The Battle of NorfolkThe Battle of Norfolk
MAJ. JAMES FAULKNER of the Virginia militia had always wanted to be an army officer. For years before the war Faulkner had tried unsuccessfully to persuade the secretary of war or President Thomas Jefferson to grant him a commission in the Regular Army. His lack of success failed to deaden his ardor. In 1811, as war with Britain loomed, Faulkner raised his own volunteer artillery company, which was attached to the 67th Virginia militia out of Berkeley County. By 1813 Faulkner was a militia major with command of an artillery battalion.
Governor James Barbour of Virginia ordered Faulkner to bring his battalion to Richmond and then to Norfolk. Brigadier General Taylor, desperately short of field-grade artillery officers, on June 19 ordered Faulkner to take command of the artillery on Craney Island.1 When he arrived on the island Faulkner reported to Lt. Col. Henry Beatty, commander of the 4th Virginia Infantry Regiment. Beatty was a veteran of the Revolutionary War who had commanded the state’s 31st Regiment of Militia before he came to Norfolk. His second in command, Maj. Andrew Waggoner, had served with Faulkner in the 67th militia before moving to Norfolk.
Although its title suggested a unified command, Beatty’s 4th Infantry was actually an amalgam of several disparate militia companies from all over Virginia. He had two companies of Waggoner’s and Faulkner’s 67th militia; three companies from Frederick County under three captains: Charles Brent, George Holliday, and Thomas Roberts; two companies from Jefferson County under Zachariah Buckmaster and Thomas B. Taws; one company from Fauquier County under Enoch Jeffries; a company from Loudon County under Thomas Gregg; and a company from Orange County under William Dulaney.2
Aside from the normal problems of integrating different units into a single command Beatty also had manpower problems; none of the ten companies was up to strength. The authorized size of a Virginia infantry regiment was 750 men, but Beatty had just 466, with another 46 on the sick list. Faulkner, meanwhile, took command of the two independent companies of light artillery on the island, which totaled another ninety-one men and four 6-pounder field guns.3
After watching Rear Adm. George Cockburn scout the island on June 20, Taylor asked Capt. Joseph Tarbell if he could spare any sailors to man a battery of naval guns on the island. Tarbell stripped the Constellation of her remaining crew, leaving just a master and twelve men on the frigate, and sent one hundred sailors under the command of Lt. B. J. Neale and fifty Marines under the command of Lt. Henry Breckenridge. The naval force took charge of three 24-pounder guns. Tarbell positioned the shorthanded Constellation in between Fort Norfolk and Fort Nelson with springs on her anchors, making it appear the frigate could enfilade the channel from Craney Island. Tarbell positioned his fifteen gunboats between Craney Island and Lamberts Point, covering the entire span of the Elizabeth River.4 Taylor also managed to scrape up another sixty men to send Beatty—thirty Regulars under Capt. Richard Pollard and thirty volunteer riflemen. All told, 767 men now held Craney Island. They dug in behind log-and-sand breastworks and waited for the British to attack.5
Admiral Warren made his move at midnight on June 21. A group of thirty ships’ boats and fifteen flats under the command of Capt. John Martin Hanchett of the Diadem embarked Colonel Beckwith’s 1,500-man landing force, which comprised Napier’s 102nd Regiment, a company of the Independent Foreigners, the Second Battalion of Royal Marines, and a contingent of sailors under Lieutenant Westphal. Napier, in a letter to his sister, described the passage:
We have two or three miles to row, the boats tied together and moving slowly . . . filled with armed men gliding in silence over the smooth water, arms glittering in the moonshine, oars just breaking the stillness of the night, the dark shade of woods we are pushing for combining with the expectation of danger to affect the mind. Suddenly Cast off! is heard, and the rapid dash of oars begins, with the quick hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! as the sailors pull to shore. Then the soldiers rush into and through the water. I forbid all noise until they can rush on the enemy; then they have leave to give a deadly screech and away! away!6
