by Ron Carter
John suddenly leaned forward. “What’s Madison doing? He’s our commander. He should know what all this is doing to commerce. He should have a plan.”
A look of frustration crossed Matthew’s face. “President Madison is caught in a web of politics. He saw what was coming as far back as last June and called a cabinet meeting. He told them they needed more ground troops and a plan for defending Washington, D.C. The cabinet told Congress, and Congress ignored it. Madison tried to appoint competent men to head up the military, but Congress disagreed. He got John Armstrong. The others are split by political loyalties and shot through with incompetence.”
He stopped long enough to set his thoughts in order.
“Right now most of the British troops are still on their ships out on the Chesapeake and the Delaware. We don’t know where they intend coming ashore or where they plan to make their attack, and we won’t know until they do it. That means we’re going to have to have armed troops—a lot of them—waiting at every major city and seaport, and they have to be ready to move fast in any direction. With the inexperienced militia and the mediocre military leadership we now have, I think we’re set up for a disaster.”
Matthew stopped and for a time the five men sat staring at nothing while their minds searched for anything they could do to save Dunson & Weems, and there was nothing. So long as the British dominated the shipping lanes of the east coast, commercial shipping was doomed. The only sounds in the sweltering room were drifting in from the gulls and seabirds outside who were frantic in their search for the refuse that had disappeared when the ships ceased to sail, and the oncoming rumble of distant thunder as the storm steadily rolled in from the west.
Then, in less than thirty seconds the bright sunlight was gone and all shadows disappeared as the thick purple clouds rolled in. Suddenly there was a stir of breeze, and within seconds the wind came to set the ships rocking. Thunder boomed on the west edge of the town, and then the winds were howling and a bolt of lightning turned Boston town white, and in the same instant a thunderclap shook every building on the peninsula.
The five men in the Dunson & Weems office all ducked involuntarily, then peered out the door as the rain hit like a torrent.
John stood and walked toward the front door to close it, and Caleb called to him, “Leave it open. It’s only water. Can’t hurt anything in here.”
John returned to his chair, and the five men sat watching in silence, humbled once again at the realization that the struggles of mankind fade into insignificance in the face of the supreme power of Nature and the Almighty.
Within minutes the wind quieted and the cloudburst passed as quickly as it had come. Shafts of sunlight came through to set the wet town sparkling. Matthew spoke as he stood.
“I think we’re finished for the day. It’s past closing time. We all better go home and see how bad our roofs are damaged and which of our trees have branches down.”
He was the last to leave, and as he locked the front door he was struck by the quiet on the nearly vacant docks and the lack of carriages and people in the streets. He walked west, picking his way around the puddled rain and the leaves and small branches that had been stripped from the trees that lined the streets and scattered against fences and bushes and on the cobblestones. He walked with a growing fear in his heart that the shipping company he and Billy had built with grit and daring and hard work over nearly thirty years was in mortal trouble, doomed by the British ships and troops that had paralyzed the major American seaports. He slowed to peer southwest, as though he could see past the green, rolling hills and valleys to the Delaware and Chesapeake, with his thoughts running.
What’s happening down there? Does Madison understand the danger? Can he rise to it? Lift Congress and the military to it? Can they find a way?
* * * * *
Four hundred miles distant, with the setting sun casting long shadows eastward, President James Madison, a small, sweated, dusty man on a large bay mare, surrounded by an escort of uniformed cavalry and some members of his cabinet, reined in his mount at the aging residence of the mayor of Old Field, eight miles north of Washington, D.C., near Bladensburg, in the state of Maryland. Beside him secretary of the navy William Jones and secretary of war John Armstrong gathered the reins of their horses, and as Madison made the long reach to the ground, they dismounted with him. Minutes later they were seated about a square table in the simple, plain library of the old home.
While two of Madison’s aides were ordering subordinates to arrange an evening meal appropriate for the president of the United States and half his cabinet, others were out at the well drawing fresh, cold water for the thirsty party.
Madison turned to his assistant.
“I was expecting General Winder and Secretary of State Monroe. Do we have word of their arrival?”
“I’ll find out, sir,” the aide said and quickly left the room.
The cold well water arrived, and Madison poured from a porcelain pitcher and passed it around while the weary men gratefully drank their fill and wiped at their brows with handkerchiefs. They finished drinking and were setting their empty glasses on the table when the door opened and the aide reported.
“Both General Winder and Secretary Monroe will arrive here early in the morning, sir.”
“Thank you,” Monroe responded. “Would you give notice we will expect their presence here for a cabinet meeting?”
“Immediately, sir.”
The aide turned and was gone, and within minutes a portly woman with her hair drawn behind her head in a bun and a huge apron covering most of her front side knocked and timidly entered.
“Mister President, sir, supper is prepared in the dining room. I do hope you gentlemen like roast mutton and sweet potatoes. Let me show you your rooms so you can wash.”
The rooms were comfortable, the meal was rewarding, and the talk was relaxed. The men thanked their hostess and went to their rooms to hang their coats, remove their black ties, open their shirt collars, and sit at their small desks with papers before them, preparing for the impromptu cabinet meeting to be held the following morning.
