 Okay. Thanks for having me up here. I love coming up here. Anytime I get an excuse, come to Newport, I do. And it's great to see some old friends as well in the audience. My good friend, John Hattendorf, I just ran into at the Naval Academy. And fortunately, I was able to get in between his lectures. So, like I said, it's nice to have old friends in the audience as well. What I want to kind of do is set the text or tone for you so you understand what's going on here and why. One of the things that I really, really am adamant about when I teach down at the Marine Corps University is this. Is that history is great, but if you don't understand why things are happening and why things are taking place, you kind of miss the ideas. So, you have to answer this question. Why is there fighting going on in the Chesapeake Bay? So, that's the first question you want to keep in the back of your mind as I begin my talk. What are they doing there and why are they there? And the second thing is, why do we have a war at all? You know, why is it that James Madison decides in June of 1812 to take on the most powerful nation in the world? Why does he decide to do that? We had zero, we had next to zero Navy. We had a very tiny army. We had a very tiny Marine Corps. Okay, we had, you know, militia forces that were untried and untested. What was he thinking? You would ask. You know, and it would not have been a good strategic, you know, response to taking on Britain. But he thought that the time was right to do something about Britain for years. One of the problems that the Americans ran into with the Great Britain throughout the Napoleonic era was they were caught between two warring powers and we're going to show you two big reasons why Madison decides in 1812 to go to war against Great Britain. And remember, for Madison, for the Americans, it is a war of choice. He chooses to go to war and you say, well, why does he do that? And then the second thing he does, he chooses to attack not the British at sea particularly, although he gets out there early with some of his frigates and gets some early victories. But he also goes after Canada. Many of you talked to Canadian scholars to this very day. I was just at a conference this summer and the Canadians are convinced we were to have to grab Canada for ourselves. And I'm not so sure that was the case. If you're going to go after Great Britain and you have no Navy, what are your other options? You have one other place to go. It's Canada. You can walk across the border to bother them. I think what Madison was thinking about doing was an exchange for concessions while Britain was tied down fighting with Napoleon in Europe. Remember, in June of 1812, Napoleon has just launched his 600,000-man Grand Army into Russia. At this point, Napoleon had run the table. He won everything. He had not been defeated. And when 600,000 personnel go rolling into Canada, I mean into Russia, Napoleon's leading them, Madison says, well, he's going to be busy over there and British are going to be worried about him. They're not going to be worried about us bothering them in Canada. So that's the problem that the British have is that this really is a secondary theater of war for them. And that's the big deal. So Madison says the time is right. And the other issue they want to resolve is this. And you'll see this on placards, on posters, free trade, and sailors' rights. In fact, when I'm corresponding with my British counterparts and my Canadian counterparts, I always put that at the end of my emails. They don't get it. They go, what is free trade? I say, that is why we went to war. And then I explain it to them and they don't want to hear it after that. So the prelude to war. Two big operations are going to take place that are going to really set the stage for why Madison chooses to go to war. And they don't have anything to do with us. One is Trafalgar and the other one is Austerlitz. Okay, Trafalgar in 1805, Great Britain defeats the combined fleets of Spain and France in a massive sea battle where they lose 17 ships of the line in one fight. That's an incredible, incredible feat. Up to this point, if you lost a couple of ships in any sea battle, that was probably pretty noteworthy. But Nelson, being the naval hero of his day, probably the most innovative thinker that the British had at the time at sea, he takes apart this fleet and decimates it. 17 other ships in line are defeated. Nelson unfortunately is killed at the height of the battle by a sniper. But nonetheless, he comes back the greatest naval hero probably ever in British history. The other battle that's going to be fought is Austerlitz and that's going to be a Napoleonic victory. Napoleon is going to defeat the Third Coalition at Austerlitz and he's going to complete his iron grip over the rest of Europe. The problem for neutrals like America is that we're caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. The British are going to begin ramping up and tightening down on neutral trade during this timeframe, which means impressing sailors, which means seizing cargo, which means making us conform to something called the Rule of 1756 which said that only people were allowed to trade with in wartime but those were not allowed to trade with in peacetime, which meant that we could only trade with British colonies. And only if they allowed it. So the Rule of 1756, we figured a way around that. They called it broken voyages where we would sail our vessels to a neutral port. We would take say a cargo, a load of cocoa from say Havana, which Spain was an ally of France at the time. And we'd sail to Marblehead, Massachusetts. We'd offload the cocoa in Marblehead. Then we would write a ticket out for the new cocoa, make it in American goods, and then ship it to Europe. But it's a neutral flag. You can't bother us. So the British said, that's kind of a subterfuge around our ability to clamp down on trade. So they started taking these ships and seizing them and condemning them in our military courts. Again, free trade and sailors' rights and pressman issues. We have the Chesapeake, Leander and Driver Affairs where three ships are going to be hauled over during various points and years leading up to the war, particularly the Chesapeake. Nearly go to war in 1807 over the HMS. I think it was Lepper attacking the Chesapeake just off of Hampton Roads. Pretty big deal. And it resounds throughout the United States Navy upper echelons for years. And then the other one is my favorite quote by John Randolph of Roanoke where he says, the sole reason why we're fighting this war can be summed up in three words like the eternal cry of a whip of will, Canada, Canada, Canada. Now, he's the only one that's saying this. Okay, most of the guys in Congress are saying, Canada's the only way we can leverage these British guys and get their attention because they're not going to listen to us any other way. Okay, Trafalgar, this poster was posted throughout London right after the Great Victory. I have it in my office. In fact, I have a copy of it from the Royal Navy Museum. And the most decisive victory ever, Viscount Nelson wins it. And it's a big deal. It gives them predominance at sea. Again, free trade and sales rights. This is a press gang taking out some poor soul. But you know, this is an interesting piece. A lot of people envision press gangs like this. You know, guys going ashore and getting some poor landsmen. They didn't know how to, you know, the front end of a ship from the back. You know, the pointy end from the blunt end. But they would put them in there just as for manpower. But in reality, press sailors came from merchant ships at sea. They were usually not taken from towns for the moment. They would take them from towns, but they would normally get ships coming back from a commercial voyage heading into the home country. And the problem we had at the time with sailors and nationality and national rights was the issue of the British would argue that once a British citizen, always a British citizen. So they didn't believe in naturalization at the time. So if you had been a British sailor and you decided to immigrate to America and become an American citizen, if you were caught on board one of these ships you would be pressed back into service because you could never renounce your rights to your sovereign in their minds. So the issues of nationality were another reason why we had difficulty with the British at this time. So Madison declares war on Great Britain. And this is an important line right