by Roy Adkins
Major-General Ross had overall command of the operation, and at the beginning of August the Tonnant, Euryalus and Hebrus left Bermuda so that the chief officers could reconnoitre their planned target, leaving the troops to follow on, although some were directed to Quebec to strengthen forces in Canada. Codrington wryly noted: ‘We are now on our way to the Chesapeake (mind you don’t tell the Yankees!).’25 By mid-August they were sailing into Chesapeake Bay, but after his recent service in Spain, Codrington was not impressed: ‘The wind does not favour our advance upon this unpicturesque river. Low, flat sandy banks, covered with pines, is all we see, and we cannot approach either shore on account of shoals. Never was there a greater contrast than betwixt this part of the American coast and Cataluña: not a thing is there here to attract the eye . . . the Chesapeake is like a new world.’26
They initially anchored off Point Lookout, between the Potomac and Patuxent rivers, and Captain Charles Napier of the Euryalus reported that they ‘soon after joined Sir George Cockburn, who had been actively employed, feeling his way with a battalion of marines, and had kept the coast in a constant state of alarm’.27 While they were waiting for the troops from Bermuda, help was given to Cockburn with his raiding parties along the Potomac River. Cockburn especially impressed Midshipman Robert Barrett of the Hebrus:The excitement of the passing scene was imposing in the extreme to a youth of fifteen, like myself; and it is almost impossible to depict my boyish feelings and transport when, at the close of this spirit-stirring affair, I gazed, for the first time in my life, on the features of that undaunted seaman, Rear-Admiral George Cockburn, with his sun-burnt visage, and his rusty gold-laced hat - an officer who never spared himself, either night or day, but shared on every occasion, the same toil, danger, and privation of the foremast man under his command. These are the men who win a gallant sailor’s heart! A glittering reward was set upon his head by the Americans.28
Barrett had only joined the navy in December, three years after his father drowned in the shipwreck of the Minotaur, of which he was captain. He now took part in some of Cockburn’s raids and felt that ‘this system of desultory warfare in various instances led to the petty plunder of poultry, sheep, and pigs. It was contrary to the strict orders which were issued, that nothing should be taken without payment; but what power on earth could possibly restrain the hungry stomachs of midshipmen and their numerous boats’ crews, who were frequently from under the eyes of their commanding officers, and spread over an extended space of twenty miles upon the rivers of the Chesapeake?’29
On board one of the transport ships that were now arriving in the Chesapeake was a Scottish soldier, George Robert Gleig. In 1812 he had given up his university studies and plans for ordination to enter the 85th Regiment as an ensign, and was promoted to lieutenant a few months later. After serving in Spain his regiment had been ordered to America, and he had just enjoyed several days exploring Bermuda. Because of the heat, he was finding it unbearable cooped up on board:The heat, indeed, became more and more oppressive every day, and the irksomeness of renewed confinement was more sensibly [sensitively] experienced from the long holiday which we had enjoyed on shore . . . on the 14th [August] . . . a signal was made by the admiral, that land was in sight. As yet, however, there was no appearance of it from the deck of our transport, nor, for a full half hour, could our anxious gaze be rewarded by the slightest trace of what it sought; but, at the end of that time, the low sandy point of Cape Charles began to show itself, and we rejoiced in the prospect of a speedy release from the ennui of a sea-faring life.30
Gleig detailed the sights around him:The coast of America, at least in this quarter, is universally low and uninteresting; insomuch that for some time before the land itself can be discerned, forests of pines appear to rise, as it were, out of the water. It is also dangerous, from the numerous shoals and sand-banks which run out, in many places, to a considerable extent into the sea . . . This noble bay is far too wide, and the land on each side, too flat to permit any but an indistinct glimpse of the shore, from the deck of a vessel which keeps well towards the middle. We could distinguish nothing, therefore, on either hand, except the tops of trees, with, occasionally, a windmill, or a light-house; but the view of our own fleet was, in truth, so magnificent, as to prevent any murmuring on that account. Immediately on entering, we were joined by Admiral Cockburn with three line of battle ships, several frigates, and a few sloops of war and gun brigs . . . besides an equal, if not greater number of victuallers and transports . . . On board these ships was embarked a powerful reinforcement for the army, consisting of a battalion of seven hundred marines, an hundred negroes lately armed and disciplined, and a division of marine artillery . . .The sight was therefore altogether as grand and imposing as any I ever beheld; because one could not help remembering that this powerful fleet was sailing in an enemy’s bay, and was filled with troops for the invasion of that enemy’s country.31
The first target was a flotilla of American gunboats commanded by Captain Joshua Barney, which had been sent to the Chesapeake to try to stop British raids, but instead had taken refuge in the Patuxent River. The British now prepared to find and destroy them. As a diversion, Cochrane ordered the frigates Seahorse and Euryalus to lead mortar and rocket vessels up the Potomac to the port of Alexandria. Captain Charles Napier of the Euryalus and Captain James Alexander Gordon of the Seahorse had previously served in the Mediterranean, and Gordon had played a prominent part at Lissa, losing a leg soon after, but by the end of 1812 he was back in service with Cochrane in the Chesapeake. These Scottish captains set out on 17 August, with Gordon as the senior commander of the squadron. ‘The river Potomac is navigable for frigates as high up as Washington,’ Napier remarked, ‘but the navigation is extremely intricate . . .The best channel is on the Virginian shore, but the charts gave us mostly very bad directions, and no pilots could be procured . . . The American frigates themselves never attempted it with their guns in, and were several weeks in the passage from the naval yard at Washington to the mouth of the Potomac.’32
