by Peter Snow
Ross had swept the field in the first phase of the Battle of Bladensburg. The 85th’s attack across the bridge had finally broken through – helped by attacks on the American flanks led by Colonel Arthur Brooke. The 44th East Essex Regiment had swept around to the right, and the 4th King’s Own to the left. The American front line and the second line 500 yards behind it had vanished. But the battle was not over. A mile ahead of them up a long slope the exhausted British found themselves facing a third American line. And at its centre was a grimly determined Joshua Barney. He and his 500 flotillamen and marines were not going to turn around and run.
8
Barney’s last stand
24 August, afternoon
ROBERT ROSS GAVE his men no time to rest after their successful rout of the American front-line troops. It was early afternoon. The sun was now at its hottest. Men weren’t dying only in battle. Many found the heat intolerable and collapsed by the wayside. At least eighteen died of heat exhaustion that day on the British side alone. Without cavalry Ross was unable to deliver a crushing blow to the fleeing American infantry. All he could do was urge his exhausted men to press on and attempt to scatter what was left of the American army, which was strongly posted just short of the top of a slope some thousand yards in front of them.
The main force was General Walter Smith’s Washington DC militia. But over to the left, straddling the road to Washington, Ross saw five heavy guns. Two of them were 18-pounders and three 12-pounders. They were manned by Joshua Barney’s 400 flotillamen, who had arrived just as the battle was beginning. Also under Barney’s command was a company of 100 marines under Colonel Samuel Miller. These 500 men were to be a formidable obstacle. Barney’s sailors had been frustrated in their attempts to cause serious damage to Cockburn’s navy in the past three months. Now, after being forced to destroy their flotilla, they were aching to get to grips with the British army. On Barney’s right there was a battalion of Maryland militia under Colonel William Beall and on his left the main force of Maryland and DC militia as well as some regulars under Colonel William Scott.
Barney watched the Americans retreating in front of him with the British advancing behind them and assumed that when the Americans reached his line they would reform and turn and face the enemy – alongside his troops. But nothing of the kind happened. He later described the Americans as ‘apparently in much disorder’. They ran in headlong flight past his position and disappeared without making any attempt to reinforce his line. Barney’s predicament, with unreliable militia either side of him and Ross’s regulars heading straight up the hill towards him, was grim. But he understood what was expected of him. He was now the only credible force that stood between the British and the city of Washington.
Barney knew he could rely on his men not to follow the example of the rest of the US army: they would stand and fight – whatever the odds. President Madison had made a point of reviewing Barney’s position before he left the battlefield. He had given his enthusiastic assent to the creation of the flotilla a year earlier and to Barney’s leadership of it. He was struck by the number of negroes among the flotillamen – who included the runaway slave Charles Ball. And Madison, a slavemaster himself, asked Barney, ‘Won’t the negroes run on the approach of the British?’ ‘No, Sir,’ replied Barney. ‘They don’t know how to run. They will die by their guns first.’ Ball was helping to man one of Barney’s five guns, and he remarked in his diary what a perfect view they all had of the approaching British army. ‘I could not but admire the handsome manner in which the British officers led on their fatigued and worn-out soldiers.’
The British made short work of a small force under Colonel Kramer which failed to delay them at a small ravine, and then moved up on either side of the road. They halted briefly when they saw Barney’s men blocking the way ahead of them. Barney waited for them to come within range. ‘I reserved our fire,’ he later reported. ‘In a few minutes the enemy again advanced, when I ordered an 18 pounder to be fired, which completely cleared the road.’ Canister and grapeshot with their wide scatter of lethal fire are devastating at close range. Canister is a whole package of musket balls fired from the barrel; grape is a bunch of fewer, larger balls. Barney’s gunners made no mistake. It was like firing a gigantic shotgun. Within minutes Colonel Thornton, who’d led the 85th Light Infantry in their charge across the bridge, was again setting the pace. Mounted on horseback, sword in hand, he made a spectacular target for Barney’s marksmen as he rode at the head of his men full pelt against Barney’s guns. His horse was the first to be hit, collapsing instantly. That didn’t stop Thornton who leapt off and continued on foot, charging to within feet of Barney’s line. He was stopped by a shower of grape that shredded his jacket and smashed into his thigh. He was instantly thrown to the ground. But his men didn’t give up. Sam Davies recalled: ‘I had the pleasure of killing a damn rascal who shot a midshipman belonging to the Tonnant through the face; he made the first blow at me with his sword at my head; I parried it like a sailor with my cutlass and then it was my turn so I run him through the guts and killed him, he … deprived me of the use of my middle finger on my left hand by cutting the sinues [sic].’ The wounded Colonel Thornton’s two immediate subordinates, a lieutenant colonel and a major, were also wounded trying to break Barney’s line. An American newspaper described Barney’s men as opening ‘the hottest most destructive fire that, perhaps, ever was seen – they fell before him like the grass before a mower’s scythe.’
Seizing the moment, Barney sent Captain Miller and his seventy-eight surviving marines sweeping down the hill straight at the 85th. Yelling ‘Board ’em! Board ’em!’ the marines crashed in among the British, who, in Barney’s words, were ‘totally cut up’. Some managed to escape into a wood 200 yards behind them.
Ross himself now made an appearance. He was a fine leader of men in a pitched battle, if a bit foolhardy, never sparing himself and always at the front. The Americans could spot him quite clearly. He certainly impressed Charles Ball: ‘I thought then and think yet that General Ross was one the finest looking men that I ever saw on horseback.’ He rallied his men and they counter-attacked the marines, seriously wounding Miller himself.
George Gleig of the 85th was in the mêlée throughout and noticed how fatigue was taking its toll of the British. ‘Our men were scarce able to walk, far less to run … The battle became now little else than an uninterrupted exchange of tremendous volleys. Neither party gained or lost ground but, for a full half hour, stood still, loading and firing…’ Gleig reckoned that the light brigade, of which he was a part, was ‘guilty of imprudence. Instead of pausing till the rest of the army came up, the soldiers lightened themselves by throwing away their knapsacks … and pushed on to the attack … The Americans, however, saw their weakness and stood firm.’ Gleig himself was hit. ‘One musket ball, hitting the scabbard of my sword, broke it, and another, at the same instant, slightly wounded my arm. Yet I hardly felt the wound, so intent was I on rallying the men.’ As soon as Ross appeared, ‘Charge, Charge, was the only word of command issued.’ But still Barney’s men resisted. Gleig admired the way Barney’s gunners stood their ground in the face of the British bayonet charge. ‘Not only did they serve their guns with a quickness and precision which astonished their assailants, but they stood till some of them were actually bayoneted with fuses still in their hands…’
Ross now decided that the way to undermine Barney’s men was to concentrate on the weaker-looking militia on either side of Barney’s flotillamen. And the strategy worked. Colonel Beall’s Maryland militia, who were still recovering from their forced march from Annapolis that morning, suddenly found themselves under attack from a line of British bayonets marching relentlessly up the hill towards them. There was a volley or two of musket fire from Beall’s men and then, in Charles Ball’s words, ‘the militia ran like sheep chased by dogs’.
Moments later Ross threw the 4th and 44th Regiments under Colonel Arthur Brooke against the militia on Barney’s othe
r flank. The Americans at first resisted fiercely, but made the mistake of firing at the British at far too great a range. The musket can be lethal at fifty yards but is useless at 150. The militia were loosing off at the advancing British redcoats at a range of 200 yards with negligible effect. Seeing these units under pressure but not yet defeated, General Winder ordered them to retire – a decision that provoked fury from at least one old soldier. ‘I have never heard Gen Winder assign any reason for having ordered the retreat at the time he did, it being received by part of our lines before the enemy pressed them.’ Colonel Scott’s regulars were also ordered back by Winder before they’d even had time to fire a shot.
