The Long, Hot SummerThe Long, Hot Summer
THE ASSAULT UP THE POTOMAC pointed out to Admiral Warren the logistical Achilles heel of his campaign. Forbidden by the Admiralty to establish a permanent supply base on American soil, all Warren could do was strip various areas of what he needed, then move on to a new location and repeat the process. While in the Potomac, the British took possession of St. George and St. Clements Island, a fertile farming community and source of freshwater, and stripped the island bare. It still was not enough to feed and provide water for the entire squadron. On July 26 Rear Admiral Cockburn led the entire naval brigade and both battalions of Royal Marines ashore at Smith Point at the mouth of the Potomac on the Virginia side of the river. The first division, consisting of the 102nd Infantry and the First Battalion of Royal Marines, landed at Cornfield Point near the mouth of the Potomac on the Maryland side of the river. The Second Battalion and the Royal Marine artillery landed farther south. Cockburn, with the naval brigade, followed the Royal Marines ashore, and the British formed a cordon completely around Smith Point. They gathered 120 cattle, 100 sheep, and uncounted hogs, geese, and chickens, drove them all to the landing areas, and dispatched them to the ships that night.1
The spiteful behavior of the raiders particularly distressed the inhabitants. Even though Cockburn, Colonel Beckwith, and Lieutenant Colonel Napier were with the landing force, small raiding parties ran wild, seizing tableware, combs, scissors, kitchen utensils, and linens while smashing furniture and anything else of value they could not carry. When the owners appealed to Cockburn for compensation, the admiral brushed them off.2
The British foray up the Potomac came as a shock to the Americans. But even though it put the redcoats within miles of the national capital, Secretary of War John Armstrong remained unconvinced that Warren planned a push toward Washington. Capt. Charles Morris and Secretary of the Navy William Jones, however, believed otherwise and began planning for the defense of the capital. Morris wrote to Jones on July 18 detailing his ideas. He recommended building several batteries in areas that could rake the river as it snaked past Alexandria, sinking a hulk opposite Alexandria to block the channel, and using the Adams as the main ship in an ad hoc flotilla. “I take for granted that should the enemy really intend proceeding as high as this place that their first object, is the destruction of the navy yard and its dependencies—the second object in point of military importance is the destruction of the foundry above Georgetown and the third, which in a moral point of view is equal to the others would be the removal of the seat of government which though of no real injury in itself would depress the public mind in this country, and naturally affect our reputation in Europe,” Morris wrote.3 The Navy captain expected Warren to attack with overwhelming strength, against which “our force here could make no effective resistance.”
Jones agreed with Morris, up to a point. He ordered Morris to convince Armstrong of the need to adopt the defense plan but refused to sink any hulks or order new fortifications until the intentions of the British became clear. The departure of Warren’s forces from the area near Washington convinced both Armstrong and Jones that the British had no plans to attack the city.4
In fact, Warren had no plans to attack any major city along or near the Chesapeake. He not only considered Norfolk and Washington beyond the reach of his frigates, he also dismissed Baltimore and Annapolis as targets. He explained to Lord Melville that shoal waters and seven thousand troops protected Baltimore, and five thousand soldiers were “around” Annapolis with more expected, although at the time Annapolis was essentially undefended. By declining to attack, Warren and Beckwith believed they were following the Admiralty’s orders to harass the Americans without risking their ships or a major land engagement that could cost them heavy casualties. Warren was also keenly aware of the need to supply his force and to find, if not a permanent base, at least an area he could control as a central point at which to gather food and water for his fleet.5 The squadron now consisted of five ships of the line; six frigates; four sloops; and more than a dozen brigs, schooners, and captured auxiliaries, all of which required massive amounts of food and water. Warren decided to move this force to Kent Island, across the bay from Annapolis and just twenty miles south of Baltimore. From the island Warren could send his barges and boats up the region’s many creeks and rivers to gather provisions while he kept the Baltimore Squadron—Gordon’s force of contracted ships and gunboats—bottled up in the upper bay.
