Battles of the American War of Independence

3–4 March 1776 · New Providence, Bahamas

American success; guns and stores carried off

The first operation of the Continental Navy. Congress had sent Commodore Esek Hopkins to clear British ships off Virginia and the Carolinas, but he took his little squadron to the Bahamas instead, after the gunpowder stored at Nassau. About 250 Continental Marines and sailors landed east of the town, in the Marines' first landing, and took Fort Montagu and then Fort Nassau without a fight. The governor had shipped most of the powder away the night before, but the raiders loaded 88 cannon, mortars and shot, and took the governor home as a prisoner.

6 April 1776 · Off Block Island, Rhode Island

British escape; Glasgow got away

Coming home from Nassau loaded with captured stores, Hopkins's squadron met the 20-gun Glasgow in the night. The American ships went into action one at a time, Cabot first and Alfred next; Glasgow shot away Alfred's wheel ropes and badly damaged Cabot, then ran for Newport, chasing her pursuers off with her stern guns. Five American ships had failed to take one British one, and Hopkins was soon in trouble with Congress for this and for ignoring his orders. One captain was dismissed.

28 June 1776 · Charleston harbour, South Carolina

American victory; the attack on Charleston given up

A British expedition under Sir Peter Parker and General Clinton came to take Charleston. Parker's ships anchored off the unfinished fort on Sullivan's Island and bombarded it all day, but its walls of soft palmetto logs and sand absorbed the shot, and Colonel Moultrie's gunners, short of powder, fired slowly and well. Three frigates sent round to take the fort from behind ran aground on a shoal. Parker's flagship Bristol was badly hit and he was wounded. The British withdrew, and the South was left alone for more than two years. The fort was named Fort Moultrie, and South Carolina put the palmetto on its flag.

11–13 October 1776 · Lake Champlain, between Valcour Island and the New York shore

British victory, but too late in the year to take Ticonderoga

The British meant to come down Lake Champlain from Canada and cut New England off from the other colonies. Benedict Arnold built a fleet of gondolas and galleys on the lake and anchored it in the channel behind Valcour Island, where the British, carried south by the wind, had to beat back up to reach him. His fleet was badly beaten in an afternoon, but slipped past the British in the fog that night. Over the next two days most of it was caught or burned. The British had spent the summer building their own fleet, though, and with winter coming they went back to Canada. When they came again in 1777 the delay helped bring about the surrender at Saratoga.

24 April 1778 · North Channel, off Carrickfergus, Belfast Lough

American victory; Drake captured

John Paul Jones had brought the war to British waters, raiding Whitehaven the day before. Off Carrickfergus he lured out the sloop Drake, whose crew was half made up of new hands and volunteers. The two ships fought for an hour; Drake's captain and first lieutenant were killed, her rigging was cut to pieces and she struck. It was the first time a Continental ship had taken a British warship in British waters.

27 July 1778 · Atlantic, about 100 miles west of Ushant

Indecisive

The first fleet action after France entered the war. Admiral Keppel's Channel Fleet met d'Orvilliers' Brest fleet, about thirty ships of the line a side, and the two lines passed each other on opposite tacks firing as they went. Keppel's signal to re-form and attack again was not obeyed by Sir Hugh Palliser in the rear, and the French slipped back into Brest. No ship was lost, but the quarrel between the two admirals became a political storm: both were court-martialled, and both were acquitted.

10 August 1778 · Coromandel Coast, off Pondicherry

Indecisive; Tronjoly then abandoned Pondicherry

News of the war reached India in July, and the British at once marched on Pondicherry, the chief French town in India, while Commodore Sir Edward Vernon blockaded it from the sea. The French squadron under Tronjoly came out and the two small squadrons fought for two hours before Vernon drew off to repair. When he came back ten days later Tronjoly did not fight again: he sailed for Mauritius and left Pondicherry to its fate. It surrendered in October, and the French had no squadron in Indian waters until Suffren came three years later.

15 December 1778 · Grand Cul de Sac, St Lucia

British victory; St Lucia held

Rear-Admiral Barrington had landed troops on St Lucia and taken it when d'Estaing arrived from Martinique with nearly twice his strength and 9,000 troops. Barrington anchored his ships in a tight line across the mouth of the Grand Cul de Sac, with the transports behind them, and d'Estaing twice sailed past firing and was beaten off. The French troops he landed were bloodily repulsed by the British on the Vigie peninsula three days later, and at the end of the month d'Estaing gave up. St Lucia became the base from which Rodney watched the French at Fort Royal.

