British plan of invading our sea ports -- Arrival of
reinforcements -- Barney's flotilla -- Landing of the enemy
under Ross -- Doubt and alarm of the inhabitants -- Advance
of the British -- Destruction of the Navy Yard -- Battle of
Bladensburg -- Flight of the President and his Cabinet --
Burning and sacking of Washington -- Mrs. Madison's conduct
during the day and night -- Cockburn's brutality -- Sudden
explosion -- A hurricane -- Flight of the British -- State
of the army -- Character of this outrage -- Rejoicings in
England -- Mortification of our ambassadors at Ghent --
Mistake of the English -- Parker's expedition -- Colonel
Reed's defence -- The English army advance on Baltimore --
Death of Ross -- Bombardment of Fort McHenry -- "The star
spangled banner" -- Retreat of the British, and joy of the
citizens of Baltimore.
But while these events were passing around Niagara--in the interval
between the assault on Fort Erie by Drummond and the successful sortie
of Brown--a calamity overtook the country, which fortunately resulted
in producing more harmony of feeling among the people, and
strengthened materially the administration. Washington was taken and
sacked by the enemy. The overthrow of Napoleon and his banishment to
Elba, enabled England to send over more than 30,000 troops, which were
soon on our sea-board or in the British Provinces. New England no
longer remained excluded from the blockade, and the whole Atlantic
sea-board was locked up by British cruisers. The Constitution, the
year previous, after a cruise in which she captured but a single war
schooner and a few merchantmen, was chased into Marble Head, from
whence she escaped to Boston. The blockading of our other large ships,
and the destruction of the Essex about the same time in the Bay of
Valparaiso, had left us without a frigate at sea. The Adams, a sloop
of twenty-eight guns, was the largest cruiser we had afloat.
Hitherto the enemy had been content with blockading our seaports, and
making descents on small towns in their neighborhood, but as the
summer advanced, rumors arrived of the preparation of a large force,
destined to strike a heavy blow at some of our most important cities.
To meet this new danger the President addressed a circular letter to
the States, calling on them to hold in readiness 93,500 militia.
Fearing that Washington or Baltimore might be the points at which the
enemy would first strike, the tenth military district was erected, as
mentioned before, and General Winder, recently released by exchange,
given the command of it.
The whole sea-board was in a state of alarm--even Massachusetts caught
the infection, and preparations were immediately made to defend her
seaports and protect her coast. The militia of the different States
were called out--Governor Barbour, of Virginia, garrisoned Norfolk,
the intrenching tools were busy night and day around Baltimore,
Providence voted money for fortifications, Portland shipmasters formed
themselves into a company of sea fencibles, and gun-boats were
collected in New York and all the great northern ports. The notes of
alarm and preparation rang along the coast from Maine to Louisiana,
and before the mysterious shadow of the gigantic coming evil, party
animosities sunk into insignificance. Released from her Continental
struggle, England, with her fleets that had conquered at Aboukir,
Trafalgar, and Copenhagen, and her troops fresh from the fields of
Spain, had resolved to fall upon us in her power, and crushing city
after city, leave us at length without a seaport, from the Merrimack
to the Mississippi. Even the brilliant victories of Chippewa and
Lundy's Lane could not dispel the terror inspired by this gathering of
her energies.
But the first serious demonstration was made in the Chesapeake. To act
against the fleet a flotilla was placed there under the charge of
Captain Barney, a bold and skillful officer. Constantly on the alert,
he would dash suddenly out of the Patuxent River, and roughly handling
the light vessels of the enemy that approached the shallow waters,
compel them to take refuge under the guns of the frigates. But the
river at length became blockaded, and the flotilla was compelled to
run up into Leonard's Creek. From the 1st to the 26th of June,
frequent skirmishes took place, in which Captain Barney exhibited a
daring, skill and prudence combined, which proved him to be an able
commander. On the 26th he attacked the British vessels in the river,
and after a sharp cannonade of two hours, drove them into the bay, and
broke up the blockade.
[Sidenote: Aug. 14.]
At length Admiral Cochrane arrived from Bermuda, in an eighty gun
ship, bringing with him three thousand troops, commanded by General
Ross. Entering the Chesapeake he joined Rear Admiral Cockburn, who by
this timely reinforcement found himself in command of twenty-three
vessels of war. This imposing fleet stood slowly up the waters of the
Chesapeake, sending consternation among the inhabitants of Washington
and Baltimore. [Sidenote: Aug. 21.] Cockburn, designed by nature for a
freebooter, was admirably fitted for the work he had designed to do.
