Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet

On June 29, 1776, forces under Captain John Barry, who would later be remembered as the "Father of the American Navy," secured a significant win for the Continental Navy at what became known as the Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet. This clash marked the war's opening engagement between privateers.

New Jersey saw its first fatality of the conflict during this fight, when Lieutenant Richard Wickes lost his life. He was the brother of Captain Lambert Wickes.

Cape May County witnessed no other Revolutionary War combat besides this single engagement.

Battle

As afternoon faded on June 28, a Kingfisher lookout caught sight of Nancy making for Cape May and gave chase, with Orpheus joining the pursuit. Watchers stationed at Cape May on the American side also noticed Nancy along with the British vessels trailing her. A flag signal from Nancy reached Captain Barry aboard Lexington, warning that assistance was needed. Barry relayed word to Reprisal and Wasp before conferring with their commanders to work out a plan of action.

Crews manning longboats from Lexington, Wasp, and Reprisal, under the command of Lieutenant Richard Wickes, departed to render aid to Nancy.

Fog blanketed the coast in the early hours of June 29 as Nancy, chased by Orpheus and Kingfisher and unable to reach the Delaware Bay, turned instead toward the nearby Turtle Gut Inlet. She ran aground there, and the deeper-draft British warships could not follow into the shallows. Though still beyond effective range, the approaching British vessels opened fire on the stranded ship while the Americans worked frantically to save what cargo they could, particularly the barrels of gunpowder. Barry split his men into two efforts: some kept up cannon fire to prevent a British boarding, while others loaded the cargo onto longboats and rowed it ashore, where townspeople helped carry it behind the dunes for safekeeping.

By the time morning stretched toward noon on June 29, somewhere between 265 and 286 powder kegs had been brought to safety, even as British guns left Nancy badly battered. Barry then had the mainsail wrapped around fifty pounds of powder to serve as an improvised fuse, running it from the nearly one hundred kegs still sitting in the hold up to the deck and over the ship's side. As the crew made their escape, the fuse was set alight, and a single sailor climbed the mast one last time to bring down the American colors. Seeing the flag come down, the British mistook it for a surrender and dispatched men to board and claim the vessel. The flame, however, had already reached the powder below. What followed was a tremendous explosion, audible for miles, that killed seven of the boarding party. Captain Graeme's own account noted the deaths of a master's mate and six sailors from the longboats sent by Kingfisher. On the American side, Lieutenant Richard Wickes, whose brother Captain Lambert Wickes comm

Aftermath

The engagement revealed just how resourceful American forces could be, a lesson not lost on the British. In its wake, the British Navy pulled its Philadelphia blockade back, positioning it farther from the Cape May area. Barry earned early recognition for rescuing most of the gunpowder shipment while under fire from the two Royal Navy vessels, a moment that gave his career a meaningful boost. Captain Wickes, meanwhile, resumed his voyage toward the West Indies aboard Reprisal once the fighting had ended.

Lieutenant Richard Wickes now rests in the cemetery of Cold Spring Presbyterian Church, where a portion known as the Veterans Field of Honor stands in tribute to him. Both the Seal of Wildwood Crest and the Seal of the Wildwood Crest Historical Society bear an image of the brigantine Nancy, commemorating the clash. Cape May County later filled in Turtle Gut Inlet, an act completed in 1922.

Today, a modest park preserves the memory of the location.