“I had a deputation from Charleston in the Northeast River to assure me that that place is considered by them at your mercy, and that neither guns nor militia-men shall be suffered there; and as I am assured that all the places in the upper part of Chesapeake Bay have adopted similar resolutions, and as there is now neither public property, vessels, nor warlike stores remaining in this neighborhood, I propose returning to you with the light squadron to-morrow morning.”
Thus in the course of a week, and without loss of life on either side, Cockburn with a few boats and one hundred and fifty men terrorized the shores of the Upper Chesapeake, and by his loud talk and random threats threw even Baltimore into a panic, causing every one to suspend other pursuits in order to garrison the city against an imaginary attack. The people, harassed by this warfare, remembered with extreme bitterness the marauding of Cockburn and his sailors; but where he met no resistance he paid in part for what private property he took, and as far as was recorded, his predatory excursions cost the Marylanders not a wound.
For six weeks after Cockburn’s return to Warren’s station at Lynnhaven Bay, the British fleet remained inactive. Apparently the British government aimed at no greater object than that of clearing from Chesapeake Bay every vessel not engaged in British interests under British protection. The small craft and privateers were quickly taken or destroyed; but the three chief depots of commerce and armaments—Norfolk, Baltimore, and Washington—required a greater effort. Of these three places Norfolk seemed most open to approach, and Admiral Warren determined to attack it.
The British navy wished nothing more ardently than to capture or destroy the American frigates. One of these, the “Constellation,” lay at Norfolk, where it remained blockaded throughout the war. Admiral Warren could earn no distinction so great as the credit of capturing this frigate, which not only threatened to annoy British commerce should she escape to sea, but even when blockaded in port required a considerable squadron to watch her, and neutralized several times her force.
Another annoyance drew Warren’s attention to Norfolk. June 20, fifteen gunboats issued from the harbor before daylight, and under cover of darkness approached within easy range of a becalmed British frigate, the “Junon” of forty-six guns. For half an hour, from four o’clock till half-past four, the gunboats maintained, according to the official report of Commodore Cassin who commanded them, “a heavy, galling fire at about three quarters of a mile distance.”[388] Their armament was not mentioned, but probably they, like the gunboats on the Lakes, carried in part long thirty-two and twenty-four-pound guns. The attack was intended to test the offensive value of gunboats, and the result was not satisfactory. The fire of fifteen heavy guns for half an hour on a defenceless frigate within easy range should have caused great injury, but did not. When a breeze rose and enabled the “Junon” and a neighboring frigate, the “Barrosa,” to get under weigh, the gunboats were obliged to retire with the loss of one man killed and two wounded. The “Junon” also had one man killed, but received only one or two shots in her hull.[389]
The “Constellation” lay, under the guns of two forts and with every possible precaution, five miles up the Elizabeth River, at the Portsmouth navy-yard. The utmost pains had been taken to provide against approach by water. Whatever incompetence or neglect was shown elsewhere, Norfolk was under the command of able officers in both services, who neglected no means of defence. General Wade Hampton had fortified the interior line immediately below the town, where two strong forts were constructed under the direction of Captain Walker Keith Armistead of the Engineers, the first graduate of the West Point Academy in 1803. Five miles below these forts, where the river widened into Hampton Roads, Brigadier-General Robert Taylor of the Virginia militia, and Captain John Cassin commanding at the navy-yard, established a second line of defence, resting on Craney Island on the left, supported by fifteen or twenty gunboats moored across the channel. A battery of seven guns was established on the island covering the approach to the gunboats, so that the capture of the island was necessary to the approach by water. The force on the island consisted of about seven hundred men, of whom less than a hundred were State troops. The rest were infantry of the line, riflemen, seamen, and marines.[390] The town and forts were strongly garrisoned, and a large body of State militia was constantly on service.
To deal with the defences of Norfolk, Admiral Warren brought from Bermuda, according to newspaper account, a detachment of battalion marines eighteen hundred strong; three hundred men of the One Hundred-and-second regiment of the line, commanded by Lieut.-Colonel Charles James Napier, afterward a very distinguished officer; two hundred and fifty chasseurs, or French prisoners of war who had entered the British service; and three hundred men of the royal marine artillery,[391]—in all, two thousand six hundred and fifty rank-and-file, or about three thousand men all told, besides the sailors of the fleet. At that time no less than thirteen sail of British ships, including three ships-of-the-line and five frigates, lay at anchor within thirteen miles of Craney Island.
The attack was planned for June 22. The land forces were commanded by Sir Sydney Beckwith, but the general movement was directed by Admiral Warren.[392] The main attack, led by Major-General Beckwith in person, was to land and approach Craney Island from the rear, or mainland; the second division, under command of Captain Pechell of the flag-ship “San Domingo,” 74, was to approach the island in boats directly under fire of the American guns on the island, but not exposed to those in the gunboats.
The plan should have succeeded. The island was held by less than seven hundred men in an open earthwork easily assaulted from the rear. The water was so shallow as to offer little protection against energetic attack. The British force was more than twice the American, and the plan of attack took from the gunboats the chance of assisting the land-battery.
