Escape of ENTERPRISE
25-28 FEBRUARY 1814
ESCAPE OF ENTERPRISE
Part of our Navy’s upsizing for the War of 1812 was the strengthening of several schooners then in service. Extra guns and extra crewmen were added, but at the cost of making the spritely schooners too heavy to run from larger British warships. Indeed, by this date our celebrated schooners of the Barbary Wars, WASP, ARGUS, and VIXEN had already been overhauled and captured, and HORNET was too slow to escape the enemy blockade of New York. Recognizing the vulnerability of these modified schooners, another of the class, ENTERPRISE, 16, was sent to the West Indies where she was to shun faster enemy warships and tackle only slow and lightly armed British merchant ships. She sailed with RATTLESNAKE, 14, a former New England privateer recently brought into our Naval service.
Their cruise proved initially fruitful. During the winter of 1813-14 ENTERPRISE and RATTLESNAKE encountered the British privateer Mars, 14, off Florida. Privateers were armed civilian ships who cruised under permission of their government to capture enemy commercial shipping. The sight of two American warships spurred half of Mars’ crewmen to take to the boats and escape to shore. Mars’ master, however, boldly ranged up under the guns of LT James Renshaw in ENTERPRISE. The American loosed a broadside that splintered the privateer’s hull and felled four of her remaining crew. Without further convincing the privateer struck. The American pair took two more prizes during their cruise while successfully avoiding stronger British warships.
But on this morning off South Carolina the luck of the pair ran out. Sighted by a British frigate, they immediately split and headed separately toward shore. The frigate took her chances with the slower and ungainly ENTERPRISE. Through this day and the next, the frigate gained steadily on Renshaw. Even under a full press of sail the overburdened schooner wallowed. Renshaw ordered the loose gear and stores thrown over the side. When that didn’t work, the schooner’s twelve 18-pounder carronades were jettisoned. From time to time the frigate ranged close enough to lob a few shots at ENTERPRISE, but Renshaw managed to stay just out of reach until the two were becalmed on the morning of the 27th. Renshaw lowered his rowboats, hoping to kedge the schooner to safety. But as he did a slight breeze freshened about the schooner. For once the smaller ship had the advantage, she crept slowly out from under the frustrated and becalmed frigate. She made Wilmington on 9 March, saved by luck of the breezes alone.
Recognizing that ENTERPRISE would continue to be outsailed and outgunned, she was anchored in Charleston as a guardship, where she remained for the rest of the war. She was one of only two of her encumbered class to survive the war in American hands.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 28 FEB 26
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Cooper, James Fenimore. History of the Navy of the United States of America, Vol. II. Philadelphia, PA: Lea & Blanchard, 1840, pp. 175-76.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 355.
Roosevelt, Theodore. The Naval War of 1812. New York, NY: Da Capo, 1999, p. 208.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: ENTERPRISE’s other notable contribution during the War of 1812 had come a month before being sent south above. She captured the British schooner HMS BOXER, 14, off Maine on 5 September 1813.
Following the stationing of ENTERPRISE in Charleston, Renshaw was transferred to command RATTLESNAKE. Various historical sources report conflicting details as to the date and circumstances of the above encounter, and appear to confuse this event with a similarly harrowing chase of RATTLESNAKE under Renshaw later in 1814.
James Renshaw’s reputation in our Navy was less than sterling. Regarded as a martinet who was unable to get on with superiors or his crewmen, CDORE Isaac Hull wrote of Renshaw upon learning of his appointment to command ENTERPRISE, “The ENTERPRISE, I presume, will not be very enterprising.” In 1841, now commander of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, saw Renshaw brought before a Board of Inquiry for political favoritism. He allegedly preferentially selected Democratic candidates for new hires and targeted Whig party employees for rebuke and dismissal. The Board found Renshaw guilty of the charge, and he was relieved of command of the Brooklyn Yard.
