In the summer of 1819 a traveller on the road to Bladensburg near the spot where Commodore Joshua Barney’s flotillamen made their stand he came across a 4-mile stone marker, whom he supposed was “to be a monument of that event.” To his surprize upon the flat stone he saw written with charcoal the following lines. Fearing they would be erased by the weather he wrote the stone’s following inscription:
HERE – fought Commodore Barney,
so nobly and so gallantly,
Against Britain’s sons and slavery,
For a fighting man was he!
THERE – did General Winder flee,
His infantry and cavalry,
(Disgracing the cause of liberty),
For a writing man was he!
July 20th 1819
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Source: City of Washington Gazette, July 23, 1819
Bladensburg Memorial, 1819
Maryland in the War of 1812 