ARMSTRONG’S management of the Northern campaign caused severe
criticism; but his neglect of the city of Washington exhausted the
public patience. For two years Washington stood unprotected; not a
battery or a breastwork was to be found on the river bank except the
old and untenable Fort Washington, or Warburton.[195] A thousand
determined men might reach the town in thirty-six hours, and destroy
it before any general alarm could be given.[196] Yet no city was more
easily protected than Washington, at that day, from attack on its
eastern side; any good engineer could have thrown up works in a week
that would have made approach by a small force impossible. Armstrong
neglected to fortify. After experience had proved his error, he still
argued in writing to a committee of Congress[197] that fortifications
would have exhausted the Treasury; “that bayonets are known to
form the most efficient barriers; and that there was no reason in this
case to doubt beforehand the willingness of the country to defend
itself,”--as though he believed that militia were most efficient when
most exposed! He did not even provide the bayonets.
[Illustration:
POSITIONS
OF THE
BRITISH AND AMERICAN
FORCES NEAR
WASHINGTON AND BALTIMORE,
FROM AUGUST 20 TO SEPTEMBER 12 1814]
In truth, Armstrong looking at the matter as a military critic decided
that the British having no strategic object in capturing Washington,
would not make the attempt. Being an indolent man, negligent of
detail, he never took unnecessary trouble; and having no proper staff
at Washington, he was without military advisers whose opinion he
respected. The President and Monroe fretted at his indifference, the
people of the District were impatient under it, and every one except
Armstrong was in constant terror of attack; but according to their
account the secretary only replied: “No, no! Baltimore is the place,
sir; that is of so much more consequence.”[198] Probably he was right,
and the British would have gone first to Baltimore had his negligence
not invited them to Washington.
In May the President began to press Armstrong for precautionary
measures.[199] In June letters arrived from Gallatin and Bayard in
London which caused the President to call a Cabinet meeting. June 23
and 24 the Cabinet met and considered the diplomatic situation.[200]
The President proposed then for the first time to abandon impressment
as a _sine qua non_ of negotiation, and to approve a treaty that
should be silent on the subject. Armstrong and Jones alone supported
the idea at that time, but three days afterward, June 27, Monroe
and Campbell acceded to it. The Cabinet then took the defences of
Washington in hand, and July 1 decided to organize a corps of defence
from the militia of the District and the neighboring States. July 2,
the first step toward efficient defence was taken by creating a new
military district on the Potomac, with a military head of its own.
Armstrong wished to transfer Brigadier-General Moses Porter from
Norfolk, to command the new Potomac District;[201] but the President
selected Brigadier-General Winder, because his relationship to the
Federalist governor of Maryland was likely to make co-operation more
effective.
Political appointments were not necessarily bad; but in appointing
Winder to please the governor of Maryland Madison assumed the
responsibility, in Armstrong’s eyes, for the defence of Washington.
The Secretary of War seemed to think that Madison and Monroe were
acting together to take the defence of Washington out of his hands,
and to put it in hands in which they felt confidence. Armstrong
placed Winder instantly in command, and promptly issued the orders
arranged in Cabinet; but he left further measures to Winder, Monroe,
and Madison. His conduct irritated the President; but no one charged
that the secretary refused to carry out the orders, or to satisfy the
requisitions of the President or of General Winder. He was merely
passive.[202]
Winder received his appointment July 5, and went to Washington for
instructions. He passed the next month riding between Washington,
Baltimore, and points on the lower Potomac and Patuxent,[203] obtaining
with great fatigue a personal knowledge of the country. August 1 he
established his permanent headquarters at Washington, and the entire
result of his labors till that time was the presence of one company
of Maryland militia at Bladensburg. No line of defence was selected,
no obstructions to the roads were prepared, and not so much as a
ditch or a breastwork was marked out or suggested between Annapolis
and Washington. Another fortnight passed, and still Winder was not
further advanced. He had no more men, arms, fortifications, and no
more ideas, on the 18th of August than on the 5th of July. “The
call for three thousand militia under the requisition of July 4 had
produced only two hundred and fifty men at the moment the enemy landed
at Benedict.”[204] Winder had then been six weeks in command of the
Washington defences.