Landing four thousand five hundred troops at Benedict, he began to
advance up the Potomac. Barney, acting under instructions he had
received, immediately took four hundred men and fell back to the Wood
Yard, where he joined what was called the army. He had left five or
six men in each boat, to blow them up, should the enemy advance. That
night, about one o'clock, the President, with the Secretaries of War
and Navy, visited Winder's camp, and next morning reviewed the troops.
The camp was in confusion. Citizens and soldiers intermingled--each
giving his opinion of the course to be pursued--disordered ranks and
loud and fierce talking--the utter absence of the quiet demeanor and
military precision characteristic of a regular army, gave to the one
assembled there the appearance of a motley crowd on a gala day.
General Smith and Barney, however, seemed to understand themselves,
and were anxious to advance and attack the enemy.
At the first appearance of the fleet Winder had sent off for the
militia, but none had yet arrived. Six hundred from Virginia were
reported close at hand--fourteen hundred from near Baltimore had
reached Bladensburg, whither, also, was marching a picked regiment
from the city itself, led by Pinckney, recently our Embassador to
England. The whole country was filled with excited men, hurrying on
foot or on horseback from one army and place to another--some without
arms and others in citizens' dress, with only swords or pistols. The
President and Cabinet were also in the saddle, riding by night and
day, yet all without definite object. Rumor had swelled the invading
force to twelve thousand men, but whether its destination was
Washington, Baltimore, or Annapolis, no one could tell.
While affairs were in this excited, disorderly state around
Washington, great uncertainty reigned in the British camp. It was a
hot day when the troops landed, and the sight of neat farm-houses,
rich fields, and green pastures, seemed to increase the lassitude
occasioned by their long confinement on ship-board, rather than
invigorate them, and it required the exercise of rigid authority and
unceasing care to keep them from straggling away to the cool shelter
of trees. Weighed down with their knapsacks and three days'
provisions, and sixty rounds of ball cartridge--without cavalry, and
with only one six-pounder and two three-pounders drawn by a hundred
seamen, this army of invasion took up its slow and cautious march
inland on Sunday afternoon, and reached Nottingham that night.
[Sidenote: Aug. 21.] They found the village wholly deserted--not a
soul was left behind, while the bread remaining in the ovens, the
furniture standing just as it had last been used, showed that the
flight had been sudden and the panic complete.
At this time the object of the expedition was the destruction of
Barney's flotilla, which had so harassed and injured the lighter
vessels of the fleet.
Next morning at eight o'clock the army took up its line of March, and
soon entered a cool, refreshing forest. But they had traversed scarce
half its extent, when Ross was filled with anxiety and alarm by
frequent and loud explosions, like the booming of heavy artillery, in
the distance. Officers were immediately hurried off to ascertain the
cause, who soon returned with the welcome and unexpected intelligence
that the Americans were blowing up their own flotilla.
The first and chief object of the invasion being secured, Ross halted
his column at Marlborough, only ten miles from Nottingham, and sent
for Cockburn, who, with a flotilla, was advancing up the river "_pari
passu_," to advise with him what course to pursue. The admiral
proposed to march on Washington. To this Ross at first objected, for
to pierce a country of which he was ignorant fifty miles, with no
cavalry or heavy artillery, seemed a rash undertaking, especially
when, in a military point of view, success would accomplish
comparatively nothing. Cockburn, however, who had been on the coast
longer, and through informants residing in the city, had become
acquainted with its defenceless state, persuaded him that its capture
would be easy, and the results glorious. The taking of a nation's
capital certainly seemed no mean exploit, while the heavy ransom the
government would doubtless pay to save its public buildings, would
compensate Cockburn for lack of prize money at sea.
It was not, however, till next noon that the army, preceded by a
company of a hundred blacks, composed of fugitive slaves, began to
advance. After making a few miles, it halted for the night.
The Secretary of War had insisted from the first that Washington was
not the point threatened, and still adhered to that opinion. He could
not conceive that an experienced commander would select as the first
object of attack a town of some nine hundred houses, scattered over a
surface of three miles, and destitute of wealth, while the opulent
cities of Baltimore and Annapolis lay so near. This, too, was the
opinion of many others, creating great confusion, and preventing the
selection of strong positions, where successful stands could have been
made.
While the British were thus slowly advancing, General Winder was
riding hither and thither, now making a reconnoissance in person, now
posting to Washington to rouse the Secretary of War out of his
lethargy, or hurrying on foot back again to his army, doing every
thing but restoring tranquillity and order. Confusion in the
camp--disorder in the ranks--consternation among the inhabitants, and
gloom and doubt in the cabinet, combined to render the three days the
British were marching on Washington, a scene of extraordinary
excitement and misdirected efforts.
[Sidenote: Aug. 24.]
