Posts tagged ‘War of 1812 at Sea’
THIS WEEK in the War of 1812 (October 5-October 11, 1814) [UPDATE]
Maritime Setbacks.
USS Wasp in 1814
(via Wikipedia)
October 9 [Restores dropped material and fixes typos]
The American sloop-of-war, USS Wasp, is lost at sea. Under Master Commandant Johnston Blakeley, the 22-gun vessel, sank, burned or captured 15 British ships — including three warships — during two raiding cruises in the summer of 1814.
After capturing the British brig Atalanta on September 21, Blakeley sends the prize back to the United States manned by some of his 173-man crew. The Wasp is last seen by a neutral merchant vessel in the mid Atlantic around October 9.
HMS St. Lawrence
(Paining by C.H.J. Snider)
October 10
The British launch the HMS St. Lawrence, a three-deck gunship from Kingston Navy Dockyard in what is now Ontario. Bigger than HMS Victory, Admiral Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar, the St. Lawrence is the biggest wooden ship built for fresh water sailing and upends the naval balance of power on Lake Ontario. The big ship will see no action, however, as the war has largely moved south to the Gulf of Mexico.
October 11
The American relief force sent to break the siege of Fort Erie finally arrives on the scene, but the British have already departed. General George Izzard, commander of the U.S. Northern Army, has marched over from Sackets Harbor, New York with more than 4,000 men. Back in August, then-Secretary of War John Armstrong orders Izzard — who was based at Plattsburgh awaiting a British attack on Lake Champlain — to take 4,000 men and march to Sacket’s Harbor, which Armstrong fears is vulnerable to a British amphibious assault. The move leaves Plattsburgh with less than 2,000 troops to defend the vital Lake Champlain Valley. In September he is ordered to relieve Major General Brown and his troops at Fort Erie.
Combined with the Fort Erie defenders, Izard decides he has overwhelming numerical superiority to the retreating British. After two days’ delay, he heads north on the Canadian side of the Niagara River to intercept the retreating British commanded by Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond.
Northern Frontier 1812-1814
(Map: U.S. Army Center of Military History)
Be sure to click on the map to enlarge the image. Lake Champlain and Plattsburgh are on the far right. You can follow the St. Lawrence River Southwest (to the left) past Sacket’s Harbor and Kingston on Lake Ontario. Then continue West to Fort Erie and the Niagara River (towards the middle of the map). Put in Bay is where the Battle of Lake Erie was fought in 1813, followed by the Battle of Thames (Moraviantown) a few weeks later.
THIS WEEK in the War of 1812 (September 21-September 27, 1814)
Historic re-enactors of British troops at Fort Erie.
(Courtesy of Parks Canada)
Siege Ends.
September 21, Fort Erie, Canada
British Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond, after weeks of failed attacks and bombardment, calls off his siege of Fort Erie and marches away into the rainy night. The 48-day-long siege has cost British-Canadian-First Nations (Indian) forces more than 280 killed, 500 wounded and over 700 captured or missing. The Americans have lost 213 dead, over 500 wounded and more than 250 missing or captured.
Drummond heads north along the Niagara River to Chippawa Creek near the scene of two bloody battles in July.
That same day, The Baltimore Patriot is the first newspaper to print Francis Scott Key’s four-stanza poem, “Defense of Fort M’Henry.” I becomes wildly popular – first in Baltimore – and then throughout the country. It becomes even better known when set to music (a difficult-to-sing – but popular — tune) and the title is changed to “The Star-Spangled Banner” (but the song does not become the official national anthem of the United States until 1931).
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At Sea
September 26-27, the Portuguese Azores
The U.S. privateer Gen. John Armstrong
(U.S. Navy via Wikipedia)
The American privateer, General Armstrong, a Baltimore clipper, has been raiding British shipping in the Atlantic for over a year when she puts into port at Fayal (now Faial) in the Azores, a Portuguese colony. The Armstrong is named for Brigadier General John Armstrong Senior, a commander in the Revolutionary War as well as the earlier French and Indian War. The privateer, a non-military ship authorized by the U.S. government to raid commercial shipping, has captured or destroyed several British ships since 1813.
A squadron of three British warships heading for Jamaica and the British military buildup for an attack on New Orleans, sails into the port, spies the Armstrong and send several small boats to try and board her. Contemporary British, American and Portuguese accounts differ on who did what to whom – and when.
What is certain: Samuel Chester Reid, the captain of the eight-gun Armstrong, ordered his canon to fire on approaching boats carrying British sailors and Marines, driving them off. The British tried to board the American vessel again but were again driven off after a fierce hand-to-hand fight on deck (like something out of the novels of Patrick O’Brian or C.S. Forester). At least two large British rowboats were sunk.
A Currier and Ives print of the British attack on the American privateer Gen. John Armstrong Sr.
