On the 26th of December, 1812, an order in Council declared the ports and harbors in the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays to be in a state of rigorous blockade. Soon afterward additional ships of war and transports arrived at Bermuda, bearing a considerable land force, and well furnished with bomb-shells and Congreve rockets, to be used in the conflagration of sea-board towns. 1 A part of the land force consisted of French prisoners of war, who preferred to engage in the British marine service to risking indefinite confinement in Dartmoor Prison, in England.

The first appearance of blockading vessels was on the 4th of February [1813.], when four 74-gun ships and several smaller armed vessels 2 entered the Virginia Capes and bore up toward Hampton Roads. The fleet was under the command of Admiral Cockburn (whose flag-ship was the Marlborough), assisted by Commodore Beresford, whose pennant was over the Poictiers. 3 They bore a land force of about eighteen hundred men, and were well supplied with small surf-boats for landing. Their appearance alarmed all lower Virginia, and the militia of the Peninsula and the region about Norfolk were soon in motion. An order soon went out from the Secretary of the Treasury [March 16, 1813.] for the extinguishment of all the beacon-lights on the Chesapeake coast.

It was supposed that Hampton and Norfolk would be attacked. The latter place was pretty well defended by fortifications which General Wade Hampton had caused to be thrown up on Craney Island, five miles below the city, under the superintendence of Colonel Armistead. The masters and mates of merchant vessels in Norfolk harbor joined themselves into volunteer military companies and garrisoned old Fort Norfolk. The frigate Constellation, 38, Captain Tarbelle, was lying near, supported by a flotilla of gunboats. Old Point Comfort soon bristled with bayonets; and the British commanders thought it more prudent at that time to destroy the small merchant craft found in Chesapeake Bay than to enter Hampton Roads. They did little more than this for several weeks, when Commodore Beresford was sent, with the Poictiers, Belvidera, and some smaller vessels, to blockade the Delaware Bay and River, and teach the inhabitants along their shores the duty of submission. He found his unwilling pupils very refractory; for when, on the 16th of March, he pointed the guns of the Poictiers toward the village of Lewis, near Cape Henlopen, and said, in a note to "the first magistrate" of that little town, "You must send me twenty live bullocks, with a proportionate quantity of vegetables and hay, for the use of his Britannic majesty’s squadron," offering to pay for them, but threatening, in the event of refusal, to destroy the place, the "first magistrate" of Lewistown, and all the people, from Philadelphia to the sea, said in substance, as they every where prepared for resistance, "We solemnly refuse to commit legal or moral treason at your command. Do your worst." They had heard of his coming, and had already, on both sides of the bay and river, assembled in armed bodies at expected points of attack to repel the invaders. The spirit of the fathers was aroused, some of whom, full of the fire of the flint, were yet abiding among them. At Dover, on the Sabbath day, the drum beat to arms, and men of every denomination in politics and religion, to the number of almost five hundred, responded to the call. Among them was Jonathan M‘Nutt, an age-bent soldier of the Revolution, who exchanged his staff for a musket and engaged in the drill. Pious Methodist as he was, he did not regard the day as too holy for patriotic deeds, and he spent the whole afternoon in making ball-cartridges. 4 This was the spirit every where manifested. At Smyrna, New Castle, and Wilmington, the inhabitants turned out with spades or muskets, prepared to cast up the earth for batteries and trenches, 5 or to be soldiers to meet the foe.

At the latter place, the venerable soldier of the Revolution, Allan M‘Lane, took the direction of military affairs. 6 The specie of the banks of New Castle and Wilmington was sent to Philadelphia for safety; and in the latter city Captain William Mitchell and his Independent Blues, and Captain Jacob H. Fisler and his Junior Artillerists, formed in three days for the occasion, volunteered to garrison Fort Mifflin.

Beresford was astonished by the spirit of the people, and held the thunders of his threat at bay for almost three weeks. Governor Haslet, in the mean time, summoned the militia to the defense of the menaced town, and on his arrival at Lewis on the 23d he reiterated the positive refusal of the inhabitants to furnish the invaders with supplies. Beresford continued to threaten and hesitate; but at length, on the evening of the 6th of April, he sent Captain Byron, with the Belvidera and smaller vessels, to attack the village. They drew near, and the Belvidera sent several heavy round-shot into the town. These were followed by a flag of truce, bearing from Byron a renewal of the requisition. It was answered by Colonel S. B. Davis, who commanded the militia. He repeated the refusal, when Byron sent a reply, in which he expressed regret for the misery he should inflict on the women and children by a bombardment. "Colonel Davis is a gallant officer, and has taken care of the ladies," was the verbal answer. This correspondence was followed by a cannonade and bombardment that was kept up for twenty-two hours. So spirited was the response of a battery on an eminence, worked by Colonel Davis’s militia, that the most dangerous of the enemy’s gun-boats was disabled, and its cannon silenced. Notwithstanding the British hurled full eight hundred of these eighteen and thirty-two pound shot into the town, and many shells and Congreve rockets were sent, the damage inflicted was not severe. The shells did not reach the village; the rockets passed over it; but the heavy round shot injured several houses. No lives were lost. An ample supply of powder was sent down from Dupont’s, at Wilmington, while the enemy supplied the balls. These fitted the American cannon, and a large number of them were sent back with effect. 7

The blockaders within the Capes of Virginia were very busy in the mean time. The fleet was under the command of Admiral Cockburn, and took chief position in Lynnhaven Bay. 8 He continually sent out marauding expeditions along the shores of the Chesapeake, who plundered and burnt farm-houses, carried off negroes and armed them against their masters, and seized live-stock wherever it could be found. The country exposed to these depredations was extensive and sparsely settled, and it was difficult to concentrate a military force at one point in sufficient time to be effective against the marauders. In some instances they were severely punished, but these were rare.

