General Rowland Hill
By August of 1814 there were numerous reports of additional 8-15,000 fresh regiments on their way to America, destined as rumors spread, for the Chesapeake to join Major General Robert Ross. To command was to be Lieutenant-General Rowland Hill, the Duke of Wellington’s most trusted officer and like General Ross veteran of the Peninsula campaigns. Hill was held in high esteem by his officer corps as well as the soldiers.
At a London dinner General Hill suggested such a command would be “sufficient to chastise the Yankees, and bring the war to a speedy termination.” Hill though had not desired the appointment “though it will be politic to keep up the idea of a large force going to America.” On 10 August Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State in London informed Hill that it was not to be. However before news would arrive in America the Battle of Bladensburg would have been fought and an attack on Baltimore eminent. The Niles Weekly Register informed its readers on 24 August that Lord Hill was to have “more fresh regiments on the way.”
Baltimore, fearful for a second assault, despite the repulse of the British on 14 September made preparations for a British military reinforcement expedition that never came to be. By 17 September Admiral Cochrane was still expecting reinforcements. Writing to Lord Melville “…the ball is at our feet, – and give me but Six thousand Men – Including a Rifle and Cavalry Regt., and I will engage to master every Town South of Philadelphia and keep the Whole Coast in such a State of Alarm, as soon to bring the Most Obstinate upon their Marrow bones.” Such were the rumors of the day. Smith kept the militia at Baltimore until 15 November just in case.
Sources: The Life of Lord Hill, G.C.B. Late Commander of the Forces by Edwin Sidney (London: John Murray, 1845); Baltimore Patriot, October 15, 26, 1814.
August-September 1814: Lieutenant-General Rowland Hill (1772-1842)
August 1814: In Want of: Muskets vs. Rifles
On August 15, 1814 in a letter to Lt. Colonel Edward Lloyd, 9th Cavalry District of “Wye House” Maryland Eastern Shore, Brigadier General William Henry Winder newly appointed commander of the 10th Military District (Maryland. District of Columbia to the Rappannock River (Va.,) on the subject of the want of rifles for the various companies in his district gave the following:
“There are several rifle companies of this district without arms at all fit for service & since I have received the command of the 10th Military District I have made application to procure them rifles but the number of that arms on hand in the public stores is not sufficient for the supply of the recruits for the regular rifle regiments and the Secretary of War is therefore unable to draw from the stock given his opinion “that muskets would be much better and more effective for your purpose than rifles,” assigning the accuracy of aim which renders them servicable; the greater range of the musket; the more rapid fire of the latter; it is lighter; requires cleaning less frequently and is adapted to different classes of movements. The advantage of the bayonet is also refered to. Supposses Maryland can supply muskets; if she cannot he will endeavor to supply them from the stores of the United States.”
The want of rifles prompted the two companies of the 1st Battalion of Maryland Riflemen under Major William Pickney, Sr. to enter the Bladensburg battle with only muskets and not the popular arms their battalion name emplies. Given the excited state of military affairs with the expected arrival of a large British invasion fleet and the mobilization of the militia and distribution of arms and supplies many militia were withoutout arms and in the end a want of disciplined resistance to the British on the field of battle.
Source: William H. Winder Papers, Maryland Historical Society
Bladensburg Memorial, 1819
In the summer of 1819 a traveller on the road to Bladensburg near the spot where Commodore Joshua Barney’s flotillamen made their stand he came across a 4-mile stone marker, whom he supposed was ”to be a monument of that event.” To his surprize upon the flat stone he saw written with charcoal the following lines. Fearing they would be erased by the weather he wrote the stone’s following inscription:
HERE – fought Commodore Barney,
so nobly and so gallantly,
Against Britain’s sons and slavery,
For a fighting man was he!
THERE – did General Winder flee,
His infantry and cavalry,
(Disgracing the cause of liberty),
For a writing man was he!
July 20th 1819
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Source: City of Washington Gazette, July 23, 1819
