The Evening Gun: Volume three in War of 1812 Trilogy

by William H. White

  “Lookee here, Jake. This is right good. Writ by some cove called Francis Scott Key. Hang on there; wasn’t that the lawyer cove we carried out to Tonnant? He calls it ‘Defence of Fort M’Henry’. Musta been what he was workin’ on all the way back in.”

  “Aye, Jack. He said something about bein’ ‘moved’ by seein’ our flag that morning after the shootin’ quit and I heard him say to the doctor he was writin’ a poem. Must be what he come up with.” And he kept walking.

  Jack Clements was not listening to his young, one-armed friend; he had stopped walking and was completely engrossed in the verse. He had begun to read it aloud, but his voice, becoming a little shaky, just trailed off into silence. Finally he looked up, surprised to see Jake studying him from close aboard, a quizzical expression in his eyes, and even more surprised to discover that his own rough cheeks were wet.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “Damn nice of Jared to let us take his sloop. Sails nicer than that one we took out to the British fleet back in September, eh Isaac?” Jack Clements eased the tiller down a trifle and the handy little sloop pointed her bow even higher into the brisk southwesterly, proving his point. Isaac was leaning on the weather rail watching the water rush by in a foamy torrent as they made their way down the Chesapeake. He was lost in thought and Jack’s voice was just a distant buzz that mixed easily with the sounds of the sloop.

  “Isaac? You still with us, lad? You ain’t hardly said a word since we cleared Bodkin Point.” No response. “ISAAC! I’m talkin’ to you, lad. Where’re you at, anyway?” Carronade, disturbed from his siesta by Jack’s raised voice, lifted his big head and looked around. Seeing everything was as it should be, he put his head back down on his forepaws and went quickly back to sleep.

  “Sorry Jack. Reckon I was tryin’ to figger out what to do. Only thing I know for sure is that I want to be with Sarah. But what else, I got no idea. Course, she may not want to tie her line to a sailor and what I been workin’ on in my head is what I’ll do if’n that’s her mind. I don’t know anything else. Cain’t see myself farmin’ or drivin’ a team somewhere. Or tendin’ to some store, helpin’ folks pick out notions.” Isaac shook his head and pushed a hand through his curly hair.

  Jack squinted his eyes at the water ahead and said nothing. His friend had been like this since all the celebrations had died down back in Baltimore and the city had regained its composure. Most of the militia units had been sent home and the army units had departed as well. Repairs were proceeding apace on Fort McHenry and those areas of the waterfront which had suffered in the bombardment.

  The gunboat flotilla was still functional and Joshua Barney, still ailing from the wound he suffered at Bladensburg, had returned to Baltimore to resume command. His first assignment had been to escort a prisoner exchange vessel, loaded with the surviving British casualties from Bladensburg, to Hampton, Virginia. Since only a few of the boats were required for that duty, he had given Isaac and Clements, along with a few of the others, leave and authorized the use of Jared’s sloop. That was in early October, and Clements and Biggs, with a small crew, had departed soon after. Barney had promised all the flotillamen that he would continue to badger Congress for their back pay and other compensation.

  After several more minutes of silence, Jack spoke again to his former captain and friend. “You know, Isaac, if’n Jake has really swallowed the anchor and gone ashore for good, ain’t no reason why you cain’t. Last words outta his mouth afore he shoved off for – where was it Miss Charity’s family is at? – Frederick, I think – was something about him not lettin’ her outta his sight. And I kinda thought she felt the same way ‘bout him! Reckon he’s gonna try his hand at farmin’ at her daddy’s place there.” Clements smiled, his eyes bright, at his unintended humor.

  Isaac returned the grin and shook his head. “Try his hand? You ain’t never gonna change, are you Jack. I think you say them things without even tryin’! But what would you do in my place. Pickin’ up a shovel or chasin’ a plow astern of some old plug don’t seem to answer for either Jake or me. I don’t know how he’s gonna do it; I ain’t sure I could.”

  “Why’nt you sail them waters when you get to ‘em, Isaac. You ain’t got to figger all that out now. Fact is, you don’t know for sure if Miss Sarah’ll even have you! Now that’s something to worry on!” Jack’s laugh roused the dog again and even Isaac smiled. “Aye,” he went on in the same vein, “she’s likely run off with some dashing militia man what owns a mercantile or some such. You think a pretty miss like her is just gonna sit around and pine after some sailor what’s run off with a bunch of little gunboats? Ain’t even sailin’ in something pretty – like a frigate or some such!”

