Book Review: Warships of the Great Lakes

 

American History textbooks rarely spend much time on the Great Lakes; their importance as the barrier between the original thirteen colonies and French Canada — and later the barrier between the United States and British Canada — is seldom mentioned, nor is their roll in the calculations of power and trade in the early American interior given its just due.  If the lakes are even mentioned, it is only to note that Commodore Perry won a famous battle and secured the lakes for us in the War of 1812.  Theyrarely discuss is just why securing the lakes was vital, which is exactly what Warships of the Great Lakes: 1754 – 1834 by Robert Malcomson does so well.

Screen Shot 2014-08-08 at 12.23.17 AMThere were only three main arteries into the American interior in colonial times: up the Mississippi River, up the Saint Lawrence River, or overland through the Appalachians.  The latter option was treacherous for lack of roads, while the other two were under French control.  The Saint Lawrence drains Lake Ontario and the other lakes beyond, but also drains — by way of navigable feeder rivers — Lake Champlain which, in turn, gives access to the interior of upstate New York and New England.  The Great Lakes, however, allow access to the entire interior of North America as far as the Mississippi.

The book focuses its attention on the ships the English, the French, and the Americans used to contest the control of this vital waterway, from the French and Indian War (i.e., The Seven Years War) through the War of 1812.  The author does not attempt to paint a narrative arc of the campaigns, but catalogs and records the evolving ship designs and the facts of the campaigns themselves, including how naval activities affected the land strategies of the various armies.  As naval construction terminology may be unfamiliar, he also defines the vocabulary of ship design as required throughout the text.

The French and Indian War saw the first militarization of the Lakes.  The French already nominally controlled the waters, but the British and American colonists had been intruding on French commerce for decades prior to the war.  British merchants had been building trading vessels on lakes Ontario and Champlain, and these became the first war vessels on the lakes.  The French responded by arming their own merchantmen.

We know from our histories that France lost this war and ceded all of Canada and the lands east of the Mississippi to Britain, but the book fills in the details of how the French losses on Lake Ontario allowed British armies to flank French positions.  Britain first swept Ontario and Champlain of French ships, then used the open waterways to support the land armies in besieging the forts, opening the routes to the conquest of Quebec and Montreal.  By the war’s end, Britain even had one lone warship on the heretofore empty upper lakes. [[[???]]]

In our War For Independence, the Great Lakes were not so militarized, as they offered no viable route into the colonies, and the colonies themselves did not have the resources to contest them.  Lake Champlain, however, was a fierce battleground.  Benedict Arnold led a substantive holding action against an invading army, and while his loss eventually allowed General Burgoyne through, the delays contributed to Burgoyne’s ultimate loss at Saratoga.  Britain made no further attempt to use that route.

432px-HMS_St_Lawrence_001The War Of 1812 occupies the majority of the book, as this was the period when the Great Lakes came most into their own as a battleground.  The initial months of the war followed much the pattern of the two prior wars, with both sides first arming their merchant fleets with available ordnance.  As the American naval war on the Atlantic stalled with the blockades of 1813, the American Navy directed large numbers of cannons, shipwrights, and sailors up to the Lakes, where a naval arms race commenced.  Commodore Chauncey set in motion a rapid building program to launch frigates (then the mainstay of capital warships) on Lake Ontario, which the British soon matched.  Late in 1814, Britain even launched a 112-gun first rate battleship, HMS St Lawrence, whose firepower was the equal of Nelson’s HMS Victory.  Had the war progressed into 1815, the USA would have launched two first-rate in response, while Britain was building two more as well.

Commodore Perry’s squadron on Lake Erie was effectively a sideshow compared to the activity on Ontario, and — though he did clear the British off of the upper lakes, allowing the relief of Detroit — by 1815 Britain would have had a much larger squadron return to those waters.  Perry’s victory was one of the few celebrated naval triumphs of the war, so it is still commemorated.  Commodore Chauncey, however, did the real work of the war by preventing Britain from invading New York by that route, even though he never risked his fleet in a pitched battle.

Late in 1814, Britain risked one other major naval action, this time on Lake Champlain.  Britain looked to invade by Burgoyne’s route, but the loss of their entire Champlain squadron at Plattsburg ended that strategy.  The losses on the upper lakes — combined with those on Champlain, and the Ontario stalemate — all contributed to the eventual peace treaty.  With the end of the war, the fleets of both sides were either sold off or allowed to rot at their moorings; the lakes have been unarmed zones ever since.

