Through the Perilous Fight Read online

  Nevertheless, Jones ordered three of the navy’s top officers—Captains John Rodgers, David Porter, and Oliver Perry—to hurry to Washington from points along the east coast with “all the disposable force within reach as soon as possible.”

  Another report arrived in Washington with news that the British were sailing up the Potomac. To General Winder, that suggested that Washington, and not Baltimore, was the British target. Winder ordered militia commanders in Baltimore to bring a rifle battalion and two companies of artillery to Washington “without the loss of a moment.” He also ordered the District militia to report that evening for inspection.

  Winder hurried to confer with Secretary of War Armstrong, offering a string of suggestions to address “the destitute condition” of Washington’s defenses: Bring the Marine Corps into service and add them to his command. Sink vessels in the Potomac to hinder the enemy advance up that river. Make a patriotic appeal for volunteers. Get the flotilla men off the useless barges and put them in a position to defend Washington.

  But Armstrong insisted Washington was safe and that Baltimore must be the target. “By God, they would not come with such a fleet without meaning to strike somewhere, but they certainly will not come here,” Armstrong told Major General Van Ness, the District of Columbia militia commander. “[W]hat the devil will they do here?”

  Secretary of State Monroe—or Colonel Monroe, as he now preferred to be called—had assembled two dozen dragoons from the Alexandria militia for his scouting mission, and decided to search for the British at Annapolis, where the enemy had been spotted moving up the bay. Early in the afternoon, Monroe and his dragoons took off. But they had not gone far when a courier caught up with them carrying the report from Barney. The secretary of state and his riders changed course, heading south toward Benedict, on the Patuxent River, to look for the British.

  Tall and slim, with a full head of hair, the red-faced and rawboned Virginian remained full of vigor.

  James Monroe, circa 1819.

  Tall and slim, with a full head of hair, the red-faced and rawboned Virginian remained full of vigor at age fifty-five. More than thirty-five years had passed since Monroe, a student from a second-tier planter family in Westmoreland County, Virginia, left the College of William and Mary in 1776 to join the Continental Army. He was nearly killed charging Hessian lines during Washington’s surprise attack at Trenton that Christmas, and after recovering from his wound, served at Brandywine, Germantown, and through the bitter winter at Valley Forge.

  Monroe had gone on to an impressive political and diplomatic career, including stints as U.S. senator, minister to France, England, and Spain, secretary of state, secretary of war, and governor of Virginia. His success came not least because of his knack of making good friends, chief among them Jefferson and Madison. Jefferson had taken Monroe under his wing to study law, fostered his political career, and even urged the younger man to purchase land for a home within view of Monticello, where they could create “a society to our taste.”

  But Monroe’s three-decade-old friendship with Madison had been deeply strained during the latter years of Jefferson’s presidency, when Monroe, serving as an envoy, was insulted by roughshod treatment from then–Secretary of State Madison. Monroe’s own presidential ambitions led him to flirt with a challenge to Madison in the 1808 election to succeed Jefferson. “I have ever viewed Mr. Madison and yourself as two principal pillars of my happiness,” a distraught Jefferson wrote to Monroe. “Were either to be withdrawn, I should consider it as among the greatest calamities which could assail my future peace of mind.” In the end, Monroe backed off, and his reconciliation with Madison, engineered by Jefferson, led to Monroe’s appointment as secretary of state in 1811.

  But from the day war was declared, Monroe was not happy in the job, feeling removed from the action. He was desperate for military glory, eager to burnish his presidential credentials as next in line in the Virginia dynasty, following in the footsteps of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. Moreover, Armstrong’s abysmal performance as secretary of war had left a vacuum in the country’s military leadership, and Monroe was confident he could fill it.

  Monroe had grasped at the arrival of the British as a chance to serve as a scout. “I had a horror, at remaining here, to be involved indiscriminately in the censure, which would attach to others, and which so eminently belonged to the Secry. of War,” he wrote to his son-in-law, George W. Hay, a few weeks later. Sensing disaster, he wanted to do anything—go anywhere—except stay in Washington.

