COMMODORE JOSHUA BARNEY probably felt safe on June 2 as his Chesapeake Flotilla lay at anchor three miles up the Patuxent River. In his report to Jones, Barney bemoaned his lack of a furnace to heat cannonballs for red-hot shot and again asked for permission to abandon the two Navy gunboats and hire a small sloop or schooner to act as a supply vessel. Despite his perceived handicaps, Barney confidently assured the Navy secretary, “I shall observe [the British] motions and act accordingly.”1
In his response Jones expressed his approval of Barney’s actions, commiserating with the commodore that he was unable to reach the Potomac and the safety of the Washington Navy Yard but expressing confidence in Barney’s ability to evade the Royal Navy. The secretary even included plans for the future of the flotilla, telling the commodore, “When you return to Baltimore you may have a brick furnace constructed on board the Asp or either of the other vessels or in a good stout launch which might be kept for that special purpose.” Jones gave Barney permission to hire a supply ship, albeit at a low price, and added that he could mount a new expedition against Cockburn “should an opportunity occur when the calm season commences, and you deem the object practicable.”2
While Jones gloated in Washington, Capt. Robert Barrie was working on a plan to force Barney to leave his protected anchorage. “I fear it will be impossible to follow the flotilla up the river in the Dragon,” he wrote to Cockburn. He needed more barges because “had we been anything like a match for the enemy, I am certain we should have given a good account of him.”3 Until those reinforcements arrived, Barrie decided to borrow a page from Cockburn’s playbook. First, he attempted to woo the local population with offers of hard specie for provisions. On June 2 Barrie sent Lt. George Urmston to buy livestock at the plantation of Nicholas Sewall near Cedar Point. Urmston sailed under a flag of truce, but his small force met with a group of American militia officers who refused to allow the British to conduct business. One of the officers, Capt. James Jarboe, was particularly vocal in his condemnation of the British. He urged his fellow officers to seize Urmston and hang him. The British lieutenant, who had only a couple of sailors with him, remained just offshore and out of reach. When the colonel in charge of the officers rebuked Jarboe, the captain continued to scowl and mutter nastily at Urmston, something the British officer did not forget to mention when he reported back to Barrie.
After that incident Barrie copied another of Cockburn’s tactics. If the local Americans would not cooperate, he would take what he needed and destroy everything else. He sent Urmston back to Sewall’s plantation that night, and this time the British came in force. The sailors and Royal Marines took all the livestock and burned the farm buildings. They also freed six slaves, one of whom offered to lead the British to the home of Captain Jarboe. Barrie and Urmston quickly accepted.
On June 4 a force of twenty Royal Marines, twenty Colonial Marines, and a handful of sailors under Urmston followed the former slave straight to Jarboe’s home. As Urmston pounded on the front door, Jarboe sent a messenger running to Maj. Alexander Stuart, who had arrived at St. Leonard Town with three hundred men of the 36th U.S. Infantry. Urmston correctly deduced the reason for Jarboe’s delaying tactics and kicked in the front door. He chased Jarboe into a bedroom and cornered the American at sword point. Despite the pleas of his wife of three days, Urmston led away Jarboe and his slave overseer, Josiah Smith. Barrie later released Smith, but Jarboe, “due to the peculiar circumstances” that prompted the raid on his home, went to England as a prisoner of war.4
Barrie’s attempt to lure Barney into a fight by attacking the inhabitants failed; the commodore refused to take the bait. Instead, he watched as British reinforcements arrived off the mouth of the Patuxent on June 6. One of the new arrivals was the 38-gun frigate Loire under Capt. Thomas Brown. The Royal Navy had cut the captured French frigate down into a razee with a fully flush upper deck. The Loire could easily operate in the deep channel of the Patuxent. The schooner St. Lawrence and the brig Jaseur also moved into the river, all covered by the ship of the line Dragon.
