by Taylor, Alan
Colonial Marines Drilling at Tangier Island in 1814, a modern painting of Gerry Embleton originally published in Ralph E. Eshelman and Burton K. Kummerow, In Full Glory Reflected: Discovering the War of 1812 in the Chesapeake (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society Press, 2012). (Courtesy of Gerry Embleton, Ralph Eshelman, and Burton Kummerow)
Unable to resist, the islanders made the best of the occupation by supplying their guests with fish, oysters, wood, and cattle. In return, the British paid generously and promised to protect the local property, which was not much, for Cockburn described the inhabitants as “very poor and living in much wretchedness.” The local Methodist preacher described “his acquaintance with the admiral and high officers of the ships” as “intimate and pleasant.” On the Eastern Shore, Virginia’s militia officers distrusted visitors from Tangier as smugglers and spies for the British. One officer complained that “very little patriotism or love of Country can be calculated upon or expected from the inhabitants.”8
But the British also kept a close eye on the islanders, registering their boats and compelling them to obtain passports before visiting the Eastern Shore. Cockburn’s paternalism could dissolve into rage when he suspected the islanders of harboring a deserter or helping spies from Virginia. In July 1814 he had a subordinate “inform the Inhabitants of the Islands that if I hear of another Instance of any Canoe or persons belonging to the Main[land] fishing in Company with them or being near the Islands without its being immediately reported, I shall direct everything on the Islands to be destroyed & the Inhabitants sent as Prisoners to Bermuda.” Within his velvet glove, Cockburn kept an iron fist.9
Colonial Marines
The British government wanted to enlist the male runaways into one of the black army regiments for the West Indies, but its recruiting officer, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Brown, did not reach Tangier Island until July. By then it was too late, for Cockburn had already organized the runaways as a special unit of Colonial Marines under the command of a white drill sergeant, William Hammond, who received a temporary officer’s rank of ensign. As marines (rather than soldiers), the recruits fell under naval command, which Cockburn preferred for he meant to control their operations. The runaways also wanted their own unit committed to serving in familiar territory, for they dreaded being ordered away to the West Indies. Despite Cochrane’s support, Brown could entice none of the runaways to join his army regiment.10
Adult male refugees had the choice of enlisting in the Colonial Marines, entering the Royal Navy, or joining the “work party,” which built the barracks and fortifications on Tangier. Relatively few refugees became sailors, and usually at the lowest-paid, least-skilled rank of “landsmen,” neophytes who literally had to learn the ropes. Some former house slaves entered the paid service of British officers. The British categorized as “supernumeraries” those refugees who could not, or would not, provide military service. Women, children, the sick, and a few elderly comprised the majority of these, but some able-bodied men also balked at combat. They received rations and “slop clothing” (but no wages) in return for some labor on the ships or in a shore camp. Women worked as laundresses, nurses, and cooks. Some also accompanied the shore raids to help recruit more runaways. The British tended quickly to move the other supernumeraries on to Bermuda or Halifax, Nova Scotia.11
Pay, uniforms, food, and alcohol enticed runaways to enlist as Colonial Marines. The British offered an $8 bounty, plus regular monthly pay of $6 from which was deducted the cost of the uniform. For men who had been kept in rags, a snappy uniform added to the appeal of enlisting. Cockburn reported that “all, without exception of those who come off to us have only the few dirty Rags of covering in which they escape.” A prisoner on HMS Dragon recognized a runaway on board and recalled “that the British [did] give Jim a Red Coat, with which he was much pleased.” Cochrane also noted that, when deployed on shore raids, the smartly dressed Colonial Marines acted “as an inducement to others to come off.” The daily military ration of meat and wheat bread also improved on the slave diet, which relied on corn meal. In addition, the recruits received a daily ration of rum, in contrast to slaves, who usually got alcohol only during a few days of harvest and the Christmas holiday.12