Almost as important to Warren as supplies was the chance to get his sailors and Royal Marines off their ships. As July turned to August, the heat and humidity of the Maryland summer came as a shock to many of the British. A late July heat wave pushed temperatures above 90° Fahrenheit, and the humidity made the heat even more oppressive. The troops, confined to their transports, suffered horribly from heat exhaustion and thirst. Kent Island offered the best place for Warren to accomplish all of his self-appointed tasks before he left for Halifax for the winter.6
The Royal Navy squadron set sail for Kent Island on July 28. Gales and contrary winds turned what should have been an easy thirty-six-hour sail into a weeklong slog up the bay. Shirreff’s advance flotilla reached Kent Island on August 4, and the rest of Warren’s squadron straggled in over the next three days. When Beckwith arrived with the troop transports on August 7, he ordered all of the Royal Marines, including those on the various ships in the squadron, to disembark. He marched the force nearly twelve miles through 90° heat until it reached the two-hundred-acre farm of Jonathan Harrison, where the sea-weary foot soldiers pitched camp.7
Beckwith took over Harrison’s farmhouse as his headquarters while his Royal Marines spread out over the well-cultivated fields and found fresh food in abundance. The sailors immediately sank wells, which they lined with old casks, and replenished their supply of freshwater. Lt. James Scott of the Mohawk later recalled that the immense quantities of beef, lamb, geese, turkeys, and other poultry, along with the mounds of fresh fruit and vegetables the men picked daily, provided a rare treat for both the seamen and the troops. Scott thought the main camp resembled an English gentleman’s park, with the regularly spaced tents made of evergreen boughs forming a pretty vista. Not all the British had it so easy. The Royal Marine artillerymen and boat crews pitched their camp on the bank of the Chester River, near a marsh that bred swarms of mosquitoes that nightly tormented the British.8
The British force near the center of the Chesapeake, just four miles from the state capital at Annapolis, was a source of curiosity and consternation among the inhabitants. Maryland residents on both sides of the bay stared in wonder at the ships of the line with their two decks of guns protruding ominously in the direction of Annapolis. There were frigates, sleek and powerful, their captains and crews prowling the decks, keeping an eye on American actions in the Severn River and the port of Annapolis; and there was a veritable forest of auxiliaries spread out and posted to prevent attack. Curiosity was so strong that on August 8 the steamboat Chesapeake, the first of its kind on the bay, brought a capacity crowd to the mouth of the Patapsco River to gawk at the Royal Navy vessels.9
Maryland governor Levin Winder was far less curious about the looks of the British squadron than he was about its intentions. Almost the minute Warren’s squadron dropped anchor in the Severn River near Annapolis, Winder dashed off yet another letter to Secretary of War Armstrong and Secretary of the Navy Jones pleading for men to replace those the War Department had stripped from the city’s two forts and sent to Canada. This time Jones acted, ordering Capt. Charles Morris and the entire crew of the Adams to head to Annapolis.
Morris arrived on the morning of August 13 and set about examining the forts that guarded the city and the entrance to the Severn River. Fort Madison, on the north bank of the river, was a masonry structure built to house 169 men and 13 guns. Morris found only 12 cannon that were mounted on decayed carriages sitting atop an incomplete platform. Across the river, Fort Severn, which could accommodate 104 men and 8 guns, had only 7 cannon in place, 2 without carriages. Neither fort had any spare parts or any grape or canister to use against ships’ boats. Fort Madison and Fort Severn together contained only 118 round shot.10 The city’s two earthworks—Fort Nonsense, which protected the heights near Fort Madison, and Fort Horn, which guarded the entrance to Spa Creek south of Fort Severn—were in equally poor condition, inadequately manned and armed.
