“Clay coined it.”
“Ah.” Madison rode in silence. “Your opinion of Henry Clay, sir?”
“If—if things turn out badly for us, Clay had better learn to plant tobacco.”
“But we will win, Mr. Rush; despite all, we will win.” Madison’s voice was firm.
“Then Henry Clay will be President—within eight years.”
“Everyone wants to be President.” Madison rubbed his chin, bristling white. “You know, Mr. Rush, if I truly disliked a man, I would wish the presidency upon him.”
Bladensburg, a tobacco town gone bust, was laid out in an L. The Potomac’s East Branch rolled along at the juncture of the L. The town itself, handsome brick homes sliding into genteel disrepair, rested on the bank of the river.
On the eastern side three roads ran out of town. The northernmost road became a turnpike to the great seaport of Baltimore, the easternmost road led to Upper Marlboro, and the southernmost road followed the twists and turns of the East Branch. The river road, if one chose the right intersection, could also lead to Upper Marlboro.
Most of the town’s houses reposed along the road to Baltimore and the more direct route to Upper Marlboro.
The river road fed into the Upper Marlboro road right at the town itself. The Upper Marlboro road and the Baltimore Pike met at the Bladensburg Bridge.
This wooden span was ninety feet long and, although narrow, was securely anchored to sturdy stone abutments.
The Bladensburg Bridge provided a speedy route to Washington, for the road on the western side of the river was well maintained.
A few hundred yards from the bridge, the Washington Road forked, with the northern fork going to Georgetown. Within the arms of this Y was a handsome field.
Colonel Decius Wadsworth, with civilian volunteers, had dug earthworks in this field. Weeks ago the President and the mayor of Washington had requested this as Madison thought Bladensburg a likely crossing. John Armstrong had ignored the order.
As the reality of a British invasion of Washington came closer and closer, Wadsworth and other military men at Bladensburg started clawing dirt. By now, no one in his right mind would listen to Armstrong.
A lone tobacco barn on the Georgetown Road, near the bridge, was the only structure on the western side of the river. Next to the fence at the tobacco barn rested a small battery of Baltimore artillery. The former Attorney General, William Pinkney, crouched to the right of the guns with a battalion of riflemen.
The artillery consisted of six-pounders, not big guns but guns nonetheless, and the British were coming on with no artillery at all.
Two guns sat smack in the middle of the Washington Road.
Brigadier General Tobias Stansbury had twenty-two hundred untrained militia. After marching from Baltimore the night before, these men were blistered and sore. They awoke that morning to a pink sky announcing that Winder had burned the bridges. The British knew Bladensburg was the next bridge. Finding the lower bridges burned, they would head for the town, and if they studied their maps, they’d be coming anyway because the river was easy to ford there.
Rations were spoiling, and James Monroe had tried to move hungry men in the night. Stansbury refused. Orders came from Winder to fall back; then countermanding orders arrived. This confusion hardly helped ease their minds, but Stansbury, once he had his men back at Bladensburg, stayed put on the western bank.
As other troops arrived throughout the morning, at least the raw recruits wouldn’t be facing the enemy by themselves.
Stansbury set two companies next to Pinkney’s battalion.
Wisely, Stansbury put men in the orchard, only to have James Monroe come along and move them to a ravine.
As the morning wore on and men were moved about like chess pieces, the thermometer climbed past ninety degrees. The day was going to be a whistling bitch.
Farther down the Washington Road, on the western side of a creek, there was a militia unit. A wobbly bridge, Tournecliffe’s Bridge, hung precariously over the creek. Joshua Barney, driving his men like the Devil himself, would bring up his guns on the Washington Road. He’d be a third line of defense, the center of that line.
General Stansbury made the most of the terrain. Furious when James Monroe, with no military authority, moved his men about, Stansbury looked south and saw a huge dust cloud hovering in the sky. When he finally found General Winder, there was no time to repair the damage. The three-hundred-eighty-man cavalry, sitting in a ravine, theoretically to protect them, was useless.
