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In 1813, the British blockade of the East Coast had brought the
War of 1812 home to American shores, especially within the
Chesapeake Bay. By this time, Revenue Cutter Surveyor was the last
U.S. vessel to show the flag in the Royal Navy-dominated bay. The
customs collector for the port of Baltimore had built the cutter to
serve the Baltimore station. However, by 1813, the cutter had to
evade Royal Navy warships by cruising in the southern Chesapeake.
Constructed in 1807, the Surveyor carried a wartime crew of 25
officers and men and an armament of six 6-pound carronade cannon,
double-issue of muskets, cutlasses and pistols. Its captain, Samuel
Travis, had received an appointment as first mate when Surveyor was
commissioned and he served in that capacity until the Revenue Cutter
Service, one of the Coast Guard's predecessor services, promoted him
to the cutter's master in 1811.
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Painting by Patrick O'Brien of the Battle for the U.S.
Revenue Cutter Surveyor depicting the vastly outnumbered Surveyor crew defending their cutter against barges and Royal Navy personnel from HMS Narcissus
at Gloucester Point, VA on June 12, 1813. (U.S. Coast Guard Collection)
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On Saturday, June 12, 1813, Travis anchored Surveyor off
Gloucester Point, near Yorktown, Virginia. Not knowing the
proximity of British naval forces to his ship, he sent out a
picket boat manned by the third mate and three men to warn
against an enemy attack. He also installed boarding nets to
defend the cutter's deck against boarding parties. That
evening, the 32-gun frigate HMS Narcissus deployed three
barges carrying a force of over 50 Royal Navy officers, men
and marines to capture Surveyor. Under the cover of the
thick evening haze, the barges used muffled oars to row
silently toward the cutter's anchorage. By midnight, the
British watercraft had closed to within 150 yards of
Surveyor. The cutter's guard boat heard them, fired on the
barges and commenced the Battle of Gloucester Point.
After Travis heard the warning shot, he armed his remaining
crew of 17 men with two loaded muskets each. The British
rowed swiftly toward Surveyor with the boat commanders
deftly steering their barges under the cutter's devastating
six-pound carronades, rendering the main ordnance
ineffective. Travis waited until the enemy had closed to
within effective range of the muskets and ordered his men to
fire. The crew loosed a volley at the enemy barges. After
the first volley, Surveyor's men had a chance to fire their
second loaded muskets before they ran out of ammunition. By
the last round, the cuttermen had killed three attackers and
wounded several more. Despite their losses, the British
marines and navy men still outnumbered the Americans by 2 to
1. Even though Travis had secured boarding nets on board
Surveyor, the enemy eventually gained the cutter's deck.
Armed only with knives and cutlasses, the outnumbered crew
was overwhelmed by the heavily armed boarding party.
After the battle, Travis found himself held prisoner aboard
the British 44-gun frigate HMS Junon, anchored near the
mouth of the James River. On Tuesday, June 22, he witnessed
from the deck of the frigate, the Battle of Craney Island in
which 2,000 British troops attacked the American earthen
works fortification at Craney Island guarding the outskirts
of Norfolk, Virginia. With a force of 750 militiamen, Army
regulars and crewmembers of trapped Navy frigate
Constellation manning the defenses, the Americans drove off
the British invaders with heavy losses. Two days later, the
frustrated British carried out a punitive attack against
lightly defended Hampton, Virginia, sacking the city and
using the captured Surveyor to cover their landings.
After the Battle of Gloucester Point, the commander of the
attacking flotilla, Crerie, returned Travis's sword. In a
personal note to Travis, Crerie commended the cutter master
for the valiant defense of Surveyor in the face of
overwhelming odds: “Your gallant and desperate attempt to
defend your vessel against more than double your number
excited such admiration on the part of your opponents as I
have seldom witnessed, and induced me to return you the
sword you had so ably used.”
In early August 1813,
the British paroled him at Washington, North Carolina. Upon
his release, Travis returned to Virginia and lived in
Williamsburg for the remainder of his life. The cutterman's
home in Colonial Williamsburg, Travis House, serves as a
reminder of Travis's bravery and the Battle of Gloucester
Point. The ultimate fate of the gallant revenue cutter
Surveyor remains a mystery to this day.
Samuel Travis
and his men are members of the long blue line who fought
valiantly against overwhelming odds. In 1927, the service
honored Travis as the namesake of a 125-foot cutter and, in
2015, the Coast Guard named the Travis Building at Training
Center Yorktown in his honor.
By William H. Thiesen, Atlantic Area Historian, USCG
Provided
through
Coast
Guard
Copyright 2016
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