‘Zeal Intelligence and Intrepidity’: Naval Irregular Warfare, The War of 1812, & American Sea Power

Commander Benjamin Armstrong’s entry to the 2015 Alan Villiers Memorial Lecture Postgraduate Essay Contest examines riverine and ‘irregular’ naval warfare during the War of 1812. This paper is presented in his personal and academic capacity and does not reflect the opinions of the U.S. Navy or any U.S. government entity.

The prevailing narratives of British and American naval history tend to focus out on the blue water: the open ocean where fleets mass and decisive sea battles occur. From Trafalgar to Manila Bay, from Jutland to Midway, the fleet-on-fleet or squadron-on-squadron engagements dominate naval history; particularly the operational history. Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote that the optimal use of a navy is to find and defeat an opponent’s fleet and much of American naval history is written through the Mahanian prism. That narrative, describing and explaining the development of a traditional blue-water force, covers an important aspect of American naval history. Yet it gives an incomplete view. From the earliest days of the Republic the U.S. Navy has regularly been involved in operations other than fleet, squadron, or ship-on-ship engagements. These naval irregular warfare operations, in the littoral green-water and riverine brown-water of the world have been conducted on a global scale regardless the contemporary size or shape of the U.S. fleet.ⁱ

The War of 1812 offers us an ideal opportunity to expand operational naval history by beginning to study these kinds of missions and events. The bicentennial commemorations have again focused out on the blue water. From the Atlantic cruises of Commodore John Rodgers to the squadron engagements on the Great Lakes, from the high seas frigate duels to the Royal Navy’s choking blockade of the later part of the war, the books and articles published recently have continued the historiographically traditional narrative of ship vs ship combat and conventional naval operations.ⁱⁱ Yet between June of 1812 and January of 1815 naval officers and sailors might just as easily have participated in coastal raiding missions and cutting-out expeditions as worked the heavy guns in combat or maneuvered to “cross the T.” We can take the opportunity, now that the commemoration has passed, to look at the events of the war and reconsider them and their impact on the development of the American Navy.

In this essay, I argue that irregular warfare during the War of 1812, far from an isolated or insignificant occurrence, represents an important thread of American naval affairs. This essay primarily focuses on a series of missions conducted on Lake Ontario as an illustration of the irregular warfare operations conducted during the war. The conventional story of the lakes campaigns is of the naval arms race on Ontario and the victorious American squadrons on Lakes Erie and Champlain. Yet the raiding and reconnaissance missions led by Acting-Lieutenant Francis H. Gregory provide interesting historical examples to consider when expanding the aperture of the study of naval operations to include the history of naval irregular warfare. They demonstrate the effectiveness of such operations, and the importance which leaders placed on it.

While the history of naval irregular warfare does occasionally appear in the literature, it is usually a passing mention as an author moves through the supposedly quiet years between major conflicts. Even as the field has expanded alongside the ‘new military history,’ incorporating social, economic, and political history among other areas, the focus of American naval history has tended to remain on the development of the forces which would participate in the decisive sea battle. Most historical engagement with missions like naval raiding operations or counter-piracy patrols tends to lack comparison or connection to the larger maritime or naval themes. It seems to treat these missions as unique events, like snowflakes of naval history, rather than a type of operation or subfield worthy of its own study.ⁱⁱⁱ

For the purposes of this essay naval irregular warfare includes two groups of operations: wartime raiding operations and peacetime maritime security. The first of these includes both expeditionary and local actions, which in the 19 ^th century included small craft and gunboat operations such as small shore raids and cutting-out expeditions.^iv The second group of operations includes counter-piracy missions, anti-smuggling patrols, and the combatting of the slave trade (which today might be classified as the ‘illicit movement of people’). The term naval irregular warfare is admittedly fraught with historical concerns and contemporary doctrinal complications. Some analysts have attempted to label these kinds of naval operations as ‘non-traditional.’ However, this is an unhelpful label since it is quite clear that many navies have a long and important history and tradition of conducting these types of missions.^v

Irregular operations were conducted by the U.S. Navy throughout the age of sail. From Stephen Decatur’s raid into Tripoli harbor to burn the captured frigate Philadelphia in 1804 to counter-piracy operations on the coast of Sumatra in the 1830s these operations play an understudied role in maritime history. Francis Gregory’s efforts offer just a small example of nearly a dozen such operations on the Great Lakes during the War of 1812. By using this lens with a wider angle, historians can rethink the dominant narratives of the field and modern practitioners might, with caution, see analogies to the questions facing navies today.

