On the morning of August 24, 1814, a scout brought word to President James Madison that the British were on their way to Bladensburg, ten miles from the nation’s capital. The American commander, General William Winder, ordered General Tobias Stansbury to deploy his brigade of Maryland militiamen just west of Bladensburg. By noon, the American army, some 7,000 men, had assembled on the field. However, shortly after General Stansbury had organized his lines, Secretary of State James Monroe arrived and made several changes without consulting Stansbury. General Robert Ross and lead elements of the British army arrived at Bladensburg early that afternoon. Without waiting for the rest of the army and artillery to arrive, Ross ordered Colonel William Thornton and his 85th Light Infantry regiment to attack and soon one militia unit after another took to its heels.

On August 18, 1814, a messenger arrived at the President’s House with news that the British were in the Patuxent River, fifty miles from Washington. As conflicting scouting reports filtered in, chaos reigned supreme in the capital. President James Madison ordered the militia to assemble but few responded to the call; Secretary of War John Armstrong continued to insist that Baltimore was the target; General William Winder, district commander, realized he was not up to the task and that the 15,000-man army he had been promised was no more than a dream. Secretary of State James Monroe rode to the front to scout out the British invaders. The next day, 4,500 Redcoats disembarked unopposed at the town of Benedict. While the British fleet under Admiral George Cockburn moved up the river in search of Commodore Joshua Barney and his flotilla of American gunboats, the British army under General Robert Ross marched on a road parallel to the river.

In August 1814, the British sent an expedition under Admiral Alexander Cochrane to the Chesapeake to resume its campaign in the bay. The British arrived with vengeance on their minds, hoping to retaliate for the burning by American forces of several Canadian towns including York, the capital of Upper Canada. Cochrane’s instructions to his commanders were to “act with the utmost hostility against the shores of the United States.” Meanwhile, Secretary of War John Armstrong had taken no measures to fortify the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. Although pressed by President James Madison to do so, Armstrong insisted that the British would never attack the city. Feeling desperate, Madison took matters into his own hands and called a cabinet meeting to address the problem. The result was the creation of the 10th Military District and a standby militia force of 15,000 men from neighboring states. 

In February 1813, Admiral John Warren led a flotilla into the Chesapeake Bay to enforce the British naval blockade and make the Americans feel the pain of war. The flotilla set fire to warehouses and ships in Frenchtown, Havre de Grace, Fredericktown and Georgetown, and destroyed the Principio Ironworks, one of the United States’ most important cannon foundries, before rejoining the fleet at Hampton Roads. In early June, Warren received reinforcements and sailed to the Elizabeth River to destroy the USS Constellation anchored five miles upstream at the Gosport Navy Yard near Norfolk. The entrance to the river was guarded by Craney Island and a contingent of 700 men. A strong artillery battery and a line of gunboats awaited the British.

Incurring the wrath of the Royal Navy during the War of 1812 was a desperate and dangerous business, and, during the war, nearly one-third of all privateers were captured. Besides losing a ship came the cost of losing the men, and by the end of the war, 20,000 Americans, mostly privateersmen, were prisoners of war. Many suffered deplorable conditions being housed on prison ships, while some were transferred to Dartmoor Prison in England and densely packed into solid stone buildings with nothing but a little straw thrown on the floor for their comfort. By the end of 1814, there were over 6,000 Americans at Dartmoor, making it the largest war prison for American captives until World War II. 

America’s relatively small navy left President James Madison few offensive options with which to strike the British. Consequently, his administration waged war against the very thing that Great Britain held most dear and attacked its merchant fleet from the West Indies to the English Channel. This fight was undertaken primarily by privateers, ships that were owned and equipped by private citizens but authorized by the government to plunder vessels from enemy nations. The most successful privateer ship was a two-masted schooner built for speed and agility but armed heavily 

enough to be a formidable fighter. Known as Baltimore Clippers, they could capture any merchant ship they wanted but were fast enough to escape from any ship they could not overpower.

The United States Navy enjoyed some remarkable successes at the start of the War of 1812, including winning all three single ship engagements with Royal Navy frigates. But in February 1813, the British began a blockade of the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays, and Admiral John Warren, commander of the North American squadron, extended the blockade to all other ports except those in New England. As goods and crops piled up on wharves, local prices fell dramatically and merchants and farmers suffered financial hardships. Besides the American merchant fleet, national warships suffered as well, and, by the end of 1814, the US Navy had been essentially swept from the sea.

In August 1813, Captain David Porter aboard the USS Essex sailed for the Washington Islands, an archipelago 3,000 miles southwest of the Galapagos, to find more British whalers to capture and, more importantly, to repair the vessel far away from the Royal Navy. With his ships refitted, Porter sailed from Nukahiva and arrived at Valparaiso in February 1814, and five days later, Royal Navy ships HMS Phoebe and HMS Cherub arrived as well. Captain James Hillyer, commander of Phoebe, asked Porter to surrender to the stronger British squadron, but Porter would have none of it, replying, “You shall never take my ship without fighting for her.”

The longest cruise of a United States Navy ship during the War of 1812 was that of the USS Essex, a frigate built and paid for in 1799 during a wave of patriotic fervor by the citizens of Essex County, Massachusetts, who wanted to help their country and President John Adams build our Navy. Commanded by Captain David Porter, the Essex was ordered to rendezvous off Brazil with a squadron led by Captain William Bainbridge. But, unable to link up with Bainbridge, Porter decided upon a bold venture. Recognizing he must strike the British where they were most vulnerable, Porter sailed for the Pacific Ocean, where dozens of British whaling vessels were plying their lucrative trade. And, because no American warship had yet sailed its waters, there were no Royal Navy ships in the Pacific, leaving the British whalers relatively unprotected.

Captain Phillip Broke, perhaps the most capable captain in the Royal Navy, had commanded HMS Shannon for seven years, relentlessly drilling his crew, especially in gunnery, and had made her the most dangerous frigate in the British fleet. He greatly desired to engage an American frigate in a single-ship combat to showcase its talents and sent several messages into Boston requesting any of the three American frigates then in the harbor to come out and fight. Captain James Lawrence, who commanded the Chesapeake, wanted the fight as desperately as Broke and, on June 1, 1813, sailed from Boston Harbor to the cheers of a thousand spectators, anxious to see “Captain Jim” punish the Brits. Just before 6 p.m., both vessels opened with broadsides, but Shannon’s were more rapid and more accurate than Chesapeake’s. Soon the American vessel was in trouble, its deck strewn with dead and wounded, including Lawrence, who was shot in the right knee but continued to direct the fight.