Capture of USS Chesapeake was a Early Republic and War of 1812 engagement fought in Massachusetts, 1813. It was a British victory.
Captain Philip Broke, whose name was pronounced "Brook," commanded the Royal Navy frigate Shannon for a lengthy stretch, and during that time he brought in a host of practical improvements to his heavy guns that had scarcely been seen elsewhere in naval gunnery of the period. His 18-pounder long guns received dispart sights, devices that corrected for the way a barrel narrows from breech to muzzle and thereby sharpened aim. Tangent sights that could be adjusted gave the guns accuracy across vary
Captain Philip Broke, whose name was pronounced "Brook," commanded the Royal Navy frigate Shannon for a lengthy stretch, and during that time he brought in a host of practical improvements to his heavy guns that had scarcely been seen elsewhere in naval gunnery of the period. His 18-pounder long guns received dispart sights, devices that corrected for the way a barrel narrows from breech to muzzle and thereby sharpened aim. Tangent sights that could be adjusted gave the guns accuracy across varying distances. Broke had grooves cut into the elevating quoins so degrees of elevation could be marked, allowing the guns to be set level and fire true no matter how the ship heeled under full sail. The carronades received similar treatment, though their elevating screws were simply marked with paint. Because contemporary deck lines curved upward at bow and stern, Broke had the wheels on the uphill side of each carriage trimmed down so every gun sat level with the horizon. He also had bearings cut into the deck beside each piece, letting fire be directed toward any bearing regardless of whether a gun crew could actually see the target, and allowing the whole battery to be concentrated on a single part of an enemy vessel.
Broke pushed his men to an exceptional standard in gunnery. Floating barrels served as targets in regular drills, which he often turned into contests over which crew could strike first and reload quickest. He went so far as to have gunners fire blindfolded, given only a bearing and nothing to sight by, a very early instance of what would later be called director firing, and the results were impressive. Royal Museums Greenwich has called Shannon one of the finest frigates in the Royal Navy, crediting that standing chiefly to Broke's relentless gunnery practice.
Beyond gunnery, Broke devised imagined scenarios to test his men further. Once all hands were called to quarters, he would lay out a hypothetical attack and observe how the crew responded in the ship's defense. Cutlass drill itself was avoided, but the crew regularly practiced singlestick, a swordsmanship exercise using cuts, thrusts, and parries much like those of the cutlass, performed instead with wooden sticks fitted with wicker guards. The exercise sharpened eye and wrist, and many aboard became skilled at it.
Commander James Lawrence of the United States Navy came home from a triumphant cruise after beating the sloop HMS Peacock. That victory earned him promotion to captain and orders to take charge of USS Chesapeake, though the posting was not one he wanted, since he had hoped instead for the larger Constitution. When he reached Boston, Lawrence discovered that much of Chesapeake's former crew had departed following a quarrel over prize money and had since been replaced. His earlier encounter with the Royal Navy left him with a skewed impression, for although Peacock had fought with courage, her gunnery had been weak, and this colored his expectations going forward.
Chesapeake's company held many seasoned sailors, yet Lawrence had precious little time to weld them, their unfamiliar officers, and his own methods of command into one cohesive fighting force. Accounts differ on how green the crew truly was: some point out that many men had sailed on the frigate's previous voyage, while others stress that Lawrence and several officers were strangers both to the vessel and to each other. Lawrence's low opinion of what he expected to face left him overconfident about the fight ahead.
Broke, keen to meet and beat one of the American frigates that had already handed the Royal Navy several defeats in single-ship duels, set about arranging a challenge. USS President had slipped away under cover of fog, eluding the British entirely, while Constitution sat undergoing heavy repairs with no prospect of putting to sea soon. Chesapeake, by contrast, looked ready for action, so Broke settled on her, then refitting in Boston harbor under Lawrence, as his target for a ship-to-ship contest.