More felicitous and more honorable exploits were sometimes undertaken by the blockaders under Cockburn. On the 3d of April a flotilla of a dozen armed boats from the British fleet, under Lieutenant Polkingthorne, of the St. Domingo, 74, entered the mouth of the Rappahannock River, and attacked the Baltimore privateer Dolphin, 10, Captain Stafford, and three armed schooners prepared to sail for France. The assault was unexpected and fierce. The three smaller vessels were soon taken, but the struggle for the Dolphin was severe. She was finally boarded, and for fifteen minutes the contest raged fearfully on her deck. Overpowered by numbers, Captain Stafford was compelled to submit. 9 In this affair the loss was much heavier on the British than on the American side. No official account of the casualties were ever given by either party, but contemporary writers agree that the capture of the Dolphin cost the victors many lives.

Admiral Cockburn made the Fantome his flag-ship, and sent First Lieutenant Westphall, of the Marlborough, with about four hundred armed men in boats, to destroy the public and private property at Frenchtown. The only defenders were quite a large number of drivers of stages and transportation wagons who were assembled there, and a few militia who came down from Elkton. The former garrisoned the redoubt, which had just been erected, upon which lay three iron four-pounders, first used in the old War for Independence. They fought manfully, but were compelled to retire before overwhelming numbers. The store-houses were plundered and burnt, but no dwelling was injured. The women and children were treated with respect. Property on land to the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars was consumed, and on the water five small trading-vessels. 10 This incendiary work accomplished, the invaders withdrew, and on the Fantome, the following day, Sir George wrote an account of the affair to Admiral Warren, taking care to assure that humane commander that he was following out his orders in giving a receipt for property taken from noncombatants.

The guns of the captured battery were turned upon the town, and added to the destruction. A greater portion of the enemy (almost four hundred in number) went up to the site of the present railway ferry landing, and debarked there. They rushed up to the open common, separated into squads, and commenced plundering and destroying systematically, officers and men entering into the business with equal alacrity. 11 Finally, when at least one half of the village had been destroyed, Cockburn, the instigator of the crime, went on shore, and was met on the common by several ladies who had taken refuge in an elegant brick house, some distance from the village, known as the Pringle mansion. They entreated him to spare the remainder of the village, and especially the roof that sheltered them. He yielded with reluctance, and at length gave an order for a stay of the plundering. 12

Finally, when all possible mischief had been achieved along the river bank – when farm-houses had been plundered and burnt a long distance on the Baltimore road – when, after the lapse of four hours, forty of the sixty houses in the village had been destroyed, and nearly all the remainder of the edifices, except the Episcopal Church, 13 were more or less injured, the marauders assembled in their vessels in the stream, and at sunset sailed out into the Bay to pay a similar visit to villages on the Sassafras River. 14 Havre de Grace was at least sixty thousand dollars poorer when they left than when they came twelve hours before.

It was a sunny but blustery day [November 22, 1861.] when I visited Havre de Grace and the scenes around it, made memorable by its woes. I arrived in the evening by railway from Baltimore, where I had spent three days in visiting the battle-ground at North Point and other interesting places hereafter to be described. The town was full of soldiers, many being stationed there to guard the ferry and public property from the violence of the sympathizers with the rebels in Maryland. The only hotel in the place was entirely filled with lodgers, and private houses were in like condition. The prospect for a night’s repose was unpromising. For myself, a settee or an easy-chair might have sufficed; but I had a traveling companion (a young woman and near relative) who required better accommodations. The obliging proprietor of the hotel, after much effort, succeeded in placing us in the unoccupied furnished house of his son-in-law, where we passed a dreary night, the windows of my room clattering continually at the bidding of the gusty wind. Early the next morning I went out in search of celebrities, and, after sketching the old residence of Commodore Rodgers, printed on page 182, I fortunately fell in with Mr. Howtell, already mentioned, who became my cicerone. Under his direction I was enabled to find every place sought after.

While sketching the landing-place of the British near the light-house (page 671), the keeper of the pharos came to know my business. He was an aged man, and I soon discovered that he was one of the oldest residents of the place, having been a half-grown boy at the time of the British visitation. "Did you know John O’Neil, who behaved so gallantly at the Potato Battery?" I asked. "I ought to," he replied, "for he was my father." "Can you tell me any thing about the sword presented to him by the authorities of Philadelphia for his bravery on that occasion?" I inquired. "If you will go with me to the house," he replied, "it will speak for itself." When I had finished my sketch of the weather-beaten lighthouse (from which most of the stucco had been abraded) and the cove, with the distant Turkey Point, Spesutia Island, and the Maryland main on the right, I followed Mr. O’Neil to his little cottage near by, and there not only saw and sketched the honorary sword, but from the brave John O’Neil’s own family Bible obtained a few facts concerning his personal history. He was born in Ireland on the 23d of November, 1768, and came to America at the age of eighteen years. He was in the military service under General Harry Lee in quelling the Whisky Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, and in 1798 entered the naval service against the French. He became an extensive nail-maker at Havre de Grace, sometimes employing as many as twenty men. The destruction of the place ruined his business. When the present light-house was built on Concord Point in 1829 he became its keeper; and on the 26th of January, 1838, he died in the house where his son and successor resides.

Toward noon I rode up to the "Pringle House," the residence of the Honorable Elisha Lewis, who had just been elected a member of the State Legislature by the Unionists of his district. His estate is called Bloomsbury, an old English title, and contains six hundred acres of land, with a front of a mile on Chesapeake Bay. When the mansion was built in 1808 by Mark Pringle, a wealthy Baltimore merchant, it was the finest country residence in the state, and even when I visited it few rivaled it either in appearance or comfort. It stood upon an eminence overlooking Havre de Grace, the Susquehanna River, and Chesapeake Bay. It was very large, and substantially built of pressed brick. Mr. Lewis was one of the brave defenders of Baltimore in 1814, when that city was threatened by General Ross and his army. He served as a volunteer sergeant in Captain Perring’s company, Twenty-seventh Regiment – the brave Twenty-seventh – Maryland Militia, which did such gallant service in the battle of North Point. His gun was disabled by a shot through the stock, when he took the musket of a slain companion by his side, and continued the fight. Founder of a commercial house in Baltimore, he was engaged thirty years in trade, and passed much of his time in England. For sixteen years he had been enjoying the quiet of country life.

