 Saratoga | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States | |
| Name | USS Saratoga |
| Builder | Adam and Noah Brown |
| Laid down | 7 March 1814 |
| Launched | 11 April 1814 |
| Fate | Sold, 1825 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Corvette |
| Displacement | 734 long tons (746 t) |
| Length | 143 ft (44 m) |
| Beam | 36 ft 6 in (11.13 m) |
| Draft | 12 ft 6 in (3.81 m) |
| Propulsion | Sail |
| Complement | 212 officers and men |
| Armament |
|
USS Saratoga was a corvette built in Vergennes, Vermont, for service on Lake Champlain in the War of 1812. [1] She was named for the Battles of Saratoga.
Saratoga was laid down on 7 March 1814, launched on 11 April 1814 and she was christened April 6, the day that Napoleon abdicated. She was a Corvette weighing 734 tons, 143' long with a beam of 36'6" and a depth of hold 12'6". She had a complement of 212 with an armament of eight long 24-pounders, six 42-pounder carronades and twelve 32-pounder carronades. The Saratoga began her service on Lake Champlain as England was turning her attention and resources from the European continent to North America. British strategy envisaged a series of amphibious raids along the American coast as a diversion to cover a lethal thrust south from Canada down the strategic and already historic Lake Champlain-Hudson River corridor.
However, the completion of Saratoga put the United States ahead in the naval construction race on Lake Champlain; and Sir George Prévost, the Governor General of Canada and top British military commander in America, felt that supremacy afloat was a prerequisite to a successful invasion of the United States through the state of New York. He, therefore, delayed the start of his campaign until new naval construction had tipped the balance back in his favor.
Meanwhile, Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough, commander of American naval forces on the lake, took advantage of the edge which Saratoga had given him and sailed to the mouth of the Richelieu River. He proceeded to blockade the Richelieu for most of the following summer. Up the river at Ile aux Noix, the little British fleet, protected by shore batteries and by the river's narrow and tricky channel, waited while English shipwrights worked feverishly to complete HMS Confiance. The British launched the Confiance on 25 August 1814. She was a 36-gun frigate hastily fitted out for battle and the largest warship ever to sail on Lake Champlain.
Master Commandant Macdonough, commanding officer of Saratoga as well as of the other American forces on the lake, had sailed back south. He had proceeded around Cumberland Head, New York; and entered Plattsburgh Bay. There, he deployed his ships across the mouth of the harbor in a strong defensive position where when the British fleet would attack them, they would be at a disadvantage of having to slowly and laboriously approach the line of American broadsides, against the wind and unable to bring most of their guns to bear.
As Master Commandant MacDonough awaited the arrival of the enemy, he dropped kedge anchors and arranged spring lines, which afforded his ships maximum maneuverability. He then had the crews practice turning their ships so that alternately starboard and port guns would face south.
During the construction race, crack British troops — veterans hardened in Wellington's bloody Peninsular Campaign — had been rushed from Spain to the St. Lawrence for the impending offensive. Before the end of August, the British Army had begun to march south along the western shore of Lake Champlain. Badly outnumbered, American ground forces withdrew before the English advance, crossed the Saranac River, and took prepared positions on the bluffs which overlook Plattsburgh Bay. On the morning of 11 September, when Commodore George Downie led the British squadron around Cumberland Head, Macdonough was ready. As British brig, Linnet, approached firing range, she opened the action with a salvo toward Saratoga. All but one of the projectiles fell short; and that solid shot was all but spent as it landed on the American corvette, bounced across her deck, and smashed a wooden poultry cage freeing a gamecock. The indignant rooster took to his wings and landed in the rigging. Facing the British warships, the cock defiantly called out challenge to battle.
Macdonough, himself, aimed a long 24-pounder at the bow of Confiance, pulled the lanyard firing Saratoga's first round, and gave the signal, "close action." The shot cut the British flagship's anchor cable, ripped up her deck, and smashed her helm. Then, all the American ships opened fire.
Confiance's first broadside struck Saratoga from point blank range, and the American flagship reeled from the blow. Half of her men were felled by the shock; but most of the sailors picked themselves up, carried their dead and wounded comrades below, and returned to the fray. Since Confiance's green gunners failed to reset the elevation of their barrels, each of her subsequent volleys tended to be higher than its predecessor and, while shredding Saratoga's rigging, did little structural damage to the ship.
