Tornado Saves Capital (And Steals Anchor for Museum!) Blog Post by Jeanne Willoz-Egnor, Published August 19, 2019
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Tornado Saves Capital (and Steals Anchor for Museum!) Blog post by Jeanne Willoz-Egnor, published August 19, 2019 Recently I had the pleasure of giving a behind the scenes tour to attendees of the annual conference of the National Society Children of 1812 (if you follow me on Facebook you might remember they gave us $1850 towards the conservation of a watercolor in the collection). While planning the tour, I decided to include one of the anchors in our collection because it had a great War of 1812 provenance. Kedge anchor, HMS Dictator (Accession# DA75) The anchor, a large Old Plan kedge anchor, had been recovered from the bottom of the Patuxent River near Point Patience, Maryland in 1959 by US Navy divers from the Naval Ordnance Laboratory Test Facility. Luckily, despite spending 145 years underwater, the anchor was in fairly pristine condition and retained many of its identifying marks. Map showing location of anchor's recovery. Shortly after recovery when it has been washed to remove thick layers of mud. When recovered the anchor ring was still overlaid with rope covered in pitched canvas. Unfortunately, when the fragile organic materials were exposed to the air and drying they quickly disintegrated. Besides a number of broad arrows (indicating British government ownership), the letters “Rec Chat” (showing the anchor was received at Chatham Dockyard after being made by an outside contractor), and “No. 6225” (the number of the anchor); the stock and shaft were marked with the numbers “6 x 3 x 24” (the weight of the anchor, 780lbs) and most importantly, the word “dictator.” Ship name and anchor weight Broad arrow on shaft Anchor's number Anchor's weight Research conducted by the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, the Smithsonian, and the Mariners’ Museum determined that there has only been one HMS Dictator in the Royal Navy; a 3rd rate, 64-gun ship-of-the-line launched at Limehouse in 1783. In 1798 Dictator was converted into a troop ship and served throughout the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. She saw a lot of action during the Gunboat War (1807-1814) and most importantly, had carried British troops into the Chesapeake Bay in the summer of 1814. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth for Dictator (1783). The plan may represent her as built in 1783. Collection of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (Object ID ZAZ1440) One of the things I noticed while working on my talking points was that everyone said they didn’t know why Dictator’s anchor had been abandoned at the bottom of the Patuxent River. Well, you know me! Ever the curious sort, I started researching the movements of the Royal Navy in the Chesapeake Bay in 1814 to try and discover a possible reason for the loss and as usual it turned out to be a very interesting story! First, let’s set the stage. When the United States declared war on June 18, 1812, Great Britain was embroiled in the Napoleonic Wars (which had been going on since 1803). Knowing the British government’s attention was aimed somewhere else, many American politicians assumed the British would immediately make concessions and stop restricting American trade and impressing American sailors. Um, excuse me? We freaking declared war! Did those guys even bother to stop and THINK about the country they had declared war on? The British regularly and successfully fought wars on many fronts--sometimes without any allies and with what seemed like the entire world against them. If you declare war, fighting is a given but with luck it’s short- lived. Following the defeat of the French and Spanish fleets at the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar Great Britain pretty much ruled the seas. (Accession#QO800) The smarter men in our government immediately began making battle plans. Since it was doubtful the tiny United States Navy could effectively compete with the powerful, and seemingly invincible Royal Navy, Canada became the target—invade and conquer Canada and the British would have to accede to our demands. Right? As you would expect, this left the people along the Atlantic coast and Chesapeake Bay fairly unprotected. Before the fighting even ended in Europe (late 1813), the British government had turned its full attention onto the United States. In an effort to divert American troops away from Canada, the British admiral commanding the North American Station, Sir John Borlase Warren, established a blockade of the Chesapeake Bay and ordered his ships to make raids along the Atlantic and Southern coasts. When this tactic didn’t work, the new commander, Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, gave Rear Admiral George