British Barges and Yankee Tricks

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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 could threaten lightly defended shore installations or overtake and capture coasting vessels in the Sound.

 

This engraving from William Congreve’s A Treatise on the General Principles, Powers, and Facility of Application of the Congreve Rocket System (1827) depicts the arrangement for firing rockets from ships’ barges. At right, a rocket is loaded into the firing frame, and at left the rocket is fired by means of a lanyard, with a wet sail to shield the crew from the ignition. The angle of the frame determines the trajectory of the rocket. The image also suggests the flexibility of the barges, which could be rowed or sailed, could accommodate a force of Royal Marines, and which proved their value in the “petit guerre” on Long Island Sound. (Nimitz Library, US Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland) The attack on Pettipauge, six miles up the Connecticut River, was the most audacious of the barge adventures, but almost every week the newspapers reported the seizure of one or more coasting vessels by barges. “The petit guerre of the Sound has been extremely lively for the last week,” reported the Connecticut Gazette at the beginning of May 1814. “Wednesday last a sloop from New York, Forsyth, master, belonging here, was chased on shore near Mill-Stone, and abandoned by the crew; leaving a Mrs. Howard of this place, and an English woman passengers on board. The barges took off the last, and left Mrs. H. It was apparent the enemy intended the destruction of the vessel and cargo; but in consequence of the urgent intreaty and distressing situation of Mrs. H. they left the vessel as they found her.”

 

The attack on Pettipauge, six miles up the Connecticut River, was the most audacious of the barge adventures, but almost every week the newspapers reported the seizure of one or more coasting vessels by barges. “The petit guerre of the Sound has been extremely lively for the last week,” reported the Connecticut Gazette at the beginning of May 1814. “Wednesday last a sloop from New York, Forsyth, master, belonging here, was chased on shore near Mill-Stone, and abandoned by the crew; leaving a Mrs. Howard of this place, and an English woman passengers on board. The barges took off the last, and left Mrs. H. It was apparent the enemy intended the destruction of the vessel and cargo; but in consequence of the urgent intreaty and distressing situation of Mrs. H. they left the vessel as they found her.”

A few weeks later three barges chased the New London packet Mary into Niantic Bay and right up against the Rope Ferry Bridge, which caught fire when they burned the vessel. The paper announced, “The British barges have been for several days skulking under the western shore, to intercept vessels taking the inner channel; which makes it extremely dangerous to attempt making this harbor or Fisher’s Island sound, without a very strong wind.”1

Occasionally the barges fell victim to “Yankee tricks.” In August 1814, after two unsuccessful barge assaults on the “cursed little hornet’s nest” of Mystic, some Mystic men played a lethal trick. With the British bomb vessel Terror anchored off the Dumplings, just across Fishers Island Sound, the local militia hid themselves near the shore on Groton Long Point and on Morgan Point. Simeon Haley, captain of the private armed boat True Blooded Yankee of Mystic, and a crew of four then manned a large fishing boat and made their way into the Sound to tempt the British. The Terror’s sailing master took command of a barge and set out after the Mystic boat, which ran in to Groton Long Point. As the barge reached the shore to capture the boat, the militia rose up and fired, killing one, wounding two, and capturing the other 12 men. Lieutenant Chambers, the captured sailing master commented, “I have heard of Yankee tricks, but this is the first that I have experienced.”2

By Andrew W. German
Mystic, CT

 

NOTES

1. Connecticut Gazette, September 22, 1813, gives a description of a British barge that came in to Stonington after its crew absconded from HMS Acasta. Connecticut Gazette, May 4, 11, 25, 1814. Regarding the English woman on the packet Mary, the Gazette reported, “The English woman said she was the wife of a Doctor, who was at New-London, and going to Bermuda in a cartel [prisoner exchange vessel]. A few nights previous an Englishman of this description and a Lieut., who put up at Brown’s Coffee-House, stole a boat belonging to a poor citizen and went off to the blockading squadron.”

2. Rev. Frederic Denison, “Attempted Burning of Mystic,” Mystic Pioneer, June 25, 1859; Rev. Frederic Denison “The Ruse at Long Point,” Mystic Pioneer, July 16, 1859; soon after, the militia and boatmen tried to lure another barge to Groton Long Point, but the barge halted off the beach and exchanged shots with the militia before retiring, Rev. Frederic Denison, “Second Adventure at Long Point,” Mystic Pioneer, August 6, 1859.