After almost two hours' fighting, Saratoga's last serviceable starboard gun, a carronade, broke loose from its carriage and hurtled down the main hatch. Macdonough then dropped a stern anchor; cut his bow cable; and, with the help of tars hauling on lines to kedge anchors, swung the ship around bringing her fresh, port, broadside guns to bear on the enemy.
The badly battered British flagship, with Downie and her first lieutenant dead, also attempted to wind ship but was unable to do so. Helpless to do further harm to her adversary, Confiance struck her colors.
Then, by pulling on her starboard kedge line, Saratoga's sailors turned the corvette's guns toward Linnet and opened fire. The British brig, although severely damaged and unable to move, gallantly kept up the fight for about an hour before surrendering. At that time, Finch and Chub, the other two relatively large warships in the British squadron, were already in American hands; so the surviving English gunboats fled toward Canada.
Macdonough's victory in Plattsburgh Bay left the United States unchallenged on Lake Champlain and forced Prevost to retreat to Canada. This weakened the British position in negotiations at Ghent and enabled American commissioners to secure a favorable rather than a humiliating peace. It also helped to restore American morale after the recent burning of Washington, D.C.
After the war, Saratoga was laid up until sold at Whitehall, New York, in 1825.
Saratoga Passage, a body of water in Puget Sound, was named after the ship.
The Battle of Plattsburgh, also known as the Battle of Lake Champlain, ended the final British invasion of the northern states of the United States during the War of 1812. Two British forces, an army under Lieutenant General Sir George Prévost and a naval squadron under Captain George Downie converged on the lakeside town of Plattsburgh, New York. Plattsburgh was defended by New York and Vermont militia and detachments of regular troops of the United States Army, all under the command of Brigadier General Alexander Macomb, and ships commanded by Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough.
In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term sloop-of-war encompassed all the unrated combat vessels, including the very small gun-brigs and cutters. In technical terms, even the more specialised bomb vessels and fireships were classed as sloops-of-war, and in practice these were employed in the sloop role when not carrying out their specialised functions.
HMS Detroit was a 20-gun sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in July 1813 and serving on Lake Erie during the War of 1812. She was the most powerful British ship in the Lake Erie squadron until the Americans captured her during the Battle of Lake Erie on 10 September 1813. Detroit was commissioned into the United States Navy as its first USS Detroit. However, she was so damaged that the sloop took no further part in the war. Postwar, Detroit was sunk for preservation at Misery Bay off Presque Isle until 1833, when she was refloated and converted for commercial service. In 1841, Detroit was reduced to a hulk at Buffalo, New York where she was purchased with the intent of sending her over Niagara Falls. The plan went awry and Detroit ran aground on a shoal before the falls and broke up.
USS Growler was a 112-ton sloop-of-war, armed with ten 18-pounders and one 6-pounder, during the War of 1812. The United States Navy purchased Growler on Lake Champlain in 1812. The British captured her in 1813 and renamed her HMS Chub or Chubb. The Americans recaptured her at the Battle of Lake Champlain. She was sold in 1815.
USS Eagle, was a ship which served in the United States Navy in 1813-1815. Originally a merchant sloop, she was purchased at Vergennes, Vermont on Lake Champlain in 1812 and fitted as either sloop of war or brig for naval service. The British captured her in 1813 and renamed her HMS Finch, only to lose her back to the Americans at the Battle of Lake Champlain in 1814. She was sold in 1815.
USS General Pike was a corvette in the United States Navy, which took part in Engagements on Lake Ontario during the Anglo-American War of 1812. She was launched in June 1813 and took part in several indecisive battles on the Great Lakes. She was laid up at the end of the war and was sold in 1825.
HMS Royal George was a British 20-gun wooden sloop of the Provincial Marine, and subsequently, the Royal Navy, operating on Lake Ontario during the War of 1812. The vessel took part in several Engagements on Lake Ontario and was the flagship of the Provincial Marine at the First Battle of Sackett's Harbor. In 1814, the vessel was renamed Niagara. Following the war, the sloop was converted to a transport and sold in 1837.
HMS St Lawrence was a 102-gun first-rate wooden warship of the Royal Navy that served on Lake Ontario during the War of 1812. Built on the lake at the Royal Navy dockyard in Kingston, Ontario, she was the only Royal Navy ship of the line ever to be launched and operated entirely in fresh water. Constructed in 1814, the ship's arrival on the lake ended all naval action and St Lawrence finished the war having never gone into battle. Following the war, the vessel was laid up, eventually being sold in 1832 to private interests. The ship was later sunk and is now a recreational dive spot.
