Bombardment of Lewes

During the War of 1812, a British naval squadron subjected the Delaware town of Lewes to cannon fire from offshore, an episode that came to be known as the Bombardment of Lewes.

The bombardment

When the United States and Great Britain went to war in 1812, British warships soon began patrolling the American coastline, cutting off trade and commerce along the eastern seaboard. Alongside this blockade, the Royal Navy launched scattered raids on port towns and merchant vessels up and down the coast. By March of 1813, a detachment of these ships had made its way into the Delaware Bay to help tighten the noose around American shipping there.

The situation escalated on April 4, 1813, when Commodore John P. Beresford, sailing aboard HMS Poictiers, brought a small squadron toward Cape Henlopen. His ships sailed within sight of Lewes, a modest port town guarded by a leftover battery from revolutionary days positioned just west of the settlement, along with a makeshift pine-log fort thrown together in the middle of town. Beresford dropped anchor and sent men ashore to demand provisions from the residents, but the sudden appearance of the Delaware militia put an end to that plan. When repeated efforts to talk the townspeople into handing over supplies went nowhere, the commodore finally put his demands in writing, addressing his letter to whoever served as Lewes' chief magistrate.

His message was blunt: he wanted twenty live bullocks delivered to the Poictiers, along with hay and vegetables in matching quantity, to feed his squadron currently anchored offshore. He promised prompt payment at Philadelphia rates. But if the town refused, he warned, he would have no choice but to burn it to the ground. He signed off formally as commodore and commander of the British squadron stationed at the Delaware's mouth.

Word of the ultimatum reached Delaware's governor, who had rushed down from Dover to Lewes once trouble with the British seemed imminent. His answer was firm: complying with such demands would break American law, and he refused. Beresford's response came in the form of cannon fire. Starting on April 6 and stretching into the following day, his ships pounded the town for twenty-two straight hours, hurling cannonballs and Congreve rockets at the shoreline. Remarkably, the damage was slight, limited mostly to a handful of battered chimneys. The town's defenders fired back and managed to strike one British gunboat, setting it ablaze. By April 7, Beresford called off the assault, and his vessels sailed away to resume their watch over the bay. When the smoke cleared, the American side tallied its losses as a single wounded pig with a broken leg and one dead chicken, while the British came away entirely unscathed.

Today, one of the houses struck during the attack still stands in Lewes, nicknamed the Cannonball House for the British cannonball still lodged in its foundation. The building now houses the town's maritime history museum, and among its holdings is a preserved copy of Beresford's original letter demanding supplies from the town.