1812-The Rivers of War Read online

  Colonel Minor's face grew stiff. "Yes, sir. Of course he's coming. Be here in less than an hour, I should think."

  Armstrong silently cursed his own abrasive manner. Now he'd offended the commander of the Sixtieth Virginia militia regiment, too.

  But he couldn't bring himself to offer an apology. Minor's men hadn't made it to the battle of Bladensburg at all—because Minor had allowed an officious junior clerk at the armory to delay him endlessly with pettifogging accounting procedures before he'd release the arms and munitions the regiment needed. Armstrong's career was sinking fast, in part because of men like this.

  So the secretary swiveled his head and brought the figure of General William Winder into his view. Much the same way a ship of the line brings its guns to bear for a broadside.

  Winder had finally tired of planning Houston's execution, so he'd spent the rest of the night issuing plans and directives that contradicted themselves from one moment to the next. Just as well, though, because the confusion he'd created had kept most of the military units from leaving the area. It was utterly laughable. Armstrong thought Winder might be the first commander in the history of the world who had to keep his army from a headlong rout—even though all of his directives had had precipitous retreat as their sole unvarying element—by confusing them into sheer paralysis.

  However that might be, the forces were still at hand. And Armstrong had had enough of Winder. Respect for protocol be damned. Once the president arrived, Armstrong could leave all other matters in his hands and take direct and personal control of the army as the secretary of war.

  It was now—Armstrong checked his watch—almost daybreak. If the Capitol was still standing...

  No way to know that for sure. So rumor had it, but rumor was rumor. Armstrong needed direct and certain confirmation before he could finalize his plans. Unfortunately, on top of everything else, Winder had created such hurly-burly on the part of his subordinates that Armstrong had been forced to enlist a civilian to scout the matter for him.

  At that, Armstrong had more confidence in the civilian he'd sent than he did in most of the officers who hovered around Winder. Francis Scott Key, a Georgetown lawyer to whom Armstrong had been introduced by Congressman John Randolph. A solid and reliable man, Key, even if he did fancy himself something of a poet. In the time since the British landing, most of Washington's population—military and civilian alike—had fluttered about in panic like leaves in the wind. Key, however, had efficiently organized the evacuation of his family and personal possessions, taking them to a place of safety, and then had come back into the city to see what use he might be to the republic. He'd wound up guiding General Smith and his First Columbian Brigade to the battle of Bladensburg, even helped him map deployments.

  If the Capitol was still standing . . . .

  * * *

  Francis Scott Key hadn't arrived at his post of observation in sufficient time to witness the British assault on the Capitol, nor its repulsion. But the excited inhabitants of the town house from whose roof he'd been able to watch everything since had described it to him well enough. They'd even possessed a telescope with which he'd been able to examine details of the dramatic aftermath.

  So, although he hadn't been an actual eyewitness, Key was able to write a good report. It helped, of course, that he was a poet, and thus fluent with a pen.

  . . . can observe many bodies of British soldiers still strewn about the ground to the east of the Capitol. The attack which occur'd was most clearly injurious to the enemy, & they have now retired from the scene. The battle seems to have settled into an exchange of fire at a distance, which the sturdy walls of our Capitol should withstand readily enough. I think it unlikely the British will renew their efforts before tomorrow at the earliest, & they may have been repulsed entirely.

  I am, your obedient servant,

  F. Key

  The report done, Key handed it to the teenage son of the family who owned the town house. The lad had already agreed to take the message to the secretary of war, since Key didn't want to leave his post, lest something else occur.

  "He should still be at the tavern in Georgetown. It's located—"

  "I know where it is!" cried the boy, and he was already racing off. Whatever reluctance he had to miss any of the action, it was more than offset by the excitement of being directly involved in such momentous events.

  His duty done, Key could now indulge himself in his most heartfelt wish—to craft a patriotic poem that would suitably commemorate the dramatic occasion.

  Dramatic it was, too, all that a poet could ask for! Fortunately, the light cast by the burning Navy Yard would be enough that he'd be able to see the words he'd be scribbling in his notebook.

  Scratching more often than scribbling, he realized with dismay, some time later.

  Alas, "Marble Liberty" was a well-nigh impossible phrase to fit into proper verse. For perhaps the hundredth time that night he cursed the soldiery holding the Capitol—yes, yes, gallant fellows, but he had a poem to write—because they hadn't thought to raise a flag over it to replace the one which had been carried away by a Congreve rocket.

  Blast it! Something as simple as that. Key had long ago figured out how he could have fit "star-spangled banner" into the poem.

  True enough, the first two lines worked splendidly:

  Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,

  What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

  Excellent meter, which fit the well-known tune of "Anacreon in Heaven" to perfection.

  But then what?

