1812: The Navy's War (62 page)

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Authors: George Daughan

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Cochrane’s reservations about Baltimore had to do with more than the climate. The city presented special difficulties for a waterborne assault, and it had a population of nearly 50,000, six times the size of Washington. Major General Ross, however, advocated attacking Baltimore, and he was supported by the ever aggressive Cockburn. Ross’s experience in Washington had made him far more confident about what relatively small numbers of British regulars could accomplish when pitted against a much larger army of American militiamen.
Cochrane finally gave in to Ross. Severe tidal currents in the Chesapeake and storms in the Atlantic caused by the convergence of a new moon at equinox helped persuaded Cochrane to remain in the Chesapeake and concentrate on Baltimore.
Since the burning of Washington, Baltimore had been feverishly preparing for the worst. Some people thought the city should save itself by negotiating, as Alexandria did, but most, including Baltimore’s leadership, were determined to prepare a defense and fight. On August 24 a Committee of Vigilance and Safety was formed, with Mayor Edward Johnson as chairman. Baltimore’s military leaders were all members—Militia Brigadier general John Stricker; Captain Oliver Hazard Perry, commander of the new frigate
Java
; Master Commandant Robert T. Spence, skipper of the sloop of war
Ontario
; and Lieutenant Colonel George Armistead, commander of Fort McHenry. They urged the committee to defend Baltimore and not imitate Alexandria. They recommended that Militia Major General Samuel Smith, the senator from Maryland, be placed in overall command. He was the logical choice.
The potential conflict between Smith and General Winder, the commander of District 10, was resolved when Governor Levin Winder of Maryland, the general’s uncle, recognized Smith as the superior. To his credit General Winder, although he believed he should be in command, agreed to serve under Smith. Baltimore got precious little help from the federal government or from the Maryland state government. The city was thrown on its own resources. Smith had been responsible for organizing Baltimore’s defenses the previous year, and he now augmented them. He put every able-bodied citizen to work building fortifications, digging trenches, setting up batteries, and obstructing the entrance to the harbor.
On August 25, Commodore John Rodgers marched into town with three hundred sailors and gave an enormous boost to Baltimore’s worried citizens, showing them the city was not alone. Rodgers assumed command of all naval forces—Perry’s, Spence’s, David Porter’s, and Barney’s flotilla men, who had returned to the city after Bladensburg. Barney’s flotilla was still a potent force. Lieutenant Solomon Rutter was now in command.
Barney was at his farm at Elkridge recovering from his wounds. He could not participate in the city’s defense, although he dearly wanted to. After being wounded on August 24 and taken to the Ross Tavern in Bladensburg, he remained there, suffering until August 27, when his wife, son, and physician, Dr. Hamilton, arrived in a carriage and brought him home. Barney’s son, Major William Barney, joined in the defense of Baltimore, and this was a source of great pride to his father.
Rodgers had 1,000 seamen, and he divided them into two divisions. Perry had command of one and Porter the other. Rodgers worked closely with General Smith in what was truly a joint command. The crusty old Smith admired Rodgers and his seamen. He relied on their professionalism to give his defenses, which depended on untested militiamen, backbone.
Smith worked at an exhausting pace, seeming to be everywhere at once. He was impatient for the troops to gather. Maryland’s best militiamen had been at Bladensburg, and it took a while for them to get back. He called for help from Virginia and Pennsylvania; Virginia militiamen were soon on the way, and so were volunteers from Pennsylvania. The burning of Washington had enraged so many people that they wanted to strike back. By September 4 Smith had 15,000 troops, mostly militiamen but some regulars. The moment the militiamen arrived, he organized and trained them.
In the middle of Smith’s preparations, Secretary Jones ordered Rodgers, Perry, and Porter to hurry to Washington and attack Gordon’s squadron in the Potomac. The trio left on August 30, much to Smith’s dismay and the city’s. “We deplore your absence,” Master Commandant Spence wrote to Rodgers, “as you were looked upon [as] the bulwark of the city.”
