Nifty article in today’s WaPo about the Chesapeake Flotilla, built to try and stop the Royal Navy from ascending the bay in 1814 and burning various places, including the capital:
In the summer of 1813, Barney, a Revolutionary War naval hero, proposed building a flotilla of shallow-draft gunboats and barges that could harass the British, whose far-larger warships controlled the Chesapeake Bay and who were raiding plantations and small towns at will. After being assembled in Baltimore, the flotilla set sail in the spring of 1814, clashing with the British at St. Leonard’s Creek in June and escaping up the Patuxent.
The British advanced up the Patuxent in August 1814 and landed an invasion force, trapping Barney’s flotilla in the river’s upper reaches. Under orders from the Secretary of the Navy, Barney scuttled the fleet with rigged explosives just ahead of the British. He escaped with most of his men and cannons to defend Washington, and they played a heroic but ultimately futile role in trying to stop the British, who captured the city and burned the Capitol, the White House and almost all other government buildings.
“Not only did an army of invasion lay their boots on American soil, they burned our capital, and this fleet was trying to stop it,” said Marine archaeologist Donald G. Shomette, author of “Flotilla,” a history of the Patuxent naval campaign. Shomette also helped lead the flotilla search three decades ago. “Here we have the presumed flagship 16 miles from the White House, in shallow water. In terms of historical value, this is extremely significant.”
I wish them good luck, and I hope they succeed in this very important venture.
