1812: The Navy's War

by George Daughan

  On September 9, Secretary Hamilton ordered the fleet split into three squadrons led by Rodgers, Decatur, and Bainbridge. In order of seniority, each commodore was to select one heavy frigate, one light frigate, and a brig. In addition to his flagship President, Rodgers chose the Congress, under Captain John Smith, and the Wasp, under Master Commandant Jacob Jones. Decatur kept the United States and picked the Chesapeake, under Captain Samuel Evans, and the Argus, under Arthur Sinclair. Bainbridge was left with the Constitution, the Essex, under Captain Porter, and the Hornet, under Master Commandant James Lawrence, an arrangement Bainbridge found more than satisfactory. The Constitution had proven herself a superb ship, and he regarded Porter and Lawrence as brilliant fighters.

  Madison gave the three commodores broad discretion in carrying out their assignments. Hamilton told them to “pursue that course which . . . may . . . appear the most expedient to afford protection to our trade and to annoy the enemy; returning to port as speedily as circumstances will permit, consistent with the great objects in view and writing to the Department by all proper opportunities.” Needless to say, Rodgers, Decatur, and Bainbridge were happy to be charting their own courses.

  When Hamilton issued the new orders, nearly the entire fleet was in Boston. The President, the United States, the Constitution, the Congress, the Argus, and the Hornet were there. The Chesapeake was as well, but she was undergoing extensive repairs and would not be ready to sail until the middle of December. Decatur would have to leave without her. The 18-gun sloop-of-war Wasp was in the Delaware River, as was David Porter’s Essex. The Constellation and the Adams were in Washington. The 16-gun Syren was at New Orleans, and both the 14-gun Vixen and the 10-gun Viper were at Charleston.

  In order to deceive the British, Rogers suggested to Hamilton that his squadron and Decatur’s leave Boston together and separate afterward. Rodgers thought the British might be fooled into thinking they were dealing with a large squadron, rather than single ships. The British might then keep their cruisers together in a large squadron or two, taking their ships away from blockading major ports to pursue a phantom fleet.

  MADISON’S FRESH APPROACH to the navy roughly coincided with the appointment of a new British commander at Halifax. On August 12 the Admiralty announced it was replacing Vice Admiral Herbert Sawyer with a shrewd diplomat in naval garb, Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, a senior admiral with experience dating back to before the Revolution. At fifty-nine, Warren had served at all levels of the Royal Navy, including ordinary seaman. And he had seen plenty of combat, though he was known more as an administrator and a diplomat than a fighter. At one time he was Britain’s ambassador to Russia.

  Before leaving for his new post, Warren traveled from his home in Nottingham to London for extensive talks with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount Melville. During the conversations Melville made it clear that Lord Liverpool wanted Warren to initiate an immediate armistice so that serious negotiations to end the war could start. But if that failed, he was to vigorously prosecute the war. To help him, the Admiralty was enlarging his command to include not only the old North American Station but the Leeward Islands Station and the Jamaica Station as well. Warren’s authority would then extend over all of the West Indies, the entire American coastline from Maine to Louisiana, the Great Lakes, and Lake Champlain.

  Warren reached Halifax on September 27, and by that time the fight with America had markedly changed. The war “seems to assume a new as well as more active and inveterate aspect than before,” he wrote to the Admiralty after only eight days on the job. Indeed it had, and the Madison administration was adamant about continuing the war until Britain renounced impressment. So Warren had a real fight on his hands, and the Americans were performing far better on the ocean than anyone had expected. Their privateers were swarming in the West Indies and in the approaches to the St. Lawrence River. They were even appearing around the British Isles and the important trade routes. But of much greater importance, the despised American navy had won two single-ship duels, baffling and enraging London.

  Before doing anything else, Warren sought an armistice. On September 30 he wrote to Secretary of State Monroe, “The Orders in Council of 7 January 1807 and 26 April 1809 cease to exist.... Under these circumstances I am commanded to propose to your government the immediate cessation of hostilities.”

