It is March 9th. Welcome to Episode 68 of History in a Year. Today, the United States suffers a massive, bloody humiliation right off its own coastline. As the Napoleonic Wars rage in Europe, the British Royal Navy desperately needs sailors, and they resort to kidnapping Americans to fill their ships. We explore the boiling tension of “impressment,” the devastating unprovoked attack by the HMS Leopard on the unprepared USS Chesapeake, and the explosion of absolute fury that pushes President Thomas Jefferson right to the brink of a second war with Great Britain.
STEPHEN:
Welcome to History in a Year: America’s First 250 Years.
LEAH:
Join us every single day as we journey from the Revolution of 1776 to the 250th anniversary of the United States.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode and join the discussion at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH:
And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
It is March 9th. Welcome to Episode 68. Over the last two episodes, we saw Thomas Jefferson project American naval power against pirates in the Mediterranean, and we saw him crush Aaron Burr’s treasonous conspiracy at home.
LEAH:
But in the summer of 1807, Thomas Jefferson’s second term in office is about to hit a massive brick wall. And that wall is the British Royal Navy.
STEPHEN:
To understand what happens today, we have to look across the Atlantic. Great Britain and France are locked in a total, apocalyptic struggle for control of Europe—the Napoleonic Wars.
LEAH:
Great Britain relies entirely on its massive navy to blockade France and survive. But running hundreds of warships requires tens of thousands of sailors. And life in the British Navy was so brutal, with terrible food and vicious floggings, that sailors were constantly deserting.
STEPHEN:
So, the British government claimed a very controversial right. The right of “Impressment.”
LEAH:
They essentially said, “Once an Englishman, always an Englishman.” British warships would stop neutral American merchant ships in the middle of the ocean, board them, and look for British deserters.
STEPHEN:
If a British captain pointed at an American sailor and said, “You look like a British deserter,” that was it. The man was dragged off the American ship, thrown into a British uniform, and forced to fight for the King.
LEAH:
Between 1803 and 1812, the British kidnapped over 6,000 American sailors. It was a massive violation of American sovereignty.
STEPHEN:
But up until 1807, the British had only ever stopped unarmed, civilian merchant ships. They had never dared to stop an actual, heavily armed United States Navy warship.
LEAH:
That completely changed on June 22, 1807.
STEPHEN:
The USS Chesapeake, a 38-gun frigate commanded by Commodore James Barron, sailed out of the naval base at Norfolk, Virginia, heading for the Mediterranean.
LEAH:
Because the Chesapeake had just left port, the ship was a mess. The decks were cluttered with supplies, the crew was untested, and the cannons were not primed or ready to fire. Commodore Barron wasn’t expecting any trouble; he was still in American coastal waters.
STEPHEN:
But waiting for him just off the coast was a massive 50-gun British warship, the HMS Leopard.
LEAH:
The Leopard hailed the Chesapeake and demanded that Commodore Barron allow a British search party to board the ship. The British claimed they had intelligence that four Royal Navy deserters were hiding on the American vessel.
STEPHEN:
Commodore Barron was completely insulted. You do not board a sovereign nation’s warship. He flatly refused, stating that his only recruiting officers were American, and he would not permit his crew to be mustered by foreign officers.
LEAH:
The British captain didn’t argue. He simply ordered his gunners to open fire.
STEPHEN:
At point-blank range, the HMS Leopard unleashed a devastating broadside directly into the USS Chesapeake.
LEAH:
The American ship was completely unprepared. They couldn’t even find the hot coals to light the fuses for their cannons! For ten agonizing minutes, the British ship just poured heavy iron cannonballs and grapeshot into the Chesapeake, tearing the sails to shreds and smashing the wooden hull.
STEPHEN:
Commodore Barron, who was wounded in the leg, realized his men were being slaughtered without being able to fight back. In a desperate act of defiance, one American officer managed to fire a single cannon by literally carrying a hot coal from the ship’s galley in his bare hands.
LEAH:
But that was all they could do. Barron ordered the American flag to be struck. He surrendered the ship.
STEPHEN:
The attack left 3 Americans dead and 18 heavily wounded.
LEAH:
The British boarded the shattered Chesapeake, lined up the crew, and picked out four men. They dragged them off the ship in chains.
STEPHEN:
And the ultimate insult? Three of those four men were native-born American citizens. Only one was actually a British deserter.
LEAH:
The British refused to accept Barron’s surrender as a prize of war, basically saying, “We don’t want your ship, we just wanted our guys.” They sailed away, leaving the crippled Chesapeake to limp back into Norfolk.
STEPHEN:
When the news of this attack hit the American newspapers, the country absolutely exploded.
LEAH:
It was a complete, bipartisan outrage. Federalists and Democratic-Republicans alike demanded revenge. Mobs burned the British King in effigy. State militias immediately started gathering and polishing their muskets.
STEPHEN:
Thomas Jefferson later wrote that “never since the Battle of Lexington have I seen this country in such a state of exasperation.”
LEAH:
The United States was demanding war. They had just fought the Barbary Pirates to demand respect on the high seas, and now the British Navy was slaughtering American sailors right off the coast of Virginia.
STEPHEN:
But Thomas Jefferson looked at the reality of the situation.
LEAH:
The British Royal Navy had over 600 warships. The United States Navy had less than 20. If America declared war, the British would effortlessly blockade every American port and destroy the economy.
STEPHEN:
Jefferson knew the country was not ready for a military conflict with the greatest superpower on Earth. But he had to do something to retaliate, or he would look incredibly weak.
LEAH:
So, instead of declaring a military war, Jefferson decided to declare an economic war. He came up with a plan that he believed would force Great Britain to its knees without a single drop of blood being shed.
STEPHEN:
It was a bold, unprecedented idea. And it was going to be an absolute, unmitigated disaster for the United States.
LEAH:
Join us tomorrow for Episode 69. The Embargo Act. Thomas Jefferson tries to punish Europe by completely shutting down the American economy. We watch as the most disastrous piece of legislation in early American history ruins farmers, bankrupts merchants, and turns the citizens of New England into desperate smugglers.
STEPHEN:
I’m Stephen.
LEAH:
And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode at PointedWords.com. And this… is our story.