Beckwith’s troops landed on the beach east of Hoffleur’s Creek near Pig Point at the mouth of the Nansemond River. The colonel had his 1,500 troops assembled by daybreak, and they set out through the woods toward Craney Island. The force ran into problems almost immediately because Beckwith had used French prisoners of war from the Independent Foreigners as an advance guard. The French, sensing an opportunity, bolted almost at once, and twenty-five men disappeared into the woods.7
The island’s defenders quickly spotted the large force of Royal Marines and soldiers toiling through the woods. William Schutte, a militiaman posted at Hoffleur’s Creek, ran down to the Thoroughfare and called across the creek to Faulkner, reporting the enemy’s movements.8 Faulkner could see the British forming on the beach to enter the forest along the shore that led to the farm of Capt. George Wise, a militia officer. Realizing that his battery of four 6-pounders would be no match for the British, Faulkner decided to transfer the Navy’s two 18-pounders and two 24-pounders from the unfinished fort to the west end of the island. He and Thomas Rourk, master of a blockaded ship and a former member of a militia artillery unit from Portsmouth, Virginia, organized a working party that dragged the 5,000-pound guns off their platform in the unfinished fort and up the length of the island in an hour.9
Faulkner maneuvered all seven cannon onto a rise forty feet behind a previously prepared low, U-shaped breastwork facing Wise’s farm and Hampton Roads. He placed the four 6-pounders on the right while Rourk commanded the two 18-pounders on the left along with the two 24-pounders under a Captain Emmerson, commander of the Portsmouth militia’s artillery unit. Beatty posted his infantry along the breastwork under his deputy, Maj. Andrew Waggoner. The mixed bag of militia and Regulars erected a flagpole and nailed the colors to it. As the American defenders settled into their new position, Lt. William Shubrick and Lt. James Saunders from the Constellation arrived with a supply of shot and gunpowder. The naval officers had stripped the supplies from the frigate and the gunboats and, lacking draft horses, had moved the heavy shot and powder by foot and boat, using the sailors already on the island to do the bulk of the work.10
Beckwith planned his attack to occur at low tide. When he reached the Thoroughfare at 7 a.m., however, he found an uncharted seven-foot-deep channel running through the center of the tidal channel. A man in “colored clothes” who claimed he was a deserter offered to show the British a way around Wise’s farm to the wooden bridge over Craney Island Creek. Beckwith followed the man until he grew dubious of the “deserter’s” intentions, then turned back and returned to his troops. He ordered Capt. Robert Russell of the Royal Marine Artillery to take the rocket unit and create a diversion to draw attention from the amphibious assault. The marines fired about a half-dozen rockets, and Rourk responded with a barrage of grape and canister that pummeled the British position. The gunfire was so intense and rapid that it put one of the 18-pounders and one of the 6-pounders out of commission for the rest of the battle. Gunboat No. 67 of Tarbell’s flotilla also joined in the cannonade, the only direct participation of the flotilla that day.11
Map 2. Battle of Craney Island
TAKEN FROM AN ORIGINAL DRAWING BY STANLEY QUICK
The opening salvo from the American battery killed a sergeant standing next to Lieutenant Colonel Napier, who ordered the rest of his men to take cover in the woods. The 102nd executed the order promptly, but the marines reacted more slowly and remained under fire. Three more American salvos struck the marines before they scrambled to safety, killing three and wounding eight.