  Given how vigorously the United States was prosecuting the war, Warren entertained little hope of success. His misgivings were confirmed when Monroe waited almost a month before writing back on October 27 that an armistice would only be possible if Britain gave up the practice of impressment. Warren had no power to negotiate this complicated issue, but it was obvious to him, and certainly to Monroe, that Liverpool would never agree to end impressment as a condition for opening talks. The prime minister and his colleagues believed impressment was essential to Britain’s security; they would never give it up.

  Warren now understood that he was going to be doing far more fighting than talking. Their lordships had come to the same conclusion. The two unexpected American naval victories had caused such an uproar in London that the Admiralty’s first priority became destroying the U. S. fleet or blockading it. They expected Warren to seal enemy warships, privateers, and letters of marque in their ports. Their lordships never wanted another American man-of-war active on the high seas. Lord Melville wrote to Warren, emphasizing that he was to blockade all the principal ports south of Rhode Island, including the Mississippi, and put “a complete stop to all trade and intercourse by sea with those ports.”

  New England was to be treated differently. Melville wanted naval traffic stopped, but not commercial trade. He did not want to offend Federalist sympathizers in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, but he did want to stop enemy warships from using their harbors, particularly Boston.

  Liverpool also wanted Warren to encourage New England separatism by the judicious issuing of trading licenses, which allowed an American ship to trade in Halifax or anywhere else. British newspapers like the Times of London had fed the public with such a steady diet of the antiwar diatribes printed in Boston’s Federalist newspapers that it appeared to many in Britain that if given the proper incentives, New England would secede from the Union.

  Unfortunately for Warren, while New England was a hotbed of anti-Madison sentiment, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were also producing half of America’s privateers and letters of marque, and they were indistinguishable from unarmed traders. New England privateers had become so annoying that in Warren’s first days at Halifax he ordered the 64-gun Africa and the 74-gun San Domingo (his flagship) to lead a squadron patrolling the Gulf of St. Lawrence to stop the murderous attacks of privateers on ships carrying supplies to Quebec. By the end of October, Yankee privateers had taken an astonishing one hundred and fifty British vessels.

  Warren was also expected to guard all of Britain’s extensive commercial traffic within his jurisdiction. The Convoy Act stipulated that every merchant vessel, without exception, was to sail as part of a convoy, but even when sailing together, protected by warships, traders were vulnerable to attack.

  Initiating a tight blockade, guarding merchant convoys, and encouraging New England separatism were not Warren’s only assignments; he was directed to conduct amphibious raids in the Chesapeake Bay area, to keep the population in a perpetual state of alarm, not knowing when or where mobile British forces would strike next. Warren was cautioned to conduct only raids. He did not have enough soldiers to penetrate inland or to hold territory after the raids. The Admiralty provided a small number of ground troops for these operations—two battalions of six hundred forty men each and an artillery company.

  By the end of December, Warren still had not gotten his blockade or raids going to the satisfaction of London, and when it became clear that Napoleon had met with disaster in Russia, and Britain no longer needed to placate America, the Admiralty was far more forceful in pressing Warren to get on
with his blockade and raids.

  Early in his tenure Warren recognized, as Admiral Lord Richard Howe did during the Revolutionary War, that it was impossible to establish even the semblance of an effective blockade without a much larger fleet. But when Warren requested more ships, the Admiralty told him to make do with what he had—the same advice given to Admiral Howe. The United States, after all, was a secondary theater. The Admiralty was already stretched thin blockading Napoleonic Europe, convoying merchant vessels, and servicing a sprawling overseas empire.

  The American navy became so annoying, however, that the Admiralty grudgingly dispatched additional ships, increasing Warren’s sail of the line from six to ten, adding a 50-gun ship, bringing his frigate total up to thirty-four, and increasing the number of sloops of war to thirty-eight. With the various other smaller vessels at his command, Warren now had a total of ninety-seven warships. In addition, the Admiralty was cutting down four seventy-fours and converting them to razees (a sail of the line cut down and converted to a heavy frigate), and sending six to eight more war brigs.

  The four additional sail of the line, along with a few frigates, came from the Cadiz station at the end of 1812, under the command of Rear Admiral George Cockburn, a fighter whom the Admiralty hoped would inject a more aggressive spirit into Warren’s operation. And Captain Henry Hotham, a notably harsh disciplinarian, was sent to be Warren’s captain of the fleet.

