Retribution and RecriminationRetribution and Recrimination
COMMODORE BARNEY led the flotilla eleven miles upriver to Nottingham, one of the few towns Barrie had not ravaged during his efforts to draw the Americans out of St. Leonard Creek. The commodore viewed the action as a victory. He had escaped the British blockade of the creek, inflicted severe damage on two enemy warships, and, at least for the time being, was able to operate on the upper tidal portion of the Patuxent. Others were not so sure about his victory. The press immediately criticized the manner in which Wadsworth and Barney had coordinated their attacks. Miller, Colonel Carberry, and Wadsworth engaged in a nasty and very public argument over who was to blame for the sudden retreat and near rout of the Army infantry as well as just how much damage each battery had inflicted on the British. By July 10 Secretary Jones had had enough of reading the various charges the officers hurled at another or planted in the National Intelligencer.1 He ordered a hearing to examine Miller’s role in the battle that dragged on into August before fully exonerating the Marines.2
Barney also received some criticism because he and his flotilla were not as free as he first reported. The British controlled the mouth of the Patuxent River, and while Barney could certainly move upriver, he had little chance of getting into the bay, especially after the long-awaited British reinforcements began to arrive from Bermuda. Jones ordered Barney to report to Washington, and the two hashed out the future of the flotilla. Should the British move on Washington via the Patuxent, Barney would be in a position to fight them. If the British went up the Potomac, however, they could keep the flotilla bottled up in the Patuxent and still go where they pleased. The two came to an agreement. Barney would remain at Nottingham and send his second in command, Lt. Solomon Rutter, to take command of the flotilla at Baltimore. If the British moved on Baltimore, Barney and his men would march there. If Washington were the target, Rutter would lead the Baltimore flotillamen to Barney’s aid.3
Barney’s move upriver was also less than popular with the inhabitants of Calvert County, most of whom blamed him for the British raids that left their homes, plantations, and farms in ruins. The local militia refused to turn out, which Barney viewed as a blessing in disguise because he placed no faith in them. The locals hated Barney for bringing the war to their doorstep, and their anger knew no bounds. “It has enraged them so that a great many that were in favor of him are now abusing him every day,” wrote one Calvert County resident. “I think when I tell the mischief the British have done it will be enough to make you and every man abuse Jim Madison and old Barney in Hell if you could.”4 Barney could thus expect no real help from the people he was trying to defend, and the antiwar sentiment in southern Maryland was about to increase because the British were ready to unleash a new campaign of terror.
The escape of the flotilla infuriated the British, who took out their anger on St. Leonard Town. On July 3 a party of Royal Marines went ashore and completely leveled the town, burning every building except the home of the town doctor. Although it had no impact on the American flotilla, the action signaled the start of Cockburn’s burning season.
The admiral was eager to wreak havoc on Tidewater Virginia and southern Maryland, but he needed more soldiers to do it. On June 24 the 56-gun frigate Severn arrived carrying dispatches from Admiral Cochrane in Bermuda. Cockburn decided he so needed the ship that he countermanded the orders of her commander, Capt. Joseph Nourse, to proceed to blockade duty off New York and ordered him to remain in the Chesapeake. He also ordered Capt. Robert Barrie and the Dragon to remain in Lynnhaven Bay to keep an eye on the Constellation rather than head to Halifax for a much-needed refit.
The admiral put most of his small tenders to work as store ships and was able to augment his force of schooners and sloops through occasional forays. On July 1 the Albion made a move up the Patuxent, where her gig and tender captured the 100-ton schooner Flora. Cockburn immediately armed her. Two weeks later the Loire and the St. Lawrence returned from a cruise on the upper Chesapeake with a dozen prizes. On the same day, Cockburn received his long-awaited reinforcements when five ships—the 74-gun ship of the line Asia, 44-gun frigate Regulus, 38-gun frigate Brune, 12-gun sloop of war Manly, and 8-gun bombship Aetna—arrived in the bay. The five warships escorted a pair of transports that had traveled from Bermuda en flute (with their guns stowed as ballast): the 38-gun troop ship Melpomene and the 12-gun brig Thistle. On board the transports were 350 Royal Marines and a full company of Royal Marine Artillery. Although not enough men for Cockburn to attack Annapolis or Baltimore, the Royal Marine battalion gave the admiral more than enough troops to execute his plan to bring the inhabitants of the Chesapeake to their knees.
