by Tim McGrath
Nicholson never made it. Blocking the Chesapeake was the HMS Thames, a frigate commanded by Tyringham Howe, hero of the Glasgow. He watched the Virginia and company reach the mouth of the York, while the Thames still rocked at anchor. The skies darkened; Howe waited to see if the American captain would enter the bay and fire a gun to leeward, the time-honored challenge for a sea fight.
Instead, Nicholson dawdled at the river’s mouth for one day, then another. At dawn on the sixth day, Howe sailed through the mist and found a few schooners, but no frigate remaining to accept his challenge: “Suppos’d Her to have gone up the River,” he noted in his log. Nicholson had departed for Baltimore. He may not have intended to fight, but one of the galley captains, John David, did: “If Captain Nicholson gives me as many hands as I want I will go and attack the frigate,” he wrote Governor Johnson. Nicholson returned to Baltimore, resumed asking for more men and money, and soon had a new nickname: “the Commodore snug in the harbor.”46
In Philadelphia, no fewer than three frigates were in the Delaware. All were launched in 1776, but only one, the Delaware, was finished. The Raleigh and the Washington still lacked cordage and guns. Their captains, John Barry and Thomas Read, were kept busy presiding over one court-martial after another, including one trying some lieutenants who refused to report to duty until their grievances (mostly over lack of pay) were addressed. They were all found guilty and ordered to be dismissed from the service. Once the verdict was read, Barry and Read convinced the lieutenants that an apology would reinstate them. Most did so.47
On July 31, the Navy Board of the Eastern District ordered the two captains to conduct a scavenger hunt along the waterfront for all available rigging and canvas. Everyone in Philadelphia correctly assumed the Howe brothers were coming—they just did not know when.48
Word reached Congress that General Howe’s forces had combined with Admiral Howe’s fleet in New York and were heading south. Originally, Howe was to join forces with General Burgoyne’s army in New York for an offensive to cut New England off from the other states, but Howe wanted Philadelphia. On July 22, Henry Fisher’s couriers galloped to Philadelphia, alerting Congress that Howe’s fleet—267 ships in all—was off the Delaware Capes. Then, in a blink, they were gone, not to be seen again until August 22 after sailing up the Chesapeake to the Head of Elk, where General Howe’s army disembarked and marched into Chester County, Philadelphia’s back door. As before, the brothers Howe promised a pardon to any Continental soldiers and sailors who voluntarily surrendered.49
In an attempt to steel patriotic resolve and cow Philadelphia Loyalists, Washington marched his army through the city streets, his men jauntily wearing sprigs of evergreen in their hats. They headed south to meet Howe’s army at Brandywine Creek on September 11. It was another resounding defeat for the Americans. After the battle, Washington sent his young aide Colonel Alexander Hamilton galloping back to Philadelphia with a note to John Hancock: Congress should leave the city. “Chased like a covey of partridges,” as John Adams put it, congressmen fled Philadelphia for Trenton, rode from there to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and from there to nearby York. This time no sailors marched with the army—they were now charged with defending the city from an attack by Admiral Howe on the Delaware. News of his brother’s victory reached the British fleet by a message written on a beaten drumhead by the army’s chief engineer, Captain John Montresor, who sent it to Andrew Snape Hamond aboard the Roebuck.50
As senior navy captain in Philadelphia, Barry was a visible choice to command the combined Continental and Pennsylvania navy forces. Instead, the task was given to his old “Sea Captains’ Club” colleague John Hazelwood, who was already leading the Pennsylvania Navy. To their anger and dismay, Barry and Read were not ordered to serve under Hazelwood but to go away; since their frigates remained unfinished, they were sent upriver to Bordentown, accompanied by every vessel that could float but not fight, manned by “invalids”—sailors too hurt or too old to be of use. Only the Delaware, under Charles Alexander, was sufficiently armed and manned to take part in the coming fight.51
