Battles of the War of 1812

19 August 1812 · About 400 miles south-east of Halifax

American victory; Guerriere destroyed

The Royal Navy had won almost every frigate action of the wars with France, and Captain James Dacres of Guerriere had openly challenged the American frigates to come out and fight. Isaac Hull's Constitution, a 44 carrying heavier guns, a thicker hull and a bigger crew, found her alone south of the Grand Banks. Hull held his fire until the ships were close, then shot away Guerriere's mizzen mast; it dragged in the water and swung her round, and Constitution crossed her bow and raked her. Her foremast and mainmast followed, and with Guerriere a rolling, dismasted hulk, Dacres struck. Constitution lost 7 killed and 7 wounded, Guerriere 15 killed and 78 wounded. The prize was too badly damaged to save and was blown up the next day. The news, coming after a run of defeats on land, was greeted with wild celebration across the United States.

18 October 1812 · Off the coast of Virginia

American victory, reversed the same day: both ships taken by Poictiers

Five days out of the Delaware, Jacob Jones's sloop Wasp came on a British convoy from Honduras scattered by a gale, guarded by the brig-sloop Frolic. Both ships had been damaged by the storm and fought in a heavy sea, rolling so far that the guns were sometimes under water. Wasp's men fired as their side rolled down, into Frolic's hull, while the British fired on the up-roll into Wasp's rigging. After about forty minutes Wasp ran aboard Frolic and her boarders found the brig's deck covered with dead and wounded, with only the wounded Captain Whinyates and a few others still standing. But both ships were crippled, and a few hours later the 74-gun Poictiers came up and took them both.

25 October 1812 · About 500 miles south of the Azores

American victory; Macedonian captured

Stephen Decatur had sailed from Boston with Commodore Rodgers's squadron, then parted company to cruise alone. Near Madeira he met the 38-gun Macedonian under John Surman Carden. Carden kept to windward and closed slowly instead of coming straight in, which let the American's 24-pounders hit him at a range where his own 18-pounders could do little. Macedonian lost her mizzen topmast and then most of her rigging, and after about two hours, with 43 of her men killed and 71 wounded against 7 and 5 in United States, she struck. Decatur's men patched her up and sailed her home, and in December she came into Newport: the first British warship ever brought into an American harbour as a prize.

29 December 1812 · Off São Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

American victory; Java destroyed

Constitution, now under William Bainbridge, had sailed for the South Atlantic with the sloop Hornet, and was cruising off Bahia when she met Java, bound for India with the new governor of Bombay, Sir Thomas Hislop, aboard. Java was faster and handier, and for an hour Captain Henry Lambert outmanoeuvred the American, raking her and shooting away her wheel; Bainbridge was twice wounded. But Constitution's heavier guns slowly wrecked Java's masts and rigging, and when Lambert tried to board, his bowsprit and then his foremast went. Lambert was mortally wounded, and after three hours, with Java a dismasted wreck, she struck. Bainbridge took off the prisoners and burned her. It was the third time in four months a British frigate had surrendered to an American one, and the Admiralty ordered its frigates not to fight the American 44s alone.

24 February 1813 · Off the mouth of the Demerara River, Guiana

American victory; Peacock sunk

Driven off from Bahia, James Lawrence took Hornet north to the coast of Guiana, and off the Demerara river met the brig-sloop Peacock coming out to find him. The two ships passed on opposite tacks, exchanging broadsides, and then Hornet wore round onto Peacock's quarter and poured in her heavier carronade fire. In under fifteen minutes Peacock's captain, William Peake, was dead and his ship was sinking, and she hoisted a distress signal. The Americans took off her wounded, but she went down in shallow water with some of her crew still aboard and three of Hornet's men. Lawrence was promoted and given command of the frigate Chesapeake.

1 June 1813 · About 20 miles east of Boston Light

British victory; Chesapeake captured

Philip Broke had blockaded Boston in Shannon for weeks, and sent in a written challenge to the American frigate Chesapeake, newly under the command of James Lawrence. Lawrence came out before it arrived, with a crew partly new to the ship. Off Boston Light the two frigates came together on parallel courses late in the afternoon, and Shannon's well-drilled gunners swept Chesapeake's decks. Her wheel was shot away and she came up into the wind and fell aboard Shannon. Lawrence was mortally wounded, calling out "Don't give up the ship" as he was carried below; Broke led his boarders across and took her, but was cut down with a sword blow to the head that ended his career at sea. The whole action lasted barely a quarter of an hour and cost 48 American dead and 99 wounded, and 23 British dead and 56 wounded. Shannon took her prize into Halifax. It restored British confidence after the three frigate defeats of 1812.