In addition to troops, the transports brought several letters from Admiral Cochrane. The British commander of the North America Station wanted Cockburn’s ideas on where he should strike. Cochrane said he expected to receive up to 20,000 battle-hardened troops from Europe, with which he expected to easily defeat the Americans. The question was where to make the main thrust. Cochrane was considering targets ranging from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Newport, Rhode Island, to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington and asked for Cockburn’s input.5 Cockburn had a ready answer for his commander.
I therefore most firmly believe that within forty eight hours after the arrival in the Patuxent of such a force as you expect, the City of Washington might be possessed without difficulty or opposition of any kind. An Army landing at Benedict might possess itself of the Capitol—always so great a blow to the government of a country as well on account of the resources, as of the documents and records the invading army is almost sure to obtain thereby, must strongly I should think urge the propriety of the plan here proposed, and the more particularly as the other places you have mentioned.6
The idea of destroying the American seat of government was one Sir George Prevost, commander in Canada, had advanced after American troops burned York (now Toronto) in 1813 and Dover in 1814. He wrote to Cochrane demanding that the admiral exact revenge for “American depredations,” and Cochrane was only too happy to oblige. On July 18 he issued an order to all units on the North America Station to “destroy and lay waste such towns and districts upon the coast as you may find assailable; you will hold strictly in view the conduct of the American Army towards His Majesty’s unoffending Canadian subjects.”7
It was all Cockburn needed to put his plan into motion. He ordered Captain Nourse and the Severn to take command of the blockade of the Patuxent, along with the Aetna, Brune, and Manly. He sent the Asia to Lynnhaven Bay to finally relieve the Dragon and took the rest of the squadron to the Potomac. His plan was simple. Cockburn intended to ravage both sides of the Potomac River while sounding the waterway as high up as Kettle Bottom Shoal, a major impediment to deep-draft traffic heading toward Alexandria and Washington. The two flotillas were to cause enough alarm in the national capital to spread fear but not enough to give away the plan to attack the city. It would also just about force Cochrane to commit to Cockburn’s idea of attacking Washington, something to which Cochrane had yet to agree.8
Map 4. British Operations in the Patuxent, Summer 1814
TAKEN FROM AN ORIGINAL DRAWING BY STANLEY QUICK
Cockburn put his forces into motion on July 15 when he ordered Nourse to take his squadron up the Patuxent. Two days later Cockburn entered the Potomac with the Albion, Loire, Narcissus, Regulus, Brune, and Melpomene and 500 Royal Marines. His first target was Leonardtown, the county seat of St. Mary’s County. Cockburn had information that Colonel Carberry had moved the 36th Infantry to the town, and on July 18 sent in the Loire and his ships’ boats to engage him. Leonardtown sat at the head of a small waterway called Breton Bay. The Royal Marines, under Maj. George Lewis, set off at 8:30 p.m. along with a large force of sailors. The marines landed on both sides of the bay and marched overland to Leonardtown while Cockburn personally led the seamen in the boats. The three prongs converged on the town at dawn.
