25 JUNE 1813

                                              BOMBSHIP EAGLE

Smarting from the British blockade of American seaports during the War of 1812, Congress turned for help to our private citizens.  Legislation was passed in March 1813 allowing a bounty equal to one-half the value of any British warship, its armament, and rigging, to be paid to any citizen who destroyed the ship.  It was called the “Torpedo Act,” a reference to the contemporary word for a static bomb.  It was hoped the Act would transform His Majesty’s blockading ships into targets for enterprising entrepreneurs.

Three months later, New York businessman John Scudder, Jr. completed a project in keeping with Congress’ Act.  Scudder gutted the civilian schooner Eagle, then re-constructed a large cask below decks.  This he filled with 40 ten-pound kegs of gunpowder packed in sulfur.  Large stones were piled loosely over the cask, and for extra measure, containers of turpentine were laid amongst the rocks.  Two musket flintlocks were rigged as triggers, with lines running through the deck to two innocent looking flour kegs topside.  Any movement of the kegs would trip the flintlocks.  New spools of line and other valuable ships stores were stacked about the deck as bait.  Scudder then hired a man history records only as “Captain Riker,” (probably a false name) to sail Eagle toward the British squadron at the mouth of Long Island Sound.

Riker knew well that the British made a habit of seizing any sizeable vessel operating in the Sound.  And as expected, on this morning a British officer and twenty sailors set out after Riker in a barge from the flagship HMS RAMILLIES, 74.  But instead of running, Riker and his crew dropped Eagle’s anchor and fled to shore.  As the British boarded the schooner, Riker and his men opened musket fire so intense the redcoats had to cut her anchor cable to move away.  Exactly according to Riker’s plan, Eagle was taken into the warship anchorage, where, lacking an anchor, she had to be tied off to another vessel.  But alas the tide and wind carried her far down range, where she was secured to another American sloop that had been captured a few days earlier.  A British detail began relieving the tempting “bait,” until about 1430, when some unlucky tar hoisted one of the flour barrels.  Eagle, the captured sloop, and eleven British sailors disappeared in a 900-foot column of smoke and flame.  Pitch and splinters rained onto RAMILLIES a mile away.

The British immediately suspected Stephen Decatur was behind this plot, another of his efforts to break out from New London where the British had him bottled-up.  But in truth, it was a bold act by private citizens for personal profit.  Had Ramillies been destroyed, Scudder stood to earn over $150,000.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  29 JUN 23

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

De Kay, James Tertius.  The Battle of Stonington: Torpedoes Submarines, and Rockets in the War of 1812.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1990, pp. 34-37.

Warren, ADM Sir John B.  letter to 1st Secretary of the Admiralty, dtd 22 July 1813.  IN:  Dudley, William S. (ed).  The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History  Vol II.  Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, Navy Historical Center, 1992, pp. 163-64.

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                                             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 11^th 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.

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                                             11 SEPTEMBER 1814

                                 ACTION AT THE SOUTHERN END

As MacDonough had correctly anticipated, HMS FINCH, 11, could not sail close enough to the wind to approach the southern American line.  In falling to leeward however, she engaged both PREBLE and TICONDEROGA.  But when five British gunboats followed in her wake, PREBLE inexplicably cut her cables and abandoned the American line!  Royal Navy LT William Hicks then turned FINCH’s guns in force upon TICONDEROGA and a furious cannonade ensued.  Both ships battered away until time allowed the practiced American gunners to take their toll.  FINCH’s rigging was shredded, her hull was holed and three feet of water collected in her bilges.  She drifted toward the shoal and bumped aground.  Hicks jettisoned four cannon to lighten his ship, all the while taking more fire, but could not budge his sloop.  She was captured by American gunboats.

Now the gunboats accompanying FINCH, most mounting either two 18-pounders or one 32-pounder carronade, fell upon TICONDEROGA.  Cowardice, it seems, was not limited to PREBLE’s skipper.  Royal Navy LT Mark Raynham led the gunboats toward TICONDEROGA making a signal to board.  But minutes later he hauled down his signal and turned away from the action.  Though unhurt, he ordered himself rowed to a hospital tender and jumped aboard, leaving the crewmen of his gunboat to their own fates.  He later went AWOL rather than face court martial.

Meanwhile, LT James Bell in the British gunboat MURRAY rallied those remaining around TICONDEROGA, sensing correctly that if the American could be driven off, the flank could be turned.  The gunboats stormed and circled; each in turn slid close aboard, only to be beaten off with heavy musket and cannon fire.  LT Stephen Cassin on TICONDEROGA proved a firebrand in his own right.  Pacing up and down the quarterdeck amid a hail of musket balls and grapeshot, he barked commands to his gunners.  American men fell all around and those standing barely had time to reload and depress their barrels before the next gunboat approached.  On Bell’s next attempt to board an American shot took off his leg above the knee, and he was rowed to the medical tender.  The American row-galleys joined the fight, and minutes later the approach of another British gunboat sent American Midshipman Thomas Conover in the row-galley BORER driving forward to engage.  His bravado diverted British attention momentarily but brought fire upon BORER that killed three men and wrecked his boat.  The pause allowed Cassin to loose such a hail of grape and musket that French-Canadian militia manning the British boats deserted their posts.  Through the smoke and the roar Cassin held TICONDEROGA!  With Raynham and Bell out of action, the remaining British gunboats gave up and stood off.

TICONDEROGA’s remarkable stand might well have turned the battle, had not another American captain at the northern end of the line faltered…

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:  Two 20^th century destroyers remember Stephen Cassin above, CASSIN (DD-48), and the WWII-era Mahan-class DD-372.

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                                             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.

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