“NOW THAT THE TYRANT Bonaparte has been consigned to infamy,” declared the London Times on April 15, “there is no public feeling in this country stronger than that of indignation against the Americans.” And with good reason:
That a republic boasting of its freedom should have stooped to become the tool of the Monster’s ambition; that it should have attempted to plunge the parricidal weapon into the heart of that country from whence its own origin was derived; that it should have chosen the precise moment when it fancied that Russia was overwhelmed, to attempt to consummate the ruin of Britain—all this is conduct so black, so loathsome, so hateful, that it naturally stirs up the indignation that we have described.
Actually, Washington knew nothing about Napoleon’s Russian venture at the time war was declared. But the British people weren’t interested in chronology. Nor did they care about American grievances. They only knew that Britain had been fighting for freedom—everybody’s freedom—and for what seemed the most trivial, legalistic reasons, America had made war on her.
“Only two motives can with the least show of plausibility be assigned to Madison’s conduct—venality, or malice,” declared the Times. “It is possible that he may have been in the direct pay of Bonaparte; or it is possible he may have performed the monster’s bidding out of pure rancour toward England.”
Madison himself was always the villain. The picture of the gentle, ineffectual scholar—all too evident in Washington—never crossed the Atlantic. In London he was a vicious, crafty gnome. “An ambitious madman,” the National Register called him. “Liar” … “serpent” … “impostor” … “traitor” … “wretched tool”—the Times labeled him all these in the space of four days.
Americans in general were not so much evil as contemptible, with special scorn reserved for the military. The London press caustically quoted a New York Militia notice begging the men to be “punctual.” A correspondent wrote the United Service Journal that American officers were “a strange, uncouth set.” And describing their appalling taste in one wine mess, he exploded: “Some preferred gin sling! Some rum twist! One gentleman preferred BUTTERMILK!!!”
These buttermilk warriors would be no match for “Wellington’s Invincibles.” It was just a question of what peace terms to impose. “The House of Commons rocked with cheers as Major Barber Beaumont called for a new Canadian frontier; a new Indian boundary; Americans to be excluded from the Canadian fisheries and from trading with the British West Indies; America forbidden to take over Florida; the cession of New Orleans; plus a final and somewhat ambiguous insistence on “the distinct abandonment of the new-fangled American public law.”
The Times refined all this a little, demanding that the Canadian boundary be at least a hundred miles below the Great Lakes and not less than ten miles from Lake Champlain. It also urged an indemnity and, confusing the American with the British political system, it called for the dismissal of Madison. “Certainly it would be the height of folly in the British government to sheath the sword so long as a faction which is so steeped in hatred of our name retains the reins of power.”
But more than any specific terms, what most Britons wanted was to punish America. A century later, war would be far too costly, complex and overwhelming for such an uncomplicated goal, but this spring of 1814 it was very real indeed.
“Chastise” was the word. Gleefully turning around a phrase Madison had used in describing his Indian policy, the Times demanded that Britain “not only chastise the savages into present peace, but make a lasting impression on their fears.” Major Beaumont picked it up in his rousing speech to Commons, and even the professional military joined the game. “Government have turned their views toward the chastisement of America,” Colonel Henry Torrens, military secretary at the Horse Guards, enthusiastically wrote Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton.
Madison’s peace commissioner Albert Gallatin, still sitting in London while the British completed arrangements for the coming negotiations, got the point. “To use their own language,” he wrote Monroe, “they mean to inflict on America a chastisement that will teach her that war is not to be declared against Great Britain with impunity.”
Only Gallatin and his colleagues, many Britons felt, stood in the way. These wily men would be using all their tricks to save the Americans. Let Britain be on her guard. “May no false liberality, no mistaken lenity, no weak or cowardly policy interpose to save them from the blow,” warned the Times, and once again: “Strike. Chastise the savages.…”
There was little need to worry. Feelings were running so high the government couldn’t have offered easy terms if it had wanted to. When one member of Commons had the temerity to propose an early peace with America, he was greeted by a storm of hisses and cries of “Off! Off!” His resolution was quickly voted down with tumultuous cheers.
Lost in the boasts and the swagger of this giddy spring were the doubts of a solitary soldier—the Duke of Wellington. The Duke enjoyed these days of triumph as much as anyone—he was quite aware of his own importance—but he also remained as levelheaded as ever. As early as February, while he was still battering at the gates of France, he wrote the Secretary for War and the Colonies Earl Bathurst a sobering assessment of prospects in America. As he saw it, geography was all against Britain. The trackless wastes, the lack of roads, the thin population made large-scale military operations impractical.