Armstrong, arriving on the scene, looked about, said nothing, and did nothing.
The Americans squinted to catch sight of the enemy. The main body of the column was heaving into view–thousands of brilliant red coats, epaulets and bayonets catching sunlight beneath the dust cloud. The distinct tramping sound of disciplined men moving in precision only underscored the woeful lack of precision on the American side of the riverbank.
A shuddering silence swept over the Americans. President Madison and Richard Rush cantered by the apple orchard and the troops, riding past the artillery and the earthworks. They assumed Winder’s headquarters was in the town itself, and they were hurrying to cross the bridge.
Madison’s horse bucked and the President fought the animal as it tried to bolt.
William Simmons, recently fired from the War Department, a man who hated Armstrong with murderous fury, spurred his horse from the eastern side of the river. He was only minutes in front of the British, whom he had been scouting.
He thundered over the Bladensburg Bridge, holding his reins in his left hand and waving his right.
“Get back! Get back, Mr. President. The enemy is now in Bladensburg!”
“Good God.” Richard Rush hauled back on the reins.
Madison called to the advancing Simmons, “In Bladensburg?”
“Yes. Turn back.” Simmons’s horse almost overtook Madison and Rush as they wheeled back off the bridge.
Rush’s hat flew off as he dug into his horse’s flanks. The President, still fighting his horse, drew alongside him. They galloped to the earthworks, where Monroe, Winder, and a sullen Armstrong awaited the first shot.
The men in the first line of defense didn’t know the other troops had arrived to assist them. Their moment of comic relief had been watching the President and the Attorney General turn back at the bridge. The relief was short-lived.
Bugles played in Bladensburg. Drums beat louder and louder. James Madison, like most of the men on the field, had never seen combat; during the War of Independence he had been considered too frail to fight. The expectation, the sounds, made his heart pound. The exhilaration was intoxicating.
The sun, high in the sky, glared down as the front of the British column turned onto the main street of Bladensburg. Like a well-oiled machine, the Redcoats marched toward the bridge.
A volley of bullets sprayed into the Bladensburg street. The British kept marching. Madison’s horse, dancing constantly, pulled on the President until his arms ached in their sockets. He was behind the center of the American line, which gave him an unobstructed view of the British. Next to him was John Armstrong, who evidenced no interest in the proceedings.
General Winder, astride a large, calm gelding, was next to Colonel Joseph Sterett’s 5th Regiment, in the field between the Georgetown and Washington roads. Two regiments were to the right of Winder, also in the open—Colonel Jonathan Schutz’s and Colonel John Ragan’s regiments. Both units were drafted militia, most of whom wore frock coats or short hunting jackets. They stood in stark contrast to Sterett’s 5th, wealthy young men from Baltimore who paid a great deal of money for, and a great deal of attention to, their uniforms.
The American marksmen began to hit home as the British closed in on the bridge. Redcoats collapsed in the dust. One man spun around and fell, tripping the man behind him.
Madison noticed the British Marines setting up tripods to the right of the bridge. A warehouse gave them intermittent cover as they ran in
and out. Then a burst of flame and bizarre sounds filled the air as the Royal Marines set off rockets. No one on the western side of the Atlantic had seen anything like a Congreve rocket.
Winder calmly rode over to President Madison and requested that he move farther beyond the range of British guns. The President hesitated. What he wanted more than anything was to pick up a rifle and fire. Winder pleaded with him to take care for his safety. By now the artillery opened fire and the roar was deafening. More Congreve rockets screamed overhead from the British side.
“I beseech you, President Madison, do not present our troops with the sight of their commander in chief being wounded.” Winder pleaded in earnest now. He may not have been much of a general, but he was oblivious to the dirt kicking up around him. He possessed courage under fire.
Madison inclined his head toward Winder and then spoke to Monroe and Armstrong. “Gentlemen, let us leave military matters to military men. General Winder, as you wish.”
The President withdrew to the rear, but slowly. The British column reached the foot of the bridge, and Wadsworth’s guns, in the middle of the Washington Road, were blowing huge holes in the line. The British broke ranks and ran for the protection of the houses near the bridge.
