Things You Didn't Know About Oliver Hazard Perry-- Part 1: Family Ties

Perry is part of my signoff for this blog:  Brock-Perry (the Brock part is named for British/Canadian hero Isaac Brock).

From the Feb. 27, 2024, Military History Now Oliver Hazard Perry--  10 Things You Didn't Know About America's Iconic Naval Commander."

1.  He came from a family with strong ties to the U.S. Navy.  His father, Christopher Raymond Perry was a privateer in the American Revolution and captain in the U.S. Navy during the Quasi-War with France.  His brother, Matthew Perry, also in the U.S. Navy played a major role in the opening of Japan to the United States.

2.  Perry became a midshipman at the age of 13.  He spent his youth sailing with his father.  He became a midshipman in 1799 and spent the next six years in the Quasi-War and the Tripolitan War against the Barbary Pirates.

--Brock-Perry

USS Congress-- Part 4: A Special Kind of Frigate

In 1785, Barbary pirates, mostly from Algiers in North Africa, began to seize American merchant ships in the Mediterranean.  In 1793 alone, eleven sere taken with their crews and cargoes held for ransom.    This caused the U.S. to pass the Naval Act of 1794. to provide funds for the construction of six frigates.  But in cost cutting, a clause was added that if a peace treaty was signed with Algiers that construction would be stopped.

Joshua Humphreys design was unusual for the time with a long keel and narrow beam and mounting heavy guns.The "ratings" or number of guns carried, was a bit of a misnomer as these frigates carried many different numbers of cannons.  The USS Congress was rated at 38 guns, but often carried as  many as 48.

The designs also gave these ships much heavier planking on their sides than was to be found on frigates at the time, meaning they could withstand broadsides better.  Humphreys design took into account that the U.S. Navy could not stand toe-to-toe with the European powers at the time, but could do well against other frigates.  They could, though, escape from the more powerful but slower ships of the line.

--Brock-Perry

Stephen Champlin's Postwar Career-- Part 1

After his capture, the British paroled him figuring that his wounds would be mortal.  He went back home to Connecticut where he recovered from the wounds.  On March 28, 1815, he was ordered to join Perry's fleet which was heading to the Mediterranean to battle the Barbary Pirates off the coast of Algeria and Tunisia.

In the fall of 1815, in consideration of his wounds, he was ordered to  to return to Erie in the spring of 1816. There he underwent a difficult operation to remove the many splinters of shattered bone that remained in his leg.

From 1816-1818, he commanded the USS  Porcupine surveying the Canadian-American border along the upper Great Lakes.  Upon his return to Erie, he was beached in a strong gale at Buffalo.  During his enforced stay in Buffalo, he met and courted Minerva  Lydia Pomeroy whom he married there  on January 9, 1817.

She was a Buffalo socialite of the city. She and Stephen had eight children.

--Brock-Perry

USS New York-- Part 2: First Barbary War

The New York arrived in the Mediterranean Sea on 6 April 1803 and became the flagship of the fleet.  The small Moorish kingdoms along Africa's north coast had been attacking and harassing American commerce aand the American fleet was inclined to convince them otherwise.

En route to Tripoli, the New York had a powder explosion, killing four men.  Repaired at Malta, it arrived at Tripoli and negotiations began, but not until two brief engagements  convinced the Tripoli government of the superiority of American ordnance.  Talks went better after that.

Midshipman John Downes distinguished himself in the two battles.

On June 29, a tentative treaty was reached and the American ships left.  However, the Bashaw of Tripoli resumed his encroachments after the fleet left.

--Brock-Perry

Preble's Flag-- Part 3: Lt. Preble Had a Famous Uncle

On September 1, 1854, Commodore Perry ordered the charter of local steamship Queen to patrol the Chinese coast between Hong Kong and Macau at a monthly cost of $750.

Captain Joel Abbott of the Macedonian placed Lt. George Henry Preble in command of the Queen with 40 sailors and 14 Marines.  Five decades earlier, Lt. Preble's more famous uncle, Commodore Edward Preble, had commanded the Third Squadron against the Tripoli pirates in the Mediterranean.

Young Lt. Preble fought Chinese pirates often with his command.

--Brock-Perry

Preble's Flag-- Part 1: Recently Rediscovered at Annapolis

From the January 2018, War On the Rocks:  Preble's Flag:  An Emerging Navy Fights Chinese Pirates" by Claude Berube.

In December last year, the staff at the USNA Museum in Annapolis rediscovered quite a few flags from the 18th century that were thought to have been lost, including ones from the Spanish-American War and the Korean Expedition of 1871.

One of particular interest was a flag captured by George Henry Preble, a young Navy lieutenant in his first command.  It was from a largely-forgotten fight with Chinese pirates in 1854.

This story is a bit beyond the scope of this War of 1812 blog, but quite a few of the ships and people in the story were involved with the war, so I will write about it.

--Brock-Perry

Back to Lawrence Rousseau-- Part 1: War of 1812 on the USS Erie

On Friday's post, March 18, 2016, I wrote about Lawrence Rousseau of the U.S. Navy, who fought in the War of 1812 as well as the Civil War in the Confederate Navy.

One of the ships he was stationed on during the War of 1812 was the sloop-of-war USS Erie in Baltimore.

Wikipedia.

The USS Erie was a three-masted, wooden-hulled sailing sloop-of-war launched 3 November 1813, in Baltimore and put to sea 20 March 1814 under Commander Charles G. Ridgely.  Unable to reach open sea because of the British blockade of the Chesapeake Bay, she returned to Baltimore 7 April 1814, and remained there without a crew until early 1815.  Lawrence Rousseau was stationed on this ship until after its return to Baltimore.

With the end of hostilities and the British blockade, the USS Erie sailed to Boston on 5 May 1815, and joined Bainbridge's squadron sailing to the Mediterranean to check the Barbary Pirates who had used the U.S. involvement in the War of 1812, to return to their old ways.

The USS Erie mounted two 18-pdr cannons, twenty 32-pdr. carronades, was 117 feet long with a 31.6 foot beam and had a crew of 140 enlisted and officers.

--Brock-Perry

The War of 1812's USS Saranac

From War of 1812: A Complete Chronology.

While researching for the USS Saranac which went hunting for the Confederate raider CSS Shenandoah at the end of the Civil War, I came across a USS Saranac in the War of 1812.  I, however, was unable to find out much about it.

It was a brigantine laid down in 1814 and named after a river in New York that flowed into Lake Champlain, although it did not serve on the Great Lakes.  It was not completed in time to fight in the war and launched in 1815.  On June 20, 1815, it sailed from New York as part of Commodore Stephen Decatur's squadron, one of two squadrons sent to the Mediterranean Sea to deal with the Barbary Pirates in Algiers.

It was decommissioned in 1818.

--Brock-Perry

Captain William Henry Allen, Rhode Island Naval Hero-- Part 2

On William Allen's first cruise, he went from Philadelphia to North Africa on the USS George Washington to carry tribute to the Dey of Algiers to keep him from attacking American shipping.

In June 1807, in the Chesapeake Bay, he allegedly fired the only shot at the HMS Leopard when it was impressing American seamen from the USS George Washington.  This even caused President Jefferson to enact his December 1807 Embargo against Britain.

In early 1812, Allen was 1st Lieutenant on Captain Stephen Decatur's frigate USS United States in its victory over the HMS Macedonian and then he took command of that ship and sailed it into Newport, Rhode Island, as a prize on Dec. 6, 1812.

--Brock-Perry

Commodore Isaac Chauncey Plaque To Be Unveiled

From the Oct. 5, 2012, Bridgeport (Ct) News.

The official unveiling of a plaque dedicated to this naval officer will be at his boyhood home at 150 Seabright Avenue in Black Rock on Saturday Oct. 13th and the day has been declared to be the "Isaac Chauncey Day" in Bridgeport.

Commodore Chauncey was born in 1772 in Black Rock and was a Great Lakes naval commander during the War of 1812 after also fighting against the Barbary Pirates.  He was later President of the Board of U.S. Naval Commissioners from 1837 to his death in 1840.

Never Heard of Him.  --Brock-Perry