Stories
The Battle of Stonington and the burning of the ships at Pettipauge (Essex) are two legendary tales of Connecticut in the War of 1812. But from the state’s arms makers to the militia that used their products, from patrolling British barges to privateers profiting from the conflict, a great variety of stories help bring to life the thirty-two months of the War of 1812 in Connecticut.
“Yankey Torpedo” Adventures
When Congress approved the declaration of war against Great Britain in June 1812, it was committing a very small standing army and navy to fight against the world’s largest navy and a professional army of long experience. Even with the British Army and the Royal Navy largely engaged in confining and defeating Napoleon’s forces in Europe, if the US had any chance of achieving its aims in the war, a civilian effort would be necessary. The first step was calling up each state’s militia to support the regular army, which was done immediately...
read moreThe Hartford Convention as the
Embodiment of Federalist New England
The notorious Hartford Convention, held in the latter days of the War of 1812, defines New England Federalism. This is true on two principal levels. First, the Convention represented a last-ditch effort on the part of the region to reclaim its waning political power. As part of the original thirteen colonies, and with Boston at the heart of the American Revolution, New England had enjoyed considerable influence over the burgeoning nation. That sway, however, was in decline almost immediately as the Southern and Western states continued to...
read moreThe Battle of Goshen Point
A Victory for “Jefferson’s Gunboats” The US Navy was launched with a few large warships to represent the nation and its interests on the high seas. But when the navy engaged in its first distant-water war, against Tripoli, small gunboats became necessary to operate effectively alongshore. The success of nine small gunboats, which made the voyage to North Africa and back, gave President Thomas Jefferson the impression that the navy could defend the nation’s isolationist aims more economically with gunboats than with frigates. During the...
read moreMrs. Stewart’s Situation
And as you engaged that Mrs. Stewart the wife of the British vice consul late resident at New London, with her family, shall be permitted to embark on board this Ship tomorrow morning, I am induced to wave the attempt of the total destruction of your town. Captain Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy to the magistrates of Stonington, August 10, 1814 Who was the woman who so influenced the Battle of Stonington? Elizabeth Coles Stewart was born in England about 1778. Her father, John Coles, a British merchant of mixed success, took his family to...
read moreDueling Frigates
With a fleet of just six frigates (including three 44-gun “super-frigates”), five smaller sloops of war, two brigs, and a collection of small coastal gunboats, the US Navy could not face off against the British Royal Navy, which had more than 600 active vessels, about 100 of which were 74-gun ships of the line. While fleet actions characterized much of the naval war between the British and French, the US Navy vessels went out singly or in small squadrons to raid British commerce and engage lone British warships. The strength of a warship...
read moreThe Blue Lights
After five months in the Thames River, Captains Stephen Decatur, Jacob Jones, and James Biddle brought their ships partway downriver at the end of October 1813, aiming to make a run to sea. But the United States grounded and damaged her rudder, so Decatur’s escape plans were delayed. Hearing that an admiral and two fireships, which could destroy anchored vessels, were expected to join the British squadron, Decatur ordered the vessels to anchor off New London’s Market Wharf on December 3, with the British squadron anchored six miles south....
read moreThe Burning of the Fleet
The British Raid on Essex, April 7-8, 1814. On April 8, 1814, the United States suffered its greatest single maritime loss of the war. According to the official British report to the Admiralty, 27 American vessels, including several privateers, were burned at Pettipauge on the Connecticut River. The devastating raid was chronicled in newspapers across the nation, yet today the event is virtually forgotten outside the picturesque village, which was renamed Essex a few years after the raid. Each spring a dozen fife-and-drum corps led by...
read moreBritish Barges and Yankee Tricks
While the British 74-gun ships of the line normally took station between New London and Montauk Point, the frigates and sloops of war cruised the coast, making regular patrols all the way up Long Island Sound. But the most effective British patrol vessels were the barges carried by the warships. The second-largest of a warship’s boats, a barge was usually 36 feet long and was propelled by either sails or 12 oars. Armed with muskets and cutlasses and sometimes a swivel gun, and large enough to carry a complement of Royal Marines, a barge...
read moreLegacies
In Connecticut there remain heroes, heroines, sites, and poetry that represent the War of 1812. Fairfield County’s 1814 Powder House, the only such structure from the war in the state, enjoyed an award-winning restoration only a few years ago. Heavily built of local stone and covered with a cedar shingle roof, the building attests to the ongoing threat posed by the Royal Navy even along the western part of the Connecticut coast. The structure can be seen on the hill behind Fairfield’s Tomlinson Middle School. The twenty-first century...
read moreConnecticut Arms-Makers in the War of 1812
Except for building a few gunboats, Connecticut shipyards did not participate in the construction of the US Navy. Nevertheless, Connecticut manufacturers became leaders in supplying the new nation’s military. The ironworks at Salisbury, in the northwest corner of the state, had begun producing munitions during the American Revolution. Cannons cast there were used widely during the war, and decades later they were scattered among defenses around the nation for federal and state use. In southeastern Connecticut, Stonington housed two...
read moreConnecticut’s Militia
At a time when the nations in Europe are all in arms against each other and are spreading death and destruction, and at a time when our country is threatened with the same calamity, the United States have no other means than this militia, we are the great bulwark against a foreign invasion. It is to us all will look for security; our wives, our children will depend on us for protection, in which we are determined they shall not be disappointed. The officers and soldiers of the third Brigade will never lack ambition and pride to prompt them to...
read moreConnecticut Privateers in the War of 1812
“The Privateersmen, may they receive reasonable encouragement from Congress as they hazard their lives, for small profits, while they render an essential service to our government”—toast by Dr. Vine Utley, Surgeon of the New London Privateer Mars, 1812-13 President James Madison did not intend to employ merchant mariners as maritime warriors in the impending new war with Great Britain, but only eight days after voting to declare war, Congress passed the Act Concerning Letters of Marque, which authorized the secretary of...
read moreHMS Terror
When the new ship-rigged HMS Terror joined Captain Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy’s squadron about August 8, 1814, she brought a new weapon to the War of 1812: the mortar. Designed to fire upward rather than outward, mortars have been used in siege operations on land since the 1400s. The French first took them to sea in the late 1600s against the Barbary States, with two mortars mounted on the deck of a heavily built vessel. The vessel was securely anchored, with springlines on the anchor cables to adjust the angle of aim. These vessels were...
read more