Daniel Wells (1794-1814) of Annapolis: First Baltimore Sharp Shooter, Sept. 1814

Louisa Wells was born on August 11, 1809 and her older brother Daniel Wells, Jr., on December 30, 1794 both of Annapolis, the children of Daniel and Mary Wells of Annapolis. During the war, Daniel Wells, Sr., served as a lieutenant in Captain Jonathan Pinkney’s Artillery company in Annapolis.

In 1813, Daniel Wells, Jr., age 20, was in the apprentice employment of Baltimore merchant George Mackenzie to learn the saddler trade and fulfilling state contracts for militia cartridge boxes. In the late summer of 1814 Daniel enlisted in the 1st Battalion of Maryland Riflemen in Capt. Edward Aisquith’s First Baltimore Sharp Shooters causing great consternation for his safety within the family. Having departed for Baltimore to rejoin his company after the fall of Washington, the next news that his family received was that Daniel had been killed in a skirmish on September 12, 1814, near North Point.

His sister Louisa Wells (1808-1891) remembers that “Not long after this, Daniel Well’s cap was sent home. It was the tall, stiff cap worn by Captain Aisquith’s Sharp Shooters, and it was matted with the blood and hair of the young patriot. Two holes showed where the ball had entered one side of his head and passed out at the other side.”

As the story of Daniel Wells and Henry McComas, “The Boy Martyrs” grew, the family was able to collect several relics of the war including the Sharp Shooters  muster roll with Daniel Wells name entered “Killed in the advance 12 September 1814.” Louisa later married Adrian A. Posey who served in Captain Lawrence Posey’s company, the 1st Regiment from Charles County during the war. Daniel Wells and his friend Henry G. McComas remains lie under a 21-foot marble obelisk in Ashland Square, Gay and Aisquith Streets in East Baltimore.

Sources: The Sun, August 26, 1889; Mary Wells (1749-1823) and Daniel Wells, Sr., (1768-1818), Baltimore Patriot, January 27, 1818 and February 3, 1823; Louisa (Wells) Posey (1808-1891). The Sun, January 13, 1891.

Published in: on April 6, 2011 at 3:42 pm  Comments Off on Daniel Wells (1794-1814) of Annapolis: First Baltimore Sharp Shooter, Sept. 1814  

Robert Goodloe Harper (1765-1825)

Robert Goodloe Harper

Robert Goodloe Harper

Robert Goodloe Harper was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia and served in the Revolutionary War at age 15, likely as an aide or servant. He later served as a member of the Virginia Legislature prior to moving to Maryland’s political theatre.

During the Battle of North Point, September 12, 1814, he served as aide-de-camp to Brigadier General John Stricker’s Third Brigade and assisted Captain John Montgomery’s Baltimore Union Artillery, 1st Maryland Volunteer Artillery in the initial attack. On the occasion“he exerted himself indefatigably and exposed his person with extreme hardihood, as a volunteer.”  In his official report General Stricker reported that “Mr. RObert Goodloe Harper deserves my thanks. He visited me just before the action; accompanied the advance party, and aided me much throughout.”

On November 8, 1814, he succeeded Samuel Smith as major general of the Third Division of the Maryland Militia. He served in the U.S. Senate (1815-1816) and later a member of  The Society for the Colonization Society for Free People of Color (est.1816) along with federalist U.S. Representatives John Randolph and Henry Clay to form a colony on the African east coast, later called Liberia which gained its independence in 1847. In October 1824 he was a prominent host to the arrival in Baltimore of the Marque de Lafayette. Harper died on January 14, 1825 and was buried in Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore.

Sources: Easton Gazette, January 22, 1825; “The Late General Harper,” National Gazette & Literary Register (Philadelphia), March 3, 1825; Official Report, General John Stricker, September 14, 1914. Niles’ Weekly Register, September 24, 1814.