The Great Lakes Theater

By the summer of 1814 both the Americans and the British had experienced mixed results on Lake Ontario. Commodore Isaac Chauncey, of the United States Navy, and Commodore Sir James Lucas Yeo, of the British Royal Navy, maneuvered their squadrons and built ships as fast as they could. Each attempted to gain the decisive advantage. The result was a naval arms race on the frontier. Chauncey had an opportunity for victory over Yeo in September 1813 at the battle that became known as “The Burlington Races,” but he refused to leave his schooners behind. Limited to the speed of his slowest schooner, his pursuit of the British squadron was hampered enough to allow the British to race away to an anchorage under the British shore battery at Burlington. The squadrons came into contact a number of times over the first two years of the war, but the decisive battle was never engaged and each commodore blamed the other. The young American Brigadier General Winfield Scott observed: ‘the two naval heroes of defeat [ sic ] held each other a little more than at arm’s length – neither being willing to risk a battle without a decided superiority in guns and men.’^vi

Robert Malcomson’s study of the conflict on Lake Ontario highlights the complexity of the decisions the commodores faced and helps illustrate why they made the decisions resulting in an apparent stalemate.^vii However, looking past the questions of squadron engagements, or even ship-on-ship duels, the naval operations on the lake included much more. Movement of the supplies needed for the constant naval construction required a network of small transports and coastal supply ships. These vessels worked Lake Ontario’s shallows conducting joint operations for the theater’s armies and navies. As Howard Chapelle observed: ‘both sides suffered from the difficulties of getting materials and equipment from their coast.’^viii The transports, and the gunboats protecting them, provided opportunity for naval warfare on a smaller scale and far from the broadsides of heavy guns.

In the summer of 1814 Lieutenant Francis Gregory began a series of operations earning him fame with his countrymen and infamy with his enemies. The son of a Connecticut merchant captain, he had served in the merchant marine and was impressed into the Royal Navy for over a year before escaping and receiving a midshipman’s appointment from President Jefferson.^ix After briefly serving under Lieutenant O.H. Perry aboard the sloop Revenge , Gregory was assigned to the Gulf Coast where he began to make a name for himself as a pirate hunter. New Orleans Station had a challenging mission: patrolling the Gulf of Mexico to protect American commerce and keep the revolutions in the Spanish colonies from endangering American interests. Gregory served aboard Vesuvius , a 145 ton bomb ketch with 11 guns, and he led missions to against pirates along the Pensacola coast, patrols of the New Orleans waterways, and participated in an assault on the Lafitte brothers’ pirates on Baratavria Bay.^x After the declaration of war in 1812 Gregory was reassigned to Lake Ontario. He was rapidly promoted to Acting Lieutenant after proving himself ashore during the capture of Fort George and in defensive operations around Oswego, New York.^xi

Gunboats on the St. Lawrence

As the summer of 1814 began Commodore Yeo found himself with the superior force on the lake. He attacked the American supply base at Oswego, New York, and then blockaded the American squadron at Sackets Harbor. Running low on supplies, however, Yeo lifted the blockade the first week of June and returned to his base at Kingston. After the attack on Oswego, the interruption of American communications meant Chauncey’s squadron lacked the materiel to set out in pursuit. They remained in port for nearly two months gathering needed supplies. Chauncey looked for an opportunity to attack the British supply lines, as they had attacked his, and he turned to Francis Gregory.^xii

