These vessels rated two hundred and fifty-four guns, but the number actually carried is stated to have been two hundred and seventy.
In 1814 a British fleet of four vessels, carrying ninety-two guns, attacked Fort Boyer, a small redoubt, located on a point of land commanding the passage from the Gulf into the bay of Mobile. This redoubt was garrisoned by only one hundred and twenty combatants, officers included; and its armament was but twenty small pieces of cannon, some of which were almost entirely useless, and most of them poorly mounted "in batteries hastily thrown up, and leaving the gunners uncovered from the knee upward," while the enemy's land force, acting in concert with the ships, consisted of twenty artillerists with a battery of two guns, and seven hundred and thirty marines, Indians, and negroes. His ships carried five hundred and ninety men in all. This immense disparity of numbers and strength did not allow to the British military and naval commanders the slightest apprehension "that four British ships, carrying ninety-two guns, and a land force somewhat exceeding seven hundred combatants, could fail in reducing a small work mounting only twenty short carronades, and defended by a little more than a hundred men, unprovided alike with furnaces for heating shot, or casements to cover themselves from rockets and shells." Nevertheless, the enemy was completely repulsed; one of his largest ships was entirely destroyed, and 85 men were killed and wounded on board the other; while our loss was only eight or nine. Here a naval force of five to one was repelled by the land-battery.
Again, in 1814, a barbette battery of one four-pounder and two eighteen-pounder guns at Stonington, repelled a British fleet of one hundred and thirty-four guns. During the engagement the Americans exhausted their ammunition, and spiked their eighteen-pounders, and only one of them was afterwards used. Two of the enemy's ships, carrying one hundred and twelve guns, were engaged during the whole time of attack, and during much of this time bombarded the town from a position beyond reach of the land-battery. They were entirely too far off for the four-pounder gun to be of any use. Supposing the two eighteen-pounders to have been employed during the whole action, and also all the guns of the fleet, one eighteen-pounder on land must have been more than equivalent to sixty-seven guns afloat, for the ships were so much injured as to render it necessary for them to withdraw. The British loss was twenty killed, and more than fifty wounded. Ours was only two killed and six wounded.[[20]]
Perkins says two killed and six wounded. Holmes says six wounded, but makes no mention of any killed.
The fleet sent to the attack of Baltimore, in 1814, consisted of forty sail, the largest of which were ships of the line, carrying an army of over six thousand combatants. The troops were landed at North Point, while sixteen of the bomb-vessels and frigates approached within reach of Fort McHenry, and commenced a bombardment which lasted twenty-five hours. During this attack, the enemy threw "fifteen hundred shells, four hundred of which exploded within the walls of the fort, but without making any impression on either the strength of the work or the garrison," and the British were compelled to retire with much loss.
In 1815, a squadron of British ships, stationed off the mouths of the Mississippi, for the purpose of a blockade, ascended the river as high as Fort St. Philip, which is a small work capable of an armament of only twenty guns in all. A heavy fire of shot and shells was continued with but few and short pauses for nine days and nights, but making no impression either on the fort or garrison, they retreated to their former position at the mouth of the river.
There is but a single instance in the war of 1812, where the enemy's vessels succeeded in reducing a fort; and this has sometimes been alluded to, by persons ignorant of the real facts of the case, as a proof against the ability of our fortifications to resist naval attacks. Even if it were a case of decided failure, would this single exception be sufficient to overthrow the weight of evidence on the other side? We allude to the reduction of the so-called Fort Washington by the British fleet that ascended the Potomac in 1814, to assist in the disgraceful and barbarous operation of burning the capitol and destroying the archives of the nation. Fort Washington was a very small and inefficient work, incorrectly planned by an incompetent French engineer; only a small part of the fort was then built, and it has not yet been completed. The portion constructed was never, until very recently, properly prepared for receiving its armament, and at the time of attack could not possibly have held out a long time. But no defence whatever was made. Capt. Gordon, with a squadron of eight sail, carrying one hundred and seventy-three guns, under orders "to ascend the river as high as Fort Washington, and try upon it the experiment of a bombardment," approached that fort, and, upon firing a single shell, which did no injury to either the fort or the garrison, the latter deserted the works, and rapidly retreated. The commanding officer was immediately dismissed for his cowardice. An English naval officer, who was one of the expedition, in speaking of the retreat of the garrison, says: "We were at loss to account for such an extraordinary step. The position was good and the capture would have cost us at least fifty men, and more, had it been properly defended; besides, an unfavorable wind and many other chances were in their favor," &c. The fleet ascended the river to Alexandria, but learning soon afterwards that batteries were preparing at White House and Indian Head to cut off its retreat, it retired, in much haste, but not without injury.