Capture of USS Chesapeake

Capture of USS Chesapeake
Part of the War of 1812
The Brilliant Achievement of the Shannon ... in boarding and capturing the United States Frigate Chesapeake off Boston, 1 June 1813 in fifteen minutes by W. Elmes.
Date 1 June 1813 Location off Boston, Massachusetts, Boston Harbor, Atlantic Ocean Result British victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom	United States
Commanders and leaders
Philip Broke	James Lawrence  †
Strength
1 38-gun frigate 330 Sailors and Marines	1 38-gun frigate 379 Sailors and Marines
Casualties and losses
1 frigate damaged 23 killed 56 wounded	1 frigate captured ~48 killed ~331 captured (99 wounded)

The Capture of USS Chesapeake, or the Battle of Boston Harbor, was fought on 1 June 1813, between the Royal Navy's frigate HMS Shannon and American frigate USS Chesapeake, as part of the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. The Chesapeake was captured in a brief but intense action in which over 80 men were killed. This was the only frigate action of the war in which there was no preponderance of force on either side.

At Boston, Captain James Lawrence took command of Chesapeake on 20 May 1813, and on 1 June, put to sea to meet the waiting HMS Shannon, the frigate whose written challenge had just missed Chesapeake's sailing. Chesapeake suffered early in the exchange of gunfire, having her wheel and fore topsail halyard shot away, rendering her unmanoeuvrable. Lawrence himself was mortally wounded and was carried below. The American crew struggled to carry out their captain's last order, "Don't give up the ship!", but the British boarding party overwhelmed them. The battle was notably intense but of short duration, lasting ten to fifteen minutes, in which time 252 men were killed or wounded. Shannon's Captain Philip Broke was severely injured in fighting on the forecastle. Chesapeake and her crew were taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the sailors were imprisoned; the ship was repaired and taken into service by the Royal Navy. She was sold at Portsmouth, England in 1819 and broken up. Surviving timbers were used to build the nearby Chesapeake Mill in Wickham and can be seen and visited to this day. Shannon survived longer, being broken up in 1859.

During his long period in command of Shannon, Captain Philip Broke of the Royal Navy introduced many practical refinements to his 'great guns', which were virtually unheard of elsewhere in contemporary naval gunnery. He had 'dispart sights' fitted to his 18-pounder long guns, which improved aiming as they compensated for the narrowing of the barrels from the breech to the muzzle. He had the elevating 'quoins' (wedge-shaped pieces of wood placed under the breech) of his long guns grooved to mark various degrees of elevation so that his guns could be reliably levelled to fire horizontally in any state of heeling of the ship under a press of sail. The carronades were similarly treated, but the elevating screws on these cannon were marked in paint. As the decks of contemporary ships curved upwards towards the stern and bows, he cut down the wheels on the "up-slope" side of each cannon's carriage in order that all guns were level with the horizon. He also introduced a system where bearings were incised into the deck next to each gun; fire could then be directed to any bearing independent of the ability of any particular gun crew to see the target. Fire from the whole battery could also be focused on any part of an enemy ship.

...
Wikipedia