  GHENT, FRIDAY, AUGUST 19

  At 3 p.m., the American delegates entered within the thick, dank walls of the Chartreux Convent for a meeting hastily called by the British commissioners at their quarters in the old Flemish capital.

  The very makeup of the American delegation in the city of bustling canals and splendid medieval architecture underscored the eagerness with which the United States was seeking peace. Its head was the brilliant but humorless John Quincy Adams, son of the former president, whose experience as a diplomat went back to the revolutionary days, when he had served as his father’s secretary in Paris. Henry Clay, the war hawk who had overpowered John Randolph’s opposition to win a declaration of war, had resigned as House speaker to join the delegation, hoping he could salvage an honorable peace. The presence of Albert Gallatin, Madison’s close confidant, spoke of the president’s devout hope for a negotiated settlement to the war. The two other commissioners, Senator James Bayard of Delaware and diplomat Jonathan Russell, completed a most formidable group.

  They faced a British delegation, led by Under Secretary for War and the Colonies Henry Goulburn, eager to impose humiliating terms on America. The British had kept the Americans stewing in steamy Ghent for weeks over the summer before even showing up. With an expeditionary force on its way to punish the United States, the British had no reason to rush. The longer they waited, and the more crushing the American defeats, the more bargaining power they would have.

  As soon as the Americans took their seats, they realized no peace was in the offing. The cordial British manner of previous meetings over the last eleven days had disappeared. Goulburn had received a dispatch from London elaborating on British terms for peace. An independent Indian state be must be “permanently established” from an enormous swath of American territory. This 250,000-square-mile buffer state between the United States and Canada would encompass most of present-day Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan, plus much of Ohio and Minnesota. While the British were willing to negotiate the exact borders, the creation of the state was sine qua non: not negotiable.

  The U.S. delegation was stunned. At least one hundred thousand American settlers lived in that territory, some with roots dating back a century. What would happen to them? Gallatin asked. Those Americans “would have to make their own arrangements and provide for themselves,” the British replied. Furthermore, the United States would be prohibited from keeping an armed naval force on the Great Lakes, and it must abandon all forts on those shores. Great Britain, on the other hand, would retain such rights. The British also insisted on free navigation of the Mississippi River, even though it ran entirely within American territory.

  Agreement along the British terms would permanently stunt American growth to the west and leave the nation’s military forces on the frontier impotent in the face of British power. Bayard viewed them as conqueror’s demands. Clay suspected the British had no interest in a treaty. The terms were unmistakable evidence of the confidence the British had in the expeditionary force they had sent to United States, as well as their disdain for the Americans.

  The meeting ended in an hour. The discouraged Americans gathered at their residence on the Rue des Champs to compose a note to Washington. “We need hardly say that the demands of Great Britain will receive from us an unanimous and decided negative,” Gallatin wrote on behalf of the delegation. “And we have felt it our duty immediately to apprize you, by this hasty, but correct sketch of our last conference,
that there is not at present, any hope of peace.”

  WASHINGTON, 9 A.M., SATURDAY, AUGUST 20

  The ragtag troops of the District of Columbia militia gathered on the Capitol grounds Saturday morning, but it was not at all evident that they were prepared to march for war. The troops of the 1st Columbian Brigade, disorganized and in disgraceful shape, had failed inspection the previous evening. Some lacked guns, others shoes, and some both. Winder had sent them home with orders to report back the next morning equipped and ready to march. After a long night with “every exertion” by officers, the troops reported back Saturday morning in only marginally better condition.

  Captain John J. Stull’s rifle company had been issued old squirrel guns two years earlier, which the captain complained were useless. Stull had personally appealed to Armstrong for rifles from a large stockpile sitting unused in the Washington arsenal, but Armstrong replied that the rifles were needed on the Canadian front. The secretary suggested the men instead fix the squirrel guns. “I left him with indignation,” Stull recalled.

  In all, about 1,070 District men mustered on Saturday, ranging from the well-heeled, blue-uniformed volunteers of Major Peter’s Georgetown light artillery to common militia conscripts, many of them poorly trained farmers and tradesmen lacking uniforms.

