Creative History

                 September 12, 1814, A massive British fleet sails toward Baltimore Harbor.  It is led by Admiral Alexander Cochrane.  By 1814 Cochrane was famous the world over for his exploits during the Napoleonic Wars.   In 1807, as a Rear Admiral, Cochrane commanded the HMS Belleisle at the head of a squadron of Royal Navy ships that conquered the Danish West Indies.  In 1809 Cochrane defeated a French force and raised the Union Jack over the island of Martinique. Now, in the late summer of 1814 Alexander Cochrane has been promoted to the rank of Vice Admiral and placed in overall command of all Royal Navy forces, both sailing ships and marines, deployed against the United States at the height of the War of 1812. When war first broke out between the United States and Great Britain for the second time in just over a generation in 1812 the British government adopted a conservative, largely defensive strate...

  General Daniel Sickles, former Democratic congressman from New York, eccentric aristocrat and Corps Commander has a mixed reputation among his fellow officers in the Union Army. His erratic behavior throughout his life, and during the war, has earned him the unflattering nickname of “Devil Dan” Sickles. Most call him a political General and many believe that it is only his connections with the Tammany Hall Democratic political machine of New York City that have earned him his officer’s commission.   In 1863, on the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg, he was the only Corps Commander in the entire Union Army without a West Point education. In early 1862, as rumors about his sanity swirled around Washington, Sickles was forced to give up his position in the army when Congress refused to endorse his commission because many of his peers considered him mentally unfit for command. General Daniel Sickles was a murderer--albeit an acquitted one. General Sickles with his S...