Page 34 - NS-2 Textbook

THE GROWTH OF AMERICAN SEA POWER 27

Captain James lawrence in the USS Chesapeake uttered some of the
most famous words in u.s. naval history, when, fatally wounded
aboard the USS Chesapeake during its battle with HMS Shannon in
1813, he told his crew, "Don't give up the shipl"

harbors blockaded; our shipping destroyed or rotting at
the docks; silence and stillness in our cities; the grass
A modern-day member of the crew of the USS Constitution now in growing upon the public wharves."
Boston Harbor. The ship is a popular historical attraction, and she is The Jeffersonians had darned that no enemy could
kept in sailing trim, She is the oldest U.S. ship still in commission.
gather enough ships to blockade the entire U.s. coast, so
it was not necessary to have a seagoing navy to protect
seagoing commerce. The United States and its merchant
BRITISH SEA POWER PREVAILS marine paid a stiff price for that mistake.

The early victories at sea had given the United States
new pride and respect. By 1813, howevel; the British had THE GREAT LAKES CAMPAIGNS
driven the French from the sea, and they were therefore
After war had broken out in June 1812, there began on
able to increase the number of ships patrolling the U.S.
Lake Ontario a shipbuilding race between the British
coast and blockading U.S. ports. Once they returned
naval commander Sir James Yeo and his American cotm-
from their victories, hardly any of the American war-
terpart, Commodore Isaac Chauncey. Both men had tal-
ships could get to sea again for the duration of the war. ent for building and organizing, but neither was willing
Thus, after 1813 most of the burden of fighting the British
to fight without overwhein1ing superiority. The result
at sea fell to the privateers. More than 500 of them were
was a series of naval skirmishes throughout the war on
comn1issioned dtu'ing the ren1ainder of the war, most the lake that decided nothing, and blockade efforts that
from Massachusetts, New York, and Matyland. TI10ugh lasted only until the other side built a new and bigger
they carried the war to the British and captured over ship. This went on until war's end, when both sides had
1,300 vessels by war's end, they could not take the place two-decker 58-gun men-of-war and were building 110-
of a powerful navy. They could do nothing to stop the gun dreadnoughts, larger than any in service on the
British blockade of East Coast ports. Consequently, by ocean at the time. None of these, however, saw any sig-
1814 U.s. exports had fallen in value to only about one- nificant action during the war.
tenth of what they had been in 1811. A Boston newspaper Because control of Lake Erie was key to control of the
gave a gloomy picture of conditions at the time: "Our entire Northwest Territory, both sides sa\v it as an im-