Sir Samuel Hood and the Battle of the Chesapeake

Foreword

Foreword Water is unquestionably the most important natural feature on earth. By volume the world’s oceans compose 99 percent of the planet’s living space; in fact, the surface of the Pacific Ocean alone is larger than that of the total land bodies. Water is as vital to life as air. Indeed, to test whether the moon or other planets can sustain life, NASA looks for signs of water. The story of human development is inextricably linked to the oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers that dominate the earth’s surface. The University Press of Florida’s series New Perspectives on Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology is devoted to exploring the significance of the earth’s water while providing lively and important books that cover the spectrum of maritime history and nautical archaeology broadly defined. The series includes works that focus on the role of canals, rivers, lakes, and oceans in history; on the economic, military, and political use of those waters; and upon the people, communities , and industries that support maritime endeavors. Limited by neither geography nor time, volumes in the series contribute to the overall understanding of maritime history and can be read with profit by both general readers and specialists. Although the American War of Independence was largely fought on land, its outcome was determined at sea. For six years following the outbreak of hostilities in 1775, Great Britain enjoyed all the advantages of a dominant sea power. The British transported a large army to North America, and supported it, along supply lines that stretched across 3,000 miles of ocean. In American waters the Royal Navy gave military commanders a flexibility envied by patriot leaders. Naval transport and gunfire support allowed British commanders to evacuate Boston in 1776 and seize New York City as a new center of operations, to occupy virtually at will posts as far afield as Penobscot in Maine, Newport in Rhode Island, and Savannah in Georgia. When British strategists concluded that capture of the American capital at Philadelphia could end the rebellion, they sent an army by sea to the head of the Chesapeake Bay to outflank American defenses on the Delaware River and then approached the city from the west. The English shift to a “southern viii Foreword strategy” meant transporting army troops to Georgia and South Carolina for campaigns that captured Savannah and Charleston. Only during the Yorktown campaign of 1781 did sea power fail to provide a margin for victory. Indeed, while the Royal Navy lost no ships at the battle of the Virginia Capes, the French navy so badly mauled the van of the British fleet that Admiral Sir Thomas Graves decided to break off action and retire with his fleet to New York. This decision made the engagement a strategic defeat for the British because the Royal Navy left the French in control of the Chesapeake Bay and the York River. Momentary naval supremacy allowed the French to land siege artillery to support American and French troops, blocked resupply of British forces hemmed in at Yorktown, and prevented the extraction of Lord Cornwallis’s army by sea. Cornwallis’s surrender, accompanied by reverses in the Caribbean, Florida, and India, led political leaders in London to abandon offensive action and to seriously negotiate a peace treaty that recognized American independence. Few conflicts are as fraught with suppositions and “what if’s” as the American War of Independence. Among these is “What if the Royal Navy had prevailed in the battle of the Virginia Capes?” This leads to the subsidiary question “Would the outcome have been different had Graves’s second in command, Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, brought the rear of the British fleet into battle?” A military loss of such magnitude invariably prompts a search for individuals to fault. British army commanders escaped serious criticism; hadn’t they been failed by the navy? But who in the Royal Navy should assume responsibility? Indeed, who was to blame for the British loss at Yorktown? Some contemporaries compared the engagement off the Capes in September with one in the same area the previous March in which the strategic positions of the two sides were reversed. Then a French squadron under the command of Captain the Chevalier Destouches approached the Chesapeake carrying 1,200 French troops and siege artillery to augment the American army commanded by the marquis de Lafayette. Learning that seven French ships of the line had departed Newport accompanied by transports, Admiral Arbuthnot sailed in pursuit from New...