On the 26th of May a British order in Council extended the blockade to New York and all the Southern ports; and on the 1st of June Admiral Warren entered the Chesapeake with a considerable naval re-enforcement for Cockburn and Beresford, bearing a large number of land troops and marines under the command of Sir Sidney Beckwith. The British force now collected within the Capes of Virginia consisted of eight ships of the line, twelve frigates, and a considerable number of smaller vessels, and it was evident that some more important point than defenseless villages would be the next object of attack. The citizens of Baltimore, Annapolis, and Norfolk were equally menaced, but when, at the middle of June [June 18.], three British frigates entered Hampton Roads, and sent their boats up the James River to destroy some small American vessels there and plunder the inhabitants, it was evident that Norfolk would be the first point of attack. The Constellation 15 and a flotilla of twenty gun-boats, as well as Forts Norfolk and Nelson (one on each side of the Elizabeth River), and Forts Tar and Barbour, 16 and the fortifications on Craney Island, were all put in the best state of defense possible; while Commodore Cassin, then in command of the station, ordered Captain Tarbell to organize an expedition for the capture of the frigate that lay at anchor at the nearest distance from Norfolk.

These opened a severe cannonade on the flotilla, and the Americans were obliged to haul off. As they retired in good order, they kept up a fire on the British vessels for almost an hour. 17 They damaged their enemy seriously, while some of their own boats were badly bruised. Master’s Mate Allison was killed, and two seamen were slightly wounded. These composed the entire loss of the Americans. How much the British seamen suffered is not known.

On the arrival of General Taylor 18 at Norfolk he perceived the necessity of re-enforcing the troops on Craney Island, where the first blow of the coming battle was likely to fall. He accordingly sent down thirty regulars under Captain Richard Pollard, from Fort Norfolk, and thirty volunteers under Lieutenant Johnson, of Culpepper, and Ensign Archibald Atkinson (member of Congress in 1849), of Isle of Wight, most of them riflemen.

At midnight the camp was alarmed by the crack of a sentinel’s musket. He thought he discovered a boat in the strait. 19 The troops were called to arms, and stood watching until dawn, when a bush, and not a boat, was found to have been the cause of the commotion. The troops were dismissed, but they had scarcely broken ranks when a horseman came dashing across the fordable strait, and reported that the enemy were landing in force near Major Hoffleur’s, a little more than two miles distant. The drum beat the long roll, and as the daylight increased the British were seen passing continually in boats from the ships to the shore. Major Faulkner at once ordered the three heavy guns in the southeastern portion of the island to be transferred to the northwestern part, and had them placed in battery there with the four 6-pounders. These seven pieces constituted a pretty formidable battery. A short distance in the rear of it, the infantry, riflemen, and Richardson’s artillerymen acting as infantry, were formed in line, so as to face the strait at the mouth of Wise’s Creek.

The entire battery was under the supreme command of Major Faulkner, a cool and skillful artillerist. 20 The whole force on the island was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Beatty. A long pole was procured, the national flag was nailed to it, and then it was planted firmly in the redoubt. The gun-boats were anchored in the form of a segment of a circle, extending from Craney Island to Lambert’s Point, while the Constellation lay nearer the city. Thus prepared, the Americans calmly awaited the approach of the foe.

This was gallantly performed under the direction of Lieutenants Tattnall 21 and Geisenger, Midshipman Bladen Dulaney, and Acting Master George F. De la Roche. They secured several prisoners and the admiral’s fine barge. This was afterward repaired, and performed good service as a guard-boat during many a cold, dark night in the ensuing autumn. 22

Thus ended the battle. "Thus, not long before the time when the Regent of Great Britain congratulated his kingdom on the pitch of grandeur it reached by dictating peace to France in the French capital, a brother of that regent was repulsed by a handful of militia in an attempt to capture a small island in Chesapeake Bay." 23 It was a most mortifying result for the British. 24 So certain was Sir Sidney Beckwith of success, that he promised the troops the opportunity of breakfasting on Craney Island that morning. Some of the officers took their shaving apparatus with them, and others their dogs. At ten o’clock the scene was changed, and before sunset the British commanders abandoned all hope of seizing Norfolk, the Constellation, and the navy yard. It was the last attempt there during the war.

Exasperated by their ignominious repulse at Craney Island, the British proceeded to attack the village of Hampton, a flourishing borough on the west side of Hampton Creek, two miles and a half from Old Point Comfort. It was the capital of Elizabeth City County, Virginia, and was a mile from the confluence of the creek with the waters of Hampton Roads. It was defended at the time by about four hundred and fifty Virginia soldiers under Major Stapleton Crutchfield, whose adjutant general was Robert Anderson, Esq., whom I had the pleasure of meeting at Yorktown in 1848. They were composed chiefly of militia infantry, and a few artillerymen and cavalry. They were encamped on the "Little England" estate of five hundred acres, a short distance southwest from the town, where they had a heavy battery composed of four 6, two 12, and one 18 pounder cannon, in charge of Sergeant William Burke, to defend the water-front of the camp and the village. 25

The land troops, under the general command of Beckwith, assisted by Lieutenant Colonels Napier 26 and Williams, moved stealthily and rapidly forward toward the doomed town, while the armed boats appeared suddenly off Blackbeard’s Point, at the mouth of Hampton Creek. The latter were first discovered by American patrols at Mill Creek, who gave the alarm. The camp was aroused, and a line of battle was formed. At that moment a messenger came in haste with intelligence that the British were moving in force on the rear of Hampton. The woods toward Murphy’s were glowing with scarlet, and a grain-field near was verdant with the green uniforms of the French. The inhabitants of the village, who yet remained, fled toward Yorktown, excepting a few who could not leave or who were willing to trust to British honor and clemency.