After sunset on 15 June 1814, Gregory set out for the Thousand Islands region, at the northern part of the lake and headwaters of the St. Lawrence River, to hunt British transports with three gigs under his command. The lead small boat that the raiders took with them was a beautifully constructed small craft from the village of Deal in Kent, UK. It was one of two boats Commodore Yeo brought with him from England to serve as his personal gigs on his flagship. It was captured by the Americans at the Battle of Sandy Creek less than two weeks earlier and Gregory selected it for his mission because of the Deal boats’ well known speed.^xiii At the helm of Gregory’s other two boats were Sailing Master William Vaughn and a civilian volunteer named Samuel Dixon.^xiv Experienced lake mariners who had conducted previous gunboat operations, the two men provided specific knowledge of the river and its geography. Early in the war they had both conducted operations on the St. Lawrence as privateers, attacking British gunboats and supply boats.^xv

Gregory and his raiders landed on Tar Island, a small uninhabited island a few miles up the St. Lawrence. From this observation post the Americans spent three days surveilling the British transport system. They reported the British had developed an early warning system on the river. For almost the entire distance between Kingston and Prescott, the British stationed gunboats approximately six miles apart from each other, just within visual range for signaling and for rapid response. They were augmented with spotters on the highest islands in the chain. Gregory assessed that, using the combination of the boats with the signaling network on the islands, the British: ‘could convey menace with great expedition.’^xvi While observing the British, Gregory and his raiders let two formations of British boats pass; the first because it was empty and the second because the British force was too large for an attack by the three small boats.

On the morning of 19 June Black Snake , a British gunboat with a single eighteen pound gun, was patrolling the Thousand Islands. The gunboat was commanded by Captain Herman Landon of the 1st Regiment of Granville Militia with about twenty Royal Marines and Canadian militia on board. Originally built in the United States, Black Snake was 44 feet long and lugger rigged, with 22 sweeps to propel her when the wind and current could not.^xvii As they neared Tar Island they noticed a skiff approaching with the men aboard waving. Thinking it was a lost part of a British convoy, Landon hailed the vessel and his crew pulled to close without manning their weapons. The boat held Gregory and a few men. On his signal the other American boats appeared and rushed Black Snake. According to the British report their aggressive attack ‘rendered resistance too hopeless a case, to be attempted. [ sic ]’^xviii In the struggle to board the British gunboat one Royal Marine was badly injured, but the Americans suffered no casualties. Gregory quickly began organizing his flotilla. He manned the prize with men taken from the three gigs and assigned guards for the prisoners. In short order the four boats headed up river, back toward American held waters.^xix

The British, because of the warning system the raiders had discovered, quickly recognized the loss of Black Snake . Militia Captain Charles Owen was dispatched with two gunboats and one hundred and fifty sailors and soldiers. As the British searched the Thousand Islands the second gunboat, under the command of Lieutenant Alexander Campbell of the British Army’s 104 ^th Regiment, caught sight of the Americans and gave chase. The British, with a full crew pulling at the oars, closed on Gregory’s party quickly and fired several shots from their carronade, ranging the Americans.^xx As the shot crossed overhead Gregory realized, because his three crews were divided among the oars of four boats and guarding the prisoners, they would be overtaken. Before the British could close further Gregory moved all the prisoners to the gigs, manned his boats at full strength, and scuttled Black Snake . The gunboat sank rapidly and slowed the British pursuit when they approached it.

As the British started rowing for the Americans again, Gregory and his men pulled themselves out of range and escaped back to American held territory. After the escape Captain Owen was able to raise and salvage the cannon from Black Snake , and some of the stores.^xxi The Americans rowed through the night and arrived at Sackets Harbor the next morning. Commodore Chauncey was greatly impressed by the mission and wrote to the Secretary of the Navy that Gregory ‘is not surpassed by any of his grade for zeal intelligence and intrepidity [ sic ].’^xxii

Naval Raiding Ashore

With the British alarmed over American attacks in the St. Lawrence, Commodore Chauncey saw an opportunity for another mission further west on Lake Ontario. During the winter of 1813-14 the shipyard at Kingston had worked at a fever pitch to construct warships for Yeo’s squadron. Captain Richard O’Conner, one of Commodore Yeo’s lieutenants on the HMS Confiance before the war, was the commissioner of the shipyard at Kingston. He realized large warships alone were insufficient, the construction of gunboats and schooners to defend shipping and supply lines remained critical.^xxiii In November 1813 he looked for other locations to begin building smaller ships and he settled on the area of Presqu’ile, on the northern shore of the lake west of Kingston. He contracted with local builders who constructed one of the many small frontier shipyards that dotted Lake Ontario.^xxiv

