History of the United States of America, Volume 8 (of 9)

by Henry Adams

CHAPTER VI.

While Ross and Cockburn were hastily burning the White House and the Department buildings, anxious only to escape, and never sending more than two hundred soldiers beyond Capitol Square, the President, his Cabinet, his generals, and his army were performing movements at which even the American people, though outraged and exasperated beyond endurance, could not but laugh.

The President, after riding over the battle-field until the action began, remarked to Monroe and Armstrong that “it would be now proper for us to retire in the rear, leaving the military movement to military men,” which they did.[246] A moment afterward the left of the line gave way, and the panic-stricken militia poured along the road leading westward toward the point which in later times became known as the Soldier’s Home. The President retired with them, “continuing to move slowly toward the city,” according to Monroe, in company with Attorney-General Rush. The slowness of movement, on which Monroe seemed to lay stress, was compensated by steadiness. The President left Bladensburg battle-field toward two o’clock. He had already ridden in the early morning from the White House to the navy-yard, and thence to Bladensburg,—a distance of eight miles at the least. He had six miles to ride, on a very hot August day, over a road encumbered by fugitives. He was sixty-three years old, and had that day already been in the saddle since eight o’clock in the morning, probably without food. Soon after three o’clock he reached the White House, where all was confusion and flight.[247] He had agreed with his Cabinet, in case of disaster, to meet them at Frederick in Maryland, fifty miles away, but he did not go toward Frederick. Before six o’clock he crossed the Potomac in a boat from the White House grounds, and started by carriage westward, apparently intending to join his wife and accompany her to his residence at Montpelier in Loudoun County, adjoining Frederick County, on the south side of the Potomac. Secretary Jones, Attorney-General Rush, and one or two other gentlemen accompanied him. In the midst of a troop of fugitives they travelled till dark, and went about ten miles, passing the night at a house “a few miles above the lower falls.”[248]

The next morning, August 25, the President travelled about six miles and joined his wife at an inn on the same road, where he remained during the tornado, subjected to no little discomfort and some insult from fugitives who thought themselves betrayed. Although far beyond reach of the British troops and some twenty miles from their camp, the panic was still so great as to cause an alarm on the following night, which drove Madison from his bed for refuge in the Virginia woods,[249] at the time when Ross’s army, more than twenty miles distant, was marching at the utmost speed in the opposite direction.

Of all the rulers, monarchical or republican, whose capitals were occupied by hostile armies in the Napoleonic wars, Madison was personally the most roughly treated. Monroe’s adventures were not less mortifying. As a scout the Secretary of State’s services were hardly so valuable as those of a common trooper, for he was obliged to be more cautious; as a general, his interference with the order of battle at Bladensburg led to sharp criticisms from General Stansbury, whose arrangements he altered,[250] and to the epithet of “busy and blundering tactician” from Armstrong.[251] After the battle he was not less busy, and opinions greatly differed whether he was less blundering. He did not return to the White House with Madison, but joined Winder and rode with him to the Capitol, where he assented to an evacuation, and retired after the flying troops through Georgetown, passing the night on the Maryland side of the Potomac. The next morning, August 25, he crossed the river and overtook the President. After an interview with him, Monroe recrossed the river to Winder’s headquarters at Montgomery Court House, where he resumed military functions.

The Secretary of the Treasury, G. W. Campbell, on the morning of the battle went to the Cabinet meeting at the navy-yard, but his health, which had become much affected, obliged him to return to his lodgings instead of riding to Bladensburg. In parting from Madison, Campbell lent him a pair of pistols, which the President put in his holsters. Federalists were curious to know whether the pistols were the same with which he shot Barent Gardenier, but learned only that they were fine duelling pistols, and that they were stolen from the President’s holsters during his short stay at the White House after the battle. The secretary’s duelling pistols became the best known of all the weapons unused that day; but the secretary himself made no further appearance on the scene. He went to Frederick. The Secretary of the Navy and the Attorney-General accompanied the President, and shared his fortunes.