While cruising off the coast, Shannon had stopped and taken several American vessels bound for the harbor. After sending two off toward Halifax, Broke realized his own crew was shrinking dangerously through such prize details, so he burned the remaining captures to keep his trained men aboard for the coming fight. The boats from those burned prizes carried into Boston his spoken invitation for Lawrence to come out and meet him. Broke had already dispatched HMS Tenedos elsewhere, hoping better odds might tempt the Americans to sea, but as doubt
Before the ships came together, Broke addressed his men, closing with the gunnery creed that would define his reputation: throw away nothing, aim carefully, stay calm, work without haste, and target the enemy's quarters from maindeck to maindeck and quarterdeck to quarterdeck. Dismasting the enemy mattered less than killing her crew, he told them, for once the men fell the ship was theirs.
Half past five that afternoon found the vessels converging some twenty nautical miles east of Boston Light, in the stretch of water between Cape Ann and Cape Cod. Shannon flew a faded blue ensign, and her weathered condition after months at sea gave the impression of an unremarkable adversary. One of her sailors, noting the many flags flying from Chesapeake, wondered aloud whether they might display three ensigns of their own. Broke's answer was characteristically dry: theirs had always been a modest ship. Neither vessel fired prematurely; Shannon held back despite Chesapeake bearing down, and Chesapeake, though holding the weather gage, made no attempt to rake her opponent. British officers would later commend Lawrence's bearing throughout this approach.
Gunfire began just before six in the evening at a distance of roughly thirty-five meters, and it was Shannon that scored first, her gun captain William Mindham sending two round shot and a bag of musket balls into one of Chesapeake's forward gunports. Because Chesapeake carried more speed, she slid along Shannon's flank, and the disciplined British fire crept aftward as she passed, hitting the American forward gun crews hardest of all. This was destruction aimed not simply at timber but at the men needed to command and fight the upper decks. The Americans answered steadily, though many of their shots merely struck the water or grazed Shannon along the waterline, doing little harm. Where they did damage was aloft: American carronade fire tore into Shannon's rigging, and one 32-pound ball smashed into a stack of shot stored in the main chains for a 12-pounder, driving fragments through the timbers and scattering them across the gundeck.
As the range shrank further, Shannon's gunners and topmen sustained a fire so constant that her exposed quarterdeck turned into a place where nothing could survive. Lawrence, seeing that his ship's momentum would carry her past Shannon, called for a pilot's luff, a slight turn toward the wind meant to spill air from the sails and check her speed. But just as Chesapeake began this maneuver, another accurate British broadside destroyed her ability to steer. Her quarterdeck suffered terribly in this exchange. A 9-pounder that Broke had specifically positioned there cut down the helmsmen, then blew away the wheel itself moments later. Yet the surviving American gunners answered with a second round that struck home, particularly carronade fire sweeping Shannon's forecastle, killing three men, wounding several more, and knocking out her forward 9-pounder. A round shot from this exchange also destroyed Shannon's bell.
Almost simultaneously with the loss of her helm, Chesapeake's fore-topsail halyard was severed, dropping the yard and forcing her to luff up uncontrollably. Robbed of forward drive, she swung further into the wind until she stood in irons, sails pinned flat against the masts, and began drifting sternward. Her port stern quarter drifted into contact with Shannon's starboard side, snagging on the projecting fluke of an anchor stowed along the gangway. Her spanker boom swung out over the British deck, and Shannon's boatswain, Mr Stevens, lashed it fast to hold the ships together, an act that cost him an arm.
Pinned at an angle that left few of her guns able to answer, Chesapeake now had her stern exposed to raking fire, and the same annihilation that had earlier fallen on her forward guns now reached her aft battery. Matters worsened when a small open cask of musket cartridges near the mizzen-mast detonated. Once the smoke lifted, Broke judged the moment right and ordered his men to board. Lawrence gave the identical order on his own ship, but his bugler, William Brown, was too frightened to sound it, so only those standing near the captain heard him. By now Lawrence stood alone as the sole officer on the upper deck, since both Ludlow and Ballard had already been wounded.
Lieutenant Cox, arriving on the quarterdeck with a boarding party gathered from below, found instead that Lawrence had taken a mortal musket wound and was holding himself upright against the
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