Published in: on April 6, 2011 at 11:04 am  Comments Off on Robert Goodloe Harper (1765-1825)  

North Point Battlegrounds – Old Methodist Meeting House (c. 1808-1921)

“Sunday, 11th September 1814. This has been a day of great alarm, and to some of terror and dismay. I feel a confidence that God will mercifully spare the city and save the inhabitants from destruction.” Journal of the Reverend John Baxley.

 Though situated .038 miles to the north of the battlegrounds, the Old Methodist Meeting House along Bread and Cheese Creek, witnessed the aftermath of the battle. Here the wounded and dying, British and American, lay as the British encamped that evening upon the site. The next morning as the British pushed forward towards Baltimore, Dr. James H. McCulloh, U.S. Army Garrison Surgeon visited the site to care for the fallen remarked “I was shewn the meeting house in which some of our wounded men lay – along with a few British…”

Admiral George Cockburn who accompanied the army reported that “[The Americans] gave way in every Direction, and was chased by us in a considerable distance with great Slaughter, abandoning his Post of the Meeting House situated in this Wood, and leaving all his Wounded and Two of his field Guns on our possession…”  It appears the British army had ventured near the Meeting House in the declining remnants of the  battle as the Americans had retreated to Perego’s Hill .032 miles where the 6th Maryland Regiment was posted, as ordered to receive their comrades as they fell back towards Baltimore. The Meeting House was reported to still have the leaden balls embedded in the wood frames, presumably fired upon the militia upon their withdrawal form the battle.

 His aide-de-camp, Lieutenant James Scott, remembered in his memoirs that “The meeting-house, a place of worship, the only building near the scene of battle, was converted into a temporary refuge for friends and foes. The temple of God – of peace and goodwill towards men – vibrated with the groans of the wounded and the dying. The accents of human woe floated upon the ear, and told a melancholy tale of ebbing tide of human life…”

In 1914 during the centennial of the battle the Patriotic Order of Sons of America in Maryland commemorated the site with a granite monument. It is situated at 2440 Old North Point Road near Bread and Cheese Creek.

Sources: “Patapsco Neck Church,” Baltimore American, August 30, 1897; Admiral George Cockburn to Admiral Alexander F.I. Cochrane, September 15, 1814. Printed in The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, vol. 3, Ed. Michael  J. Crawford, (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 2002), 279-282; Recollections of a Naval Life by Captain James Scott, R.N. (London: Richard Bentley,  1834), 342.

Published in: on April 6, 2011 at 1:08 am  Comments Off on North Point Battlegrounds – Old Methodist Meeting House (c. 1808-1921)  

Battle of North Point – American Prisoners of War, September 12, 1814

In the aftermath of the Battle of North Point, fifty-three American militia found themselves prisoners of war and were conveyed to the British fleet via Bear Creek to His Britannic Majesty’s frigates Havanna, Severn and Surprise. In a collective letter upon which their names were listed they described their confinement;

“We had the misfortune to be captured in the affair of Monday last at Bear Creek and were on Tuesday brought on board this ship where we are detained as prisoners of war…we are in captivity & distressed (not one of us having a change of raiment, a blanket, or cent of money – some have no coats, others no vests or shoes). Should not an immediate arrangement be made for our benefit, we expect to be sent to England…We pray an immediate attention may be paid to our situation by a flag of truce…Several of us being already very unwell, we fear confinement by fever which will be certain death in our situation…”

 Independent Company, 5th Maryland Regt.; Thomas Bailey, Talbot Jones, Edward Murray, Frederick Seyler, and William Jenkins.

Independent Blues – 5th  Maryland Regt.; Francis M. Wills, George Heidelbach, William Levely, Richard Lawson, John Huzza.

First Baltimore Sharp Shooters – 1st Battalion Maryland Riflemen; Thomas G. Prettyman, and John Howard.

Patriot Company, 5th Maryland Regt.; Benjamin Meredith.

United Volunteers, 5th Maryland Regt.; Henry W. Gray, and John G. Poug.

Union Volunteers, 5th Maryland Regt.; George Collins, and Henry Suter

1st Mechanical Volunteers, 5th Maryland Regt.; John Redgrave.  

