Through the Perilous Fight Read online

  The 1st District Regiment, under Colonel George Magruder, took position immediately left of the turnpike, while Colonel William Brent’s 2nd District Regiment set up behind Peter’s artillery. The 300 regulars of the 36th and 38th U.S. regiments, under Lieutenant Colonel William Scott, manned Peter’s left flank. Farther out on the left flank, Davidson and Stull posted their companies on high ground at the head of the ravine.

  Barney arrived ahead of the flotillamen and marines to scout his position. He would anchor the line, atop the turnpike, filling a gap between Beall’s Annapolis militia, posted on a hill to his right, and the District militia, to the left of the road. Hearing the guns up front firing, Barney sent an officer to hurry his men.

  Barney planted his heaviest artillery, two enormous eighteen-pounders, in the road, and three twelve-pounders to the right. Most of Captain Samuel Miller’s marines, bolstered by a contingent of flotillamen, were posted on Barney’s right to protect the guns. The battery was positioned directly on the border between Maryland and the District of Columbia, a last bastion guarding the capital of the United States. Said Barney, “[W]e took our position on the rising ground … and waited the approach of the enemy.”

  President Madison, accompanied by Monroe, Armstrong, and Rush, watched the battle on horseback from a position directly behind the front line, to the rear of the Washington Artillery. The early results had been encouraging. Then Armstrong pointed out some activity across the river in the village, where an enemy detachment was setting up equipment behind a warehouse. In a moment, the secretary announced, the president would personally see the infamous Congreve rockets in action.

  The rockets were a portable and versatile substitute for regular artillery. Sir William Congreve, the son of a British army officer, had adapted them from rockets used for centuries by the Chinese. Resembling skyrockets, they could be launched from a simple tripod and were notoriously inaccurate, but this added an element of fear. They flew at up to 200 miles per hour, hissing and roaring, trailing flame and smoke, sometimes changing direction in midflight, and exploded with a thunderous clap, showering shards of metal or case shot. British rockets had ignited a conflagration at Copenhagen in 1807 and terrified a column of French troops at Leipzig in 1813. Cockburn’s men had been using them in the Chesapeake for more than a year, from Havre de Grace to the battles with Barney’s flotilla at St. Leonard Creek. For most of raw American militia troops at Bladensburg, who had scarcely seen a cannon fire, they were weapons of terror.

  Congreve rockets photo. Resembling skyrockets, they could be launched from a simple tripod and were notoriously inaccurate, but this added an element of fear.

  British Congreve rocket used in the Chesapeake campaign.

  The first rockets flew high over the heads of the American frontline troops and sailed toward the rear. Several rockets whistled over the heads of the presidential party. “The enemy had saluted us with their rockets,” Monroe later noted wryly.

  Winder rode up to Madison and urged him to take “a more respectful distance.” Madison complied, though his concern was less about personal safety than for not interfering with military command now that the battle was under way. “After some pause, the President remarked to the Secretary of War and myself that it would now be proper for us to retire in the rear, leaving the military movement to military men, which we did,” Monroe recalled.

  The cabinet rode back to watch from a safer position behind the third American line, anchored by Barney. Armstrong fumed, believing that Madison had reneged on his earlier instructions that the secretary take a more active role. To the conspiracy-minded Armstrong, it was a deliberate slap. “I now became, of course, a mere spectator of the combat,” he said.

  BLADENSBURG BRIDGE, EARLY AFTERNOON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24

  The British in the village remained pinned down by American artillery. When a cannonball clipped the leg off a young British soldier, he looked quizzically at his comrades, as if wondering how to react.

  Colonel Thornton rode up on a gray horse, drawing his sword to rally the men. “Now my lads, forward!” Thornton called. “You see the enemy; you know how to serve them.” Galloping ahead, Thornton threw himself full length atop his horse and charged across the 120-foot-long bridge. The men followed, tossing their haversacks onto the street to lighten their loads. Even before they reached the crossing, the troops came under a hailstorm of musket fire as sharp as any encountered in France. Some troops balked at continuing, but officers prodded them forward and prevented their retreat.

