“History is a fickle muse and
fame her unfair offspring.”
---Bernard
Cornwell in The Fort
-------------------------------
Return with me now to a blazingly hot and scary day 200 years ago. The date: 24 August 1814.
The Battle of
Bladensburg occurred that day.
Much has been
written about that battle on Bladensburg Road. And justly. It’s good for a
nation to reflect on its blunders. And the battle was a blunder. “The greatest
disgrace ever dealt to American arms,” one historian calls it.
That’s because frightened American troops and militia ran from the British who had
invaded our country and were marching toward Washington D.C. Our mostly terrified
defenders allowed the enemy to burn the United States capitol. And in the
captured White House, British officers ate at the dining room table of
President James Madison.
American heroism
didn’t die that August day. One
unsung 55-year-old warrior and his men gave the shocked British a costly display
of American courage.
Strangely, historians of early America have
typically slighted the remarkable story of one of our nation’s most loyal,
fearlessness, and skillful patriots, a veteran of the American Revolution and
the War of 1812. Thus he has been cheated. You have been too, if, as is likely,
you haven’t heard his story.
So listen.
His name is Barney--Commodore
Joshua Barney.
He was a Baltimore boy who learned
seamanship on the Chesapeake Bay, and went to sea at the age of 12. When he was 15 years old—yes 15—he took
command of a foundering merchant ship and saved ship, crew, and cargo.
By 18 Barney was battling the British in the
American Revolution. He served as a commissioned naval officer and as a feared
privateer sponsored by the colonies. He fought numerous sea battles, winning most
of them. He was captured six times, tortured, and staged a couple of
spectacular escapes.
After the Revolutionary War, he commanded a French fleet and continued fighting the
British. Then at the start of the War of 1812, when it was clear the paltry U. S.
naval force couldn’t cope with the invading British fleet, he designed, built,
and commanded a flotilla of small, oar-driven gunboats to badger and distract
the raiders.
Then too, as the
naval scholar Louis Arthur Norton writes:
Barney” made and
lost several fortunes; won, lost, then regained the admiration of his
countrymen; and through it all was true to his principles. Barney was not a typical
naval officer of the era by any means; indeed, his career was far more
interesting.”
Before the
Bladensburg battle Barney based his
flotilla of gunboats on the Patuxent River. The enemy knew it. And as a first step
in assaulting Washington, British Admiral Sir George Cockburn sent a squadron
of 23 ships and an infantry unit to attack Barney’s force from land and river.
Realizing he was about to be attacked and
surrounded, Barney marched 400 of his flotillamen to a defensive position at Upper
Marlboro. He left 120 sailors behind to booby trap the flotilla boats. Which
they did.
When the British rushed
to confiscate the boats, they exploded with a blast that also destroyed 15 of 16
attacking enemy gun-boats. And in the confusion of smoke and falling debris, all
of Barney’s men escaped, lugging five salvaged cannon with them.
By now Barney knew
British Major General Robert Ross was
leading some 4,000 to 5,000 infantry toward Washington via Bladensburg village
on Bladensburg Road. So he marched his sailors and cannon toward the inevitable
fight.
Barney dutifully reported
to commanding general, Brigadier William Winder, the politically appointed brother
of Maryland’s governor. Gen. Winder ordered Barney and his small force away
from the impending action, sending them off to guard a bridge.
This is not at all what the frustrated Barney
had in mind.
Luckily President
James Madison was checking the troops
and happened by in his carriage. Barney approached the President. He politely
explained that it made sense to blow up the bridge and free his men to fight
rather than have them idling on guard duty. Madison agreed, and countermanded Gen.
Winder.
Barney then had
his sailors and 78 Marines take up a position on a hill overlooking a valley
and bridge the Redcoats were bound to cross.
Almost immediately
the Redcoats charged. Barney’s men let loose a barrage of cannon
and musket fire that swept the attackers from the road. The enemy rallied
quickly and struck again. Barney’s men mowed them down. Again the British
attacked only to fall like bowling pins.
Historian Morton
writes:
The “marine unit
charged screaming down the hill, crossed an open field, and leapt over a stone
wall topped by a wooden fence where the British had taken cover to catch a
temporary breath in the intense summer heat. The Americans drove the weary
regulars back into a ravine wounding many officers and men with musket fire and
bayonet stabs.”
Barney’s
outnumbered sailors and marines had repulsed some 600 of the king’s finest.
Now Barney looked
for other American units to charge
the stalled British invaders and force their likely retreat. He was astonished
to see that he and his men were the only American fighters left on the
battlefield. All others had run away, excepting two small Maryland militia
detachments off to the right. Yet in front of him loomed an army of thousands
that was readying to resume the attack.
As the British
launched another assault, Barney rallied his men. He soon realized however that
his force would be surrounded and overwhelmed. Ammunition was low. Victory was
impossible.
Still, Barney thought he might lead an escape,
save his cannons, and renew the fight elsewhere. He mounted his horse to better
lead his men, but a sharpshooter shot the animal. Barney scrambled to his feet,
but the shooter took him down with a musket ball to the thigh.
Unable to move,
bleeding heavily, and weak, Barney ordered all his men to leave the
guns and retreat, including officers who were trying to rig a litter and carry
him off the field. One officer, Lieutenant Jesse Huffington, refused that order
and stayed by his suffering leader.
A witness to the
battle that historian Norton refers to as “a British observer” wrote:
“With the
exception of a party of sailors, from the gun boats [barges] under the command
of Commodore Barney, no troops could have behaved worse…. Of the sailors,
however, it would be injustice not to speak in the terms which their conduct
merits. They were employed as gunners, and not only did they serve their guns
with quickness and precision which astonished their assailants, but they stood
till some of them were actually bayonetted, with fusees in their hands; nor was
it till their leader was wounded, and they saw themselves deserted on all sides
by the soldiers, that they quitted the field.”
British soldiers quickly
captured Barney and Huffington. But the
captain of one of the enemy’s warships knew of Barney, ordered that he be
treated gently, and had his ship’s surgeon dress the warrior’s wounds. When
General Ross, the British commander, heard his new prisoner was the legendary
Commodore Barney, he went to see him.
The general told Barney that with just a
handful of men he had given his troops a severe shock. He added, “I am very
glad to see you Commodore.”
Replied Barney, “I
am sorry I cannot return the compliment, General.”
The Battle of
Bladensburg was Barney’s final battle. On December 1, 1818 the musket ball that
could not be removed caused a thrombosis that took the old sailor’s life.
Barney had been courageous
in hand to hand combat, a relentless leader in battle, and above all a true
American patriot. Even his enemies considered him a hero.
So give this old warrior his due. Remember him.
------Gus Gribbin
Prof. Louis Norton’s scholarly and
entertaining book Joshua Barney: Hero of
the Revolution and 1812 vividly recounts
Barney’s swashbuckling life. It is available from the Naval Institute Press,
291 Wood Road, Annapolis, MD 21402.
The pictures presented above are generic War of 1812 images and do not show Bladensburg action..
The pictures presented above are generic War of 1812 images and do not show Bladensburg action..
