Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Notable Small Army Gold Medal and M.G.S. pair awarded to Captain, later General, Sir John Michell, Royal Artillery, a skilful commander of foot and rocket artillery who distinguished himself during the final battles of the Peninsula and Second American Wars; frequently praised by superior officers for exploits which included “valorous conduct” at the Battle of Toulouse, commanding the artillery at the Capture of Washington D.C. and making an assault crossing of the Mississippi River to fire salvos of Congreve rockets during the Battle of New Orleans, Michell is remembered by the officers of the modern Royal Regiment of Artillery as ‘The Man who Burned Down the White House’

Field Officer’s Small Army Gold Medal for Orthes, one clasp ‘Toulouse’ (Captn. I. Michell, Rl. Arty.), with original gold ribbon buckle and replacement obverse lunette; Military General Service, 3 clasps, St. Sebastian, Nivelle, Nive (John Michell, Captn., R. Arty.) both extremely fine or better (2) £24,000-£28,000

Provenance: Spink, November 1998.

Sir John Michell was born on 25 September 1781 at Huish House, Huish Episcopi, Langport, Somerset. His father, the Reverend Dr. John Michell, was vicar of Huish and domestic chaplain to Hester Pitt, Lady Chatham, the widow of former Prime Minister Pitt the Elder and mother of the current Prime Minister (Pitt the Younger). Michell attended Langport Grammar School, where he built the foundations required to become an educated professional artillery officer. It was a time of great upheaval: The King of France had been publicly executed, Britain was at war with the French republic and Government was attempting to rapidly modernise the military and arouse it from decades of torpor.

The British army had a Commander-in-Chief, but only for its infantry and cavalry. The Board of Ordnance controlled the ‘more technical and scientific’ artillery and engineering branches, separately and independently of the army C-in-C. Commissions and promotions in units reporting to the Board of Ordnance could not be obtained by purchase. To become an officer in the artillery, a youngster had first to obtain a place at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and then pass competitive exams in subjects which included maths, fortification, drawing, mapping, chemistry and skill-at-arms. It was not easy to get into the Royal Military Academy, which in 1793 had just 30 places for artillery Gentlemen Cadets.

On 18 March 1794 Lady Chatham informed Dr Michell that she had written to her son Mr Pitt (the Younger). She had asked the Prime Minister to request the Duke of Richmond (an energetic reformer who was Master-General of the Ordnance) to arrange “the giving of a commission for making a youth which she is much interested in for a cadet at the R.A. Woolwich.” John Michell became a Gentleman Cadet on 3 November 1794, and graduated as Second Lieutenant on 1 March 1798, aged 16. This date is important, because his future regimental promotions would be governed not by merit but by his seniority on the List of Artillery Officers (Michell was number 1,004 on the List, which had been started in 1716).

War
Michell was included in the Expedition to Holland in 1799, where he fought in the battles of Zyp and Egmont-on-Zee. Artillery tactics were changing, and in these two battles British artillery first demonstrated how it was adapting to new habits and practises. Traditionally, artillery Companies had to hire locally and on an ad hoc basis the animals and drivers to pull their guns and wagons. The gunners marched alongside (hence the term Foot Artillery). If local transport failed or was unavailable, the gunners slowly hauled along their guns by means of drag ropes. Each infantry battalion thought itself entitled to be allocated two “battalion guns” which would move with it at all times when it was on active service and which were placed in the centre of the companies whenever they formed up in a battle line. However, the Board of Ordnance under the Duke of Richmond was championing a more effective mobile concept, whereby each unit had its own permanent transport and deployed in batteries in the places where they could have the greatest impact on the battle, independently of the infantry, rather than be split into penny-packets as “battalion guns”.

Expansion of the Ordnance led to Michell being promoted to First Lieutenant on 2 October 1799. His Company was allocated to the Expedition to Egypt, but when it arrived in Gibraltar in 1800 it was ordered to remain there as part of the fortress garrison. In September 1805 Michell was promoted to Second Captain and transferred to the Channel Islands. Jersey and Guernsey were well-garrisoned and important parts of Britain’s frontline defences, being much closer to the coast of France than the coast of England. Their proximity and the harbours they offered to British men-of-war and privateers irked Napoleon considerably. During a previous Anglo-French war, the French had twice invaded Jersey, seeking to capture it. Major ordnance works were undertaken on Guernsey and a network of Martello Tower artillery forts was built, overlooking the main anchorages and beaches across the Islands. The Board of Ordnance approved the construction of a mighty fortification, larger in scale than any other on the Islands, to protect Jersey’s main town and harbour. Construction of Fort Regent began in 1806 and took eight years to complete.