Cockburn (the guy who had been harassing the residents of the Bay since March of 1813) a new directive: “act with the utmost hostility against the shores of the United States.” Taking his orders to heart, Cockburn began threatening, plundering, pillaging and burning his way through the towns and villages around the Bay. Admiral Cockburn and the British burning & plundering Havre de Grace, Maryland. Collection of the Maryland Historical Society Portrait of Rear Admiral George Cockburn (pronounced “Co-burn”), the most hated man in the Chesapeake Bay. James O. Boyle of Pughtown, Virginia even offered a reward of one thousand dollars for the head of “the notorious incendiary and infamous scoundrel, and violator all laws, human and divine, the British admiral Cockburn—or five hundred dollars for each of his ears, on delivery.” (Collection of National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Object id: BHC2619) It’s at this point that HMS Dictator enters the fray. After carrying troops to Holland in early 1814 Dictator was sent, with many other transports, to the Garonne River in Bordeaux to embark troops of the British Army’s first division. The fleet, including the 3rd rate HMS Diamond and six frigates, then sailed to Bermuda. Arriving on July 23rd, they found eighteen ships-of-the-line including HMS Tonnant and HMS Royal Oak sitting in Murray’s Anchorage waiting for the signal to depart for the North American continent. A View of the Town of St. George, in the Bermudas, or Summer Islands, 1816 (Accession# LP 2973) As British ships and troops continued to arrive in Bermuda, Admiral Cochrane received dispatches from Admiral Cockburn recommending large scale actions on the Potomac and Patuxent rivers. Taking this recommendation to heart, Cochrane sailed for the Chesapeake Bay with about sixty ships (according to the August 27, 1814 Nile’s Weekly Register of Baltimore) and thousands of British troops. The fleet arrived in the Bay on August 2, 1814 and a short time later Cochrane split his forces sending about fifty ships, including HMS Dictator, into the Patuxent River and the remaining ten or so into the Potomac. While it was presumed the British were headed into the Patuxent to deal with the only credible threat to the total British domination of the Chesapeake Bay— Commodore Joshua Barney’s little Chesapeake Flotilla–it was just a cover, their main goal was Washington DC. Action in St. Leonard’s Creek, June 8-10, 1814. The first battle of St. Leonard Creek included five to six battles spread across three days between Barney's Chesapeake Flotilla and a large British force under Captain Robert Barrie. (Accession# QW364) My first hint of a possible cause of Dictator’s lost anchor came while reading the book Personal Narrative of Events, From 1799 to 1815 by Vice Admiral William Stanhope Lovell (known as ‘Captain Badcock’ before he changed his name!). In Chapter 15 Lovell, who was captain of the 38-gun HMS Brune, writes: Towards the middle of July and the month of August some parts of this coast are subject to tornadoes. We had one of them on the 25th of July, which obliged us, although lying at anchor in a river, to let go a second…. The storm came on from the north-west, with the greatest violence, accompanied by a few claps of thunder and vivid flashes of lightning: such was its force that, although in smooth water, the ship heeled so much over that the main-deck guns nearly touched the water; and a fine schooner of seventy tons burthen, tender to the Severn, with a long 18-pounder on board, at anchor near us, without topmasts, her sails furled and gaffs on deck, was turned bottom upwards in a moment, and one poor fellow drowned. Its fury was spent in about ten minutes, but during its continuance we saw immense trees torn up by the roots, barns blown down like card houses of children, and where the strength of the current of wind passed scarcely anything could withstand its violence. In other words, the storm was so bad the crew of Brune had to deploy a second anchor to prevent the ship from being driven ashore. Now I know what you’re thinking, “but this event occurred before HMS Dictator arrived in the Chesapeake” but Lovell continues: This circumstance was mentioned...to...Captain Napier, who commanded the Euryalus, but Charley would not believe that the force of wind could upset a schooner of seventy tons, lying at anchor with all her sails furled, with her gaffs on deck, and without even top-masts; however, on the dashing, brilliant expedition, under Sir James Gordon, up the Potomac to Alexandria, above Washington, he had an opportunity of judging for himself when (part of a tornado passing across the bows of the frigate) he saw in a moment both his bowsprit and fore-topmast broken in two, like twigs. This storm occurred after Dictator’s arrival and it affected the entire region.