Morris quickly set his men to work, putting Marine Corps captain Samuel Miller in charge of the work at Fort Severn while he personally supervised the work at Fort Madison. He sent a request for 770 round shot and 550 grape and canister rounds to the War Department. A week later he received word from the War Department that he should search for what he needed in Baltimore. By then the panic of Warren’s arrival was passing. A full regiment of militia was in Annapolis as well as Morris’ crew, and it was clear the British had no intention of attacking. Morris and his crew left the city when the British departed from Kent Island.11
The British treated the inhabitants of Kent Island far better than they treated residents of other areas in which they operated, probably because Warren and Beckwith were present and firmly in control of the occupation force. The British ordered militiamen to surrender their weapons or face deportation and plundered only the homes of absentee owners. More than forty slaves living on the island sought refuge with the fleet, but in comparison with other places the British had visited along the lower bay, it was a small price for the islanders to pay.12
Warren tried to take advantage of the better relationship to convince the locals of the folly of supporting Madison’s war. His officers actively campaigned for Federalist candidates in the upcoming elections for both the U.S. House and the Maryland House of Delegates. The British officers repeatedly told the islanders they wanted peace with America and they “hoped that the American administration would be changed by the election of Federalists to office.” Failure to secure a peace, they warned, could result in the destruction of Baltimore and the complete desolation of both sides of the bay.13 To counter Warren’s propaganda, the Easton Star reported a conversation Oswald Tilghman said had taken place between his grandfather, farm owner Jonathan Harrison, and an aide to Beckwith, a Captain Powell of the Royal Marines. The conversation revealed the true feelings of the invaders when, after Harrison said that he as a Federalist had no ill will toward the British, Powell retorted that the British would whip the Democrats for being enemies of his country and drub the Federalists for being enemies of their own nation.14
Warren did not give his weary sailors and marines a long respite. Even before landing on Kent Island he had cast his eyes on the town of St. Michaels. Nestled on an L-shaped peninsula on an arm of the Chesapeake called the Eastern Bay, St. Michaels lies on the west bank of the Miles River. In 1813 the town had a population of a few hundred people living in about sixty houses clustered near a square adjacent to a well-sheltered small harbor that split into five creeks. The primary business of St. Michaels was shipbuilding. Yards in the small town turned out many of the famed privateers that captains and owners prized. As many as six ships were reported on the stocks in August, and Warren was determined to prevent those vessels from plundering British shipping.15
The locals were aware of the town’s importance. Brig. Gen. Perry Benson, a former captain in the Continental Army, commanded the 12th Brigade of Maryland militia from his headquarters in Easton. The town was also the headquarters of the 4th Infantry Regiment of the militia along with a large volunteer company of artillery under Lt. Col. William Smith. In St. Michaels, Lt. Col. Hugh Auld and his Saint Michaels Patriotic Blues, the 26th Infantry Regiment of the state militia, defended the town. The Blues were among the better-equipped and -uniformed regiments on the Eastern Shore.
British activity in the spring had alerted Auld to the possibility of attack. He ordered his men to erect a small breastwork to protect the entrance to the harbor and mounted a 9-pounder and three 6-pounder field guns on it. Capt. William Dodson commanded the garrison of thirty men. When his sister presented a handmade flag from the ladies of St. Michael’s to Dodson’s command, the soldiers hoisted the banner over their little earthwork and vowed to defend it to the last man.16
Auld had his troops erect a second small battery at Impy Dawson’s shipyard to guard the entrance to the town. Auld placed two brass 6-pounders in the new battery and assigned thirty infantrymen under Lt. John Graham as a garrison. When Benson learned of the British landing on Kent Island, he suspected Warren planned to strike St. Michaels. On August 7 he ordered his brigade artillery under Capt. Samuel Thomas to take a position just north of the town to prevent a possible flank attack. Benson also deployed pickets along the Eastern Bay to give warning of a British approach and called up several hundred more militia to defend the town. According to an artilleryman in Graham’s detachment, the town’s defenders blocked the entrance to the inner harbor with a boom of chained-together logs.17
