrong and Monroe. The president asked Armstrong if he had consulted with Winder about troop positions. When the secretary said he had not, Madison told him that it “might not be too late.” Armstrong dutifully complied. The president wanted to join the conversation, but his borrowed horse began bucking, and he was unable to hear a word. Madison did not miss much. Armstrong gave no suggestions, telling the president afterward that the troop disposition “appeared to be as good as circumstances admitted.”

  Winder’s troops, many of them still huffing their way from Washington, totaled about 5,500 men. Most were militia, including about 3,000 from Maryland and 1,100 from the District of Columbia. The remainder included 500 flotillamen, 120 marines, and several hundred U.S. Army regulars from several infantry and cavalry units.

  Winder rode forward a few yards, exhorting the troops on the front line to be firm. A messenger arrived with word of a great American victory in Canada, and Winder ordered the news given to the men. The report was not true, but that hardly mattered at the moment, and the troops broke out in hearty cheers.

  Rush, the son of Benjamin Rush, the famed Philadelphia physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, thought it appropriate to say a few words. A staunch Madison loyalist, the thirty-three-year-old Rush was an early and enthusiastic supporter of war with Britain, and had replaced Pinkney as attorney general when the latter resigned in January 1814 to resume private practice. Though he lacked Pinkney’s stature, Rush was considered a rising star in the Republican party. But Rush had barely begun exhorting the Baltimore troops when he was cut off by an angry militia officer, who told the attorney general that his men did not need to be told their duty.

  BLADENSBURG, 12:30 P.M., WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24

  The final push to Bladensburg was the hardest march yet for the British invaders. Laboring under heavy loads and miserable in their wool uniforms, their mouths open and gasping for breath, the troops were goaded on by officers. “Our poor fellows being so tired, from the long march of the morning and the excessive heat of the day, that many of them striving to keep up, fell down from actual fatigue, and breathed their last,” wrote Colonel Brooke, commander of the 2nd Brigade. The Light Brigade, with lesser loads, reached the town outskirts around 12:30, but the remaining two brigades lagged several miles behind and rushed to catch up. A dozen soldiers, apparent victims of heatstroke, were left dead along the way.

  The road, which had run parallel to the Eastern Branch, veered left to the town. The Americans abruptly came into view, arrayed on the rising ground across the river. Ross paused outside of town. It seemed unlikely that the Americans would have completely abandoned Bladensburg. At the least, they might have positioned sharpshooters in the brick buildings. Ross directed Major Francis Brown, commander of the advance party, to probe and clear the town.

  Word came back that Bladensburg was indeed empty. Ross, accompanied by Cockburn and other officers, climbed a hill to look over the American lines. From the second floor of a house on the slope, they had a good view of the terrain across the river and into the city limits beyond. Ross examined the enemy positions with his spyglass.

  The American forces were arrayed in a triangle; the first line had guns trained on the bridge and town, and a second line of troops was positioned about a quarter mile to its rear. Farther back, Ross could see a third line being formed—the arriving troops of the District militia. To Ross, the Americans appeared “strongly posted on very commanding heights,” with a large cavalry force and worrisome artillery positions. He put their overall strength at eight or nine thousand; like the Americans, the British tended to overestimate the size of the enemy.

  The terrain favored the Americans. First the British would have to fight their way across the river under heavy fire. Then they would find themselves in low, marshy ground, facing an uphill assault for several hundred yards against American positions.

  The American troops were not terribly impressive-looking, it was true, with their motley collection of uniforms. Some were in black coats, others green; some in shooting jackets, others round frocks. Some looked like they had come straight from the farm; others appeared to be on their way to church. A few units looked more professional, including the 5th Maryland in the handsome blue uniforms, which reminded the Wellington veterans of the French army.

  As Ross scanned the American lines, he was joined by Colonel William Thornton, commander of the Light Brigade. The Irish-born Thornton was a brave and impetuous Peninsular War veteran awarded the gold medal for bravery in France, and he urged Ross to seize the initiative with an immediate attack. Cockburn supported the idea, considering it a “dashing measure.”