At length, videttes and scouts, coming in quick succession, announced
that the British army was approaching Bladensburg, where General
Stansbury, with the Baltimore militia, was encamped. There was not a
breath of air, and the column staggered on through a cloud of dust,
and under a sweltering August sun. The soldiers, exhausted, reeled
from the ranks and fell by the road side, while many others could
scarcely drag their weary limbs along. The American troops were busy
cooking their dinner when the drums beat to arms, announcing the
approach of this much dreaded army.
When the news reached Winder, he immediately transmitted an order to
Stansbury to give battle where he was, and hastened thither with the
main army, arriving just before the action commenced. Barney, who had
been stationed with five hundred men at the bridge over the eastern
branch of the Potomac, with directions to blow it up should the enemy
approach by that route, no sooner heard of his advance on Bladensburg,
than he earnestly requested to repair thither with his brave seamen.
He chafed under the inaction to which he was doomed, talking in a
boisterous manner, half to himself and half to others, lashing the
generals with the bluntness and truth of a sailor, saying, loud
enough to be heard by the President and his cabinet standing near, it
was absurd to leave him there with five hundred men to blow up a
bridge which any "d----d corporal could better do with five." At
length permission was given him to join the army, when he leaped on a
horse, and ordering his seamen to follow, galloped to Bladensburg. The
advance was already engaged, and he immediately sent back to his men
to hurry up, and soon the brave and panting fellows appeared on a trot
and took their stand beside their commander. The President and his
cabinet galloped thither also, but retired at the commencement of the
action, not before, however, Monroe, Secretary of State, had tried his
hand at military evolutions, and altered the order of battle.
Instead of taking advantage of patches of woods, thickets, etc., where
inexperienced militia would have fought well, this heterogeneous army
of five or six thousand men was arranged in the form of a semi-circle
on the slope that makes up westward from the eastern branch of the
Potomac, here a shallow stream and crossed by a wooden bridge. The
British, supposing of course, that the position was chosen because it
commanded a narrow bridge, the passage of which is always so difficult
in the face of batteries, never dreamed the river could be forded, and
therefore never attempted it. Ross, who from the top of the highest
house in the neighborhood surveyed the American army, was disconcerted
at the formidable appearance it presented--posted on such a commanding
eminence with heavy artillery,--and would doubtless have retreated but
for the greater danger of a retrogade movement with his exhausted
troops.
The American army was arranged in three lines like regiments on a
parade, connected by the guns that could pour no cross fire on the
assailing column. The latter advancing steadily, throwing Congreve
rockets as they approached, so shook the courage of the militia that
it required but the levelled gleaming bayonet to scatter them like
sheep over the field. Many of the officers were brave men and strove
to arrest the panic, but in vain. Pinckney with a broken arm rode
leisurely out of the battle, his heart filled with rage and
mortification at the poltroonry of those under his command.
The details of the engagement are useless--there was a show of
resistance and some well sustained firing for awhile; but the whole
battle, so far as it can be called one, was fought by Barney. He had
planted four guns, among them an eighteen pounder, so as to sweep the
main road, and quietly sat beside them on his bay horse, allowing the
column to come within close range before he gave orders to fire. The
first terrible discharge cleared the road. Three times the British
endeavored to advance in front, and as often were swept to destruction
by that battery. At length they were compelled to abandon the attempt,
and taking shelter under a ravine filed off to the right and left and
assailed Barney in flank and rear. Driving easily before them the
regiments whose duty it was to protect the artillery, they moved
swiftly forward. Barney's horse had been shot under him and he
himself, prostrated by a wound, lay stretched in the road. Seeing that
the battle was lost, he bade his seamen cut their way through the
enemy and escape. Reluctant at first to obey him, they at last fled,
and their gallant commander was taken prisoner. A few such determined
men would have saved Washington from the flames.
The six hundred Virginians who had hastened to the rescue never joined
the army at all. Having arrived without arms, they slept in the House
of Representatives all night and were not equipped next day till the
battle was over.
The _retreat_ became a wild and shameful flight. No other stand was
made, and the fugitive army fled unpursued in squads hither and
thither. It was a regular stampede. The fields and roads were covered
with a broken and flying multitude. President, secretaries of war and
navy, attorney-general and all were borne away in the headlong
torrent; and though the enemy had no cavalry to pursue, and the
infantry were too tired to follow up their success, the panic was so
complete and ridiculous that our troops never stopped their flight
except when compelled to pause from sheer exhaustion. Fatigue, not the
interval they had put between themselves and the enemy, arrested their
footsteps. Only fifty or sixty had been killed on our side, while the
British had lost several hundred, a large portion of whom fell under
the murderous discharges of Barney's battery.