  Isaac’s face clouded briefly at the suggestion that his feelings were unrequited, then smiled again as he dismissed the thought as completely unthinkable! After all, she had kissed him first, and taken him home to meet her father, and walked all over the town of Benedict with him, as often as not, holding hands. Surely not the action of a lady who did not care for him! On the other hand, she had not responded to his letter posted just after he arrived in Baltimore. Well, that was likely on account of the war and she probably didn’t know where to address a letter to him. He realized Jack was talking to him again.

  “…turn Drum Point, right?”

  “Sorry Jack. Didn’t catch all you said. Something about ‘Drum Point’?”

  “Isaac, stay with us here, lad. We’ll have you in the arms of your lady quick as ever you please, but right now, we got to sail this here boat. What I said was, ‘We’ll likely have to wait on the tide to be fair after we turn Drum Point.’ Thinkin’ we could tuck in behind Point Patience there and wait if’n we got to. Reckon that’ll bring back some memories, eh?”

  “Aye, that would answer nicely, Jack. And I’m sorry about wanderin’ off like I been doin’; it’s just…I can’t get her outta my mind – and now I’m gonna see her in a day or so! I’ll try to stay aboard – least ‘til we see Benedict; no tellin’ what I might do then…maybe jump overboard and swim if’n the barky ain’t sailing quick enough!”

  “Any o’ you coves want some vittles?” A disembodied head belonging to Sam Hay popped out of the scuttle. He and another had shipped with Isaac and Jack mainly for want of something do to.

  Clements welcomed the interruption; maintaining his good humor all the while listening to Isaac’s most likely groundless worries was trying. “Been thinkin’ on that very thought, Sam. Gettin’ some sharp-set, I am. What’ve you got down there? How ‘bout it, Isaac? Reckon some food might take your mind off’n your troubles?”

  The sloop turned Drum Point just as the darkness descended and, as Jack had prophesied, right into the tide which had began to ebb. An easy reach, albeit slower than Isaac would have liked, took them around the end of Point Patience where they anchored for the night.

  After a supper of dried peas and some left-over lobscouse from dinner, the men remained in the sloop’s small cabin; the wind had died and, under a clear sky flecked with brilliant stars, the temperature dropped making the warmth of the cabin most welcome.

  “You hear ‘bout what them lads up on Lake Champlain done? Quite a scrap they had, I heard. Just afore the fightin’ at Baltimore, I think.” Sam Hay looked around at his messmates. Seeing mostly blank looks, he continued. “Aye. Some cove come down to Baltimore just afore we shoved off – last night, I reckon it was – and was tellin’ ‘bout how MacDonough whupped the fresh-water Royal Navy right fine. Better’n we done in Baltimore, sounded like. Off a town called Plattsburgh, it were. Fought damn near the whole thing from they’s anchors, if’n you can believe that! Used spring lines to wind ‘em around so the guns’d bear wherever he needed ‘em to. That cove MacDonough done us proud, though. Had most of his ships cruel hurt, but even after he lost the whole larboard battery on Saratoga, – she’s a corvette of twenty-six guns – he hauled on them springs and turned the other side to firin’! Hammered some Royal Navy vessel – their flagshi
p, a frigate of thirty-seven guns, I’m told – damn near into matchwood. Musta been one merry hell of a fight! Yessir, I reckon them lads on the fresh’re walkin’ tall after that one!”

  At the mention of ‘the fresh’, Isaac shot a look at Clements. “You reckon Coleman and that gunner…Tim Conoughy, right?” He received a nod from Jack and continued. “You think they mighta been involved in that one, Jack? They was headed up that way last fall when we come down here.” He shook his head. “That sure seems like a long time ago, don’t it, Jack? Been some doin’s since we left Salem. I ain’t heard a word from them two since Salem. Wonder if’n they seen any action up there. I recollect how Tim was always complainin’ he didn’t have any ‘real’ guns to shoot. If he was up there – where’d you say, Sam? Plattsburgh? – I reckon he mighta got his fill. Sounds like something he’d be smilin’ and dancin’ about.”