The victorious British now entered Hampton by the Yorktown Road, bearing the body of the brave Lieutenant Colonel Williams. Beckwith and Cockburn made their head-quarters at the fine brick mansion of Mrs. Westwood, which stood upon the street leading to the landing. In her garden the remains of Williams were buried with solemn funeral rites on the same day. Then the village was given up to pillage and rapine. The atrocities committed at that time upon the defenseless inhabitants who remained in Hampton, particularly on the women, have consigned the name of Sir George Cockburn to merited infamy, for he was doubtless the chief author of them. 27 The reports of them at the time were much exaggerated, but sufficient was proven by official investigation to cause the cheeks of every honest Briton to tingle with the deepest blush of shame. "We are sorry to say," said Commissioners Thomas Griffin and Robert Lively, appointed to investigate the matter, "that from all information we could procure, from sources too respectable to permit us to doubt, we are compelled to believe that acts of violence have been perpetrated which have disgraced the age in which we live. The sex hitherto guarded by the soldier’s honor escaped not the rude assaults of superior force." 28 A correspondence on the subject occurred between General Taylor and Sir Sidney Beckwith, in which the latter, while he did not deny the charges, attempted to justify the atrocities by pleading the law of retaliation, falsely alleging, as was proven, that the Americans had waded out from Craney Island after the battle there, and deliberately shot the crew of a barge which had sunk on the shoal. 29 And while it was not denied that British officers and soldiers had engaged zealously in the business of plundering the private houses at Hampton of every thing valuable that might be easily carried away, 30 the more horrid crime of ravishing the persons of married women and young maidens, was charged by the British commanders upon the French soldiery. "The apology," said the commissioners just mentioned, "that these atrocities were committed by the French soldiers attached to the British forces now in our waters appeared to us no justification of those who employed them, believing, as we do, that an officer is, or should be, ever responsible for the conduct of the troops under his command." So shameful were these atrocities – too gross to be repeated here – that the most violent of the British partisan writers were compelled to denounce them; and Admiral Warren and General Beckwith, in obedience to the instincts of their better natures and the demands of public opinion, dismissed the Chasseurs Britanniques from the service.

BRITISH CONSUL’S HOUSE. 31

The circumstance is mentioned to introduce the fact that his residence was the same (118 Main Street) as that occupied by Mr. Hamilton, the British consul at Norfolk in 1807, at the time of the affair of the Chesapeake and Leopard, whose personal popularity alone saved his house from demolition by the exasperated people. 32 In that house Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, lodged in 1804, and there he wrote his beautiful poetic paraphrase of a popular legend connected with the Lake of the Dismal Swamp. I passed the morning delightfully with Mr. James and his interesting family, and at ten o’clock started for Craney Island in a skiff manned by a negro seventy years of age, and a mulatto boy of sixteen, both slaves. The air was balmy. Scarcely a ripple appeared on the water, and the sun was pleasantly obscured by a slight haziness of the atmosphere.

Just after passing Fort Norfolk we came abreast Lambert’s Point, and, stretching far to the right, toward the Rip Raps, was seen Sewell’s Point, made famous to this generation by the stirring events of the late Civil War with which it is associated. The waters in that vicinity were dotted with oyster-vessels at anchor, engaged in receiving cargoes from numerous small boats that were hovering over the oyster-beds in every direction, each bearing two men with fishing rakes. As we neared the head of Craney Island, I hailed a brace of these fishermen in a boat, and asked them for a "fip’s worth" of oysters for my watermen. To my astonishment, they dropped two rake’s-full – at least a peck – into our boat, and on them the oarsmen feasted while I strolled over the island, viewing and sketching the remains of military works erected there during the War of 1812. These are seen rising above the common surface of the island in the little sketch on page 675. These works were erected immediately after the repulse of the British from the island in June [1813.], and were quite formidable. 33

The magazine on the opposite end of the island was also built of brick, and was well preserved. Around it were some remains of breastworks, but many had perished from the encroachments of the sea. These and the whole island were almost wholly submerged during a very high tide a few weeks before my visit there. Much of the old embankments was washed away, but the solitary cedar, mentioned as being there in 1813, remained unharmed on the southern slope of the island. 34 From the magazine we had a fine view of the entire scene of action on the 22d of June. The schooner on the right, in the annexed picture, designates the place of the barges at the time of their repulse; and the distant point between the vessel and the shore by the magazine shows the landing-place of the British, who moved through the woods up to Wise’s Creek. Just at the left of the magazine, across the strait, is seen a small house, at the mouth of Wise’s Creek. It was near the site of "Wise’s Quarter," which was demolished many years ago. In the more modern house we found an intelligent colored man, about eighty years of age, rejoicing in the fact that his freedom had just been purchased by his wife, a woman almost as old as himself. She earned money by midwifery, in which profession she was very proficient. "Bress de Lord!" said the old man, "for de day when I married Dinah. She allers said Pomp shouldn’t die a slave, but she’s worked hard almost fifty years afore she made her promise sure." He was living near there at the time of the fight, and assisted in the erection of the fortifications on Craney Island.

It was about four o’clock when I returned to Norfolk. I spent the remainder of the afternoon in strolling about the city, and on the following morning departed in the steamer Selden for Hampton, eighteen miles distant. There I had the good fortune to meet Colonel Wilson W. Jones, brother of the lieutenant who went to the assistance of Parker with his cannon, and so gallantly took it from the field. 35 The colonel was a sergeant in Servant’s rifle company, and was in the battle on Celey’s Road when the British sergeant major and Lieutenant Colonel Williams were killed. He kindly accompanied me to places of interest around Hampton. First we visited the head-quarters of Beckwith and Cockburn (printed on page 683), and were kindly shown the rooms occupied by them, and the grave of Williams in the garden, by Mrs. Savage, who then resided there.

