Talk:Capture of USS Chesapeake

Shaken morale of the Royal Navy?

Why do I continually see this everywhere? Not 7 years before this blip of a war the Royal Navy had arguably (or in fact had won) the most decisive battle in the Age of Sale. Losing a couple of fifth rates was not something out of the ordinary, the French and Spanish had managed it and it was widely known that the Constitution and all the other US frigates were much larger and more heavily armed than their British opponents (not to mention getting on for double the amount of crew). I guess this is the side effect of this war being almost entirely ignored by British historians and left to American authors to have a free reign over. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.194.0.223 (talk) 17:19, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

It is far more complex subject than you are allowing. No nation had strung up much of a record against the British Navy before that. It isn't an American opinion, perhaps I might direct your attention to the British press at the time. As for the crew size, or the 44's against the 38's. Point of fact that the Royal Navy had 40 gun frigates mounting 24 lb guns, and both the Leander and Newcastle were both 50 gun frigates with 24 lb guns, both in the area of operations, at 12 men per gun and 54 guns brings one to a sizable crew. These were not jousting contests, these were national instruments of war in a deadly serious business. It would not have occurred to any Captain to pass on taking a smaller ship. In the case of the the win's of the United States and both of the victories of the Constitution, the British Commanders were so certain of victory they raced up to take on a superior foe. This battle was more interesting as they sides were almost exactly the same size but unfortunately for the Chesapeake, the Shannon was much better trained and ready to fight. As for American editors, sorry this was mostly written by your editors. Badly written by the way and looks like a fan-boy article rather than staying with the facts which were far more interesting. Perhaps next time you decide to blast away I would suggest that you check your facts and get an account. Sorry opinions and sorry statements don't carry much weight.Tirronan (talk) 15:22, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Factual or lack thereof

My whoever wrote this seems to have taken some liberties with the truth... Captain Broke seems to have waltzed on to the Chesapeak's deck without a wound and grandly pronounce a victory in the name of the King while the cowardly American's hid on the gun deck where 2/3rds of them were kia/wia by 3 shots... Folks this does no one any credit, this was 25 minutes of the most ferocious combat ever seen in the age of sail. HMS Shannon earned her victory and it was the quality of her opposition that makes this battle stand out. For the record, 2/3rd's of the Shannon boarding party ended up dead or wounded. Neither ship got off all that lightly, Chesapeake had 54 holes in her side and Shannon 24 in hers. Interestingly, both were holding their own until Chesapeake lost her head sail or this would have been an even bloodier affair. This is due for a rewrite as are other 2 articles.--Tirronan (talk) 14:51, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree, can you give me a book list etc? I would be happy to read about it, then add the needed changes. Colincbn (talk) 07:48, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

There are several, the biggest single failure of the article isn't the self congratulatory slant, that is merely annoying, but the fact that what Captain Brooke brought was a virtual change in magnitude in the accuracy of naval gunfire, and it is totally missed in the article. The man had trained his gun crews and fitted the guns to custom modified carriages and aiming notches. The results where that two or three guns could hit a single gun port disabling the gun. There isn't a single word on it, sadly it and the sister articles come across like fan boy articles instead of a serious treatment of the subject. Don't get me wrong, there have been articles on the US Frigates that were almost as bad, and one at least that was worse until it got worked over pretty well.

Ian W. Toll's Six Frigates is a very good one. However any of the modern authors would be fine, just be very careful of the age of the author, some of them were nothing more than books written for a national audience especially US and Canadian authors before 1960, which are nothing less that nationalistic boosting and not serious histories. Anything coming out of the US Naval Institute will treat the subject with a sober level eye. The Shannon won her victory, there were a great number of frigates out there that the Chesapeake would have taken, this victory is all due to Brooke and how seriously he took fighting the Americans would be.Tirronan (talk) 00:43, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I will look into this as I get some books shipped to me. Colincbn (talk) 04:12, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Capture of USS Chesapeake/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Khazar2 (talk · contribs) 03:24, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll be glad to take this review. In the next few days, I'll do a close readthrough, noting here any issues I can't immediately fix, and then follow with the criteria checklist. Thanks in advance for your work on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:24, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Initial readthrough