In August 1814 the British raided the St. Mary’s County farm of Jesse Edwards, taking away his cattle, a cart, and a nineteen-year-old slave named Phil. When Edwards protested, a British captain cursed him as “a damned old democratical rascal and that he should neither have boy or cattle again.” The next day, the persistent Edwards visited the British camp at Benedict, where a soldier announced, “Well old man you have lost your Boy, you will never get him again, he has this day enlisted in the King’s service; he is as free as you are.” Edwards then found Phil “very drunk laying across a Soldier, in soldier’s dress, so drunk that he did not know his master.” Playing his best card, Edwards persuaded Phil’s enslaved mother to appeal to General Robert Ross to release her boy to return to her in slavery. The general demurred and then told Edwards, “Sir, you need not be disturbed at the freedom of this Boy only, for in a few days they will all be free.”13
The British also offered recruits the chance to fight and plunder their masters. When Harry Butler enlisted, an officer “ask’d the said Negro man if he would Kill his Master. . . . The Negro man Answered yes.” Lieutenant Scott remembered a “pugnacious” runaway from Norfolk who sought “to wipe off old scores with his master.” Some vengeful runaways became instant marines. In July 1814, Samuel Turner noticed “Jim armed with a Cutlass” after “having seen him but a few Hours before in the employment of his Mistress on the Farm.” In Richmond County in December 1814, under a flag of truce, Dr. Horace Welford visited the Colonial Marines. He recognized two who “asked some questions after their mistress and said they should be very glad to see her but as to their master, they wished not to see him as they were then as free as he was or words to that effect.”14
To avoid alienating the black recruits, the British also practiced restraint in punishing them for misdeeds. A captain caught some new Colonial Marines asleep while on guard duty: an offense that military justice punished with the whip. Cockburn, however, wisely worried that flogging would offend the blacks as a violation of their promised freedom, so he advised the captain to “begin by trying the Effects of the milder Punishments of turning their Jackets [inside out] & stopping their Grog.”15
Although barred from acting as commissioned officers, blacks did serve as corporals and sergeants. Given the paucity of white officers for the Colonial Marines, the black corporals and sergeants exercised more authority than did their white counterparts in other battalions. As a consequence, their former masters mistook the corporals and sergeants for officers. One Marylander recalled a talented runaway named Frisby: “A slave of so useful abilities was not likely to want employment under his new masters and . . . he was known & reported to have been an officer among their troops.” On July 19, 1814, another witness saw Frisby “acting as an officer with the said Troops and assisted in setting fire to the Court House and Jail” during the raid on Prince Frederick Town in Calvert County. Although only a corporal, Frisby acted with the authority of an officer in the eyes of Americans, who unwittingly cast a damning light on slavery for suppressing talented people who found greater opportunities by joining the British.16
Possessing his own racial prejudices, Cockburn initially doubted that former slaves would amount to much as marines: “Blacky hereabouts is naturally neither very valorous nor very active.” On April 13 he rather dismissively reported, “They pretend to be very bold and very ready to join us in any expedition against their old Masters.” A month later, however, Cockburn began to sing a different tune as he noticed how well the new recruits responded to their training on Tangier. They were “getting on astonishingly and are really very fine Fellows. . . . They have induced me to alter the bad opinion I had of the whole of their Race & I now really believe these we are training, will neither shew want of Zeal or Courage
when employed by us in attacking their old Masters.” With glee, he noted that the black troops excited “the most general & undisguised alarm” among the Virginians: “they expect Blacky will have no mercy on them and they know that he understands bush fighting and the locality of the Woods as well as themselves, and can perhaps play at hide & seek in them even better.”17
Combat
In early 1814 the Virginians made escape more difficult by locking up their boats at night. On May 10, 1814, Cockburn reported to Cochrane, “Great pains are taken along the Shores of the Chesapeake to prevent the escape of the Negroes, by securing all the Boats & Canoes and placing strong guards over them and on the different Points along the Shore, in spite however of all this we are continually getting a few, but not the Quantities you would do were you once fairly landed on the Main.” Cockburn responded by increasing British shore raids to drive away the guards and liberate slaves directly from their farms and plantations. In adopting this riskier strategy, the British felt emboldened by the reinforcement offered by the black recruits.18