The Effingham and the Washington sailed upriver, leaving panic behind them. The streets were clogged with wagons, carts, and patriotic families, all looking to leave Philadelphia before Howe’s Lobsterbacks took it over. On the morning of September 26, General Charles, Lord Cornwallis, marched 3,000 British and Hessian troops into the city, the first wave of nearly 20,000 Redcoats, German mercenaries, sailors, and marines who would occupy the American capital. They paraded past the cheering Loyalists and other residents who did not leave town. The most impressive marchers were the Hessian grenadiers, with their tall, brass-fronted miter caps and drooping mustaches, who took the hands of frightened children and reassured them in their broken English.52
In a meeting with city Loyalists led by the Quaker Joseph Galloway, Cornwallis charged Barry’s brother-in-law, William Austin, with ensuring that no valuable goods left town via the Arch Street Ferry and organizing a ring of fire-watchers to guard against arson by departing rebels. Cornwallis also sent John Montresor to scout the best sites along the waterfront for battery emplacements to defend the American city against American ships and the guns of “the mud fort,” now called Fort Mifflin. Years earlier, Montresor had designed the fort. Now he planned its destruction.53
Hazelwood realized that something had to be done. He sent the Delaware, the Pennsylvania warship Montgomery, and several row galleys to bombard Montresor’s sites before they were fully armed and manned, putting Alexander in charge of the attack. Alexander’s squadron came within five hundred yards of Dock Street, running out their guns as a longboat took an officer to see Cornwallis. He carried a message from Alexander: any attempts to man defenses or “annoy” any American ships and Alexander would fire on and destroy the city. The blood of women and children, he promised, would be on Cornwallis’s hands, not his.54
At the south end of town, on Carpenter’s Island, Captain Francis Dowman of the Royal Artillery stood by his battery of two 12-pounders and two howitzers. Dowman was downright uneasy—his was one of the last batteries erected by Montresor, and it was completely exposed to fire from rebel ships and the fort. To add to his anxiety, he had been specifically ordered not to fire unless fired upon. Looking through his spyglass, he watched Alexander’s longboat return. Seconds later, the American colors were raised to the top of both ships’ mainmasts, and the bombardment began.
A British artilleryman did not rise to a captaincy unless he had earned it, and Dowman was about to show that the gold epaulet on his right shoulder was merited. From the first rebel broadside Dowman realized the Americans were well trained at their guns. The rebels “fired many good shots though fortunately they did no harm,” he later reported. Round after round came flying at the British defenses Montresor had skillfully placed, the fire returned by Dowman and his comrades. It was the beginning of a prolonged deafening roar that would not end for seven weeks.55
The winds now became a factor, forcing Alexander to change course, tacking to port, to starboard, and back again. Seeing that his gunners were accurate but not as effective as they could be, Alexander sent the Delaware closer to shore: four hundred yards . . . then three hundred, leaving the other vessels behind and thereby focusing British firepower on his frigate alone. Fool’s courage.
When the Delaware got close enough, some British gunners switched to grape and canister that struck down officer and sailor alike and cut the frigate’s rigging to pieces. A round shot from one of the farther batteries—maybe Dowman’s—slammed through the ship’s caboose (her galley), starting a fire. Just then a nearby British gun burst as the Delaware’s bowsprit came close by, starting another fire. With the ship burning and the accuracy of the British guns so deadly at close range, Alexander temporarily lost his bearings. A sudden, loud lurch stopped the Delaware cold. She was aground.
A few more rounds from the British batteries convinced Alexander to strike hi
s colors. A British boarding party put out the fire. Upon surrendering, no less than fifty American sailors offered to fight for the British rather than become prisoners, and would later find themselves serving on the Roebuck. British artillerymen now directed their fire at the Montgomery and the row galleys, which soon departed. The city would not be destroyed by the Delaware after all.56
Farther upriver, the Effingham and Washington led the other ships towards Bordentown, the echoes of the fighting south of them ringing in their ears. This retreat was maddening; for most of them Philadelphia was home.