out of his declaration war. He asked whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive usurpations, meaning free trade and sailor rights violations, or by opposing force to force and defense of our national rights shall commit a just cause into the hands of the almighty disposer of events. Again, why declare war in June of 1812? Napoleon is marching into Russia. What is the British point of view? The British point of view about this declaration of war is this. This is a stab in the back. They see it as a supreme act of treachery on the part of an ungrateful nation that had been established by Great Britain in the first place. And they're using their difficulties they're having with Napoleon at the time in order to gain some advantage. And that's what the British do. They also view the Americans as in league with Napoleon. Now, in all my research, I have never once found Madison corresponding with Napoleon, not a single letter ever. Now, whether they burned him, I don't know. But the bottom line was that I don't see anybody, even though Napoleon's a low ration, I mean, Madison's a low ration. People like Monroe and others corresponding very, very closely with the French. Napoleon was his own emperor. He was his own thing. And the Americans didn't coordinate whatsoever. They weren't going to take advantage of it, but they really weren't working with him. Right around this time of the declaration of war, there's a sign of trouble in the Chesapeake. The British are going to pick up one. There's a major riot taking place in Baltimore. Oh, there's not a shock there. Happens a lot. Okay, happens as recently as a year ago, in fact. Baltimore has a reputation of being something known as a mob town, so to speak. Mobbing meaning they're constantly having internal upheaval. And in 1812, it's a Republican pro-Madison town. There was a publisher named Alexander Conte Hanson, who was going to publish a newspaper called The Federal Gazette, that claimed that Madison was a dupe of Napoleon. And he's going to reemphasize this over and over again. So much so that an angry mob smashes his newspaper to pieces, and then about three weeks later when he returns to the city to try to publish it in a different form from Georgetown, Maryland, he brings in some leaders from the American Revolution, Light Horse Harry Lee from the American Revolution, as well as a guy named James Lingen, who's going to add gravitas to his efforts to get his newspaper published. The mob doesn't care, and they nearly kill Lee, and they do, in fact, kill Lingen and the ensuing riots. But these riots are noted by the British. They realize that Maryland might not be necessarily pro-Madison. And in fact, if you look at the Electoral College votes for the 1808 election of James Madison, Madison takes the state by a single electoral vote. It's six to five, 11 electoral votes, six pro-Madison votes, five are for Gouverneur, no, Gouverneur, the guy's name is DeWitt Clinton, that's who it was. And he was the other guy that was running at the time. He was a federalist. So they basically had a problem with having a split state right off the bat. Okay, here's the British view of Madison. This is one of my favorite cartoons. Right here you see Great Britain thrusting out a shield. And who are they handing the shield to? A Native American, okay? We will protect you against these nasty Americans. Here's an American right in front of the Liberty flag with a Liberty cap on top. Oh, by the way, it's evocative of the French, you know, Liberty caps from the French Revolution. Here's Napoleon to the left of Madison, and he's saying, I suffer greater hardships than you, but don't worry, the devil will help us both. And on the right, the devil is dancing around here saying, I better take these two down the hell so I can fix them up because they're getting too nervous here. But I love this guy up here. This is the angel Gabriel, and he's blowing a trumpet. And you can't read it, but right here it says bad news for you. So Britain is now aroused, holding the lion back, getting ready to attack. And look what they're suggesting. We're going to arm and arm up the Native American tribes on the frontier so you want to play this game too can play at it. That's exactly what they do. And again, problems in Baltimore, Montgomery County war dance. This is one of my favorite cartoons as well. This is Robert Gudlow Harper. He was actually one of the two lawyers that defended Aaron Burr in his famous treason trial. They get him off the hook. He beats the rap, so to speak. And he is hated by the Republicans in Baltimore. These guys dancing around are some of them are unknown, but some of them are Light Horse Harry Lee, some of them are James Lincoln, some of them are about 20 or 30, but are all from Montgomery County, Maryland. They're not from Baltimore. They are pro-federalists. And so what they're saying is these guys are coming to Baltimore to stir up trouble. And one of the guys had a letter and he says, well, if we can't find enough arms to protect ourselves, let's just arm ourselves with hatchets. So they made sure they put these little hatchets in their hand right there. It's kind of interesting, isn't it? Early naval success in the war of 1812 was also going to set the stage. This is a big deal because up to this point, when the USS Constitution takes on the USS Garrier, in the summer of 1812, in recent memory, in fact, the British could not remember a single time in 30 or 40 years perhaps, even longer, where an enemy ship had taken one of their ships of like size and armament in a ship-to-ship engagement. This was absolutely unheard of. This was a shock to the British pride and also to the Royal Navy. And this is followed up very quickly with taking of the HMS Java and later on the United States is going to take a ship of the Macedonian under Stephen Decatur. So this is a big deal. And so the British are going to lose a couple of ships in succession. Why is it that we have success? And I argue that our frigates were not really frigates. They were called super frigates in some people's minds. 44 guns. Actually, men had to amount to 54 guns. The British frigate was typically between 38 and 40 guns. So they were going up against a larger ship that was more of a hybrid. It was a hybrid ship between, say, it was to be a very, very light ship of the line. We didn't have a single ship of the line. It's the lowest level ship of the line that the British had was a 74 gun ship. That was their main battleship, so to speak. After that, you had frigates and rigs and sloops and that sort of thing. In this case, we have these big, big frigates. So whenever our frigates went up against their frigates, usually their frigates got the worst of it. But they would say it was a frigate-the-frigate fight, but was it really? Andrew Lambert would say it was not. That's right. So 1813 British strategy is to break into the Chesapeake Bay. What the British are trying to do. Remember that's the other question I said. Why the Chesapeake? The British are moving to the Chesapeake in 1813 because of the 1812 fighting in the Canadian frontier. The Americans go into Canada with a three-pronged attack. None of them do very well. But it scares the hell out of the British because they don't have very many soldiers in North America. They're all tied down dealing with Napoleon at the time. So as a result, they're in Spain and they're obviously worried about what Napoleon's going to do in Russia and what happens if he's successful there. So what they do is they say, well, let's change the venue. Let's move the fleet into the Chesapeake Bay. They don't have a navy. They can't protect it. We can go where we want with our fleet. We don't really have to invest a lot. We can use Royal Marines for the most part. We can use Royal Navy ships. And we can get into this bay. And the idea is they're going to conduct raids along the length and breadth of the bay. And they're going to kill off the American privateers that are here to have been using this bay for a very lucrative safe harbor, so to speak. And this is an important part. And this is said by Captain Thomas Lawrence, who says we want to cause the Americans to feel the hard hand of war. In other words, you're going to regret what you did just the previous year. And oh, by the way, this is what happens when you attack superpower. And this is what happens when you really don't have any ability to defend yourselves. We're going to make you feel it. And we're going to make you sue for peace. So what they