Barney and his dwindling band of flotillamen and marines now came under intense pressure from three sides. The hill that Beall’s men had evacuated was particularly valuable to the British, who could now fire down on Barney. Almost inevitably Barney himself was picked out by a British sharpshooter and severely wounded in the thigh. He concealed his wound for a time in order not to damp his men’s spirits. But in order to keep the wound secret he took no steps to staunch the flow of blood. So he soon began ‘to feel excessively weak and faint from loss of blood’. To make things worse he discovered that the wagon loaded with cartridges for his cannon and muskets had been carried off in the general confusion. A number of his men and many of his key master sailors, who commanded his smaller units, were also wounded. So he felt he had to order his men to retire, which they achieved in good order, taking many of the wounded with them. John Webster was one of Barney’s barge commanders who’d served with him proudly through the whole flotilla campaign. ‘Our seamen’, he wrote, ‘acted nobly and continued to do so until their ammunition gave out and most of us were surrounded.’ His horse was shot through the head and he himself was lucky to survive when he had his hat shot off. When Webster and his comrades discovered that the ammunition wagons had gone off, ‘We made our escape in double quick time … I did not take time to pick up my hat.’ But Barney himself was so severely wounded that – even with the help of three of his officers who refused to leave him – he was unable to move back more than a few yards. He ordered them to withdraw, leaving just one man named Huffington to stay with him. One of his less gallant aides sped off on horseback past his commander and ignored Barney’s calls to stop and lend him his horse so that he could escape as well. Even the flotillamen had their fainthearts.
The British moved forward to take over the ground the flotillamen had held. And it wasn’t long before a British officer, Captain Wainwright, who commanded Cockburn’s flagship, came upon the wounded Barney. The moment he identified him he went off in search of George Cockburn, and the two of them were soon back, accompanied by General Ross himself. According to Barney’s biographer, Mary Barney, Ross and Cockburn addressed their prisoner ‘in the most polite and respectful terms, offering immediate assistance, and the attendance of a surgeon’.
Ross then said, ‘I am really very glad to see you, Commodore.’ To which Barney replied: ‘I am sorry I cannot return the compliment, General.’ Ross smiled and turning to the admiral, remarked, ‘I told you it was the flotillamen!’ ‘Yes,’ said Cockburn. ‘You were right, though I could not believe you – they have given us the only fighting we have had.’ Ross and Cockburn then talked quietly to each other and then Ross turned back to Barney. ‘Barney, you are paroled, where do you want to be conveyed?’ This allowed Barney to go where he wished: he had just to give his parole that he was still technically a British prisoner until an exchange could be made of him. Barney asked to be taken to Bladensburg, the nearest town.
Wainwright noticed Barney wincing in pain as the soldiers picked up the litter he was lying on and promptly directed a young officer who was with him to go and bring a gang of sailors who would make a better job of carrying it. Just as they were about to carry him away, one of Barney’s men, badly wounded with an arm hanging down held only by a piece of skin, knelt by his commander and, seizing one of Barney’s hands with the only arm he had, kissed it repeatedly with great affection and burst into tears. ‘The effect of this action upon the British sailors was electric,’ writes Mary Barney, ‘and one of them broke out with “Well, damn my eyes! If he wasn’t a kind commander, that chap wouldn’t have done that!”’ The sailors apparently ‘handled him like a child’. And Barney was so grateful to them that he took fifty dollars out of his wallet and offered it to them, but they wouldn’t accept it.