14 August 1813 · Off St David's Head, Wales

British victory; Argus captured

Argus had spent a month raiding in the Channel and the Irish Sea, taking nineteen merchant ships and burning most of them, and the Admiralty sent ships out to hunt her down. The brig-sloop Pelican found her at dawn off the Welsh coast, after a night in which, it is said, many of her crew had drunk wine from a captured ship. Early in the action William Henry Allen of Argus had a leg taken off by a round shot, and Pelican's heavier carronades cut up the American's rigging until she could not manoeuvre. After about 45 minutes, with Pelican's boarders ready to cross, Argus struck. Allen died at Plymouth a few days later and was buried with full honours.

5 September 1813 · Off Pemaquid Point, Maine

American victory; Boxer captured

The brig Enterprise, out of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, under Lieutenant William Burrows, met the British gun-brig Boxer off the coast of Maine. Boxer's captain, Samuel Blyth, is said to have nailed his colours to the mast. The two brigs fought at close range; Blyth was killed by the first American broadside, and Burrows fell soon after, mortally wounded, but refused to be taken below until the British surrendered. After about forty minutes Boxer struck. Enterprise brought her into Portland, where the two young captains were buried side by side.

10 September 1813 · Off Put-in-Bay, Lake Erie

American victory; the whole British squadron captured

Both sides spent 1813 building fleets on the lakes. At Presque Isle, Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry built two 20-gun brigs, Lawrence and Niagara, and got them over the sandbar into the lake in August. The British commander, Robert Barclay, a one-armed veteran of Trafalgar, was short of guns, seamen and food at Amherstburg, and in September he had to come out and fight. The squadrons met off Put-in-Bay late in the morning of 10 September. Perry's Lawrence closed with the British flagship Detroit and Queen Charlotte, but Niagara, under Jesse Elliott, held back out of range, and after two hours Lawrence was a wreck with four-fifths of her men dead or wounded. Perry was rowed across to Niagara under fire, brought her into action, and sailed her through the British line, raking on both sides. Detroit and Queen Charlotte had fouled each other, and with their senior officers killed or wounded the whole British squadron struck. Perry's message to General Harrison read: "We have met the enemy and they are ours." With the lake lost, the British abandoned Detroit, and Harrison beat them at the Thames on 5 October, where Tecumseh was killed.

28 March 1814 · Off Valparaíso, Chile

British victory; Essex captured

David Porter had taken Essex round Cape Horn in 1813 and spent the year among the Galápagos Islands taking British whalers, one of which he armed as Essex Junior. In February 1814 James Hillyar arrived at Valparaíso with the frigate Phoebe and the sloop Cherub, and for six weeks the two sides watched each other from the neutral harbour. On 28 March Porter tried to slip out to sea, but a squall carried away his main topmast and he anchored in a bay just outside the port. Hillyar, knowing Essex was armed mostly with short-range carronades, stood off and pounded her with Phoebe's long 18-pounders. Porter tried to close, then to run his ship ashore, and fought on for over two hours with his ship on fire, until with 58 killed and 65 wounded he struck. Phoebe and Cherub lost five killed between them.

29 April 1814 · Off Cape Canaveral, Florida

American victory; Epervier captured

Lewis Warrington's new ship-sloop Peacock met the brig-sloop Epervier escorting a small convoy north from Havana. Epervier's crew was poorly trained and her carronades kept breaking loose from their mountings; in about 45 minutes she was badly holed and her rigging cut to pieces, while Peacock was hardly scratched. Epervier struck, and with her came $118,000 in coin. Warrington brought his prize into Savannah, escaping two British frigates on the way.

28 June 1814 · Western approaches to the English Channel

American victory; Reindeer captured and burned

Johnston Blakeley's new ship-sloop Wasp was raiding shipping at the mouth of the Channel when the smaller brig-sloop Reindeer came after her. William Manners closed to close range and the two ships fought yardarm to yardarm until they collided. Manners, already badly wounded, led his men three times to board Wasp and was killed on the third attempt; the Americans then swept across and took Reindeer. She was too damaged to keep, and Blakeley burned her and put into Lorient.

