This is the third of a series of articles telling how Alexandrians were affected 200 years ago by the War of 1812.
During the eight months following the United States’ declaration of war on Great Britain, the war had little effect on Alexandria.
Then on Feb. 12, 1813, the Alexandria Gazette reported from Norfolk that a heavily armed British navy squadron had just entered the Chesapeake Bay, and that its commander had proclaimed “the Chesapeake and all its ports, harbors and waters [are] in a state of strict and rigorous blockade.” This was not an idle threat, and for the first time, war would be felt in Alexandria. Moreover, a blockade of shipping would be only part of the mission of the British navy. The blockading squadron contained at least eight ships: two 74-gun ships of the line, three frigates, a sloop of war, a brig of war, and a small schooner. It was clear to Alexandrians, particularly Alexandrian shippers and merchants, that its strength was more than adequate to enforce the blockade. The British navy easily outnumbered and outgunned the warships available to the Americans to keep the channel to the sea open. In fact, the only reasonably large ship available to the Americans was the frigate Constellation, which carried only about half the guns of one of the 74s alone. The blockaders quickly rendered her useless by chasing her into Norfolk harbor.
A reader predicted in the Gazette of Feb. 13 that the blockade would result in a “fall of the price of our flour and grain,” key elements of Alexandria’s trade. The reader continued: “At length the war is brought home to us. Yeah it is brought home to us!”
In April, Alexandria gentlemen in top hats, tail coats, and boots eagerly gathered around the Gazette office on the west side of the 100 block of South Royal Street to pick up the latest edition of the paper. Possibly some gentlemen or their wives instead sent servants to the office. Regardless of how they got their papers, they read the upsetting news that British warships actually were now at the mouth of the Potomac River and had turned back a schooner from Alexandria bound for the West Indies. The schooner’s captain related that the British told him they had captured several privateers from Baltimore and “taken about 3,000 barrels of flour out of small vessels, and burnt the vessels” in their recent voyage in the Chesapeake Bay.
All this information dampened the mood of Alexandrians. The Gazette reported observing about town “silent streets, deserted warehouses, dismantled ships, long faces, and various other symptoms of public calamity and private grief.”
Then on May 6, the Gazette contained an ominous report headed “Havre-de-Grace Destroyed.” According to the report, the British had bombarded the small Maryland port, located where the Susquehanna River enters the Bay, “with shot, shells and rockets,” and “the destruction was general.” Washington’s Daily National Intelligencer, probably brought to Alexandria on the ferry from Washington, contained a more complete, eyewitness description of Havre de Grace’s destruction: “The force of the enemy consisted of 600 men, 400 of whom were landed in the town . . . . They burnt 24 of the best houses in the town, and plundered all the rest.”
The Intelligencer also reported that the soldiers were led by Rear Admiral George Cockburn (pronounced “Coe-burn”). Later the Gazette reported that a British navy deserter who had been at Havre de Grace related that Cockburn “not only led on the forces in person, but took the most active and conspicuous part in the disgraceful scenes which were acted on that occasion.”
This attack deeply impressed Alexandrians, and it and similar later raids would affect profoundly their behavior in the future. The immediate effect, however, was that the Alexandria militia (then part of the District of Columbia militia) was quickly activated.
Earlier, the U.S. War Department had reorganized the District militia into two brigades.
The Second Brigade consisted of an infantry regiment of Alexandria companies, including the privately outfitted Alexandria Blues, and a cavalry regiment composed of units from three jurisdictions: Alexandria (the Alexandria Dragoons), Washington, and Georgetown. President Madison had appointed Alexandria merchant, ship owner, and former council member Robert Young to lead this Second Brigade as a brigadier general.
In addition, Alexandrians over the age of 45, some of whom were veterans of the Revolutionary War, were moved by the “wanton destruction of Havre de Grace” to form the Company of Silver Grays to help defend the town.
In the days following the Havre-de-Grace incident, the militia units began to train seriously. Two months later, their training was put to some use when on July 15, General Young learned that the British navy had entered the Potomac and was proceeding upriver. He immediately ordered his brigade under arms and into camp just south of town. The Gazette defiantly proclaimed: “Let them [the British navy] come here when they may, they will meet with a reception not very courteous.”
However, after raiding farms and settlements in the lower part of the Potomac, the British ships were stopped from proceeding farther by the Kettle Bottoms, numerous shifting shoals of mud, sand, and oyster shells roughly 90 miles downriver from Alexandria. By July 29, they were reported leaving the Potomac, and by the beginning of September 1813, most of the British ships had left the Chesapeake Bay.
Alexandrians could breathe easier. The British blockade had been relaxed, and the threat of attack on Alexandria had receded. The Alexandria militia, however, had not been tested. That soon would change.