by Peter Snow
Liverpool and Bathurst were ready to back up their ambitious demands with reinforcements. The victory at Washington prompted the government to go for a major expansion of Ross’s army. It would be more than doubled to a total of some 10,000 men. Ross and Cochrane would then be free to attack the United States ‘at your discretion’ and to ramp up their already laid plans to use the approach of winter to seize America’s deep south. If Cochrane and Ross could capture New Orleans, it would ‘reserve the whole province of Louisiana from the United States’. Seizure of Louisiana, the huge slab of territory sold to Madison’s predecessor by Napoleon Bonaparte for the princely sum of $15 million* a decade earlier, would give Britain access to the Mississippi and a potential stranglehold on the young American republic.
It was Harry Smith’s wife, Juana, who noticed Harry’s promotion to major in the newspaper. ‘The reward’, she told him, ‘of our separation.’ She was no longer the fourteen-year-old girl he had rescued from the marauding British soldiers after the siege of Badajoz two years earlier. ‘She was’, wrote Smith, ‘a woman – not a girl … with a pair of dark eyes possessing all the fire of a vivid imagination, and an expression which required not the use of speech. Her figure was beautiful … and she would sing the melancholy airs and songs of constancy of her country (so celebrated for them) with a power and depth of voice and feeling peculiar to Spain.’ Harry was the fifth of the eleven children of John Smith, a surgeon who lived in Whittlesea (now Whittlesey) near Peterborough, and he was delighted when his father and Juana met for the first time and became inseparable friends. Harry and Juana just had time to go home to Whittlesea and meet the family, and pay a call on Elizabeth Ross in Bath – who was ‘in the highest spirits at the achievement of our arms under her husband’ – before Harry was summoned to London and told he had a new posting to America. He was to sail with a fleet to reinforce Cochrane’s assault on New Orleans. He had to tear himself away from Juana yet again. ‘I can see her now with her head resting on the chimney piece … in a state bordering on despair. My father, too, was awfully overcome.’ The army contingent would be commanded by someone Smith knew well – Major General Sir Edward Pakenham, the Duke of Wellington’s brother-in-law. His division’s opening attack on the French at the Battle of Salamanca had played a decisive role in one of Wellington’s greatest victories. Smith was now thrilled to be appointed Pakenham’s Assistant Adjutant General.
All these preparations raised hopes across the nation of a quick end to the war. And the view of British ministers that one more blow might make Madison and his discredited administration see sense would have been even more forthright had they known of the desperate state of American finances after the burning of the US capital. There had been an immediate run on the banks in Baltimore and Philadelphia. Deposits, mainly in coin, were withdrawn by nervous depositors. And this came on top of the already devastating effects of Cochrane’s blockade of American east coast ports. Total US foreign trade, which had been $119 million in 1811 before the war, was to slump to $19 million by the end of 1814. The tonnage of US shipping engaged in foreign trade was one-twenty-sixth of its pre-war level.
But, near bankrupt though America was, its army humiliated and James Madison’s administration ridiculed, an important change was taking place. Liverpool had said he hoped that the capture of Washington would induce the Americans to reject their government. But one of his predecessors as Prime Minister, Lord Greville, a parliamentary critic of the invasion, was nearer the mark. He was admittedly speaking with the benefit of much more hindsight: he made his speech, like Whitbread, in early November, ten weeks after Washington had been burned. He said he deplored the burning of Washington’s monuments because they were non-military. And he went on: ‘There is in truth too much reason to believe that the destruction of public buildings has tended to unite against us the American people.’ He was right. It wasn’t that the American people rallied enthusiastically to their beleaguered President. It was more of a sudden realisation that there was now no alternative but to throw all their resources and manpower into the struggle to defend the United States. It was an upsurge of national feeling against the ‘British vandals’ and a robust determination to avenge the destruction of Washington. Far from America caving in, as the British government hoped, the next few weeks would see Americans rallying to the flag and rebuffing the rampant British drive for outright victory.
17
The star-shaped fort and its banner
1–11 September
ALEXANDER COCHRANE, VICE admiral and Commander in Chief of the American station, faced an agony of indecision in the aftermath of the burning of Washington. He was already deeply depressed, as he admitted himself in a letter to the First Lord of the Admiralty, ‘over the shameful conduct of some of my near relatives’. His brother and his nephew had been involved in a Stock Exchange scandal in London. And now his own judgement was in question.
