USA > New York > The Empire State: a compendious history of the commonwealth of New York > Part 44
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Meanwhile the invaders in armed barges pursned the flotilla, when Barney blew it up, and with his marines joined the forces which General Winder," the commander of the district, was hastily gathering. Five thousand of the British force landed at Benedict, thirty miles from the mouth of the Patuxent. Finding the American flotilla a smoking ruin,
* William H. Winder was a native of Somerset County, Md., and was born in February, 1775. He died in Baltimore in May, 1824. He was a successful lawyer in Baltimore from 1798 until 1812, when he was appointed colonel of infantry in July, and served on the Niagara frontier. In the spring of 1813 he was commissioned brigadier-general ; made prisoner at Stony Creek, Canada ; was exchanged, and made inspector-general in May, 1814. He commanded the Tenth District, and was engaged in the defence of Waslı- ington City and the city of Baltimore in the summer of 1814. After the war he resumed the practice of his profession, and served with credit in important civil stations. He was a State senator of Maryland at one time.
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they pressed forward toward Washington. Winder, who had only about three thousand men, most of them undisciplined, retreated in the direc- tion of the capital, and that night (August 23d) the invaders, who had been joined by Cockburn and his amphibious maranders, encamped within ten miles of Washington.
Winder left some troops at Bladensburg, four miles from the capital, and with others watched the highways leading from it, uncertain what point might be first attacked. On the morning of the 24th, while Winder and the Cabinet were in consultation, word came to the general that the British were pressing toward Bladensburg. He hurried to that village with re-enforcements. His little army was in great peril, for the invaders were overwhelming in number. To retreat would be perilous. He must either fight or surrender. He chose to fight, and at a little past noon a sharp battle was begun. Many of the militia soon fled. Barney and his men sustained the brunt of the conflict until that leader was badly wounded, when Winder, seeing no ground for hope of a victory, ordered a retreat. The invaders had lost fully five hundred men in killed and wounded during a struggle of four hours. Among their lost were several officers of distinction.
The President (Madison) and some of his Cabinet, who had watched the battle, hastened back to the city as fast as fleet horses could carry them, conveying the first news of impending danger. The victors followed, and entered the city at evening twilight. They at once began to plunder and destroy. The President's house, the Capitol, the Treasury buildings, the arsenal and the barracks were burned. Of the public buildings only the Patent Office was saved. Some private houses were sacked and some were burnt. Meanwhile the commandant of the Navy- Yard fired the public property there-buildings, vessels, and stores -in obedience of an order to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy. Altogether property of the estimated value of $2,000,000 was laid waste.
While the people of England loudly condemned and deplored this barbarous aet, the British Government caused the Tower guns to be fired in honor of Ross's victory, and at his death, a few weeks later, it decreed him a monument in Westminster Abbey. This was well, for he was a brave and humane soldier.
The British now menaced Baltimore. They started from Washington on the night of the 25th, and after resting and recruiting at the mouth of the Patuxent, they appeared in force on Patapsco Bay, at the head of which Baltimore stands, then a city of forty thousand inhabitants. The people of that city had wisely prepared for the reception of the invaders.
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THE BRITISH REPULSED AT BALTIMORE.
Fort McHenry, which defended the harbor, was garrisoned by a thousand men under Major Armistead ; redoubts were erected, and a large number of troops were gathered around the city.
On the morning of September 12th General Ross, with nine thousand troops, landed at North Point, twelve miles from Baltimore. The Americans had about the same number within call. Three thousand of these, under General Stricker, were sent out to watch the invaders. Confident of success, Ross and Cockburn were riding gayly at the head of the advancing British troops, when a rifle-ball from a company of concealed sharpshooters mortally wounded the British commanding general. The troops were then led by Colonel Brooke. They pressed on toward Baltimore, encountering General Stricker's advanced troops in a sharp engagement. The British bivouacked on the battle-field that night.