  The Washington Artillery gun crews, with two six-pounders planted on the road ahead, waited until the enemy filled the bridge and then opened up, firing solid shot at 900 miles per hour. The opening barrage hit the British with deadly power, sweeping down seven men. But troops filled the gap and moved forward, stepping over the bodies of dead and dying comrades. Nervous American gunners rushed their subsequent fire. “[T]heir shots went generally clean over our heads,” said Lieutenant Furlong, of the 21st Fusiliers.

  Thornton emerged unharmed on the opposite bank, with the lead elements of the Light Brigade close behind. Watching from the village, Ross and Cockburn cheered. Ross instructed Captain Harry Smith to bring up the two remaining brigades as quickly as possible. Then he and Cockburn galloped to join Thornton’s men. “Come on my boys,” Ross called.

  A stream of troops crossed the bridge. More light troops emerged from hiding places in the village and dashed to the riverside. As they pressed across the shallow water, Pinkney’s riflemen poured fire on the British. But most made it across, taking temporary cover in the willow trees and bushes that lined the banks.

  Private Henry Fulford, a Baltimore militiaman positioned behind the artillery, was disconcerted to see the British advancing through the onslaught. “The fire I think, must have been dreadfully galling, but they took no notice of it,” he wrote in a letter two days later. “[T]heir men moved like clock-work: the instant a part of a platoon was cut down it was filled up by the men in the rear without the least noise and confusion whatever.” These were Wellington’s Invincibles, incomparable soldiers, driven by discipline and duty. It was a frightening sight for the American militia.

  The numbers of British crossing the river by the bridge or through the water grew by the minute. The soldiers expertly wheeled to the right or left as they crossed, forming lines. Light troops dashed into thickets along the riverbank, quickly clearing out American skirmishers.

  Thornton attacked the two Washington Artillery guns in the road, which were still laying heavy fire. Just short of the battery, the colonel’s horse was hit by a cannonball and sank to the ground, but Thornton alighted on the road and continued forward, saber aloft. The gun crews hastily abandoned their position.

  To Major Pinkney’s right, a company of militiamen fired one volley and promptly fled at the sight of the British bayonets. Nor could the Baltimore Artillery help. Though the British were in easy range, crews could not swing the guns in their oversize parapet to reach the enemy on their flank. Pinkney’s rifle battalion now faced the brunt of the British attack. They kept up their fire, but getting anxious, they hurried their shots as the British line pressed closer.

  The American front line disintegrated. Pinkney had given his men no order to retreat, but, he later said, they would have been “taken prisoner or cut to pieces” if they had stayed longer. Pinkney moved back with the last of his men. But as he did, a musket ball splintered the former attorney general’s arm. Several men moved him to a safer position, preventing the British from capturing the man who had drafted the declaration of war against their country.

  Winder, on the hill immediately behind the 5th Maryland, was unaware that his entire front line had collapsed until he saw Pinkney’s men running in his direction. His view from the second defensive line—the one chosen by Monroe—was blocked by the orchard. Nevertheless, he recognized the precariousness of the situation, particularly looking across the river, where a fresh column of British troops approac
hed the bridge. Meanwhile, the lead brigade under Thornton had swept past the abandoned American positions and continued forward, infiltrating the orchard and firing on the militia’s flank.

  Winder took quick action, ordering the 5th Maryland forward in the hope of restoring his front line before more British troops crossed. Joined by Pinkney’s battalion, the 600 men moved steadily down the hill in three ranks of blue. Once within range of the enemy, Sterett, the regimental commander, ordered a volley. The thunderous eruption of hundreds of muskets brought the British to a halt.

  But a new barrage of Congreve rockets restored the British momentum. The rocket teams shrewdly aimed at the ranks of raw militia rather than the more professional 5th Maryland troops. This time the rockets took horizontal flight, passing closely over the heads of Schutz’s and Ragan’s regiments. “[T]hey began to throw them very exact about middle high right through the ranks; and as we were near the center they came hot about us,” Ensign George Hoffman, in Ragan’s regiment, wrote his father.

