Meantime, however, he participated in a fight on shore against a landing party of British seamen, marines, and soldiers that ended in one of the most brilliant victories for the Americans known to the war—the victory of Craney’s Island, near Norfolk. This island had been fortified with a battery of eighteen-pounders, but was not ordinarily occupied by troops. It was merely a battery to be manned for the defence of Norfolk, whenever occasion demanded.
The occasion arose when, on June 22, 1813, three British seventy-four-gun ships-of-the-line, one sixty-four-gun ship, four frigates, two sloops, and three transports anchored off the island, and prepared to take possession. At that time the American frigate Constellation was blockaded at Norfolk (where she had been from the first), and her commander, Captain John Cassin, sent one hundred and fifty sailors and marines under Lieutenant H. B. Breckenridge to defend the fort. Lieutenants Neale, Shubrick, and Sanders were under Breckenridge. To whelm this tiny force the British came with seven hundred (James says seven hundred, so there were probably more) men in fifteen boats, the leader of the boats being a launch fifty feet long, called the Centipede, which was in charge of Captain Hanchett, of the Diadem, an illegitimate son of King George IV. The whole expedition was under the command of Captain Samuel John Pechell, the braggart who, in the Guerrière, painted her name on her foretop-sail, and then cruised up and down the Yankee coast, and finally took John Deguyo, an American citizen, from the American brig Spitfire when she was within the waters of New York Harbor on May 1, 1811.
From a lithograph at the Navy Department, Washington.
Captain Pechell had asserted his contempt for the American people when in the Guerrière, still he was willing that Captain Hanchett should command the first boat to attempt the landing at Craney’s Island. And that was unfortunate, too, for it was Hanchett who got hurt.
The enemy came on with the customary dash of British landing parties, but the Americans held their fire until the boats were within seventy yards, and then the well-charged battery was turned loose. At the first blast a round shot raked the Centipede, cutting off the legs of several of the men at the oars, severely bruising the thigh of Captain Hanchett, and sinking the boat. Two other big boats were sunk at the same round, and two more a moment later, but it was so shallow there that the thwarts of three of them were left above the water when they struck bottom. The crews leaped overboard, splashing their way to the other boats, and leaving behind dozens struggling in the throes of death and with the agony of lesser wounds. Seeing the advance checked, a party of the Americans, under Midshipman Josiah Tattnall, waded out among the boats, cutlasses in hand. When he saw Tattnall coming Captain Samuel John Pechell had had enough. He ordered a retreat, and led the way to safety. His hosts followed in disorder, leaving forty prisoners in the hands of the brave Tattnall, who was also able to drag three of the boats ashore.
The comment which the British favorite historian makes on this inglorious retreat of seven hundred men before one hundred and fifty is the only one in his work whose meaning is not entirely clear. He says it was “A defeat as discreditable to those who caused it as it was honorable to those who suffered it. Unlike most other nations, the Americans in particular, the British, when engaged in expeditions of this nature, always rest their hopes of success upon valor rather than on numbers.” What one would really like to know is whether James was writing sarcastically about the manifest cowardice of Pechell, or was he really of the belief that the Americans in this affair had failed to show a proper spirit. For, of course, under an ordinary British officer, not to mention a Chads or a Hope, the seven hundred British would have whelmed the one hundred and fifty Americans, in spite of the slender fortification.
As said, the British frigate Junon got around to the Delaware not long after her brush with the gun-boats in the Chesapeake. The sixteen-gun sloop-of-war Martin was with her, and the Martin grounded on Crow’s Shoal. At that the Junon anchored near the Martin, and then came Lieutenant Samuel Angus with eight American gun-boats carrying a thirty-two each and two larger vessels (one-masted) to attack the Martin. The Americans were able to accomplish nothing of consequence in their great gun attack, because their powder was worthless. The British shot passed over them when their shot fell short. Still, the truth is, the gun-boats were so frail that the crews never had the heart to make a really vigorous attack on a frigate. But when one of this flotilla happened to drift clear of the rest and the British sent their ships’ boats to attack it, the Yankees made a fight that any nation might be proud of. This unfortunate gun-boat did not even have a name. It was “No. 121.” It was commanded by Sailing-master William W. Sheed, and there was a crew of twenty-five all told and one long thirty-two. The British force numbered one hundred and forty men in seven boats, several of which carried howitzers, under Lieutenant Philip Westphal. Sheed anchored his craft, and as the boats approached opened fire with his big gun. The first shot broke the carriage pintle, and the next ruined the carriage; so the gun became useless. Nevertheless Sheed rallied his little crew with small arms and fought the enemy until overpowered by sheer weight of numbers. But before they were overpowered they killed seven of the one hundred and forty British, and wounded thirteen. The Americans had seven men wounded. Of like character was the defence which Sailing-master Paine made with Gun-boat 160 in St. Andrew’s Sound, near Savannah, when a tender and ten boats, loaded with men and small cannon, attacked him. Paine had but sixteen men to resist nearly two hundred, but he fought them off for twenty minutes and only surrendered when the enemy at last thronged his deck. Paine was promoted for his gallantry.
Captain Joshua Barney, who made himself famous first by thrashing the British cruiser General Monk with a very inferior force in the Pennsylvania State cruiser Hyder Ali, during the war of the Revolution, and who, in the early part of the War of 1812, made a two-million dollar cruise against British commerce in a Baltimore clipper, took command of a fleet of gun-boats in Chesapeake Bay in 1813. But nothing of consequence occurred under his command until June, 1814. Then on June 1st he went in chase of two British schooners, and was fast overhauling them by the aid of long oars when a stiff breeze came up from the south and the sea rose so that the gun-boats were useless and he had to retreat. At that the schooners turned on him, but he made such a good fight in spite of the sea, that the schooners were glad to abandon the fight.