Meanwhile a British expedition under command of Major-General Robert
Ross, a distinguished officer of the Peninsula army, sailed from
the Gironde, June 27, to Bermuda. Ross was instructed “to effect a
diversion on the coasts of the United States of America in favor of
the army employed in the defence of Upper and Lower Canada.” The point
of attack was to be decided by Vice-Admiral Cochrane, subject to the
general’s approval; but the force was not intended for “any extended
operation at a distance from the coast,” nor was Ross to hold permanent
possession of any captured district.[205]
“When the object of the descent which you may make on the coast
is to take possession of any naval or military stores, you will
not delay the destruction of them in preference to the taking
them away, if there is reasonable ground of apprehension that
the enemy is advancing with superior force to effect their
recovery. If in any descent you shall be enabled to take such
a position as to threaten the inhabitants with the destruction
of their property, you are hereby authorized to levy upon them
contributions in return for your forbearance; but you will
not by this understand that the magazines belonging to the
government, or their harbors, or their shipping, are to be
included in such an arrangement. These, together with their
contents, are in all cases to be taken away or destroyed.”
Negroes were not to be encouraged to rise upon their masters, and
no slaves were to be taken away as slaves; but any negro who should
expose himself to vengeance by joining the expedition or lending it
assistance, might be enlisted in the black corps, or carried away by
the fleet.
Nothing in these orders warranted the destruction of private or public
property, except such as might be capable of military uses. Ross was
not authorized, and did not intend, to enter on a mere marauding
expedition; but Cochrane was independent of Ross, and at about the
time when Ross reached Bermuda Cochrane received a letter from Sir
George Prevost which gave an unexpected character to the Chesapeake
expedition. A small body of American troops had crossed Lake Erie
to Long Point, May 15, and destroyed the flour-mills, distilleries,
and some private houses there. The raid was not authorized by the
United States government, and the officer commanding it was afterward
court-martialed and censured; but Sir George Prevost, without waiting
for explanations, wrote to Vice-Admiral Cochrane, June 2, suggesting
that he should “assist in inflicting that measure of retaliation which
shall deter the enemy from a repetition of similar outrages.”[206]
When Cochrane received this letter, he issued at Bermuda, July 18,
orders to the ships under his command, from the St. Croix River to
the St. Mary’s, directing general retaliation.[207] The orders were
interesting as an illustration of the temper the war had taken.
“You are hereby required and directed,” wrote the Vice-Admiral
to the British blockading squadrons, “to destroy and lay
waste such towns and districts upon the coast as you may find
assailable. You will hold strictly in view the conduct of
the American army toward his Majesty’s unoffending Canadian
subjects, and you will spare merely the lives of the unarmed
inhabitants of the United States. For only by carrying this
retributory justice into the country of our enemy can we hope
to make him sensible of the impropriety as well as of the
inhumanity of the system he has adopted. You will take every
opportunity of explaining to the people how much I lament the
necessity of following the rigorous example of the commander
of the American forces. And as these commanders must obviously
have acted under instructions from the Executive government
of the United States, whose intimate and unnatural connection
with the late government of France has led them to adopt the
same system of plunder and devastation, it is therefore to
their own government the unfortunate sufferers must look for
indemnification for their loss of property.”
This ill-advised order was to remain in force until Sir George Prevost
should send information “that the United States government have come
under an obligation to make full remuneration to the injured and
unoffending inhabitants of the Canadas for all the outrages their
troops have committed.” Cochrane further wrote to Prevost that “as
soon as these orders have been acted upon,” a copy would be sent to
Washington for the information of the Executive government.
Cochrane’s retaliatory order was dated July 18, and Ross’s transports
arrived at Bermuda July 24. As soon as the troops were collected and
stores put on board, Cochrane and Ross sailed, August 3, for Chesapeake
Bay. They arrived a few days in advance of the transports, and passing
up the bay to the mouth of the Potomac, landed, August 15, with Rear
Admiral Cockburn, to decide on a plan for using to best effect the
forces under their command.