After the Royal Marines reconnoitered the outskirts of the town and encountered no opposition, Cockburn quietly took possession of the hamlet of sixty buildings and dwellings just as its inhabitants began to wake. The British searched for Carberry’s soldiers, but they had fled at the first inkling of Cockburn’s advance on the town. The landing party seized twenty barrels of flour and ten barrels of beef the Americans had left behind along with forty stand of muskets, which Cockburn’s men destroyed. The British also carried off seventy hogsheads of tobacco, loading it onto two schooners they seized at the town dock. They refrained from putting private residences to the torch when the female inhabitants of the town quietly remained indoors. Cockburn wanted to burn the county courthouse but decided against it when Eliza Key, a relative of Francis Scott Key, told the admiral the townspeople often used the courthouse as a place of worship. The almost tame behavior of the invaders left a favorable impression on Eliza Key, who said the British were “very civil and vastly polite” toward the inhabitants.9
Cockburn next moved to Nomini Creek on the Virginia side of the Potomac. Around noon on July 20 Cockburn again led the ships’ boats, organized in three divisions under the command of Capt. Robert Rowley of the Melpomene, Capt. Robert Ramsey of the Regulus, and Lt. George Urmston, the first lieutenant of the Albion. As the British rowed up the creek, they saw a force of mounted militia gathered in front of a large house on a hill near a ferry slip. The militia opened fire with muskets and a fieldpiece, killing one seaman and wounding four others before galloping off into nearby woods and “hiding” the cannon.10
The British sailors landed and raced up the hill after the Americans. Lt. James Scott of the Albion and an officer from the Regulus entered the house and found numerous bottles of wine and liquor and drinking glasses set out on the porch. Scott, acting on information from one of the black servants at the house, warned his fellow officers the liquor was likely poisoned. He told Cockburn, who ordered Scott to burn the house and its outbuildings in retaliation. The British also left a note explaining why they burned the house, accusing the militia of poisoning the liquor. Lt. Col. Richard E. Parker, commander of the 37th Militia Regiment, sent a note to Cockburn refuting the charge. Scott’s account claims Cockburn had his ship’s surgeon analyze the wine and sent a note back to Parker with the results—someone had laced the wine with arsenic.11
Cockburn and his sailors continued up Nomini Creek to the village of Mount Holly while the Royal Marines pursued the militia. The chase lasted four miles but the British managed to grab only a few stragglers. By the time the Royal Marines returned to Mount Holly it was almost dark, and Cockburn made camp. In the morning, his sailors and marines carried off everything they could, including tobacco, cattle, and livestock—even the silver communion set of Mount Holly Church—before they set fire to the buildings. As they rowed back down the creek, Cockburn stopped off on a point of land that jutted into the waterway on which he saw militia. The Americans fired a ragged volley at the invaders and then ran away. Cockburn landed his force, which again burned every building in the vicinity. They also carried off 135 slaves who were, he reported, “anxious to join us.”12
Lieutenant Urmston took charge of the refugees and used the Thistle to take them to Tangier Island. James White of the Thistle took command of the Albion and on July 23 led an expedition into St. Clemens Bay on the Maryland side of the river, an estuary similar to Breton Bay. He ran into no opposition and captured four schooners and burned a fifth. On July 26 he probed Lower Machodoc Creek on the Virginia shore and again ran into no opposition. He burned six schooners he found anchored in the creek and carried off one hundred head of cattle before returning to the main squadron.13
On July 15 Capt. Joseph Nourse moved into the Patuxent with a squadron based on the 56-gun frigate Severn. His first action was to burn the town of Calverton, also known as Battle Town, at the head of Battle Creek. Calverton was the former county seat of Calvert County and dated back to 1669. After plundering everything they could carry, Nourse’s sailors and marines put the town to the torch. On July 16 they moved upriver to Sheridans Point. From there the invaders fanned out across the countryside, burning everything that hinted of having value. On July 17 they landed at a plantation called God’s Grace and marched seven miles to Huntingtown at the head of Hunting Creek and burned a warehouse containing 130 hogsheads of tobacco. Winds spread the fire to nearby houses, and soon the entire town was aflame. The British returned to God’s Grace and demanded twenty hogsheads of tobacco from the workers. When the workers refused, the sailors and marines destroyed the plantation.14
