The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832

by Taylor, Alan

  Irish-born Americans particularly experienced the conflict as a civil war. Although they had immigrated to the United States to escape British rule, the Irish faced impressment when found on board American merchant ships. Worse still, once the war began, British officers threatened to hang as traitors any former subjects captured bearing arms against their king. British officers perceived the American navy as filled with “traitors to their country [who] were supposed to be more than half the force opposed to us”—in the words of Major Wybourn. In sum, the British officers treated Irish Americans as rebels in a civil war between the empire of their birth and the republic of their choice.27

  A naturalized American citizen, John O’Neill hated the British as “the oppressors of the human race, and particularly of my native country, Ireland.” O’Neill fought fiercely to defend his home on May 3, 1813, when the British raided Havre de Grace, Maryland. The rest of the local militia quickly fled, leaving O’Neill alone to resist 150 Britons until they wounded and captured him. After burning his house, the victors threatened to hang O’Neill as a traitor, although he had resided in the United States for fifteen years. Three days later the British relented, releasing him on parole rather than make a popular martyr of a respectable man. Admiral Warren subsequently (and implausibly) insisted, “I was not informed of this man being an Irishman, or he would certainly have been detained, to account to his sovereign and country for being in arms against the British colors.” Warren could not admit that he had compromised his empire’s policy of punishing any former subject captured in the enemy’s service.28

  The conflict also verged on a civil war within America because of the bitter partisanship pitting Federalists against Republicans. Each party denounced the other as betraying the republic to assist a foreign enemy. Republicans cast the Federalists as latter-day Tories who served the British, while the Federalists denounced the Republicans as stooges for the French dictator. By frustrating the war effort, the Federalists sought to expose the Republicans as fools for declaring war. By winning the war, the Republicans hoped to discredit the Federalists and cast them into political oblivion. The Baltimore American explained that in time of war “there are but two parties, Citizen Soldiers and Enemies—Americans and Tories.” Recalling the revolution’s brutal suppression of the Loyalists, Thomas Jefferson boasted that Republican mobs would silence the Federalists. In Norfolk, a mob fulfilled Jefferson’s prophecy by tarring and feathering a Federalist before dumping him in a creek.29

  The Conspiracy Against Baltimore, or the War Dance at Montgomery Court House. Crafted in 1812 by an unknown Maryland Republican, the cartoon lampoons the state’s Federalists including the newspaper editor and publisher Alexander Contee Hanson, Jr. depicted with the devil’s horns at center. He looms over Robert Goodloe Harper shown playing a harp, as a pun. In the group to the left, the dancing man with a distinctive hat, a military chapeau de bras, is General Henry Lee, a former governor of Virginia, who suffered crippling wounds in the Baltimore riot. (Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society).

  The partisan fury peaked in Baltimore, a booming seaport of 41,000 people, most of them Republicans. In late June, Republican mobs tore down the Federalist newspaper office of Alexander Contee Hanson Jr., dismantled ships suspected of trading with the enemy, and destroyed the homes of free blacks accused of British sympathies. A defiant Hanson fortified a new office with armed guards, including the former revolutionary war generals James Lingan and Henry Lee (also a past governor of Virginia). In late July, the Federalists fired into an attacking mob of enraged Republicans, killing one and wounding others. The city magistrates jailed the Federalists, but the rioters broke in the next day to batter their foes. Watching women cried, “Kill the tories!” and the rioters sang:

  We’ll feather and tar ev’ry d[amne]d British tory,

  And that is the way for American glory.

  Stabbed in the chest, Lingan died. Eleven others, including Lee and Hanson, suffered crippling injuries. A few token prosecutions convicted only one rioter, and he merely paid a small fine. A juror explained “that the affray originated with them tories, and that they all ought to have been killed, and that he would rather starve than find a verdict of guilty against any of the rioters.”30

  Pride

  British naval officers considered pride the worst of American sins. Adhering to a hierarchical code of strict discipline, the officers disdained the pushy and boastful Americans, who seemed to recognize no superior. When compelled to postpone an attack, Warren lamented that “any Delay on our side in attacking them has only added to their pride & presumption”: a most distasteful development. But Lieutenant Scott warned the Americans that “severer trials awaited their pride.” Rather than simply defeat the Americans, the officers longed to humble them.31

  By ravaging the Chesapeake shores, Cockburn hoped to disgrace the Americans and discredit their republic. In March 1813 he assured Warren that “the whole of the Shores and Towns within this Vast Bay, not excepting the Capital itself will be wholly at your mercy, and subject, if not to be permanently occupied, certainly to be successively insulted or destroyed at your Pleasure.” The British raids would, Lieutenant Scott explained, expose the inability of the Madison administration “to afford the necessary degree of protection, justly expected by the inhabitants of every country whose government ventures to decide upon a state of warfare.” After plundering one Virginia farm, a witty officer left a note written in sheep’s blood to pledge that President Madison would pay the owner for the stolen livestock taken “for the use of the British navy.”32