Three objects were within reach. The first and immediate aim was a
flotilla of gunboats, commanded by Captain Joshua Barney, which had
taken refuge in the Patuxent River, and was there blockaded. The next
natural object of desire was Baltimore, on account of its shipping and
prize-money. The third was Washington and Alexandria, on account of the
navy-yard and the vessels in the Potomac. Baltimore was the natural
point of attack after destroying Barney’s flotilla; but Cockburn,
with a sailor’s recklessness, urged a dash at Washington.[208] Ross
hesitated, and postponed a decision till Barney’s flotilla should be
disposed of.
Two days afterward, August 17, the troops arrived, and the squadron,
commanded by Vice-Admiral Cochrane, moved twenty miles up the bay to
the mouth of the Patuxent,--a point about fifty miles distant from
Annapolis on the north, and from Washington on the northwest. Having
arrived there August 18, Cochrane wrote, or afterward ante-dated, an
official letter to Secretary Monroe:[209]--
“Having been called on by the Governor-General of the Canadas
to aid him in carrying into effect measures of retaliation
against the inhabitants of the United States for the wanton
destruction committed by their army in Upper Canada, it has
become imperiously my duty, conformably with the nature of the
Governor-General’s application, to issue to the naval force
under my command an order to destroy and lay waste such towns
and districts upon the coast as may be found assailable.”
The notice was the more remarkable because Cochrane’s order was issued
only to the naval force. The army paid no attention to it. Ross’s
troops were landed at Benedict the next day, August 19; but neither
there nor elsewhere did they destroy or lay waste towns or districts.
They rather showed unusual respect for private property.
At Benedict, August 19, the British forces were organized in three
brigades, numbering, according to different British accounts, four
thousand five hundred, or four thousand rank-and-file.[210] Cockburn
with the boats of the fleet the next day, August 20, started up the
river in search of Barney’s flotilla; while the land force began its
march at four o’clock in the afternoon abreast of the boats, and camped
four miles above Benedict without seeing an enemy, or suffering from a
worse annoyance than one of the evening thunder-storms common in hot
weather.
The next day at dawn the British army started again, and marched that
day, Sunday, August 21, twelve miles to the village of Nottingham,
where it camped.[211] The weather was hot, and the march resembled a
midsummer picnic. Through a thickly wooded region, where a hundred
militia-men with axes and spades could have delayed their progress for
days, the British army moved in a solitude apparently untenanted by
human beings, till they reached Nottingham on the Patuxent,--a deserted
town, rich in growing crops and full barns.
At Nottingham the army passed a quiet night, and the next morning,
Monday, August 22, lingered till eight o’clock, when it again advanced.
Among the officers in the Eighty-fifth regiment was a lieutenant
named Gleig, who wrote afterward a charming narrative of the campaign
under the title, “A Subaltern in America.” He described the road as
remarkably good, running for the most part through the heart of thick
forests, which sheltered it from the rays of the sun. During the march
the army was startled by the distant sound of several heavy explosions.
Barney had blown up his gunboats to prevent their capture. The British
naval force had thus performed its part in the enterprise, and the
army was next to take the lead. Ross halted at Marlboro after a march
of only seven miles, and there too he camped, undisturbed by sight
or sound of an armed enemy, although the city of Washington was but
sixteen miles on his left, and Baltimore thirty miles in his front.
Ross had then marched twenty or twenty-one miles into Maryland without
seeing an enemy, although an American army had been close on his left
flank, watching him all day.
At Marlboro Ross was obliged to decide what he should next do. He
was slow in forming a conclusion. Instead of marching at day-break
of August 23, and moving rapidly on Baltimore or Washington, the
army passed nearly the whole day at Marlboro in idleness, as though
it were willing to let the Americans do their utmost for defence.