Battery Commander in the Peninsula Campaign
On 25 January 1813 Michell was gazetted as First Captain. He was sent out to Spain to join Wellington’s 1813 campaign to expel the French. At the Siege of San Sebastian on 21 July 1813 one of Sir Thomas Graham’s battery commanders, Captain Dubourdieu, was killed by a shell splinter which struck him in the head. Henceforth, ‘Dubourdieu’s battery’ became ‘Michell’s battery’. It was horse-drawn and consisted of four 9-pounder smoothbores with 116 rounds per gun, and two howitzers, with 84 rounds each. 35% of the first-line ammunition was spherical case, better known as shrapnel rounds. A British invention, shrapnel was first introduced in 1804. It was designed to burst in the air above the heads of enemy troops and bombard them with a deadly blast of musket balls. The French did not use this type of munition.

The fall of San Sebastian cleared the way for Wellington to cross the River Bidassoa, the frontier between Spain and France, on 7 October 1813. He ordered the river to be forded near its mouth and at low tide, while Michell’s battery provided covering fire to prevent the troops being pinned down on the ford or the sand beyond it. It was a daring and successful gamble which took the French by surprise, and owed much to Michell succeeding in getting his guns into their correct position on the rocky heights near Irun at exactly the right time.

Michell wrote to his wife Jane in Portsmouth two days after the battle of Nivelle on 10 November, to report “Our Victory” and assure her that he was safe, although a shell splinter had passed through his hat (he was luckier than his predecessor Dubourdieu). “My Brigade [Battery] was however a good deal engaged [and suffered casualties]. I commenced the Action at daylight by driving into a redoubt 400 yards from an entrenchment of the enemy’s and soon drove them from it, after which we advanced and continued to push them till twelve o’clock… since which we have hardly remained six hours in one place… I never was in better health and am uncommonly pleased with my Brigade.”

This letter neatly sets the tone for Michell’s endeavours in the remaining great battles of Wellington’s 1813-14 campaign, where Michell often formed part of the renowned ‘eighteen gun’ battery. These battles were the Nive, Orthes (where his battery crossed the River Pau by pontoon bridge early on the morning of 27 February 1814) and finally Toulouse, where he distinguished himself by “valourous conduct” in front of the leading assault Column. They earned him a commendation from General Alten, which was sent to Wellington, and a Field Officer’s Gold Medal and Clasp. The notice that his name was attracting led to his battery being selected for service in North America, as part of a force commanded by Major-General Robert Ross.

Artillery Commander in the Second American War
Michell’s battery marched to Bordeaux, where it was to load into hired transports. Loading heavy ordnance using the lifting equipment of the day was always a fraught experience for all concerned. If a gun broke loose and fell, it would smash through the bottom of the hull and be lost forever, while the vessel would sink. As Michell supervised the embarkation of his guns and his men, the captain of the transport ship had a fit of what would today be called ‘road rage’. He attacked Michell, who defended himself. Both men fell into the harbour, and were rescued with some difficulty. By the end of July 1814 all the transports had arrived in Bermuda.

Government was now focused on ending the war. Canada had been successfully defended against repeated American invasions, and Maine had been captured. As far as the Americans were concerned, the Indian threat in the north had been neutralised and the end of the French wars meant that the British had stopped forcibly searching U.S. ships and pressing their crew members. There was no real appetite to recolonise the United States, so the British aim now was to conduct amphibious raids on coastal targets to inflict enough pain to persuade the War Hawks to compromise. Negotiations began in Europe in August 1814. In the meantime, it was decided to focus on raiding the Chesapeake Bay area, making initial sorties up both the Potomac and Patuxent rivers in the direction of Washington D.C.

The bulk of the army travelled up the Patuxent river, and Michell was appointed as overall Commander of the field force artillery (two Foot batteries, a Rocket battery and some Royal Marine Artillery, also armed with Rockets). Congreve Rockets were a relatively new weapon in British service. They had been used successfully to burn Copenhagen in 1807 and during the final battles of the Great French Wars. They were area, rather than precision weapons, most effective against troops in the open and highly combustible targets such as wooden ships or buildings. Their big advantage over conventional artillery during amphibious operations was that they were much easier and faster to load and unload from ships and to transport across country, needing less than half the horses of a standard foot battery. They came in a variety of sizes for field use, ranging from 6-pounders to 42-pounders, with incendiary, explosive or shrapnel warheads and an effective range of up to 1,500 yards.

