The Ambitious Madame Bonaparte (38 page)

That coaxed a grudging smile from him. “You will always be my mama. I will never leave you the way my father did.”

His declaration brought tears to Betsy’s eyes. “Thank you. Now please try to sleep.”

A FEW DAYS later, news reached Baltimore that the government had returned to Washington to begin rebuilding. Fire had gutted the President’s Mansion, but the soot-blackened stone walls still stood. More importantly, Betsy was relieved to learn that both Mr. and Mrs. Madison were safe. Dolley Madison had even become a national hero because she saved Gilbert Stuart’s full-length portrait of George Washington.

Survivors straggled back to Baltimore from Bladensburg, the crossroads town where the British army routed the forces blocking the approach to Washington. The Americans had retreated in a panic that demoralized the entire country. Some men on Baltimore’s Committee of Vigilance and Safety proposed capitulating to the British without a fight and negotiating to save as much of the city as possible, but John Eager Howard, a colonel in the Revolutionary War, declared that he had four sons in the army and would not disgrace his country with surrender. His resolve shifted the mood toward defense.

According to the papers, one reason the lines collapsed at Bladensburg was that the troops had been placed too haphazardly to support each other when attacked. If Baltimore was to be saved, someone with military experience needed to oversee its defense. The committee asked Samuel Smith to take charge and obtained the governor’s sanction for their choice. That appointment insulted the governor’s nephew, General Winder, but Baltimore did not care.

After that, Aunt Nancy often brought the Pattersons war news that she gained from living with the Smiths. One night over supper, she described Samuel Smith’s plan to defend the city. The Patapsco River was a tilted Y, with the upper Northwest Branch leading to Baltimore and Ferry Branch leading west. An arrowhead-shaped peninsula called Locust Point separated the two, and at its tip stood star-shaped Fort McHenry. The fort was vulnerable because its artillery had a maximum range of 2,800 yards, while the British bomb ships could hurl mortars half again as far. If ships slipped past the fort up Northwest Branch, they could send boats right into Baltimore Harbor and land troops in the heart of the city. If ships made it up Ferry Branch to Ridgely’s Cove, troops could march overland to attack the city from the west. Smith had decided that if the British fleet came, he would sink ships across the entrance to both branches. As Betsy listened to her brothers analyze that plan, she watched her son’s rapt face and tried to reassure herself that his safety was in capable hands.

Edward pointed out that another possible line of approach was overland from North Point, the spit of land where the Patapsco River met the bay. By landing there, the British could avoid Fort McHenry and march northwest to Baltimore. But Uncle Smith had thought of that too, Aunt Nancy said. To block that route, he had ordered the creation of fortifications along the ridge of Hampstead Hill east of the city. In the weeks that followed, Baltimore citizens turned out by the hundreds to dig trenches and throw up earthworks along a three-mile line stretching to the water’s edge.

Nine-year-old Bo begged his mother to be allowed to dig, but Betsy refused. However, both Octavius and Henry spent time upon the earthworks. They reported that those Baltimoreans who could not fight donated money, bricks, kettles, whiskey, salted fish, and even jars of preserves. The burning of Washington, rather than breaking the American spirit, had fired the entire country with the will to fight. When Samuel Smith put out the call for more militia, volunteers poured in from all directions.

Two weeks of work brought the city’s defenses to readiness. To everyone’s surprise, the British delayed their attack. Immediately after the fall of Washington, they took Alexandria—which put up no resistance and shamefully handed over ships and great stores of supplies. After a three-day occupation, the British fleet sailed back down the Potomac, anchored off the mouth of the river, and hovered there.

On Sunday, September 11, the prearranged warning of three cannon shots interrupted church services. All afternoon, soldiers reported for duty, while wagons laden with women, children, and household goods streamed from the city, going west on Market Street or north on Charles. Betsy decided it was too dangerous to join the panicked exodus, so she moved back to her father’s house where she would have male protectors.

On Monday, the
Telegraph
warned that the British had a new weapon called Congreve rockets, gunpowder-filled iron cylinders tipped with conical warheads holding explosives or incendiary material. They could fly for two miles, but their trajectories were erratic. The article advised Baltimoreans to keep buckets of water at the ready in their homes.