“Having advanced within sixteen miles of Washington,” Ross officially
reported,[212] “and ascertained the force of the enemy to be such as
might authorize an attempt to carry his capital, I determined to make
it, and accordingly put the troops in movement on the evening of the
23d.” More exactly, the troops moved at two o’clock in the afternoon,
and marched about six miles on the road to Washington, when they struck
American outposts at about five o’clock, and saw a force posted on
high ground about a mile in their front. As the British formed to
attack, the American force disappeared, and the British army camped
about nine miles from Washington by way of the navy-yard bridge over
the Eastern Branch.
Thus for five days, from August 18 to August 23, a British army, which
though small was larger than any single body of American regulars then
in the field, marched in a leisurely manner through a long-settled
country, and met no show of resistance before coming within sight of
the Capitol. Such an adventure resembled the stories of Cortez and
De Soto; and the conduct of the United States government offered no
contradiction to the resemblance.
News of the great fleet that appeared in the Patuxent August 17 reached
Washington on the morning of Thursday, August 18, and set the town
in commotion. In haste the President sent fresh militia requisitions
to the neighboring States, and ordered out the militia and all the
regular troops in Washington and its neighborhood. Monroe started
again as a scout, arriving in the neighborhood of Benedict at ten
o’clock on the morning of August 20, and remaining there all day and
night without learning more than he knew before starting.[213] Winder
was excessively busy, but did, according to his own account, nothing.
“The innumerably multiplied orders, letters, consultations, and
demands which crowded upon me at the moment of such an alarm can more
easily be conceived than described, and occupied me nearly day and
night, from Thursday the 18th of August till Sunday the 21st, and had
nearly broken down myself and assistants in preparing, dispensing, and
attending to them.” Armstrong, at last alive to the situation, made
excellent suggestions,[214] but could furnish neither troops, means,
nor military intelligence to carry them out; and the President could
only call for help. The single step taken for defence was taken by the
citizens, who held a meeting Saturday evening, and offered at their own
expense to erect works at Bladensburg. Winder accepted their offer.
Armstrong detailed Colonel Wadsworth, the only engineer officer near
the Department, to lay out the lines, and the citizens did such work as
was possible in the time that remained.
After three days of confusion, a force was at last evolved. Probably
by Winder’s order, although no such order was preserved, a corps
of observation was marched across the navy-yard bridge toward the
Patuxent, or drawn from Bladensburg, to a place called the Woodyard,
twelve miles beyond the Eastern Branch. The force was not to be
despised. Three hundred infantry regulars of different regiments,
with one hundred and twenty light dragoons, formed the nucleus; two
hundred and fifty Maryland militia, and about twelve hundred District
volunteers or militia, with twelve six-pound field-pieces, composed a
body of near two thousand men,[215] from whom General Brown or Andrew
Jackson would have got good service. Winder came out and took command
Sunday evening, and Monroe, much exhausted, joined them that night.
There the men stood Monday, August 22, while the British army marched
by them, within sight of their outposts, from Nottingham to Marlboro.
Winder rode forward with his cavalry and watched all day the enemy’s
leisurely movements close in his front,[216] but the idea of attack did
not appear to enter his mind. “A doubt at that time,” he said,[217]
“was not entertained by anybody of the intention of the enemy to
proceed direct to Washington.” At nine o’clock that evening Monroe sent
a note to the President, saying that the enemy was in full march for
Washington; that Winder proposed to retire till he could collect his
troops; that preparations should be made to destroy the bridges, and
that the papers in the government offices should be removed.[218] At
the same time Monroe notified Serurier, the only foreign minister then
in Washington, that the single hope of saving the capital depended on
the very doubtful result of an engagement, which would probably take
place the next day or the day after, at Bladensburg.[219]
At Bladensburg, of necessity, the engagement must take place, unless
Winder made an attack or waited for attack on the road. One of two
courses was to be taken,--Washington must be either defended or
evacuated. Perhaps Winder would have done better to evacuate it, and
let the British take the undefended village; but no suggestion of the
sort was made, nor did Winder retreat to Bladensburg as was necessary
if he meant to unite his troops and make preparations for a battle.
