Struggle for Sea Power : A Naval History of American Independence (9781782397403)

by Willis, Sam

  All newcomers goggled at the density of the Canadian forests, the extraordinary height of the trees, the endless water-colour skies, but this was just another life-changing experience that their journey had provided. For most the trans-Atlantic journey itself had been life-changing as they had passed through countless different maritime landscapes and tasted the life of the mariner for the first time. They had seen islands of ice ‘some three times higher than our main top mast head and formed in the most romantic shapes, appearing like large castles, when the sun shone on them, all on fire’; islands of rock covered in thousands of birds, where ‘had we fired a gun … the air would be darkened two or three leagues round’; and fights between ‘swordfish’ (probably narwhals) and whales whose battles appealed greatly to the martial-minded soldiers on a voyage to war. In the fog-bound creepy waters of the northern banks – a ‘kingdom of cod fish’ – anything seemed possible and the experienced sailors teased the green soldiers with crazy stories, one of which involved a large fish which could escape capture by ‘turn[ing] itself inside out like a pocket’.4 This sailors’ gaze had its particular benefits when viewing the land. One sailor noted that Quebec looked stunning from the sea, a real contrast to how miserable it actually was inside the walls.5

  The arrival of the fleet at Montreal was another opportunity for the colonials to be wowed with the might of British sea power, just as they had been at New York, though this, perhaps, was even more impressive because Montreal was so far inland and the river so narrow. Even for the British who had spent three months in the fleet, it was a sight ‘well worth seeing’.6 It was, however, impossible for any vessel to go further towards Champlain than Montreal because of the fabled Richelieu Rapids – twelve miles of boiling water on the Richelieu River between Chambly and St Jean that disgorged from the lake down seventy-five vertical feet. The challenge for the British was now somehow to project their sea power beyond these rapids because Quebec would only be secure if Lake Champlain was made secure.

  The British were semi-prepared. On his retreat from Montreal in 1775, Guy Carleton had begged for shipwrights and seamen to build a fleet on the lake to ‘drive out the rebels’,7 and he had been answered with fourteen prefabricated gunboats and ten flat-bottomed boats, which had been transported to Quebec disassembled, in the holds of transports.8 With them came twenty shipwrights from Glasgow and ten house carpenters from Portsmouth. This is clear evidence of the pressure that the British dockyards were already under to provide shipping for the massive New York and Canadian campaigns, and for trade protection elsewhere in the American colonies, the Caribbean and the Channel. They sent house carpenters to Canada because there were simply no British shipwrights spare anywhere in Britain.9 The few gunboats they brought with them were nothing like enough, however. They would have offered a useful boost to British sea power on the lake as conceived at the start of 1775, but Arnold’s early raid and Montgomery’s later successful drive to Quebec had entirely destroyed British sea power on Champlain and had provided the Americans with a mini-navy of reasonably powerful ships – an irony that was not lost on the British soldiers.10

  The British, therefore, not only had to establish a navy on Lake Champlain by getting past the Richelieu Rapids, but they also had to seize control of it from the Americans, and that could not be done by bateaux and flatboats alone. At the very least they needed to get three large ships into the lake, as well as enough boats to carry the army.

  The first job was to cut a road through the forest, which was achieved with gangs of Canadians, raised under the auspices of an ancient French law designed for large-scale projects of public labour, some of whom, it is claimed, were forced to work in chains.* Even after the road was cut, the effort was still immense. Three schooners – the Lady Maria, the Carlton and the Loyal Convert – and a gondola were selected to be carried overland. Their yards were uncrossed, the masts unstepped and their planking cut down. They were then put on rollers made from huge stripped tree-trunks and dragged past the rapids using cables fixed to windlasses every twenty yards.11 At first the schooners were found to be too heavy for the soft road and the roller-logs sank. The operation had to be abandoned and then recommenced once the schooners had been further cut down. With the roller-skating ships came a quilted convoy of bateaux, flatboats and longboats, and an endless chain of men struggling with guns, shipbuilding stores and provisions. Among their number were teams of ship carpenters, taken from the British transports and warships at Quebec.12