The next day, September 27, the infuriated British commander, Captain Robert Lloyd, orders his smallest warship, the brig HMS Carnation, to attack. Reid fires on the Carnation, doing some damage but sees he is outnumbered with no way out. He orders his crew to abandon ship and scuttles the Armstrong. Historians don’t even agree on who set fire to the ship. Reid and his crew (two dead, seven wounded) take refuge on the island, which is neutral territory, and the Portuguese governor refuses to allow the British to land and hunt them down. Lloyd and his ships sail for the West Indies and historians again disagree on whether this has any bearing on the Battle of New Orleans. British losses in the fracas are put at 36 dead and 93 wounded.
Historical Footnote: The man the General Armstrong is named for is the father of the second U.S. Secretary of War during the War of 1812, John Armstrong Junior, who is largely blamed for not fortifying Washington before the British attacked and burned parts of the U.S. capital.
THIS WEEK in the WAR of 1812 (June 22-June 28, 1814)
U.S. Victory at Sea.
On June 28, at the mouth of the English Channel, the American sloop of war, USS Wasp, captures and destroys the British sloop, HMS Reindeer.
U.S. Marines in the rigging of the USS Wasp fire down on the crew of the HMS Reindeer.
(U.S. Marine Corps 1945 painting by Staff Sgt. John F. Clymer, courtesy National Museum of the Marine Corps)
The Wasp, a ship-rigged sloop of war, is the fifth American ship to bear the name — the fourth in two years. The 24-gun Wasp, under the command of Master Commandant Johnston Blakely set sail on May 1 with orders to raid British commerce in the English Channel.
By late June the Wasp has taken seven British merchant vessels and is closing in on two more on the morning of the 28th, when the Reindeer, a 21-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop, comes on the scene. The Reindeer, sailing out of Plymouth, is under orders to hunt down the Wasp.
The Wasp is the bigger ship with a bigger crew (173 sailors and Marines compared to 118 on the Reindeer) and more powerful guns. Because the winds were light, it took the two vessels half the day to draw close enough to fire effectively. The two ships traded broadsides for 20 minutes before the the Reindeer’s bow came to rest against the Wasp making them close enough for boarding parties to attack. The British boarding party was driven back under heavy fire from Marines in the Wasp’s rigging.
After repulsing the British boarding party, the American sailors and Marines swarmed over the shattered Reindeer, forcing the British to seek shelter below deck. The British commander, Captain William Manners, was killed along with 24 other sailors and Marines, 42 more were wounded. American casualties were nine dead and 15 wounded.
The Reindeer was so badly damaged it couldn’t be salvaged, so Blakely ordered her set afire. The prisoners were taken aboard the Wasp or transferred to a neutral ship. Wasp had to sail to the French port of L’Orient for repairs for her own battle damage.
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War in Quebec.
Northern Front in the War of 1812
(U.S. Army Office of Military History)
On the same day, across the Atlantic on the New York-Canadian border, U.S. troops skirmish for second time in two days with British forces at Odelltown, Lower Canada. There have been a series of indecisive skirmishes on the border between New York and Lower Canada (what is now Quebec) during the spring and summer of 1814.
Military records of the time, according to the Website North Country Now, report that U.S. troops from the 30th and 31st U.S. Infantry regiments advance from Plattsburgh to Champlain and Chazy near the border west of Lake Champlain. Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Forsyth, with 70 riflemen, advances to Odelltown, south of LaColle in Quebec, where they are attacked by about 200 lightly armed British troops. The Americans suffer one killed and five wounded. The British, three killed and five wounded. Forsyth withdraws to Champlain in New York.
Northern Vermont and New York near LaColle, Quebec
But on the 28th, Forsyth is ordered to advance into Canada again to lure the British into attacking the Americans and chasing them back across the border where other U.S. troops are waiting to ambush them. The plan works but as 150 Canadian Indians allied with the British advance toward the ambush site, Forsyth steps up on a log to get a better view and is shot and killed by an Indian. The U.S. troops open fire, driving off the Indians, who suffer 17 dead.
THIS WEEK in the War of 1812 (March 23-March 29, 1814) UPDATE
UPDATES with new final item: court martial of Brig. Gen. Hull returns guilty verdict.
A Widening War
From the cane bottoms of Alabama to the Pacific Coast of South America, military and naval actions in March 1814 illustrate how the war between the United States and Great Britain has spread far beyond the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River. U.S. Navy ships and privateers raid British commerce in the Caribbean Sea and around the British Isles. The Royal Navy sends more and more ships to tighten the blockade of most U.S. ports along the Atlantic Coast. In Mississippi Territory, Major General Andrew Jackson confronts the pro-British Red Stick faction of the Creek Indian Nation … and the American frigate USS Essex is raiding the English whaling fleet in the South Pacific.
Sharp Knife’s Revenge: Horseshoe Bend
Battle Diorama at Horseshoe Bend National Military Park
March 27, 1814: With more than 3,000 troops, including regulars from the 39th U.S. Infantry Regiment and 700 Native American allies – mostly friendly Cherokees and about 100 Creeks – Andrew Jackson prepares to attack the Creek Indian stronghold, Tohopeka, at a bend in the Talapoosa River known to the whites as the Horseshoe.