On July 19 Nourse landed his troops and marched nine miles inland to Prince Frederick, the new county seat of Calvert County. A large force of militia guarded the town, but its men fled as soon as the British sailors and marines marched into view. Nourse set his men to work burning the town and returned to his boats by 4 p.m. The following day Nourse went ashore two miles south of Benedict and burned several tobacco warehouses. He then turned his ships south toward the mouth of the river.15
Nourse’s raids—especially those inland—sowed panic in Calvert and St. Mary’s Counties. Militia flittered about from town to town, never really trying to intercept the British incursions or oppose them. Property owners fled at the mention of red-coated invaders. Commodore Barney, who moved his flotilla out of his anchorage at Nottingham several times based on reports of British actions, was astonished at the way the inhabitants reacted. “The people,” he said, “are all frightened out of their senses running about the country like so many mad people.”16 Eventually Barney ceased placing any faith in anything the county residents told him. “There are so many individuals that make it their business to give false and alarming news,” he wrote to Jones, “that we cannot believe anything we hear.”17
Nourse plundered numerous homes along the Patuxent on his return trip. He proudly wrote to Cockburn, “The people on either side of the Patuxent are in the greatest alarm and consternation many are moving entirely away from both Calvert and St. Mary’s, and I think in a short time they will be nearly deserted, those that remained at home all their slaves have left them and come to us.” Nourse was disappointed that he had been unable to engage Barney’s flotilla, but he took pride in the knowledge that the Americans had no idea where or when to expect the next attack. “Jonathan I believe is so confounded that he does not know when or where to look for us and I do believe that he is at this moment so undecided and unprepared that it would require but little force to burn Washington, and I hope soon to put the first torch to it myself.”18
Cockburn spent two days distributing supplies before moving farther up the Potomac. He dropped anchor off the mouth of the Wicomico River on July 28. A heavy rainstorm delayed disembarking troops until the next day, when Cockburn led a force of five hundred marines and sailors up the estuary. Cockburn had received information that Brig. Gen. Philip Stuart and a force of militia were ready to contest his advance. He deployed flanking parties to scout both sides of the estuary and also sounded Kettle Bottom Shoals on the Potomac, then pushed up the estuary and entered Chaptico Creek. Cockburn had his sailors and Royal Marines scour the area for opposition throughout the night, but they encountered none.19
At daybreak on July 30 the British landed at what the inhabitants called the “Hamburg Warehouse.” The landing party met no opposition and set the warehouse alight after picking it clean of everything of value. From there they marched to and seized the town of Chaptico. They allegedly entered a burial vault at Christ Church, where, according to Stuart, they stripped the burial shroud off the body of a woman only recently laid to rest.20
Cockburn remained on the Loire and, with six schooners and several ships’ boats, pushed up the Potomac another sixteen miles to Lower Cedar Point as he searched for a passage around Kettle Bottom Shoals. A landing party from the Loire went ashore and ran into pickets guarding Stuart’s camp, but after a brief exchange of musket fire the British withdrew. Nevertheless, Cockburn concluded he could in fact maneuver even his largest warships around the shoal, making Washington vulnerable to a direct attack from the river. Satisfied, he turned his ships back down the Potomac to Tangier Island.
The squadron fought headwinds and calms for two days before arriving off the mouth of the Yeocomico River, a tributary of the Potomac, on August 3. In a now familiar pattern, Cockburn sent out mapping crews while the sailors and Royal Marines set ablaze farmhouses, barns, and other outbuildings. The wanton destruction pleased Cockburn but came as a shock to some of his junior officers.