  The men knew that they were part of something special. One wrote home with a dash of understated pride: ‘What will seem most surprising to you is, that we are now hauling three large armed Vessels over Land, for twelve Miles, to the Lakes.’13

  These ships would bring British strength on Champlain to a potency similar to the Americans’, but parity had never been the traditional British way of warfare at sea. They had won the previous war through examples of military ingenuity, yes, but also through dominance by numbers and might, and Carleton was prepared to leave nothing to chance. His eyes therefore settled on the skeleton of an unfinished 180-ton warship in Quebec, far larger than anything that was being dragged through the woods. This was HMS Inflexible, a three-masted sloop, and Carleton saw in her the promise of glory, if only she could be moved.

  He turned to the ingenious Lieutenant John Schank, a clever soul renowned for inventing a pulley system that allowed him to raise or lower his cot without actually getting out of it, an achievement for which he was affectionately known as ‘old purchase’.14 Schank labelled the Inflexible’s timbers, organized teams to knock them down, floated them upriver to a fleet of thirty waiting boats, and then transported them to Montreal. From there they were carried through the woods to St Jean which, in a matter of weeks, had been reborn, following its American destruction, as a fully functioning British royal dockyard.

  There, the three smaller ships and the Inflexible were reassembled at immense speed. Lieutenant James Hadden recalled how

  [the Inflexible’s] keel was laid the second time on the morning of Sept 2nd 1776, and by sunset on that day, not only was she as far advanced in her new locations as she had been at Quebec, but a considerable quantity of fresh timber was also got out and formed into futtocks, top timbers, beams, planks, &c.; as it was no uncommon thing for trees, growing at dawn of day, to form parts of the ship before night.15

  Rebuilding the Inflexible at all was an impressive achievement, but there is some suggestion that Schank actually lengthened her keel by nine feet to ensure that she drew less water – a spontaneous redesign which would have made the job of rebuilding her all the more complicated and all the more impressive as a result.16

  Meanwhile another craft – a quite extraordinary craft – was built from scratch. Aptly named the Thunderer, she was designed as a massive floating gun-platform. With a flat bottom and a square bow, she was technically a ‘radeau’, though some ninety feet long, thirty feet wide and armed with fourteen eighteen-pounders and four eight-inch howitzers, she was far larger and far more heavily armed than any radeau anyone had ever seen before.17

  The Germans gawked at this demonstration of naval power and efficiency.18 Such a high-pressured operation did not go off without incident, however. On one occasion a tree was felled far too close to the camp and, falling in an unexpected direction, landed on a tent, crushing and killing instantly its three occupants. A telling accident, it suggests how much time pressure these men were under: you only take the closest tree if you are worried about the time or effort wasted in felling a more distant one. Thereafter an order was issued that no trees should be felled within 100 yards of the camp. Carleton retained absolute focus throughout the operation, oozing discipline that one soldier considered a ‘rigid strictness … very unpleasing’.19 He had left the backdoor to Canada open once already, and this time he was going to close it – and keep it firmly shut.

  For fear that the Americans were planning a surprise attack, native Indians, recruited as allies, lau
nched a spying mission to the other end of the lake in their bark canoes. They made use of a technique whereby they could paddle in absolute silence, an exceptionally difficult skill to master.20 The Americans, however, were totally focused on their own shipbuilding. A lightning attack in bateaux by the British would undoubtedly have destroyed the American shipbuilding programme and finally scattered their sick men, but that was not the only British intent. Yes, they wanted to secure the lake, but they wanted to do so in a way that demonstrated British naval might. In Charles Douglas’s words they wanted to achieve ‘absolute dominion over Lake Champlain’.21 It is important to realize that Carleton’s strategy revolved around the symbolism of naval majesty as much as it did around the reality of naval control – an echo of the Howes’ strategy at New York. Viewed in hindsight, it seems as if the British, both in New York and on Champlain, had been blinded by their own naval capability.

