Joshua Barney

Joshua Barney had already fought in the Revolution when the War of 1812 recalled him to federal service. He took the privateer Rossie to sea in 1812, then proposed and built the Chesapeake Flotilla — shallow barges meant to harass British warships in the bay. In August 1814, after scuttling the flotilla to keep it from capture, Barney marched his sailors and Marines to Bladensburg. There, on August 24, his small force held longer than much of the militia line before he was wounded and the road to Washington opened.

Navy histories and contemporary after-action accounts — not later pageantry — put him on this roll for the flotilla and Bladensburg. He died in Pittsburgh in December 1818 while traveling west, still carrying the Bladensburg wound. The Naval History and Heritage Command portrait on Wikimedia Commons is public domain. Barney is not missing.