Some of the British troops tried to hide behind the Wise farm’s slave quarters, but American gunfire tore the roof off the building and knocked down the chimneys. The marines dashed to the woods for safety. As they did, Napier heard an officer yelling to the men in the woods but could not make out what the man was saying. The continuous din from the American cannon fire drowned out almost every other noise. The man was a courier Beckwith had sent to Napier with orders to withdraw. Beckwith, seeing Napier’s force was caught in a cul-de-sac and facing unexpectedly heavy artillery fire, wanted to pull back. The courier, however, refused to move to Napier’s position. He shouted from a safe distance, “You are to retire! You are to retreat!” Napier scornfully replied, “Come up and tell us so!” and began to pull his men back to the beach. It would prove to be a major mistake. Both Napier and Beckwith, however, blamed the fiasco on Cockburn, believing the admiral had failed to properly ascertain the depth of the Thoroughfare. No matter who was to blame, the main prong of the British attack on Craney Island was out of the fight without even reaching the island.12
By 8 a.m. the sun was high, the sky cloudless, and the weather sultry. The defenders of the island had no shelter and no source of freshwater. They collected rainwater by digging holes and straining the water from the mud. Sweat coursed down the bodies of the gunners and drenched their clothing. Only Major Faulkner, Lieutenant Breckenridge, Captain Pollard, and the thirty Regulars wore uniforms. The rest of the Americans, either preferring comfort or because they were militia and unused to wearing uniforms, had stripped down to shirtsleeves. Out in the river they could see the rocket vessel Mariner moving into position just out of range of their long guns; landing craft laden with troops clustered around her. A boat moved out from the Mariner, the crew searching for the shoal Lieutenant Westphal had found during his reconnaissance. As the boat moved closer to the island, the naval gunners opened fire, driving the British boat back to the Mariner. Two more boats pushed off from the Mariner, each armed with rockets. The boats attempted to engage the American artillery but never moved into range, all of their shots falling short. The gun battle served as cover for the landing craft, which joined the two rocket boats, forming a pair of parallel columns. One veered to the north, outside the shoal as if heading toward the line of American gunboats, while the other pushed straight toward the beach.13
Capt. Samuel Pechell of the ship of the line San Domingo led the assault, taking the front boat in the column feinting toward the gunboats. He led a force of some two hundred soldiers, sailors, and Royal Marines arrayed in twenty boats and flats. Capt. John Martin Hanchett led the column heading straight for the beach, using Admiral Warren’s personal 24-oar gig as his attack craft. The 50-foot-long boat was packed with sailors, marines, and thirty Independent Foreigners; another five hundred soldiers, sailors, and marines followed in nineteen boats and sixteen flats.14
Neither of the British officers was happy with his assignment. The assault was supposed begin at high tide, but by 8 a.m. the tide was already ebbing. More ominously, the plan for a two-pronged encirclement of the defenders on Craney Island had already fallen apart when Beckwith decided not to push ahead with his attack at the Thoroughfare. Now the British attack would be a straight frontal assault. Hanchett and two other officers spoke out heatedly against proceeding, but Pechell, believing it was his duty to support Beckwith, ordered the troops to attack.15
Faulkner watched as Hanchett’s column of British troops headed straight toward the artillery position. The major ordered his gunners to hold their fire, allowing the British boats to approach so close that the Americans could clearly tell the officers from the enlisted men. When Lieutenant Neale told Faulkner he could hit the lead British boat, the major ordered Neale to open fire. Just as the big 18- and 24-pounders belched fire, the lead British boats grounded on the shoal off Craney Island, still several hundred yards from shore. Neale, true to his word, hit Hanchett’s lead boat with his second shot, killing one Frenchman and wounding eight British soldiers. The shot knocked down Hanchett, who was standing in the bow wrapped in a Union Jack, ready to lead his troops. He got back to his feet and began to wave his hat as a warning to the boats behind his, but another salvo from Neale’s battery sent splinters flying, wounding Hanchett in the left thigh. The trailing boats continued to pile up on the shoal, creating confusion among the landing force. Boat officers screamed out commands to “Pull to port,” “Pull to starboard,” “Give way ahead,” and “Back astern.”