After the shouts and derision of the enemy had subsided with the
disappearance of the last fugitive over the hills, the tired army
instead of advancing to Washington reposed on the field of battle.
Winder endeavored to rally the troops at the capital for another
defence, but not a sufficient number could be found to make a stand,
and with curses and oaths the rabble rout streamed along the road to
Georgetown, presenting a picture of demoralization and insubordination
that formed a fit counterpart to their poltroonry.
The first arrival of the fugitives, officers and citizens, riding
pell-mell through the streets, carried consternation into the city,
and the inhabitants, some on foot, some in carts or carriages, rushed
forth, and streaming on after the frightened militia completed the
turbulence of the scene.
Cockburn and Ross leaving the main army to repose itself, took a
body-guard and rode into Washington. No resistance was offered--a
single shot only was fired, which killed the horse of General Ross.
The house from which it issued was formerly occupied by Mr. Gallatin.
In a few moments it was in flames. Halting in front of the capitol,
they fired a volley at the edifice and took possession of it in the
name of the king.
The troops were then marched in, and entering the Hall of
Representatives, piled together chairs, desks and whatever was
combustible, and applied the torch. The flames passing from room to
room, soon wrapped the noble library, and bursting forth from the
windows leaped to the roof, enveloping the whole edifice in fire and
illuminating the country for miles around. The house of Washington and
other buildings were also set on fire. The remaining British force,
lighted by the ruddy glow that illumined the landscape and the road
along which they were marching, entered the city to assist in the work
of destruction. In the mean time, the navy-yard was set on fire by
order of the secretary of war, mingling its flames and explosions with
the light and roar of the burning capitol. The gallant officer in
command of it had offered to defend it, but was refused permission.
Whether the refusal was discreet or not, one thing is certain, the
enemy could have accomplished no more than the destruction of the
materials collected there, and it was not worth while to save them the
labor.
The capitol being in flames, Ross and Cockburn led their troops along
Pennsylvania Avenue to the President's house, a mile distant, and soon
the blazing pile beaconed back to the burning capitol. The Treasury
building swelled the conflagration, and by the light of the flames
Cockburn and Ross sat down to supper at the house of Mrs. Suter, whom
they had compelled to furnish it. Pillage and devastation moved side
by side through the streets, while to give still greater terror and
sublimity to the scene, a heavy thunder storm burst over the city.
From the lurid bosom of the cloud leaped flashes brighter than the
flames below, followed by crashes that drowned the roar and tumult
which swelled up from the thronged streets, making the night wild and
appalling as the last day of time.
To bring the day's work to a fitting close, Cockburn, while the
heavens and surrounding country were still ruddy with the flames,
entered a brothel and spent in lust and riot a night begun in
incendiarism and pillage.
[Illustration: Burning of Washington.]
While these things were transpiring in the city, the President and his
Cabinet were fleeing into Virginia. During the battle of
Bladensburg, Mrs. Madison had sat in the Presidential mansion,
listening to the roar of cannon in the distance, and anxiously
sweeping the road, with her spy-glass, to catch the first approach of
her husband, but saw instead, "groups of military, wandering in all
directions, as if there was a lack of arms or of spirit, to fight for
their own firesides." A carriage stood waiting at the door, filled
with plate and other valuables, ready to leave at a moment's warning.
The Mayor of the city waited on her, urging her to depart, but she
bravely refused, saying she would not stir till she heard from her
husband. At length a note from him, in pencil-marks, arrived, bidding
her flee. Still delaying, till she could detach a portrait of
Washington, by Stuart, from the wall, her friends remonstrated with
her. Finding it would take too long to unscrew the painting from the
walls, she seized a carving-knife, and cutting the canvas out, hurried
away. At Georgetown she met her husband, who, with his Cabinet, in
trepidation and alarm, was en route for Virginia. Just as the flames
were kindling in the capitol, the President, Mr. Monroe, Mr. Rush, Mr.
Mason, and Carroll, were assembled on the shores of the Potomac, where
but one little boat could be found to transport them over. Desponding
and sad, they were rowed across in the gloom, a part at a time, and
mounting their horses, rode hurriedly and sadly away. Mrs. Madison
returned towards Georgetown, accompanied by nine troopers, and stopped
ten miles and a half from the town. Trembling from the anxiety and
fright of the day--separated from her husband, now a fugitive in the
darkness--oppressed with fears and gloomy forebodings, she sat down by
an open window, and through the tears that streamed from her eyes,
gazed forth on the flames of the burning city, and listened with
palpitating heart to the muffled shouts and tumult that rose in the
distance.
