ABOARD TALL SHIP LYNX — The lower Chesapeake Bay was empty, only two vessels in sight under damp and cloudy skies. The ships warily circled each other, then closed in. Suddenly the CRACK! of gunfire and a flash of flame burst out, followed by roiling smoke that soon enveloped both ships. Cheers from crew members were easily heard aboard both ships as they maneuvered close in. If the captains had chosen to, they could have come alongside to board and engage in hand-to-hand combat.

But this was only a reenactment, harkening back to the early days of the 19th century when the Baltimore Clipper was one of the fastest sailing ships to be found on the seas. Each of these two modern recreations was built on those classic American lines – two sharply-raked masts, fore-and-aft rigged with a square sail on the fore topmast – and armed with carronade guns.

The topsail schooners Pride of Baltimore and Lynx had been engaged not for a pleasure cruise, but to give a select group of US Naval Academy midshipmen a taste of what it was like to fight a ship in the War of 1812. The mids and their academy sponsors weren't aboard just for fun, either – it was all for college credit.

"I've been trying to arrange this for three years," said Claude Berube, a naval historian who teaches at the academy in Annapolis, Md., and is director of the school's museum. "The stars finally aligned to allow this to happen."

Ten midshipmen chosen from all four classes were aboard the Lynx for an overnight cruise from Annapolis to Solomons, Md., at the end of April to watch how the ship was crewed and listen to a series of lectures on the War of 1812 by academy professors, historians and academics from around the country. Topics included leadership, naval intelligence, US and British naval operations on the Chesapeake, the use and treatment of slaves by both sides, and celestial navigation – the last taught by a serving officer in the British Royal Navy.

Claude Berube, right, an instructor at the US Naval Academy, gives a lecture on the War of 1812 to a group of midshipmen aboard the tall ship Lynx.

Photo Credit: Christopher P. Cavas / staff

"It's kind of unique," acknowledged Lt. Cmdr. Peter Ware about his presence on the cruise. His assignment in Annapolis was to re-constitute courses in celestial navigation, dropped some years ago as a requirement but recently reinstated. Ware and the Royal Navy had continued to maintain their analog proficiency in the practice.

"I'm here to talk about celestial navigation," Ware said, "but I've had to re-engineer it a bit to become a history lesson," giving a sense of the difficulties of navigating a waterway with few natural landmarks and navigational markers.

Jack McCain, an instructor on leadership at the academy, focused on naval hero Stephen Decatur. He described Decatur's greatest 1812 victory, when his command, the frigate United States, defeated the British frigate Macedonian. Seven sailors were killed aboard the United States and 5 wounded, but the carnage on the Macedonian was devastating, with 43 killed and 71 wounded.

"This is what is was like on board one of those ships," McCain said. "It was sheer utter destruction. Trust in leadership was important."

Berube echoed Decatur's example. "You can be heroic and still be humble," he told the mids.

A good portion of the weekend was devoted to how the British invasion fleet came up Chesapeake Bay in the summer of 1814, turning in to the Patuxent River while being dogged by American gunboats under the command of the redoubtable Joshua Barney. The two Baltimore Clippers avoided sand bars and mulled around the entrance to Saint Leonard's Creek, where Barney retreated to evade the British.

Those aboard the ships remarked how difficult it was to make out the creek's entrance, still much as it was in 1814, noting that it would be easy to miss. The British were not fooled however, and stationed ships at the creek's mouth to trap the Americans. With escape impossible, Barney eventually ordered his ships burned and sent his sailors northward to assist in the defense of the capital.

"It may not have been a victory for the US," Berube said as he looked around the lower Patuxent, "but this gives the mids a sense of the British fleet that was right here - ships of the line, frigates and sloops, all in this confined space. It gives you a sense of the level of seamanship that was involved."

The examples were not lost on the midshipmen.

"I'm humbled. We take for granted all this technology, but here we see how they did it old-school," said Midshipman Third Class Nick Mabry.

"You have to get an idea of your heritage -- you can feel and see what it was like in a ship like this," he added. "You get more of a sense of the wind and the teamwork needed to sail a ship. You also get a greater appreciation for planning."

All the mids were given a chance on the Lynx to clamber up the foremast and get a sense of crewing a real tall ship, albeit with modern safety features.

"Going aloft, I gained an appreciation for modern harness technology!" Mabry joked. "I cannot imagine what it would be like to be aloft during an engagement."

The weekend was packed with lectures and events, and each mid would have to turn in a paper on an historical topic to earn the single college credit for the course. But most thought it a worthwhile experience.

The Lynx pulls ahead of the Pride of Baltimore during the mock engagement on Chesapeake Bay.

Photo Credit: Christopher P. Cavas

"As a chemical major I'll write a paper about the composition of explosives in 1812," said Midshipman First Class Sam Brad.

"I learned much more in these two days than I thought possible," he added. "The talks about leadership got me to thinking about being an heroic and exemplary leader."

The whole experience, he added, "was about being able to connect with our history and more as a Navy. This was a deep jump in the pool for me. It really opened my eyes to history."

The event was sponsored by the academy's Class of 1950, Berube said, adding that he hoped to repeat the experience for future classes.

"This is a pilot project," Berube said of the weekend cruise. "It's part of the Naval Academy's mission to instill a sense of history in the midshipmen. Based on this weekend we'll figure out what works and what doesn't work.

"I'm committed to doing this again," he declared.

Share:
More In Home