Battle of Lake Champlain
TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY
11 SEPTEMBER 1814
BATTLE OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN
To the British, our War of 1812 was only a distant theater of a more global war against Napoleonic France. And the defeat of Napoleon at Toulouse and his abdication in April 1814 allowed Britain to redeploy her crack continental regiments to the North American theater. His Majesty’s negotiators then stonewalled the Ghent peace talks hoping that their revitalized Army in North America might capture valuable real estate before a treaty was concluded. Part of the British plan was a push south from Canada into upstate New York and Vermont to threaten the Hudson River valley and Albany. In preparation for the march of Royal Governor GEN George Prevost’s army south from Quebec, British naval forces set about constructing warships in the Richelieu River, which drains from Lake Champlain into the St. Lawrence. British control of Lake Champlain would compliment their overland invasion.
Our Navy had sent LT Thomas MacDonough to Lake Champlain in 1812 with instructions to build and deploy a fleet. By this date, his shipwrights had completed a 26-gun sloop SARATOGA, a brig, EAGLE, 20, and a schooner, TICONDEROGA, 17. A civilian vessel was also converted to carry 7 guns and renamed COMMODORE PREBLE. Ten row galleys, each mounting 1-2 guns, completed the flotilla.
American ground forces were dug in around Plattsburgh, on the northwestern shore of Lake Champlain, where Plattsburgh Bay opened to the south. MacDonough reasoned that the northerly wind upon which the stronger British squadron sailed south would stymie their turn to the north to enter Plattsburgh Bay. As such he anchored his ships in a northeast-southwest line across the mouth of the bay–EAGLE, 20, at the Cumberland Head, followed in a southerly direction by SARATOGA, TICONDEROGA, and PREBLE. Below PREBLE shoal water stretched to Crab Island near the opposite shore. On Crab, MacDonough mounted a 6-pounder cannon served by invalids from his sick bay. His gunboats guarded his flanks. MacDonough ordered spring lines to the anchor hawsers, with extra stern anchors and kedge anchors in a complex design that would allow the ships to be turned 180 degrees in position without sails.
When CAPT George Downie, RN, observed this deployment he ordered HMS LINNET, 16, and CHUB, 11, to squeeze between EAGLE and the shore of Cumberland Head. His flagship, CONFIANCE, 37, would penetrate the American line and anchor between EAGLE and SARATOGA, raking both. HMS FINCH, 11, and 11 gunboats would attack the southern end of the American line.
At 0900 a broadside from EAGLE broke the calm Fall day. LINNET answered, but her shot fell short–excepting a single British ball that glanced off the water and rolled onto SARATOGA’s deck. Here it smashed the gamecock’s cage, whereupon the offended rooster flapped to the starboard fore yard and boldly crowed an apparent challenge at the advancing British.
Continued tomorrow…
Dunne, W.M.P. “The Battle of Lake Champlain.” IN: Sweetman, Jack. Great American Naval Battles. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1998, pp. 85-106.
Fitz-Enz, David G. and John R. Elting, et al. The Final Invasion: Plattsburgh, the War of 1812’s Most Decisive Battle. Lanham, MD: Cooper Square Press, 2001.
Site visit. Plattsburgh and Plattsburgh Bay, New York, 26 August 2004.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: The overall British plan against the United States called for a three-pronged attack. As Prevost moved south from Canada, a second British army would move up the Chesapeake to take Washington DC, then re-deploy to New Orleans to threaten the Mississippi. The middle assault was successful when Washington was burned and Baltimore threatened in August-September 1814. But GEN Andrew Jackson thwarted the Mississippi assault at the Battle of New Orleans.
The modern aircraft carrier SARATOGA (CV-60), now decommissioned, had a gamecock on its coat of arms, reminiscent of the gamecock above.
