Military
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Some of the fiercest fighting of the war occurred where St. Leonard Creek meets the Patuxent River. During the summer of 1814, the British navy tried to flush out and destroy Commodore Joshua Barney’s Chesapeake Flotilla, a rag-tag assembly of armed boats barges. The flotilla prevailed in a series of skirmishes June 8-10, known as the First Battle of St. Leonard Creek. A few weeks later, the forces clashed again in the Second Battle of St. Leonard Creek. This time, Barney had land support, including a gun battery at present-day Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum. His flotilla escaped up the Patuxent, but the British pursued, and on August 22, the Americans scuttled their own fleet to keep it out of enemy hands. Joshua Barney, a naval hero in both the Revolutionary War and War of 1812, commanded the U.S. Chesapeake Flotilla.
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