Before daylight, she, with her lady companions, started for a place of
rendezvous appointed by her husband, sixteen miles from Georgetown.
The 25th of August dawned gloomily over the smouldering city, and the
red sun, as he rolled into view, looked on a scene of devastation and
ruin. From their drunken orgies, negroes and soldiers crawled forth to
the light of day, roused by the reveille from the hill of the capitol,
and the morning gun that sent its echoes through the sultry air.
Rising from his debauch, Cockburn sallied forth to new deeds of shame.
The War office, and other public offices, among them the building of
the National Intelligencer, were set on fire, and the pillage and riot
of the preceding day again sent terror through the city. The gallant
admiral seemed refreshed rather than enervated by the plunder,
conflagration and debauch of the night that had passed, and brilliant
and witty as the day before, "was merry in his grotesque rambles about
Washington, mounted on a white, uncurried, long switch-tail brood
mare, followed by a black foal, neighing after its dam, in which
caricature of horsemanship that harlequin of havoc, paraded the
streets, and laughed at the terrified women imploring him not to
destroy their homes. "Never fear," said he, "you shall be much safer
under my administration than Madison's." "Be sure," said he to those
who were destroying the types of the National Intelligencer, "that all
the C's are demolished, so that the rascals can no longer abuse my
name as they have done."[5]
[Footnote 5: Vide Ingersoll, vol. II, page 189.]
In the midst of this wanton destruction and barbarian licentiousness,
two events occurred calculated to sober even a more brutal man than
he. A detachment had been sent to destroy two rope-walks, at a place
called Greenleaf's point, a short distance from the city. After they
were burned, an officer threw the torch with which the buildings had
been lighted, into a dry well near by. But this well had been made for
a long time the repository of useless shells, cartridges and
gunpowder. The unextinguished torch ignited this subterranean
magazine, which exploded with a violence that shook the earth, and
sent dismembered bodies and limbs, mingled with fragments of iron,
and dust and smoke, heavenward together. When it cleared away, nearly
a hundred officers and men were seen strewed around, some killed,
others presenting torn, misshapen masses of human flesh. The sad
procession, carrying the mutilated and dead back to the city, had
scarcely reached it before the heavens became dark as twilight, and
that ominous silence which always betokens some dreadful convulsion of
nature fell on the earth. The air was still, and the burning dwellings
around shed a baleful light over the faces of men, on which sat terror
and perplexity. This portentous silence was broken by the rush and
roar of a hurricane, that swept with the voice and strength of the
sea, over the devastated city. Flashes of lightning rent the gloom,
and the thunder rolled and broke in deafening crashes over head. The
flames leaped up into fiercer glow, under the strong breath of the
tempest; private dwellings that had escaped the incendiary's torch
were stripped of their roofs, and the crash of falling, walls and
shrieks of terrified men and women fleeing through the streets,
imparted still greater terror to the appalling spectacle. The British
army, on the Capitol hill, was rent into fragments before it, and
scattered as though a magazine had exploded in its midst. Thirty
soldiers, besides many of the inhabitants, were overwhelmed in the
ruins.
Fleeing before this same hurricane, Mrs. Madison approached the tavern
designated by the President as the place where he would meet her, but
was refused admittance by the terrified women within, who had also
fled thither, because she was the wife of the man who had involved
them in those horrors of war, made still more terrible by the
visitation of God. He, in thus turning day into night, had evinced his
displeasure, and foretold his judgments; and not until an entrance was
forced by the men, would they allow her a shelter from the storm.
There her husband, the fugitive President of the republic, drenched
with rain, hungry and exhausted, joined her in the evening. Provided
with nothing but a cold lunch, he retired to his miserable couch, not
knowing what tidings the morning would bring him.
In the mean time General Ross, chagrined at the part he had been
compelled to play--filled with self-reproaches at the wanton
destruction of a public library, was anxious and unquiet at the
non-arrival of the boats that had accompanied him to Alexandria. In
constant fear of an uprising of the people of the country, he was
eager to get back to the ships. As soon therefore as night set in, he
resolved to commence his retreat. To prevent pursuit, an order was
issued prohibiting the appearance of a single inhabitant in the street
after eight o'clock. At nine, in dead silence, and with quick step,
as though stealing on a sleeping foe, the advance column took up its
march and passed unnoticed out of the city. The camp fires on the hill
of the capitol were kept blazing, and piled with fuel sufficient to
preserve them bright till near morning, in order to convey the
impression that the army was still there, and at a late hour the rear
column followed after, and silently and rapidly traversed the road to
Bladensburg. Not a word was spoken, not a man allowed to step out of
his place. Arriving on the ground which had been occupied by other
brigades, they found it deserted, but the fires were still blazing as
though the encampment had not been broken up. Approaching the field of
Bladensburg, they saw in the white moonbeams the whiter corpses of the
unburied dead, who had been stripped of their clothing and now lay
scattered around on the green slope and banks of the stream where they
had fallen. The hot August rain and sun had already begun to act on
the mutilated flesh, and a horrible stench loaded the midnight air.
