Commodore Robert F. Stockton, 1795–1866: Protean Man for a Protean Nation
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Commodore Robert F. Stockton, 1795–1866: Protean Man for a Protea ...

Chapter 1:  Educating Stockton
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Ashore

With the abdication of Napoleon in the spring of 1814, Great Britain was free to throw her entire strength against the United States. Thus in mid-August, British Admiral Sir George Cockburn sailed up the Chesapeake with twenty warships and a long train of transports with General Robert Ross’ veteran army aboard. He landed Ross’ army on the Patuxent River, threatening both Washington and Baltimore.61 In response, the secretary of the navy summoned Rodgers and his crew, including Stockton, to Baltimore, where the seamen received training as infantry soldiers. This was only the second time in the history of the U.S. Navy that sailors were used as infantry,62 and these “drills” (described by a Baltimore newspaper article in 1814) gave nineteen-year-old Midshipman Stockton his first practical lessons in land warfare fought by sailors:

In some of the late papers we have seen an article from Barbados, respecting a corps of sea fencibles established there, in which many sea-phrases were successfully used to drill the men into the use of the musket, as practised by the land forces.63 This very naturally brought to recollection an incident that occurred when the veteran Rodgers, with the gallant crew of the Guerriere, were aiding in the defences of Baltimore, in September, 1814—whose services will never be forgotten by a grateful people.
The crew of the ship, some days before the attack, were armed, with muskets and paraded, in squads or companies of 60 or 70 men each, for drill. Their officers were zealous and attentive, and certainly had need of all their patience to bear with, (as it appeared to me,) the studied awkwardness of the sailors—who, evidently, did not like such maneuvering. After one of the squads, with great labor, had been placed in line, the officer began with “attention;”—and “silence”—“hold your jaw,” said every other man of them. “Silence,” cried the officer, vexed—and “aye, aye, sir,“ or “silence;” said the whole! Order being obtained, the gentleman commanding, with the greatest patience and perspicuity, described to them what he wished them first to do, encouraging them to do it handsomely. They seemed exceedingly anxious to