The author spends some time discussing some of the oddities of sailing vessels on the lakes.  The shallowness of Erie made the brigs of Perry’s squadron very shallow of draft and poor sailors – had the British commander at Put In Bay been more aggressive in maneuvering he could have stolen the weather gauge from Perry, giving him a huge tactical advantage.  Wooden ships on the lakes also tended to rot or wear out very quickly: ocean-going vessels of the era could last decades with care, while lake vessels tended to be useless after 5-7 years, even as builders attempted to pack their ballasts and bilges with salt to dry them out and make them last longer.  Vessels launched in 1812 were frequently beyond repair by late 1814, making the maintenance of the fleets an expensive proposition.  The weather patterns of the lakes also played havoc with the squadrons.  Perry lost most of the ships he captured in battle when the winds drove them into a British harbor.  Sudden storms and a short sailing season kept ships at their bases for a surprising amount of time, and the commanders on both sides could rarely make aggressive raids or maneuvers out of fear of capture or grounding.

All told, Malcomson has put together a useful and compact reference for naval historians and enthusiasts, and an illuminating look at a neglected front in the struggle for control of North America.

Image Credits: William Henry Powell [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons & “HMS St Lawrence 001” by This file is lacking author information. – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HMS_St._Lawrence_001.jpg. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

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  1. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    skipsul: Carronades? Shame to have missed that one.

    It wasn’t too much, just a discussion via PM. Quite sometime ago, there was a thread where someone asked to name three modern technologies that you think are idiotic or frightening. Being a bit of a wag (but you hadn’t noticed?), I listed things like the automatic bread slicer, carronades, and something else I forget at the moment. Nobody caught that my version of modern was more like the historical definition, that might be marked with about the year 1485. But Seawriter asked via PM why I had said carronades, since he has, of course, written on the subject.

    In the ensuing discussion, I mentioned the “fact” that carronades were intended to smash decks and create more splinters to injure the sailors and fighting men. Which he mentioned was an early 20th century myth. How does misinformation like that get started? In this case, it may have been a historian mistaking speculation for history, but how does a discrepancy come up on whether a ship is finished or not?  (I can think of at least ten ways offhand.)

    • #31
  2. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Arahant: In the ensuing discussion, I mentioned the “fact” that carronades were intended to smash decks and create more splinters to injure the sailors and fighting men. Which he mentioned was an early 20th century myth. How does misinformation like that get started?

     I blame John Masefield.

    Arahant: how does a discrepancy come up on whether a ship is finished or not?  (I can think of at least ten ways offhand.)

     In this case, I suspect it is mainly a difference is the way “finished” is defined.  A wooden sailing warship has no engines or machinery.  The propulsion system (masts and sails) and the armament (great guns) are added after it is launched and removed when it is laid up.  (In a modern warship, these are added when the ship is built, and remain on the ship.) 

    Moreover, a ship left on the building ways would not be caulked. (You want the water to leak out.) It cannot be launched until it is.  So it is “finished?”  From a builder’s standpoint it is built.  Yet a captain writing a report would say “needs to be finished” in the same sense you “finish” a cabinet.

    Seawriter

    • #32
  3. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    Heh.  Finished or not?  Seems a fluid definition.  By the definition of “finished” as applied to New Orleans, you could have deemed USS Kentucky (BB66) as “finished” – neither ordnance nor upperworks, but complete almost to the spar deck.  

    I’d not heard that myth about carronades before though.  My first exposure to them was through Patrick O’Brian, and he got them right.

    Historical research is a funny thing too.  Sometimes the best accounts are the contemporary ones, sometimes later research gives better perspective.  I’ve recently finished reading a book on the Berlin Wall, and the author’s main thesis is that JFK allowed Khrushchev to put up the wall in hopes it would calm him down – that is JFK actually sold out East Berlin (sounds like Obama eh?).  JFK was then caught out when Khrushchev tried to use Cuba to leverage the rest of Berlin, actually tried to trade the two.  This is a story not often told about the Cold War, and certainly unknown to anyone outside of the administration at the time.

    • #33
  4. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Seawriter: I suspect it is mainly a difference is the way “finished” is defined.

    That was my first thought.

    • #34
  5. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    skipsul: Finished or not? Seems a fluid definition. By the definition of “finished” as applied to New Orleans, you could have deemed USS Kentucky (BB66) as “finished” – neither ordnance nor upperworks, but complete almost to the spar deck.