  With the addition of all these warships, the Admiralty expected quick results, particularly when, as they never tired of telling Warren, the Americans had so few men-of-war. London continued to emphasize that the best way to deal with the American navy and privateers was to blockade them.

  Even with an expanded fleet, however, blockading the vast American coast was exceptionally difficult. The Admiralty conceded that during the winter months of November through March weather conditions made northern ports tough to blockade. Contrary winds regularly blew ships off their stations, while the same winds were fair for swift-sailing privateers or warships to sortie. Recurring fog in all ports, north and south, blinded blockaders and allowed courageous American skippers to sneak past them.

  Thus, no matter what Warren did, privateers were sure to roam in great numbers, as they did during the Revolutionary War, endangering, among other things, the shipment of vital supplies to the Duke of Wellington. It was all well and good to keep the duke supplied with American food through the issuing of licenses, but this could be negated by privateers capturing everything else coming from the British Isles, including even essential shoes for Wellington’s army.

  WHILE LONDON WAS trying to get its blockade up and running, Commodore Rodgers and his colleagues were preparing for extended cruises against Britain’s navy and commerce. During the first week of October—long before Admiral Warren was settled in his new post—Rodgers had the President repaired, provisioned, and set to sail from Boston. The Congress was ready at the same time, but Jacob Jones and the Wasp were in Philadelphia. Jones would have to rendezvous with the President at sea. Rodgers ordered him to patrol in specific latitudes north of Bermuda, where they could meet later.

  Rodgers and Decatur left Boston together on October 8 with the President, the Congress, the United States, and the Argus. They had no trouble getting to sea. Two days later, in the afternoon, Rodgers caught a fleeting glimpse of the British frigate Nymphe, but lack of wind and the approach of night prevented him from chasing her. The next day, October 11, Rodgers split off from Decatur, steering the President and the Congress in an easterly direction, while Decatur stood to the southeast with the United States and the Argus. The following day, the Argus separated from Decatur and shaped a course that would take her to the northeast coast of South America—a high-traffic area.

  On October 15 lookouts aboard the President spied a strange ship, and Rodgers put on all sail in chase. Not long afterward, the President’s main topgallant carried away, but Rodgers persevered and caught his prey. She turned out to be the 10-gun British packet Swallow, traveling from Kingston, Jamaica, to Falmouth, England, and she was carrying an astounding eighty-one boxes of gold and silver specie (coins), weighing ten tons—nearly $200,000 dollars, a king’s ransom. A few hours later, after Rodgers had taken all the money aboard the President, he happened on a pathetic-looking American schooner, the Eleanor. A storm had carried away both her masts. Only the captain’s ingenuity and luck kept her afloat, but his chances of reaching port were next to nothing. To the captain’s great surprise and joy, Rodgers gave him the Swallow.

  The President then headed toward the Canary Islands, and on November 1, when she was four hundred miles southwest of the Azores, lookouts spied three sails to the southward. Rodgers, accompanied by the Congress, gave chase, and caught one, but the other two escaped. (One of the escapees was the 36-gun British frigate Galatea, a ship Rodgers would have given his right arm to fight.) The prize was the 10-gun Argo, a whaler stuffed with spermaceti oil, whalebone, and ebony, returning to England after a successful cruise in the Eastern Pacific. On the way home she had stopped at St. Helena, as many British ships did coming from the Pacific. When her captain reached St. Helena, he must have felt fortunate to have the Galatea to protect him on the way to England. Being captured by two American men-of-war must have astonished him.

  Rodgers now shaped a course that took him down the trades west of the Cape Verde Islands, a Portuguese colony four hundred miles off the coast of Africa. When he reached the fiftieth meridian, he steered west toward the Bermudas, where he hoped to rendezvous with Jacob Jones and the Wasp. He cruised for four weeks north and west of the Bermudas but never saw Jones. With water and supplies running low, he reluctantly stood for Boston, putting in on the last day of 1812.