Politically, the Red Sticks are more anti-American than pro-British, but the Brits, looking to offset their limited resources in the Americas while fighting Napoleon, give the Indians ammunition, supplies and encouragement. The 1813 massacre of American settlers and friendly Creeks at Fort Mims on the Mississippi-Spanish Florida border incensed Jackson and other Americans in the western states intent “on a single purpose: the destruction of the Creek Nation as a potential threat to the safety of the United States,” according to historian Robert V. Remini.
Of course, in hindsight, Jackson seems little troubled by the wholesale slaughter his troops committed .
The Horseshoe is a heavily wooded peninsula jutting out into the river above high bluffs. Across the neck of the Horseshoe peninsula, the Red Sticks have built a 350-yard-long barricade of horizontal logs five-to-eight feet high. Behind the wall are some 1,000 warriors and 300 women and children.
Jackson’s two small cannon open fire on the stout log wall at 10:30 a.m. With little effect. The 39th Infantry and Tennessee militiamen face the barricade but Creeks firing through slits in the logs keep them pinned down. On the opposite side of the river, surrounding the rest of the Indian stronghold, are Colonel John Coffee with 700 mounted riflemen and Jackson’s Indian allies. Those Indians cross the river in canoes and begin the climb the bluff, attacking the stronghold from the rear – distracting its defenders on the log barricade.
Taking advantage of the confusion, Jackson orders a charge. The regulars and militiamen breech the barricade and a killing orgy begins inside the Red Sticks’ encampment. When the fighting ends at sundown, an estimated 800 Red Sticks are dead. Jackson’s losses are 49 killed, 154 wounded – many mortally.
The military power of the Creeks has been crushed and Jackson will pressure their leaders to sign a treaty in August ceding 23 million acres of land. Much of it will form the state of Alabama in 1819. The Indians begin calling Jackson, “Sharp Knife” for his tough tactics on and off the battlefield.
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Valparaiso: USS Essex vs. HMS Phoebe
Frigate USS Essex in 1799
(U.S. Naval Academy Museum Collection via Wikipedia)
March 28, 2014: Trapped in Chile’s Valparaiso Harbor for the last six weeks by two Royal Navy ships, American Captain David Porter decides to make a run for it in the USS Essex before more British ships arrive on the scene.
Since rounding South America’s Cape Horn in early 1813 – the first U.S. warship to do so – the Essex has been playing havoc with the British whaling fleet in the Pacific Ocean. Between April and October 1813, Porter captured 12 of the 20 British whalers operating in the Eastern Pacific.
Essex sailed back across the Pacific to Valparaiso, a neutral port, arriving on February 3, 1814. According to author George C. Daughan in his book, 1812, The Navy’s War, Porter was “intent on falling in with an enemy frigate. He knew British hunters were after him, and he meant to accommodate them.”
On February 8, the 36-gun HMS Phoebe and the 28-gun HMS Cherub arrived on the scene. Porter tried to provoke the Phoebe’s captain, Capt. James Hillyar into a one-on-one duel but Hillyar declined to accommodate the American. The took up position at the harbor’s mouth, trapping the Essex.
Capture of USS Essex 1838 engraving via Wikipedia
Taking advantage of a change in the wind, Porter attempted to outrun the slower British ships on the 28th. But a sudden heavy squall carried away the Essex’s main topmast. Porter tried to slip back into the harbor unscathed but the Phoebe and Cherub headed straight for the Essex. A brutal sea-battle ensued. Essex carried 46 cannon, but only six were long range guns. But the Phoebe carried mostly long range canon that were able to pound the Essex out of the range of the American ship’s 40 heavy – but short range – guns. After failing to close with Phoebe to board her, Porter tried to run Essex aground and destroy her to keep the ship out of enemy hands. But the wind wouldn’t cooperate and Porter finally had to surrender.
The Essex suffered 58 killed, 39 severely wounded, 26 slightly wounded and 312 missing out of a crew of 255. On the Phoebe, five were killed and 10 wounded. Porter and his crew were paroled by Hillyar and allowed to return to the United States in one of the English whalers the Essex had captured.
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A General’s Disgrace
THIS WEEK in the War of 1812 (Oct. 14-Oct. 20)
Pyrrhic Victory at Sea
USS_Wasp_capturing_HMS_Frolic
(Wikipedia)
The American sloop USS Wasp intercepts a British convoy of cargo ships on Oct. 18, 1812. The merchantmen are guarded by a British sloop-of-war, the 20-gun HMS Frolic. The two sloops blast away at each other from a distance of only 50 yards. After a short — but savage — exchange of gunfire, both ships suffer heavy damage to masts and rigging.
However, a boarding party from the Wasp storms the Frolic and takes her. But before either the Wasp or Frolic can be made sail-worthy a 74-gun British ship-of-the-line, the HMS Poictiers, appears on the scene. The master of the crippled Wasp, Jacob Jones, has no choice but to surrender.
The Wasp will be converted to a British warship and re-named HMS Peacock for a British ship taken and sunk in 1813 by another American sloop, the USS Hornet.
4GWAR 