Barney knew it was time to move upriver to a more defensible position. On the night of June 6 he brought the flotilla into St. Leonard Creek, where he anchored his barges in a line from bank to bank and waited for the British to react. The creek was too shallow for the larger British warships to pursue him, and he believed the position would allow him to engage any enemy barges on nearly equal terms.5
Barrie was surprised on the morning of June 7 to find that Barney had entered St. Leonard Creek. He ordered his barges and ships’ boats to conduct soundings of the Patuxent and set out buoys, and he stationed the Loire, St. Lawrence, Jaseur, and the tender Catch-Up-a-Little at the mouth of the creek to block Barney’s exit. Barrie also had help on the way. Cockburn, eager to corner Barney, promised Barrie, “You may depend on my sending everything to you as it arrives as the destruction of these fellows would be a point of great importance.”6 He stripped the Albion of every Royal Marine and sailor he could spare and sent six boats of reinforcements to Barrie.
Barney’s decision to enter St. Leonard Creek was shrewd. Barrie described the position as “in few places more than a Musket shot wide, and in many not above two cables length. Its banks are covered with trees and the land is generally high.” Bluffs lining the creek offered excellent fields of fire if land troops arrived to help Barney.7 Barrie also found “it impossible to attack the Enemy in our Boats” because of the way Barney had positioned the flotilla.8
Barrie’s first move was to send in a screening force of boats to sound the creek and “to annoy [Barney] from our boats and provoke him to chase them within gunshot of the frigate” Loire, which was waiting at the mouth of the creek.9 For two days the British probed the Americans’ defenses, but each time they retreated before a concentrated hail of shot. When Barney attempted to pursue the British, they adeptly used sails and oars to skirt back to the safety of the guns of the Loire.
The cat-and-mouse game continued for two days as each side looked for an opportunity to strike either a decisive or at least a crippling blow. Barrie gained an early advantage when he again deployed his rocket barges, a weapon Barney feared almost as much as the Dragon. On June 8 Barrie sent his rocket barges in ahead of his cannon-armed boats. A barrage of rockets screamed toward the American line, nearly all of them missing the mark. One rocket, however, sped toward barge No. 4 and struck, killing one man and landing in the magazine, where it exploded and started a fire. The blaze spread rapidly, igniting a barrel of powder and another of musket cartridges. Both blew up, hurling sailors into the water and forcing the barge commander to order the rest of his crew to abandon ship.
Barney ordered another officer to board the barge to fight the fire before it destroyed the vessel. His son, Maj. William Barney, volunteered. He leapt on board the barge with several sailors and promptly began dousing the flames. The younger Barney was an accomplished mariner as well as a major in the 5th Maryland Cavalry, a Baltimore County militia unit. Although there were some who complained about the commodore appointing his son to command the Scorpion, the flotilla’s flagship, the younger Barney put those doubts to rest as he fought the fire on barge No. 4. The major and his men frantically poured buckets of water and rocked the barge from side to side while flames lapped at the magazine. They succeeded in extinguishing the flames, and the commodore ordered the crew back onto the barge and sent her back into action.10
While his son was fighting the fire, the commodore was fighting the British. He ordered the flotilla to move forward and began blasting away at Barrie’s force. Once more the British retreated to the safety of the guns of the St. Lawrence. Barney, satisfied with blunting the British attack, returned to his anchorage having suffered no damage other than to barge No. 4 plus one man killed and three men wounded. Several of Barrie’s boats had been hit, and the British suffered losses of three dead and two wounded.11
Barrie hauled off and spent the rest of June 9 realigning his forces, which included ships his own men had captured as well as some that Cockburn had sent to him. Among the vessels his raiding parties captured on June 7 was a small schooner. The British burned the cargo of lumber the schooner carried and took the little vessel into their service, arming her with a pair of 32-pounder carronades. Barrie also received the Erie, the tender to the Dragon. The Erie was a small, gaff-rigged topsail schooner armed with an 18-pounder carronade. He now had fifteen barges, the two small schooners, the Jaseur, the St. Lawrence, the Loire, and the Dragon to face Barney’s force of a block sloop, two Navy gunboats (one unarmed), and thirteen barges. Thanks to a concerted effort, Barney’s mariners had managed to repair the barge damaged on June 9 and put her back into action.12
Barrie kept his men at quarters throughout the night as June 9 turned into June 10, expecting either an American night attack or a dawn raid. Sometime after daybreak his lookouts spotted wagons moving onto the peninsula that jutted out into the Patuxent at the mouth of St. Leonard Creek and boats carrying men across the waterway. Barrie sent in several of his own boats to chase them, but without success. The wagons signaled reinforcements for Barney: Major Stuart and his battalion of Regulars as well as several companies of Maryland militia had arrived. The land forces gave Barney the cover he needed to execute his own attack plan. He set up a battery on a bluff on the eastern side of the creek and stationed infantry on the western side to defend against a British land attack. He anchored the flotilla in a single line across the creek in between the camps. Barney knew Barrie would again attempt to lure him out; this time the commodore planned to oblige.
