The Delmarva coastal plain stretches 180 miles south from Wilmington, Delaware, to the Virginia Capes. It is surrounded by water: the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, the Atlantic Ocean, and a 19-mile canal at the north end. Two counties of Virginia, nine of Maryland, and seven-eighths of Delaware lie in Delmarva. Barrier islands buffer most of its east coast from the sea, and lacy tidewater fingers decorate its inner perimeter and deliver crabs, clams, oysters, fish, and small boats of every stripe and shape. The Dutch colonized Delaware’s Cape Henlopen area in the 1630s, about the same time that Virginians settled Kent Island on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake. By 1700, notably independent Welsh and English had cleared and populated much of the interior; some acquired holdings that exceeded 10,000 acres.
After the Revolutionary War, the United States rapidly became the world’s principal trader. Beginning with Great Britain’s conflict with Napoleon in 1801, British men-of- war stopped U.S. merchant vessels consistently, especially on routes between France and its Caribbean colonies. Crewmen whom the Royal Navy deemed to be British subjects were removed and impressed into King George Ill’s navy; some were held for ten years before they escaped. Such disruptions to sovereignty and trade finally moved the U.S. Congress to declare war on Great Britain on 18 June 1812, capitalizing on the enemy’s preoccupation with Napoleon and creating a new order for the continent.
Lacking a navy with enough muscle to confront the Royal Navy on every front, President James Madison granted letters of marque, or commissions, to private vessels to arm and take enemy prizes. Born in Delmarva, a small, swift type of two-masted schooner, the Baltimore Clipper, had evolved up and down the Chesapeake Bay. Clippers had excellent tactical properties against men-of-war, and they multiplied to speed across the Atlantic and into the Caribbean to hector British merchant convoys.
Stiff, smooth cotton canvas sails on gaff-rigged fore- and mainsails, plus staysails and jibs, enabled clippers to point high into the wind. Fox-and-hound tactics would draw a Royal Navy escort into a five-mile downwind sprint, both vessels with topsails and studding sails clapped on, then the Yankee would tack abruptly into the wind toward her targets. The less agile square-rigged, flax-sailed man-of-war was left to wear back and forth on tiresome figures-of-eight. By the time the warship recouped the distance of the initial chase, the privateer could capture and loot convoy stragglers and sail off cleanly.
One skipper, Thomas Boyle of Baltimore’s Chasseur, galled the Admiralty by sailing directly to England and posting a notice on Lloyd’s front door that all of Britain was under blockade. In the following five months, he captured and manned or sank 45 British merchant ships; insurance rates skyrocketed. In all, the Chasseur earned more than $221,000 in prize money for her owners during the war. Parliament was not amused and on 26 December 1812 issued an in Council Order to blockade the Delaware and Chesapeake bays, a move that stifled U.S. trade.
Royal squadrons complete with marines and soldiers arrived off U.S. shores in 1813 and caused much destruction in coastal, bay, and river ports. But the British bruised their shanks on the Delmarva Peninsula, this Eastern Shore, and were turned back repeatedly by farmer-fishermen for two years. British failure to take the shore can be blamed on poor intelligence, bad timing, weather, and deception and luck on the part of the locals.
The shallow-draft (9- to 12-foot) Baltimore Clipper privateers still could slip through British blockades all along the coast and the barrier islands, but the blockades put commercial trade almost at a standstill. Several of these clipper-privateers were captured to sail under the Union Jack; a few went to England to be copied in British shipyards—a high compliment.
Early in April 1813, the Royal Navy struck both sides of Delmarva. They picked Lewes, Delaware, a former Dutch whaling station on the south cape of Delaware Bay, now a principal port for the state. HMS Poictiers, HMS Belvidere, and a schooner were refused provisions by Colonel Samuel B. Davis, the commander of U.S. troops, and a two-day bombardment ensued. Broad shallows on both the ocean and bay approaches kept the warships at some distance, and sight lines were hampered by a thick screen of trees before the town. Thus, few of the royals’ shots reached and damaged the town. Although superior in force and training, the British did not attempt to land, but sailed away, having struck three houses, wounded a pig, and killed a hen. Today, one of those houses is a marine museum called the “Cannonball House.”
