In Baltimore’s War of 1812 military annals, no other naval or military corps equaled the services of veteran sea captain George Stiles and his Fells Point naval militia corps, the First Marine Artillery of the Union. They were hailed as the “strong right arm” in the defense preparations of Fort McHenry and the city’s approaches. Hezekiah Niles, editor of Niles’ Weekly Register, described Stiles as having a “countenance . . . marked with traits of intelligence and energy with standing as a ship-master and ship-owner . . . with the sound principles of science . . . life of public spirit, of open patriotism and fervent benevolence . . . without wishing to disparage the great services of many brave men . . . Capt. Stiles did more than any other man to serve Baltimore.”1
He was the son of Joseph and Phoebe Stiles of Bush Town, located on the Bush River in Harford County, Maryland. George’s father, a Philadelphia merchant, had provided tent canvas to the Continental Army during the American Revolution and had been superintendent of that city’s powder magazine.2
Little is known of George’s early years, though having obtained the skills by 1790 of a master mariner with the prosperous Baltimore shipping firm of Samuel Smith and William Buchanan, he did well for himself both professionally and socially, and married Ann Steele, daughter of shipmaster Captain John Steele.3 Stiles contributed to several Fells Point charitable organizations, increasing his reputation as one of Baltimore’s leading citizens and mariners.
Simmering Troubles, Escalating Tensions
In May 1794, with the conflict between England and France endangering America’s commerce and diplomacy, Stiles and 64 other captains declared they would not proceed to sea again “until we can be assured that our flag will be respected” and that they wouldn’t further suffer “those indignities [of boarding] which many of us have lately experienced.” It was an experience, however, he was unable to entirely avoid: In September 1801 Captain Stiles was commanding the merchant vessel Samuel Smith when she was boarded off Texel, Spain, by Royal Marines from the frigate HMS Shannon. He and his crew were taken into Yarmouth, England, for examination only to be released.4 This incident of British interference with American commerce, coupled with Stiles’ command skills and predisposition to action, made his later organizational and leadership roles during the War of 1812 a foregone conclusion.
In June 1807, the continuing maritime grievances with England threatened to bring America to war following the U.S. frigate Chesapeake’s naval boarding encounter with the frigate HMS Leopard off the Virginia Capes. The Leopard had fired on the Chesapeake, killing 3 and wounding 18. President Thomas Jefferson responded with the Embargo Act of 1807, prohibiting trade with Europe—a costly economic miscalculation in an attempt to secure U.S. neutrality. In a letter to President Jefferson on 28 July Stiles and other master mariners offered their “services, to be employed . . . pledging ourselves, as we hereby solemnly do, to contribute all in our power towards avenging the cowardly murder of our seafaring brethren.”5
Stiles’ patriotic response at the age of 48 was to formally organize at Baltimore’s Fells Point on 28 March 1808 a corps of 200 mariners to be known as the First Marine Artillery of the Union, commonly referred to as the Corps of Seamen. A local newspaper sounded the call:
Seamen Take Notice.
ALL patriotic Masters and Mates of vessels who have not attached themselves and signed the constitution of any company, are desired to meet at Peck’s Hotel, South Street, on Monday Evening next, at 7 o’clock, for the purpose of raising a uniform marine corps, on economic principles, which need not exceed 20 dollars unnecessary expense.6
In the eventuality of war, the corps’ duties would be to provide harbor security in gunboats, build artillery shore defenses, and prepare ships for sinking to block the channel into Baltimore—it was just such obstructions that would save the city in 1814.
On 16 May 1812, as relations between the United States and England further devolved, Stiles and some of his fellow Democratic-Republicans petitioned President James Madison for a declaration of war:
She [England] forcibly impresses our seamen, and detains them inhumanly in an odorous servitude—she obstructs our commerce in every channel. . . . she has murdered our citizens within our own waters, and has made one attempt at least to dissolve the union of these States, thereby striking at the foundation of our government itself.7
The sought-for declaration came on 18 June, and Baltimore’s maritime entrepreneurs reacted quickly, delving headlong into the business of privateering. It was an undertaking sanctioned by the U.S. Constitution, which gave the commander-in-chief authority “to declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.” Baltimore privateersmen’s investment syndicates quickly formed as civilian investors and sole owners such as Stiles embarked on a potentially lucrative maritime enterprise combining profit and patriotism.
Stiles personally owned six vessels that could either carry freight or be sold and outfitted as privateers.8 Only two, the schooners Siro and Climax, saw privateering action. Others would be sunk in September 1814 to block the harbor entrance prior to the bombardment of Fort McHenry.