Barney used the night of June 9–10 to prepare his flotilla for the coming action. He stripped the sails from his barges to make them easier to move by oar, hoping to use speed to surprise Barrie. He left the Scorpion and the two Navy gunboats in his anchorage because they were too clumsy for close-in fighting, while putting his own flag on the Lookout Boat and reorganizing his three divisions. The commodore took command of the red division at the center of the line, Rutter took the white division, and Frazier had the blue division. Major Barney served as his father’s aide-de-camp on board the commodore’s gig. All told, the flotilla numbered 450 men advancing against a force of close to 800.13
At 8 a.m., to the accompaniment of the Dragon’s band, Barrie began preparing his force of barges and small schooners. The martial music echoed across the still waters of St. Leonard Creek, alerting Barney that something was afoot in the British anchorage. It took Barrie the entire morning and part of the afternoon to assemble his assault force of twenty-one barges and ships’ boats, a rocket barge, the Erie, the captured lumber schooner, and the St. Lawrence. The British shoved off at 2 p.m. with flags flying and the barges towing the two small schooners. The force anchored well out of cannon range around 4 p.m. and the Congreve rocket barge prepared to open fire. As the sailors rowed the barge into position, however, they saw what they least expected: the entire Chesapeake Flotilla was heading straight toward them.14
The minute Barney heard the music he ordered his boats to move down the creek. The waterway had several twists that hid his vessels from view as the flotillamen rowed toward the British. Almost the minute he was able to see Barrie’s boats, Barney ordered the flotilla to open fire. Although outnumbered, the Americans had the advantage because their single line of warships was able to cover the entire creek. The British were deployed in three lines, giving Barney a tactical numerical advantage as he advanced toward the first line of boats. Barney’s flotilla opened fire, using their 18- and 24-pounder long guns to outrange the carronades on Barrie’s vessels. The two sides traded fire for several minutes as Barrie held his position while Barney continued to push toward him.
On board barge No. 1, Sailing Master Claudius Besse found himself at the center of a firestorm. Every British gun appeared to be aimed directly at his 50-foot boat. His oarsmen strained to keep the boat directed at the British line. In the bow, his gunners went through the constant evolutions of loading, firing, sponging, and reloading the long 18-pounder gun. Each time it fired, the recoil pushed the barge backward in the water, putting more strain on the oarsmen. The gunners sent round after round thundering at the British boats in front of them and received round after round in return. The British fire pounded Besse’s barge, holing it below the waterline and causing it to begin to founder and sink. The strain of the fight took a toll not only on the crew but on Besse too, who “appeared so much deranged” that Barney relieved him of command.15
The closer the two sides came, the hotter the action became. The longer-ranged American guns began to smash into the British boats, driving the front line back on the second. The British responded with grape, canister, and rockets. Smoke filled St. Leonard Creek and, thanks to a westerly breeze, drifted toward the British boats. Barney’s gunners began scoring hits at a range of about a half mile. A round shot smashed through one of the boats of the Loire, killing two Royal Marines and two sailors. Another shot sank a boat from the Jaseur, killing two seamen and wounding two. All told, the rocket barge bore the brunt of the American onslaught as grape and canister swept over the vessel, knocking her out of action.