You may go to a certain extent, as far as a navigable river or your means of transport will enable you to subsist, provided your force is sufficiently large compared with that with which the enemy will oppose . you. But I do not know where you could carry on such an operation which would be so injurious to the Americans as to force them to sue for peace, which is what one would wish to see. The prospect in regard to America is not consoling.
Nobody else gave it a thought. “The Government have determined to give Jonathan a good drubbing,” Colonel Torrens assured Major General Sir George Murray on April 14. That same day official orders were sent to Wellington, earmarking some 13,400 infantry plus small detachments of cavalry and artillery for this laudable purpose. No objective was mentioned; it was simply to be an attack on the American coast.
But even Britain couldn’t do everything at once. It turned out that most of the army was needed to keep order in France. Other troops were wanted for Flanders … still others for Canada, where Sir George Prevost was to launch a drive of his own. Nor did it help when Wellington refused to let any of the light infantry leave Europe.
All this set back the schedule and cut down the number of men available. Small matter. Jonathan’s drubbing wouldn’t take much. Mid-May, some of the designated troops were dropped altogether; 6,000 others were syphoned off for Prevost. This left about 2,800 men waiting at Bordeaux and 1,000 others near the Mediterranean. All would go to the British base at Bermuda, where they’d join the marines and naval units already on hand. Operating together, they were “to effect a diversion on the coasts of the United States in favor of the armies employed in the defense of Upper and Lower Canada.”
There were still no specific targets. Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane—the over-all commander waiting at Bermuda—was simply told to use the force “in such operations as may be found best calculated for the advantage of H.M. service, and the annoyance of the enemy.”
About May 20, after much juggling, command of the troops was given to Major General Robert Ross, one of Wellington’s many competent if somewhat anonymous subordinates. Ross was a 47-year-old Irish country gentleman with bright blue eyes and a ready smile. But behind that pleasant front, he was also the toughest of disciplinarians. Despite this, his men respected him, for like most soldiers, they would put up with almost any qualities in a commander as long as his system paid off. It was enough for them that in the long retreat to Coruna in the Peninsular campaign, Ross’s 20th Foot—thanks to all that hard drilling—lost fewer men than any other regiment.
He also had another quality the men admired. Whatever the hardships or danger, Ross was right there with them. He had been wounded twice, and at Pamplona had two horses shot out from under him. Sometimes he almost seemed to be daring death.
Ross’s instructions, meticulously drawn up by Earl Bathurst, carefully spelled out his relations with Admiral Cochrane. The Admiral would pick the targets, but Ross should “freely express” his opinion from the military point of view. He also had veto power over the use of his troops, and once ashore had complete control over their operations. He was especially cautioned “not to engage in any extended operation at a distance from the coast.”
Bathurst had another caution too. “You will not encourage any disposition which may be manifested by the Negroes to rise upon their masters.”
This raised a most sensitive question. What to do about the slaves in any southern states attacked? The first whisperings of nineteenth-century liberalism were already rustling through England. William Wilberforce had persuaded Parliament to stop the slave trade, and universal abolition was in the air. It was a great temptation to turn the invasion into something of a crusade, enlisting the slaves in the British Army in a battle for their own freedom. It was also a way (although less was said about this) to help solve the manpower shortage that had watered down the first joyful plans for chastisement. On the other hand, Britain was a growing colonial power too, and in a different sense the barriers between white and black were becoming ever more firmly cemented into place. To the aristocratic gentlemen planning the attack, it was a squeamish business, turning the slaves loose on “our own kind.”
The solution was highly ambivalent. Earl Bathurst’s orders were firm against encouraging any insurrection: “The humanity which ever influences His Royal Highness” recoiled against “the atrocities inseparable from commotions of such a description.” But if individual Negroes happened to help, that would be quite all right. They could either enlist in a Black Corps or go as free settlers to a British colony … the Admiral had full instructions.
The full instructions showed a curiously offhand concept of geography. Northern Negroes were to be sent to Halifax; southern to Trinidad. There was no clue as to what was a “northern” or a “southern” Negro, nor was there any policy for handling either category. It was impossible to say whether a black might be better off “northern” and shivering without a job in Halifax, or “southern” and toiling once again as a field hand in Trinidad.
With the plan finally set, the whole cumbersome machinery of the British government swung into action, grinding out the necessary orders. “Colonel Torrens is directed by the Commander-in-Chief,” one typical directive began, “to request Major General Bunbury to move Earl Bathurst to give directions to the Commissioners for the Transport Service to provide a conveyance. …”
The sober shuffling of paper at Whitehall offered a curious counterpoint to the tumultuous joy that swept London all spring. Napoleon was really gone. For the moment everyone forgot the harsh realities of life in the Regency—the high prices, the Corn Laws, the dreadful extremes between rich and poor. Angry reformers like William Cobbett scolded “the senseless, noisy joy of England,” but nobody listened. The people were lost in euphoria; they wanted only to rejoice and shower their gratitude on the rulers who had brought them through.