Cheers bellowed from the Americans between the Georgetown and Washington roads. Within minutes they stopped, for the British, lashed on by their officers—seasoned professionals—reorganized to charge the bridge. A wild Redcoat, a colonel on a gray horse, drew his sword and galloped across the bridge. A brigade followed behind him, and the guns on the road were fired again, tearing nearly a dozen of the British to pieces. But the colonel, without a scratch, emerged from the smoke and called again to his men. A bugle sounded “charge” and the British raced across the bridge. They kept coming and coming, faster than the two men tending the two cannon could reload and fire. The minute the Redcoats got clear of the bridge, they fanned out in all directions and hugged the ground for cover.
One cannon, frantically ministered to by the gunners who had jammed in the wadding before the powder, rolled over like a cast-iron whale into a ditch. The first line of defense now had one gun to face the entire British Army rushing over the Bladensburg Bridge. The riflemen fired, reloaded, and fired, but the veteran British did not falter. They were close enough for the Americans to hear their officers shouting orders in that nasal accent that sounded so snobbish.
Madison watched as the gunners, nearly overrun, abandoned the remaining cannon. A solitary, grimy-faced American placed powder in the gun, jammed down the wadding, aimed the cannon, and fired. Then that courageous soul, too, left as the tide of red swirled around him. Madison saw him tear across the field to safety.
The perfect order of the British unnerved the militia. American Regulars would have stood their ground, but these men, barely trained, folded like a bad hand of cards.
General Winder perceived that his first line of defense had collapsed. He ordered the flashy Baltimore men to press forward, and as they did, the sky filled with rockets, which found their marks. Schutz’s and Ragan’s regiments crawled or ran out of the field. The Baltimore boys, still looking fashionable, wavered. Colonel Sterett galloped around his men and screamed himself hoarse. They stood for a moment. A fleet of rockets rained on them, and they too turned and fled. Sterett bellowed and tears of rage ran down his cheeks.
General Stansbury wanted to shoot the fleeing men, but his own men began to run away from him. Colonel Ragan, riding hard after his boys and trying to turn them back as a shepherd dog turns his sheep, fell off his horse as the animal leaned in to the turn. The horse followed the men, and Colonel Ragan, face covered with dirt, bounced back up on his feet. He spun around and saw the entire British Army heading straight for him. He didn’t give a damn. He headed over to the company of Americans still firing. It was now over one hundred degrees on the battlefield.
The smell of gunpowder burned the men’s nostrils, but the paucity of artillery kept the field open to view. Puffs of smoke belched out of rifles only to dissipate. If a man had a vantage point, he could see.
Sterett, miraculously, collected his men once more. The British fire grew heavier and more accurate, and the 5th couldn’t see the enemy as they slithered through the apple orchard. The Baltimore men stuck out like targets, not a tree in sight. William Pinkney regrouped his retreating riflemen with Sterett’s 5th. A musket ball ripped into Pinkney’s right arm. He refused help and walked off the field, blood pouring down his elbow and over his hand.
A confusion of orders from General Winder to the 5th and the riflemen took the fight out of them. They started to walk backward, still firing, and then in the bat of an eye, turned around and ran for the rear.
The disorderly retreat became a rout, and men threw away their weapons as though they had caught fire. No such disorder troubled the British, who expertly bore down on the Americans.
Colonel Jacint Laval, his cavalry useless in the ravine, heard the cries of the men. He called to his troops, but before they could charge out of the ravine where they had stupidly been placed by Monroe, a company of men in reserve blocked their path. Within minutes, both the company and the cavalry were overrun by the panic-stricken first line. His men reined in their horses, rode by the onrush, and when Laval could finally count, he had fifty-five men left. The other horsemen had simply vanished.
Monroe saw his mistakes only too clearly, but there wasn’t time to correct them.
The fleeing soldiers took the Georgetown Road, preventing them from running into the advancing troops from Washington. There was no hope for their being steadied and rejoining a second wave of Americans.