The shouted commands caused even more confusion among the British, who were now directly under the guns of the American defenders. Cannon fire struck one of the rocket boats and four launches. Lieutenant Westphal, pushing forward in one of the trailing boats, jumped out on the shoal and began to wade toward the beach in a vain attempt to convince the amphibious force to follow. Pechell rowed over from his column of boats and saw the beginnings of a rout. Perhaps hearing from Westphal that Beckwith already had withdrawn, he ordered a general retreat.16
As the British tried to back their boats off the shoal, Faulkner decided to snatch as many prisoners as he could. He ordered some of his riflemen to wade out and herd as many of the floundering enemy as they could to the shore. He also ordered Neale to form a salvage party of sailors to grab Hanchett’s gig, which was empty and aground on the shoal.17
When the two parties set out, Faulkner ordered the gunners to change from grape and canister to round shot to avoid hitting their own men. The American riflemen charged into the water and quickly rounded up twenty-two prisoners. They also became embroiled in a controversial fight at the water’s edge that would have tragic consequences for Cockburn’s next target. The British claimed the riflemen brutally massacred a number of Frenchmen who were struggling to get out of a barge. Taylor, who eventually convened a board of inquiry into the charge, found the claim baseless.18
The American guns ceased firing around 9 a.m. Part of Pechell’s force joined with Beckwith on the far bank of Hoffleur’s Creek while the remainder stood offshore, out of artillery range, preparing for a second assault. As his men settled in to wait, Faulkner sent one of the 6-pounders to cover the footbridge leading to the island. General Taylor sent 120 volunteer reinforcements as well as Lt. Col. Armistead Mason’s 5th Infantry Regiment. Mason took up a position from which he could attack Beckwith’s force from the rear should it try once again to land on the island.19
At 3:30 p.m., as the tide came back in, the British once more rowed for the island. Once again the shoal stopped the attack. British accounts assert that the “boats pulled manfully to the contest but with the same unfortunate result. As on the first attempt, we again formed a solid mass instead of an extended line, and the enterprise was abandoned.” The log of the San Domingo states the American battery opened fire and continued to fire until 6 p.m., when the attackers finally withdrew. There is no record of this second attack in any American account.20
The debacle on Craney Island took the British by surprise. Admiral Warren tried to play down the defeat in his report to the Admiralty, saying he “considered in consequence of the representation of the officer commanding the troops of the difficulty of their passing over [to Craney Island] from the land, that the persevering effort would cost more men than the number of us would permit.”21
Warren mentioned neither Pechell, who was his nephew, nor the loss of his personal boat in his reports. Beckwith submitted no report other than his casualty list. The combined official British casualty report was three dead, sixteen wounded, and sixty-two missing, including the twenty-five Frenchmen who scampered off at the start of the attack. Not a single American defender was killed or wounded. A force of seven hundred men, most of them militia, flanked by a gunboat flotilla, had turned back an invasion force of more than four thousand men supported by twenty ships of war. The thoroughly humiliated Warren’s self-serving description of Norfolk’s impregnability was such that the British avoided the Elizabeth River for the remainder of the war.22
While the British wondered how everything could have gone so wrong, the Americans celebrated. In his report Faulkner singled out Neale and the men from the Constellation, saying, “A more determined set of men, if an opportunity existed, I never witnessed.”23 Taylor gave Faulkner the credit for the victory and promoted him to command of the defensive ring to the rear of Norfolk.
In the aftermath of the battle, interservice rivalries dimmed the victory as some of the officers began to bicker over who exactly did what in combat. Lieutenant Colonel Beatty, who was in overall command but apparently never moved to the scene of the fighting, praised Faulkner in his report and singled out several individuals for commendation, including Tarbell. The Constellation officer, however, was upset that Beatty had allowed sutlers on the island immediately after the battle, and reported that the militiamen were frequently intoxicated. On June 30 Taylor ordered Beatty to evict the sutlers. Beatty did so, telling Taylor that Tarbell’s men were among those frequently drunk.