51st Maryland Regt.; Andrew Miller, John Kepler, Morgan Carson, Adam Miller, Andrew Cole, Peter Stedman, Patrick B. Powell, John Kesler, and Adam Miller.

27th Maryland Regt.; John Fordyce, Ephraim Nash.

39th Maryland Regt; William Baltzell, Lewis Baltzell.

Non-combatants – Daniel Wells, Joseph G. Whitney

Two other British warships also held American prisoners of war from North Point.

 Onboard HM frigate Surprise – William B. Buchanan, Ezekiel Partett, Peter Abraham, James Gettings, Edward H. Dorsey, John Lowleas, William Balson, John Griffin, Thomas Herring, George Boyle, Richard Polkinhorn, Thomas Norris, Andrew Kaufman, and George T. Hersey.

 Onboard HM frigate Severn – John Chesley, John Baxley, Nicholas Wilson, Joseph Chaoman, and John Dougherty.

 In October they were released under the efforts of Colonel John S. Skinner, prisoner of war exchange agent for the U.S. State Department, who only recently had been with attorney Francis Scott Key on board a flag-of-truce vessel and had witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry.

Sources: Letter dated September 17, 1814, onboard HBM frigate Havanna. Samuel Smith Papers, Reel 2, Container 2-3., Library of Congress; Baltimore American & Commercial Daily Adv., September 26, 1814.

Published in: on April 5, 2011 at 9:41 pm  Comments Off on Battle of North Point – American Prisoners of War, September 12, 1814  

Myths & Legends: The Thomas Shaw House, North Point: September 12, 1814

Like many historical events, myths and legends have their own unique place in the documented stories providing a time line of events along with the documented main events. The Battle of North Point has too it’s own share of stories that have made their way into the historic lore as the British marched along the old North Point Road towards Baltimore.

Thomas Shaw House (also known as the Foulkes Farmhouse, circa1800). On the morning of Sept. 12 as the British army began their march along the Old North Point Road, British Major General Robert Ross’s staff took possession of the house on the ground floor, while ordering the family upstairs.

Eleanor Shaw, the daughter of Mr. Shaw (1745-1829), was forced to climb out of a second story window, to avoid the unwanted advances of a British lieutenant. Ever the disciplinarian, Major Gen. Robert Ross, RA ordered the officer back to the fleet for later punishment. The lore does not record the name of the young lieutenant nor any records that may substantiate the claim – but the story remains. The origin of the story appeared in The Sun on September 8, 1907.

Thomas’s son Joshua Shaw (1791-1832) served in Captain Joel Green’s company, 46th Maryland Regiment of Baltimore County. Today the site of the house is located on Foulkes’ Farm Road off the North Point Road. It survived until 1967 when it was torn down. A private family graveyard is nearby.

Source: “Battle of North Point in Legend and Tradition,” The Sun, September 8, 1907; Baltimore Gazette and Daily Adv., January 16, 1830 and December 1, 1832.

Published in: on April 5, 2011 at 7:15 pm  Comments Off on Myths & Legends: The Thomas Shaw House, North Point: September 12, 1814  

Lieutenant Gregorious Andre (1787-1814) of the Union Yagers

During the late evening of September 11, 1814, Captain Dominic Bader’ directed Lieutenant Gregorious Andre to employ a line of riflemen along a tree line of a clearing in preparation to meet the Brtiish the following day. They were one of five companies of the First Battalion of Maryland Riflemen. Near mid-day, moments before the Battle of North Point ensued on the 12th; the riflemen skirmished with the advancing forward vanguard of British Light Infantry, before falling steadily back to the main American lines. In a curious note in his official report to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Vice-Admiral Alexander F.I. Cochrane privately reported, noting a curious affair:

 

“One of the American field officers [Lt. Andre] in the late affair was Shot upon a Tree rather a Strange place for a Commander of a Regt., [company] but I understand he went there to direct his men how to fire with Most effect, but staying there rather too long he was brought down by a Soldier.”

