BRITISH NIGHT RAID

As Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry built his Lake Erie squadron at Presque Isle during the Summer of 1814, we and the British had but a few brigs and schooners for patrols.  Even so, American warships drove the British out of the Lake and down the Niagara River.  CDR Alexander Dobbs, RN, the captain of HMS CHARWELL, 16, went as far as Queenstown below Niagara Falls.  US Army troops then occupied the former British Fort Erie at the outlet of Lake Erie with the schooners USS SOMERS, 2, PORCUPINE, 1, and OHIO, 1, anchored a pistol shot away.  Eager for revenge, CDR Dobbs and LT Charles Radcliffe of HMS NETLY, 16, set out from Queenstown with 75 British sailors and Marines manhandling the gig from CHARWELL across the 20-mile portage around Niagara Falls to Frenchman’s Creek in modern Ontario.  Here they met over a hundred British militia with five additional batteaux.  They then cut a wagon road eight miles through the Canadian woodlands to the shore of Lake Erie west of the fort.  On the night of 12 August they pushed off, toward the three US schooners.

PORCUPINE, SOMERS, and OHIO were anchored, as usual, on Fort Erie’s flank just inside the headwater of the Niagara River, and shortly after 2300 this night, boats were spotted approaching OHIO.  The OOD’s hail was answered with the ruse, “Provision boat!”  US Army supply barges usually passed back and forth through the anchorage at night, and the trick allowed Dobbs to approach within a few yards.  OHIO cut her hawser, but in a moment the British surrounded the schooner.  Simultaneously LT Radcliffe and the other barges massed upon SOMERS, whose moorings were also cut.  American sailors turned to and stumbled to the deck, but not in time to prevent the enemy from swarming across.  Acting Sailing Master Alexander McCally aboard OHIO was struck at the outset with a ball through his thigh and a bayonet to the foot.  OHIO’s skipper, LT Augustus H.M. Conckling fended off a rush on the quarterdeck until a musket ball disabled his shoulder.  The story aboard SOMERS was the same, with the exception that LT Radcliffe was felled by a pistol shot as he bounded over SOMERS’ quarter.  He, an Able Seaman, and four wounded were the only British casualties. 

In very short order the British overwhelmed the 60 or so sailors of both schooners.  During the attack the vessels drifted with the river’s current beyond Fort Erie.  Dobbs wisely chose to retire, leaving PORCUPINE calmly at her moorings.  American losses in addition to the warships were one killed, eight wounded, and nearly 60 captured.  The British renamed SOMERS and OHIO, HMS SAUK and HMS HURON, respectively.  Despite the captures the continued American occupation of Fort Erie assured the status quo on Lake Erie until Perry’s stunning victory a month later.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”   18 AUG 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 5 “N-Q”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1979, pp. 143, 352.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, pp. 548-49.

Letter of Commander Alexander Dobbs, R.N., to Commodore Sir James L. Yeo, R.N., dtd. 13 August 1814.  IN:  Crawford, Michael J.  The Naval War of 1812:  A Documentary History  Vol III, 1814-1815 Chesapeake Bay, Northern Lakes, and Pacific Ocean.  Washington, DC: GPO, 2002, pp. 588-89.

Letter of Lieutenant Augustus H.M. Conckling to Lieutenant Edmund P. Kennedy, dtd. 16 August 1814.  IN:  Crawford, Michael J.  The Naval War of 1812:  A Documentary History  Vol III, 1814-1815 Chesapeake Bay, Northern Lakes, and Pacific Ocean.  Washington, DC: GPO, 2002, pp. 590-91.

Letter of Lieutenant Edmund P. Kennedy to Secretary of the Navy Jones, dtd. 15 August 1814.  IN:  Crawford, Michael J.  The Naval War of 1812:  A Documentary History  Vol III, 1814-1815 Chesapeake Bay, Northern Lakes, and Pacific Ocean.  Washington, DC: GPO, 2002, pp. 589-90.

Roosevelt, Theodore.  The Naval War of 1812.  New York, NY: Da Capo, 1999, pp. 336-37.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 31.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  A batteaux (also bateau) is a long, flat-bottomed rowboat with a sharply pointed bow and stern commonly in use along the North American frontier of that day.

In modern times the Canadian government has preserved the site of Fort Erie.  It can be visited in the town of Fort Erie on the Canadian side of the Niagara River, opposite Buffalo, New York.

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