In early July one of Beatty’s company commanders, Capt. Thomas Gregg, sent a letter to Taylor demanding Beatty’s arrest for, among other things, “showing a disposition to strike the colors in the face of the enemy before they approached with musket shot.” Gregg alleged that Major Waggoner had to physically prevent Beatty from ordering a retreat when the British landed. Beatty had not mentioned Gregg, who fought in the battle, in his report. Taylor ordered an inquiry that vindicated Beatty when Waggoner sent a letter completely disavowing Gregg’s assertions. Beatty and Gregg continued to serve in the 4th Infantry until October, when the regiment was reconstituted with new officers and soldiers.24
Warren did not give his men time to brood over the fiasco at Craney Island, which Napier said “dampened us all.” Instead, he turned his energy toward mounting an assault on Hampton, a small, isolated village across from Norfolk at the end of the long peninsula separating the James River from the York River. Warren justified his decision to the Admiralty by claiming the Americans had a “considerable corps” at Hampton that controlled communications to Richmond, which he believed necessary to interrupt. He also said he selected Hampton because it was a perfect place to get freshwater. Beckwith, however, justified the choice to his superiors by saying the Americans were gathering troops there and erecting batteries in the vicinity that would allow them to control Hampton Roads.25
The British troops had barely returned to their transports on June 24 when they began to disembark for the attack on Hampton. The ships’ boats, cutters, and flats began loading Beckwith’s 2,600-man land force around midnight. The first to shove off was Napier’s advance guard consisting of his 102nd Foot, both companies of Independent Foreigners, three companies of ship’s marines, and a company of Royal Marine Artillery with two 6-pounder field guns and Congreve rockets. Lt. Col. Richard Williams of the Royal Marines led the main body, consisting of two battalions of marines. Admiral Cockburn took command of the naval operations, and Captain Pechell went on board the Mohawk to supervise Beckwith’s landing. Cockburn himself took personal command of the eight tenders that transferred the second wave of marines to the flats.26
Facing the British was a motley group of militia under the command of Maj. Stapleton Crutchfield. Most of the men came from the vicinity of James City and York, Virginia. Crutchfield had, on paper, seven companies of light infantry, one company of riflemen, a cavalry company, and an artillery detachment of four long 12-pounders and three 6-pounders. As impressive as that sounded, what should have been a regiment-sized force barely mustered a battalion’s strength. Crutchfield had just 349 infantry, 25 cavalry, and 62 artillerymen.27
The militia took up positions at Little England, the ancestral home of the Barron family and former estate of Commodore James Barron, the disgraced commander of the U.S. frigate Chesapeake. At the time, the widow of Samuel Barron, James’ older brother, lived at the estate, which was just south of the town on the Hampton River between Salters Creek and Sunset Creek. A small plank bridge across Salters Creek provided direct access to the property from the heart of town. The infantry dug a trench in front of their camp and built a high embankment in front of it. Crutchfield placed his guns in two places to project into the river, providing lines of fire to the narrow entrance of the river at Blackbeard’s Point. He put the three light guns on a point near the mouth of Sunset Creek and the heavy guns on a point four hundred yards to the north.28
The first British troops waded ashore at a farm two miles west of town around 3:30 a.m. on June 25. Napier’s advance force of nine hundred men quickly formed up and moved out. By 5 a.m. Beckwith had his entire force ashore and formed into columns, and had started inland. Cockburn took the Highflyer and other tenders together with thirty barges and two rocket boats and headed directly for Hampton to engage the militia from the river while Beckwith approached from their rear. One of Cockburn’s launches, the barge from the San Domingo, carried an 8-inch howitzer manned by Royal Marine artillerymen with which Cockburn planned to take the American batteries in the flank as the boats sailed along the shoreline. The Americans had revealed the positions of their batteries on June 24 when two British officers, using a local pilot and a captured boat, entered the harbor and provoked them into firing.29
