The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History Volume III 1814–1815 Chesapeake Bay, Northern Lakes, and Pacific Ocean Part 1 of 7 Naval Historical Center Department of the Navy Washington, 2002 Electronically published by American Naval Records Society Bolton Landing, New York 2011 AS A WORK OF THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THIS PUBLICATION IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. .Mi~·/I'-~. A Documentary History ~ THE NAVAL WAR OF 1812 sxtq)~~ THE NAVAL WAR OF 1812 dq)~~ Volume III 1814-1815 Chesapeake Bay, Northern Lakes, and Pacific Ocean MICHAEL J. CRAWFORD Editor CHRISTINE F. HUGHES Associate Editor CHARLES E. BRODINE,jR. CAROLYN M. STALLINGS Assistant Editors With a Foreword by WILLIAM S. DUDLEY Director of Naval History and Series Editor NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER DEPARTMENT OF THE NAW WASHINGTON, D.C. 2002 SECRETARY OF THE NAWS ADVISORY Foreword SUBCOMMITTEE ON NAVAL HISTORY The history of the United States Navy during the years 1814 and 1815 illus­ Dr. David Alan Rosenberg (Chair) trates many of the principles-tactical, strategic, and logistical-of naval war­ Commander Wesley A. Brown, CEC, USN (Ret.) fare. Perhaps the most valuable principle that the naval history of those years underscores, however, is moral: the value of perseverance. Dr. Frank G. Burke During the final year and some months of the war, the nation reached the limits of its naval resources. The treasury was empty and the nation's credit Vice Admiral Robert F. Dunn, USN (Ret.) strained to the breaking point. Ships of the line of the largest class were rising Vice Admiral George W. Emery, USN (Ret.) on shipways on the shores of Lake Ontario, even though the shipwrights went unpaid, and even though there was serious doubt that they could be manned. Dr. Jose-Marie Griffiths With ten thousand sailors on the muster rolls, the pool of experienced seamen Captain R. Robinson Harris, USN (Ret.) available and willing to enlist had dried up. Policymakers had to choose among priorities: continuing to contend for naval mastery of the northern lakes; pro­ Dr. Beverly Schreiber Jacoby tecting ocean harbors and the seacoast; and cruising the high seas. Men could not be found for all these purposes. Rear Admiral John M. Kersh, USN (Ret.) At the same time, the war-fighting resources of the enemy expanded rapidly, Dr. James R. Reckner seemingly almost without bounds. With Napoleon's exile to Elba, peace came temporarily to Europe. The British blockade of the Continent was lifted, freeing Dr. William N. Still,Jr. ships for the already highly effective blockade of the United States. Thousands of British soldiers, veterans of the Napoleonic campaigns, went home; but thou­ Ms. Virginia Steele Wood sands of others were transported to America. In Canada, the British, previously on the defensive, now reinforced, marched into U.S. territory in strength. In the Chesapeake, a campaign of hit and run raids transformed into an invasion of the nation's capital and an attack on a major port city. In the Gulf of Mexico, Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data an invading army threatened to capture New Orleans and deny the use of the Mississippi River for the exporting of the agricultural produce of the transap­ The Library of Congress has cataloged v. 1-2 as follows: palachian West. In each of the three theaters of operations treated in the present volume, the The Naval War of 1812: a documentary history / Chesapeake Bay, the Northern Lakes, and the Pacific Ocean, a U.S. naval force William S. Dudley, editor, Michael]. Crawford, associate found itself confronting a superior British naval force. Blockaded in tributaries editor; with a foreword by John D.H. Kane,Jr. by a significant British squadron, Commodore Joshua Barney's gunboat flotilla v. <1-2> : ill. ; 26 cm. held out for ten weeks, engaging in several pitched battles, until Barney or­ Includes bibliographical references and indexes. dered its destruction. Barney's sailors then became foot soldiers and main­ Contents: v. 1. 1812 - v. 2. 