KIRBY HOUSE. 36

In that mansion lived an aged couple at the time, named Kirby, whose treatment by the pursuing British soldiers who entered the house was the cause of the invoking of many an imprecation throughout the land upon the head of the enemy. 37 Near it stood the mansion of the Bethel estate, the dwelling of another aged man, named Hope, under whose roof great atrocities were committed. 38 From these we returned to Hampton by the Yorktown Road, still following the line of the invader’s march, and visited Mrs. Jane A. Hope, daughter of Commodore James Barron, who kindly furnished me with the portrait and autograph of her father, copies of which are printed on page 159. She spoke feelingly of the treatment her father received at the hands of the government, and expressed a hope that History might yet be just to his memory. She was a somewhat aged lady, delicate in form and feature, and exceedingly pleasing in conversation. When the blight of the Rebellion fell upon Hampton, Mrs. Hope went to Warrenton, in North Carolina, where she died in January, 1862.

I spent the evening with Colonel Jones and his excellent wife, and saw in their little parlor two original crayon drawings by the eminent Sharpless, the faithful delineator from life of the profiles of Washington and his wife. These were profiles of Jefferson and Monroe. I made a careful copy of the former. Early the next morning I drew the sketch from my window at the hotel presented on page 681, and at the appointed hour left Hampton for Richmond in the James River steamer.

This was my second visit to Hampton, with an interval of five years, and both times I carried away with me pleasant remembrances of courteous inhabitants and a charming village. All is now changed. Hampton has been made a desolation by the smitings of civil war. Very few of its inhabitants were faithful to the old flag, and that county of which Hampton was the capital furnished no less than six companies to the rebel army. Colonel Jones remained a stanch Union man – faithful among the faithless – and was the last man to leave the doomed village when, at a few minutes past midnight on the 7th of August, 1861, the torch was applied by order of the rebel General Magruder during the maudlin delirium of intoxication. He (the aged veteran of 1812) was not allowed to take any thing from his house – the house in which the family of Commodore Barron long resided – and he and his equally aged companion had scarcely left it when they saw it in flames. Within twelve hours, four churches and four hundred and seventy dwellings were laid in ashes. Among the churches was one of the most ancient in Virginia, 39 which stood apart from the town. Its destruction was an act of purest barbarism.

The British remained in Hampton until the 27th [June, 1813.], when they re-embarked, and on the morning of the 29th Major Crutchfield entered the plundered village and took possession. On the 1st of July the blockading squadron, consisting at that time of seven ships of the line, seven frigates, and eleven smaller vessels, left Hampton Roads and entered the mouth of the Potomac River. A portion of the fleet went up that stream, exciting the most intense alarm at Alexandria, Georgetown, and the national capital. The only fortification on which those cities could rely at that time for the arrest of the invading squadron was old Fort Warburton, then called Fort Washington, 40 situated on the Maryland side of the Potomac, a few miles below Alexandria. This was strengthened and its garrison increased by calling in the militia from the surrounding country. Breastworks were thrown up at Alexandria, Georgetown, and Washington, and vigorous measures were taken to meet the foe. The alarm soon subsided. The British did not approach nearer to Washington than seventy miles, and then withdrew, went around to the Chesapeake, and created equal alarm at Annapolis and Baltimore. Assured that those cities were amply defended, they withdrew, and a portion of the fleet, under Admiral Cockburn, went southward to plunder, destroy, and spread alarm along the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia. His vessels were the Sceptre, 74 (flag-ship); Romulus, Fox, and Nemesis.

Leaving Pamlico Sound, the arch-marauder went down the coast, stopping at and plundering Dewees’s and Capers’s Islands, and filling the whole region of the Lower Santee with terror. Several plantations on Dewees’s were desolated, and from Capers’s a large quantity of live-stock was taken away, with a few slaves. Other exposed places along the coast expected a similar visitation. Breastworks were thrown up around Charleston; Fort Moultrie and other fortifications were strengthened, and a considerable body of militia were assembled on Haddrell’s Point, or Point Pleasant, where might have been seen, before the late Civil War, a monument erected to the memory of some soldiers who perished there by disease. 41

No battle was fought on South Carolina soil during the war. Her politicians were among the most clamorous for hostilities, and some of her citizens made fortunes by privateering; but few of her sons were found in the ranks of their country’s defenders. She suffered most from the fear of losing property, especially slaves, which her state law declared to be property; and during the time when Cockburn was hovering along the coast the large slaveholders were agitated by the deepest anxiety lest a force of the British should land and declare freedom to all serfs who should join their standard. Had they done so, no doubt an army of many thousand colored people would have flocked to that standard, for the negroes had heard of the liberation of their brethren in Virginia by the British, but not of the infamous treachery of their seducer, who sold them into worse servitude in the West Indies. All along the coast, and far into the interior, secret organizations existed among the negroes for united efforts to obtain their freedom; and, in anticipation of the coming of a British army of liberation, they were prepared to rise in large numbers, at a given signal, and strike for freedom. 42 But Cockburn was content to fill his pockets by plundering, and a petty slave-trade on his own account; so, after keeping the Carolinas in a state like fever and ague for many weeks, 43 he went down to the Georgia coast, and at "Dungenness House," the seat of the fine estate of General Nathaniel Greene, of the Revolution, on Cumberland Island, he made his head-quarters for the winter. His marauders went out in all directions upon the neighboring coast, spreading desolation and alarm.

Among the estates visited was that of Bonaventure, a few miles from Savannah, the property of the Tattnall family, on which, in a grove of live-oak draped with the Spanish moss, is one of the most picturesque cemeteries in the world, the entrance to which is seen in the picture, made from a sketch by the artist T. Addison Richards.