  British officers detested most Americans as greedy cheats, long on cunning but short on scruples. “They will do anything for money,” a captain concluded. According to Rear Admiral Codrington, after the British occupied an American town, a resident boasted, “I’m as brave as Julius Caesar” and “I’ve as fine a house in this city, and shan’t quit it for you or anybody.” A British officer replied, “Oh, ho! You’ve a fine house here have you? Well, I’ll soon rid you of that encumbrance, for I’ll burn it directly.” Falling to his knees, the American “rascal” begged, “Mister if you won’t burn my house, I’ll do what ever you please.” Codrington concluded, “This is the picture of the people in general. They are meanly inquisitive, arrogantly impertinent & cruelly tyrannical where their power is uncontrouled, and yet they bend the neck to the yoke of coercion as if nature formed them for slaves.”33

  Hardened by war and proud of their discipline, the British officers mocked the Americans as dishonorable amateurs full of false bravado and real cowardice. Major Wybourn dismissed the United States as “a country of Infants in War.” Used to fighting in the open, the British disdained the American preference for long-distance sniping from behind cover as cowardly and effeminate. In one battle report, Cockburn derided his foes: “no longer feeling themselves equal to a manly and open Resistance, they commenced a teasing and irritating fire from behind their Houses, Walls, Trees, &c.” The British denounced as cheating the expedients of untrained and poorly equipped American militiamen. A British officer declared, “They fight unfairly, firing jagged pieces of iron and every sort of devilment—nails, broken pokers, old locks of guns, gun-barrels—everything that will do mischief.”34

  The Americans especially infuriated the British by deploying floating, explosive mines, known as “torpedoes,” cast adrift to strike and destroy warships in the night. Although the torpedoes proved ineffective, they offended the British as cowardly and treacherous. Citing the “dastardly” torpedoes, the British felt justified in conducting their punishing and plundering war against the American coast.35

  Republicans denounced Cockburn as an indiscriminate plunderer, and some historians have mistaken his strategy as “total war.” In fact, he was highly discriminating in his targets, for Cockburn sought to teach Americans the perils of their pride, and as a paternal teacher he had to reward the deserving as well as punish the stubborn. Cockburn carefully investigated the political al
legiances of the leading men dwelling along the shore, for he meant to harass Republicans and spare Federalists. A visitor to Cockburn’s flagship returned to report that the admiral “appears well informed of the political character of many persons and places on the shores of the bay.” In one raid on a Maryland town, Major Wybourn told a woman, “the question they generally asked when they went to any place was, how they voted at the elections, and inquired . . . if her uncle, meaning Mr. Henderson, voted for the war.” Apparently he had voted Republican, for Wybourn had Henderson’s stable and coaches burned. In general, Cockburn’s men plundered and destroyed the buildings of anyone who resisted (usually Republicans) but protected the property of those who submitted.36

  In mid-April 1813, Cockburn sailed up Chesapeake Bay to “teach a salutary lesson” to his American students on the shores of Maryland. On April 27 his men raided Frenchtown, near the head of the bay. A brief militia resistance exposed the town’s storehouses to looting and burning, but Cockburn spared the private homes. Turning west, he attacked Havre de Grace after noticing a new battery, whose crew “hoisted the American colours, by way of bravado.” Determined to humble every display of American pride, Cockburn led an assault on May 3. A brief and futile resistance by a few militiamen (including John O’Neill) qualified the village for a thorough plundering (and some burning) of homes as well as stores. Cockburn explained that he sought to bring the people “to understand and feel what they were liable to bring upon themselves by building Batteries and acting towards us with so much useless Rancor.”37

  Admiral Cockburn Burning & Plundering Havre de Grace on the 1st of June 1813; done from a Sketch taken on the spot at the time. At the right of center Cockburn leans on his sword while his marines and sailors loot the village. Note the British barges in the background. (Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society)

  Turning east, Cockburn attacked Fredericktown and Georgetown, along the Sassafras River of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. On May 6, Cockburn warned that if the inhabitants “offered any useless or irritating opposition, they must expect the same fate as that which had befallen Havre [de Grace] and Frenchtown; but if they yielded, private property would be respected, the vessels and public property alone seized, and that whatever supplies might be required would be punctually paid for.” The local magistrates wanted to submit, but a fiery militia officer ordered his men to shoot at the British landing party. After routing the militia, the British plundered and burned both towns, sparing only a few houses with especially charming women or with owners who paid a ransom in cattle. A local Federalist blamed the “imprudent & foolish conduct” of the Republican militiamen who fired a few shots and then ran away, exposing the abandoned villages to the raiders.38

  Preferring discretion to valor, the people of nearby Charlestown surrendered rather than risk their homes. To prevent militia resistance, the town fathers “buried their cannon & knocked down a little fort,” as a relieved Federalist reported. Lieutenant Scott concluded that the British had opened “the eyes of the whole neighborhood . . . to the folly of irritating resistance.”39

  Cockburn played the benign protector when Americans submitted. Later that month a British frigate ran aground near Annapolis, but the militia wisely declined to open fire. Sending a message ashore, Cockburn assured the inhabitants that their “prudence . . . in not firing on the frigate which grounded near their city saved it from destruction.” Similarly, on Kent Island in August, Cockburn compensated the passive inhabitants for some thefts made by rowdy sailors, whom the admiral had flogged. And, “from Motives of Humanity,” he protected a shipment of coal bound by merchant ship from Virginia to New York “for the use of the New York Hospital.”40