Instead of retreating to Bladensburg as soon as he was satisfied--at
noon of Monday, August 22--that the British were going there, he
ordered his troops to fall back, and took position at the Old Fields,
about five miles in the rear of the Woodyard, and about seven miles
by road from the navy-yard. Another road led from the Old Fields to
Bladensburg about eight miles away. The American force might have been
united at Bladensburg Monday evening, but Winder camped at the Old
Fields and passed the night.
That evening the President and the members of the Cabinet rode out to
the camp, and the next morning the President reviewed the army, which
had been reinforced by Commodore Barney with four hundred sailors,
the crews of the burned gunboats. Winder then had twenty-five hundred
men, of whom near a thousand were regulars, or sailors even better
fighting troops than ordinary regulars. Such a force vigorously led
was sufficient to give Ross’s army a sharp check, and at that moment
Ross was still hesitating whether to attack Washington. The loss of
a few hundred men might have turned the scale at any moment during
Tuesday, August 23; but Winder neither fought nor retreated, but once
more passed the day on scout. At noon he rode with a troop of cavalry
toward Marlboro. Satisfied that the enemy was not in motion and would
not move that day, he started at one o’clock for Bladensburg, leaving
his army to itself. He wished to bring up a brigade of militia from
Bladensburg.[220]
Winder had ridden about five miles, when the British at two o’clock
suddenly broke up their camp and marched directly on the Old Fields.
The American army hastily formed in line, and sent off its baggage to
Washington. Winder was summoned back in haste, and arrived on the field
at five o’clock as the British appeared. He ordered a retreat. Every
military reason required a retreat to Bladensburg. Winder directed a
retreat on Washington by the navy-yard bridge.
The reasons which actuated him to prefer the navy-yard to Bladensburg,
as explained by him, consisted in anxiety for the safety of that
“direct and important pass,” which could not without hazard be left
unguarded.[221] In order to guard a bridge a quarter of a mile long
over an impassable river covered by the guns of war-vessels and the
navy-yard, he left unguarded the open high-road which led through
Bladensburg directly to the Capitol and the White House. After a very
rapid retreat that “literally became a run of eight miles,”[222]
Winder encamped in Washington near the bridge-head at the navy-yard
at eight o’clock that night, and then rode three miles to the White
House to report to the President. On returning to camp, he passed
the night until three or four o’clock in the morning making in
person arrangements to destroy the bridge “when necessary,” assuring
his officers that he expected the enemy to attempt a passage there
that night.[223] Toward dawn he lay down, exhausted by performing a
subaltern’s duty all day, and snatched an hour or two of sleep.
The British in their camp that evening were about eight miles from
Bladensburg battle-field. Winder was about five miles distant from
the same point. By a quick march at dawn he might still have arrived
there, with six hours to spare for arranging his defence. He preferred
to wait till he should know with certainty that the British were on
their way there. On the morning of Wednesday, August 24, he wrote to
Armstrong:[224]--
“I have found it necessary to establish my headquarters here,
the most advanced position convenient to the troops, and nearest
information. I shall remain stationary as much as possible, that
I may be the more readily found, to issue orders, and collect
together the various detachments of militia, and give them as
rapid a consolidation and organization as possible.... The
news up the river is very threatening. Barney’s or some other
force should occupy the batteries at Greenleaf’s Point and the
navy-yard. I should be glad of the assistance of counsel from
yourself and the Government. If more convenient, I should make
an exertion to go to you the first opportunity.”
This singular note was carried first to the President, who, having
opened and read it, immediately rode to headquarters. Monroe, Jones,
and Rush followed. Armstrong and Campbell arrived last. Before
Armstrong appeared, a scout arrived at ten o’clock with information
that the British army had broken up its camp at daylight, and was
probably more than half way to Bladensburg.[225]
Winder’s persistence in remaining at the navy-yard was explained as
due to the idea that the enemy might move toward the Potomac, seize
Fort Washington or Warburton, secure the passage of his ships, and
approach the city by the river.[226] The general never explained how
his presence at the navy-yard was to prevent such a movement if it was
made.