want to do is they want to come in. They don't want to hold Maryland. They don't want to hold Virginia. But they want to make it hard. They want to make it painful. So they're going to burn, pillage, and damage as much as possible. Okay? And if possible, if these things fall in their hands, if the opportunity presents itself. And look at this last one. Capture or sink the USS Constellation. Constellation at this time had gotten blockaded in the port of Norfolk. It wasn't going anywhere, but it's one of those famous things the Navy likes to write about. It's kind of its own fleet in being. As long as the Constellation exists, the British must have at least four or five large ships watching the port who are not available to do raids, who are not available to do fleet operations. So the Constellation, even though it's not fighting, represents a fleet in being of one. Okay? Works out okay if you're the Americans. So it actually is a pretty good trade. Okay, so they're going to sack these towns so they can get in, but they also want the Constellation if possible. They can also deal with these two guys right here. Now, this is the Pride of Baltimore, otherwise known as the USS Chasseur. It was a privateer that was captain by a guy named Thomas Boyle, the most famous privateer of all the Chesapeake Bay privateers. This would be the equivalent of a Maserati sports car. Fast, sleek, very steep rake to the mast itself. There's a replica of it in Baltimore Harbor today. This one over here is also in existence. This is the Lynx. This is more of a letter of Mark's ship. It's a little bit smaller version than the Pride of Baltimore. They're down there for Fleet Week in Norfolk. They both exist. The Lynx is actually on the west coast near Monterey, and this is obviously in Baltimore Harbor. But these ships were privateers doing some damage to the British maritime community. They said, we bring a fleet into the bay. These guys can't get out anymore, and that's exactly what they do. This guy's going to lead the fleet. His name is Sir John Berlais Warren. He's 59 years old, and he has some diplomatic experience. He was a former minister to Russia prior to the war, and he's told by the Admiralty to bring a swift end to the American flare-up. In other words, end it with what you got, your naval ships. He immediately tells the Admiralty, I don't have enough. And the Admiralty says, well, during the American Revolution, we had half as many ships that we've given you, and we seem to do fine, at least till the very end. And so he says, that's a very different time. I'm asked to defend Canada. I'm asked to defend the West Indies. I'm asked to conduct an offensive war in America with less than 100 ships. He doesn't get any more ships. The British say, make do with what you got. This is the second in command. And this guy, this guy, and he actually pronounces his name Coburn. The British pronounce it Coburn. I was told that when I was at a conference in London. I mispronounced his name. Andrew Lambert made sure he corrected me on the spot, in fact, I think. But George Coburn is a master and commander. This guy recognizes the maneuverability that having the fleet under his command with unlimited access to any place up and down the Chesapeake Bay. He appears simultaneously in major roadsteads over and over and over again. And he does so for a specific reason. Because every time he shows up in the mouth of the Potomac River, every time he shows up at the mouth of the Patapsco River or on the eastern shore, it serves to freeze the Maryland militia in place. So when it looks like he's threatening Baltimore in 1813, which he's going to do, he's actually going to put channel markers out there. And look, he's going to come ashore. He's going to look like he's lightening his ships in order to make a landing. The Maryland militia say, okay, we've got to defend Baltimore. And then a day later, he's on the eastern shore. So all the militia doesn't move out of Baltimore because he's saying he might come back. Meanwhile, he rips up the eastern shore. And so every time he lands Royal Marines, the Maryland militia is at a disadvantage. Freezes them in place. Maneuver freezes the land forces in place. It is operational maneuver from the sea, folks. Early version. Okay? That's why I like, well, I don't like them, but I admire his tactics. And you can see, this is his picture of him. He has his, it was his portrait he had commissioned. He's standing in front of the burning buildings of Washington right there. Very proud of his handiwork, so to speak. Okay. So the upper bay raids is going to attack on the eastern shore of French town. He reveals his modus operandi for the campaign. He says if anybody dares to resist when we go ashore to get resupply, that we will then torch the town. So if the militia show up and fire even a single shot, if they find any military supplies, he sets the whole town on fire. And so he does this repeatedly. Remember, his modus operandi is also to cause pain, to cause the Maryland politicians to begin to hector Madison. You've got to pull those regiments off the Canadian frontier to protect us. You've got to sue for peace. This is getting too hard. We don't like this. And they're losing a lot of value. They're running off slaves, because the Maryland is a slave state. They're running off livestock. And they're basically taking to war to the Americans, showing them the hard-handed war, just like they said they would. They try a pharagans out, and they don't do so well, but they do very well at a place called Have the Grace. They also burned Georgetown and Fredericktown on the eastern shore. They're all sacked and heavily damaged during this fight. This is Have the Grace going up. I was able to identify the identity of this guy here. He's got his arm in a sling. His name is George Westfall. He is Coburn's favorite naval commando. He sends them on all these raids up shore. They go to the Sassafras River. They go to the Bohemian River. They go to the Miles River. They go to all these rivers, and they go as far inland as they can go. Americans did not believe they had this kind of maneuverability, but it's maneuver that really does them well. And Coburn recognizes it and uses Westfall as his lieutenant. And these guys do a really good operation, a new operation from the sea against the Americans. They set Have the Grace on fire. They burned most of the town. About 60 wooden houses were set on fire by congregate rockets. At the Battle of Have the Grace was much of a battle. The Americans do have a land battery there. They called it the potato battery. I don't know why they called it that, but it was a man by a lieutenant named John O'Neill. He's later captured, but they set the entire town on fire by just firing these congregate rockets and then burning it down. The next target is the one they really wanted to get, and that's Norfolk. Why Norfolk? The constellation is there, but it's also a pretty big seaport at the time. So they're going to get a resupply of soldiers. Now note who they get. They get the 102nd Regiment of Foot. You go, that's good, right? Who is the 102nd Regiment of Foot? A little research on my part, and I discovered they were actually the former New South Wales Corps. New South Wales. Is that Ringabel? Where's it located? Australia. What did the British use Australia for? What do you suppose the regiment that guarded their prison colony was like? They were prisoners themselves. Anybody that you didn't like in your regiment, you sent to the New South Wales Corps to get them out of your unit. These guys were the worst of the worst. They were so bad that eventually the commander of New South Wales, a guy named William Bly, a former captain of the HMS Bounty who had been mutinied upon by his own crew, is held under house arrest by this regiment because he deemed interfere with their rum concession they ran in Australia. Nonetheless, they come to the United States as his 102nd Regiment of Foot. They've been kind of renamed, but it's still the New South Wales Corps in reality because the same guys are there. They merely have a mini mutiny island of Bermuda before they go to America. They have a number of them are executed for inciting a riot. But Warren says, I'm going to use this because that's the best I can get. Where are the best troops at? They're under Wellington in the peninsula campaign in Spain. They're in England getting ready for what might happen in Russia. So as a result, Warren is going to get what he has to get. So Warren wants to take