| Chapter 1: | Educating Stockton |
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a flanking bombardment of the bastion.68 To prevent just such a flanking bombardment, Rodgers had earlier dispatched Stockton and others to tow some merchant ships from their moorings and scuttle them, forming a sunken boom across the harbor from McHenry to the Lazaretto.69 Rodgers also placed three guns and 114 men in a forward battery across the harbor from Fort McHenry at the Lazaretto.
As the British fleet approached, Rodgers heard reports of a British landing threatening the Lazaretto,70 so he dispatched Stockton (in the route depicted in figure 5) to go outside of the American lines and carry information back and forth from this forward position while the bombardment of Fort McHenry proceeded overhead. Stockton's route at the bottom of the hill was in a greatly exposed position from the British. Rodgers described Stockton's actions in the following:
Unable to flank Fort McHenry to the south and finding his progress blocked by Stockton's sunken hulks, Rear Admiral Cockburn notified his army commander, “It is impossible for the ships to render you any assistance.”72 Thus the British infantry commander withdrew his forces threatening “Rodgers' Bastion,” and over the next few days, they retraced their march along North Point Road, reboarding transports at North Point on September 15.
In Commodore Rodgers’ dispatch of September 23 to the Navy Department, he detailed the services of his officers and men and again singled out Stockton: