EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE PLATTSBURGH CRISIS
During the first two years of the War of 1812, while Napoleon kept the British Army campaigning across the seas, the United States had a splendid opportunity to invade Canada or to prepare its forces to resist invasion from the north, for when war was declared the British regulars in the Canadas numbered less than 4500 effectives,1 and this number was not increased until the summer of 1814.
The American people, therefore, had ample time in which to put in practice their favorite theory of military policy—the fallacy that a small establishment of regulars, whenever the emergency arises, can successfully leaven a large lump of militia and volunteers. Needless to say, the two years of rare opportunity were wasted—by inefficiency of force and misdirection of effort.2 Raw troops, under incompetent commanders, from Hull to Wilkinson, were thrashed, almost invariably, by small bodies of British regulars trained in many wars. The story of "humiliating surrenders, abortive attacks and panic routs”3 was relieved only by Harrison's easy victory over a much smaller force at the Thames and the desperate valor of Scott's well-drilled brigade at Lundy's Lane, where General Brown made a gallant stand against formidable odds, winning only a temporary success. On the following day, July 26, 1814, Brown's retirement within the lines of Fort Erie marked the point at which the United States definitely abandoned the offensive on the Canadian frontier.
1The Eighth, Forty-ninth, and One Hundredth Regiments, a small detachment of artillery, the Tenth Royal Veteran Battalion, and the Canadian, Newfoundland, and Glengary Fencibles, 4450 men in all.—James.
2Mahan: Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, p. 355.
3Roosevelt: Naval War of 1812, Ed. 1910, p. 11.
Meanwhile, by the first abdication of Napoleon, April II, 1814, and his retirement to Elba, Great Britain was relieved for some ten months, and, as she thought, permanently, of pressure from her great enemy. Fortunately for the Americans, the affairs of Europe were still too unsettled to permit the withdrawal of a very large percentage of British land forces, but Wellington's Peninsular army was sent from Bordeaux to America—one division for coastwise operations under General Ross, the other and larger part to constitute the main body of an army of invasion from Canada under Sir George Prevost. Before General Brown retired to Erie the first four brigades of Peninsulars had arrived on July 12 at Montreal, and by August 25 Prevost's army was complete—29,437 men, exclusive of officers. Of this number, all were veteran regulars except 4706.
Prevost's campaign, an undertaking originally intended for Wellington's command, was well planned to attain its object, the enforced cession of United States territory. Until Perry defeated Barclay on Lake Erie the British had aimed to extend their dominions southward along the Ohio and the Mississippi to the Gulf, cutting off and holding the Great West. To the success of this project the control of Lake Erie was essential, and it is sufficient praise for Perry to say that he made such a momentous campaign impossible. There remained the traditional route followed by Burgoyne, along the Richelieu, Lake Champlain, and the Hudson, and it was this line that Prevost was to take, his first objective being Crown Point. Again, the success of the campaign turned on the control of a lake. Lacking this control, Prevost's splendid army would have its flank exposed for over a hundred miles and its line of communications cut.
Granting that the British naval force on Champlain would whip Macdonough—and this success was expected by the British, since Downie's forces were finally superior—it was inevitable that Prevost would advance to Crown Point, and that he would hold it. Even if he could proceed no farther, the British Government would then be in a position to demand the surrender of the Great Lakes, which were wanted as strictly British waters, a "military barrier "4 accessible to Americans for purposes of commerce only. Having taken "the chances of the campaign," England was to "be.governed by circumstances."5 In other words, if Prevost could reach Albany, and await there an expedition sent against New York and up the Hudson, Great Britian would compel the cession of a large strip of territory south of the Lakes.
4Memoirs of Lord Castlereagh. Series III, Vol. II, pp. 86-91.
"To the battle of Lake Champlain it was owing that the British occupancy of United States soil at the end of the year was such that the Duke of Wellington advised that no claim for territorial cession could be considered to exist, and that the basis of uti possidetis, upon which it was proposed to treat, was untenable."6
One brigade of Prevost's army was sent to Kingston, a movement which was sufficient to cause the withdrawal of most of the American army of defence, at Plattsburgh, already seriously inadequate. On the 29th of August General Izard, in obedience to an intimation from the War Department which he interpreted as an order, marched from Plattsburgh at the head of 4000 men for Sackett's Harbor. This detachment of the main army left Macomb to face the impending storm with 1500 effectives—a situation so ludicrous that it would be unimaginable if it had not actually existed. Macomb stated in his official report: "I had commanded a fine brigade which was broken up to form the division of Major General Izard. . . . . Except the four companies of the Sixth Regiment, I had not an organized battalion among those remaining; the garrison was composed of convalescents and the recruits of the new regiments—all in the greatest confusion—as well as the ordnance and stores, and the works in no state of defence."7 This was the regular force which was to prevent Prevost from reaching Crown Point! Though there had been ample warning of invasion, it was not until September 4, two days before Prevost entered the northern part of Plattsburgh, that Macomb was reinforced by militia—700 men. Before the battle on the 11th, volunteers from the nearby counties of New York and Vermont brought Macomb's entire force up to only 2500.8 With this ill-assorted handful, he was to halt over 11,000 veterans of the Douro and the Tagus, the Ebro and the Garonne—the men of Torres Vedras and Vittoria. "An unrivalled army for fighting," as Wellington had described them the year before.
5Castlereagh to Liverpool, Aug. 28, 1814.
6Mahan: Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812. p. 356.
7Letter to Secretary of War. Sept. 15.
8Macomb's General Order of Sept. 14.
Macdonough, facing under these circumstances the responsibility of retrieving the campaign, found himself, at the last moment, with a force considerably inferior to the British squadron. From June 3, 1813, when Lieutenant Sidney Smith, "without orders and contrary to" Macdonough's "intentions and advice,"9 had lost the sloops Eagle and Growler by venturing in chase of a gunboat near the Isle aux Noix, the enemy has been in undisputed control of the lake until May 29, 1814. In the interim, Macdonough wisely selected an easily defensible retreat at Vergennes, Otter Creek, and bent all his energies to ship-building. When he emerged from his winter base toward the end of May and appeared off Plattsburgh, his force, complete save for the new brig Eagle, was large enough to dominate the lake, and included the new ship Saratoga, 26 guns ("forty days from the living tree to the man-of-war"10) the schooner Ticonderoga, 17 (a remodelled steamer), the sloop Preble, 7, and ten galleys or gunboats, of which six were of 70 tons, armed with two guns, and four were of 40 tons, with one gun. It was supposed that the Eagle, 20, built in 19 days, and launched August 11, would give Macdonough the ascendancy, but the British, on August 25, launched a frigate,11 the Confiance, of 37 guns. She carried as her main armament 27 long twenty-four pounders, one of them, a pivot, giving her 14 of these guns to the broadside. Her "superiority in long guns," says Mahan, "would on the open lake have made her practically equal to cope with the whole American squadron . . . . assuming that the Linnet gave the Eagle some occupation."12 Besides the Confiance, and the Linnet, a brig of 16 guns, the British had the sloop Chubb, 11, and the sloop Finch, 11.13
9Macdonough's Autobiography, Life of M., Rodney M., p. 27.
10Same, p. 138.
11James's contention that the Confiance was "no more a frigate than the American ships General Pike and Madison on Lake Ontario," is not supported by his countryman, Robert Christie, who speaks of her in his Memoirs of the Administration of the Colonial Government of Lower Canada, etc., published at Quebec, 1818, as follows: "The Commissary General and Quarter-master General, in order to expedite the new frigate . . . ." He also says that "the strongest confidence prevailed in the superiority of the British vessels, their weight of metal, and the capacity and experience of their officers and crews." Two letters, hitherto unpublished, and kindly offered to the writer by Dr. Gordon Claude of Annapolis, for quotation, corroborate the evidence already available that the Confiance was much larger than the Saratoga. These letters were written on September 16, 1814, by Third Lieutenant John Claude, U. S. Infantry, one of Macomb's officers, and describe both the land and naval engagements. Referring to the latter, Lieutenant Claude writes: ". . . . their heavy ship laying alongside our sweet little brig . . . . When I looked at the difference of their size, I trembled for the little jewel, but she was true American, and damme she poured it in right 'twixt wind and water." He refers to the Confiance as "the colossus," and his phrase "the American brig" (by which he means the ship Saratoga) "though in size but a boy to a man compared to that of the British ship," has all the more weight because he saw the fight from the shore, and was impressed by the difference in size in spite of the fact that the Confiance was 400 yards farther away from him than was the Saratoga. Macdonough, in his report of May 29, described the Saratoga as follows: "She is a ship between the Pike and the Madison on Lake Ontario." As the Pike was of 875 tons, and the Madison of 593, most authorities have agreed to accept the mean between these tonnages, 734, as the tonnage of the Saratoga. Though this is an unsatisfactory way of estimating her tonnage, to say the least, there is no official record to go by. The Confiance, having guns on two decks, is conceded by British authorities to have been of over 1000 tons. She was carried for several years on our navy list in the class with the frigates Constellation, Congress, and Macedonian; as these were respectively: of 1265, 1268, and 1325 tons, the Confiance is generally considered to have been of about 1200 tons. The Essex rated as a frigate, though she was of 860 tons ; H. M. S. Bellerophon, 74, a ship-of-the-line, was of 1613 tons; our heaviest type of frigate, the Constitution, 1576. The following table compares the Confiance with frigates of the second and third classes at that time and with the Saratoga:
Long Carro- Weight of Weight of Total Crew
Tons guns nades long metal short metal metal
Confiance 1200 28* 10 672 272 944 300
Essex 860 6 40 72 1280 1352 255
Macedonian 1325 32 17 546 530 1076 301
Phoebe 1000? 30 16 424 478 902 295
Saratoga 734? 8 18 192 636 824 240
*Strictly, 27, the pivot making 14 to the broadside and the equivalent of 28, in all.
At the Naval Academy are two 24-pounder long guns taken from the Confiance. On the muzzle of one of these guns is inscribed the gunsmith's mark: "1813 Confiance." This evidence indicates roughly, that the British made plans at least eight months before the battle to build the frigate that gave them the preponderance of force on the lake.
12Sea Power, etc., p. 371. II
13These sloops were the captured Eagle and Growler, refitted.