  Adding to the chaos, Major General Van Ness chose this late moment to resign as commander of the District militia, refusing to serve under Winder—who as a brigadier general had lower rank, but had overall command as a regular army officer. Van Ness was replaced by one of the District militia’s brigade commanders, Brigadier General Walter Smith.

  As the forces mustered, Winder conferred with his staff at his headquarters in McKeown’s Hotel. The three directions of British attack—up the Chesapeake, up the Potomac, and up the Patuxent—had paralyzed the American commander.

  At 11:30 a.m. Saturday, a courier handed Navy Secretary Jones a message from Commodore Barney reporting that a large British force had begun landing at Benedict at noon Friday and had continued building up through the day. “No doubt their object is Washington, and perhaps the flotilla,” Barney wrote.

  It was the first anyone in Washington had heard that British troops had landed on American soil. Jones immediately sent orders to Barney: Should the British move on the flotilla, he should destroy the boats and bring his men to Washington. Then the navy secretary rushed to Winder’s headquarters to share the news with the general.

  A landing at Benedict pointed to Washington as a more likely target than Baltimore or Annapolis. But Winder remained uncertain, and decided to lead the District militia into Maryland to the Woodyard plantation, located at a key junction about fifteen miles east of the Capitol and one-third of the way to Benedict. From this central location, within two hours’ march to both the Potomac and Patuxent rivers, Winder would await further intelligence on the British movements.

  While the men milled about Capitol Hill awaiting orders, uplifting news arrived from the Niagara front, where British forces trying to capture Fort Erie had met disastrous defeat. Major Peter’s artillery fired its guns in salute, and the infantry troops contributed their own noisy feu de joi. The men enthusiastically listened to a proclamation from Winder promising to “teach our haughty foe that freemen are never unprepared to expel from their soil the insolent foot of the invader.”

  At 2 p.m., the army moved out, the men’s courage bolstered by the gun salutes and bold rhetoric. They marched east on Pennsylvania Avenue from Capitol Hill, crossed the Eastern Branch Bridge, and continued into the Maryland countryside. Stull’s riflemen, still lacking guns, were promised muskets once they reached the Woodyard. They fell into the ranks, armed only with tomahawks.

  AQUASCO, MARYLAND, MIDDAY SATURDAY, AUGUST 20

  From his hilltop position near an old gristmill at Aquasco, three miles northwest of Benedict, James Monroe could make out little about the British invaders, who remained camped outside the village Saturday morning. Monroe dared not move too close to enemy picket lines. It would hardly do for the secretary of state to be captured by the British, a consideration he and the president seemed to have ignored when he left on his scouting mission.

  Nor did it help that Colonel Monroe had failed to bring along a spyglass and was unable to count the enemy ships. After five hours, with the British showing no sign of leaving Benedict, Monroe grew restless. He hastily scribbled a note to Madison at 1 p.m., reporting he was unable to gauge the size of the enemy force. “The general idea … is that Washington is their object, but of this I can form no opinion at this time,” Monroe wrote vaguely, handing the message to a dragoon for delivery to the president. Then he dashed off to search for the British squadron coming up the Potomac.

  Had he stayed a bit longer, Monroe would have seen much more to report.

  BENEDICT, LATE AFTERNOON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 20

  With the sounding of bugles shortly before 4 p.m., the British camp at Benedict erupted into activity. Though the last British troops finished landing Saturday morning, it had taken hours more to assemble provisions and equipment, but finally all was ready.

  General Ross rode up, accompanied by several aides. Loud cheers erupted spontaneously from the men, and Ross, delighted, pulled off his hat and bowed. With a crisp order from the general, the army moved up the road leading from Benedict.

  On the river below, Rear Admiral George Cockburn gave orders for a fleet of 50 small boats loaded with 350 marines to weigh anchor and continue up the river. Moving by land and water up the Patuxent, the combined army and navy forces appeared to spell doom for Barney and his flotilla. First, however, the British would have to find the commodore and his boats, now rumored to be in Nottingham, ten miles upriver.