On 19 August General Ross’s force disembarked unopposed at Benedict, where the Patuxent river narrows significantly. They had no horses with them, so, having got his guns ashore, Michell had to have them dragged by hand along the local roads, which were either stony or sandy. The Artillery Drivers were mounted on requisitioned horses, and acted as amateur cavalry. Dragging the guns upstream proved so arduous that Michell had them all, except for one six-pounder, re-embarked at Marlborough. He pressed ahead with the one remaining cannon, two three-pounders and of course his easily transported rockets.

General Ross approached Washington from the north-east, so as to cross the eastern branch of the Potomac (now known as the Anacostia River) at the town of Bladensburg, where there was both a bridge and a ford. An American force gathered on the ridge beyond the bridge to defend their Capital city. It totalled 7,000 men (Ross had 1,500), but the majority were hastily raised local militia. Another disadvantage for the Americans was the presence on the battlefield of President Madison and most of his Cabinet. Secretary of State James Monroe interfered with the American deployment several times, making its faults worse and leaving some repositioned units without any instructions. The Bladensburg bridge was not burned.

The strongest element of the American defence was its artillery. Commodore Barney of the U.S. Navy commanded two 18-pounders and five 12-pounders from the Washington Naval Yard, manned by regular gunners of the Marine Corps, which were positioned in the centre of the ridge across the main road leading to Washington. On his left wing he had batteries of 6-pounder guns which had been bought up from Baltimore, some of which were protected by a fortified building and earthwork overlooking the bridge, and more 6-pounder guns from Washington itself. Michell had just a single precision cannon with which to take on at least four separate batteries (his 3-pounders were unsuitable for counter-battery work). Only his rockets could prevail in the artillery battle.

General Ross reached Bladensburg around noon on 24 August and ordered an immediate attack across the bridge. The American artillery and riflemen beat back several attempts to advance, but the British infantry used both the bridge and the ford to establish themselves on the American position. Michell pushed his guns forward and ordered his rocketeers to fire repeated salvos of explosive and shrapnel Congreve rockets at the American militia formations, smothering their lines in clouds of acrid black powder smoke and causing uncontrollable panic. President Madison, his entourage, and the militia all stampeded and fled, enabling the British to over-run the enemy batteries. The battle was won, at a cost of 200 British casualties, eight of whom were Michell’s men.

The Burning of Washington
Michell reported: “The enemy abandoned every gun which they had bought into the Field, and retreated in the utmost confusion towards Washington. General Ross having halted his army to refresh, I directed all the [American] guns, carriages and ammunition to be destroyed. In the evening we advanced and entered Washington almost without opposition and immediately proceeded to burn the Capitol, the President’s House and all the public buildings.” This was justified by Government as a reprisal for the American burning of York (now Toronto) and several other Canadian towns on the shores of the Great Lakes. The Americans set fire to the Navy Yard, stores and two brand-new warships before they fled.

The first public building to be destroyed by the British was the Capitol, which also housed the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court. They then pushed on to the President’s House, ate the ‘victory’ supper which had been prepared for Madison and his party, and burned the House down. Incendiary rockets supplied by Michell were used to create particularly fierce blazes. One of Michell’s gunner officers, Lieutenant Speer, and his artillerymen played a prominent role in the destruction; Americans may be pleased to know that Speer was later recorded as having “Died Insane”.

It was to be three years before the President (now former Secretary of State and veteran of Bladensburg James Monroe) could re-occupy his House and five years before Congress could once again meet in the Capitol. Stone walls adjacent to the fiercest ‘rocket assisted’ heat in both the Capitol and the President’s House remained standing but were so weakened as to be unsafe; they were mostly torn down and rebuilt during the reconstruction. It is a myth that the White House got its name because its external walls were subsequently painted white to hide the soot and scorch marks caused by the fire. The building had already been painted white in 1800 and was sometimes referred to as ‘the White House’ in the first decades of its existence. It simply appeared more imposing and less weather-beaten after being rebuilt and repainted.

General Ross withdrew his forces from Washington after 24 hours. Michell seems to have spent most of 25 August assessing the 200 plus American cannons, and the other ordnance stores and munitions that had been captured or destroyed. Ross gave a favourable mention to Michell in his dispatch: “The exertions of Captain Mitchell [sic], of the royal artillery, in bringing his guns into action, were unremitting; to him, and to the detachment under his command, including Captain Deacon’s rocket brigade, and the marine rocket corps, I feel every obligation.” (London Gazette of 27 September 1814 refers)

After re-embarking his command on the ships in the Patuxent river, Michell travelled up the Potomac river to join the other assault force (which had been much delayed by shoals and adverse winds). It was a naval force consisting of frigates, two bomb vessels armed mainly with heavy mortars, and two rocket vessels, one of which, Erebus, carried 32-pound Congreve rockets. On the evening of 27 August 1814, they bombarded Fort Washington, the only artillery fort guarding the Potomac river approach to Washington. It was armed with twenty-seven guns (including 52-pound monsters) and manned by a garrison of regulars. After two hours the garrison blew up the fort’s magazine and retreated. The next day the British ships reached the prosperous river port of Alexandria. The Mayor, terrified that the naval rockets would burn down the whole town in short order, promptly surrendered, offering up 22 merchant ships and vast stores of tobacco, cotton and food to the British.

