Chesapeake Bay Flotilla At the outbreak of the
War of 1812, after a successful but unprofitable privateering cruise as commander of the Baltimore
schooner , in which he captured the British
packet ship , Barney entered the US Navy as a
captain, and commanded the
Chesapeake Bay Flotilla, a fleet of
gunboats defending
Chesapeake Bay. He authored the plan to defend the Chesapeake, which was submitted to Secretary of the Navy,
William Jones and accepted on August 20, 1813. The plan consisted of using a
flotilla of
shallow-draft barges equipped with a large gun each to launch offensive operations against British forces before retreating to the safety of shoal waters abundant in the Chesapeake region. Barney was commissioned as a captain in the United States Flotilla Service on 25 April 1814. On 1 June 1814, Barney's flotilla, led by his
flagship, the
sloop-rigged, self-propelled floating battery , mounting two
long guns and two
carronades, were coming down Chesapeake Bay when they encountered the 12-gun schooner (the former Baltimore privateer
Atlas), and boats from the 74-gun
third-rates and near St. Jerome Creek. The flotilla pursued
St Lawrence and the boats until they could reach the protection of
Dragon and
Albion. The American flotilla then retreated into the
Patuxent River where the British quickly
blockaded it. The blockaders outnumbered Barney by 7:1, forcing the flotilla to retreat into St. Leonard's Creek on June 7. Three British warships, the 38-gun
HMS Loire, 32-gun and 18-gun blockaded the mouth of the creek. The creek was too shallow for the British warships to enter, and an impasse emerged as the flotilla was too heavily armed for a
cutting-out party to capture it.
Captain Robert Barrie, who commanded
Dragon, sought to flush Barney's flotilla out by forcing it to come to the assistance of nearby settlements and
slave plantations on the Patuxent. Under his direction, the blockaders proceeded to raid nearby towns, villages, and plantations, sacking or burning the settlements of
Calverton,
Huntingtown,
Prince Frederick,
Benedict and
Lower Marlboro. On 26 June, after the arrival of American troops under
US Army Colonel
Decius Wadsworth and
US Marine Corps Captain Samuel Miller, Barney attempted a breakout. A simultaneous attack from land and sea on the blockading frigates at the mouth of St. Leonard's creek allowed the flotilla to move out of the creek and upriver to Benedict, though Barney had to
scuttle gunboats No. 137 and 138 in the creek. The British entered the then-abandoned creek and burned
St. Leonard. Barney was severely wounded, receiving a bullet deep in his thigh that could never be removed. During the battle,
President James Madison personally directed the Marines led by Barney. (Prior to the battle, Madison had narrowly avoided capture.) This battle is one of only two instances of a
sitting president exercising direct battlefield authority as Commander-in-Chief, the other being when
George Washington personally crushed the
Whiskey Rebellion. ==Death==