Battle off Barbados

Battle of Barbados
Part of the American Revolutionary War
USS Randolph
Date March 7, 1778 Location off Barbados, Atlantic Ocean Result British victory
Belligerents
United States	Kingdom of Great Britain
Commanders and leaders
Nicholas Biddle †	Nicholas Vincent
Strength
1 frigate 1 brig	1 ship-of-the-line
Casualties and losses
301 killed 4 captured 1 frigate sunk	5 killed 12 wounded

The Battle of Barbados was fought in March 1778 during the American Revolutionary War. While escorting a fleet of American ships in the West Indies, the frigate USS Randolph was attacked by the British ship-of-the-line HMS Yarmouth. The following action resulted in America's most costly naval defeat, in terms of human lives, until the sinking of USS Arizona in 1941.

Background

Captain Nicholas Biddle was in command of the thirty-six-gun Randolph at the time, having received orders from John Rutledge to break the enemy blockade of Charleston, South Carolina. A large number of merchantmen had been trapped there, so after breaking the blockade, Biddle was to sail south into the South Atlantic. Four other armed ships accompanied the Randolph in this mission: the General Moultrie, the Notre Dame, the Fair American and the Polly. However, after sailing out to meet the British off Charleston on February 14, the enemy was nowhere in sight, so the American fleet headed for the West Indies where Biddle would raid commerce. On February 16, the fleet burned a British ship that had been dismasted by a privateer, and on March 4, the Polly captured a small schooner that was added to the fleet as a tender. Three days after that, at about 5:30 pm, on March 7, 1778, the Americans were sailing off the eastern coast of Barbados when lookouts spotted a large ship to the windward. Captain Biddle assumed the vessel to be a man-o-war so he directed most of his ships to continue on while he remained behind to engage with the Randolph and the eighteen-gun ship General Moultrie.

Battle

The enemy ship turned out to be the sixty-four-gun HMS Yarmouth under the command of Captain Nicholas Vincent. After a few hours of maneuvering, the engagement began at about 9:00 pm when the Americans raised their colors and opened fire on the Yarmouth with a broadside. The British responded with one of their own, and for twenty minutes a bloody battle raged. Captain Biddle was wounded early on in the action but he continued to fight for a few minutes; the shots that wounded him are thought to have come from the General Moultrie, which accidentally struck the Randolph.

The Americans seemed to be on the verge of victory when a spark entered the Randolph's powder magazine, causing a large explosion that completely destroyed the frigate in an instant. USS Randolph then sank with a loss of 301 men; only four others survived and Captain Biddle died ten days later from his wounds. According to Captain Hall of the Notre Dame, Biddle and his men heavily damaged the Yarmouth within twelve to fifteen minutes, while the American ships were still mostly unharmed. The Yarmouth lost her bowsprit and her topmasts, a portion of which fell down and damaged the poop. Another portion of the topmasts fell into the top-gallant sails and then onto the cap. Five British sailors were killed and another twelve men received wounds.

Aftermath

After sinking the Randolph, Captain Vincent tried to go after the other American ships, but they dispersed in separate ways. Damage to the Yarmouth's sail also gave the Americans the advantage to slip away. The four surviving Americans were not captured right away but five days later; HMS Yarmouth came across them on March 12 while she was chasing a ship west. The four were clinging to some wreckage and had survived by sucking rain water out of a blanket. The death of Captain Biddle was considered a severe blow to the Continental Navy; well respected, Biddle was regarded as a professional sailor and a strong leader.

References

 This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

• Allen, Dardner W. (1913). A naval history of the American Revolution, Volume 1. Houghton Mifflin Company. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Maclay, Edgar S. (1898). A History of the United States Navy, from 1775 to 1898. D. Appleton and Co. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)