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Utie to be a gentleman's son, and he as an United States officer not being able to decline a challenge, the latter was accepted. The weapons were to be pistols, the place the usual ground at Bladensburg, and the time the afternoon of the next day.
Though Tom Somers had been absent from the regiment only a fortnight, it seemed to him as though a year had elapsed since the day of the battle when he had stood shoulder to shoulder with his townsmen and friends. He had been ordered to report to the provost marshal at Washington, where he learned that his regiment was at Bladensburg, about six miles from the city.
Their artillery, which could not greatly exceed our own, either in weight of metal or number of guns, was scattered along the line of infantry in nearly the same order as had been preserved at Bladensburg, and their reserve was partly seen, and partly hid by a thick wood. The whole of this country is flat and unbroken.
Very noisy, very insolent, nuisances indeed, these two mere lads the offspring of a vain and ignorant social period of which some elements yet remain borrowed the money to hire a carriage, and at midnight they set out with some associates by the old, rutty, clay road for the Maryland village of Bladensburg. That night they caroused until Nature, despite her revolt, put them to bed.
Suddenly a little puff of smoke curled up from where Sukey was crouched, and the crack of a rifle rang out. The officer in his gay uniform dropped his sword and fell from his saddle, while Sukey took a small day book from his pocket and wrote "nine" in it. Fernando's company fell back to Bladensburg, where he deployed them so as to cover the Americans' line, and awaited the approach of the enemy.
On the 27th of August, three days later, Alexandria was plundered of her public stores by the British. Having taken an enormous amount as ransom for the city, the British sailed down the Potomac, annoyed part of the way by the guns from the American forts. Fernando Stevens' riflemen, after the battle of Bladensburg, hastened toward Baltimore, which they knew to be also threatened.
Thus, in spite of our loss at Bladensburg, we were enabled on our next debarkation to bring into the field about five thousand fighting men. Next morning we again weighed, and directed our course towards the Potomac. We entered this river soon after midday, and continued to stem the stream during the night, and till dusk on the following evening, when we again brought up.
Whilst the third brigade was thus employed, the rest of the army, having recalled its stragglers, and removed the wounded into Bladensburg, began its march towards Washington. Though the battle came to a close by four o'clock, the sun had set before the different regiments were in a condition to move, consequently this short journey was performed in the dark.
Thirteen years after the Clay and Randolph duel, a member of Congress from Maine perished in an encounter at Bladensburg with a representative from Kentucky. Sixty-six years ago, a challenge to mortal combat was accepted by one who in later years was twice elected to the Presidency.
The Schollicks still retained Oondooroo; Elderslie was held by Sir Samuel Wilson; Dagworth, by Fairbairns, who shortly afterwards sold out to Macpherson and Co.; Bladensburg, by John Arthur Macartney; Sesbania, by Manifold, Bostock and Co.; Manuka, by Anderson and Nicol, who sold out to Baillie, Fraser and Donald; Ayrshire Downs and Cork, by McIlwraith and Smyth.
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