To add insult to injury, a rowboat approached the Effingham to port, bearing a visitor for Barry. Once in his cabin, the man presented the captain with an offer from Lord Howe himself: twelve thousand guineas and a captain’s commission in the Royal Navy if Barry would turn his coat. For a second, the Irishman was dumbfounded. Then he hurled a tirade of insults at Howe’s emissary. Having “Spurned the eydee of being a Traitor,” Barry sent the messenger back to his rowboat. He never revealed the man’s identity.57
The day after the Delaware’s loss, Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Smith inspected Fort Mifflin to see if the defenses and meager garrison were prepared for the coming fight. They were not, and he appealed to Washington that more men and guns were essential for an adequate defense. The general sent reinforcements along with a French engineer, Major Francis Louis de Fleury, to get the fort ready. It would be the center of the American attempt to hold the Delaware, along with Fort Mercer in nearby Billingsport, New Jersey, the maze of chevaux-de-frise, and the fleet of row galleys under Hazelwood. The Continental ships Andrew Doria, Hornet, Wasp, and Fly would be unleashed to fight at the appropriate time.
On September 28, the Roebuck led the British fleet upriver for the coming assault. Among the ships was Captain Sir James Wallace’s two-decker, the Experiment. For two weeks both sides jockeyed for position, as the British ships avoided the chevaux-de-frise, angling for the best spot where their guns could be brought to bear on the forts. Meanwhile, Washington led an attack on Howe’s army northwest of Philadelphia, only to be stopped at Germantown.58
The battles were fierce, bloody, and continuous. An attack by 1,200 Hessians on Fort Mercer was so convincingly repulsed by the American defenders that General Howe aborted a similar advance on Fort Mifflin. On October 23, during the ferocious fighting between the two navies, the HMS Augusta, a sixty- four-gun ship-of-the-line, blew up—the largest ship lost by the Royal Navy in an American war.
The garrison at Fort Mifflin withstood incessant bombardment for weeks; low on ammunition, soldiers bravely ran into the fort’s plaza to retrieve British cannonballs and fire them back. Samuel Smith was severely wounded and removed from the fort (he not only survived, but later would command American defenses at Baltimore during the War of 1812, including Fort McHenry). “The Fire of the Enemy will never take the Fort,” de Fleury wrote in his journal. But despite all the heroics of American sailor and soldier alike, slowly but surely the tide of battle was turning inexorably towards the British.59
On November 15, at a signal from British headquarters, every battery and warship opened fire on Fort Mifflin. Its walls were soon demolished, the barracks burning from hot shot fired by the nearby batteries. The largest bombardment of the war was “a glorious sight” to Captain Dowman. Inside the fort’s remains, Private Joseph Plumb Martin described the island as “completely ploughed as a field” by the hundreds of cannonballs. That night, under cover of darkness, the garrison slipped across the river to Fort Mercer. That fort, now totally at the enemy’s mercy, was also abandoned.60
One domino of the rebel defense fell after another. After the fall of the forts, Hazelwood had no choice but to get what row galleys he could up the Delaware to White Hill and Bordentown. Some made it past the British batteries, but many more did not. But the greatest symbol of American defeat was not the loss of the forts, or the row galleys, or even the city. That dubious honor went to the first ships of the Continental Navy.
Trapped between advancing British warships and the shore batteries, they attempted to follow Hazelwood’s vessels upriver on November 21, keeping to the Jersey side of the Delaware. But there were no forts to cover their escape, and soon no wind to speed them to safety. Each captain ordered his crew to gather combustibles and set the ships afire.
As the sailors rowed to shore, each ship slowly began to burn, starting below deck, moving to the waist, then fore and aft to the quarterdeck and fo’c’sle, the fire finally licking the masts. Like in Viking funerals, the ships were consumed by the flames before disappearing into the Delaware, a short sail from where patriotic cheers and cold winter winds had first sent them to sea two years ago.61
Three hundred bedraggled sailors and marines slunk into Bordentown, New Jersey, where they found the Navy Board officials, the “invalids” that had brought up the frigates Effingham and Washington, and the ships that accompanied the frigates. What they did not see was the frigates.
On October 27, after learning from “An intelligent Lad from Philadelphia” that the British were contemplating sending a force upriver to capture the two frigates, General Washington sent orders to the Navy Board to sink them. Francis Hopkinson, as de facto head of the board, was more than willing to comply with Washington’s orders, but Captains Barry and Read were not. Already angry at being exiled from their hometown in its hour of greatest need, they insisted that the ships could be adequately defended with the men and guns available; if proven wrong, they would burn the ships before letting them fall into British hands.