6 July 1779 · Off St George's, Grenada

French victory

D'Estaing had just taken Grenada when Vice-Admiral Byron arrived with a convoy and a fleet to win it back. Byron attacked in a hurry, thinking the French weaker than they were, and his leading ships were badly mauled; four were left crippled. D'Estaing did not follow up, and Byron got his fleet away, but Grenada stayed French until the peace. It was the Royal Navy's worst result in a fleet action of the war.

25 July – 15 August 1779 · Penobscot Bay and River, Maine (then part of Massachusetts)

British victory; the American fleet destroyed

Massachusetts sent the largest American fleet of the war, the Continental frigate Warren with state navy ships, privateers and transports, to throw the British out of a new fort at Majabigwaduce (Castine). The troops landed but never stormed the fort, and Commodore Saltonstall would not attack the three sloops guarding it. After nearly three weeks a British squadron under Sir George Collier arrived from New York. The American ships fled up the Penobscot River, and their crews ran them ashore and burned them; two were captured. It was the worst defeat of an American fleet until Pearl Harbor. Saltonstall was dismissed, and the artillery commander, Paul Revere, was court-martialled and cleared.

23 September 1779 · North Sea, off Flamborough Head, Yorkshire

American victory

John Paul Jones had sailed right round the British Isles with a small squadron flying American colours when he met the Baltic convoy and its escort off Flamborough Head. His old converted merchantman, Bonhomme Richard, was outgunned by the new Serapis, and two of her heaviest guns burst early on. Jones lashed his ship to the Serapis so her guns could not be brought to bear, and for three hours by moonlight the two fought yardarm to yardarm. When asked if he had struck, Jones is supposed to have answered that he had not yet begun to fight. In the end a grenade dropped through a hatch set off powder on Serapis's gun deck, and Captain Pearson surrendered. The convoy got away safely, and Bonhomme Richard was too badly wrecked to save.

16–17 January 1780 · Off Cape St Vincent, Portugal

Decisive British victory

Rodney was taking a convoy to relieve besieged Gibraltar when he found Don Juan de Lángara's squadron off Cape St Vincent, outnumbered almost two to one. He signalled a general chase, and his ships, many of them newly sheathed in copper and faster than the Spanish, ran them down through a stormy night. Santo Domingo blew up, and Lángara's flagship and five more ships struck, though two of them were retaken by their crews in the gale that followed. It was rare for a battle under sail to be fought in the dark; that, and the bright moon, gave it its name. Gibraltar was supplied for the year, and two of the prizes were soon fighting for Britain off India.

17 April 1780 · Channel between Martinique and Dominica

Indecisive

Rodney's first fleet action in the West Indies. He meant to bring his whole fleet down on the French rear and crush it before Guichen could turn to help, but his captains read his signal to mean each ship should attack the ship opposite her, as the Fighting Instructions said, and the British line spread out along the whole French line instead. Rodney's Sandwich fought her way through to the French centre almost alone. Neither side lost a ship. Rodney was furious and blamed his captains publicly; the lesson was not forgotten when he broke the French line at the Saintes two years later.

9 August 1780 · Atlantic, west of Cape St Vincent

Franco-Spanish victory; 55 merchantmen taken

A huge convoy for the East and West Indies, guarded only by the Ramillies and two frigates, sailed straight into the combined fleet of Spain and France under Don Luis de Córdova, cruising off Cape St Vincent. Moutray's escort and eight ships got away; 55 merchantmen were taken into Cádiz with about 3,000 seamen and soldiers, and stores, uniforms and arms for the armies in America and India. It was the greatest single loss of British shipping in the eighteenth century, and Moutray was court-martialled.

16 March 1781 · Off the Virginia Capes

Indecisive; the French went back to Newport

Washington asked the French squadron at Newport to carry troops to Virginia to trap Benedict Arnold, now a British general. Destouches sailed, but Arbuthnot followed from New York and caught him off the Capes. The French line did the British van serious damage, but Destouches did not press on into the bay: he went back to Newport, and Arbuthnot's ships anchored in the Chesapeake and kept it open for the British army. Six months later the same waters saw the battle that decided the war.

16 April 1781 · Porto Praya, Santiago, Cape Verde Islands

Indecisive; Suffren reached the Cape first

Both sides were racing to the Cape of Good Hope: Commodore Johnstone to take it from the Dutch, Suffren to save it. Johnstone had stopped for water in the neutral Portuguese harbour of Porto Praya when Suffren came round the point and, without waiting for his other ships, sailed straight in and anchored among the British. In the confused fight that followed Annibal lost all her masts and two French captains were killed; Suffren had to tow her out. But the British were too disorganised to follow quickly, and Suffren got to the Cape first and landed troops. Johnstone found it defended and had to content himself with taking Dutch East Indiamen in Saldanha Bay. Among the prizes the French kept was the Indiaman Hinchinbrooke, with a copy of the British signal book.