Stopping there for an hour, to enable the soldiers to hunt up their
knapsacks thrown aside the day before, Ross again hurried them
forward, and kept them at the top of their speed all night. If the
column paused for a moment, the road was instantly filled with
soldiers fast asleep. Men were constantly straggling away, or falling
into slumbers, from which even the sword could with difficulty prick
them, and the army threatened to be disorganized. It therefore became
necessary to halt, and the order to do so had scarcely passed down the
line before every man was sound asleep, and the entire army in five
minutes resembled a heap of dead bodies on a field of battle. Resting
here under the burning sun until midday, Ross then resumed his march
and reached Marlborough at night, and the next day proceeded leisurely
back to the ships.
The raid had been successful--Washington was sacked. Two millions of
property had been destroyed--the capitol, with its library--the
President's house--the Treasury and War, Post offices, and other
public edifices, burned to the ground, together with five private
dwellings, thirteen more being pillaged. These, with the destruction
of the office of the National Intelligencer, two rope-walks, and a
bridge over the Potomac, constituted the achievements of this
redoubtable army of invasion.
The English press, which had teemed with accounts of Napoleon's
barbarity, and the English heart, which had heaved with noble
indignation against the man who could rob the galleries of conquered
provinces to adorn those of Paris, had no word of condemnation or
expression of anger for this wanton outrage, but on the contrary,
laudations innumerable. Napoleon had marched into almost every capital
of Europe without destroying a library or work of art, or firing a
dwelling. With his victorious armies he had entered city after city,
and yet no Vandalism marred his conquest. The palaces of kings, who
had perjured themselves again and again to secure his downfall, had
never been touched, and yet he was denounced as a robber and
proclaimed to the world a modern Attila. But an English army, warring
against a nation that spoke the same language, and was descended from
the same ancestors, could enter a city that had made no defence--had
not exasperated the conquerors by forcing them to a long siege or
desperate assault, and, without provocation, burn down a public
library, the unoffending capitol and presidential mansion, state
offices, and even private dwellings. Incredible as this act appears,
the greater marvel is how the English nation could exult over it. An
American victory tarnished by such barbarity and meanness, would
overwhelm the authors of it in eternal disgrace. And yet, a popular
so-called historian of England, in narrating this transaction, says it
was "one of the most brilliant expeditions ever carried into execution
by any nation." An army of some four thousand regulars put to flight
five or six thousand raw militia, and, with the loss of a few hundred
men, marched into a small unfortified town, occupied as the capital of
the United States, and like a band of robbers, set fire to the public
Library, Arsenal, Treasury, War office, President's house, two
rope-walks and a bridge; and such an affair the historian of Lodi,
Marengo, Austerlitz, and Waterloo,--of the terrible conflicts of the
peninsular, and the sublime sea-fights of Aboukir and Trafalgar, calls
"one of the most brilliant expeditions carried into execution by any
nation."
"Ille crucem, scelenis pretium tulit, hic diadema."
The news was received in England with the liveliest demonstrations of
joy. The Lord Mayor of London ordered the Park and Tower guns to be
fired at noon, in honor of a victory, which he pompously declared was
"worth an illumination." The official account was translated into
French, German and Italian, and scattered over the continent. Mr. Clay
and Mr. Russell were in the theatre at Brussels when the news arrived.
The secretary of the legation, Mr. Hughes, had overheard an English
officer in the lobby saying--"We have taken and burned the Yankee
capital, and thrown those rebels back half a century"--and going to
their box told them there were reasons why they should leave the
theatre, which he would disclose at their hotel. He had observed some
of the British legation present, and the announcement of such tidings
would be embarrassing to the American embassy. They were exceedingly
annoyed by the news, especially next morning, when the English
embassadors sent them a paper giving an account of the act; and they
returned, mortified, to Ghent. It was received on the continent,
however, with marked disapprobation. Even a Bourbon paper, in Paris,
declared that notwithstanding the atrocities charged on Napoleon, he
had never committed an act so degrading to civilized warfare as this.
The vessels designed to cooeperate with the movement on Washington,
reached Alexandria the same evening the British army left the former
place, and after levying a contribution on the inhabitants, seizing
twenty-one merchant vessels, sixteen thousand barrels of flour, a
thousand hogsheads of tobacco, and whatever else was valuable,
departed. In their descent, they were harassed by Porter and Perry
from the shore, but the guns of the latter were too light to effect
much damage. Commodore Rodgers also hovered with fire ships around
their flight, but it was too rapid to allow the concentration of a
sufficient force to arrest them.
