When Broke saw Ludlow’s men assembling, he called for his own boarders. As he did, Lawrence suddenly slumped to the deck, felled by a musket ball from a marksman in the Shannon’s tops. He cried out to be taken to his cabin. Lieutenant Ludlow was shot at the same time and severely wounded. At this point, Acting Third Lieutenant William Cox appeared from below. He had been in charge of the guns on the starboard side of the Chesapeake’s gun deck, the side that was not firing, and since he wasn’t needed there, he climbed up to the quarterdeck. Hearing Lawrence’s call to be taken below, he ordered a couple of men to help him carry the captain to his cabin. When he disappeared below, Cox did not realize he was the senior officer in command on the spar deck. After seeing to Lawrence, Cox attempted to return to the fight on the upper deck, but he ran into a flood of men retreating below and could not get past them.
Meanwhile, Broke had his boarders assembled and was leading them onto the Chesapeake’s quarterdeck. With Lawrence and Ludlow severely wounded and Cox having gone below, the Chesapeake’s boarders were leaderless and disoriented. Deadly musket balls continued raining down from the Shannon’s tops. Second Lieutenant George Budd, now the ship’s senior officer, was below on the gun deck running operations there, unaware of the situation on the spar deck above.
Broke pressed his advantage, and as he led his boarders forward, a pistol shot fired by the Chesapeake’s chaplain hit him. It didn’t stop him, though; he continued on against little organized opposition. Broke and his men quickly gained control of the quarterdeck and were fighting their way to the forecastle when Lieutenant Budd, having been alerted by one of Lawrence’s aides, reached the spar deck with some men. He found that the Shannon’s boarders had already gained possession of the quarterdeck and were fighting their way forward. Budd ordered the fore tack hauled on board in hopes of shooting the Chesapeake clear of the Shannon. He then tried to regain control of the quarterdeck, but he was soon wounded himself and collapsed momentarily. Despite his injury, he rose and made another valiant effort to collect his men and resist the Shannon’s boarders, but many of the Chesapeake crew had fled below, desperate to get away from the slaughter.
In the course of the fighting, a cutlass had slashed Broke’s hard hat and sliced through his skull, nearly killing him, but he retained command and now had control of the entire upper deck, which was a bloody mess. The dying Lawrence told his men in a whisper, “Don’t give up the ship,” and then repeated it. But with Broke in complete command of the upper deck, Lieutenant Budd was forced to surrender. After he did, Broke passed out.
The Shannon’s second lieutenant was now in command. Her first lieutenant, Mr. Watt, had been killed at the moment of victory. The entire battle lasted only fifteen minutes.
Totally dejected, Lieutenant Budd allowed himself to be taken down to the cockpit, where his wound could be treated. When he arrived, he found Lawrence and Ludlow mortally wounded; the sight badly shook him. Both the Fourth Lieutenant Edward J. Ballard and Marine Lieutenant James Broom were also wounded.
The butcher’s bill was horrific on both ships. In addition to Lieutenant Watt, the Shannon lost her purser, the captain’s clerk, and twenty-three seamen, while Captain Broke and a midshipman were wounded, along with fifty-six other men. As bad as these casualties were, the Chesapeake suffered much worse. She had forty-seven killed and ninety-eight wounded.
The high casualties and the damage done to the Shannon disprove the charge made later by historians that Lawrence and the Chesapeake were not ready to fight. They lost because of Lawrence’s decision not to exploit the initial tactical advantage he had and because of bad luck, not because the Chesapeake was unprepared. Lawrence may have been guilty of not following orders; he undoubtedly should have avoided the Shannon and stuck to the mission the president had assigned him, but had he not given up his early tactical advantage, been mortally wounded, or lost his headsails, he might well have been the victor.