Later in April, across Delmarva to the west, 200 miles away by sea on the Chesapeake Bay, 13 British men-of-war occupied Tangier Island, ten miles off the Eastern Shore of Virginia. A squadron dispatched to the upper bay emptied storehouses in Frenchtown on Maryland’s Elk River, then crossed to the mainland and razed Havre de Grace before returning to Delmarva.
Georgetown and Fredricktown, facing each other across the Sassafras River, were small grain-shipping ports. Presumed “armed” (that is, defended by cannon), they were subject to “force,” or bombardment and destruction, a task that was carried out impressively. Women and children of Fredricktown on the north shore fled to nearby woods.
As a Royal Marine lieutenant urged his firebrand squad toward two brick homes on the high south bank, he came eye-to-eye with Miss Kitty Knight. She refused to vacate, because she was caring for her sick neighbor; if their homes were to be burned, they would go up in smoke with them. Successively higher ranks confronted her, until a senior officer ordered the houses spared. Said to be a most attractive lady, she died a spinster and demanded that her grave stone show “Miss Kitty Knight” as evidence of her not being subject to any man.
British forces occupied Kent Island, opposite Annapolis, as a satellite base in the summer of 1813. On 6 August, 1,500 men landed east of the Kent Narrows, intending to march eastward on Queenstown, but reported no opposition and returned to Kent Island. The U.S. account is that the British force became confused when its barges separated among the serpentine marshy inlets and that 300 U.S. militiamen repelled the landing force.
Two days later, informers told Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, in HMS San Domingo at anchor off Kent Island, that armed vessels and a battery were near St. Michaels, 22 miles southeast beyond a narrow strait. He sent a brig to take soundings in the river, then dispatched Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn and three ships up the St. Michaels River (now the Miles) to destroy the battery and capture or destroy the Yankee ships. No armed vessels were about, but four Baltimore Clippers were on the ways where shipbuilding had been a tradition for 140 years. Twenty- four privateers were built in Maryland’s Talbot County during this war, most of them in St. Michaels.
Shore lookouts above St. Michaels alerted the local militia to enemy ship movements in time to evacuate the town, rig a log boom across the harbor mouth, and mount two nine-pound cannons at the harbor entrance. Two six- pounders were readied inside the harbor. Brigadier General Perry Benson in the county seat of Easton feared a major conflict and mustered additional militiamen from nearby towns and counties.
Three factors saved the town. Since Cockburn’s larger warships were reluctant to sail the last six miles in restricted waters, the small 12-gun brig Conflict continued alone after midnight, towing eleven barges armed only with carronades to within two miles of the harbor. Three hundred marines were then rowed upriver to St. Michaels for the assault. Second, the raiders, led by a Lieutenant J. Puckinghorne, arrived in the dark, early on August 9, with visibility hampered by inclement weather. Third, the defenders of St. Michaels reportedly extinguished all ground lights and hung lanterns in tree tops and on ships’ masts, making it appear that the town was on a low hill.
When the marines set ashore at a cornfield south of town on Parrott’s Point, they were raked by two tremendous blasts from the cannon battery. At least 25 were killed, including a lieutenant who was Admiral Cockburn’s nephew. Lacking time for a second round and badly outnumbered, the cannoneers fled for town. The marines charged the battery, then retreated under continued fire from inside the harbor, and pulled downriver for the Conflict. The departing marines boomed away at the town with their light carronades, peppering the harbor with grape, bagging another roosting chicken, and hitting only one home with a ball, to create yet another historic “Cannonball House.”
Royal Navy Archives describe the encounter differently. From Lieutenant Puckinghome to Admiral Cockburn:
“... a Battery mounting Six Twelve and Six (six) pounders gave us a round of Grape and Cannister, when we immediately landed, got possession of the Battery and drove the Enemy into the Town. After spiking the Guns, Splitting the Carriages and destroying the Ammunition and Stores, I reembarked with the loss of only two wounded; by this time the Enemy had collected in considerable numbers, and commenced firing from two field pieces in the Town. The destruction of the Battery being complete, and not a Vessel to be seen, I deemed the object of the enterprise fulfilled, and returned on board with the Boats.”
Two weeks later, perhaps in retaliation, the British moved again on St. Michaels in daylight, and landed 1,800 men six miles north of town at Wade’s Point on the Bay. With Admiral Cockburn mounted in the van, they burned farm buildings, took clothing, and captured 16 militiamen. About to pass through a woods they encountered 600 militia under General Benson. Artillery from Easton controlled the only road; two units of infantry were shielded in the woods; and a cavalry unit stood ready to sweep the wings. “To the rear, march!" was sounded, and British forces returned to their ships, plundering enroute.