 

On September 12, 1828, fourteen years after the Battle of North Point, his son, John Andre accompanied a detachment of the Baltimore Union Yagers to the battlegrounds. Here having partaken of a repast, prepared for their solemn remembrance of Lieutenant Andre, they formed a hollow square around the tree “where that brave and lamented officer met his untimely fate…” Lieutenant A.B. Wolfe, commanding the corps addressed those gathered in an “eloquent and impressive manner.”  Following the brief ceremony the corps returned to their homes.

Andre was a native of Bremen, Germany was buried along with others that had been mortally wounded that day at Old Christ Church Cemetery on Broadway, the present site of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was later reburied in Green Mount Cemetery.

 

Sources: Baltimore Patriot, September 18, 1828. Gregorious Andre received his commission on July 24, 1813;  Admiral Cochrane to First Lord of the Admiralty, September 17, 1814. The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, Vol. 3 (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 2002), 289-291.

Published in: on April 5, 2011 at 5:22 pm  Comments Off on Lieutenant Gregorious Andre (1787-1814) of the Union Yagers  

Myths & Legends: The Poplar Tree under which Major General Robert Ross breathed his last.

“Such was the veneration in which it was held that many individuals secured pieces as relics.”

This story is believed to have it’s origins in an article entitled “A Relic Gone” published in The Sun, (Baltimore) March 22, 1844. It was further retold in the “Battle of North Point in Legend and Tradition,” by Reverend Lewis B. Browne, of the Protestant Episcopal Church at Sparrow’s Point for The Sun, September 8, 1907.  Near the intersection of present day Weis Avenue and North Point Road, near the Gorsuch farm, once stood on a high roadside earthen bank a large poplar tree whose branches hung over the road, where earlier the British army had marched under.

After General Ross had been shot, the story is told he was placed “on a stretcher made of two fence rails from the spot where he was [mortally] wounded and taken to Poplar Heights about a mile and a half to the rear; but when the cart arrived he was already dead. The bearers laid their burden under a poplar tree by the wayside opposite Gorsuch’s farm.” From here they procured a cart from the nearby Stansbury farm and conveyed the body of General Ross to their North Point landing onboard HMS Royal Oak.

Thirty years later in 1844, the land owner Vincent Green, ordered his overseer to cut the tree down, it being a hazard to passersby.

 “We doubt whether there is to be found in the country, a tree, under which “confusion to the enemies of liberty,” has been quaffed in full bumpers, more frequently than under the “Ross’ Tree.” as it has always been familiarly called.”

Sources: The Sun, March 22, 1844; The Sun, September 8, 1907.

Published in: on April 4, 2011 at 9:40 pm  Comments Off on Myths & Legends: The Poplar Tree under which Major General Robert Ross breathed his last.  

Brigadier General Thomas Marsh Forman (1758-1845)

“I am [an] advocate for the cause which I espoused in 1776, and believing that the clouds which at present darken our political horizon portend a storm which will call for the exertions of every friend to the independence of our country.” T.M. Forman, 1812.

In the annuals of the Battle for Baltimore, Brigadier General Thomas M. Forman of Maryland’s Cecil County estate of Rose Hill, on the Sassafras River, he has never received his due award for his command of the 1st Brigade, 2nd Division of the Maryland Militia, upon Hampstead Hill. Unlike his Maryland contemporary officers, Brig. General John Stricker, Brig. General William Winder and Maj. General Samuel Smith, Forman left no official report, but his twenty-two letters home to his new wife Martha Ogle, documents a rare personal insight into a husband and wife separated by war during “the perilous fight.”