The baleful duty of reporting the defeat to Secretary Jones fell to George Budd. While he scratched out details of the fight, the Shannon and the Chesapeake sailed to Halifax with Captain Broke barely clinging to life, although eventually he recovered. Lawrence was not so lucky; he lay on the Chesapeake’s wardroom table in excruciating pain, unable to speak for four horrific days before mercifully succumbing. He and the other American officers who died were buried with full military honors in Halifax, the British paying solemn tribute to their bravery.
In all the confusion during the last moments of the fighting, George Budd had neglected to order the navy’s signal book destroyed, and it was captured, which forced Secretary Jones to write a new one. The assignment went to Charles Morris, who was in Washington at the time waiting for his new command, the Adams, to be converted to a corvette.
When news of the Shannon’s victory reached London the first week of July, the reaction was initially subdued. The Times noted that “the heroism of British seamen prevailed” but refrained from its usual gloating. After giving the matter more thought, however, the Times wrote, “American vanity, raised to the most inordinate height by their former successes in three very unequal contests, has been . . . stung almost to madness, by this unequivocal proof of their inferiority to us in fair and equal combat.”
The initial tepid response to the Shannon’s victory was a result of rejoicing over Wellington’s stunning triumph at Vittoria on June 21. After four years of vicious fighting, the French had suffered a crushing defeat and were retreating wholesale out of Spain back to the Pyrenees. No one doubted that Wellington would soon be on French soil. And Vittoria was only one indication that Napoleon’s power was eroding. His spring and summer campaign in Saxony against Russia, Prussia, and their allies was sapping his strength, and he had agreed to an armistice. With these stupendous events to contemplate, the American war was far from British thoughts. But also far from their thoughts was a reconciliation with the United States. Liverpool was still intent on revenge; he was just biding his time.
Although Lawrence’s heroic death and his dying admonition not to give up the ship were deeply inspirational, President Madison and Secretary Jones were angry that he had disregarded his important orders and by doing so had needlessly lost one of the navy’s few frigates. Jones now issued explicit orders that captains avoid one-on-one battles. He wrote to Charles Stewart, who had assumed command of the Constitution in May, to put to sea when he saw an opening, but “should any attempt be made to allure you by a challenge to single combat, I am directed by the President to prohibit strictly acceptance either directly or indirectly.”
In the aftermath of the battle, George Budd was mad enough with Lieutenant Cox to prefer charges against him, formally accusing him of cowardice. Budd claimed that Cox should have assumed command on the spar deck and not personally brought the captain below. A court-martial tried Cox almost a year later. Commodore Decatur was president of the court, serving with Captain Jacob Jones, Master Commandant James Biddle, and several lieutenants. Decatur convened the court in April 1814 and convicted Cox of neglect of duty and unofficer-like conduct, sentencing him to be cashiered from the navy. President Madison approved the verdict. Cox, who considered himself entirely innocent, responded by enlisting in the army and serving as a private until the end of the war. In 1952, 138 years later, after Cox’s descendants had spent decades trying to clear his name, President Truman finally set aside the court’s unwarranted verdict.
IN APRIL AND May 1813, the British blockade had tightened even more in New York than it had in Boston. The 74-gun Valiant, under Captain Robert Dudley Oliver, and the 44-gun Acasta (the largest frigate in the British service), under Captain Alexander Kerr, patrolled off Sandy Hook, with other ships joining them periodically. The Royal Navy’s most famous officer, Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy (Nelson’s flag captain during the Battle of Trafalgar and his favorite) patrolled at the eastern end of Long Island in the 74-gun Ramillies, accompanied by the 36-gun Orpheus, under Captain Hugh Pigot. They were occupying Block Island and
using it, among other things, to water their ships. From time to time additional men-of-war accompanied Hardy. Neither Oliver nor Hardy had any trouble obtaining food from farmers along the coasts of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.
Oliver was the senior officer in command of the blockading force. His first priority was keeping Stephen Decatur and the American warships confined in New York. Decatur’s United States was being repaired, as were the Macedonian, under Jacob Jones, and the Hornet, under her new captain, Master Commandant James Biddle, who had joined her on May 22. The brig Argus, under Lieutenant William H. Allen, was also in New York, and she was ready for sea. As a reward for his brilliant work against the Macedonian, Secretary Jones gave Allen command of the Argus, but he did not promote him to master commandant, as Allen and every other officer in the navy expected.