Although ridicule without end was showered on the President and the other civilians, their conduct was on the whole creditable to their courage and character; but of the commanding general no kind word could be said. Neither William Hull, Alexander Smyth, Dearborn, Wilkinson, nor Winchester showed such incapacity as Winder either to organize, fortify, fight, or escape. When he might have prepared defences, he acted as scout; when he might have fought, he still scouted; when he retreated, he retreated in the wrong direction; when he fought, he thought only of retreat; and whether scouting, retreating, or fighting, he never betrayed an idea. In the brief moment of his preparations on the field at Bladensburg he found time to give the characteristic order to his artillery: “When you retreat, take notice that you must retreat by the Georgetown road.”[252] When he left the field of Bladensburg he rode past Barney’s sailors, at their guns, and sent his aid to Colonel Beall, on the hill covering Barney’s right, with an order to retreat.[253] “After accompanying the retreating army within two miles of the Capitol, I rode forward for the purpose of selecting a position.”[254] He reached the Capitol first, and was presently joined there by Monroe and Armstrong. Having decided not to fight at the Capitol, or at any point between the Capitol and Georgetown, he rode to Georgetown.[255] Behind Rock Creek his army would have been safe, and he could certainly have rallied more than a thousand men to stop the panic; but he thought a farther retreat necessary, and went on to the heights. On the heights nothing could reach him without hours of warning, but he rode three miles farther to Tenallytown. At Tenallytown his exhausted men stopped a moment from inability to run farther, yet he seemed angry at their fatigue. Struck by a fresh panic at the glare of the burning city, he pressed his men on at midnight. “After waiting in this position [Tenallytown] until I supposed I collected all the force that could be gathered, I proceeded about five miles farther on the river road, which leads a little wide to the left of Montgomery Court House, and in the morning gave orders for the whole to assemble at Montgomery Court House.” The river road was the road that led farthest from the enemy westward, when every motive required retreat toward Baltimore if anywhere. The next morning Winder returned to the Rockville road, till he reached Rockville, or Montgomery Court House, sixteen miles from Washington, where at last he paused.

From the beginning to the end of the campaign Winder showed no military quality. In other respects his conduct tallied with his behavior in the field. He lost no opportunity of throwing responsibility on the President and on his troops, and he so far succeeded as to save himself from public anger by encouraging the idea that the President and the Cabinet had directed the campaign. Universal as that belief was, and continued to be, it was without foundation. While Winder courted advice from every quarter, and threw on the President at every instant the responsibility for every movement, neither the President nor the Cabinet showed a disposition to interfere with his authority in any way except to give the support he asked. Under the strongest temptation they abstained even from criticism.

More than all the rest, Armstrong refrained from interference with the movements of Winder. Of all the unfortunate or incapable generals of the war, Winder was the one whom Armstrong treated with least bitterness,[256] although he was not Armstrong’s choice, and was the direct cause of the secretary’s ruin. So careful was Armstrong not to interfere, that his non-interference became the chief charge against him. At one moment the President told the secretary that he interfered too much, at another moment that he should interfere more; but in truth Armstrong was the only man connected with the defence of Washington whom no one charged with being ridiculous. After August 20 his conduct was not open to reproach. He was cool when others were excited; he tried to check the panic; his suggestions were sensible; he gave all possible aid both to Winder and to the citizens; he attended the President in his expeditions, used wisely such power as he had, and indulged in few words.[257] At the President’s request he went to Bladensburg to support and assist Winder; at the President’s order he retired after the battle began. He returned, after Winder, to the Capitol, hoping to convert that strong building into a fortress,—a measure not unreasonable, if the regulars and sailors were rallied to make a stand there. When Winder decided to retire to Georgetown, the secretary acquiesced without a word. Then, in pursuance of a Cabinet decision made a few hours before, he set out in company with Secretary Campbell for Frederick, and arrived there in the course of the next day.

Armstrong and Campbell were at Frederick when the British army began its retreat Thursday night; the President was in Virginia, sixteen miles up the river; Winder and Monroe, with the remaining troops, were at Montgomery Court House sixteen miles from Washington. There they learned, Friday morning, that the British had marched toward Bladensburg, probably going to Baltimore; and at about ten o’clock in the morning Winder marched from Montgomery Court House toward Brookville and Baltimore with all his force. Passing through Brookville, they camped, Friday night, “about half way between Montgomery Court House and Ellicott’s upper mills,”[258] and Winder there left them, starting late that evening alone for Baltimore, and leaving Monroe and Stansbury in command, with directions to follow.