At first glance, this looks like a solid article. I have some picky issues, raised below, but this looks very near Good Article status so far. I'm not done with my first readthrough, though--more will follow in the morning! For now, here's this:

• For context in the lead, it's probably worth mentioning immediately that the War of 1812 was fought between Britain and the US; some readers may not be sufficiently familiar with the HMS and USS abbreviations to infer this.
• "costing her her manoeuvrability" -- how about, "reducing her" or "decreasing her" to avoid the "her her"?
• " Surviving timbers were used to build the nearby Chesapeake Mill in Wickham and can be seen and visited to this day." -- this sentence of the lead doesn't appear to be mentioned in the body, and doesn't have a citation. The latter problem is okay for GA, but the former should probably be fixed.
• "'blindfold'" should this be "blindfolded"?
• "A game called 'singlestick' was also devised and practised. " -- is it possible to say who devised this--was it Broke, or unknown? -- Khazar2 (talk) 04:05, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I think I have addressed all the issues you have highlighted, except one. I can't find a reference for Broke having devised 'singlestick' so I have toned down the assertion. 'Blindfold' is the word used in the Padfield book, the word is used figuratively as the gun crews were not literally blindfolded, they were merely prevented from sighting down the gun barrel at the target, having to rely on the directions for bearing and elevation they were given. Urselius (talk) 09:25, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Great, thanks for your quick response. I've had an unexpected job come up today and will be off and on wiki, but hopefully can get through the rest of this one shortly. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:57, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

• "He finally decided to send a written challenge" -- is this the same challenge referred to in the earlier sentence "Consequently Broke decided to send his challenge to the USS Chesapeake, which had been refitting in Boston harbour under the command of Captain James Lawrence, offering single ship combat."? Or did he challenge the Chesapeake twice? Perhaps the earlier reference to the challenge could be eliminated to maintain strict chronology.

The challenge was singular. Perhaps rewording the earlier sentence to "...decided to challenge the Chesapeake..." would work? Then the sending of the written challenge is a logical extension of the decision to challenge mentioned earlier.

Sounds good.

Done.

• "Poolman, Battles of the British Navy" -- since Poolman is quoting Broke here, perhaps rewrite as "Philip Broke, quoted in Poolman, Battles of the British Navy"

Yes, the attribution should be to Broke, primarily.

Sounds good.

Done.

• If the block quotation (which, by the way, is one of my favorite block quotations I've ever read in a Wikipedia article) is an edited version of the original, why does it have footnotes to two sources? Do both sources contain the shortened version, and if so, who did the shortening?

I don't have the books quoted. I have the full message in Padfield, and the condensed version is accurate. Not sure what to do on that score. I did a search and the shortened quote is found here (p. 199): [1] As this is a much earlier publication it is probably the source for both of the later books.

Any of those will be fine then.

Ref changed - will put Padfield page numbers in later.

• "it was to commerce raid" -- is "commerce raid" a standard phrase? "Raid commercial vessels" or some similar phrase would sound more natural to me, but I'm a) American (down with King George!) and b) not an expert.

-- Khazar2 (talk) 18:18, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I think "...it was to embark on a commerce-raiding mission..." would be a distinct improvement. Urselius (talk) 19:54, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree, sounds like a good change.

Done

• "No practice at small arms nor of the main battery been exercised." -- seems like there's a word missing here. Perhaps "the crew had not practiced at small arms nor with the main battery."

Padfield records Lawrence exercising the crew of the Chesapeake at the great guns twice before he sailed. This passage may need revision. As the frigate was in port the excercise must have been a "dumb show", as firing the guns would have surely destroyed other shipping and/or buildings! Urselius (talk) 08:25, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I have reworded the 'exercise' sentence and added a description of Lawrence's bugle signal for boarders, and the poor calibre of the bugler. Urselius (talk) 21:26, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

• " as could exist in a state of war" -- this phrase seems a bit odd to me. Could they be more closely matched if they were at peace?
• Is it possible to link "Boston lighthouse"--is this it? Also, it seems like Lighthouse should be capitalized here as a specific lighthouse.