the constellation. He's also going to worry about the forts at Nelson and Norfolk, but he's going to have to go to the island. The defense hinges on Crane Island. If you go down to Norfolk today, Crane Island is still there. It's connected to the mainland today. And it's still part of that kind of naval establishment down there. Their blockaded marine detachment and sailors from the constellation are going to be utilized though and is coming fight at Crane Island. And it's going to be a major check. They send the Colonel of the 102nd Regiment of Foot fails to recon the island defenses and as a result, they're thinking they're going to run off the militia like they had done every time before. Except this time, the militia is leavened in with the sailors off the constellation who, by the way, know how to fire naval ordinance. And the Marines as well, who are fairly well disciplined from the marine detachment and they also know how to fire lighter guns. And the Virginia militia actually performs very well. They do quite well against this particular fight. Lieutenant Henry Breckenridge, for instance, and Marine Corps is going to be in command of the Marines. The later, the British are going to claim the atrocities on the wounded that are caught in the mudflats as they try to get ashore in Crane Island. One of the things, you have to have a beach sort of recon, they don't even do that. So as they're rowing their boats towards the seaborn attack on Crane Island, they run aground on unseen mudflats. Well, you've been to Hampton Roads. You can walk out into the middle of Hampton Road for a mile before it gets over your knees. Well, they didn't know that. So they put these soldiers and Marines in boats, tried to roll them over those mudflats. They got caught about 300 meters out from the shoreline. Stationary targets for who? USS Constellation canineers who just decimated them, went round shot, graped shot, and anything else they could fire at them. This is the commanding officer of the militia. He's a lawyer by trade, so he has his portrait painted, not as a militia commander, but as a lawyer. He's reading from his law book. Robert Barard Taylor, but he actually does a pretty good job of defending Crane Island. And here's the battle of Crane Island right here. British had to try to get ashore here, and they get run off here, they get run off here, and it's a major victory for the Americans. The British are now going to take their ire out against the town of Hampton across the bay. They're going to pretty much brutalize the population. But the 1813 response to be summed up is this, amazingly tepid response from the Madison administration. Despite the devastation, he does not do anything about sending regular regiments to the region. He keeps them up there on the Canadian frontier. The barracks preserve the smaller bay towns pay a price. There was a plea of the St. Mary's County, Maryland citizen saying, you need to send regiments down here. The British are landing and robbing us blind. And secretary of the war, John Armstrong, said, certainly I cannot be expected to defend every man's cabbage patch. So he says, I'm not going to do it. Commodore Joshua Barney then enters the picture. Joshua Barney is kind of a semi-retired admiral. He also was a very, very smart guy. He does have a period of time where he sells his services to the French. So therefore, he's kind of under suspicion because we do fight this quasi-war with France in 1798 to 1800. And Barney was technically still in French service. He doesn't fight against the Americans. But people said, oh, you know, not really sure of his loyalty. But Barney is living in Maryland. And he says, well, we don't have a navy, but what we can do is we can build galleys. And we can man those galleys up and down in the bay. And that's what he hopes to do. Here he is right here. He's the last best hope of the Chesapeake Bay. So in 1814, he is enemy number one for the British. All they think about is taking out Barney and the French. And Barney is one of the most powerful and most powerful galleys in the world. And Barney is one of the most powerful and most powerful galleys in the world. And Barney is one of the most powerful and most powerful galleys in the world. And all they think about is taking out Barney and the flotilla. That is the number one military target in 1814 when the British returned to the bay the next summer. Problems with the galleys. Who wants to be in a galley? My God, that's not real navy. Okay, what is that? A bunch of guys that got to roll around and you don't get prize money hardly. And by the way, they're very vulnerable. Little Bull Works lack of protection for crew. They were very leaky. Not part of the regular navy establishment. The military navy says I don't want all these galleys under my command. I can't feed them. I can't pay them. So they have contractor problems right off the bat. The first galleys they build doesn't work very well. Their rudders are broken. They're built in St. Michael's and in Baltimore itself. And it's important to note U.S. Marines do not serve aboard them. Captain Samuel Miller of the U.S. Marine Detachment at Marine Barracks 8th and 9th Washington D.C. is going to operate on land. But not in the flotilla itself. He's got his own drawing. He's in the Library of Congress. He drew these little sketches. Here's what a galleys should look like. But he had problems because the contractors were trying to cut costs and cut corners. They'd never do that, do they? Contractors would never do that. And in fact, he says please send me the black snake, which was a template built galley that was sitting in the Washington Navy. He says it to Secretary of Navy Jim. Send me the black snake, he says, they never do get it right. The poor galleys just were awful. But they were okay. He could get them down the bay if he needed to. They were just tough and it would leak a lot and nobody liked to be on them. Here's one of the flotilla men. This is a free African American named Charles Ball. This is what they look like. He says flotilla up here on his hat and a little ribbon band up there. Here's the other poor man's navy they tried to do and it was torpedoes. Now not torpedoes that you see in the museum today. They had these stationary things. They would actually, sometimes they would float these torpedoes. They were like floating bombs. And a guy named Elijah Mix is going to experiment with these torpedoes. They're actually going to think, Stephen Decatur's going to try to put one here in Newport Harbor. There's going to be one in New York and there's going to be a number of them in Baltimore itself. But none of these cities would really want them around because it was just emerging technology. The British call it the Yankee torpedo. The British tar right here. He's turning his backside to this torpedo that's blowing up. This is an alleged incident that took place off of Cape Henry Light. The HMS Plantagenet 74 gun was on stationary blockade duty. Elijah Mix takes a small vessel that he creates out of his own pocket called Chesapeake's Revenge and he puts this torpedo there and he's going to dump it over the side and it's on a wire and as it floats with the current it's going to bump up against the hull of this 74 gun ship and he's going to set it off and blow it up. His first two attempts, a guard boat stops and so he had to run away. The third attempt, it almost works. He gets about maybe within 10 yards of the ship and it blows up prematurely. Tons of sea water go cascading over the Plantagenet's deck but it doesn't do a darn thing to the hull. And so the British don't think much of mines or torpedoes. They're going to think about it later on in the 19th century. But here he says, blow up my hull indeed. Mr. Tafferl, Mr. Yankee Doodle. And so he's basically they're saying, we don't care what you try against us. These are just forlorn hopes. The marine backs at 8th and I is where the marines are going to be located during this 1814 campaign. They're going to be utilized in two battles. One, the Battle of St. Leonard's Creek and the other one at the Battle of Bladensburg. They're going to do pretty well at Bladensburg. They're going to do not so well at St. Leonard's Creek although not the way things turned out and I'll explain to that in a second. These are his 12-pounders that he utilized during the war. They would typically have about 103 infantrymen that would man these guns. The rest would be providing infantry support and they would be light artillery, mobile. They