Unfortunate Incident In Bath Captain shoots Lieutenant

Unfortunate Incident In Bath

Captain shoots Lieutenant by Brian Swartz

Apistol fired accidentally — or measures along the Maine coast, a neBy 1811 William King was a gennot — in Bath on September glect that led directly to Maine stateeral of militia responsible for the var13, 1814 left a young husband hood in 1820. The Bay State left the ious Maine units, including the Bath and father dead and another man’s repprotection of its easternmost counties Light Infantry in which Hyde served. utation in shambles, according to Zina to men like King and Zina Hyde, a Bath That August 28th, Major Andrew Reed Hyde, whose familial surname has long merchant and store owner. asked Hyde “if I will accept the appointbeen associated with Bath. Lincoln County militiamen recogment of adjutant of the 1st Reg(iment),

During the War of 1812, British nized King as a natural leader. Born 15th Brig(ade), 11th Div(ision),” Hyde privateers sailing primarily from New in Scarborough in 1768, he later beinformed his diary. Initially inclined to Brunswick and Nova Scotia frequentcame a successful businessman with a refuse Reed’s request, Hyde acquiesced ly captured American merchant ships Brunswick cotton mill and merchant after discussing it with other officers in New England waters. Along with a ships to carry his freight from Maine and became the regimental adjutant on leaky Royal Navy blockade, the privato far-flung ports. After representing October 28th, the day that the regiment teers essentially neutralized Maine’s luTopsham and Bath in the Massachumustered for inspection by General crative maritime trade and left wealthy setts House of Representatives at difKing and Colonel Denny McCobb. merchants such as Bath’s William King ferent times between 1795 and 1804, The muster went well on an “unfeeling the financial pinch. King represented Lincoln County in commonly fine” day, according to

Throughout the war, Massachusetts the Massachusetts Senate from 1807 to Hyde, and “the officers were all invited paid minimal attention to defensive 1811. to partake of a generous entertainment

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at Gen. King’s” home in Bath. “About forty of us met and spent a part of the evening very pleasantly,” Hyde noted.

For General King, military responsibilities had already required him to develop a staff, so on September 13, 1811 he named Major Joseph F. Wingate as his aide-de-camp. “His uniform and equipments are truly elegant,” Hyde wrote about Wingate.

As the war dragged on, the militia regiments raised by the Volunteer Act disbanded after Congress unwisely repealed that law in January 1813. Rather than go home, patriotic Maine soldiers soon joined the newly formed 45th United States Infantry Regiment, commanded by Denny McCobb. Being local men, he and King established their respective headquarters in Bath.

British operations against American military posts in Maine commenced late in the war, not until the defeat of Napoleonic France freed regiments and warships for duty against the United States. In August and September of

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1814, British forces captured Fort Sullivan in Eastport and Fort George in Castine, routed the Penobscot Valley militia at the Battle of Hampden, and briefly occupied Belfast.

Flushed with success, British forces moved west to threaten Lincoln County ports. Bath and Wiscasset merchants justifiably feared a British attack. In the History of Bath, Parker McCobb Reed reported that on June 20, 1814 the seventy-four-gun British frigate HMS Bulwark had anchored near Seguin Island, and barge-borne British troops had ventured into the Sheepscot River. Four days later, several Bath residents gathered at the Lincoln Bank to petition King — who had started the bank some years earlier — to defend the town. Via Wingate’s signature, King ordered the by-now Brigadier General Denny McCobb to send an infantry company to Bath.

Events moved quickly in September 1814. Hyde officially became a brigade major at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Septem- (cont. on page 16)

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(cont. from page 15) ber 10th. Three hours later, according to Hyde’s diary, “Gen. King returned from the east, via Wiscasset, with intelligence that the British had left Castine with seven ships and were proceeding westward.”

One British warship, the seventy-four-gun frigate HMS La Hogue, had already arrived off Seguin Island, which apparently was a favorite Maine landmark for the Royal Navy, as already evidenced by the marauding HMS Bulwark. The news shivered merchants’ timbers throughout coastal Lincoln County. On Sunday, September 11th, King “ordered out the entire [1st] brigade,” wrote Hyde, who “was occupied the whole day ... in viewing, inspecting, and ordering to their quarters the different corps of militia as they arrived.”

In this particular entry, Hyde erred by identifying “September 11, 1814” as Saturday, not Sunday. His other date/ week-day listings do coincide.

