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

with the secretary of the navy and took along young Stockton as his aide. However, before they could arrive, on August 24 General Ross and the main British army defeated the main American army at Bladensburg, Maryland. In support of Ross’ land attacks, Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn had ordered a separate force under Captain James A. Gordon to ascend the Potomac River as a feint. Gordon captured Fort Washington on the Maryland shore, guarding Washington from the south, and then occupied Alexandria, Virginia, on August 29.⁶⁵ The result of these maneuvers was that the British took and burned Washington.

When Rodgers finally caught up with the secretary of the navy, he and his men were dispatched to harass the British retreating down the Potomac from Alexandria.⁶⁶ Fulfilling these orders, Rodgers began fitting out a flotilla of small vessels, preparing some as fire ships and others as barges for boarding and capturing the British ships in hand-to-hand combat. For three days, Rodgers sought to grapple with the British force, but in the end, he was unable to inflict any damage. However, Stockton received his first official mention in navy record in Rodgers’ report of these efforts.⁶⁷

Eight days later (September 6), Stockton, Rodgers, and the rest of Rodgers’ naval contingent returned to Baltimore, for now the British fleet neared that port, evidently with the same objective they had accomplished in Washington—to capture and burn it. Thus, in the early morning of September 12, the British landed troops on North Point, only fourteen miles from Baltimore.

Sailors as Soldiers

In the first engagement on the twelfth, the Battle of North Point, more than 4,500 British troops were able to turn the left flank of the American line and continue their march on Baltimore along North Point Road. However, closer to the city, on its east, “Rodgers’ Bastion” on Chinkapin Hill blocked their path (see figure 5). On the thirteenth, the British planned to attack “Rodgers' Bastion,” held by Stockton and his naval comrades and fortified with a hundred guns; this infantry attack was to be augmented with a naval bombardment of Fort McHenry and