could move them around. So they were very, very easy to get from one point of the battlefield to the other. And the marines were experimenting with this light artillery because that's what the Royal Marines were doing. The Royal Marines were doing Royal Marine imitating the Royal Marines as their model. Warren's replaced by this time and they're going to bring in a new guy. I'm Alexander Cochran. I'm going to show you a picture of him in a minute. But Cochran's going to really, really want to utilize all the forces at his disposal and severely punish the Yankees. His operational strategy is much the same as the year before. He says he's going to cause mischief and damage and he wants the Americans to pay. And he's also going to go directly after what he believes is their main source of economic welfare in the region. Because they've enslaved a lot of people who don't want to be enslaved, which is very true. And he's going to run off about 3,000 to 4,000 slaves and give them the option of resettling somewhere else in the British Empire or becoming what he calls colonial marines. And I'll tell you what I'll show you a picture of that in a second. This is Alexander Cochran. He's one of Nelson's guys at one time. He also has extensive North American experience. He's a very smart guy. He says, if you want to defeat the Americans, you take him on the Chesapeake and you take him on at New Orleans. He tries to do both. And he's unsuccessful at both thanks to circumstances particularly in the Chesapeake region. It looked like it was initially going to be successful. His strategy, liberate slaves, colonial marines. Strategic objective, possible assault. He mentions Rhode Island. I have a letter. It was a secret letter he wrote to the Admiralty where he says, you know you're giving me these reinforcements this summer. Where do you want me to use them? He says, I recommend we go up to Rhode Island and just ransack Narragansett Bay. Okay, and then Coburn, his second in commences now. These Americans down here in the Chesapeake, they're too easy. He says, we can do whatever we want. We get enough people. He says, we can take Baltimore. We can take Annapolis. We can take Washington. We can really embarrass the administration. He says, much easier than going up to Rhode Island. And he says, besides, we don't want to mess with the New Englanders. They're kind of, you know, not really thrilled with the war anyway. So as a result, they take with Washington and the Chesapeake area as their main objective. So that's exactly what they do. These are the Colonial Marines. They wore red coat and they were great for guides. One reason why the British were so good at raiding far up rivers is because they used these guys as guides. They could say, okay, this is the plantation of where I used to live and they have stuff here and they have stuff here and they have stuff here. I know exactly where it is. They were great for raids and it really hurt the American cause because the British are going to turn their assets against them. And the Colonial Marines, every single raid that Cochrane is going to operate on in 1814, they're going to be at least a company of these guys in each one of these raids. This is what a Southern Maryland raid looks like. Again, they find anything. They set it on fire. They take all the things that can be carried off and then they move on to the next plantation. So it's designed to be a punitive expedition every single time. Now, remember I told you there's two fights that are going to be involving U.S. Marines. One is the Battle of St. Leonard's Creek. Barney's flotilla gets run up the Patuxent River because he runs into a 74-gun ship of line, HMS Dragon. And the winds fail at the exact moment that Barney needed winds to be in his favor so therefore he must row up this river and he gets stuck up this little creek. He's literally, he's stuck up a creek without a paddle. They put a couple of British ships at the mouth of St. Leonard's Creek and Barney's going nowhere. In fact, the Secretary of the Navy so upset with Barney he says, just burn the flotilla. It's a nice experiment. Didn't work out and come back to Washington, D.C. And Barney says, no, no, no, let me try something. So he gets the army to support him in building a land battery right here and they're going to put it on a bluff overlooking St. Leonard's Creek. And the idea is they're going to open up on these British blockade ships and drive them off from the mouth of the creek in order for Barney's flotilla to come down come down the creek, blast their way through the blockade and they get further up the Patuxent River. And that's exactly the way it works out. The problem was they didn't coordinate the activities between the army and the Navy. Joint operations didn't work well in 1814. We're a little better today, but I don't know how much better. So the army is supposed to coordinate with the Navy. They want both attacks to happen at the same time. So at 3 a.m. in the morning, Colonel Desius Wadwurst says to Barney I got to move the cannons around. I'll let you know. And at 4 a.m. Barney is shocked to hear Wadwurst's cannon begin to open fire. He's 45 minutes away from the fight. He now has to roll all the way down the creek and he does so. He has a marine battery over here under Samuel Miller firing round shot. They only got 12 pounders. So they're going to run out of round shot pretty fast and Miller at the height of the fighting says I'm out of ammunition. What do you want me to do? He tells that to sailing master Gohagan down here to main battery. Gohagan being the senior Navy man on the ground says, got it Cap. Miller says pull your guns back so they can support in case there's an infantry attack later on further up the peninsula. Miller then retreats up the peninsula. Two army regiments standing nearby seeing Miller's cannons being pulled out and going up the peninsula says they must know something we don't and they follow the Marines up the peninsula retreating without firing a shot. The Colonel is absolutely mortified. He blames the entire debacle of the United States Marines. He says the Marines left the field of battle without being ordered to do so. Gohagan fortunately says no, no, no Miller asked me to go. I told him he could go and therefore he was exonerated a little bit later on but it still left a bad taste in Miller's mouth that he was somehow accused of leaving the field under fire. One of the reasons why you'll see Barney and Miller not giving an inch at Bladensburg. I think that Miller says excuse me once I'm doing that, you're not going to do it a second time and that's exactly what happened. Okay Cochrane's plans for 1814 is a free pronged attack just like Coburn did the year before. A pier in multiple places at the same time freezes the militia in place. They can't go anywhere. Eastern shore militia can't come over because he's got a squadron going up there under a guy named Sir Peter Parker. He's got another squadron threatening the Potomac River under a guy named Alexander Gordon and then a third guy himself he's going to threaten the Patuxent Roadstead and that's his real main attack. His main attack is the Patuxent River he goes to the Patuxent River he lands at Benedict Maryland he marches over land all the way up to Bladensburg and he gets to Bladensburg he's going to fight one big battle he's going to threaten Washington D.C. Barney's flotilla is going to have to get destroyed because as he goes up towards Upper Marlboro Maryland Barney runs out of river so he has to burn his ships anyway Barney then moves his forces to Washington. But here's the problem he gets up there he says he wants to attack Washington D.C. in order to humiliate the Madison Administration and he does so. Okay but Winder incredibly the American commander in charge of the operation makes no attempt to delay Ross on his route of march. So the Secretary of War Armstrong convinces Madison that a British march westward is just a Cossack Haraw meaning a raid they won't stick around here very long though let's go back because they're too far away from their ships they have no cavalry they have very little artillery so he says a real invasion would have that so as a result he tells Madison not to worry. Winder fights a single battle he could have fought the British for 20 miles falling back each way the British are shocked the Americans don't even fire a shot okay they literally walk from Benedict Maryland all the way to the D.C. line without getting engaged whatsoever and the British found