Meanwhile the President had crossed the Potomac that morning, expecting to find Winder and Monroe at Montgomery Court House; but on arriving there at six o’clock in the evening, and learning that the army had marched toward Baltimore, he followed as far as Brookville, about ten miles, where he passed the night.[259] Attorney-General Rush was with him. Saturday morning, August 27, the President sent notes to all his Cabinet requesting them to unite in Washington.[260] The same afternoon he returned with Monroe and Rush to the city, which they reached at about six o’clock, after three days’ absence.

Armstrong and Campbell, ignorant of the change in plan, waited at Frederick for the President’s arrival, while the President and Monroe, Sunday, August 28, began the task of restoring the functions of government. The task was difficult, not so much on account of the British ravages, which had been confined to public property, as on account of the general irritation and the continued panic. Hardly had Ross’s army disappeared when a squadron of British war-vessels, under Captain Gordon of the frigate “Seahorse,” worked its way up the river, approaching Fort Washington or Warburton August 27. The commander of that post, misunderstanding his orders, abandoned it and crossed the river with his men. Gordon’s squadron reached Alexandria the next day, and the town capitulated, since it could not resist. Until August 31 the frigates remained at Alexandria, loading such vessels as were there with the tobacco and other produce which the warehouses contained.[261]

The citizens of Washington and Georgetown, expecting to be visited in their turn, and conscious of their inability to resist, talked of a capitulation. Public feeling ran strong against the President. Armstrong was absent. Winder was at Baltimore. Monroe alone was in a position to act, and upon Monroe the President was obliged to depend.

“Under these circumstances,” said Monroe in the only authentic account of the event which remains,[262] “the President requested Mr. Monroe to take charge of the Department of War and command of the District ad interim, with which he immediately complied. On the 28th, in the morning, the President with Mr. Monroe and the Attorney-General visited the navy-yard, the arsenal at Greenleaf’s Point, and passing along the shore of the Potomac up toward Georgetown. Mr. Monroe, as Secretary of War and military commander, adopted measures under sanction of the President for the defence of the city and of Georgetown.”

Colonel W[adsworth?] who was placing some guns on the opposite shore refused to obey an order of Monroe to change their position. Monroe rode across the bridge and gave the order in person. The colonel replied that he did not know Mr. Monroe as Secretary of War or commanding general. Monroe ordered him to obey or leave the field, and the colonel left the field.

Monroe’s act, whether such was his intention or not, was a coup d’état. The citizens, unable to punish the President, were rabid against Armstrong. No one could deny that they had reason for their anger, although the blame for their misfortunes was so evenly distributed between every officer and every branch of government that a single victim could not justly be selected for punishment. Monroe, instead of giving to Armstrong in his absence such support as might have sustained him, took a position and exercised an authority that led necessarily to his overthrow. The influence of such acts on the citizens was obvious. That evening the first brigade of militia held a meeting, and passed a formal and unanimous resolution that they would no longer serve under the orders or military administration of General Armstrong, whom they denounced as the willing cause of the fate of Washington.[263] This mutinous resolution, adopted in the immediate presence of the enemy, was taken to the President by two officers of the brigade, one of whom at least was a strong friend of Monroe.[264]

The resolution of the first brigade was communicated to the President the next morning, Monday, August 29. All the President’s recorded acts and conversation for months after the capture of Washington implied that he was greatly shaken by that disaster. He showed his prostration by helplessness. He allowed Monroe for the first time to control him; but he did not dismiss Armstrong. At one o’clock on the afternoon of the same day the Secretary of War arrived in Washington.[265] The President that evening rode to his lodgings. Madison preserved a memorandum of their conversation, and Armstrong also immediately afterward recorded what passed.[266] The President described to the secretary the violent prejudices which existed in the city against the Administration, and especially against himself and the Secretary of War. “Before his arrival there was less difficulty, as Mr. Monroe, who was very acceptable to them, had, as on preceding occasions of his absence, though very reluctantly on this, been the medium for the functions of Secretary of War;” but since Armstrong had returned, something must be done.

Armstrong replied that he was aware of the excitement, and knew its sources; that evidently he could not remain if his functions were exercised by any one else; that he would resign, or retire from Washington at once, as the President preferred.

Madison deprecated resignation, and recommended “a temporary retirement, as he suggested;” and after some further conversation, in which the President complained of the secretary’s mistakes, they parted with the understanding that Armstrong should leave Washington the next morning. Armstrong behaved with dignity and with his usual pride; but he understood, if Madison did not, the necessary consequences of his retirement, and on reaching Baltimore sent his resignation to the President. At the same time he announced it to the public in a letter, dated September 3, containing comments on the weakness of Madison’s conduct calculated to close their relations.