On August 31 Prevost set out from the Richelieu on his march of invasion, and on September 2 Captain Downie took command of the British naval force at Isle aux Noix. Five days later the Confiance, which could not have taken part in the battle had her masts and spars not been furnished by traitorous American citizens, hauled from the wharf into the stream and started for the front, towed by boats against a head wind and the strong current. As her magazine had not been finished by the mechanics who swarmed over her until two hours before the battle, she dragged a bateau stowed with powder. The crew, hurriedly assembled by draughts from different ships at Quebec, were strangers to her officers, and to each other, except for 57 from I-I. M. S. Leopard. Downie and his first lieutenant, Robertson, were unacquainted with the other officers. By the night of the 8th the flagship was anchored off Chazy with the rest of the squadron, and the next day was spent at gun drill.
Downie's unnecessary haste was caused by peremptory letters from Sir George Prevost, who had brushed aside the American militia and Macomb's advanced guard, "never deploying," but "always pressing on in column,"14 had driven Macomb across the Saranac, and entered Plattsburgh on the evening of the 6th. Prevost was now impatient for Downie's co-operation, not realizing that he was urging upon the naval officer, whose problems he did not appreciate, a haste that might be fatal, and that turned out to be a probable contributing cause of defeat. The season was somewhat advanced, but not so far that a week's delay would have meant very much to Prevost. Even a day or two would have meant a great deal to Downie, handicapped as he was by the unfinished state of his most important ship and the prime necessity of drilling her crew.
14Macomb's report.
Far worse than Prevost's impatience, however, was his blindness to the demands of the situation. Since Downie was compelled to take the offensive, and since he would have the advantage on the open lake, Macdonough had wisely elected to assume the defensive, at anchor, making admirable use of the conformation of Plattsburgh Bay, which would place an attacking squadron at a serious disadvantage. There was but one flaw to make this defensive position short of ideal—Macdonough's line was not much more than a mile15 away from Macomb's .batteries. If Prevost should rush these guns, which he believed to be "heavy ordnance,"16 and which were capable of crippling the American vessels, he could, by merely turning them against Macdonough, force him to abandon his position. The British general's failure to do this, or even to attempt it, was "a grave error of judgment and of conduct,"17 to which the Americans partly owe their victory. The indictment of Prevost, as drawn up in the second of four charges preferred against him by Sir James Lucas Yeo, is somewhat exaggerated: "Charge 2. For not having stormed the American works on shore, at nearly the same time that the said naval action commenced, as he had given Captain Downie reason to expect."18 This does not agree with Macomb's report: . . . . the flotilla appeared in sight round Cumberland Head. . . . . At the same instant the batteries were opened upon us, and continued throwing bomb-shells, shrapnels, balls and Congreve rockets until sunset, when the bombardment ceased Three efforts were made by the enemy to pass the river at the commencement of the cannonade and bombardment, with a view of assaulting the works. . . . . . One attempt to cross was made at the village bridge, another at the upper bridge, and a third at a ford about three miles from the works."19 The sentence of court martial on Captain Pring and other surviving officers held on the Gladiator, at Portsmouth, corrects Yeo's charges by stating that "the promised co-operation of the land forces" was not "carried into effect.”20 Why Prevost, with over 11,000 men,21 in possession of the north bank of a fordable stream like the Saranac on the 6th, could not sweep aside Macomb's force, less than one-fourth of his in number (and about one-eighth in regulars), but sat still and waited four days, must ever remain a mystery, since Prevost's superiority was overwhelming not only in numbers but in quality.
15Mahan, p. 368. "The 24- and 32-pounder gun of that day ranged a sea mile and a half, with an elevation of less than fifteen degrees." "For information as to ranges, the author applied to Professor Philip R. Alger, U. S. Navy."
16Prevost's report, Sept. 11.
17Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, p. 367.
18James's Naval Occurrences, 1817, p. 425.
19Letter to the Secretary of War, Sept. 15.
20James, appendix, p. clxviii, No. 94.
21Macomb's reports give the number as 14,000.
The one flaw in Macdonough'S defense thus disposed of by the enemy's incompetence ashore, his carefully chosen position remains to be considered with regard to Downie's attack. The narrowness of the lake; its current setting northward toward the outlet; the length, light draught, and flat bottoms of the British vessels; the consequent impossibility of beating up against a southerly wind; these were the first premises. Compelled to run up with a northerly wind—which, when at all north, draws almost straight up the lake—Downie would find this wind light and baffling under the lee of Cumberland Head and in the bay. His lack of time, and the sudden and severe gales prevalent at that season, prevented him from waiting off the entrance for a southerly wind. If, as actually happened, the wind should be north-northeast, Downie would be able, with a working breeze inside, to set his course fairly well to the northwest—about as far up as the shoals west of the Head would allow. Macdonough therefore placed the head of his line so far north that it could not be turned, as Brieux's flank was at the Nile, yet his leading vessel, the Eagle, was not so near the northern shore as to be within range of field batteries, the heaviest pieces at Prevost's disposal. As a further precaution, to prevent if possible a raking fire against the Eagle, three galleys or gunboats were stationed forty yards inshore of her bow. Next in line was the Saratoga, making the van stronger than the rear, because if either were hard pressed or exclusively attacked the rear might be relieved from to windward, whereas the van could not be relieved from to leeward. With such a rescuing contingency in view, the Eagle mast-headed her topsail yards. Astern of the Saratoga was the Ticonderoga, then the Preble. Each of the intervals between the ships was guarded by two or three galleys in the rear.