This took some doing. The Prime Minister Lord Liverpool was drab and pious. The Tory cabinet, though capable, was utterly colorless. And the Royal Family itself verged on the scandalous. The “old King” George III was hopelessly mad; the Prince Regent was a shrewd but lazy rake; the Duke of York was a nominal Commander-in-Chief whose mistress had been caught peddling army commissions. Indeed, the royal sons were collectively described by Wellington himself as “the damndest millstones about the neck of any government that can be imagined.”
Yet none of it mattered this spring, and on June 2 excitement reached a new peak when a Gazette Extraordinary announced the signing of peace with France. As if to cap this glorious news, that evening the Queen held a Drawing Room at Buckingham House that proved, according to the press, “the most numerous and splendid assemblage ever before witnessed in this or any other country.”
Crowds surged around the carriages rolling toward the scene, and as they recognized Lord Hill, Beresford and other heroes of the Peninsula, great huzzahs went up. On the front lawn the band of the Royal Horse Guards was stationed, with its great silver kettle drums thundering in time to “Rule, Britannia.” As the Grand Duchess Oldenburgh of Russia entered the gates, the Tower guns began to fire, saluting the end of the European war.
At just about this time 450 miles to the south, signal flags fluttered from HMS Royal Oak, 74 guns, anchored in the Gironde Estuary west of Bordeaux. Then came the rattle of anchor chains, the creaking of block and tackle, and at 5:30 P.M. she glided seaward on a gentle ebb tide. Thirteen other warships and three transports fell in behind her; the British invasion force to chastise the Americans was on the way.
Flying from the Royal Oak was the blue flag of the convoy commander, Rear Admiral Poultney Malcolm. He proved a congenial officer who practically never slept and when he did, kept up a stream of conversation which no one understood and he never remembered afterward. But he was a good host, maintaining a lavish table for General Ross and his suite, who were guests on the flagship.
Packed on the vessels that trailed behind were the best units of three regiments: the 4th, 44th and 85th Foot—2,814 men altogether. On the Diadem Lieutenant George Robert Gleig of the 85th found himself jammed in a cabin with 40 other junior officers. At that, he was better off than the enlisted men and seamen crowded together below. Hot, damp, dark, smelly—their life was all that and worse. For food, there was usually just salt beef, tough as mahogany; cheese so hard it could be made into buttons; and biscuits so full of insect life that before eating, the men would tap them on the table to shake out the bugs.
But Wellington’s Invincibles were above all adaptable. Life soon settled down to the not unpleasant monotony of a seven-week trooping voyage. A newspaper, christened The Atlantic News, made its appearance on the Royal Oak. Captain Hanchett of the Diadem opened his fine library to the officers of the 85th. The men on the Weser attempted a production of Sheridan’s The Rivals, enlivened when a sudden squall sent both performers and audience reeling. On calmer evenings the superb band of the Menelaus serenaded the nearby ships, reminding everyone of home.
The social high point of the voyage came, one evening when the fleet lay to, and Admiral Malcolm invited officers from all the ships to the Royal Oak for a play and grand ball. Cutters and pinnaces streamed to the flagship, and as the visitors came aboard, they found the guns rolled aside and the deck festooned with bunting and lanterns. After a vigorous performance of The Apprentice, the grand ball opened with a country dance by Admiral Malcolm and the Honorable Mrs. Thomas Mullins, wife of the Lieutenant Colonel of the 44th Regiment. She, as sometimes happened on long campaigns, had wangled approval to come along on the expedition. There were a few other wives, but for the most part the officers had to dance with one another.
Not invited to the ball and remaining shadowy figures below decks, were other women in the fleet. It was completely against regulations to have them along on an operational voyage, but the captains were practical men, and some looked the other way. Never mentioned officially in the logs or muster rolls, they were occasionally referred to euphemistically as the men’s “wives,” but most often were called just what they were—”the women on the ship.”
The situation briefly surfaced toward the end of June, when typhoid broke out on the Diadem, hitting one of the “women” along with some 30 men. But the fleet’s main problem was always water—the Weser stowed only 90 tons for 538 on board—and on June 21 the convoy stopped at the Azores for more.