Reluctant to leave the battlefield even though he knew what was happening, Madison was urged to go in a note from General Winder.
He rode over to Colonel Charles Carroll. “Colonel, fly to Mrs. Madison and tell her to go to Bellevue. I will meet her there and along with the Joneses, we’ll go over to Virginia together. We can cross at Little Falls Bridge and make it to Wiley’s Tavern.”
Carroll saluted and galloped away. Bellevue was Carroll’s home in Georgetown.
With a bitter taste in his mouth, James Madison pointed his unruly horse toward Washington. John Armstrong had disappeared.
“Go to safety, Mr. President,” Monroe shouted, even as he himself headed toward the battle. At this moment, being a commissioned officer was far less important than keeping a cool head, and James Monroe surely possessed that.
As Madison rode back toward the city, he encountered Joshua Barney and his five hundred men just now hauling the guns into place. They were still in the District of Columbia when the battle started. As Barney carefully placed his guns, he took note of his position. Slightly in front of him, to his left, were six cannon under the command of Major George Peter, and a knot of Army men were on their right. Almost even with Barney’s left stood the District of Columbia Militia. An Army regiment under the command of Colonel William D. Beall stood next to Barney’s sailors. It wasn’t the best of positions, but he would make the best of it. The honor of holding the center belonged to him.
By the pathetic Tournecliffe Bridge stood a battalion of Maryland men under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Kramer. Barney recognized that they wouldn’t be part of his line, but they might be able to slow the British for a while.
He placed his two huge eighteen-pounder naval guns smack in the middle of the road. In the field to his right he placed three twelve-pounders under the command of Captain Miller. For good measure, he stuck a company of marines there, too.
Satisfied with his work, Barney eagerly awaited the arrival of the British so that he might launch as many as possible to their eternal reward.
Most of Stansbury’s men ran down the Georgetown Road, but enough stragglers came down the Washington Road for Barney to get the full story of the rout. He had no use for Army men anyway.
For about twenty minutes Barney heard sporadic gunfire. At two-thirty he saw the British moving smartly down the road. J
ust as the surge of red reached the rickety Tournecliffe Bridge, Lieutenant Colonel Kramer ordered his Maryland men to fire. One brief flurry from the British convinced the Americans that this was not a safe place. They, too, turned tail and ran. Barney wasn’t surprised. These pups shouldn’t be thrown into a war with real men.
As the Redcoats crossed the bridge, Major Peter’s guns loosened up on the left and Barney fired one of his eighteen-pounders. The British line staggered and then surged ahead.
Peter and Barney blasted away again, and this time they were joined by Captain Miller on Barney’s right. He ripped open the twelve-pounders. The British hurried off the road and ran into the field to Barney’s right.
Miller dumped grape and canister on the British to good effect. The smoke thickened, the smell of sulfur dense and lingering in the brutal heat and humidity.
Barney yelled to his men, “Board ’em!”
The sailors bounded forward, rushing to meet the British, who had stalled behind a rail fence. The sailors hit them hard and the British fell back, but theirs was not a disorganized retreat. They moved backward but stopped to fire with regularity. The sailors, jubilant, ran back up the hill to their guns.
British officers, trained to be in the thick of fire, dropped by the dozens. Rear Admiral George Cockburn and General Robert Ross, seeing their line falter, brought up the rest of the British force—one thousand four hundred sixty men—and told them to move on the double. Barney swept his eyes over the field and saw Ross, in full regalia, astride a gorgeous Arabian. Unable to stay back, as it wasn’t in his nature, Ross pressed his men on. The animal was shot out from under him. Ross nimbly dismounted as the animal fell and grabbed a young officer’s horse.
Rear Admiral Cockburn, drenched in gold, spurred toward the front and ordered his men to plant their rockets one hundred forty yards from Barney’s line.
They didn’t scare Joshua Barney or his men, but eventually the British found their range and the Americans began to fall.
British reinforcements tramped into place and pounded the American right. Barney, impervious, kept to his eighteen-pounders.
Dolley Page 30