Later that morning, runners brought the news that the British had landed nearly 5,000 marines and soldiers at North Point and were marching toward the city. The American defenders, General John Stricker and 3,000 men, were waiting at a narrow funnel of land between Bear Creek and Bread and Cheese Creek. For hours, the city heard nothing but distant guns. Then about suppertime, wagons bearing the dead and wounded reached Baltimore. Under the relentless pressure of a disciplined advance, Stricker’s men had given way—but only after holding off a numerically superior force for two hours. Even in retreat, they did not yield to terror. Instead they fell back to Smith’s defenses on Hampstead Hill and took their places on the line.

Meanwhile, British ships approached Fort McHenry—slowly because of the shallow, sandbar-filled river—and discovered that sunken hulks prevented them from taking Northwest Branch. Throughout the day, more ships arrived until a force of sixteen ships and numerous smaller vessels clustered just beyond the fort. That night it started to rain.

About 7:00 AM on September 13, the attack on Fort McHenry began. Despite the storm, Betsy and her family climbed to the roof to stare southeast toward Locust Point. Betsy protected herself with an umbrella, but the men and boys stood exposed to the lashing rain. Patterson used the telescope and reported that the giant 30-foot-by-42-foot flag commissioned by the fort’s commander, Major Armistead, flew over the fort.

Even in the heavy weather, Betsy could hear explosions—not as loud as the warning shot fired at Texel but still enough to make her jump. The bombardment turned into a ceaseless onslaught; every few seconds, a British ship fired at the fort. Edward said that in addition to Congreve rockets, the British were hurling mortars. For three hours, the fort’s guns answered, but about ten o’clock the American artillery fell silent. Patterson, who held the telescope, said he thought the British ships had moved out of range.

Heading toward the trap door to go inside, Betsy spotted Bo standing with his uncles, and her blood turned cold with a premonition of danger. She cursed herself for not realizing earlier how likely it was that they would come under the power of British invaders. The surname she and her child bore would not endear them to such conquerors.

Betsy called Bo and, when he reached her side, hugged him fiercely. Then she said, “Please go tell Mrs. Summers to make tea.”

As soon as he was gone, she approached her father. “Sir, I must speak with you.”

He lowered the telescope and glanced at her quizzically.

“I have made a dreadful error. I should have left Baltimore. Please may I have one of your carriages so that Bo and I can escape?”

“Are you mad? A lone woman and child fleeing during an invasion? The horses would be stolen from you, and you would suffer indignities of the worst kind.”

“But could you not send Edward or George with me?”

“That is quite impossible. I need them here to protect my property if the army comes.”

Betsy tightened the grip on her umbrella handle. “Do you not think it more important to protect your grandson?”

“Why should he be in more danger than the rest of us? Betsy, I know he is your only child, but try to view the situation with a sense of proportion.”

He turned back to scan the horizon, but Betsy grasped his arm. “Father, please, listen to me. My son
is
in more danger than anyone else in Baltimore. He is a Bonaparte.”

Patterson lowered the glass and snapped his head toward her. Then he growled, “Nonsense, he is a little boy. The British do not make war against children.”

“How can you be so certain? Bonaparte is the most hated name in England. Have you never heard of rogue soldiers committing atrocities?”

Her father collapsed the telescope with a sharp click. “You are letting your inflated sense of rank get the best of you. Nothing will happen to you or Bo even if the city falls.”

Tears filled Betsy’s eyes. “I am not willing to risk his life on your say-so just because you are loath to leave your property without an extra guard.”

Patterson glared at Betsy. “Control your waspish tongue. You know I love the boy and would not expose him to harm. He will be safer here under the protection of his male relatives than fleeing upon the open road with his hysterical mother.”

Turning sharply, Betsy hurried to the trap door and descended to the third floor, where she ran into an unoccupied room and flung herself on the unmade bed to cry. She had a terrifying vision of Bo being taunted by a room full of soldiers until he responded angrily and was punished for it. All the country knew the story of General Andrew Jackson, the hero of Horseshoe Bend. As a boy courier captured during the Revolutionary War, he had received a saber blow to the face for refusing to clean a British officer’s boots.