On May 29, 1814, Cockburn first sent the Colonial Marines into combat, attacking a militia battery at the mouth of Pungoteague Creek in Accomack County, near Tangier Island. While British barge crews fired small cannon and rockets from the front, about 130 men, including 30 Colonial Marines, landed and charged the rear of the battery. The commander of the raid, Captain Charles B. H. Ross, reported that the marines “dashed thro’ the woods with three hearty cheers and drove everything before them,” routing the militiamen, who fled deeper into the forest. The raiders pursued for three-quarters of a mile, nearly falling into an ambush set by the Virginians. A militiaman spoiled the surprise by firing prematurely in anger upon spotting an advancing black trooper. Michael Harding fell, the first Colonial Marine to die in battle, but his sacrifice saved many others, as the British hastily withdrew from the trap and retreated to their barges, hauling away a captured cannon as a trophy. In addition to Harding’s death, the marines suffered one wounded: Kennedy Beaton (or Canada Baton), Great Jenny’s son who had escaped from Corotoman Plantation just five weeks before this skirmish. Praising the black marines, Captain Ross concluded, “Their Conduct was marked by great Spirit and Vivacity and perfect obedience.”19
During the next month, the British repeatedly tested the Colonial Marines in combat. On June 1, 1814, they assisted Captain Robert Barrie’s attack on American gunboats in Maryland’s Patuxent River. Barrie reported, “I was highly pleased with the conduct of the Colonial Marines, under Ensign Hammond, every Individual of which Evinced the greatest eagerness, to come to Action with their former masters.” In mid-June, they helped raids along the shores of the Patuxent, burning tobacco barns and liberating slaves. According to Barrie, the marines “conducted themselves with the utmost Order, Forbearance, and Regularity.” On June 25 they captured a militia battery and burned the barracks at Chesconessex in Accomack County. Cockburn praised “how uncommonly and unexpectedly well the Blacks have behaved in the several Engagements . . . & though one of them was shot & died instantly in the front of the others at Pungoteake it did not daunt or check the others in the least, but on the contrary animated them to seek revenge.”20
Cockburn especially admired Sergeant Johnson. Eager to retrieve his family, Johnson persuaded Cockburn to send him back to Westmoreland County as an agent to promote escapes. Returning to his master on June 1, Johnson told the usual cover story that he had been “badly treated” by the British. The county militia commander, Richard E. Parker, remarked, “His tale was credited, but hearing of it myself on Friday, I had him arrested and examined on Oath.” Johnson proved “so plausible and artful” that Parker released him to his master, who “promised to keep him under guard.” On Sunday, June 5, however, an elderly, free black woman revealed to Parker that Johnson “planned to return to the enemy with many others by meeting up with the Barges to be in Yeocomico that night.” Parker called out the militia, posting them along the Potomac at Yeocomico, and he had Johnson arrested. After “a very long and minute investigation,” which probably involved flogging, Johnson confessed that “he was sent to spirit away as many slaves as possible, who were to be taken off in their barges.”21
When Johnson failed to show at the rendezvous, Cockburn anxiously wondered what had become of his favorite. On June 8 the admiral hung on to a slim hope that a boatload of runaways recently seen in the distance would “prove to be my Friend Johnson with his Family for I shall be very sorry if we do not get him again.” Johnson must have been an impressive man, for Cockburn called no other sergeant, of whatever color, “my Friend.” But Johnson never did come back.22
Despite the loss of Sergeant Johnson, the Colonial Marines continued to grow in numbers, the esteem of their officers, and the dread of Virginians. The Colonial Marines served as light infantry skirmishers who led the advance and guarded the flanks of British operations in the woods, giving the British a tactical edge in their shore operations. Lieutenant James Scott recalled, “The enemy, who prided himself on his skill in bush-fighting, was completely foiled. . . . In all our excursions, flanking parties were thrown into the woods, which disconcerted their ambushing schemes and rendered their rifles of little avail.” By July 17 the number of Colonial Marines had grown to 120, and Cockburn praised them as “the best skirmishers possible for the thick Woods of this Country.” Captain Robert Rowley agreed: “Our skirmishers are fine light troops. ’Tis astonishing with what rapidity & precision they advance.”23
