Through the Perilous Fight Read online

  Yet Monroe, perhaps wary after his tactical disaster at Bladensburg, left command in Baltimore to Smith, who in any event was paying little attention to Washington.

  CHESAPEAKE BAY, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4

  Aboard Tonnant, Ross and Cochrane set sail Sunday evening with most of the fleet from the mouth of the Patuxent, preparing to depart the Chesapeake. They would stop first at Tangier to shuffle troops and supplies for the sail north.

  Cochrane had distributed a dispatch to be read Sunday aboard all the ships. “The commander in chief cannot permit the fleet to separate without congratulating the flag officers, captains, commanders, officers, seamen and marines upon the brilliant success which has attended the combined exertions of the Army and Navy employed within the Chesapeake,” Cochrane declared. The Capitol, the “Palace of the President,” and other public buildings “have all been either destroyed or rendered useless,” he added.

  But the days of glory in the bay were passing, it seemed. Cockburn was ordered to sail Albion, filled with prize tobacco, to Bermuda, and then rendezvous with Cochrane off Rhode Island. “Further operations in this quarter appeared to be abandoned,” wrote Lieutenant Scott. Rear Admiral Malcolm would sail separately with the army aboard the troop transports.

  A smaller force of thirteen ships would stay in the Chesapeake. Those staying behind could not help but feel disappointed. “We shall feel the dull monotony of a tedious winter in the Chesapeake,” wrote Captain Robert Rowley. “The Army gone, God knows where.”

  PATAPSCO RIVER, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5

  If Francis Scott Key was pessimistic about the prospects of the mission to rescue Dr. Beanes, John Skinner was downright dubious. At least they would be done with it quickly. Skinner dashed off a letter to General Mason as he and Key sailed Monday morning from Baltimore down the Patapsco River in search of the British. “We are now on our way to and expect to find them in the Patuxent and hope to be back on Wednesday night,” Skinner wrote.

  He added a postscript: “To get Doctor Beanes upon giving a receipt under the circumstances is as much as I expect—if not more—making allowance for the opinion and feelings of enemy,” Skinner wrote. From long experience, Skinner knew Cockburn was unforgiving in matters of honor. It was obvious Ross felt the same way.

  After the letter was posted from the shore, they continued into the Chesapeake Bay, passing a landscape familiar to Key from his days at Annapolis. The ship and its crew of nine seamen was captained by John Ferguson, the packet’s co-owner. But as the government’s agent, Skinner was in overall command of the mission.

  Skinner was “a man of mingled character of daring and pernicious principles, or restless and rash, and yet of useful and honorable enterprise,” John Quincy Adams would later write. “Ruffian, patriot and philanthropist are so blended in him that I cannot appreciate him without a mingled sentiment of detestation and esteem.”

  Skinner was as “a man of mingled character of daring and pernicious principles, or restless and rash, and yet of useful and honorable enterprise,” John Quincy Adams would later write. “Ruffian, patriot and philanthropist are so blended in him that I cannot appreciate him without a mingled sentiment of detestation and esteem.”

  John Stuart Skinner in 1825.

  The twenty-six-year-old Skinner, from an old, well-to-do family, had been raised on a plantation in southern Maryland’s Calvert County. His upbringing left him with a lifelong fascination with agriculture and field sports—the science of plowing and fox hunting were two particular passions—but like Key, he studied law in Annapolis. After the war started, Madison appointed him inspector of mail from Europe, which arrived in Annapolis on British ships under a truce agreement. The sensitive job involved keeping America’s transatlantic communications secure, and Skinner’s skill soon led to his appointment to a second job as agent for prisoners of war.

  This even more delicate position required regular contact with the British fleet. The good relations Skinner had cultivated with Cockburn and other British officers had paid off. In Annapolis, he would often climb the steps of the State House to the cupola, where he could scan a long stretch of the Chesapeake for enemy maneuvering. Together with odd scraps of conversations with British officers about sailing dates and destinations, and newspaper accounts regarding the location of ships, Skinner sent regular reports to the State Department filled with useful military intelligence. The government moved him from Annapolis to Baltimore in the fall of 1813, when he was assigned the additional job of purser for Barney’s flotilla.

