Plattsburgh 1814: Macdonough's Kedge Anchor Spin and a Hospital Cannon

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After Napoleon abdicated in 1814, Britain freed thousands of veterans of the Peninsular War, and the Earl of Bathurst authorized Lieutenant General Sir George Prevost to invade New York along the western shore of Lake Champlain with about 11,000 men. Prevost avoided Vermont, whose residents were selling cattle and ship masts to the British. At Plattsburgh, Brigadier General Alexander Macomb had about 1,500 regulars, many of them raw recruits or sick, plus roughly 2,000 militia, and all 3,000 civilians fled. The Americans tore up bridges, felled trees across roads, switched street signs and fired red-hot shot into 16 of their own buildings to deny the British cover, while Prevost alienated his veteran officers by fixating on dress codes.

Prevost needed the lake to supply his army, so the battle turned on the fleets. Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough anchored his line, led by the corvette Saratoga, tight inside Plattsburgh Bay in a corrected version of the French position at the Battle of the Nile, and laid kedge anchors so the ship could be turned without wind. On September 11, 1814, the rushed British frigate Confiance opened with a broadside that killed or wounded a fifth of Saratoga's crew, and Captain George Downie was crushed by a dismounted cannon. Macdonough's crew hauled Saratoga 180 degrees to bring a fresh battery to bear, forcing Confiance and the brig Linnet to surrender. Prevost called off a winning land attack and retreated, and British demands at Ghent collapsed.

• Fifty Americans crossed the Saranac River at night and wrecked a Congreve rocket battery 500 yards from the main American fort with no losses.
• Confiance sailed into battle with civilian carpenters still working on board.
• The British sloop Finch drifted aground at Crab Island and surrendered to sick and wounded patients firing a single six-pounder.
• Macdonough let the surrendering British officers keep their swords.
• At least 234 British soldiers deserted during the retreat to Canada, many from mercenary or sickness-weakened units.