The British Raid on Essex: The Forgotten Battle of the War of 1812

Chapter Three. The Raid

ChaPtEr thrEE The Raid Now armed with a willing pilot, Capel quickly put together a bold plan. Pettipaug lay a full six miles up the Connecticut River which was well known for its deceptively shallowareas and challenging navigation. But the real problem facing Capel and whatever force he might send was the massive sand shoal, which lay at the mouth of the river. It prevented any hope of getting warships up to Pettipaug. The Saybrook Bar is the reason that to this day the Connecticut is one of the only major rivers in the world not to have an industrial port city at its mouth. As the swiftly flowing rivercarries natural sediment down its 410-mile course it is stopped cold twice a day at its mouth by the incoming Atlantic tide. The sediment is dropped and over centuries has built up the Saybrook Bar. Although the river’s mile-wide mouth looks inviting, it is deceptively shallow. Before a proper channel was cut in the late 1800s, the average depth at the mouth of the river was only eight to ten feet. Larger ships built upriver, such as the Oliver Cromwell, had to wait for a moon or spring tide to get over the bar. In the caseof the thirty-six-gun frigateTrumbull, also built during the Revolution, they had to wait eighteen months for a high enough tide. Even then, large casks had to be fitted alongside the hull and pumped full of air to decrease the vessel’s draft. With large warships drawing in the order of eighteen to twenty-four feet, it was clear that the idea of bringing the full weight of the Royal Navy up the Connecticut River was not possible. In 1814 the Saybrook Bar stood squarely in the way of a raid on Pettipaug. But the Royal Navy had already had several hundred years to perfect the fine art of problem solving. Capel decided to assemble a raiding force of officers, sailors and marines from his squadron and send them up the river in ships’ boats deployed from warships anchored just off the bar. These were oar-powered vessels, but not simple rowboats. Barges and pinnaces were capable of carrying more than thirty men each and could be armed with powerful carronades in their bows.They were both the liberty launches and amphibious assault vessels of their time. Small boat actions, as they were called, were the backbone of some of the most daring raids of the age of sail. Although considered risky duty and normally relegated to lieutenants and sometimes commanders, Admiral Nelson himself was involved This modern chart shows the shallow depths created by the great Saybrook Bar. Long before the creation of the dredged channel protected by breakwaters, this natural obstacle prevented the British from entering the river with large warships but also gave the residents of Pettipaug, six miles to the north, a false sense of security. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.) The Connecticut River’s narrow channel and shifting sand shoals have always presented navigational challenges. Pettipauge Point is located six miles to the north of the river’s mouth. (LCG/CRM.) 30 } The British Raid on Essex in a small boat action in 1797 at Cadiz, which nearly cost him his life. Now on April 7th, 1814 all Capel needed was the right man to lead the assault into enemy territory, far from the protection of his squadron. Any of the officers of the blockading squadron would have given their eye teeth to lead the raid. Although it would be extremely dangerous, representing potential capture or even death, it also represented potential glory and almost certain promotion for those involved.Capel chose Commander Richard Coote, the thirty-two-year-old captain of the sixteen-gun brig HMS Borer. Coote had alreadycaptured ordestroyed twenty-two American vessels in 1813 alone. He was also the first man to sail a warship through the rock-infested Fisher’s Island Sound, a potential but hazardous shortcut from New London to the open Atlantic via Block Island Sound. Coote was a rising star in the Royal Navy and just the sort of man Capel needed to pull off his daring plan. Richard Coote was a commander by rank, but because he was the commanding officer of a warship, he was called Captain by tradition. In all British reports, even those made by Admiral Cochrane and the secretary of...