Action at the Northern End
TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY
11 SEPTEMBER 1814
ACTION AT THE NORTHERN END
The heavyweights concentrated at the northern end of the battle line. Here the headforemost approach of CAPT George Downie in the British flagship CONFIANCE, 37, allowed SARATOGA and EAGLE to repeatedly rake his bows. His starboard anchors were cut away and his port anchor fouled, turning his flagship broadside to Commodore MacDonough in SARATOGA. But once so positioned at half-musket range, CONFIANCE loosed a terrible double-shotted broadside that heeled SARATOGA with its impact. Forty men fell dead or bleeding in the tempest of splinters and shot that burst through MacDonough’s bulwarks. Then only 15 minutes into the fight, an American shot struck the muzzle of a gun on CONFIANCE’s quarterdeck. The 3-ton tube pitched up and back, crushing CAPT Downie against the deck. He died, his waistcoat pocket watch frozen at the second he was struck. Against the storm of American fire only British CAPT Daniel Pring in HMS LINNET, 16, reached his assigned station across the top of the American line. Command aboard CONFIANCE devolved to LT James Robertson who joined Pring in booming away at EAGLE and SARATOGA. In the smoke and confusion HMS CHUB, 11, approached. But 32-pounder carronades from EAGLE literally drove CHUB backward. Her jib boom was shot away, her bowsprit shattered, her main boom fractured, halyards and stays were cut, and her sails were shredded. On fire and unmanageable, she drifted through the American line and was quickly captured.
Brits and Yanks battered on. MacDonough himself pointed a 24-pounder on SARATOGA until an enemy shot splintered a yard over his head, and he was knocked unconscious. EAGLE, at the head of the American line, suffered severely from the raking by LINNET and broadsides from CONFIANCE. Then in a move that nearly ruined the American day, EAGLE’s skipper cut her lines and passed behind SARATOGA. He eventually rejoined the action from a new position behind and below his commodore, but his ill-advised move opened the American flank and exposed his commander to intensified fire.
The two-way storm of shot dismounted guns, one by one, and decimated British and American crews. After two and a half hours of pounding, SARATOGA was left with only one working gun on her exposed side–with British shot still flying. At this point, MacDonough’s masterful seamanship played out–his crewmen hauled the spring lines so carefully rigged before the battle. SARATOGA slowly warped, inching around by the stern, until her undamaged port guns opened a murderous broadside. CONFIANCE’s fouled anchors would not allow a similar move, and she reeled from the renewed American onslaught. To avoid a further bloodbath, the British struck their colors.
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CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Rehabilitation Medicine
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: This pitched battle ended with nearly all the combatant warships battered and sinking. Upon seeing their flagship strike, the British gunboats that had held themselves off to the south scurried back toward Canada. American gunboats set off in pursuit but were called back by MacDonough, who needed the manpower to keep his prizes afloat.
In the week before, outnumbered American land forces in Plattsburgh had given fits to Prevost’s army in a series of engagements in and around the town. The defeat of British naval support by McDonough on the 11th broke British will and started them back towards Canada. As such, this victory is touted in American military history as one of great significance, in a league with such battles as Saratoga, Gettysburg, or Midway. British efforts to stall the Ghent peace talks while their vaunted Army captured valuable American territory went for naught, and in December 1814 those talks concluded a treaty that accepted the status quo ante. GEN Andrew Jackson’s later triumph over the British at New Orleans actually occurred after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. By managing a “draw” in her war with the global superpower of the day, the upstart United States of America had effectively gained a victory and earned international respect. The modern Ticonderoga-class cruiser LAKE CHAMPLAIN (CG-57) remembers this battle. Thomas MacDonough is remembered with four American warships, TB-9, DD-331, DD-351, and DDG-39.