  Jack and Isaac smiled as they reminisced about their former shipmates, Coleman, Conoughy, and others, and the night passed, cold and clear, as the sloop swung into a stiff westerly just before dawn.

  A fair tide and the westerly carried them up the Patuxent River late the next morning, passing St. Leonard Creek with its memories and the other points that had occupied their attention during the hot summer while the flotilla dodged and tracked the British ships which were focused on rooting out the gunboats and destroying them. Each memory brought a comment and, from time to time, even a bark from Carronade, who had resumed his old post in the bow of the sloop. His ears blew back and the fur on his back riffled as he lifted his nose to the breeze.

  By supper time, the dock of Benedict hove into view and Isaac could barely contain himself. Gone was the cool, reserved, and seasoned fighting sailor who had seen frightening and bloody action on vessels large and small against the enemies of two nations; in it’s place was a nervous young man, consumed with questions for which he had no answers. He paced the length of the deck, unable to stand still or even eat as the rest of the crew wolfed down a quick meal.

  His eyes darted around the river, taking in the banks on both sides and the water and shoals ahead of them and behind, but always returning to fix upon the pier at Benedict. He remembered the first kiss he and Sarah had shared there just inshore of the dock and smiled.

  By the time the sloop was made fast to the dock, Isaac was beside himself. There had been no one on the dock to greet them in, but then no one had known they were coming; there was no sign of life, save a few windows showing the yellow glow of a whale oil lamp. A horse was secured to a rail not far from the dock and it stamped its feet, shifting its weight and stirring up little clouds of dust that shimmered in the last rays of the sun.

  “Jack, I got to get over there. No tellin’ when I’ll be back, but I can’t wait a moment longer.” And he vaulted the bulwark and tried to walk calmly down the pier. A look back at the sloop showed Jack and Carronade, his forepaws on the bulwark, watching him stride away.

  Sam Hay joined the pair and stood silently for a moment, watching Isaac move purposefully toward the town. Then he turned to Clements, the beginnings of a grin working at the corners of his mouth. “I’d warrant the evening gun has fired, eh Jack? Leastaways, for Isaac.” Jack smiled and nodded, his eyes never leaving the sight of his departing shipmate.

  Hurrying along, but trying not to appear as if he were hurrying, Isaac heard Jack shout something – he couldn’t make it out – but he didn‘t stop. He would brook no delays now! His focus was as complete as it would be were he going out on a swaying yard to hand a flogging tops’l. To a bystander, Biggs looked liked any other sailorman ashore; his rolling gait and confident smile were testimony to the calm untroubled life of a seaman.

  Inside, however, he was anything but calm, his thoughts churning and reeling with horrible visions, then wonderful ones. He noticed he had begun to sweat even though the air was pleasantly cool with a nice breeze. Across the little green – none the worse for the recent visit from the British – down the street lined with mostly plain, simple homes, and then there it was: Colonel Thomas’ house. More memories flooded back, thoughts of his several meals there and his conversations with the colonel. Of secret smiles shared across the table with Sarah and the occasional touch from her foot under it. He started down the street, his heart pounding. Barely a pistol-shot away, his head filled with misgivings, he hesitated, then moved – almost cautiously – forward. Somehow, her house seemed much closer to the dock than he remembered it! He needed to think a moment. He stopped as he got to her walkway, a hand on the fence.

  My God. What if she don’t want to see me? What if she ain’t there any more? What if her father…No, Isaac. It ain’t gonna be that way. She’s gonna be…”

  “Isaac! Oh my God, Isaac! I thought that was you from the way you walked! I just knew you’d come back to me! Oh Isaac! I’ll not let you out of my sight again.” And, her eyes streaming with the joyful tears, Sarah Thomas flew out the door, down the walk lined with fall flowers, and into his arms.

  The End

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The British blockade, brought to a fine degree of efficiency by the availability of additional naval assets in 1814, essentially closed the eastern seaboard of the Untied States, not only to commerce, but also to the United States Navy. Frigates, brigs, and tenders were distributed up and down the coastline, from Massachusetts to Charleston, grounding “on their own beef bones.” That the British returned their forces to the Chesapeake Bay was indeed intended as a diversion, as Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane had mentioned to Colonel John Skinner aboard Tonnant. The object of the diversion was to force the Americans to move resources from the inland lake areas where the British were being overwhelmed. This tactic failed, but not before it had caused some considerable grief to the Untied States.