With the Coming of War, a Reorganized Corps
On 5 February 1813, a British naval squadron arrived to enforce the Admiralty’s blockade of the Chesapeake Bay. With the British within striking distance, Stiles mustered his corps, recruiting those “who have the interest of their country and seamen’s rights at heart.”9
The corps was divided into two companies of 100 mariners each, commanded by Captains Solomon Rutter and Matthew Simmones Bunbury, with Stiles as senior officer. The amphibious corps included sea captains, mariners, shipowners, and marine mechanics, all uniformed in blue jackets, white gingham trousers, and tarred hats and carrying sidearms. As a group, they displayed a distinct esprit de corps. Major General Samuel Smith, who commanded the city’s militia defenses, regarded the corps as his “strong right arm” upon which rested the city’s defense. Merchant George Douglass echoed a similar sentiment: “When I see them, I exclaim, God preserve them!”10
The corpsmen were bound by written articles to do duty either in boats or fortifications and to obey the command of their officers in the same manner as if they were in actual service at sea. Enlistments were for three months, during which time they were to be employed in barges, in fixing the channel boom, transporting and mounting cannon, placing the hulk obstructions, making wads for the guns, and training on the cannon.
Stiles’ headquarters was a former two-story marine quarantine hospital called the Lazaretto (established in 1801) across the 600-foot channel from Fort McHenry. Here the corps built an earthen redoubt for three heavy 18-pounder field guns to further protect the harbor entrance.11
Financed by Baltimore’s Committee of Public Safety, the corps was attached to Lieutenant Colonel David Harris’ First Regiment, Maryland Volunteer Artillery, of the city’s well-trained Third Brigade. The corps’ pay rate of $16 a month was better than the U.S. Navy’s monthly $10 wage, prompting Navy Captain Charles Gordon’s concern over the “impropriety of one rendezvous offering more than the other . . . fearful it might induce the opposite rendezvous to bid above us.” Gordon’s own command consisted of 100 seamen and Gunboat No. 138, equipped with a 24-pounder and two 12-pounder carronades. To increase Gordon’s strength, General Smith agreed to lease four privateer schooners to cooperate in a joint venture with the corps to provide security on the Patapsco River.12
‘The Cloud Gathers Fast and Heavy in the East’
With no state or federal aid forthcoming, Baltimore’s Marine Committee constructed six gunboats and purchased the row galley Vigilant. Each barge was to be “65 to 70 feet long, prepared for oars, to mount a 32-pounder in the bow and stern and constructed to sail equally well with either end for a bow.”13
In August 1813, with the British establishing a temporary naval base on Kent Island across the Chesapeake Bay, the corps maintained a naval watch from sunset to sunrise on the Patapsco River within view of the island. To communicate enemy movements, a blue flag would be hoisted on a house at North Point, ten miles below Fort McHenry, if the British stood down the bay and a white flag if the they came up the bay, threatening Baltimore. The city’s barges also added to the security of John Dorsey’s Iron Foundry, five miles below Fort McHenry on Curtis Creek, deemed important for its “preservation of the establishment is in part a national object.” Dorsey held contracts with the U.S. Navy and War Departments for 300 tons of cannon shot as well as 40 field guns complete with carriages.14
The corps’ most ambitious defense project under the auspices of the city were two parallel earthen shore batteries at Fort McHenry, complete with hot-shot furnaces to heat round shot. To prevent a night surprise, tar barrels were placed along the shore to be lit at the enemy’s approach. From Lazaretto Point to and around Fort McHenry, 70 ship masts’ booms were connected by chain links held in place by anchors, a line of obstruction extending 1,200 yards.15
The guns credited with saving Fort McHenry from destruction were 56 French naval cannon, 18- and 36-pounders. In August 1806, the French ship-of-the-line L’Eole was nearly dismasted in a gale off the Virginia Capes. Towed to Annapolis, then Baltimore, she was broken up and sold, her armament and gun carriages stored in William Price’s Fells Point warehouse. By the spring of 1813, the French consul loaned then sold the L’Eole’s cannon to the U.S. War Department; at Fort McHenry they formed the bulwark of Baltimore’s harbor defenses.16
A mile west of Fort McHenry, on the shores of the Patapsco River Ferry Branch, a semicircular earthen redoubt mounted six 18-pounder French cannon. The corps laborers who helped build it referred to it as the “Sailor’s Battery” or Battery Babcock, after Captain Samuel Babcock of the Army Corps of Engineers, who designed it as well as the earthen defenses on eastern Baltimore’s Hampstead Hill.