  The British shipbuilding was completed in ninety days: an epic feat of naval construction in an unfamiliar environment, all achieved by house carpenters working under the instruction of ships’ carpenters, supervised by a tiny team of sixteen Glaswegian shipwrights, one of whom cut himself so badly with an adze on just the third day that he was unable to work.22 This astonishing achievement has no historical parallel. In July the British had no ships on this land-locked lake, but by the beginning of October they had a ship-rigged sloop, two schooners, a gondola, an enormous radeau – quite probably the largest radeau ever built – twenty gunboats, twenty-four unarmed longboats, twenty-four armed longboats, and 450 bateaux to carry troops and provisions.23

  The launch of the Inflexible was a particularly special occasion. Her keel had been laid on 5 September and she had been launched just twenty-four days later. Five days after that her rigging had been completed. On 10 October she was ready to sail, a masterpiece of management by John Schank, who had constructed a novel ‘sled-like machine’ on which she slid into the river.24 Yet again there was a feeling in the British forces of something special having been achieved. ‘It certainly was a noble sight to see such a vessel on a fresh water lake in the very heart of the Continent of America & so great a distance from the sea’, wrote one soldier.25 Douglas wrote of his ‘unspeakable joy’ at seeing the Inflexible afloat only twenty-eight days after her keel was laid. He thought that the builders’ ‘prodigies of labour … almost exceed belief’.26 The construction was not without mishap. While rigging her, the young Edward Pellew, then a midshipman but a future naval captain of immense fame, was thrown into the lake along with all the rigging. Pellew soon surfaced to everyone’s relief and shimmied up the rigging again. This, Pellew’s first great escape, was a story that Schank later told his grandchildren: ‘He was like a squirrel.’27

  Manning and arming the fleet was certainly a problem, but the British muddled through by using the resources they had at their disposal at Quebec and Montreal. The soldiers were trained by the sailors to work on this unfamiliar element until they could move their motley fleet together into line ahead or abreast according to signal. When done correctly, this ‘had a pretty effect’.28 They were also trained in the tricky business of embarking and landing with safety and in the even trickier business of attacking and boarding other boats ‘should the Rebels be foolish enough to attempt opposition on either Element’.29 If you do not think this required much training, try standing up in a small boat and then imagine being surrounded by armed men, who are all trying to stand up without getting in the way of the oars or everyone else’s swords and muskets. It would require all of your attention to stay on your feet, unharmed by your colleagues, let alone to attack or repel an enemy.

  Carleton, a soldier wholly out of his element, made no attempt at command, which he gave to Captain Thomas Pringle, an interesting choice because it was not Captain Charles Douglas, the highest-ranking naval officer in the fleet and the man who had overseen its construction. Pringle was undoubtedly competent and went on to have an impressive career, reaching flag rank, but in the autumn of 1776 he was only a captain and a green one at that – he took command before his promotion to captain had even been confirmed. His second-in-command was a lieutenant, James Dacres. And yet this was a major British naval fleet and a key part of the British strategy to subdue the colonies. It was the only means by which Canada could be protected and the only means by which an invasion route to New England could be opened from the north. Guy Carleton was a high-ranking and experienced soldier but he had no maritime experience at all and there was no British naval flag officer of equivalent rank to oversee operations on the lake, to offer naval and maritime advice to Carleton, or to stand up to him in discussion and debate. At New York General William Howe had Admiral Richard Howe as a sounding board, a check and a balance, and the relationship had worked both ways, but here in the wilds of Canada there was nothing like this shared command. In the long term this weakness would have serious consequences.

  For now, however, the fleet was raring to go and there is no evidence that it was plagued by any self-doubt. Momentum was clearly with the British both in Canada and elsewhere. The Howes had consolidated their position in New York, Cornwallis was preparing to chase the Americans out of New Jersey, and Clinton was waiting to strike against Newport. The British strategy of securing Canada and isolating the rebellion in New England was nearly complete. First, however, they had to drive the Americans out of Lake Champlain.

