Privateers

During the War of 1812, America's Second War of Independence, President James Madison attempted to overcome the small size of the US Navy by issuing Letters of Marquee and Reprisal to private ship owners. This document allowed its holder to arm his vessel and act as a privateer, or, in essence, a legal pirate, representing the United States. Privateers were permitted to prey upon the merchant fleet of the belligerent nation, Great Britain, and take captured cargo and vessels as prizes. American privateers, many of them sailing out of Chesapeake Bay in Baltimore Clippers built in Fells Point, captured or sank some 1,700 British merchant vessels during the two and a half year war. Other Baltimore Clippers served as cargo vessels to bring needed munitions and other armaments through the naval blockade that the British imposed on the US coastline, including Chesapeake Bay.

Chasseur

the original "Pride of Baltimore"

One of the most famous of the American privateers was Captain Thomas Boyle, who sailed his Baltimore Clipper, Chasseur, out of Fells Point, where she had been launched from Thomas Kemp's shipyard in 1812. On his first voyage as master of Chasseur in 1814, Boyle unexpectedly sailed east, directly to the British Isles, where he unmercifully harassed the British merchant fleet. In a characteristically audacious act, he sent a notice to the King by way of a captured merchant vessel that he had released for the purpose. The notice, he commanded, was to be posted on the door of Lloyd's of London, the famous shipping underwriters. In it he declared that the entire British Isles were under naval blockade by Chasseur alone! This affront sent the shipping community into panic and caused the Admiralty to call vessels home from the American war to guard merchant ships which had to sail in convoys. In all, Chasseur captured or sank 17 vessels before returning home.

On Chasseur's triumphal return to Baltimore on March 25, 1815, the Niles Weekly Register dubbed the ship, her captain, and crew the "pride of Baltimore" for their daring exploits.

The Chesapeake Campaign

and the "Star Spangled Banner"

In retaliation for the actions of the Baltimore privateers, the British launched the Chesapeake Campaign in 1814 for the purpose of "cleaning out that nest of pirates in Baltimore." Its goal - to shut down the shipyards of Fells Point and halt the production of the deadly Baltimore Clippers. On their way up the Bay, the British captured and sacked Washington, DC. They burned the Capitol and White House, the only such indignity to our national capital by a foreign power.

Continuing up the Bay, they sought to capture Baltimore by way of a combined land and naval attack. They were rebuffed on both fronts. On September 12, 1814, Baltimore troops fought a two hour battle to delay the British land forces at the Battle of North Point before they reached the City. Fort McHenry, at the mouth of Baltimore harbor, withstood a ferocious 25 hour naval bombardment on September 12 and 13, 1814. It was during this bombardment that Maryland lawyer poet, Francis Scott Key, spotted "by dawn's early light" the huge "star spangled banner" still flying over Ft. McHenry. He penned a description of the sight and his patriotic reaction on the back of an envelope. The poem has gone down in history as our national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner."

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