King planned to reinforce a small garrison holding a rudimentary fort at Cox’s Head on the Kennebec River in Phippsburg. During the weekend, “an alarm” had sent the militia cavalry “to the mouth of the Kennebec before being inspected,” Hyde noted, but the hard-riding cavalrymen returned to Bath in time for an afternoon inspection on Monday, September 12th.

“The battalion was accordingly paraded near the south meetinghouse, and with the rolls of the two respective companies in my hand, I took a stand with Mr. [Captain Nathan] Ames in front of the line and a little to the left” of the cavalry officers, Hyde wrote. Both men were on horses. Ames was another aide-de-camp to General King.

Hyde and Ames summoned “the individual troopers ... for inspection,” which involved the two officers checking each cavalryman’s horse, uniform, and equipment. Suddenly realizing that “the [soldiers’] pistols were charged

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(loaded with powder and bullets),” Hyde objected to inspecting the loaded weapons.

A militia officer informed Hyde that “having returned with them (pistols) so [loaded],” the cavalrymen “had orders not to discharge them, and that the captains had just inspected them in that condition,” so Hyde and Ames should proceed with their inspection, protest or no protest.

Each time that a cavalryman handed Hyde a loaded pistol, “I turned the muzzle to the ground, but Capt. Ames turned those he took in hand up,” leaving each pistol pointed dangerously at nearby soldiers.

“In this way, we had nearly completed the inspection when one of the pistols in Capt. Ames’ hands went off, and the ball passed through the head of Lt. Baker, who was seated on his horse behind Capt. Ames,” Hyde described the horrific incident that occurred just as the militiamen were relaxing their

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“This was an awful moment,” Hyde indicated. “On turning I saw one of our finest officers and a highly valued citizen fall upon the ground with no sign of life but a slight muscular quivering. I was hardly more than conscious of the [pistol’s] report when all was over.”

Accompanied by an ostensibly shocked Nathan Ames, militia officers carried Baker’s body “to the house of C.A. Green,” Baker’s brother-inlaw. Hyde stayed at his post until the death-disrupted inspection ended, and the Lincoln County militiamen “retired in silent gloom, more depressed than if many had fallen from an attack of the enemy.”

In his diary, Hyde does not fully identify Lieutenant Baker, but the roster for a militia company raised at Bowdoinham by Captain Ebenezer Hatch lists an Ensign Caleb Baker in American and British regiments during the (cont. on page 18)

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(cont. from page 17) Napoleonic Era. Ensigns were young men, sometimes just young adolescents. Hyde described Baker as “young and highly esteemed as a man and officer.” Baker left behind a wife and two young children, so Caleb Baker might have been Hyde’s “Lt. Baker.”

On Wednesday, September 14th, Hyde traveled to Topsham and attended Baker’s funeral, “an affecting duty and scene.” Among Baker’s children was a son named Daniel who, according to the History of Bath, later became a bank cashier.

Suspicions soon sharpened as to whether Baker’s death was accidental or not. A September 17th meeting between King and several officers established “that no blame was to be attached to anyone,” Hyde noted, but “opinions [soon] differed in regard to the innocence of Capt. Ames.”

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new suit of black, with his head down, handkerchief to eyes red with weeping, which led” many Bath residents to believe “that he was a sincere mourner,” the History of Bath indicates.

“But the boys one and all declared he (Ames) was ‘shamming it all, the old hypocrite,’” the History of Bath reports. This comment likely attests not to a belief that Ames had deliberately shot Baker, but to the suspicion that Ames felt little remorse at Baker’s “accidental” death.

On September 20th, Hyde and the other soldiers learned “news of the appearing of seven ships off Booth Bay, which induced the expectation of an immediate attack.” Sailing aboard barges powered by sails and sweeps, British sailors and marines probed coves and estuaries, even penetrating the Sheepscot River to raid seaside farms for livestock and provisions.

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Open M-F 8:30am-5pm Sat. 9am-2pm mately resumed their civilian occupations when the militia “stood down” later that fall, after the British warships vanished from Lincoln County waters.

By 1815 many Mainers wanted a legal separation from Massachusetts, and William King led the effort when Lincoln County voters returned him to the Massachusetts Senate in 1816. Maine joined the United States in March of 1820.

As for Nathan Ames, his reputation never recovered after September 13, 1814. “Ames’ subsequent career proved that the boys were not far from right, for he became ... despicable by dishonesty and crooked ways,” reports the History of Bath. Perhaps Ames did not deserve such criticism. The wording suggests communal anger focused on a political scapegoat who had, after all, handled loaded pistols only when ordered to do so.

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