Between conscious intrigue and unconscious instinct no clear line of division was ever drawn. Monroe, by the one method or the other, gained his point and drove Armstrong from the Cabinet; but the suspicion that he had intrigued for that object troubled his mind to the day of his death.[267] Even after Armstrong’s departure, the dangers and disadvantages of appointing Monroe his successor were so great that for three weeks the post remained unfilled, until, after many doubts and hesitations, Monroe wrote to Madison a letter claiming the appointment of Secretary of War.

“I have thought much of the state of the Departments at this time,” he informed the President, September 25,[268] “and of the persons whom it may be proper to place in them, and have concluded that whatever may be the arrangement with respect to other Departments, the Department of War ought to be immediately filled. I think also that I ought to take charge of it.... By taking charge of the Department twice, and withdrawing from it a second time, it may be inferred that I shrink from the responsibility from a fear of injuring my reputation; and this may countenance the idea that the removal of the others was an affair of intrigue in which I partook, especially in the latter instance, from selfish and improper motives, and did not proceed from his incompetency or misconduct. It seems due, therefore, to my own reputation to go through with the undertaking by accepting permanently a trust which I have not sought, never wished, and is attended with great responsibility and hazard. By taking the place, all clamor will be silenced. It is known, here at least, that I was put into it when the other could no longer hold it. Those who wished it in the first instance will be satisfied, and I shall go on with your support and a favorable expectation of the public that I shall discharge to advantage its duties.”

While Monroe in private communications with Madison thus treated Armstrong’s retirement as a “removal,” due to his “incompetency or misconduct,” and Madison apparently acquiesced in that view, in public Madison seemed inclined to convey the idea that Armstrong was not removed or meant to be removed from office, but rather deserted it. Whichever view was correct, Madison certainly dreaded the political effect of appearing to remove Armstrong; and while he gave to Monroe the appointment of Secretary of War, he wrote, September 29, to Governor Tompkins of New York, offering him the State Department.

Governor Tompkins declined the offer. Apart from the great need of his services as governor, the experience of Northern men in Virginia Cabinets was not calculated to encourage any aspirant to the Presidency in seeking the position. Monroe remained Secretary of State as well as Secretary of War. As Secretary of State he had little or nothing to do, which was partly the cause of his activity in military matters; but as Secretary of War he was obliged to undertake a task beyond the powers of any man.

During an entire month after the appearance of the British in the Patuxent, the United States government performed few or none of its functions. The war on the frontiers was conducted without orders from Washington. Every energy of the government was concentrated on its own immediate dangers, as though Washington were a beleaguered fortress. Slowly the tide of war ebbed from the Potomac and Chesapeake, and not until it had wholly subsided could men cease to dread its possible return.

Captain Gordon’s squadron began its descent of the river September 1, greatly annoyed[269] by batteries erected on the banks by Commodore Rodgers, Perry, and Porter, who were sent from Baltimore, by order of Secretary Jones, for the purpose. Not until September 6 did Captain Gordon escape from his perilous position and rejoin the fleet. Meanwhile the shores of Chesapeake Bay continued to be ravaged with all the severity threatened by Cochrane. Frederick Chamier, afterward the author of several popular sea-stories, was then a lieutenant on the “Menelaus” in Cochrane’s squadron, and his recollections in “The Life of a Sailor” gave a lively picture of the marauding in which he took part.[270] Like Napier, Chamier was too tender-hearted for his work. “I am willing to make oath,” he wrote, in reply to Captain Scott’s contradictions, “that on the day that the ‘Menelaus’ entered the Potomac, three houses were burning at the same time on the left-hand bank of the river. We burnt more than five ourselves.” War was commonly accompanied by destruction, but the war in the Chesapeake was remarkable for the personal share taken by the highest officers, especially by Cockburn and Ross, in directing the actual operation of setting fire to private and public property.[271]