1813. tained the nation's honor in facing the red-coated foe marching on Washing­ 1. United States-His tory-War of 1812-Naval ton, when other troops broke and ran at the battle that wits derided as the operations-Sources. I. Dudley, ~illi~m S. II. "Bladensburg Races." Crawford, Michael]. III. Naval Hlstoncal Center (U.S.) Commodore Thomas Macdonough's Lake Champlain squadron opposed a E360.N351985 973.5'25-dcl9 85-600565 British squadron possessing significant advantages over his own. The British had ISBN 0945274-47-5 (v. 3) a large preponderance of long guns, with the long guns on their flagship alone nearly equaling those of the entire American force. Macdonough's superior sea­ manship nullified the British advantage, enabling the Americans to throw their heavy short-range carronades into the equation. Still, it was only after enduring For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: loll free (866) 512-1800; DC area (202) 512-1800 one of the deadliest naval battles of the war, that the American sailors were able Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001 to claim victory. The sacrifice of American lives and limbs resulted in the retreat ISBN 0-16-051224-7 of an invading enemy army and led to satisfactory terms at the peace table. v For six weeks, a British navy frigate and sloop of war watched Commodore David Porter's frigate USS Essex in the neutral harbor of Valparaiso, Chile. When Essex finally sailed, a gust of wind blew its topmast overboard,. ~nd the American frigate took refuge in a bay near the harbor. There, the BntIsh war­ Preface ships stood out of range of Essex's carrona~es, which were its main arm~ment, and, disregarding the neutrality of the ChIlean waters, began a long:hstance cannonade of the disabled ship. For two and a half hours the Amencans re­ In view of the variegated and geographic extent of naval warfare between the sisted the enemy's superior firepower. At long range, the two British vessels ~n­ forces of the United States of America and those of the United Kingdom of Great joyed an advantage of 273 pounds in weight of metal thrown per broadsIde Britain and Ireland during the years 1814 and 1815, the editors of The Naval War of compared to Essex's mere 63 pounds. Porter looked for a shift of wind that 1812: A Documentary Histary determined that to cover the naval war of those years in would enable him to bring Essex's guns into range, or perhaps to take one of the an adequate, even if selective, fashion requires two volumes. The volume in hand, enemy warships by boarding. Essex's flag came down only after the loss of 155 then, is the third in a four-volume series of selected contemporary texts document­ men eliminated any chance of victory. "Contemporary history," wrote Theodore ing the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Volume 1 treats the origins of the conflict, Roosevelt, "does not afford a single instance of so determined a defence against beginning with events in 1805, continuing to the beginning of the war and subse-­ such frightful odds." quent events through December 1812; Volume 2 treats the events of the year 1813. In each of these instances, officers and men of the U.S. Navy demonstrated Volumes 3 and 4 divide geographically and thematically, rather than chronologi­ the courage, honor, and commitment that are the core values of the American cally. The present volume treats the events of 1814 and 1815 on the inland waters naval service. They faced the foe without flinching and refused to .give up the of North America and on the Pacific Ocean. Volume 4 will treat the same years on fight until conquered by overwhelming force. On Lake ChamplaI':, the out­ U1e Atlantic Ocean, in the Gulf of Mexico, and on the Indian Ocean, and general come was unequivocal American victory. In the Chesapeake Bay fl<.>tIll~ and on memes that do not confine themselves to specific operational theaters. board USS Essex, stubborn resistance forced the enemy to commIt dIspropor­ An introductory essay to each theater provides the overarching context for tionate resources and held up the application of those resources to other the documents that follow. Within each theater, we group documents by topic. enemy purposes while the resistance lasted. A head note for each topical section provides more particular context. Under The present volume is the culmination of years of intense labor by the able each topic, documents appear in chronological order. The exhaustive, sub-topi­ and dedicated Christine F. Hughes, Charles E. Brodine, Jr., and Carolyn M. cal index can guide readers to content of relevance to specific interests. Stallings, historian-editors of the Early History Branch, and of the skilled editor­ This documentary history is more than a recounting of battles from eyewit­ ial leadership of Dr. Michael J. Crawford, branch head. The volume's preface ness reports. Many documentary works have dealt with the War of 1812, but few identifies other branch members who contributed their talents to various stages have focused solely on naval affairs as this series does. The objective of this work of the process, as well as many additional historians, editors, librarians, is to display the underpinnings of the U.S. Navy during the war. In this way, we archivists, and officials who supported the project in a multitude of ways. All hope to explain its successes and failures at a formative period in its institu­ who contributed to this valuable work have my gratitude.