By this time both sides were so exhausted that the battle came to an end. The British could hardly move another step forward. The Americans, fleeing in disorder, were in no condition to be rallied to make a stand further back. Winder, desperately looking for some way to rescue his army – and himself – from total humiliation, made two half-hearted attempts to fight a last-ditch defence of Washington. First he ordered General Walter Smith and his DC militia to turn and make a stand on some high ground. But even as Smith was forming his new line Winder changed his mind and ordered him to fall back into the city itself – to the Capitol. ‘I took the liberty of suggesting my impression of the preferable situation we then occupied,’ said Smith. Winder insisted he should fall back to where he’d be joined by other retiring troops. But when they got to the Capitol there was no one. Winder then consulted Armstrong, who was near by and who had also favoured making a stand at the Capitol. The only credible force available was that of Colonel Minor’s battalion of Virginia militia. They had finally managed to get access to some muskets and ammunition but too late for Bladensburg. Winder reckoned it would be futile to bottle up Minor’s men and the few others who had gathered at the Capitol in a gallant attempt to withstand a British siege. The result was another change of mind. Winder said there was ‘no reasonable hope … that we had any troops who could be relied on to make a resistance as desperate as necessary…’. Armstrong and Monroe, who was also there, agreed. Smith was told that ‘the whole should retreat through Washington and Georgetown’. The capital city was to be completely abandoned by the army. ‘It is impossible’, said Smith later, ‘to do justice to the anguish evinced by the troops of Washington and Georgetown on the receiving of this order. The idea of leaving their families, their houses, and their homes at the mercy of an enraged enemy, was insupportable.’ To the remnant of the army that had been ready to fight with Smith, this was the last straw. They dispersed in disorder and scattered. Many called in briefly at their homes, but all were soon fleeing west of the city. General Smith was burning with resentment. His men, he said, had ‘never yielded the ground [to the enemy], but by orders emanating from superior authority’. Smith believed a stand could and should have been made: his superiors, with most of their army fragmenting in panic, felt they had no realistic choice but to quit the city. They may have been right, but their decision earned them enduring contempt.
John Williams, an officer in Smith’s brigade who wrote a history of the British invasion of Washington, says he had observed the effect of the final order to retreat: ‘Some shed tears, others uttered imprecations and all evinced the utmost astonishment and indignation; for it was impossible for them to comprehend why troops who were willing to risk an encounter with the enemy should be denied the opportunity.’
The British lost sixty-four killed and 185 wounded in the Battle of Bladensburg as a result of the struggle they had had on the bridge and the resistance they had met from Joshua Barney.* A number died of heat exhaustion. Ross was rightly criticised by Harry Smith and others for his conduct of the first phase of the battle. There was no need to expose the 85th to the lethal fire of the American riflemen and artillery for so long. They could have been supported by others crossing the ford sooner than they did. But Ross’s impulsiveness and Thornton’s enthusiasm prompted them to begin the assault before the whole army was properly assembled and briefed.
Winder reckoned he lost ‘more than 30 to 40 killed and 50 or 60 wounded’ in a battle in which they were mainly in headlong retreat. Edward Codrington, back with the fleet, remarked wryly when he
heard the news: ‘I know not yet the probable number of the enemy killed, but they ran away too fast for our hard-fagged people to make prisoners.’
* * *
An incompetent, confused and divided high command had led the American army to one of its worst ever defeats. George Gleig remarked that had the Americans ‘conducted themselves with coolness and resolution, it is not conceivable how the battle could have been won [by the British] … Of the personal courage of the Americans there can be no doubt; they are, individually taken, as brave a nation as any in the world. But they are not soldiers…’ A more decisive and united American leadership might indeed have saved much of the young republic’s self-respect. The unfortunate William Winder, who as the commander in the field had to bear the brunt of the blame for the defeat, later said he regretted not putting Barney and his men in the front line where they might have helped stop the British crossing the bridge. Winder was disgracefully let down by the War Secretary, John Armstrong, and he certainly showed some flashes of determination and courage on the battlefield. Winder had his admirers among those who fought with him in the battle. ‘I think it cruel in the extreme to detract from the fame of a man, to whose personal and indefatigable exertions I am a witness, for a failure in a contest with such forces as were hurried by peace meal [sic] under his command, against men long disciplined in the art of war.’ But his erratic command at Bladensburg and his unsteady course in the frantic days that led up to the battle proved he should never have been chosen to lead in such a critical campaign. And for that the blame goes higher – to President Madison himself.
The Battle of Bladensburg was to be relegated to comparative obscurity in America’s history books. It would be remembered mainly as the ‘Bladensburg Races’ in which the Americans did more running than fighting. A merciless poem of the same name was soon published, pouring scorn on the US conduct of the battle, but mainly on Madison and Monroe. In this excerpt Madison is speaking on the battlefield:
