Battle of Barbados

USS Randolph

Date	March 7, 1778
Location	off Barbados, Atlantic Ocean
Result	British victory

Belligerents

United States

Kingdom of Great Britain

Commanders and leaders

Nicholas Biddle †

Nicholas Vincent

Strength

1 frigate
1 brig

1 ship-of-the-line

Casualties and losses

301 killed
4 captured
1 frigate sunk

5 killed
12 wounded

The Battle of Barbados was fought in March 1778 during the American Revolutionary War. While escorting a fleet of American ships in the West Indies, the frigate USS Randolph was attacked by the British ship-of-the-line HMS Yarmouth. The following action resulted in America's most costly naval defeat, in terms of human lives, until the sinking of USS Arizona in 1941.

Captain Nicholas Biddle commanded the thirty-six-gun USS Randolph, having received orders from John Rutledge to break the enemy blockade of Charleston, South Carolina where a large number of merchantmen were trapped. After breaking the blockade Biddle was to sail into the South Atlantic. Four other armed ships accompanied the Randolph in this mission: the General Moultrie, the Notre Dame, the Fair American and the Polly. However, after sailing out to meet the British off Charleston on February 14, the enemy was nowhere in sight, so the American fleet headed for the West Indies where Biddle would raid commerce. On February 16, the fleet burned a British ship that had been dis-masted by a privateer, and on March 4, the Polly captured a small schooner that was added to the fleet as a tender. Three days after that, at about 5:30 pm, on March 7, 1778, the Americans were sailing off the eastern coast of Barbados when lookouts spotted a large ship to the windward. Captain Biddle assumed the vessel to be a man-o-war so he directed most of his ships to continue on while he remained behind with the Randolph and the eighteen-gun ship General Moultrie to engage the oncoming vessel.

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