  Rodgers had been cruising for eighty-five days, and he had covered 11,000 miles, but his accomplishments had been slight. “We chased everything we saw,” he told Secretary Hamilton. Unfortunately, he saw very little. He did have the $200,000 taken from the Swallow, and that was considerable consolation. It not only meant prize money but was a serious blow to Britain’s war effort. Gold and silver were of great importance to Wellington in the Iberian Peninsula. In order to win the support of the Spanish people, he paid for all the supplies he took in gold and silver. It was a practice that served him well but strained the British treasury—and made losses like that of the Swallow all the more devastating.

  WHILE RODGERS WAS stalking British vessels in the mid-Atlantic, Jacob Jones, in obedience to his orders, had sailed the Wasp beyond the Delaware Capes on October 13 and set a course that would take him north of the Bermudas to rendezvous with the President. On the sixteenth a heavy gale struck, and Jones lost his jib boom and two men. Organizing a jury rig, he carried on, the sea running high after the storm. The following night at 11:30, in latitude 37° north and longitude 65° west, lookouts discovered several sails in the distance, two of them large. They looked to be part of a British convoy accompanied by an escort. Jones stood from them for a time and then, for the remainder of the night, steered a parallel course. At daylight on Sunday the eighteenth, he saw them ahead. They were six large, armed merchantmen, mounting sixteen to eighteen guns with a powerful British gun brig for an escort. Without hesitating, he went after them.

  When he did, the 22-gun Frolic, under Captain Thomas Whinyates, dropped astern of the merchantmen and hoisted Spanish colors to decoy the Wasp and allow the convoy to escape. As Whinyates watched the Wasp bearing down, he must have been apprehensive. His brig was not in good shape. The same violent gale that had struck Wasp the night before had carried away the Frolic’s main yard, ripped up her topsails, and sprang the main topmast. Whinyates was repairing damages when he saw the Wasp.

  Jones closed with the enemy quickly, and at 11:30, when he was within sixty yards, Whinyates fired a broadside, which did little damage but initiated a fierce exchange. The Frolic’s guns hit the Wasp hard, and it looked at first as if Whinyates would prevail. But Jones continued to close, and the two ships ran alongside
each other, firing as they went. After several minutes, Jones shot away the Frolic’s gaff and the head braces, and since there was no sail on the mainmast, the brig was unmanageable. Jones was now able to rake her fore and aft. Within minutes, Jones could see that every brace and most of Whinyates’s rigging had been shot away.

  Figure 10.1: Irwin Bevan, Poictiers Takes Wasp, 19 October 1812 (courtesy of Mariner’s Museum, Newport News, Virginia).

  Jones continued to lessen the distance between the ships until they were almost touching. The unmanageable Frolic’s bowsprit fell between the Wasp’s main and mizzen rigging, at which point First Lieutenant James Biddle led a boarding party onto Whinyates’s deck. He found every British officer injured and a sickening number of men killed or wounded. No more than twenty were left to fight. There was nothing Whinyates could do but surrender. In his report to the Admiralty he insisted that had the Frolic not been so beaten up in the gale he would have taken the Wasp. Jones, of course, would have disputed that. In the end, at least thirty of the Frolic’s crew were killed and about fifty wounded, among them Captain Whinyates. The Wasp had five killed and five wounded.

  Jones’s triumph was short-lived, however. A few hours later, H.M.S. Poictiers, a 74-gun ship-of-the-line, under Captain John Beresford, spotted him and made all sail in pursuit, clearing for action as she went. At four o’clock Beresford fired a few warning shots, and Jones struck his colors. The Wasp was too beat up from the fight to get away. Beresford took the Frolic in tow, and with the Wasp and one of the merchantmen in company, he steered for Bermuda.

  ON DECEMBER 11, shortly after separating from Rodgers, Commodore Decatur encountered a merchantman who turned out to be an American, the Mandarin. She was bound for Philadelphia with a hold full of British goods and a packet of British licenses for use by American traders bringing Pennsylvania grain to Wellington’s army. Decatur put a prize master on board and sent her into Norfolk with instructions to deliver the licenses to Secretary Hamilton. Like all American captains, Decatur found the licensing trade offensive and wished the government would put a stop to it, but for political reasons Madison and the Congress chose not to. By the end of 1812 American farmers were shipping an astonishing 900,000 barrels of grain per year to Wellington.