John Barth - Letters

The letter from Prevost to Cochrane is authentic; the one Prevost intercepts from Fosset to Macomb is false. Those 10,000 reinforcements do not exist. The U.S. Secret Service has forged the letter and entrusted its delivery to “an Irishwoman of Cumberland Head” whom they know to be a double agent; as they hope, she dutifully betrays them and delivers it to Prevost instead of to Macomb. Was it you, my darling (Andrew wonders at Rochefort a year later, from the deck of Bellerophon), who forged that letter for the Secret Service, or who posed as that Irishwoman? Were you reversing the little trick we play’d on General Hull at Detroit? May I believe that you too think it time to end the British dallying at Ghent and conclude a treaty, now that our Indian Nation seem’d assured?

Andrée does not reply. He will never know, nor we.

Say on then, Muse, for Henry, what you saw and Andrew didn’t at the Battle of Baltimore, which like the Battle of Plattsburgh never quite took place. It is Monday, September 12th, still warm in Maryland and threatening rain. Ross and Cockburn begin their overland advance, pause for breakfast at a convenient farmhouse, and decline the owner’s cautious invitation to return for dinner: he will dine that evening, Ross declares, “in Baltimore or in Hell.” A few hours later, on Cockburn’s advice, he rides back a bit to hurry a light brigade along in support of his advance party, who have got too far ahead of the rest and are meeting the first desultory American fire. As Ross trots down the North Point Road, the anonymous, invisible Americans fire again from their concealment in a grove of oaks. One bullet strikes him in the arm and chest: he falls, he speaks of his wife, he dies. The invasion will go forward, that day and the next, under Ross’s successor and Admiral Cockburn, who commands only his own small band of marines. The American advance line will retreat, but in less disorder than at Bladensburg; they will regroup with the main force of militia at Sam Smith’s earthworks to await the real assault. On Tuesday the 13th Colonel Brooke (the new British commander, even more cautious than his predecessor) and Admiral Cockburn will position their forces before those earthworks and wait for news of Cochrane’s success at Fort McHenry before mounting their attack. And for all of Cockburn’s exasperated urgings, that attack will never be mounted, because that news will never come.

Can you see, Muse, through the rain of that sodden Tuesday, the letters going back and forth between Brooke and Cochrane, army and navy? Cochrane has written Ross on the Monday afternoon that, as best he can see from the river, the flank of Sam Smith’s earthworks may be turned without a frontal assault. His letter comes back that evening unopened, together with the news of Ross’s death. Unperturbed, perhaps relieved, Cochrane orders the body preserved in a cask of Jamaican rum and dashes off encouragement to Colonel Brooke: Prevost says burn, burn; I will take Fort McHenry (the harbor, alas, is blocked with scuttled privateers); you take the city. On Tuesday morning his bomb and rocket ships open fire, out of range of the guns of the fort. Three hours later he is already wavering; another letter goes down the river and up the North Point Road, this one to Brooke via Admiral Cockburn: It appears we cannot help you; the city is too far away, the fort too strong; consider reconsidering whether Brooke should attack at all. But he sustains the one-way bombardment into the afternoon, and the garrison at McHenry must take their punishment without reply. Even Cochrane cannot see the one bombshell out of hundreds and hundreds that lands directly on the powder magazine, goes through its roof with fuse still sputtering and, like the one bullet that felled General Ross, might have rewrit this chapter of history had not a nimble nameless fellow leaped to douse it. Cochrane moves his ships in closer; the Americans at last and jubilantly return the barrage; he moves back out of range. Nothing is working. Here’s a letter from Brooke, fifteen hours late: he will be in Baltimore by noon! But it’s past three, and there’s no sign of action at the earthworks. Cochrane can’t see what you can, Muse: that Brooke has got his letter, explored the enemy’s flanks and found them defended, and agreed with Cockburn that a night attack is the best strategy. As Cochrane reads this letter, Brooke is writing him another: the army and marines will attack at 2:00 A.M.; will the navy please stage a diversion on the farther side of Fort McHenry, as if moving up to threaten Baltimore from the west?

Letters! This second of Brooke’s received, unhappy Cochrane replies (to Cockburn) that the plan is folly: the navy can do nothing; McHenry will not fall; New Orleans is a richer city anyroad; retreat. It is Tuesday evening, rain coming down hard now. Cockburn scoffs at this letter — Washington all over again! — and urges Brooke to ignore it: Attack, attack. Brooke’s junior officers are of the same mind; retreats do not earn promotions. But command is heavy: if the army takes the city but the navy cannot take the fort to load prizes, there will be nothing but an expensive bonfire to show for possibly very high losses. If the army fails and the navy succeeds (as seems unlikely), the fall of Fort McHenry will mean nothing. The officers — not including disgusted Cockburn — argue till midnight, when Brooke wearily pens his last to Cochrane: We are following your advice; as the navy cannot take the fort, we shall retreat to North Point and reembark.

But on that same midnight (you can see and say, Muse, what they cannot) — suspecting that Cockburn might persuade Brooke to ignore these letters and attack — Cochrane dispatches after all, reluctantly, the diversionary force Brooke has requested but no longer wants. And here, Henry, our ancestor comes back into the tale. You have seen him, all this while, fretting through the bombardment with Key & Co. back at the main fleet anchorage. He is truly saddened, as you saw, by the news of Ross’s death: the man was overcautious, perhaps, but brave and not bloodthirsty, an officer and gentleman. You have seen Andrew fear for the fate of Baltimore if — as seems likely from Prevost’s letter and Cochrane’s first to Colonel Brooke — Cockburn has his way with the city. Rumors abound like Chesapeake mosquitoes; every dispatch boat leaves its message like a wake behind. Old Dr. Beanes complains he can’t see a thing; Andrew borrows a spyglass from the British lieutenant in charge of them and confirms through the day that Armistead has not yet struck his colors at McHenry. There is a bad moment towards late afternoon, just after the one heavy exchange of fire from the fort, when they lose sight of it, the big 30-by-42-foot Stars and Stripes, in the smoke and rain, and wonder whether after all the fort has died. But John Skinner recollects that there is a second flag there, a smaller “storm flag” for squally weather; he optimistically proposes that the renewed silence means only that the bomb ships have retired back out of range, and that Major Armistead may be using the lull to hoist a banner more appropriate to the wretched weather. Key is unconvinced. Dr. Beanes fears the worst.

Andrew volunteers to find out. He has seen how fretful is their young warden to be upriver with the action. Without much difficulty Andrew has insinuated that his own status is different from that of “the Americans,” some sort of special agency. When the message sails through that Brooke plans a night assault and wants diversionary action west of Fort McHenry, in the “Ferry Branch” of the Patapsco, he declares to the lieutenant that he knows those waters like the back of his hand (he has in fact crossed once on the ferry, in 1803, en route to Joshua Barney’s hotel and Jérôme Bonaparte’s wedding) and pleads to be fetched to Cochrane as a guide. Whether or not the lieutenant believes him, he sees a chance here to move his own career upstream, and so delegates his wardenly duties to a midshipman and fetches Andrew in a gig to the Surprize.