Thomas Macdonough

Thomas Macdonough

Thomas Macdonough Jr. (born December 21, 1783 in New Castle County , Delaware , † November 10, 1825 at sea near Gibraltar ) was an American naval officer, who achieved fame mainly through his role in the war of 1812 with Great Britain .

Life

Thomas Macdonough was born in what is now MacDonough, the son of doctor, judge and landowner Thomas MacDonough Sr. His older brother served in the US Navy , but had to retire from active service around the turn of the year 1799/1800 after losing a leg in a naval battle in the quasi-war with France . Thomas followed his brother's example and entered the US Navy as a midshipman on February 5, 1800 . He initially served on board a corvette with 24 cannons, which hunted French privateers and merchant ships in the Caribbean and brought up three enemy ships between May and September 1800. After the end of the hostilities between the USA and France, he was transferred to the frigate Constellation (38 cannons). On board this ship, Macdonough took part in the First Barbarian War with Tripoli and was first transferred to the frigate Philadelphia (38 cannons) in 1803 and came up on October 31, shortly before it had to lower the flag in a failed attack on the port of Tripoli the Sloop Enterprise under the command of Lieutenant Stephen Decatur . Under his leadership, Macdonough participated on February 6, 1804 in a bold boat attack in the port of Tripoli, in which it was possible to set fire to the ship captured by the enemy and destroy it.

After he was promoted to Brevet Lieutenant for participating in this attack , Macdonough served aboard the schooner Syren (16 cannons) and under Isaac Hull in building a gunboat flotilla , before finally assuming the rank of lieutenant and command of the in 1806 Sloop Wasp (18 guns) received. With this he was in use until 1808 in the Mediterranean , Great Britain and the Atlantic .

After being on leave for two years, during which time he commanded a British East Indiaman, Macdonough returned to active service shortly before the outbreak of the War of 1812 with Great Britain. Since it first on the idle at the Port of Washington lying USS Constellation was stationed, he asked for the transfer to a more active position. First he was assigned to a gunboat flotilla in Portland , before he was given command of the armed forces on the strategically important Lake Champlain in October and promotion to Master Commander on July 24, 1813 . His association initially comprised three sloops and two gunboats and suffered from a lack of experienced crews and supplies of all kinds, which was exacerbated by the loss of a sloop in August 1813. Macdonough managed to win the arms race against the British, who suffered from similar problems, and in the fall of that year won control of Lake Champlain.

In the autumn of the following year, British troops under Governor General Sir George Prevost began a large-scale advance along Lake Champlain into the USA, which was flanked by a flotilla of the Royal Navy under Robert Downie . However, Prevost broke off his advance in front of the positions occupied by far inferior US troops under Brigadier General Alexander Macomb at Plattsburgh , thereby allowing the Americans to prepare for the coming attack. Prevost considered it imperative that Macdonough's formation be broken, and with massive pressure and the promise of a parallel attack on land, urged the reluctant Downie to attack. The British association was slightly superior on paper, but suffered from the fact that the ships were partially incomplete, equipment was missing and the crews were not retracted and partially consisted of soldiers.

Macdonough had his ships anchored in a cleverly chosen position in the battle line in Plattsburgh Bay. His tactical disposition, which is still regarded as exemplary, turned out to be decisive in the battle of Plattsburgh on September 14, 1814. In a bitter and for both sides very costly battle, in which MacDonough was knocked unconscious by a shot down part of the rigging and his counterpart Downie was killed by a toppling cannon, the British initially won the upper hand. MacDonough managed, however, to turn his shot-up flagship Saratoga with the help of a rope construction so far that she was swung around by the wind and was able to oppose the badly battered enemy ships with the previously averted and therefore undamaged other broadside. A similar maneuver on the British flagship, the frigate Confiance (37 cannons), failed, which is why the ship - on which only five crew members are said to have been completely uninjured - had to remove the flag after a two-hour battle. The other three ships also fell into the hands of the victor, only the gunboats escaped. A major factor in the success, however, was that Prevost had failed to launch the attack on land that Downie had promised for reasons unknown. British artillery fire from the land could have forced the American flotilla to give up its advantageous position and thus possibly have resulted in a different outcome to the battle. With the chivalrous gesture of returning their swords to the surviving British officers in recognition of their bravery, and caring for the wounded, Macdonough also won the respect of his opponents.

The victory of Macdonough's association was decisive for the war. Against the advice of his generals, after minor skirmishes on land, Prevost broke off the advance into the United States and withdrew to Canada . This failure, which undermined Britain's claims to US territorial concessions on the border with Canada, paved the way for the conclusion of the Peace of Ghent on December 24, 1814, based on the status quo .

Macdonough was honored and promoted to captain by Congress . After the end of the war he was in command of the Portsmouth naval base for three years and then in April 1818, despite contracting tuberculosis, he was given command of the 44-gun frigate Guerriere , which was stationed in the Mediterranean , and in the same year until 1823 the one still in New York, 74-gun ship of the line Ohio under construction . After various requests for use at sea, Macdonough got the frigate Constitution (44 cannons) in 1824 , with which he was stationed in the Mediterranean, but had to give up the command on October 14, 1825 due to his deteriorating health. He died on board the Edwin sailing to New York on November 10, 1825 at sea near Gibraltar and was later buried in Middletown .

Several US Navy ships were named USS Macdonough , as were the cities of McDonough (Georgia) , McDonough (New York) and McDonough County (Illinois) . He was also honored with a postage stamp .

literature

• Rodney McDonough: Life of Commodore Thomas Macdonough, US Navy. The Fort Hill press, S. Usher, Boston MA 1909.
• Theodore Roosevelt : The War with the United States. In: Wm. Laird Clowes : The Royal Navy. A History from the earliest times to 1900. Volume 6. Sampson Low, Marston and Co., London 1901, pp. 1-180, here pp. 130-142 (reprint. Chatham Publishing, London 1997, ISBN 1-86176-015 -9 ).