Delaying Tactics

From September 1-5, 1814, the Battle of the White House Gun Battery became the first military action in the region after the British attack on Washington. Named for a nearby white house, the battery stood at today’s Fort Belvoir on a bluff above a narrow deep channel in the Potomac, where the British squadron was forced to hug the Virginia shore as it withdrew downriver after occupying Alexandria. Hastily erected under the command of Commodore David Porter in a futile effort to impede the British warships, it exchanged nearly constant fire with them for three days before American forces evacuated the position and the British continued down the river. During this phase of the War of 1812, American officials near Alexandria also planned ways to harass the enemy, including setting ships ablaze and sending them into the Potomac. More broadly, the Chesapeake Bay region bore much of the war’s burden from 1812 to 1815, suffering blockades and raids as Americans fought Great Britain to protect their rights and economic independence, and the United States emerged from the conflict with its democracy preserved and its stature on the world stage heightened.

Mason Neck, Virginia · United States