  Whose broad wings and fierce eyes, through the perilous fight,

  In the doorways we watched, were so gallantly . . .

  Gallantly what?

  Yes, yes, "gleaming" would work—but he'd already used the word in the previous sentence, and he would not give up "twilight's last gleaming." No poet in his right mind would.

  The cretins! Were there a banner, he could have it streaming. But "streaming eyes" wouldn't do at all! And "streaming wings" was simply meaningless.

  An explosion from the Navy Yard distracted him for a moment. Key glanced back over his shoulder. Another store of munitions must have been set off, although the conflagration on the river to the south was finally starting to burn itself out.

  No business of a poet's, though.

  He turned back to the notebook, beginning to despair. From the look of the skies, the first light of dawn was beginning to appear, and a fierce storm was in the offing. Once that storm broke, poetry would have to seek prosaic shelter.

  Perhaps...

  He was gripped by sudden excitement, and began scribbling hastily again. If he went back and changed...

  Yes! Forget the eagle entirely. The bird was mostly a scavenger anyway. Concentrate on the statue.

  Whose bold gaze and sure brow, through the perilous fight,

  At the gates as we watched, were so gallantly standing?

  Yes, that'd work! From there...

  And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

  He hadn't seen that himself, but the inhabitants had described it. Now...abit of fudging...

  Gave proof through the night that our dame was still there.

  He could get away with that, surely. True, the British had stopped the bombardment of the Capitol hours earlier, but they'd fired off an occasional rocket now and then. More for show than anything else, obviously, but that was a pedestrian matter that a poet could safely ignore.

  Then...

  Oh, those mindless soldiers and their imbecile Captain Houston! Key had the perfect closing couplet for the first stanza.

  O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

  O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

  No banner, alas.

  Key sighed. Nothing for it—once a poet begins with an image, he has to remain true to the thing, bloody awkward though it be. So...a little scratching and scribbling here and there...

 
O say, does she stand still, our belov'd Liberty,

  In the doorway of the brave and the home of the free?

  Yes, that worked, although the meter was damnably awkward in the first line of the couplet. He'd have to work on that some more. But at least he'd kept the high Cs in the tune.

  * * *

  A gleam of light struck his eye.

  The first ray of the sun, just now peeking over the horizon. With a guilty start, Key realized he'd tarried a bit. His messenger would be back from Georgetown soon, and it was time he got started on a second report.

  Francis Scott Key stood up, tucking away his pen and notebook for the moment while he stretched his arms and legs. He gazed at the Capitol, its eastern walls now showing clearly—including the scars left on it by the British bombardment. The American battery was still there; so, in the doorways of the House, were the eagle and the statue.

  Key doffed his hat in salute. "You are a poet's despair, Captain Houston. But a patriot's delight."

  "Get the men ready to move out," Ross commanded. "I want us well out of the city before that storm breaks."

  "But we'd planned—"

  "I know what we'd planned, Admiral. But among those plans we did not include being bloodied and repulsed at the Capitol. Now did we?"

  Cockburn looked mulish, but said nothing.

  Ross was relentless. "Boldness is one thing, recklessness another. As soon as the news spreads, the Americans will rally quickly enough. Be sure of it. Our plans to spend a day here, wrecking every public building to demonstrate the U.S. government's fecklessness are now moot, Admiral. Moot, d'you hear?

  "For that matter, so are our plans to attack Baltimore. We can't afford any more such losses, if we're to take New Orleans later in the year—and New Orleans is the key to the war. So. It is now time to extricate ourselves from Washington before the Americans can bring enough might to bear to force our surrender. I have less than four thousand men left. Enough for a bold raid, if all had gone well. Not enough—not nearly enough—for anything further.

  "We shall retreat, then. Immediately. We're in a trap that's about to be closed. You and Colonel Brooke will lead the retreat, Admiral. I'll stay behind until the last moment, to keep the men steady."

  Headstrong as he was, Cockburn wasn't actually a fool. He took a breath, held it, then sighed. He even managed something of a rueful smile.

  "As you wish, General. I do regret not having the opportunity to wreck the National Intelligencer. The foul slanderers!"

  Ross nodded, graciously enough. He had no desire to get into any further disputes with the admiral. They had to get out of Washington, and quickly enough that they'd be too far out of the city for Cockburn to commit any further mischief, once Ross gave his final order.

  Thinking of that final order, he had to repress his own sigh.

  The commander of an army had many responsibilities, some of which were unpleasant in the extreme. But Robert Ross had never shirked his duty, since the day he'd enlisted in the Twenty-fifth Foot right after graduating from Trinity College in Dublin. Nineteen years old, he'd been then, and a professional soldier ever since. Wounded in battle three times—make that four, now—and the veteran of campaigns in Spain, Egypt, Italy, and the Netherlands before he came to North America. One of the very few men in the British army who had worked his way up the ranks to major general by sheer professional skill, without family influence.