The position of the entire line, in relation to Cumberland Head, Macomb's batteries (if captured), and the northern shore and shoal, was thought out with the utmost care, but in order to protect the rear from being flanked, the Preble must be anchored near the shoal off Crab Island. Since Macdonough's broadsides must face the entrance channel, his line could not deviate very much from a north-and-south position. He was therefore dependent upon the location of the Crab Island shoal; if this prevented him from anchoring his ships entirely out of range of the shore batteries at Plattsburgh, it allowed him to get within carronade range of any possible attack. He brought the British still further within range by canting his line slightly eastward.
Every device known to seamanship for controlling the direction of broadsides and winding ship when at anchor was thoroughly prepared. While the British, coming to anchor under fire, could provide themselves simply with springs on their cables, Macdonough had not only springs, and an anchor hung over the stern, but a kedge planted broad off each bow, with a hawser and preventer hawser from each quarter to the kedge of that side.
The space between Macdonough's vessels was said, by Henley, to be 100 yards. It was enough, evidently, to require the use of all ten of the galleys in the secondary line of defense, and this would account for the fact that he did not form several of them in an L to the eastward of the Eagle, where their fire would have been more effective during the British approach and infinitely more serviceable during the battle, by flanking and raking the British line, yet remaining comparatively free from a return fire. Galleys so stationed would have seriously engaged the Linnet's attenton, six of the ten having an armament of two guns, a long 24 and an 18-pound columbiad. It was the lack of sufficient galleys to protect the flank of the rear that induced Macdonough to mount on Crab Island the only gun he could spare, a six-pounder.
Last, but not least, he had the obvious advantage of ships at anchor—the release of the crews from working sails to manning the guns. As he was short of full complements, and had been obliged to call upon Macomb to fill not a few gaps in his personnel, he needed the services of every man as a gunner free from a sailor's tasks.
If the preparation and conduct of the defense were thus beyond criticism, the attack seems to have been in the main faultless, both in conception and execution. Macdonough's dispositions being perfectly under observation, had been communicated to Downie, who made his plans accordingly. The Confiance was to head as far north as possible, in advance of her consorts, to turn, pass along the Eagle from north to south, give her a broadside, and then anchor head and stern across the bows of the Saratoga. If possible, Downie was to lay the Confiance athwart-hawse of the Saratoga and carry her by boarding. In such an attempt, he would be favored by the higher decks of his frigate and her much larger crew—over 300 to the Saratoga's 210. The Confiance's carronades were mounted without ports purposely to belch canister upon .the American decks. The smooth water of the bay was favorable to this design, but it was also favorable to American gunnery, and if the enemy's fire proved too severe, Downie was to anchor at such a distance that Macdonough's over-proportion of carronades would be least effective. The Linnet and the Chubb were to concentrate their attention on the Eagle, opposing their 27 guns, 17 long and 10 short, to her 20, 8 long and 12 short.22 Three British vessels, including the largest, would thus grapple the two strongest of the enemy, and the comparative forces of the vans would be as follows: British van, 64 guns, 44 of them long; American van, 46 guns, 16 of them long. The Finch and the twelve galleys were to attack the little sloop Preble, and having disposed of her, were to rake the Ticonderoga. They were to make every effort to capture the Preble and turn her guns on the Ticonderoga, their object being to outflank the American van through the process of gradually eliminating the American rear.
Both squadrons were handicapped by a state of incomplete preparation, but this affected both with about the same degree of disadvantage. There had not been time on either side to train the men thoroughly at the guns, especially on the Confiance but also on the Saratoga and the Eagle. Some of the locks on the British flagship were found to be useless. On the other hand, the Ticonderoga's guns had to be fired by flashing pistols at the vents. The Eagle was so short of men to work the guns that even after borrowing 40 men from the Saratoga, she did not have enough. A few days before the battle her first lieutenant, Joseph Smith, received Macomb's permission to take 38 prisoners from the army guard-house. They were glad to have their shackles removed and take part in the fight. Just before the battle, six musicians from the army band came aboard the Eagle, and were used as powder-boys. "The wife of one of the musicians" came with them. "During the engagement" she "took the place of a powder-man who had been killed and carried cartridges in her arms to the guns. To do this she had to step over the bodies of some of the dead, and among them she recognized her husband."23
22Roosevelt's estimate of the comparative weights of metal from long and short guns in the total broadsides of the British squadron ("66O from long and 532 from short pieces") needs a slight correction, according to the statistics given under oath in the British court martial proceedings, which Mahan considers the most complete and satisfactory evidence concerning the battle. A manuscript copy of the trial, on file in the Naval War Records Library, Navy Department, contains the following:
"Account of the number and size of guns mounted on board His Majesty's Ship Confiance, George Downie, Esq., Sept. 11, 1814, viz.:
On the main deck 24 prs. long guns 26 in number.
32 prs. Carronades 4 in number.
On the round house.... 24 prs. carronades 4 in number.
On the forecastle 24 prs. long guns. 1i in number.