29 April 1781 · Off Fort Royal, Martinique

French victory; the convoy got into Fort Royal

De Grasse came out from Brest with a large convoy and a fleet of more than twenty ships of the line. Hood had been posted to leeward of Martinique to stop him, and could not work up to windward in time. The French fleet kept him at long range for four hours while the convoy slipped into Fort Royal; several British ships were badly hit and Hood drew off. De Grasse went on to take Tobago, and in August sailed north to the Chesapeake.

5 August 1781 · North Sea, on the Dogger Bank

Indecisive; the Dutch convoy turned back

Two squadrons each escorting a convoy, a British one coming home from the Baltic under Hyde Parker and a Dutch one bound for the Baltic under Johan Zoutman, met on the Dogger Bank. With no manoeuvring at all the two lines fought at close range for nearly four hours, until both were too battered to go on. The Dutch Holland sank the next day. The Dutch convoy went back to the Texel, and the Dutch fleet hardly left port for the rest of the war. Parker blamed the old ships he had been given, and resigned.

5 September 1781 · Off the Virginia Capes, at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay

French strategic victory; Cornwallis cut off at Yorktown

Cornwallis's army had dug in at Yorktown, waiting for the navy. De Grasse got there first, bringing his whole fleet up from the West Indies. When Graves arrived from New York, de Grasse came out of the bay to meet him. Only the vans and centres of the two fleets came properly into action, partly because of Graves's confusing signals, and after two hours' fighting at sunset the fleets drifted apart. For several days they manoeuvred within sight of each other, while de Barras's squadron slipped into the bay behind them with the siege guns from Newport. Graves, with several ships badly damaged, went back to New York, and Cornwallis surrendered on 19 October. The war on land in America was over.

12 December 1781 · Bay of Biscay, west of Ushant

British victory; the French convoy broken up

Guichen sailed from Brest with nineteen ships of the line escorting a great convoy of troops and stores for de Grasse in the West Indies and Suffren in India. Kempenfelt, sent out with only twelve ships to intercept it, found the escort to leeward of the convoy, swept down and took fifteen transports with more than a thousand soldiers before Guichen could come up. He could not fight nineteen ships of the line and drew off, but a gale scattered the French a few days later and most of the convoy went back to Brest. The reinforcements de Grasse needed for the attack on Jamaica never came.

25–26 January 1782 · Basseterre Roads and Frigate Bay, St Kitts

British tactical victory; the island fell anyway

De Grasse had landed troops on St Kitts and was besieging Brimstone Hill when Hood came up with a smaller fleet. Hood drew de Grasse out to sea, then slipped round him and took the anchorage the French had just left, mooring his ships in a line so close that the French could not get between them. De Grasse attacked three times over two days and was beaten off each time. But the fortress on Brimstone Hill surrendered on 13 February, and the next night Hood cut his cables and slipped away in the dark. It was thought one of the finest pieces of seamanship of the century.

17 February 1782 · Coromandel Coast, off Sadras, south of Madras

Indecisive

The first of five battles in eighteen months between Sir Edward Hughes and the Bailli de Suffren, two admirals evenly matched in everything but their idea of tactics. Hughes had just taken the Dutch harbour of Trincomalee in Ceylon; Suffren, arriving off Madras with more ships, found Hughes there and went after the British convoy. Hughes chased him, and Suffren turned to fight. He tried to double on the British rear, where Exeter and Superb were badly cut up, but his captains did not follow him closely, and the fight ended at dusk with no ship lost. Suffren's quarrel with his captains ran through the whole campaign.

8 April 1782 · Delaware Bay, off Cape May

American victory; General Monk captured

Joshua Barney, 23 years old, was escorting a convoy of merchantmen down the Delaware in the Hyder Ally when a British frigate, a sloop of war and a Loyalist privateer came into the bay after them. One of Barney's consorts ran aground and was abandoned. Barney waited for the General Monk, called out a false order loud enough for the British to hear and turn the wrong way, and raked her as she swung. In 26 minutes she struck with her captain wounded and most of her officers dead. The Loyalist brig ran aground, the frigate gave up, and the convoy got to sea.