that absolutely astounding they said that the Americans have no heart for the fight. Winder just was leading them and he didn't understand what he could have done so he's going to basically fight this fight at Bladensburg it's going to be a massive debacle they call it the Bladensburg races and and Robert Ross leading four British regiments are going to crash through the American lines the 85th regiment of foot it's going to be the lead echelon regiment up here crosses the bridge he literally knocks the first two American lines aside without really firing a shot they fired concrete rockets into the entire regiments who flee when the first rocket lands and eventually he's going to run into more stalward people on the third line they're about a mile and a half away they're about $50 over here Army over here under the commander William Winder the problem is as these first two lines give way the British are now flowing towards this line right here Winder makes the decision to retreat he's an army commander he doesn't believe the Navy or the Marines are in his chain of command so as he retreats he doesn't tell the Navy in the army he's leaving so as a result the Navy and Army are standing there and they're going where are those guys going so too late the British then begin both to the flanks of the Navy and Marines Winder Winder's long gone Barney's going to take a shot in the thigh pretty serious wound as Vence is going to cause his early death about four or five years later Miller's going to get shot in the arm leading a counterattack the commanding officer of the Marines so both the senior leaders of the Marines and Navy are down eventually Barney's going to order the Marines and the Navy to retreat back towards Washington D.C. which they do in good order but the army had long gone so that's the end of battle Bladensburg then the British move into Washington there's the Marines on the firing line at Bladensburg and then here is the burning of Washington now this is a pretty big inferno there it wasn't as bad as what this picture looks like but it's an important point to remember I was at the White House in 1991 on active duty and they took off 22 layers of paint on this right side of the building the North Portico side the North Face of the White House and as they did they revealed the sandstone and the brick underneath the bare brick and the bare sandstone and I can see the scorch marks around each side of the window and they still have parts in the White House where for historical purposes they've left the scorch brick still in place most of it's since been replaced obviously but over the years it crumbles and gets bad but the historic brick that had been burned you can still see it they have a big section of it in the White House Historical Association it's really interesting to see so but here's what happened during the burning of Washington D.C. and what didn't happen and I've heard this many times from my friend Ralph Esherman the Americans are going to burn more buildings in Washington than the British do what are the Americans going to burn the biggest thing in Washington besides the very small government buildings in the White House that are still left the Navy Yard the Navy Yard is going to be the biggest conflagration of buildings and it's going to be settled and fired by not the British but by ourselves just to get it a guy named Thomas Tingy the Tingy House is one of the two buildings that actually remain standing it's going to be there but as he Thomas Tingy himself is a former British citizen he rose a skiff across the Potomac to Alexandria when the British show up at the very last minute he sets the Navy Yard on fire he comes back the next morning sneaks back into town while the British are still there only to see the local denizens of the community looting his home taking out everything he owns and stealing it while the chaos was ruling inside Washington DC the Navy Yard is trashed it lost hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of material but the British didn't get it but the British don't burn the Marine Barracks now the Marines love to tell you this and I always have to tell this to a Marine they used to say well they didn't burn the Marine Barracks because out of honor of the Marines fighting at Bladensburg they were spared by this ignominious torching of their barracks and that's not true two British officers rode down the hill from Capitol Hill as Tingy was blowing up the Navy Yard and they came back and told Coburn there's nothing left down there to loot and so they also recognized that the Marine Barracks which was located in a neighborhood a residential neighborhood very close to civilian buildings working people worked on it that was the eastern market at the time the Navy Yard was the big big industry at the time there were houses down there and Coburn and Ross were not about burning down neighborhoods they were about burning down public buildings so they left it alone I think it was spared because it was next to a residential area that's why it was spared so the Marine Barracks do not get burned it's still there to this very day the Commandant's House built in 1801 is one of the oldest standing houses in Washington D.C. today for that very reason this guy Gordon is going to take on Alexandria marching out of the town he loots Alexandria they very kind of surrender they don't put up a fight but they don't have anybody to fight with their militia had been on the other side of the river fighting at the Battle of Bladensburg and they ran off with the rest of the militia and were driven out at the same time so they have to surrender and Gordon gets a lot of the material and takes it with him back down the river so the temerity of the Britishers is pretty bold they can loot a town like Alexandria going way up a river back without really getting harassed too much there is a little bit of a firefight by David Porter at a place called White House where modern day Fort Belvoir is but they get back which brings us up to the last campaign here's where things start to turn around for the Americans at last okay Bladensburg is a debacle the British call it the Bladensburg races and they don't have a very good reputation of fighting the British at all so when they come up to Baltimore they think after they fight the Battle of Bladensburg they think that it's going to be another Bladensburg races the problem is the Americans here are led by a guy named Samuel Smith he's a former Lieutenant Colonel of the American Revolution he fought at the Battle of Fort Mifflin in Philadelphia defended it quite well against the British back then he's now a major general of militia but here's the most important thing he's also a sitting U.S. Senator for the state of Maryland so when Smith asks for something he gets it not like Winder when he asks for something he's kind of yawn and said maybe okay but when Smith wants it he gets it but he puts forward a pretty large reconnaissance in force under his chief Lieutenant named John Stricker he's right here he's going to move down from Baltimore down this peninsula called Patapsco Neck I went to elementary school Patapsco Neck Elementary I went to North Point Middle School and I went to Dundalk Senior High so all those places that I'm talking about are all down where I used to live three regiments are going to be abreast there's a little bit not well done by Stricker because Stricker's not there to fight a main engagement he's there to fight delaying action the British see his right flank is not well guarded they send a flanking column around he sends his last two regiments up to stop this flanking column and they get run off very quickly so it looks like Bladensburg all over again but these regiments slam into the fifth regiment and the twenty seventh regiment with artillery in the road and they hold the line they're just fleeing back the British really don't have the ability to run off the Americans like they did at Bladensburg and as a result they're going to inflict a large number of casualties on the British the British not really sure why those guys are fighting like this they've never fought like this before but they don't realize that this is just a foretaste of what they're going to face a little bit later on up this road when they get towards the main effort that Smith has built and at the Battle of North Point he just had a letter for sale I believe it was in one of the auction houses a friend of mine bought it and actually donated it to the Maryland Historical Society and the