  Despite Skinner’s reservations, he and Key were well matched for the mission. Key brought “tact and persuasive manners” to the mission, Skinner later noted. For his part, Skinner knew how to deal with the British.

  WHITE HOUSE LANDING, NOON, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5

  After three days of backbreaking work, Devastation was finally freed from the Potomac River mud Monday morning. Just as propitiously for the British, a cool front swept in and the wind turned fair. Gordon finally had his opportunity to escape past Captain Porter’s battery.

  The battle on the Potomac was now in its fourth day. Meteor had been joined by Aetna and rocket ship Erebus to continue a fierce bombardment of the battery. The British “rain[ed] down rockets, bomb shells and cannon balls on us as if heaven and earth were coming together,” recalled Thomas Brown, an aide to General John Hungerford, the commander of Virginia militia troops at the battery. Porter had nonetheless built up the position to include thirteen guns, entrenchments, and a furnace for heating shot.

  Neither side had been able to gain an advantage. The British attempted a landing to storm the guns, but pickets repulsed them. Rodgers’s men had launched another fireship attack Sunday night on Devastation while the bomb ship still lay aground, but retreated after a sharp fight with the British barges in the bright moonlight. A final attempt Monday morning likewise failed.

  Making good use of the wind, Gordon gave the signal to weigh anchor shortly after noon Monday. On the bluffs above White House Landing, the waiting Americans saw the British sails unfurl and a line of warships approaching. The 38–gun Seahorse and 36–gun Euryalus led the way, sailing through heavy but ill-directed fire from the American guns. Gordon had modified his frigates so his guns could reach the high bluff, weighting the port side with ballast to raise the guns on the starboard side. Taking position broadside to the battery, the frigates dropped anchor and opened a devastating fire. The first two shots fired from Seahorse took out American guns, splitting one to the touchhole and knocking the other off its carriage.

  The British “rain[ed] down rockets, bomb shells and cannon balls on us as if heaven and earth were coming together,” recalled Thomas Brown.

  The American battery on the Belvoir Neck, commanding the Potomac channel from atop a bluff at White House Landing.

  Broadsides rained in on the outgunned Americans, and the bluffs were enveloped in smoke. Each of the frigates carried vastly more firepower than the entire battery. Behind them came the bomb ships, firing lethal shells loaded with musket balls. After more than an hour of heavy fire, American casualties were mounting, and it was clear they could no longer hold back the squadron. “I determined not to make a useless sacrifice,” Porter reported. By 3 p.m. the battery had fallen silent.

  But the British still had to contend with militia sharpshooters from the mountains of western Virginia. Hiding in the trees along the shore, they took a deadly toll on sailors on the decks and in the rigging. Napier was hit in the neck by a musket ball, but the wound was slight.

  The British fired immense quantities of round shot, grape, and rockets on the Virginians, who held up “notwithstanding the dreadful cross fire of every species of missive,” Hungerford said. While the British bombardment continued, the brig Fairy escorted the convoy of prize ships past the American position unharmed, aided by a strong wind. “[W]e calculated all was over for that day,” recalled Napier. “We were mistaken.”

  Across the river, on the Maryland shore
about six miles downstream, Captain Oliver Perry was waiting. Joined by the Georgetown and Washington light artillery companies, Perry had taken position at Indian Head, which like the battery at White House Landing commanded the Potomac passage from cliffs overlooking the river channel.

  The encounter began disastrously for the British. Erebus, trying to slip past Indian Head early in the evening, grounded within range of the battery, and the Americans poured fire on the rocket ship. The bomb ships came to her rescue, unleashing a furious fusillade at Perry’s position, and finally silencing the battery at around 8 p.m. Gordon anchored for the night, prepared to resume the battle in the morning.