The proper name - an archaism I imagine - seems to be the 'Boston Light', this should be capitalised.

• "Captain Broke, at the head of not more that [sic?] twenty men, stepped from the rail of the waist-hammock netting to the muzzle of the after-carronade of the Chesapeake, and sprang from thence upon her quarterdeck." -- include the speaker of this block quotation.

I checked and this isn't an attributable quote by a witness, just what the Victorian historian had written - a good description I'll just modernise the phrasing a little.

• the article appears to alternate between the spellings "main-deck" and "maindeck". I'm not sure of the British standard, but this should be made consistent.

Done.

• "Broke never again commanded a ship; his head wound from a cutlass stroke, which had exposed the brain, had been pronounced fatal by the ship's surgeon, though he survived it." -- it's odd to connect these-- did the surgeon's mistaken pronouncement end Broke's career? Or did he have lingering effects? Or had he just had enough?
• "In ratio terms " -- this phrase could be clearer. Perhaps "In per capita terms"? Or "In terms of total percentage of a ship's crew killed or wounded"?

Reworded.

• In the captions, it's probably best to write out the RN/USN abbreviations. I have to admit my first thought in seeing "Captain Broke, RN" was "surely he wasn't a registered nurse...".

Done.

I think that's it for my first readthrough. This is a fascinating bit of history, well written and researched. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:30, 30 January 2013 (UTC) The article was quite well structured and had some good details before I started editing it, but it had some important omissions and didn't make a logically flowing story. Urselius (talk) 21:34, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2

Coming along well; only a few points of the above still need to be addressed. Two minor points raised by the new edits:

• "This was a game employing roughly similar thrusts and parries as were used with cutlass, but as it was played with wooden sticks with wicker hand guards; hits, although painful, were not often dangerous. It soon developed quickness of eye and wrist." -- Is the addition of the semicolon correct here? (It seems wrong grammatically to me, but if it's in the source, so be it.) Also, the closing quotation mark appears to have been deleted.

I'm having difficulties finding any reference to singlestick and Broke - singlestick fighting dates back to the 1780s, if not earlier, therefore was definitely not a Broke innovation. We may have to delete that passage. I have a section of Padfield on cutlass and smallarms training that may be a replacement. Urselius (talk) 08:22, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm okay with its being deleted if you can't confirm it in the Padfield. It's interesting, but not essential to the topic, and a mention of smallarms training actually seems more relevant. -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:44, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I did eventually find it, and another ref for the use of singlestick - Broke didn't devise it though.

• The references to Shea & Watts (just added by another user) seem to lack a full citation to link to. It appears to be this book; could you or the other editor add this to the bibliography? -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:02, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Done

Checklist

Looks like everything above has been addressed except for adding the Shea & Watts bibliographic citation. I'll start the checklist below to see if there's anything else needed.

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Prose is clear; spotchecks of Brown & White and Borneman show no evidence of copyright issues.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
	2c. it contains no original research.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	Pass.

• Unless I'm misreading, Borneman claims that Lawrence and Broke personally battled, and that Broke hacked Lawrence's arm with a cutlass, almost severing it.[2] Do other sources mention this? Is Borneman just on some sort of flight of fancy here? -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:50, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

No, Lawrence was mortally wounded by a smallarms shot, before the British boarded. Broke certainly was in the thick of the fighting but this sounds like mere embroidery. Broke would have used a sword rather than cutlass, he is shown in a full-length portrait with a straight-bladed "1805 type" naval officer's sword. The print of Broke leading the boarding is also wrong, he didn't wear a cocked hat, he wore a 'round hat' - something like a top hat with a low crown. There are more factual images of the fighting in existence, but they are not on wikimedia commons. Urselius (talk) 09:39, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

