Abstract
During the War of 1812, the United States sought a new defensive strategy to secure their ports in the Chesapeake Bay. A private citizen by the name of Joshua Barney, who served in both the Continental and French Navies, proposed a strategy to the Secretary of the United States Navy, William Jones, in which he would be given command of his own Flotilla; a fleet of gunboats to defend the Chesapeake. This Flotilla of shallow-draft barges, outfitted with minimal weaponry, would be lighter and more maneuverable than the old Jeffersonian gunboats, allowing the fleet to “annoy” the enemy and then retreat to the abundant shallow shoals of the Chesapeake. Setting out on 28 April 1814, Barney succeeded in harassing the Royal Navy, until a skirmish in St. Leonard’s Creek left them no choice but to retreat up the Patuxent River. Situated between Prince George and Ann Arundel Counties in Maryland, this area of the Patuxent River proved to be even too shallow for Barney’s Flotilla. With the Royal Navy blocking the fleet from retreating back through the mouth of the river, and out of options, Barney was ordered to scuttle his Flotilla and march towards Bladensburg. The scuttling event took place on 22 August 1814. The only vessel from this fleet to have been located is Barney’s flagship, Scorpion. Scorpion is a historically and archaeologically significant shipwreck for the Underwater Archaeology Branch (UA), the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) and the Navy at large. Archaeologists at UA have continued to investigate Scorpion and conduct geophysical surveys of the surrounding area to find the rest of the missing fleet. This project focused on archival research by analyzing historical cartographic sources, information from local residents and historical documentation. A Google Earth project was created and markers were placed on the project file that were associated with points of interest. To determine a qualitative estimate of the past river channel, historical cartographic material dating from the early 1800’s to the present, were added to the project and manually georeferenced to the project file. Magnetometry data from the last field season was added to the Google Earth project and cross referenced with both the place markers and the estimate of the past river channel. Overlapping regions were assessed and target areas for further investigation have been determined for the next field season.