In the mean time a heavy British naval force was anchored before Fort McHenry out of range of its moderate-sized guns, and prepared to bom- bard it and its supporting redoubts the next morning (September 13th), when the British land force should move upon Baltimore. This was done at the appointed time. Armistead gallantly defended the fort through all the bombardment, and kept the assailants at bay. The contest continued twenty-five hours, during which time fully twenty-five hundred shells were thrown .* The land forces of the enemy were confronted by determined troops under Generals Stricker and Winder. Very soon the British commanders became convinced that they could not take Balti- more, and the bombardment of Fort McHenry suddenly ceased on the morning of the 14th. The British troops hastily withdrew to their ships in darkness and rain at three o'clock in the morning, and the entire armament went down the bay, greatly crestfallen. Sir George Prevost, who had returned to Montreal from Plattsburgh, postponed rejoicings there because of the capture of Washington until he should hear of the
* The bombardment of Fort McHenry was the occasion which inspired Francis S. Key to write the popular song, " The Star-spangled Banner." Dr. Beans, a distinguished and much-loved physician of Maryland, had been carried by the British, when retreating from Washington, on board their ship. Mr. Key and Mr. Skinner, of Baltimore, went to the fleet with a flag, to procure Dr. Beans's release. They also were detained on board as the fleet was about to sail for Baltimore. They were compelled to witness the bom- bardment from one of the British ships. Their anxiety was very great when, before the dawn of the 14th, the fort was silent. They did not know whether it had surrendered or not. They were rejoiced when, " at the dawn's early light," they saw that " our flag was still there," waving over the fort. It was while pacing the deck at that early hour in the morning, filled with doubt, that Key composed that stirring song. The prisoners were sent on shore when the fleet departed.
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seizure of Baltimore, that both events might be celebrated at the same time. He was denied that gratification.
Let us turn for a moment to the consideration of operations on the ocean during the remainder of the war.
In May, 1814, Captain Johnston Blakely crossed the sea with the sloop- of-war Wasp, of eighteen guns, and spread terror among the British shipping in the English Channel. She captured one sloop-of-war and fought others. During the autumn she was lost somewhere with all her company. She was never heard of afterward.
Captain Warrington had sailed on a cruise from New York in the sloop-of-war Peacock, and in April captured the British sloop-of-war Epervier, a valuable prize having $118,000 in specie on board of her. In a later cruise to the shores of Portugal the Peacock captured fourteen vessels, and returned to New York in October.
The frigate Constitution was thoroughly repaired after Bainbridge relinquished the command of her, and she went to sea under the com- mand of Captain Charles Stewart * late in 1813. She sailed to the coast of Surinam, South America, captured the sloop-of-war Pictou, and, returning to the New England coast, was chased into the harbor of Marblehead by two powerful British frigates. She did not go to sea again until near the close of December, 1814, when she started on a cruise, crossed the Atlantic, and late in February, 1815, she fought at the same time and captured two British vessels (the frigate Cyane and sloop-of-war Levant) off the coast of Portugal. Peace had then been declared.
This exploit gained for Stewart great renown. Congress gave him thanks and a gold medal, and the city of New York awarded him the honor of the freedom of the city in a gold box. After that the Consti-
* Charles Stewart was born in Philadelphia in July, 1778 ; died at Bordentown, N. J., in November, 1869, in the ninety-second year of his age. He was the youngest of eight children, and lost his father when he was two years old. He went to sea as a cabin boy, and became captain of an East Indiaman when he was eighteen years of age. In 1798 he was commissioned a lieutenant in the navy, and was in command of the schooner Experiment, in 1800, in a fight with the French schooner The Two Friends, which he cap- tured. Ile soon made other conquests. He served gallantly against the Barbary powers, and in May, 1804, became a master commandant, and was placed in charge of the frigate Essex. He became captain in 1806. In 1812 he was placed in command of the Constella- tion. Ilis chief exploit was the capture of two vessels at the same time with the Consti- tution. After the War of 1812-15 he was in command of the Mediterranean squadron, and was almost continually in the naval service until the breaking out of the Civil War in 1861. In 1857 he was placed on the retired list, but in 1859 he was replaced on the active list (then eighty-one years of age) by special legislation. In 1862 he was promoted to rear-admiral on the retired list.