Thomas M. Forman was the son of Ezekiel (1736-1795) and Augustine Marsh Forman born on August 20, 1758 on Kent Island, Queen Annes Co., Md. At the age of seventeen Thomas left to join Washington’s Continental Army at Long Island, New York enlisting on December 4, 1775, in Captain John H. Stone’s company of Colonel William Smallwood’s 1st Maryland Regiment at the Battle of Long Island (Aug. 1776); he was with Washington when he crossed the Delaware River on Christmas Eve to engage the British at the Battle of Trenton in Dec. 1776; Brandywine (Sept. 1777), Valley Forge (1777-78), and Monmouth Courthouse (June 1778). The following winter of 1777 he received a captaincy commission in the regiment commanded by his uncle General David Forman (1745-1797).

Afterwards he served in the Maryland General Assembly (1790-1800) then settled to his family’s estate at Rose Hill. In May 1814, he married Martha Browne Ogle whose dairy detailed life at Rose Hill during the war. In August 27, 1814 Forman was ordered along with his command of the 1st Brigade (Cecil and Harford Counties) to Baltimore to aid in the defense upon Hampstead Hill. Though his brigade took no active role in the battle, his letters home to his wife provide an intimate portrait of this nearly unknown Maryland planter and militia officer. On Sept. 4, he wrote his wife Martha:

“My dear wife, No part of my duty is so pleasant as wanting to be with my dear wife, as is reading her only letter, that dear letter, which in the heat of battle shall be placed over my heart…We have assembled seven generals: Smith, Winder, Stricker, and Stansbury of Baltimore, Douglas and Singleton of Virginia; and your humble servant.”

He returned to Rose Hill on November 17, 1814 to attend to his estates as farmer and 50 slaves. In October 1824 he was designated to represent Maryland upon taking his carriage to await the arrival of the Marquis de LaFayette at the Maryland State line to escort him to Frenchtown, then to Baltimore by steamboat. In 1829 he received a military appointment as major general of the 2nd Division of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, a post he held until his death on May 8, 1845. He is buried in the family cemetery with his wife Martha at Rose Hill. (private property).

Source: Plantation Life at Rose Hill: The Diaries of Martha Ogle Forman, 1814-1845; Ed. by W. Emerson Wilson (Historical Society of Delaware, 1976); Forman Papers, Maryland Historical Society, MS.1277, 1777; “Adjutant General Papers,” War of 1812. Maryland State Archives, (SC-931-1, Box 66, Folder 12).

Published in: on April 3, 2011 at 11:19 pm  Comments Off on Brigadier General Thomas Marsh Forman (1758-1845)  

“Defence of Fort McHenry” – Words of the National Anthem

September 14, 1814, 9 A.M. – “At this time our morning gun was fired, the flag hoisted, Yankee Doodle played, and we all appeared in full view of a formidable and mortified enemy, who calculated upon our surrender in 20 minutes after the commencement of the action.” Joseph Hopper Nicholson, U.S. Volunteers at Fort McHenry to a friend, September 17, 1814.

It was at this moment,  that a 38 year old Georgetown lawyer, Francis Scott Key, witnessed from an American flag-of-truce vessel, the President, admist the British fleet, the great garrison flag (42’x 30′) over Fort McHenry. The following is from a handbill that was distributed to every soldier at Fort McHenry soon after the bombardment.

********

DEFENCE OF FORT McHENRY

The annexed song was composed under the following circumstances – A gentleman had left Baltimore, in a flag of truce for the purpose of getting released from the British fleet, a friend [Dr. William Beanes] who had been captured at [Upper] Marlborough. He went as far as the mouth of the Patuxent, and was not permitted to return lest the intended attack on Baltimore should be disclosed. He was therefore brought up the Bay to the mouth of the Patapsco, where the flag vessel was kept under the guns of a frigate [HMS Surprise], and he was compelled to witness the bombardment of Fort M’Henry, which the Admiral had boasted that he would carry in a few hours, and that the city must fall. He watched the flag at the Fort through the whole day with an anxiety that can be better felt than described, until the night prevented him from seeing it. In the night he watched the Bomb Shells, and at early dawn his eye was again greeted by the proudly waving flag of his country.

Tune -ANACREON IN HEAVEN.

O! say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,

What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight

O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?