surgeon who attended Robert Ross and took the musket ball out of his chest he got shot along his bridal arm and entered his lung from the left side underneath his armpit and went right through his body and killed him almost instantly so Robert Ross, Major General, is going to get killed at the Battle of North Point and Major General is going to take it over and he's going to go up to fight this main body he's going to fight against the naval commander named John Rogers he's going to build an area along the line with Smith called Rogers Bastion which is known as modern day Patterson Park in Baltimore pretty good defensive positions he has all these Marines under his command he has what's left of Miller's Marines he also brought his own Marines from the USS Garrier which was in Delaware Bay at the time and he works really well with Samuel Smith so it's a really good Army Navy cooperative effort in Baltimore very different than at Bladensburg Armistead is going to be in command of Fort McHenry, he's an artilleryman but he really didn't have a lot to do because he's outranged by the British ships during the fight at Baltimore Samuel Smith is in charge of course Jim Smith is pretty iron-willed let me tell you how iron-willed he is he says if you live in Baltimore in the weeks leading up to the fight it's morning, noon, night white, black, free, slave they didn't care who you were everybody fell out, everybody worked on defenses nobody rested for three solid weeks every citizen of Baltimore had to do their bit and he declared martial law and made them do it Battle of Baltimore is pretty much a land-sea operation the Royal Navy fails to smash the events of Bastion at Fort McHenry we know this story already Ross tries to maneuver against the open flank at North Point, doesn't do very well there again, lack of British reconnaissance proves costly for both land and sea forces just like at Norfolk and Smith extensive expertise in defending, here's Fort McHenry itself interesting little piece here this is called the water battery they actually utilize this during the battle it actually repels another British attempt to go around the Fort from the other side of the harbor it's rejected as well the Americans drive them off in the middle of the night with a grape and a round shot and they also withstand the bombardment the bombardment is pretty good because they're getting hit with rockets and shells but this is a stone and masonry fort it's built by a guy named John Jacob Rivardi a famous French military engineer among others and they are going to really build a solid fort that's going to withstand a shelling that's going to be 25 hours long aftermath other words, Hespig Bay we have the famous Star Spangled Banner the British fail at Baltimore they run into the main American line at the Hampstead Hill the naval effort to smash the fort to smithereens doesn't work out so Cochran has to make the decision to leave the bay once and for all he's never given up on his New Orleans fight however and the aftermath is they go down to Bermuda they go down to West Denny's they rest, recoup, refit they have one more campaign left in them and that's New Orleans and they're going to run into Andrew Jackson and the Americans are going to send a second major general home to word Pakenham so at that point the battle as you well know was fought after the Treaty of Jenton had already been signed it was really a meaningless battle for at least the British and the Americans because the results had already been decided several weeks earlier but the message didn't get to Jackson in time to prevent the battle from happening so I'll stop here take some time for a Q&A and we'll go from there is that okay Jack, for you okay I think there's something on TV after the British sack Washington two things occurred, I think when they were blowing up the Navy Yard something about they'd stuffed a well or a devastating explosion that was not the Navy Yard, it was over the Washington arsenal across the Anacostia River then known as the East Branch it was where Fort McNair is today there was a bunch of munitions hidden in a well sailor or marine leaned over the well of the torch and a spark fell in it and blew it up and killed a number of them because it literally heaved these rocks in the air and killed a large number of soldiers nearby it was the largest explosion of the entire campaign everybody was concerned the Americans had set it up but now they had hid some gunpowder barrels down this well they looked down it and the spark fell down and set it off but it did happen, it was a pretty devastating explosion How about as the British marched away a storm there was a storm that came up and that storm was kind of a northeaster a very heavy storm some people credit it with preserving some of the buildings the White House for instance didn't get burned too badly because the rains helped keep the fires from crumbling it down I sometimes would argue that it didn't, it didn't the storm itself was effective in perhaps maybe some of the smaller fires but the large White House fire literally gutted the building the stone wasn't going to burn at that point the fire had already done its damage by the time the storm had come up what it did do is it damaged a lot of Gordon's ships in the Potomac so they were worried about being able to get back down they were able to jury rig some mass and that sort of thing they had a couple of their bombships actually get driven on to the shore and had to get them hauled back in by some frigates that were there but a good point on that the storm did have some effect okay, all the questions yes sir as an item of interest I worked for a company who put the foundation in the White House and the original construction was a house was supported in the center from what they tell me then they put the foundation in and they tell me today it's like a modern office building steel construction yeah, besides the remodeling that the British did in 1814 the White House has been totally remodeled two other times Theta Roosevelt in 1902 remodeled the White House in the interior built the West Wing at the time and then Harry Truman literally guts the White House from top to bottom in 1952 he stays in Blair House for at least two years of his presidency but he literally takes it from top to bottom I've actually been through most of the White House I got to go up into the president's quarters and everything else in my job when I was there and it's kind of a neat thing what they did with the White House it was designed by I believe his name was Thornton and he heard that George Washington was going to select the design of the White House like oval rooms so what Thornton does he made sure his design had three ovals one on top of the other so we have the diplomatic oval room down in the basement of the first ground floor so right there is the first oval the next oval is the blue oval room which is on the main state floor where they have the Christmas tree for the White House during the Christmas season and then the top oval is on the president's floor where the president's quarters are and it's called the yellow oval and it was where George Herbert Walker Bush used as his private study and so it was built around those ovals and then the two wings on each side East Wing and West Wing go around the ovals and then we have the office buildings even further so but the White House itself it didn't have those wings until after Theta Roosevelt West Wing wasn't built until 1902 they had greenhouses and the other side, the East Wing side it was stables this was the second time yes, yes got it, Truman sir, there was a lot of things going on in Lake Erie about that time too there were well especially the fall of 1814 looked like it was originally going fairly well but you have one-two punch that causes the Treaty of Gent to actually tilt towards us so the British were hoping to get some concessions remember in 1814 they're occupying the entire state of what would become the state of Maine they're occupying all of Michigan they have taken the chunks of this upper part the war's not going well for us and then we win the battle of Baltimore we win the battle of Plattsburgh with Thomas McDonough okay, Thomas McDonough is kind of an under often undersung naval hero of the war of 1812 and we go into the negotiations with Plattsburgh and Baltimore so the British are saying this isn't working out the way we thought we don't want the Americans coming back next year now we've taken back the Lake Champlain invasion