After the successes at Washington and Alexandria, the British commanders decided to raid the important port city of Baltimore. Michell told his wife; “We landed at the mouth of the Papsaco River on the 12th [September] and immediately marched on the road to Baltimore… as soon as the remainder of the Guns were ready to move on I rode forward to join the Army and you may conceive my feelings at meeting the Brave General Ross carrying to the rear mortally wounded – he had been riding in front of the whole Army reconnoitring when he was shot… after saying a few words to him I went forward…”

Michell’s guns played an important part in enabling the British to win the battle of North Point later that day. During the night a torrential downpour soaked most of the British force; Michell decided to keep dry by sleeping inside a pigsty. Baltimore was well defended by 11,000 troops, 150 cannon, stone artillery forts and earthworks, as well as sunken blockships to prevent warships from entering the harbour. Probing attacks made some headway but showed how tough a target Baltimore was, and on 15 September the British re-embarked and withdrew.

Michell led a raid by 1,200 men to capture some American guns, but on 5 October he was still reflecting on “the Baltimore business” in a letter home. “We are now in full sail down the river [Potomac] and it is said to leave the Chesapeake but where we are to go is not yet made public.” He was not aware that he had been specially promoted out of turn to Brevet Major on 29 September 1814, as a reward for his actions at the Battle of Bladensburg, and that he was bound for Jamaica, where Government was assembling a strong amphibious force to attack New Orleans. The Americans learned about this before the British ships sailed from Jamaica. They even knew that the plan was to attack the city from the south-east, approaching it along the east bank of the Mississippi.

The Battle of New Orleans
Reinforcements arrived from Britain, including new and more senior commanders for the army and for the artillery. Michell reverted to his regimental duties as a battery commander, in charge of two 9-pounders (with 110 rounds per gun) and four 6-pounders (120 rounds each), which were landed on 23 December 1814. His first mission was to destroy the U.S.S. Carolina, a 14-gun schooner corvette which the Americans had sent down the Mississippi to bombard the British camp. On 27 December Michell engaged it with red hot shot from his 9-pounders. They had been positioned, together with a furnace, on the levee. The fourth round started a fire, the crew abandoned ship, and after two and a half hours the Carolina blew up.

The next day, the army advanced to probe the American defence line. Major-General Andrew Jackson had selected a strong position at Calmette, five miles from the city. It ran behind and parallel with the Rodriguez canal (four feet deep, 20 feet wide, and apparently free of alligators) which led from cypress swamps in the east to the Mississippi river in the west. These natural obstacles anchored its flanks. To cover the central obstacle of the canal itself, Jackson built a timber and earthwork rampart wall on which he mounted his infantry and cannons, and a second earthwork and rampart wall a little upstream on the opposite (west) bank of the Mississippi. This western wall and redoubt housed twenty cannons, which could fire across the river to support the main defence line on the east bank. Another, larger warship, the sloop U.S.S. Louisiana, which was armed with 24-pounders, was stationed on the river between the two positions, to provide additional artillery support and to prevent any British attack up the river itself. Having located these formidable and well-manned defences, the British pulled back. It was decided that much heavier cannon were needed, in order to thoroughly bombard the American wall and rampart before the next attack.
By great exertions, several 24- and 18-pounders were disembarked from Royal Navy warships. Gun emplacements and platforms were constructed at night from planks and sugar casks filled with loose soil. On New Year’s Day 1815 a fierce artillery duel was fought. After about three hours the British batteries fell silent, having either used up all their ammunition or, as was the case with Michell’s heavy howitzer, been damaged by American counter-battery fire. The flimsy and hastily built gun emplacements proved to be totally unfit for purpose, and it was clear that the British could not hope to win the artillery battle unless drastic steps were taken.

The force commander, Major-General Sir Edward Pakenham, developed an audacious and highly risky plan. Part of the army would cross the Mississippi in small open boats, capture the American position upstream on the west bank and turn its guns on to the rear of the main American wall on the east bank. Simultaneously, the east bank rampart would be attacked in a frontal assault by the main force of infantry and riflemen.