  But some of Ross’s staff were taken aback by Thornton’s proposal, believing it rash in the face of artillery. Most of the British force had not even arrived, and those who had were exhausted. Captain Harry Smith recommended Ross probe the defenses, look for a crossing point above the bridge, and make a feint to draw off the enemy. Smith was pointing out American gun positions when Thornton cut off the younger officer and again pressed for an immediate attack. “I positively laughed at him,” Smith recalled. “He got furiously angry with me.” Smith protested that an attack would be “mad” without the support of the remaining two British brigades, more than a mile behind. Barely a third of his 4,200-man army was available to attack a defending American force clearly larger than the British.

  From the start of the invasion, Ross had moved cautiously, and some of those present wondered if he might yet call off the attack. “What will be said of us in England if we stop now,” one officer, possibly Cockburn, mused aloud for Ross to hear. Yet Ross was hardly a timid soldier. At Vitoria, Pamplona, Maida, and many other battlefields in Spain and Italy, he had proven he could carry forward an attack against a strong enemy. Surely the American militia would not be so formidable, as Cockburn had told him many times.

  Bypassing Bladensburg by heading north was not a particularly good option. The lack of roads and dense woods would make it difficult, if not impossible, to swing around to Washington, and Ross would be exposing his rear to American attack.

  It was obvious the American lines across the river were not in supporting distance of one another—potentially a fatal flaw. Ross could see something else. Much of the American force was still arriving. He would wait no longer. Ross ordered an immediate attack.

  The British were caught in a murderous crossfire.

  Final Stand at Bladensburg, showing U.S. Marines, part of Commodore Joshua Barney’s force, firing 12-pound cannon and muskets at the advancing British.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Battle for Washington

  BLADENSBURG, 12:30 P.M., WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24

  Two columns of British troops trotted down Lowndes Hill “in a very fine style,” noted Major William Pinkney, watching from the American front line across the river. Drums beat and bugles sounded as the enemy soldiers moved down the main street of Bladensburg toward the bridge, showing little fear, to the discomfort of the Americans.

  No one could explain why the bridge was still standing. Brigadier General Stansbury had ordered a party of cavalry to destroy the narrow wooden span with axes when the enemy drew near. “Why this order was not executed I never could learn,” Stansbury later said. Possibly, the plan had been delayed to allow the Annapolis regiment to cross, and then was overlooked in the confusion. The Eastern Branch was fordable just above Bladensburg, but the bridge would allow the British a much quicker crossing, even though exposed to deadly fire.

  When the British reached the foot of the bridge, Winder opened fire with the six-pound guns of the Baltimore Artillery. After so long without any American resistance, the British seemed surprised by the barrage, and several fell. The rest quickly dispersed, taking cover behind buildings and trees. The guns kept a sharp fire, but the British stayed
out of sight; the Americans could get only occasional glimpses of redcoats as they dashed between houses.

  The Americans whooped and hollered, to the irritation of the British troops. “[T]hey set up three cheers, thinking, I dare say, that we were panic-struck with their appearance,” said Lieutenant Charles Furlong, an officer with the 21st Fusiliers. A Scottish soldier, his arm shattered by shot, took shelter on a house doorstep and called back with a warning: “Dinna hallo, my fine lads, you’re no’ yet out of the wood. Wait a wee bit, wait a wee, with your skirling.”

  The sounds of the guns ahead spurred the troops from Washington, who were nearing the end of their five-mile race to Bladensburg. The temperature had reached 98 degrees—blood heat—and was still rising. Coated with dust and stricken with thirst, the men clutched their muskets to their chests as they hurried forward.

  The District troops rushed to form a third line on high ground overlooking a ravine, about a mile from the Bladensburg bridge. The new American line was so far back that Stansbury and Pinkney—as well as the vast majority of Maryland militia manning the first and second lines—had no idea it existed. The orchard blocked their view to the rear. Nor did Winder bother to inform them. “In a word, I was ignorant of any reinforcements,” Pinkney later said.

  Francis Scott Key rode up and down the dusty turnpike and across fields, directing the arriving troops to the positions chosen with General Smith, the District militia commander. Major Peter arrived ahead of his Georgetown Artillery battery, and Key escorted him to a site commanding the ravine and road. Peter, however, considered it too isolated and “no position for light artillery.” To Smith’s displeasure, Peter chose a spot farther back that retained a commanding field of fire.