The whole eastern side of Washington was covered by a broad estuary
called the Eastern Branch of the Potomac, bridged only at two points,
and impassable, even by pontoons, without ample warning. From the
Potomac River to Bladensburg, a distance of about seven miles, the
city was effectually protected. Bladensburg made the point of a right
angle. There the Baltimore road entered the city as by a pass; for
beyond, to the west, no general would venture to enter, leaving an
enemy at Bladensburg in his rear. Roads were wanting, and the country
was difficult. Through Bladensburg the attacking army must come; to
Bladensburg Winder must go, unless he meant to retreat to Georgetown,
or to re-cross the Eastern Branch in the enemy’s rear. Monroe notified
Serurier Monday evening that the battle would be fought at Bladensburg.
Secretary Jones wrote to Commodore Rodgers, Tuesday morning, that the
British would probably “advance to-day toward Bladensburg.”[227] Every
one looked instinctively to that spot[228], yet Winder to the last
instant persisted in watching the navy-yard bridge, using the hours of
Wednesday morning to post Barney’s sailors with twenty-four-pound guns
to cover an approach[229] where no enemy could cross.
[Illustration:
MAP OF THE
BATTLE
OF
BLADENSBURG
STRUTHERS & CO., ENGR’S, N. Y.]
No sooner did Winder receive intelligence at ten o’clock Wednesday
morning that the British were in march to Bladensburg, than in the
utmost haste he started for the same point, preceded by Monroe and
followed by the President and the rest of the Cabinet and the troops.
Barney’s sailors and their guns would have been left behind to guard
the navy-yard bridge had Secretary Jones not yielded to Barney’s
vigorous though disrespectful remonstrances, and allowed him to
follow.[230]
In a long line the various corps, with their military and civil
commanders, streamed toward Bladensburg, racing with the British, ten
miles away, to arrive first on the field of battle. Monroe was earliest
on the ground. Between eleven and twelve o’clock he reached the spot
where hills slope gently toward the Eastern Branch a mile or more in
broad incline, the little straggling town of Bladensburg opposite,
beyond a shallow stream, and hills and woods in the distance. Several
militia corps were already camped on the ground, which had been from
the first designated as the point of concentration. A Baltimore
brigade, more than two thousand strong, had arrived there thirty-six
hours before. Some Maryland regiments arrived at the same time with
Monroe. About three thousand men were then on the field, and their
officers were endeavoring to form them in line of battle. General
Stansbury of the Baltimore brigade made such an arrangement as he
thought best. Monroe, who had no military rank, altered it without
Stansbury’s knowledge.[231] General Winder arrived at noon, and rode
about the field. At the same time the British light brigade made its
appearance, and wound down the opposite road, a mile away, a long
column of redcoats, six abreast, moving with the quick regularity, of
old soldiers,[232] and striking directly at the American centre. They
reached the village on one side of the stream as Winder’s troops poured
down the hill on the other; and the President with two or three of his
Cabinet officers, considerably in advance of all their own troops,
nearly rode across the bridge into the British line, when a volunteer
scout warned them of their danger.[233]
Much the larger portion of the American force arrived on the ground
when the enemy was in sight, and were hastily drawn up in line wherever
they could be placed.[234] They had no cover. Colonel Wadsworth’s
intrenchments were not used,[235] except in the case of one field-work
which enfiladed the bridge at close range, where field-pieces were
placed. Although some seven thousand men were present, nothing
deserving the name of an army existed. “A few companies only,”
said the Subaltern, “perhaps two or at the most three battalions,
wearing the blue jacket which the Americans have borrowed from the
French, presented some appearance of regular troops. The rest seemed
country-people, who would have been much more appropriately employed
in attending to their agricultural occupations than in standing
with muskets in their hands on the brow of a bare, green hill.”
Heterogeneous as the force was, it would have been sufficient had it
enjoyed the advantage of a commander.
The British light brigade, some twelve or fifteen hundred men, under
Colonel Thornton of the Eighty-fifth regiment, without waiting for the
rear division, dashed across the bridge, and were met by a discharge of
artillery and musketry directly in their face. Checked for an instant,
they pressed on, crossed the bridge or waded the stream, and spread to
the right and left, while their rockets flew into the American lines.