24 prs. carronades 2 in number.
Total 37 in number."
Roosevelt gives the Confiance 37 guns, but of these he says that "she carried on her main deck 30 long 24's, 15 in each broadside; on her poop, which came forward to the mizzen-mast, were 2 32-pound (possibly 42-pound) carronades, and on her spacious top-gallant forecastle were 4 32- (or 42-) pound carronades, and a long 24 on a pivot." He thus gives her 31 long 24's, whereas both the British court martial and Macdonough's official report give her 27, the difference of 4 making Roosevelt's estimate that the British squadron fired a total broadside of 660 pounds from long guns, a figure which should be reduced to 612, provided the rest of his reckoning is correct. The estimate 612 allows for the fact that the pivot on the Confiance gave her a broadside of 14 long 24's. Macdonough's statement is as follows: "27 long 24-pounders, 4 32-pound carronades, 6 24-pound carronades, 2 long 18's on berth deck. Guns, 39." This agrees with the British records except for the last item, for which Cooper, the authority Roosevelt quotes, accounts as follows: "The Confiance . . . . had the gun-deck of a heavy frigate, mounting . . . . 30 long 24's." He then adds, "a long 24 on a circle" on her forecastle, with "4 heavy carronades," and "2 heavy carronades" on the poop. In a foot-note he says: "There were 39 guns on board the Confiance, but two of them were not mounted, or intended to be mounted. Captain M'Donough's report was probably made on the representation of some one who had not properly examined the English ship. That given here is taken from an officer who was on board the Confiance within ten minutes after the Linnet struck, and who was in charge of her for two months." The British court martial record, thus corroborated in part, had best be taken as better evidence than Cooper's story from an officer whose name is not mentioned. Mahan, Rodney Macdonough, and James agree with the British official account.
23Story related to Rear Admiral A. S. Barker, U. S. N., retired, by Rear Admiral Joseph Smith in May, 1875, and published in the February, 1914, issue of "The Navy." Admiral Smith served as first lieutenant of the Eagle.
THE BATTLE
Shortly after sunrise on September 11 the American guard-boat pulled in and announced the approach of the enemy. There was a good working breeze at the northward and eastward.
Eight bells were striking in the American squadron as the upper sails of Downie's vessels came in sight over Cumberland Head. They were hugging the shore so as to double the point sharply. Preceded by a store-sloop, and followed by the twelve galleys under latine sails, their line, in column, was as follows: Finch, Confiance, Linnet, Chubb.
After rounding the Head and hauling up to the wind simultaneously, they were in position, in line abreast, to reach the several places assigned. While the windward three lay to, waiting for the galleys to pull up and form to leeward, the Finch ran off half way to Crab Island, then tacked, and joined the gunboats as the others filled. The reason for this maneuver is not known. Her commander, Hicks, failed to keep close enough to the wind during the approach, and could not reach his assigned position between the Ticonderoga and the Preble.
Downie had now noticed to his dismay that no co-operation by Prevost's army was visible, but he was committed to his movement by this time, and he persisted. As the first blow was to be struck by the flagship, she sailed ahead of her consorts and set her course for the Eagle.
Henley, in command of the Eagle, was impatient to test the range. Suddenly the tension of waiting was broken as he discharged in quick succession his four long 18's in broadside. The shot fell short, and he ceased firing.
Soon afterward, according to a story told to Lossing by Commodore Samuel Livingston Breese, who was commander of the gunboat Netley in the action, and James Sloan, Macdonough's clerk, "the Linnet, as she was passing to attack the Eagle, gave the Saratoga a broadside, but without serious effect. One of her shots demolished a hencoop on the Saratoga, in which was a young game-cock which some of the seamen had lately brought on board. The released fowl, startled by the noise of cannon, flew upon a gun-slide, and, clapping his wings, crowed lustily and defiantly the incident appearing to" the sailors as "ominous of victory" "At this animating sound," says Cooper, "the men spontaneously gave three cheers. This little occurrence relieved the usual breathing time . . . . and it had a powerful influence over the known tendencies of the seamen."
(“The Battle of Lake Champlain” map not replicated here.)
Diagram based on a sketch prepared by Major de Russy, U. S. A., accompanying General Macomb's official report dated September 18, 184, and a pencil sketch by Commodore Macdonough, together with official reports of American and British naval officers.
For clearness, the ships are drawn out of scale. The bow of the Eagle and the stern of the Preble indicate their respective positions. The point of Cumberland Head is about two miles from Fort Scott.
When the Eagle again opened, and Macdonough saw that her shot told, he personally sighted a long 24—his favorite gun, which he continued to sight throughout the action—and fired. The shot struck the Confiance near the outer hawse-hole and ranged the length of her deck, killing and wounding several men. All the American guns now spoke, concentrating their fire on the Confiance, but she came on in silence, while the British galleys replied to the Ticonderoga and the Preble.