We have given an account of the arrival at New York of the frigates United States and Macedonian, 44 the former in the American service, under Decatur, and the latter a prize captured by him from the British in the previous autumn. These had been repaired and fitted for sea, and the gallant Captain Jones had been placed in command of the Macedonian. At this time the Poictiers, Captain Beresford, and a number of other vessels, were carefully guarding the entrance to New York harbor through the Narrows, but Decatur, anxious to get out upon the ocean, resolved to run the blockade. He found it unsafe to attempt it at the Narrows; so, with his two frigates, accompanied by the sloop of war Hornet, Captain Biddle, which was anxious to join the Chesapeake at Boston, he passed up the East River and Long Island Sound for the purpose of escaping between Montauk Point and Block Island. 45

NEW LONDON IN 1813. 46

The presence of this fleet created much anxiety. The more aged inhabitants, who remembered Arnold’s incursion in 1781, were filled with apprehensions of a repetition of the tragedies of that terrible day. It was generally expected that the enemy would enter the river and attack Decatur’s squadron, and the neighboring militia were summoned to the town; the specie of the banks was conveyed to Norwich, at the head of tide-water; and women, and children, and portable property were sent into the interior. The character of Sir Thomas was a sufficient guaranty that neither life nor private property would be wantonly destroyed; but, in the event of the bombardment of the ships, the town could not well escape destruction by fire. Decatur, in anticipation of such bombardment of his vessels, after lightening them, took them five or six miles up the river, beyond the reach of the enemy, and upon an eminence near Allyn’s Point, from which he had a fine view of the Sound and New London Harbor, he cast up some intrenchments, and placed his cannon upon them. The spot was named Dragon Hill. 47

At about this time an event occurred off New London which caused great exasperation in the blockading squadron, and came near bringing most disastrous effects upon the New England coast. It was the use of a torpedo, or submarine mine, whose invention, construction, and character have already been given in these pages. 48 The government of the United States, it will be remembered, refused to employ them. It was left for private enterprise to attempt the promotion of the public good by their use in weakening the power of the enemy. One of these enterprises was undertaken in New York city. In the hold of the schooner Eagle, John Scudder, junior, the originator of the plot, placed ten kegs of gunpowder, with a quantity of sulphur mixed with it, in a strong cask, and surrounded it with huge stones and other missiles, which, in the event of explosion, might inflict great injury. At the head of the cask, on the inside, were fixed two gun-locks, with cords fastened to their triggers at one end, and two barrels of flour at the other end, so that when the flour should be removed the locks would be sprung, the powder ignited, and the terrible mine exploded. Thus prepared, with a cargo of flour and naval stores over the concealed mine, the Eagle, Captain Riker, late in June, sailed for New London, where, as was expected and desired, she was captured by armed men sent out in boats from the Ramillies. The crew of the Eagle escaped to the shore at Millstone Point, and anxiously awaited the result. The wind had fallen, and for two hours unavailing efforts were made to get the Eagle alongside the Ramillies for the purpose of transferring her cargo to that vessel. Finally boats were sent out as lighters, the hatches of the Eagle were opened, and when the first barrel of flour was removed the explosion took place. A column of fire shot up into the air full nine hundred feet, and a shower of pitch and tar fell upon the deck of the Ramillies. The schooner, and the first lieutenant and ten men from the flag-ship on board of her, were blown into atoms, and most of those in the boats outside were seriously, and some fatally injured.

The success which this experiment promised caused others to be tried. A citizen of Norwich, familiar with the machine used by Bushnell in attempts to blow up the Eagle, British ship-of-war, in the harbor of New York during the Revolution, invented a submarine boat in which he voyaged at the rate of three miles an hour. In this he went under the Ramillies three times, and on the third occasion had nearly completed the task of fixing a torpedo to her bottom, when a screw broke, and his effort was foiled. He was discovered, but escaped. A daring fisherman of Long Island, named Penny, made attempts on the Ramillies with a torpedo in a whale-boat, and Hardy was kept continually on the alert. So justly fearful was he of these mines, that he not only kept his ship in motion, but, according to Penny, who was a prisoner on the Ramillies for a while, he caused her bottom to be swept with a cable every two hours night and day. He finally issued a warning to the inhabitants of the coasts that if they did not cease that cruel and unheard-of warfare, he should proceed to destroy their towns and desolate their country. 49

An attempt of Mr. Mix, of the navy, in July, to blow up the Plantagenet, 74, lying off Cape Henry, Virginia, was almost successful. The torpedo was carried out, under cover of intense darkness, in a heavy open boat called The Chesapeake Avenger, and dropped so as to float down under the ship’s bow. It exploded a few seconds too soon. The scene was awful. A column of water, twenty-five feet in diameter, and half luminous with lurid light, was thrown up at least forty feet, with an explosion as terrific as thunder, and producing a concussion like the shock of an earthquake. It burst at the crown. The water fell in profusion on the deck of the Plantagenet, and at the same moment she rolled into the chasm made by this sudden expulsion of water, and nearly upset. Torpedoes were also placed across the Narrows, below New York, and at the entrance to the harbor of Portland. This fact made the British commanders exceedingly cautious in approaching our harbors, and they and their American sympathizers expressed great horror at this mode of warfare. It was replied that the wanton outrages committed on the defenseless inhabitants of the coast, from Havre de Grace to Charleston, fully justified any mode of warfare against such marauders, and that stratagem in the horrid business of war was always justifiable. 50