The British force, once arrayed in three neat lines, was quickly becoming a jumbled mess. To Barney’s eye, the British, “struck with sudden confusion, began to give way.” The accuracy of that observation is debatable. Barrie all along had planned to use his barges and boats to lure Barney’s flotilla into open water where the Loire and Jaseur could engage them. The volume of American fire certainly caused disorder, although Barrie made no mention of it in his report.
With the British barges pulling back, Barney pressed home his assault. The British boats became tangled up with the lumber schooner and the Erie, allowing the American flotilla to pound both. Barney’s men raked the schooner, sending shots smashing through her stern. The Erie also took several shots, but Barney fixed his eyes on the St. Lawrence. The big schooner offered a tempting target, and Barney ordered his red division to engage her. The British could not maneuver well in the shallow water, and within minutes of being engaged the crew had put the St. Lawrence on a sandbar. The flotilla surged forward and opened a fierce barrage on the stranded vessel that dismounted her guns, pierced her port quarter at the waterline, fractured her foremast, tore up her deck and rigging, and temporarily drove the crew from the vessel. It also gave Barrie the chance to spring his trap.
On the Loire and the Jaseur, gun captains pulled lanyards, activating the flintlock firing mechanisms on the long 18s on the frigate and the 32-pounder carronades on the brig. Both ships disappeared behind a wall of smoke as they sent a hail of round shot toward the flotilla. At first most of the shots missed, and Barney, even as he closed on the British, continued to use the geography of the creek to his advantage. He positioned the flotilla in a cove where it could engage the St. Lawrence from behind a thirty-foot point near the mouth of the creek that shielded his barges from the heavy British ships. Barrie responded by sending officers aloft where they could see the mastheads of the American barges and direct fire. The gunners on the Loire and Jaseur quickly found the range and sent shot careening over the point and into the flotilla.
Barney again reacted quickly. He ordered his men to step the masts—drop them to the decks—to make his barges “disappear.” The next threat, however, was one Barney could not fight. Barrie sent Capt. Thomas Carter and a party of Royal and Colonial Marines ashore and ordered them to scale the bluffs that shielded the flotilla. As the fire from the frigate and the brig reached a crescendo, Barney began to feel the strain and ordered his men to begin rowing back up the creek. Barrie saw what he said was “great disorder” among the American boats and ordered his boats to give chase, but after exchanging a few shots the British gave up their pursuit.
The British squadron fired more than seven hundred rounds at the American flotilla, yet caused, according to Barney, scant damage. Besse’s barge was sunk, and the Vigilant took two shots through her hull. A 24-pounder gun on another barge burst during the height of the battle, but beyond that, Barney reported no damage and no casualties. In his report to Jones, the commodore claimed the British
suffered much, the large schooner was nearly destroyed, having several shot through her at the water’s edge, her deck torn up, gun dismounted, and main-mast nearly cut off about half way up, and rendered unserviceable; she was otherwise much cut up. The Commodore’s boat was cut in two, a shot went through the rocket boat, one of the small schooners carrying two 32-pounders had a shot which raked her from aft, forward; the boats generally suffered, but I have not ascertained what loss they sustained in men.16
Barrie, in his report to Cockburn, reported only minimal casualties. He said the St. Lawrence, “notwithstanding the exposed position,” took only four hits because “the enemy’s guns were so ill-directed.” He at first reported just three men killed and two wounded, although later he amended that to six dead and twelve wounded.17
The flotilla retreated to its anchorage near St. Leonard Town, where Barney found Maj. Alexander Stuart and his battalion of Regulars waiting. He directed Stuart to take up positions along the east bank of the creek while local militia occupied a position on the western side. His carpenters began working on barge No. 1 and quickly restored her to action. He replaced the burst cannon with one from gunboat No. 138 and also repaired the Vigilant.
His inability to smash the flotilla chagrined Barrie, but there was little the Royal Navy captain could do. Barney, now safe in his anchorage with infantry securing his flanks, was all but unassailable. As much as he wanted to grapple again with the American commodore, the battle on June 10, later dubbed the First Battle of St. Leonard, taught Barrie a healthy respect for both the Americans and their commander. Barney told Jones that after the battle the British “have remained in-active this way,” and it was true. Barrie had no intention of attacking Barney head on. Instead, he began to look for an indirect way to strike at his foe.
