In December 1811, Robert Wright told his fellow citizens that while Americans had carried provisions from their own soil in their own ships to feed the armies of England and its continental allies, they were captured on their homeward passage along their own coast and condemned in a British Court of Admiralty. Wright, who served Queen Anne's County as a U.S. Senator, Governor of Maryland, County Clerk, and U.S. Congressman, used the Queen Anne's County Court House to organize local support for the War of 1812 and frequently spoke there about trade, war taxes, and the impressment of fellow citizens. His involvement began in 1807, when as governor he appointed Samuel Turbutt Wright, then also serving as Clerk of the Court, as Maryland Adjutant General after Turbutt Wright wrote on July 3 following the June 22 attack of HMS Leopard on USS Chesapeake that not one company of the 38th Regiment under his command was organized and urged attention to the militia and its vacancies. As a congressman in 1813, Robert Wright fought for liquor tax increases to help pay the costs of the war. One of his sons, Clinton Wright, commanded the U.S. Army recruiting station in the court house, where citizens came to be sworn into the U.S. Army, until his father secured him a cavalry appointment in 1813 and he left for the Niagara front on September 4, 1813. Fellow cavalry officer Lt. John L. Ebert then took charge of the recruiting office. The county militia also assembled and drilled on the court house green.