Hearing footsteps, Betsy sat up and saw Edward in the doorway. He came to sit beside her. “Betsy, I will not let anything happen to Bo. If the British break through our defenses, I will take my horse, put him on the saddle before me, and race out of town.”

“Thank you,” she said and leaned her head against Edward’s shoulder.

Bo found them there a minute later. “What are you doing, Mama?”

Betsy forced a smile. “The rained soaked my clothes, so I came down to change.”

“But why are you in here?” He glanced around at the boxes stacked in the bedroom, which had not been used since Joseph left for Europe.

“Oh—” She waved her hand airily. “I have not been in this room for so long, I wanted to see it.”

Bo surveyed the room again and shrugged. “May I go up on the roof?”

“Only for a little while. I do not want you to catch cold.”

As Bo and Edward climbed the ladder, Betsy descended to the second floor. On her way to her bedroom, she heard violent coughing behind Caroline’s door. Betsy knocked and entered the room. To her horror, she saw Caroline leaning over her washbowl and spitting up blood.

“Caro!” Betsy hurried to her sister’s side and held her shoulders until the spasm had passed. Then she gently lay Caroline back on her pillow. “How long has this been going on?”

Caroline turned her face away. “I have had the cough for a year or more, but the first time I saw blood was a month ago.”

“Why has Father not sent for the doctor?”

“Because he does not know.”

Betsy grabbed her sister’s shoulders again. “Look at me. Why have you not told him?”

With a sigh, Caroline met Betsy’s gaze. “Because it will not do any good. We both saw what happened with Margaret. The doctors know nothing about how to treat consumption.”

“Oh, darling.” Betsy smoothed damp tendrils from her forehead. Caroline was pale with dark shadows beneath her eyes. When she was healthy, she had the most beautiful skin and hair Betsy had ever seen, and Betsy had looked forward to introducing her to society. Now she feared that Caroline was more likely to leave her for the grave than the altar. “You must try to get well.”

Caroline smiled wanly. “I have always admired you, Betsy, but I don’t have your strength.”

“Much good it has done me.”

“It kept you from being crushed by events that would have destroyed me.”

Taking her sister’s hand, Betsy remembered how Caroline used to trail after her as a very young child. “I refuse to give up on you. When this crisis with the British is passed, I will tell Father the truth about your condition.”

Caroline looked away. “If you wish, but I am certain it is too late.”

“Nevertheless, we must do what we can.” Betsy rose. “Now rest.”

She walked into the hall, gently shut the door, and leaned her forehead against the wall. “Lord God, how much sorrow do you expect me to bear?” she whispered.

THE ALL-DAY BOMBARDMENT left Betsy with a pounding headache. As the rain continued into the afternoon, everyone came indoors, but after darkness fell, curiosity drove them back to the roof. Gazing toward the fort, Betsy saw red streaks of light that Edward said were Congreve rockets and orange balls of fire from mortars that exploded short of their target.

“How will we know who wins?” she asked.

“As long as the British continue to bombard the fort, we know it has not surrendered,” Patterson said, not bothering to lower the telescope.

Worried about Bo’s health, Betsy insisted that he go to bed in spite of his strenuous objections. He was so tired that he fell asleep while Betsy was tucking him in. Leaving him, she climbed to the third floor and found her father and Edward standing at the open front windows of Edward’s bedroom where they were listening to the battle.

“How much longer do you think this will go on?”

“I don’t know,” her father answered. “It is a good sign that the fort has held so long.”

Betsy went to her room and, after taking off her gown, climbed into bed. Because she knew that the constant explosions in the distance meant the fort was still being defended, they had grown almost as comforting as the sound of a heartbeat, and she soon fell asleep.

The next morning, a sudden cessation of sound woke her. She jumped from bed and looked out her window, but she could see nothing except that the rain had stopped. Betsy pulled on the gown she had worn the day before and hurried up to the roof where she found her father.

“Why has the bombing stopped? Has the fort fallen?”