Naval engagements dwindled along the upper Delmarva, except for raids for provisions, until the British inundated Tangier Island in April 1814 with more than 10,000 troops fresh from the end of the Napoleonic War. Forts were built and a Methodist campground was taken for a drill field. Almost 50 men-of-war under the Union Jack had sailed up the Chesapeake.
In mid-May, U.S. Commodore Joshua Barney led a 16- vessel flotilla out of Baltimore to attack the Tangier base, but off the Patuxent River he met a British war squadron that could outgun him easily, and he escaped into the shallows of St. Leonard Creek.
On 30 May, Admiral Cockbum sent 500 of his seasoned marines into Pungoteague Creek, Virginia, near Onancock. A reinforced Eastern Shore militia, which had barricaded the only landing point with overturned wagons, barrels, and timbers, offered strong resistance. Sensing his troops could be immobilized in the marshy soil and fatefully surrounded, Cockbum ordered a withdrawal to Tangier Island. Locals called the British retreat disorderly and said they abandoned their dead and wounded in the marshes.
In late summer, British ships and troops again sacked farms and granaries along the upper Chesapeake shoreline of Delmarva. Ostensibly, these forays would also discourage transferring militia across the bay to defend Baltimore. As part of this venture, on 30 August, Captain Sir Peter Parker in HMS Menelaus bombarded and raided the village of Worton, near Chestertown, Maryland, taking four prisoners. Back at anchorage near Rock Hall, he was told, probably by a prisoner, of U.S. militia near Fairlee Creek, about eight miles north. After midnight he entered the creek and led 20 pikemen and 104 soldiers with fixed bayonets ashore on Isaac Caulk’s farm. They advanced in bright moonlight, on unscouted ground, and were stopped.
The Kent County militia were 170 strong under Lieutenant Colonel Philip A. Reed, who had earned a mangled arm in the Revolutionary War. The locals drew fire, regrouped, and took aim on the British muzzle flashes. Fourteen British died—including Captain Parker—27 were wounded, and the enemy withdrew yet again, just as the Americans’ ammunition was exhausted. Three locals were wounded.
The last bout with Delmarva folks occurred on Tangier Island without a shot fired. In September, residents saw an increased bustle among the troops as they readied to sail on Baltimore. The islanders took two unusual actions. The British needed additional small craft to intensify their invasion of Baltimore, and the watermen’s fleet appeared to be in jeopardy. Tangier’s small harbor was blocked by the king’s ships, preventing the Virginians from sneaking their boats into the marshes of the Eastern Shore and out of reach. The dilemma was solved when the islanders scuttled their boats; legend has it that the Tangier women did the scuttling to keep their men at home.
Divine intervention may have been the second factor. The Reverend Joshua Thomas had taken his hellfire-and- salvation Methodist ministry to the Bay to serve the hardworking watermen—some believed to be pirates—and their families. His camp meeting center on Tangier Island drew large numbers from the Delmarva Peninsula each summer. The British respected Thomas and even asked him to exhort their troops near the eve of their embarkation for Ft. McHenry. But Reverend Thomas startled the 12,000 troops drawn up before him on the campground: “I told them it was given to me from the Almighty that they could not take Baltimore, and they would not succeed in their expedition.” He persisted in his predictions, somehow immune from house arrest, until they sailed. Thomas knelt at his altar rail and prayed almost continuously for a U.S. victory, taking only tea and thin soup, until he knew the British had retreated from Baltimore. When the fleet regrouped on Tangier, Thomas resumed his fiery preaching and converted a number of the military on the spot.
The war was soon over, and hundreds of Delmarvans sailed to Tangier Island again in the summer of 1815 to have the more-famous Parson Thomas save their souls. Up the peninsula, landed gentry resumed social seasons rendered irregular by the British. It was time to harvest crops, rebuild burned barns, and lay in wood for the winter.