  But appearances aside, Perry’s battery at Indian Head was weak. Baltimore’s refusal to part with its guns had made it impossible to collect the heavy artillery needed. Perry only had one eighteen-pounder, which arrived thirty minutes before the firing began. The Georgetown and Washington artilleries kept up a spirited fire with their six-pound cannons, but the small shot did little damage.

  At daylight Tuesday, Gordon weighed anchor, expecting a heavy fight. But to the surprise of the British, they passed beneath Indian Head unmolested. Perry had run out of ammunition and retreated during the night.

  Over the course of five days, the battle along the Potomac had cost the British 7 dead and 35 wounded, while the Americans had lost 12 dead and some 20 wounded, most of them Virginia militia who bravely held their ground at Porter’s battery. The Americans “behaved remarkably well—but their efforts were useless,” Napier wrote. The British squadron now had clear sailing down the Potomac. Gordon had sprung the trap.

  Samuel Smith would keep more than 10,000 men, representing the bulk of his force, in the trenches on Hampstead Hill.

  Assembly of the Troops Before the Battle of Baltimore

  CHAPTER 13

  The Town Must Be Burned

  CHESAPEAKE BAY, MORNING, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7

  George Uockburn had resigned himself to leaving the Chesapeake, swallowing his disappointment over the failure to attack Baltimore. Aboard Albion, he parted from Cochrane and the fleet Wednesday morning and sailed south from Tangier toward the Atlantic Ocean, destination Bermuda. But Albion had not gained more than eight or ten miles when the ship received a signal from Vice Admiral Cochrane: Turn back.

  It took the convergence of the sun, earth, and moon—and the fateful arrival of intriguing news—for the British to reverse course.

  Cochrane had learned that the approaching equinoctial new moon made “it unsafe to proceed immediately out of the Chesapeake,” he later informed the Admiralty. The new moon was less than a week away, on September 13, while the autumnal equinox would take place September 22. A new moon coinciding at or near the date of the equinox, when the sun crosses the equator, creates the year’s highest tides and strongest tidal currents. In the confines of the Chesapeake Bay, the currents presented a threat to the large British ships. If the British tried to depart the Chesapeake now, the fleet would face dangerous conditions at the mouth of the bay, where the tides would be strongest. The ships would have to wait a week or two before they tried to sail out, Cochrane decided.

  Expedition commanders suddenly had time on their hands. At the urging of Lieutenant Evans, Ross again pressed for an attack.

  The timely receipt of new intelligence may have tipped the balance. Menelaus arrived Tuesday with a dispatch the late Captain Peter Parker wrote the day before he died. In it, Parker described reconnoitering Baltimore Harbor in a tender a few days earlier, sailing unmolested close to Fort McHenry and sounding the passage. Parker included the tantalizing news that a brand-new American frigate—Oliver Perry’s Java, rigged and nearly ready to go—was sitting in the harbor, as well as two sloops-of-war.

  That same day, the fleet received several American newspapers with the latest news from Baltimore. The papers “depict in such strong colours the general alarm, and defenceless state of Baltimore, as to have induced the Vice Admiral (contrary to his previous intention) to resolve on the attack of that place,” Evans wrote in his operations memo.

  Cochrane relented. “General Ross and myself resolved to occupy the intermediate time to advantage, by making a demonstration upon the city of Baltimore; which might be converted into a real attack should circumstances appear to justify it,” Cochrane later informed the Admiralty. In a private letter appended to his official report, Cochrane reported that an attack on Baltimore was “extremely urged by the General to which I reluctantly consented, but to preserve unanimity between the two services.”

  Rear Admiral Codrington, the fleet captain, had misgivings. He was astonished at the sway that Evans, a mere lieutenant, held over Ross. Codrington tried to talk the general out of it, arguing that the attack would be too risky given the lack of intelligence about Baltimore’s defenses. “I pointed out to him all the difficulties I saw in the attack, into which he was persuaded by Cockburn and a Mr. Evans, who acts as quarter-master general in this army,” Codrington told his wife. “I was surprised that so sensible a man as General Ross should be led away by the opposite opinions.”