Armstrong, the Secretary of War, following the example of President,
Cabinet, Generals and army, galloped away from the disastrous field of
Bladensburg, and took refuge in a farm-house. The fugitive President
and the fugitive Secretary at length met, and returned together to
Washington. The entrance of the latter to the capital was the signal
for the indignant outburst of the entire population. The militia
officers of the District refused to obey his orders in the future,
and a committee of the citizens waited on the President, demanding his
dismissal from the post of Secretary of War. It was suddenly
discovered that he was wholly to blame for the conduct of the troops
at Bladensburg. Borne away by the popular current, which he was
thankful was not directed against himself, Madison requested Armstrong
to retire for awhile to Baltimore. [Sidenote: Sept. 3.] The latter
obeyed, but immediately sent in his resignation, in which he paid the
President the compliment of having, as he declared, shamefully yielded
to the "humors of a village mob." Monroe, Secretary of State, was
appointed to discharge his duties, and a proclamation was issued
calling an early meeting of Congress.
The British government never committed a greater blunder than when it
sanctioned the sack and burning of Washington. Estimating its
importance by that which the capitals of Europe held in their
respective kingdoms, her misguided statesmen supposed its overthrow
would paralyze the nation and humble the government into submission.
But there was scarcely a seaport on our coast, whose destruction would
not have been a greater public calamity. Besides, the greater its
value in the eyes of the people, the more egregious the mistake.
Judging us by the effeminate races of India, or the ignorant
population of central Europe, who are accustomed to be governed by
blows, they imagined the heavier the scourging, the more prostrated by
fear, and more eager for peace we should become. But resistance and
boldness rise with us in exact proportion to the indignities offered
and injuries inflicted. With a country, whose vital part is no where
fixed, but consisting in the unity of the people, can shift with
changing fortunes from the sea-coast even to the Rocky Mountains, its
heart can never be reached by the combined forces of the world. This
republic can never die but by its own hand. In a foreign war, our
strength can be weakened only by sowing dissensions. Outrages which
inflame the national heart, or local sufferings that awaken national
sympathy serve only to heal all these, and hence render us
impregnable. Thus, when Mr. Alison, in closing up his account of this
war and speaking of the probabilities of another, advises the sudden
precipitation of vast armies on our shore as the only way to insure
success, he exhibits a lamentable ignorance of our character. An
outrage or calamity at the outset, sufficiently great to break down
party opposition, and drown all personal and political contests in one
shout for vengeance, rolling from limit to limit of our vast
possessions, would endow us with resistless energy and strength. The
attacks on Baltimore and New Orleans teach an instructive lesson on
this point. In the latter place, where a veteran army of nine
thousand men were repulsed by scarcely one-third of its force, now an
army of two hundred thousand would make no impression.
The sack of Washington furnishes a striking illustration of the effect
of a great public calamity on this nation. One feeling of wrath and
cry for vengeance swept the land. A high national impulse hushed the
bickerings and frightened into silence the quarrels of factions, and
the President and his Cabinet never gained strength so fast as when
the capitol was in flames, and they were fleeing through the storm and
darkness, weighed down with sorrow and despondency.
At the same time this expedition against Washington was moving to its
termination, Sir Peter Parker ascended the Chesapeake to Rockhall,
from whence he sent out detachments in various quarters, burning
dwellings, grain, stacks, outhouses, etc. On the 30th, he landed at
midnight, to surprise Colonel Reed, encamped in an open plain with a
hundred and seventy militia. It was bright moonlight, and as the
column advanced it was received with a steady and well-directed fire.
At length the ammunition failing, this brave band was compelled to
fall back. The enemy at the same time retreated, carrying with them
Sir Peter Parker, mortally wounded with buck shot.
On the return of these several expeditions, it was resolved to make a
grand and united attack on Baltimore, that nest of privateers. On the
6th of September, the whole fleet, consisting of more than forty sail,
moved slowly up the Chesapeake, carrying a mixed, heterogeneous land
force of five thousand men. Six days after, it reached the Patapsco,
and landed the troops at North Point. The first object of attack was
fort M'Henry, situated about two miles from Baltimore. The capture of
this, it was thought, would open a passage to the city. Having put
their forces in marching order, General Ross and Cochrane moved
forward towards the intrenchments erected for the defence of
Baltimore, while the vessels of war advanced against the fort.