At last the practice caused a disaster that cost the British navy a life more valuable than all the property it could destroy or carry away. The “Menelaus,” commanded by Sir Peter Parker, was sent up Chesapeake Bay to divert attention from the general movement of troops and ships on the Potomac.[272] The “Menelaus” took position off the Sassafras River, which Cockburn had cleared of vessels the year before. Nothing in the river could injure the navy, but the “Menelaus” was ordered to make a diversion; and Sir Peter Parker learned from negroes that two hundred militia, encamped behind a wood half a mile from the beach, intended to cross the bay for the protection of Baltimore.[273] One hundred and twenty-four men were landed at eleven o’clock on the night of August 30, and went in search of the militia. Instead of half a mile, they were led by their guides three or four miles, and at last found the militia drawn up, ready to receive them. Sir Peter Parker ordered an attack, and while cheering it on in the moonlight was struck by a buckshot, which severed the femoral artery. The sailors carried him back to the ship, but he died long before reaching it.[274] His party escaped with a loss of thirteen killed and twenty-seven wounded besides their captain.

The Americans regretted only that the punishment had fallen on the wrong person, for Cochrane and Cockburn rather than Parker were the true marauders; but the lesson was effectual, and the British became more cautious after Parker’s death. Indeed, their activity in the Chesapeake centred thenceforward in an effort to capture Baltimore, which required all their strength.

Baltimore should have been first attacked, but Cockburn’s influence by diverting Ross to Washington gave the larger city time to prepare its defence. The citizens themselves, headed by the mayor, took charge of the preparations; and their first act, contrary to the course pursued by Armstrong and Winder at Washington, was to construct intrenchments round the city, and to erect semi-circular batteries at a number of points, mounted with cannon and connected by a line of works. After the capture of Washington the citizens toiled still more earnestly at their task, until a formidable line of redoubts protected the town, and, though not wholly finished, gave cover to the militia. The batteries were manned by sailors, commanded by officers of the navy. The harbor was protected by Fort McHenry, small but capable of defence, and occupied by a strong force of regular troops, sailors, and volunteer artillerists numbering about one thousand, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Armistead of the Artillery.[275]

These precautions made the capture of Baltimore impossible by such a force as had taken Washington, even though aided by the fleet. The precise number of troops present in the city, according to the official return for September 10, was twelve thousand nine hundred and ninety-one men present for duty, with eight hundred and ninety-seven officers. The aggregate of present and absent was sixteen thousand eight hundred and five men.[276] The force was ample to man the works, but the fortifications chiefly decided the result. No army on either side during the war succeeded in storming works in face, except by surprise; and to turn the works of Baltimore a larger army was required than Ross had at his command.

The militia major-general commanding at Baltimore was no other than Samuel Smith, senator of the United States. He had lately passed his sixty-second year. The brigadier-general in the United States service who commanded the military district was W. H. Winder, whose defence of Washington ended abruptly August 24, and who left that neighborhood on the evening of August 26 to take command of the defences of Baltimore. Winder was a Baltimore lawyer, only three years Smith’s junior, when Eustis and Madison gave him a regiment in March, 1812. Smith was not disposed to accept the idea of subordination to a man of inferior rank, military and civil, who knew no more of war than Smith knew, and whose career had been twice marked by unusual ridicule. Winder on arriving in Baltimore notified Smith that he should take command, and was astonished when the senator declined to surrender his authority. Winder appealed to the President and to the governor of Maryland, his cousin Levin Winder; but nothing could be done to assist him, and in the end he submitted. Samuel Smith remained in command.

The British leaders having succeeded in turning their demonstration up the Patuxent into an attack on Washington, next decided to make “a demonstration upon the city of Baltimore, which might be converted into a real attack should circumstances appear to justify it,”[277] and sailed from the Potomac September 6 for the Patapsco River. They anchored September 11 off its mouth. From that point Ross’s army when landed had only fourteen miles to march, and no water in their way, while Cochrane’s fleet had but twelve miles to sail. Compared with the approaches to Washington, the approach to Baltimore was easy.

MILITARY TOPOGRAPHY
OF
BALTIMORE
AND ITS VICINITY
AND OF
PATAPSCO NECK
TO
NORTH POINT
BY ORDER OF
BRIG. GEN. W. H. WINDER
1814.

Ross’s troops were all landed at daylight on the northern point, and were in motion by eight o’clock September 12, without firing a shot. Their numbers were differently given by British authorities,—one reporting them at three thousand two hundred and seventy rank-and-file;[278] the other reckoning them at upward of five thousand.[279] Ross made on the Patapsco no such leisurely movements as on the Patuxent, but began his march at once, and proceeded about five miles without meeting resistance. The light brigade with the Eighty-fifth regiment was in advance; the second brigade, under Colonel Brooke of the Forty-fourth, followed; and the third brigade, under Colonel Patterson of the Twenty-first, formed the rear. At the same time the fleet moved up the channel toward Fort Henry.