June 23, they were on their way again, and on the 26th Admiral Malcolm sent the fast frigate Pactolus ahead to give Admiral Cochrane advance word of their coming. The troops were in fine spirits, he reported, “all anxious to punish the Americans for depriving them of the pleasure of returning home after their long and glorious service in the Peninsula. …”
At Bermuda, Sir Alexander Cochrane waited impatiently. Just appointed to replace the elderly Admiral John Borlase Warren as commander of the North American Station, Cochrane would hopefully be more aggressive, and he was only too delighted to oblige.
How he hated Americans. It was one of the important qualities he brought to the job, although actually he had seen very little of them firsthand. Most of his career had been spent in the Mediterranean and West Indies, much of it on administrative work. He had done a stint in Parliament and most recently had been Governor of Guadeloupe. This contact with the political world had greatly sharpened his sensitivities in that direction—he knew all about prize money, the amenities of office, the art of fence-mending, and especially the game of patronage and “interest.” He had managed to enter his son Thomas as a “volunteer” on his nephew’s ship in his own squadron at the remarkable age of seven. With this kind of maneuvering, the boy was a captain at 17, and one of the Admiral’s pet projects was to bring the young man (now an old veteran of 25) back under his protective eye.
He had a thousand schemes. Sir Alexander knew nothing of events in Europe, but he assumed Napoleon was finished, and with 15,000 of Wellington’s army, there was nothing he couldn’t do. “I am confident,” he wrote Lord Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty, on March 10, “that all the country southwest of the Chesapeake might be restored to the dominion of Great Britain, if under the command of enterprising generals.”
As a starter, he planned to kidnap political leaders close to the Madison administration. This would have to be done from within, but that could be arranged. “A little money well applied will attain almost any object amongst such a corrupt and depraved race.”
By March 25 he had a new idea. Gone was the plan to redeem Virginia and kidnap the Madisonians. Instead, he’d take the army to New Hampshire, destroy the Portsmouth Navy Yard, and send it slashing its way overland to join Prevost in Canada.
This would mean few troops for the south, but he hoped to make up for that by encouraging “the disaffection of the colored population.” If he could get the slaves to join the British cause there was no limit to what might be done. Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay would be seized with this end in view: “When fortified it will be a place of refuge for the blacks to fly to.”
All this was certainly stretching his orders—they covered only individual Negroes seeking his protection—but he was prepared for that. In forwarding to London a proclamation he planned to distribute to the blacks, he assured Lord Melville, “I keep the Ministers out of sight.” As for the Americans, let them howl: “They are a whining, canting race much like the spaniel and require the same treatment—must be drubbed into good manners.”
April, he was mainly concerned with the blockade. Originally he had planned to go easy on New England, feeling that a soft policy might encourage secession. Now it was the other way around. His political intelligence expert James Stewart, formerly British Vice Consul at New London, assured him that a tight blockade was the way to get secession; so that was how it would be.
May, his mind turned again to landings on the Chesapeake. On the 27th he wrote Admiral Cockburn in the Bay to start collecting the necessary information. He would pay well, he added vaguely, for “some enterprizing characters who run all risks for money.”
Cochrane’s chief interest continued to be his scheme to recruit blacks to the British cause. From now on, he wrote Cockburn on July 1, the main purpose of his landings should be to cover the Negroes as they swarmed under British protection. “The great point to be attained is the cordial support of the Black population. With them properly armed and backed with 20,000 British troops, Mr. Madison will be hurled from his throne.”
“The Blacks are all good horsemen,” he assured Earl Bathurst on the 14th. “Thousands will join upon their masters’ horses, and they will only require to be clothed and accoutered to be as good Cossacks as any in the European army, and I believe more terrific to the Americans than any troops that could be brought forward. I have it much at heart to give them a complete drubbing.”
There was little ground for such optimism. At this moment, after three months of the most energetic efforts, Admiral Cockburn had been able to raise only 120 black recruits.
Cockburn unconsciously touched on the heart of the problem in his very first comment on Cochrane’s Proclamation:
If you attach importance to forming a corps of these Blacks to act against their former masters, I think, my dear Sir, your Proclamation should not so distinctly hold out to them the option of being sent as free settlers to British settlements, which they will most certainly all prefer to the danger and fatigue of joining us in arms. In the temptations I now hold out to them, I shall therefore only mention generally our willingness and readiness to receive and protect them.…
Yet changing the emphasis meant ending the chance of winning any large number of blacks at all. They were interested mainly in true, not nominal freedom. If they couldn’t have that, it made little difference whether they stayed in the fields or served in a Royal regiment. They didn’t want to be used by either the Americans or the British.