Cavalry captain John B. Cooper brought Crutchfield news of the British landing at 4:30 a.m. Cooper had his dragoons on patrol near Celeys Road when the first redcoats splashed ashore. He followed the British as they moved out, shadowing them for about an hour. At 5:30 he rode to Crutchfield’s headquarters to report on Beckwith’s activities. Crutchfield ordered Capt. Richard Servant to take his company of riflemen and a 6-pounder field gun to intercept and harass the land force while Crutchfield waited to see what the barges would do. He did not have long to wait.30
At almost the same time Crutchfield was giving Servant his orders the British barges began entering the Hampton River. The British officer in charge had his men row cautiously upriver, stood up to see if there were any defenders, and then signaled the trailing vessels to move forward. The American artillery commander, Capt. Brazure W. Pryor, let several British boats move into the river before he opened up with the 12-pounders, followed by the 6-pounders. The British replied with rockets, grape, and canister. The American fire drove the British boats back to Blackbeard’s Point, where the tenders joined in the fight with 12- and 18-pounder carronade fire. The cannon duel lasted more than two hours. The rockets did little damage to the town or the American infantry, who were safe in their entrenchments.31
The first British troops to approach the American position were the three hundred Frenchmen of the Independent Foreigners. The unit was something of an experiment gone wrong for the British army. The British recruited the unit in Spain among French prisoners of war, with the promise they would not face their countrymen. The Frenchmen who enlisted did so more because they wanted to escape prison than because they enjoyed being soldiers. The two companies were notoriously ill disciplined and had mutinied while in Bermuda. The British, to give the Frenchmen some esprit de corps, dubbed the units Chasseurs Britanniques, or British light infantry. It did not help. New name or not, the Frenchmen remained hard to control.
As the Chasseurs advanced, they ran into Servant’s riflemen. Cooper, commander of the few American cavalry troops, watched as the riflemen and the 6-pounder opened fire and ripped into the ranks of the Chasseurs, throwing the French into confusion. After several minutes the Chasseurs rallied and turned on their attackers. “They then gave the most incessant fire that I ever heard in my life,” Cooper reported. “It was like the long roll of twenty drums at least and they pursued Captain Servant’s men through the woods.”32 A party of Royal Marine artillerymen engaged the sergeant in charge of the 6-pounder, and after a short exchange of musket fire drove off the Americans and captured the gun.33
Cooper rode back to Crutchfield, who could see the barges lying off Blackbeard’s Point. He realized the main attack would come against his rear and at 6 a.m. ordered his men out of the trench. His second in command, Maj. Gawin Corbin, formed the men into a column by platoons and led them into a cornfield that led to the intersection of Celeys Road and Yorktown Road at the rear of the American position. They were two hundred yards from a gate that led to Celeys Road when the British opened a heavy fusillade from the woods next to the cornfield. Crutchfield ordered his troops to “form a line, march to the enemy, fire, and charge with the bayonet.”34
The Americans wheeled to the left to form the line and had advanced about fifty yards when they received a discharge of rockets, grape, and canister from the British artillery. The blast stunned the militiamen, who were having problems maneuvering in the muddy cornfield. As the intensity of the fire grew, so too did confusion among the untrained American soldiers. Crutchfield ordered his men to form a column and rush the gate, but the continued British fire was proving too much for the Americans. When the British opened fire with the captured 6-pounder, the militiamen broke and ran. Seven Americans were killed in the cornfield and twelve were wounded, including Corbin, who was shot in the leg and right arm.35
Crutchfield, with the help of the wounded Corbin and Lt. John Armistead, tried to rally the militia. Two companies responded and joined with Servant’s riflemen to hold off the British; the rest of the militia disappeared in every direction. One of the last acts in the cornfield came from an artillery officer identified only as Lieutenant Jones in official reports. Seeing the overwhelming numbers of British heading up Celeys Road, he withdrew his 6-pounder behind a hedge. Finding his slow match extinguished and the militia in flight, he ran to a nearby house, grabbed a brand from the hearth, and hid in a hollow. When the British drew near the apparently abandoned fieldpiece and almost filled the lane, Jones jumped out and fired the gun with devastating effect. During the confusion that followed, Jones hitched the horses to the gun and pulled the piece to safety.36
