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Joshua
Barney and the Chesapeake Bay Flotilla
A Documentary History
Volumes
& Project
The
Naval Historical Center, located in the historic district of the Washington
Navy Yard, Washington, D.C., is the U.S. Navy’s official historical
agency. The Early History Branch has published two volumes of a four-volume
documentary history on the naval and maritime aspects of the War of 1812.
The following describes the contents of each book and the ordering information.
The Naval War
of 1812: A Documentary History, Vol. 1, 1812 (Washington, 1985).
This publication begins with an introduction that briefly summarizes the
fortunes of the navy from 1783 to 1805. It concludes with the USS Constitution’s
victory over HMS Java in December 1812. Impressment, the seizure
of merchant vessels, the Chesapeake-Leopard affair, and the first
year of the war are also covered in this volume. This volume may be ordered
directly from the Government
Printing Office.
The Naval War
of 1812: A Documentary History, Vol. 2, 1813 (Washington, 1992).
The second of the four-volume documentary history focuses on the year
1813 and begins with Commodore John Rodgers’s return from a cruise
in President, includes engagements such as Hornet-Peacock,
Chesapeake-Shannon, Argus-Pelican, Enterprise-Boxer,
fleet actions on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and amphibious warfare on
the Chesapeake Bay, and ends with HMS Racoon entering the Columbia
River to destroy the American fur-trading settlement at Astoria. This
volume may be ordered directly from the Government
Printing Office.
The Naval War
of 1812: A Documentary History, Vol. 3, 1814-1815, Chesapeake Bay,
Northern Lakes, and Pacific Ocean (Washington, 2002). In each of the three
theaters of operations treated in this volume, a U.S. naval force found
itself confronting a superior British naval force. After a successful
commerce-raiding cruise against the British whaling fleet in the Pacific,
Commodore David Porter fell to a British naval squadron in Valparaiso
Harbor in March 1814. Commodore Joshua Barney’s Chesapeake Bay flotilla
staved off capture by the British for ten weeks until the enemy destroyed
the fleet in August 1814. Commodore Thomas Macdonough’s Lake Champlain
squadron achieved a significant victory at Plattsburgh in September 1814.
This volume may be ordered from the Government Printing Office in January
2003.
The Naval War
of 1812: A Documentary History, Vol. 4, 1814-1815, Atlantic Ocean,
Gulf, and Indian Ocean Theaters (Washington, forthcoming 2006). This last
volume of the series will cover activities at naval yards and stations,
issues of medical treatment and discipline, and the naval engagements
of Frolic v. Orpheus, Wasp v. Reindeer and Avon,
Rattlesnake v. Leander, President v. Endymion, Constitution
v. Cyane and Levant, Hornet v. Penguin, Nautilus
v. Peacock, and the Battle of Lake Borgne.
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