Warren ordered Cdr. Henry Baker of the brig Conflict to lead the expedition to St. Michaels, with Lieutenant Polkinghorne of the San Domingo in command of the 219 sailors and marines detailed for the attack. Polkinghorne set out on the night of August 8 with ten barges to transport his troops.18 The British spent two days slowly making their way up the Miles River, marking channels and setting out buoys as they went. Just after midnight on August 10, Baker sent Polkinghorne toward St. Michaels while he anchored the brig two miles north of the town at a point where the river abruptly narrows.19
Polkinghorne’s force rowed silently past St. Michaels, searching for armed vessels lying at anchor. Finding none, Polkinghorne crossed to the opposite bank and silently ran northward until just before daybreak, when he reached a beach two hundred yards south of Dodson’s gun battery and began disembarking his troops. The British lieutenant likely had a local pilot helping him on his approach. The channel up the Miles River is very circuitous, and the rapidity and accuracy with which Polkinghorne was able to maneuver in the dark deepened the locals’ suspicion that a collaborator was helping the British.20
As the British troops waded ashore and began forming a column, a sentinel who heard the officers’ commands shouted the alarm and fired his musket. The sudden materialization of an attacking force at close quarters panicked most of Dodson’s men, who quickly forgot their vow to defend their position to the last man, threw down their muskets, and ran toward town. Three men remained at their posts: Dodson, Pvt. Frank Gossage, and Pvt. John Stevens, “a mulatto man . . . [who] served faithfully in the battery.”21 The three men wheeled around the 9-pounder they had charged the night before with grape and canister and added a 27-pound bundle of langrage (a bag containing metal scraps), “which filled it to the muzzle.” When they fired the gun, the massive charge caused a recoil so strong the barrel of the gun flew off the carriage and landed in a ditch. British officer J. C. Adams said the blast contained “damned spike nails” that wounded two men.22 Dodson, Gossage, and Stevens then fled through a cornfield. Dodson, before he ran, grabbed the banner the ladies of St. Michaels made for the battery and took it with him.23
When the Royal Marines entered the earthwork, they spiked the two remaining cannon and gave three cheers that could be heard in town. They also destroyed whatever stores they could find. They continued to mill around the breastwork, making themselves perfect targets for Lieutenant Graham and his battery of field guns, which began firing on the battery site. Polkinghorne “deemed the object of the enterprise fulfilled” and ordered his troops to reembark on the barges, and they moved out under the cover of carronade fire.24 The British pushed off for the inner harbor but never entered it. Whether they encountered the log boom or simply retreated under fire is unknown. Whatever the reason, Polkinghorne’s men withdrew to their boats and began firing cannon on the town. Graham returned their fire, and Lt. Clement Vickars joined in with two more field guns. The two American batteries fired fifteen rounds, damaging at least one boat. The British caused little damage to the town, and the Americans suffered no casualties in the encounter.25
The British attack on St. Michaels was more ruse than raid. Had Warren wanted to pillage and destroy the town, he would have sent a much larger force. Instead, the admiral’s goal was apparently to pin down as much militia as he could while he consolidated his hold on Kent Island. Cockburn, in his journal, characterized the effort as “annoying the enemy,” and the British accomplished that objective.26 The attack threw the area into turmoil and caused a considerable amount of expense as the Talbot County militia brigade spent the entire month of August in the field under arms. Whether that was any comfort to the 250 Royal Navy sailors and Royal Marines who spent 48 hours—including a rainy night—in open boats but captured no prizes is unknown.
On August 10 an American officer appeared before the British camp at Kent Island under a flag of truce. Gustavus Wright was a captain in the 6th Brigade Artillery, which was attached to the local regiment of militia, the 38th Infantry of Queen Anne’s County. Once in the British camp he met with Capt. Frederick Robertson, a Royal Artillery officer who was on Beckwith’s staff. Wright’s mission was simple: he challenged the British to come out and fight and offered to face Robertson in single combat. The astute artilleryman declined the offer of single combat but made a return visit to Wright’s camp under a flag of truce, using the trip as an opportunity to scout the land leading to Queenstown, where Wright and the militia were based. Robertson observed that a large marsh dominated the shore across from Kent Island, with a narrow causeway running through it. Thick woods adjoined the marsh and lined the road leading to Queenstown, a village of ten or twelve houses that lay six miles inland from the British camp on an inlet that created a natural harbor.27