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AMERICAN PRIVATEERING.
tution was called Old Ironsides, and Stewart bore the same title until his death in 1869, when he was in the ninety-second year of his age, and held the rank of rear-admiral. The Constitution still (1887) survives.
In the summer of 1814 Commodore Decatur, whose vessels had been blockaded at New London a long time, was placed in command of the frigate President and three other vessels-Peacock, Captain Warring- ton ; Hornet, Captain Biddle, and a store-ship-destined for a raid on the British shipping in the East Indies. The President left the harbor of New York at the middle of January, 1815, eluded the blockades at Sandy Hook, and put to sea. She was chased by four British ships-of- war. Heavily laden for a long cruise, the President could not sail fast,
A CLIPPER-BUILT SCHOONER.
and after a protracted chase and running fight she was compelled to surrender.
Late in January the commanders of the other vessels of Decatur's squadron, ignorant of the fate of the President, put to sea and sailed for an appointed place of rendezvous at one of a group of islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. There the Hornet met the British sloop Penguin. They had a desperate fight, and the Hornet gained the victory in twenty minutes. This brilliant exploit won for Biddle honors and rewards. Captain Warrington proceeded to the East Indies, and in June, 1815, the Peacock captured the Nautilus in the Straits of Sunda. Informed the next day of the ratification of the treaty of peace some months before, Warrington gave up the prize. On his return home he also received honors. The war was over, and every American cruiser, public and private, had returned to port.
The achievements of American privateers upon the ocean during the war were wonderful. The romantic story of their exploits has filled a
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large volume (Coggeshall's History of American Privateers), and yet the half has not been told. These exploits were but a repetition of the doings in the regular service. After the first six months of the war the bulk of the naval conflicts upon the sea on the part of the Americans was carried on by private armed vessels, which "took, burned, and destroyed " sixteen hundred British merchantmen, of all classes, in the space of three years. The most famons of these privateers for speed and efficiency were the Bal- timore clippers.
A large number of privateers were sent out from the port of New York, and many merchants reaped more bountiful pecuniary harvests by this means than they could have done by the slower processes of commerce. The most noted of these New York priva- teers was the General Armstrong, Captain Samuel C. Reid .* In September, 1814, while she was lying in the harbor of Fayal, at one of the islands of the Azores, CAPTAIN SAMUEL C, REID. of the same name, belonging to Portugal, she was suddenly at- tacked by a part of a large British squadron. The attacking vessels carried one hundred and thirty-three guns in the aggregate, while the General Armstrong carried only seven. There were three attacks between the evening and the morning twilight. A terrific conflict lasting forty minutes occurred at midnight. At each attack the plucky Armstrong repulsed her assailants, who lost in the struggle of ten hours over three hundred men, while the Americans lost only two killed and seven wounded.
Samuel Chester Reid was born at Norwich, Conn., in August, 1783 ; died in New York in January, 1861. He went to sea when only eleven years of age. He was an acting midshipman under Commodore Truxton ; became enamored with the naval ser- vice, and began the adventurous business of a privateersman at the beginning of the War of 1812-15. After the war he was appointed sailing-master in the navy, and held that position until his death. He was for a time warden of the Port of New York, and the inventor of the semaphore or telegraph used at the Narrows before the electro-magnetic telegraph was perfected. Captain Reid has the honor of being the designer of the present form of our national flag-that is, retaining only thirteen stripes, and adding a star for each State admitted to the Union,
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JACKSON CALLED TO NEW ORLEANS.
War at the North was now ended, but there was trouble in the South- west late in 1814. We have considered Jackson's campaign against the Creek Indians. The British, favored by the Spanish governor of Florida, had given the Creeks hope, and induced them to join the forces from Great Britain against the Americans. A British squadron, by permission of the Spanish authorities, took possession of Pensacola, and there fitted ont an expedition against the fort at the entrance to Mobile Bay. British land troops and Creek Indians attacked it at the middle of September. They were repulsed.