Downie was still confident that if he could reach the desired position his greater proportion of long guns wouldl win the day. But he had miscalculated his own powers of endurance and the accuracy and rapidity of the American fire. The wind became light and baffling, and the frigate was already beginning to take severe punishment. Her anchors were hanging by the stoppers, ready to let go; in a few moments the port bower was cut away, as well as a spare anchor in the port fore-chains. Forced to anchor about 400 yards from the Saratoga, she came into the wind handsomely, let go a kedge, and did not fire a single shot until she was secured. Then she opened on the Saratoga with a terribly destructive broadside. By this first discharge of her 14 long 24's, double-shotted, the quoins lashed for point-blank range, the Confiance killed or wounded about forty of the Saratoga's men, or nearly one-fifth of her entire complement. Her hull shivered all over from the shock, and "after the crash had subsided, Captain Macdonough saw that near half his crew was on the deck, for many had been knocked down who sustained no real injuries."24 Among the slain was her second lieutenant, Peter Gamble, who had taken the place of her first lieutenant, Raymond Perry, absent through illness. With Gamble's loss, but one officer of his rank, Acting Lieutenant Vallette, was left in the American flagship. The crew recovered from their first test of fire immediately, and served the guns with speed and precision.
24Cooper, P. 349.
Had the fire of the Confiance maintained the deadly precision of her first broadside, she might have forced the Saratoga to surrender by decimating her crew. As it happened, however, the British were too confident of the efficacy of their prearranged device to keep their guns at the proper elevation; the quoin-lashings gradually stretched, and as the quoins loosened, the fire became less and less destructive, the shot passing higher at each successive discharge. Nearly all the hammocks in the Saratoga's netting were cut to pieces at the second broadside, and as the battle advanced, her standing rigging was cut farther and farther from the deck. Had Downie lived, he might have corrected this, but within fifteen minutes after the action began, one of the Saratoga's shot struck the muzzle of a twenty-four on board the Confiance, sent the piece bodily inboard, and killed him. Lieutenant Robertson then took command.
Meanwhile, the Linnet, standing in farther to windward, anchored nearer than the Confiance, in a very favorable position forward of the Eagle's beam. The Chubb kept under way, her commander, McGhie, intending, if possible, to rake the American line, by anchoring between the Eagle and the Saratoga, under the former's stern. When Henley saw what the Chubb was attempting,25 he sprung his whole broadside upon her. The Linnet and the Chubb were together superior to the Eagle, but Henley's quick work, concentrated on the Chubb, with the aid of the nearby galleys which guarded the interval put her out of commission. McGhie was prostrated by a not very severe wound; the sloop's "cables, bowsprit, and mainboom shot away,"26 she drifted down the American line. As she neared the Saratoga, Macdonough gave her a single shot from a bow gun; she lowered her colors, and Midshipman Platt of the flagship took possession of her and anchored her inshore. McGhie was reprimanded by the sentence of his court martial for not anchoring "so as to do the most effectual service."
25Henley's report to the Secretary of the Navy, Sept. 16.
26Pring's report to Sir James Lucas Yeo, Sept. 12.
In the rear, the Finch had failed to reach her assigned position and was edging down on the Preble's starboard quarter27 near the shoal, to rake. Most of the British galleys were closing up to her support, and dealing with the one-gun American galleys inshore of the Ticonderoga's stern. Budd found that since the wind had shifted several points more to the eastward, his spring was too short, and he was obliged to let it go entirely, and keep his broadside to bear with two sweeps out of his stern ports.27 Disturbed by the Preble's fire, the Finch tried to go about, but failed, and was raked. By this time, the American galleys had drawn back, leaving the Preble unsupported, and four British galleys, each armed with one long 24 and a 32-pound carronade; were rapidly pulling up close to the Preble's weather bow, in such a position that her broadside would not bear on them. Budd saw that "in five minutes they would have been alongside,"27 and boarding his small sloop. The alternative, to escape or be captured, was, to say the least, embarrassing. The Finch had recommenced her fire; the approaching galleys were pouring in grape and canister. Opposed to the Preble's broadside of three nine-pounders and her bow gun of the same caliber were, on the Finch and the four galleys, fourteen guns then bearing, at one time or another. The crew of the Preble numbered but 30 men; the crews of the British galleys averaged 43 to each, (if we take the mean of James's estimate, 35, and Hiram Paulding's statement, 50,) and four times this number was too much for Budd's crew to handle. To retreat would subject him to the damaging imputations that were not wanting after the battle; to be captured—and he had no means for spiking his guns —meant that the enemy would turn the Preble's broadsides on the Ticonderoga. He thought best, with the concurrence of all his officers,27 to get under way, and as he was too far to leeward to give assistance to the rest of the squadron, he cut his cable, wore round toward the Finch, which then stood off, and after giving the galleys a broadside of grape, he managed to distance them, and sailed inshore. This action was approved by Macdonough, who said: "Lt. Budd acted with propriety in getting under way with the Preble. He would otherwise have been boarded by the enemy's galleys."28 All the British galleys then swept up under the Ticonderoga's stern, followed by the Finch under her sweeps.
27Budd's report to Macdonough, Sept. 13.
28Rodney Macdonough, p. 191.