After marching four miles, the leading column of the army was checked
by General Stricker, who with three thousand men had taken post near
the head of Bear Creek. A sharp skirmish ensued, in which the two
companies of Levering and Howard under Major Heath and Captain
Aisquith's rifle company, fought gallantly. General Ross, hearing the
firing rode forward, and mingled with the skirmishers, to ascertain
the cause of it, when he was pierced by the unerring ball of a
rifleman, and fell in the road. His riderless horse went plunging back
towards the main army, his "saddle and housings stained with blood,
carrying the melancholy news of his master's fate to the astonished
troops." Stretched by the road side, the dying general lay writhing in
the agonies of death. He had only time to speak of his wife and
children, before he expired. He was a gallant, skillful and humane
officer, and his part in the burning of Washington, must be laid to
his instructions rather than to his character.
The command devolved on Colonel Brooke, who gave the orders to
advance. General Stricker defended his position firmly, but at length
was compelled to fall back on his reserve, and finally took post
within half a mile of the intrenchments of the city. This ended the
combat for the day. The next morning Colonel Brooke recommenced his
march, and advanced to within two miles of the intrenchments, where he
encamped till the following morning, to wait the movements of the
fleet.
In the mean time, Cochrane had moved up to within two miles and a half
of the fort, and forming his vessels in a semi-circle, began to
bombard it. These works, under the command of Major Armstead, had no
guns sufficiently heavy to reach the vessels, which all that day threw
shells and rockets, making a grand commotion but doing little damage.
At night, Cochrane moved his fleet farther up, and opened again. The
scene then became grand and terrific. It was dark and rainy, and amid
the gloom, rockets and shells, weighing, some of them, two hundred
and fifty pounds, rose heavenward, followed by a long train of light,
and stooping over the fort burst with detonations that shook the
shore. Singly, and in groups, these fiery messengers traversed the
sky, lighting up the fort and surrounding scenery in a sudden glow,
and then with their sullen thunder, sinking all again in darkness. The
deafening explosions broke over the American army and the city of
Baltimore like heavy thunder-claps, calling forth soldiers and
inhabitants to gaze on the illumined sky. The city was in a state of
intense excitement. The streets were thronged with the sleepless
inhabitants, and the tearful eyes and pallid cheeks of women, attested
the anguish and fear that wild night created. As soon as Armstead
discovered that the vessels had come within range, he opened his fire
with such precision that they were compelled to withdraw again,
content with their distant bombardment. At length a sudden and heavy
cannonade was heard above the fort, carrying consternation into the
city, for the inhabitants believed that it had fallen. It soon ceased,
however. Several barges, loaded with troops, had passed the fort
unobserved, and attempted to land and take it in rear. Pulling to the
shore with loud shouts, they were met by a well-directed fire from a
battery, and compelled to seek shelter under their ships.
During this tremendous bombardment Francis Key lay in a little vessel
under the Admiral's frigate. He had visited him for the purpose of
obtaining an exchange of some prisoners of war, especially of one who
was a personal friend, and was directed to remain till after the
action. During the day his eye had rested eagerly on that low
fortification, over which the flag of his country was flying, and he
watched with the intensest anxiety the progress of each shell in its
flight, rejoicing when it fell short of its aim, and filled with fear
as he saw it stooping without exploding, within those silent
enclosures. At night, when darkness shut out that object of so much
and intense interest, around which every hope and desire of his life
seemed to cling, he still stood straining his eyes through the gloom,
to catch, if he could, by the light of the blazing shells, a glimpse
of his country's flag, waving proudly in the storm. The early dawn
found him still a watcher, and there, to the music of bursting shells,
and the roar of cannon, he composed "The Star-Spangled Banner."[6]
[Footnote 6: The scene and the occasion which called forth this
beautiful ode, have helped to make it a national one. It requires but
little imagination to conceive the intense and thrilling anxiety with
which a true patriot would look for the first gray streak of morning,
to see if the flag of his country was still flying, while the heart
involuntarily asks the question--
"O, say, can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming--
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On that shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses;
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines in the stream?
'Tis the star-spangled banner, O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."]
In the morning, Broke not deeming it prudent to assail those
intrenchments, manned by brave and determined men,[7] while the
heights around bristled with artillery, resolved to retreat. Waiting
till night to take advantage of the darkness, he retraced his steps to
the shipping.
From the extreme apprehensions that had oppressed it, Baltimore passed
to the most extravagant joy. Beaming faces once more filled the
streets, and the military bands, as they marched through, playing
triumphant strains, were saluted with shouts. The officers were feted
and exultation and confidence filled every bosom.
[Footnote 7: Senator Smith, who had been appointed general, commanded
the 10,000 militia who manned the works.]