Robertson’s report on the topography undoubtedly reinforced his superiors’ intent to surprise and capture the entire American force, which Warren believed was “several corps.” He left the planning up to Beckwith, who decided on a two-pronged assault. Moving at night, the colonel would take the entire Second Battalion of Royal Marines along with Lieutenant Colonel Napier’s 102nd Infantry Regiment directly overland to Queenstown. Simultaneously, the First Battalion of Royal Marines would deploy by boat, enter Queenstown harbor, and attack the Americans from behind. Rear Admiral Cockburn took charge of the waterborne attack but delegated operational control to Capt. James Paterson and Capt. John Maude, who had taken part in the attack on Ocracoke. In all, Beckwith planned to hit the Americans with nearly 2,600 soldiers, sailors, and marines.28
Facing the British was a militia regiment of just 244 effectives under the command of Maj. William H. Nicholson. The American force also had one hundred cavalry under the command of Maj. Thomas Emory, plus Gustavus Wright’s artillery company of thirty-five men and two 6-pound field guns. Nicholson divided his regiment into six companies, and Emory split his men into three troops. The Americans billeted the infantry and artillery in and around the town while Emory’s horse soldiers camped about a mile away because there was no room for them in town.29
The British began preparing to move out on August 12. Nicholson, on hearing the bustle on Kent Island, sent two of his infantry companies to a location near the edge of the swamp to monitor Beckwith’s actions. Capt. Charles Hobbs and Capt. John Taylor took up a position across from Kent Narrows with sixty-two infantry along with four cavalry to act as couriers. Nicholson gave his advance force explicit instructions “to by no means invite an attack . . . [and] they were not to occupy the same position any two nights successively.” Nicholson then arrayed the rest of his meager forces at Queenstown to meet an attack by either land or water, although he admitted, “Against an attack from two or three points, I felt the insufficiency of my force.”30
Nicholson went to sleep around midnight, only to have an aide awaken him two hours later with a message from Hobbs that Beckwith’s men were beginning to embark. The First Battalion of Royal Marines, by the light of a full moon, began moving out several hours before the remainder the British force started to cross at Kent Narrows. Capt. Charles Ross of the Sceptre supervised the embarkation of Beckwith’s marines and Napier’s soldiers, moving 1,200 men across the narrows in just an hour. Captain Robertson led the column along the mosquito-infested causeway. As they marched toward Queenstown, Hobbs and Taylor sent word to Nicholson of the enormous force on its way. Nicholson awakened his officers and ordered a picket force of eighteen men under Capt. James Massey to take up a position two miles west of town at a previously prepared place the locals called Slippery Hill. Taking cover along the sunken road the British had to follow to reach Queenstown, they waited for Beckwith’s force.31
Nicholson deployed his troops across the same road about a half mile outside town. He set one flank on Queenstown Creek and the other on the Wye River. Wright’s artillery deployed with the main force, while Nicholson put Emory’s cavalry in some woods along the Chester River where they could harass Beckwith’s right flank as the British approached. The Americans took up their positions at 3:15 a.m. As they deployed into a line of battle a second message arrived from Hobbs and Taylor reporting that Beckwith had crossed Kent Narrows and was approaching Queenstown with an overwhelming force, and resistance was impossible. The captains had had to abandon their position but were confident they could escape.32
Nicholson now feared for Massey and the pickets stationed at Slippery Hill. “I immediately mounted my horse and pressed forward toward my picket,” Nicholson reported. “When I had advanced within a half-mile of their post the firing commenced between them and the enemy and the volleys of musketry left me without a hope that an individual of them was alive.”33
Nicholson, however, was wrong. Massey was very much alive, as were his men. The pickets had opened fire on the advance element of the British force when it moved within thirty yards of their position. The volley unnerved Capt. William Dymock, the senior marine officer from the Sceptre and commander of the advance guard. At the first shot, Dymock threw himself to the ground “in a disgracefully incapable state” and ordered his men to return fire, despite orders from Beckwith and Napier to the contrary. Beckwith and Napier galloped to the sound of gunfire and, finding the advance force in disarray, ordered Robertson to relieve Dymock and take command of the unit. Two days later Dymock would report to his ship’s surgeon complaining of suffering from “temporary paroxysms of mental derangement rendering him incompetent to perform any of the important duties active service requires.”34
Beckwith and Napier attempted to restore order to the column of British troops, but the damage was already done. The Royal Marines began firing wildly at shadows and at each other. Two marines died and another was wounded before the two senior officers could restore order.35
