Capture of USS Chesapeake - The British Board

The British Board

A party of small-arms men rushed aboard the Chesapeake, led by Broke, including the purser, Mr G. Aldham, and the clerk, Mr John Dunn. Aldham and Dunn were killed as they crossed the gangway, but the rest of the party made it onto the Chesapeake.

"Captain Broke, at the head of not more that twenty men, stepped from the rail of the waist-hammock netting to the muzzle of the after-carronade of the Chesapeake, and sprang from thence upon her quarterdeck."

The main-deck of the Chesapeake was almost deserted, having been swept by Shannon’s gunfire, the surviving gun crews had either responded to the call for boarders or had taken refuge below. Two American officers, Lt. Cox (who had returned from carrying Captain Lawrence down to the surgeon) and Midshipman Russell saw that the aftmost 18-pounders on the port side, still bore on the Shannon and working between them managed to fire both. Lt. Ludlow had been slightly wounded and had gone down to Chesapeake's cockpit for treatment, he now returned to the upper decks, rallying some of the American crew as he did so. He led these in a counterattack which pushed the British back as far as the binnacle. However, a wave of British reinforcements arrived, Ludlow received a mortal wound from a cutlass, and the Americans were again thrown back. Lacking officers to lead them, Lt. Budd had also been wounded by a cutlass cut, and lacking support from below, the Americans were driven back by the boarders. American resistance then fell apart, with the exception of a band of men on the forecastle and those in the tops.

Fighting had now broken out along the top-masts of the ships as rival sharpshooters fired upon their opponents and upon sailors on the exposed decks below. The British marksmen, led by midshipman William Smith, who had command of the fore-top, stormed the Chesapeake’s fore-top over the yard-arm and killed all the Americans there. At this point the wind tore the two ships apart and Chesapeake was blown around the bows of the Shannon. This left the British boarders, about fifty-strong, stranded. However, organised resistance aboard the American ship had almost ceased by this time.

Captain Broke himself led a charge against a number of the Americans who had managed to rally on the forecastle. Three American sailors, probably from the rigging, descended and attacked Captain Broke. Taken by surprise, he killed the first, but the second hit him with a musket which stunned him, whilst the third sliced open his skull with his sabre, knocking him to the deck. Before he could finish Broke off, he was bayoneted by a British Marine called John Hill. The Shannon’s crew rallied to the defence of their captain and carried the forecastle, killing the remaining Americans. Broke sat dizzied and weak on a carronade slide and his head was bound up by William Mindham who used his own neckerchief. Meanwhile, the Shannon’s First Lieutenant, Mr George T. L. Watt, had attempted to hoist the British colours over the Chesapeake's, but this was misinterpreted aboard the Shannon, and he was hit in the forehead by grapeshot and killed as he did so.