A canal was dug from a nearby bayou so that 42 ship’s boats could be launched into the Mississippi after dark. Michell was given command of the artillery to be sent to the west bank. The ship’s boats were not strong enough to transport cannon during an assault crossing, but they could carry a complete Rocket Brigade and enough gunners to man the American cannons once they had been captured. They would cross, under cover of darkness, before midnight on 7-8 January 1815.

Unfortunately, the plan began to unravel from the start. The new canal proved to be a nightmare, consisting of very little water but an enormous quantity of deep, sticky mud. By 3.15 a.m. on 8 January only 30 boats had been man-handled along it and launched into the Mississippi. At 5 a.m. the situation was not much improved, but General Pakenham was told that Michell’s artillery group, an infantry battalion and some marines (about 560 men in total, one third of the number allocated to the west bank attack) could start to cross at once. He ordered them to set off, although the crossing would now begin eight hours late and they would land on the west bank in full daylight. The main frontal attack on the east bank wall would go ahead an hour after daybreak. This decision meant that the main assault force had to close right up to the American ramparts in daylight, instead of making their initial advance to the Rodriguez canal in the dark and early morning fog.

The Americans engaged the British assault columns when they were still 1,500 yards distant, as they slowly advanced towards the Rodriguez canal. One battalion commander at the head of a column had not checked that his men had bought the equipment needed to cross the water-filled ditch and climb the ramparts, and when he discovered that he could not surmount these obstacles he turned his command back to fetch their ladders, throwing the rest of the column into utter chaos. General Pakenham was hit three times by grape-shot and mortally wounded; many of the other Generals and Colonels were killed. The main attack had become a total disaster, with heavy casualties. A withdrawal was ordered.

Things went differently on the west bank. The naval boats made it across the mighty Mississippi in the teeth of a strong current, the assault force landed and at a cost of 85 casualties quickly captured the American position, although it was held by about 1,500 men. Michell set up his rockets and began firing volleys of Congreves at the American line on the east bank. Once this was well underway, he turned his attention to examining the captured artillery. In all it amounted to sixteen guns and howitzers, one of which was inscribed “Taken at the Surrender of Yorktown in 1781.”

Andrew Jackson reported that the west bank guns were spiked before the American defenders fled. That may have been so, but an experienced officer like Michell would have ensured that his men had bought the sweet oil, screw-taps and other necessary items for withdrawing soft iron spikes from touchholes, and he “commenced cleaning enemy’s guns to form a battery to enfilade their lines on the left [east] bank.” It has been claimed that the Americans believed that the loss of the west bank battery so greatly weakened their defences that, if the British attack had been renewed, they would have evacuated New Orleans (History of the Corps of Royal Engineers Vol I p 363 refers).

The new British Commander decided to break off the attack. By 21 January 1815, Michell was back aboard the flagship Royal Oak. He was present at the capture of Fort Bowyer in Mobile bay on 15 February 1815. The next day, news arrived that the negotiators had signed a peace treaty – on 24 December 1814.

‘The Man Who Burned Down the White House’
Michell reached Portsmouth on 30 May 1815 but, together with all the artillery returning from North America, he was ordered to join the Duke of Wellington’s Army in the Low Countries and sailed to Ostend on 9 June. He arrived too late to join the battle of Waterloo, although Michell could hear the gunfire. After the battle, as the Allied armies marched on Paris, six artillery Companies, including Michell’s, were detached to serve with the Prussian army that had undertaken to capture Napoleon’s fortresses that defended the north-east border of France. Each stronghold in succession was bombarded until it surrendered. Afterwards, in December 1815, Michell was appointed to a distinguished Commission with a mandate to study and report on Prussian fortresses.

He returned home in 1816 and was based at Woolwich to oversee the reduction of the Royal Artillery to its peacetime establishment. He served as Brigade-Major on the Artillery Staff and as Adjutant-General in Ireland. On 22 July 1830, Michell was promoted to become Lieutenant-Colonel, commanding the 8th Battalion, Royal Artillery. Sent out to Canada 1831-36, he was awarded a C.B. and promoted to Colonel on 23 November 1841. From 1844-45 he commanded the Royal Artillery in Gibraltar, becoming a Major-General in the Army and Colonel-Commandant in the Royal Artillery in 1854 and 1856 respectively. General Michell was advanced to K.C.B. in 1861. He died in London on 23 August 1866.

A full-length portrait depicting Michell against a background of the Burning of Washington was hung in the dining room of the Officers Mess at the Royal School of Artillery, Larkhill, Wiltshire. Many generations of Gunner officers have enjoyed pointing it out to visiting American guests, especially during the terms of particularly controversial Presidents!