Led by the Murray, under Lieutenant James Robertson, and the Beresford, Lieutenant Bell, the gunboats swept up gallantly, again and again, within grappling distance of the Ticonderoga, and were as often repulsed. Lieutenant Cassin coolly walked the schooner's taffrail in the storm of musketry and grape, watching the enemy's movements and directing the loading of his guns with canister and bags of musket balls whenever they .attempted to close and board. Only the stern guns, as a rule, could be used. "
"To carry her by a fire poured into her stern, or to board her over the taffrail, were both most perseveringly attempted, and as gallantly, heroically, persistently, and successfully resisted. For this, next to Commodore Macdonough himself, Captain Cassin deserves to be remembered by the navy, and by the frontier which he fought to defend, so long as history shall endure. It was one of the great feats of the war, standing out prominently and challenging admiration. But for it, Commodore Macdonough, with all his genius and forecast, all his skill, gallantry, and perseverance, would have failed to conquer."29 Among the schooner's officers was Midshipman Hiram Paulding. He was but sixteen years old, but owing to the shortage of officers, he was placed in command of a division of eight guns. When it was discovered that many of the matches for firing the guns were useless, young Paulding drew his pistol and flashed it at the powder in the vent-grooves, firing the guns of his section in this way during the whole engagement.
After the Preble had left the fight, the Finch, under sweeps, managed to close with the Ticonderoga. A short, hot conflict ensued in which the Finch," about the middle of the engagement,"30 her sails and rigging cut up, and her hull shattered, became unmanageable and drifted aground on the shoals near Crab Island. She was fired on by the six-pounder there stationed, which was manned by the invalids from the naval hospital on the island, and when the Preble bore up to attack her, she surrendered.
While Cassin was doing this vitally important work of sustaining the rear, the van seemed to be approaching disaster. The Linnet, paying no attention to the American gunboats, which were making themselves very troublesome, directed her whole fire against the Eagle, aided by part of the fire of the Connfiance. Finally the Eagle's springs were shot away, "many of her starboard guns" were "disabled,"31 and she swung into the wind, hanging in such a position, Henley reported, that it was out of his power to bring a single gun to bear upon either the Linnet or the Confiance.
29James H. Ward. Naval Tactics, p. 118.
30Pring's report to Yeo.
31Henley's report to the Secretary.
At 10.30 Henley cut his cable, sheeted home his topsails, ran down behind the Saratoga, and anchored by the stern between and a little inshore of the flagship and the Ticonderoga. From this position he opened on the Confiance with his port guns without being exposed to the fire of the frigate or the brig. Evidence is not lacking that Macdonough thought Henley should have found means to maintain his most important position, but he wrote the following guarded comment in his report: "The Eagle, not being able to bring her guns to bear, cut her cable and anchored in a more eligible position . . . . unfortunately leaving me exposed to a galling fire from the enemy's brig."
The Saratoga was now in a most critical situation, for the Linnet, after driving off the American galleys, which at that end of the line were very well fought, sprung her broadside to rake the bows of the American flagship.
The Saratoga, with a broadside of 13 guns, was now under a focal fire from two vessels which had begun the action with a total broadside of 27 guns. Moreover, the British preponderance in long guns was now felt most sharply, Robertson and Pring having 22 long guns to Macdonough's 4 on the Saratoga. The raking position of the Linnet more than balanced the aid Macdonough received from the Eagle, which could reach only the Confiance. Had Downie lived, he must have thought that his plans were turning out very well.
Macdonough had been working like a sailor at his favorite twenty-four. While he was training it, a shot cut the spanker-boom in two, and a large part of the heavy spar knocked him senseless with a blow that might easily have been fatal. A cry arose that the Commodore had been killed, but he roused himself and rejoined his gun-crew. A few minutes after this accident the cry arose again that he had been slain; another shot had taken off the head of the gun-captain and driven it against him with such terrific force that he was thrown entirely across the deck and lay motionless in the port scuppers, covered with blood. This time he found great difficulty in resuming his labors. "The Saratoga was twice set on fire by hot shot from the enemy's ship," wrote Macdonough, with his own hand, in the report of September 13. Cooper states that "the Americans found a furnace on board the Confiance with eight or ten heated shot in it." The use of hot shot was entirely legitimate, but at the British court martial several officers testified that none of the English vessels fired hot shot or had furnaces. They said the hot shot came from "the American batteries on shore." There is apparently no further evidence bearing on this absurd inconsistency.
On both sides there had been great havoc among both guns and men, and the fire of the flagships had slackened very materially. One by one the Saratoga's starboard guns became disabled, either by shot or overcharging. Finally the only gun left, a carronade, on being fired, broke the navelbolt, flew off the carriage, and actually fell down the main hatch. On the Confiance's engaged side but four guns were serviceable. The Linnet's broadsides were becoming unbearable.
But Macdonough's foresight had provided the means for bringing the Saratoga's first broadside to bear, and snatching victory from defeat. Like John Paul Jones, he had "not yet begun to fight."
The order was given to wind ship. Her bow pointing north-ward, and the wind not veering much from the north-northeast, she was to be turned end for end, her bow swinging westward and then south. At such a crisis, the maneuver was far from an easy one. The stern anchor was let go, its cable slacked, and strain taken on the line leading from the starboard quarter to the kedge planted off the starboard bow. The riding bow cable was paid off, permitting the bow to swing freely to port, westward, under .the influence of the wind and the strain on the starboard quarter line. The stern was thus hauled to the northeastward, and exposed to the Linnet's raking fire.