quarter because of McDonough's efforts up there they have no boats left that can stop and let's just get, we can get out of it get the status quo and move on but that's a good point, that does have an influence at the Treaty of Gent other questions, yes sir I was interested in your comment that the British had never lost the ship to ship battle until that was the one they don't remember losing one, they may have but we saw the battle of the Capes so they never lost I mean they never lost you mean just one ship ship to ship engagement, what I'm saying is frigate versus frigate, now they've lost the larger action like the battle of the Capes you're right, I mean the French won that but in a single ship action and the British were very proud of their sea captains and their prowess let me tell you, the HMS Shannon the guy named Philip Broke that was the commanding officer of the HMS Shannon was almost he was the best sea going captain in anybody's navy the guy was just that good he took out the Chesapeake in 1813 and dared him to come out to a fight and Chesapeake commanded by James Lawrence decides to do so and of course the result was a tremendous amount of casualties on the American side I read once an article and John, on whether you've ever heard this story about the Chesapeake, it's the last of the six frigates and somebody told me they ran out of southern live oak which was what gave old iron sides its name and the Chesapeake was more what they call fur built which is much more of a splinter prone wood than the southern live oak so old iron sides was called that constitution because literally its oak was tough and sometimes they'd fire a round shot against it it would bounce off but in the Chesapeake's case, when round shot came in it crashed into this fur built kind of ran out of money frigates lasted the six to be built as I said and that's caused a tremendous amount of casualties on the deck of the Chesapeake it's like their best frigate captain in the entire Navy Philip broke and he takes the Chesapeake and he towed it back to England it sits there for decades afterwards you mentioned one admiral who was also a general was it a common thing in those days? it was sometimes the French did this all the time the British never would think of it but Coburn would act as if it was a land commander he used his Royal Marines he couldn't command army troops because they had the same joint problems Army troops were commanded by generals but Navy troops, Marines could be commanded by naval officers they had over a thousand Royal Marines at Blatonsburg so he's got a pretty large sizeable force and they're pretty well disciplined so you have these guys commanding at the same time Barney when he loses his flotilla in 1814 he turns his flotilla men into infantry and he commands them and he joins them up with Miller's 103 man Marine Company out of the Marine barracks at 8th and I Street and again, Samuel Miller was a contender for the commonance in 1820 he's going to lose out to a guy named Archibald Henderson who's going to be the longest serving commonant in the history of the Corps 39 years as commonant but when the Secretary of Navy gets these two nominees they're on one hand he has Henderson on the other Henderson makes sure that the Secretary remembers St. Leonard's Creek where Miller left the field of battle, you know I don't know why but he must have had a reason and the Secretary goes hmm, you're the commonant so he kind of Henderson was known, you know, he wanted something he got it and he did by saying don't forget, Miller left the field of battle at St. Leonard's Creek he's going to be a commonant as long as Henderson was around Henderson stays in the commonance he dies in the commonance house in 1859 and General Amos our most recent commonant just before General Dunford told me a story, I asked him I get to interview the commonant every four months in my role as the director of Marine Corps history so I go up and see the senior Marine and I said, have you seen the ghost of Archibald Henderson in the house here and he says no, I haven't seen him but I tell you what has happened he said, I went away for a weekend and somebody, something turned an upstairs shower on so when we came back it destroyed an entire side of the commonance house as the water ran down the walls so they had to get it all repaired he says, no one can tell me to this day why that shower came on and I said, it was Henderson that's right he doesn't want anybody else to live in the house the rumor was that he had lived there for so long he attempted to will the home to his son when he passed away and somebody had to remind his son that it was a government building that he was living in he can't will it to anyone for Washington, Maryland that didn't play much of a role it was pretty ignominious it was commanded by a guy named Samuel Dyson he was told to stop Gordon's flotilla coming up the Potomac River during the 1814 campaign he says, but you have the discretion to blow the fort up to keep it falling into enemy hands if there's a landing made to get at its weak landward side Dyson doesn't wait for any landing in fact as soon as the ships show up he blows them up the British were shocked, they go wow they didn't even fire a shot and he flees towards the interior of Maryland some of the marines that were there as well as some of the artillerymen from the army joined David Dixon Porter across the river at Fort Belvoir and they do attempt to stop Gordon's flotilla from going up and I remember Porter writes a letter to the secretary of the Navy saying these two guys shouldn't be painted with the same brush that Dyson is going to get painted with because these guys were really brave guys and Dyson was the one that really ran away he's later court-martialed about three weeks later and cashiered from the army and stripped of his rank it was an ignominious destruction it was a badly constructed fort they said a strong ship could have knocked it over and Gordon could have I think were advancing and taking it but at least the Americans could have at least fired a shot before they blew it up so, yes sir you mentioned the at the time there would have been coal torpedoes those large explosive devices right how did they actually work in those what was the detonation methodology well they had a wire what it was it was kind of like a the only CSS Hunley it was a keg like device and it would be reeled out and literally the boat would do it a night attack get close enough to the large man of war that they could float it downstream wherever the direction of current was running in safe enough so that you wouldn't be seen but close enough where you could see if it's going to be next to the hull and the idea was to get about maybe 30-40 meters from the ship itself and let it float and it had a wire and the wire device that Elijah Mix had developed you could yank on this wire once it was in place and it would set off a detonator device that would explode the larger thing correct, like a lanyard but it wasn't like they were going to set it on fire like you would think a long burning fuse it wouldn't work because it was in the water so what they had to do was be able to set it off by yanking in a lanyard type way what happened with the one time they tried to get the plantagenate 50-50 feet away the tension caused the detonator to go off earlier what but it blows up and the British were shocked they had no idea why this explosion occurred but again they didn't really think too much of it although Stephen Decatur likes the idea of using torpedoes he says you know what this is a great poor man's navy and they wanted them in Newport they wanted them in New York and they wanted them in Baltimore so Baltimore guys they said well won't the ships that you guys are using most likely and they said yeah he says well we're not giving you any ships so you can figure it out yourself so MIX is giving one ship to Chesapeake's revenge he goes down to Norfolk and sees that one stationary vessel tries it it doesn't work and they give up but later on it's going to come back in civil war and later on of course modern day mines and torpedoes are pretty effective and it is a poor man's navy other questions can I say something? yes sir go ahead I started off getting lectures on history from Confederate veterans in Richmond okay 88 years ago and this is the best damn history lecture I have ever heard well thank you, thank you sir I appreciate that, thank you very much thanks well I hope you liked it thank you very much