But Cochrane planned on. When he wasn’t dreaming up fanciful intelligence networks or legions of black Cossacks, he was concocting new operations for the troops he daily expected. There were reports of Lord Hill with 15,000 from Bordeaux … two regiments more from the Mediterranean … others from England. He could see 20,000 altogether.
Mid-June, he felt he might operate in the Chesapeake until July, then go to Block Island—a good base for attacking New England. July 1, he toyed with the idea of assaulting Philadelphia, Washington or Baltimore—he didn’t care which, although he leaned toward Baltimore. July 17, he was planning to take New York by landing on Long Island and bombarding the city from Brooklyn. … or maybe he’d seize Philadelphia, then move south ultimately to Richmond. July 23, all that was forgotten; now he’d attack either Portsmouth or Rhode Island. “I do not think any attempt should be made south of the Delaware before October.”
Whatever he did, he would hit hard. On July 17 a letter arrived from Sir George Prevost complaining of new American atrocities in Canada—specifically the burning of Dover—and calling on Cochrane to assist in retaliating. The Admiral was happy to oblige. Back in January—before leaving London—he had asked Lord Melville for “a quantity of combustible matter made up in packages from 50 to 5 pounds each, not to be extinguished by water.…” Now he had his official sanction. July 18, he issued orders to his fleet “to destroy and lay waste such towns and districts upon the coast as you may find assailable.”
To this, however, he added a secret memo, authorizing his forces to spare most kinds of property in return for tribute. This opened up the possibility of prize money instead of just ashes as the fruit of retaliation. With evident relief, the Admiral’s new fleet captain, Edward Codrington, wrote his wife about the policy, “I hope it will not be the less productive of prize money, of which I begin to expect a bigger share than I had promised myself.”
And beyond seizing goods and exacting tribute on the eastern seaboard, Sir Alexander eyed a far more lucrative target to the south. Early in the spring he had sent a mission to the Creek Indians on the Gulf Coast. Long before the mission arrived, Andrew Jackson had virtually wiped out the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend, but nothing was said about this. Back came reports that thousands would flock to the British colors, and New Orleans lay open for the taking. This would not only divert the Americans from Canada, but yield untold riches in cotton, sugar and other stores that had piled up in New Orleans since the blockade. The total worth was said to be £4,000,000; the Commander-in-Chief’s share could come to over £125,000.
June 20, Cochrane wrote the Admiralty urging approval for an expedition. Knowing the government’s penchant for cheap operations, he stressed that the Indians and disaffected Creoles would do most of the work; he would need only 3,000 British troops. Writing Earl Bathurst a few days later, he even improved on that: 2,000 troops would be enough. Keeping his fences mended, he sent along with his letter a turtle for the Earl and some arrowroot for Lady Bathurst.
Anticipating approval, Cochrane also dispatched Major Edward Nicolls of the Royal Marines with a detachment of 115 men to work with the Creeks. They took along two guns and a thousand muskets. He would have sent more, he wrote his friend Governor Cameron of the Bahamas, but he needed everything for the momentous events about to break “in the heart of the United States as soon as Lord Hill and the army come.”
These high hopes suffered a mild setback on July 21, when the Pactolus arrived with word that Admiral Malcolm was approaching. Now for the first time Cochrane learned that his force would be closer to 5,000 than 20,000 men. Still, he could do a lot with that, and there was much rejoicing three days later when the Royal Oak led the convoy safely in. As she passed Cochrane’s flagship, the 80-gun Tonnant, the coral cottages of St. George’s echoed to a 15-gun salute. Meeting Malcolm and Ross, Sir Alexander outlined his latest scheme, the proposed attack on Portsmouth or Rhode Island.
All that was changed July 26. This day the sloop St. Lawrence arrived from the Chesapeake with the latest dispatches from Rear Admiral Cockburn. Included were detailed answers to a long query from Cochrane on the 1st, fishing for advice on where to strike to hurt the Americans the most.
Self-assured George Cockburn knew exactly what to do: “I feel no hesitation in stating to you that I consider the town of Benedict in the Patuxent, to offer us advantages for this purpose beyond any other spot within the United States. … 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.”
He ticked off his reasons—the ease and speed the operation offered, so important in launching the assault … the éclat of taking the enemy’s capital, “always so great a blow to the government of a country,” … the relative difficulty of attacking Baltimore or Annapolis first (two of Cochrane’s ideas), but the ease of taking them from the rear once Washington was secured. And to his broad strategy, he added the extra touch of a good tactician:
If Washington (as I strongly recommend) be deemed worthy of our first efforts, although our main force should be landed in the Patuxent, yet a tolerably good division should at the same time be sent up the Potowmac with bomb ships etc, which will tend to distract and divide the enemy, amuse Fort Washington, if it does not reduce it, and will most probably offer other advantages. …
Everything was ready. The Patuxent had been mapped, soundings taken, a good American guide put on the payroll. Now Cockburn said he was leaving the river, lest the enemy suspect something. Next he would go to the Potomac and do a little charting there too. But again, he wouldn’t stay long; he didn’t want to give away the show.