Thereupon the hawser leading from the port quarter to the in-shore kedge—planted originally off the port bow—was shifted forward, dipped round the bow, and led aft to the starboard quarter. By heaving on this line, the stern was sprung farther westward until the aftermost port gun bore. This gun was immediately fired, then the next, and a moment later the entire fresh broadside opened with fatal effect. It was the decisive moment of the action, and of Macdonough's life.
The Confiance, her fire now limited to four guns, had perforce attempted to follow the Saratoga's example, but without success. She had had shot away, one after another, the anchors and ropes upon which she depended for such a maneuver. An effort was made to swing her by a new spring on the bow cable, but she got only so far round, in this slow process, as to expose her bow, nearly at right angles, to the raking fire of the Saratoga and the Eagle, and hung in that position. "The ship's company," reported Lieutenant Robertson, then "declared they would stand no longer to their quarters, nor could the officers with their utmost exertions rally them." The men were being cut down by a merciless fire; the frigate was in a sinking condition, kept afloat by running her guns to the starboard side so as to bring the shot-holes out of water. On the lower deck, the wounded had to be continually moved, to prevent their being drowned where they lay. She had lost in killed and wounded over half her crew of 300; her masts had been splintered until, as Midshipman Lea wrote, they looked, with the spars, "like so many bunches of matches," and the sails "like a bundle of old rags." The young prisoner concluded his letter to his brother by saying "There is one of our marines who was in the Trafalgar action with Lord Nelson, who says it was a mere flea-bite in comparison with this." About 11 o'clock the Confiance struck her colors.
Macdonough then hauled on his starboard quarter-line, slacking the port-quarter-line, and turned his broadside on the Linnet.
After the swarm of galleys under the Ticonderoga's stern had made a last desperate assault, several of them getting almost within a boathook's length of her taffrail, they were forced to draw off, so crippled by the slaughter they had suffered from Cassin's guns that they could hardly man the oars. They made their way slowly out of range.
Pring won lasting fame by fighting the Linnet for fifteen minutes after the Confiance surrendered. "The shattered and disabled state of the masts, sails, rigging and yards," he reported, "precluded the most distant hope of being able to effect an escape by cutting the cable. The result of doing so must in a few minutes have been her drifting along side the enemy's vessels, close under our lee; but in the hope the flotilla of gunboats, who had abandoned the object assigned them, would perceive our wants and come to our assistance, which would afford a reasonable prospect of being towed clear, I determined to resist . . . . and . . . . despatched Lt. H. Drew to ascertain the state of the Confiance." When Drew returned with the news of Downie's death, Pring surrendered "his Majesty's brig . . . . to prevent a useless waste of valuable lives." He richly deserves to be remembered, with Macdonough and Cassin as one of the notable heroes of the battle.
The British galleys had been drifting away to leeward, and now that all the larger vessels had hauled down their colors, they moved slowly off, pulling but a very few sweeps, and escaped. Macdonough signalled his galleys to give chase, but finding soon afterward that their men were needed at the pumps of several ships, he revoked the order.
The action had lasted two hours and twenty minutes. On both sides the damage to hulls and rigging was unusually severe. Not a mast in either squadron would bear making sail. The Saratoga had 55 shot-holes in her hull; the Confiance 105, many of them between wind and water. The Americans had a total of 52 killed and 58 wounded, the latter figure indicating only hospital cases. In all, 194 killed and wounded were taken out of the British ships; besides the known dead, 84, many bodies had been thrown overboard, and there must have been considerable loss in the galleys.
"At dusk," Macomb reported, "the enemy withdrew his artillery from the batteries and raised the siege; and at 9, under cover of the night, sent off in a great hurry all the baggage he could find transport for, and also his artillery. At 2 the next morning the whole army precipitately retreated, leaving the sick and wounded." After the loss of Downie's squadron, Prevost had no other course but retreat, as the Duke of Wellington agreed.
"The battle of Lake Champlain," in the words of Mahan, "more nearly than any other incident of the War of 1812 merits the epithet 'decisive'". James H. Ward, in his Manual of Naval Tactics, analyzes Macdonough's defense as an ideal example in the chapter devoted to Fighting Fleets at Anchor, comparing it with Sir Samuel Hood's relief of St. Christopher's in 1782 and the Battle of the Nile. He states, in conclusion, "that the careful student will find in history no general action fought at anchor more instructive, therefore more worthy of his attentive notice, close study indeed, than this, viewed in whatever aspect—whether in reference to the attack or the defence, the personnel or the material, skill or science, gunnery or seamanship, or as furnishing examples, in most of these respects, of warning as well as for imitation."
Of Macdonough, who was thirty years old at the time of the battle (and who is generally considered to have been twenty-eight, owing, possibly, to an erroneous statement to that effect in Niles's Register), Roosevelt speaks in the highest terms: "Macdonough in this battle won a higher fame than any other commander of the war, British or American. He had a decidedly superior force to contend against . . . . and it was solely owing to his foresight and resource that we won the victory. . . . . His skill, seamanship, quick eye, readiness of resource, and indomitable pluck are beyond all praise. Down to the time of the Civil War he is the greatest figure in our naval history. A thoroughly religious man, he was as generous and humane as he was skilful and brave; one of the greatest of our sea-captains, he has left a stainless name behind him."