They were up with the sun, washed, shaved, and dressed for their breakfast of bacon, eggs, home-baked bread, jellies, and buttermilk. They were wiping their mouths with napkins and pushing away from the table when an aide entered the dining room.
“Mister President, General Winder and Secretary Monroe have arrived.”
Madison rose and walked through the archway and across the large parlor to the front door, where the two men stood with their hats in their hands. They nodded their greeting to their president, he gestured, and they followed him to the library where the others had gathered around the table, papers before them, waiting.
“Gentlemen,” Madison began in his soft voice, “I appreciate your presence here this morning. Events led me to believe I should receive first-hand reports from each of you.” He turned to Winder.
“I understand you have redeployed your troops from Wood Yard to here—Old Field. I am not clear on the reason. Would you enlighten me?”
Winder cleared his throat and began his defense. “Two days ago my patrols reported the British landed forty-five hundred troops at Benedict. Yesterday they reached Upper Marlboro, and there were massive British troop movements in the general direction of Wood Yard and Bladensburg—far too many for my command to resist. I withdrew to consolidate my troops here at Old Field because it is closer to Washington, D.C., and has access to all roads. I have just ordered General Tobias Stansbury to return to Bladensburg with his command and prepare a defense there. I believe the decisions are sound.”
Madison reflected for a moment. “Do you have information that the British intend attacking Washington, D.C.?”
“None directly, sir.”
Madison’s blue eyes were boring into him. “What is your opinion regarding their intentions?”
“Annapolis, sir. Everything I have seen indicates they intend taking Annapolis.”
Ma
dison turned to James Monroe, secretary of state. “Mister Secretary, am I to understand you have been reconnoitering? On scout? Horseback?” A smile flitted across Madison’s face at the thought of his fifty-six-year-old secretary of state, a long-time friend, out on scout, on horseback, alone.
Monroe’s answer was immediate. “Yes, sir. I needed to see the British lines myself. They are gathered in force north and east of the capital, and I doubt our militia can stop them. On General Winder’s orders, most of the bridges up there have been destroyed in an attempt to slow the British, but there are enough left for them to reach the city almost at will.”
“Do you believe, then, that their objective is Washington, D.C.?”
Monroe pondered for a moment. “I don’t know, sir. There is no strategic value to Washington. From a military standpoint, Baltimore and Arlington are more valuable. But taking Washington would be a powerful symbolic defeat for the United States.”
Madison reflected for a moment, then turned to Winder and Monroe. “If they do intend moving on Washington, we must be certain all heads of governmental departments have read the evacuation plan and know what their responsibilities are. They must get the vital government documents out of the city to the selected destinations in Virginia and Maryland, and they must protect all government secrets.”
He paused, then turned to John Armstrong. “I trust the printed plan has been distributed to those who had need to see.”
“I circulated it among the military commanders with orders to study it. I presume it was done, sir.”
Madison turned back to Winder and Monroe. “You recall that should the British attack Washington, the entire cabinet is to meet at Bellevue. That’s the residence of Secretary of Navy Jones in Georgetown.”
Both men nodded.
“When we arrive this afternoon, would you be certain the department heads have reviewed it? Know what to do?”
“Yes, sir.”
Madison turned to William Jones, secretary of the navy. “What success have we had with our naval forces?”
Jones shook his head. “Limited. I assigned Joshua Barney and a squadron of our gunboats to prevent British raids on targets in the Chesapeake. He had some success—limited as it was—until the British sent a sizeable flotilla of heavy war ships to eliminate him. Barney escaped by hiding in the headwaters of the Patuxent River. That’s where he is now. We simply do not have sufficient naval forces to resist the British.”
Madison paused for a moment. “Do you have an opinion of where the British intend to strike in the Chesapeake?”
“No, sir, I do not. Taking Baltimore or Annapolis would make military sense. Taking Washington would make political sense. It all depends on which the British believe to be the most important at the moment.”
Madison spoke to Armstrong, the secretary of war. “Do you have any information concerning where the British intend to strike?”
“No, sir. In my opinion it has to be Baltimore. Or Annapolis.”
Madison fell silent for a time while he mentally constructed the current position of the British and American forces and evaluated the differing, sometimes conflicting opinions of the men before him of where the British intended to strike. Washington? Annapolis? Baltimore? Until he knew, he could not set up defenses, and it was clear that none of them would know until the British made their move.
Talk broadened to include some of the detail of supplies and morale of the American forces, and it was late in the morning before Madison shuffled his papers together.
“I believe we have done all we can. It’s obvious that for now we can only remain prepared to move rapidly when the British commit themselves. Until then, be certain that the major roads to Washington are well defended. Be prepared to burn the bridges behind you. Keep patrols out constantly. If there is nothing more, thank you for your efforts. Return to your commands. I and the cabinet members present are departing for Washington immediately.”