While Gordon’s and Napier’s squadron was carefully working its way up the Potomac, the other vessels sailed up the Patuxent. Everybody found the scenery beautiful, and Lieutenant Gleig observed thatthe banks were covered with fields of Indian corn, and meadows of the most luxuriant pasture; while the neat wooden houses of the settlers, all of them painted white, and surrounded with orchards and gardens, presented a striking contrast to the boundless forests which formed a back ground to the scene . . . there was the most complete line drawn between the regions devoted to cultivation, and those still in a state of nature . . . Here, nature is seen in her grandest attire; civilized man in his most pitiful state. The rivers and forests are sublime beyond description.33
Even Codrington admitted that ‘the sailing up the Patuxent is very pretty’,34 though he noted the absence of any military opposition: ‘I think it may also be considered a comparatively extraordinary circumstance that we have not found an enemy to assail us in the course of about sixty miles that we have explored, 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.’35 When the battleships found it too difficult to advance any further the fleet anchored, and the next day the army was landed at the village of Benedict, some 10 miles away, which was ‘one of the most sequestered and lovely hamlets in existence’, according to Barrett, and ‘. . . selected for the landing-place, because a road proceeded from thence to Nottingham and Washington’.36 Lieutenant Gleig recalled how they reached Benedict:As soon as the dawn began to appear, on the morning of the 19th, there was a general stir throughout the fleet. A gun-brig had already taken her station within an hundred and fifty yards of a village called St. Benedict’s . . . Her broad-side was turned towards the shore, and her guns, loaded with grape and round shot, were pointed at the beach, to cover the landing of the boats . . . The rest of the ships were several miles low
er down the stream, some of them being aground at the distance of four leagues from this point; but the boats were quickly hoisted out from every one of them, and the river was covered in a trice, with a well-armed and warlike flotilla. The disembarkation was conducted with the greatest regularity and dispatch. Though the stream ran strong against them, and some of them were obliged to row fourteen or fifteen miles backwards and forwards, so strenuously did the sailors exert themselves, that by three o’clock in the afternoon the whole army was landed, and occupied a strong position two miles above the village.37
The following day, 20 August, the army marched to Nottingham, with the Americans fleeing before them, as Gleig explained: ‘We found this place (a town or large village, capable of containing from a thousand to fifteen hundred inhabitants) completely deserted. Not an individual was to be seen in the streets, or remained in the houses; while the appearance of the furniture, &c., in some places the very bread left in the ovens, showed that it had been evacuated in great haste, and immediately before our arrival. The town itself stands upon the banks of the Patuxent, and consists of four short streets, two running parallel with the river, and two others crossing them at right angles.’38
Boats from the warships were also rowed upstream in pursuit of the gunboats, because, as Codrington told his wife, ‘Commodore Barney and his Baltimore flotilla are, it seems, gone up this river as high as possible, out of harm’s way; and our troops will yet have a long march, and Cockburn a long run, to get at them.’39 Two frigates began to inch upstream to Benedict as well - the Severn and the Hebrus with Midshipman Barrett on board, who many years later described the sight: ‘A numerous flotilla of boats, well armed, and formed in three divisions, under the command of Rear-Admiral Cockburn, ascended the river in quest of Commodore Barney’s seventeen gun-boats . . . Never, in the course of my life, have I since witnessed a more imposing spectacle than the numerous tenders, launches, barges, and cutters of the fleet presented, with their colours gaily streaming, whilst the sun glistened on their various fancy sails and the uniforms of the Royal Marines.’40
Midshipman Bluett was in one of the boats:On the 22nd they [the army and boats’ crews] communicated with each other at Nottingham village, which place Barney had left but a few hours before them, and had gone higher up to Pig Point. The assistance of the army not being thought necessary, they proceeded on their route to Washington and the boats pushed on to attack the enemy’s flotilla but Barney finding the English resolute & not thinking himself a match for us, decamped with his men to Washington, leaving behind him a few men to blow up the flotilla - which they did the very instant our boats made their appearance round the point behind which they lay and so effectually did they execute their duty, that only one gun boat fell into our hands.41
The gunboat, Bluett thought, had been left as a booby-trap: ‘For several boats finding that she was not on fire pulled on board and took possession of her - and one man going below found a train leading from the magazine, the cabin deck strewed all over with gunpowder and a lighted candle stuck in the center of it; fortunately they succeeded in putting it out, without any accident; thus was a flotilla of 20 sail destroyed without our losing a single man.’42 In fact, the gunboat was probably not a booby-trap, but had failed to blow up with the others, when Captain Barney and his crews had fled their vessels and joined forces with the American army. Codrington was sorry that the gunboats had not been captured: ‘It would have been more suitable to our future object to have got possession of these vessels, but it is at all events satisfactory to have forced him [Barney] to such a measure, by driving him up to the extremity of such a river, so distant from the Chesapeake into which it empties, and without any previous knowledge of the soundings. Pilots there are none to be had.’43
