The Evening Gun: Volume three in War of 1812 Trilogy Read online

  At sunset, the Colors are

  lowered with dignity and

  the Evening Gun

  is fired, signaling for all

  an end to the day’s

  toils and struggles.

  THE

  EVENING

  GUN

  a novel by

  William H. White

  Volume Three in the

  War of 1812 Trilogy

  Second Edition

  By the same author:

  1812 Trilogy

  A Press of Canvas

  A Fine Tops’l Breeze

  The Evening Gun

  Oliver Baldwin novels:

  The Greater the Honor

  In Pursuit of Glory

  Edward Ballantyne novels:

  When Fortune Frowns

  Gun Bay

  Non-Fiction:

  …our Flag Was Still There

  © William H. White 2001

  ISBN-13: 978-1500781118 (Soft Cover)

  ISBN-10: 1500781118 (Kindle Edition)

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems – without the prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art: Patrol © Paul Garnett 2001

  Illustrations © Paul Garnett 2001

  Graphic design and production by:

  Palazzo Graphic Design, Bradley Beach, NJ

  Published by: Sea Fiction Press, Red Bank, NJ

  E-mail: [email protected]

  SECOND EDITION September 2014

  DEDICATION

  My late Mother, Claire Faitoute White, a writer and poetess in her own right, was vitally interested in history and is most likely responsible for my interest in both the written word and the history of our country. This final volume in the War of 1812 trilogy is for her, with thanks for sending the muse to me.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As with the other volumes in this trilogy, there are several people who must be acknowledged, for without their assistance, research would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, and I must thank them for the time and effort they expended on my behalf.

  C. Douglass Alves, Jr., the Director of the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, MD who opened the library and other resources of that marvelous facility to me and provided great assistance in checking out some local historical details for me.

  Paul Berry, the Librarian at the same institution, along with Robert Hurry, the Registrar, were available to find materials, suggest sources that I had not even thought of, and make themselves most useful on a cold December day in Solomons.

  Scott Sheads, Park Ranger and Historian at Fort McHenry National Monument, as well as author of several books on the Fort and Baltimore, gave up the better part of the day to give me a personal tour of the Monument answering my never-ending questions with patience and clarity. He brought out maps and diagrams from the Fort’s library to amplify his explanations and provided copies of any I wished, clarifying the British siege of McHenry and Baltimore in 1814. I hope I have done justice to his explanations.

  Robert Paulus, a dear friend and graduate of the Merchant Marine Academy at King’s Point. Also an incurable collector of the esoteric, he provided me with factual material concerning uniforms, hats – even buttons – of the period, and always had me in mind when he discovered something he thought might be helpful.

  Linda Wiseman, my sister, and an independent scholar of the decorative arts, interior design and way of life during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, was always willing to research some minor detail for me – unless she already had the information at her fingertips.

  These good folks gave of themselves, sharing their wisdom, talent, and specialized knowledge with me purely out of kindness. To them I say thank you; any success this effort enjoys is partly yours, for without your assistance, availability, and expertise, it would have been most difficult to attain any significant level of accuracy and realism in the following pages. Of course, any omissions or errors are mine alone and not as a result of the efforts of these fine people.

  Paul Garnett, artist, craftsman, and sailorman created some pretty spectacular covers and chapter head drawings for this volume and its predecessors. He was always available to discuss my ideas for each and put up with my silly suggestions with patience and understanding. He saw the needs of the books frequently before I did and was unstinting in bringing his considerable talents to bear with the impact of a broadside to make our vision a reality.

  Finally, my wife Ann, and sons, Skip, John, and Joshua, have been there for me whenever I needed encouragement, a little common sense, wisdom and, sometimes, a course correction. Their love and patience with me as I wove my way through the intricacies of meshing history with invention were like a sheet anchor in a storm – always there, ready to assist, and constant.

  William H. White

  Rumson, NJ

  As 1813 waned, the tide of battle had turned dramatically. First, there was the shattering defeat of USS Chesapeake by HMS Shannon in June; then in October, Napoleon retreated to France and freed up English military assets, both ground troops and elements of the Royal Navy, for service in North America. The blockade on the East Coast of the United States was reinforced, trapping, among others, Stephen Decatur’s squadron in New London and ending the year-long string of American Naval victories. And with it, the American naval threat on the high seas.

  At the same time, however, the Americans had enjoyed some successes on the fresh water, most notably, on Lake Erie in September of 1813. These victories drove home the point to the British that they must relieve the pressure on their Canadian forces, both by strengthening them and by convincing the Americans to reduce their own commitment. The Chesapeake Bay, well scouted and mapped during 1813, and the Gulf coast seemed ideal locations in which to mount diversionary efforts which would draw American forces from the New York/Canadian border campaigns. In the spring of 1814, the British returned to the Bay to carry out this effort.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The black-hulled sloop ghosted around the point and into the small bay; the men on deck were silent, unmoving. In fact, they were barely breathing. Standing next to the man at the tiller, Isaac Biggs strained his eyes through the Stygian darkness. Even though he had cut the point as close as he dared, few aboard had been able to make it out any details of the land; it was merely a dim smudge darker than the surrounding night. Those aboard took comfort in knowing that they in turn would be as difficult to spot, should someone be looking. Now they had to find the object of their late-night foray without themselves being seen. A whispered voice, hoarse with excitement, floated aft.