Cochrane’s immediate problem was that his subordinate commanders had achieved a runaway victory over US forces and the occupation of the country’s capital against his advice. The Royal Navy officer directly responsible to him, Rear Admiral George Cockburn, had pointedly disobeyed his orders. If the invasion had failed, Cochrane could have sent a despatch to Whitehall saying ‘I told them not to go’ and Cockburn’s court martial would have followed. But the operation had been, embarrassingly for Cochrane, a stunning success. He had no alternative but to claim it as his own, while praising Cockburn and Ross. Once he’d swallowed his pride, this would be no problem. No one would know he’d made the wrong call except Cockburn, Ross and a handful of others. The real dilemma for him was deciding what to do next. He had Cockburn and Evans pressing him to go straight for Baltimore. He was reluctant to move against that much better-defended city without reinforcement. Besides Ross, in line with Harry Smith’s advice, was arguing against it. Should he abandon the Chesapeake and move south and wait for reinforcements before launching his attack on New Orleans, or should he first head north-east and make a surprise assault on America’s flourishing maritime state of Rhode Island? He was torn. The strategic caution that had dulled his enthusiasm for the advance on Washington urged him to hold his hand. But that ruthless streak in him, his visceral hatred of the Americans who had killed his brother at the Battle of Yorktown back in 1781, and his hunger for prize money,* made him look for a quick success.
Cochrane tries to juggle these options as best he can in his letter of 3 September 1814 to the First Lord. He confirms that his primary long-term goal is to subdue New Orleans and ‘thereby hold the key to the Mississippi’. But first he would go north-east and ‘if possible try to surprise Rhode Island’. After that, ‘if the reinforcements arrive, I propose an attack upon Baltimore, the most democratic town and I believe the richest in the country’. But he then highlights the fact that Ross too has his doubts about Baltimore. ‘As this town ought to be laid in ashes, if the same opinion holds with his Majesty’s ministers, some hint ought to be given to General Ross as he does not seem inclined to visit this state.’ Cochrane makes it clear that Ross, who, he says, could not be ‘a better man nor a more zealous officer’, has to be induced to take drastic action. ‘When he is better acquainted with the American character he will possibly see as I do that like spaniels they must be treated with great severity before you ever make them tractable.’ As for the attack on Washington which he had tried to call off, Cochrane barefacedly boasts of the ‘brilliant success that has attended all our efforts’. Ten days after Ross’s victory in Washington, Cochrane was now asserting that only Ross and his need for reinforcements stood between him and Baltimore.
For the next few days there was a fierce debate between Cochrane and his commanders. Admiral Codrington, canny veteran of Trafalgar, lent his weight to the argument for at least postponing an attack on Baltimore. By 6 September it appeared that it would indeed be put off: Cockburn set off out of the Chesapeake towards the south, but then he was suddenly recalled. Ross had apparently withdrawn
his objections to Baltimore and believed he had enough men to do the job without reinforcements. George Evans, who’d long been pressing Ross to ride the wave of American panic and strike swiftly at Baltimore, wrote that it was the newspapers which ‘depict in such strong colours the general alarm and defenceless state of Baltimore’ that ‘induced the Vice Admiral … to resolve on the attack of that place’. The army that had burned America’s capital would now do the same to one of its richest cities, unless it paid up a massive ‘contribution’, as Alexandria had done. The dithering was over. Baltimore was on. On 9 September, while Harry Smith was still on his way to London, the British fleet headed north – past the mouth of the Patuxent. It was making for the waters of the Patapsco, which led up to Baltimore’s harbour.