During the first week of May, Jones ordered Decatur to cruise with the Argus off South Carolina and disrupt the British blockade there. Afterward, Decatur was to send the Argus to join the Chesapeake on patrol in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Decatur worked hard to get the United States into shape, and on May 9 he sailed her, in company with the Argus, to Sandy Hook, planning to leave early the next morning. But at daybreak the Valiant and Acasta were in full view, and Decatur, ever conscious of the sluggish sailing of the United States, decided not to attempt a breakout until foul weather gave him more of an edge. The refurbished Macedonian soon joined him, and the three ships waited for dirty weather. Five uneventful days passed, and during that time revised orders arrived for the Argus, directing Allen to take Senator William Crawford, the new American ambassador to France, to L’Orient or any other place along the French coast where Allen could get in. After depositing Crawford, Allen was to cruise around the British Isles and take whatever ships came his way. Allen relished the assignment.
While Allen waited for the ambassador, Decatur, growing impatient, decided to exit the harbor by a different route. He withdrew to New York and then to Hell Gate, where he planned to pass into Long Island Sound and escape into the Atlantic between Montauk Point and Block Island at the eastern end of the island.
For six days an easterly breeze kept him in the East River, but on May 24 the wind hauled around to the west, fair for making the treacherous trip through Hell Gate, and Decatur sailed through easily with the Macedonian and Hornet. He then beat down the Sound against a persistent easterly and stormy weather. During the trip, lightning struck the mainmast of the United States and traveled through parts of the ship. Decatur made repairs as he went, and on the twenty-ninth he was off Fishers Island, near the mouth of the Thames River, waiting for an opportunity to break out into the Atlantic.
On the first of June, Decatur made his move, standing through the Race (a tidal rip west of Fishers Island at the eastern end of Long Island Sound that can run at four miles an hour), and steered for Block Island Sound. The Valiant and the Acasta were visible in the distance to the south and west. Captain Oliver had ordered Hardy to switch places with him so that he could capture Decatur, but he was too far away to even make an attempt. Decatur appeared to have a clear opening, but as he approached Block Island, he thought he saw two more warships of considerable size. At the same time, he spotted Oliver racing to cut him off from New London. Convinced that he would soon be trapped between two large British forces, Decatur hauled his wind and beat back through the Race, retreating to the safety of the Thames River and New London before Oliver could catch him. The Acasta got close enough to the slower United States to fire a few ineffectual shots, but that was all.
Since it was the renowned Decatur who failed to escape, no one questioned his account, but there were no British warships, large or small, off Block Island at the time he was trying to get to sea. He had a clear opening. The ships his lookouts saw were not British warships. Instead of being loose in the Atlantic, he was now trapped in the Thames River. Oliver stationed a large force at the mouth of the Thames to keep him bottled up.
After reaching New London, Decatur worked hard to protect himself. He wrote to Secretary Jones, “I immediately directed my attention and all my exertions to strengthening the defenses of the place.” The Federalist government of Connecticut had left the seacoast defenseless. Decatur asked Jones to send him twenty pieces of heavy cannon.
WHILE ADMIRAL WARREN was making it difficult for the U. S. Navy to get to sea, American privateers were proving impossible to contain. Dozens were putting out, menacing British ships from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the West Indies and any other place captains and their owners thought might be profitable, including around the British Isles. They seemed to be everywhere, even at the western end of the St. Lawrence River, operating out of Sackets Harbor. The Neptune and the Fox were two such. They performed a heroic action on July 19, 1813, capturing the British gunboat Spitfire and fifteen fully loaded bateaux she was escorting in the St. Lawrence.