Although Hardy did not execute his threats, he made the blockade more rigorous than ever, and many trading vessels became prizes to the British cruisers. A tiny warfare was kept up along the Connecticut coast, for, whenever a chased vessel was driven ashore, the inhabitants would turn out to defend it. One of these encounters occurred a little west of the light-house late in the autumn [November 28, 1813.]. The sloop Roxana was chased ashore by three British barges, and grounded. Within half an hour a throng of people had assembled to rescue her, when the enemy set her on fire and retreated. The Americans attempted to extinguish the flames, but a heavy cannonade from the ships drove them off. Although many were exposed to the cannon-halls on that occasion, not one was hurt. "During the whole war," says Miss Caulkins, "not a man was killed by the enemy in Connecticut, and only one in its waters on the coast." 51

At near the close of June, the veteran colonel of artillery in the regular service, Henry Burbeck, who had been stationed at Newport, arrived at New London to take charge of that military department. 52 He found the militia, who were strongly imbued with the mischievous doctrine of state supremacy, unwilling to be transferred, according to late orders from the Secretary of War, from the service of the state to the service of the United States. He accordingly, under instructions from Washington, dismissed them all. The people, misconstruing the movement, were alarmed and exasperated. They regarded themselves as unwarrantably deprived of their defenders, and betrayed to the enemy, who might come and plunder and destroy to his heart’s content. At the same time, it was known that Hardy’s fleet had been re-enforced by the arrival of the Endymion and Statira, vessels equal in strength to the United States and Macedonian. A panic of mingled fear and indignation prevailed, and it was only allayed by the quick response of the Governor of Connecticut to the invitation of Colonel Burbeck to call out the militia for the temporary defense of the menaced town. Brigadier General Williams was appointed to the command of the militia, and the alarm subsided.

The United States and Macedonian were imprisoned in the Thames during the remainder of the war. 53 In the spring of 1814 they were dismantled, and laid up about three and a half miles below Norwich, and their officers and men made their way by land to other ports and engaged actively in the service. The Hornet lay at New London almost a year longer, when she slipped out of the harbor and escaped to New York.

Of the more stirring operations of the blockading fleet in this vicinity the following year I shall hereafter write, and it remains for me now only to make brief mention of the circumstances of my visit at New London and its vicinity late in the autumn of 1860. I had been on a tour East as far as Castine, at the mouth of the Penobscot, and up that river to Bangor, and was thus far on my way homeward, after spending Thanksgiving-day with the acting surgeon of Perry’s fleet, Dr. Usher Parsons, at his house in Providence, Rhode Island. I had reached New London at an early hour, and, with a pleasant day before me, went out to visit places of historic interest in the town and its neighborhood. Before doing so, I called on the accomplished author of the History of New London (Miss Caulkins), 54 and, after the brief interview which limited time allowed, I was well prepared to find the places (and appreciate the interest attached to them) in and around that pleasant little city of ten thousand inhabitants. I shall ever remember that interview with pleasure.

Near New London is the "Cedar Grove Cemetery," in which are the graves of many of the honored dead. Among these, over which affection has reared monuments, may be found those of General Burbeck and Commodore George W. Rodgers. I made sketches of the monuments erected to the memory of each [Burbeck – Rodgers], and present them to the readers of these pages. Commodore Rodgers was a gallant officer of the navy, and died in the service of his country at Buenos Ayres, in South America, on the 21st of May, 1832, at the age of forty-six years. He was then in command of an American squadron on the coast of Brazil. He was a veteran officer, having been a midshipman in 1804, and a lieutenant in active service during the War of 1812. 55 By order of the Navy Department, his remains were brought home in the ship Lexington in 1850, and conveyed to New London in charge of Commodore Kearney. Their re-interment in "Cedar Grove Cemetery" 56 was the occasion of a great civic and military display, in which the Governor of Connecticut and his suite joined. 57 His monument is a plain obelisk of freestone, on which is a simple inscription.

From the "Hempstead House" I rode down to the light-house at the mouth of the Thames, sketched the view of it on page 694, and, returning, visited Fort Trumbull, so called in honor of the first Governor of Connecticut of that name. It is a most delightful drive along the river from the light-house and Pequot House to the city, and it is much traveled for pleasure during the summer season. Outward is seen the broad expanse of the Sound, with Fisher’s and Gull Islands in the distance; while up the river is seen the fort and city on one side, and Fort Griswold, the Groton Monument and village, and the green hills stretching away toward Norwich on the other.

The last object of interest visited in New London was the old court-house built in 1784, three years after its predecessor was burnt at the time of Arnold’s invasion. 58 It stands at the head of broad State Street, upon a rocky foundation. It had an external gallery around it at the second story, but this was removed at the beginning of the present century, and it now bears the appearance that it did at the close of the Second War for Independence, when it was the scene of joyous festivities immediately after the President’s proclamation of peace reached the town in February, 1815. 59 Friendly greetings between the British blockading squadron and the citizens then took place. The latter soon went to sea, and the United States and Macedonian departed for New York after an imprisonment of about twenty months. Then "the last shadow of war departed from the town."