  To Winder’s dismay, the rockets sparked a panic. “Here they come, here they come!” yelled the men, dropping their guns and fleeing. “A universal flight of these two regiments was the consequence,” reported the general. He galloped toward the men, screaming for them to halt.

  Hoffman’s company held long enough to fire a volley at the advancing British infantry. When the smoke cleared, Hoffman’s men had vanished. “I looked round and see them tumbling over the fence which was about 20 yards from us,” he wrote. Hoffman ran after them. “Form, form, for God’s sake halt,” he cried. The men ignored the young ensign, but they listened when Lieutenant Colonel Ragan, a cool-headed former regular, rode up. “Men, stand by me, the enemy are flying before us,” the colonel called. Somehow, Winder and his regimental commanders stopped the retreat. The general rode back to rejoin the 5th Maryland and resume the attack.

  By now, though, more British were on the way. Colonel Brooke’s 2nd Brigade, with 1,460 infantrymen, had crossed the bridge with orders from Ross to press the American flanks. One battalion, the 4th Foot, veered left to support the Light Brigade, while the other, the 44th Foot, went right to envelop the American left flank.

  For the militiamen, already jittery from the rockets and the fire from the orchard, the sight of approaching bayonets proved too much. Hoffman’s company had barely re-formed into ranks when the enemy appeared on rising ground in front of them and fired down at the militia. The men again broke, ignoring pleas to halt. Ragan once more tried to stop the collapse, but his horse was hit by fire. The colonel was thrown roughly to the ground and captured by the advancing British. Brigadier General Stansbury rode along the line, raging and cursing, and ordered his officers to “cut down those who attempted to fly.” Almost no one listened. Out of 1,300 men in the two militia regiments, only 80 remained. Winder had scarcely resumed his position when he looked back and saw the men “flying in the utmost precipitation and disorder.”

  The 5th Maryland’s right flank was completely exposed by the two fleeing regiments. Worried they would be enveloped, Winder ordered the 5th Maryland and the Washington Artillery on the left flank to retreat up the hill, intending to resume the fight from a safer position. The artillery officers ignored Winder and kept firing. Winder sharply repeated his order, and the artillerists reluctantly limbered their guns and moved back.

  Almost immediately, Winder second-guessed himself. Fearing the retreat might “produce some confusion” among the raw troops, he countermanded his order. Winder was right: His commands to advance, retreat, and advance again produced the utmost confusion. The artillery wagons had only moved back a short distance when Winder instructed the captain to unlimber one piece and “give them another fire.”

  But it was too late. The enemy was swarming near the American’s right flank, and Winder again ordered retreat. Steady until now, the 5th Maryland collapsed, its confidence shot by the confounding orders. The British fired at the backs of the retreating rear rank, setting off a panic.

  Private Henry Fulford ran for his life. “I shaped my course for a woods in the rear, where I intended to lay down and rest, being almost fatigued to death, but the bullets and grape shot flew like hailstones about me and I was compelled to make headway for a swamp,” he wrote two days later. The Washington Artillery likewise fled in disarray.

  Laval’s 1st U.S. Dragoons waited in the ravine where Monroe had set him, 1,500 yards back. The cavalry commander had little idea what was happening until he peeked over the edge. “All of a sudden our army seemed routed,” he reported. “They poured in torrents past us.” A panicked artillery company drove its wagons through the dragoons, knocking down horses and men alike and nearly crushing Laval’s leg. The commander waited in vain for orders from Winder, and then joined the retreat, under a shower of fire from an advancing enemy column.

  Said John Pendleton Kennedy, running in his dancing pumps, “We made a fine scamper of it.”

  The collapse of the first two American lines was disastrous, but its consequences grew graver still because the men retreated in the wrong direction. The British forces sweeping through the orchard pushed the Maryland militia northwest, toward the Georgetown Road, and away from the third and final American line, anchored on the Washington turnpike. The roads veered apart like the two arms of a Y.