  Aboard Albion, Cockburn was more than a little surprised himself that his arguments had finally taken hold. It had been nearly two weeks since the capture of Washington, and more than a week since Cockburn had pressed for an immediate attack on Baltimore upon the army’s return to the ships. The delay “had of course materially altered the case … as ample time, had now been afforded to the Americans to call in their troops, from all around,” Cockburn later noted in his memoir of service.

  But Cockburn raised no objections, readily and enthusiastically endorsing the plan.

  MOUTH OF THE POTOMAC, AFTERNOON, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7

  As the American sloop sailed down the Chesapeake Bay Wednesday morning under a white flag of truce, John Skinner and Francis Scott Key were not expecting to find the main British fleet for many hours yet.

  The previous day, the Americans had rendezvoused with Royal Oak and the British troopships near the mouth of the Patuxent, and learned that Dr. Beanes was aboard Tonnant, presumed to be with the rest of the fleet near Tangier, thirty-five miles to the southeast. Rear Admiral Pulteney Malcolm, the troopship commander, courteously assisted the Americans, sending the letters they carried ahead to Tonnant in a swift dispatch boat and assigning the frigate Hebrus to escort the American sloop to Tangier.

  But around noon Wednesday, the Americans spotted Tonnant’s sails near the mouth of the Potomac, moving up the Chesapeake in their direction. At 2:10 p.m., the flagship anchored and sent a boat to bring Key and Skinner aboard.

  The Americans arrived in the midst of a swirl of activity throughout the fleet. It could not have been a more inopportune time, but Cochrane welcomed Key and Skinner aboard. The Americans quickly realized that an attack on Baltimore was in the works. Admiral Cockburn, rejoining the fleet, came on board Tonnant soon after the Americans to confer with Cochrane. But Cockburn had little time for his usual banter with Skinner, who observed that the rear admiral “was the prime mover of the expedition going on and his mind much taken up.” When Key mentioned their mission to free Beanes, it “was received so coldly, that he feared it would fail,” according to the account Key gave Taney. Cockburn spoke of Beanes “in very harsh terms,” and none of the British seemed disposed to release him.

  The Americans were soon summoned for a mid-afternoon meal with the commanding officers. Skinner sat on the right of Cochrane, and Key to the right of Codrington. Wine flowed “in free circulation,” Skinner recalled, and tongues were loosened. Codrington made a cutting remark about Captain David Porter, who was much disliked by the British admirals—Cockburn considered him a “vagabond.” Cochrane erroneously believed that Porter had violated the parole governing his release from captivity in the Pacific, and was sending a warning to the American government that if he encountered the captain or his Essex crew, the result would be “most painful.” Skinner heatedly defended Porter.

  One man remained quiet
during the meal. Skinner had barely noticed the plainly dressed army officer on his right, who had not been introduced to the Americans and was “the most reserved gentleman at the table.” From an offhand comment, Skinner was startled to learn he was General Ross. Whatever the opinions of the Royal Navy officers, Beanes was Ross’s prisoner, and it was the general who would decide his fate. Studying him more closely, Skinner saw the unhealed neck wound Ross had received in France in February.

  During a pause in the discussion, Ross politely invited Skinner to meet with him privately while the others continued their talk at the dinner table. Settling with the American agent in the admiral’s cabin, Ross immediately turned to the matter at hand: Dr. Beanes. Ross had seen General Mason’s appeal and was not persuaded by any of the American legal arguments. But he had also read the letters the Americans brought from the British prisoners of war, and these had a profound effect on the general.

  The American promise to treat British prisoners well “has been more than confirmed by their own letters,” Ross told Skinner. Colonel Thornton’s letter reported that the wounded were doing well and that “the Americans behaved very kindly to them.” For that reason, Ross told Skinner, Beanes would be released.

  Speaking with Key later, Ross brushed off the attorney’s “strong representations” as to Beanes’s character. Ross told Key that Beanes “deserved much more punishment than he had received; but that he felt himself bound to make a return for the kindness which have been shown to his wounded officers … and upon that ground, and that only, he would release him,” Key reported.