American newspapers proclaimed the action a “resounding victory,” and news of it quickly spread, reaching Norfolk within a few days. The news stirred arguably the most frustrated officer in the U.S. Navy to look for some way to help Barney.
Capt. Charles Gordon was still desperate for a chance to fight the British. When he had received command of the 36-gun frigate Constellation, he thought his moment was at hand. The British blockade, however, stymied his efforts to get the frigate to sea. Instead, he found himself bottled up in Norfolk, chafing to get at the British. When the news of the battle at St. Leonard Creek reached him on June 12, he saw an opportunity. “Finding that the Baltimore Flotilla is certainly blockaded in the Patuxent, I have determined on attempting a diversion . . . to raise his blockade if possible,” he wrote to Jones. Gordon envisioned an attack on the few ships Cockburn still had around Tangier Island, although he said he could not evict the British from their base because he was “not sufficiently strong to attempt a landing there.”18
Gordon planned to use a small force of schooners, tenders, and ships’ boats for his attack. The Constellation, the most powerful American warship in the Chesapeake theater, was not part of his plan because she had no crew. The enlistment period of most of his sailors had expired and the men had scattered. Gordon had sent those who remained to man the flotilla of gunboats and barges that made up the bulk of the sea force guarding Norfolk. Those men fell under Tarbell’s command, and although Gordon had seniority and commanded all naval forces, his ongoing feud with Tarbell limited his ability to augment his planned attack.
Even more galling to Gordon was the fact that Cockburn had stripped the blockading force off Norfolk to a bare minimum. If Gordon could batter the ships around Tangier Island, he believed, then Cockburn would have no choice but to pull all the ships away from Norfolk to protect his base. Should that happen, Gordon believed he could slip out of Norfolk with the Constellation, provided he could recruit enough sailors to man the ship.19
Gordon set out on June 14 with 3 schooners, a tender, and 150 men loaded in ships’ boats. He found the frigate Acasta waiting off Craney Island while the ship of the line Albion hovered nearby. Gordon knew the Albion had only a skeleton crew but was not sure what other vessels Capt. Thomas Kerr of the Acasta had around him. Gordon decided to lay up his flotilla off Craney Island and observe the British. He waited for more than a week, seeking an opportunity to use his boats and schooners to launch an attack. On June 20, however, the frigate Narcissus arrived and the window for attack closed. “Finding ultimately that the two frigates kept their position with their tenders close under their Guns every night, and the men in my Launches requiring rest, having slept [on] the boats and messed upon the beach for a week or 10 days,” he wrote to Jones, “I returned to the squadron, regretting very much that the inactivity of my force together with its importance to the defense of this place deprives me the satisfaction of assisting Barney in any way at present.”20
Gordon did not immediately give up on his plan for helping Barney by launching an attack from Norfolk, but by the end of June there was little he could do. He had twenty gunboats and barges but could man only ten because crews had reached the limit of their enlistments. He had already stripped the Constellation of her sailors and Marines to man the boats, but even that measure was wanting. He told Jones he simply could not compete for recruits with the Army, which offered a bounty to any man who enlisted, or to privateers, which offered the lure of prize money. “We are now discharging men so fast from the crew of the Constellation, as well as from the flotilla that I shall be reduced to the necessity of laying up several of the gun boats in a few days or at least to send them up to the yard so soon as the enemy may make any threatening movement, as I am only keeping them at present for appearances,” Gordon wrote to Jones. Gordon implored Jones to allow him to set up recruiting stations elsewhere in Virginia as well as in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. He wanted to pay a ten-dollar bounty to entice recruits, but Jones refused. As Gordon’s sailors drifted away, so too did his chance to get the Constellation to sea. Although he never stopped believing that he could run the blockade—“No exertions shall be wanting on our part,” he told Jones—Gordon had to accept the fact that there was little he could do to help Barney.21