How was this prize misread by the British? British strategy in Delmarva remains obscure; perhaps they only wanted to bruise the upstarts. In spite of swift U.S. privateers, the enemy fleet soon controlled the entire Chesapeake Bay. The British occupied Tangier and Kent Islands, positions that were flexible and defensible, but why did they not also control the entire peninsula as a staging ground and rich supply center? Why were their tactical ventures there limited to slash and burn—and most of these so poorly executed or cancelled?
Occupying Delmarva might have diverted Yankee regulars away from city targets the British really wanted to neutralize. From the peninsula’s north end a British force might have driven a wedge to split the young states and control most north-south land traffic; the then-defunct Chesapeake and Delaware Canal project was not an obstacle. On the other hand, Delmarva was a food machine with few large population centers and little war-related industry except shipbuilding.
The peninsula’s crops, granaries, and livestock would have fed the British army well—certainly better than the less efficient raids on waterfront farms would yield. Delmarva’s shipbuilding resources were known to the enemy since colonial days when square miles of oak, bald cypress, and Atlantic white cedar were cut to float the Royal Navy and His Majesty’s shipping fleet. The capacity was there: From 1801 to 1810, 101 ships classed as ships, brigs, and schooners were built in Chesapeake Bay ship-yards; 61 of these were launched from Delmarva. Delmarva would have been less of a loss to the United States than it could have been a substantial resource for Britain.
Professional war-seasoned British troops could have overwhelmed the part-time irregulars of Delmarva. The militia had little or no hope of getting mainland U.S. Army units, however skilled they were, to protect their fields and shipyards. So why did the British effort fail?
Sea-war traditions revolved about battles among ships, blockades, shore raids and pillaging—all functions of mobility. Occupation of lands and conversion of resources to military-industrial-colonial purposes were ministerial callings and not the British cup of tea. Tactically, rural roads may not have invited efficient overland movement of troops, wagons, and artillery.
History must question Admiral Cockburn: He became the most hated and feared of British officers in America after razing Washington, D.C., yet his command failed five times to land troops effectively, if at all, in Delmarva. Also, by the time of the attack on Baltimore, many British troops in the Bay suffered from digestive or respiratory illnesses.
Further, after defeating Napoleon, Britain was weary of the costs of war and its credit was shaky. Perhaps it only wanted to punish the young nation, without occupying it and thus risking another colonial revolution. British victory in the war was possible, but Lord Wellington convinced the Cabinet that the situation in Europe was less settled than it appeared to be and to end the North American conflict. Less than three months after the United States and Britain signed the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve 1814, Napoleon indeed walked out of exile on Elba to fire up the French again, and to lose again—to Wellington at Waterloo. The Treaty of Ghent, surprisingly, made no references to restraint of trade nor impressing U.S. seamen.
Finally, there were few Tory Delmarvans who would support returning to the monarchy; the militiamen were farmers, merchants, millers, wheelwrights, and shipbuilders who had invested their lives in a land of the individual, and with voting rights. They remain so individual that secession from Maryland to form a State of Delmarva still comes up occasionally. Militiamen earned $8.00 a month when they were mobilized for scattered fights, then they returned to work until the next call, to fight among themselves in the Civil War.
These factors combined to create a situation in which the British, for all their war-fighting expertise, could not subdue a committed population of farmers and watermen.
The Delmarva Peninsula Today
Today, the setting sun filters through a lattice of pleasure- boat masts on the Sassafras River, and the Kitty Knight House— the two spared homes were joined—serves good food to visitors, including British vacationers. Kent Island is a bedroom suburb and a funnel from Washington-Annapolis-Baltimore to the Atlantic Ocean beaches; corn still grows in Caulk’s field; and one can walk across St. Michaels harbor on boat decks any summer weekend.
Lewes and St. Michaels capitalize nicely on their survival from British attack, with fascinating historic districts and beautifully preserved homes. Lewes’s Zwaanendael Museum proudly displays the uniform and snare drum of a young defender in the 1813 bombardment. St. Michaels has a mounted nine-pounder in the town square; depending on the historical source, it is linked to the Revolution or the battle of 1813.
Over 180 years, the Bay has eroded Tangier badly, and the parade ground, forts, and British cemetery sleep under two fathoms of water. Pirating is gone, religious camp meetings gave way to itinerant revivalists then to televangelists, and border wars with Maryland watermen are over; but oysters, crabs, and tourists continue to be mainstays of the islanders. The marshes of Pungoteague Creek are little changed.
P. Harrison
