Coast Guard Roots Found in War of 1812

From the August 28th Elizabeth City (NC) Daily Advance.

The war was a major event for the U.S. Department of Treasury Revenue Cutter Service which eventually became the Coast Cuard.  These ships essentially provided the only coastal defense as the Navy had been disbanded.  (I beg to contradict that there was no Navy.)

Revenue cutters engaged Royal Navy ships on many occasions.  One of the first times was the Commodore Barry fighting off a British ship.  It was escorting five ships it had caught smuggling when word reached the ship that the British had captured an American ship. 

The crew beached the Commodore Barry at Little River in Maine and set up a shore battery, but the British prevailed and the crew taken prisoner to Canada.

The Norfolk-based cutter Thomas Jefferson engaged the British in Hampton Roads in the Chesapeake Bay in April 1813 and also saw action in the James River.

In May 1813, cutter Mercury anchored with other American vessels at Ocracoke, NC when a British privateer attempted an attack on the village after being warned by locals.  Another attack on the same place was thwarted in July of that year.

Later, 15 armed British barges with 1000 troops tried to capture the Mercury, but it escaped to New Bern and warned the citizens of an impending attack.  The local militia was called up and the British called off the attack.

I recently posted about the revenue cutter Louisiana that was sunk in the August 1812 hurricane at New Orleans.

Birth of the Coast Guard.  --Brock-Perry