“And so well did we act up to the very spirit of our orders, that if the Americans who bounded the shores of Virginia and Maryland do not entail upon their posterities the deepest hatred and the loudest curses upon England and her marauders, why, they must possess more Christian charity than I give them credit for,” wrote Midn. Frederick Chamier. “The ruin, the desolation, the heartless misery, that we left them to brood over, will forever make the citizens of the United States, in spite of the relationship of the countries, hate us with that hatred which no words can allay, or time eradicate.”21
And still the destruction continued. After anchoring off the Yeocomico River in Virginia, Lieutenant Scott of the Albion led a force of sailors and Royal Marines toward Mundy Point. As Scott’s force neared the shore, a battery of artillery under the command of Capt. Stephen Henderson opened a devastating barrage. Henderson, a native of Ireland, commanded the artillery attached to the 37th Virginia militia. He lived near Mundy Point and had spent considerable time improving his position, having built a barrack, storehouse, smokehouse, and stable, as well as erecting breastworks to protect his position. He had placed two 4-pounder field guns behind a log breastwork and another behind a sand-and-dirt fortification and had issued standing orders to man the guns whenever the enemy threatened.22
Unlike their neighbors in Maryland, the Virginia militia turned out in strength as Cockburn sailed up the Potomac. Governor James Barbour ordered the entire 4th Division to gather just a few miles away from Henderson’s position at Mundy Point, and at least a full brigade was present at the camp under Maj. Gen. Alexander Parker. Henderson had orders to fall back on the divisional camp should the British come ashore in force.23
Lieutenant Scott had no idea American artillery was guarding the shore. His first inkling was Henderson’s opening salvo, which decapitated a Royal Marine sitting next to Scott, splattering him with blood and brains. The gruesome death did not even slow down the oarsmen. “‘Hurrah, my lads! Stretch out—hurrah! hurrah!’ was repeated by the crew, and an extra tug at the oars evinced their anxiety to come to close quarters,” Scott wrote. A second salvo from Henderson’s battery killed two more men in Scott’s boat, but still the British pulled for the shore. When the boat grounded on a sand spit, several men jumped overboard to free it just as Henderson’s guns fired another blast that killed two more marines and wounded two.24
The concentrated fire on Scott’s boat allowed Maj. George Lewis to sweep in and, avoiding the sandbar, land his force so rapidly that Henderson had to limber his guns and flee. Henderson’s men stopped briefly to engage Lewis’ Royal Marines with muskets but fled again when the entire British force landed. The British stopped to set fire to all of the buildings at the battery, a pause that granted Henderson a mile head start over his pursuers.25
The sun had risen by the time Henderson and his men entered some woods three miles from Mundy Point. The artillerymen were fatigued after the long run, and the 90° temperature further sapped their strength. With the enemy so close on their heels, they decided not to head to Parker’s camp for fear the militia gathered there were unaware of the British incursion. Instead, they turned toward the village of Lottsburg and jettisoned one of their two cannon. Scott and Lewis pursued the retreating Americans by following the wheel tracks of the cannon. When they came upon the abandoned gun they decided to manually push it back to their landing spot. As they marched back to Mundy Point, the two officers ran into Cockburn leading the main force of Royal Marines. A runaway slave had told Cockburn about a large stash of military stores hidden on a nearby farm, and rather than pursue Henderson, the admiral ordered his men to head to the farm.26
The Royal Marines arrived at the farm after a four-mile march. It belonged to Henderson, who used it as a secondary supply depot. The residence and several outbuildings were stuffed with military stores, and Cockburn ordered his men to burn all of the buildings. The British used several barrels of captured powder to destroy a storehouse on the farm, and Cockburn reported hearing a satisfactory blast as his men marched back to Mundy Point.27
Major General Parker, the commander of the 4th Division of Virginia Militia, decided to find out for himself the exact whereabouts of Cockburn and his invaders and left his camp along with his son and an aide, Maj. John Taylor Lomax. The three officers were mounted and moving through a patch of rough terrain when they ran into Scott and a group of skirmishers. The British opened fire, scaring the horses, which dumped their riders to the ground. The horses galloped off while the three Americans scrambled into the brush to avoid capture. Parker suffered a broken collarbone and his son had some bruises; Lomax was unscathed. Parker’s absence, however, had far worse consequences than a broken bone and three lost horses.28