In the spring of 1814, with rumored news of the dispatch of a British expeditionary force to the Chesapeake that summer, General Smith and the Committee of Public Safety decided to restore the Corps of Seamen. Stiles restructured his command and during a recruitment drive placed the following newspaper notice:
First Marine Artillery of the Union
Meet at your gun house at 3 o’clock on Saturday next, in uniform complete, to exercise the heavy field ordnance. Knowing as you do, that the weight of this metal requires much strength, renders it unnecessary for any entreaties to be advanced by your captain for your prompt attendance. The object of this early hour is to admit, agreeable to your constitution, new members, we have a right to expect every master and mate in port. The cloud gathers fast and heavy in the East, and all hands are called; few, very few, are the number of masters or mates belonging to this port that will be justified in excusing themselves from service by one of their skippers not being so firm as the other, or that he has seen five and forty; if he cannot sponge and ram as well as his messmates, he can pass a cartridge. It is well known by all Tars the just stigma, that is fixed upon the ship’s crew on the man that skulks below, or under the lee of the long boat, when all hands are called; their services were not wanting until the present, but now your city calls to arms, you are therefore invited and entreated to fall into our ranks. Many 18 pounders are ready manned and many more fit for service; come and join as we give a long pull, a strong pull and a pull altogether—and save the ship!
By order of the Captain. ROBERT G. HENDERSON, Sec’y.17
On 1 August the U.S. frigate Java was launched at Fells Point in elegant naval tradition, with signal pennants and reverberating artillery salutes supplied by Stiles’ command. Earlier, as Baltimore prepared her defenses, Captain Stiles had served as vice president at a dinner banquet held at the Old Fountain Inn to celebrate Captain Oliver Hazard Perry, the “Hero of Lake Erie” and prospective commander of the Java. Perry was on a national tour celebrating his September 1813 victory over a superior British naval squadron on Lake Erie. Those who built the Java and who cheered her at the launching were unaware of other frigates moving under full press of sail toward the Chesapeake. The final British campaign in Maryland was about to begin.18
On 19 August, British naval and expeditionary forces, part of a 50-warship force, advanced by land and water up the Patuxent River in pursuit of the U.S. Chesapeake Flotilla, subsequently marching on Washington and defeating the hastily assembled American defenses at Bladensburg on 24 August. (See “Last Stand at Bladensburg,” p. 40.) The British entered the nation’s capital and burned the public buildings. Defeated remnants of Maryland militia units arrived in Baltimore to take up defensive positions and await the inevitable British attack.
The Guns of Hampstead Hill
On 12 September, 5,000 British military and naval forces landed at North Point for their ten-mile march toward Baltimore. The next morning, as British warships began their approach for the bombardment of Fort McHenry, merchant vessels were scuttled to block the harbor entrance. (Among the vessels sunk were two owned by Stiles.) U.S. Chesapeake Flotillaman Sailing Master Beverly Diggs, commander of Barge No. 7 of the blue squadron, described the scene: “orders were received that the Barges proceed to the wharves & take such vessels as were ballasted & could easily be sunk . . . to take an ax & after careening the vessel, cut a hole in her bottom, let her right & sink. The enemy having their bomb ships moored & commencing the bombardment.”19
With the newly sunk merchant vessels, the gunboats at the ready, the chain-mast boom, and the French cannon, the naval approach to Baltimore was secured. With the arrival of Chesapeake Flotillamen from Bladensburg, Stiles’ corps was reassigned to Commodore John Rodgers’ bastion on Hampstead Hill. The 200 corpsmen took position on the hill with five 18-pounder field guns alongside Commodore Rodgers’ own naval line of artillery. Known as Rodgers Bastion, this formidable defensive line on Hampstead Hill east of the city now boasted 15,000 militiamen from surrounding states buttressing the naval brigade. Here they waited with 46 field cannon for the inevitable British assault against the city. On the outskirts of Baltimore within a ten-mile radius, 10,000 more regional militia were encamped waiting to be summoned if the occasion required.
Stiles’ corpsmen maintained their position, witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry while waiting for the British land assault that never came. The British vessels trying to break through on the Patapsco were unable to withstand the great French guns that Stiles’ corps had installed at Fort McHenry.20
Memories Etched in Stone
On 12 September 1815, on the first anniversary of the Battle of Baltimore, Stiles served as chairman of the Battle Monument Committee, laying the cornerstone of a monument to honor those who had fallen in the defense of the city at North Point and Fort McHenry. Completed in 1825, the monument later became the official emblem of the City of Baltimore.
In October 1816, Stiles was elected the mayor of Baltimore. A campaign broadside titled “The House that Jack Built by a Laboring Man” was printed to provide renewed support for Stiles among Baltimore’s working class:
To the Labouring Class of the Community of Baltimore A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether, on Monday next For capt. George Stiles our old tried servant, who has done his duty as a merchant, a soldier, and as the first police officer of the most patriotic city in our Union.
