General Armstrong

DESCRIPTION: "Come all you sons of liberty that to the seas belong"; the singer will describe the fight made by the privateer General Armstrong against John Bull. Captain Champlin fights hard but at last the ship is so damaged that it cannot continue
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1847 (Forget-Me-Not-Songster)
KEYWORDS: ship sea battle death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Sep 26, 1814 - The General Armstrong fight
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Forget-Me-Not-Songster, pp. 11-13, "General Armstrong" (1 text)
Roud #16893
NOTES [643 words]: Although no tune is indicated for this, it looks a lot like "Warlike Seamen (The Irish Captain)" -- almost an answer to that song or one of its relatives.
The ship the General Armstrong was real, and something like this song happened to her. The Armstrong was a privateer with nine guns and a crew of about ninety (Heidler/Heidler, p. 445). Having taken a reported million dollars of British property (Mahon, p. 255), she was in port in the Azores on September 26, 1814 when the British Plantagenet (74 guns), Rota (38 guns), and the Carnation (18 guns) entered the harbor.
The Azores were Portuguese, and neutral; the British should not have threatened the Americans. But four boats set out from the Carnation toward the American ship. Fearing boarders, the Americans opened fire and drove them off (Heidler/Heidler, p. 445).
The governor of the islands warned the British against further hostilities -- but the crew of the Armstrong hastily moved to a safer position and shifted their guns so that all could fire on British attackers. It didn't stop the British, who sent another boarding party, estimated at some 400 men. According to Mahon, p. 256, the British had 36 killed and 84 wounded; Heidler/Heidler, p. 445, make the casualties even higher -- about half of the assaulting force, against two Americans killed and seven wounded (plus one killed and one wounded in the first assault).
The British commander, Commodore Lloyd, also told the Portuguese that he would take the Armstrong even if he had to destroy the port. (His justification was that the Americans had fired first; Mahon, p. 256. It's true, I suppose -- but the British had been preparing to board!)
The Americans knew they had no chance, and prepared to evacuate the ship and scuttle. While this was going on, the Carnation started to approach. "A 42-pounder 'Long Tom' gun in the General Armstrong put holes in the hull of the enemy ship, tore up its rigging, and shot off its foremast top before the Carnation moved out of range" ((Heidler/Heidler, p. 445). The crew then scuttled the General Armstrong. As she was sinking, the British boarded, took off a few supplies, and set the ship afire. No doubt Lloyd wanted to claim he had sunk her.
The outcome was inevitable and a defeat for the Americans, but in another sense, it was an exceptional demonstration of prowess: "Ultimately the privateer was abandoned by her crew, but the British had suffered close to 200 casualties compared to only nine for the United States. 'The Americans,' said an English observer, 'fought with great firmness, but more like bloodthirsty savages than anything else.' British officials were so embarrassed by their losses that they refused to allow any mail on the vessels that carried their wounded back to England" (Hickey, p. 219).
What's more, the fight caused Lloyd to delay in the Azores for ten days. He was supposed to go to New Orleans for the assault on that city, and he didn't make it in time. Would it have mattered? Given how badly the British bungled the New Orleans campaign, perhaps not -- and, in any case, the war was over by then. But, still, the presence of Lloyd's force couldn't have hurt. In return for sinking one American privateer, he gave his own country two black eyes.
Much about the fight is accurately described in this song. There is, however, one major difference: The captain of the Armstrong was not "Champlin" but Samuel Chester Reid (1783-1861). He had one other important role in American history: He was the one who suggested that the American flag be standardized at thirteen stripes (Heidler/Heidler, p. 446). However, Guy R. Champlin had commanded the Armstrong in an earlier action, and had ordered the ship blown up instead of having her surrender (Mahon, p. 125). Thus there seems to be a conflation of two actions here. - RBW
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