And the Rocket’s red glare, the Bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our Flag was still there;

 

O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,

O’er  the Land of the free, and the home of the brave?

 

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,

In full glory reflected new shines in the stream,

 

‘Tis the star spangled banner, – O! long may it wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

 

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,

A home and a country, should leave us no more?

Their blood has wash’d out their foul footsteps pollution.

No refuse could save the hireling and slave,

From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,

 

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,

O’er the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

 

O! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,

Between their lov’d home, and the war’s desolation,

Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land,

Praise the Power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto – “In God is our Trust;”

And the star-spangled Banner in triumph shall wave,

O’er the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

*  *  *  *  *

On September 20, 1814, the Baltimore Patriot and Evening Advertiser published the words. Within the year every newspaper in the eighteen states had also published it.

Sources: One of the rare copies of the “Defence of Fort McHenry” handbills is at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore.

Published in: on April 3, 2011 at 10:50 pm  Comments Off on “Defence of Fort McHenry” – Words of the National Anthem  

Isaac Monroe: U.S. Volunteers: “…and Yankee Doodle played…”

Among the celebrated Old Defenders’ of Baltimore was Isaac Munroe.  He was born near Boston in 1774, learned the printer’s trade and eventually in his maturity founded the Boston Patriot. In 1812 he removed to Baltimore and in 1813 founded the Baltimore Patriot and Evening Advertiser newspaper that chronicled the Battle for Baltimore in 1814.

September 17, 1814. Three days after the bombardment of Fort McHenry, Isaac Munore, editor of the Baltimore Patriot and Evening Advertiser wrote a letter to a fellow editor of The [Boston] Yankee. As a private in Captain Joseph H. Nicholson’s U.S. Volunteers, the Baltimore Fencibles at Fort McHenry he had personally witnessed the preparations and bombardment. His letter provides crucial evidence of those moments that gave birth to a new national song. Here are extracts from the letter:

“I will give you an account of the approach of the enemy before this place, so far as it came under my observation…while we were marching to town, the enemy tacked about, and just at dusk were seen under press of sail, with a fair wind, approaching the town. There movements were closely watched at the fort…We were all immediately rallied, and arrived at the Fort before 12, although the rain poured down in torrents. On our arrival we found the matches burning, the furnaces heated and vomiting red hot shot, and everything ready for a gallant defense..Tuesday morning, at which time they had advanced to within two and a halfmile of the Fort, arranged in most elegant order, all at anchor, forming a half circle, with four bomb vessels and a rocket ship…

…two of their headmost frigates opened upon us, but finding their shot not reaching us, they ceased and advanced upa little nearer. The moment they had taken their position, Major Armistead mounted the parapet and ordered a battery of 24 pounders to be opened upon them; immediately after a battery of 42’s followed, whe the whole fort let drive at them. We could see the shot strike the frigates in several instances, when every heart was gladdened, and we gave three cheers, the music playing Yankee Doodle….

…The bomb vessels advanced a little, and commenced a tremendous bombardment, which lasted all day and all night…the most tremendous bombardment ever known in this cuntry, without means of resisting it, upwards of 1500 bombs having fallen in and around the Fort…”

“…till dawn of day [on September 14], when they appeared to be disposed the to decline the unprofitable contes. At this time, our morning gun was fired, the flag hoisted, Yankee Doodle played, and we all appeared in full view [upon the ramparts] of a formidable and mortified enemy, who calculated upon our surender in 20 minutes after the commencement of the action.”

 He died on December 28, 1859 and “was respected for his integrity and general uprightness of character.” His final resting place is unknown.

Sources:  The Yankee (Boston), September 30, 1814; “An Yankee Doodle played: A Letter from Baltimore, 1814” by Scott S. Sheads, (Maryland Historical Magazine, No.76. Fall 1981), 380-382; Civilian & Telegraph (Cumberland, MD), December 29, 1859.

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Published in: on April 3, 2011 at 9:24 pm  Comments Off on Isaac Monroe: U.S. Volunteers: “…and Yankee Doodle played…”  
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