Pleased by their performance, the British admirals sought more Colonial Marines, expanding their structure to three companies on July 22. Crediting Hammond for training the new marines so well, Cockburn and Cochrane secured his promotion to lieutenant: a rare step for a former enlisted man in the class-conscious British forces. By late September the unit had grown to 300 men, which led to a further reorganization. In combination with 200 white marines, they formed the Third Battalion of Royal and Colonial Marines. Praising their “steadiness and bravery,” Cochrane urged the government to reward each man with a supplemental bonus of $8. Crediting “their hatred to the citizens of the United States,” Cochrane considered the blacks the most effective and intimidating troops for fighting the Americans.24
At first, the American newspapers had mocked the black marines as cowardly blunderers, but militia officers soon sounded a tale of growing alarm. On August 5, 1814, Brigadier General John P. Hungerford reported grim news from Westmoreland County, Virginia:
Our negroes are flocking to the enemy from all quarters, which they convert into troops, vindictive and rapacious—with a most minute knowledge of every bye path. They leave us as spies upon our posts and our strength, and they return upon us as guides and soldiers and incendiaries. It was by the aid of these guides that ambushes were formed every where in the woods. . . . From this cause alone the enemy have a great advantage over us in a country where the passes and by-ways through our innumerable necks and swamps are so little known to but very few of our officers and men, and through which [the enemy] can penetrate and be conducted with so much ease by these refugee blacks.
While their masters were sleeping, the slaves had mastered the nocturnal landscape of forests and swamps: an expertise that enabled the British to outfight Virginians on what they had once considered their own terrain.25
Pacification
During July and August, Cockburn escalated his shore raids, targeting both shores of the Potomac and Patuxent Rivers. In twenty-five days he mounted nine major raids against Westmoreland and Northumberland Counties on Virginia’s Northern Neck or the nearby southern Maryland counties of St. Mary’s and Calvert. A British officer vividly recalled the nightly barge raids: “Numbers of boats filled with armed men gliding in silence over the smooth water, arms glittering in the moonshine, oars just breaking the stillness of night, the dark shade of the woods we are pushing for, combining with expectation of danger to affect the mind.” After two or three miles of open water, the barges struck the
shore and the marines jumped into the waves to wade ashore, often under fire.26
Exploiting the superior mobility provided by naval supremacy, Cockburn sought to weary the militia, destroy or seize valuable resources, and deplete the republic’s treasury. And he meant to enrich his naval officers with plundered tobacco, which fetched a high price on the European market. The admiral also wanted to flush out and destroy a flotilla of American gunboats, commanded by Joshua Barney, which had taken shelter up the Patuxent River. In addition, Cockburn sought more runaways, observing that “the Black Population inclined to join us is more numerous on the Shores of the Potowmac than any where else within the Chesapeake.”27
Attentive to the political context of war, Cockburn meant to discredit the Madison administration as incompetent to defend even the national capital. The admiral boasted that the Chesapeake region remained in such a “horrible State” for defense that “it only requires a little firm & Steady Conduct to have it completely at our Mercy.” If the Americans failed to bolster the Chesapeake’s flimsy defenses, Cockburn planned to burst through them to seize Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. To attack either city, however, he needed reinforcements from Europe. While waiting for their arrival, he kept his men busy and the enemy guessing by mixing and matching raids on the Potomac and Patuxent shores. After one raid, he announced, “I shall again move elsewhere, so as to distract Jonathan, . . . and yet not allow him to suspect that a serious & permanent Landing is intended any Where.”28
The Chesapeake Campaign, 1813. Map by Jeffrey L. Ward after an original by Robert Pratt, published in Ralph Eshelman and Burton K. Kummerow, In Full Glory Reflected: Discovering the War of 1812 in the Chesapeake (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society Press, 2012). Note the broad distribution of raids throughout Chesapeake Bay and the priority given to attacks on American shipping by the British during their first campaign.