Stiles won the election, but citing ill health, he resigned as mayor in February 1819.21 On the 27th of that month, Major General Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, while on a national tour visited Stiles, whom he found “languishing on the bed of sickness, after having suffered exceedingly, almost without the hope of recovery.” General Jackson “shed tears, on seeing the condition of the man to whom, more than any other individual, Baltimore stood indebted for her preservation.” Later, before departing a Baltimore banquet, Jackson offered a toast to “the 12th and 13th September 1814—the days on which freemen defeated the conquerors of Europe, and under the proud waving of ‘the star-spangled banner’ saved Baltimore from incendiary pollution.”22
On 16 June 1819, at the age of 59, following “a painful and lingering illness,” Stiles died. Perhaps the most prominent remembrance came from his friend, the news editor Hezekiah Niles:
When such a man as Captain Stiles dies . . . a void is left in society which the bereaved heart finds some consolation. . . . a chief preserver of Baltimore . . . a man whose unconquerable patriotism was rivaled only by the unbounded goodness of his soul . . . I think he was the most devoted man that I ever had the pleasure of knowing. . . . His devotion and industry, cheerful zeal and resolution, mightily contributed, with like good qualities in his Corps, to encourage and invigorate all; and I have always thought, and must we believe, that; without doing injustice to the great merits of others, Baltimore was more indebted to Capt. Stiles for her preservation than any other individual.23
1. “To the Laboring Classes of Baltimore,” Baltimore Patriot, 30 September 1818.
2. “To Be Sold,” Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (Annapolis), 16 April 1776. Scott Shepherd, ed., Who’s Who in the Grave-yard of The Presbyterian Church in Morristown—Interments Records from 1731 (Morristown, NJ, n.p., December 2000). Joseph Stiles Sr. (d. 1790) to Captain William Wilkinson, 30 October 1777, Maryland State Archives, (Series A) 1004-10-1903. “Died,” Pennsylvania Mercury, 16 December 1790. “Marshall and Stiles,” Pennsylvania Packet, 22 August 1778.
3. Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, 3 July, 15 December 1789, 9 April, 5 October 1790, 18 October 1791, 22 May 1792. Records of the First Presbyterian Church. Maryland Historical Society, M-278; Baltimore City Directories, 1796–1819.
4. Baltimore Daily Intelligencer, 21 May 1794. George Stiles to Samuel Smith, dated London, 10 October 1801, American and Commercial Daily Advertiser, 27 November 1801.
5. Baltimore American and Commercial Daily Advertiser, 28 July, 19 August 1807.
6. “Seamen take Notice,” Baltimore American and Commercial Daily Advertiser, 26 March 1808.
7. Niles’ Weekly Register, 16 May 1812.
8. “For freight, For Sale,” Baltimore American and Commercial Daily Advertiser, 8 October 1812.
9. Baltimore American and Commercial Daily Advertiser, 13 February 1813. Baltimore Patriot and Evening Advertiser, 11–12 February 1813. Baltimore American & Commercial Daily Advertiser, 20 March 1813.
10. “To the people of Baltimore,” Baltimore American and Commercial Daily Advertiser, 22 April 1813.
11. Samuel Smith to Committee of Public Safety, 15 May 1813, Samuel Smith Papers, MSS 18974, Library of Congress.
12. Gordon to Smith, 30 April 1813, Smith to William Jones, 3 March 1813, Smith Papers.
13. Baltimore American & Commercial Daily Advertiser, 28 August 1813.
14. Decius Wadsworth to John Armstrong, 3 May 1813, Records of the War Department, “Office, Secretary of War, Letters Received,” National Archives.
15. Samuel Smith to Committee of Supplies, 20 August 1813. Samuel Smith, Division Orders, 4 May 1813, Smith Papers.
16. “For Sale,” Baltimore American & Commercial Daily Advertiser, 2 June 1808. Annapolis Gazette, 7 January, 22 October 1808. Baltimore American & Commercial Daily Advertiser, 15 September, 18 September 1806, 2 June 1808.
17. Baltimore Federal Gazette & Commercial Advertiser, 20 July 1814.
18. Baltimore Federal Gazette & Evening Advertiser, 2 February 1814. Baltimore Patriot & Evening Advertiser, 1 August 1814.
19. Deposition of Beverly Diggs to John Gill, Notary Public, 9 August 1831, Defense of Baltimore Papers, General Accounting Office, National Archives, RG 217 (FML, M-22).
20. “To the Editors,” Baltimore Sun, 9 August 1838.
21. Extract from a political broadside, Library of Congress. George Stiles, Baltimore County Register of Wills, 1 February 1819, Maryland State Archives, C, 437-54-51; 02/56/13/45.
22. “Honors to Jackson,” Niles’ Weekly Register, 6 March 1819.
23. Ibid., 19 June 1819, 15 January 1827. Baltimore American & Commercial Daily Advertiser, 17 June 1819.