FAMOUS

SHIPS

This USS HORNET is the sailing ship that started life as a brig in 1805.  Her original statistics were:  Length; 106.8 feet, breadth; 31.4 feet; depth; 14 feet, tons; 440bm, armament; sixteen 32-pound carronades, two twelve pound cannon.  She was designed by Josiah Fox and built by William Price in Baltimore.  Here sister ship was the WASP and they both were built as blue-water fighting vessels during Thomas Jefferson’s “gunboat navy” building program.

The USS HORNET was first under the command of Commandant Isaac Chauncey and assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron in 1806-07 and then was promptly decommissioned at Charleston, South Carolina.  She returned to service in 1808 and patrolled the East Coast enforcing the Embargo Act.  This act was repealed in 1810 and the USS HORNET was re-rigged at this time as a full ship in the Washington Navy Yard.  At the same time, her beam was increased by 10 inches.

The start of the War of 1812 found the USS HORNET at New York with Commodore John Rodger’s squadron.  The captain of the USS HORNET was Commandant James Lawrence who started off on the right foot by capturing the British privateer DOLPHIN.  Unfortunately, the DOLPHIN was recaptured with her prize crew.   On October 30, 1812, she sailed for the Pacific with the USS CONSTITUTION.  They were both to meet the USS ESSEX at Salvador, Brazil.  They arrived at Salvador in December to find that the British 20-gun post ship BONNE-CITOYENNE (18 32-pound carronades and two nines,) Captain Pitt Barnaby Greene, was already there with half a million sterling on board, having damaged herself in November before going into the harbor to offload her cargo and repair the ship. 

The USS HORNET offered to fight the BONNE-CITOYEENE, Commodore Bainbridge in the USS CONSTITUTION saying he would not interfere in a ship to ship dual.  The offer was declined.  The USS CONSTITUTION sailed for Boston on January 6^th (leading to her dual with the HMS JAVA), while the USS HORNET stayed at Salvador blockading the British ship in harbor.  This changed on the 24^th of January, when the British 74-gun ship MONTAGU, Captain Manley Hall Dixon, came on the scene.  The HORNET evaded the larger British warship and escaped.  The USS HORNET next, on February 14^th, while cruising off Pernambuco, captured an English brig, with about 23,000 dollars of specie on board.  The money was removed and the brig destroyed.  Captain Lawrence then cruised off Surinam until the 22^nd, then went to Demerara, and on the 24^th chased a brig, but was obliged to haul off on account of the shoals at the entrance of the Demerara river.  While doing this, the USS HORNET discovered a brig-of-war, with English colors flying, at anchor without the bar.  This was the 18-gun brig-sloop ESPIEGLE, (sixteen 32-pound carronades and two sixes), Captain John Taylor, refitting her rigging.

At 3:30 in the afternoon, while trying to decide what she was going to do about the 18-gun brig, the USS HORNET discovered another sail on her weather bow coming toward her.  This turned out to be the British 18-gun brig-sloop PEACOCK, (sixteen 24-pound carronades and two sixes), Captain William Peake.  She had just left the ESPIEGLE that morning and was coming back. The British ship first hoisted her colors, and 50 minutes later the USS HORNET, after weathering the PEACOCK, hoisted her colors.  Fifteen minutes later they passed each other on opposite tacks, within half-pistol shot, and exchanged broadsides.  The PEACOCK then wore to renew the action on the other tack.  The USS HORNET, bearing  up, received the PEACOCK’s starboard broadside, then ran the latter close on board the starboard quarter.  In this position, the USS HORNET poured in so heavy and well directed a fire, that, fifteen minutes later, the PEACOCK, having six feet of water in the hold and being cut to pieces in hull and masts, hoisted from her fore rigging an ensign, union down, as a signal of distress.

Shortly afterwards her main mast went by the board.  Both the USS HORNET and her prize immediately anchored and every attempt was made to save the PEACOCK, but to no avail.  A few minutes after the PEACOCK anchored she sank in five and a half fathoms of water.  She took 13 of her crew and 3 from the USS HORNET who were trying to save her.  The PEACOCK lost her young and gallant commander and four seamen killed with 33 wounded, three mortally out of a company of 110.  The USS HORNET, with a company of 162 (eight absent in a prize), had one seaman killed and four wounded, one mortally.

In recognition of this service to his county, Captain Lawrence was given command of the USS CHESAPEAKE.  USS HORNET, now under Lieutenant James Biddle, sailed in 1815 to the Indian Ocean to harass British shipping.  On March 23, 1815, unaware that peace had been signed, she fought a battle with HMS PENGUIN (18) in a sharp contest about five miles northeast of Tristan da Cunha.  The USS HORNET’s superior gunnery destroyed the HMS PENGUIN, which was later scuttled, killing 10 to 25 of her crew including Commander James Dickinson.  USS HORNET arrived back in New York to great acclaim despite the fact that the war was over. 

After the war she served in the Atlantic and Mediterranean before assignment to the Caribbean, based at Key West and Pensacola.  She remained with the West Indies Squadron until her loss with all hands in September or October 1829 in a gale off Tampico, Mexico.