Robert Heriot Barclay

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Robert Heriot Barclay

Robert Heriot Barclay (born September 18, 1786 in Kettle, Scotland , † May 8, 1837 in Edinburgh ) was a British naval officer of the Napoleonic Wars and the war of 1812 with the United States .

Life

Robert Heriot Barclay, the son of a Scottish pastor , entered the Royal Navy at the age of eleven and served as a midshipman first on the frigate HMS Anson , later on Lord Nelson's flagship , the liner HMS Victory , and became a lieutenant on the liner HMS Swiftsure in 1805 promoted. On it he took part in the Battle of Trafalgar and rescued 170 crew members of the French liner Redoutable , which had surrendered badly before the British and sank in the storm that followed the battle. As the second officer of the frigate HMS Diana , he distinguished himself several times in combat in 1808/1809 and lost his left arm in a boat attack on a French convoy in November 1809 . He subsequently served on smaller vehicles until he was transferred to Canada in early 1813 . In May he temporarily took over the post of commander of the Navy on the Great Lakes and received command of the fleet on Lake Erie after the arrival of the new Commander in Chief Sir James Lucas Yeo . Yeo had initially wanted to hand over the position to William Howe Mulcaster , who refused it due to the unfavorable circumstances.

When Barclay arrived in Amherstburg in August 1813, he found himself in an extremely difficult situation. With his fleet, which included the flagship HMS Queen Charlotte (16 cannons ) and some smaller vehicles, he still had superiority over the Americans under Captain Oliver Hazard Perry . However, he suffered from a massive shortage of supplies, weapons, equipment and trained seafarers , partly because Yeo, who was fighting an arms race with the Americans on Lake Ontario , could not deliver reinforcements to him. Perry had enough resources to catch up with the British lead by building more ships, and he had enough crews to man them. An attack planned by Barclay and Major General Henry Procter on Perry's base in Erie did not materialize because Major General Francis de Rottenburg , the commander in the Niagara Peninsula , refused to send reinforcements. The Americans were therefore able to complete the briggs USS Niagara and USS Lawrence (20 cannons each) undisturbed and thus gain superiority. At the same time, the British only built the brig HMS Detroit (20 cannons). Another significant disadvantage for Barclay was the superiority of the American artillery , which was generally much better equipped with large-caliber guns. On July 30, Barclay had to abandon the blockade of the US fleet base and retreat to the Canadian coast of the lake.

Since the supply situation of the British troops in Detroit and Amherstburg and their Indian allies under Tecumseh became more and more dramatic, Barclay, who had been pressured by Procter, had no choice but to dare to fight despite the unfavorable conditions and thus a supply route in the event of a victory open across the lake. On November 9th he ran out of Amherstburg, on September 10th he met Perry's squadron in Put-in-Bay and attacked them. In the following battle on Lake Erie , Barclay turned out to be the better tactician after the judgment of the naval historian and later US President Theodore Roosevelt and was able to get the Americans into considerable trouble. The enemy flagship USS Lawrence was shot to the wreck and had to drop the flag because four-fifths of its crew were dead or wounded. However, he had nothing to counter the reserves that Perry had finally thrown into battle, so that his ships had to strike the flag after a bitter and very loss-making battle. This was the first time in the history of the Royal Navy that a fleet had completely fallen into enemy hands. The defeat had far-reaching consequences for the course of the war, forcing Procter to evacuate Detroit and Amherstburg, and thereby indirectly causing his disastrous defeat on the retreat in the Battle of the Thames River . With these two defeats, the fighting in the western theater of war largely ended.

Barclay, who had been badly wounded twice in battle and had largely lost the use of his remaining arm due to shrapnel wounds , was soon released from captivity and returned to England ; his promotion to frigate captain had already been confirmed by the Admiralty in November 1813 , and in 1815 he was granted a pension of £ 200 a year because of his serious wounds. At his court martial , he was honorable acquitted and commended for his courage and prudence. On August 11, 1814, he married Agnes Cosser from Westminster , with whom he had several children. Allegedly, after the battle on Lake Erie, he is said to have offered her the dissolution of the engagement, pointing out that he was now a cripple, which she refused with the remark that as long as the same spirit still lived in the body, she wanted to marry him. The marriage had eight children.

Despite his honorable acquittal, Barclay was no longer used in the following years - whether because of the defeat on Lake Erie, his wounding or the general demobilization of the Royal Navy cannot be clearly clarified. From 1822 he tried to get a new command. In 1824 he received the small warship HMS Infernal for a few months and finally the promotion to full captain , but shortly afterwards he took his leave. Until his death in 1837 he lived in Edinburgh , where he was known as the “one-armed captain”.

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personal data
SURNAME Barclay, Robert Heriot
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British naval officer
DATE OF BIRTH September 18, 1786
PLACE OF BIRTH Kettle, Fife (Scotland)
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1837
Place of death Edinburgh