This display of total confidence ended Cochrane’s vacillation. He would head for the Chesapeake. And by the grapevine that has laced all military operations through all time, the decision—which Sir Alexander considered the darkest of secrets—spread instantly through the fleet. Excitement mounted still further on the 29th, when more sails appeared from out of the east. A new convoy from the Mediterranean brought three more regiments. Two were for Canada, but the third—the 21st Foot—was a splendid-looking outfit that joined up with Ross’s force.
Now for last-minute preparations. As always before a troop embarkation, everything was confusion. The Diadem leaked. None of the ships had enough provisions. Ross’s troops had no maps, no entrenching tools, no medicines. In the chaos, Lieutenant Gleig tried to smuggle a small black boy aboard the transport Golden Fleece as a mascot, but he was caught and barely escaped a fine.
August 1, order miraculously began to return. During the morning General Ross and his suite came aboard the Tonnant, and shortly before noon, with Admiral Cochrane’s red flag flying at the fore, the great flagship weighed anchor. Followed by two frigates, she glided down Whalebone Bay, through the treacherous reefs, and turned westward on the sparkling Atlantic.
“We are on our way to the Chesapeake—mind you don’t tell the Yankees,” Captain Codrington playfully wrote his wife on the 3rd. That same day Malcolm and the troop convoy followed from Bermuda—24 vessels altogether. Once again life settled down to the usual shipboard days of sunning, fishing, gambling and boredom … broken only when someone remembered that the 12th was the first day of grouse-shooting back home, and an impromptu celebration broke out.
Far ahead, the Tonnant swept through the Capes on the 11th and started up the Chesapeake. The long sea voyage had given Admiral Cochrane plenty of time for thinking, and by now he wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic about this venture. “I cannot at present acquaint their Lordships of what may be my future operations,” he wrote the Admiralty, “they will depend much on what information I may receive in this quarter.”
August 12 was too hot to decide anything. To men used to an English summer (or at worst, the dry heat of the Peninsula) the fiery furnace of the Chesapeake seemed almost unbearable. At noon Captain Wainwright of the Tonnant laid a thermometer down on the quarterdeck and it hit 133°. The top command sat sweltering in their shirtsleeves—Codrington was amazed that even in the wilds of America it had come to that—while Sir Alexander sweated through some paperwork that proved an admiral’s life was more than just sailing and fighting: how on earth could the HMS Majestic have consumed 3,750 gallons of wine in three weeks?
August 13 and most of the next day they continued up the Bay … nothing in sight except the flat, sandy shoreline. Then, around 4:00 P.M. on the 14th they made out several vessels lying at anchor. Closing, they saw that one was the 74-gun Albion, and from her mizzen flew the white ensign of Rear Admiral Cockburn.
“It is almost impossible to depict my boyish feelings and transport when I gazed for the first time in my life on the features of that undaunted seaman Rear Admiral George Cockburn, with his sunburnt visage and his rusty gold-laced hat,” one of his 15-year-old midshipmen later confessed. And Cockburn was indeed the sort of daring, resourceful leader any 15-year-old could worship. He was one of the curiously many cases where the Royal Navy’s system of protection and patronage really brought forward the best men. Under the watchful eyes of Admirals Sir Joshua Rowley and Lord Hood, he got his navigation in the trackless seas of the East Indies, his seamanship on the rough waters of the English Channel, his battle training with Nelson, and his promotions like clockwork. To all this he added verve, aggressiveness and a coarse, humorous candor that was all his own.
Now at 42, Cockburn had been on the North American Station for nearly two years, and it perfectly suited his jaunty, independent temperament. Here was plenty of opportunity for the skirmishes, the unexpected blows, the earthy exchanges with enemy leaders that he enjoyed so much. In a way he was a throwback to Elizabethan times. He fought war with gusto, and he played very, very rough.
“It is quite a mistake to set fire to a house to windward; it should always be fired the leeward side,” explained Lieutenant Frederick Chaumier of the Menelaus, who gained his experience around the mouth of the Potomac. “The air becoming rarefied by the heat, the wind rushes round the corners, and blows the flames against the house; whereas on the weather side, the wind blows the flames around the angles, one half of their force is lost.…”
Such were the lessons learned this summer as Cockburn, personally heading the raiding parties, swept through Nomini, Chaptico and other tidewater communities. If the inhabitants showed no hostility, they might escape with the loss of their livestock at absurdly low prices. If so much as a militia musket was heard, he applied the torch.