    Ah, I don’t think that’s quite what we are saying here. For instance, there are all sorts of places where one can buy unfinished furniture.  You buy a piece of furniture and finish it in the sense of staining it the woodtone you want and then applying whatever polyurethane coats. You don’t buy the chest where you have to put the drawers together. (That would be ready-to-assemble). What Seawriter and I are talking about as finished is the ship is built. It is not yet ready for sea, but it is built. Everything is there for to make it float. Okay, caulking needs to be done, but that’s a bit of maintenance that also gets done a number of times during the life of the ship. The decks may need holystoning, too, but again, maintenance.  Masts and cordage need to be added, but they were not considered to be part of the vessel holistically.

    • #35
  6. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    Arahant: Ah, I don’t think that’s quite what we are saying here. For instance, there are all sorts of places where one can buy unfinished furniture.  You buy a piece of furniture and finish it in the sense of staining it the woodtone you want and then applying whatever polyurethane coats. You don’t buy the chest where you have to put the drawers together. (

     Oh, I know, I was just trying to make a point about terminology.  By the New Orleans definition of finished, Ikea is finished too (some final assembly required).  It’s all in the period-appropriate usage.  A WWII battleship is hardly comparable to a First Rate except in the sense that they both float and carry  guns.  But if you are coming at this from a modern sense of shipbuilding then New Orleans looks “unfinished,” even if to her builders she was quite finished.  Definitions and technologies change, and this is the sort of mistake that catches modern historians and history readers.  Just look at the arguments over the phrase “well-regulated militia”.

    • #36
  7. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Okay, the book is History of Jefferson County, New York (1878).  Look at page 411.  The image shows the transom missing, but it also shows the only the lower gun deck installed – which does not strike me as terribly plausible.  The deck beams have to be there at a minimum.  Of course,  the  frames are not shown, either.  So the image is highly stylized.

    They were about to launch New Orleans in a few more weeks – less than a month.  Looking at the 1880 photo (I have a copy purchased from USH&HC), all that needs to be done is really plank up the spar deck.  Maybe a week or so’s work.  Assuming the transom is not done (typically this is left until very last) it would take a couple of days for the carpentry and a few more for the glazing. 

    Note there are no interior bulkheads in any sailing warships above the berth deck.  Those would have been temporary partitions.

    I’d say you could argue either way, but to me, or to a shipwright of 1816, it would be considered built.

    Seawriter

    • #37
  8. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    skipsul: Definitions and technologies change, and this is the sort of mistake that catches modern historians and history readers.

     It depends on what the meaning of “is” is.

    • #38
  9. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    Seawriter: Okay, the book is History of Jefferson County, New York (1878).  Look at page 411.  The image shows the transom missing, but it also shows the only the lower gun deck installed – which does not strike me as terribly plausible.  The deck beams have to be there at a minimum.  Of course,  the  frames are not shown, either.  So the image is highly stylized.

     Illustrator might not have known what he was looking at.  If that boat house was as illustrated then he would have had trouble doing the side view except by inference.  Still, glad it was caught on record.  It is also plausible that the deck beams were not present if there were still some external side braces.  As I understood ship construction, the keel, frame, and external planking were done first, with the decks filled in later, so the internal deck beams might not have been fitted yet.

    • #39
  10. user_313423 Inactive
    user_313423
    @StephenBishop

    Good article and some great comments. I’ve learnt a lot.

    • #40
  11. Devereaux Inactive
    Devereaux
    @Devereaux

    I am on the final pages of 1812 – The Navy’s War by George C.  Daughan. He actually has quite a bit to say about the naval actions and efforts on the Great Lakes, mentioning all those ships you note, Skip. He also speaks (obviously) about the land efforts and the open sea efforts. It has been a fascinating book, especially since I really didn’t know much but the bare outlines of the war.

    • #41
  12. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    Devereaux:

    I am on the final pages of 1812 – The Navy’s War by George C. Daughan. He actually has quite a bit to say about the naval actions and efforts on the Great Lakes, mentioning all those ships you note, Skip. He also speaks (obviously) about the land efforts and the open sea efforts. It has been a fascinating book, especially since I really didn’t know much but the bare outlines of the war.