Edward Codrington wrote to his wife Jane: ‘We were going out of the Chesapeake directly, but the Chief has assented to another operation here at the wish of the General and Cockburn, which I think would have been much better deferred until our return from the northward…’ Codrington added that he hoped it would succeed, ‘because we are determined it shall; but it would have been better insured by postponement’. James Scott, Cockburn’s devoted ADC, who was with him as he headed back into Chesapeake Bay, reckoned ‘this unfortunate delay’ offered the Americans a huge advantage. ‘The lapse of eighteen days gave the enemy an opportunity of perfecting their defences and collecting a large body of troops from the surrounding country.’ Scott reflected Cockburn’s exasperation at what he saw as another show of half-heartedness by Cochrane and Ross. If they had moved on Baltimore immediately after taking Washington, ‘there existed a well-grounded hope that it would have fallen an easy conquest to our arms’. But now, instead of pursuing a defeated enemy, they were going to have to ‘take the bull by the horns’. Scott had been rather miffed that he hadn’t been sent home with Harry Smith to carry the Royal Navy’s account of the sack of Washington. Such missions usually ended in promotion, as Harry Smith’s did, and, as Cockburn’s right-hand man, Scott was an obvious candidate. But at least the naval officer who did get the job had the grace to tell Scott he was sorry: ‘He was sensible he was taking the bread out of my mouth.’
Another note of alarm was sounded by a local Methodist preacher, the Reverend Joshua Thomas, who had become friendly with the invaders. Somehow he persuaded the British commanders to let him deliver a sermon to the assembled troops as they completed their preparations to sail off to Baltimore. Thomas recalls that he perched on a little platform facing the troops, who stood with their hats off and held in their right hands. ‘I felt determined to give them a faithful warning, even if those officers with their keen glittering swords, would cut me in pieces for speaking the truth. I told them it was given me by the Almighty that they could not take Baltimore, and would not succeed in their expedition. I exhorted them to prepare for death, for many of them would in all likelihood die soon…’
* * *
The moment the people of Baltimore saw their southern night sky lit up by the flames of Washington, they were convinced that it was their turn next. The news of the army’s defeat at Bladensburg and the destruction of Washington ‘came upon us like an avalanche causing the spirits of many to sink within them’, wrote one Baltimorean. He and his neighbours were horrified by the prospect of what would happen to their homes and livelihoods. Many resigned themselves to inevitable defeat and destruction. All children and valuable goods were being evacuated from the city. ‘You may be sure this is the most awful moment of my life,’ wrote David Winchester from Baltimore to his brother, ‘not because, if the place is defended, I shall put my life at hazard in common with my fellow citizens but because I am positively sure we shall not succeed.’ He reckoned that, if the British did march on the city, ‘we are gone’.
But Baltimore was not Washington. Maryland’s big city was a thriving commercial metropolis, passionately proud of its prosperity and blessed with a citizenry that had had the foresight to make some serious provisions for its defence. Baltimore stood at the head of another river that flowed into Chesapeake Bay – the Patapsco. The river’s North-West Branch made a fine natural harbour protected by a headland, Whetstone Point, and the early American revolutionaries had built a primitive fort there in 1776. When Britain went to war with Napoleon, the fort was upgraded under the keen eye of the then US War Secretary, James McHenry, himself a citizen of Baltimore. It was in the shape of a star, designed by French architects in the tradition of Louis XIV’s fortress-builder Vauban to give it maximum all-round protection. It had the distinctive low profile of the Vaubanesque fortress. Its walls and ramparts presented hardly any exposed vertical face to direct cannon fire. Even a lucky hit would do little damage as the great stone walls were reinforced by vast mounds of earth behind them.
