Target: NorfolkTarget: Norfolk
AS SPRING TURNED TOWARD SUMMER in 1813, it was clear the Americans and British viewed the Chesapeake theater in very different ways. The Madison administration could not seem to grasp the strategic importance of the bay as a haven for privateers, as a source of supplies, and as the gateway to the nation’s capital. The federal government remained fixated on the campaign against Canada and, increasingly, on defending the territories acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. Victories over British troops and their Indian allies near Detroit may have restored the prewar borders in the Michigan and Indiana territories, but control of the Great Lakes remained in doubt, and losses in Canada left the United States open to attack through New York State.
Madison also had to contend with the possible expansion of the war into Spanish Florida. Volunteers from Tennessee and Kentucky had assembled under cantankerous Gen. Andrew Jackson and prepared to seize the Spanish territory, but an uprising in the Alabama territories of the Creek Indians and their allies forced Jackson to shift his attention there. Still, an American force occupied undefended Spanish West Florida, including the city of Mobile, and prepared to head toward St. Augustine.
The open oceans also remained a major concern for both sides. America went to war with England ostensibly because of its belief in “free trade and sailors’ rights.” So far, at least at sea, the Americans continued to enjoy success. The brig Argus and the frigates President and Chesapeake made successful cruises, capturing or destroying numerous prizes while bringing the war to English home waters. Victories such as those, however, were becoming rare as the Royal Navy tightened its blockade. Privateers and some merchantmen still managed to slip out, but the Eastern Seaboard from Long Island Sound to Charleston was slowly being closed to American shipping.
Great Britain also saw Canada and the Great Lakes as major theaters of the war, but unlike the Americans, realized the importance of operations in the Chesapeake. The English recognized the strategic role of the bay as a supply base for the Americans as well as for their own navy. They also believed their early nineteenth-century form of total war would force the Americans to divert resources from Canada to the Chesapeake.
The most obvious place for the British to expand the Chesapeake campaign was at Norfolk—the gateway to the bay and the location of the Constellation. A victory at Norfolk could conceivably destroy morale and create a domino effect throughout the bay. At the very least, it would take one of the U.S. Navy’s frigates out of the war. The Admiralty dispatched an expeditionary force of 2,300 men under Col. Sir Thomas Sidney Beckwith to Bermuda. From there, Admiral Warren, with the San Domingo and the Plantagenet, escorted the force to the mouth of the Chesapeake. The reinforced squadron arrived off Cape Henry at the mouth of the bay on June 5.
Beckwith’s force arrived on seven transports. His orders from London gave him command over all of the British land forces, although Warren had the authority to pick Beckwith’s targets. The Admiralty told both commanders their mission was to “harass the enemy by different attacks” without taking permanent possession of any particular target. They were to reembark their troops as soon as they accomplished the immediate objective of any attack and were to avoid a general action unless it was necessary to cover a retreat. Their orders authorized Warren and Beckwith to exact tribute from any community in return for refraining from destroying nonmilitary property. On no account, however, were they to encourage a slave rebellion, “which must be attended by atrocities inseparable from commotions of such a description.” If individual blacks offered to assist the British and requested asylum, Warren could take them into one of the Colonial Marine Corps units that served in the West Indies. Nevertheless, since Warren was to free any slaves who offered help and to maintain them at public expense, London urged him to exercise discretion to ensure he could fulfill that commitment. Warren also received an admonition that “it will rarely, if ever, be necessary to advance so far into the country as to risk [your] power of returning.”1
Beckwith’s command comprised two battalions of Royal Marines; a detachment of the 102nd Infantry Regiment under his second in command, Lt. Col. Charles Napier; and two companies of the Regiment of Independent Foreigners, a unit made up of French prisoners of war. The two marine battalions each had a company of light artillery consisting of a pair of light 6-pound naval guns mounted on wheeled carriages, a 12-pound and a 24-pound howitzer on carriages, and a 10-inch mortar. In addition, Beckwith had the squadron’s marines and sailors at his disposal, giving him another 688 marines and 1,286 small-arms-trained sailors on whom to draw.2
Land forces were only part of the equation for Beckwith. The colonel also had Warren’s fleet to provide covering fire as well as the ships’ barges and cutters, which carried Congreve rockets and carronades. On paper, at least, the veteran of the Peninsular Campaign had everything in place to attack and carry Norfolk—everything, that is, except landing craft.