General Jackson, then at Mobile, holding the Spanish governor responsible for the attack on the fort, marched from that town with two thousand Tennessee militia, seized Pensacola, drove the British from the harbor, and compelled the Spanish governor to beg for mercy and to surrender the town and the military works unconditionally. On return- ing at once to Mobile, the victorious general found messengers with urgent calls for him to hasten to New Orleans to assist in defending that city and Louisiana from a threatened formidable invasion. The British cruising in the Gulf of Mexico had been re-enforced by thousands of troops from Great Britain.
Jackson instantly obeyed the call. He arrived at New Orleans on December 2d (1814), and found the people in a state of fearful alarm and confusion. He assumed heavy responsibilities. He declared martial law, and by vigorous measures under that rule he soon placed the city in an attitude of comparative security. When an efficient officer fresh from the Spanish peninsula, General Pakenham, with about twelve thousand troops, most of them Wellington's veterans, entered Lake Borgne, Jackson felt confident of success even against such fearful odds.
After a naval struggle on Lake Borgne, in which a flotilla of American gun-boats was destroyed, twenty-four hundred British troops under the Irish General Keane pushed on to the Mississippi River, nine miles below New Orleans, with the expectation of taking that city by surprise. Keane was betrayed by an escaped prisoner, and in the gloom on the night of December 23d he was attacked and defeated by Americans led by General Jackson in person. In this affray the Americans lost in killed and wounded about two hundred men ; the British lost about four hundred. The Americans were assisted by an armed vessel on the river, which produced a panic.
New Orleans was saved from surprise ; now it had to be saved from open invasion. General Pakenham took the chief command of the troops, and pushed on toward New Orleans. Across his path from the Mississippi to a deep cypress swamp Jackson cast up a line of breastworks
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with great celerity. When the invader approached to the plain of Chalmette (Jannary 8th, 1815) with his whole land force, and stood in battle array before the improvised fortifications, hope for the Americans seemed very dim.
Behind those breastworks there was an ominous silence as the British veterans approached to the attack. When they had reached within cannon-shot range of Jackson's batteries the latter opened upon them with terrible effect, cutting fearful lanes through the ranks of the British. Yet the latter pressed forward until they were within range of the American rifles, when a host suddenly arose and with a deadly tempest of bullets swept the British line. Whole platoons were mown down like grass before a scythe. Officer after officer was slain. Pakenham fell, bleeding and dying, into the arms of McDougall, his favorite aide. Very soon the assailants broke and fled, their retreat covered by General Lambert at the head of reserves. The slaughter and maiming had been dreadful. The vanquished left seven hundred of their dead and four- teen hundred of their wounded on the field, and five hundred were made prisoners. The Americans lost only eight killed and thirteen wounded. They had been protected by breastworks, while the invaders were exposed on an open plain.
The vanquished Britons, led by General Lambert, stole away under cover of darkness on the night after the battle, and escaped to their ships. General Jackson and his men entered New Orleans as victors. There special honors were bestowed upon the conqueror as a deliverer. IIe had saved the city and the State. Thirteen years afterward the people of the United States chose him to be the Chief Magistrate of the republic.
Before this conflict on the plain of Chalmette peace between the United States and Great Britain had been secured by a treaty negotiated and signed at Ghent, in Belgium. Commissioners of the two govern- ments," chosen for the purpose, met in August, 1814, and concluded their labors on December 24th following. The treaty was ratified by the British Government on the 28th, and by that of the United States on February 17th, 1815. As the news of peace went slowly over the land intense joy and satisfaction were everywhere felt.
Nowhere was the intelligence more welcome than in the commercial city of New York. The news was brought to that port on the evening of February 11th by the sloop-of-war Favorite, forty-two days from
* The United States Commissioners were John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, Jonathan Russell, and Albert Gallatin. The British Commissioners were Lord Gambier, Henry Goulbourn, and William Adams.
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PEACE WITH GREAT BRITAIN PROCLAIMED.
Portsmouth. Now it might come in forty-two seconds ! The streets were speedily thronged with an excited multitude. Placards were printed by the Mercantile Advertiser, announcing the happy event, and thrown ont of the window. They were caught up and read with the greatest avidity by the people. The air was soon resonant with hnzzas. Cannons thundered, bells were rung, and bonfires blazed. In cities and large villages all over the land the abounding joy was manifested by . banquets, orations, and illuminations. There were rejoicings in Great Britain ; and there were rejoicings in Canada because of the deliverance of the people from the fear of invasion.