  Having mapped and charted the Chesapeake quite thoroughly in 1813, the English ships moved with some impunity around the Bay, raiding waterfront towns and local shipping at will. The only thorn in their side was Joshua Barney. His flotilla of gunboats created a problem for the British that had to be removed.

  Commodore Barney, a hero of the American Revolution, was somewhat unique in the Navy; he reported directly to the Secretary of the Navy, William Jones. And he was given a quite free hand in his operations.

  While the sloops that Isaac Biggs and Jack Clements commanded early in the story are the inventions of the author’s imagination, Barney did have a schooner, Asp, and a cutter, (actually a “block sloop”) Scorpion, under his command. In fact there is every reason to believe that Barney’s flag was carried on Scorpion more than on any other vessel.

  The action that took place in St. Leonard Creek on June 10, 1814 was referred to the “First Battle of St. Leonard Creek” and the subsequent action in which Barney actually escaped to sail further up the Patuxent was named, logically, the second Battle of St. Leonard Creek. Immediately after the battle, the army and militia had removed to safety the artillery pieces and the wounded that had been abandoned in the initial retreat, not some days later, as told by Biggs.

  It might be noted at this point that there is, in fact, some confusion surrounding the name of this locale; is it St. Leonard or St. Leonards? The creek is still known today as St. Leonard (no ‘s’) while another town across the Patuxent River is called Leonardtown. Underwater archaeological exploration conducted jointly by the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons and Nautical Archaeological Associates over a period of over twenty years has uncovered artifacts and parts of Barney’s gunboats in St. Leonard Creek. Further exploration discovered a pylon of the Route 4 bridge at the junction of Route 301 in Maryland was positioned through the remains of one of the scuttled gunboats near Pig Point.

  Dr. Plumm is a creation of the author’s imagination, but his attitude is consistent with the mindset held by many of the area residents. They wanted no part of the war and resented Barney for bringing it up the river to them.

  That the British burned our national capital was the inspiration of Admiral Cockburn and n
ot part of his original orders; he realized that with the fleet already up the Patuxent, Washington was a relatively short march away and he convinced General Ross that it would be an easy victory, and fine retribution for the American destruction of the Canadian city of York (now Toronto) in 1813. British ships were already raiding on the Potomac and confusion would be rampant. The troops the two men commanded did, in fact, include many of the battle hardened veterans of Wellington’s army who had only recently brought Napoleon Bonaparte to heel, as suggested by one of the flotillamen later in the story.

  As indicated by General Winder, there was great apprehension about where an invasion would occur; Barney and Secretary Jones had few supporters for their theory that Washington would be the target. But when the attack came, orders were issued to burn everything that might be of use to the enemy. Most particularly, the Navy Yard and rope walk.

  Interestingly, among the vessels ordered burned in the Washington Navy Yard was one that simply would not take the flames: the 1799 frigate New York. The ship, built by subscription by the city of the same name for the Quasi War with France, had been abandoned there in ordinary (decommissioned, in modern parlance) by Jefferson’s administration as unnecessary and was so waterlogged that she would not burn.

  The story of the Battle of Caulk’s Fields is told of by one of the flotillamen. It did indeed happen and was the only land battle fought on the Eastern Shore of Maryland during the entire conflict. Sir Peter Parker, a favorite of the Royal Navy, was killed in that action. He was brought to Mitchell House (today a lovely bed & breakfast) in Tolchester where he died (some accounts report that he was already dead when brought to the house). Subsequently, his remains were carried by Lt. Henry Crease, his ultimate successor, in the frigate Menelaus, to an anchorage in mid-Bay (near Poole’s Island, not to the south as suggested by one of Talbot’s flotillamen) to avoid harassment from the gunboats. He was there preserved in a barrel of rum (much the same as Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson was after Trafalgar) and taken to Bermuda, where he was temporarily buried. Sir Peter was ultimately brought to a final resting place in London. The battle was essentially as the gunboat skipper Morris told it. The nineteenth-century town of Belle Air is now called Fairlee.