Almost instantly a portion of the American line gave way; but the rest
stood firm, and drove the British skirmishers back under a heavy fire
to the cover of the bank with its trees and shrubs. Not until a fresh
British regiment, moving well to the right, forded the stream and
threatened to turn the American left, did the rout begin. Even then
several strong corps stood steady, and in good order retired by the
road that led to the Capitol; but the mass, struck by panic, streamed
westward toward Georgetown and Rockville.
Meanwhile Barney’s sailors, though on the run, could not reach the
field in time for the attack, and halted on the hillside, about a
mile from Bladensburg, at a spot just outside the District line. The
rout had then begun, but Barney put his five pieces in position and
waited for the enemy. The American infantry and cavalry that had not
fled westward moved confusedly past the field where the sailors stood
at their guns. Winder sent Barney no orders, and Barney, who was not
acting under Winder, but was commander-in-chief of his own forces under
authority of the Navy Department, had no idea of running away. Four
hundred men against four thousand were odds too great even for sailors,
but a battle was not wholly disgraceful that produced such a commander
and such men. Barney’s account of the combat was as excellent as his
courage:[236]--
“At length the enemy made his appearance on the main road in
force and in front of my battery, and on seeing us made a halt.
I reserved our fire. In a few minutes the enemy again advanced,
when I ordered an eighteen-pounder to be fired, which completely
cleared the road; shortly after, a second and a third attempt
was made by the enemy to come forward, but all were destroyed.
They then crossed over into an open field, and attempted to
flank our right. He was met there by three twelve-pounders, the
marines under Captain Miller, and my men acting as infantry,
and again was totally cut up. By this time not a vestige of the
American army remained, except a body of five or six hundred
posted on a height on my right, from which I expected much
support from their fine situation.”
Such a battle could not long continue. The British turned Barney’s
right; the corps on the height broke and fled,[237] and the British,
getting into the rear, fired down upon the sailors. The British
themselves were most outspoken in praise of Barney’s men. “Not only did
they serve their guns with a quickness and precision that astonished
their assailants,” said the Subaltern, “but they stood till some of
them were actually bayoneted with fuses in their hands; nor was it till
their leader was wounded and taken, and they saw themselves deserted
on all sides by the soldiers, that they left the field.” Barney held
his position nearly half an hour, and then, being severely wounded,
ordered his officers to leave him where he lay. There he was taken by
the British advance, and carried to their hospital at Bladensburg.
The British officers, admiring his gallantry, treated him, he said,
“with the most marked attention, respect, and politeness as if I was
a brother,”--as though to show their opinion that Barney instead of
Winder should have led the American army.
After the sailors retired, at about four o’clock, the British stopped
two hours to rest. Their victory, easy as it seemed, was not cheaply
bought. General Ross officially reported sixty-four killed and one
hundred and eighty-five wounded.[238] A loss of two hundred and fifty
men among fifteen hundred said to be engaged[239] was not small; but
Gleig, an officer of the light brigade, himself wounded, made twice,
at long intervals, an assertion which he must have intended as a
contradiction of the official report. “The loss on the part of the
English was severe,” he said,[240] “since out of two thirds of the
army which were engaged upward of five hundred men were killed and
wounded.” According to this assertion, Ross lost five hundred men among
three thousand engaged, or one in six. Had Winder inflicted that loss
while the British were still on the Patuxent, Ross would have thought
long before risking more, especially as Colonel Thornton was among the
severely injured. The Americans reported only twenty-six killed and
fifty-one wounded.
At six o’clock, after a rest of two hours, the British troops resumed
their march; but night fell before they reached the first houses of
the town. As Ross and Cockburn, with a few officers, advanced before
the troops, some men, supposed to have been Barney’s sailors, fired
on the party from the house formerly occupied by Gallatin, at the
northeast corner of Capitol Square. Ross’s horse was killed, and the
general ordered the house to be burned, which was done. The army did
not enter the town, but camped at eight o’clock a quarter of a mile
east of the Capitol. Troops were then detailed to burn the Capitol,
and as the great building burst into flames, Ross and Cockburn, with
about two hundred men, marched silently in the darkness to the White
House, and set fire to it. At the same time Commodore Tingey, by
order of Secretary Jones, set fire to the navy-yard and the vessels
in the Eastern Branch. Before midnight the flames of three great
conflagrations made the whole country light, and from the distant
hills of Maryland and Virginia the flying President and Cabinet caught
glimpses of the ruin their incompetence had caused.