  * * *

  The Americans, meanwhile, had been performing their own version of a shipbuilding miracle at the far southern end of Champlain, at Skenesborough. The largest settlement on the lake, Skenesborough had all the major attributes required to become an ad-hoc shipbuilding centre. Surrounded by good timber and iron ore, it was equipped with two sawmills, a forge and a good launching site, though significant work still had to be done to realize its potential. Just as the British had expended significant effort in turning St Jean into a shipbuilding centre, so did the Americans sweat in and around Skenesborough before they could even begin ship construction. There were also logistical challenges to be met further south to link the Hudson with Lakes George and Champlain more effectively, not least the construction of an adequate road northwards from Fort Edward on the Hudson and clearing an important creek.30

  In the following four months the Americans built eight 53-foot gondolas,* four 72-foot galleys,† and finished constructing a cutter, the Lee. They had harvested oak, spruce and pine from the local forests; recruited sailors, wheelwrights, colliers, sawyers, shingle-makers, miners, rope-makers and iron-workers from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and even Virginia; lured with the promise of exceptionally high wages shipwrights from Pennsylvania, Maine, Massachusetts and Connecticut; sourced 500 blocks, miles of rigging and anchors from Albany, Poughkeepsie, Esopus and Schenectady on the Hudson; found guns and ammunition; battled malaria and smallpox; succumbed to indiscipline, corruption and theft; and endured endless logistical and supply problems. Hour-glasses, spy-glasses, speaking trumpets, cutlery, bowls, pistols, cutlasses, fishing nets, 800 pounds of chalk to whiten the ship’s rails to allow sailing at night, and of course tons of food and drink all had to come to Skenesborough from elsewhere in the colonies. The means by which they conjured this manpower and these goods to Champlain is a subject worthy of a book of its own.31

  The American achievement was therefore different from the British, who had been far more prepared for their challenge and could draw men, material and supplies from nearby Montreal, Quebec and the massive British fleet itself. Their achievement was certainly no less impressive and, like the British feat, was brought about by some exceptional men.

  Ever since he had been forced to hand over command of the invasion of Canada to Montgomery, Schuyler had remained behind in Ticonderoga overseeing the establishment of supply lines and the flow of craftsmen up to the lake. He had raged against the ‘laziness of the scoundrels’ and the ‘rascality’ he had found there,32 and it is certain that the American army in Canada only a
voided self-destruction because of his efforts at Ticonderoga. Montgomery praised his ‘diligence and foresight’.33

  When Major-General John Sullivan assumed command of the Canadian Department,* Schuyler had been careful to impress upon him the value of American naval power on Champlain. Among numerous pearls of wisdom, he wrote: ‘By keeping a naval superiority on the lake we shall be able to prevent the enemy from penetrating into the inhabited part of these colonies.’34 Schuyler, in short, had seen what was coming and had done everything he could to prepare for it. Command over American forces at Ticonderoga and on Lake Champlain had, by then, passed into the hands of Horatio Gates, another man of great energy and insight, and the fine work continued. This could easily not have been the case. When Gates assumed command, he was, by his own admission, ‘intirely uninform’d as to marine affairs’,35 and naval history is littered with examples of men, inexperienced in the maritime world, who have crumbled in the face of its unexpected eccentricities and unique burdens. One of Gates’s most important decisions was to place Benedict Arnold, a maritime man who also knew the geography, in charge of the shipbuilding effort in Skenesborough. He was also well served by Colonel Jeduthan Baldwin, chief engineer at Ticonderoga, who was responsible for rigging and arming the fleet and who lived and breathed his task as the days melted into each other. ‘I have my hands & mind constantly employed night & Day except when I am a Sleep & then sometimes I dream’,36 Baldwin wrote in his diary. One can almost see the cloud of anxiety and the mountain of work that cast their shadows over him. Another man utterly absorbed by the task was Captain Richard Varick, Schuyler’s secretary. The quantity of correspondence Varick processed in this period is astonishing.37