  Ross reminded himself that honors enough had been showered upon him, in the course of it all. Three Gold Medals, the Peninsula Gold Medal, and a Sword of Honor. So he could hardly complain, now that duty was knocking on the door, bearing the bill.

  Cockburn left the surgeon's tent. As soon as he was gone, Colonel Brooke turned to the general.

  "Are you certain about this, sir?"

  Ross nodded toward the surgeon. "Ask him."

  The surgeon shook his head. "The only chance for the general's survival now lies with the Americans. Delaying the surgery as he did"—the surgeon still sounded aggrieved—"I can't possibly do the work well enough in the course of a retreat. I doubt the general would survive the rigors of the march, in any event."

  Brooke still looked dubious.

  "Just get the men out of here, Colonel," Ross said. "Once the march is well under way, you can inform the admiral—no, I'll send an aide myself, so you can pretend you didn't know—that I was forced to remain behind. By then, not even Cockburn will be rash enough to turn around.

  "Damnation, Arthur, I will get my men out of here, whatever else."

  That braced the colonel. "As you wish, sir. I'll see to it."

  Then he was gone, leaving only the surgeon and young Captain Smith still with Ross in the tent.

  "I'll let you choose the aide in question, Harry, if you'd do me the pleasure of remaining behind until the transfer is done."

  "Of course, sir." But the captain also looked dubious. "Are you so sure the Americans will behave properly, though?"

  Ross waved his hand. Very weakly, now. "They will or they won't, as it may be. I have no great fears on the matter. Cousin Jonathan's manners may be rough at times, but he's hardly a brute. Captain Houston has certainly conducted himself gallantly enough—and we'll surrender me into his hands when the time comes."

  As chance would have it, President Madison entered the tavern not two minutes after Armstrong finished reading Key's report. Finally, the secretary of war had all he needed to take action.

  General Winder came over to say something to Madison, but Armstrong's quick steps blocked his path.

  "Mr. President, I've just gotten the word," the secretary stated. "The Capitol is still in our hands. I propose to rally the men and begin a counterattack."

  Over his shoulder, Armstrong could hear Winder's gathering protest. He drove right over the first blustering sentences. "General Winder here, of course, is needed immediately in Baltimore. To prepare the city's defenses."

  Madison stared up at him. The diminutive president—he stood not much over five feet tall, and weighed perhaps one hundred pounds—had no expression whatsoever on his face. But he knew perfectly well that the commander of the troops in Baltimore was Samuel Smith, who was both a senator and a major general—which meant he outranked Winder, as well as despising him.

  "A splendid plan," the president stated. "General Winder, you must be off at once. Baltimore must be protected at all costs."

  Whatever protest Winder might have made died aborning.

  "At once," Madison repeated.

  As soon as Winder left, the president turned to Armstrong. "And do you have a plan, John?"

  The secretary of war shrugged. "That word would be too grandiose, perhaps. But I don't really think any complex schemes are needed here, Mr. President. We still hold the Capitol, and have since the British arrived in the city. Mr. Monroe is there himself, in fact."

  Madison's eyes widened at this unexpected news, but he simply inclined his head, inviting Armstrong to continue.

  "That gives us the rock we need around which to rally our men, Mr. President. No better rock possible. There are still enough soldiers in and around Washington to turn the day. More than enough—some of them still intact units and ready to fight." His eyes flicked across the room, looking for—

  There he was. Armstrong pointed to a young naval officer, seated in the corner.

  "That's Captain David Porter, Mr. President. He rushed down here from New York at the secretary of the navy's behest, as soon as word came of the British landing. Brought all his surviving crew with him, too. I spoke to him earlier this evening, and he volunteered to lead a relief column to the Capitol."

  Madison nodded respectfully at the captain. Porter was one of the young heroes whom the navy had produced in the war. The many heroes, where, alas, the army had produced precious few. Porter's frigate Essex had ravaged British shipping until the British had finally destroyed it with overwhelming force off the coast of Chile. He and the surviving crewmen had just returned in April, after a
prisoner exchange.

  If apologies were difficult for Armstrong, he was willing enough to make amends in other ways. "And I'm sure Colonel Minor and his Sixtieth Virginia will volunteer to join the sailors. Valiant men, those."

  In another corner, the colonel in question straightened his shoulders. "Most certainly, Mr. President! I've six hundred infantry and a hundred cavalrymen under my command, all present and accounted for."

  Even armed, now, Armstrong thought sarcastically. Let's hope they don't run afoul of another officious clerk who might disarm them.