USS Tigress-- Part 3: Captured In a Surprise Attack

The Tigress was under the command of Stephen Champlin at this time.

Four boatloads of British sailors and Indians secretly left Mackinac Island on the night of 3 September 1814.  They slipped alongside the Tigress, boarded and after a brief and bloody battle "warmly received" by the Tigress' crew, captured it in five minutes.  The Tigress only had a crew of 27.

"The defense of this vessel, wrote Lt. Miller Worsley, commander of the British, "did credit to her officers, who were all seriously wounded."

One of those seriously wounded was Acting Master Stephen Champlin.

--Brock-Perry