Barney's Flotilla
In late May 1814, Commodore Joshua Barney, the veteran leader of the U.S. flotilla in the upper Chesapeake, left his base in Baltimore and established a new base of operations on the Patuxent River. His flotilla was small—consisting of a sloop, barges, gunboats, a galley, a lookout boat and his flagship, the cutter Scorpion—but at the moment it was