Archaeologists excavate suspected War of 1812 vessel

(Baltimore Sun) For months in the spring and summer of 1814, Commodore Joshua Barney and his ragtag flotilla of gunboats had harassed the mighty British navy on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. But outnumbered and outgunned, Barney and his miniature fleet were bottled up in the Patuxent River with no escape and enemy forces approaching.
So following orders from Washington, Barney's men scuttled the estimated 17 vessels — including his flagship, the USS Scorpion — near a place known as Pig Point.
Almost 200 years later, a team of archaeologists have been combing the bottom of a stretch of the river separating Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties in search of artifacts from what they believe is the wreckage of the Scorpion. Continued

Image: Photograph of Charles Wilson Peale's 1788 (?) portrait of Barney shows Barney in the uniform of the Continental Navy. (Library of Congress).