Privateers were particularly effective in the West Indies, becoming bolder with time, even landing on Jamaica and raiding plantations for food. Cries for protection were heard in London from West Indian merchants and planters. Protests rained down on the Admiralty from every place the privateers swarmed. Especially vocal were British merchants trying to navigate in their home waters.
Taking advantage of dirty weather and adverse winds, privateers slipped out from their ports with relative ease. They became America’s answer to Britain’s blockade. Secretary Jones had always had a high appreciation of their value, unlike his captains, who scorned them. American naval officers felt that money alone motivated privateers. They could never be counted on to fight enemy warships unless they were forced to. And privateers drove up prices for everything naval vessels needed, often creating unnecessary shortages. In Jones’s view, however, commerce raiding was so vitally important, and the navy’s ships so few, that privateers, whatever their drawbacks, were necessary. In fact, they were the only possible response to Britain’s blockade.
On March 3, 1813, a desperate Congress authorized any citizen to attack any British armed vessel of war without a privateer’s commission. Few did. Preying on merchantmen was far easier. In the course of the war, Madison commissioned 526 privateers and letters of marque to operate on the high seas and on the Great Lakes. Most of them came from Massachusetts (150), Maryland (112), and New York (102). According to Lloyds of London’s list, in the first seven months of the war, American privateers captured five hundred British merchantmen, and their success continued unabated, in spite of everything the Admiralty did to combat them.
Britain’s privateering was on a much smaller scale. Unlike the United States, privateers were not a critical part of the Admiralty’s naval strategy. Most British privateers were letters of marque, and Nova Scotia was their main base. In the opening months of the war, forty-four of them captured more than two hundred prizes.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Raids in Chesapeake Bay
THE ADMIRALTY PLACED even more emphasis on blockading Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware River than it did on Boston and New York. On December 26, 1812, Admiral Warren had received specific orders to establish “the most complete and vigorous blockade of the ports and harbors of the Bay of the Chesapeake and of the river Delaware.”
Warren was acutely aware of the urgency felt in London, and he did his best to carry out his orders, but he continued feeling that he did not have enough resources. On December 29, from his winter headquarters in Bermuda, he again requested more ships and men. The extra ships that had been promised had yet to arrive. Warren also complained about the number of British seamen joining the American navy after they were captured and the devastating impact of enemy privateers pillaging with impunity in the Caribbean.
By January 1813, Warren had a battleship, two frigates, and a sloop of war blockading Chesapeake Bay, but they patrolled in the open ocean outside the Capes, and dozens of privateers out of Baltimore eluded them. During the first week of February, however, additional warships arrived—a sail of the line, a frigate, a brig, and
a schooner. The entire squadron then moved just inside the Chesapeake Capes and anchored in Lynnhaven Bay, making it far more difficult for privateers to get to sea, although many still did.
The reinforced British squadron reached its new anchorage just hours after Captain Charles Stewart brought the refurbished Constellation to Hampton Roads. After leaving Washington he had stopped at Annapolis and then, afraid ice might trap him there, proceeded to Hampton Roads, where he planned to stop briefly before slipping past the blockaders and driving out to sea for a lengthy cruise.
He was surprised on the morning of February 4 to find not only the British squadron inside the Chesapeake Capes, but a portion of it sailing after him. He immediately sought the protection of nearby Elizabeth River, hoving up “and kedging the ship up to the flats” where she grounded. Lacking detailed knowledge of the shallow Elizabeth, the British ships did not follow.
While waiting for high tide, Stewart lightened his ship—taking out stores and dumping water. At seven o’clock in the evening she floated free, and “by placing . . . boats along the narrows,” he was able to work her up the Elizabeth to Norfolk, where the guns of Fort Nelson and Fort Norfolk, situated on opposite sides of the river, could protect her. Having survived this initial brush with the British fleet, Stewart erected strong defenses to protect the Constellation against an attack by land and sea. Secretary Jones ordered Captain John Cassin, commandant of nearby Gosport Navy Yard, to help him.
1812: The Navy's War Page 26