Cockburn, again on advice from runaway slaves, found Parker’s camp in a large field shielded by dense woods. A large contingent of militiamen had gathered there and, in the absence of their leader, were standing in formation facing to the west while a mounted unit was set up facing south. The Royal Marines, along with the captured cannon, quietly moved into the woods near the cavalry unit. The moment they opened fire with musket and grapeshot, the Americans’ horses bolted into the massed infantry. The main Royal Marine force advanced with fixed bayonets, and the militia fled the field. Cockburn had routed an entire division of militia without suffering a single casualty. He immediately ordered his men back to Mundy Point in hope of preventing the Americans from crossing the Yeocomico to the town of Kinsale.29
The Royal Marines, sweltering in their wool uniforms, marched double-quick back to Mundy Point and threw themselves on the beach. Cockburn allowed a two-hour rest before he ordered three companies to board the boats and row across the river to attack Kinsale. When Cockburn had first entered the Potomac, Brig. Gen. John Hungerford had established a strong force of militia infantry, backed with cannon, to defend the town. His men built a blockhouse on a height that commanded the river, then settled in to wait.30
Cockburn ordered a rocket barge to engage the Americans and drive them off, but the militia withstood the initial barrage. Scott jumped into the barge and, with only two rockets remaining, directed the fire. His first rocket hit the blockhouse, and his second demolished one of the gun positions. Cockburn then personally led a frontal assault on Hungerford’s position. The Americans melted before the Royal Marines’ onslaught. Hungerford, despite his best efforts, was unable to rally his troops. Cockburn again had no casualties while the militia lost eight dead and five captured.31
The battle over, the Royal Marines deployed howitzers and fieldpieces for defense while sailors loaded sixty-eight hogsheads of tobacco and twenty barrels of flour onto five schooners they had captured in the town harbor. The landing party reembarked at 2 a.m. on August 4. The only casualties the British suffered came in the first landing when artillery raked Lieutenant Scott’s boat.32
Parker’s division simply disappeared. The militiamen likely returned to their homes, although some probably joined with Hungerford’s men, who rallied after fleeing Kinsale. For the British, the flight of yet another strong force of militia was proof that Jonathan would not and could not stand up to the king’s forces, no matter what the Yankee press might say. Scott, in a derisive analysis of American newspaper pronouncements of imminent defeat for the marauding Royal Navy force, openly wondered what the local press would make of the swath of destruction Cockburn’s men had wrought as well as the poor showing of the Virginia militia. “The military achievements of the gallant general with the whole assembled militia of Virginia, Spotsylvania, etc., are best left to the imagination,” the lieutenant wrote, “the Government doubtless considering the publication of them as a work of supererogation.”33
The raid up the Yeocomico left the Coan River as the only marginally navigable tributary of the Potomac on the Virginia shore that Cockburn had yet to pillage. That changed on August 6 when the admiral learned militiamen were erecting a strong battery there. The squadron arrived at night, and at daybreak the next morning Lewis led a landing party in the ships’ boats to destroy the battery. The Americans fired one volley, then fled at the sight of the bayonet-brandishing Royal Marines, dragging their three fieldpieces with them. Cockburn, Lewis, and Urmston pushed ahead to the top of the tortuous estuary where they found five schooners at anchor. The British stripped the warehouse where the schooners were anchored and loaded the ships with twenty-eight hogsheads of tobacco before returning to the squadron.34
On August 6, while Cockburn was plundering along the Coan River, the vanguard of Admiral Cochrane’s main force arrived from Bermuda. The supply ship Tucker, loaded with four months’ provisions; the 38-gun frigate Menelaus under Capt. Sir Peter Parker; and the 36-gun frigate Hebrus under Capt. Edward Palmer joined the squadron just as Cockburn was pushing up the Coan River. On board the Hebrus was Lt. Col. Sir James Malcolm, who had gained ample experience in Cockburn’s operations in 1813. Malcolm assumed command of all the Royal Marines, assembling them into a full battalion. After hearing about Cockburn’s planned raid on the Coan, Parker, Palmer, and a group of sailors rowed up the river and joined the raiders. Both officers were enthusiastic about the value of their experience, and Cockburn decided to conduct a “training” expedition on the St. Marys River in Maryland.35
On August 8 Cockburn embarked the newly assembled Royal Marine battalion under Malcolm and all of his small-arms-armed sailors before dawn and led them into the St. Marys River with the Aetna and tenders following close behind. He divided the land force into two divisions and put Parker and Palmer in charge of them. The divisions landed on either side of the inlet and marched toward the head of the river, where they found a “factory” for making cotton fabric. The British met no opposition on their march. The locals readily complied with whatever orders they received and furnished any supplies Cockburn demanded. After burning the factory, the admiral turned his force around and marched back to the boats while the Aetna remained anchored to collect the requisitioned supplies.36
His work complete, Cockburn returned to the Potomac. Six days later, Cochrane arrived with his main fleet and another four thousand soldiers. The question for the British was where to strike next.