11 September 1814 · Plattsburgh Bay, Lake Champlain

American victory; the British squadron captured and the invasion of New York called off

With the war in Europe over, Sir George Prevost marched south from Canada with some 10,000 veterans of Wellington's army to take Plattsburgh, but he needed the lake to supply them. Thomas Macdonough anchored his squadron across Plattsburgh Bay so that the British would have to come round Cumberland Head into the wind to reach him, and laid out extra anchors and cables so that his flagship Saratoga could be turned where she lay. Captain George Downie brought his squadron in on the morning of 11 September in the new frigate Confiance, finished in such a hurry that workmen were still aboard. Her first broadside killed or wounded a fifth of Saratoga's crew, but Downie himself was killed within minutes. At the south end of the line Ticonderoga beat off the British gunboats, while Chubb drifted into the American line and Finch ran aground. By late morning Saratoga had hardly a gun working on her engaged side; Macdonough wound her round on her cables to bring the other broadside to bear, and when Confiance tried to do the same and failed she struck, followed by Linnet. Prevost, watching from the shore, called off his attack and went back to Canada. The news helped persuade the British negotiators at Ghent to make peace without asking for American territory.

13–14 September 1814 · Patapsco River, Baltimore

American victory; the fort held and the British withdrew

Three weeks after burning Washington, the British turned on Baltimore. While the army landed at North Point, Vice-Admiral Cochrane brought bomb vessels and the rocket ship Erebus up the Patapsco to silence Fort McHenry, which guarded the harbour. Sunken hulks blocked the channel, so the ships fired from long range, out of reach of the fort's guns, for about twenty-five hours, through a night of rain, sending some 1,500 to 1,800 shells and rockets at the fort. Major George Armistead's garrison of about 1,000 men lost only four killed and 24 wounded. A night attack by boats up the Ferry Branch was driven off, and with the army stopped by the defences on land, the British withdrew. Francis Scott Key, held on a truce ship in the river, saw the great garrison flag still flying at dawn on 14 September and wrote the verses that became "The Star-Spangled Banner".

14 December 1814 · Lake Borgne, near the Rigolets, Louisiana

British victory; all five American gunboats captured

Vice-Admiral Cochrane's fleet anchored off Cat Island early in December with the army sent to take New Orleans. The only American force on the shallow waters between the fleet and the city was a flotilla of five gunboats under Lieutenant Thomas ap Catesby Jones, posted to watch the British and fall back on the Rigolets, the pass into Lake Pontchartrain, if attacked. On the night of 12 December about 42 launches, barges and gigs carrying some 1,200 sailors and marines set out under Commander Nicholas Lockyer of the sloop Sophie. Jones tried to withdraw, but the wind died and a falling tide grounded his boats near the Malheureux Islands, and the tenders Sea Horse and Alligator were lost on the 13th. After rowing some thirty-six miles the British reached the anchored gunboats late on the morning of the 14th, and attacked straight into their fire. Jones's own boat, No. 156, was boarded first, and its guns were turned on the others; within about two hours all five had surrendered. The Americans lost 6 killed, 35 wounded and the rest captured, the British 17 killed and 77 wounded, Lockyer and Jones both among the wounded. With Lake Borgne cleared, the British landed their army at Bayou Bienvenue, nine miles from New Orleans, on 23 December.

14–15 January 1815 · Off Long Island, New York

British victory; President captured

Stephen Decatur tried to take President out of New York after a snowstorm blew the blockading squadron off station, but she ran aground on the bar and pounded there for two hours, straining her hull and springing her masts. She got off and ran east along the coast of Long Island, but at dawn the British squadron was in sight, and the big 24-pounder frigate Endymion overhauled her in the afternoon. For two and a half hours Henry Hope kept Endymion on President's quarter, raking her, while Decatur fired high to cripple his pursuer. Endymion was left behind with her sails cut to pieces, but Pomone and Tenedos came up in the night, Pomone fired two broadsides, and Decatur surrendered. The peace treaty had been signed at Ghent three weeks before.

20 February 1815 · West of Madeira

American victory; both British ships captured

Under Charles Stewart, Constitution slipped out of Boston in December 1814 and cruised off Portugal and Madeira. On the evening of 20 February she met the small frigate Cyane and the ship-sloop Levant sailing together. In a moonlit action that lasted under an hour, Stewart handled his ship so that neither British ship could rake her, backing and filling to fire into each in turn and raking both, until first Cyane and then Levant struck. Stewart took his prizes to Porto Praya in the Cape Verde Islands, where in March a British squadron of three frigates surprised them at anchor. Constitution and Cyane escaped, but Levant was retaken in the harbour. Neither side knew the war had ended two months before.

23 March 1815 · Off Tristan da Cunha

American victory; Penguin captured and scuttled

Hornet, now under James Biddle, had escaped from New York and was making for a rendezvous at Tristan da Cunha when she met the brig-sloop Penguin, sent out from the Cape to hunt American privateers. In twenty minutes of close action Hornet's guns killed Penguin's captain, James Dickinson, and dismasted her; Penguin's bowsprit caught in Hornet's rigging, but her men would not board, and she surrendered. She was too badly damaged to keep and was scuttled. It was the last naval fight of the war, fought two months after the peace.