The fleet’s launches and barges were perfect craft for the type of warfare the British had employed so far—slashing raids in which rowers and marines alike exited the craft to attack a particular town or farm—but were ill suited for landing large bodies of troops. To send several thousand marines and soldiers ashore the British needed “flats,” shoal-draft scows with ramped ends that were similar to the tobacco boats that plied the bay. Each flat could carry forty troops or two artillery pieces and twelve men, although they required a tow from either an oared or a sailing vessel. Warren put Cockburn to work on the boats. Cockburn stripped the crews of the Barrosa and Narcissus and set them ashore on Watts Island, where they cut twenty-five acres of forest to build fifty landing craft.3 When combined with the ships’ boats that would tow the flats into combat, Beckwith could put ashore 2,600 men in one sortie.4
The defenses of Norfolk had improved since the British first tried to rush up the Elizabeth River to capture the city and its navy yard. Brig. Gen. Robert Taylor remained in command and continued to pull in militia units from the surrounding area to reinforce his garrison. By June 5 Taylor had five militia infantry regiments and one regiment of artillery ready for action. He also had the Regulars stationed at Fort Norfolk under his command.5
Taylor was among the better militia commanders who would face the British in the Chesapeake region. He knew how to organize units and worked hard to make the militia more professional. He eliminated the colonial practice of electing field officers and grouped his disparate militia companies into sequentially numbered regiments, putting an experienced officer in command of each. Although none of his regiments had its authorized strength of one thousand officers and men, at least every militiaman had a weapon, and many had rifles.
Taylor also had a pair of naval officers who knew how to employ the fifteen ungainly gunboats then in Norfolk. Master Commandant John Cassin and Master Commandant Joseph Tarbell were both veterans of the U.S. campaign against Tripoli in 1803–4; Cassin was in command of the Gosport Navy Yard, and Tarbell had temporary command of the Constellation (Capt. Charles Stewart was on his way north to Boston to take command of the Constitution). Both officers understood the need for gunboats and had experience using them, and they prepared their little flotilla for action.6
The weak point at Norfolk remained Craney Island. More sandbar than actual island, the spit of land was about a half mile long and two hundred yards wide. The western tip of the island concealed a sandbar that was invisible at high tide. Two narrow guts separated Craney Island from the mainland. The first, called the Thoroughfare, was on the western side of island and was about one hundred yards wide. The second, Craney Island Creek, at the south end of the island, was four hundred yards wide, six feet deep, and had a footbridge across it. A third watercourse, Wise’s Creek, bordered the island along the north bank of the Elizabeth River and fed a swamp that faced Hampton Roads and in turn drained into a series of mudflats that made any approach by ship from that side of the island impossible.
Taylor was well aware of the importance of Craney Island to Norfolk’s defense. As he watched the British preparing to attack, he dashed off a note to Secretary of War Armstrong on June 18, telling him, “Should the enemy . . . attack Craney Island, it must fall unless we throw the greater part of our forces there.” Knowing he could not strip Norfolk of its defenders, Taylor told Armstrong he would resort to trickery if necessary to keep Cockburn off balance.7
The British could not have asked for a better pair of ground commanders than Col. Sir Thomas Sidney Beckwith and Lt. Col. Charles Napier. Beckwith came from a military family. His three brothers were all commissioned officers in the British army; the oldest was a lieutenant general. Sir Sidney was already a legend in the British army for his handling of light infantry troops in Spain during the Peninsular War. At the Battle of Sabugal on April 3, 1811, Beckwith commanded a brigade of light infantry of Wellington’s army and led his men into the thick of the action. Beckwith’s horse was shot out from under him and he was wounded in the action, but that did little to slow him down. He remained with his command and fought just days later at the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro on May 3–6, 1811. In recognition of his gallantry, Beckwith received a knighthood and became the quartermaster general of Lt. Gen. John C. Sherbrooke’s forces in Halifax. Later in his career he was promoted to lieutenant general and made commander in chief of British forces in Bombay. His peers called Beckwith “one of the ablest outpost generals and one of a few officers that knew . . . how to make the most of small forces.”8