  Though well versed by now in the art of retreat, Winder had failed to set a rallying point. Most of the retreating troops were unaware that a third line even existed, much less that they should head in its direction. Winder threw himself into the tide of troops and tried to redirect the men off the Georgetown Road toward the third American line, but he was too late. Pursued by the British, the Maryland militia raced up the Georgetown Road several miles to a point where it split in three directions. “Each individual, on the retreat, took the road that suited his inclination,” said Lieutenant John Law. The third line would have to fight on its own.

  Madison sent his servant, James Smith, to rush to the President’s House with a message: Dolley should leave immediately. The president moved back with Rush, grimly watching developments from hilltop to hilltop as they slowly rode toward Washington.

  THIRD AMERICAN LINE, MID-AFTERNOON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24

  Barney saw the American militia flee in chaos and knew the British would not be far behind. Soon he spotted a red-coated column of British troops cresting a rise on the turnpike. Major Peter’s Georgetown Artillery, positioned to Barney’s left on a bluff overlooking the road, bombarded the advancing force. The British continued forward, crossing a small bridge at the bottom of the ravine and moving up the hill.

  But the British halted when they saw Barney’s big guns positioned on the road, and then gingerly approached. Barney held his fire until the enemy advanced to within several hundred yards, then ordered one eighteen-pounder to fire. A mass of deadly grapeshot cleared the road.

  Colonel Thornton led a second British charge, and the men ran again headlong at Barney’s guns. Grape and canister shot mowed down almost every man on the road. The British were caught in a murderous crossfire between Peter’s rapid-firing six-pounders and Barney’s big guns, the heaviest artillery fire that Thornton had ever experienced. A third charge was equally ghastly. “[A]ll were destroyed,” Barney said succinctly. “Whole companies were cut down to a man as they approached our lines,” recalled Bacon, the marine quartermaster.

  Thornton had no taste for another direct onslaught at the guns, and instead attacked Barney’s right flank. The British colonel rode along the bottom of the ravine, protected from American fire. After a short distance, Thornton dismounted and led a charge across an open field toward Barney’s guns, five hundred yards up the hill.

  Barney saw his opening. He ordered his infantry—Captain Miller’s marines and the spare flotillamen—to charge the British line. At the same time, the commodore poured destructive grape and canister shot on the British flank. Thornton was still running, sword in the air, and was within fifty yards of Barney’s position
when a musket ball tore into his upper thigh, splintering the bone. He tumbled to the ground, where he was further peppered by grapeshot. Without the fearless Thornton at its head, the British charge lost all momentum.

  Cutlasses raised, the charging marines and seamen took the British utterly by surprise. “Board them!” the sailors cried. The Americans drove the British back two hundred yards into the woods. Thornton lay on the ground grievously wounded as Barney’s men passed close by, then he rolled unnoticed down the ravine, hoping to escape.

  The British tried to rally. An army lieutenant sprang to his feet to lead a charge but had hardly taken a step when a musket ball hit him in the neck and he fell, instantly dead. Major Francis Brown, commander of the British advance party, led a small detachment up the ravine to attack Peter’s Georgetown Artillery, but they encountered stiff resistance from infantry guarding the guns. Brown had just called to his men to take cover when he was struck by canister shot and fell unconscious. The ravine had turned into a killing field.

  Major Peter thought the moment right for a counterattack that would devastate the British and carry the day for the Americans. The 300 untested regulars from the 36th and 38th U.S. Infantry regiments stood at the ready. “There was a sufficient number of troops in the rear of my guns … to have repulsed the enemy,” Peter later wrote, “killed and crippled as they were at that moment.”

  But General Winder had already decided to retreat. The collapse of the front lines had shaken the American commander. Riding to the third American line after his failed attempt to redirect the Maryland militia, he knew nothing of the devastating crossfire laid on the British by the guns of Barney and Peter, or the shocking repulse of the Invincibles by the marines and flotillamen. Nor did he know that the District militia were standing firm on the third line, as were the U.S. regulars and Beall’s Annapolis militia.