Battle of Lake Borgne

Battle of Lake Borgne
Part of War of 1812
"The Battle of Lake Borgne" by Thomas Lyle Hornbrook.
Date December 14, 1814 Location Lake Borgne, Louisiana Result British victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom	United States
Commanders and leaders
Nicholas Lockyer	Thomas Jones
Strength
42 armed boats Royal Navy Royal Marines	5 gunboats 2 sloops-of-war U.S. Navy U.S. Marines
Casualties and losses
2 armed boats sunk unknown armed boats damaged 17 killed 77 wounded	5 gunboats captured 1 sloop captured 1 sloop scuttled 6 killed 35 wounded 86 captured

The Battle of Lake Borgne was a battle between the Royal Navy and Royal Marines on one side and the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marines on the other in the American South theatre of the War of 1812. It occurred on December 14, 1814 on Lake Borgne, and allowed the British to assault New Orleans ten days later.

The defeat of the British attack in September on Fort Bowyer prevented the British from taking Mobile, Alabama, and moving to cut off U.S. trade via land towards the Mississippi River. Next, the British decided to attack New Orleans and the Americans began receiving warnings of a British fleet approaching Louisiana. The warnings reached Commodore Daniel Patterson of the New Orleans Squadron, who immediately began to assemble any and all types of naval defenses to protect the state's waterways and naval ports.

When the British forces under Admiral Alexander Cochrane arrived off the Louisiana coast on December 9, Patterson dispatched Lieutenant Thomas ap Catesby Jones and a small flotilla to patrol Lake Borgne. The American force consisted of five Jeffersonian gunboats - No. 156, No. 163, No. 5, No. 23, and No. 162 - the schooner USS Sea Horse with Sailing-Master Johnson commanding, and two sloops-of-war, USS Alligator and USS Tickler, serving as tenders. Gunboat No. 156, the flagship of the squadron, mounted one long 24-pounder, four 12-pounder carronades, and four swivel guns. She had a crew of forty-one men. In all, the squadron comprised 245 men, sixteen long guns, fourteen carronades, two howitzers and twelve swivel guns.

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