By the early summer of 1814, a schooner designed for fourteen guns was under construction and nearing completion. The fitting out of the vessel required an increase in transport traffic and, with British defenses shifted toward the St. Lawrence, Chauncey dispatched Gregory for another mission. The area had been a productive hunting ground for the Americans in the past. In the summer of 1813 Commodore Chauncey’s brother Lieutenant Wolcott Chauncey, commanding the schooner Lady of the Lake , captured the transport Lady Murray in the area with its hold full of ammunition and powder.^xxv Again Gregory took Sailing Master Vaughn and Mr. Dixon with him to help lead the raiding mission. This ‘plucky little party’ sailed from Sackets Harbor in two boats on 1 July.^xxvi

Not long after their arrival off Presqu’ile a British gunboat discovered the Americans and chased them away from an undefended transport. Fearing the British would send more patrols Gregory and his men pulled their boats ashore on Nicholas Island, following the pattern they had established on the St. Lawrence. The Lieutenant suspected they had been identified. The Americans gathered the intelligence that two express riders had been dispatched to Kingston to alert the British commanders to their presence and request reinforcement.^xxvii

The Americans loaded their boats and pulled for the small port where the British schooner sat on stocks. Slipping into the dark harbor and landing without notice, Gregory placed scouts at the edge of the nearby homes and sent the rest of his force under the schooner to set combustibles. He stationed his sentries to watch over the local population as much as he did to warn of an impending counterattack. The previous May an American raid on the Canadian village of Port Dover had gone badly, with American troops and a band of Canadian militia who had volunteered on the American side rampaging through the population and burning homes. The outrage of the British and Canadians was significant, and senior officers in the American services realized a line had been crossed.^xxviii

Gregory’s raiders inspected the ship as they set the fires and judged it was less than two weeks from launch. As they returned to their boats the flames began to engulf what they reported was a ‘stout, well built vessel.’ The local militia spotted the Americans but pulled back into the town to set a defense against a deeper raid. Commodore Chauncey was clear in his orders to Gregory that the civilian population was not to be touched, and they set the combustibles to minimize the possibility the fire would spread to the town. The commodore later lamented to Secretary of the Navy William Jones that a storehouse had been unintentionally burned, though he confirmed it contained supplies for the shipyard. He was quick to point out that when the raiders embarked their boats Gregory gave the order ‘without having permitted one of them to enter a house.’^xxix

Once again Commodore Chauncey was impressed, writing to Jones of ‘another brilliant achievement of Lieutenant Gregory with his brave companions.’ The balance of power on the lake was defined by the sizes of the respective squadrons, so ships counted for far more than simply their number of guns. The destruction of the schooner set back the British ability to retake control of the lake, even if marginally. Yet the ship was not destroyed in regular naval combat, and there was nothing to bring in as a prize, so the men of the party could not count on any prize money. In recognition of their success however, Commodore Chauncey recommended the Department of the Navy provide a monetary reward ‘in justice to these brave men.’^xxx

Chauncey’s pride, however, was short lived. On 26 August Gregory led an armed reconnaissance party into the Bay of Quinte. He and his party were captured by the British despite Chauncey’s warning in his orders not to land or ‘run unnecessary risque [ sic ].’^xxxi It did not take long for the British to realize they had captured ‘the Renegadoe [ sic ]’ Gregory and they celebrated their success. Commodore Yeo was personally informed and expressed his pleasure in the capture, not the least because his Deal built gig was now back aboard his flagship. Gregory was sent north to Montreal and an attempt by the Americans to trade prisoners to secure his release was denied. The British considered him too dangerous and effective an officer and he was transported across the Atlantic and held as a prisoner of war in England until the end of the war. ^xxxii