By the time the British resumed their advance. Massey and his men had taken up a new position in a cornfield closer to the town. Sheltering behind a fence, the Americans again opened fire on the Royal Marines as they approached and once more caused panic among them. Beckwith and Napier again rode to the front, exposing themselves to the effective fire of Massey’s picket—fire that made the British believe they were up against more than just eighteen militiamen. Beckwith’s horse was shot out from under him, but when Robertson begged Napier to dismount, the lieutenant colonel refused, “saying the state of troops would not allow of care for himself.”36
Massey and his men fell back once more, retreating to the main American line around 4 a.m. only four hundred yards ahead of the enemy. At that point the couriers from Emory arrived with word of Cockburn’s seaborne force. The new British force of forty-five barges arrayed itself in a line across the harbor and fired a signal that Beckwith’s land force answered. It was now after daybreak, and Nicholson could plainly see Beckwith’s troops massed just 150 yards to his front. He also had a British force assembling to his rear. “In this situation I concluded that nothing but a silent retreat could effect my escape,” Nicholson reported. He ordered his men to withdraw. They fell back under British rocket, round, and grape fire but maintained their order and did not lose a man.37 Major Emory, in a letter to the Easton Star, said a delay of just five minutes would have resulted in the loss of the entire command.38
Nicholson retreated about a mile and a half down the road to Centerville, a small village eight miles from Queenstown. He pulled his regiment all the way back to Centerville after a messenger arrived with news the British had landed a second waterborne force at the north entrance of Queenstown harbor. As Nicholson’s men pitched camp, Hobbs and Taylor and their sixty-four infantrymen rejoined the main command. The two captains had bypassed the direct road to Queenstown to escape from Beckwith, crossed the Wye River in canoes, and marched through the woods.39
The British force marched into Queenstown only to find it empty. Beckwith spared the homes, collected whatever materiel the Americans had abandoned, then turned back toward Kent Island. Cockburn was far less genial. The admiral vented his frustration at not catching the militia by pillaging the homes of those who had sheltered an American fighter. He was particularly brutal to the owner of the farm Nicholson had used as his headquarters. His men drove off all the cattle and poultry, confiscated the luxurious silverware and china that belonged to the owner, smashed the furniture and cut up mattresses, and even vandalized family portraits.40
The march against Queenstown accomplished very little for the British, who reported two men dead, several wounded, and eleven deserters. It was essentially the last major offensive Warren undertook on the bay. As the oppressive heat and humidity of August wore on, disease and desertion turned a force of some 2,600 effectives into one of slightly more than 2,000, of whom 25 to 35 percent were incapacitated by “fever and ague.” Captain Robertson, in a rather glum assessment of the British situation, wrote, “The prospects of Sir J. Warren, at whose disposal Beckwith and the troops were placed, were now exhausted and he had done nothing.”41
The British left Kent Island on August 22 somewhat disheartened. The one senior officer still itching for a fight was Napier, who wanted to restore the self-esteem of his soldiers and “clear them of the Queenstown business.” After an abortive attempt to trap a force of militia on Bayside, a peninsula that jutted into the bay from the Eastern Shore, Napier demanded approval of a plan to march his regiment to St. Michaels and attack the defenders with bayonets only. Beckwith turned him down. Napier then suggested attacking the town with the 102nd, two companies of marines, and a battery of marine artillery. Beckwith turned down that plan, too. Exasperated, Napier called for an all-out attack on St. Michaels using the entire British force. Beckwith again said no. Instead, Beckwith deployed the ground forces and Cockburn’s naval brigade in an attempt to round up all of the militia in and around St. Michaels. He sent Napier with the 102nd and two companies of marines to attack a reported force of five hundred militiamen camped north of St. Michaels.42
When he arrived at the spot where the militiamen were supposed to be, Napier found only “a miserable picket” of about fifty Americans, who promptly fled at the sight of the redcoats. Napier’s men gave chase and rounded up fifteen prisoners, but it was scant consolation to an officer looking to vindicate himself and his soldiers. Napier, his soldiers, and Cockburn and the Royal Marines continued chasing shadows and rumors throughout the night but found nothing. At daybreak they pressed Beckwith to allow a direct assault on St. Michaels, but again he refused, instead ordering both officers to return to the barges. “We re-embarked,” Napier wrote, “having landed for no purpose, done nothing and retired to our ships, with the Yankee videttes quietly following us—to see us off!”43