Charles Napier was the oldest of four brothers, all of whom entered military service. His star was just on the rise as the Peninsular War came to a close. Physically small and nearsighted, Napier possessed an amazingly sharp intellect and seemed to know intuitively how to handle troops. He suffered a series of wounds while serving in Spain and Portugal in 1809, including broken ribs, a gunshot wound, and a bayonet wound. After he recovered from those injuries he returned to duty and was again in the middle of close combat. At the Battle of Busaco on September 27, 1810, he led his command on a wild charge that turned the French flank, during which a shot through his face broke his jaw. He nevertheless returned to take part in the Battles of Sabugal and Fuentes de Oñoro. Later in his career Napier would command part of the British army in India and would quell uprisings in several provinces as well as claim victories in Afghanistan. His spectacular series of successes earned him the nickname “Conqueror of Sind,” and London’s citizens erected a huge bronze statue of him in Trafalgar Square, paid for through popular subscription.9
Although confident of their own skills, the two infantry officers were less sanguine about those of their naval counterparts. Neither Napier nor Beckwith had worked with the Royal Navy prior to coming to the Chesapeake, and so far, at least, neither Warren nor Cockburn had impressed them. Cockburn, on the strength of his successes in the northern part of the bay, fancied himself an infantry tactician, while Warren, as overall commander, picked the targets. In addition, there was the order from London “to avoid the risk of a general action.” Beckwith, according to Napier, seemed unable to deal with the complicated command situation. “Had either Sir John Warren, Sir Sidney Beckwith or Admiral Cockburn acted singly and without consultation, we should not have done such foolish things,” Napier wrote. “Sir Sidney ran sulky when required to do what he deemed silly, which in my opinion made it more silly.”10
Before leaving Bermuda, Warren and Beckwith had sent Cockburn a long list of questions concerning the approaches to Craney Island, Fort Norfolk, Fort Nelson, the Gosport Navy Yard, and the city of Norfolk. Warren was particularly interested in the approaches to Fort Norfolk from the east side of the Elizabeth River. Beckwith appeared more interested in landing a large force at the Nansemond River west of Norfolk and then proceeding east overland to Fort Nelson and Gosport before attacking Norfolk over the bridges from Gosport. Cockburn received Warren’s and Cockburn’s questions on June 12 and immediately set to work providing answers, albeit most of them reflected his own opinion. The rear admiral believed any attack from Gosport toward Norfolk would give the Americans too much time to draw in reserves. An attack from the Nansemond River would also force the Americans to concentrate their defenses around Norfolk, which in turn could bring on the “general action” the British were to avoid. Cockburn favored a two-pronged assault in which ground forces would strike Craney Island while also landing on the eastern side of the Elizabeth River. Cockburn believed this approach would prevent Taylor from bringing in reinforcements and open Fort Norfolk to attack. Once Beckwith’s troops took Fort Norfolk, Fort Nelson would be untenable and the British would have complete control of the area on both sides of the river. It took Cockburn four days to compose answers to all the questions, and he never sent them because Warren arrived with Beckwith’s troops on June 20.11
As part of his information gathering, Cockburn ordered Cdr. Frederick Hickey in the sloop Atalante to reconnoiter the areas around Craney Island and Cape Henry to find suitable landing sites—preferably places near roads leading inland that would aid the invasion force. Hickey set off on June 14. He got something of an advance notice of the mood of the local inhabitants when he pulled up to what he called “Ragged Island Lake Plantation,” an island with a small farm that had several houses, two corn mills, and fields well stocked with cattle. Hickey demanded the owner provide his ship with corn and other supplies, but the owner refused. Unsure what to make of the owner’s stance, Hickey anchored the Atalante outside cannon range that night and returned in the morning. He ordered a landing party of sailors and marines to return to the farm and again demand supplies, and to warn the owner that if he refused, “Down goes your Mill.” The owner replied by revealing the presence of a small group of militia, which immediately opened fire on the British landing party. A company of the 2nd Virginia militia under Maj. William Nimmo was also on the island, and he moved quickly toward the sound of the guns.