This sudden outbreak of joy was soon tempered by the unpleasant reflection that much advantage expected to be gained by the war and the treaty had not been acquired. Indeed, the subjects of impressments, the right of search, the orders in council and paper blockades, had all been passed over withont specific notice in the treaty. These omissions were made powerful weapons in the hands of the opponents of the war. The New York Evening Post, anticipating this failure, printed in the " New Year's Address" of its carriers, several weeks before the arrival of the treaty, the following stanza :
" Your commerce is wantonly lost, Your treasures are wasted and gone ; You've fought to no end, but with millions of cost ; And for rivers of blood,. you've nothing to boast, But credit and nation undone."
But the war did secure the positive and permanent independence of the United States, and gave our republic a position among the most con- spicuous of the nations of the earth.
The haughty spirit manifested by the British Government during the negotiations at Ghent in demanding terms which were humiliating to the Americans had excited anew the war spirit here, and the Govern- ment determined to prosecute the struggle with more vigor than ever. Conscription was resorted to in the early fall of 1813. This measure, which offended State pride, brought matters to a crisis in New England, where the Peace Faction was yet quite powerful. The people of that section had been suspected of disloyalty to the National Government, while the latter adopted some injudicious measures calculated to promote such a feeling. Suspicions and discontents culminated in a conference of sympathizing New England States to consult upon public matters and to consider a radical reform in the National Constitution. A convention composed of twenty-six delegates assembled at Hartford, Conn., on December 15th, 1814, and held their sessions in secret.
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The sittings of the Hartford Convention continued about three weeks. At the time of its adjournment it was believed a necessity might require the members to assemble again, and the seal of secrecy was not removed from their proceedings. This gave rise to wild rumors, conjectures, and suspicions. The convention had been suspected of treasonable designs, and had been closely watched ; now the members were regarded as dis- loyal to the Government, and dared not avow it. When, in after years, the proceedings were made public, it was perceived that the Hartford Convention was composed of as loyal and patriotic men as any in the land. Their political opponents, however, made the most of the public prejudice which had been created, and for more than a score of years afterward the partisan cry, " a Hartford Convention Federalist !" cast in some degree a sort of undefined odium on the man to whom the epithet was applied.
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GOVERNORS TOMPKINS AND CLINTON.
CHAPTER XXXII.
DURING the war we have just been considering, and which made the northern and western frontiers of the State of New York the theatre of almost continually stirring military events, the civil affairs of the com- monwealth were conducted in an admirable manner under the guiding hand of Daniel D. Tompkins, who was Governor of the State from 1807 until 1817. He was energetic, judicious, courageous, and patriotic. In politics he was of the " Jefferson School." He had served his country in the State Constitutional Convention ; in the State Legislature ; in Congress ; as Judge of the Supreme Court of the State, and as Chan- cellor of the University. Ile was commander of the Third Military District during the war, and he contributed greatly to the success of the national arms by his energy in calling out and equipping troops for the service. Governor Tompkins was Vice-President of the United States during the eight years of Monroe's administration, and early in the last year of his governorship he won immortal honor by recommending to the Legislature in a special message the total abolition of slavery in the State of New York after July 4th, 1827.
During the first quarter of this century De Witt Clinton was undoubtedly the foremost public man of the State in point of mental force, wisdom, sagacity, energy, and statesmanship ; and he was more active and effective in the promotion of measures for the general benefit of society than any other citizen of his time. We have noticed his career up to the breaking out of the War of 1812-15. He was appointed Mayor of the city of New York in 1803, and held that important position continuously until 1815 (excepting two years when he was lieutenant- governor) with great acceptance to the people. He divided the nation with Mr. Madison as a candidate for the presidency, but did not win the prize. In 1817 he was chosen Governor of the State almost without a contest, and was re-elected in 1820, and again in 1824. His was the chief moral and intellectual force which carried forward from conception to completion the great Erie Canal.
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