HMS Macedonian
 Drawing of the HMS Macedonian (right) in action with the USS United States , 1812
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The HMS Macedonian was a 38-cannon frigate of the British Royal Navy that was used in the Napoleonic Wars against France and in the War of 1812 against the United States .
history
In British service
The Macedonian was laid down in Woolwich , England, in 1809 and launched on June 2, 1810. In June the frigate was put into service under Captain Lord William FitzRoy. The crew included the then 13-year-old Samuel Leech , who later wrote memoirs about his experiences as a seaman.
Her first mission took the Macedonian to Portugal, where she delivered a company of soldiers and carried out sea patrols against possible French attacks. During this time, FitzRoy forged records of the ship's supplies, which is why he was tried in a court-martial in March 1811 and discharged from the Navy. From March 8, 1810, William Waldegrave commanded the ship. He was replaced on April 5, 1811 by Captain John Surman Carden.
In January 1812, as part of a plan to keep the Bank of England solvent , Carden was supposed to take his ship secretly to the United States and exchange them for gold and silver in Norfolk . During his visit, Carden was a welcome guest among the Norfolk upper class, but accidentally revealed the purpose of his trip and had to return to Lisbon empty-handed .
In September of the same year, after the outbreak of war with the United States, the Macedonian escorted an East Indiaman to Madeira and was supposed to go on a prize hunt. However, three days after sailing, Carden met the American frigate USS United States on the morning of October 25, 1812 . She was under the command of Captain Stephen Decatur, Jr. , whom Carden had befriended on his visit to Norfolk. Unfortunately for the British, the United States was one of the heavy US frigates with (nominally) 44 guns, which were clearly superior to the Macedonian in terms of size, hull strength, and the weight of the armament. A broadside of the United States weighed 864 pounds and a broadside of the Macedonian weighed 528 pounds.
The second broadside of the Americans caused severe damage to the rigging of the Macedonian , which largely lost its maneuverability. Decatur was able to take a position behind the stern of the British and shoot the largely defenseless ship to the wreck. By noon the hull of the frigate was perforated and defatted, which is why Carden decided to paint the flag and thus save the life of his crew. There were 104 dead and wounded on the Macedonian versus only twelve dead and wounded on the United States .
With the help of the British prisoners-of-war , the Americans succeeded in provisionally repairing the heavily damaged ship and entered Newport with it on December 4th . The victory of the American ship was perceived as a sensation. The USS Constitution had already defeated the British frigate HMS Guerriere , but it was too badly damaged to be brought into port.
On US service
The frigate was adopted by the United States Navy while retaining its old name . In April 1813 the Macedonian was operational again, but was blocked in New London for the remainder of the war . The frigate was sent to the Pacific from 1819 to 1821 . Then it was used against pirates in the West Indies and one last time in the Pacific. In 1829 the ship was reported as in need of repair. Since it was no longer worth repairing, the frigate was finally scrapped in 1834. The old frigate was replaced by a similar but slightly larger new build, which was laid down in 1833 and completed in 1836. In addition to the name, some iron and wooden parts of the old ship were used, including the figurehead. The younger Macedonian was sold in December 1875. It is sometimes erroneously assumed that the old ship was not scrapped in 1834, but repaired. The error can be traced back to the fact that the new building was administratively a “rebuild”. In addition, a major reason for the new construction of the frigate, which was actually too small by the standards of the time, was the memory of the HMS Macedonian war trophy . Therefore efforts were made to at least imitate the appearance of the new ship that of the old one.
literature
- James T. de Kay: Chronicles of the Frigate Macedonian . WW Norton, New York 1995.
- Donald Canney: Sailing Warships of the US Navy . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 2001.
- Rif Winfield: British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817 . Chatham Publishing, London 2005.
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ See Samuel Leech's Account of War at Sea , the description of the fight of the HMS Macedonian against the USS United States .
- ↑ The broadside weight of metal is the sum of the projectile weights of the guns (cannons and carronades) on one side of a warship. It was the essential parameter for assessing the artillery striking power of a ship. Only the bullet weight of a single broadside was given and not that of all the guns of a ship, since in the age of broadside positioning of guns, both sides were rarely fired at the same time. Turning basses, d. H. light guns on the railing and in the marshes were not taken into account when specifying the broadside weight.
- ↑ Donald Canney: Sailing Warships of the US Navy , S. 60th
- ↑ Donald Canney: Sailing Warships of the US Navy , S. 80th
- ↑ Donald Canney: Sailing Warships of the US Navy , pp. 60-61: “Apparently some measures were taken to re-create the above-water appearance of the old ship, (…)”.