Another of Baltimore’s citizens, Sam Smith, a tough-spoken Maryland congressman, had in the late 1790s been a powerful advocate of the fort’s modernisation. He had fought with distinction in the American Revolutionary War of Independence. He’d been garrison commander of Fort Mifflin, an island in the Delaware River, in 1777, and his dogged defence had kept the British at bay for weeks. Sam Smith became a byword for robust leadership during the siege. When one of his aides ducked an incoming shot, he said: ‘What are you dodging for, sir? The King of Prussia had thirty aides de camp killed in one day!’ Thirty-five years later, in 1812, when war broke out with Britain, the fifty-nine-year-old Smith was a US senator and major general commanding Baltimore’s militia. When Maryland’s Governor, Levin Winder, looked around for a prestigious commander to superintend the city’s defences in case of a British attack, Smith was the natural choice. He was appointed on 13 March 1813, and only five days later he was complaining to the War Secretary John Armstrong that Fort McHenry’s pinewood gates could be ‘knocked down by a few strokes of the axe’. Four weeks later Smith was demanding the replacement of the fort’s veteran commander, Major Beal. ‘Do you really believe’, he wrote to Armstrong, ‘that a gentleman of nearly 60 years of age sorely affected with gout … is equal to the defence of such a post?’ Smith was delighted when Beal was replaced two months later by Major George Armistead, who’d distinguished himself in the capture of Fort George on the Niagara River sixteen months earlier. Armistead wasted no time in greatly improving Fort McHenry’s firepower with more big guns, and helping to supervise the construction of more batteries to guard the harbour mouth. Over the next year three new gun positions sprang up: the Lazaretto battery on the opposite side of the entrance to Fort McHenry, and two further west at Fort Babcock and Fort Covington. Some of the best gunners were seamen, and the city’s leaders posted a call for them to volunteer for service in the city’s batteries. ‘The cloud gathers fast and heavy in the east and all hands are called.’ Woe betide anyone who tried to be excused service: ‘If he cannot sponge and ram as well as his messmates, he can pass a cartridge. It is well known by tars the just stigma that is fixed by the ship’s crew on the man that skulks…’
But this wasn’t enough for George Armistead. He wanted a spectacular emblem that would raise Baltimore’s morale, a huge flag that would wave over his fort and be seen by an enemy many miles away. The city’s leaders* eagerly agreed. Mary Pickersgill, a local widow whose mother had made flags during the Revolutionary War, was commissioned to make two new flags for the fort. One was to be a storm flag, of modest dimensions, but the other would be a giant banner forty-two feet by thirty. Each of its fifteen stars, like its fifteen stripes, would be two feet wide. An act of 1795 provided for fifteen stripes and fifteen stars – one for each of the thirteen original states plus Kentucky and Vermont, which joined the Union later.† It would require no less than 400 yards of strong bunting. Pickersgill and her thirteen-year-old daughter Caroline borrowed the ample floor of a nearby alehouse for the work. They laboured till midnight for several weeks, and by August 1813 Armistead had his flag.
All this was achieved before the British invasion of Washington. When Ross and Cockburn landed their forces at Be
nedict and began their march inland, the leaders of Baltimore’s city council acted swiftly. They ordered the election of a special Committee of Vigilance and Safety. Thirty-one members were elected by the city’s wards on 23 August and met every day from then on. They were given extraordinary powers to fortify and police the city in the face of the British threat. And on 25 August, the day after the burning of Washington, furious at the incompetent leadership that had led to the capital’s destruction, they demanded that Baltimore’s defence force should be commanded not by the discredited William Winder but by Sam Smith. Smith was at the meeting. He heard one member, Colonel John Howard, say that all that he owned was in the city of Baltimore, ‘my wife, my children, my friends … but I had sooner see them all buried in ruins, and myself among them, than see Baltimore make a last and disgraceful surrender to the enemies of our beloved country’. Smith was then called in and asked to add to his existing supervision of the city’s defences the command of all the armed forces that would come to its assistance. ‘I willingly obey the call,’ replied Smith. Anticipating a row with William Winder, he insisted on the appointment being sanctioned by Winder’s uncle, Maryland’s Governor Levin Winder. The Governor, struggling to be fair to his nephew but helpful to Smith, wrote a rather cryptic reply, saying that Smith was indeed the state’s major general, and had therefore ‘been selected’. Smith then promptly wrote to William Winder, who was on his way to Baltimore to take charge, saying that he, Smith, was assuming command. Winder, no doubt inwardly aware of his own shattered reputation after Bladensburg, still forthrightly asserted his authority. After all, the 10th Military District, which he’d been appointed by Madison to command two months earlier, included Baltimore. But Sam Smith would have none of it: when Winder arrived in Baltimore, he found Smith riding around busily boosting the city’s defences and clearly being recognised as its commander. Winder didn’t give up: he wrote to Armstrong and then to Monroe, when he took over as Secretary of War, expressing his astonishment at Smith’s conduct and demanding a ruling that he, Winder, was in command. It was only after a flurry of increasingly petulant letters from Winder that Monroe finally sent back a definitive verdict – after seventeen days. ‘There can be but one commander,’ he wrote, and that had to be Sam Smith.