Captain Blakeley and the Wasp: The Cruise of 1814

Abstract

Captain Blakeley and the Wasp: The Cruise of 1814. By Stephen W. H. Duffy. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2001. Pp. xiv, 348. Illustrations, chronology. $34.95.) Of the many American naval officers who won fame during the War of 1812, Johnston Blakeley, captain of the United States sloop Wasp, remains among the more unheralded. On the Wasp's maiden voyage in mid-1814, the thirty-two-year old Blakeley led his newly christened command on a destructive tear through Britain's home waters. By the time he was finished, he had taken thirteen prizes, demolished a pair of Royal Navy cruisers, and demonstrated that the United States Navy, despite the muzzling effects of the British blockade, still had some bite in it. Blakeley, however, never had the opportunity to collect the laurels he had earned; the Wasp sank without a trace sometime in late 1814 or early 1815. Blakeley's untimely end-as well as the fact that historians have generally taken little note of events at sea after 1813-undoubtedly explains his obscurity today. In most general accounts of the conflict, Blakeley rarely rates more than a passing mention, if that much. In Captain Blakeley and the Wasp, Stephen W. H. Duffy has taken on the task of resurrecting Blakeley's reputation and restoring him to a place of honor next to Isaac Hull, Stephen Decatur, and the other naval luminaries of the era. Duffy has an obvious affection for his subject, and he makes no effort to hide his sentiments behind a mask of scholarly detachment. Whether the young captain whom the author dubs America's most accomplished martial mariner (4) merits all of the attention and accolades lavished on him is another question. Duffy devotes the first hundred or so pages to recounting Blakeley's early years and his service in the navy until the beginning of the War of 1812. In terms of his background, Blakeley did not fit the profile of the typical naval officer of his day. He was raised in the lower South and was college-educated to boot, two characteristics that marked him as something of an oddity in the officer corps. His career as a junior officer, however, followed a trajectory similar to that of a number of other talented and ambitious midshipmen who joined the navy at the tail end of the Federalist era. He completed his professional apprenticeship in wartime cruises against France and Tripoli under the tutelage of two of the navy's most capable captains, Thomas Truxtun and John Rodgers. By 1813, Blakeley had advanced to the rank of master commandant and been rewarded with command of one of the brand-new sloops recently authorized by Congress. Throughout these early biographical chapters, Duffy makes the most of available documentary records. Unfortunately, since his subject left no personal papers, the author does not have much to work with. In general, he can do little more than place Blakeley at the scene as he runs through the main episodes in the captain's life prior to 1812. To cite one example, Duffy describes Blakeley's two-and-a-half years of service under John Rodgers in the Mediterranean in a chapter labeled Rodgers's Boy. The choice of titles suggests that the strong-willed commander had a formative influence on the impressionable midshipman under his charge. Yet the text itself says nothing about how the experience of sailing with Rodgers shaped Blakeley's development as an officer, or even how the two men interacted with one another on any particular occasion. Indeed, Blakeley disappears from sight for most of the chapter. Duffy does an admirable job of filling in the background, but Blakeley himself never emerges as a distinct figure in the foreground. Of course, the first part of the book is primarily intended to serve as a warm-up for the main event, which is an extended account of Blakeley's association with the Wasp from the time he took command of the sloop in 1813 to their fateful cruise and disappearance the following year. Here the paper trail is much richer, as Duffy is able to draw upon the captain's extensive correspondence with the Navy Department as well as newspaper articles and other sources reporting on the Wasp and Blakeley's activities. …