On April 7-8, 1814, a British raiding force of 136 sailors and marines under Captain Richard Coote rowed six miles up the Connecticut River from warships anchored off the Saybrook Bar to attack American shipping in Essex, then known as Pettipaug. After finding the fort on Saybrook Point abandoned, the raiders landed at Pettipaug Point at 3:30 a.m. on April 8 and exchanged gunfire with local militia and volunteers, whose musket fire and one four-pound cannon failed to stop them. As marines secured the town, sailors burned vessels at the wharves, on the building stocks, and in the harbor, later burning additional ships in North and Falls River coves. The British began their withdrawal with two captured American privateers, the schooner Eagle and the brig Young Anaconda, but after Young Anaconda went aground on a falling tide, its contents were transferred to Eagle and the brig was burned. Throughout the afternoon, American militia maintained sporadic musket fire from the shore while troops in New London mobilized, Major Marsh Ely sent a surrender ultimatum that Coote rejected, and by dusk 500 American militia, soldiers, sailors, and marines had reached the river and set up breastworks on the bluffs to intercept the escape. At sunset the British reboarded their boats, burned Eagle, ran the gauntlet of American cannon fire and musketry, passed Saybrook Point, and reached the safety of their warships at 9:00 p.m. At a cost of two dead and two injured, they burned 27 vessels, including six newly built privateers, inflicting the largest single loss of American shipping in the War of 1812.

Photo: Michael Herrick