Force of British Fleet.

Vessels.Guns.Long.Short.Long
metal.		Short
metal.		Weight of
metal.
Confiance37316744192936
Linnet1616192192
Chubb111106180186
Finch104624108132
Twelve Gunboats1688162256418
Total90603011287361864

Force of American Fleet.

Vessels.Guns.Long.Short.Long
metal.		Short
metal.		Weight of
metal.
Saratoga26818192636828
Eagle20812144384528
Ticonderoga17125168146314
Preble776363
Ten Gunboats16106192108300
Total86454175912742033

In this calculation the possible error consists only in one disputed eighteen-pound columbiad on the “Finch,” and three disputed guns—one long and two short—on the British gunboats. In one case the British would have thrown about nineteen hundred pounds of metal,—in the other, about eighteen hundred. A glance at the two tables shows that in one respect Downie held a decisive superiority in his guns. He had no less than sixty long-range pieces, while Macdonough had but forty-five. Downie’s long-range guns threw at least eleven hundred pounds of metal; Macdonough’s threw but seven hundred and sixty. If Downie chose his own distance beyond range of the thirty-two-pound carronades, and fought only his long guns, nothing could save Macdonough except extreme good fortune, for he had but fourteen twenty-four-pound guns against Downie’s thirty-four. Firing by broadsides, Downie could throw from his single ship, the “Confiance,” sixteen twenty-four-pound shot, to which Macdonough could reply only with eight, even if he used all his long guns on the same side.

The Americans had a decided advantage only in their commander. Thomas Macdonough, born in Delaware in 1783, was thirty years old when this responsibility fell upon him. He had been educated, like most of the naval heroes, in the hard service of the Tripolitan war, and had been sent to construct and command the naval force on Lake Champlain in the spring of 1813. Macdonough’s superiority over ordinary commanders consisted in the intelligent forethought with which he provided for the chances of battle. His arrangement showed that he foresaw, and as far as possible overcame in advance, every conceivable attack. He compelled the enemy to fight only as pleased himself.

PLAN
OF THE
BATTLE
OF
PLATTSBURG

Position of vessels 20 M. after anchoring

Macdonough anchored his four large vessels across Plattsburg Bay, where it was a mile and a half wide, and placed his gunboats in their rear to fill the gaps. Cumberland Head on his left and front, and Crab Island on his right obliged the enemy to enter in a line so narrow that Downie would find no room to anchor on his broadside out of carronade range, but must sail into the harbor under the raking fire of the American long guns, and take a position within range of the American carronades.[173] As the battle was to be fought at anchor, both squadrons would as a matter of course be anchored with springs on their cables; but Macdonough took the additional precaution of laying a kedge off each bow of the “Saratoga,” bringing their hawsers in on the two quarters, and letting them hang in bights under water.[174] This arrangement enabled him to wind his ship at any time without fear of having his cables cut by the enemy’s shot, and to use his larboard broadside if his starboard guns should be disabled. In effect, it doubled his fighting capacity.