Hopkinson took umbrage. These men were questioning Washington’s judgment, and therefore, his as well. He was especially angry with Barry, whom Hopkinson deemed beneath him in both rank and class. When the tall Irishman told the little lawyer that only the Marine Committee could order such an action, and that he knew more about the situation “than General Washington and the Navy Board together,” Hopkinson became apoplectic with rage. To show Barry his place, he would personally supervise the sinking of the Effingham.62
Odd as it sounds, sinking the ships made some sense. If they were sunk as the tide came in, they would heel towards the shoreline, and might actually be raised after the British left Philadelphia. Sinking them was a dangerous undertaking, especially for the volunteers who went below, mallets in hand, to drive out the plugs along the keelson. The second they were out, powerful jets of water would shoot up as high as twenty feet through the openings, while the ensuing vortex could suck the sailors under while the ship flooded.63
On November 2, Hopkinson climbed up the Effingham’s gangway to oversee her sinking. Once he reached the quarterdeck, a seething Barry silently stepped aside. Hopkinson was a brilliant maritime lawyer, but no sailor; nor did he bring a tide table with him that day. As a shocked Read watched from the Washington, Hopkinson ordered the plugs hammered out while the tide was going out, not in. The Effingham immediately took in water, but began heeling towards the middle of the Delaware so quickly that she looked in danger of “turtling”—turning completely upside down. In one of the more slapstick scenes of the war, Hopkinson—known as one of Philadelphia’s finest salon dancers—moved with alacrity to abandon ship, while Barry ordered his men on deck and to their boats as the Effingham came to rest on her beam ends. Read later sank the Washington at the appropriate time of day.64
The rancor between Barry and Hopkinson only worsened after Barry’s three attempts to raise the frigate failed. The last one ended in a shouting match between the two. Hopkinson reported the affair to Washington, blaming nature and not his poor judgment for the catastrophe. Barry simply called Hopkinson a liar. Weeks later, the captain received permission from the Marine Committee to visit his wife and in-laws in nearby Reading, but first went to see Washington at Valley Forge. He had a plan that required the general’s approval. Hopkinson viewed Barry’s departure as “French Leave,” and made plans to bring Barry to account for his insubordination.6
5
On November 23, after two years of trying, Hamond became the first Royal Navy captain to dock his ship in Philadelphia since the war began. The brothers Howe were in full possession of the rebel capital, but in abandoning Burgoyne in upstate New York for their Philadelphia campaign, they had lost his army, defeated weeks earlier at Saratoga by Continental forces under General Horatio Gates (and inspired by Benedict Arnold’s heroics). Despite their twin approach of olive branch and cannonball, they had failed to win the peace. Commodore Collier, recently arrived from New England waters, believed the Americans would not admit defeat “during this generation,” while a troubled Cornwallis wrote after hearing of Burgoyne’s surrender, “God only knows how this business will end.” Both Howes soon asked to be relieved of their commands.66
In Charleston, Nicholas Biddle busied himself with refitting his ship and leaning on John Rutledge, president and commander-in-chief of South Carolina, to offer any able-bodied seaman a twenty-dollar bonus to sign on the Randolph’s muster rolls. Summer was nearly over. More than a few of Biddle’s crew had deserted, signing on privateers. Some actually wound up in Nantes, where Sam Nicholson encountered them but “had no place to confine them in.” Had he had all of his men, Biddle moaned to Robert Morris, he would be cruising for the enemy.67
Biddle was impatient to get sailing. He never met up with the Warren and the Providence, due to the British blockade of Newport, and plans to join up with the Hancock and the Boston ended when Manley sailed off to be captured. Once Rutledge approved the bounty, Biddle had enough men to sail. He stood down Rebellion Road in late August, with his third mainmast stepped in place.
The Randolph was under way when Biddle spied one of the privateers that had absconded with four of his sailors. He sent his barge across the water to pick the men up, but the privateer sailed blithely by. “Determined to sink him,” Biddle fired a warning shot dreadfully close to the ship’s bow, stopping her dead in the water. Two of his men were on a prize crew, but the captain gladly relinquished the other pair.