Serurier lived then in the house built by John Tayloe in 1800, called
the Octagon, a few hundred yards from the War and Navy Departments and
the White House.[241] He was almost the only civil official left in
Washington, and hastened to report the event to Talleyrand:[242]--
“I never saw a scene at once more terrible and more magnificent.
Your Highness, knowing the picturesque nature and the grandeur
of the surroundings, can form an idea of it. A profound darkness
reigned in the part of the city that I occupy, and we were
left to conjectures and to the lying reports of negroes as to
what was passing in the quarter illuminated by these frightful
flames. At eleven o’clock a colonel, preceded by torches, was
seen to take the direction of the White House, which is situated
quite near mine; the negroes reported that it was to be burned,
as well as all those pertaining to government offices. I thought
best, on the moment, to send one of my people to the general
with a letter, in which I begged him to send a guard to the
house of the Ambassador of France to protect it.... My messenger
found General Ross in the White House, where he was collecting
in the drawing-room all the furniture to be found, and was
preparing to set fire to it. The general made answer that the
King’s Hotel should be respected as much as though his Majesty
were there in person; that he would give orders to that effect;
and that if he was still in Washington the next day, he would
have the pleasure to call on me.”
Ross and Cockburn alone among military officers, during more than
twenty years of war, considered their duty to involve personal
incendiarism. At the time and subsequently various motives were
attributed to them,--such as the duty of retaliation,--none of which
was alleged by either of them as their warranty.[243] They burned the
Capitol, the White House, and the Department buildings because they
thought it proper, as they would have burned a negro kraal or a den
of pirates. Apparently they assumed as a matter of course that the
American government stood beyond the pale of civilization; and in truth
a government which showed so little capacity to defend its capital,
could hardly wonder at whatever treatment it received.
A violent thunder-storm checked the flames; but the next morning,
Thursday, August 25, fresh detachments of troops were sent to complete
the destruction of public property. Without orders from his Government,
Ross converted his campaign, which till then had been creditable to
himself and flattering to British pride, into a marauding raid of which
no sensible Englishman spoke without mortification. Cockburn amused
himself by revenging his personal grievances on the press which had
abused him. Mounted on a brood mare, white, uncurried, with a black
foal trotting by her side, the Admiral attacked the office of the
“National Intelligencer,” and superintended the destruction of the
types. “Be sure that all the C’s are destroyed,” he ordered, “so that
the rascals cannot any longer abuse my name.”[244] Ross was anxious
to complete the destruction of the public buildings with the least
possible delay, that the army might retire without loss of time;[245]
and the work was pressed with extreme haste. A few private buildings
were burned, but as a rule private property was respected, and no
troops except small detachments were allowed to leave the camp.
Soon after noon, while the work was still incomplete, a tornado burst
on the city and put an end to the effort. An accidental explosion at
the navy-yard helped to check destruction. Ross could do no more, and
was in haste to get away. No sooner had the hurricane, which lasted
nearly two hours and seemed especially violent at the camp, passed
over, than Ross began preparations to retire. With precautions wholly
unnecessary, leaving its camp-fires burning, the British column in
extreme silence, after nine o’clock at night, began its march. Passing
Bladensburg, where the dead were still unburied, Ross left his wounded
in the hospital to American care, and marched all night till seven
o’clock Friday morning, when the troops, exhausted with fatigue, were
allowed a rest. At noon they were again in motion, and at night-fall,
after marching twenty-five miles within twenty-four hours, they arrived
at Marlboro. Had the advance from Benedict been equally rapid, Ross
would have entered Washington without a skirmish.