With his armed escort both leading and following, Madison and his cabinet members made the eight-mile ride back to Washington, D.C., in temperatures above one hundred degrees, on horses showing sweat on their hides and white lather at the saddle girths. They entered the city and had reached the Executive Mansion when a sweating rider on a winded horse came pounding up behind them.
“Sir,” the man panted, “General Winder sent me ahead to request a meeting with yourself and the cabinet immediately. He’ll be at the navy yard within the next half hour.”
A startled Madison exclaimed, “What’s happened?”
“The British, sir. They’re marching on Bladensburg. General Winder needs a conference with yourself and your cabinet.”
Madison and his confused cabinet members and escort remounted their horses and made their way across town to the headquarters of Dr. Andrew Hunter in the navy yards on the Anacostia River, which had grown to be the largest naval station in the United States. Ten minutes after their arrival, General Winder knocked on the front door, and with his escort, entered, breathing heavily, wide-eyed. He was invited into the library, where Madison and some of his cabinet members stood to face him.
Madison wasted no words. “You asked for a conference?”
“Sir,” Winder blurted, “the British are marching. Just minutes after you left this morning the shooting started near Bladensburg. I believe the plan we discussed is no longer feasible. We must redeploy our troops to cover the roads into Washington. To do that, I will need your permission. If you could, sir, it would be most advisable for you to come back and see what’s happening for yourself.”
Beside Madison, secretary of state James Monroe, a veteran of many of the critical battles of the war for independence, who had been a shining hero in the miracle of the fight at Trenton that stormy morning of December 26, 1775, turned his head to hide the disgust in his face. If Winder’s in command of the troops at Bladensburg, what’s he doing back here, begging the President to come hold his hand when the shooting starts?
Madison stared back at Winder for a moment, then remounted his horse, and with his escort and cabinet members around him, rode back through the city, to the road headed north. They held their horses to a lope for a time, then slowed to a walk in the heat and humidity and kept moving. They crossed the bridges spanning the Anacostia River and held to the main road cut through the thick forests, and were yet three miles from the town of Bladensburg when the first boom of distant cannon and then the rattle of muskets, were heard. Every man in Madison’s party came to full alert, watching for the first flash of red tunics on the road ahead or in the forests on both sides of the road. As they came into Bladensburg, they were met by retreating Americans, abandoning the town, moving south, back toward the capital city.
Madison led his party to the crest of a knoll east of the road, above the river, where they could see more than one mile to the north. Within seconds they saw the orderly lines of the British infantry in their crimson tunics, marching across the green fields, almost unopposed, and they saw the white smoke of the cannon and the muskets. The red-coated regulars marched onto the bridge spanning the river north of the town and slowed at the hail of musket and rifle fire from the Americans lining the riverbanks, but did not stop. It was the American lines that broke and retreated, crossing to the safety of the west bank, with the British following undeterred, six abreast as they passed the bridge and spread out into Bladensburg.
Madison’s enclave sat their horses on the knoll, spellbound by the sight of the British descending on Bladensburg from three sides, while the Americans steadily gave ground, falling back. The British artillery was moving forward, while the American cannon answered, firing, moving back, firing again. The entire scene was laced with the glitter and the howl and the smoking trails of the British Congreve rockets, arcing high to fall onto and behind the American lines, crippling men, setting fires.
Madison’s horse tossed its head and stuttered its feet, nervous, fearful, wanting to be away from the growing noise of explosions and the rocket
s, and within seconds the other horses in his party were straining at their bits, backing away from the crest of the knoll.
Without a word Madison reined his mount around, and with his uniformed escort and party following, raised her to a run, down the slope to the main road curving south toward the city, across Tournecliffe’s bridge, past the Washington, D.C., militia on the west side of the road and the Annapolis militia on the east. They held the pace until the sounds of the guns were well behind before they pulled their lathered, heavy-breathing horses to a walk. Every man in the party turned in the saddle to look back, fearful of what they would see, but there were no red-coated cavalry or infantry in sight.
They rode on, southwest, toward the nation’s capital, passing Maryland and Virginia militia trotting north, gripping their muskets, sweating, heedless of the president and his party. They rounded the long, slow curve of the road that brought them in view of the city, and Madison slowed, shocked at what lay before him.
The bulk of Washington consisted of about nine hundred buildings, some government, many residences, most of them clustered between the proud Capitol building under construction on the hill that dominated, and the huge Executive Mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue. The entire city was in a state of confused, panic-driven chaos! The streets were jammed with civilians and government workers and militia running from office buildings and homes with armloads of government papers and family heirlooms and treasure to throw them into anything on wheels—wagons, carriages, carts—all hitched to jumpy, frightened, snorting horses. The broad arterial streets—Pennsylvania Avenue, New York Avenue, Massachusetts Avenue, South Capitol Street, Constitution Avenue—were clogged with fleeing vehicles and pedestrians. The traffic on the bridges crossing the Potomac into Virginia was at a near standstill. The Capitol building was swarming with politicians and civilians milling about, confused, indecisive, torn between fear of what the British would do to them if they remained at their duty offices and fear of what the United States would do to them if they did not. Boxes of papers by the ton were moving out of the great building into waiting wagons.