  On his flagship, HMS Albion, Cockburn delighted in hosting genteel and cooperative Americans. A guest gushed to a newspaper that he had been “treated with great politeness and attention by the commander, Ad[miral] Cockburn, who unites the gentleman with the seaman.” Cockburn entertained grandly, for another visitor recalled “every eating & drinking Vessel was of Silver. The Table lighted by 8 silver Candlesticks which reflected from large Mirrors around his Cabin, made the Scene quite dazzling.” Major Wybourn recalled that Cockburn hosted a “large party of Americans who had been civil to our boats on the Maryland shore.” The officers “shewed them great attention, so much so that after a superb supper they began to find we were nearly all alike, for they had been told strange stories of us; we made them all completely drunk except one Methodist & . . . after breakfast they went on shore highly delighted.”41

  Cockburn and his officers played the gallant with the women in captured villages and ships. After reporting the sack of Frenchtown, a Baltimore newspaper conceded, “It is justice to the enemy to say, they treated the women and children with considerable attention and respect.” At Havre de Grace, a sailor robbed a milliner of her dresses but was, in Lieutenant Scott’s words, “deservedly mortified by the Rear-admiral obliging him to return the spoils . . . to the forlorn damsel, with an impressive rebuke.” At Charlestown, Major Wybourn reported finding “a train of boarding school misses with governesses & teachers, about 40. These we shewed great humanity to & spared a village on their account.”42

  Britons claimed to be truer men than the cowardly Americans who had failed to protect their families. On the Eastern Shore, Cockburn’s raiders surprised a genteel house “full of joyous girls” celebrating a birthday. Initially terrified, the girls soon felt reassured, Scott wrote, by the “courtly demeanour of the Admiral, and [his] promises of protection restored the roses to their smiling countenances, and they learned that the enemy and the gentleman may be combined.” Scott added, “Every male biped of the household stole off on the first intimation of our arrival, and left the fascinating innocents completely at our mercy.” British officers won a delicious victory every time they obliged American women to praise their humanity and to rue the cowardice of their own men.43

  Villain

  In June, Warren and Cockburn received reinforcements from Europe: 2,650 soldiers and marines. But they were a motley crew of men deemed expendable from serving with the British army in Spain. At the bottom of the barrel were 300 captured Europeans, mostly French, who agreed to serve the British in America rather than linger in confinement.44

  The admirals thought that they had enough men to attack Norfolk’s first line of defense at Craney Island, where the Americans had built a battery and posted their gunboats. On June 22, Cockburn and Warren sent fifty barges laden with troops to land on the muddy island to overwhelm the battery, but the American fire smashed at least two barges and drove the rest away. Suffering heavy casualties, the British accused the Americans of massacring some helpless men. Then Admiral Cockburn and General Sir Sidney Beckwith squabbled over who was to blame. A pox on both, concluded Sir Charles Napier: “Cockburn thinks himself a Wellington, and Beckwith is sure the navy never produced such an admiral as himself—between them we got beaten at Craney.” For once, Cockburn’s impetuous, attacking style had failed, producing casualties that the British could ill afford to replace.45

  Embarrassed by defeat and angered by the supposed massacre, the British sought a quick and easy victory on a more vulnerable American position at nearby Hampton. At dawn on June 25, the warships bombarded the shore batteries, while barges landed about 900 troops to the west. Fearing capture, the 500 defenders broke and ran into the woods and on to Yorktown, defying their commander’s orders to stand and fight. In their haste to escape, they threw away knapsacks, canteens, tents, and guns.46

  The French mercenaries in the British force vented their anger and lust on the hapless civilians who remained in Hampton. Defying their own frightened officers, the mercenaries looted homes, committed a few rapes, and killed one sick old man (named Kirby) in his bed. Then at least thirty mercenaries deserted to join the Americans. The number of rapes remained murky because, one magistrate reported, “women will not publish what they consider their own shame; and the men in Town were carefully watched
and guarded.”47

  The Virginians converted their small military defeat into a major propaganda victory. In lurid prose, they exaggerated the atrocities and blamed them on the British commanders. In the most provocative version, Governor Barbour announced “that many of the Females had been violated in the most Brutal manner, not only by the troops, but in some instances by the Slaves that had joined them.” A negative fantasy tempting to Virginians, the raping slaves had no basis in evidence from Hampton.48

  By dwelling on the perils of women and the duty of men to seek revenge, the Virginians refuted the British claims to superior civility. The Richmond Enquirer exhorted, “Men of Virginia! Will you permit all this? Fathers and Brothers & Husbands, will you fold your Arms in Apathy and only curse your despoilers?” On the Fourth of July in Richmond, the Republicans offered a toast: “That barbarity, which has inspired one sex with terror, has only inflamed the courage of the other.” In the Chesapeake, the propaganda war pivoted on who could best claim to defend America’s women.49