With the Royal Navy's offensives in the Chesapeake Bay during
the War of 1812 came devastating raids that wreaked havoc on the
small villages along its shores and the very economy of the region.
American naval forces were incapable of wresting control of the
Tidewater from the superior enemy forces. Then in 1814 Captain
Joshua Barney, a rare American hero during the struggle, intrepidly
led his Chesapeake Flotilla against the invaders, determined to
contest their advance on the nation's capital and drive them from
the region.
Donald G. Shomette, director of the archaeological excavation of
the flotilla's flagship, substantially revises the first edition of
this captivating history with new information about Barney, his
crew, and the mosquito fleet of gunboats and war barges that so
valiantly fought the British. He sheds new light on the efforts of
the U.S. Flotilla Service to build a viable coastal defense force.
Shomette details the construction and manning of the famed
Chesapeake Flotilla and recounts the terrifying details of British
attacks on the towns, plantations, and farms throughout the bay
region.
Doomed from its conception by sparse funds and the natural
limitations of the bay's coastline, the flotilla ultimately
suffered defeat. Yet its efforts were not completely in vain.
Turning back wave after wave of British attacks, the fleet earned
an improbable victory at St. Leonard's Creek and its men went on to
make heroic stands at the battles of Bladensburg and Fort McHenry
in 1814.
The thoroughly updated and enlarged edition of "Flotilla" is the
result of impressive research on a forgotten chapter in the
development of the young nation's naval and maritime tradition.
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