After doing his best to thwart Gordon, Rodgers returned to Baltimore. Secretary Jones had ordered him back. Rodgers arrived with his men on September 7 and threw himself into preparing the city’s defense, certain that Cochrane’s attack would come soon. Rodgers’s return was an enormous morale booster, particularly for General Smith. Perry arrived later, but he was sick. He could no longer command his unit. His exertions on the Potomac had undermined his health, which already had been seriously compromised at Lake Erie. Perry remained on the scene, however. He may have been too sick to command, but he was prepared to fight if the British invaded. Porter, on the other hand, returned to New York to take command of Robert Fulton’s new steam-powered frigate, leaving Baltimore’s naval defense entirely to Rodgers. Actually, Rodgers had such a strong contingent of dependable lieutenants, Porter wasn’t needed.
As the days passed, Baltimore’s defense grew stronger. Cochrane could not attack without Captain Gordon’s bomb and rocket vessels, which had been delayed on the Potomac by the attacks of Rodgers, Porter, and Perry. While Cochrane waited for them, Smith’s force grew to over 16,000, including Rodgers’s 1,000 seamen, and Lieutenant Colonel Armistead’s 1,000 at Fort McHenry.
Cochrane’s massive fleet did not arrive at the mouth of the Patapsco River until September 11. General Ross started debarking troops at three o’clock on the morning of the twelfth. By seven he had 4,700 men landed, just where General Smith thought he would, at North Point on Patapsco Neck, fourteen miles from Baltimore. Ross’s army included 600 seamen and 300 Colonial Black Marines—ex-slaves. They had six cannon and two howitzers. Admiral Cockburn was with Ross.
After the troops were ashore, Cockburn joined them and marched with Ross and the army five miles along the North Point Road toward Baltimore. Cockburn predicted the city would fall just as easily as Washington had. Ross was also confident. He didn’t care how many militiamen were defending Baltimore; he had lost all respect for them.
General Smith had excellent intelligence of Ross’s movements, and he immediately dispatched Brigadier General Stricker with 3,200 men to take the measure of the enemy. Stricker marched down North Point Road toward the British and took up a position between Bear Creek and Back River with his main body and sent an advance party under Major Heath to scout ahead. Heath soon ran into Ross and his advance party of around sixty. A skirmish developed, and one of Heath’s sharpshooters, noticing the splendidly attired general, took careful aim and fired, mortally wounding Ross. Heath withdrew back quickly to Stricker’s position, while the British waited for the main body of their army to come up. They were stunned when Ross fell; they could scarcely believe what happened. One moment Ross appeared to be invincible, and the next he was down, fighting for his life.
Colonel Arthur Brooke, an experienced officer, assumed command, but the news of Ross’s condition had a serious effect on morale. Ross was carried back to the landing area, his life slipping away, while Brooke resumed the march toward Baltimore along North Point Road. He progressed only two miles before running into what he thought were 6,000 to 7,000 militiamen. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. A major battle developed. Brooke used Congreve rockets to frighten the militiamen, as Ross had at Bladensburg. But the militiamen were not running. After an hour and twenty minutes, Stricker withdrew his smaller force in an orderly fashion. Brooke and Cockburn were under the impression they had dispatched twice their number and were encouraged to move forward. But given the time of day and all that had transpired, Brooke decided to rest his men and resume the attack on Baltimore the following day, September 13.
While Brooke rested, Admiral Cochrane began organizing a waterborne assault on the city to support Brooke’s attack. He faced formidable obstacles. Starshaped Fort McHenry was at Whetstone Point, guarding the water approaches to Baltimore. The Patapsco divided into two branches in front of the fort. The Northwest Branch forked to the right, running east of the fort, and led directly to the inner harbor and the city’s waterfront. The Ferry Branch forked left, running west of the fort. At Ridgely’s Cove the Ferry Branch came to within a mile of the city. Working closely with Rodgers, General Smith had erected strong batteries to protect the fort and both waterways. On the western shore of Ferry Branch he had built Fort Covington and a battery called Fort Babcock. Lieutenant Henry Newcomb, third of the
Guerriere
, was in command at Fort Covington. He had eighty seamen manning a battery of guns. Sailing Master John Webster of Barney’s Flotilla was in command at Fort Babcock and had a six-gun battery.