The British pushed on toward the town and ran into Servant’s riflemen, who had reformed, and the two companies of militia that managed to rally. The Americans stopped several times to fire volleys at the British, but never stood their ground long enough to allow the enemy to close. Lieutenant Colonel Williams, with Capt. William Powell, Beckwith’s adjutant, led two companies of Royal Marines to take possession of the footbridge that led to Little England. Two more companies of marines advanced across a field opposite Williams. Captain Pryor and two other officers held their positions at the upper battery until the British advanced to within seventy yards. Pryor then spiked his guns and led his men on a charge through the British ranks to Western Creek, which the Americans swam across while carrying their carbines, all without losing a man.37
The battle was over by 7:30. The British reported five dead, thirty-three wounded, and ten missing (presumed deserters). Crutchfield reported seven killed, twelve wounded, and eleven missing. As the militia fled from the field, the British force moved into Hampton. They spent the next two days pillaging the town.38 Reports differ wildly on which troops caused the most damage. Mrs. Barron reported the British stripped her house of everything, right down to the bedsheets. The pastor of St. John’s Episcopal Church said British seamen carried off his communion set—along with everything else of real or perceived value. Crutchfield and Cooper wrote detailed reports of wanton cruelty and the rape of the town’s women. The conduct Cockburn unleashed and encouraged at Havre de Grace, Fredericktown, and Georgetown reached a bloody climax at Hampton. The worst offenders were the Chasseurs.39
A rumor spread among the Americans that Cockburn had promised each Frenchman a cash bounty if the Chasseurs captured Norfolk. Having failed to do so, the Frenchmen took out their frustrations on Hampton. Additionally, there was the story of the American riflemen murdering helpless Frenchmen at Craney Island. Whatever the cause, the Chasseurs ran riot in Hampton, and local and national newspapers in America were filled with lurid tales of rape, pillaging, and theft.40
The Chasseurs “have inspired the Americans with horror at their names and have plundered, pillaged and killed some individuals and committed some ravishments in their accustomed manner,” Warren wrote to Henry Dundas, Lord Melville, the First Lord of the Admiralty.41 Beckwith told Warren the Chasseurs had dispersed in every direction to plunder, and brutally assaulted the aged and infirm townspeople who could not flee. Napier was much harsher in his assessment of the events in Hampton. Beckwith “ought to have hanged several villains,” Napier wrote. “Every horror was committed with impunity, rape, murder, pillage; and not a man was punished!” Napier specifically recounted how one Chasseur had robbed a prisoner and then, to avoid detection and punishment, killed the man when he turned his back.42
Beckwith and Taylor engaged in a very public war of words over the atrocities. Beckwith attempted to deflect responsibility by claiming the Americans had “fired upon and shot” several British soldiers at Craney Island after their boats had either overturned or floundered. Taylor dismissed Beckwith’s assertions. He convened a special tribunal to investigate Beckwith’s claims and found them baseless. Taylor forwarded his findings to Beckwith, asking the British commander to conduct a similar probe into the actions of the British at Hampton. Beckwith refused. After receiving the British officer’s response, Taylor wrote to Secretary of War Armstrong that he expected no change in the way the British treated civilians.43
British troops continued to believe Beckwith’s allegations of American atrocities at Craney Island, while Americans viewed those allegations as a British attempt to avoid responsibility for the excesses of their own soldiers. Beckwith himself believed the Americans’ charges—at least as they applied to the Chasseurs. He withdrew the unit from service and shipped the men to Halifax, where they continued to cause problems. From Canada the unit went to England, but the British eventually disbanded it and returned the men to France after Napoleon abdicated.44
The Battle of Hampton had no real importance tactically, but its strategic implications would haunt the British. The American public and government were furious over the sacking of Hampton. Newspapers compared the Chasseurs to the Hessians the British had employed in the Revolutionary War. Support for the war solidified among the people living along the Chesapeake, many of whom were antiwar at the start of hostilities. Politically, the United States turned an insignificant defeat into a significant victory.45