  Ross was obliged to move carefully. The British had hoped to capture horses at Benedict, but farmers had fled with their livestock. Lacking horses to pull artillery wagons, the British left most of their guns behind to secure the beachhead, and took along only two small three-pounders and a six-pounder. With no cavalry, Ross was marching blind, save for some scouts sent ahead to reconnoiter the country, and two American turncoats who agreed to guide them through the countryside.

  A party of twenty skirmishers moved at the front of the British column, followed by an advance guard of three infantry companies, on the lookout for any signs of ambush. Patrols of 40 to 50 men covered the flanks, sweeping the woods and fields for a half mile on either side of the column. The Light Brigade was a hundred yards behind, followed by the artillery teams dragging guns, and then the two remaining brigades with a rear guard.

  Even by late afternoon, the heat remained brutal. Ross rested the men every ninety minutes, but it hardly helped. The troops, after months of cramped, shipboard life, were in abysmal shape. Their heavy wool uniforms and the tall black caps on their heads, known as shakos, only added to their misery. Soldiers struggled beneath the weight of their haversacks, blankets, canteens, weapons, and sixty rounds of ball cartridge. Men dropped from heat prostration, battalions lost their formation, and the road was soon covered with stragglers.

  Cockburn’s fleet kept pace with the army, communicating by signal. Above Benedict, the Patuxent became a winding, tidal river, its shores lined with dense marshes of broad-leafed cattail, white water lilies, and wild rice. The river was so narrow in places that the Royal Marines waded through water up to their necks, and then scoured the shoreline in case the Americans were waiting in ambush. But they found nothing.

  After six miles, Ross halted his ragged column at a hilltop crossroads overlooking rolling farmland. They had scarcely stationed pickets and set up camp when a terrific thunderstorm hit. The flashes of lightning gave an eerie cast to the thousands of “men stretched like so many corpses” on the ground, Gleig wrote.

  Four miles outside of Washington, the American column under General Winder halted, also exhausted and soon drenched by the rain. When the baggage wagons caught up, commanders found that almost no tents or camping equipment had been packed. Thirty miles a
part, the men from two opposing armies lay down in open fields for a wet and miserable Saturday night.

  BALTIMORE, SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 21

  The 5th Maryland Regiment believed themselves to be the cream of the crop, and the message was clearly conveyed in their dashing blue uniforms, with white cross-belts over their chests and leather shakos on their heads, all topped by a feathery plume. The all-volunteer force from Baltimore’s most prominent families was the finest militia unit in the state, and 800 men had mustered to rescue Washington. Their destination was Bladensburg, a village at a key junction along the road the British would likely take to reach the capital.

  Spectators crowded the sidewalks and women waved handkerchiefs from windows Sunday morning, some crying as they bid farewell to husbands and brothers. For eighteen-year-old Private John Pendleton Kennedy, the spectacle was inspiring beyond comparison. “[T]he populace were cheering and huzzaing at every corner, as we hurried along in brisk step to familiar music, with banners fluttering in the wind and bayonets flashing in the sun,” he later wrote. “What a scene it was, and what a proud actor I was in it! … This was a real army marching to real war.” In his knapsack, Kennedy carried several shirts and stockings, as well as a pair of dancing pumps “with the idea, that, after we had beaten the British army and saved Washington, Mr. Madison would very likely invite us to a ball at the White House, and I wanted to be ready for it.”

  The column left town and continued in good cheer for several hours on the road to Washington. As evening approached, they made camp at Elkridge Landing, about four miles southwest of Baltimore. The 5th Maryland still faced about a thirty-mile march to Bladensburg, but as the men slept, an order arrived from Winder to slow down. Plagued by doubts of the British destination, the general directed the Maryland militia to hold at a midway point so as not to leave Baltimore exposed. In Washington, an officer asked Winder whether the Baltimore troops would arrive at Bladensburg in time. On the contrary, Winder replied: His fear was “they would be here too soon.”