12 April 1782 · Between Dominica and Les Saintes, south of Guadeloupe

Decisive British victory

De Grasse sailed from Martinique to join the Spanish for an invasion of Jamaica, and Rodney caught him in the channel off the Saintes. As the two lines passed on opposite tacks a shift in the wind opened gaps in the French line, and Rodney's Formidable, then the Duke and Bedford, sailed through them, cutting the French fleet into three. Five ships were captured, among them the huge Ville de Paris with de Grasse himself; the César caught fire and blew up that night. A week later Hood took two more ships of the line in the Mona Passage. Jamaica was safe, and Britain could negotiate the peace from strength. Breaking the line became the model Nelson would follow.

12 April 1782 · Off the islet of Providien, south of Trincomalee, Ceylon

Indecisive

Fought on the same day as the Saintes, half a world away. Hughes was taking reinforcements to Trincomalee when Suffren caught him off the coast of Ceylon. Suffren brought his centre down hard on the British centre, and Héros, Orient and Brillant pounded the Monmouth until she lost her main and mizzen masts and fell out of the line; Héros was so badly hit that Suffren shifted his flag to Ajax. Casualties were the heaviest of the five battles, about 130 killed on each side. Both fleets then anchored within sight of each other for a week to repair, and parted without fighting again.

19 April 1782 · Mona Passage, between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico

British victory; two ships of the line taken

Rodney had not pursued after the Saintes, and Hood, who thought twenty French ships might have been taken, was sent after the stragglers. In the Mona Passage he caught two damaged ships of the line and two frigates on their way to join the Spanish at Cap-Français. HMS Valiant took both Jason and Caton, and the frigate Aimable and the corvette Cérès were taken too.

6 July 1782 · Coromandel Coast, off Negapatam

Indecisive

Suffren was on his way to attack Negapatam, which the British had taken from the Dutch, when he found Hughes waiting for him. Ajax had lost a mast in a squall the night before and could not join the line. The fleets fought ship against ship until a shift in the wind threw both lines into confusion. In the mêlée the Sévère's captain struck his colours to the Sultan, but his officers hoisted them again and went on fighting, and the Sultan was too battered to take possession. Suffren sent three of his captains home in disgrace after the battle.

3 September 1782 · Off Trincomalee, Ceylon

Indecisive; Trincomalee stayed French

Joined by reinforcements under Bussy, Suffren landed troops at Trincomalee and took its forts on 31 August, two days before Hughes arrived to save it. With the harbour won, Suffren still went out to fight. His line was ragged, Héros lost her main and mizzen masts and had to be towed by the Sphinx, and Vengeur caught fire, and the van and rear hardly came into action. Hughes went back to Madras. Suffren now had the best harbour on that side of the Bay of Bengal, but on the way back into it the Orient ran on a reef and was lost, and a month later the Bizarre was wrecked near Cuddalore.

13–14 September 1782 · Bay of Gibraltar, under the walls of the Rock

British victory; the floating batteries destroyed

Gibraltar had been under siege by Spain since 1779. For the great attack the French engineer d'Arçon designed ten floating batteries, old ships cut down and given thick sloping sides of timber, sand and cork, with water pumped through their walls to put out fires. They anchored off the sea wall and opened fire, but the garrison under General Eliott answered with red-hot shot heated in furnaces. By evening the batteries were burning; one by one they blew up or were set on fire by their own crews. Captain Roger Curtis's gunboats rowed among the wrecks under fire and rescued several hundred Spanish sailors. A month later Lord Howe brought a convoy through, and the siege ended with the war.

20 October 1782 · Off Cape Spartel, at the Atlantic mouth of the Strait of Gibraltar

Indecisive; Gibraltar relieved

Lord Howe brought the Channel Fleet and a great convoy through the Strait and supplied Gibraltar under the eyes of the combined fleet of Spain and France. As he came back out, Córdova followed him with a fleet of about equal size and attacked at long range off Cape Spartel. The fighting lasted about five hours, mostly in the van and rear, and no ship was lost. Howe did not try to fight it out, since his task was done; Gibraltar held out until the peace.

20 June 1783 · Coromandel Coast, off Cuddalore

French victory; the siege of Cuddalore raised

The last battle of the war, fought five months after the peace preliminaries were signed in Europe. A British army was besieging the French at Cuddalore, and Hughes's fleet, now reinforced to eighteen ships of the line, lay off the town to support it. Suffren came up with fifteen, having borrowed 1,200 soldiers from the garrison to fill his crews, and directed the battle from a frigate, the Cléopâtre. After three hours' fighting in line the fleets parted. Hughes, short of water and with his crews sick with scurvy, sailed for Madras, and the siege had to be lifted. News of the peace reached India a few days later.