Occasionally, he had a point. At Nomini, he charged, some poisoned whiskey was left enticingly on the porch of Mrs. Thompson’s house. Even General Hungerford of the Virginia Militia recoiled at this, denying that any of his men could have committed such an atrocity. More often, Cockburn didn’t bother explaining. It was, in fact, hard to justify stripping a cemetery vault at Chaptico … cutting up Mrs. Sally Cox’s beds … stealing Dr. Bolinbroke’s library … or chopping down the trees that lined a lane simply because they were English walnuts.
There was one thing rarely destroyed—tobacco. Bringing $500 a hogshead on the British market, it was usually loaded on captured schooners and ultimately sent off to be sold by the prize agent in Bermuda. Cockburn was as interested in prize money as the next man, and sometimes his raids seemed mere plundering expeditions to pick clean the Maryland and Virginia shoreline. “I have sent 84 more hogsheads of tobacco down in vessels to go to Halifax and under convoy of the Dragon,” he wrote Captain Watts of the Jaseur on July 18. “There is now no more tobacco than what you have at Tangier, but I have sent the Swan in search of some I have had information of.…”
Good commander that he was, he also tried to look after his men. Again writing Watts four days later, he had some cheerful news:
I have been picking a little for you, which as peace is so near may not be unacceptable intelligence. I hope to be able to do a good deal more for you in the same way. The only difficulty I have is how to dispose of the prize goods after we get them. I believe you must convert some of the barracks or other buildings on Tangier into store houses till the Admiral sends us a transport to take away our riches.
Americans compared him to Attila, but George Cockburn bore no hard feelings. Unlike Cochrane, he never hated them; he was just trying to give them a hard time as part of the game. It was a shame about Mrs. Cox’s bedding or Dr. Bolinbroke’s library, but Jonathan had asked for war and now he was getting it. When there was no fighting, he was quite capable of relaxing in amiable nonsense—like the quiet day up St. Marys River when he amused himself at ninepins.
But if Cockburn didn’t hate Americans, he didn’t rate them very highly either. He poked gentle fun at Cochrane’s early scheme for kidnaping Madisonian leaders—they weren’t worth the money it would cost. Nor did he have a high opinion of the American war effort. “The country is in general in a horrible state,” he wrote Sir Alexander in June. “It only requires a little firm and steady conduct to have it completely at our mercy.” July, he still felt the same: “It is impossible for any country to be in a more unfit state for war than this now is.”
Nothing that happened these first days of August changed his mind. On the 4th he led 500 marines in a raid on Kinsale, ten miles inland. Here he burned houses, routed the militia, and returned with five captured schooners loaded with tobacco—all at a cost of only three killed. The countryside lay at his feet. More and more respectable people were actually coming to his aid. James Smith of Jerome’s Creek agreed to supply the squadron with livestock. Mr. Hopewell of Drum Point gave Captain Nourse of the Severn regular estimates of American troop strength along the Patuxent, the latest news from Washington, and current copies of the National Intelligencer. Acting on this information, Nourse advised Cockburn that a small force could easily march into Washington and burn the place.
So the reduced size of Cochrane’s force didn’t bother Admiral Cockburn as he climbed aboard the Tonnant August 14 to pay his respects to the Commander-in-Chief and General Ross. What probably did bother him was whether Sir Alexander would still approve his cherished attack on Washington. Cockburn didn’t know Ross, but he knew plenty about Cochrane, whom he treated with the faintly humorous deference a lively junior sometimes shows a stuffy, cautious superior.
Cochrane was predictably wary, and Ross followed along. Sir Alexander was now convinced there just weren’t enough men to strike a serious blow at Washington. Better gather everyone together and head instead for Rhode Island.
Numbers were misleading. Cockburn argued. The whole place was defenseless. He had been roaming wherever he liked with only a battalion of marines. Moreover, he had a new angle that would spread the Americans even thinner. The British would go up the Patuxent, landing at Benedict just as planned. But instead of heading straight for Washington, they would first continue up the river—the troops by land, the marines and seamen by boat—and destroy Barney’s flotilla. The Americans would think they were just going for Barney, but if all went well, a quick thrust could also take Washington from the rear. If that looked too difficult, they’d at least get the flotilla and could retire back down the Patuxent.
