America used to go to war in rowboats.
This last happened in the War of 1812. The boats were called barges or galleys -- 75 or 50 feet long and rowed by men sitting two abreast. They shot cannonballs from the bow in frontal assaults and parting shots from the stern when escaping British man-of-wars.
They often lost.
But in hit-and-run warfare in the summer of 1814, Joshua Barney of Maryland and his men put up a valiant fight before sinking all 18 of their boats in the Patuxent River to avoid the fleet's capture.
Barney's mostly forgotten and still submerged Chesapeake Flotilla will be remembered this week as part of the 300th birthday of Prince George's County. A 40-foot replica of a Barney barge, eight months in the making, will be launched during public ceremonies at noon tomorrow at the Historic Bladensburg Waterfront on the Anacostia River.
The builders call it the flotilla's ghost ship, which is named "No. 19." The original 18 boats were mostly numbered.
"Everyone knows the British burned the White House, but few people know the Chesapeake Flotilla and Captain Barney's barges," said shipwright Jamie Berman of Baltimore's Living Classrooms Foundation.
The Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission, in partnership with the foundation, built the boat for $100,000 and donations of equipment.
No. 19's 800-pound bow cannon, made to original plans by an Indiana cannon maker, is accurate only to 100 yards with an approximate range of 400 yards. But the foundation's boat makers figure its 9-ounce gunpowder charge will turn heads.
"We tried it out on the parking lot three times, and it was pretty exciting," said Jesse Lebovics, a shipwright. "Nasty stinky cloud. Red flame. Good and loud. I was impressed."
Berman, of Upper Marlboro, led a team that began building the boat in a temporary Quonset hut during the heavy January snows. Shipwright John Kellett was a technical adviser.
They created a 9-ton vessel that looks part-Roman galley and part-lifeboat featuring unusually thick 1 1/4 -inch pine planking, oak ribs and running boards. Students from Bladensburg schools made the 16-foot ash oars.
The white-and-maroon No. 19 is built to four-fifths scale -- 40 feet long rather than 50 feet, 10 feet wide instead of 12 feet, and 16 oars instead of 20. In the stern, the long gun has been supplanted by a donated 65-horsepower diesel engine to supplement the oars and two sails.