     I’ll be interested to compare that with one I just finished called Six Frigates, by Ian Toll.  He approaches naval history from the stories of the first six capital ships the US built:  Constitution, Constellation, Congress, United States, President, and Chesapeake.  His book is as much about the politics of the early Navy, including getting the ships built, their captains, and their effects on other world powers.

    • #42
  13. Devereaux Inactive
    Devereaux
    @Devereaux

    skipsul:

    Devereaux:

    I am on the final pages of 1812 – The Navy’s War by George C. Daughan. He actually has quite a bit to say about the naval actions and efforts on the Great Lakes, mentioning all those ships you note, Skip. ..

    I’ll be interested to compare that with one I just finished called Six Frigates, by Ian Toll. He approaches naval history from the stories of the first six capital ships the US built: Constitution, Constellation, Congress, United States, President, and Chesapeake. His book is as much about the politics of the early Navy, including getting the ships built, their captains, and their effects on other world powers.

     VERY different. Six Frigates speaks to how the Navy came to being, and the genius of Joshua Humphreys. 1812 surprisingly doesn’t even mention Humphreys. It is more a nuts and bolts rendition of the war. It goes into detail regularly on the armament of the ships involved. Interestingly, it seems there were not a lot of actual engagements on the Great Lakes, although both sides were involved in a naval construction race – which the Americans mostly won. Biggest part was finding skilled seamen.

    • #43
  14. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    Devereaux: Interestingly, it seems there were not a lot of actual engagements on the Great Lakes, although both sides were involved in a naval construction race – which the Americans mostly won. Biggest part was finding skilled seamen.

     Yeah, the maneuvers on Lake Ontario rarely ended in battle (lots of small engagements and a couple of nasty raids both ways), and neither side would commit their fleets entirely.  Classic stalemate.  The Americans didn’t exactly outbuild the Brits, but they built enough to keep the Brits stuck, and that was in itself decisive.  Same on Champlain.  Our one attempt to strike the Brits there ended in the capture of several American ships, but we built more very rapidly. The Brits then committed their entire squadron at Plattsburgh (which the Americans expected and prepared for) and suffered a decisive reversal.

    • #44
  15. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    skipsul:  Yeah, the maneuvers on Lake Ontario rarely ended in battle (lots of small engagements and a couple of nasty raids both ways), and neither side would commit their fleets entirely.  Classic stalemate.

     That was more the personalities of the fleet commanders than anything else.  Lake Erie was the result of one aggressive commander and one tentative commander.  Lake Champlain was what happens when both fleets have aggressive commanders.  Lake Ontario is what happens when both commanders “fear to put it to the touch, to win or lose it all.”

    It should be noted that the Royal Navy had to be aggressive on Lake Champlain, because they were supporting a British invasion of New York down the Lake Champlain line.  Without control of the lake the British army could not move.  If the British Army could not move, the Royal Navy’s presence on Lake Champlain was unnecessary.  So roll the dice and see what happens.

    Similarly the United States Navy needed to be aggressive on Lake Erie (to support an invasion of Canada. Perry, too, was willing to roll the dice.

    Chauncey and Yeo?  Not so much.

    Seawriter

    • #45
  16. Devereaux Inactive
    Devereaux
    @Devereaux

    Good summary, Seawriter. And how different were the open water engagements. Indeed, The Cheasapeake was lost over a misplaced sense  of chivalry. The President was just overwhelmed under Decatur. Most of the others were fair fights, which the Americans won often enough to make the Brits sit up and take notice. Taken with the reversals at Baltimore and especially at New Orleans, America ended up with real respect from the Brits, which went to both sides’ benefit. It is interesting that despite a century of good relations, Teddy Roosevelt was in such a lather to have a war with Britain.

    • #46
  17. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Devereaux: The Cheasapeake was lost over a misplaced sense  of chivalry. The President was just overwhelmed under Decatur. Most of the others were fair fights, which the Americans won often enough to make the Brits sit up and take notice.

     The Chesapeake was not lost over a misplaced sense of chivalry.  It was lost over a misplaced sense of arrogance.  There were some reasons for it (including Lawrence’s fight with Peacock), but Lawrence showed judgment that was as poor as Dacres or Carden.  He even ignored a chance to rake his opponent 

    As to the other three frigate duels . . . the USN should have won all three walking away.  (May I recommend my book Constitution vs. Guerriere?  It goes into a lot of this.  Complete with tables of statistics.)