On the Northwest Branch, directly across from Fort McHenry, was a projection called Lazaretto Point. Master Commandant Robert Spence was in command there. Lieutenant Solomon Frazier of the Flotilla Service worked with him, although, to begin with, the two had difficulty deciding who was in charge. After Commodore Rodgers straightened them out, they worked in harmony. They had the
Erie
’s guns at the Lazaretto, and forty-five seamen ready to defend the passageway. In the water between the fort and the Lazaretto, Smith blocked the entrance to the harbor with a boom, sunken ships, a string of barges, and the
Erie
. Lieutenant Rutter’s barges were behind the barricade with eight- and twelve-pounders. Directly across the water from the Lazaretto, in the left wing of the water battery at Fort McHenry, Sailing Master Solomon Rodmond was in command with fifty flotilla men. Altogether, Fort McHenry and the supporting array of batteries, warships, and obstructions constituted an impassable barrier.
 
 
ON SEPTEMBER 13 Admiral Cochrane transferred to the frigate
Surprise
and led the attack on Fort McHenry with five bomb vessels—
Aetna
,
Devastation
,
Meteor
,
Terror
, and
Volcano
—and twelve additional ships, including the rocket ship
Erebus
and the frigates
Euryalus
,
Severn
,
Havannah
, and
Hebrus
. The hulks, booms, and batteries prevented him from making a dash past Fort McHenry into the inner harbor. He was forced to stand off and bombarded the fort from long distance. His ships took up a position in line abreast two miles from the fort and began shelling at first light on September 13 to coordinate with Brooke’s attack by land. The fort returned fire, but the attack vessels were so far away that its guns could not reach them. Armistead soon ordered them to cease firing. Barney’s flotilla men at the Lazaretto and on the barges blasted away ineffectually as well.
Despite the inability of Baltimore’s batteries to reach the British ships, the overall strength of the defenses made a deep impression on Cochrane, and at 9:30 in the morning he wrote a cautionary note to Cockburn and Brooke: “It is impossible for the ships to render you any assistance—the town is so far retired within the forts.” Cochrane estimated there were 20,000 defenders in the city. He told Brooke that he would have to decide if he could take the town with the forces he had—without naval support. If not, Cochrane told him, he “would be only throwing the men’s lives away and prevent us from going upon other services.”
Sending the warning to Brooke did not stop Cochrane from continuing the bombardment. Around two o’clock in the afternoon, he moved three bomb vessels closer to Fort McHenry. But Armistead’s guns, and those on the barges and Lazaretto, drove them back in half an hour. At three o’clock, Armistead was able to elevate his guns and reach the bomb vessels to do some damage, but not enough to drive Cochrane away. The British bombardment continued through the night and did not stop until daylight on the fourteenth. For all its seeming ferocity, however, it did little damage.
Colonel Brooke was unaware of Cochrane’s reservations when he marched his 5,000 regulars forward on the morning of the thirteenth. He was within two miles of Smith’s lines when he paused to examine what was before him. He estimated that Smith had 20,000 militiamen with a hundred cannon, protected by strong barricades. He didn’t like the odds, but he intended to probe, find any weakness, and attack that night.
Probing for soft spots in the defenses, Brooke maneuvered to Smith’s left, but Generals Stricker and Winder adapted their movements to Brooke’s and checked him. Smith had transferred Winder and his men from the defenses on the west side of Baltimore, where little was happening and Winder felt slighted, to the center of action on Baltimore’s east side. Winder grasped his opportunity with enthusiasm and performed yeoman service for Smith, who much admired him for it. Colonel Brooke moved back to the center of Smith’s lines between one and two o’clock, pushing to within a mile of the enemy’s forward line. In response, Smith drew Stricker and Winder closer to him and looked for an attack in the early evening.
None came. Brooke later claimed that in spite of Baltimore’s strong defense and larger army, he planned to attack that night. He had had a full view of Smith’s forces and concluded he could defeat them but changed his mind only when he received Cochrane’s cautionary message “during the evening,” closing off naval cooperation. When the admiral’s message arrived, Brooke held a council of officers, including Admiral Cockburn, and they decided to call off the planned attack. Brooke wrote to Bathurst, “the capture of the town would not have been a sufficient equivalent to the loss which might probably be sustained in storming the heights.”

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