HMS Confiance was a 36-gun fifth-rate frigate that served in the Royal Navy on Lake Champlain during the War of 1812. Confiance served as Captain George Downie's flagship at the Battle of Plattsburgh, on 11 September 1814. Surrendered to the American Squadron following a nearly 2½ hour battle, she was eventually taken to Whitehall, New York where she was taken into the U.S. Navy and placed in ordinary. The vessel was formally abandoned by the Navy in 1820 and after being partially salvaged, was allowed to sink at her moorings. As a danger to navigation, the sunken hulk was destroyed with dynamite charges during dredging operations on the channel in 1873.
The capture of HMS Epervier was a naval action fought off the coast of Florida near Cape Canaveral on 28 April 1814, between the United States ship-rigged sloop-of-war USS Peacock, commanded by Master Commandant Lewis Warrington, and the British Cruizer-class brig-sloop Epervier under Commander Richard Wales. The Americans captured the British vessel after a one-sided cannonade, but the British merchant convoy escaped.
The capture of HMS Cyane and HMS Levant was an action which took place at the end of the Anglo-US portion of the War of 1812. The two British warships HMS Cyane and HMS Levant fought USS Constitution on 20 February 1815, about 100 miles east of Madeira. Following exchanges of broadsides and musket fire, both Cyane and Levant surrendered. The war had actually finished a few days before the action with the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent by both sides, but the combatants were not aware of this.
Thomas Macdonough, Jr. was an early-19th-century Irish-American naval officer noted for his roles in the first Barbary War and the War of 1812. He was the son of a revolutionary officer, Thomas Macdonough, Sr. who lived near Middletown, Delaware. He was the sixth child from a family of ten siblings and was raised in the countryside. He entered naval life at an early age, receiving a midshipman's commission at the age of sixteen. Serving with Stephen Decatur at Tripoli, he was a member of "Preble's Boys", a select group of U.S. naval officers who served under the command of Commodore Preble during the First Barbary War. Macdonough achieved fame during the War of 1812, commanding the American naval forces that defeated the British navy at the Battle of Lake Champlain, part of the larger Battle of Plattsburgh, which helped lead to an end to that war.
HMS Linnet was a 16-gun brig, built in 1814 by the Royal Navy at Ile aux Noix, Canada, as Niagara. Renamed Linnet and commanded by Commander Daniel Pring, RN, she served on Lake Champlain during the War of 1812. The Americans captured her in 1814 at the Battle of Lake Champlain at Plattsburgh, New York, and took her into service though she never sailed again. She was sold in 1825.
HMS Wolfe was a 20-gun sloop-of-war, launched at the Kingston Royal Naval Dockyard at Kingston, Upper Canada, on 22 April 1813. She served in the British naval squadron in several engagements on Lake Ontario during the War of 1812. Upon her launch, Wolfe was made the flagship of the squadron until larger vessels became available. Along with the naval engagements on Lake Ontario, Wolfe supported land operations in the Niagara region and at the Battle of Fort Oswego. Following the war, the vessel was laid up in reserve and eventually sold in 1832.
George Downie was a Scottish officer of the British Royal Navy. During the War of 1812, he commanded a British squadron that fought an American squadron on Lake Champlain in the Battle of Plattsburgh, during which he was killed.
Daniel Pring was an officer in the British Royal Navy. He is best known for the part he played in the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States.
HMS Vengeance was originally the 48-gun French Navy frigate Vengeance and lead ship of her class. She engaged USS Constellation during the Quasi-War, in an inconclusive engagement that left both ships heavily damaged. During the French Revolutionary Wars, HMS Seine hunted Vengeance down and captured her after a sharp action. She was recommissioned in the Royal Navy as the 38-gun fifth rate HMS Vengeance, but the British apparently never returned her to seagoing service. Accounts are divided as to her eventual fate. She may have been broken up in 1803 after grounding in 1801, or continued as a prison ship until 1814.
HMS Peacock was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1806 and had a relatively uneventful career until she had the misfortune to encounter USS Hornet in February 1813. Hornet captured Peacock, which then sank.
Départment des Landes was a corvette of the French Navy, launched in 1804. She was damaged in 1814 and subsequently decommissioned. She was finally broken up around 1829-30.
The first USS Trumbull was a row galley built in 1776 at Skenesboro, New York, for service in General Benedict Arnold's fleet on Lake Champlain. She was launched on 10 September 1776 and began active service soon thereafter, Capt. Seth Warner in command.