    Seawriter

    • #47
  18. Devereaux Inactive
    Devereaux
    @Devereaux

    Seawriter:

    Devereaux: The Cheasapeake was lost over a misplaced sense of chivalry. The President was just overwhelmed under Decatur. Most of the others were fair fights, which the Americans won often enough to make the Brits sit up and take notice.

    The Chesapeake was not lost over a misplaced sense of chivalry. It was lost over a misplaced sense of arrogance. There were some reasons for it (including Lawrence’s fight with Peacock), but Lawrence showed judgment that was as poor as Dacres or Carden. He even ignored a chance to rake his opponent

    As to the other three frigate duels . . . the USN should have won all three walking away. (May I recommend my book Constitution vs. Guerriere? It goes into a lot of this. Complete with tables of statistics.)

    Seawriter

     1812 takes his not taking the opportunity to rake his opponent to be the misplaced chivalry. It was, in point of fact, stupid.  ?Does you book cover more than just that engagement.

    • #48
  19. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    Devereaux: 1812 takes his not taking the opportunity to rake his opponent to be the misplaced chivalry. It was, in point of fact, stupid.  ?Does you book cover more than just that engagement.

     6 Frigates argues that the Chesapeake action was fought more along the lines of a personal duel, which was stupid under the circumstances, hence Lawrence’s refusal to fire or maneuver at many points early in the engagement when his actions could have been decisive.

    As for the loss of the President, it wasn’t just that Decatur was overwhelmed, it was that President was already heavily damaged after spending the night getting battered on a reef in a gale.  President was reputed to be the fastest of the fleet by a long shot (itself worth an essay on ship design and optimal rigging), but her keel was shredded and much of her copper torn off by the grounding.  She probably lost anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of her normal speed, and her crew were exhausted.

    • #49
  20. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Devereaux: 1812 takes his not taking the opportunity to rake his opponent to be the misplaced chivalry. It was, in point of fact, stupid.  ?Does you book cover more than just that engagement.

     I think passing up the rake was more stupidity than chivalry.  He didn’t think it necessary.  He was going to win anyway because the British could not shoot worth beans.  Which was true for Guerriere, Macedonian, and Peacock, but unfortunately for Lawrence, Broke was a gunnery fanatic. (Know your enemy.)

    My book covers the four single-ship frigate duels during the War of 1812.  It also has sections on the design and development of the ships involved, technical specifications, a combatants, and statistics and analysis of the four battles. Some of the conclusions are interesting.  (Like the one that once two ships were within small arms range, casualties skewed heavily to the officers.)

    Seawriter

    • #50
  21. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    skipsul:  She probably lost anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of her normal speed, and her crew were exhausted.

     More likely she lost 5% to 10% of her normal speed.  It took a long stern chase to catch her. The real reason President was captured was for the first (and likely only) time in his naval career Decatur was out-thought.  

    John Hayes, commanding the British squadron, was able to figure out where Decatur was planning to go after Decatur broke out of harbor.  Hayes had lost President, but knew it was damaged.  So (having studied Decatur), Hayes made a guess where Decatur would go to evade the blockading squadron, and sailed there – where he found Decatur.

    Hayes was known as “Magnificent Hayes” in the Royal Navy.  

    The incident showed one limitation of the USN.  The average USN captain was better than the average RN captain.  (The 50th percentile in the USN was probably equivalent to the 70th percentile in the RN.) But since the USN had around 30 captains max, and the RN had about 500, the British could find 30 captains better than the best USN captains, and by 1814 sent them to North America Station.

    Seawriter

    • #51
  22. skipsul Inactive
    skipsul
    @skipsul

    Seawriter: My book covers the four single-ship frigate duels during the War of 1812.  It also has sections on the design and development of the ships involved, technical specifications, a combatants, and statistics and analysis of the four battles. Some of the conclusions are interesting.  (Like the one that once two ships were within small arms range, casualties skewed heavily to the officers.)

     In reference to your book, do you have a link to it?

    • #52
  23. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    skipsul:  In reference to your book, do you have a link to it?

     Well I did.  It seems to have disappeared thanks to the new and improved Ricochet 2.0.

    Let me try this:  Constitution vs Guerriere

    Seawriter

    • #53
  24. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Also, here is a link to more about John “Magnificent” Hayes.

    (If anyone is wondering what the trick is, use the appropriate html tag in the message, and then post comment.  Edit the comment immediately, then post it again.  The html tag gets incorporated as html.)

    Seawriter

    • #54
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