After repulsing the first group of British, the militia now faced nearly the entire crew of the Atalante, which Hickey sent ashore with orders to burn everything on the island. The militia drove the British landing party back to the Atalante. Hickey then opened fire with the ship’s guns. He fired more than a hundred rounds and set one of the mills ablaze, but the militia stood its ground and extinguished the fire. The Virginians kept shooting until they expended all of their ammunition.12
If the unexpected defense of the small, unnamed island did not alarm Cockburn, the Americans’ next move certainly did. On June 19 the U.S. Navy launched a surprise attack on the frigate Junon, which had become separated from the rest of Cockburn’s squadron. The ship was short of crew because Cockburn had most of his seamen out in the small boats making charts and placing buoys in the areas near Craney Island.
Cassin ordered Tarbell to strip the Constellation of crew to man the fifteen gunboats still in Norfolk. The gunboats set off late in the evening of June 19, using rain squalls for cover as they moved downriver toward the British. Even with the crew from the Constellation, the gunboats were undermanned. The craft normally carried crews of between 35 and 40 men. The 150 sailors and 50 Marines Tarbell took off the Constellation and split up among the 15 gunboats gave each vessel a skeleton crew of just 13 men. The river current helped the boats move, but the few crewmen on board still had to man the sweeps as the gunboats advanced.
At 2:30 a.m. on June 20, Capt. James Sanders of the Junon caught a glimpse of the American gunboats heading toward him. Junon was the westernmost ship in the British anchorage and could not move because of a lack of wind. The neighboring frigates Barrosa and Narcissus faced the same the problem, but Tarbell was headed toward the Junon, not the other ships. At a range of about a half mile, Tarbell ordered his gunners to fire. The long 24-pounders belched flames into the darkness, striking the Junon four times, killing one sailor and wounding three. Just as the gunboats were ready to fire a second salvo, however, the wind came up from out of the northeast and the three British frigates got under way and moved toward the gunboats. Both the Junon and the Narcissus were able to bring their 18-pounder main batteries to bear on Tarbell’s flotilla and began to pound the gunboats. Tarbell, directing the action from a small tender, ordered the gunboats to retire at 6:30 a.m. American casualties were light. Master’s Mate Thomas Allinson of the Constellation was killed on gunboat No. 139 when an 18-pounder cannon ball ripped him in two, and two Marines suffered splinter wounds. All of the gunboats were damaged. The attack amounted to very little—although Tarbell believed he could have taken the Junon had the wind not changed—but it served to show the British that the defenders of Norfolk were not the same as those of Havre de Grace or Fredericktown. It also instilled a measure of respect in Cockburn for the gunboats.13
The attention of the British next centered on Craney Island. Warren arrived on June 22 with Beckwith, Napier, and the troop transports and found Cockburn already preparing for an attack on the island. Warren was committed to making an overland attack on Fort Norfolk from the rear, which required taking the sandy spit of land. Napier and Cockburn appeared to agree with Warren’s strategy, but Beckwith did not, although Beckwith’s reluctance to embrace the plan did not hinder the naval officers.
Warren assigned two separate forces to attack the island simultaneously: a land force from the west under Beckwith and an equally strong amphibious force under Capt. Samuel John Pechell of the San Domingo that would attack from the north. Cockburn, with his group of frigates and sloops, was to coordinate and provide covering fire for the attack. His ships were also to serve as the assembly point for both prongs of the assault.
Once they captured the island and cleared it of defenders, Warren planned to reembark both forces and redeploy them to Tanners Creek, from which they could hit Fort Norfolk. Warren ordered Cockburn to transfer his flag to the frigate Barrosa and take command of the Junon, Narcissus, Laurestinus, Moselle, Atalante, Nemesis, and Mohawk along with six tenders. Once Cockburn safely landed the assault force, he was to ascend the river with his new squadron and destroy the gunboats. After Beckwith had reduced Fort Norfolk and Fort Nelson, the combined force was to capture or destroy the Constellation, the navy yard, and any shipping present in Norfolk harbor.14
On paper, it was a good plan. The British apparently expected the Americans to put up no more than token resistance, as they had at Havre de Grace and Fredericktown. They did not know that, unlike the Maryland state forces on the upper bay, the Virginians guarding Norfolk wanted the British to attack.