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Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Bladensburg, battle of. (search)
st, to do as he pleased in defending the capital. Com. Joshua Barney was in command of a flotilla in the bay, composed of an armed schooner and thirteen barges. These were driven into the Patuxent River, up which the flotilla was taken to a point beyond the reach of the British vessels, and where it might assist in the defence of either Washington or Baltimore, whichever city the British might attack. To destroy this flotilla, more than 5,000 regulars, marines, and negroes were landed at Benedict, with three cannon; and the British commander, Gen. Robert Ross, boasted that he would wipe out Barney's fleet and dine in Washington the next Sunday. The boast being known, great exertions were made for the defence of the capital. General Winder, relieved from restraint, called upon the veteran Gen. Samuel Smith, of Baltimore, to bring out his division of militia, and General Van Ness, of Washington, was requested to station two brigades of the militia of the District of Columbia at Ale
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing), Wilkinson, James 1757- (search)
Wilkinson, James 1757- Military officer; born in Benedict, Md., in 1757; was preparing for the medical profession when the Revolutionary War broke out. He repaired to Cambridge after the battle of Bunker (Breed's) Hill, where he was made a captain in Reed's New Hampshire regiment in the spring of 1776. He served under Arnold in the Northern army, and in July, 1776, was appointed brigademajor. He was at the battles of Trenton and Princeton, and was made lieutenantcolonel in January, 1777. He was Gates's adjutant-general, and bore to Congress an account of the capture of Burgoyne, when he was brevetted brigadier-general and made secretary to the board of war, of which Gates was president. Being implicated in Conway's cabal he resigned the secretaryship, and in July, 1779, was made clothier-general to the army. At the close of the war he settled in Lexington, Ky., and engaged in mercantile transactions. In 1791-92 he commanded, as lieutenant-colonel of infantry, an expeditio