All right then--this one looks to me good to go. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:00, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

on this day link to The Fortune of War not needed since Sept 2010

The text in this article once copied into The Fortune of War was deleted in this revision of that article: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Fortune_of_War&diff=next&oldid=378765348

The 'on this day' box on this page (and at The Fortune of War talk page) can be removed, as the two articles are no longer linked in that way. --Prairieplant (talk) 04:21, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Use of British English in this article

As can be seen from the above discussion, and can be viewed in the edit history, this article was greatly extended, rewritten and improved by me, a user of British English. It was promoted to GA status as a direct result of my efforts. Whilst I assert no degree of ownership of the article, I reject any expression asserting a primacy for the use of American English in this article, and any changes to the variety of English used. The article is not about a US ship, there is a separate article on the ship itself (USS Chesapeake (1799), which is written in American English), it is about a battle between a US and a British ship, which the British won. I believe that all the articles on the American naval victories of the War of 1812 are written in American English, and I would not seek to change this. Please extend the same courtesy to this article. Urselius (talk) 07:53, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Complement

Gleaves says Chesapeake carried 382 sailors: https://archive.org/details/jameslawrenceca01gleagoog/page/n277/mode/1up Humphrey Tribble (talk) 07:52, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Sources often vary. Incidentally, 'sabre' is exactly following the usage of Padfield. 'Cutlass' is used in another secondary source I have. I am a collector of military swords, and the contemporary use of the words cutlass, hanger, and sabre overlap considerably, as they are all single-edged swords that are usually curved. I do not see that the precise usage here is of particular importance. I would suggest the wording 'sabre or cutlass' would cover all eventualities. Urselius (talk) 11:09, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I have a small collection of swords too, Urselius (talk · contribs), and agree terminology can be fuzzy. I can certainly see cutlass and hanger being interchanged, both being shorter weapons suitable for use on a ship. However, sabre suggests to me a longer and fancier weapon which would not be used by average crewmen. So it's a bit jarring to come across the word in that context. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 12:55, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I've made that change and removed the flag. I might revisit it if I come across new infirmation.

Good points about sabres. The P1796 was a tool, not an ornament. I hadn't thought about the sabre briquet; they were shorter weapons. But it would probably require a linguist to assess whether the usage of sabre is the same in French as it is in English.

Thank you, Urselius (talk · contribs) Humpster (talk) 02:38, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Not fancier, surely. Many cavalry trooper's sabres of the period were rather 'industrial' in looks and most French infantrymen of the time were equipped with a sabre briquet. As I said the usage was Padfield's. What to my suggested wording? Urselius (talk)

Your comment on, 'Don't give up the ship' being used as a rallying cry subsequently, is in need of a citation. Urselius (talk) 11:44, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I stated the author and title to get it in. Reference to follow. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 12:57, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Image problem

I want to add this image adjacent to the last para of "The British board". When I insert "thumb", it is blank. File:W Elmes, The Brilliant Achievement of the Shannon ... in Boarding and Capturing the United States Frigate Chesapeake off Boston, June 1st 1813 in Fifteen Minutes (1813).jpg|W_Elmes,_The_Brilliant_Achievement_of_the_Shannon_..._in_Boarding_and_Capturing_the_United_States_Frigate_Chesapeake_off_Boston,_June_1st_1813_in_Fifteen_Minutes_(1813) Humpster (talk) 00:18, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

You've inserted the file name twice, which is likely why it is not showing properly. The syntax is [[File name|thumb|caption]]. If you want more help, change the {{help me-helped}} back into a {{help me}}, stop by the Teahouse, or Wikipedia's live help channel, or the help desk to ask someone for assistance. Primefac (talk) 12:21, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I have removed hard-coding of image sizes as a number of pixels. It is far better to just use a generic control such as "thumb" and let the software decide how many pixels that means, because what is a suitable size for one device may be unsuitable for another device. JBW (talk) 12:27, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Battle of Boston Harbor

The "Battle of Boston Harbor" is only mentioned once, as an alternative name, and that occurrence is unsourced. If there is not even one source for this usage, it should be removed. Humpster (talk) 00:43, 25 February 2024 (UTC)