Because Cockburn’s boats had no further targets, he hurried to join the British army, along with the marines and some of the seamen. The army was already marching from Nottingham through thick forests and tobacco plantations towards Upper Marlborough. On the 27th Codrington wrote that ‘we got a note from Cockburn to say that our little army met the Yankees, at least double their force, at a place called Bladensburg, posted upon a hill, secured by works, and with ten guns’.44 This was the Battle of Bladensburg. It was also known as the Bladensburg Races from the speed at which the Americans ran away, fortunately for the ill-prepared British, whose main army had not caught up with the advance guard. Midshipman Bluett described what happened:The advance guard . . . consisted of 1500 men, part of which were seamen carrying pound rockets. Our brave fellows crossed the bridge in profound silence, without firing a single shot, and as they crossed opened to the right and left: proceeding firmly & steadily on, to form their little line, in front of the enemy, altho’ exposed to a most galling cross fire of grape & bag shot from the artillery, & (till we opened fire) a well directed and continued fire from right to left of the American line. As soon as ever the little party was formed, they opened a brisk fire, and the rockets from the wings broke their line & disconcerted them considerably; but their artillery being out of musket shot was doing much damage which Ross perceiving, detached a party from each wing to storm the heights. This difficult service they performed instantaneously & successfully - crawling on their hands & knees; and charging them in the very muzzles of their guns turned against them, struck such a panic into the Yankies that they fled precipitately, very wisely dropping their arms, and making the best possible use of their legs, accompanied in their flight by as many of their own grape shot as we could conveniently send after them from the pieces we had taken.45
Years later Midshipman Barrett, who regretted being ordered to remain with the boats at Benedict, wrote down what his messmate told him:It was a glorious, but heart-rending scene, as the advance of the British army moved, in double quick time, up the hill, in face of a destructive fire . . . whilst ever and anon the exhilarating voices of the officers could be distinctly heard, cheering on the assault,— ‘Hurrah! gallant 85th! push forward for the honour of Old England!’ and nobly did all present do their duty in this short and decisive battle. This has ever been a sore subject with our Transatlantic brethren; so conscious were they of the cowardice and ill-conduct of the troops and militia then assembled for the defence of their capital, that, in my youthful days, one of the greatest insults which could be offered to an American, was to ask, in a bantering tone, with a grave face, if the gentleman had ever been present at Bladensburg races.46
The British then marched towards Washington, much to the horror of the Americans, who were totally unprepared and never believed that the city would be a target. The citizens, including President Madison, began to flee. Gleig remarked that Washington was ‘completely in its infancy, few of the streets being finished, and many containing not more than three or four houses at wide intervals from each other. But from its situation, it derives every possible advantage, and if it continue to be the capital of the United States for another century, it will become, I doubt not, one of the most flourishing cities in the world.’47
It was dark when they reached the city, and Gleig reported that they entered with a flag of truce, only to be fired upon by snipers, which enraged everyone, ‘and having first put to the sword all who were found in the house from which the shots were fired, and reduced it to ashes, they proceeded, without a moment’s delay, to burn and destroy every thing in the most distant degree connected with Government’.48 James Scott was with Vice-Admiral Cockburn as his aide-de-camp and acting first lieutenant when he entered Washington, and by then the British had already set fire to parts of the city and the Americans destroyed others, as he described:The position of the Capitol was elevated; the fiery beacon must have shed a sadly brilliant light upon the American habitations for miles around. The flames floated away in masses, which alighted upon the houses to leeward, set them in a blaze likewise. The Americans had been no less active in the work of destruction: they set fire to the Navy-yard; the Essex [actually the Columbia], a large frigate of sixty guns, m
easuring sixteen hundred tons, ready for launching; the Argus, a sloop of war of six hundred tons, all ready for sea. The wooden bridge across the Potomac, on the Virginia side, over which the greater part of the enemy’s troops had retreated, was likewise destroyed; in fact, they anticipated our wishes, and by some of their acts saved us time, and an infinity of trouble. After the destruction of the Capitol, a party was ordered to take possession of the fort at Greenleaf Point.49
From Capitol Hill, Scott accompanied Cockburn’s party into the city centre along Pennsylvania Avenue towards the house of the President, which had begun to be built by George Washington. Although occupied, it was still incomplete - later rebuilt from the ruins, it would become officially known as the White House:The Admiral and General Ross then descended the Capitol hill, with about one hundred and fifty men, and entered the heart of the city, by the Pennsylvanian avenue. This was a fine and spacious causeway with a road on each side, for equestrians, outside of which were two broad pathways for the accommodation of the more humble pedestrian; the whole was beautifully planted with a row of trees separating them from each other. The President’s palace, a handsome stone building, so lately the head-quarters of the enemy, stood at the extremity of the avenue, and was evacuated by the guard of soldiers, with their two field-pieces, only a few minutes before we made ourselves masters of the place.50