  “I think I got her, Isaac. Lookee there, just off’n the wind’ard bow. Looks like there might be a light showin’ for’ard on her.” Jake Tate was hunkered down at the butt of the slender bowsprit, just inside the bulwark. Even with only the scant light from the few stars peeking through the overcast, his shaggy straw colored hair seemed to glow, disembodied and suspended in the dark. He had the sharpest eyes aboard and, though he had but one arm, had made himself indispensable on this little vessel, contributing the knowledge gained through his many years sailing the waters of the middle and northern Chesapeake Bay.

/>   Biggs strained his eyes to penetrate the darkness, wondering how Jake managed so effortlessly. Standing as tall as his five-foot-four-inch frame would allow, he peered resolutely into the night straining to see what the young Bayman had spotted. He pushed a hand through his curly hair and with his sleeve mopped the beaded sweat off his narrow forehead. The Bay’s oppressive heat had begun early this year and even nightfall did little to cool the air or ease the heaviness that almost made it hard to breathe.

  As the sloop eased into Tavern Creek, the air became still; the breeze seemed to be caught and held by the freshly-foliated trees lining both banks. A faint glimmer caught his eye.

  “I got her, Jake. Good eyes.” In the next breath, Isaac whispered instructions to the helmsman to “bring her up a point” and felt, rather than saw, that the black-dyed sails were trimmed properly as the sloop made her way silently toward a cove about halfway into the creek. He knew that there was little chance of any but the most alert watchman on the British frigate noticing them; the arrogance of the Royal Navy and their knowledge certain that they had successfully cowed all the inhabitants of the region virtually assured him that the watch would be sloppy at best. More likely would be someone hearing them, and he had admonished his men to “be quiet as the dead, or we stand a fair chance of bein’ dead.” The only sound was the gentle rush of water as it parted before the rakish sloop’s hollow bows.

  Within a few minutes, the shoreline suddenly appeared, and Isaac, having taken over the tiller himself, stood on, easing the sloop into a spot Jake had described to him before they left Kent Island. He brought her head to the wind, now barely a whisper of a breeze, and the crew handed the big mains’l silently at the first sign of a luff. The sloop, barely moving now, coasted less than a length and stopped, and the anchor was eased carefully into the still, black water. Any who might have heard the splash would have surmised a fish had jumped. The stays’l and jib dropped noiselessly and were lashed down on the deck. The square tops’l had been furled to its yard even before they entered the creek.

  “Everyone below, now quick as you please, and not a sound.” Isaac knew he didn’t have to remind his crew how critical was complete silence now; mostly Maryland watermen, each was more than familiar with how easily sound carried across the water, especially on a still night. They’d been through this drill quite a few times now, and the American sloop was building an enviable success record harassing the British. With each little triumph, the British became more determined to catch this embarrassment to their might, but so far, Biggs and his small crew had managed to disappear in the confusion they caused.

  The six men crowded into the small hold and waited silently for their captain to join them. A few shifted their feet, leaning on the bulkhead or the mast. One or two mopped their faces but, for most, the sweat ran down their necks unnoticed in the close quarters. The shirts of those who still wore them were soaked, dark with sweat. The hatch closed over their heads as Isaac appeared on the ladder. The heat built instantly; someone lit a small lantern which cast long shadows and a dim yellow light reflected on the glistening faces of the men. It gave them an even more sinister look than they already had.

  “I ain’t gonna tell you how important what we’re doin’ is; you all know that since we started doin’ these little raids we been drivin’ the the Royal Navy crazy. Commodore Barney ain’t got no plan to stop, an’ gettin’ caught up by them surely wouldn’t be part of anyone’s plan. Less’n a mile into the creek there’s a British frigate. ’Cordin’ to the commodore, it’s the self same one what’s been sending parties ashore to burn farms and steal livestock. I don’t know that we can stop ‘em, but we surely can let ‘em know we’re here. And mayhaps get us a little payback for the trouble they been causin’.” He then outlined the plan again and after putting out the light, climbed up and opened the hatch. The night air, hot though it was, flooded into the hold cool, smelling like the woods so nearby, and the men silently followed their captain onto the deck.

  With practiced, economical moves, they quietly launched a boat and Isaac and five of his raiders nestled themselves in between the casks of powder and other supplies needed for their mission. Oars, their mid-sections wrapped where they rested between the thole pins, were wet, and a hissed command from Biggs moved the boat away from the sloop and toward the British frigate.