The city was naturally excited at the news that the British had arrived. General Smith, on receiving the intelligence September 11, detached a brigade of Baltimore militia, under General Stricker, to check the enemy if possible, and Stricker advanced that evening about seven miles toward North Point. His force numbered about three thousand two hundred men;[280] and with that body of raw militia, a part of whom had been routed at Bladensburg only a fortnight before, General Stricker attempted to fight a battle with five thousand old soldiers. On the morning of September 12 he formed his troops in three lines three hundred yards apart, apparently in close order, without cover or protection of any kind, standing in fields more or less open, and with an exposed flank.[281] Of all his arrangements, the only one which showed ordinary caution was to send a detachment of cavalry and riflemen a mile or two in his front. As the British advance approached, the American outposts fell back, and General Stricker sent forward some four hundred men, partly rifles, as skirmishers. The British advanced guard coming up, the skirmishing party fired, but was soon driven back. Ross and Cockburn were walking together with the advance, and after the firing ceased, Ross turned back alone to order up the light companies in anticipation of more serious resistance. On his way he was shot through the breast from the wood, and fell in the road, where he lay till he was found by the light companies hurrying forward to the scene of the firing. He barely spoke afterward.[282]

The loss of their commanding general was the second heavy penalty paid by the British for their contempt of militia. Colonel Brooke immediately took command, and the advance was not checked; but the loss was not the less serious. When Brooke saw Stricker’s line stretching across the field, he did not dash at them at once with the light brigade as Thornton had attacked the larger force and stronger position at Bladensburg, but deployed the whole army and formed a regular order of battle. Although his force easily overlapped and outflanked the American, the engagement that followed was sharp, and the Americans were not routed without considerable loss to the British, who reported forty-six killed and two hundred and seventy-three wounded,—or more than they reported at Bladensburg. The Americans, though routed, suffered less, losing only twenty-four killed, one hundred and thirty-nine wounded, and fifty prisoners, with two field-pieces.

This spirited little battle detained the British so long that they bivouacked on the field, and passed the night in a drenching rain, resuming their march the next morning, September 13, when they found the roads obstructed, and were obliged to move so slowly that evening arrived before they came in sight of Baltimore.[283] When at last they saw on the distant heights the long line of intrenchments that surrounded Baltimore on the side of their approach, they stopped short. Colonel Brooke had gone forward with the advance, and was engaged all day, at about a mile and a half distance, in studying the American lines. He made arrangements for a night attack, hoping to avoid the effects of the American artillery,[284] and then waited for the fleet to support him.

The fleet all day bombarded the forts and batteries that covered the entrance to the harbor, and continued the bombardment till past midnight. Unlike most naval engagements during the war, this battle was harmless to either party. The heavier British ships feared to approach within range, owing to a barrier of sunken vessels, covered by the guns on shore and by gunboats. Without the heavy ships, the lighter vessels could not maintain a position. The fort sustained no great injury, and only four men were killed and twenty-four wounded.[285] The fleet as far as was reported sustained no injury whatever. The firing ceased toward midnight, and Admiral Cochrane sent word to Colonel Brooke that he could do no more.[286]

“Under these circumstances,” reported Colonel Brooke, “and keeping in view your Lordship’s instructions, it was agreed between the Vice-admiral and myself that the capture of the town would not have been a sufficient equivalent to the loss which might probably be sustained in storming the heights.”

Sir George Prevost at Plattsburg only two days before, with three times the number of troops and a much smaller number of opponents, came to the same conclusion. That both officers were probably wise was shown by the experience of Lieutenant-General Drummond, a month earlier, in attempting to storm the lines of Fort Erie. Brooke and Prevost followed the same course in another respect, for Brooke withdrew his army so rapidly that at noon of September 14 it had already passed the battle-field of two days before, and in another day the whole force was re-embarked.[287]

As soon as the wind allowed, the fleet returned to the lower Chesapeake; and September 19 Admiral Cochrane sailed for Halifax to prepare for a new expedition. The troops remained till October 14 in their transports in the bay, and then set sail for Jamaica, leaving Virginia and Maryland to a long repose, which the vexed shores sorely needed.