Nelson & His World

Hello,

HMS Tonnant, and a number of Trafalgar veterans would have been present during the campaign in the Chesapeake from 19 August to 15 September 1814. The principal actions on land were the battle of Bladensburg, the attack on Washington, and the attack on Fort McHenry at Baltimore.

Would anyone be able to advise which ships were present during this campaign, from Sir Alexander Cochrane’s North American Station flotilla.

I have seen reference to nineteen vessels present off Baltimore, among which were 'five bomb ketches, 10 smaller warships, and the rocket vessel HMS Erebus.

HMS Tonnant was the flagship, and is where Francis Scott-Key witnessed the "rockets' red glare".

It appears that there were three 74s, (Royal Oak, Asia, Ramillies) but were they all present?

The bomb vessels were: Terror, Volcano, Meteor, Devastation, and Aetna

These are believed to be the 10 smaller warships:
- the Severn, Euryalus, Havannah, & Hebrus frigates (50, 36, 42, 36 guns respectively)
- the Fairy, Regulus & Seahorse (16, 44, 38 guns respectively), having fought off the Potomac
- Surprise & Manly (38 & 12 guns)
- the unarmed vessel Anne

Thanks

GP

Have you checked out William James's "Naval History of Great Britain" to see which ships he refers to?

You can view all 6 volumes on line now and this incident is in volume 6 pp 301-307. If you click on the link below it should (may?) take you to page 301. You can then use the page forward/back and page enlarge/reduce buttons as appropriate.

http://archive.org/stream/navalhistoryg ... 0/mode/2up

Unfortunately the index at the back is not much use here as it seems to be a cut down version covering all 6 volumes.

Let me know if you have already looked in James. There may be other resources which can help.

MB

Hi Mark,

James had been one source that I had used for the info posted. I did wonder if a definitive Order of Battle for the Naval forces had been formally published.

It also appears that HMS Albion was involved. Quite possibly, it had a skeleton crew, with the rest of its complement fighting on shore. The "Captain-Major" of Marines, Thomas Adair, commanded a composite battalion of Marines from the flotilla.

Regards, GP

GP

I'm a bit out of my comfort zone here, so apologies if I say anything "silly". But I've just been having a mooch in my copy of the Caxton Pictorial History of the War of 1812.

It states there "As the main expeditionary force under Cochrane and Ross pressed on from the mouth of the Potomac . . . . two diversionary forces set out, one up the Potomac river to bombard Fort Washington and the other up the Chesapeake to create a diversion around Baltimore.

I'm guessing it is all three that you are interested in - which together I think I have seen referred to as the Chesapeake squadron.

The Naval General Service Medal was awarded to the first of the diversionary forces so the ships there is pretty easy to establish.

i.e. Seahorse - 38 guns
Euryalus - 36 guns
Devastation - bomb ship
Aetna - bomb ship
Meteor - bomb ship
Erebus - rocket vessel
Anna-Maria - despatch boat
Fairy - 16 guns. Joined later bringing orders from V-A Cochrane

Hopefully that's a start in establishing the whole squadron.

MB

Second diversionary force. I believe just made up of:

Menelaus - 38 guns
plus two small vessels. (Not specifically named but one may be Jane - tender)

MB

I hadn't realised previously that a London Gazette Extraordinary was published dated October 17th 1814 which included letters from V-A Alexander Cochrane, R-A George Cockburn, Capt James Gordon and also Colonel Arthur Brooke.

For the main expeditionary force the Killed and Wounded are listed by ship which gives us:

Tonnant
Royal Oak
Albion
Ramillies
Diadem
Melpomene
Trave
Madagascar

If time allows I'll have a quick look regarding the ships you have but that have not cropped up here or on the NGSM Roll.

But hopefully quite a good picture is developing!

The LGE is available here and the next 12 pages:

http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/16947/pages/2073

MB

There are also letters listing ships in the appendices to William James: Naval Occurrences of the War of 1812, also available on archive.org.

Mark and Tony,

Thanks for the help you have given. I see that William James refers to the Madagascar and the Ramillies as having suffered fatalities during the operations at Baltimore.

It is my understanding that the Diadem was en flute and saw service as a troopship, alongside the Dictator and the Melpomene.

There are some further snippets about the 38 gun Trave on the PBenyon site, and on the Age of Nelson site, to which Michael Phillips had his "Ships of the Old Navy".

If you start off reading about Trafalgar (which has been my experience), you get lulled into a false sense of security that other naval actions are as well documented Oh well, onwards & upwards.

HMS Thistle was present off the coast of Virginia from June to September, by the look of things.

It's been interesting to see the large numbers of escaped slaves who appear as supernumeraries in the musters of ships such as HMS Albion, HMS Loire, HMS Madagascar and HMS Dragon at this time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Refugee_%28War_of_1812%29

Given the proportion of a ships complement who had been impressed into the Senior Service, there must have been a strong sense of empathy with the refugees. You can understand why many in the Royal Navy felt a strong anti-slavery sentiment.