It was just “iffy” enough to win over Sir Alexander. Then, to remove any lingering doubts in Ross’s mind, Cockburn took the General along the next morning on another of his jaunts through the tidewater countryside. By now he had these down to a system. As he and most of his men advanced along some rural road, flankers equipped with bugles spread through the woods to the right and left. Whenever they saw anything suspicious, they blew a blast. The rest of the force then closed up and deployed to meet the threat. This day everything worked perfectly. They moved inland several miles from St. Marys River, burned a factory, and returned to the fleet without firing a shot. Ross was sold.
August 16, they beat back down the Potomac, and at 6:00 P.M. that evening, just as they entered the Chesapeake, they sighted a cloud of sail standing up the Bay toward them. Three hours later, in the last glow of the long summer twilight, the Royal Oak glided alongside. Anchor chains rattled down, and her guns roared out their salute, announcing to the Commander-in-Chief that Admiral Malcolm and the troops had safely arrived and were ready for business.
Next morning at 8:00 A.M. the captains of all the ships rowed over to the Tonnant to get their final briefing. In the Admiral’s paneled quarters they hunched over rolls of bad charts as Sir Alexander explained the plan. By now he had added a couple of embellishments. The main force would go up the Patuxent as decided, but in line with Admiral Cockburn’s original proposal, Captain James Alexander Gordon would also lead a small squadron up the Potomac and destroy any fortifications along the river. Hopefully this would both divert the Americans and give the British troops a separate escape route if they were ever cut off from the transports in the Patuxent.
Finally, as a second diversion, Captain Sir Peter Parker would take his frigate Menelaus with a couple of schooners and sail up the Chesapeake above Baltimore. Cockburn was sure the people of Maryland so dreaded any cut in their communications with Philadelphia and New York, they would fall for even a small thrust in this direction.
Sir Peter Parker seemed the perfect choice for the, job. The son, grandson and great-grandson of admirals, he was loaded with cocky self-assurance. He too had known nothing but favoritism in the Royal Navy—lieutenant at 16, captain at 20. He was now a very senior 29, immensely spoiled and a merciless disciplinarian, but he had great dash, resourcefulness, and took to independent command.
By 9:00 the briefing was over, and 15 minutes later Captain Gordon was on his way up the Potomac. He led in his frigate Seahorse, followed by the frigate Euryalus, a rocket ship, four bomb vessels and a dispatch schooner—a small but powerful squadron perfectly suited for its mission of bombardment.
The main part of the fleet was soon under way too, heading on up the Chesapeake. From time to time signals fluttered from the Tonnant: prepare three days’ rations for troops landing … watch out for poisoned spirits. Sunset, and they were off the Patuxent, where the Menelaus left on her special assignment. The rest of the ships anchored for a restless night of worrying about the tricky passage up the river tomorrow.
It proved a superb demonstration of British seamanship. With the Severn leading the way—her Captain Nourse had sketched the only map—they headed into the Patuxent shortly after dawn on the 18th. Both wind and tide were against them, and as they tacked back and forth,” constantly crisscrossing each other, the whole effect was like a peacetime regatta.
“At Point Patience, a long sandspit about four miles upstream, the wind and tide proved too much even for British seamanship. The whole fleet anchored to wait for a change, and Admiral Cochrane used the delay to shift the troops from the heavier to the lighter vessels. He himself transferred to the frigate Iphigenia in order, as Captain Codrington put it, “to give the general every personal proof of his desire to assist him.”
Late afternoon, they were on their way again, twisting and turning even more as the river narrowed and became more shallow. The heaviest ships dropped out; the frigates, brigs and schooners crawled on. The high east bank was thick with magnificent trees, and as he looked back, Ross’s assistant adjutant Captain Harry Smith got the curious impression of a fleet not sailing on water, but stalking through some primeval forest It was dusk when they finally anchored, the lead ships just short of Benedict, the rest strung out for ten miles downstream.
Tomorrow, word passed, they would be landing at dawn. The troops—now loaded down with arms, ammunition, blanket, knapsack, canteen, 3 pounds of pork and 2½ pounds of biscuit—peered hard at the dark, silent shoreline and wondered what awaited them. The most amazing thing so far, everyone agreed, was the complete lack of opposition. More than that, the complete absence of any human beings. The park-like meadows that ran right down to the river bank, the white cottages that dotted the shore—everything seemed absolutely deserted. Writing his wife, Captain Codrington felt it was extraordinary that the enemy had completely ignored them, “although the cliffs which occasionally arise on either bank offer facilities apparently irresistible to a people so disposed to hatred and so especially hostile to the Navy of England.” What on earth were the Americans doing?