Naval Irregular Warfare and American Sea Power

The operational histories of fleets, the strategic history of how they are used, and the political history of how they are funded and constructed are vital to understanding our naval past. However the operational history of naval irregular warfare, like Gregory’s 1814 raiding missions, offers important opportunities for study by both scholars and naval practitioners. While the historiography of the War of 1812 has been dominated by squadron and ship vs ship actions, the U.S. Navy had only a single significant traditional naval battle for the next fifty years: the taking of the Algerian warship Mashouda in 1815.^xxxiii Instead, between the War of 1812 and the American Civil War U.S. naval history is dominated by counter-piracy, anti-smuggling, and maritime security operations, as well as irregular warfare missions in the rivers and swamps of Florida against the Seminole Indians and patrolling and raiding on the west coast in the Mexican War.^xxxiv

Francis Gregory’s experience in the War of 1812 provided him a solid foundation for his future service. After the end of the war he took command of the schooner Grampus. The ship deployed to the Caribbean to return to Gregory’s early career mission of counter-piracy. Patrolling the coast of Cuba as part of the newly formed West Indies Squadron, he and his crew took three pirate vessels including the notorious Panchita . In the later part of that decade he was responsible for fitting out and delivering the New York built 64-gun frigate Hellas to the Greek rebels fighting the Turks. In the Mexican War, as the captain of the frigate Raritan he commanded the Naval Brigade of sailors and Marines which landed at Vera Cruz. In the 1850s, he commanded the West Africa Squadron, using his operational experience in irregular warfare to combat the slave trade. Finally, after retiring from the Navy he returned during the Civil War to oversee the conversion of civilian ships to conduct wartime patrols and serve as naval blockaders.^xxxv

Yet Gregory was not the only officer whose experience in irregular warfare in the War of 1812 set the foundation for a successful career during the period. Lawrence Kearny began his service as a contemporary of Gregory, also starting off in the much maligned gunboat service. During the War of 1812 he served aboard a series of small combatants and took command of his own ship, the schooner Caroline , in late 1813. In these vessels he operated out of Charleston and Savannah, patrolling the shallow coastal waters of the southern states. In January of 1815, he led a small boat attack on a group of British barges, capturing them from under the guns of the British frigate Hebrus . Kearny commanded the brig Enterprise with great success in the Caribbean during the West Indies counter-piracy campaign, and in 1821 destroyed the pirate Jean Lafitte’s stronghold at Galveston. He went on to play a central role in American naval diplomacy in the Far East during the British-Chinese Opium War, in early American treaty negotiations with China, and at Hawaii.^xxxvi

John “Mad Jack” Percival, was also a veteran of 1812’s irregular operations. He served under Commander Jacob Lewis in the New York flotilla, where he launched several small boat operations including a celebrated cutting-out expedition against the British sloop Eagle . He sailed aboard the schooner Porpoise in the West Indies counter-piracy campaign. He went on to command ships which patrolled the eastern Pacific, where he protected the whaling fleet and chased down mutineers, and served in the Mediterranean. From 1841 to 1846 he was entrusted with rebuilding Constitution and taking her on a three year cruise around the world. It was a deployment that included naval diplomacy in China, and the landing of sailors and Marines in an armed intervention in Vietnam to protect a group of French missionaries.^xxxvii

Modern discussions of naval affairs have included the subjects of irregular warfare, including counter-piracy, raiding, and naval diplomacy. An expanded view of the operational history of the War of 1812, to include naval irregular warfare, shows that during the conflict the foundation for later success was laid in these very types of operations. In fact, a look across the antebellum period, from the American Revolution and First Barbary War to the global operations of the years before the Civil War, shows this experience was quite common. The raiding and reconnaissance operations conducted by Francis Gregory on Lake Ontario offer an example of the conduct of irregular missions, and his later biography demonstrates how he used the experience well in his career afloat. But the experiences Kearny and Percival in the War of 1812, and earlier officers like Isaac Hull and Stephen Decatur in prior wars, show this was far from a unique experience.

A greater operational level study of the history of naval irregular warfare can help historians and naval practitioners alike. Scholars can expand the knowledge of how, when, and where these kinds of operations were conducted, helping to develop the historical record. This expanded study may offer modern practitioners with ways to view these kinds of operations today, and offer new frameworks to ask operational questions when confronted with modern irregular threats. By expanding the study of our past beyond the decisive blue water navies, we may just re-learn some of the ways to balance military operations and help develop a more historically minded approach to developing maritime challenges.

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