  Jake Tate, now alone on the sloop, waved unseen as the boat quickly disappeared into the night. He listened intently, straining to catch the splash or creak of an oar; the silence of the middle watch hours was broken only by the rustle of the trees and the cheeps of the peepers which had emerged from the mud to fill the night with their rhythmic sounds.

  Good luck, men. This one ain’t gonna be easy as them others – not against a frigate, by God. Jake thought about the task his mates had before them, and wished he were with them instead of minding the sloop. Well, reckon I couldn’t be much help to ‘em anyway. That surgeon on HMS Shannon took care o’ that. Course, I could be dead or settin’ with Charity an’ her folks at the farm. Ugh! The one-armed sailor shook his head at the thought of being stuck ashore, and worse, with those high-minded in-laws of his who thought this war was all a waste of time and money. And it interfered with their importing business. Bad business indeed to be on the “outs” with England. Tate spat over the side, and sat on the hatch top to wait, a pistol and cutlass in easy reach of his good left arm. He had managed to become adept at handling both weapons adroitly with what had been his ‘off-side’. In fact, in the almost twelve months since he caught the ball that led to its amputation, his missing limb had become little more than an inconvenience to him.

  The sloop had been swallowed by the darkness within moments of their shoving off, and Isaac now steered up the creek keeping close to shore; a dark, broken backdrop would make it more difficult for anyone watching to notice the small craft as it crept toward the British warship. Isaac concentrated with part of his mind on keeping the boat headed fair, watching for low branches and stumps as the shore slipped past; the other part of his consciousness reviewed their plan and, more importantly, their escape back to the sloop.

  Satisfied with the plan he and Jake had worked out with Commodore Barney, whose local knowledge was as great as Jake’s, that part of his mind turned to the recent past and how he and Jake wound up here in the Chesapeake sailing small boats against some of the best of the Royal Navy.

  Shortly after Oliver Perry’s September triumph in USS Lawrence on Lake Erie, the Navy recognized a greater need existed for sailors inland than on the coast. Hundreds were detached from blockaded frigates, brigs, and sloops and marched to New York state where their services were in desperate need. Isaac’s two mates, Robert Coleman and Tim Conoughy, formerly Royal Navy and now seamen in the American Navy, had been included in the group sent inland. Biggs had remained with the Salem privateer General Washington, under Captain Asa Rogers, for another successful cruise after their harrowing rescue mission to Halifax.

  Jack Clements, a former Navy warrant bosun who had been with Captain James Lawrence aboard the Chesapeake frigate in June of 1813, had been released from further obligation to the Navy in recognition of the injury he received when the Shannon had boarded and taken the American man-of-war. His ear had been cleanly, almost surgically, removed by a cutlass stroke during the brief but fierce hand-to-hand fighting on Chesapeake’s deck, and his wound had been treated by the British surgeon while they were en route to Halifax and the Melville Island prison there.

  There was little chance that any shipping could escape the tight stranglehold the Royal Navy now maintained on the entire coast from the Carolinas to northern Massachusetts; if a vessel was in, it stayed in, and, if offshore, her master had to find another port from which to operate. Trade suffered, and with very few exceptions, the deep-water Navy and most of the privateer fleet remained harbor-bound.

  This was the driving force that drew Clements and Isaac, accompanied by Jake Tate, back to the Chesapeake. Jake had also been in
the Navy and, like Clements, had been released from further service due to the wound he received during his service on Chesapeake. He was headed, reluctantly, for married life ashore, feeling as he did that there was little chance of his finding a berth afloat.

  The three left Boston a month after their friends marched inland, arriving in Baltimore just ahead of winter. It had taken them no time at all to find useful employment with Commodore Barney’s small “navy.” Jake, anticipating a life ashore with Charity, was understandably delighted to find that his services would also be needed – even with only one arm. He and Isaac had been sailing this sloop together for close to three months, and Jack Clements, with a wall-eyed waterman named Frank Clark, skippered a similar vessel. So far, both the former privateersman and the navy bosun, late of the Chesapeake, had enjoyed only success and the two seventy-foot sloops and Barney’s gunboats, like biting flies around a horse, had become anathema to the ships of Captain Robert Barrie, who regularly sent out forces to find and destroy them. The gunboats, based further south in the Patuxent River, had almost been caught twice, but so far the sloops had operated unchallenged.

  “Isaac! Lookee there. Ain’t no one watchin’ out.” Sam Hay, crouched next to Isaac and elbowed him sharply in the ribs as he whispered his observation about the Royal Navy frigate. Isaac grunted in surprise, and peered through the black night.

  “Aye, ‘pears so, Sam.” Indeed, they could make out no watchmen or any other on the frigate’s deck. A dim lantern showed near the foremast, and Isaac could detect the faint aroma of tobacco in the still air. The watchmen must be hunkered down near the foremast having a smoke. “Easy now, lads.” Isaac’s whispered command took the boat alongside the towering sheer wall of the British frigate and the oars were silently boated. He steered to a position under her starboard main channel where it was unlikely they would be seen, and where they would set the first surprise for the Royal Navy.