3 See page 451.

8 See page 156.

William Branford Shubrick was born near Charleston, South Carolina, on the 31st of October, 1790. He was at school in New England about three years, from his twelfth to his fifteenth year, the latter part of the time in Harvard University, from which he was called home, and in Charleston was instructed in the science of navigation. In June, 1806, he entered the navy as midshipman, but continued his studies until 1807, when he joined the sloop of war Wasp at Norfolk. She left that port about three days before the attack of the Leopard on the Chesapeake. He was actively engaged in service until the war broke out, when he made a cruise in the Hornet with Commander Lawrence, when he was transferred to the Constellation, then under the command of the now venerable Admiral Stewart. He then bore the commission of a lieutenant. He behaved gallantly in the attack on the Junon and in the defense of Craney Island. After that he followed Stewart to the Constitution, and in that vessel he served until the close of the war, always taking an active part in her brilliant conduct. Pursuant to a resolution of Congress (February 22, 1816), he received a silver medal as one of Stewart’s officers. In 1834 the Legislature of South Carolina presented him with an elegant sword in testimony of their appreciation of his gallant services in the Constitution when she captured the Cyane and Levant. He was acting first lieutenant during her remarkable escape from the British squadron, hereafter to be recorded in these pages. At the close of the war he was commissioned first lieutenant, and in the Washington, 74, under Chauncey’s flag, he cruised in the Mediterranean. He was promoted to master commandant in 1820. Eleven years later, after several well-conducted cruises, he was promoted to captain, and until 1838 was engaged in service on shore. He was afloat again in 1838 as commander of a squadron in the West Indies. In 1846, on the breaking out of the war with Mexico, he was assigned to the command of a squadron in the Pacific, and actively participated in events there. In 1853 he was in command of a squadron on our Eastern coast for the protection of the fisheries, an important and delicate duty. In 1858 he commanded a powerful squadron sent to demand satisfaction for injuries from the government of Paraguay, and having discretionary power to commence hostilities should that satisfaction not be made to the United States Commissioners. President Lopez complied with the demand, and he returned in 1859. Before leaving he visited General Urquiza, President of the Argentine Republic, who presented him with a splendid sword. The United States Congress by joint resolution authorized him to accept it. This closed his sea service, in which he has held every rank and exercised every command, from midshipman to rear admiral. He has also performed faithful shore service of every kind pertaining to his rank. He has commanded three different navy yards, and held two bureaus in the Navy Department. He has been chairman of the Light-house Board since its establishment in 1853, and in a service of over sixty-one years has been only six years and eight months unemployed. His father was an officer of the Revolution.

18 Robert Barnard Taylor was an eminent man. He was born on the 20th of March, 1774, and was educated at William and Mary College, Williamsburg. He studied law with Judge Marshall, and was associated at the bar with William Wirt, L. W. Tazewell, and other eminent lawyers. In 1798-’99 he was a member of the Virginia Assembly, of the Federal school. He was one of the grand jurors (John Randolph, foreman) in 1807 who found a bill of indictment against Aaron Burr, charged with treason. During the same year he was counsel for Commodore Barron, after the affair of the Chesapeake and Leopard. He took pride in military affairs, and at the breaking out of the War of 1812 he was appointed to the command at Norfolk as brigadier general of the Virginia forces. He was very efficient in defense of that city in the summer of 1813. He retired from the command in February, 1814, when General Parker succeeded to his place. On that occasion the citizens of Norfolk gave him a public dinner, and from the military he received the most flattering testimonies of their esteem and affection. When, as the national guest, General Lafayette visited the United States in 1824, and a grand reception was given him at Yorktown, in Virginia, the scene of his warfare and triumph in youth, General Taylor was the chosen orator for the assembled multitude. "In all my time I never heard such eloquence," said a veteran to me in the spring of 1853. "In all my time I never saw so many men In tears."

19 This sentinel was William Shutte. He was stationed upon a small island that once lay near the month of Wise’s Creek. See map on page 679. Shutte made the usual challenge, and, receiving no answer, fired, and continued to fire until the camp was fully aroused.

20 James Faulkner was born in Ireland in 1776, and came to America when a boy under the charge of a distant relative. He established himself in mercantile business in Martinsburg, Berkeley County, Virginia, at the age of twenty-one years, and that was the place of his residence until his death. He long tried in vain to obtain a commission in the regular army of the United States. When war broke out he hastened to Norfolk with the volunteer troops of his adopted state, and was there commissioned a major of artillery. In that capacity he served gallantly on Craney Island, and was the chief actor in the repulse of the British. Major Faulkner married the only daughter of Captain William Mackey, of the Revolutionary Army. He died in 1817 from the effects of exposure and fatigue in camp. His wife was then dead. They left but one child, who thus became an orphan in tender years. This was Charles J. Faulkner, who was an active public man in Virginia, and who was sent to the French court as minister plenipotentiary by President Buchanan. To him I am indebted for the likeness of his father on the opposite page. When the Great Rebellion broke out he took sides with the insurgents, and dishonored the memory of his gallant and patriotic father by abandoning the flag which his ancestor had so nobly defended.

21 See page 615.

Our little picture of the Centipede is from an exact model of it, on a small scale, which was made by order of Commodore Warrington. The black spot near the stern shows the place where the cannon-ball entered it.

25 This picture, sketched in the spring of 1853 from a window of Burcher’s Hotel, near the steam-boat wharf in Hampton, is a view of the portion of the "Little England" estate, lying on Hampton Creek, mentioned in the text. A line drawn perpendicularly beneath each numeral on the clouds would touch the locality intended to be indicated by such numeral. Figure 4 shows the place of Crutchfield’s encampment, and 1 the place where the four-gun battery was planted. Figure 2, the place of a smaller battery; 3, Blackbeard’s Point, at the mouth of Hampton Creek, from behind which the British flotilla came; 5, the forest behind which Beckwith’s troops landed; 6, Hampton Roads; 7, a portion of the old mansion of the Little England estate; 8, the mouth of the west branch of Hampton Creek; and, 9, Bully’s house, that stood there in 1813. The "Little England" estate was the ancestral possession of the family of Commodore Barron. In the foreground of the picture is seen the steam-boat wharf at Hampton, with the creek on the right.

Sir Charles Napier (see note 2, page 681), in his diary of these events, in which he bore a part, says, "Every horror was perpetrated with impunity – rape, murder, pillage – and not a man was punished." Again: "Strong is my dislike to what is, perhaps, a necessary part of our job, viz., plundering and ruining the peasantry. We drive all their cattle, and of course ruin them. My hands are clean; but it is hateful to see the poor Yankees robbed, and to be the robber."

31 This is from a sketch made by the author on New Year’s Day, 1865.

32 See page 158.

34 This tree is seen in the sketch on page 675.

35 See page 682.

39 For a drawing and full historical description of this ancient church, see Lossing’s Pictorial Field-look of the Revolution, ii., 326.