When They Burned the White House [Illustrated Edition] by Tully Andrew;

When They Burned the White House [Illustrated Edition] by Tully Andrew;

Author:Tully, Andrew;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Golden Springs Publishing
Published: 2016-10-26T00:00:00+00:00


[X]—“THE ROCKETS’ RED GLARE”

GENERAL ROSS had been amazed to discover that the bridge still stood over the East Branch, although its destruction should have been the Americans’ first order of business. With his light brigade in advance, Ross immediately shot a company forward to force the bridge. At the same time, he ordered his 44th regiment to move north and prepare to ford the stream at its shallowest point.

As the lead company started for the bridge to the clarion blare of the bugles, the British troops were startled to hear a sudden loud shouting from the American forces. It was an exultant shouting, but not because the Yankees were about to tangle with the enemy. Rather, the troops were showing their delight at the news just received that American forces had won a great victory over British General Drummond on the Canadian border. Unfortunately, the report was false.

At first, the Americans operated with considerable efficiency. Pinkney’s riflemen, concealed in a belt of woods near the riverbank, rained a hail-like barrage down on the trotting Britishers, and the two-gun battery near the main road to the bridge raked the advance with grape shot.

The British column broke and fell back to the safety of the town, its ranks decimated and its weary troopers gasping for breath. Quickly, the ranks were formed to repulse an American counterattack, but it never came. General Winder was not to turn aggressive at this last minute.

Ross watched through his glasses from a post at the southern end of Bladensburg. An aide standing nearby was fretful lest his general hesitate to pursue the attack.

“What will they say of us in England if we stop now?” he asked.

Ross turned impatiently and addressed the whole little group around him. “Even if it rains militia, we go on,” he snapped.

Ross had no artillery, except the two puny three-pounders, to support the crossing, so he stationed some of the light companies of the 85th Regiment behind the willows and larches on the riverbank. He ordered them to pour a constant fire across the river, directed mostly at the wood where Pinkney’s riflemen lay in wait. Then he ordered Colonel William Thornton to force a crossing.

Gleig and Charlton were still trying to cosset the soldier whose leg had been shot off, when Thornton rode up to his little advance guard.

“Now, my lads, forward!” Thornton thundered. “You see the enemy—you know how to serve them.”

The troops gained the bridge without trouble, but as they thundered onto its plankings, the roadside battery opened up and seven men went down. As the men hesitated, Thornton’s hoarse voice could be heard urging “Forward, forward.” Forward they went, to be met by the galling fire from Pinkney’s riflemen, and more men fell.

This time, however, the British force kept going. The firing from the marksmen of the 85th in the larches on the British side of the stream began to take its toll of Pinkney’s men, and, they started to withdraw.

The British swept across the bridge, turned quickly to



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